Early Mornings & Taking Responsibility: Where the Magic Happens

I woke up at 5:30 this morning. I am not a morning person.

I shuffled with all of the other one million people trying to get through security at Logan Airport shortly after 6 am. I was disgruntled as I pulled off my shoes and shoved my computer in a plastic bin. A creature of habit, I’m not particularly good with change. New airline. New terminal. New lay of the land. And, early.

I felt stuck in my body, heavy and slow, and cramped and dehydrated as we piled onto the plane.

But then, things started to shift. 

A breakfast sandwich at a hilarious diner during my layover in Newark.

Learning how to use my cell phone as a wireless hotspot (life changing).

A delicious cup of coffee that I gladly walked all over terminal C to procure.

A dozen of smiling faces showing up on my social media field.

The magic happens in the exact moment when we actively take back control of our lives, when we choose to see things as the series of tiny miracles that they actually are. 

The kid running up and down the aisle? Brilliant.

Cleaning up the sugar/milk station at Starbucks so that the next person will have a clean surface to prepare their coffee? Necessary.

Not taking it personally when the woman sitting next to you is rude on the plane? Saved me a lot of time and brain-space, especially when I realized at the end of the flight that she is terrified of flying and was panicking the whole time.

Your life is exactly what you make it. It shows up exactly how you expect it to. 

I am so grateful today that I have created a life for myself that allows me to travel to a new city to teach amazing women about how to love themselves bravely and celebrate themselves daily.

I am grateful that, even when I fall off the track and get mired down in my own melodrama and grumpiness, I have developed the tools to look up and out and smile knowing that my life is so good. Seriously. So good. And that I can feel pride knowing that I built it.

I’m grateful for three delicious cups of coffee in three different states by 4pm.

A lot of women come to this work expecting that they need to have pieces in place or someone to support them financially or access to some sort of secret to begin cultivating a life that lights them up from the core, but it’s not true.

All you need is a desire that is strong enough that you are willing to endure some experimentation and failure in order to get from here to there. Then, you need to begin somewhere – anywhere – while holding on to your intention not to be so precious about the process that you feel inhibited at every turn. 

I have many scary moments. Moments where I don’t feel very brave. Moments when I sob to my sweetheart because I can’t find my favorite sweater. Moments where I worry about how I’m going to swing it all. Moments when I tell myself it would be so much easier to just get a job. Moments when I just want to climb under the blankets and watch Orange is the New Black reruns until the end of time.

But, if I were really honest with myself, there is no other life for me than this one.

It’s not just about self-employment. It’s about taking responsibility. It’s about choosing that you are going to live a good life, a fulfilling life. It is about choosing that you are going to shelve everyone else’s opinions and expectations just for a moment, so that you can hear your own voice.

It is about deciding that it is possible (and even awesome) to write your own rules for living – even if you are the only person that you know who believes the things that you.

I believe that just about anything is possible.

I choose not to worry about things that don’t make me feel good, whenever possible.

I actively practice cultivating a daily reality that supports and nourishes me.

And that includes seeking out the perfect cup of coffee, everywhere I go. And traveling with rescue remedy and Harry Potter audio books on my iPhone, just in case. And telling myself a million times a minute that I am good enough as I am, whenever necessary.

Your daily reality is up to you.

The tone of your inner landscape is up to you.

So choose something worthwhile and uplifting.

(And if this is hard for you,  I get that. It can be really hard when you’re starting changing the way that you look at your life. Practice. It will get easier. Know that you are going to get better at this every single day, once you decide to start giving it a try. I promise you that if it’s horrible and you want to go back to being mean to yourself and thinking that life is shit, you can pick that frame of mind back up at anytime.)