My Many Hats

Sully the Beagle Pup

My life feels much like a whirlwind. But I am not complaining; I’m just regrouping.

It seems I wear many hats now. I have my “mom of a wild and crazy puppy hat,” which cleans up a lot of poop and pee and doesn’t get much sleep. But I am adored and the feeling is mutual … while eagerly awaiting puppy teeth to go away.

Then there’s the writer/reporter hat that I’ve worn for about 10 years, only now I’m supposed to do what I did in 40 hours in just 32.

I’ve got my Game and Fish Commission hat that I wear mostly on Saturdays and also on days off from when I wear the writer/reporter hat.

And then there’s the hat of many colors: the author, publisher, marketer hat. Yes, I’ve been peddling “Living Life Inside Out,” for a couple of weeks now. Sales have been good so far, but stretching outside of my circle of friends is going to take a lot of work, not to mention stepping way outside of my comfort zone.

I’m not a salesman. I never have been one. I’ve tried it briefly as a profession, but I just don’t bullsh*t well. And while my self-esteem has grown a lot over the past few years, I certainly don’t enjoy selling myself. Since so much of me is in my book it’s just difficult for me to push it.

My theory is that if someone reads it they will want to buy another for a friend or family member. I’ve already had a few comments from people telling me how a particular meditation for that day spoke to them and how they needed to read what they did.

I told my mother that I thought I’d send one to Oprah. She said I dream big. Maybe. But why not?  I told a couple of other people the same thing. One said, go for it. The other said: Oprah may never see it, but one of her staff that does could be the person that’s supposed to.

The way I see it, I was led to write the book. What it is or what it becomes is out of my hands, but I do have to get it out there so those who need it will have the opportunity to be led to it.

So I wear all of my hats proudly. Some I like more than others. A few I won’t even mention here because many would tell me that’s too much information.

Staying Calm

“The most important skill in staying calm is not to lose sleep over small issues. The second most important skill is to be able to view all issues as small issues.”
—Paul Wilson

The stresses of life can at times seem overwhelming, yet when we get wound up and worried about what’s to come or what has happened we really don’t make things any better.

Peace and serenity can be ours with much practice, patience, letting go, and letting God. We do not have to sweat the small stuff. By keeping in mind that which we do have the power to change and that which we do not will help us keep things in perspective.

Frustration is an easy thing to come by, but when we learn to let go of that which really just does not matter and those things we can’t do anything about anyway, we will find ourselves more in a place of peace and calm than anxious.

The ebbs and flows of life promise that whatever is going on will eventually change whether we’re on the upside of things or feeling rather down. As much as we resist change it is part of life and healing too.

The people in our lives can cause frustration for us as well. We cannot and should not control others so it’s best not to even mull over in our minds how they could better live their lives.

It’s impossible to stay calm in the midst of attempting to control the world around us. Serenity starts from within and spreads across our lives if we can give it a chance, just as much as frustration can send us into a tailspin.

Start from within to find calm and serenity will fill your life.

This Too Shall Pass

“Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!”
—Bob Marley (song lyrics)

There are times in our lives that it feels like when it rains it pours. We may have a succession of difficult things to deal with and as soon as one situation is resolved, or healed, another one pops up. 

And while we probably don’t feel like we handle it well, we probably aren’t the best judge of that when we are in the midst of all of the trauma and turmoil.

One thing that helps is to let go and let God. Yes, this is so much easier said than done, but one thing that may be helpful is when we get something catchy like the song above stuck in our head. Every time we start to feel the panic of what’s to come, the unknown, we can call the song to mind and it really will ease the tension.

Things do work out. Maybe they don’t go the way we want, and perhaps we have to go through a lot of discomfort and loss to get through the rough patches, life is change. Nothing stays the same, whether it is when we are feeling on top of the world, or feel like hiding under a rock. Change happens.

And because of change we can know that this too shall pass. Everything is going to be alright. Whenever we are in the middle of what seems to be never ending stress, we can rest assured that one day this will turn around.

Let go and let God. Sing a catchy song. Listen to music. Scream into a pillow. Meditate and pray. Rest. Work out. Go for a walk on a sunny day. All of these things are options to help us through the rough patches.

Never give up, even when the going gets rough, because everything will come around and it’ll be alright.

Cumulative Growth

“Practice makes permanent.”
—Bobby Robson

Growth and learning both take time and effort. As adults we get easily frustrated when we don’t think we are progressing fast enough whether it’s a recovery issue or some other learning opportunity.

