It All Happens For You

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Do you ever have those, “Calgon, take me away” moments?  They are the moments when there are a million things going on all at once and none of it seems to be going well.  I know how you feel.

There are times when I’m on the phone, someone is knocking on the door, the dogs are barking, my cell phone is ringing, the kids are trying to kill each other with their super-impressive fighting skills, and I just opened my mail to find I have jury duty on my birthday.  And just for a minute, I think, “Why me?  Why do these things always happen to me?”

When I was a kid, my mom frequently told me that I have a little black cloud that follows me around.  I’m sure she was just trying to be empathetic or something, but instead, I heard, “Things will always go wrong for you. There is no escape.”  This is what I grew to believe.

For years I unknowingly lived my life as a victim of circumstance. I have all kinds of proof that my life is happening to me.  I’m the one who gets hit in the face with a ball even when I’m not playing, I’m the one who sits in gum repeatedly, I’m the one who laments my bad luck and my inability to control my life. Or at least, I was.

When I was becoming a coach, I hired a coach.  It’s practically law. You can’t really coach other people when you have your own stuff to clean up.  It’s called, living it to give it.  It didn’t take long for my coach to catch on to my feelings of victimhood and, of course, she called me on it.  She said to me, “Theresa, these things don’t happen to you.  It all happens for you.”

“What? Man is she off base,” I thought.  She clearly didn’t understand how badly I’d been used and abused by life.  But then she started to explain and I realized she was right.  She was right because perspective is everything.

When good things happen, we revel in the joy and happiness of the situation.  We view life as going our way or maybe we attribute it to good luck or maybe we recognize our role in our success.  When we do, we recognize our power over our lives and it feels fabulous, like we’re unstoppable and our possibilities are limitless. It is an incredibly strong and effective energy to live from especially if you are trying to create a life that serves you.

When bad things happen, we often attribute them to bad luck or a circumstance beyond our control.  In those moments, we completely devalue our abilities and dis-empower ourselves.  We take ourselves out of the driver’s seat by giving our control to Life, Fate, or that little black cloud.  From this place, living a life where anything is possible ceases to be possible because life, as we view it, is out of our control.

Thinking “Things happen to me” removes me as the authority in my life and I have a difficult time making good things happen. It’s like chopping myself off at the knees while trying to win a footrace. But when I shift my thinking to “It all happens for me,” I empower myself by viewing the benefits of any situation.

These days when I look back, I see myself and my life in a whole new light.  I see a host of circumstances that have given me loads of opportunities to learn and grow.  I look at how those difficult situations have served me and I feel a whole lot better about myself.

You can change the way you view things, too. It all starts by noticing what you say to yourself.  The next time you hear yourself saying, “Why me?” give yourself an answer.  What can you learn from this experience knowing that it is happening for you?  How does it shift the way you view the circumstance and yourself in it?

The wickedly witty and wise Master Certified Coach Michele Woodward just so happened to bring 3 key questions to my attention earlier (talk about timely).  Ask yourself these questions and take a few minutes to answer them fearlessly.

1 – Why have I drawn this experience to me at this time?

2 – What is this experience trying to teach me?

3 – How do I use this experience to be a better person?

Use these questions as a way to shift how you view yourself and the circumstances of  your life. When you do you just might find that your power was there all along.

As for little black clouds, who needs’em?  In my skydiving days, skydivers wished one another, “Blue skies” instead of saying “hello” or “goodbye”.  As far as I can see, from here on out, baby, it’s nothin’ but blue skies.

“There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.”

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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A Lesson in the Unexpected

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Recently I wrote about declaring independence in your life and how finding the gifts in unexpected events can be the beginning to your path to freedom.

Freedom is all about perspective.  It is about how you look at the world and yourself. It is about how you look at and deal with other people.  It is about the general view that you have of everything.

A couple of weekends ago an event occurred in my life that tested this very principle.  My family and I were traveling on I-10 just south of Tucson at the brisk speed of 75 mph (as posted) when the semi my husband was attempting to pass suddenly changed lanes.  My husband had a choice – allow the semi to hit us or leave the freeway for the desert median filled with gravel, brush, trees, and an overpass.  He chose the latter.

