Do you like Middle Eastern food? I do. But I didn't go to a Break-the-Fast Ramadan dinner for the food. Honestly!
One of the Muslim* women in my Interfaith group invited all of us to attend this event at Mecca Center in suburban Chicago earlier this month. She warned us to eat beforehand because although the event started at 6pm, we wouldn't be eating until 8:23pm, when the sun set. For some reason I didn't believe that we actually would not eat until 8:23. I thought there would be appetizers or something, drinks, and then dinner at around 8:30. Nope. This is a hardcore fast! No food or liquids (no water!) from sunrise to sunset. Meaning, during Ramadan this year (which occurred during summer solstice), there were some veeeerrrrryyy looooooong days of going without in the Northern Hemisphere. It's NOTHING like fasts I remember from Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, when we could drink water whenever and have one big meal with two smaller meals also permitted, if needed. (Since I'm a grazer, that's pretty much the way I eat anyway!) Observant Muslims awaken before sunrise to eat a small meal (peanut butter and crackers, or cheese and an apple) and drink lots of liquids. Then there are morning prayers. Then they don't eat again until after the sun has set - and they usually start with something small, like a few dates and a few sips of water before the evening prayer, so their bodies adjust to digesting food again via a quick jolt of natural sugar before being hit with the big stuff after prayers. (I was amazed to learn this - figuring a big candy bar would be the go-to here.) During our dinner, I asked my Muslim friends how they can do it - how can they fast that long, without even a sip of water, for over 16 hours? and function at their jobs, and do this in the heat of summer? (I would pass out.) They told me it takes about a week for their bodies to get used to it. After that, they said, it actually feels good to go without, to practice self-constraint. The heart is in control of the body - the body is craving food and water, and the heart is saying, you can go without. Resist your temptations. Appreciate what you do not have. Be grateful for all that God has given to you. It makes me want to start fasting. After breaking the fast, my friends invited me to pray with them in their beautiful mosque. The prayers were in Arabic and I didn't understand them, but I could feel them. Peaceful. Reverential. Grateful. We stood, and we kneeled, and we prostrated ourselves (I followed along as best I could.) My friends then stayed for a few more prayers AFTER prayers (mind you, this was after eating only two or three dates and a few sips of water in a 16+ hour period - and they prayed longer!) and then we went up to dinner. By this time, even though I had grazed on many handfuls of nuts and dried fruit on my drive to Mecca Center, I was starving. And I hadn't even fasted! The falafel and shawarma, kefta kebobs, lamb, pita, hummus and baba ghanouj were absolutely delicious. So was the rice - and I don't like rice. The best part of the evening was not dinner. It was demystifying something that I had only heard about, had been a little afraid of, and had unfairly judged. Thank you, my friends, for all that you teach me. ©Catherine Borowski 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com *I don't even remember learning about Islam in Catholic grammar school. I usually confused 'being Islam' with 'being Muslim.' (Islam is the religion, and a person who practices Islam is Muslim.)
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Scalpels. Deep surgical cuts. Bone grinding. Bone removal. Swelling. Bruising. Stitches. Big bandages. All without pain. Is this possible? YES. Last month I had foot surgery which entailed all of the above. Post-surgery involved 'taking it easy', a walker, a surgical boot, a handicapped parking pass (score!), and - super fun - a knee scooter. Constant foot pain made it apparent that I would need surgery, so I decided to schedule it as quickly as possible. My podiatrist explained the entire procedure, and I relaxed around it. Post-surgical pain, difficulty sleeping, and low energy are things I didn't dwell upon. To make the most of my four- to six-week recovery, books were stacked up, pillows were prepped, and food was prepared in advance. 'Taking it easy' does not come naturally to me, so I knew that would be the most challenging part of the whole thing. When I told people about the impending surgery, I was warned about pain/difficult recovery/not walking for weeks/etc. etc. etc. But that was their story: I chose a different one. I chose to believe everything would go well and I would feel great. And you know what? I felt better than great. I had *ZERO* pain. As in, none. I even gave back my pain pills. The swelling I experienced was minuscule. It was tons of fun wheeling around my house on my knee scooter (anyone need a barely-used knee scooter?). Having handicapped parking made me feel like a princess. Best of all, I was still able to lift weights, do sit-ups and swing a kettlebell... all while wearing a surgical boot! I read lots of books and got to sit in the back seat and work or read while being driven around by my significant other (a girl could get used to that!). My body did all the work (with a pretty big assist from my mind) while I 'took it easy.' So if you are contemplating foot surgery, or any surgery, think about how you approach it. If you dread it, are afraid of it, or resent it, you may have a completely different experience than mine. How much does your attitude affect your experience? Your attitude determines your