​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~

Yesterday I wept. That’s a poetic way of saying I was a messy, snotty, sobbing, ugly crier. I lost all of my skills… you know, those tools I’ve creatively, consciously, willingly and willfully, through blood, sweat, and tears, cultivated over the past 12 years in an effort to relearn how to interact with myself and the world in a more healthy way.

And then in less than 24 hours I watched the sedatives from the hospital and my physical pain let them slip through my hands like water that flowed, swirled, and gurgled while laughing at me, down the drain. Which, of course, is totally normal.
 
But, I am sad to say that I said things that were hurtful to the person caretaking me with the most compassion, heart, and beautiful selfless, detail imaginable.
 
I said: Stop worrying about me, I’m fine. You don’t think you can leave me alone because I’ll fall down the stairs and kill myself? I’m not a baby. You’re freaking out and it’s stressing me out. I can’t be stressed out because I’ll be sicker, and now it hurts more. Don’t’ you trust me, Do you think I'm an idiot. You think I have to call the hospital now? Why, because who said, some pharmacist? I’m fine. FINE. STOP FREAKING OUT …
 
…only I… can’t… breath… tears, snot, sob sob sob.
 
It took me a minute to realize that even though that’s what I said, what I actually meant was:
Note to self- STOP FREAKING OUT!!!
I'm scared.
I’m attacking you about being worried, because I’m the one that's worried. 
This isn’t fair.
It sucks.
I’m in pain.
What did I do to deserve this?
I want to go off by myself, and suffer, and come back when I’m “better”

• So that I can protect you from feeling pain
• So that I can protect you from being scared, looking at yourself, and having to see your own mortality
• So I can protect you from thinking that you may lose me one day
• So that I can protect you from me

I’m so sorry.
You don’t’ deserve this.
No parent, partner, friend, lover, community, deserves this, deserves dealing with me.
 
So, let’s face it, the only skill left to me after my emotional deconstruction was that of repair. Of saying I’m sorry. Of trying to take responsibility … to de-vomit what I had spewed-out in a dramatic rewind, and let you know that I’m aware that this is actually mine.
 
Chemicals and pain aren’t an excuse to hurt those we love. But it happens anyway. So maybe what’s left is trying to repair it with, hopefully, the willingness, compassion, and heart of the other party. Sometimes it’s such a relief to be human and messy and unskillful, and sometimes it is so hard to do that without a sense of entitlement. Like I can hurt you because I’m being authentic right now. Some kind of contempt of being so fabulously “vulnerable.” How do we give ourselves the permission and relief to be an unskillful mess, while also not intentionally bulldozing over the people we love the most... and when we do, have self-compassion and repair it? I don’t know that I have an answer to that yet... maybe it's something about acceptance that it will happen, love for ourselves when it does, and hope that we can have a conversation about it.. I know I’m doing my best with deep gratitude to the people that love me enough to say, ya, you fucked up, you hurt me, but I love you anyway. I’m still here and I still want this relationship.
 
So take a breath and give yourself some love right now, because we’re all trying our best to figure this out, together through fear, snot, pain, and relationship. 

Thoughts? Comment below:

There will be tough times. Sigh. There will be tough times for all of us, and some of us are more sober about that fact, based on our past experiences, than others.
 
Tough times come in many categories: challenge, growth, fear, overwhelm, striving, burning, new, transition, change, pain, joy (yup that can be just as hard) or those tough times that are downright shitty in all areas. We know this to be true. It will be hard, we will transform, and so will those around us.
 
Yesterday I was mountain biking up a hill. It was tough, and of course it was both a literal hill, and a metaphor for those tough times in life. It got me thinking about something simple I do, that works for me, in those tough times to get through. My mantra.
 
The word mantra works for me. The literal Sanskrit (ancient language) translation is “to think, to think a thought behind speech or action.” This is something else I’m curious about a lot, how our thoughts lead to action, movement, behavior. Good old Webster says “a word or phrase that is repeated often or that expresses someone’s basic beliefs.” Again, I’m curious about how we live our beliefs and values in the world. So mantra, something I repeat to myself, to support me in action, so I can live in the integrity of my beliefs.
 
There are lots of mantras or words/phrases out there to try on (Thomas: I think I can, Dori: Just keep swimming), but I think it is the most potent if we create our own. Something short, memorable, potent, and emotionally charged, which will light a fire under our ass during those tough moments, and remind us that we will make it through. Taking a breath, letting it out. Feeling the intensity in my gut.
 
I’ll share mine as an example. My mantra is #jazzhands.  It’s an unlikely mantra, but to me it is a potent seed of transformation. This is a mantra that already existed within me, came out of my experience, and creates that feeling between laughing/crying where I feel the hope and tragedy of my life intermingled. And, most importantly, it immediately snaps me out of whatever messy thought pattern I’m in, brings me back to the present, and reminds me, oh right, yes I can!
 
Jazzhands is about my prior career, the career that I left because of my illness, the grief and loss associated with my illness, the metamorphosis and change process and growth as a result of hitting bottom, having a sense of humor, and being present on stage… the stage of life. Not wasting a moment. Being curious and joyful about living in this body, in this lifetime, even when it feels like suffering and pain. And that everything I’ve gone through has lead me to this present moment where I get to show up completely and say yes to my life. #Jazzhands.
 
So what’s yours?
 
Try some on. Keep it simple, memorable, and potent. And then hold yourself accountable. I wrote it on my mirror. I wrote it on my website. I say it out loud in groups and get other people literally doing jazzhands (choreography!). Fully mind, body, spirit people! So get in there and do some internal questing to uncover your personal mantra. Remember, there’s nothing too silly, odd, or weird, and the only person it has to make sense to is you! You don’t have to justify it, you just get to live it.
 
And then start practicing, because if you want something to be there in the tough times, you’ve got to practice it in the other times. So when you’re biking up the “hill” you can shout out loud #jazzhands, make yourself laugh, scare some prairie dogs, and keep peddling. 
 
Post your mantra below or on Facebook, to get some accountability and claim it, and have fun with it!