Seasons of Change

The signs of Fall are all around me which led to the title of this week’s blog, Seasons for Change. While living in Florida everyday felt like Summer and sunshine, so now that I am living up north again, I am hypersensitive to the changes in nature around me. While looking at the leaf on my chair as I was having coffee the other day, I was reminded of how we are parallel to the seasons and how are lives are in a constant state of change. The world around us is always changing and moving forward, so our external world never staying the same is the one thing we can always rely on. When we refuse to move along with those changes, we remain stuck and faced with the consequences of holding on to a past we should have already moved on from. We aren’t allowing ourselves to move with the changes of life, and sometimes in doing that, we allow something great that is meant for us to slip right through our fingertips.

This is why it important to not be attached to outcomes and learn to go with the flow. When going through a hard time, it is important to remember that this is just a season of your life, it is not the rest of your life. Just like Summer turns to Fall, and Fall turns to Winter, our lives will move through seasons as well. When looking back on your life you can see the different seasons you have been through and how you handled those times in your life. Learn from your mistakes. Sometimes you were happy, sometimes sad, sometimes struggling and sometimes successful. We move through many phases, and our choices can always be seen in hindsight. Now that you are growing stronger and making better choices, you will move through these seasons more quickly. I always say I was a slow learner when it came to boundaries, so the seasons of my life that were hard for me were longer seasons than they should have been. Now I can look back with clarity and see my mistakes, so now when those lessons are presented to me again, I face them in a new way. I face them in a healthier way.

I am at a point in my life right now, where I know I am being asked if the changes I made for myself and the lessons I learned for the past decade are going to stick or am I going to have to relearn these hard lessons. Am I confident? Do I have boundaries? Am I settling for less than? Am I putting my needs first or am I continuing to give my power away to people and circumstances. Do I make decisions from fear or confidence? Have I let go of my past? Have I learned from it? Have I forgiven myself for not knowing what I know now? Remember that we can only make choices based on what we know and can’t continue beating ourselves up for what we didn’t in our past. Maybe the people who were supposed to teach us didn’t and we were left to fend for ourselves. Maybe we didn’t have good role models, so we had to stumble along learning what other people already knew. Now that we have taken back control of our lives, we are different, we have more knowledge, and yes, now we are responsible for making better choices for ourselves and for the people we love and care about.

One of the biggest changes I am making for myself right now revolves around my work, so the one thing I will be changing is I will be posting my blog later in the day on Wednesdays. I am working and training for a new career, so my days are full, and my time is limited and sometimes dictated by external training. I am embracing the changes because I know they are for my better good and the goals I set for myself. I am learning to make the changes and when needed, adjust accordingly. I know to keep this pace I must put eating healthy and sleep first. When you do that everything else follows suit and you will be able to accomplish what you wish. It is important to think of your body as a car that you want to rely on. You must take care of it if you want it to continue to run. Focus on your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, and in doing so, you will be able to move through the seasons of your life with much more ease.

I always say it is important to keep your eyes forward, but to see how far you have come look back on the past year and see what changes you have made. Are you stuck in a season or are you moving through it just fine. Be patient and kind to yourself while making changes. You can’t rush change just like you can’t rush Winter. When you are in the midst of change you may feel like the world is heavy and the sun will never shine again. Remember that Summer always comes, and the light at the end of your tunnel will too. Keep moving through the seasons of your life. I promise you will be so happy that you did.

 

In love and light,

Fran

One Day at a Time

We are now on Blog 32 and after this week we will have twenty more to go. I hear from a lot of you about doing the work and making changes, and so grateful for your input and that this journey is making a difference for you. In my first blog I stated that “my plan for the next year is to blog weekly about everything I learned from my studies and from my experience. My hope is that it can help others on their healing journey, and I also look forward to seeing where the next year of blogging will take me on mine.” It warms my heart when I hear feedback from you since when I started this blog, my thought process was that I would be putting out what I had learned to help others. The part I wasn’t ready for was that a new level of change and healing was getting ready to present itself for me. Most of the time now, when I write this blog, I am talking about things I have learned that I want to share with you, and it is also the lessons I am revisiting at that moment. I am learning that healing and change never stops, you just reach a new level of healing, knowledge and enlightenment. The goal for all of us is to then share what you have learned with the next person who needs it. We are all connected and that is how we heal and grow.

What I have been presented with lately is remembering to take this journey one step at a time and one day at a time. In my fifth blog I wrote, “this journey may seem overwhelming at first, but just remember it is a process and baby steps are needed. The truth is it took a long time to lose yourself, so the process of finding yourself again can take just as long. The comforting part is that as soon as you set the intention to make changes, then change starts to happen. Please do not get discouraged when first starting out. This is all about baby steps and moving forward one step at a time. Your baby steps may be three steps forward and two steps back, or if you are carrying around as much baggage as I was, then it may seem like two steps forward and three steps back. You may journal one day and get triggered and lose your balance and find that it takes days for you to recover. Remember no matter what happens pick yourself up and keep going. You may feel like you are starting over again and again but remember you are not. Each step forward you will be bringing the knowledge and lessons learned with you, so that next step forward may take you half the time as the last. Be kind to yourself on this journey. Everyone has their own story and baggage, so everyone moves at their own pace, and that is ok and part of healing. The goal is self-love, peace and happiness and is all that matters. Remember it takes as long as it takes.” Now that we are months beyond that time, and change is happening, it is important to remember that those baby steps forward also entail taking it one day at a time.