experience. Stat. ©Catherine Borowski 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com The thought of changing what wasn't working in my life was waaaaaay more overwhelming than maintaining the status quo, despite how miserable I was. Instead of taking action, I'd gripe to friends ad nauseum/practice physical avoidance/drink myself silly rather than make a (long overdue) change. Because doing those things was so much easier than changing things! Who's happy all the time anyway? When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade! Life's a bitch and then you die. I figured I would die in a big vat of vodka lemonade. That would be a whole lot easier, and a lot more fun, than facing what I needed to change. Fear of changing what I needed to change ate away at me for years. Sure, I put on a good front, but inside I was crumbling. Making a big change petrified me. There were no guarantees about what was on the other side of that change. I could be floundering and alone, struggling to get through each and every day. I might never be able to function. Maybe my situation wasn't that terrible. Maybe this was as good as it gets.... The sleepless nights. The high blood pressure. My constantly trembling hands. All brought on by me, because I was too afraid of changing what was not working. Alcohol became my very dear friend. Then, after several years of hanging on by an ever-unraveling thread, The Big Lie happened. It took The Big Lie to make it painfully obvious and crystal clear that I had to get out - because I was too scared to do anything before that. Fear had kept me paralyzed. The Big Lie jolted me out of my self-induced coma. And when that happened, there was nothing - nothing - left to hold on to. Change was the only way out. And I would have to be the one to create change--I was the only one who could do it. It was time for a change, and the time was now. Fuck. After The Big Lie happened, I could not eat (bad timing, since I was registered for a 60mile bike ride in a couple days). I couldn't sleep. Dazed, I tried to function as well as possible for a few weeks, going through the motions of trying to live normally, while knowing that nothing would be 'normal' again. Pure adrenaline kept me going (even on that bike ride) until I collapsed from exhaustion. It was surreal. Some days I felt as if I wasn't even on this planet. The wracking sobs that went on for hours. The anger. The overwhelming sadness. The questioning. The resignation.... Finally, I set change in motion. There was no turning back this time. For a change. Change in motion. Going through the motions, swimming through pirahnas trying to get to - and trusting that there was - "another side." That "other side" came into sharper focus when The Universe (I couldn't say God at that time in my life) realized that this time I was really going for it. I wasn't turning back. I was finally doing it! I finally found the guts, and the strength, and the determination, to change what needed to be changed for years. There WAS life on the other side. And it would be better. Because it had to be, and intuitively I knew it, even though I was scared sh**less. It was like The Universe had been waiting and waiting and WAITING for me to make that change. Because things started lining up in my life as if a magic wand had been waved. There is something better on the other side. And I was finally alive to notice. ************* Is there something in your life that you know you want to change, but fear of the unknown is too overwhelming? If you're thinking that sometimes it's just easier to suffer through stuff than to deal with changing it, think again. How are you benefiting? What are the real costs? ©Catherine Borowski, 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com How often do you check the time on your phone? Does looking at your watch stress you out? My watch gave me headaches. It reminded me of the fact that I would be late (again) or not be able to finish that project in time or miss the train by one minute. Earlier this month most of us manipulated time by 'springing ahead.' Isn't it crazy that we can just move time around to suit us, yet time waits for no one? So I lost sleep over that time change, and will gain it back in November. Why do I have to wait until November to get that hour back? Why do we continue to move our clocks that way? It's outdated and all it does is upset my sleep pattern. We make it all up anyway. We can never find more time, and we must use time to keep things orderly. What if there really was no time? Time is marked by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries... and it's all made up. After many years of watch-induced headaches, I finally stopped wearing a watch. Strangely, though, once I stopped attaching myself to time, I was always on time. Not early, not late: on time. Very eerie. I also learned that when I pull my past into the present moment, I lose time. By viewing present situations through what happened in the past - by living in my head, in those old stories - I miss out on where I am right now. And since right now is the only time that exists anyway, why waste time by living in the past? It's like when I used to check my watch 25 times an hour (not believing that I would once again be late). For what? I couldn't turn back the clock and change the time. Right now is what is meaningful. This moment in time. Spend it wisely. ©Catherine Borowski, 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com
For a long time, I couldn't. Saying that word made me uncomfortable. I cringed when other people said it - almost like 'God' was a swear word, except swear words were more acceptable.
