This concept is always a bit tricky for me, as there are two places I consider home: Colorado and Oregon.
I love our little house, our little life in Fort Collins, with the gardens in front and back, the lilacs along the fence and by the mailbox, the trees we’ve planted and the ones now gone that we still remember, the Rocky Mountain Bee Plants that surprised us one year and return each spring to feed the riot of bees, the hardwood floors and the patterned plaster ceilings, the elementary school around the corner and our favorite park so close. The layout of the house is almost exactly like the one I grew up in, and I love that, loved that house, that home too. One reason it will be difficult to let this one go now, if we ever do, is that two of my dogs died here, and as weird as it might sound, that is a precious thing.
And yet, half my heart still lives in Oregon,splitting its time between the Willamette Valley and the Central Oregon Coast.
But the truest home I have is this: home is where my dog is (dogs are), and wherever that is, he’s (they’re) probably with Eric, so even better.
I define non-clinical anxiety as, “experiencing failure in advance.” If you’re busy enacting a future that hasn’t happened yet, and amplifying the worst possible outcomes, it’s no wonder it’s difficult to ship that work.
It’s painful when you see how in spite of everything you continue in your neurosis; sometimes it has to wear itself out like an old shoe. However, refraining is very helpful as long as you don’t impose too authoritarian a voice on yourself. Refraining is not a New Year’s resolution, not a setup where you plan your next failure by saying, “I see what I do and I will never do it again,” and then you feel pretty bad when you do it again within the half hour.
Refraining comes about spontaneously when you see how your neurotic action works. You may say to yourself, “It would still feel good; it still looks like it would be fun,” but you refrain because you already know the chain reaction of misery that it sets off.
The only reason to build a website is to change someone. If you can’t tell me the change and you can’t tell me the someone, then you’re wasting your time.
What are you willing to let go of today? Life is so much about knowing what to hold on to, and what to let go of…and having faith that it will all work out in the end.
Your heart and your gut know exactly what you need to let go of, even if your brain is giving you all sorts of reasons to clamp your fingers around it. There are seasons and times to have different things, relationships and situations in your life…and then the seasons change and it’s time to let go of many of those things. Change is hard….but change is absolutely necessary.
We’ve all got to let go of old habits, old situations, old behaviors and sometimes even old relationships to make room for what is meant for the next part of our lives. If we just get quiet, get brave, and listen very closely….our hearts will tell us what to let go of. This doesn’t mean it will be easy…it just means that it is what is meant for now.
You can do this. Listen to your heart. Be brave. You are loved. xoxo
I love our little house, our little life in Fort Collins, with the gardens in front and back, the lilacs along the fence and by the mailbox, the trees we’ve planted and the ones now gone that we still remember, the Rocky Mountain Bee Plants that surprised us one year and return each spring to feed the riot of bees, the hardwood floors and the patterned plaster ceilings, the elementary school around the corner and our favorite park so close. The layout of the house is almost exactly like the one I grew up in, and I love that, loved that house, that home too. One reason it will be difficult to let this one go now, if we ever do, is that two of my dogs died here, and as weird as it might sound, that is a precious thing.
And yet, half my heart still lives in Oregon, splitting its time between the Willamette Valley and the Central Oregon Coast.
But the truest home I have is this: home is where my dog is (dogs are), and wherever that is, he’s (they’re) probably with Eric, so even better.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 