I was familiar with that term but really didn’t understand its meaning until about a decade ago. When you are so far in darkness and can’t see straight, and looking to make changes, the only way out and to survive is taking it one day at a time. You cannot look back, you cannot look forward, you must look only at the present. You must face the now. I am familiar with that feeling when waking up and showing up takes all the energy you have and anything more than that seems impossible. That is a sign self-focus and self-love is needed and to focus on the one day at a time. Ask yourself, what do I have to do today. You may have many things to do and feel overwhelmed but learn to break it down. Just for today, what is a priority. Some things can wait until tomorrow and some cannot. Focus on necessities and priorities and the things you need to do for today that will bring you a sense of peace and accomplishment – everything else can be for another day. Set goals, both long term and short term, but then break it down again to monthly, weekly, daily, hourly and learn to be in the present. You have heard me use terms like Let Go, Let God and this is where that comes into play. You have a goal and now give the rest to the Universe, trusting that they will guide you. Show up every day for yourself and the rest will work itself out. You are learning an important lesson and that is that focusing on the past brings sadness, the future brings anxiety, but focusing on the present brings peace.

This is where I am at on my journey as well. When I look back it comes with confusion and woulda, coulda, shoulda and those words have no place in our lives. You cannot change the past, so just learn from it. When I look down the road at everything, I want to accomplish I have to refocus on today or else I will give myself anxiety. There is too much I want to get done so my focus is what do I have to do today to get there and that is my focus, The rest I am giving to God and trusting that He has my back. I always say that if you show up in the right way with only good, positive intentions, then you can’t go wrong. Be present. Focus on today. Focus on you. Give love and consideration to everyone that shows up for you today, everyone else detach with love. People and situations that are supposed to be there for you will show up for you. Always do your best and give your best. Be the light for someone else’s darkness. Take this life one day at a time and give it your all and see what shows up for you.

Wishing you continued peace and happiness on this journey.

 

In love and light,

Fran

 

Find Your Safe Space

When I started this blog almost eight months ago, I had a plan and knew exactly what I wanted to write about. I had been working on my second book for the past decade, and this blog was my way of putting all of that together. My plan at the end of this year of blogging is to have my book finished. I had all the titles written out ahead of time, but then a few weeks into this journey, I realized that there was a bigger plan at play that I had nothing to do with. I would hear from you that what I wrote about was exactly what you were going through – and this began to happen week after week. I understand that when you have faith and trust there are no coincidences, so that was when I decided to just listen and wait before I would commit to start writing. I knew what I wanted to write about, but I also knew if I waited and stayed out of it the words would flow through me more freely. I would find the topics and the words that were meant to reach you. I believe in Divine timing, so I began to look at my blog the same way I deal with life. I no longer get attached to my outcome or my way of doing things, so I do not get attached to what I plan to write about for the week. We are all connected, and all being guided so I wait before I start to write. I wait for the ideas, the nudges, the struggles, and the synchronicities. I wait for everything to be presented to me, and every week without fail it all comes together. I am learning to let go and let God and in turn that helps us all.

I wasn’t sure what I would be writing about this week and then I was hanging out with my cousin and the title for this week presented itself. She mentioned reading my blog last week and was very touched that I was very grateful that right now I am in a very peaceful, stable environment where I feel very safe. I understood in that moment that I found my safe space and while you are healing you will have to do the same. You must find the people and places that help you feel safe while you are making changes. You must fill up your well and replenish your energy. Right now my cousin does that for me. Your safe space can be a person, it can be a room in your home, a chair, a park, a place where you go and grab a coffee, it can be anywhere. Your family can be your safe space or if your family is your issue then you will have to create one for yourself. You must put in the positive while you are removing the negative. Your life must always be about balance. When I first started my healing journey, my safe space was sitting in my car while my son was at the skatepark. I had a coffee, a journal and a pen and an hour to myself and looking back now, those moments I took for myself saved me.

When I was younger, I always had a chaotic, non-traditional home life, but I always had family around and that was my safe space. I always say that my siblings were my world, but my extended family is what gave me structure and a sense of belonging. They are why I had a shot at normalcy. Growing up without a mom took that feeling of normalcy away from me. I always felt different because of that, but what saved me was my cousins. Once I made this move back up north, they once again became my sense of belonging. Cousins are your best friends through family and accept you for who you are no matter what. They helped me find a sense of belonging because as kids they were my childhood and everything that is fun and then as adults, they remember everything about my life that trauma may have erased. They are my past, the rocks for my present and my cheerleaders for my future. They are my tribe.