Growing up Catholic and attending Catholic grammar school, God was a big part of my childhood. I went to church twice weekly (with my class during the week and with my parents on the weekend), received the sacraments, and didn't eat meat on Fridays during Lent. It was just what we did, and what everyone I knew did, and I didn't question it because I thought everyone else in the world did the exact same thing. I was taught that God was a nice old man in the sky, but with a temper. He'd love me until I did something wrong, and then I had to confess my sins to a priest who would assign prayers to say as penance before God would love me again (this sounds strangely similar to human relationships, doesn't it?). Then, when I was 11, my family moved from our South Side Chicago Polish Catholic enclave to a nearby suburb. What an awakening that was! I discovered that not everyone in the world was Catholic (or Polish, for that matter). Huh??? What did these strange people believe in? They said different prayers, and the pope and the saints weren't that important to them. What did God think of these inferior people?? They didn't even confess their sins. Why weren't they Catholic - didn't they want to go to heaven? In school, I learned that if a person wasn't Catholic, they couldn't go to heaven. It was that simple. Being Catholic meant you got a ticket to heaven, and you just had to make sure you followed the rules and didn't screw it up. If I had unconfessed sins, I would wind up in purgatory. Non-Catholics would automatically be sent to purgatory - a/k/a limbo - and never even get the chance to go to heaven. As a kid I would imagine myself in purgatory, floating around and not being able to do much of anything until God decided I had spent enough time atoning for the sins I was too afraid to confess to the priest. I would look up at all the devout, perfect, sinless Catholics in heaven, and then I would look down, where the really bad people were burning, in perpetuity, in hell's eternal flames. Fast forward to my early 20s. I started working in downtown Chicago and met Jewish people. This knocked me off of my religious rocker: I tried to fathom not believing in Jesus. Having a different New Year. Having to eat matzo for a week (I hadn't even heard of matzo before then!). This is when I started to question my religion. These Jews were really nice, kind, loving people! Why would they be denied heaven because they didn't believe in the religion I practiced? Could people who weren't Catholic still be decent and good? I got more curious. I stopped going to Mass every week and started to visit other places of worship to learn about other religions: Lutheran. Methodist. Pentacostal. Baptist. Anglican. Islam. Latter Day Saints. So many religions to choose from, and each represented the 'only true path to God.' It got to be too much for me. I stopped believing in God. It seemed to me that God was divisive. I knew that, when some of my older relatives were growing up, they were taught that Jews had horns or other 'devil' symbols on their heads. My older relatives had been forbidden - by the church - from standing up in wedding parties of non-Catholic friends. None of this made sense to me. God and I took a long break because I couldn't handle all the mixed messages. For a few years, I believed in nothing. I stopped saying the word 'God.' Eventually, I acquiesed to there being a 'higher power.' There was some 'higher power' out there - there had to be - just looking at the wonders of nature, in my mind there had to be a force greater than humans (although I didn't know what it was) but the G word was too much for me to utter. "Source." "The Universe." I could agree to something like that. Just not God. It took hitting rock bottom - HARD - for me to look inward and begin to truly see. Suddenly, it was simple. What I saw when I looked inward was God. He was there all along. He didn't care that I had turned my back on him and couldn't talk to/about him. He wasn't even pissed off that I stopped believing in him for a few years, and he didn't ask me to go to confession upon my return. He understood. God understood because God doesn't care about religion. I slowly got to know him again - just God, and me. I learned that God is part of who I am. The light and love I offer to the world is God talking through me. It's so simple, it's practically absurd the way we humans complicate it. Actually, God is everywhere - he doesn't only hang out in church, or in one country, or up in the sky. He's part of me, and he's part of everyone I meet. And he doesn't care about what religion anybody practices (or doesn't practice). It's simple. God = Love. ©Catherine Borowski, 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com
It shouldn’t even be a secret. It should be easy for me or anyone to share something like this with you. Except it isn’t.
