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Universal Love and Committing to Joy

posted 22nd September 2011    Written by: Dusti    CATEGORY: Dusti, Family, Job/Career/Work, Season 5

The universe is trying to tell me something. I’m convinced.

After a summer of stressing over getting someone to rent to me, I applied to a random Craigslist housing ad. I found a nice two bedroom within my budget. It was a little further out than I wanted, but there was no application fee – which *fingers crossed* meant no credit/rental check.

It’s like the universe wrapped its arms around me and gave me a hug. She rented based on character, not background. And she was one of the nicest ladies I’ve ever met! You just don’t meet people like that anymore.

Then came the cherry on top - the best writing gig EVER lands in my inbox. Cue me dancing a jig! I can’t give details yet, but it’s with a company I would sell my left boob to work with long term.

A place to live and steady income. Did I just achieve some stability? Why, yes, I think I did. Count this as me exiting fight or flight mode. Unless I’m crazy, that should mean I make better decisions for a while.

At the end of this five months, I’ll be ready to pop. As in, the brand new baby boy will be making his arrival like a soda can exploding in the freezer. I’m so excited for him, but I’m afraid for me. My doctor said I have a high likelihood of getting extreme PPD again.

Last time, it destroyed my life. This time, I have a much better support network. I have a wonderful doula, and I’m not in a relationship with someone I can’t stand – progress, right? (In fact, he makes me quite happy. And makes trips out when I get cravings. Yep – he’s a keeper.)

The next several months are going to be jam-packed full of goodness. But, it’s also just jam-packed – you know, crappy airline style where the seats are too close together kind of packed. I’m not crazy enough to hope for balance, but I am dreaming of joy. Even when things go bonkers, I want to feel the deep joy of knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be doing what I’m meant to be doing. To commit to joy, I’m making three goals for my time here at Stratejoy.

My three goals for the next five months are:

To prepare as much as I can for the new baby. Mentally, this means making sure I have a network of wonderful women to connect with. I think Stratejoy is going to help with that a TON. Physically, it means yoga and setting up the nursery. (Because you KNOW it’s fun.)

To write my manifesto. Because I can’t write it until I understand all of the in’s and out’s of what I think. This is me committing to self exploration in away I haven’t before.

To open as many doorways as I can for my writing career. This means getting coaching, applying to grad school, working with amazing clients, and doing whatever I can to propel my writing to the next level.

It’s a good thing I like challenges, because this one is going to be one tough mother.

 

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The Arduous Task of Finding Oneself

posted 19th April 2011    Written by: Amanda    CATEGORY: All Posts, Amanda, Inspiration, Life Lesson, Season 4

This week — two weeks ago, really — I was sitting in the lab, waiting on blood work, and reading Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project”. It had arrived that morning in the mail, thanks to Barnes & Noble (seriously, I don’t care if it takes four weeks to get to my house if I can pay using PayPal). As I dove headfirst into Gretchen’s artful prose, I stumbled across an incredibly pertinent quote by poet, W.H. Auden:

“Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass without impunity.”

Sometime in the twelfth grade, I decided I knew exactly who I was going to be when I grew up: a software developer, creating bad-ass programs for some indie company that actually wanted to make a difference in the world. From there, I’d start my own software company, make amazing software that was actually useful and beautiful, and turn a serious profit. I’d be married by twenty-five and have babies by thirty. I’d travel to Europe and maybe live in Rome for a few years.

Sometime in 2008, it fell down around me in great gobs of loose threads and shattered dreams. It turned out that programming was still a game for good ol’ boys; a place where sexism (and ageism) was rampant. It wasn’t a place for a creative-nerd hybrid that longed to make a real difference. I watched my male counterparts being afforded very different opportunities, in spite of of my experience and expertise. By the time my employers had knocked me out on my ass, I was so bitter that I didn’t want any part of software anymore.

Not to work in. Not to create for. Not even to write for.