Often when we are growing or learning new things we are unable to see the growth. It’s gradual and we are not able to see the movement because we are in the midst of the growth. Others often see and recognize it before we do. 

It’s easy to get discouraged when we practice something over and over and don’t feel we are getting anywhere, but if we continue the recovery efforts, or other learning process one day we will be aware of just how far we have come.

It may be good from time to time to look back at where we were. If we were a drunk at our bottom or an addict barely hanging onto life, and now we are clean and sober for a month, year, or more, we can easily see things in our lives that are better and ways that we have matured in our behavior.

If we are learning a new skill, we may need to remember back to the beginning when we knew nothing and see that we have learned a lot, it’s just hard to see when we grow tiny bits every day.

What’s important is that we continue to practice since this is how we learn. Sometimes growth comes in spurts. We may suddenly see our growth after not noticing it for a long time. We certainly won’t grow and learn if we don’t continue to try.

Growth and learning are cumulative; a little at a time and soon we reap the benefits.

Fear of Change

“Don’t fear change, embrace it.”
—Anthony J. D’Angelo

Many of us fear change so much that we end up in ruts. Fear of the unknown, of change, is often something that keeps us stuck in our jobs, bad relationships, overweight, uneducated, using drugs, drinking excessively, and on and on.

Change is inevitable so we might as well embrace it when it happens outside our control because that’s going to happen quite frequently. And it really is a blessing when it occurs because it always leads to something better eventually.

None of us ever wants the shock of losing a job either by the company downsizing, fazing out our particular position, or simply getting fired. But often people will say after this happens that it was the best thing because they ended up in a better job or one more suited for them or it simply got them out of their rut. Sometimes the familiar, even if we are miserable, seems better than change. Yet we stay in the miserable place because we have too much fear.

We fear change in other ways as well. What if we lose that extra 50 pounds we are carrying and we still don’t feel loved, then what? Or if we leave a bad relationship we wonder if we’ll just end up alone and lonely. But alone and lonely can be better than bad.

What ifs can keep us stuck in patterns of self-defeating behavior. We rarely know what tomorrow holds and if we do it might have just been a lucky guess. If we know too much what the next day has in store, we may be in a rut because predictable days mean we aren’t growing much. The more we grow, the more changes come our way. And we must embrace the changes if we wish to grow.

Often change is out of our control and it can hit us when we least expect it. But we need to learn how to not immediately feel negativity about change and rather look at it for what it is, an opportunity for growth and maybe a new experience. Maybe that change that hits us broadside that we have no control over is exactly what we needed to motivate us to get out of the rut.

Change is going to happen with our without our participation.

Staying Grounded

“A truly wise person will not be carried away by any of the eight winds: prosperity, decline, disgrace, honor, praise, censure, suffering, pleasure.”
—Nichiren

Life does blow us different winds over the years. Sometimes we can experience the highs and lows within hours or days. Of course when we are on the down side in decline, disgrace, censure, or suffering, it seems as if time stands still and we remain stuck in that place forever. Yet when we are honored, praised, full of joy, or prospering, it seems to only last for moments.

We ought to not get too absorbed in either end of the feelings of life. When we do something worthy of praise and we receive it, there is often someone waiting to shoot us down for whatever it was we did.

We do deserve to enjoy life when things are going well. And it’s in the suffering and pain that we grow and learn. But what we don’t want to do is let either end of the spectrum dictate how we live our lives knowing that every person experiences highs and lows and places in between.

If we were to get too carried away when we do something great our egos would become so big that nobody would want to be around us. And likewise if we wallow in self-pity all the time we won’t have people knocking down our doors trying to spend time with us. It’s certainly okay to feel good about ourselves when we have done a good thing. And when we fail in some way it’s okay as well. We forgive ourselves and try to do better in the future.

There are also times when what we are feeling isn’t true to what is happening in life. Or sometimes people aren’t honest and true to us. They may offer false praise in order to gain our favor. And at other times we are beaten up and beaten down by those who are jealous or treat us badly for some other reason.

Whatever we are experiencing, we need to honor our own feelings and not rely on the outside world to dictate how we feel about ourselves. We do this by not giving our power over to others or even to the ups or downs of our days.

Feel what you feel but don’t let any of it overpower you.

We Are Who We Make

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”
—Thomas S. Szasz

As we go through the days of our lives we are on a journey that offers many choices. It is our challenge and responsibility to determine which route to take when we hit that “Y” in the road.

