Category: Life Lessons

As The Crow Flies

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crow

In my world, there are no straight lines.

There is no single road that will take you back to my origin. My time is marked only by people and the smoke signals cast up from the wildfires of my heart. Sometimes the fire burns low — but it hasn’t gone out yet. While things smolder here, I yearn for the heat of my childhood fire. And, like a migrant bird that moves with the seasons, I know where to go.

Tomorrow, I fly East. Back to my home. There, I will plug-in to the people that have kept me lit up for as long as I’ve been gone, down, and lost. Extension cords across a nation. Beacons and anchors.

When I booked my flight, I imagined my trip as the great escape. My chance to flee all the ghosts that I’ve been dancing with for the past few months. I could see it — My mother’s actual shoulder, ready for my tears, instead of my neck craned over my own as I weep into the phone. My father, sitting on the couch, turning inky newspaper pages while the smell of coffee circulates under the ceiling fan. My cousins, making wise cracks on the deck, all with pasty white, Irish skin — reflecting the sun in their two-piece bathing suits — wet hair wrapped up  in old, weathered beach towels. My grandparents, like pigs in shit — surrounded by their clan — we unite, flanking all sides of their home. These people, these moments — they are not meant to facilitate my escape, but, instead, to bring me back to life. They revive my spirit with a power I have never known in my solitude.

These are the real things in life to hold fast to — Family. Love. Home. — You will forget until your crooked lines remind you.

This year has been sobering. I’ve watched myself morph. I’ve watched the people around me walk in and out of shadows. I have new, deep scars that I will wear forever — with pride. And, to my surprise, it’s got nothing to do with the drink. It’s more to do with the fact I haven’t needed one. Yes, crooked lines were drawn, but each end meets its own Mecca.

Sometimes, the breeze off the Willamette River smells like a summer’s day in New York. I hold that air in my lungs. I long for the people that kept me once as a child, who love me still — miles apart. They still follow my path, like the tip of a finger on a map. They stay the course, however deviant. They see, in me, something simple. We live inside each other. My heart knows these people — we are the saviors and the saved.

Kindred — We know the easiest and the most difficult kind of love.

We have come as we are. We accept each other this way — The mess on the dining room table. The 10 extra pounds. The broken heart. The busted tail light. The empty wallet. It’s there. It’s ours. It’s us. On display. They take me. I take them. They love me. And I, — I love them back — their messes and their pounds and their hearts all the same.

So, just this once, I draw a straight line through the clouds.

Metal bird, take me as the crow flies — not to my escape — but to my return.

 

Stay saucy,

Sarah

 

 

 

**ARTWORK CREDIT: Andrew Wyeth, ‘Crows, Study for Woodshed,’ 1944. Watercolor on paper laid down on board.**

 

Speed Bumps

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Photo Jul 29, 7 24 00 PM

Go fast enough and something or someone will slow you down.

The past few months, I’ve found that detaching from my chaos comes with it’s own discomfort. Without mayhem to cling to, I find that I’m helplessly lost. I’m unaccustomed to ease. And, letting go of heartache is, in itself, a melancholy practice. My mind goes static. I forget why I’m here. I long for whiskey. So, seeking solace, I return to my war stories — reminders that ease is a gift, not a punishment.

A year before I got sober, I sat across from Kevin, a friend and fellow drunk. We passed a 1.5 liter bottle of shitty chardonnay back and forth. It was a wet, cold night. The wine was warm. I remember the black and yellow label, peeling up from the bottle at its edges. Kevin’s apartment felt eerie — haunted. The air was musty and stale. Every table, counter, and bookshelf was littered with wine bottles, beer cans, and children’s toys.

We sat there, without pretense, miserable in our cups. I mourned my failed relationship, and he, the collapse of his family. The sorrow was palpable.  There was nothing to say to each other. So, we drank.

When the wine was gone, we sulked out into the rain. We walked to a local bar that had Friday night karaoke and found a table with some fair-weather friends. We drank whiskey until we couldn’t see. I remember belting out Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” at the top of my lungs, doubling over after the the final note, unsure if I was going to cry or be sick.

