​I am choosing a different way.
 
Choosing to change before I collapse.
 
This is the time for courage, for drastic life changes, in service of breaking a pattern that has had me in it’s clutches. No more.
 
My belief and story that I must constantly do, accomplish, and perform to make my mark. To help. To have influence. To be of service. To feel I have value and worth.
 
I am painfully aware that just being feels like failure.
 
This insidious pattern has reared its head again. And I am choosing to do things differently. I refuse to collapse again.
 
Instead, I’m going to move to Hawaii. Yup, seriously, moving to Hawaii.
 
Let me be clear, this is not a “geographical intervention.” I mean, it is, but it’s not. I am moving. And it is a very intentional reasons, with eyes wide open.
 
Stress is the worst. It wears me down, my body screams at me to stop, and often it is too late before I hear my body’s pleas. So, it’s time to try something new. I am saying, not just saying but shouting out loud to the heavens: I choose my health.
 
I choose a life worthy of being present to, of remembering, of not missing. I am not dropping out, I am dropping in. I am showing up to be rather than do.
 
And I am giving the system of my body a break. It’s been working hard, but I’ve crossed a line of business that cannot continue. So it’s time to slow down, and soak up the potentially uncomfortable slowness, and space, to bring my pacing back to a healthy place.
 
This time it’s not because I’m sick and have to, but because I choose to preventatively.
 
What in your life feels like is asking to happen to support your health that you have not been willing to change? How do you move from talking about doing it, to having the bravery to step into the fire of change? 

​I hate quilts. Don’t worry, I didn’t just change my blog to be themed around an anti-pioneering sentiment. I hate quilts because of all those patterns. Sometimes I look at the patterns and get immediately overwhelmed and lost in them. 
 
Honestly, it feels like forever since I sat down to publish a blog. Why? (Thanks for asking by the way.) Because I scared myself with what I wrote 2 weeks ago when I began a blog. It felt so raw, dictated into my iPhone between sobs: poor Siri had no idea what I was talking about. I had to get a decoder ring out to decipher the dictation today. It was so personal I wasn’t ready to release it out into the world yet. There’s something to be said for honoring yourself and your timing.
 
This blog is about one of my many patterns… and really about patterns in general (so as I talk about mine, insert one of your own in there… the thing you want to change, and try to, but keeps coming back at varying degrees between slightly annoying and pull-your-hair-out-and-throw-something annoying. Ya, that one).
 
Do you ever notice that when you try to change that ingrained pattern that the universe pushes up against you, to test you, to see if you're strong enough to actually change? (Frustrated sigh)
 
Two weeks ago was that it’s-hard-to-shift-no-matter-how-hard-you-try kind of day. I couldn’t get any perspective because my stupid pattern felt like it was engraved in the fiber of my being, rather than just conditioning. You know, that moment where it seems like sometimes no matter how hard you try, those few patterns keep haunting you.
 
So here’s what I wrote:
 
I really want to slow down, I swear. Today I learned, no matter how hard I want this to shift, it's a battle. Over and over. Because not only do I have to convince myself, but it feels in this moment like I have to convince my family, and my culture.
 
Everyone wants me to keep doing. Achieving. All the time. No break. More more more.
 
Me? I just wanted a day off. But instead I got five hours of working out mountain biking, after four intense days of regular work. This happened because I couldn't use my voice. So instead of shifting things, I just did the same thing all over again. Doing, achieving, checking something else off the list. Another self-damaging activity disguised as an achievement.
 
I cried for the hour getting ready to go bike, straight through into the first two hours on my bike. I was so angry and sad I was doing the snotty weeping (which is extra not cute, by the way, when there’s wind). I was so upset at myself, because I couldn’t actively speak up to my family, my culture, and most importantly, my mind. Because I couldn’t advocate for the fatigue in my body when my relationships felt at stake. My health vs my dearest relationships. I value both so much, and sometimes they come head to head.
 
I want to create new neural patterns. Repeating the same thing deepens that pattern all over again. Literally it makes that neural pathway in our brain stronger. Again. Reinforces it. Yet here I am. Five hours of exercise stronger, making everyone around me happy, but my heart a little bit more broken for not honoring myself and my body. I guess I can always rest tomorrow. I am so aware that this is one of the reasons I got sick. And stay sick. And I don't know how much more strength I have to keep trying. (Knot in my stomach)
 
… Annnnd, flash forward to today. It hurts me to read what I wrote. But I also have a little more space from it, which feels refreshing. I wanted to share it with you because we all have those moments where we are in our brokenness, and feel like all the work we’ve done is pointless, because, well, here we are again.
 
And then there’s a new day. Brush off the dirt, and start anew. In the last 2 weeks I’ve fought for my rest time with new vigor. This was a painful experience to go through to be reminded that I’m my best advocate, but sometimes I suck at it. Here’s a fact: my important relationships will still be there at the end of the day. Even if I didn’t go on the silly bike ride. We can repair the ruptures, and still love each other. But my health has to come first. (Remind me I said this next time I blog about slipping up into over-achieving again… of course it’ll happen, because it’s not done teaching me yet.)
 
Painful to feel the “lather, rinse, repeat”… that I’m sometimes stuck in Groundhog Day. So hard to watch myself do things when I “know better.” When I want to honor my relationships, when I want people around me to be happy and I feel falsely like I actually have some control of that… maybe I do in the short term, but is it worth making myself literally sick over? Of course not. But sometimes it’s so hard to stand up for your own truth in your relationships.
 
So here are the bigger questions: How do we be kind to ourselves when our “dormant” patterns rear their ugly heads? (Because they will, and we won’t always be able to change in that moment.) How do we look back at a pattern that frustratingly got the best of us 2 weeks ago, and see how it pushed us to get more real with ourselves? How do we stay curious in honoring both our relationships and ourselves?
 
Maybe there are ways to enjoy the warmth of a quilt, despite the patterns.
 
Somehow we’re peeling layers of the onion, and turning coal into diamonds, and uncovering what’s already our inner wisdom, and all that. Wishing you kindness to yourself: we’re all still figuring this stuff out.

Feel free, as always to comment below if this feels true (or not!) for you too~