The rules

I grew up in a beautiful home with two incredible parents who would do anything for me. Who loved me unconditionally. Who championed me, challenged me and deeply cared for me.

They taught me, protected me, shared their thoughts and feelings with me and listened to mine too. 

I also grew up in a world that wanted to teach me things as well.

Like, how to be a girl, what kind of jobs were appropriate for me, what kind of life I should strive for and what kind of person I should be.  

The more I learn about my brain and the world I realize that one day someone just made up these rules. Someone decided that these were the ways of life and that we should follow along with these rules in order to have a good life. 

The more I learn, the more I am intrigued and curious and want to question all of it. 

You see, people have their own thoughts, they share them with the world and then we typically believe what we hear. We believe what our parents teach us, our teachers, the actors on tv, the people in magazines, the stories in books. 

We believe all of it. 

We don’t often get taught that it’s just a bunch of thoughts from someone’s brain and we always have a choice as to whether or not we believe it. 

For example, someone one day had a thought that as a woman, your life should unfold like this:

• Focus on what you look like - don’t be too skinny and don’t be too fat. Wear dresses and makeup and make sure you’re beautiful. 
• Go to school, work hard, but not too hard because you don’t want to be that annoying girl. You want to be liked. Being liked is really important. 
• Get good grades, and make lots of friends and follow all of the rules when you are at school. Do what your teacher says no matter what. Don’t question any of it. People older than you know best and you need to listen to them. 
• After school, get a good job. A really good job. Pick one off of this list that you want to be and then go for it. Make sure it has security, that it’s a safe option and is practical. And then do this job forever. It must have benefits, a pension, and be 9-5 so you have your evenings and weekends off because one day you’ll have a family and you’ll need to be home to take care of them. 
• Then, fall in love with a smart man who will take care of you. Buy a house, have 2 children and live happily ever after. 

Right?

That’s what I was taught. Not rightly or wrongly, just simply what I was taught. 

And that may have served me. It may have been helpful to have a book of rules to follow along with. But what I am realizing is the more I try and be “what I am supposed to be”, the more painful my experience is. 

The more anxious, worried and restless I feel. 

Now that I know that all of the rules are made up and if the rules don’t feel right to me then I get to choose all of it for myself, I want to choose what my life looks like from a place of imagination, desire and want. 

And not from “should”.

I want to ask myself great questions like:

“If I knew that everything would work out, that I would have enough money, have enough time, be good enough, what would I choose to do with my life? How would I spend my time?”

And here’s what I have decided. From a place of ‘want’ and not ‘have to’. 

I have decided that I want to be a full time Life Coach. That I want to continue helping the most amazing women and children learn about their brains, learn what’s possible for them, and learn how to have the strongest mental health so they too can go out into the world and make all their dreams come true.

That feels so good. 

And I want to continue to be around children because that’s the part of my teaching job that I love. So instead of continuing on being a grade 2 teacher at a school that I love which I thought was my forever, I have decided to resign from my position in order to be free to spend some of my days supply teaching. At a school that I love, with young minds that I love and friends that I love. 

I get to do all that I love. 

And I can’t wait. 

This means I get to take Toby to his first day of school.

I get to be free to go on his school trips. 

I get to help people in the way I want to and in the way I am really good at. 

And I get to spend my time the way I want. 

It’s scary and it’s exciting. 

It’s emotional and it’s calming. 

It’s still 50/50 and I am all in on it. 

Because if I believe in me, which I do, then I know it will work out beautifully. 

I know that I will make it all work. 

And I want you to know that the same is true for you. 

You get to make up what your life looks like. 

You get to dream big and make it your reality. 

You get to question all of it and start writing the story of your life the way you have always dreamed.

If it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you too. 

Go on, get dreamin’

xo