When the bartender announced last call, Kevin and I shared a familiar glance — the well was dry. We shuffled with sunken shoulders to the door, too drunk to walk. I tripped over my own soggy boots. Kevin stumbled beside me, in an attempt to keep me upright. The rain fell hard on us both and I remember my jacket felt heavier with each clumsy step.

Half way home, I tripped and fell over a raised speed bump in the middle of a quiet street. My hands hit the asphalt hard. I rolled onto my back and let my spine arch over the raised curve in the road. The rain fell down in fat drops, each one drawing a straight line from the sky to my face. Kevin, now feet ahead, doubled back to help me.

“Just leave me here. I want to die.” — I remember how the words felt inside my mouth before they escaped my lips like black vapor. I had been too drunk to be dramatic — I meant it.

“Come on Sarah, get up.” Kevin’s voice echoed in my head as if we were inside a tunnel. He pulled at my arms. No use — I was dead weight. The world slowed, and then, it went dark.

The next morning I woke, strewn across my bed. My hands were bloody and scraped. My jeans clung to my legs, filthy and wet. In the mirror, my arms were freckled with red and purple bruises. Kevin had dragged me home. I walked into my living room, every bone and muscle — pulled and sore. Kevin slept, with a peaceful expression, on the couch under my blue afghan. His face was soft and still and, for a moment I likened him to an angel — then, I walked into my bathroom to find he had vomited in my sink, on my floor, and in my bathtub.

When I first got sober, I thought about Kevin a lot. Before I went to rehab, we’d grown apart. Our messes were too big to coexist together. I worried for him. I often entertained the idea of leaving a 12-Step pamphlet in his mailbox. But, I never did.

A few months back, while flicking through photos on Instagram, I was greeted by Kevin’s face. Bright eyes replaced his sunken ones. His skin shone bright and pink, not the sickly, sallow yellow I remembered. He smiled, an honest smile, unlike any we’d exchanged between chugs of wine. He held his beautiful, blonde son close to his chest. Content. Happy. In the next photo — his “6 Month” 12-Step sobriety chip was proudly displayed.

Sometimes, I see Kevin in the supermarket with his son. We don’t say hello — we just smile. There were no words back then, and so it remains. It is unspoken. We both know something now that we hadn’t back then — Ease.

There will always be speed bumps. Sometimes you will trip, sometimes you will get up on your own, and sometimes you will be dragged home by the arms. But, there is a lesson in the delay. A chance to lay there with your back on the asphalt and your eyes to the sky.

It is on our darkest road that we are called to order. Listen for it. On the hard days, I can still hear him  — “Come on Sarah. Get up.”

Stay saucy,

Sarah

 

The Play’s The Thing

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Photo Jul 20, 8 48 56 PM

I was an awkward kid.

Chubby, unpopular, and supremely geeky – I was a lone wolf – with terrible glasses. And, while I was painfully aware of this reality, I was also accepting of the fact that there wasn’t much I could do to change it. My prep school was a popularity contest I would never win. So, I lived for the weekends. I’d sit at home, alone, watching Molly Ringwald movies, aspiring to her unsurpassed level of chic-geekdom — one I would never achieve.

In the 7th grade, I thought I’d made my big break. I got one of the lead singing roles in the school play. When I saw my name posted at the top of the cast list, it set off firecrackers in my soul. Behind me, the popular girls were huddled up, whispering and laughing. But, for the first time, I didn’t care that they were making fun of me. I was going to be a star.

We rehearsed for weeks on end. I sang and sang and sang. Kids who’d never given me the time of day before were coming up to me and telling me I had a great set of pipes. My fat-kid heart didn’t know what to do with all the attention. So, I just kept singing. It was enough. It had to be. It was my only ace in the hole.

The night of the big show, I walked out on stage. A blue-tinted follow spot guided my chubby ass to center stage. I saw my classmates in the audience, 100 blinking hyena-eyes in the dark. I felt my heart, near explosion, clattering against my ribs. The music played. I sang. Everyone clapped. And, in that moment — the applause, the hot lights, the rustle of paper in the orchestra pit — I was enough.

