Our society has been so focused on being highly capable of doing it all, to the point that we are not only spread thin but our output may be lacking a bit of girth and substance. A person’s worth and success has been tied to what all they have been capable of managing and doing, while achieving, growing, nurturing, and adding to the already high pile of activities, responsibilities and work they were doing at the beginning. Many people don’t think they have too much on their plate, and one of two things is probably true for these folks, they either don’t realize they are heading for major burnout, or they really are not doing as many in depth things as they think they are.

This is not to say that we all have the same threshold, or that each person’s level of output is comparable, but more so that it is different for all of us. Let me throw an example out: A woman may be married, have a 9-5 job, and a small child, but her life may be a different level of occupied than another woman with the same criteria. Adding to one woman’s life may be doable and perfectly okay, but to add to another woman’s life may be too much for her. If you think this is about balance, you are incorrect. This is about what occupies your time, what you give value of importance to, and how other outside factors weigh in to it all. Balance is a self designated perspective, and that can be erroneous or easily miscalculated over the course of time involved. So, if balance is perceived, what is the actuality?

Less. Less is the actuality. You have less busyness, less worry, less doing of things and less distractions. Let’s go back to the married woman with the 9-5, and one child. She had less without the child. She had less without the marriage. She had less without the 9-5. Add those things up, and continue to add, she has more, possibly to the point of too much. Something will start to lose her quality of attention eventually, maybe to the point of losing her attention altogether. Ah, here is where people start to say “she balances it all”. Not quite. She will either give something(s) up, or she will ask for help to keep her attention focused and prioritized…which is still not balance but outsourcing and lessening her load.

This scenario translates all across the board, from women to men and whatever occupies our time. When do we go from occupation to distraction though? I think that is the case, we are very distracted from important core things and it is revealing itself in our society. We are less concerned with quality, more with quantity, and that is leaching our richness, in all honesty. What would happen if we focused on less? Would we be less successful? Would we be less fulfilled? Would be better as individuals? Possibly, but not necessarily.

Point blank, if you cannot outsource, you need to do less. If you can outsource, it provides room for you to do more. If one more so aligns with your values and expectations, do that for now, and maybe later or the whole time. The point is, are you doing all you are capable of, are you doing too much, do you need to do less, do you need to outsource…are you distracted by your own expectations or the expectations on you by others? These are very hard questions to answer most of the time, because we are so deeply in our lives and layering all of the things we add, that we really don’t see the absolute truth until we subtract to see a difference. A full life is not a rich life, and a life lacking is not fulfilling. Hopefully you see where this post is at and where it is going.

There is no balance, there is ebb and flow. There is not one size fits all, there is tailored to you and your life. There is not one right answer for people with the same criteria, there are multiple answers because we are are all having our own experience. There is however, one life to live, and we need no metrics from others, on which we need to measure our own.

So, tell me(even though I am not on fb and this will have to be a discussion you all have on your own, unless you want to message me), are you living your life by your own metrics, measurements, expectations, and pace? Are you outsourcing, lessening, or carrying an unbearable load?

While I have been absent from social media, I realized a couple of important things. I love people and I love to see what is happening in their lives…but I don’t think our interaction with humanity is meant to be done so largely through technology. Is that me cutting myself off at the legs? Maybe.

I have decided to not live on social media for a while. “But Erin, how are you posting this or to Instagram if you are off social media?” Well, I write on WordPress, hit publish to Facebook, and it does it’s thing. I have an app that can post to instagram and my Fb business page, all without ever stepping foot on either platform. This does however eliminate me engaging with you all, which is vital to building and maintaining some friendships and a business. Sigh.

What I love is engaging with those of you that engage with me, and I am not going to ask you to do anything special just to engage with me, like get a WordPress account. So, while I would love for you to enjoy my content, I won’t be responding to comments for a while, and I don’t want you to think I am ignoring you or not appreciating you. Truthfully, I will be sharing content at my leisure, will make a birthday post for Brooke this week, and I will probably write about some things that I am finding with a social media hiatus, which I encourage everyone to do. If you find yourself wanting to reach out to me, message me and I will give you my number and we can communicate in a more personable way! In the meantime, I hope you are all having a great February!

This week has shown me that two weeks will not be enough time to do what I want to do, so I am taking an indefinite break from the blog and social media. I think we all need time away to stay focused on what is most important to us, to do the things that make us feel good about our accomplishments in life, and most importantly, to spend time on and with those in our immediate circle, fostering deep relationships where we need and want them. I hope you are all have a great February so far!

I have decided to take a two week hiatus from blogging and social media. Not for negative reasons, the opposite in fact, I have some positive projects I am working on, and I want to devote my undivided attention to these projects! I don’t want to document my projects, but to immerse myself in those completely, which sounds nice too. Have a great couple weeks!

I have been witness to, and have recently listened to so many people that are transitioning in deeply profound ways. As we, yes including me, transition, it remains important that we remember to breathe, find our balance, ground ourselves, have grace for ourselves and others, and hold space and love for others.

I chose this photo of Maria to serve as the embodiment of this post…as she embodies these things, provides space, love, and opportunity for everyone around her to find the aforementioned things! Thank you Maria for being you, for sharing your gifts, and for always inspiring us! You can find Maria at Rainbow Yoga with multiple weekly offerings!

Drop me a line, tell me if you are transitioning, or if you have noticed those around you transitioning…and how you are immersing yourself in that, I would love to know!

This was a memory from yesterday’s date, a few years ago. This week, I am seeing all kinds of signs that are urgently pointing to our need for empathy, with ourselves, with others, locally, and worldwide. There is an urgency for healing, for clarity, for releasing the old things, because we are all going to need room for the new. We are building to a new time in our lives, and truly, empathy is going to play a huge part. This possibly sounds deranged or desperate, but I assure you, it is not, it is urgent in our growth and rebirth for our next leg of the journey.

