Sure, I’d dedicated myself to raising our babies in our home, forgoing a paycheck, halting a career, adjusting to a different lifestyle, because there was nothing in this world I wanted more than to spend those precious days with them.

But I was still itching for an adventure of my own.

The excuses of who’ll watch the kids and it’ll cost too much jumped to the forefront the second I received the invite to hike the Grand Canyon for a week, but away ten days altogether.

I can’t, I can’t, it’s just too much to prepare… and to ask for… and I’d miss the kids…

In the sleepless nights that were already happening, I fought with myself.

Of course you should go, you deserve it.

Who the hell do you think you are anyway missy, maybe someday you can go on trips again, but not these days?

It’s not like I’ll be paying for hotels the whole time, and the camping costs are actually pretty low.

Who’s gonna stay and watch the kids for ten days, let’s get real?

Hmm, maybe our moms.

You’ll need a plane ticket, and what about a backpack and boots?

I know, and I’ll borrow one, and I still have my Merrells from college, phew.

I talked myself into it finally one sleepless night, but then to tell my husband felt like a whole other feat. I knew the stress of one income fell on him, which always made me lean towards telling myself no in hopes to help alleviate some pressure.

But there was something too deep inside me I couldn’t ignore, like a small voice within, quietly screaming, “GO!”

Honey, I have this opportunity to hike the Grand Canyon, and I really wanna do it.

He responded as I guessed with all the logical reasons why I shouldn’t, but I’d already run through them: the flight was cheap, only one night in a hotel, splitting costs on dehydrated meals, borrowing a backpack from a friend, tent and sleep pad from another, one guy already had all the cooking supplies, I could use my old boots, and lastly, our moms are splitting the time to help with the kids.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop wondering, why was articulating something I desired so hard for me? Am I not a human who deserves to yearn for experiences of my own?

For some reason, back then, I must not have believed I was worthy, which keeps coming up in all my self-reflection, so I give the old me a huge hug for finally just deciding, I’m going on this adventure, and I will face whatever obstacle comes my way.

So I searched for my old Merrell boots I’d worn several years trekking around my icy, snowy college campus.

Seemed extra stiff when I pulled them out of an old duffle bag I hadn’t dug into for over a decade. I figured they’d break in with movement. So my friend and I began our training one early morning on a hiking hill nearby.

But the boots weren’t quite softening like I hoped they would, in fact, the right one kept feeling like something was loosening, not in the laces but in the sole up by my pinky toe, what the heck…

We reached the top, and I looked down at the sole of my right boot flopping. I could bend it backwards underneath me and put the ball of my foot on the ground. The left boot’s sole was loose too, only a matter of steps. I had to hike back down bootless. Made me think of Cheryl Strayed in Wild.

Add another obstacle to the list.

But my desire to go on this adventure had grown stronger than any obstacle, and there were a few, with a doozy just the day before leaving. I thought I had head lice.

I can’t sleep in a tent with people if I have lice, let alone the plane ride and car ride and all the things…

I was ready to shave my head when I thankfully discovered it was an allergic reaction to a hat I’d bought at a boat dock at a lake we were at the weekend before.

I’m glad I didn’t have to hike Grand Canyon bald, but I would’ve cuz nothin’ was gonna stop me.

But What If I Don’t Want To Hike the Grand Canyon?

Sometimes taking ownership over the direction of your life isn’t just about big desires. It can also refer to how you’re living on a day-to-day basis.

As in, how are you showing up as a human in your everyday interactions with people and nature and just with life in general?

Sometimes the truth can be uncomfortable.

I’d say I was doing alright, being conscious of being more present with my people. And I was getting better at not beating myself up all the time, saying no thanks, inner critic. But she turned to criticizing every other driver on the road, especially the tourists.

Or maybe it was because I’d done so much extra driving that summer. My middle school son was on a travel basketball team with tournaments often 5+ hours away, plus picking up teammates for practices 3x a week. And I’m not complaining because I’d love those times back with all that budding energy in my car, but sometimes, I just got really f*cking sick of driving and dealing with stupid drivers on the road.

Like that one day when I drove a few boys out to the paintball range for a birthday party. Afterwards, on our way back home, I was feeling overwhelmingly frustrated and impatient at the slow driver in front of me, so I decided to pass him… on a hill in a no passing zone while speeding, and ended up swerving because of course there was a damn turtle in the middle of the road.

The second I did it, I knew I was wrong, and especially when I heard the sirens. Sh*t. I looked in my rearview mirror at three young teens, including my own, looking right back at me. As much as I wanted to start slinging some excuses, I knew I had none. I was the impulsive one who made a reckless choice, and I got busted, in front of innocent eyes. GUILTY.

When the officer approached the window, I didn’t give a defense, I just owned it.

I was wrong, Officer, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I am 100% in the wrong. My apologies.

He just looked at me, then looked at my precious cargo in back, then looked at me again.

I know…

After the officer handed over my ticket for speeding, which should have been reckless driving, I turned around to face the boys.

“I’m sorry. That was stupid and reckless of me. I wasn’t using my head. I made a horrible choice. Please know I will never put you in danger like that again. I was wrong, and I’m really, really sorry.”

They didn’t say much, just kinda looked at each other like wtf.

Sometimes taking ownership ain’t pretty. And sometimes it demands a pivot from the way you thought things were supposed to be.

Back in 2017, I wrote an article about my grandma that I submitted to our local state magazine, fully assuming they would accept it and run it, no problem.

But nope, it got denied. “Not enough grit.”

Which I didn’t include on purpose because I knew my grandma wouldn’t want her dirty laundry shared so openly. Some things she hadn’t said aloud ‘til she was in her 90s. She’d cover her mouth while her eyes went back and forth, then whisper, “I never told anyone that before.”

She loved that magazine, and I thought it would be so cool if she got her monthly subscription and opened it up to see her story on those pages.

But it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, it felt like I got sucker punched when I read the denial email.

I had already told my mom, and my aunts and uncles, and we were all so excited about this secret for Grandma, how was I going to tell them the truth?

Which to me at the time felt like the truth was that I was a shitty writer.

Yes, I’d been paid for writing before, but I never felt confident about it. Yes, people gave me compliments, but I never felt I deserved them. So the denial of the story I had written felt like confirmation of all my limiting beliefs.

After shedding a few tears, I shared the bad news with family. I thought my project of visiting my grandma on purpose with questions about her past and writing her story was over. I thought this great idea I had was just another whim I followed and failed. I thought, wow, how disappointing.

Then my uncle asked, “Why don’t you print it yourself?”

Umm, duh.

It proved to be another example of how taking ownership isn’t about taking the easy route. But the hurdles were worth it to see my grandma’s reaction when she read her story in print.

My mom had confiscated the monthly magazine from my grandma’s pile of mail. Then she inserted the booklet I had written, designed and printed, so when Grandma opened her beloved publication, she would find her own story inside! (kind of)

I can still remember the surprised look on her face, which she covered with her hands as she always did when she was tickled pink and didn’t know what to say.

She picked up the booklet, saw her picture on the cover with the title, “The Queen of Yale,” held it to her heart, looked at me, and mouthed thank you with a smile I could feel across her living room.

So what I thought was a setback ended up being a bigger win than I ever could have imagined.

Such is the power of taking ownership.

But trust me, I get it, being personally responsible and holding yourself accountable ain’t easy. It’s asking you to get really real about the choices you make and the moves you take.

Think you might wanna try? Here are a few places to explore:

Is there a desire within that you keep dismissing?

Is there a behavior you need to acknowledge or take responsibility for?

Is there a possibility where you’re allowing someone else’s opinion to be the final answer?

Choose whichever question catches your attention, answer it honestly, then choose one small step you’re willing to take.

Always in your corner, cheering you on.
Love, Dakota

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Share The Wilde Side of Life

Circa 1993, my high school bff and I were shopping in a city a couple hours away from the rural prairie towns we grew up in, so every store was exciting and new and aplenty.

I kept holding up items I’d find, felt like I was on a fun scavenger hunt, and I’d be like, Frienda, look at this cool shirt, and she’d look up from the rack she was perusing and react with barely any enthusiasm, and she said this one line over and over, for every item I picked out or tried on, “It looks like you.”

That was it. And for some reason, it irked me.

“Whaddya mean, it looks like me?”

“I mean, it looks like you.”

“Well, it sounds like you’re saying that’s a bad thing.”

“I didn’t say that. I just said it looks like you. Sorry, I guess I thought that was a compliment.”

“Well, do you like it or not?”

“I mean, I probably wouldn’t wear it, but it looks like something you’d wear.”

That felt like an uppercut back then because I felt dismissed when she didn’t share my enthusiastic reaction for finding something I thought was cool, which then made me question, what did I even like?

I had this jealous sort of desire to be like everyone else, whatever that meant idk I just felt it, so when something caught my eye that was different, but didn’t fit the image of pegged stonewash jeans with brown Eastland boots, well then never mind.

This pull between yearning to be different yet wanting to be the same apparently played out through what I thought I thought was a cool shirt...

Have you ever done that?

Looked for confirmation from others, didn’t receive it, and that sent you into a tailspin of questioning yourself like a double agent because you must clearly be wrong or stupid or whatever it can feel like when you step into your own inner world and try on your own interests for size.

Does it fit? Idk yet…

I’ve always studied people, faces especially, with all their possibilities of features and expressions. I notice body structures and behavioral gestures too, and have often tried to emulate them, you know, just like try them on for size.

I had this young pretty aunt whose mouth seemed to change when she laughed and I tried to do the same with mine for at least a year, usually when no one was looking. Actually, my sister and I would practice it together in front of a mirror. Then when it was time, usually at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in a room full of family, we’d try to commit to our new expression, but when one of us noticed the other in the moment, we’d bust out laughing, and the forced pout would fail. Guess it didn’t fit.

While I noticed physicality, I could also sense people’s emotions through their eyes and reactions, and I could feel those emotions in my own experience if I wanted to let them in, which I often did, not knowing I didn’t have to.

I felt my human duty was to be a sponge, to soak up everyone else in order to figure out myself and how life worked.

What took me awhile to realize is one-size-fits-all is a crock of shit.

Maybe Frienda was trying to spare me from what I already knew, that a funky-patterned shirt or punk-like plaid pants would definitely draw some attention from the town folks who liked to talk about things that were different, and I didn’t blame them, but I also didn’t want to be the subject.

So while I could see myself in them, I didn’t want to be seen in them.

The Inversion

I had forgotten about my inner world until that sleepless journal rant night. And it scared the shit out of me once I realized I’d been ignoring my inner Self since childhood, probably after realizing the world isn’t always full of sunshine and rainbows, sweetheart.

The journaling kept producing words and concepts I hadn’t ever thought of. One of those words that came up over and over was “Authenticity.” I was like, why does this word keep coming out of me?

I looked it up.

Authenticity = the quality of being real, genuine, true, and not a copy or a counterfeit.

That’s really hard to do in today’s viral, cut-and-paste world.

Where would one even begin to explore her Authentic nature?

The best ways I’ve found that work for me are through journaling, coloring and sound frequency. And walking, but without ear buds, so I can pay full attention to my surroundings, especially nature. I also play this game where I look for color throughout my day.

But in the beginning days of exploring my own authentic journey, I challenged my writing to go beyond journaling, which began with writing content and stories for local businesses and non profits. Cool. Fun.

But the desire to tell my own stories kept building, and I could no longer ignore the call.

When I quit the paid gigs to focus on my own unpaid creations, I knew I could never go back to the person I was before. I knew I had to commit to the new version of me who was going to do whatever she had to do to make her visions come to life.

I didn’t even know what that meant, but I felt it, so I went for it, and found myself in lots of online classrooms learning how to create online businesses.

I also started volunteering for my state’s Junior Achievement program, and signed up to teach an hourlong class on core values, or at least that’s the part I’m extracting here.