After the show my parents gave me hugs and flowers in the lobby. Then, like nothing had happened, we drove home, my bouquet laid neatly across my lap. The popular girls went out to a diner together for ice cream sundaes. I was home alone again with Molly Ringwald. The play was over. My star, extinguished.

My search for enough started long ago. No matter where or who I’ve been, I’ve never felt fully sufficient. I’ve always looked to improve in some way. Do more. Give more. Be more. And yes, eventually, drink more. I did all this with the idea it would make me better in some way. Every relationship, job, or activity I get involved with — I always wonder if, this time, I will be enough.

I dream I will find this perfect place of enough-ness where I can do no wrong. It hasn’t happened yet, and I’ll tell you why — I am already enough.

No one told me on the night of the play, but, I would learn later: Ice cream sundaes with mean girls who made me feel like a worthless bug every day of my life– was not the prize. The prize was that I stood up on that stage and sang. I gave away my goods. Fearlessly. I opened my big-geek-mouth and I sang for those snickering bitches. No one paid me. No one offered me friendship. At best, I got a compliment or two from a few moms in the lobby. I sang because it made me feel like I existed. That spotlight, it lit me up. Chubby. Little. Me.

In times of frustration, when I throw up my hands and say “I’ve had enough!”, I return to my own, true self. In my surrender, I become enough. Suffering is the conduit that brings me to my authenticity. On that stage, I stood judged, but, I stood tall — chub and all — authentically me.

Enough doesn’t look one way. Enough is its own entity. We can be geek priestesses and pop stars simultaneously. One does not diminish the other, and, both are sufficient. Enough is not a quantitative word — nor is it qualitative. Enough accepts what is.

So, walk to center stage and sing, Goddammit. Sing your existence. Sing your enough-ness.

The audience — doesn’t matter. The play’s the thing.

Stay saucy,

Sarah

 

 

Do The Right Thing

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Photo Jul 01, 6 48 13 PM

Good people do the right thing.

I’d tell you that I’m a good person, but, on any given day, my head and my heart disagree on the subject.

What’s good anyway? How does one – be good?

I keep getting into these situations where I allow myself to be carried away. I let outcomes that aren’t mine take me over. I completely lose myself. Meanwhile, I’m telling myself — I can do this. I’m capable. I’m helpful. I’m here, showing up — being present. The thing is though, I’m not present. At all.

Back in reality, I blatantly ignore the things I’ve learned. All these lessons I’ve been scribbling down — discounted and rejected. I ignore my inner compass because I am trying to be a compass for someone else. And then, I head over here to dole out the advice, waxing poetic on so-called self discovery and feeling like a fraud. Yup, I’m still a mess. A Big. Fucking. Mess. But, you wanted the truth, right?

Well, the truth is: I don’t always make good decisions — but — that doesn’t make me a bad person. Yet another lesson for the paltry stack I’ve assembled. My little blog of parables, collecting dust. What would happen if I actually used these lessons that I keep gabbing about? Rubber to the road muthafuckas! What if I actually did myself a service and learned one of these lessons? Because, shit man, this time, I know better. What’s the worst that could happen if I just listened to my gut?

Sometimes, doing the right thing for yourself – sucks. It’s murky. Feelings get hurt. Things will be broken or, worse, lost forever. You’ll wish you could do right by everyone. Oh, but that sinking feeling of failure is all too familiar. Doing right by yourself seems so selfish and doing right by someone else feels so noble. So, duh – we go with the noble option. It’s very romantic. But, let me remind you here — Ignoring your own needs, dismissing your gut, forfeiting your own sanity for the sake of someone else’s feelings is its own form of insanity.

Do the right thing. Be kind to yourself first. Listen to that intuitive voice that tells you when to stay and when to go. Remember the lessons you already learned. Being good — it’s not always easy. And — it’s not always possible. Find your path. Stay there. It’s when you start walking down someone else’s road that you lose your bearings. And, you can’t always find your way back when you’re not the one with the map.

