Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been keeping a list of the “rules” that I unconsciously live by…. so far, my list is 24 rules long.

No wonder I feel like I’m always fighting to not be boxed in or controlled, right? I have at least 24 rules that control my every movement. 24 rules I’m unconsciously fighting against whenever I try to do something that moves me outside of the little box I exist in.

I won’t list them all… suffix it to say, the big ones… the ones that really impose on my ability to enjoy my life the way it is are:

• I should always take care of others needs first
• I should never say “no” because it makes others feel uncomfortable
• I shouldn’t need play
• I should always be achieving MORE
• I should work harder
• I should succeed at anything I try
• I should always be sweet, accepting, understanding and never moody, demanding or angry

Do you share any of these unconscious rules? I wish I could say being aware of them made them magically disappear, but it doesn’t. It does, however, help me understand why I can feel so much angst while in the midst of doing things that I know in my heart are leading me to live a better life.  It never fails that those things… things like trying a new activity that I’ve always thought I couldn’t be good at or expressing my needs and wants to those I’m close to… can often throw me into a tailspin of questioning myself, even though I logically know that they’re positive actions.

I’m breaking my own internal rules…

What I’m learning is that the only way past this feeling is through it.  No magic pills, no special mantras will help me right now. It’s just being aware and committing to taking the next step anyway… despite feeling uncomfortable, uncertain, and unsure.

“Pain by itself is merely pain,
but the experience of pain coupled with an understanding
that the pain serves a worthy purpose is suffering.
Suffering can be endured because there is a reason for it that is worth the effort.
What is more worthy of your pain than the evolution of your soul?”

- Gary Zukav, author, Seat of the Soul

I have a fear of being completely myself in the world.

I’m sure there are all kinds of reasons, circumstance, people I could pin the blame on for me feeling this way… but none of that matters really. What matters is that I recognize this fear and how it inhibits my life.

I think sometimes it’s a fear that if I’m one way, I have completely and totally pigeonholed myself to be that way forever and ever. I’m more afraid of that than almost anything.

But… if I reach down even further… and push myself to be a little more honest, it’s also a fear that some parts of me aren’t acceptable.  Do you know what I mean?

Like… at my age (the wise old almost age of 36), I shouldn’t still have the desire to roll down grassy green hills. Or at my age, I should always behave like a proper adult.  At my age, I shouldn’t still giggle at fart jokes, or be amazed by the sight of a wiggly, wrinkled earth worm.

There’s a litany of phrases like that in my head. Not just related to my age, but what “good” girls/people should do… what responsible people should do, what mothers should be like, what women should be like, what wives should be like…

I’m learning that every time I hear a “should” phrase in my head, I need to pay attention. Because those are the hidden rules that I’m living by, whether I’m aware of it or not. And they’re the rules that I’m judging myself by too.

There’s one rolling through my head right now in fact… the one that says “A good blogger ends every post on a positive, upbeat note.”  And let’s not forget the one that says “I should have a moral to the story if I’m any kind of writer…”

For the rest of the week, I’m going to keep a written log of all the unconscious rules I have running through my head.  I invite you to do the same… meet me back here on Friday and we can have show and tell. 

xoxo- Shauntelle

My posts here are still very sporadic because I struggle with what I want to say, what I think I should say, and where I think this blog should go.  My budget decorating blog was easier to manage, very often, because I didn’t feel that I had to “edit” myself in anyway… I could share my natural enthusiasms and the things that I found inspiring.

Here, I find myself  “editing.”  Trying to fit into the mold of what I think I should be… and because I am not very good at that… I show up here rarely.

I finally realized that this is the opposite of what I want and the antithesis of what I believe in.

So… I guess what I’m saying is that I want to get real with you.

I am afraid sometimes that if I say here… “I struggle” you’ll wonder why I think I have the authority to suggest you do anything different with your struggles.  This fear hits me hard when I’m working on the outline and details of the workshop… the voice in my head screams really loud “who are YOU to do this?”

It’s stopped me in my tracks on several occasions– almost completely extinguishing my ability to move forward.

Luckily, I’m very blessed to be surrounded with people who support me and my dreams. And they remind me of the reasons I started down this path.

I don’t have all the answers.  I don’t.  I’m on the path too… fighting to find my way in the dark sometimes… struggling to carve a path where I don’t see one at others.