So I received the teaching materials, read through them, they referenced a few main core values, but I got curious to explore more and ended up compiling a pretty lengthy list.

I went through them myself, circling the ones that felt like me in the moment, as a mother hitting mid-life with two young adult children, and as a woman opening her own new chapter.

The one that I found my hand circling without me even thinking was Integrity.

Now seriously, had I done this exercise in high school, I never would have even paid attention to the word Integrity, as in I would have probably felt turned off, maybe even appalled, because it felt so out of my league, like too good for me, as in unreachable. My eyes would have glided right past it, not even considering a person like me would ever have any Integrity. I was too busy livin’ up to my last name!

Quick search: Integrity is the quality of being honest, having strong moral principles, and keeping your actions consistent with your values, even when no one is watching.

Yep, confirmed, teenage Chasity Wilde was rebelling against anything that regarded rules and principles. I also had no belief that people like me would be considered to be someone with Integrity, and I have no idea why I thought that.

Decades later, in one of my online spaces, a well-respected facilitator was telling me to create three tiers of offers with high-end coaching, and I was like, NO. Just straight to his face. Not in a mean way, but meant with pure Integrity. I had been showing up for myself in so many spaces and scenarios enough to know what options were speaking to me and which ones weren’t. And that one wasn’t. And I knew it.

He wasn’t offended because we were brainstorming, and he was offering his proven methodologies, which I didn’t doubt because I knew his credentials, but thankfully, I also knew to listen to my inner voice saying, don’t just say yes because that’s what he’s offering, it’s okay to do it your own way, too.

Okay, I’m listening… but what does my own way even mean?

It means, no thank you, coaching programs and high-ticket offers, I’m more interested in writing stories and playing games and trying experiments.

I’ve been getting hits on characters and their stories for a couple decades now. I know they’re mine to tell, eventually. I also know I’ve had some growing up to do first.

I turned 52 this week, so I guess I’m proof it’s never too late to get curious about who you are authentically. On the inside.

Not the outer you who was born into whatever family, raised in whatever environment, told whatever beliefs and values, but rather your soul essence that was always hanging out through all that, waiting for you to remember her.

My soul waited patiently. I was in my mid 30’s when I finally first started listening.

Yours is always there for you, too. She wants to help you align with your Self. Here are a couple questions that might help you connect:

Did I choose this value because it feels true to me?
Or am I carrying it because it’s familiar?

Remembering, core values can morph and/or we can relate to them differently during various phases and moments of our lives.

So you’re going along your day, you feel good, you’ve been doing some inner work, you’ve been reconnecting and listening to yourself, and you’ve got it all under control, then you grab your phone…

And in one scroll, everyone and their online neighbor is telling you what to do, what to wear, where to go, how to get there, how to feel once you get there, how to cleanse, depends on your lifestyle, your astrology, your human design, and don’t forget epigenetics, and down the hole of dark matter… who’s ready to talk about aliens?

Our world is expanding, and you have authenticity as your superpower. What are you gonna do with it?

If you’re ready to venture on your own journey of authenticity, here are a couple questions worth asking yourself.

How much of your life feels like you?
And when was the last time you checked?

Don’t be surprised if you find your answer in a funky shirt.

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Share The Wilde Side of Life

It was the summer of 1939 in Yale, South Dakota, a small rural town built along the railroad with a population of 300, where a young woman and her friend were walking downtown. The friend shared that her uncle had noticed her friend one day when he was delivering milk and wondered if she’d like to accompany them to a silent movie playing on the top floor of the Musolf store.

The young woman replied, “Well, if he wants me to go, then he can ask me.”

The young man asked, and so they went. The next day was a town celebration called Whoopie Days with a carnival, concessions and games. He wanted to ride the ferris wheel with her, but she was with friends and kept dodging him. “I was told the thing to do was to play hard to get.”

Not for long because soon after, she joined him one Sunday morning service at the Yale Lutheran church, where she instantly noticed how the women and children sat in the pews on the right side, while the men sat on the left.

Huh.

The young woman chose to sit next to her beau amongst the men. “I decided right there I was not going to sit by myself on the opposite side.”

Following her lead, other women joined their husbands then everyone sat as families.

Fast forward to 1970 in that same rural setting, after that young couple had seven babies they were raising on the open plains.

Their sixth child, now a high school girl, noticed how the girls had a strict dress code that served no one but the perverts who liked to look up their short skirts.

So she petitioned for the girls to wear pants. And the next year they did.

Recognizing a pattern that no longer serves, and making a different choice that can disrupt the worn-out language of “that’s just the way it’s always been,” apparently runs in my lineage.

Oh, how I can so easily cringe when I hear that lame statement of an excuse.

I used to go with it, I even believed it. Yep, that’s just how it is, so ya better get used to it…

F*ck that!

Now anytime I hear, well that’s just how it is, I’m all like, oh hellllll no!

Instead, that tells me, it’s time to revise.

I guess I take after my grandmother and mother that way…

I grew up in that same small town (which downsized to a 100) and loved being close to family, but very much of the script was to graduate, get married, have babies, go to church, bring something for potluck, and kinda just know what everyone’s up to.

This is a wonderful way of life and community, I just always knew I needed more room to breathe, and explore, and to meet new people beyond my comfortable rural radius.

So I left for college, which turned into grad school, mostly because I wasn’t ready to commit to adulthood, and holy shit, I had no idea what to expect from master’s coursework in Rhetoric.

I was burnt out from all the reading, writing, revising, and analyzing, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. All I did know was I could not go back to lifeguarding for the seventh summer.

One May evening, end of the school year, at my favorite college bar, I went to the DJ booth to request probably Rusted Root or Violent Femmes from my friend Jon. He surprised me with, “Hey, I hear you’re thinking of going to New Jersey for the summer.”

“Yeah, I thought about nannying out there, but I’m sure it won’t happen.”

“Well, I’m doing an internship in Atlantic City, we could drive together, split gas, whaddya say?”

48 hours later, I walked out of my studio apartment I’d packed up in a hurry, Jon and some random dude picked me up, and we embarked on our summer cross-country trip to the Jersey shore.

I had no job, no money, no car, no phone, no nothing. Except a cousin already nannying there who said she’d help me. And clearly, some blind faith.

After a couple weeks of crossing fingers and listening to New Jersey accents, “Oh mah gawd darlin, either ya eyez match ya shurt or ya shurt matches ya eyez, either way iz gougeous dawling,” she came back from school pick-up one day with great news.

“There’s this really cool mom, four kids, never had a nanny, but just told me she wants help for the summer, and we can go there this weekend to meet them, whaddya think?!”

We got there on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon, I could hear kids screaming and splashing in the backyard pool, Dave Matthews crooning through the outdoor speakers.

Immediately, we knew. I knew. They knew. The kids knew. My cousin knew. We all just knew.

“So where’s my room?”

I was very lucky to land with an amazing, welcoming, fun family because I had heard of some not-so-great nanny stories.

The wife and I quickly hit it off. “Listen, I’m my kids’ mom, so I don’t expect you to do anything I can do myself. I just need some help when one kid has a birthday party over here, and another kid has something over there, or to just stay home with the baby.”

Got it.

I felt extremely fortunate to practice mothering alongside her. She was patient and kind and gave the kids space to share their feelings and frustrations.

I remember one specific time, I walked into a conversation, where one kid maybe hit the other, or took a toy or something, can’t quite remember, but I do remember the mom talking calmly, “Now don’t you think your feelings would be hurt if someone did that to you?” She was teaching them perspective, respect and compassion.

I remember thinking, hmmm interesting. She’s talking to her kids like they’re adults almost and trying to get them to see another human’s point of view. Huh. I didn’t know you could do that.

My siblings and I have joked often, repeating our mother’s favorite phrase when we were little shits, I mean little kids: “Work it out amongst yourselves.”

Growing up in the eastern plains of South Dakota in the middle of nowhere living on a truck driver’s wages with a stay at home mom didn’t offer much opportunity, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way because we had absolute freedom to explore and play and use our imaginations all day.

But sometimes we siblings got sick of each other. And sometimes our mom probably got sick of us. Sometimes our fights were too stupid to engage. And sometimes maybe she didn’t have the capacity. And sometimes she simply repeated what she had heard, from her mother, who had raised seven children in the country, in the beginning with no running water, no electricity and an outhouse out back.

Of course she said, “Work it out amongst yourselves.”

Of course my mom repeated what she knew, and oftentimes it worked, cuz we did just figure stuff out.

So when I witnessed another way, I was stunned, and I know that might sound silly, but I really didn’t grow up around much diversity, so it very much felt, to me anyway, like there was one way to do things in life.

Which left me always feeling like I was failing to figure out that one right way.

So when I witnessed a different approach, I sensed a bit of relief, like holy crap, there can be different ways of doing things. And I liked how that felt to me.

Eyes open, yes, but with a side of guilt, almost like betraying what I had always known, which felt like betraying my heritage in a way.

I knew it was silly to think that they would care if I had a different response or tactic to use with my own children some day, but my body held onto a weird fear of change.

When I did have kids a decade later, it felt so natural to talk to them about things, to give them space to share their feelings, and to let them know it’s absolutely okay to do so.

My mom has often commented, “I just love how you talk to your children, how you explain things to them, how you listen to them.”

Hearing that meant the world to me. Those unexplainable feelings of guilt dissolved.

It made me think though:

How many ways are we living that we’re just expecting things to be the way they’ve always been?

And does it feel true to you, or are you just repeating patterns because that’s only what you know?

Sometimes change comes from noticing the patterns happening outside of you, within the collective, going on for years, decades, even centuries.

Other times, some patterns run deep within yourself, ones you’ve been etching for a long, long time. Like a well-worn path through a field of prairie grass.

Funny full-circle story:

My senior year in that same small town high school where my mom fought to wear pants, I also petitioned for a change to the dress code cuz in the early 90’s in my school, girls couldn’t wear shorts. Oh hell no.

Here’s the funny part, but also shows how sometimes making change requires several small steps to get there.

Our principal’s compromise was girls could wear shorts measured by how far our fingertips reached down the sides of our legs, no shorter than that, and even though you get to wear shorts now you noisy girls, you still have to wear panty hose under them, and so we did.😆 But the next year when my sister was a senior, they got to wear shorts with no panty hose.

Progress, people. It’s always possible.

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Share The Wilde Side of Life

I was such a giddy schoolgirl when I started doing the work on myself, isn’t that what the people say? Do the work.

Well they, whoever they are, are right.

If you wanna consciously up-level your life or can’t ignore the pull towards something you know is meant for you, then doing the work on yourself just might be your next step.

Warning though, sometimes leveling up doesn’t always look so pretty at first.

Hey Universe, I’m journaling now, see, and I’m asking questions and facing myself, see, and I’m looking under the hood, see, and I’m being a good little spiritual gangster, see…

So how the hell did I end up in the back of a police car?

I’d been waking up at 4:30 am to read and write as much as I could before the rest of the house awoke.

When I’d shower I’d let ideas and thoughts and worries wash over me and down the drain.

I called myself the Vacuumator because for one, seemed like I was using it all the time, but I didn’t care because the hum and rhythm revved my imagination.

When driving I’d be curiously asking myself why the innocent driver in front of me perturbed me so much.

So I just kept returning to the worksite aka my inner world as often as I could through journaling and intentional focus and lots of contemplation.

Nonetheless, or maybe as expected, new challenges hence lessons kept presenting themselves just when I was thinking I was making progress.

But here’s a truth you probably already know: working on yourself ain’t easy.

And you often want to give up especially in the beginning when you’re still looking for transactional reciprocation.

Like, okay, I went to yoga 3 times this week, where’s my reward?

Doing the work on yourself is actually just finally paying attention to things you’re noticing.

