The Road Back Home

It came in the mail today. Like every other book this one could be the one that changes it all. Or just changes one tiny thing that I'll never forget.

For a while I gave up on books, originally it was just physical copies and I would fill my iPad with e-books like it was my job. Mind you I was travelling a lot more, packing light and all that. Then I just stopped buying them all together, they were a luxury I couldn't fit into my budget. But in the last few weeks it's back. While most of my library lives across the country, a byproduct of the whole 4 cities in 5 years thing, I want to build a new one here and got back at it. The first of the dozen new books came tonight and it's a juicy one. The Desire Map by Danielle LaPort is something I've wanted to pick up for a while. A fresh take on goal setting.

Funny enough a lot of the person who I was is showing up again. The person I was when it was really good. When I was ballsy and felt like a rock star. When I made choices and stuck to them, as long as the felt right. When I did things that aligned with my values, not because someone said I should, because someone said it would be good for my career, a good grown up decision. I am sick of feeling like a fraud, like I have to work so hard at being someone else everyday that when I get home I am exhausted. I am finally breaking and it is amazing.

Like building a library I am also reaching to set new goals, to hit my mat, to laugh and drink wine and take chances, I am beginning to see that the universe is conspiring in my favour but it's not going to wait around forever. Now is the time to get back to being the girl who inspired others, who led with integrity, who had so much damn fun that sometimes she was hungover on a weekday.

So I won't say here's to new beginnings because I don't need to go somewhere else or find something out there, I will say, here's to taking the road back home, to where I know I've been before. 

Luon is my power suit

My downdogs are so strong. Like shockingly so. I am bouncy on my mat. My practice has a playfulness I was surprised by.  It's rad.

Being back on a mat in a hot room and outside of my restorative & yin practice was a wonderful chance to glimpse who I've been and who I am becoming come together.  My day started much like it used to. Get up, no makeup, hair in a top knot. Stretchy pants pulled over bare heels, racer back over sports bra, loopy scarf and flip flops. Grab a coffee from a cute independent cafe. Read something about leadership or personal development. Check some emails. Same old and I loooove the way it felt. My power suit definitely involved luon and, sometimes, denim. No high heels. But what perhaps surprised me more is that this deeply rooted feeling of "home" coupled nicely with the new strength I've been building over the past 8 months. Lifting at the gym has given me something new, a power that let the little things I used I struggle with in yoga drip away and a new confidence in my ability to get it done that let me truly play in class today.

It's funny to me how these simple things actually illuminate how I am struggling with change these days, I am not quite ready to admit that for me, constant change is my normal. Today helped. I am reminded that my values and what serves me are crucially important in my success and ability to inspire and impact others. Sometimes all it takes is marrying the new with the old.

Stop.

It's hard to say when I stopped noticing. Everything had changed. I had become used to trying to fit a mold that, best as I try, I will never fit. It's happened before when being put down and shut down for what I know to be strengths of mine overshadowed my self awareness and I became complacent, started to believe I'm not enough. Then, as always someone or something from the real world comes knocks on the door and me out of my stupor and I can see clearly that the quirks that make me up, the random assortment of experiences are not only valuable but a differentiator in a tough market. For some reason I can fall prey to listening to the voice of one, how ever strong, over the voice of many, including my own. Well this has to stop. 

Just an Ordinary Week

This week has been very ordinary. I went to the gym, worked at the office, had no evening plans and didn't get out of the city. But sitting on the couch this evening after the third or so hour of Netflix I realized it's been the best week in a long time. Spontaneous date nights with my man, strong showings at the gym, taking the power back in my relationship with my career, meeting wonderful folks. It's been an exceptional week in it's normality.

I think, if nothing else, the difference is gratitude and letting go of some of the small things. I am sure someday, when my superpowers reach full force, that I will be able to control everything, including all reactions, but in the mean time giving less of a shit has given me more free time to go on gluten free ice cream sandwich dates with my man  and take the dog to brunch (and the PR agency).  Being grateful for these opportunities lets them shine and the more I am aware of how lucky (a combination of timing, skill, handwork and intuition) I am the better my days seem to go.

So ordinary is just fine with me!

After a Good Nap

Another long day but another good one. The power in authenticity is huge. Sometimes I forget this, forget what it feels like to not put on a costume and go into the world acting the part of someone else. For me I find when there's nothing to lose, that's when I am most able to have the courage to show up as I truly am and not as the person others expect me to be, hope me to be. Solving real problems and seeing the pieces come together in front of my eyes is like nothing else and it's so easy to forget how quickly that happens when you are not wasting your time on what others think, or even what you think you should be doing.

As I weigh the options in front of me I can feel the strengths that have been hibernating shake off the dust like a great bear in the first light of spring. I had forgotten my slight edge in favour of trying to get better at something that will never be my differentiator. The muscle memory is still there. That which lights me up is chomping at the bit ready to get down to it.