May we find our sense of empathy for ourselves, for all. May we be courageous in our rise from the past, in to the present for our future. May we remember to feel our emotions, live with purpose and love in our hearts, for ourselves and for all.

Drop me a line and let me know if you are seeing signs and getting messages in small or large forms, I would truly love to know!

There’s a lot to be said about becoming a mature adult, and adversely being an immature adult, but we aren’t really going to talk about that today. Nope, we are going to instead clarify how embracing your inner child, is essential to your life. This isn’t to say you need to be immature to be childlike, but you can embrace the child you in your grounded, adult mature self! I mean, it’s great knowing how to act in public and all, but sometimes you really need to be silly, for yourself and others!

Let’s not lie to ourselves, this world beats the innocence right out of you. It forces you to grow up, making you face tough, unpleasant and hard situations. This brings about a hardened exterior, and sometimes takes our gooey insides and whips them to the point of stiffness. We lose a bit of ourselves, and most people would say, that’s life, that’s how it goes, that’s just the way of it, I am here to tell you yeah, but no. This becomes a choice to lose our inner child, possibly to the point of tyranny or assholiness. We stop having fun or finding magic, and in turn, it can even turn us in to immature adults. You know the ones, they are brats parading as grown adults, but really, they lost their inner child and just act out of childishness.

When we embrace our inner child, maintain our playful selves, we benefit more than not. This inner child is creative, curious, imaginative, fearless, and yes, silly. The inner child knows the adult you can handle whatever comes your way, it trusts that you are in the state of adult so that it can roam and run free as the inner child. The inner child recognizes other people it can have fun with and be around, and it trusts those adults to have good boundaries so that it can be playful freely, and safely. This is not saying that anither is responsible for your boundaries, or that the inner child won’t get hurt, but more so that the self outer adult will do it’s best to maintain a safe and free environment, and is wise enough and experienced enough to recognize when it is time to move away from others, or situations that are not good for the adult and the child.

We can foster our inner child through free play, structured play, crafts, hobbies, exercise, car trips, vacations, playing with our pets, doing childlike activities, so on and so forth. We just have to be willing to not place restrictions or a lockdown on our child self so as to squelch it. Again, disciplined self makes good choices, allowing the child to be free to play. So, let me ask you, how healthy is your inner child? How healthy is your inner child and outer adult self relationship? What kind of play do you engage in for your inner child? When was the last time you did let your inner child play?

Drop me a line, let me know what your thoughts are, how you have engaged yourself, child and adult, I would love to know!

Nothing cool happening over here today, unless you count giving lessons on talking to spooked animals and inflammatory people. That might be the exact same conversation, but the skill translates, trust me. Honestly, this was a lesson for me many years ago, and it has served me well!

Growing up on a farm, having 4-H animals too, you learn how to approach animals, and how to talk to them to get them used to your voice. You learn how to speak with a soft even tone to soothe their concerns, and to build trust. You build rapport so you can work with the animal, become a better team, and it helps you learn to interpret subtle signals from each other. It requires patience and respect, time and effort, self discipline and a forward thinking plan. This all applies to inflammatory folks as well!

We don’t always know someone’s back story, or what their life is like, but if we approach with the same methods we approach a spooked animal, we are certain to accomplish at least one thing, observation. We must observe animals and people to ascertain the best approach to communicate with them. If we are loud and expressive, it could feel intrusive to people, more so to inflammatory folks. Who knows, maybe they will walk away from us, just like our four legged friends would do? Perhaps they will have a louder voice, bigger gestures and expressions? Maybe you trip a trigger and you receive an explosion after that? Have you had that happen, or been witness to someone do that? Did you wonder what happened or what caused it? Did you question if a differing approach would have been better? I can tell you, staying calm, rational and reasonable can get you further with an inflammatory person, maybe even resulting in a clear communicative conversation. Perhaps it gets you nowhere, but by staying in this approach, it helps you walk away feeling better and less inflamed, yourself!

So tell me, have you tried the spooked animal approach? Did it work? If you haven’t tried it, would you be willing to? Drop me a line, let me know if you have tried this approach, how it went, or if there is someone you can give it a go with! I would love to know!

Howdy howdy! Look at what part of my day consisted of today:

Oh yes y’all! I have begun my calligraphy journey!!!🤣🤣🤣 I quickly realized round letters are not my strong suit…I clearly struggle with those…but I also clearly struggle with the letter V as well! I honestly enjoyed my efforts today, enjoyed laughing my ass off at some of my executions, like killing the letter S, oh that is soooo bad!🤣🤣🤣 I am enjoying trying, failing, laughing, and then trying again! I will keep practicing, it is bound to get better and my methodology will start to take shape at some point!

If I am being transparent and honest, with us both, I lacked some patience at times, not intentionally, but more so out of habit of writing cursive. My brain felt this should be a fluid and quick motion, but really it is a bit slow and choppy. I think this will be great for my brain in the long run, as it will make me more intentional, and really specific, a bit disciplined. Eventually, hopefully, I will get proficient! Time will tell!

In between laundry, CoCo asked me to take her picture and send it to Avery. Avery was thrilled! Sonny, not so much!

🤣🤣🤣LOL!!! Some days I just can’t with these dogs, they are so funny with their wants and needs, and emotions!

Ahhh! Some days you will miss all of the little joyful things, and other days the gifts and gems are just overly abundant! So glad today was pretty abundant! I hope you experienced a similar-ish day! Drop me a line and let me know what sorts of gems and joys you had today, I would love to know!