I gave a talk to a local women’s’ group a while back.  It was a talk, that joyfully, turned into a conversation, and I love conversations.  I don’t always like giving “talks. Even I get bored listening to myself sometimes.  But I do truly adore conversations.  It feeds my love of people, and what they think, and who they are and how they got to where they’re at.  I love those!

During this particular talk turned conversation, I started with tips on how to be our best self.  It was some mindfulness practices, some priority recognition and some questions about how they do each day, and what’s really important to them…and the tough one, are they living what’s important to them. Even more challenging, do they even KNOW what’s important to them.  Oven and over, beautiful women, struggling to make all the parts of their lives come together in what they desperately wanted to sound like a symphony, and many believed theirs sounded more like heavy metal acid rock playing in a parking garage.  Just loud and crazy.

It IS challenging to keep our eye on the prize especially when everyone else is often telling us what the prize should be, and that we’re not it, at least not yet.  We’re bombarded with who are we expected to be by our friends, our family, our co-workers, boss, Godblessthem even our spouses and partners.  It seems that everyone feels entitled to tell us who and what we should be, like we’re entitled to their opinion whether we want it or not.  And yet, so often, we don’t even entitle ourselves to our own.  Our own thoughts, feelings, visions, priorities, values, and dreams, even our own time.  in some delusion we believe that everyone else deserves us, but we don’t deserve ourselves.  Too often we get caught up in the trap of “should’ and ‘supposed to” that we genuinely forget who we are, and what WE WANT in our lives.   At some point, we started pushing our truth to the back, believing wholeheartedly that some day we’d get back to it.  But instead of things calming down, and simplifying, they got busier, and our truth, well, many can’t even remember that they have one, outside of the empty “this isn’t it” feeling that takes up space in their gut.  Honestly, that space, that feeling is telling you something.  It is telling you there is more to you than meets the eye. It is telling you there is a part of you that’s been left behind and perhaps now, even in the midst of a full and crazy life, it is time to go back and get her. That the woman you were loving and excited to become is still standing there, inside of you, waiting for your return.  She believed you when you said you were coming back for her…and she’s still there…looking for you to come around the corner and surprise her.  Surprise her!  Today, make her your focus, your favorite, your everything.  Really, she’s a team player!!  You can bring her into every day, every moment, even just a little bit, and she’ll love it.  She’ll bring her best to the table for you.  She loves you more than anything, this woman who lives deep inside of you.  This YOU that you have forgotten in the middle of work, and marriage, and kids and laundry.  She’s still there hoping and wishing, and waiting for you to come back, to see her, to be excited and exhilarated by her.  She’s there! She…is your BEST.

I ended this talk turned conversation with these beautiful women, by reminding them there can be some of ‘themselves’ in their lives.  That they can meditate, color, exercise, create, connect, prioritize, blossom, grow and live the best of themselves on the outside.  I told them they’re not alone, and they recognized themselves in each other’s stories, and trials and so, were able to create solutions together. It was beautiful.  These women.  Caring for one another, setting themselves as priorities in their own lives. Committing to seek out that woman inside of each of us, just waiting for us to bring her out, to become our very best.

Blessings Galore, Anne Brady-Cronin