Yes, noticing yourself and your surroundings, but also noticing the expectations by which you’ve been designing your days and maybe even your whole life. Yikes.

We can so easily put expectations on ourselves, whether they come from within, or are handed over by others.

Either way, they can feel like the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God, if you don’t get this thing done right…

I realized how expectations can both help and harm, like most things.

I also found that I loved to express myself through letting my thoughts come out through my hand and land on paper where I can see them, plus I enjoyed getting poetic.

I know what you’re thinking, well that must be nice because you’re a writer so that’s easy for you, but it wasn’t about writing.

It was about digging in and pulling out little nuggets that felt like treasures, and although some were hurtful, they were the most helpful.

Doing the work helped me zoom out and look at life with a wider lens versus getting caught up in what seems so dang important and necessary at the time, but when you look in hindsight, you’re kinda like, what was I thinking?

The reflection process was/is hard work. In the beginning, some days felt like I was dredging the bottom of the ocean. Other days, I was flying high in the skies.

Sometimes I’d be so damn tired from all the excavation, I’d just say f*ck it, this is too hard. I wanna go back to not giving a shit, to living in my bubble, to drinking wine every night, to stop having all these thoughts that make me question who I am and everything I might actually be capable of.

Sure, I was taking baby steps forward into the scary unknown. But I could also stumble backwards, landing in my tried and true world of escapism, where the doorway had always been drinking. Since 13.

Some truths run deep. That was one I’d maybe turn and face occasionally, but I wasn’t willing to take her head on because that’s just silly, I don’t have a drinking problem. I’m a fun drunk!

Until I got a big-ass disrupt.

Hello sirens on a February Friday afternoon coming home from the ski hill on my way to pick up my daughter at Kindergarten and son at the neighbor’s.

Instead, I ended up on the side of the road, blowing above the legal drinking limit, just enough to cuff.

Damn, I should have eaten lunch was my first thought.

Then my scrambled mind found enough invisible evidence to blurt from his backseat: “I guarantee there’s actual criminals out there committing way worse crimes right now than a mom who just had a couple beers at the ski hill!”

Once I found that argument, I so easily convinced myself I was right and he was wrong, how dare he?

Whilst being fingerprinted, the officer came back over to deliver my belongings then leaned down to whisper, “I’m sorry you’re having a bad Friday, ma’am.”

Damn right, you should be sorry for ruining my day you asshole, I basically told him through the scold in my bloodshot eyes. My last ditch effort of fooling myself.

I watched him walk away, glaring at his back as if lasers were shooting out, until I looked around for the first time and noticed my surroundings.

Ho-ly shit. This. cannot. be. happening.

I barely heard the intaker ask, “Would you like to call someone?”

Any defense I had built up quickly dissolved and especially as I realized my husband was over an hour away en route to a hunting weekend with his brother and father. He had to turn around to release me, and missed his special weekend.

All the excuses were gone and pointless.

I was there because of my reckless behavior, which took until that moment to admit.

I was guilty. I was the problem.

And now I can say, thankfully, that officer stopped me from putting myself in a position to possibly be a bigger problem.

I mean, my god, I could have hurt someone. Like, why did I think it was okay to drive to a grade school with children running around after I’d been drinking? I mean, wtf Chas??

And yet I can still so easily wanna throw out my automatic rebuttal, “It was only two beers, it wasn’t that bad, I barely blew over the limit, everyone does it…”

But I don’t buy my old excuses anymore.

That was definitely one of my biggest wakeup calls.

But I wouldn’t be telling you the whole truth if I didn’t admit it took me awhile to fully listen and learn, and I’m still listening and learning every single day, and I don’t imagine that will ever change.

Some old patterns cut so deep, they feel like they’re just a part of you.

Like, I am a person who parties. That’s who I am because that’s who I’ve always been.

So who am I, if I’m not that?

That question created quite the mindf*ck before I could muster up the energy to explore it, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I looked up “writers in my area” and through a following cascade of events and people and time, I got to know other humans following their passions. I took online courses, attended writing retreats, joined writing groups, volunteered at book fairs, and eventually, braved my way to a stage.

Actually, first time was more like a casual open mic where I purposely sat in the back row with my notebook and no intention of sharing, just here to listen.

But when the organizer saw my open notebook and no hands raised waiting to go next, she took it upon herself to offer me up to the eager ears.

Ummm, yeah i really wasn’t planning on sharing, i’m just here to listen, i really no i can’t i umm i mean i guess i have stuff in here but i umm haven’t ever read it out loud or anything, like it’s not good, i just write stuff sometimes…

Perfect! she said.

The room was small. Maybe 20 chairs in 3 rows. Microphone right there. Dark hallway leading to the bathroom adding eeriness, like what is happening right now? Am I really doing this? I can’t… I can’t… I can’t…

But my legs are standing up and oh my gosh I dropped my jacket and why is my heart pounding so hard, am I breathing, omg there’s so much sweat in my armpits, it’s so warm in here, why are my hands shaking like this, I just wanna walk out that exit…

But I didn’t. I got myself up to the mic. And then, I froze.

I knew that if I started speaking the tears would come too. You know that lump in your throat you can get? It was the plug.

But I looked at the strange faces in the seats and decided to go for it.

I made it through maybe two lines of a short rant about feeling like “shattered glass” before I lost it. Not just a few rolling tears with maybe a slight pause.

Nope. I sobbed. Like uncontrollably. It was the most raw and exposed I had ever felt. And while it sucked, it was also a huge rush of relief.

I barely finished what felt like a whiny complaint about my life, but I also recognized it was okay to share how I truly felt, aloud, even to strangers.

Holy crap, I was a mess though and sooooo embarrassed.

Everyone got up to leave after that, so it felt like I undressed in front of the room, then everyone just left me standing there naked, and who knew who would see me out on the street, all exposed like that…

But one older woman came up to me and gently placed her warm hand on my trembling arm, looked me in the eye, and said, “This phase of life won’t last forever, honey, it’ll be okay.” Followed by the sweetest smile that I could believe.

And I realized in that moment, that was what I was so desperately needing… to be seen!

Have you ever feel that way? Like you just want someone to truly see you almost like from the inside.

Driving home that night, I felt so alive!!!

Because the writing had come from doing the work in my inner world, all I wanted was to get back in there and explore, give me more!!

So I would as often as I could and even times when I probably shouldn’t, like that one December day when our family of four went driving through the hills to cut down our Christmas tree, and all I could do was look out the window and think, please stop talking to me, I just wanna be in my own world right now, it’s so interesting in here, I wanna forage over here instead…

If you’re an avoidant like me, sometimes working on yourself can become volatile territory.

I’m still realizing how exploring your inner world can become its own form of escapism if you continue on long enough with all the learning and doing and fantasizing.

But the truth comes out in the BE-ing.

Who do I want to BE in this current reality, the one I’m living day to day, the one where we drive and sing and chop down a tree, the one who doesn’t need a drink every Friday eve, the one who journals simply to give her thoughts and feelings some relief?

I want to be fully present and to laugh easily and to feel free.
I don’t want my kids to remember mommy always drinking.

So how can I BE the woman who so desperately wants to know so much more about her inner world, yet longs to engage and participate in her life already happening?

I now want to be so present for the life I once kept trying to escape, but I can’t help but ask myself, what was I trying to avoid?

Maybe you felt a little twinge when reading that… is there something in your life you’ve been avoiding?

Finding the answer isn’t always easy because the inner world can be so tantalizing, and the outer world can be so tempting, but that’s where we get to ask ourselves these questions:

Am I using what I’m learning about myself to participate more fully in my life?
Or am I just finding interesting excuses to avoid it?

No shame here, just some real f*cking honesty, please. You deserve that. Your people in your world deserve that. So thanks for playing.

Ooh, speaking of, I have something you can try. And because I like to name my little experiments, let’s call this one The Reflection Replay.

At the end of today or any other ordinary day, I invite you to replay a moment when you felt unexpectedly…

irritated
defensive
embarrassed
excited
disappointed

And ask: What story did I tell myself about what happened?

Wanna dig deeper, ask: What was I protecting, expecting or hoping for in that moment?

When you’re ready, ask: What might I notice if I looked at that moment without trying to defend myself?

Btw I’m not suggesting you start up the excavator right now, more just like see what comes up for you, and get curious about it, that’s all.

I hope my story can be a mirror to help you reflect.

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I like shoes. Always have. Not exactly a closet full of heels fan, but a variety of styles and colors suits me. Which might trick you by the black Converse I wear most days. Or boots, my fav.

I notice other people’s shoes, too. So when I moved from the rural plains of eastern South Dakota to the bustling streets of New York City in my early 20’s, I quickly realized my K-Mart round-toed loafers had to go. This was early 2000’s. Do you remember the style then?

Kitten to tall heel, maybe a thin Mary Jane strap, and a pointy toe, the pointier the better, also on a stiletto-esque boot.

I preferred walking over taking the subway, which turned out to be a total of two hours every Monday thru Friday, plus out to lunch or appointments, and don’t forget happy hours, that sometimes turned into 2am-ers pretty quickly, in pointy fricking heels because no way was I gonna be one of those women in dress clothes wearing sneakers.

Holy blisters, bandaids and bunions.

I should have been relieved when I moved to the Black Hills in South Dakota where the locals were wearing more sensible footwear, like the open-toed Teva. But I had a different problem.

I don’t do open toes man, what am I gonna do? I gotta fit in. Be like the locals. Don’t look out of place. Slide right in.

Truth is, I hated wearing pointy toed heels and couldn’t have cared less about mountaineering footwear.

But the idea hadn’t struck me that I didn’t have to wear them. How weird is that?

It was more like, suck it up buttercup, this is what the people are doing, so hop on board or you’ll be left behind, whatever that means, but that’s how I had always felt inside.

So crazy to me now. Anyway.

I have zero pointy shoes except a pair of cute cowgirl boots, and I have one pair of close-toed Tevas, which admittedly come in handy for hiking.

I could talk shoes all day, but that’s not what this is about.

Question is, why was I so like, okay, this is where I live now, so I better study what other people are doing, then gauge my next move based off that… wtf?

Why??

My whole life. This is one of those patterns that when I truly saw it, I was like, holy crap, how many more ways do I morph to my environment?

Just call me a chameleon.

I’m not saying I don’t like it, because I actually kind of do. It’s fun for me to be able to jump in almost anywhere without much hesitation or problem.

Until it isn’t…

Until I feel like I’m never doing anything right. Like I never know what the right thing is to do. Like I never quite get it right, or catch up to everyone else doing things right.

God, those feelings sucked. And if you’re having them, I’m sorry, but trust me, they don’t have to stay with you.

The problem with being so malleable is that I’m constantly looking outside myself to gauge my environment about who I’m supposed to be in that moment versus checking in with myself.

But honestly, I didn’t even know what that meant.

Check in with myself, what??

I mean, by the time we moved to the Black Hills, I was a mother of two littles. Who has time to check in with herself, or even know what to ask?

It was more like, game on, stay at home mother, with a big house instead of a small apartment, two vehicles instead of none, a backyard and neighbors a lawn away, not down the hall by the garbage bins.

I felt like I was playing House, like my sister and I did as kids, but now I had a real house and wow, real live children, not fake Cabbage Patch dolls!

I loved my role as stay at home mom, raising our daughter and son in our home. I couldn’t imagine anyone else spending their days with them but me. I always knew that, and I fought for it because of course the conversation of one salary comes into play.

And that’s where the older, deeper patterns of being the malleable hence easy-going, don’t-need-much, don’t-mind-me, you-can-even-ignore-me-if-you-like identity came back to hang out with me.

I mean, it’s fine Chas, you don’t really wanna go to that writing retreat, or backpacking trip, or girls weekend anyway, I’d try to convince myself.

But I also couldn’t ignore that something was turning on inside me. Writing was bringing me alive, but it wasn’t bringing money to the table.

