Life is not just a moment in time, it's not just one event or chapter -
it is a series of chapters that come together to form who you are.
Your reality is not determined by faking it until you make it.
Your reality is determined by how well you walk through the fire. 
~ J.V. Manning

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I would like to say that I wake up every single day ready to take on the world, full of positive intentions and a smile that just refuses to quit. I would like to say it, but I can't. I'd be lying. Some days I wake up, and the last thing I want to do is face the world. Some days I don't want to smile or rise and shine. Some days I don't want to be me or do what needs doing because I would rather just hide out, drink coffee and pretend that life isn't messy as hell.
 
Some days I wish I wasn't me because I always see everything as it is and apparently lack the ability to gloss everything over and pretend that everything is just hunky-dory. I am an optimistic realist, and I don't know how to be any other way. And boy, are some days when I wish I could. Kinda. There are days when all I want to do is bury my head in the sand and let the world and all of my problems work themselves out without me. Days when I no more want to deal with my life, its stresses or people, than I would like to get a root canal.
 
But still, I get up every morning.
 
I’ve never figured out how to hide from life. I don't know how to avoid dealing with my problems head on or facing life’s challenges. I don't know how to ignore everything that’s wrong. I completely lack the ability to turn a blind eye to anything broken in my world. I know what being happy, and content feels like and I LOVE it - when it's real. I won’t pretend that it’s happening when it isn’t, regardless of how uncomfortable that makes me. If something is hurting me, not working out for me, stressing me or just broken, and I am not settled and content in my world, you can damn well bet I am going to ask the hard questions. I will look under every rock and challenge every shadow, however daunting it feels so I can get back to where I want to be mentally. I have worked far too hard and battled too many demons to accept anything less than what I deserve. Just to be clear here, no one dictates what you deserve in life but you. While you may not always get what you give, no one but you has any say in what is good enough. Took me awhile to appreciate that.
 
I loathe the phrase - fake it 'til you make it. 

Life is messy. It's emotional, incredibly infuriating and unquestionably overwhelming at times. It beats you up, chews you to pieces and unceremoniously spits you out. Then, the sun shines through the dark clouds and a rainbow forms in the sunlight to remind you life is not just a moment in time, it's not just one event or chapter - it is a series of chapters that come together to form who you are. Your reality is not determined by faking it until you make it. Your reality is determined by how well you walk through the fire. Assuming of course, you allow yourself to see the fire in the first place.
 
Who you are is determined by how you face each day, how you handle the messy and how you strive for real, even when real hurts like hell. Who you are is found in how you take the lessons life throws at you; break them down, examine them while being scared to death, and then find ways to make them work for you instead of against you. Life isn't just about the lessons. It's about making those lessons mean something to your life. Ignoring them doesn't do this. Embracing them does.
 
No one is sunshine and rainbows all the time. No one. It's not possible. Anyone who tells me that life is perfect and sunshiny all the time has their head buried in the sand. They aren't living life; they’re faking it and faking it doesn't bring a happy reality any closer than not getting up in the morning does. Faking it is delaying the inevitable. Faking it is telling yourself that you’re not worth the effort it’s going to take to get yourself to the place in this world that you want to be. Faking it is lying to yourself. You convince yourself of nothing of value or substance when you fake being happy or content and on some level you have to know everything in your life that you are faking will crumble into a dark and dismal reality at some point that you won’t be able to deny any longer.
 
Everyone is not okay sometimes. Everyone loses their way, has their heart broken, suffers from some terrible circumstances or events at some point in life. Everyone has people who hurt them and the scars to show it. We are not alone in this. The difference between everyone is how they deal with it. If they do the work or not. Some will. Some will not. Some with check out of life mentally, just going through the motions; maintaining some pretense of being well adjusted and content that will be about as deep as a puddle after a summer rainstorm. 

Not living, merely surviving.
 
Life is about finding depth, finding meaning and doing more than just going through the motions. Life isn't about excuses, all the reasons why you can't get up, speak your truths and honor all that you have been through. It's doing the work needed to find your way through it. It's not about telling yourself tomorrow, or next week you will. It's not about being strong enough or smart enough. All of that is found within the journey but will never be found if one doesn’t get out of their own way, and start the damn journey.
 
Life takes on a whole new perspective – when YOU DO THE WORK.
 
