BECOMING VULNERABLE

COME AT ME BRO!!!! Hands up, fists clenched, maybe a few moves around the ring like my boy “Canelo” ready and waiting for the next punch to my face. Crazy as that sounds, I look at this self defense as being proactive, not negative. Ready to defend and attack before anything has a chance to hit me first. How old am I, right? Ummm, I’m 44 not 14. It doesn’t seem very mature at all, but that’s how I’ve approached life since my Dad walked out the door when I was 5 years old, after he came back and my parents remarried and they divorced again later after my Mom and my Dad’s best friend were busted having an affair. I was young but very aware of what was happening in front of my eyes, and holding a secret like that as a child is a very unhealthy thing. I remember the night my dad finally wised up and came home early that night. What followed is a memory I will never forget.

Being too open and vulnerable allows people to hurt my heart and break my trust. Frankly I’m just not down with that. Last night I watched Will Smith on Instagram and he said “Life is hard, you might get hurt, your heart might get broke, BUT you gotta COMMIT! Don’t hesitate. Go! Commit! You might lose something but you can’t experience the joy that is intended for you in life if you don’t GO!” His words were a KNOCK KNOCK…H-E-L-L-O…Are you in there? right on my brain. This doesn’t only apply to love, it applies to everything in our lives. The reason I avoid being vulnerable is that I fear what I don’t know, and by nature if things are “ok” I don’t like rocking the boat with change so I stay as stale as a bag of chips left unclipped.

I acknowledged out loud to my boyfriend and to my best friend the other day that I needed help. That I felt I had an addiction for the first time in my life. I’ve suffered from A.D.D. my whole freaking life, not really acknowledging it until August 2015 when I accepted a new position as a Paralegal. I wanted to stop wallpapering my office with post-it notes and furthermore I was sick of living my weekends with TO-DO lists that were never completed and trying to have conversations with someone bouncing around 10 subjects in less than a minute. Try to keep up with that! It’s tough! So I began medication and it has been a whirlwind of clarity and a fantastic ride, but it has also had negative side effects such as anxiety, mood swings, hair loss, etc. I tried to stop taking the medication this summer and that lasted about 2 weeks. FAIL. I never told anyone that I started taking it again, because I felt like such a loser. I felt like I had to keep it a secret because I was weak. The moment I shared that I felt I couldn’t manage life without it and I needed human help, I became vulnerable. How? I asked for help. I asked for patience. I put it out there that I needed someone.

That day, my fists were down, but I felt strong in my vulnerability. GO…COMMIT…be vulnerable.

Inhale…Exhale…

Vulnerable

TAK

FORGET IT! YEAH, YOU READ THAT RIGHT!

STOP REMEMBERING THE SHIT THAT DOESN’T SERVE YOU. Insert my best Italian “FORGET ABOUT IT” right here. If I had a dollar for every post-it note or journal note on my phone used to remind myself of “something” I need to do or not forget, I WOULD BE FREAKING RICH AS SHIT $$$$$$ CHA-CHING! Wait, shit isn’t rich is it? Whateve…you get my point.

This ridiculous topic of choice today is the feeling that I need to remember every little thing that happens in my life. Good and bad. Who has time for that? Clearly me if I could physically wallpaper a room with all the flipping post-it notes I have surrounding me at work and home.

Recently my goal driven boyfriend and I completed the monster task of cleaning out my mother’s home. She passed in February 2015. The hoarding alone took (2) 40′ dumpsters and a few crazy months of work to flip the home for sale. I realized before the project started that I would be extremely overwhelmed by so many different emotions. It was both mentally and physically exhausting. I needed to take in every memory good and bad that came with this task. Those moments and memories have made me who I am – past and present. We started at the beginning of April and the final work was completed on June 24, 2018, on the market the same day and an offer the next day. #WIN

I struggled with the loss of my Mom and denial of that favored me. There were so many memories that brought anger and tears as well as laughter and smiles. The one thing I learned from this experience by reliving and remembering so many memories is that I never wished I was little again. “Oh there are so many wonderful memories in this house, I loved being a kid, I sure wish I was 5 years old” NO…NO FUCKING WAY. WOW…what does that say about the childhood fun? Tons. Maybe, and that’s a HUGE maybe, I’d crank back time to say, 10 or 11 years old. Old enough to make some different choices in my life for my future self, but not young enough to go through some of the ups and downs that I’ve put out of my mind. Being forced to spend this much time at my childhood home helped heal my soul and in some ways say goodbye to her. I know she would be very proud of what we accomplished.