All of this comes down to intuition. I've let her rest on the shelf for a while now, it's been just too long looking around and making choices with just my mind and what little information I have on hand. I've made some decisions my gut strongly disagreed with and ended up exhausted and unable to replenish. The last few days everything has started to change. Being in nature and out of the constant hum of the city gave me the boost I needed. That coupled with a week of inspiration and practice in authenticity has left me feeling anything but vulnerable. I'm ready to take on the uncertainty ahead, after a good nap perhaps.

Crossing the Tree Line

It's been an uphill journey lately. I am not unfamiliar with climbing mountains, I know it's hardest before you reach the top, before experiencing vistas you can't quite be sure are real they are so beautiful and before you forget that you just dragged your ass up a rocky Stair Master for hours on end with seemingly all your worldly possessions on your back. Before being literally on top of the world there is the other part. The part that is filled with moments of doubt, in the dark before crossing over through the tree line. Those are the minutes or hours when legs are fatigued, after the first three quarters of the climb, sweat gets in your eyes (or is it tears) and since you can't quite be sure how far away the end is the thought of turning around is still a possibility. This is where I am right now, only years growing up out west learning to judge the distance to the top, or where at the end of the lake the portage take out must be, haven't prepared me for this. It's been four cities in five years, approaching my third job hunt in two and change, I can't seem to get my footing or figure out my next step. I can't see the top, judge the distance and not to over do the metaphor, my pack is getting heavy. Fortunately for me the universe has a tendency of being on my side, especially when I need it the most. I forget that when I look, when inspiration can find me working,  the people, things and opportunities I need come into my life.

I am not sure what the next six months hold for me, or even the next six weeks but over the past little while the inspiration I've been long looking for is trickling in. Soon the pressure will be too much, the dam will break and all at once I will figure out the next step on the path, I will turn the corner, see the summit is here and look out over the journey I've just made. Clarity and possibility is just up the path, how many switch backs can be left? So in this moment of foggy uncertainly I must thank those around me, new acquaintances (members of the same tribe of feisty women), family, best friends and those I will be meeting next. I am grateful for the camera I picked up last weekend, the stars I gazed at and the otters we saw playing in the pond after the rain stopped. I am grateful that I can come back to my yoga mat, blacker than Alberta soil and just as grounding, and this blog, writing here brings me home.

Neon is not Business Casual

I've been aching for a day like today for a long time. These are the moments of seeming insignificance that mark growth, hope and unbridled possibility. They used to show up for me as a handful of seconds when the voice inside would say "this is going to be ok" and a rush of hope and belief would fill me. Lucky enough, these sparks would often come when the chips were down, on grey days or days filled with only the new and nothing of the familiar, at those seconds when I needed them most. When I lived alone in Calgary in the quasi-limbo between my final days selling stretchy pants and the start of my MBA I would have these days often. Instead of just moments this feeling would fill weeks and instead of being a fleeting bust of reassurance it grew into authenticity, abundance and freedom.  I've been aching for this. For the feeling like I'm taking my life into my own two hands and that the universe is firmly on my side.

It has been a long few years of growing up. It has taken a toll on who I know myself to me. Yesterday, so much like the day that I said "this is next" when I left the security of lulu and risked it all on a mediocre understanding of basic calculus was a turning point when I went from what I thought I knew about the next 3-5 years and to having no idea what 6 months or a year could hold. When provided with one option that you refuse to take you are suddenly forced to stand in nothing and pick from everything what it is you truly want, who it is you truly are. Yesterday I got the news that I was likely going to have to play big at some point in the next six months or so. There would be a chance I wouldn't have a steady income, or at least that steady income would be "significantly less" than what I have worked hard for. Instead of accept that as fact I reacted yesterday. Not as quickly as I had the last big time but enough that when I called my parents I had a game plan, I had moxie. It is terrifying to be on the knife's edge, knowing that on one side is what you won't accept and on the other is the great unknown. I would be lying if I told you I didn't freak out a bit last night, perhaps even feel a little sorry for myself, asking myself "when will all this just settle". But this morning, I felt like me again, my 2011 self if we are going to get specific. The one who took risks, bet on herself and did exactly what the fuck she really wanted. So today I worked from home, turns out our condo is really nice during the day with the sun streaming in the 17 foot windows and the breeze coming in through the open patio doors. I listened to the music I wanted to listen to, the kind that lights me up and gets my brain churning out the good stuff, not the hum of the quiet office. I wore what makes me feel confident, the fact is that is just not business casual, and definitly not  "Business".  Instead of feeling wiped at the end of the day, like i'd been living someone else's life for nine hours I felt like myself. With stuff quickly getting figured out, shit getting taken on and great things on the precipice.

So here's the good news: Even though I am not sure what my financials will look like in the fall I booked a ticket home to Vancouver for May long. I will travel this summer and try and get as much life living and skill building in as I can before the next big career move. At the end of the day this is where my life is best lived. I am a much more productive and exciting human being to be around when I am forced to chose what and who I really want to be.