I was sent spiraling into this new, awkward direction of “Oh shit, I have no idea what to do now.”

The necessary limitation of my nature — an intrinsic need to create and distill meaning — meant that I was naturally unsuited to take orders and accept it unquestioningly. Over the years, I’ve accidentally limited myself to those positions because it was easier to take orders than to make them. If I simply went with what I was told to do, the onus would be on someone else.

Starting up (and growing into) an ittybiz, getting pregnant, and stretching my wings far beyond the accidental limitations I had placed on myself was a lot of pressure. And yeah, I cracked a few times. If you look closely, you’ll see the fine lines that are becoming cracks all over again. I’m having to (re)discover who I am. I’ve consumed vast quantities of information on the subjects of happiness, joy (like the Joy Equation), creative entrepreneurship, and (un)marketing.

I’ve spent large chunks of time trying to distill meaning from it all. Because, really, how does it all add up to a happy, meaningful life? I feel like I’m back in eleventh grade mathematics, observing an asymptote: the closer I get to an answer, the farther I get from the meaning.

It’s an interesting notion to think that our rite of passage — our quarter-life crises — is something that’s been expected of us all along. Auden’s insistence that self discovery really happens for the entirety of our middle years (for twenty years!) takes a lot of pressure off. If I’m still figuring out what an accidental limitation is as opposed to a natural limitation is well into my thirties, I know that I’ve only come partway through my arduous journey of self discovery and “finding myself”.

I can live with that.

Photo via The Notebook Doodles.

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Butterflies, Flowers, and Bold New Things

posted 24th February 2011    Written by: Bri    CATEGORY: All Posts, Bri, Love/Relationships
Girls… I, uh ….met a boy.
Oh, the difference a week makes.

Last week was The Loneliness… this week it is butterflies and boldness.  A whirlwind story lifted out of some sort of movie; the kind of movie that makes people roll their eyes from the sappy-romantic-mess.

It feels like a story that’s been told before: boy and girl meet and months go by until one night something clicks.  Sparks that light a would-be-normal-night on fire.  Cue the montage of flowers, kisses, cuddles, and declarations of “intense feelings”.

Suddenly, I find myself 48 hours into this; dizzy and out of breath.  It’s too early to tell you much, but in the spirit of Stratejoy and sharing my story with you all–

I am going to tell you that I am smitten.  Hardcore smitten.

I used to think that falling for someone required an abandonment of self to make the jump.  I’ve been known to jump too soon into things, recklessly leaping without making sure the other person is with me.  The result is times when I am IN IT,  looking up at the person I just jumped for, as they fumble around at the top refusing to jump for me.  Not ideal.

This feels entirely different.  This weekend is teaching me what bold is supposed to feel like in the beginning of a relationship that  has the potential to be life changing.  Bold doesn’t mean reckless.  Instead, I’m figuring out that boldness is taking intentional steps toward something that is simultaneously exhilarating and frightening.

I am fighting the urge to spend every minute of my day with him AND fighting the urge to run hard and fast in the other direction.  I am NOT running though.  Boldness is letting someone new enter your world, but slowly and thoughtfully.  Letting them in when it’s right not because I am forcing intimacy.

Everyone carries stories and baggage with them and feeling like I want him to know all of it, when the time is right, FEELS braver than I’ve ever felt.

So, that’s where I am.  Smitten, unable to think of anything else.  Baby-stepping into something feels HUGE and SCARY but also ELECTRIC and EASY. Things can change in an instant.  Wow.

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How Gratitude Leads to More Abundance

posted 7th December 2010    Written by: Doniree    CATEGORY: Doniree, Life Lesson, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

Books to read.  Blog posts to write.  Clients to please.  Calls to make.  Calls to take.  Relationships to maintain.  Love to give.  Love to receive.  Family.  Friends.  Business.  Work.  Yoga.  Physical health.  Spiritual health.  Mental health.  Emotional health.  Happy hours.  Brunch.  Potluck Sunday.  A night to myself.  A night out with friends.  Dinner.  Text messages.  Emails.  To-do lists.  Blog business.  New ideas.  New year.  New projects.  New.  Everything.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed, right?  To buckle under the weight of it all, whatever it all is for you.  How did I get to this place where there is SO MUCH TO DO? People to please, deadlines to meet, expectations to live up to.  I frequently say, “I’d rather be busy than bored,” and while that’s true – how true is it also that just once, just right this second, just for a day… we’d like to remember what bored feels like.