When I think about all the time spent on memories of the past (even if that past is last week or yesterday) I could slap myself. Yet I’ve caught myself over the past few days doing the same thing. Especially the memories that are not worth spending precious time on or holding on to negative memories that only bring negative thoughts into my mind. I wrote the following note to myself just now. #keepinitclassy

Dear Jack-Ass Self,

If you can’t remember the shit clutter without journal notes or post-it notes…IT MUST NOT BE WORTH REMEMBERING.
Get a clue & you’re welcome!

Yours truly,
Jack-Ass Self

Today, with my favorite 5 second rule (I love Mel Robbins, “The 5 Second Rule”) I’ve decided to PURGE notes and screenshots from my phone that do not serve me in a positive way. If I feel the need to write down bad shit or shit memories and the good shit or amazing shit is not WINNING in my life at least 90% of the time then HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM. This pattern of habit needs to evolve and not by writing more notes or keeping more negative things to remember. If it doesn’t serve me in a positive way, it’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to make room in my MIND and free up my TIME for the things WORTH remembering.

I still love post-it notes btw, but they will be used for store lists and maybe a cute little note to myself that says “Don’t be a dick by keeping track of stupid shit that doesn’t serve you!”

Inhale…Exhale…

TAK

Don't be a dick

My life is a bit of a shit show and it’s okay.

There are days when I wake up and automatically feel like a total and complete badass. Then there are the days I wake and think, please please please let me wake up again, hit restart and make this shit show disappear. Yep, call me a dream chaser, because that doesn’t happen. EVER. I can choose to struggle with the day or I can embrace the shit show for what it is and make it positive. This morning in the shower, which is like my meditation time to myself, no kids, no thinking, no drama, and I can hear my music playing through my cell phone being interrupted over and over again with work emails, regular emails, texts, notifications etc. What do I do? I yell at my phone like it’s the phones fault for doing its job. It only reiterates to me, I need to be in therapy once again.

I think the main reason I feel overwhelmed by life sometimes, is because I don’t prioritize the crazy train. In fact I know that’s the issue. There’s a ton going on in my life as with most people. Work, training in the gym, raising good kids, kids and school, dealing with an idiot ex-husband who makes everything under the sun difficult, trying to learn BJJ, maintaining good relationships and friendships, pursuing passions, trying to establish boundaries in my life I’ve never had and the other 50 billion other things I want to accomplish that never get checked off the list.

Every whiney piece of me, wants to cry out “what about me?” “I need to be the priority, I need to be happy. If I’m not happy how can I be a good mom, or a good blah blah blah”. Frankly I caught myself saying that in my head a few weeks ago, circling the wagons with the same round and round logic of “Hey jackass, you are going to get your shit in order starting tomorrow, you are the priority and everything else will fall into place. You’ve done it before, you can do it again.” But then I thought no. No, I will not get my shit together. Why not? Because I just won’t. THAT IS THE REALITY. Not in this moment of time. And guess what, for the first time EVER, that’s ok. #REBEL

I have created so much additional pressure trying to stay in the same previous pattern priorities that I haven’t allowed myself to evolve, which has denied me the ability to come to terms with the fact that IT IS OKAY to just be. Stop with the countdowns for a minute. Stop with the pressure to “get on track”. Stop with the negative talk to myself that I need to be this or that. JUST STOP. JUST BE. It really is okay. Inhale…Exhale…