I’ve been here before. I’ve hit my head against this very same wall. So what? Yeah, I ignored my heart a few times — that was yesterday. Today, I’m listening. I’m tuned in. I can step back onto my own path — even though I’m walking it alone.

Don’t talk over yourself for nobility’s sake. Good, bad, or in-between, do good by your heart.

And, dear readers, while I may choke on my words as quickly as I write them, I’m no fraud — You can take my word for it.

After all, I am a good person.

 

Stay saucy,

Sarah

 

Light Me Up

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Fire!

Once upon a time, I was a pyromaniac.

Like most small children, my cousins and I loved us some camp fires. And, it’s true, our “camp site” may have been mere feet from my house — but, under the canopy of trees, amidst all the night-time noises, wielding our sticks topped with blackened marshmallows like weapons, eyes ablaze with the reds and oranges of the camp fire — it didn’t matter. We were rebels, living off the land. (Even if we did walk back to the house in pairs to pee in the middle of the night.)

Before dusk fell over “camp,” the adults would send the kids off to collect kindling for the fire. We’d all return to the pit with fat branches and heavy logs, eager to light up our inferno. My dad would explain that kindling is the small stuff: Twigs. Dry leaves. Little, crackly branches. The small stuff. That’s what gets the fire going.

I imagine it’s difficult to explain to a child that the little things make the big things happen. I mean, fuck, it’s a hard sell for most adults. Even today, when I throw my giant, proverbial logs onto the fire with fervor, the flames burn low.

As I gear up for a trip to my childhood summer home, I find myself thinking about all the lessons I learned as a kid. How do we get back there? How do we relearn what we completely missed while we were too busy having fun? My skin still itches for that childlike freedom to run, escape, rule, revel, save, and sleep…for days.

I want my life to be this big-ass, rip-roaring fire. Yet, here I am, stumbling with the big logs, when it’s become apparent — I need kindling — and lots of it.

While today’s twigs and leaves are a far cry from the ones I found pawing around in the dirt, it is still life’s simple, even childish, pleasures I covet. Sleeping in til’ 10AM. Hugging my cat after a good cry. Banana ice cream — for breakfast. Aimless walks. Reading library books in the bath tub. Two-hour phone conversations with my cousin (and fellow-former-pyro). Gardening on the stoop in my ugly jeans. This. My writing.

It’s uncomplicated. It’s almost too easy. I think that’s how we miss it. Kindling may be the the simple stuff, but, it’s scattered. It hides on the forest floor, so, you gotta get on your knees. You have to forage. You have to make sure it’s good ‘n’ combustible. Because, once you’ve laid the foundation, twig-by-twig, all you need is the match. That crack-then-hiss of sulfur and sand paper — BOOM — Fire.

I can still feel her, that little-girl-Sarah, ploughing through the woods. No fear. No hesitation. Her knees in the dirt. Her hands in the earth, gathering it all up. Every. last. dry. crackly. bit. Her uninhibited, childlike desperation was a gift I would not understand until it was long gone.

It occurs to me that I know her heart far better now than I ever did back then. I know things beyond her capacity. I’ve seen too much. Yet, I still understand her unapologetic, wild heart because — we share it.

We, the girl and the woman, are still in hot pursuit — Kindling. Matches. FIRE.

Light that shit up.

 

Stay saucy,

Sarah

Meaning & Memory

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Friday the 13th: I lost my sobriety ring.

FLASHBACK: The night I left my restaurant management job, before going to rehab, my co-workers threw me a party. And, it was one of the best parties ever. I got sloppy drunk, of course, but everyone knew — it was my last-hurrah. I felt so loved that night and I was genuinely hopeful. Amidst all my drinks and all my fun, I was secretly relieved to be so close to freedom.

onering<<<—— Sauced at my goodbye party!