And that’s my “WHY.”  I reach out because I know what the struggle is like.  Because I understand feeling a yearning in your soul to matter, to add to the world, to shine as bright as you can… and how hard it can be to find a way to do that when everyone and every thing around you seems to encourage you instead to be… small… dim… to hide your light.

I don’t believe that anyone should hide their light.

I think too many women do.  And I want to change that.  I have a passion to change that.

Which starts with me coming here as I am, warts and all.  Really, truly… just me… and perfectly imperfect that way.

One of my favorite bloggers, Ronna Detrick, says her purpose is to have and faciliate “renegade conversations.”  She’s got a vision to explore the places and ways that feminism and faith intersect, good and bad.

My goal here is to have conversations too… about who we are, who we want to be… about shushing those voices that say we should be anything more or better than the wonderful, marvelous, perfectly imperfect women that we are.  I want this to be the place we feel comfortable to slip off our shoes, let down our hair, and have those “kitchen table” conversations… sharing laughter, tears, wisdom, and support.

I hope you’ll join me… I look forward to sharing those conversations with you. 

xoxo-  Shauntelle

There are times in life you have to give yourself props for just surviving.

I’m something of a perfectionist.  That means I’m pretty hard on myself almost all the time. Oh, I can be the most understanding and laid back person with other people… pretty accepting and understanding of quirks and foibles.  But when it comes to myself, boy, do I expect a lot.

Perfection.

It’s inevitable I fall short sometimes… hell, to be honest, lots of times.  Times when I can see the potholes in my road, but for whatever reason, I can’t seem to alter the path I’m walking. And, more often, times when I look back and wish with all my heart that I had chosen another route all together.

Maybe you’re lucky and you never feel this type of regret. The kind of regret that can wake you up in the middle of the night with tears running down your face, wondering why you didn’t just do better… if you’ve never felt this, I’m pleased for you (and more than a little jealous)… but if this sounds familiar, I wanna share a little secret I’ve learned.

Sometimes you have to just be thankful you made it through to the other side.

Maybe you didn’t handle things the best way. Maybe you cowered when you should have fought, or fought when you should have turned the other cheek. Maybe you pretended that you didn’t see how something was going wrong or lied to yourself.

It happens.  To everyone.

Seriously, it happens to EVERYONE.  Even the most perfect seeming person has slipped a time or two (or ten), even if they look like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

What I’ve done in the past (and sometimes still slip into) is get so fixated on what I SHOULD HAVE done that I keep myself from moving forward.

It’s like those conversations where you didn’t get the right response out when the conversation was happening… so you find yourself replaying the conversation over and over again, fixing what you said until it sounds just right.

Before you know it, you’ve wasted all kinds of time, made yourself crazy… and you still haven’t changed a thing.

And then, if you’re as bad as me, you turn around and beat up on yourself because you wasted all that time on something you can’t change. 

Let’s stop the crazymaking cycle, ok?

Next time you see it starting, go find a mirror… look yourself in the eye and say “Self, okay… so we didn’t handle that the best way. So we should have turned around, never been so stupid, made a U-turn… the fact is, we were doing the best we could at the time. What’s most important is that we made it to the other side.”

And then congratulate yourself for that.  Trust me… You deserve it.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Ann Radmacher

“How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point, I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and artist, we have to know all we can about one another, and we have to be willing to go naked.” – May Sarton (via the blog, Creating Wings)

Every time we try to step out of our comfort zone… out of the little box we inhabit that is labeled “this is who I am and what I am capable of”… we feel this discomfort.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

It’s that voice that says “You can’t…”

Or maybe, “that’s not possible.”

Or often, “Why should you believe YOU can do this?”

It’s the little voice that represents all our fears, wounds, hurts, resentments… the sum total of all the times we’ve been made to forget that we are amazing and wonderful, simply because we ARE.

Next time you hear that little voice speaking, do this.

Take a deep breath.

Then quietly ask…

“Why not?”

Then make up your mind to live your life in rebellion of that little voice, until

it.  finally.  gets.  tired.  of.  not.  being.  heard .

and

shuts the hell up.

Yesterday around this time I was filled with energy and joy.  I was feeling really good about the progress I’m making on the virtual workshop I’m creating… feeling good about plans to see a Da Vinci exhibit on Friday… feeling really good about a play I’m working on for the next few weeks and my chance to learn new photography techniques from a truly gifted photographer.

The world felt alive with possibility and promise.

That was yesterday.

Today I woke up grumpy from a bad dream, slightly sick from my monthly visitor, and out of sorts. Ready to snap at anyone and everyone.