So then how could it be worthy of my time?

It felt really hard for me to defend any time or money or attention I’d spend on myself. I didn’t feel worthy because I wasn’t contributing financially, so I let myself get small.

Once again, I adapted. Not by meeting the situation, but by shrinking.

Oh shit, that pattern goes deep.

How did those qualities play out for me?

I’d buy groceries at Target where I’d slip in a sweater or something for myself, then quickly take it to the closet as if it’s a secret. I’d go Christmas shopping and add myself to the list.

Meanwhile, my husband was happily enjoying all sorts of extracurricular activities with friends and family, often times traveling, and I’d happily say, go have fun, honey, and I’d mean it. Truly, I did. I wanted him to have adventures. I thought I was perfectly happy staying home playing House.

But while the husband had fun, and kids were growing, and laundry was folded, little did I know I was missing myself.

I mentioned here how journaling became my lifeline then. Every time a thought or inspiration zapped me, I’d write it down. Eventually, I started writing more full page reflections. They were insightful and poetic, and I was really proud of them. But I didn’t know what to do with them.

I kept thinking, Chas, you’re wasting so much time writing, you could be doing this, this and this. C’mon, get your shit together. The house is a mess. Laundry piled up. Pizza again tonight?

Have you ever been so drawn to something that maybe doesn’t make sense but you can’t ignore it?

The night I finally told my husband I had aspirations to be a writer, my heart was beating so fast, the words could barely come out. They almost didn’t because I was embarrassed. Mind you this was a man I had been with for almost 20 years at the time. We went to college together, we moved across the country together, we had kids together, we had fun together.

So why was it so hard to talk about MY dreams?

Did I think I wasn’t allowed because I was in the role of mom who stays home and “doesn’t work” and that’s all I was to everyone?

The more I journaled, the more I discovered about myself, realizing the me inside of me wanted so desperately to be seen.

Do you ever feel that way?

Nobody told me I had to sacrifice my dreams because I was a stay at home mother. I told myself that. It was easy to blame others for their expectations of me, but truth is, I swallowed those invisible rules because I thought I had to.

Cuz if I didn’t give and please then who was I?

Once I realized how much of who I had become was shaped by who I thought I was supposed to be, other perspectives then started opening up to me.

Such as, identity isn’t a permanent fixture of who we are.

Identity is something we can look at with curiosity. Like huh, okay, that’s the type of person I’ve been, and this patterning is part of it. Okay, so then what have I chosen that feels good to me? Anything? Hopefully.

It’s not about “figuring yourself out” as if there’s an actual answer that finally declares: This is who you are, now go live your life accordingly. Nope, sorry to break it to ya.

Your identity is a never-ending pact with yourself to make conscious choices about who you want to be as a human living here on this earth right now in this moment.

Not a life overhaul. Just meeting the moment you’re in, as often as you can.

To help make that happen, something you can do is notice.

Notice your surroundings.

Notice your body.

Notice your senses.

Notice other people’s energy.

Notice the invisible rules you’ve either placed upon yourself, or those roles you’ve stepped into. And maybe ask:

Are these mine?

Stay at home mom = my time should be spent doing something useful for my family
Not earning money = I should feel guilty spending money on myself
Easygoing wife = don’t make a fuss, everything’s fine
Writer who hasn’t published anything = writing is something I should do after the “real” work is finished

Did you learn the same rules I did? I’m sure you have a set of your own.

Some of these I absorbed. Some I assumed. Some I didn’t know myself well enough to have an opinion.

But I lived by them like they were facts.

So maybe next time you notice some invisible rules showing up in your world, ask yourself, “Are these mine?”

See if your answer comes from within and feels good.

Or maybe you have a reality check and realize you’ve been regurgitating what you think you should because that’s what you’ve known?

Just know you’re not alone. The answer can be hard to face sometimes. Be nice to yourself.

You are strong and worthy, and you don’t need my permission, but I’m going to give it to you anyway because if you’re like (the old) me, you can tend to look outward for permission.

It’s okay, I’m not shaming you. The systemic training has been happening for a long time, whether we see it or not.

Now I see it.

And that’s why we’re here, working on that awareness. I got you.

So. My dear fellow Soulshiner, I hereby give you…

PERMISSION TO:
want something that doesn’t make sense to anyone else but you

spend time on something that doesn’t make money

change your mind about the kind of person you want to be

play a role without letting it become your entire identity

disappoint someone’s expectation of you

try something you’re terrible at

stop dressing for the metaphorical room

have dreams that don’t benefit anyone but you, or they can

become curious about who you are now

not know who the hell you are yet

You deserve any or all of those things because you’re a beautiful Soul living out a human life on Earth, and maybe it’s okay to question what exactly does that mean?

Furthermore, what does that mean for YOU?

I know, I know, I dropped a heavy load. Sorry not sorry. It’s just that I know so many women are on this journey that I’ve been on for almost two decades, so if there’s any support I can offer, I consider it my honor and my duty.

Okay, moving on.

You up for a tiny experiment?!

Cool. I’m gonna give you a little quest. For one day, try to notice how many times you say or even think: “I should…”

This isn’t about beating yourself up btw, it’s about noticing.

You might be surprised how often it slips out.

I should dress like this.
I should make dinner.
I should be productive.
I should answer that text.
I should be okay with this.
I should have this figured out by now.

So just notice when it comes up, then ask yourself this:

“Who says?”

If your answer feels honest and true coming from you, then good job.

If it feels familiar because it came from someone else, well then, we find that interesting.

If you don’t know where it came from, then even more interesting, and maybe a place to dig.

Just a reminder to yourself, this is not about rebelling or yelling or blaming or shaming.

This is about NOTICING.
Yourself.
Your patterns.
Your invisible rules you’ve adopted.

And give yourself some grace, girl! We all have shit to sort. It’s a journey. And we have each other, so stick around.

I just mailed a pair of my boots that walked MILES of NYC pavement to my daughter going to college in Tennessee, heading to a Chicks concert in Chicago, asked if she could borrow them. Hell yeah, honey.

She’s been one of my biggest teachers to help me see the old patterns that no longer serve me nor our next generation.

It’s time we pay attention to the shoes we’re wearing, the paths we’re walking, and the stories we’re talking about.

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Okay, so it’s Tuesday morning, you wake up at whatever time, what’s the first thing you do?

Be honest!

Do you stretch?
Do you grumble and hide under your covers?
Do you jump right up, ready to go?
Do you say a prayer, offer gratitude, set an intention?
Do you smile over at your partner?
Do you fall back asleep, wishing the world away?

What do you do right away upon awakening?
And then what do you do next??

Brush your teeth?
Take a shower?
Journal?
Go for a run?
Maybe run to the coffee pot as fast as you can?
Meditate?

These are not rhetorical nor judgmental questions. I truly am curious!
(please share below, I just wanna know)

You see, I do love a good morning routine, but for me, it needs to keep changing. How some people have been doing the same thing for decades, like drinking coffee while reading the newspaper, that’s just not my style. I do like to drink coffee. I do like to read. But I do not like forever doing the same routine.

That’s why being a stay-at-home mom was perfect for me!

It allowed my mornings to morph rather than force us all out the door.
(huge props to those who can/have to)

Sometimes, however, repetition and routines don’t just show up in the actions we DO. Our ways of THINKING can become pretty damn automatic too. Thoughts and opinions can embed themselves into our very BEING.

FOR EXAMPLE

I’ll never forget this one day about a decade ago, when my then 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son were playing some sort of physical game, I can’t remember what, but they were in the living room, and I was in the kitchen when I heard the yelling, so I walked over to the hallway in between.

“Lucas says he’s stronger than me.”

Again, no idea what it was about, I just remember it being physical, and him happily showing me whatever it was to prove his strength. I think he was lifting something heavy over his head maybe. Anyway.

So I responded with what I thought was a simple, standard, can’t-argue conclusion: “Well, yeah, boys are just stronger than girls, sorry honey.”

Oh man, did that set her off!

“What do you mean boys are stronger than girls?” she reacted all peeved.

I gave my not thought-out answer of boys having different types of bodies that usually makes them stronger. She didn’t buy it.

We went back and forth for a while ‘til I, the adult, realized, this whipper-snapper wasn’t just talking about who’s lifting what anymore.

She went on about how girls are just as capable as boys, and how all girls and all boys are built differently, and how just because someone has bigger muscles doesn’t make them stronger, and and and…

Okay, okay, okay I get your point, I said, and I meant it.

Honestly, I kinda wanted to walk away and avoid the argument.
(a not-so-lovely trait I’m working on)

But thankfully I recognized that my role as her mother meant to be present with her and to have this conversation, not to prove my point, but to listen to her perspective.

All the while, in the back of my mind, I was like, you’re right, I don’t even know why I said that…

Here, she came to me seeking solace and guidance, and funny enough, she taught me that maybe I better pay closer attention to the things coming out of my mouth.

Holy learning moment for mama, sheesh!

It didn’t bother me that I was wrong. But it did weird me out how I automatically answered her without ever really thinking about my own actual opinion. Yikes.

Where did that even come from?

Cuz I knew better, too. It wasn’t like I felt empowered to defend my regurgitated statement.

Flashes of memories came up where the roles of men and women were clearly defined in the world in which I grew up, not so much spoken aloud, but shown through actions and responsibilities.

Men work and do the outside chores, while women tend to the house, meals and kids. Eww.

Yet, that was exactly the situation I was living. My husband worked at an office downtown, and I stayed home to raise our two children. And I f*cking loved it.

But whoa…

I couldn’t help but wonder how many other ideas about gender roles or anything really, I had absorbed and adopted simply by watching the world around me?

Damn girl, you just opened mama’s eyes real wide, thank you!

That conversation made me more aware of what I was saying to my kids. I started questioning my assumptions about most things, I couldn’t help it!

But of course, only the ones I was catching.

What else becomes invisible through familiarity?

The hum of overhead lights you don’t hear anymore.
The route you’ve driven hundreds of times.
The smell of your own home.
The way you make coffee.
Where you automatically sit.
Something your partner always says.
Something in your everyday surroundings you stopped looking at.

Apparently we filter out the ordinary all over the damn place!

My brain was spinning. If familiar sights, smells and surroundings can fade from our awareness, what else can?

Our routines?
Our assumptions?
Our relationships?
Our own lives?

And then it hit me… What feels familiar becomes invisible.

Holy shit, I couldn’t help but wonder, how many of my thoughts and opinions do I actually consciously believe?

Aaand how much of my life am I missing?

I truly loved being a stay-at-home mom, but one downside for me was feeling like I wasn’t part of the bigger world anymore, and that I was behind on things.

Because my days had become so familiar, I went through a phase where I was seriously craving some new feelings. I loved being a mom, but I needed to experience more of myself in my days. I wanted to feel more alive.

One day, I went to my CrossFit workout, and while we were stretching and doing calisthenics, the coach asked everyone, “If you could have a superpower, what would it be?”

Of course, quick answers went to handstand pushups, or toes to bar, or pull-ups. But not this ethereal mind of mine, nope.

I said I would love to be able to see or experience things for the first time again, or like the first time every time, like just always having a constant fresh set of eyes, how cool would that be?!

Crickets.

Okay, fine, I guess I’ll just have to live with familiarity.

But after a shit-ton of trial and error in my life, guess what I discovered can cut through familiarity?

Curiosity.

Are you curious where I’m going with all this? Me, too.

Perhaps curiosity is one way you can interrupt familiarity just enough to simply look around and notice your life again.

Perhaps curiosity can be your SUPERPOWER!

Please don’t freak, I’m not gonna suggest you start up a new morning routine, or toss your bad habits, or reinvent your life.

But maybe you can just catch something.

Something you do automatically.
Something you believe automatically.
Something you see every day but don’t really see anymore.