I may not wake up every day filled with positivity. I may lose my smile for days on end. I may get so lost in the swirling vortex of emotions inside my soul that I not only don't want to participate in life; I want to run screaming for the hills from it. I may, and it's okay. Because it's real emotions that are screaming for attention. It's my soul saying; "Hey knucklehead, life isn't great right now, what are you going to do about it?" Ignoring them and the cries of my soul doesn't make it better. Faking a smile may fool the world but it doesn't fool my heart or my mind. Pretending I am not scared or overwhelmed doesn't make me courageous or strong. Swinging my legs out of bed and planting my feet on the floor does, though. Spending time within and having much need soul conversations is as good a place as any to start. 

​Seeing everything clearly - the dark and volatile, as well as, the bright and shiny, is what's going to help me through the fire. It may not be pretty. It may not feel good. It may cause my heart to race and my head to throb, but I know that if I let it go on, all glossed over and fake, it will go on forever and become even harder to face in the long run. I let it go, and my entire life becomes a lie. I won’t be content and happy. I will become a wraith flittering through endless days of nothing. I want more from life than that.

I want to live, not just survive.
 
A content and happy life isn’t found faking it 'til you make it. A content and happy life is found within the work of making it. Do the work. Challenge yourself. Lose the rose colored glasses. Stop lying to yourself that everything is fine when it isn’t. Ask for help. Seek guidance. Get out of bed every day with the intention of doing something, anything to get you further ahead than you were yesterday. Being an optimistic realist means seeing reality clearly, both the ugly and the beautiful parts and knowing that while it may not be okay right now, you’re optimistic you can get yourself there eventually if you’re willing to do the work.
 
Do the work. 

For years, I lived comfortably behind my carefully constructed wall of stone. Keeping everyone at arm’s length, inviting no one into my inner sanctum. I felt safe and protected. By allowing no one to get close to me, by not opening my heart and soul, I thought I would keep all the hurt and bad at bay.
 
Didn’t work.
 
Bad still happened, people still hurt me, and I was faced with the reality that either I took the good with the bad and found my way through life, or give up. Giving up wasn’t an option and seeing that literally walling myself off from the world wasn’t a viable option either – I changed tactics.
 
I need the world just as badly as it needs me. I need people; people need me. I wasn’t born to live in the shadows. I wasn’t born to hide myself away. Neither were you. We’re here to live and love; breathe and dance; touch lives and have our lives touched by others. We’re here to experience, learn and grow. We’re here for the good and the bad.
 
We need to own our place in this world. 

I live life out loud. I talk about things most shy away from. I pull things from the darkness and shed as much light on them as possible. I love people. I don’t care what they do, who they love, what they look like or how much money they have. I will talk to anyone, listen to anyone and I always make time for someone who’s hurting. I compliment strangers, male or female and never take myself too seriously. This is my authentic living. This is me, doing me. Works most of the time.
 
However, there are times when me being me – backfires.
 
I know I have a solid handle on life but will always have things to learn. Like while walling myself off from the world didn’t work, setting some VERY clear boundaries is imperative to my sanity, safety, and wellbeing. You should never allow yourself, thoughts or decisions are disrespected. Allowing people to walk all over you, take advantage of you without speaking up or shutting them down is not honoring your soul. You set the rules of your life for what you allow and are comfortable with. No one else. 
 
 A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect.
 
While I always thought I had common sense boundaries with people, I’ve discovered there are way more than a few people who completely lack common sense. For example; strangers are not welcomed to touch my body nor are they allowed to stand in the square of personal space everyone on this planet is entitled to. Another is assuming because I am friendly I am interested in anything further than a random conversation with a person passing through my field of consciousness. And while I may love meeting new people I trust my gut instinct implicitly and when my gut says not to interact with someone – I listen. 

Which leads me to my biggest and most important boundary of all; ‘no’.
 
“No.” Is a complete sentence.
 
Recently, I briefly came into contact with a man I thought, mistakenly as it turns out, was my friend’s new boyfriend. My error quickly became apparent as he started off a conversation with “Hello, we should go out to lunch.” Then, before I could respond, he asked me if I was married because as he continued, “Doesn’t mess around with married women.” The conversation went downhill from there. Even after I clearly stated I am happily married, not interested and moving on – he continued. He was creepy, inappropriate and not interested in taking a hint. He also, as it turns out, works close to me.
 
Any woman who has been in this position knows the litany of thoughts that run through your head. Do I need to worry about him? Will he stop? Will he become confrontational? We feel the need to explain ourselves when someone crosses our boundaries and makes us uncomfortable. We apologize. We change our routines to avoid them. I’ve done it before. This time, I got angry. Defiant. I owed him nothing. I owe myself everything.
 
Refuse to change your life when someone doesn't respect your boundaries.
 
Release the need to explain yourself. Stop feeling that anyone who disregards your boundaries deserves anything more than the view of your back as you walk away, head held high. Be firm. Your decisions and life choices are yours and yours alone. The only one who needs to approve or understand – is you. Never feel like you have to be nice or swallow your words when someone disrespects you or disregards your personal boundary lines.
 