In the past, I probably would have snapped at everyone. I would have rushed my kids through their morning routines, snarled at my husband, and found a way to examine and remind myself of every flaw that keeps me from being a six foot tall super model (trust me, there are many… starting with the fact that I am only 5′ 2″!).

The day would pretty much have been destroyed before I ever left my bedroom.

Today, however, is not destroyed.

I am learning. Learning that feelings do not dictate actions.  We have a choice. We can choose to react or we can choose to just be.  Sit with it. Feel it and let it be.

It’s taken me 35 years to realize that feelings just are. They exist, they change, they constantly ebb and flow throughout the day and that’s okay. Most importantly, it’s okay to just FEEL them and not believe that I have to DO something to get rid of them or fix them or … anything.

I had to realize that it’s okay for me to feel grumpy sometimes… to feel overwhelmed… tired… irritable… angry.  All those yucky feelings that the world/family/friends/teachers/strangers imply you wouldn’t or shouldn’t have if you were… good… enlightened… Godly… nice.

When I stop trying to fight the yucky feelings, when I stop judging myself for having “bad” feelings and just accept that this is just HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW this amazing thing happens.  I start to feel better. Calmer. More peaceful.

And in that place, I’m detached enough to see what my feelings are really trying to tell me.  Most often, they speak to me of putting myself last and remind me to be more mindful and self nurturing. Other times  they just remind me that I’m human and perfectly imperfect and that teaches me to have more compassion for others who share that same fate.

Today is gonna be a good day after all.

I’ve come down with a bad case of the “blahs.”  Although I’ve been making progress on several projects, I’m in that in between place where the start of the project is over but the end is not yet in sight… Where I am, here in the middle, feels frustrating and irritating. Nothing is moving as quickly or as smoothly as I want and the bratty kid in me wants everything RIGHT NOW!

sigh.

Maybe you’re one of those lucky people who never feel this way? Me, I hit this stage in the middle of every project. It’s a comfy friend in a way, but never warmly welcomed!

I’m not one of those people who believes the road forward is always gonna be easy if you’re doing what you’re called to do.  I know the popular belief is that “if you do what you love, everything will fall into place.”  Boy, do I want to believe that… but living has taught me that love is not synonymous for easy. Infact, love often means struggle and hardwork…  Sometimes love means being obstinate and determined, even in the face of adversity.  Sometimes it means turning your back on the easy road to do the thing that needs to be done, to push the stone up hill even when all you really wanna do is lie in the sun.

So- I’m really writing this as a reminder to myself.  Sometimes you have to pull up your big girl panties and just get the job done.

The blahs melt away when I focus on the job at hand– the moment that I’m living NOW– and stop worrying about what the end could/should/might bring.

Live in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown — but the present is real, and your opportunities are now. You must see these opportunities; they must be real for you. The catch is that they can’t seem real if your mind is buried in past failures, if you keep reliving old mistakes, old guilts, old tragedies. Fight your way above the many inevitable Traumatizations of your ego, escape damnation by the past, and look to the opportunities of the present. I don’t mean some vague moment in the present — next week or next month, perhaps. I mean today, this minute.

-Maxwell Maltz

We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.

- Starhawk

Seen at the Red Light copyright Shauntelle Hamlett 2010

I’ve signed up for Project 365.  In case this is new to you, it’s a “photo-a-day” project that lasts a whole year–365 days. Some people apply a theme to their project– a day in the life, self portraits, etc.  Me, I’m just doing my best to get one really good shot each day.

When I was younger, I really wanted to be a professional photographer.  I’d create these elaborate daydreams of becoming a National Geographic photojournalist and roaming around the world, recording the stories of these undiscovered tribes.  That was, of course, before I realized that I really dislike bugs and roughing it.  

I’ve continued to have the photography dream on and off for most of my life.  It took me a while to realize that I can enjoy photography, build my skills, and NOT earn a living from it.  I can do it just because I love it–just because it’s good for my soul!

I’m of the firm belief that each and every one of us has a creative spirit that needs to be expressed.  That our soul desires to create… whether it’s a poem, a photo, a garden, or a great pot of chicken soup… each of us yearns to express ourselves creatively in some fashion.  I think of it as the soul’s chance to play–and play is definitely good for the soul.

So ignore the voices in your head that tell you to behave, be mature, serious, practical… whatever else they whisper to you that keeps you from giving in to your creative urges… ignore all that!

Instead– let your soul play!  I promise you’ll never regret it…