As a millenial, healing from the traumas that so many of us have, the idea of giving being better than receiving strikes a new chord. When I was younger, I remember that my family always had so much going on. My dad worked away from home. My mom was kept busy with my brother, who was always in trouble for something or needed her attention for some reason. I was the oldest, and I didn’t want to cause problems. My parents had enough to deal with. So, I stayed out of trouble, I stayed to myself.

As I got older, I found that I was more likeable when I didn’t need anything. In my jobs, the more time and energy I committed, the better I did. I was liked by my coworkers and my managers, and they never had to worry about if I would come in for a shift or even pick one up. In my relationships, I found that they lasted longer when I didn’t ask for anything. I clarified but didn’t ask for clarity. I apologized but didn’t ask for explanations.

Tonight, during a conversation with a friend, I said the quiet part out loud. If I don’t earn something on my own merit, I don’t feel like I deserve it. I am not worthy of receiving unless I give an equal or greater amount first. I used to give because it made me feel like I was more likeable, more palatable. Eventually, I got to the point that if more was asked of me than was being returned, I felt taken advantage of and became resentful. Conversely, if I am receiving more than I give, I am a burden. Anything given to me is a transaction. Even if I’m not expected to reciprocate, I believe that if I don’t, I will eventually be resented. I will be left because I need too much. I found myself calculating sums, how much I received and how much I then owed.

Healing is messy business. One is forced to face so many truths that aren’t just uncomfortable, they sound downright absurd to others that are listening. They see your survival mechanisms, and they have no idea that the reason you are so quick to volunteer for a shift or forgive an indiscretion is because you are terrified of being abandoned. They don’t know that you are trying to balance some karmic scale that only exists in your mind.

But here is a truth that I haven’t even accepted yet: They aren’t keeping score. If they love you, they are giving to you because they want to see the joy in your eyes, and that is enough reciprocation. The way you give so selflessly is making others feel so grateful for you, but they loved you already. Others are grateful because your generosity makes them feel safe and seen in a way they haven’t felt before. Your love is healing the trauma of others and you don’t even know it. You are worthy of every act of kindness, and it has been given to you not because of anything you are or do, but because of how you make others feel. You bring the light into the world, and you deserve absolutely everything.

There were a lot of tears in the year before my son graduated and right after. There were a lot of questions I had no answers for, and a lot of emptiness. I floundered, and I was lost.

I’m tired of being lost. I’m not waiting anymore for a path to jump out in front of me. I have decided what I want. I want to write. I want peace and calm. I want to wake up every day filled with purpose, and I know it can be mine. These are the five habits I am committing myself to in order to achieve these goals:

1. Making a decision

I have always believed that you can have whatever you decide on. I got most of the jobs I wanted. I got promoted when I wanted to. I finished my bachelor’s in psychology, even though I didn’t really believe I could do it. I decided and I did it. But when it came to the future, I had no idea what I wanted. I couldn’t decide on a path. I was surviving, not living.

I couldn’t have decided on a path two years ago. I couldn’t imagine a future where I wasn’t living day to day, hour to hour. It has taken a lot of journaling and meditating and thinking. I have spent time visualizing how each path looks in the future. And I have decided. Now all of my decisions can be made in support of that decision. And when all of your decisions are made for one purpose, you can’t help but move in that direction.

2. Making peace

Making peace means so much more than just accepting. It means forgiving myself for the time that I have wasted not knowing what I wanted. It means acknowledging that I am a product of the environment I was raised in, but that I was never a victim of circumstances. It means forgiving others for the ways I have been hurt and understanding that they did the best they could. That I allowed myself to be in those situations, and even used other's struggles as a way to make myself feel more worthy by playing the hero. That I blamed others for pushing past the boundaries I refused to set and enforce. Accepting my own role in my life is hard, but it has been necessary.

3. Making space

This is making a space where I feel safe stay. I like to go. But I can’t create when I am on the go, so it has been necessary for me to make a space to stay. A space where I am comfortable and inspired. I have made my writing room into a space that is reflective of me. It feels comfortable and whimsical and magical. It has fairy lights all around, a comfortable sitting area, candles and a even a water fountain for the sound. If stays clean and maintained and when I am in here, I don’t think about my to-do list. I think about my writing and I am filled with joy. Your space may not have fairy lights and a water feature, but it should be somewhere you want to be and feel comfortable and can focus.

4. Making a schedule

This isn’t just a schedule of things to do. It’s not a list of things I want to accomplish. It’s a schedule that works with my real life and gives me an outline that keeps me focused and on track. No, it doesn’t make my house spot less and my social life active and me at the gym 7 days a week. But it does work with my natural energy rhythm. I know that if I go to bed at 10 pm I will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. So I schedule swimming at 10 because it relaxes me, then I go to bed at midnight, relaxed and I can actually sleep through the night. I work three long days in a row every week, so on those days I don’t plan chores or cooking. I just schedule work and I let that be enough. I know the morning after those three days I am tired, so I schedule rest. Scheduling my rest helps me not feel guilty for it. I know I need it to be productive at other times.