As we were suddenly and unexpectedly leaving the freeway I thought, “Seriously?”  But my attention was quickly diverted to the upcoming culvert that we were getting ready to drop into.  I knew it was gonna hurt.  It did.  But we kept going as my husband instinctively drove his ass off to get us through without hitting the trees or the overpass and only briefly driving into oncoming traffic.  Oh, and he did it without rolling his truck which is nothing short of amazing.  I think he may have outdriven the very best dirt track drivers out there.  (Thanks honey!)  It took awhile, but finally we came to a stop.  Nobody was seriously hurt and the truck was driveable to the next exit where we eventually called a tow truck.

When we did finally stop and I realized we were all okay, I was freaking ecstatic.  We had made it through what is very possibly the scariest thing I have ever been through in my life.  I felt like we had won the lottery of life!  And in my opinion we had.

This opinion is my choice of how to perceive and think about this event. I could have chosen to look at it as bad luck, but there was really no point in doing so. What good could come from that?

Instead I chose to focus on the amazing good luck and grace that followed us through every moment of that event.  If I didn’t know better, I would say we should be dead. But we aren’t.  And that my friends is a reality.  It was, however, unexpected and you know how I feel about the unexpected.

So, what’s the gift in this unexpected event?  I ended up with a slight concussion and some pretty serious neck and back pain.  As a result of the concussion, the following week I was unable to focus on anything long enough to accomplish anything.

I know, it might not sound like a gift, but wait.  I had some serious stuff on my to do list that week.  It didn’t get done. I tried to work.  I really did. I tried to write, I tried to develop a program, I tried to pull together a presentation.  But it wasn’t happening.  Instead, I spent time doing what I could: hanging out with my kids before they started school, running lots of errands, making phone calls, and doing nothing when I felt like it.

Here is the gift.  Reality kicked me in the ass and said, “No. You aren’t going to work.”  At first I fought it, I resisted with every ounce of that “I have to get this stuff done” type of thinking.  I felt horrible, guilty, angry, and resentful.  But then I let go of the thought and realized that “I really don’t have to get anything done”.  In doing so, I let go of the resistance that accompanied the thought, “I have to get this stuff done.”  In doing so I gave myself permission to just be, to do nothing.  And it felt fabulous.  In fact, it felt ironically like freedom.

By choosing to look for the gift, I opened myself up to a learning experience that can improve the quality of my life.  Oddly, I thought I had learned this lesson already.  I take breaks, I start my day by doing nothing.  It is only when I literally could not do that which I thought I had to do that the lesson really hit home.

Once again, I invite you to look at the unexpected without judgment, without worry, without fear.  Sit back and watch.  Wait to find the gifts that lurk in the experience. They are tailored expressly for you.  You’ll know it when you find them. They feel like “aha” and they taste like freedom.

Continuing to look for the gifts,

Theresa

www.theresarobbins.net

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Let Freedom Ring!

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

As a nation built upon the ideal of freedom, we cherish and celebrate the approval by Congress of The Declaration of Independence. This document is held sacred in our history as the piece of paper that announced, in no uncertain terms, that living under someone else’s rule (King George III’s) was no longer an option.  It outlines our commonly agreed upon philosophy and asserts that the government’s true power comes from “the consent of the governed” – not from an external entity such as the King of England.

We celebrated our country’s freedom earlier this month as we do every Fourth of July.  This July, I hope you will consider that the Declaration of Independence does more than declare independence from England. This document represents  each individual’s ability to be free, an ability that we each inherently possess.

Freedom comes from within. True freedom is simply realizing that you always have  the choice to think and believe as you choose regardless of what anyone else says, thinks, or does.  The choices you make and the action you take come from the thoughts and beliefs that govern your life.

Throughout life we (often unwittingly) adopt belief systems from those who influence us. When those beliefs that control your life run contrary to your own personal truth you cease to feel free.

The good news is that the belief systems adopted over the course of your lifetime only exist because you allow them.  You may –  at any time – choose to exorcise the ones that rule you without serving you, just as our forefathers exorcised England’s rule over our nation.

True freedom stems from the consent of the governed – You.  You are both the governed and the government in your own life.  Every thought you think is an opportunity to declare independence.  When your thoughts are not serving you, it is your job to recognize it and do something about it.  It is your “duty to throw off such government”.  Nobody else can do it for you.

This July I invite you to create your own personal Declaration of Independence.  Decide what is working for you and what isn’t.  If you aren’t experiencing life as you would like or the liberty you long to feel, and if your pursuit of happiness is more like a distant memory than a current reality, then make the choice to take back your own power by freeing yourself from the oppressive thoughts that keep you shackled. Declare, in no uncertain terms, that living under someone else’s rule is no longer an option.