Here’s my secret… I voted for Donald J. Trump. And I’ve been really afraid to tell you. I’m afraid because I’ve heard the shouting. Witnessed the name calling. Seen how Trump voters are being lumped into groups and judged unfairly. Recently, the shouting has gotten louder. The name calling has gotten worse. The blame is endless and dire predictions continue. Who did you vote for - Hillary? A third party candidate? Maybe you decided not to vote at all. We had choices, and our choice didn't (and doesn’t) make us bad or wrong or stupid. We just look at this part of life differently. However, many won't tolerate a viewpoint different than their own. That's why I continued to hide. Trump voters had to hide and had to whisper or we would be shouted down, called names, and bullied. I’ve been hiding since September, when I decided to vote for Trump. My decision was whispered to very few people and usually only after someone told me that they were voting for Trump. It certainly wasn't something to be discussed out loud. I couldn’t sit in a restaurant and say in a conversational tone, “I’m voting for Donald Trump.” Post-election, in December, I was lunching with an attorney friend and he whispered to me that he had voted for Trump. I whispered back, “I did too.” And then I said, “Why are we whispering?” We talked about how we still felt like we had to keep it to ourselves - it was our secret. People I considered to be thought leaders showed their bias post election. It was shocking to read and hear what these “thought leaders” wrote after the election results were in: How shameful this result is. How no one saw it coming. That the sky is falling. “How could this happen??”, they cried. Maybe no one saw it coming because they only saw what they wanted to see. They only heard what they wanted to hear. They refused to believe people could think differently than they do and still be loving and compassionate. As I look up, the sky is still in place. The United States is still filled with kind-hearted, loving people. The shouting is still here, too. And the name calling: people who voted for Trump are uneducated, racists, homophobes, misogynists… these are only a few of the ugly references. I’m none of those things. I just think about things differently. I think about different issues, and I think about issues differently. After much consideration, I decided to vote for Donald Trump. And that doesn’t make me bad or wrong or stupid. It means I voted for a different candidate than you did. I'm still human. Before writing this, I asked very dear (liberal) friends to share a sentence or two stating how they would describe me to someone who didn't know me. Following are a few of the words they used: compassionate, smart, calm, spiritual, loyal, supportive, adventurous, fearless, vivacious and with a heart of gold. Do these descriptors no longer apply? Maybe you'll decide to end our friendship because of what I’ve shared here. Or you’ll no longer be interested in what I say or what I write. Our differences will suddenly be too much for you. When I stopped drinking alcohol, I knew friendships would change and some could end. By writing about my choice for President (which I’ve found to be much more difficult than writing about sobriety), perhaps friendships will change or end. Yet I’m compelled to write this because, in keeping this secret, I have not been true to myself. Mitchell Lee Marks recently wrote an essay in The Wall Street Journal entitled Coming Out For Trump. In it, he wrote “[t]his may be hard for some to believe, but watching protesters today call Trump supporters racists and bigots has been nearly as distressing as being told to “die in hell, faggot” 30 years ago. I can identify with that feeling of distress. That feeling helped me write this. It hurts me when you shout in my face, categorize me, and tell me I’m promoting hate. Hopefully what I wrote will be a catalyst for conversations between people with differing opinions. I am optimistic. I am optimistic, too, that you will give Donald Trump a chance. ------------ ©Catherine Borowski 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com
I'm one. You're one.
Quick - look around. They're everywhere. Hey Millennials, Hipsters and Gen-Xers! Yo Baby Boomers! Do Yuppies still exist? Hi, my Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Jewish friends. Hello to my African American and Asian American friends. Shouting out to my LGBT pals! Who did I miss? I started labeling people in high school. The ra-ra's and the jocks. Burnouts and freaks. Brainiacs and nerds. By labeling people, it was easier to decide if I would like them or not (usually not) without actually getting to know them. "He's a jock? Probably a cocky asshole." "That burnout? Not worth my time." "Oh yeah, Ms. Brainiac? She's gotta have a chip on her shoulder." Labeling was in full swing this past presidential election season. Throw a hashtag on it, and you have a movement. #nevertrump. #feelthepantsuit. #basketofdeplorables. And now that the election is over, there is so much hatred being thrown around using labels. It's incredibly hurtful. It's soul-sucking and energy-draining. If I told you that I'm a conservative Gen-X'er, does that mean you know who I am? Wait - I'm really a progressive hipster. Do you know me now? Would you want to get to know me? What would you think of me if I told you I drank Starbucks coffee? Just kidding. I drink Dunkin Donuts coffee. What do you think of me now? A plumber versus a hedge fund manager. A Stanford grad versus someone who went to a community college. What's your spontaneous impression of the person? Labels are hurtful. Labels are inclusive while being exclusive. They're an easy way to judge someone and to hate someone. A label is the ability to categorize someone, to get a mental picture of them and then decide if you want to be their friend or not, without ever saying one word to them. I'm going to stop referring to people as a label. I'm going to stop playing the comparison/judgment game of thinking I know what a person is like by the labels they wear and the labels they carry. I used to find it much easier to slap a label on someone than actually talking to them and getting to know who they are. I felt better about myself, or so I thought ...until I realized that I actually started to feel worse. Superior. Inferior. It's a game. Kierkegaard said, "Once you label me, you negate me." Hi, my name is Catherine and I'd like to get to know you because you're human. Not because of your label. --------------- ©Catherine Borowski 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com
In August of 2015, I did something that I never thought I would do.