The sous chef pulled me aside and handed me a gift. She was relatively new in the kitchen and I didn’t know her very well, so I was surprised by the gesture. I opened my little package at the bar, whilst sipping my cocktails. It was a thin, wiry, sterling silver ring. Simple. Small. Understated. There was a little note inside too — to the effect of: When you wear this ring, remember why you quit. It seemed so appropriate as I sat there, throwing back drinks, hugging my staff goodbye, letting go of my life as I knew it. Remember why you quit.

I wore the shit out of that ring. My first day sober, I put that thing on my thumb and there it stayed. I turned it around-and-around on my finger nervously in my first days of rehab and at 12-Step meetings. I popped it on and off during awkward moments that you only experience as a newly sober person. And, every time I looked at it, I remembered. I remembered sitting at my restaurant bar, wasted, wanting to be DONE.

When I realized my ring was missing Friday, I figured I’d forgotten to put it back on after my shower. But, it wasn’t in my little, glass, ring dish. Or on the floor. Or on my nightstand. Or by the kitchen sink. Gone.

I had this moment of panic. If my “sobriety” ring is gone…. Am I going to drink now?

A ring — something so inconsequential, however symbolic, had made me question my own ability to stay sober. That’s alcoholism. And, I have enough sobriety, at the moment anyway, to know that the thoughts, where I make it OK, reasonable even, to drink — are just a symptom. A symptom that dresses up the elephant in the room.

My Elephant: I lost something else this week too, not just the ring. It was big. Something I won’t find in-between the couch cushions next time I vacuum. And, sometimes, when I lose big things, I start assigning meaning to smaller things in an attempt to lighten my load. I let my little stuff take over my big stuff. I compartmentalize. I attempt to organize all the meaning. Then, overwhelmed by meaning — I give meaning to meaningless things.

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Losing my ring was just a reminder: Honor your losses. Know, that some things have so much meaning, we’ll never actually make sense of them being gone. There is nothing that can replace this, so, don’t try. Let go, step into the void, stop looking. Just remember. Remember.

Today, I thumb the spot where my ring used to be. I remember what I had, and what it felt like when I had it. I acknowledge that, today, it’s gone.

Life can change as easily as a ring slips off a finger. It doesn’t mean anything. But, looking back, retracing my steps, remembering where I once stood —it means everything.

Stay saucy,

Sarah

New Sails

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boats

I would like to note how absolutely crazy it is that just one, short week ago I was here, sitting pretty, writing about relief. My little pen, jauntily noting each grateful sigh. Breathe, I told you. Breathe!

Today, exactly one week later, I couldn’t be further from relieved. I take jagged little breaths that I hold, desperately, and tap my nails on my desk. And what’s worse, I’m a writer who’s unable to find the language for this. Even the right words won’t sufficiently express the twisted inside — the turning of my guts.

I’ll spare you the details of an already dramatic start to the Summer season, but I can’t won’t spare you the nuggets of wisdom that are about to get handed to me. Yes, the lessons are still flowing like fucking milk and honey over here.

I’ve noticed that I always come to some epic turning point when I try facing someone else’s adversity. I think– I’m going to fix this person, and, most of the time they end up fixing me. I go in with gusto. I try to help. I’m a helper! The thing is, while I’m helping, I will get in their way. I’ll get in my own way too. Thus, helping nothing and no one. But, I assure you, my intentions were good. It’s just the follow through. The follow through gets muddy.

Yeah, yeah, I know– ultimately, what’s good for you will be good for me. Yes, yes, All-Is-One, OM SHAKTI OM, and Namaste!  But seriously, here, in reality, where each emotion is its own Hiroshima, that’s a hard path to stay on. All this you and I. We and US…all this combining of stuff is too universal and complicated. It can’t be about US because then, well, what about meeeeeeee…

Why is it so difficult to step outside our comfort zones, our own realities, our STUFF? No matter how enlightened, spiritual, or positive you may be, no matter how many chakras you’ve got lit up, no matter how much happiness is coursing through your smiley-little-veins, no matter how nicely you’ve got your shit held together — it will all come undone. So, don’t be one of those people that allows yourself to think life’s a gravy train indefinitely. It’s more like a gravy boat and, eventually, you’ll have to dock, gas up, and clear out the poop deck.