Freedom is the power to choose.  You can have freedom now without losing a thing except for the very thing that obstructs it – your beliefs.  You get to choose your thoughts and beliefs. Keep the ones that serve you, dissolve the rest, and create a path to freedom and independence that only you can choose.

I have previously written about The Gift of the Unexpected.  How you view the unexpected is a good way to start examining your beliefs. Personally, I choose to believe that in all things there is a gift.  Even when it is difficult to see, good things always flow from bad. Choosing to look for it is up to you.

Looking for the gift in unexpected “hardship” symbolizes the hope that characterizes the American spirit. It is truly amazing that a roughshod group of untrained farmers secured our country’s freedom from the most powerful nation at the time. If our founding fathers had not believed it was possible to become a free nation, it may never have been.  They had to believe it to achieve it.

So I ask, what do you need to believe to set yourself free?

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The Gift of the Unexpected

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

I recently finished reading Martha Beck’s best-selling memoir, Expecting Adam, about having a child with Down Syndrome.  Around the same time I received an email from a dear friend and fabulous coach, Patty Lennon, celebrating the beauty of an albino peacock.  Both these writings celebrate the gift of receiving something unexpected.

Sometimes the unexpected is construed as a good thing and the gift is obvious.  Just look at that peacock!

Other times the unexpected is seen as something bad. On these occasions we often have to look more deeply for the gift to find it.  So many times when something “bad” happens, we focus exclusively on what is bad about it that we don’t even consider that there could be a gift attached.

Regardless of “good” or “bad” I believe there is always a gift.

When my husband was diagnosed with MS, I thought that horrible things were going to happen to us. I imagined him in a wheelchair, I imagined losing our family business, our home, and just about everything else you can think of.  None of those things have come to pass.  The worry I experienced was essentially worthless.

If at that time someone had told me to look for the good in the situation, I probably would have been angry.

Now, however, I can see some of the gifts his MS has given to me.  One of these gifts is the ability to live a whole lot less fearfully.  My thoughts about his diagnosis pushed me to a point of extreme stress. It was only in getting to that place that I learned that living like that all the time was not how I wanted to live.

My husband’s diagnosis provided the catalyst that I used to transform my life. I had always been an intense worrier.  Since then I have found living that way to be not only unbearable, but unnecessary.  I now realize that I can choose to return to my worry or I can choose another way of being – happy.

His diagnosis also played a role in my choice to become a coach. Becoming a coach further enhanced my ability to deal with stress and fear. When other “bad” things have since happened, I have used what I have learned to put everything in perspective and live happily anyway. Futhermore, becoming a coach has even enabled me to help others.  I understand their fear, their pain, their stress, their worry and I can offer relief to those who are willing.

This is not to say that I wish for my husband to be ill, but neither does it mean that I discount the value of the gifts of his illness.

I challenge you to find the good in any “bad” thing in your life.  If this is too difficult, I recommend you look back on a prior “bad” experience from which you have recovered and create a list of the gifts that came from that experience.  If nothing else, I bet you can find something that you learned that may have helped you since. If you can find the good in a past “bad” experience, you can know that one day you will be able to see the good in whatever bad experience you are having now.

Albino Peacock

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Just Like Heaven

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Yesterday was Father’s Day.  Typically on special days, I try to create the best experience for everyone and end up stressed out and overwhelmed by the competing demands (mostly imagined, on my part) of each family member.  For once, however, instead of trying to create an experience everyone would enjoy, I retired from the role of Activities Director and just let everyone Be.  I didn’t pepper my husband with questions about what I could do for him, I didn’t stress out that we weren’t spending enough quality time celebrating him, I didn’t worry about what we could do to enhance his day.

This is a first for me.  And it was a wonderful experience.

For once, I gave up my imagined responsibility for everyone else and focused on myself.  Sound selfish?  It wasn’t.  It was quite the opposite.  You see, by letting go of the outcome for everyone, I was allowing everyone else to create their own experience.  It was in fact far less selfish of me than normal as I no longer was trying to dictate who needed what and when.

I have to say, it worked out rather deliciously.  I made my husband the big breakfast he requested.  I took him out to dinner at the restaurant of his choice.  I waited for him to ask me for suggestions of things to do.  I let him decide what he wanted without interjecting any of my opinions about what would make the day great.  And I did it all from a place of absolute love and acceptance.