And simply ask yourself:
Why?

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Yeah. Well, it freaked me the fuck out, tbh.

I woke up a couple hours later feeling dazed, coming out of an overdue deep sleep. The house was still quiet. I walked out of my bedroom, past my office door where I sat just a few hours before, went and made myself some coffee, took it back to my office, and then I remembered… oh yeah, didn’t I come in here last night?

The notebook was lying open on the box crate turned end table next to my baby blue antique velvet chair. I sat down again, with caffeinated awareness, to read the phrases that couldn’t find the page fast enough last night.

“heart is beating more swiftly than it should at 1am”
“heavy beat vibrates my eyelids”
“eyes open against my will”
“barely a yawn from a dream”
“why won’t my mind allow my body the rest it so desperately needs?”

After reading the whole rant, I leaned back, brought my mug to my mouth, looked out the window, and was just like, wtf???

It felt like someone was speaking my very own language. Explaining everything I ever felt in a way that made perfect sense.

You know the phrase: “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Yeah, it was like that, but also, I knew it was me.

I had no idea that overriding my intuition for so long would get me to a point where I didn’t recognize myself anymore, and that it would take a sleepless, middle-of-the-night journaling raid to wake me up.

Honestly, it scared the shit out of me, can’t lie. Things I didn’t have words or understanding for were suddenly on this piece of paper in my own handwriting, holy crap. Fortunately, I didn’t let the fear freeze me.

Instead, I got curious.

I went back to the medium as often as I could. Paper and pen became my lifeline. My hand became the conduit for my frustrations and fears, which eventually opened up space for playing with some fantasy and fun, too.

I journaled, scribbled, doodled and jotted stuff down as often as I could. Words showed up on the page that I had never used before, and some I couldn’t recall even hearing.

The one that stuck out the most was “self-sabotage.”

It popped into my head, so I wrote it down, then read and re-read it, asking, what the heck does that even mean? I mean, sure, I could decipher the meaning, but why did it come out of me?

So I got curious again, and what I discovered was neither cute nor pretty.

Every time I’d cut off, stuff down, ignore that helpful voice inside, I was sabotaging myself. Sometimes as simple as walking down a street with someone looking for a restaurant. I’d think, take a right but they’d say left, and I’d say okay, to follow along and avoid being wrong. I’d even add, “I’m sure you know better than me.”

I can see now how those little moments add up.

Furthermore, I would behave in ways that drowned out my inner voice completely, hello alcohol starting at the age of 13. My inner Self was probably trying to speak, but it was too easy for me to lower the volume with another vodka and water with lime, please.

So it wasn’t that I was receiving intuitive hits then knowingly choosing not to act on them. Nope, it went deeper than that. I ignored them completely.

I didn’t believe in myself. I thought everyone else knew everything, I knew nothing, and I was just a forever student trying to figure out how to be human.

All I could do was get curious because I was sick of the way I had been operating and was looking for a doorway out of my exhausted, ruminating mind keeping me up night after sleepless night. I was desperate and willing to try anything.

Okay then, inner Chasity, what more do you want to reveal to me?

By asking that question over and over, I discovered a whole world inside me full of forgotten dreams and ambitions.

My kids were starting Kindergarten and pre-K then. I’d get so excited about what might keep coming out on the page that I’d wake up at 5am just to write before the rest of my world woke up. I wrote as often as I could, coming up with my own prompts or following others.

After excavating my inner world for a few years this way, I had built up enough bravery and incentive to start exploring writing in my outer world too.

I let curiosity guide that process too, so when I came across a writing retreat in Boulder, CO, a 6-hour drive away, I couldn’t help but get excited!

However, I noticed the immediate excuses I easily told myself: Chas, seriously, you’re a SAHM, you don’t make any money, who’s gonna watch the kids, what’s everyone gonna do while you’re gone, this is selfish, you’re just looking to escape, what makes you think you deserve…

And then it hit me. Why don’t I deserve this?

Just because I chose to raise my family in my home and be with my kids from morning till night and sacrifice a paycheck in order to do so DOES NOT mean I’m not deserving of an experience that a part of me is longing for.

Phew, even just allowing myself to have that counter thought threw me into a tizzy of tallying all the times I had said no to myself because I didn’t think I deserved whatever I was desiring.

Holy wake-up call.

That decision to listen to my inner voice saying yes, yes, yes let’s go to Boulder, please!!! was a pivotal moment in my life when I went from feeling like a passive participant of my circumstances to being more of an active creator of my reality, and I will never forget it.

It wasn’t easy to say out loud things like, “I wanna write a book some day” or “I need more meaning in my life” or “I’m seriously unfulfilled and lost and scared…”

It also wasn’t easy to say, “Soooo, I’m gonna go to a writing retreat in Boulder for four days. It costs $$$ but I can find a cheap Airbnb, I’ll share a bathroom with a stranger, I don’t care. And I’ll eat lightly. I know it sounds weird, but I’m feeling this calling to go, like I kinda need to see if my writing is worth anything or if I’m a fool. Plus I just need something. I’m not liking where my head has been going lately. I think I need to be around other people who are more like me. I need to know there are other people out there…”

Guess what? Not only did I go to the retreat, but Thurston Moore, lead singer of the 90s band Sonic Youth, was my instructor! And get this. Our main project was to take a piece of our previous writing and turn it into poetry.

So, I opened up my Word documents one by one, where I had been collecting snippets and stories and sayings that had been coming through me for a couple of years, but nothing got me excited enough to wanna play with it more.

And then I remembered…

The sleepless night rant!

I scrambled through the notebooks I’d brought, hoping to find it in one of them, and sure enough I did, woohoo!

So I took that journal entry and turned it into a poem, which I eventually read aloud at four different open mics.

It’s called The Writer’s Night.
(couple snippets for ya)

. . . . . .

spinning thoughts
one to the next,
racing against
minutes of the night,
ticking with no reverence
to the dawn that will arrive
no matter what they decide

. . . . . .

beating myself up,
but sleep beats me
cause here I am at 2am,
barely a yawn from a dream

. . . . . .

Now, had I not followed my curiosity through, I would not be sharing any of this with you.

I had no idea what going to that retreat would mean for me, but I was just curious enough to go check it out. Sometimes that’s all ya need.

Few reflection questions that might help you as they helped me:

What is going on inside me?

What else might be possible for me?

What happens if I try?

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There’s so many socks. My 17 year old son wears short white athletic socks every day. They come in packages of 12 pairs. His are no longer new and white. Instead, they’re darkened from dirt, stretched out around the ankle, and some have small holes. I try to match them by their amount of wear and tear. This is tedious work, especially when they’re turned inside out.

I look over at my tall, strong son at the dining table doing homework. He’s a high school senior taking a college English course. Memories of when I taught freshman Comp 25 years ago flood in, holy crap, flashback.

Looking at him, I remember I have only one more school year to wash, dry and fold his dirty, stretched-out white socks. I smile the next time I turn a sock right side out.

A previous version of me would have sighed loudly enough for him to hear my irritation, harrumphed something about throwing his socks away if he didn’t do a “better job” of taking them off “the right way,” then simmered in my annoyance, which could then trigger all the other things that bug me, not about him, oh no, rather I’d just dredge up any past shit, let it ruminate, then stew in my own pissiness.

Yuck, no thanks.

Instead, I noticed the moment. I didn’t do anything new or different or time-consuming. I just recognized that I could either bitch about a daily occurrence that already happened and will happen again OR I can say no thanks to those unhelpful reactions, take a breath, look over at my son and just see what other feelings might wanna come up…

Awww, look at him.
My little boy is almost a man, crazy.
His senior pictures are tomorrow, forecast shows rain.
He’ll mow lawns after school today and throw another pair of dirty socks in the bin that I’m sure I’ll have to shake outside to remove the dry grass clippings.
Next year his stinky, dirty, wadded-up socks won’t be here.

Yes, I know, he could be folding his own socks and he does, sometimes😉 But also, I’m to the point where I actually enjoy the monotony because it offers me an opportunity to slooow dowwwn, to take in the moment, and to stop the robotic thoughts of what needs to get done next.

These days, I’m much better at pivoting when the pissiness shows up. Instead of feeding it, I redirect myself to notice what else is there, like remembering how limited his days at school and home are becoming.

Sometimes that opens the door to gratitude, sometimes reflection, and yeah, sometimes sadness wants a turn because apparently Senior year does that to a mama.

This happened on a regular Tuesday morning.

We can so easily treat the mundane pieces of life like they’re the most annoying parts, merely to get through to the other side, whatever that is.

But if we’re being honest with ourselves, then it’s important to ask:

What fraction of my time is actually spent on the big events,
like vacations, graduations, birthdays, weddings, holidays, etc?

And because meaningful moments don’t only happen on the days we plan, time block or circle on the calendar, it’s also important to ask yourself:

What fraction of my time is spent on the boring in-betweens?

The Tuesday mornings when nothing’s going on really. When you’re looking at your son across the room.

Could be that you’re finding gratitude, or maybe your thoughts land elsewhere, like worrying over a loved one, or running a mental checklist, or maybe you’re just simply thinking about socks.

Doesn’t really matter. It’s a moment that means nothing to anyone else, but it’s your whole entire world right then and there.

To me, that is called a micro-moment.

Google told me otherwise.

Apparently, micro-moment describes the split second when a consumer turns to a device because they want to know, go, do or buy something. It’s a marketing term.

Huh. Okay. Well... I think I’m gonna go with my own definition.

I get defensive because “micro-moments” is a word phrase that came to me as I’ve been slowly finding language around what I stand for, like what is my beacon, and how does my Soul want to shine in the world? (btw, questions I never even used to think about asking myself)

Okay Google, I hear you, but here’s my version:

I think of a micro-moment as an in-between space of time, where nothing is really happening, a pause before the next thing. It can feel pointless, like hurry up second hand, get to the top of the hour already because I have something to do or a show to watch or person to meet or place to go. You’re watching the clock instead of allowing yourself to simply be in the moment that’s already happening. Micro-moments happen anyway. Basically, it’s up to you to notice them. Become aware of them. Maybe even get curious about them…

I used to hate those moments. They made me uncomfortable.

My go-go-go attitude didn’t have time for them because it felt like they were in the way of getting to the good stuff, like partying or shopping or gossiping or traveling, anything I could look forward to beyond where I currently was.

Truly though, slooowing dowwwn to me equaled boring. My nervous system was used to my amped up energy, so doing less proved challenging.

It’s not like I was okay, so now I’m going to be a person who sits and meditates 20 minutes every morning, or does yoga daily, or makes my own sourdough bread…

No. What I’ve been discovering is different.

Slowing down isn’t just about adding calming activities that can train your brain and your breathing and your bread making.

Sometimes, slowing down simply creates enough space to notice the micro-moment you’re already in. That’s a huge difference.

Slow down to experience the life you’re already living.

Basically, you don’t have to change the activity to change your experience of it. Just like the socks. It’s a regular Tuesday morning, and I’m folding laundry in my living room.

Do I rush through it because I’ve got more things to do and places to go?

OR

Do I slow down with my breath and see what else I can notice while I fold yet another seemingly meaningless load of laundry?

Once I discovered the power of micro-moments, it’s how I now operate as often as I can remember. Of course, default mode still gets me dammit, but mostly, I can remember to simply pause and notice what’s going on around me.

Okay, but how do I get myself into the moment?

I play sensory games to help jolt me out of automatic habits and into conscious awareness.

Let me remind you that your body has built-in portals called your senses, but it’s up to you to remember to use them.

Could you hear the birds’ dawn chorus when I mentioned it at the beginning?
Could you see a teenage boy sitting at a table doing homework?
Could you feel the raggedy socks in your own hands?

None of those were purposely added to my morning. They were already there. And being aware of them didn’t ask me to add anything or devise a routine to better optimize my life.