This week my gravy boat has come a-crashin’ back to shore. Time to clear all the decks. Start again. Same boat, new sails. And despite ominous weather predictions, there is a strange beauty here, at the precipice of a new adventure, I’m able to stand with surety. Afraid. Alone. Undone. But, sure.

I’m not going down with the ship, because the ship isn’t going down.

That’s sobriety. Stepping into something and knowing the outcome, without really knowing the outcome. Some people will call it faith. Others will call it risky business. Some people call it trust. Some, stupidity. I call it bravery. And, I’m told, there is no better time to be brave than when you feel you are the world’s biggest coward.

So, I hoist the sails. I’m going to ride the tides until they throw me.

And, even then, I’m ready to swim.

 

Stay Saucy,

Sarah

 

 

Relief.

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image

Relief is one of those charged words.

You have to know how to feel relief before you can say it. Its meaning is implicitly assigned.

Relief.

It’s letting go. It’s breathing. It’s getting home after a shitty day. It’s the TEXACO station in the middle of bumble-fuck Texas when your gas light’s been on for 35 miles. It’s a check in the mail. It’s hearing someone you care about is OK. It’s discovering you’re going to be OK. It’s a sigh. It’s pain — subsiding.

The thing about relief: It requires waiting.

We would never be rewarded with that moment where we let the air escape from our lungs, feel our muscles relax, and allow ourselves to breathe into the deepest part of our stomach if we didn’t have to suffer, even minimally, just waiting for it.

I have decided that relief is biology’s coerced version of gratitude. When we can’t be grateful mentally, our bodies tell us what we’re thankful for and we can literally feel it. The first time I realized that I was physically designed to feel gratitude I was, in fact, grateful for the ability to experience this phenomena. Sobriety enabled and allowed me this tool, I’m sure. Because, in my “blue period,” AKA stark-raving-wasted,  gratitude did not exist for anything or anyone other than the someone-next-to-me at the bar who offered to buy my next round.

For a long time, my relief was served in a rocks glass. The air that I allowed myself to breathe was filtered through my liver, not my lungs. Everything ended up drunk. Everything.

When we don’t listen to our body’s language, its warnings, its instructions…it stops talking. Consult over. It just starts wreaking havoc. And, in that case, much like a case of the insane, we start talking to ourselves. In tongues mostly. We then enlist a whole team of bottles to sort out what’s trapped in our skulls. My most hired translator: Jim Beam. Though, there were nights I preferred the roll of José Cuervo’s “R”s. — “RRRrrrrelief!”

These days, relief comes and goes. But, I feel it. My body knows itself again. A translator is no longer necessary to fully appreciate my own suffering and joy. I’ve come to realize that, in addition to signaling my own condition, relief notes my compassion. I feel, I breathe, I sigh for other people too; something for which Jim Beam has no words.

Like relief, sobriety has too many meanings. All thrown into another charged word that means so much more than the sum of it’s parts. It’s more than just being off the sauce. More than being right-minded. More than calm in the company of calamity. It’s hearing the alarms that you, yourself, have tripped. It’s seeing pain outside yourself that needs tending to, and then, attending to it. It’s the relief of administering aide for the first time, not because you have to, but because you are capable. The pure exhilaration, the inhale-exhale, the integrity that allows someone else’s relief to become your own. The connected, universal pain– subsiding.

Heed your body’s call –Breathe again. Sigh. Feel it all.

 

“RRRrrrrrelief!”  — No José required.

 

Stay saucy,

Sarah

A Series Of Messes

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image

Just walk into it.

Walk into the room and if you have something to say. Say it.

Silence may be all there is in that moment. Let it hang there. Observe it as you would a painting. Let your moment’s museum echo with the footsteps only you can hear.

Take a chance.

Since ditching the bottle, I’ve had my share of messes. Moments where I wished that there was some way to make things simpler, or lighter, anything other than what they were. But, sobriety won’t clean a mess, it will only make it easier to see. So, there they were, as they were, these moments, inevitable and unchanging. Uncomfortable and unbreached.