We meet new people and we wonder if that person is worth investing time and energy in; is there something long-term we wish to carry on with that person. We hear about a job somewhere that interests us and we start to consider if that’s an option we wish to pursue. Or perhaps it’s time to end something and we aren’t sure what to do.

We create our own world. Sometimes we want more; sometimes we are content to stay where we are in our safety and security whether or not we are happy. And often we fear making that move, taking the next step, making changes, and taking risks in order to create something more for ourselves.

We can always keep in mind that even if we move forward into something new and that fails to be what we want or we are not successful in our endeavor life goes on and surely we have gained new knowledge and insight about life and ourselves. We’ve created more of us; more wisdom, knowledge, insight, and possibly self-love.

In order to create who we wish to be, we must take these chances. It’s difficult sometimes because we’ve been jaded and hurt in our lives over relationships, business dealings, jobs, family issues, and other things. But each one of those things taught us something about who and what we are and made us who we are today.

We can take these chances when opportunities arise knowing that even if whatever it is ends in failure we gave it our best shot, we’ve taken a chance on life and love, and we don’t have to crawl in a hole and hide from the world.

Take that chance on the next thing that comes along. You’re strong enough.

Maybe the Problem’s Not Them

“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.”
—J. Michael Straczynski

Anytime we find ourselves having to learn a lesson again and again it may be time to stop blaming people and events outside of ourselves.

If we’ve failed at numerous relationships and the same problems crop up in each, we are attracting something to ourselves that doesn’t work for us. If we don’t change, the same problems will continue to come our way.

And if our problems involve work or business and we keep having the same issues that cause us unnecessary stress and agony, who needs to change? We have some reason to keep getting in these situations or not getting out of them soon enough.

We can stay stuck in our ruts of destruction that end with self-pity and loss of enthusiasm or we can look inside ourselves and learn why we keep getting into the same situations again and again. Only we can break our own cycle of destructiveness.

The first thing we have to do is admit that it is our problem and that we are the only person who can get us out of it. Blaming the boss, parents, exes, current spouses, or anyone else is not going to get us moving and out of the situation. Once we can admit that we have to do something, we can then take action and get unstuck and hopefully not have to keep repeating the lesson because we can’t seem to get it.

Look inside to find the problem and the strength to overcome it.

Courage to Change

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.”
—Raymond Lindquist

We have many opportunities to practice courage in our lives. Many people, when they think of courage, think about running into a burning building to rescue someone or performing some other heroic act, but courage is anytime we do something that we are afraid to do, something out of our comfort zone.

Simply facing change is an act of courage. Change is scary and while change happens all the time in our lives beyond our control, there are also ways we can change that take courage. Those who need to stop drinking have many fears to face. If we have issues in our lives that need to change it can be frightening. Those needing to end a bad relationship need lots of courage.

Whatever our issues are, we can find courage and strength. Prayer and meditation help. Taking our time with things, caring for our physical health, getting plenty of rest, eating right, we need to be in the best shape we can in order to handle difficult times.

Stepping out of our comfort zones is what allows us to grow. Often people stay in bad relationships or job situations because it just seems easier, but with a little courage getting out of something we don’t want to be in can be life changing in a good way.

Ask God to give you courage to let go of the familiar.

Everything’s Changed and Nothing’s Changed

“Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life.”
—Herbert A. Otto

Those of us who are on the journey of recovery, whether it be from addictions, low-self esteem, codependency, abuse, or numerous other issues we’ve faced, know that we grow from the inside and it shows on our outsides.

A dear friend of mine invented a new word, “therapized” for those of us who have been in therapy for any amount of time in our lives. It does speak through us as some unknown language to others who have experienced therapy and the growth that comes with it. It’s the same way for Twelve Step programs and those who’ve been involved with them for any length of time.

I used the words above to a friend saying how happy I am, “Everything’s changed and nothing’s changed.” The reason for that statement is that there is no single outside change in my life today than from where I was a year ago. I have the same job, house, physical health, etc. But what has changed is how I see the world and those around me. It’s an inside job.

And the amazing thing is that when we are happy on the inside our outside begins to match. However, no amount of outside pleasure and success can fulfill us when our insides are not happy and healthy.

The “therapized” kind of change does take an effort. It takes looking deep within and can entail many tears and brings up a lot of old pain, but in the end, on our journey, it’s invaluable as a tool for growth and self-love.

Change inside and see the outside blossom.