We are living the abundance we demanded

Chelsea and I have discussed these crushing moments more than once.  20-Something Women who juggle life, work, dreams, love, emotions, the QLC, wine, cheese, and living – just like so many others.  And in one of those moments, she said something that I’ve never forgotten:

Isn’t it funny?  How we’re exactly where we wanted to be, exactly where we asked the Universe to put us, and yet we’re frustrated and tired and overwhelmed?  We’re living the abundance we desired, the abundance we demanded — and yet, where is our gratitude?

How true is that?  I asked for this. I asked for clients that were interesting and whose work I believed in.  I have them.  I asked for deep relationships and friends that are like family – in cities across the country and scattered around the world.  I have them. I asked for a lover and a best friend who shared the same dreams and direction as I did.  I have him.  I asked for creative opportunities, and here I am.

Life is abundant. Opportunities are abundant, and when I can remember that I’m exactly where I wanted to be and instead of sighing in exasperation, I cry out in gratitude – suddenly I can handle it.  Suddenly, the unmanageable is manageable.  The hurdles are jumped.  The edge is pushed and changed.

For this, I am grateful.

As I write this, it’s Saturday night.  I have a glass of wine next to me, and BoyfriendMan works on his laptop at the kitchen table next to me.  For that, I am grateful.  For a relationship that supports my creative bursts at 10pm on a Saturday night, I am grateful.  I have a to-do list a mile long, but for that, I am grateful.  I have steady income and work for clients who challenge me creatively and whose mission I support with every ounce of my being.  For that, I am grateful. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I’ll attend a yoga teacher training class, have some time to spend at home packing for my upcoming move, and will spend tomorrow evening with friends-like-family at our weekly potluck.  For the chance to further study yoga and the opportunity to soon teach, I am grateful.  For a lifestyle that allows me the freedom to pack up and move across the country in the name of exploration and adventure, I am grateful.  For friends-like-family and a social calendar full of rich and loving relationships, I am grateful.

I could see that above paragraph as one big to-do list.  Write this blog post, pack for the move, show up to Potluck, get your work done, cross this off, maintain this, be attentive to that.  I could.  But that would make things like creativity and relationships a task – and they’re not.  They’re evidence of abundance in my life, and for that – I am grateful.

And if I’ve learned anything about gratitude this year, it’s that the expression of it – for the immense and for the mundane, – almost always guarantees MORE of the goodness.  More abundance, more love, more living.

Even when I struggle, I find those things that I’m grateful for and I focus in hard on those things.  The stressors start to melt, and calm sets in.  Gratitude is powerful.

No matter where you are, there is at least one thing in your life your are most immensely grateful for.  What is it?

{Photo credit}

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Everyday Happiness

posted 10th November 2010    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: All Posts, Inspiration, Life Lesson, Nikki, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

Any of you who know me, or have gotten to know me outside of Stratejoy, know that gratitude plays a big part in my life.   My personal blog is called The Grateful Sparrow and (almost) everyday I tweet a gratitude list.  It reminds me of how much in my life is good, great, wonderful – even (especially) on days when everything seems to be going wrong.  But I have not always been this way.

Two years ago, I was full to the brim of negative self-talk. No one who knows me would’ve ever suspected it; I was just my cheery, optimistic self on the outside, but in my mind, I was absolutely horrendous.  My default setting, the reason anything went wrong, was “I’m a mess.”  I said it all the time.  I said it laughingly to friends when I forgot something, “Ha, what a mess I am!”  I said it angrily to myself when I made a mistake, “Why am I such a mess??!”  I resigned myself to it and it became my truth.