The result?  A day of rest and relaxation, a day of connection and fun.

I put work aside.  I swam in the pool with my kids.  I read on the patio in the afternoon. I took a short snooze on the couch.  I played frisbee, dodge ball in the pool, and a unique sort of water polo developed by my constant fun-seeking 8 year old.  In short, I just was.  I was focused exclusively on whatever was happening in the moment.  This brought with it the most profound sense of peace and calm.

I didn’t set out to do this deliberately per se.  My intention for the day was simply to enjoy it by connecting with my family. I just had no idea the outcome would be so…joyful.

It wasn’t until the late afternoon that I realized that I had spent the day being present and blissed out.  I had climbed out of the pool and felt a little chilly.  I then did something I hadn’t in years.  I spread my towel out on the grass and laid in the sun.  Suddenly, I was a child again.  With the warm sun gently caressing my body, I was transported back to the carefree days when my biggest concern was whatever was happening at that moment.

In this particular moment, I was so very present that I could feel the warmth of the soft carpet of grass beneath my belly.  I could smell the crisp scent of the newly mown lawn.  The breeze tenderly whispered words of love over my body while a lone bird chattered in the distance.  I could hear the murmurings of my family poolside and while I was fully awake and present, I was also in a place of complete peace and calm.

This is how I want to feel as I live everyday.  I want to be connected to life in the moment as it is in that moment that I connect to myself.  It is in that place that  I allow life and everyone in it to be whatever they are without any illusion of the need for control.  It is from that place that I can love unconditionally.  It is this place that is just like heaven.

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My Mother’s Day Gift to You

Posted on May 9, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Happy Mother’s Day!

If I could give you a gift today, it would be that you take the following into your heart and live from that place.  But that is a gift you give yourself, so I will settle for sharing words that inspire me to live from a place of love for myself and others.

May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.

May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.

~ St. Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower

Wishing you an abundance of love today and everyday,

Theresa

http://www.theresarobbins.net

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Soaring on the Wings of Joy

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Have you ever heard the phrase that life is about the journey, not the destination?  I’ve always been a goal-oriented girl and have experienced my fair share of difficulty with this concept at times, but lately, I’m taking the pressure off myself by releasing from the outcome.

My philosophy is that if I wait for something to happen before I’m happy, I’ll constantly be waiting for something to happen and inevitably delay the happiness I want to feel now. Why not feel happy now and when I reach my goal?

When we reach a goal, we may feel like we are soaring on the wings of joy. For awhile anyway.  But it doesn’t stop there because we always want more which is a good thing.  It’s how we grow.  But if that joy is constantly replaced by waiting for another goal to come to fruition, we’re spending more time waiting than being happy.

In my first gardening attempt ever this spring, I have found true joy in visiting our little garden each and every morning. It’s so thrilling to see what happens in the course of a day.  A new little tomato on the vine or a strawberry beginning to ripen are wondrous things.  I don’t need the fruit to be ready at this moment to enjoy it.  I am simply marveling at its beauty and the process by which it grows.

The same concept applies to us. Imagine focusing on the tiny miracles you perform each and every day instead of spending each day focused on the outcome, wondering when it will all come together in the perfect way. Trust yourself and have faith that the outcome will follow whether you apply pressure to yourself or whether you enjoy the process.  Look at yourself as that wondrous little tomato just on the verge of greatness.  ‘Cuz you are.

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Essentially Yours

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

There’s a difference between being happy in what you do and needing what you do to make you happy.  It can be a pretty thin line.  Lately, despite all my self coaching, I didn’t realize the extent to which I was needing my coaching to make me happy. Things have seemed to be looking good and then…nothin’. I’ve been in a holding pattern where not much is happening and I haven’t been able to figure out why. Until now.

I’ve been expecting my role as a coach to bring me complete and utter happiness. When I coach, I just have so much fun and I’m completely in my element. I’d love to do it most of the time. What I failed to realize was how completely wrapped up I’d become in being a coach and what that means to me.

In my pre-coach days, I was a stay-at-home mom, the support system for my family. I sacrificed myself to the needs of my family and expected to find happiness and a sense of self-worth in my efforts.  But I was always looking outside of myself for the payoff. There were, however, no paychecks, there was no constant stream of outward displays of love and appreciation.  All those hugs and kisses and little gifts of love were fabulous, but they weren’t enough. I was expecting my role of mom to fulfill me, to bring me joy and happiness, to complete me.

