This being human is amazing even if it is a full-time job. And it’s not like it’s even a forty hour a week job. It’s all day, every day, for decades - possibly for over a century.

It probably starts the same way every morning. If you’re lucky, you get to wake up when you feel like it, but mostly we wake up to an alarm – either digital or four-legged. We hop, drag or get ourselves pushed out of bed and begin our day.

How do you accept the challenge of a new day? Is it something you look forward to or do you tend to dread it.

Each day is a new beginning, so even if you dreaded yesterday, today you have a new opportunity.

I love that. I love knowing that I always have the opportunity to try a new way.
Being human is a gift we have given ourselves. Do you believe that? Can you see how your life, no matter how challenging, is a gift?

“Well,” you might say, “if it’s such a gift, why does it feel so hard sometimes?”
If your life feels hard, think about this:

Who do you know who has had the exact same life as you? The same experiences? The same joys? The same hardships?

No one.

Your life is unique and that’s because you have something to offer the world that no one else has. Every aspect of your life has made you who you are.

I’ve been thinking about being stuck. Stuck as it applies to not wanting to change. Sometimes, even when we don’t like what we’re doing or how we’re behaving, thinking about stepping into a new way of being can be unsettling because we can feel like we’re stepping into the unknown.

Patterns of behavior are established for a reason, but what if the reason no longer exists? What if the pattern has become toxic in its old age?

What I find interesting is how we can learn about ourselves and the patterns we’re holding onto through our relationships. We learn about our triggers, we learn what we like, what we don’t like, what our needs are.

Relationships help us grow. But what happens if we don’t allow them to? For instance, what if you’re in a relationship that leaves you talking over and over to yourself or someone else about how much that person annoys you, how they don’t get you, or how they seem to hold a superior attitude?

As humans, we struggle.

Doesn’t it seem odd to you that struggle is something we all have in common?

I guess the question I have is: Is struggle our true nature?

I don’t think it is.

Love and being in joy are our true divine natures and we are first and foremost divine beings. In a human body, we experience life on earth to grow and evolve our souls. I believe we give ourselves experiences so we can so we can make choices of how we choose to be in any given moment.

I love looking through old pictures. Those times when my family appeared happy with toothy smiles. Well, except for the one when my sister was minus her two front teeth.

There’s a snapshot of her in that stack of pictures from the 60’s when we were on our annual two-week camping vacation on Cape Cod. She was around six years old and wearing her dark red and navy-blue plaid seersucker bathing suit. It was a one piece with white piping on the pockets and yoke. I had one just like it. We would sit at the edge of the shore line at Nauset Beach waiting for waves to come up onto us and deposit sand in our pockets. We would laugh so hard. In the picture of us at the campground, my sister’s wearing her bathing suit with her beloved cowboy boots.

Humans need connection. We’d all like the people in our lives to be like-minded or at least supportive, but sometimes they’re just not. Which can make connecting with others feel scary or like too much work. Perhaps you're someone who would love to just be by yourself for rest of your life. That can sound good, but…

The desire to connect is a human attribute that we need to intentionally bring back into vogue. Why? Because that’s how we grow.

When I think of connection, the image that forms in my mind is of a grid, a network, with a light at the intersection where two lines meet. The lines represent the energetic flow of myself and those people who are, or who will be, in my life. Life lines perhaps.

Can you catch yourself?

Does that phrase bring up images of you chasing yourself around in circles? For many of us, it does. You try to get one thing accomplished and something else pops up that takes your attention. On and on it goes until you find the only thing you’ve managed to do is spin your wheels and end up completely exhausted.

The same can be true with your thoughts.

I had someone tell me recently that inner child work is considered woo-woo. That came as a bit of a surprise because it’s been so helpful to me personally.

Our inner child holds a lifetime of information and we can benefit from being in relationship with her. When you get triggered, chances are your inner child is reacting to a memory she’s holding onto.

Our subconscious minds are a storehouse of information. Information goes in and stays there. If you ever want to know anything about yourself, simply get quiet, ask your question and your subconscious will provide you with the answer. Maybe not in that immediate moment and you may not like the response, but it will tell you.

I love ice cream. In a cone. Not in a dish, not as an ice cream soda or a shake. These all leave out the best part of enjoying ice cream. The lick - tasting the cold creaminess on the tip of my tongue and having to lick fast to avoid the same cold creaminess from running down my arm. And then there’s the contrast of biting into the crispness of the cone itself, a strategic bite to ensure just the right amount of cone is broken off along with just the right amount of ice cream. Eating an ice cream cone properly takes practice.

I do limit the number of cones I eat so I don't overdo the sugar thing which allows me to make getting an ice cream cone into an outing. Once in a while we’ll go to the ice cream stand that unfortunately opened up about a mile from my house. It’s a cute little farm stand with an ice cream window that, much to my dismay, is open year-round.

I don’t like being inconvenienced.

There, I’ve said it. I’m not proud of it, but dang once I realized this, my life got a lot more joyful.

When I say I don’t like to be inconvenienced, I mean I don’t like being asked to do something I wasn’t planning to do. I can get quite huffy about it. Even my husband asking for my signature to deposit a sum of money into our bank account can cause a huff and an eye roll.

“Really? You want me to stop what I’m doing and sign my name now?”

Of course it’s childish and stupid, but that was my reaction until I was able to identify and become consciously aware of what I was doing. It feels like it took me forever. Again, not proud of it.

Do you ever get the feeling that something is missing from your life? Like if you were to order a mocha ice cream cone and got coffee instead? Part of what you ordered is there, but the parts that give depth of flavor are missing.

I feel like that’s what happens when we live our lives running about going from one task to the next. It’s easy to get caught up in the busy. But is it satisfying? Personally, it leaves me feeling empty.

The way to fill that emptiness is not with more doing. Rather, I feel we're being asked to sit and be with ourselves in a way that is loving and reflects gratitude for all that we are.