I learn the same lesson over and over again in sobriety: Life is too wild. Untamable. So, let it buck underneath you, and prepare to be thrown. The hard road is the only road. Take it. Quit fighting it. Surrender to what was never under your control in the first place.

Life is just a series of messes. Revel in them. Without our messes, everything becomes meaningless.

This past weekend: A mess.

I literally walked in circles. I waited for a phone call.  I paged through books, pretending to read. I turned on my music with the illusion I’d hear anything other than my own thoughts.

And then, it came. The messy moment. My arms extended to embrace the thing I still cannot see. Feather or thorn, it’s anyone’s guess.

In the quiet of my own museum, I received my instructions: Take a chance.

On myself. On someone else. On living without fear.

So, I took a risk. The messy kind. Because walking in circles will get you nowhere. Phone calls are only as good as who’s on the other end of the line. Books are only great when there’s a story on every. fucking. page. And, you’ll only dance to music you can hear, so, if your thoughts are too loud — turn up the volume.

 

 

Stay saucy,

Sarah

 

 

 

Permission Impossible

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Approved

 

For much of my adult life, I’ve been waiting on something.

Until recently, I wasn’t entirely sure what that something was, but, I could just feel it holding me back.

It’s the little voice that talks me out of ordering the pasta (It’s too many carbs!), or buying the new pair of shoes (They’re too much $$$!), or taking time for myself (There’s just too much to do!!!). All those little restrictions we place on ourselves, day-in-day-out, seem so minor that we lose sight of their collective effect.

The truth is, all those little “no-no’s,” add up to something pretty significant: A Lack Mentality.

When we are constantly coming from a place of lack, no’s, and next time’s…there is no way to bring abundance into our lives or into the lives of the people around us. We stop ourselves before we get started.

While I’m no therapist, I’m pretty sure the lack mindset stems from many origins: Childhood. Growing pains. Relationships, both failed and successful. All life’s rejections, big and small. Lack grows. Lack builds on itself. It gets woven into our DNA, neuropathways, and ends up effecting our decision making dramatically. The tricky thing is that, in order to repair this flawed and limiting mindset, we have to forge our own, new paths. No more relying on the wisdom of our elders, no drawing on the pain of experiences past, and no implementing the peer check-and-balance system. We have to decide, independently and firmly, despite all evidence that would have us believe otherwise, that we are worth it.

Recently, I’ve found myself asking “Whose permission am I waiting on anyway?” I just turned thirty for fuck’s sake. It strikes me, as a self-sufficient adult, I shouldn’t have to wait for anyone but myself. Yet, I continue to check in with family, friends, even co-workers to make sure that what I’m doing is “OK.” I need that stamp of approval. I want to be told I’m making the right choice, doing the right thing.

The thing is, I don’t need to be told what’s right and what’s wrong. I already know. We all do. And, I’m fairly certain at this point, even when I’m not 100% right, the mistakes I make are meant to teach me something. But, really, who the fuck knows?

I often think that the day I’ll finally feel like a real adult is the day when I make all my own decisions without running them by my mom or my cousin to make sure I’m not fucking up big-time. And, don’t get me wrong, I think checking in with the people you care about is GOOD. It’s healthy to get an outside opinion. But, let opinion be the operative word there. It’s when we come to rely on other’s advice to make our final decisions that we get ourselves into hot water.

Give yourself permission to make the choice YOU need to make. It may not look the way your mom, dad, cousin, or best friend think it should. And, that might be scary. It’s scary for me. But, at the end of the day, my mom, dad, cousin, best friend…not-a-one of them has to live with my choices. I do.

Unless it comes from your own gut…it’s never going to feel right.

The reality is, sometimes the choices you make will dissapoint, upset, and scare other people. You can’t make everyone happy. It’s impossible. Did you get that? Because it’s really important:

YOU CAN’T MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.

 

My advice: Forget trying to figure out the right thing. Figure out the right thing, for you.

Stay saucy,

Sarah