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

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.

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…

I just discovered Christine Kane’s blog and was amazed to see that she’s been using the Word of the Year idea successfully for several years now. In fact, December’s theme for her blog was “Word of the Year” guest posts, were guest authors wrote about their 2009 Word of the Year experiences.

Christine has developed a wonderful (and free!) tool for helping others discover their best Word of the Year for 2010. Go visit her blog to see her video and check it out

!

Jen Lee’s post about choosing a word of the year really spoke to me.  I’ve never been much on New Year’s resolutions… seemed too much like a list of stuff someone says I SHOULD want to do instead of heartfelt change that I believe occurs naturally, when you’re ready for it.

A word for the year, however, is more like meditation.  It’s a way to remind yourself of your core value, the heart of what you are trying to accomplish for your self and your life that year.  I see it as a tool for clarity and focus.

So, I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to narrow down my word for 2010.  For a while, I was torn between “focus” and “explore.”  I think that’s because I was still in that “New Year’s resolution” mindset, the one where you choose a goal based on what you think needs improving in yourself and your life.  That’s a path that has never worked for me–I’m not really sold on the idea that it works for anyone, but I KNOW if doesn’t work for me.

Anyway, I realized that those words didn’t really resonate with me. I didn’t want to spend my year thinking about how I needed to change– Heck, the biggest epiphany I’ve had in the last couple of years is that “I’m NOT broken” and I don’t want to move back into that mindset.  Instead, I want to use this tool as a way to bring more of something I love into my life… more friendship, more love, more fun, more happiness, more passion, more enthusiasm… And that thought led me to my word:

Pleasure

I love every aspect of dictionary.com definition of  the word “Pleasure”:

–verb (used without object)

Just hearing the word pleasure– and it’s synonym, “DELIGHT”–makes me smile.  I want very much to take pleasure in my life and the blessings that surround me.  I want to really notice and delight in all the things, large and small, that I have to feel grateful about… and to add pleasure and delight to the lives of those around me.

So what about you?  What’s do you want more of in 2010?

“We all have different desires and needs, but if we don’t discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled.” - Bill Waterson

The new year is just around the corner.  Don’t waste your time creating a list of resolutions. Create, instead, a motto… a statement of being… create your own tag line that describes who you are and what you stand for.

Remember:

“To live is to choose.  But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.” – Kofi Annan

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma-which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions drown out your inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

- Steve Jobs

I find that I get caught up in certain types of cycles in my life. Moments where I’m just existing day to day when suddenly I’m hit by an epiphany.  The light bulb “clicks” on in my head and I’m given a sense of the bigger picture of my life and where I’m supposed to be going.  It’s always a picture that speaks to my soul so much I can’t help but say “YES!”

At that exact moment, I’m filled with this wild, radiant energy that feels like I could conquer the world.  A feeling that I could climb mountains and swim oceans to make this snapshot of my life a reality.

But then comes the down side of the cycle.  The part where I find myself sidetracked by the details.  Really, I’m being sidetracked by the idea that I need to control the process and manage each and every exact detail of the path exactly.  I get so caught up in trying to “create” the path, that I often lose sight of the vision.

If I’m honest, the truth is, I get sidetracked by trying to make my big picture fit into the path everyone else takes.  I’m trying to be reasonable and make my path fit the logic of “everyone else.”

I’ve learned, over the years, that those are my danger words:

“Everyone else…”

The minute I try to make my vision and my path make sense to everyone else, I stop dreaming and living from my heart.  And when I stop living from my heart, I start to feel defeated… and sooner or later, that feeling translates into defeat.

Does that happen to you? Have you ever found yourself wandering away from your true path, away from the path your heart is telling you to take, because you’re too busy trying to make the path fit everyone else’s expectations?

This has been my biggest life lesson to date:

Follow my heart.

The path will unfold the way it should for ME as long as I let my heart lead me.