5. Making it simple

This is maybe the hardest step because I want to do all the things. I want to run errands and go out to lunch and pay my bills in person. I like to cook different meals every week with lots of ingredients and using all the dishes in the kitchen. I like to start big projects and then get mad at myself for not finishing it.

I’m not saying I will never do those things again. But at this moment, at this stage of my goals, it is necessary for me to keep things simple. I am taking things off my plate. I am delegating where I can. I have automated my bills. I am shopping online. I have the same laundry and cooking days every week. I am making simple meals that can be portioned so that food takes up almost no space in my brain. I know what I’m eating and when I’m making it, and I have almost no dirty dishes to do because I’m only cooking twice a week. Keeping it simple is freeing up my mind to focus on my creative goals.

I am new at this, so it isn’t an art yet, it’s a practice. The first week I didn’t do a very good job at it at all. The next few weeks were better. And yesterday, my boss told me she can tell I am doing something different and it’s working because I am calmer and more focused at work and she asked to collaborate on what I am doing. So, no it’s not perfect, but here I am, writing, so it’s getting there. I’ll keep you updated!

The trick to imposter syndrome is realizing that nobody actually knows what’s going on. Confidence is literally everything.

Did you take a management role with no management experience? Doesn’t matter. Just decide you know what to do. All they are looking for is answers. Even the wrong answers. You learn as you go.

Started a blog with no experience? Doesn’t matter. Podcast, short, reel, video? Doesn’t matter if you know what you’re doing. They don’t know. Just do it. You’ll figure out what works and most of your audience will have no idea.

Just your daily confidence talk. Do the things. They don’t know any better!

I have wasted so much time.

I am haunted by the things I could have accomplished if I had started living with intention years ago. But you literally can’t be intentional until you have some idea of what you want. Being intentional is making choices that get you to a specific goal, choosing that goal daily, in every moment of your day. It’s deciding who you are, then acting accordingly. You can’t do that if you aren’t sure of what you want.

I know I haven’t lived with intention because I never really thought I could be much of anything. I was just happy if I got through the day. I never thought I was good enough to really go anywhere. My days were filled with me looking around lost, not sure what the next step was because I was so stuck.

I know what I came from. I came from chaos and crazy. A life caught up in the daily survival of addiction and hiding from anything real. I watched my parents stumble into whatever was in front of them. I saw my brothers live as if there was no future. I turned into a person lost in the haze of marijuana and alcohol. When your mind is numb, you don’t have to think about what your goals are. You just get to the next high.

There were moments of clarity when I thought I knew what I wanted, who I wanted to be. But when it came time to make a decision, I floundered. I hid. I waited. I panicked. I scrolled.

I had a destination, but I wasn’t getting on the train. I was just standing by the tracks, watching the cars passing me by, wondering it just missed my stop. But the truth is, I was never even on the platform. I didn’t even know what train I was trying to get on.

Turns out, it was never a train. It was a plane. And I had my ticket all along. I just had to decide to go to the airport.

This is transition. This is going from survival to execution of goals. I am focused on intention because I finally feel like I can go somewhere. I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much time, especially when my kids were little. We could have had so much more. But this is what a life in transition is. It’s mourning the could-have-been without beating yourself up. It’s knowing that it’s late, but not too late. Maybe it’s even right on time.

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Stuck in the titles

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Single mom… Eldest daughter… College student… bartender…

What do you do when the titles that defined you for so many years don’t apply anymore? Who do you become when who you have been isn’t who you are now?

This is where I find myself. All of the ways I have defined myself are evolving and I am finding the places I fit now. If I am honest, it’s a little overwhelming. But what if the titles have been holding us back? What if who we really are transcends the titles we limit ourselves to? How do we find our place when the ties that held us down are moving into their own realities, their own titles?

For years, my personal definitions were based on what I was to the people around me. But it’s time for me to figure out who I am for myself, and who I want to be in the future. It feels like such a luxury just be without being for others.

I know I am not the only person out there trying to figure out who is me without the we. Let’s figure it out together.

Join me

Every week while I go on an exploration of me, and maybe together we can find who we are looking for in ourselves. I don’t know what’s in store. I only know that my titles are changing. Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, or maybe it’s just the middle of life.

My parents are trauma survivors, but I don’t think they healed. I will give a short history for context. My mom is the middle child of 7. Three older brothers, three younger brothers. She was adopted by her grandparents when her mom and brothers moved to california. She was raised Pentacostal, in a very strict environment. My dad was the youngest child. While I know his family, I don’t actually know much about his childhood. I think his dad died as a result of a motorcycle accident. I know he has two older sisters and two older brothers. My parents got married when my dad was 20 and my mom was 15. I was born when my mom was 16.

I don’t know if I would call my parents good parents. I think they did their best. But when I think about the problems my brothers and I have dealt with, I can say pretty confidently that they stemmed directly from the way we were brought up. It’s too much for one post but deserves some time in the future. Stay tuned for that.

The point of this post is to say that the beginning of my performance and title collection started here. Big sister. Protector. Eldest daughter. The good child. Undiagnosed ADHD and depression and bipolar disorder.

This was the beginning of my constant guilt. My perfection performance. My joiner syndrome. And I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

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