Love vs. Fear

I do not mean to make light of our situation currently, but it most certainly is the best example of how you can choose love or fear.

There is a societal standard that dictates when you celebrate holidays, how you do that, what the expectations are, when you should feel good, when you should reorganize your life. Work like a dog through the week, drink and party all weekend to make up for it, live it up on your vacations its your only “you time”, spend holidays with your family eating too much, exchanging gifts with only monetary value, and overnight change your life, make so many resolutions that you can’t possibly succeed or sustain the drastic changes. But is that the only way? I know that seems like a very condensed cynical version of how things go, but am I wrong? In my opinion – and you are welcome to disagree, we are living in a fear-based model. Take the Happy Birthday song for example, does anyone enjoy singing that? Does it uplift you at all? I find it rather depressing. As well the expectation that there should be gifts, and you must spend it with family, and you must have a dinner and cakes and drinks to celebrate. But what do you actually want to do?

What if you chose to love your life?

What if you got up everyday and did something that you loved? Maybe that isn’t your job, maybe it’s a stepping stone. But you got up and drank your coffee in silence, went for your walk, had a bath, journaled, whatever activity lights you up. What if you had boundaries at work so that you did your time everyday, took your breaks, and then left it at the door. What if you spent your days off on adventures that fill your soul, or in connection with loved ones instead of recovering from a hangover on the couch. Every moment of every day is the opportunity to celebrate a “new year”. You constantly have the opportunity to chose differently. Even if just in that moment you question, “does this make me happy”, “does this bring me joy”, that is your signal that you are asking for more. Witnessing that you are deserving of more is the first tiny step to having more.

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions

Let me tell you why. In most cases they come from that fear-based mentality. The year is ending, I might as well just do what I want and then it will all be better in the new year – “New year, new me”. I can tell you from experience, the “new you” does not happen overnight. I’m 34 years into it, 3 of really deep exploration, and I’m still figuring out who I want to be and how to choose again. But this is a prime example, and I don’t mean to throw shade on your resolutions, only to bring light to how you could make them more sustainable. Question: How can you expect to lose 10 lbs, when you have spent the last 2 weeks of the year running around in high stress to prep for the holidays (fight or flight), eating all the sweets in sight (sugar and adrenaline addiction), binge watching TV or scrolling (dopamine hits), lazing around on the couch (depression) and binge drinking (shock to the body system to digest). Then the clock strikes midnight and you start a new lifestyle. You diet, workout, cut the sweets, read that book, etc. But it doesn’t last. Your body is coming down off all these new patterns and addictions that you have created, it’s still trying to process the holidays, and then with the flick of a switch you take it all away and your body goes into withdrawal. Now of course many people can do this. Many people can do and succeed at the cold turkey approach. But that takes immense will power. You wouldn’t expect to wake up one day and run a marathon, would you? No, you would train for that, maybe for years.

So how do we change?

In my experience – again this is strictly my experience, small changes can have a lasting impact. I knew I needed to change my routines and habits to heal, but I also knew I had a lot of fear about giving everything up, so I add little things here and there to see if they stick. Less TV at night, well I know my husband likes background noise and likes to watch it before bed. So, I make sure there is music on when he gets home and I’m cooking so the TV doesn’t automatically go on. Then while he’s sleeping, I read in bed for an hour. I haven’t said, no TV during these hours, I know that’s not realistic for our lives, but I can adapt in the ways that I like, that bring me joy. I knew I needed to eat better, so I made it a habit to put more vegetables on my plate, to have a smoothie instead of a sugary bowl of cereal or muffin. Once I started to feel better, my body craved more good. We eat more salads for dinner, we don’t keep junk food in the house, dessert and snacks are not part of our routine. Now, trust me… I love a good pastry or baked good. So I keep some in the freezer, or I leave it as a treat for when I’m out. But I have chosen not to make it something I do every day. Maybe one week I really feel I need that brownie piece, so I let that be ok (or at least I’m still working on not beating myself up for that). But I don’t say, ok cool you had lunch, now you can have your treat because I don’t want to train my body to expect the sweet after meals. Sometimes I crave a snack and it’s an apple and peanut butter, cucumbers and dip, or sometimes it’s a scone, it’s all ok. It changes and evolves day by day. Once I was mobile, walks became a big part of my routine. Then I found there were other things I wanted to add. Maybe I needed more sleep some days, or wanted to journal or read, or garden. I felt I was forcing myself to now do all those things, plus walk, plus workout. What happened, I got frustrated and stressed and did nothing. So, I revised my expectations, I just want to move every day and I want to get outside and take in some sun. Some days I just stretch, some days I go for long walks, some days its little bits of all the above, and some morning I spend more time in bed. I try to give myself grace to allow whatever is needed so that I am not forcing from that place of fear and lack that says I have to schedule my day a certain way to be successful and productive.

Ok, what does all this have to do with life right now.

Everything. There is so much flow and change that exists in the day to day, that I hope you can see getting caught up in the fear and the narrative that is being given to you is not all life has to offer. Living a fear-based life is not your only choice. You can choose love. You can choose to see through love, with love. Even if just for a moment. To have a little more understanding and compassion for another. Knowing that things are constantly changing and evolving, does it really help to judge that person’s decision, does it really make you feel better to rage against the current state. Are you going to be the one that stands up and changes things? If not, why get caught up in it? You can educate yourself and be aware, without getting caught up. You can see what is happening, but choose not to judge, not to project your fears and conditioning onto another. You can decide you don’t like things, or the way things are, and just live your life with a little more love, a little more joy. Really find the peace, happiness, and joy within. If you can find that within yourself, the external doesn’t matter as much. You see through a bigger lens. You can find the humour. You can learn to let go.

If you do nothing else today, I invite you to try and witness when you are caught in judgement, forgive it, and choose to send love instead.

Sending you infinite amounts of love 🤍✌🏻