I was working a 9-5 office job that, while it gave me wonderful security, was stressful, unchallenging, and not even on the same planet as any job I’d remotely want as a career.  Every day I would zombie-drive the same route in the same traffic, zoned out and dreading the day, often sending up a little prayer to quell my anxiety and try to control the uncertainties facing me that I really couldn’t control.  I would pass the first few hours of my day with a sinking feeling in my stomach and self-blame in my head, sucking all other thoughts & feelings down like quicksand.  Every.  Day.

Around the same time, frustrated with and trying to improve my acting career, I joined an artist’s co-operative.  We kept each other accountable to our goals and supported and encouraged each other; the group aimed to bring us all out of our comfort zones and out of our unhealthy mental patterns that might be holding us back.  Obviously (well, it’s obvious now), I had a lot of those.

One of the guys in the group suggested that we email each other with 5 things we’re grateful for every day, just as an exercise to get us into a more positive headspace.  It was really hard at first.  I remember driving in to work, dread and apathy vying for domination in the pit of my stomach, and sitting in front of my computer, staring at it blankly.  What am I grateful for?  The only time I’d ever thought about expressing gratitude outside of saying an obligatory “thank you” was on Thanksgiving, and that was usually muddled by a mouthful of turkey. Now I have to write it down?  And send it to people?

I sat there trying not to think of all the things I’m not grateful for, and trying to remember the last time I felt super happy.  Why couldn’t I think of anything?  What was wrong with me??  Why was I such a mess??  I looked down at my hands on the keyboard.  I have 10 fingers.  I’m grateful for that.  I know how to type.  I’m grateful for “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing,” even though I hated it growing up.  I’m grateful for the cup of coffee slowly waking me up.  And so on…

My first six months of gratitude lists were like that.  And sometimes they still are.  I’m grateful for hot showers and good music and smiling.  Some days I sat for a good 15 minutes unable to think of a single thing to be grateful for.  But I didn’t let myself go a day without writing my list. It helped to get lists from the other people in the group – so much happiness was shared every day.  Slowly, gratitude came easier; in fact, I started to feel that it was a necessary part of my morning routine.  So when the group disbanded and the emails slowly stopped their joyous flow into my inbox, I decided I needed someone else to keep me accountable to my gratitude, and I began sending my list to my family, best friend, and roommate.

During all this, other things in my life began to change.  Getting myself off of negative autopilot, even if only for the 5 minutes it took to write my gratitude list, made me realize that I was on autopilot in the first place.  I started to wake up from my zombie state, snapping myself out of it on the drive to work by focusing on a particularly beautiful blooming tree on the side of the road, instead of the creeping traffic.  I suddenly realized that maybe I felt like such a mess only because I kept telling myself I was a mess, and worked on replacing that phrase with a positive mantra.

My gratitude lists got longer, and instead of just writing out of habit, I started to really feel them; they made me happy.  I woke up thinking of what I’d write, and they were bright spots in days that were otherwise less than stellar.  I found myself not getting caught up in as much drama; when something bad happened, I would be upset about it for a little while and then, automatically, without even realizing it, I’d be thinking of the positives. I wasn’t Pollyanna, I wasn’t lying and saying things were fine when they weren’t, I truly started to feel better about everything.

I honestly believe that writing gratitude lists changed my outlook and changed my life.  It is my quick fix to happiness, because as soon as I write down what I’m grateful for, I feel just a little bit happier.  Every.  Day.

Today I am so happy and grateful for dark chocolate & green tea, all you amazing lovely ladies out there reading, and R.W. for introducing gratitude into my life two years ago.

What are you happy and grateful for?

PS – if any of you would like to commit to a month of gratitude, I’ll hold you accountable.  Tweet me your gratitude list at @gratefulsparrow every day for 30 days.  See how it changes you.

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