You’re up, then you’re down.  You’re down then you’re up.  Life.

Two weeks ago, I was having a down week.  I was contemplating a lot, things felt heavy.  I doubted many relationships and friendships in my life.  I was lost on some people’s true intentions.  I got overloaded with ideas for future projects and collaborations and forgot  current goals and started to feel lost.

A few things had triggered what I was feeling.  The unearthing of some beliefs someone dear to me had about me due to her version of a story that she was holding onto.  Something in my relationship that came up that was really quite small, but made me question everything (because my first instinct is to run).  And lastly a very close friend, who was like a sister to me from when I first started out as a sound engineer passed away.  The same person that 11 years ago made me learn the very hard to swallow lesson of:

As much as you love them, you can’t save them, they have to want to save themselves. {Tweet it!}

Heaviness, emotions, rethinking everything. When I am in this type of cycle I now naturally crave being out in the world.  Being a social butterfly, no.  Taking walks, making eye connection, passing smiles to strangers, yes.  I actually took myself on my first solo dinner date since moving to Newport Beach that week.  I walked over to one of my favorite places and instead of taking it to go, I chose a seat for myself and sat there and savored every bite and my surroundings.

Whenever I am going through something I make sure to get out.  I am now naturally inclined to do this.  To get out when I feel down and connect with humanity.  It helps to get me out of my own way and reminds me that we are all going through something.  It also gives me connection, whether it be exchanging a smile with someone I pass on the sidewalk or the two minute conversation I have with the person taking my order.  Connection heals.

Another tool I pull out when I am in a funk, a low, a blur, a loss are good ole Morning Pages.  I always teach about morning pages in my programs and to my one on one clients.  They are invaluable.  I don’t always do them in the morning, but I make sure to do them whenever something is clouding over me.  I vent it all on the page without worrying about making sense.  Jumping around from something I want to get done, to a deep emotion I am feeling, to what I really truly want most.  I think of it as free journaling and it works.  Morning  Pages is part of Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way.

Things came up that week.  A lot of things.  A lot of emotions, of memories, of remembering who I am and who I want to be. A greater commitment to being aware of my intention at all times, with my speech especially.

Last week, was filled with a lot of MY LIFE IS SO AMAZING moments!  Really, it was quite the difference from one week to the next.  I felt so blessed, so grateful, so loved, so full of possibilities, so free.  Evidence below of actual text I sent to best friend.

I felt so free and alive.  I experienced more generosity and really felt  truly present each day.  I connected with friends new and old.  I was focused and clear.  It was such a difference from one week to the next.

I don’t know if I would have had such a free and clear week without that heavy one.  Things showed up in the heavy week that were not pleasant.  I felt a lot of pain on different levels but it made me focus in on myself and out into the world and what was available to me and what I wanted to be in it.   It pulled some things out that were hiding under surface level and made me face them.

It triggered me to recommit to myself, to look at my life, past and present.  To heal old wounds, to see old ways of being in myself that I am not super proud of, to forgive myself and others.

Life IS BIG.  It throws us curveballs some weeks and some weeks can show up as mundane.  Heaviness happens.  Sadness happens.  Pain happens.  But none of it is the end.  You can tap into it all to see yourself clearer, to have more compassion for yourself and others, to re-focus on what you really want, to free yourself.

I am truly grateful for both of those weeks, pain and all.

Life will always show us ups and downs, but we get to choose what we do with them. {Tweet it!}