When I became a coach, I realized how skewed this thinking was. By identifying myself as just a mom, I wasn’t getting much bang for my buck.  I was investing myself in the other members of my family and the role, but not in myself. I felt empty inside. I wanted more. I just didn’t know what.

I thought all that was over when I became a coach because I had found this new role from which I could gain fulfillment.  Being a coach is fulfilling. I love the connection and relationships I have developed with other coaches and clients. They are like pure gold, but still, by themselves they aren’t enough.

I have expected three things to flow from my coaching which I believed would validate my worthiness and create happiness:  money, clients, and followers.  I have had them all off and on, but recently, not so much.  And my self worth, self confidence, and happiness took a nosedive and were replaced by self doubt, confusion, and emptiness.

This is the problem that occurs when we look outside of ourselves for happiness.  It’s great while we are getting the payoff, but when we don’t get it or it slows to a trickle, we become disconnected and live without the joy we really want.

I was doing it again – seeking happiness outside of myself just like when I was a stay-at-home mom. I overly identified myself in one role that is not, nor can ever be, all that I am. I was looking for happiness in a role and relying on its outcomes – money, clients, followers – to bring me happiness, a sense of worthiness, and a sense of fulfillment.

I had once again completely invested myself and my happiness in being some thing and earning external rewards.  I forgot that true happiness comes from within.  It comes from honoring the real, authentic me not some false external rewards that society tells me I should want.

When we do this, we cut ourselves off from the bigger picture of all we really are.  We end up feeling lost, disconnected, confused, hopeless, and a host of other bad feeling emotions. All our self worth, all our connection, all our happiness can’t come from being any particular thing other than being the authentic, essential self.

The essential self is your inherent personality. It is the you that you are born being. It is your preferences, personality traits, likes, dislikes and it knows the path to your joy.

But there’s another part of you – the social self. The social self is the you that takes on the beliefs and norms of your culture, family, and any social organizations you belong to. It is responsible for your socially appropriate behavior. It is concerned with what others think and how you are perceived.  It likes to fill people’s expectations of you by achieving external rewards which never leave you feeling fulfilled for long.

When the two selves agree, happiness ensues. But sometimes the social self rules without regard to the essential self. When the essential self wants something out of line with what the social self deems appropriate, the social self tries to shut down the essential self to act in accordance with what it thinks is right based on its accumulated system of beliefs.  This results in feelings of disconnect, unhappiness, emptiness, numbness, and a lack of fulfillment.

When I overly identify myself as a coach and expect external rewards to make me happy, I am allowing my social self to run the show. When I simply engage in the act of coaching without regard to what anyone else thinks, when I do it simply because I love it, I am living from my essential self.  And my coaching is a million times better because it is coming from a genuine and authentic place within me.

If you overly identify yourself in one or two primary roles or if you think external rewards will bring you happiness, then your social self is running the show.  Know that you are so much more and underneath all of that social self stuff, the essential self is there, trying to tell you how to get the lasting happiness you truly want.  Know that when you feel bad, you are simply out of alignment with your true self.  Getting back in touch is all you need to access those feelings of happiness, joy, and fulfillment.

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My Crowning Glory

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Confession #1:  My hair is a fabulous teacher.

Most women I know are a little fanatical about their hair. My most recent stylist told me it’s because our hair is our crowning glory.  She then proceeded to chop off at least 4 inches giving me a bob instead of taking off the one inch we had discussed.

At first the length didn’t give me pause to notice.  Instead I was fixated on the fact that the haircut had not helped the few strands in front that have decided to revert from their curly nature to go straight.  Those locks are now going their own way and standing out from the crowd creating quite a contrast from the rest of my hair.

When I got home later that day and looked at my hair again, I was appalled by how short it is. Let me just say, the bob is not for me. For a good day and a half I was miserable.  Every time I looked in the mirror I was shocked. I felt really crappy because I just could not believe how short it is.  This, by the way, is me arguing with reality. “When I argue with reality I lose – but only 100% of the time.” Byron Katie (www.thework.com)

That’s when I remembered a conversation that I recently had with friend and fantabulous fellow coach, Patty Lennon (www.pattylennon.com).  Patty was telling me that she loves it when things are bothering her because it helps her get clearer on what she wants.  I was floored and something in me went, “Ohhhhhh…” (Insert light bulb here, please.)

