LET YOURSELF HAPPEN

©CherieElainePhotography2023

I am a huge fan of the Passion Planner. I love color-coordinating my life, and making plans and setting goals and organizing myself a week or even months at a time. My Passion Planner gives me room to grow and make big plans for the year and it's just downright fun. Art Journal and Calendar in one. Dreams can come alive in it. 

It's time for my mid-year self-check in to see how I am doing on accomplishing goals and moving forward and doing me. 

Well, this year I feel like life hasn't been kind (it hasn't) and that where I am is not where I want to be (it isn't) and where I am going is not at all what I intended. My colorful planner is a bunch of scribbles and notes and disappointments. 

As I sit here writing, I think to myself, "What the hell are you talking about?"

LOOK AT IT AGAIN. 

If you read my blogs, you know that June hit me hard. It shows in my planner. January, February, March and most of April? The same. The job I was in hit me harder. 

BUT LOOK WHAT I'VE DONE. 

Stick with me here. It's all going to make sense. 

Remember I color code my passion planner?

Here's my code: 

     Orange: Family time because orange is a happy color and they make me happy.

     Yellow: Self-care, because yellow is my favorite color.

     Blue: Writing. For instance, today there will be an hour of blue colored in for                          blogging time. 

     Pink: Work at a job NOT associated with any other color. TOO MUCH PINK. 

     Green: Photography. Green means money. Green means go. Green means grow. 

     Red: Friend time. And my dog. People and pets I love outside my family. 

As I thumb through the last six months of 2023 while setting intentions for the next half of the year, I see all of the green. So much green! 

Am I making money at it here? Very little. But it is my passion, it is what I am going to do. I've exhausted all of my resources and I've gotten so much better, and I'm proud of the work I'm doing. 

That's success. Money is only an element of it. The work itself must be good. And it is very good. 

Having a mental breakdown in June has given me time to rest and re-evaluate. I thought I was failing. I thought I was failure.

Joan Anderson wrote a great book called A Weekend to Change Your Life. It is meant to work through in just that, a weekend. But my weekend got derailed by storms far more dangerous that anticipated and I returned home disappointed and frustrated and thinking that my weekend was an epic fail. (Damn, that word falls out of my mouth far too frequently)

However, if I learned a really fantastic lesson in one small sentence, then it is not a failure at all. It is success. 

"Let yourself happen." *

One of the things the doctor has helped me see is that removing an obstacle only helps if you deal with why it needed removed, and how it felt, feels, and is going to affect your future. I wasn't doing that. It was all bunched up in my chest and pounding it's way out of my heart and mind and body until it finally escaped. 

I had to let myself happen. 

Life is not black and white. It is varying shades of both. They intermingle and not only produce gray, but many shades of it. Life cannot be measured in one or the other. It is the combination of everything mixed and mottled together. 

I thought I was failing, that I wasn't getting anything done, and that I was going to have to settle. I was putting up walls and deciding HOW this has to work out instead of delivering the map to the Maker and letting Him direct my path. I didn't finish my book, but I got the message loud and clear.

Everything green and blue, red and yellow, black and white, it a precious step toward bright. Just.....bright. The light at the end of the tunnel. The light we chase. Every step I've taken has been one step closer. Every dollar I've spent is one more dollar invested. Every moment I've mourned is one more chance to see joy. 

Yeah, I cuss a little more than I used to. Letting myself happen. I get mad, but not really mad, because I let myself happen. I look in the mirror without angst because I let myself happen. I eat the cake, and the frosting too, because I let myself happen. 

Don't be so hard on yourself. Don't be so hard on others. You've got enough of your own crap. You don't have time or energy for theirs, I promise. Attend to you. Work hard, play harder, and love even harder still. Be you. Experience YOU. Look at what you've done. If you aren't the same as you were six months ago, then you're doing and growing and being. It might hurt like hell, but you are letting yourself happen. 

Love you.

©CherieElainePhotography2023

* Anderson, J. (2007). A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People. National Geographic Books.