“I am where I am and it’s the perfect place to start. I have what I have and it’s more than enough. I’m creating what I’m creating by what I think, say and do. I’m going where I’m going, and a thousand angels are with me too.” ~ Elizabeth Richardson

School starts today.

It is the first time in 17 years that I will not be getting ready at 5am and going to that place that is all too familiar. To see the faces that have become my family and to help with the cryers — every year we have at least one. The first day of school. This is the first September in most of my grown adult life where I will not be joining the masses and going to work.

I feel free!

I had to make a decision. It was not an easy one. As a single woman, I had moments when I thought I was going crazy with my need to leave. Crazy with the idea that I no longer belonged or fit in.

We do what we have to do to be a productive member of society. We go to school, we find what we think is a viable and solid career, we do that career and for a long time it feels like it’s what we are meant to do. Then one day you wake up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations and you are in a panic that something is no longer right. I lived this way for three years. Struggling to go to a job where I no longer felt I was wanted, respected or mildly cared about. The faces were the same, my family, but the machinery that got us going everyday was different. It did not care about us, it just cared about what the system looked like on the outside to those looking in. I am not really good at being run by machinery. The day the machinery took over and wanted us to become like Joe versus the Volcano, I knew I must escape.

So here I am, in a cottage in a coastal town of Maine with my giant dog. I sit and watch the first rainfall since I arrived and I can see color. The green is so green, the smells are so rich and the air is so clean.. I have no idea what the sequel of my life looks like……no idea! But, I do know it looks nothing like my past 17 years. I stopped being attached to things a long time ago. There is a wonderful and beautiful outcome when you have lost much, and that is, that you realize how very little you need to find a rich, simple and happy life. When you have little, you start to realize that what matters most, is not the things in your closet, or in your home — it is the things in your heart that provide you with sustenance.

There is a peace that comes in surrender. A peace that is indescribable but I know breathes life into me. Of course, I will miss my previous role — it is all I know. But now like a child on the first day of school, I am filled with excitement, fear and wonder. My new school is the world around me. I long to spend time in it. To learn from it. To become wiser in it. To become more compassionate in it. To see it with new eyes. To give more to it. To let it breathe new life into me.

As I have spent a week now in the quiet of Maine, gotten to meet new people and spend alone time with this me, the me who is exposed in a unfamiliar world, I know one thing for certain, today I am filled with new hope.

I don’t know anything, none of us do. We wake up and hope for the best. Our best is all we have to give. All I know now is that I wake, and pray that I can give my best. I pray that I will live this chapter out without fear, with love, with wonder, with kindness and openness.

I pray for those who are yearning, wishing wishes, dreaming dreams…..I pray that you be braver than you think you are.

So here I am world, come make something new out of me. For there is no greater love that I have felt, but the love to this one wild life I have been given.

In loving memory of my dear friend and beloved teacher to many, Dr. Peter Hofmann, endless wanderer and lover of life.

“Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work it’s way into your consciousness.”

― Caroline Myss

This has to be the most honest me. I am scared. After being at a job that I loved for 17 years, I have decided to resign. Perhaps, I can even say terrified.

At first I started by saying, “I am retiring.” But the truth is I am not retiring. If I were, I’d wait for the golden, 20, 25 or 30 years of service to retire. What I am doing is quitting.

I have not been one to easily quit, not ever. I stayed and stayed— in everything, determined to be a champion and not quit. Not relationships, not jobs. Quitting to me was a sign of weakness and or having a lack of conviction and determination. It felt uncomfortable, until being harassed, bullied and never being told I was good enough became not just uncomfortable, but painful. Until I spent hours in doctors offices because the stress was making me physically ill. I am a great worker, conscientious, caring, efficient, and loyal to the population I serve and the people I work for. I have worked leading from the heart in advocating for the disenfranchised and for those who have no voice. As a school social worker, this has been my greatest joy. But, you see, public education is no longer that kind of place. It has, in many ways, lost the vision and heart of what is most important — our children. So as I stand in my own truth and what is right for me. I am walking away.

This has been a long and painful process of fear, doubt, and what if’s.

So many of us, feel the a tug at our souls when something feels wrong. Whether it’s at work or in a relationship, we feel the signs physically. We feel anxious, stressed, sick, worried, sad. A feeling that leaves us feeling like our souls are being chipped away by whatever it is that we know is absolutely wrong. If you ever leave work or a person feeling as if you just dropped your integrity and someone stomped on it — that’s your soul being chipped away.