Having what we don’t want is the perfect way to figure out what we do want.  And once we figure out what we do want, it is so much easier to get it.  Its like trying to go on vacation without a destination. How are you gonna get there if you don’t know where you are headed?  Sure you might figure it out eventually, but if you are ready for it now, you will get there a lot quicker if you know your destination.

Now I know that a whole lot of value in life comes from the journey, not in reaching the destination, but figuring out what you want is part of the journey. Learning what you don’t want is just taking a shortcut to learning what you do want.

So what have I learned from my hair this week?  Lesson number one is that there is value in not getting what I want. Now that I know what I definitely do not want, I can begin to fashion an idea of what I do want.  So I’m changing my attitude by changing the way I think about it.  Bad haircuts?  There’s no such thing.  Now that’s what I call my crowning glory.

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My Immensely Huge Bundle of Joy and Everybody

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Theresa Robbins

Since he was a baby, my son, Ryan, age 8, has been all about the fun. When he was 3, I asked him what he wanted be.  ”A football player and my back up is stand up comedian,” he replied.  The first time we took him to the beach, he literally dove into the sand, squirmed around in it, and was instantly covered in it from head to toe.  I’ve never seen anything like it, but come to think of it, that’s kinda how he does everything.

Even the happiest kid on earth feels sad from time to time though.  It is difficult to watch him struggle with sadness as it is so clearly against his nature.  He is typically so genuinely happy that it is evident that feeling bad is in direct opposition to his purpose in life:  to be happy simply by living in alignment with who he really is.  The same can be said of everyone – you included.

Recently, I asked Ryan if would like to take cupcakes to school to celebrate his birthday.  To my surprise he told me that he would prefer to take them on a different day so that the other kids wouldn’t know that his birthday is on April Fools’ Day.   Apparently another boy told him that this is a “pathetic” birthday and, most unfortunately, Ryan believed him.  The thought that his birthday is pathetic made him feel sad and unaccepted by his peers.  But he chose to believe it.

How often do we all do this kind of thing?  We think things are good, then someone offers a differing opinion.  We buy into their opinion and suddenly what once seemed wonderful, now seems “pathetic”.

We do this because we each have a small group of people referred to as our Everybody.  You know Everybody – they’re the reason you can’t do this, that, or the other thing.  ”I can’t wear that dress.  Everybody will think I’m a floozy.”  ”I can’t …, Everybody will…”  Fill in the blanks.

Your Everybody may be comprised of people like your parents or a close friend, but oddly enough, you may find someone you barely know (or even despise) in your Everybody,  like someone at the gym or a neighbor.  For some strange reason, and usually without realizing it, you have chosen to include this person as someone whose opinion matters.

Ryan had chosen to make this one child a member of his Everybody even though this child is not important to his life in any real way. I told Ryan that when he was born, I knew that having April 1 as his birthday would either traumatize him or suit him perfectly. Given his happy, bubbly nature, I would say it suits him perfectly. Just like you, Ryan can choose whose opinions to trust just as he can choose to be happy regardless of the date of his birthday.  I’m happy to report that Ryan chooses happiness.

Being aware of what was happening allowed Ryan to exorcise this boy from his Everybody and replace him with a more supportive team member.  You can do the same thing.  The next time you are worried about what someone thinks or find yourself using the “Everybody will…” line, stop and ask yourself who you are specifically referring to. If it echoes the sentiments of an ardent admirer who supports you, keep that person in place.  If not, boot them out of your Everybody and replace them with someone who supports you in your quest to live a happier, more authentic, fulfilling life.  Your brain is going to create an Everybody no matter what you do.  It might as well work for you.

Recently Ryan began what he hopes to be his future profession – a professional roller coaster, skateboard-riding astronaut with the astronaut gig being just for fun.  The roller coaster riding is where he intends to make his real fortune – and if anyone can, Ryan can.  Maybe he’ll choose me to be part of his Everybody that supports him in his efforts to make his dreams come true.  Either way, it’s his choice.

I am so extremely blessed to have this child as part of my life.  He inspires me to live a more joyful life just by being authentically him. Earlier, he was outside my bedroom door quietly singing and talking to one of our dogs.  The love and gentleness in his voice instantly brought the sweetest feeling of joy to my heart and a smile to my face. I treasure these little moments knowing that one day he won’t be just outside the door effortlessly infusing my life with joy.  He’ll be riding a roller coaster on Mars.  And I will be cheering for him every moment from my beach house on Maui.

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