The Coffee Fairy

As you know…I pretty much bleed coffee.  Okay I will admit that I have cut way back from my university days and try to maintain a better balance but in all truth I really love my morning coffee.  It can even be decaf…doesn’t matter. I enjoy the taste, the aroma and the ritual of sipping away while I check my social media sites.

Know what I don’t love?  Cleaning the freakin coffee maker and making the coffee.  I love that mine has a timer and if I remember to put it on it’s like freakin Christmas to wake up to hot coffee already made.  Seriously great way to start the day. Still, not a fan of the mess but totally worth the effort once I get hot coffee.

I was really happy then to be at another person’s office and they mentioned that there was a fresh pot made and to help myself.  (yeah!)

I also got a good laugh as they had many different little ‘love’ notes all over their kitchen about cleaning up after yourself.   The classic “your mother doesn’t work here, clean it up yourself” always gets a giggle.  Then I caught one that said “the coffee fairy doesn’t work here; make the damn coffee”.   I smirked because I have often joked about where the coffee fairy was myself.

So, I googled the coffee fairy later on thinking to send a joke to a friend who also has a coffee addiction…err…love of coffee!  Yes that’s what we’ll say…love of coffee.

Check out what I found.

Awesome.

Sent that off to my friend who also had a good giggle at it.  I read it again in her reply and my thoughts were interesting.  My first thought was “hmm, ya, just like life”

Whoa…what now?

It’s truth in a funny little package.  Life isn’t made by fairies and benevolent beings either.   Occasionally you might find someone is willing to share a little of what they have, but for most days, you have to do what it takes. 

So, get yourself out there and make it for yourself.  The best part is once you figure it out, you make it exactly how you like it. Kinda like coffee.

(Ha, and you thought I was just on a love-rant about coffee!)

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Why I’m Grateful to the Jerks in my Life

Over the years I have had people treat me badly..I mean who hasn’t right?

Yup, there have been real jerks in my life.  I’m not talking about someone who says something out of turn or goofs up..I’m talking about the people who treat everyone poorly. 

We can go on and on about why they might do things like talk down, mean comments, manipulating, self involved…BUT that’s not the point of this blog.

It was only recently I had this conversation with someone once again. I mentioned that I was grateful for the jerks in my life and then had to explain why.  Let me tell you when you say something like that people look at you funny.  Okay they look at you like you’re nutty.  Which I am..but not about this.

Here’s the thing; I am grateful for what they taught me by being in my life…not so much for them treating me badly.  Making more sense now?

Early on the lessons were pretty simple.  Don’t fall for that, and don’t let people walk all over you. Have some self-respect and you’ll do fine.

The lesson in recent years I have been given has been a bit harder to take and far more important.

So what is the big lesson that I had to learn?  The most important thing, the one thing that let me release so much bitterness and hurt was this.

Their stuff is their stuff…not mine.

Sounds silly and simple but I promise you that it is incredibly powerful.

I am not responsible for other people’s reactions, enjoyment, hate or love.  I am only responsible for my own. 

If someone can’t connect with me, my journey or what I am doing, then they are just not in the same place as me for whatever reason.  That’s not for me to decide.

I am however, completely and utterly responsible for who I am, how I live my life and the legacy I leave behind.  How everyone else perceives it is not my issue. 

You can’t imagine how much of  a shift in my life this has created.  I am no longer willing to feel shame when others judgements fall on me.  Instead, I give that back to the person it comes from and realize that this judgment is theirs to own…not mine.   I remind myself that if someone remarks on my life path, on my journey that this is coming from their soul and issues..not mine. 

When we allow opinions and demands put upon us to direct our life we live small, we limit our light.  We can’t be who we really are.  And this goes for the good and bad.  

I had this issue when I first started coaching.   A number of people let me know how great I was at helping them with their business start-up.  Oh sure, I had loads of info from all the experience, research and classes I took in order to do it myself.  I was feeling like I ‘should’ head into business coaching.  I was good at it.  Problem was I wasn’t feeling it in my heart of hearts.  I loved the part where I helped people find their passion in business, to find direction and problem solve but beyond that I wasn’t all that ‘into’ it.  

People who cared about me mentioned how much easier it would be to find clients and make more money.  Perhaps I ‘should’ I thought.  It took a lot of soul-searching and strength to stand in my truth and say this isn’t where I am meant to go.  I have something else in mind; this was made even harder to do because I was still searching out my own plan. I just knew that business start-ups weren’t quite ‘it’.  Gotta watch out for those ‘shoulds’.  

Allowing other people’s stuff to hold us hostage in our own lives only holds us back and holds us down.  Gently refuse to allow this type of energy into your life, let them own it for themselves and keep on being you…you know..fabulous!

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Becoming a Seeker

I have become a Seeker.  It’s strange, the realization and how it arrived. 

I was looking for the spelling of a word for a completely different article and was flipping through my well-worn dictionary. (Yes I  love my books…dictionary included).  To be honest I lost track of the word I was actually looking for.  FOUR times my page flipped open and/or flipped page to the page with the word ‘seeker’ on it.

It was underlined.  Not that I remember doing that.  Still, it was an old book, second-hand no less. 

Now I’ll be completely honest with you here.  I have one of those big old library dictionary (circa 1969 –>it’s older than me!) where the origin of the word, synonyms and such are all included.  I love it.   And I’m really, REALLY easily distracted when I start looking around in there.  I love language.  It’s powerful. 

So, when the book kept pointing out the word I stopped to look.  Seek or Seeker. 

• to try to discover, to endeavor
• to move to or go to
• to try
• to explore, make a search or investigation
• to inquire for; request

A sudden realization struck me. THIS is ME.  This is what I have been doing for the last 6 years in a purposeful way. 

I’m not exactly sure how it happened.  Looking  backwards of course is always easiest isn’t it?  I look on my past and see that I always had the inclination.  I wasn’t, and still am not, comfortable conforming as I’ve mentioned before.  I crave being different.  I have always looked for ‘more’; for what else is out there. I can’t really say that I pursued it on a spiritual level very strongly however.  Fear…it kept me somewhat in my ‘place’ as I knew it to be.

My, times have changed. 

At some point, I guess I just became sick and tired of holding myself back.  I was discontented, spiritless and tuned out.  My spirit felt caged by expectations and doubt.

When I did try to live the life I had, I wasn’t happy and my relationships were, for the most part, what I call ‘surface relationships’.  Not the deep connections I craved.   The whispers from the universe, that there was something more than this, were too strong to ignore.  My heart ached to find what that was. 

At some point, I almost unwittingly, set out and begin my own journey; before I really even understood I was on one.

And I emerged a Seeker.  A seeker of my own truth, a seeker of light and connection. 

In doing so, I realized I could help others along the way. 

These realizations have made my struggles with all that has, and is, changing, so much lighter.  It excites me to have understood this.  I do not have to have all the answers because I am in a place where my purpose is seeking them. 

I will continue to explore, inquire and seek; and this will be enough.   I have begun to understand the purpose of this journey. 

Some people look for fame and fortune, some seek God or spirituality, or understanding; some only want to exist in contentment and familiarity of the life they are given.  

For some, like me, there comes a time when we can no longer be content to accept what is.  It can begin after a traumatic event that opens a wound we need healed.  Or like me it can be something that has always been there. We feel called deeply in our core to find the ‘what else’ that there is, we seek our own truth that will feed our soul and spirit.  It feels almost like a home coming to realize this is my path and what it means.  Peaceful.  I know what I am about.

I am a Seeker.

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