Caroline Myss once said on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, “the biggest betrayal, is the betrayal to the soul.” How true this is! We all do it at some point in our lives. It’s those moments when we make small concessions that make us feel just a little sick at the pit of our stomach. When we do something that feels wrong for us, but we do anyway so as not to disappoint. When we accept someone belittling us because we are afraid of rejection or backfire. When we accept less than we deserve for fear of having nothing. When we stay silent for fear of being punished.

Thus….I have quit. I have decided to trust in something bigger than me. I have decided to stay loyal to my soul. Terrifying as it is, giving up a substantial salary, a bigger pension, leaving the safety of a familiar role, leaving my colleagues, whom I adore. I am quitting, yet I am not. I am being braver than I have ever asked myself to be. Sometimes, it takes more courage to leave than to stay. I’ve done it before. Each time no less terrifying. I am choosing to be true to my integrity, ethics, and to all that I believe in. I am choosing to say out loud, “this is my life — the only one I am privy to and I am going to cherish it with all my heart.”

This decision did not happen overnight. I spent much time reflecting and planning, on what it would mean to give up my job after 17 years. I had to re-imagine a life so different and with so much less. I had to shed my fear of the unknown and imagine what this new life would look like. I worked hard on letting go of what I know and am familiar with and focused on the possibilities of a new beginning and even still I have no clue as to how it will all work out but, forward is the only way to go.

For years I have been researching and saving to build a tiny house on wheels. So, I began practicing minimalism. I stopped spending money on things I don’t need. I cleaned out my closets and gave away most of my clothing and shoes that were not practical. I now go food shopping every three days and buy only what I will eat so as not to waste.The biggest change, will be the likelihood of leaving New York. I have been a New Yorker my whole life. I never thought I’d leave, but I have made peace with it. In making peace with it, I have opened up my life to a bigger adventure and a change that brings a smile to my face when I think of new places and new people. So come this new season, I plan on selling all my belongings, allowing myself two containers of personal belongings. Many question, “what will you do, where will you go?” — I don’t really know all the answers. I am giving myself some time to rest and heal. For a while I had revamped my resume and started looking for jobs online, only to feel a sense of “I don’t want to do — it feels like more of the same!”

In being honest with myself during this time, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t want to go back to work full-time or for an institution. I want to sit with myself and really be authentic in the next chapter, and I can’t do that if I rush into another job out of fear. So, for now my plan is to downsize. Downsize my belongings, my home and maybe even my state. Downsizing will allow me to take some time to breathe. It will allow me to learn how to live with less and live smaller. It will allow me to be free.

You can do the same my dears!

I know it is not easy and sometimes not even reasonable to just say “I am done!” I know that sometimes circumstances keep us trapped and unable to set ourselves free, but you can take steps toward that freedom. I am no where near financially stable enough to “quit”. Am I crazy? Maybe. But somehow, the thought of being free from a life where I feel oppressed and trapped, fills me with hope and fearlessness.

I don’t have a queue of practical concrete steps for you to take if you need to “quit” whatever your situation is, but I can tell you this:

It’s going to take courage.

It’s going to take letting go of ideals.

It’s going to take loving yourself enough to want better.

It’s going to take not worrying about what others think of you.

It’s going to take you wanting peace and happiness more than you have ever wanted anything else.

It’s going to take sacrifice.

It’s going to take fierce trust in yourself.

It is going to take enormous faith and hope in something unseen and intangible.

Be brave — for all we have, in the one life we have been given, is our ability to create our own path. We need to recognize that our souls depend on us for it’s protection and to fight for it’s dignity, purpose and happiness. When we do— when we choose to be brave, there is an inner peace in knowing that we fought with all our hearts and chose to live within all our potential.

With Love, Light and JOY ~

Maria

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi

I recently purchased a sign for my office to remind myself that a new beginning, though scary, does not mean it will be a bad thing, or for that matter even a good thing. It just is. It is just a new beginning, nothing attached to it. It is like a new birth with all unknowns but many many possibilities.

We, I included, as humans are constantly pondering the future. Obviously, we all want a good outcome. We worry, we wonder, we pray, we hope….. here’s the thing — we are always entering a new beginning. There is no magical power to make events turn out the way we’d like. Each day is a new beginning, an opportunity to learn something new, try something new, meet someone new.

Then, there are the moments of new beginnings that require well thought out and as best as possible, planned changed. A move to a new city, breaking up a long relationship, starting a new job/career. What I wish was attached to these things, is the sense of peaceful acceptance of any outcome. Understanding that it could go any multitude of ways but still accepting the process of what ever is to come. If we go into change with an open mind, with perhaps small expectations instead of grandiose wishes, it leaves room for delightful surprise.