Your world. Your rules. 

I got lost in the beauty of a warm fall day. My thoughts meandering around my mind as the sun warmed my face and my eyes drank in the autumn splendor in my back yard. The sky was an impossible shade of robin’s egg blue with clouds so puffy I imagined sitting on one and just floating around. There was a stillness to the afternoon that made my soul sigh in contentment. Sitting there, with my feet up on the rail of my deck, coffee in hand, I was completely lost to the magic of the moment.

​A soft breeze stirred up, bringing that undeniable crisp smell of fall and the colorful leaves started to flutter. All of a sudden the quiet was broken by the sound of falling leaves and the crunching of a passing squirrel on the forest floor. I sat there mesmerized, watching the wind gently shake the leaves free from the trees and float them gently to the ground. Aside from the squirrel and myself, there was no one to see the tree shed parts of itself it no longer needed. It knew that the leaves had served their purpose and now in a beautiful, colorful finale, allowed them to drop from its branches, leaving them bare in their wake. 

Every fall the trees lose what no longer serves them and as they drop the leaves from their branches, they seal the empty hole left behind, protectively. Then, they follow a process that protects them from the elements and settle into themselves for the long winter months. It is within these long, dark and cold winter months that the trees do the real work. Healing and strengthening from the inside. Knowing instinctively the work needed to be done for them to grow and bloom once again.

The bright and stunning colors are autumn’s way of showing us that change can be beautiful.

My eyes followed a leaf as it floated to the ground, landing softly on the vibrant pile surrounding the base of the trunk and my mind wandered to all I have shed over the past few years. I’ve exuviated so many things that no longer serve my soul and how beautiful, if not incredibly exhausting, the journey had been.

So much of that journey, no one knows about. No one knows how much I have lost, how much healing and strength it has taken; no one knows how brave I have been and how incredibly lonely it was. No one knows how much I have released and how I have had to cauterize more soul wounds than I even thought possible. No one knows how very much I wanted to quit at times. No one really can appreciate how much I have confronted, made peace with and healed from. We all have our private, inner journeys that no other soul, however close, can be a part of. Until it’s over and we are stronger and more confident; willing to use our journey to help others along on theirs and we become brave enough to speak our truths, the inner work remains unseen by those around us.
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With each leaf that fell, I attached something I had released. 

There has been little fanfare to all I have accomplished in the past twenty years. Our inner journey doesn’t make the front page. There are no celebratory moments to receive accolades and praise. Just that quiet knowing at the end of the day that you are one step closer to being whole. How our lives transform is the confirmation of our success. How we live in the “after.” How we love again, breathe a little freer and how we help others. It’s that inner knowing that you have released what was no longer a part of your soul and just as the trees do to the hole left behind by the falling leaf, you sealed the wound and focused on your healing. Then were brave enough to come out of the darkness, focused on what it was going to take for you to get to the next chapter in life.
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Either you change in life or you don’t. You can cling to what no longer serves you because it’s known, or you can shed the old ways to make room for new growth. Some changes do not require anything more than us consciously deciding to let go of something. Then there are deep, penetrating soul wounds that we must address. We cauterize the wounds with knowledge and lessons learned and we pull in on ourselves to heal. The brave ones will bloom again when they are ready, just at the trees that make it through the winter do in the spring.

At that moment, sitting there watching the leaves fall away, I realized how very much my life resembled the cycle of trees. They find their strength, not in the bright summer months when water and the sunshine are plenty but within the dark, cold winter months after shedding all the armor of the leaves, down to the very bare essence of themselves. Our real work is done in the dark, lonely moments when we pull in on ourselves to face the monsters of experience, standing bravely within our own inner light to do the work needed to heal and move on. When we strip ourselves down to our very essence to rebuild our lives again whole and complete, releasing all that no longer serves our happiness we find our spring. Our time of new growth. 

While our inner journeys are often dark, cold, lonely and confusing, they are necessary and beautiful in their own right. Appreciate all you have released in those quiet moments when no one was around. Acknowledge all the work you have done and continue to do every single day. The accolades will be found in a life well lived. Be brave and grow again. Strip to the very essence of you and focus on what it is going to take for new growth in you and in your life.
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Do not fear the darkness, embrace your light. Release what no longer serves your life, release all that has wounded your soul. Change is beautiful. Emerge when you are ready to bloom again. For with each kernel of truth you embrace, you plant a seed of healing. Eventually, all will come together and the seeds of change will bloom vibrantly from within.
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Bloom.