There Is No One True Way

A yellow slatted wall with a white woman wearing black, holding an umbrella appearing to fly in the lower right corner of the frame.

Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash

There’s no one true way to get out of the jam you found yourself in.

Whatever the confinement you’re experiencing - feeling disconnected from your people, being too busy to think, or watching as life happens to you - it hooks into all the parts of you - your brain, body, heart, and spirit. To create the space you need to connect to the people you love and choose what you want your life to look like, you have to address all the ways the stories you tell yourself have dug themselves into you.

Be skeptical when any coach or healer tells you that this one tool will fix what’s wrong in your life.

Story-mining, which is understanding the good, the bad, and the ugly of your childhood and why it impacted us that way, creates room for grace and imperfection in our lives. And it doesn’t automagically create a connection between our loved ones and us.

Mindset work catapults us over moments of fear. And it doesn’t address the embodied memories often activated when we speak up for ourselves or our perspective.

Bodywork connects us with our emotions and lived experiences. And it doesn’t provide social or cognitive tools for addressing what’s happening in the moment.

Practicing appreciation and gratitude broadens the story we tell ourselves about our lived experiences. And it doesn’t help us understand or manage our emotions when they peak or valley.

They’re great tools. I use all of them, and I share all of them. And I know that alone none of them are enough to lead you all the way out of the darkness.

Try to dig your way out of your mess with just one or two of them, and you’ll find yourself back at this place again because you’re not just the stories you tell, your brain, your body, or your emotions.

See and honor the complexity of your human system, from all of the microbiomes we have in our gut to how we interact with the world.

You can’t just look at one place.

Okay, you start in one place. Sure.

But it’s not a fucking magic pill.

So stop looking for one way and start looking for somebody to walk with you.

Someone to let you know that you were seen and let you know that your experience is valid. Someone with the knowledge, training, and inclination to work with all your parts, not just the one or two they’re the most comfortable with.

The best folks to walk alongside us as we create the space you need to connect to the people you love and choose what you want your life to look like are our friends.

And sometimes, one of those friends needs to be a professional.

If you'd like some outside perspective as you define what you want your later to look like, consider engaging a Reclamation Coach.

As your Reclamation Coach, I'll make space and support you as you do your work.

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Failing Calculus Saved My Life

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Why Does Reliance On Our Humor, Smarts, Or Usefulness Complicate Our Lives So Much?