It is more realistic to go in with an attitude that it will be hard, scary, not totally what we wished for, and leave you shaking your head with “what the heck did I just do!” Because if we aren’t realistic, we will always be disappointed in the change and the process. We will not be prepared to fight for the change we long to have. If we are to grow, explore, seek and change, we must be brave and realistic. Understanding that all growth has its growing pains but in that pain we grow and learn and more importantly we Live!

As I enter the last 40 something days left of my 17 year career — I have sat, cried, meditated, reflected, counted and recounted finances, prayed endlessly for clarity. I can say without a doubt, that I am as ready as I will ever be for the next chapter. It is not an ending, it is just a new beginning. I am most positive that I will have moments of despair or not but what I do know, is that….. it is an unfolding. An unfolding, and an opening that I no longer have control of. I can either float with it or fight it. I am choosing to float.

What ever comes will come. What ever is will be. What ever I become I become. I am as ready or unready as I will ever be. But, I am open.

I welcome you life, to teach me, to bring me joy and laughter. I welcome you to make me New Again.

So my dears may you be brave, may you take chances and may you learn to float.

With Love, Light and JOY ~

Maria

“Water only what waters you….Let go of anything That leaves you feeling thirsty.”

I have woken many a New Years day prepared to not think or vocalize another resolution that holds no purpose. I am resolute in this. Instead, I am sitting in meditation clearing it all out of my mind and body. I am pretty sure that 2017 was not an easy year for many. For some it may have even been horrendous. But the truth is so much of what comes into our lives is our own doing. Outside of illness and death, I myself am guilty of what I let in. Whether it be people, thoughts, actions or attitude. Being wise to the admission of these things, can highly affect our lives and at times for a long season.

I recently heard a Pastor speak about Peace. One statement stuck with me; 2016 was the preparation for 2017! The losses, the idealism of what we believed to be true, the disappointments, the struggle — All of if, a gift to the reality of what is and what is not.

Ways to stay intentional in 2018:

1. Start your day with Meditation — Instead of a resolution for an entire year, start your day with a small and feasible intention. An intention of soul caring that will carry you through the day. One small step to self care, goes much further than one large long term goal that can be an overwhelming feat.

2. Act of Charity — 2017 was a year of much sorrow, for many world wide it meant death, loss of home and even their country. The amount of homeless people on the streets continues to grow. Selfless acts of generosity spread goodness. Choose a way to help another person, an elderly neighbor who is lonely and may enjoy a visit, volunteering at a shelter, sponsoring a child in a third world country. We all have the power to make a difference. It may not feel like much but to one person it is everything.

3. Love yourself — Be intentional with good habits. Take a moment to jot down some areas where you would like to see change without being unkind to yourself. Life is short, this is not a dress rehearsal — stop habits that hurt you and do not feed your body and soul. The habits that we sometimes use to self medicate the areas of our lives that don’t further but chip away at us. Doing this will help bring fruition to all your other intentions.

4. Find your truth — Look at yourself and ask yourself “what is keeping me back and what is helping me move forward?” Know when its time to let go — of that relationship, that job, that habit, or even that state. Everything has a season….everything. Nothing is meant to last forever, change is an inevitable and healthy part of life. It propels us to seek change, to learn new things and grow. Change is growth. Don’t be afraid to let go of that job, person or situation that does not feed you. We need to be nurtured and fed to grow.

5. Do what you love — I remember reading “How to make a living without a Job” and one thing that stuck with me was, if you go back to when you were a child, the thing that you loved to do whether, writing, painting, building, dancing etc… those are the things that are truly our authentic abilities. As children we are so open and creative, seeking pleasure in things that make us smile. Revisit your inner child.

6. Set Boundaries – Learn to say NO. As humans we always want to please and not disappoint but the truth is, we often hurt our own selves in the process. Setting boundaries is a healthy way to be a happier and more generous person. When you give yourself space and allow yourself moments of self indulgence by saying, “no I choose to not do that today because I’ve made plans with myself,” you are preserving your own well being and therefore making room for others at another time. Which ultimately makes you a happier and more generous person when you do say “yes.”

To be intentional with yourself, especially when it requires making changes that may affect your relationships with others, may feel selfish. So often we are told that it is “bad” to be selfish, but this is not selfishness — this my dear friends, is Self-Preservation at its core. It is you saying “I am valuable, I am worthy and it has to start with me.”

Go out this year and be that you that you yearn to be my loves — shout it out and make it happen!

With Love, Light and JOY ~

Maria