If you aren’t blessed to have cousins and family and friends in your life - then find your tribe or create one. Find the people, or even one person, who helps you to feel comfortable in your own skin – the person who accepts you for being you. I have my family and friends who go back to childhood, but I also have a soul family who I have met along the way. These are the people who understand my spirituality - understand phrases like Divine timing - let go Let God - be mindful - the moon is full tonight charge your crystals - that’s because Mercury is retrograde - just sage it – etc. These are my people who understand me on a soul level and the reasons why I no longer hide who I am and what I do. They helped me to feel safe to be myself. They embraced who they were which made me want to embrace who I was. I no longer felt the need to hide that I was different, I was free to be me.

Most of us on this journey have learned to shut down and isolate and stay quiet because that was easier. Healing requires you to come out of that shell and change the old way of doing things. It requires you to be vulnerable. It requires you to come out of your comfort zone and be around people. That vulnerability must be balanced and won’t come out without an internal or external place of feeling safe to do that. If you are not ready for that just yet, then this blog every week can be your safe space. Your safe space becomes the place where you find mental and emotional stability, so setting time aside every week to read will help you begin to create that safe space for yourself, within yourself. As children, we may have been denied that feeling of safety, but as adults we can get it back. We can create what we didn’t have. We become our own advocates for self-love and safety. We spent a lifetime seeking love and validation outside of ourselves, not realizing that the secret to having it all lies within. We create our life, we create our destiny, and we create our own happiness.



In love and light,


Fran

Pause

The last thing I wrote last week was that we are the creators of our life and no one else should own that copyright. Now that my week has ended and my move complete, I am realizing that statement also comes with the responsibility that every choice you make comes with a consequence and that is all on you. The momentum of change has begun but you must take the time to reflect on where you have been and where you want to go. There comes a moment when you must pause. You must give yourself time to be still and just sit in the moment, so you don’t repeat old patterns and make the same mistakes. In times of stress, we resort back to our old ways of doing things. This is the time to change the old patterns and work on a new vision. We are trying to create a new life independent from our past and that requires conscious choices. Pause and reflect before moving forward. Be true to yourself and to be kind to yourself. Honor the changes you have made this far and then show gratitude.

There is a great book titled, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, that a college professor introduced me to years ago, and I am thinking that this is a good time to reread that book. We make great strides moving forward, creating change, and then fear and doubt slip in and we want to stop in our tracks. Remember that fear is ok, the trick is to power through it. Everyone is afraid at one time or another, what makes us different from each other is whether we allow fear to dictate our choices moving forward. Feel the fear, honor your feelings, and then use that to move forward towards your goals. I am sure that every successful and happy person out there will tell you that they have been afraid, but that fear was just a feeling that didn't dictate their life.

This is the stage I am at right now and I can feel my insides wanting to scream, wanting to run, wanting to hide, but I know that is just fear of change wanting to show its ugly head. I am trying to ignore those feelings, remembering that I initiated this change and now I must stay committed to it. I am very grateful that right now I am in a very peaceful, stable environment where I feel very safe. I am outside right now writing my blog and all I hear is the sound of nature. I find that to be the most peaceful sound and feeling in the world. It allows me to bond with the outside world where, at times, I feel like I have more of a relationship than the real one. I understand that those are just walls of protection I have built up over time and I am working on slowly taking them down.

When you are codependent or a people pleaser like I was, you tend to give away your choices to other people. When I was younger, I didn’t realize that I would wait until I gauged the temperature of the day from my surroundings before I would decide how I would feel. Were the people I was with happy, ok then I was too, were the people I was around on edge, ok then I was too. There was no distinction between where I started, and they ended so it all became one. There was no sense of self – I was always a part of a chaotic dynamic and that’s who I was. When I was older and married, I did the same thing. I wouldn’t know how I felt until I knew how they felt. It wasn’t until long after my second divorce that I realized I was holding the key to my misery, but I was also holding the key to my happiness. This was the time I embraced everything about myself and learned about what it was to be an empath. I learned that I was going about it all wrong and there was a way to gain strength from who I was while learning to put up boundaries with others. There is a place where I end, and you begin. There is a sense of self, my feelings matter and I have control of those feelings. I didn’t have to live my life as a chameleon and giving my power away. I could still be a good person even if I put up boundaries. My role in this life is to love myself and protect myself and I could do that from a very loving place. I could still show up how I want to without giving my sense of self away in the process. That knowledge and that awakening is when my healing journey began.

I know a lot of you are on the same journey and currently going through many changes. Our lives are in a constant state of change, so this is a great time to learn to embrace those changes. We are at the end of Summer here up north and everything is changing right now. Beach days are dwindling, winter clothes will soon be coming out of hiding, the leaves will be changing, change is all around us. This is the perfect time to take a pause before the next chapter, the next season. Know that it is ok to take a moment for yourself. Be confident knowing there is a difference between taking a moment to pause and staying stuck. Staying stuck means you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results (which is the definition of insanity). Taking a moment means you are in a flux of change and just need to pause to see where you have been and where you are going. You need to regroup because you have been doing things differently and viewing things differently and wanting something better for yourself. You are not stuck but taking leaps of faith. You are trusting your intuition. You are expecting more and not accepting less. You are different. You have released fear. You have changed. Take that moment to be proud of yourself and to be grateful. You, my loves, are healing.

In love and light,

Fran