They simply allowed me to experience more of a scene that was already happening.

Life is always happening, and you can consciously choose to bring your senses into the picture, which helps you land your attention in the now.

Bring your Senses into the game.

When your mind wants to run away with its familiar bitching, beliefs or banter, maybe you can just check in with yourself. Not in a blamey shamey sort of way, but something as simple and nonjudgmental as: I don’t want to think about this anymore, please and thank you.

Maybe you take a breath and check out your surroundings. Anything to bring you back into your body because your head is working really hard to convince you that folding your son’s socks sucks and you have better things to do.

While this mundane micro-moment is actually packed with opportunity, you don’t have to unpack it nor assign any meaning to it.

Maybe you just start with giving yourself enough space to see what else is there, as if you’re being turned inside out or right side in or outside in or left side out… you know what I mean.

Same socks. Different experience.

👉 You don’t have to make meaning in every moment.
👉 You don’t have to appreciate another person’s dirty laundry.
👉 You don’t need to become hyper aware of your entire existence.

Sometimes laundry is just laundry and you need to fold it quickly because you’ve got places to go and people to see. I get it. I lead a full life, too.

Before you move on, take a look at what’s going on around you right now…

The moment is already happening.

Cool part is YOU get to decide how much of yourself you’re going to bring into it.

_________________________

Follow the 13-week self-revolution journey:

Autopilot assigns the meaning automatically.
Attention offers the opportunity to be aware.
Micro-moments offer space to reconsider and reconnect.

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“Will the real life ladies please stand up, please stand up”

What have you been paying your attention to lately?

That’s a daily question for me because I believe attention is a currency. Paying attention is like our own way of bartering with life in general.

What’s cool is your attention belongs only to you, so you have a choice in how to spend it, yay!

But, we also live in a world with other people needing us, with algorithms manipulating us, with notifications pulling us, and with feeds feeding us.

So yes, your attention is yours,
but there’s a whole lot of people,
responsibilities and businesses
vying for it, and it’s called the
Attention Economy.

Translation, my friend: your attention is like gold. That’s why everyone wants a piece of it. They know your attention is valuable. Do you?

I know, I get it, I really do… Real life happens with real life people who need real life things doing real life stuff.

Your attention can often feel on demand,
and undervalued.

Okay, who or what needs me next? As we scour our surroundings for another person to put first, or errand to feel busy because being busy also means we’re important, riiight… No??? Well, shit.

Sorry not sorry. I know I can be harsh, but it breaks my heart when I witness women always putting themselves last, or doing for others until there’s no juice left for them, because then, life becomes a drain… Guilty ✋

I don’t want that for you!

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But I do get it, sometimes you just need to respond to your toddler’s exasperated pleas to help her put her shoes on, or reply to your boss who expects immediacy, or answer your phone incessantly ringing and dinging.

Yeah, sometimes we just have to be human, and that’s okay, because it’s what we signed up for.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck though when your attention is stretched beyond your comfort and control.

Speaking of, can you be honest and ask yourself:

When I do have a moment to myself, how do I spend my attention?

Be real about where your attention takes you.

*Do you join the herd on social media?
*Do you replay a situation that’s bothering you?
*Do you dissect another person’s behavior?

Cuz here’s the deal, someone needing your attention is one thing. But you automatically responding because you think you “should” or it’s what you’re used to, is a whole other thing.

Maybe there’s another option to consider: Do you spin the mirror around?

You mean, like pay attention to myself?
What does that even mean?

What I mean is, the most important thing you can do to love and respect yourself (hence love and respect others) is to pay attention to yourself.

You might be thinking, yeah Chas, sounds nice, but what does paying attention to myself even mean?

Well, I can only share what I’ve figured out on my own.

And that is, sure bubble baths are relaxing and repeating mantras in the mirror is helpful, but there’s a whole other layer of paying attention to yourself that is not only simple and doable, but crazy important.

It’s Called Noticing

Noticing what keeps bothering you
Noticing what excites you
Noticing when you’re pretending something doesn’t matter when it actually does
Noticing what you’re hungry for, what you’re yearning for
Noticing what you keep avoiding
Noticing what you say you want versus what you actually want

Why This Was So Hard For Me

Something I’m oddly good at is placing myself in the lives of others.

I know, that sounds kinda weird, but hear me out. Give me a scenario and I can picture it, I can dissect it, I can backtrack patterns, I can ask the right questions, I can basically enter your world for as long as I can pay attention.

So much so, I can unfortunately lose parts of myself.

My problem isn’t that I lack the ability to pay attention. It’s that I can easily direct my attention outward, concerning myself more with other people and what’s going on around me than what’s going on inside me.

But once I turned my attention inward, towards my Self, and started asking the questions that wanted answers, I was like okay, I’m listening. Sorry I’ve been ignoring you, but I’m here now. Ready to pay attention. All yours 🤗

The Birth of Dakota

15 years ago, I was a stay at home mom with two young toddlers living in a small midwestern city in a house with a driveway and backyard in a nice neighborhood.

The decade prior, I was a free-spirited young woman working in publishing, playing on the streets of New York City til 4am too often.

Transitioning from one way of life to the next actually felt easy for me, like no problem, I got this. Plus I was ready.

However, little by little, the white picket algorithm didn’t seem to work for me.

I got depressed and lonely and felt unworthy. I thought, well if I do a better job at making my family happy then I will be happy too, but it didn’t work.

Instead, I got insomnia.

Kids slept soundly, husband snored effortlessly, but there I would lie, wide awake, with not-so-great thoughts on repeat. Asking myself, “Why does everyone else seem to have their shit figured out but me?”

Tears trickled down the side of my face into my ear and I’d wonder about what I could do to feel happier, and honestly just to feel like I was even alive.

Slowly, my insomniac nights started turning more from “woe me” to “well, what are you gonna do about it” and then something interesting happened…

This character or entity, I’m still figuring her out, started appearing to me. Her name was/is Dakota. She’s a writer, in her late 20’s, living in New York City, left her family, desired new experiences. (I know, I know, similarities)

Each sleepless night, she would show me more of her world, and eventually, why she came to me.

She helped me see my life differently, offering more hope and possibility. She gave me a focus, something of my own, a place to go with all my ideas and questions and frustrations.

She presented a playground in a way, where I could get lost in my imagination, which I hadn’t done much since childhood and realized I missed it.

Partytime play trumped imaginary play for over three decades.

Dakota helped me see that.

The Night That Changed Everything

Yet another sleepless night, I couldn’t seem to conjure up Dakota, so then the tossing and turning enraged me.

I ripped off my sheets, got out of bed, stomped into my office, turned on the lamp, grabbed a notebook and pen, sat down in my antique blue chair and just let whatever was in my head come out in a fury through my fingers.

I wrote and wrote until I felt depleted, then went back to bed and actually fell asleep.

The next morning, I returned to my scribbles, and when I read them, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Who the heck is this talking to me?” because that’s what it felt like.

It was like me talking to me but it wasn’t me but it felt like me, and what I realized is there are different parts of me, and Dakota was only one of them. She was just the loudest then.

My whole perspective changed when I realized I had a world inside me.

Wait, what?!?

Like, you mean there are things about myself that I can explore?
And I can do that through journaling?
And by doing so I can discover deeper, hidden layers of my life?
Which will help me step closer to my purpose?

Umm, okay!?!

Because I love to learn and explore and especially because I was ready, I couldn’t wait to dig in. The ways I found that worked best for me were journaling, writing, scribbling, coloring, doodling. Since then, I’ve found that sound waves work wonders, too. Other modalities also, but these are my faves.

Once I started paying attention to my inner world, I couldn’t help but notice how my outer world changed.

For example, my love for writing rekindled that journal rant night. Now I always have paper and pen nearby to jot down thoughts, phrases, stories that can often feel like they come from somewhere beyond my human Self I’ve known thus far.

Journaling and writing helped me get to know myself, for better and for worse. Plus, the self-reflection can help clean up the cobwebs.

Since I started journaling (somewhat regularly but not always), I can find more meaning in normal everyday mundane life, and I love it. Again.

Maybe these questions will help you discover more about your Self because you deserve to get to know her.

____________

Here’s a helpful question to ask yourself nightly:
Where did I place my attention throughout my day?

Furthermore:
Where did I notice my attention going?
____________

Deep Thought: If attention is finite, and placing it somewhere means not placing it somewhere else, then how much have we been overlooking when our attention has been elsewhere? Whoa…

____________

Last but not least:
Where would I like to place more of my attention tomorrow?

In other words:
Where do I want my attention participating in the creation of my own daily experience and overall life?
____________

This week, I’m inviting you to be an active participant rather than passive consumer of the Attention Economy. You can take small steps by:

• recognizing the value of your attention

• noticing where it’s going

• choosing where you’d like it to go

For the next week, notice your attention. Don’t judge it, fix it or turn it into another self-improvement project. Just catch yourself paying attention. Notice what gets your “gold” and what deserves it.

Because once you start noticing where your attention goes, something interesting happens: you start seeing all the little pieces of life you’ve been walking right past.

Everyone else has figured out that your attention is valuable. Maybe it’s time you did, too.

I would love to hear what you Notice today, like what got your attention, and did it deserve it?! Share it in the Comments!

Love, Dakota

And please Subscribe if you want to stay tuned to our 13-week self-discovery journey. Next week, we’re zooming in on the tiny moments we usually overlook, the micro moments that might be carrying more meaning than we realize.

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I felt relieved when I remembered I had set up my coffee pot the night before, so all I had to do was push On. Then I got distracted by our dog Cooper who adores his humans, and then by our tomcat Tommy Gambino who just staggered through the doggie door after another night prowling the ‘hood. We found him over a year ago after surviving several years on the streets, but he keeps coming back, as we keep feeding him, and now he’s family.

I’ve been trying to hit pause on the little things lately, like pondering what our long-haired mobster was up to all night as I find his sacrifices in my yard and sometimes front step, thankfully not under my bed anymore.

Meanwhile, my eager, loyal canine companion follows my every step, matching my moves, letting me know he’s ready and excited for a walk or food or anything really, doesn’t matter, just happy to be alive this morning!

I glide over to my coffee mug, scoop in collagen powder, pour myself some steaming goodness, stir it up then bask in that first warm sip of...

Oh, crap! I forgot to drink water first again, arghh!

I’ve been telling myself for years: Drink water first thing in the morning, Chas, then you can have your coffee. But oh no, apparently I can’t listen to my own advice.

As that warming sip slid down my throat into my chest, I couldn’t help but think:

How much of my life happens, or what things do I do without me really even noticing?

🚘Okay, if I’m being honest, I couldn’t begin to recall how many times I’m driving down the road and forget where I’m going but then realize I’m actually on my way there, or I get there and don’t remember the drive. C’mon, I know I’m not the only guilty one here!

🗓️How about when you you’re convinced it’s Thursday but it’s only Wednesday or maybe it’s already Friday but the point is, the days blurred again.

💬Here’s another one, how often do you catch yourself saying the exact same thing or repeating the same stories, and not because they’re all that great, they’ve just become a part of who you think you are.

These are just a few signs of what autopilot can look like.

Automatic actions don’t happen because we’re lazy or too busy or don’t care, it’s more that our brains like to be efficient, and so they turn repeated behaviors into shortcuts to preserve our energy, which is pretty darn helpful when we’re tying our shoes or brushing our teeth.

The problem is when the shortcuts start short-circuiting us.

Instead of the experience happening and us processing, we’re launched into the next moment without absorbing the one that just happened.

Good news is we have control over this. You can pause your brain for a few seconds, and that’s all it takes. Few seconds here, few seconds there.

Why should you? Because there’s a cost to your attention.

When you don’t pay attention, you go into deficit because you lose moments infused with meaning that turn into memories.