I stopped drinking alcohol. Yes. Me, the girl with the Eastern European drinking gene - meaning I could drink a 250lb man under the table (and did on a semi-regular basis) - I stopped drinking alcohol. I never thought I could do it. Heck, I never thought I WOULD do it! I mean, WHY would I do it? Our society is all about drinking! Celebrating success = drinking (champagne). Freaking over failure = drinking (vodka). Work event = drinking (free booze!). Sunday Funday = drinking (anything). Networking = drinking (wine). Seeing live music = drinking (beer). A warm summer day = drinking (gin). A cold winter day = drinking (single malt Scotch). Apres ski = drinking (so many choices!). Beach vacation = drinking (something tropical). Meeting a friend for... = drinking (bartender, what do you recommend?). So why stop drinking? Drinking got me through practically my whole life! Drinking got me through tough times in school. Drinking gave me courage when I had none. Drinking got me through my first divorce. Drinking got me through my second marriage and divorce. Drinking made parties more decadent, dinners more delicious, time with friends crazier and time with family nuttier. Plus I could relax better with a few cocktails. Right? Drinking made people and situations tolerable, bearable, easier .. at least that's what I'd tell myself as I ordered another drink. I could slog through another *whatever* just by having a drink. Or three. Waking up at 8:30am, or 9, or 9:30.. sure, that was fine too. I could always get stuff done through the headache, through the churning stomach, through the cobwebs lodged in my brain.. I was so used to it that it was normal. I still managed to work out through a hangover, so that made it OK. But ... the amount I drank regularly started to weigh on my mind. I mean, even I was shocked. So at the beginning of 2014, I decided to 'cut back on my drinking.' Cutting back meant not drinking every day. That was HUGE. It was tough to decide which day I wouldn't drink.. No Booze Tues? What if there was a Tuesday-only cocktail party? There was always some drinking event happening or about to happen: a dinner with wine pairings. A networking event. An impromptu whatever where there were tasty beverages that I could not turn down. Miss the North Shore Gin cocktail du jour? Impossible! So the Corpse Reviver became more and more true for me.... It was a rough start, but I managed to eke out a few months in 2014 where I drank only 27 out of 30 days. Or 28 out of 31 days. I felt like a champ. As 2014 rolled into 2015, I drove myself to a New Year's Eve party, reasoning that I didn't want to deal with Uber's NYE surge pricing and believing that by driving I would force myself not to drink (too much). And at 3:30am, January 1, 2015, I soberly drove myself home. It was novel, strange, and kind of cool to wake up on New Year's Day earlier than noon and without a massive hangover. In 2015 I did pretty well limiting my drinking to certain days of the week. Except that when I did drink, it was a colossal binge that kept me hungover for a couple days. You know that gross taste you get in your mouth when you drink too much? Yeah. I had that. For days. A perfect storm of events mid-2015 helped me stop drinking alcohol:
The whole thing felt yucky. I sat with that for a while. I felt that yuck. I remembered eating those potato chips like I had never seen a chip in my life. Egad. During the couple weeks between the dinner passout and the medical procedure, I really reflected on my drinking. On how I changed when I was drinking (for the better, I thought!). On how shitty I felt the next morning - on a regular basis. On how drinking numbed me through so much of my life. And for the first time in my life, I somehow knew that my life would actually be better if I was sober. I knew that I could be sober and still be happy. I knew that I would not miss out on life by not drinking. I knew that friendships might change because I chose sobriety, and I chose it anyway. I chose sobriety because I wanted to feel what life was really like. And to know who I really am. I chose sobriety for me. There definitely were some freakouts. And they did not come from me. They came from people around me who couldn't believe I would quit drinking. "You don't have a problem!" these well meaning people said. "Why not just cut back?" "Are you quitting drinking forever?" Then, surprising things started happening. Friends would confide that they were concerned about how much they drank, too. They asked what it was like to be sober, because being sober in our society is pretty damn rare and scary, it seems. The craziest and most surprising thing is, I don't miss it. At all. When I walk down the liquor aisle, I actually taste that awful too-much-booze taste in my mouth. And I still have wine and liquor in my house that I am never tempted to drink. My late nights are no longer spent gorging on food to sop up the booze. I lost my booze-induced gut. Because my head is clear, I can get much more done in much less time. Because I have more time, I'm able to do more things I love. Doing more things I love means my relationships improved. And my relationships improved because I bring my whole self into them. One of my