Living la Vida Fearless Coaching

I am most definitely not perfect despite the notion that I was taught this was a “should” in my world. The hard part about this was how awful I felt about me because I was not living up to somebody else’s belief system. Ugh.

Just when I thought I’d figured it out things would change again, a new set of rules to follow. You know the carousels that go round and round and round? That’s how I felt, spinning in circles going nowhere trying to catch up to something unattainable.
“Stop whining” “Stop acting like a girl” Well meaning people thinking they were helping said stuff like that. “Stop acting like a girl?” Um….I am, I was..what did that even mean? Stop being me?

Did you know that an elephant can be trained to never try to run away? When a baby elephant is chained up, just a few feet from it’s mama, and never allowed to reach her, it eventually stops trying. Isn’t that sad? Once the baby stops trying the trainer can untether it and not have to worry about it running away. I hate that thought.

All those rules had me feeling like that baby elephant, tethered and unable to ask for the love I was craving. I gave in, I caved, I put my heart on the shelf and let the rest of the world tell me how to be me.

Like Jesus in the desert I wandered this beautiful Earth for forty days and forty nights and then months which turned into years. Life was passing me by. I was a human being butI was most definitely not being human.

Until I fell apart. Wow, where the hell did that come from?
Suddenly this totally awesome mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend, fell apart. I’d wake up weeping, I’d fall asleep sobbing. I could not speak, I didn’t want to use words longer than three letters, it felt too hard. I was losing my mind. That was the best thing to have happened.

Gathering each little piece of me, examining each piece, offered me an opportunity not available to me had I not “fallen apart.”

Slowly reassembling the me who was ME required a complete and thorough look at what my heart was yearning for, what mattered, what was authentic.

It took a long time to trek through the muck, to open the doors, to dust off the dreams and to pull myself out of the valley but I did it. I gave up, I persisted, I cried, I sobbed and I reached out and asked for help. When I asked, the help arrived, just like that, as if by magic.

We’re a culture that, in my humble opinion, seems fearful of being vulnerable, open and truthful. We expect people to ” get over your grief” in three days and act as if the world is the same. I think this may be why life story project has been so popular on OWN Canada. The stories are resonating with everyone who watches.
It gives them some common ground to know that they are not, in fact, alone in their sorrow. It’s not easy, it will never be but there is no shame in falling apart.
In my humble opinion, the bigger shame is that we don’t allow that process in our lives.
We act like that baby elephant and stay tethered all our lives even though the chains are no longer visible.

Beloveds, it’s ok to fall apart, it’s ok to say you need help, it’s ok to be vulnerable and truthful: that’s the human experience.
If you’re in the midst of a tumble down hot mess honour that this has happened, it’s an opportunity for a deep awakening. Let it happen, walk through the door of fear. Truth is on the other side waiting with an open heart and open arms.
Know this too, when you fall apart, I will be just a prayer away for you.