Oh crap, that might be me…

And it’s not like you just stopped paying attention one day. No, it happens little by little, day by day, week by week, year by year. It’s a progression.

The most interesting part is how from the outside everything can look hunky dory.

You’re getting the kids where they need to go, you’re getting to work on time, you’re doing a good job, you’re making dinner, you’re answering texts, you’re remembering birthdays, you’re volunteering, you’re doing all the things…

Meanwhile, you feel numb and lifeless, often exhausted, just a body going through the motions.

Lemme know if any of these 7 signs sound familiar. And if they do, don’t fret, this isn’t about doing anything wrong or being wrong or having anything wrong to fix, I promise.

It’s just an invitation to start noticing your life again because I truly believe “noticing” changes everything.

1. Automatic Habits = you catch yourself doing things you didn’t consciously choose

2. Driving While Numb = you don’t remember getting from point A to point B

3. Living Like You’re In a Soap Opera = every day feels suspiciously similar to the last and the next

4. Operating from Old Scripts = you keep repeating same stories about yourself

5. When the World Loses Its Color = your surroundings slowly lose allure

6. Going off Yesterday’s Decisions = you stop making conscious choices

7. Nothing Catches Your Eye = you stop noticing what’s around you

Before we begin, please know, whether you’re revising a morning habit or forgetting where you’re going, or noticing regurgitated phrases, this is not about shaming nor blaming nor changing your whole life.

It’s just about noticing what your body does before your conscious brain weighs in. Do not beat yourself up for that, okay.

Automatic Habits

You catch yourself doing things you never consciously chose.

You tell yourself that tomorrow you’ll drink water before coffee, then tomorrow comes and somehow you’re halfway through your first cup of coffee before you remember the intention you’d already forgotten. Again.

It’s like your body has a mind of its own.

Same thing happens when you automatically reach for your phone when you’re bored, or grab a snack when you’re not even hungry, or open social media when you’re on the toilet, or say “Good” when asked how you’re doing, or turn on the TV after dinner when you told yourself a million times you were gonna go for a walk first, dammit!

Now just to be clear, automatic habits aren’t necessarily a bad thing. They’re simply evidence that your brain has learned to conserve energy by repeating yesterday, instead of consciously choosing today. Brains are designed to automate repetitive tasks. Cool.

The problem is when we end up automating our lives cuz automation can lessen your essence. That’s a very different thing.

Because when the gist of YOU becomes automatized, you stop pausing, and reflecting, contemplating, and asking yourself, “Is this what I actually want?”

Don’t forget to pay attention to that.

Driving While Numb

You don’t remember getting from Point A to Point B.

You get in the car. You pull out of the driveway. Then suddenly you’re in the parking lot at work wondering how the heck you got there.

Or worse, you “wake up” and find yourself driving down the road and have no idea where you’re even going.

You kinda chuckle it off, again, and then maybe realize, huh, maybe this doesn’t just happen when I’m driving.

I can easily not notice entire conversations, entire afternoons, entire seasons, without ever really being conscious = choosing what I want to think about.

You realize you aren’t the driver of your life anymore. You’ve become a passenger in everyone else’s life without acknowledging your own.

Motion without emotion, classic.

Driving along running through your mental lists over and over again, or worrying about so and so, or wondering if you did all the things you needed to do that day.

Too busy checking off lists and worries to check in with yourself and your surroundings, and suddenly you’re like, where the heck am I going anyway?

Can be kinda funny until you realize:

If I can drive 20 minutes without remembering, then what else am I missing?

Living Like You’re in a Soap Opera

Every day feels suspiciously similar to the last and the next.

Someone asks what you did on Tuesday, you go to answer and suddenly not only do you forget what you did, you also can’t remember what day it currently is, and how the heck was that already a week ago?

Your memories blend together because nothing is asking your brain to pay attention to anything different from what you already know and are already doing:

Wake up. Shower. Go to work. Eat lunch. Work some more. Run errands. Go home. Make dinner. Scroll. Watch TV. Go to sleep. Repeat.

Life starts feeling less like your own compelling story and more like a bunch of boring reruns. Less like your innocent soul-driven mission, more like dramatic soap opera storylines. Less like stepping into your greatness, more like being forever possessed like the poor Marlena ⌛ (#iykyk #daysofourlives). 😂

I feel like the older I get, the more I hear people say things like, “I don’t know where the time goes.”

Is it that time seems to rev up, or can we admit that we don’t know how to manage and focus our attention?

Maybe instead of questioning the inconceivable speed of time, we can ask ourselves, “What have I stopped noticing?

Slow down your attention. Pay attention to the micro moments when you can.

Operating From Old Scripts

You repeat the same stories about yourself.

“I’m a fixer, can’t help it…”
“I’m just not a creative person…”
“I’m bad with money, what can I say…”
“I’ve always been anxious, it’s just who I am…”

You hear yourself saying the same things so often they sound like facts instead of old conclusions of an old version you came up with for whatever reason that continues to bind you.

Even your conversations tend to follow the same scripts, the same complaints, the same jokes, the same reactions, the same niceties, the same sameness.

Maybe you start realizing or maybe you don’t, that your conscious identity stopped evolving so your subconscious ego took over, replaying what felt familiar and known.

A beautiful question to ask yourself in the most loving, compassionate way is: “Have I outgrown the story I’m still telling? Or the story I’m currently living?

Next time you catch yourself saying something that sounds comfortably familiar, ask yourself if it’s actually true to you, or if you just reverted to one of your default settings.

Either way is okay, but it’s good for you to know.

Because if we’re being honest, let’s admit that some of our self-stories are decades old. And they might not have even started with you, maybe someone said something and you and everyone else just went along with it.

Sometimes we pick up an opinion, ours or another’s, then we repeat it for long enough until it sounds like a fact. When in fact it’s not.

But you don’t have to ask yourself if the story was ever true, just stay in the present and ask, “Is it the truth right now?”

Because no one is the same person they were five minutes ago let alone five years ago, and thank goodness.

Point I’m trying to make here is, don’t let yesterday’s version of you keep narrating today’s clean slate, alright?!

Sometimes the most freeing thing we can do isn’t changing our whole story, but just simply noticing if we’ve been reading from the same page for too long.

Is it time to turn the page?

When the World Loses Its Color

The world slowly loses its allure.

It’s not like life got boring and meaningless around the globe for everyone at the same time. Nope, life kept moving on, beautifully and rhythmically. It’s you who stopped noticing the little things that make life vibrant and abundant and ready to say hello.

Was that harsh?

This one I feel deeply because I can still take myself back to the days when I dropped off my young kids at school and drove home and everything just felt dull and gray no matter how hard I tried to look for a hint of relief. (story for another time)

But I have a feeling you might know what I mean…
When life is bustling and you’re left wondering,
what the hell does any of this really even mean?
And who am I, and who do I want to be?

When the spark that once made life more vibrant becomes harder and harder to access, and you quietly think:

"I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

Nothing is necessarily wrong, which makes it harder to explain. Life just feels kinda…

Blah. Flat.

You drive the same roads without seeing them. You walk past flowers without noticing them. You ignore the sunset because tomorrow’s to-do list feels more important.

It’s not that the beauty disappeared, it’s that your brain decided to stop noticing ordinary things, so it quit looking. This is why adulthood can feel so repetitive.

Children see the world differently. Everything fascinates them. A stick, a bug, a cloud that looks like a dinosaur.

Meanwhile, overburdened adults are walking around like zombies.

The world didn’t become boring, we just stopped paying attention to the colorful nuances, allowing drab to become our default. That’s a big difference.

Going Off Yesterday’s Decisions

You stop making conscious choices.

You order the same meal.
You drive the same route.
You watch the same shows.
You shop the same stores.
You talk to the same people.

You say yes before you’ve even checked in with yourself.
Or you say no before ever giving Curiosity a chance.

Little by little, your life becomes a collection of yesterday’s.

None of this is bad, please don’t get we wrong. I’m just saying, sometimes it’s okay to step back and ask yourself:

“When was the last time I chose something simply because it made me feel alive?”

I’m not trying to make routines out to the be the enemy, trust me, I’d be a lost soul without some of mine, so I get it.

I just think that every now and then, because we have the right to and because we can, maybe getting more conscious about asking ourselves:\

“Did I choose this? Or am I just repeating what I know?”

It’s kinda crazy once you start paying attention to how much of life we just copy and paste.

And when we don’t stop to make conscious choices, we slowly hand over our lives to either history or momentum.

Yesterday becomes today. Today becomes tomorrow. A year from now, you’re like holy shit, where did the time go?

Awareness isn’t always about big awakenings, sometimes it’s just a helpful nudge:

Try the other trail…
Order something different…
Take the scenic route…
Sit by the window this time…
Play a game…

Not because in that particular moment a genie will appear and grant all your wishes, but because each time you listen to those little whispers from within, you remind your brain that life is still happening, and YOU human are still participating.

Nothing Catches Your Eye

You stop noticing the little bits and pieces of life all around you.

The bird singing outside your window.
The heart-shaped leaf on the sidewalk.
The child laughing in the grocery store.
The funny license plate in front of you.
The yellow flower growing through the crack in the sidewalk.

None of it reaches you anymore because your brain decided it already knows this world, so it quit looking for the little things that actually add that pop of real life.

Lucky for us, the world never stops being interesting. We just stopped noticing. So the moment you begin to pay attention and notice the little things again, those little things start to notice you back.

The more attention you give to the ordinary moments of your life, the more extraordinary your life will begin to feel.

When was the last time something ordinary made you stop? Not because it was mind-blowing or anything, but rather you just finally noticed it.

Those powerful micro moments can happen every single day.

The question is, “Are you available to see them?”

Which brings me to something I’ve been experimenting with. It’s not a meditation nor a morning routine. It’s not even like you’re adding anything to your already busy schedule.

It’s just setting the intention of noticing.
One thing. One color, specifically.

It sounds pretty damn simple, I know, and just so you know, that’s exactly why this approach to waking up to your-life-already-happening works.

Besides, I’ve come to realize, we don’t seek out wonder and aliveness then find it. Rather, it’s something we continually breathe and practice consciously.

Before You Go

If you saw yourself in one or more of these 7 signs of living on autopilot, welcome to the club!

You’re not broken. You’re human. And you’re here. And I wrote this article for you, and for me because I’ve experienced all these same things, some this week.

Our brains are designed to automate whatever they repeat so we don’t have to spend precious energy thinking about every little decision. Incredibly useful for workflows, less helpful when we accidentally automate our existence.

The good news?! Awareness is an incredible super power!

As soon as you realize you’ve been operating from autopilot, you’re already waking up, and just so you know, “waking up” doesn’t require deconstructing your whole life.

Instead it begins with simply noticing one small thing you would’ve walked past yesterday.

Awareness works just as quietly as autopilot.

Because every time you notice something new, you’re casting a vote to be a conscious participant in your life versus a passive consumer of someone else’s agenda.

I’m gonna guess your Soul has been patiently waiting for you to start noticing your one precious life again.

If you’re interested in shifting out of autopilot, stick around, I’ve got an easy experiment for you, more like a game, but one you play with yourself and with the Universe. You intrigued?!

Cool. It’ll be ready soon!!

Meanwhile, feel free to say hi on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook.

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Cooper and I went to the dog park this morning. It’s a mile or so out of town where the creek runs along a mountain side with a meadow opposite, so all sorts of terrain for dogs to run, swim and play. The sun was out, but not beating down. I walked in the cool creak waters, feeling thankful I remembered to wear my water shoes this time. It was a beautiful, relaxing visit that I almost didn’t do cuz goshdarnet Chas, you should be down in your office making revisions on that thing and gettin that other thing done and have you even started on that one other thing??

I was grateful I didn’t override my intuition nudging me to go because I can too often get lured by the dreadful “should.” How well do YOU know that word? C’mon, be honest! We all know her way too well, but I’m doing my best to break up with her. Every once in awhile, she makes sense, but lately, I just don’t trust her.