favorite things nowadays is going out to dinner or to a bar and when my drink order is requested, I say: "I don't drink alcohol; I'd like a sparkling water with lemon, please." I've had servers and bartenders tell me that they're sober, too. And sometimes other patrons lean over and talk sobriety with me. It's awesome! So with my glass of sparkling water raised, I toast to you all. Na zdrowie! ------------ ©Catherine Borowski 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com It took a while to realize how much my stuff was weighing me down. And the day that happened, I knew it was time for a change. That day, it was like I had new eyeballs in my head. I looked around my house and thought: are you kidding me? Where did I get all this crap? What IS all this stuff? It started innocently enough, by noticing the lovely candle holders I didn't use, and continued with the picture frames I never really liked but used because they were functional. Then I looked at the furniture I had had for years. Wow. Suddenly, my new eyeballs kept seeing shelves and drawers and closets and ROOMS full of stuff that, like flipping a switch, changed from harmless items to big, heavy anchors. And then I looked inside my closets. YIKES! A dress wasn't just a dress: it was a remembrance of who I was with, what happened, how I felt.. all the stories I told myself around a dress. The time I wore that dress to that event and that happened. Just looking at those dresses with my new eyes drained and exhausted me. Would I even want to wear that again? No. As I let go of my clothes, and my knickknacks, and my furniture, energetically I also let go of all my attachments around those things. The weight of all of that stuff was crushing, and I didn't even realize how much I was being crushed! And then <POOF> it was gone. Bags and bags and BAGS were filled. Schlep was called. The Salvation Army guys got to know me. . My nephew got furniture, dishes and kitchen items for his frat house. My sisters got clothes and accessories. My nieces got purses, dress up dresses, jewelry... And I lost a ton of emotional weight. ------------ ©Catherine Borowski 2017 www.celebratingwealth.com So I sat down to write this month's blog, not exactly knowing what to write and feeling pressure because I vowed that I would write monthly blogs no matter what - and once again, it is the last day of the month and I am just now sitting down to write. Why do I do that to myself?? I always tell myself that I'll get something posted sooner, and for the past few months it's been the same story. UGH!!! So much to do, so little time. The anxiety of that. The headaches that come from that. The stuff that I do to myself by overscheduling, schedule changes, double booking, or having so much that I'd like to do and then choosing to do it all and somehow making it all work! (If it actually does - and if I actually enjoy it and can keep my mind with my body in the moment.) The overwhelm of receiving news of something unpleasant - or something pleasant. The overwhelm of decisions that must be made. The overwhelm of trying to control situations and people. HA!! As if. The overwhelm of taking on the responsibility to make 'everyone' happy. As I was about to open a blank page and start typing, I received an email from a friend saying she'd probably join me for an upcoming theater performance - a woman I met just recently who helped me write copy for this website and my 7 for 7 Energy Challenge. When I read her email, I experienced an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness for this person in my life, this new friend whom I randomly met through another friend, whom I also randomly met.. and so it goes. (Nothing is really random, though, is it?) And as I was sitting here feeling so grateful for the people in my life, I looked out my window and saw all the flowers I planted a couple months ago, now in full bloom. Looking out my window at that view brings me joy every single time. It's so rewarding to plant stuff and watch it grow and change through the seasons.. just as I grow and change through the seasons. That simple shift in my energy, from the overwhelm of pressure to write this month's blog to the overwhelm of thankfulness for friends and nature, got me unstuck. The words just began to flow as fast as my fingers could type. The overwhelm of typing the words so fast.. nice! When an anxious overwhelm next strikes, I'm going to try and remember to pick up my head before I give myself a headache. To look around. To breathe, and sit for a minute. Because the overwhelm is what I create it to be. And it can dissolve just as soon as I start to look at it differently and get creative about it. (Yeah, it sounds simple. It's not easy.. but it is simple!) So..... how does your overwhelm affect you? What do you create around your overwhelm, and how long do you stay in it? What can you do to shift your energy? ------------ ©Catherine Borowski 2016 www.celebratingwealth.com |
Celebrating Wealth®
Live a wealthy life. AUTHOR
Catherine Borowski, life coach, knows that life can be messy. And it's through the mess that beauty emerges in the most unexpectedly brilliant ways. Archives
May 2020
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