So anyway, we spend our time there and head on out. The road I turn on to go back into town is traffic coming at ya going 40+ mph, so I’m not exactly going to be pulling out in front of someone, I’m gonna go when the road is clear, amiright?

So I pull out and I’m driving along and happen to look in my rearview mirror and realize there’s a blacked out pickup right up on my ass. Like wtf dude, I’m going 43, speed limit is 40, road turns into two lanes in ten seconds, chill. But dang, he’s up on me.

The road widens to two lanes, he speeds past on my left, I can only see basically a silhouette behind the extra dark tint, then he cuts quickly in front of me and proceeds to go 25ish in a 35mph zone, like seriously?

Thankfully, I’m flying high after an enjoyable visit at the dog park, literally, found a secluded spot along the creek with the perfect rock to sit on, creek waters gurgling, Coop-dog frolicking, birds singing, me journaling, after following the hunch at home to grab my fanny pack and put my small journal in it, which fit perfectly, don’t forget a pen, puff puff write, and guess what came out? Actually, I’ll be sharing that soon but first, back to the guy in the black pickup…

I should first explain I can have a hot head behind the wheel. I have no patience for slow or dumb drivers, sorry not sorry. Typically, I would have reacted immediately with annoyance, which I kinda did, but the feeling didn’t land, it just kinda zapped me.

Getting tailgated is one thing, I don’t like it. Getting cut off is another thing, I don’t like it either. But then I realized with wide perspective honesty, well shiiit, I do that to other people, the slow and dumb drivers, according to MY opinion. As I pondered that realization is when I looked down and noticed our slow speed. Now THAT… going too slow, oh my goodness, my worst pet peeve. I could feel my blood start to boil, but then it quickly simmered to the feeling of whatever, like who really cares?

I’m honest enough to admit that if I was in a hurry, I’d be the pissed off guy probably, BUT if he was in such a hurry, then why was he so willing to go 25mph in a 35 zone for half a mile? Just to prove a point is why, but I don’t even understand what it would be. I wondered if I had pulled out in front of him but again, I was in no hurry and didn’t recall that happening, so I really didn’t think so.

Then something hit me.

I remembered my appointment from the evening before with my lymphatic drainage lady who also speaks to my Spirit, her words, and shares with me, and I listen.

Let me preface with, the last few months but really years, I have felt like there’s this blockage in me where I’m feeling challenged with opening up my heart more and sharing more vulnerably. That’s a big concept and admission but it’s an important part of the story.

So I go to my lymph lady, and upon entering her cozy, can’t-help-but-make-you-feel-good room and aura, she shares with me some insights she’d recently received in her meditations about releasing certain energies that are not serving me, specifically ones stuck in my heart. I can’t help but smile.

A couple hours is never enough with her, but I take what I can get and remember as much as I can. One thing I remembered came back to me in that moment when I realized the pickup was going 25 in a 35 and I didn’t engage with my road rage. I mean sure the lovely morning helped my feel-good attitude, but still, I usually have to talk myself out of my rage reaction. This time, it just didn’t happen.

And it wasn’t just an oh well. It was first, recognizing myself in the first two behaviors and realizing, wow, that’s just ugly Chas. And second, disengaging from negative energy by not entertaining the rage with MY assumptions about what this person is up to.

Here’s the connection: when I wasn’t mad, and even felt a form of compassion thinking the driver must be burning up some rage too, a memory of my lymph lady popped in where she shared at the end of our session how a black entity coiled out of my heart and blew out the open window. Looking at that blacked out pickup in front of me suddenly felt like a dark but tempting energy, taunting me, fucking with me.

I could have kept following him to get to my home, and a previous version of me would have sped past, and cut back in front of him, and probably would have kept speeding til the turn, what can I say, I like to drive fast.

But I didn’t. I took the turn and I felt light-hearted. I didn’t engage with whatever anger that used to command my heart, and that felt new to me in that setting. It felt like a nice sigh of relief.

I can think of another time when dark energy appeared, it took up a whole aisle in Walmart, felt like the devil himself was looking at me, it was super freaky.

Thankfully this time wasn’t so weird and even maybe humorous because it reminded me of a conversation the night before with my besties and our young college ladies about small d%$# syndrome, don’t ask, but so instead of ruminating in the thoughts of why is this guy such an idiot and let myself get pissed off about it, I kept a proper distance from his slow rear end, felt grateful for last night, took a right, and nodded my head good-bye. No thx, don’t need your bad energy.

It feels so good to be able to come back to yourself after being triggered.

The more I remember to, the quicker it happens. Same can be for you too.

I’ve been playing this game in my head for over three years that helps me to re-center myself using curiosity when I don’t like my thoughts and reactions, or when I feel overwhelmed.

Makes life more fun. Makes me smile. Makes me enjoy myself. Makes life have way more meaning.

Makes me not react when not necessary.

I’ll be introducing this game the beginning of September, meanwhile sharing more stories. Feel free to follow along.

You can also find me @ Dakota Soulshine on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook.

Or email me: chasity@dakotasoulshine.com

I guess I can tell you this, the name of the game I play, it’s called Color Me Curious, you’ll soon see why <wink wink>

Expectation = a strong belief, anticipation, or mental picture that something will or should happen in the future.

On my personal development journey, I’ve experienced many times where a once-thought most assured belief could just be swiped away when I open up to situations unfolding and truth revealing itself.

Beliefs can last forever if you let them, or they can evolve if you allow them.

So what does that tell you about believing in beliefs? Expecting one to support you might end up disappointing you.

Not trying to be a bitch about having beliefs because they can carry us forward through our values, goals and ambitions, but when we get caught up in the expectations of our beliefs is when life can too easily disappoint.

And then what? Yup. That endless loop of whatever version of “poor me” comes pouring through.

Okay, let’s summarize some of the most well-known thought leaders in spiritual and scientific self-improvement, you can find a version of this sequence anywhere.

A human’s repeated, layered mental thoughts build up systemic beliefs fueled by feelings and emotions resulting in actions and behaviors becoming habits that define personality which leads to life destiny.

So if beliefs are second in line after the kickoff of our thoughts and before the plot twist of our emotions, and we know it’s possible to change our thoughts throughout any given day, maybe it’s within reach to also change our beliefs?

Why do we want to?

Maybe you don’t and maybe you won’t. But doesn’t it feel kinda nice to know it’s possible?

Maybe that’s my rebel roar, or my Human Design blueprint, my Gene Key journey, idk but I like to know I can be the architect of my own beliefs.

I don’t HAVE TO believe what everyone else does nor do I have to feel any which way about it, I can just let beliefs be.

Belief = the mental acceptance of an idea, proposition, or premise as true or real. Beliefs shape how individuals understand the world, serving as mental models for interpreting new information.

Says it right there, beliefs are part of the mental game. Maybe if we can rework them before they transmute from logical mind to emotional body we can experience beliefs that are more malleable which might be nice to keep up with the pace of evolution.

Do you know if your strong beliefs are working for you or not? Have you ever asked yourself? Start with simply paying attention to how you feel on the inside when your days and ways bring up familiar beliefs you’re now not even sure if were yours in the first place.

Who’s head have you been listening to? Yours, or others?

Take back your thoughts and steer them towards what makes you feel good from the inside out. You know, just that simple, haha.

Circling back to Expectations . . .

When you expect something to be a certain way or someone to act a certain way, you are most likely always going to be disappointed in the way that your expectation was never anyone else’s same exact plan.

Sorry if that’s harsh but please understand, what’s in your head is not in everyone else’s head so no one should be expected to live up to your definition of expectations based off your life experiences, because remember:

A human’s repeated, layered mental thoughts build up systemic beliefs fueled by feelings and emotions resulting in actions and behaviors becoming habits that define personality which leads to life destiny.

Earlier I mentioned we can change our thoughts in a second, and yes we can although not always easily, but beliefs come from the deeper layers grooved out by our thoughts that have accumulated over time, years, decades, lifetimes, generations.

Beliefs can run deep.

So if you’re willing to face yours and do some questioning, first start by giving yourself some grace. This is not an easy walk.

Next, decide to get real. And ask yourself: (journal if you’d like, I do)

• What do I say I believe in but I actually have no feelings, or negative ones?

• What beliefs of mine have I noticed lately don’t seem to support the version I am now compared to a version I was however many years ago?

• What are beliefs I now have that I think are important enough to help guide my days and my ways, and maybe even share with others?

I find journaling to be such a truthful, gentle doorway to discovering more about ourselves. It’s never about “I don’t know what to write” or “I don’t know how to write” because those are easy excuses for I DON’T KNOW HOW TO TALK TO MYSELF.

And that is okay! Most of us don’t know how. Or if we do, we don’t talk nicely, not like the way we would talk to a friend or loved one, that’s for sure.

But yes, journaling is like talking to yourself. Not looping in your head, but processing through your hand on paper preferably, or keys. And it’s important because YOU ARE IMPORTANT.

Your beliefs and the expectations you hold can mold with you as you grow and as the world evolves too. What a gift you can give the world.

Really it’s like not even a question because evolution happens anyway.

More like, are you on board or not?

Coloring has been my favorite past time since I was a kid. I colored for hours because I could and because I loved it that much. We had an ice cream bucket full of crayons, leftover from each school year, dump ‘em in, nubs and broken ones falling to the bottom every May.

My sister and I made a fort with sheets and blankets draped over the backs of the kitchen table chairs surrounding a little table barely fitting inside with a lamp connected to an extension cord so that we could color as our “job” and that was our office and our boss would be checking in soon.

I’ve often wondered in adulthood if coloring could really be a job, as in something to get paid for? I met a man on a flight from Newark to Denver once who made me believe it might be possible. An illustrator would draw images on large canvases that this guy would then paint, kinda like paint by color, stay in the lines sort of thing. I was fascinated, maybe it’s possible?

I won several coloring awards at the state fair when I was in grade school then pulled in another 1st place in my 40’s for a local adult contest. I don’t color like an artist, but I do love a good colored pencil layer blend, and I’m the queen of mini circles.

I’ve been known to bring coloring books and fine tip markers when I travel.

So I guess it’s no surprise that today as a 51 year old woman, I’ve finally figured out how to make coloring my “job” but it’s not what you might think…

While I color daily, it’s not with crayons or colored pencils or markers on paper.

I color my days with energy.

Umm, whaddya mean Chas?

Color carries energy. We can use that color energy intentionally. We can base our days around color to give more meaning to the mundane that can drive some of us crazy.

I play a noticing game every day where color is my focus. It helps remind me to get out of my head and pay attention to the vibrant world in front of my face.

The idea for this awareness game came to me in what felt like a download, like a message from my higher Self saying here you go, here’s a gift for you to open and discover what it means, and I’ve been doing that for three years. I can honestly say playing this game every day is super simple, ya just gotta harness your attention here and there, and be prepared for some delightful surprises!

I never dreamed of having an online business but to bring this awareness game alive and to share it, I decided to do it that way. It will be a $7 email sequence for 7 days. I’ll let you know when it’s ready. I hope you’ll play!

Meanwhile, I’m curious if you like to color?! What do you like to color?! And what do you like to color with?!

Hey, btw I’m new here, as in this is my first article!

I look forward to revealing more about my fun game (can you guess the name?!), but also I have this pile of past journals I’m skimming through and finding some nuggets I think worth sharing, especially as I can now reflect back whether from last year or 15 years. They encompass the self-growth journey I’ve been on, the good, the ugly and the in between.

A big purpose in my life: connection, first with myself and what sources my energy, then a stronger connection with you, community, humanity.

I believe we can find ways to connect via the mindfulness game and/or the journal lessons, so I sure hope you come back, I also love to tell stories, and hear yours.

Stay golden,

Chas