Two Thousand and Twenty-Four

Woo Hoo & Phew - I made it to the dance floor of Two Thousand and Twenty-Four.

It's strange. Spelling out the numbers makes it feels more substantial instead of just the digits, 2024, don't you think?

Somehow it gives me a sense of it being less brief, like maybe it will last ever so little longer.

Two Thousand and Twenty-Four.

2024

See what I mean?

The words have a lingering to them.

Sometimes the years go by so fast, we don't even know what we did. I started off the year signed up for dance classes, ready to hit the floor. The fact is, I haven't actually danced in public since 2017! What happened to that goal, that dream?

Did I DO anything last year???

If you're like me, at some point you begin berating yourself for the things you didn't do that you thought you should have.

That's always so productive.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Don't Should on Yourself?" It's a reminder of the mess we make when we live out of fear that we are failing some standard. I should have's are based in a belief that we fall short, that we must prove our worth.

"I should have just bought a cake instead of making it from scratch."

"I should have gone to see them instead of what I did."

"I should have gotten a better grade on that test."

Should you have?

Could you have?

Here outside of the flicker of shame that prompts the should, consider the examples.

What can be done with the should? Not a thing. It just circles with accusation, kicking up examples of other times we perceived ourselves to have failed.

However, as we grow, should's can provide information for further investigation.

Like, why?

Why do you believe you SHOULD have gone to see them, bought the cake, got a better grade?

Did you REALLY want to see that person? Or was it more that you believed they expected it and thought badly of you because you hadn't come? Should you have bought the cake? Or is it a fear you'll be judged for yours?

Should you have gotten a better grade? Did you prepare sufficiently? If you did your best - shut the should up! If not, than turn the shame to motivation for the next test.

I find little sayings like, "Don't should on yourself," can redirect me before I spiral into a dark cycle of thoughts.

It is extremely hard work to police your own unconscious mind. Being able to identify, let alone arrest, the invisible thieves of peace who woo us is a complicated undertaking. It requires knowing the case history, the patterns specific to us, things that make us more vulnerable to the violent intruders that know the secret buttons of shame that grant them entry.

There's a reason police don't work a case alone. A partner can catch what the other sometimes misses. This is one of the great dangers of living alone with no one to hear how we talk to ourselves, no one to bounce thoughts off of, no one to call us out on wrong perceptions. There is a verse that says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." I will take an honest friend who tells me when I am not being the best version of myself, than anyone who blows platitudes and disingenuous flattery up my backside. Keep the niceties. I want people in my life who, as nicely as possible, will tell me when I am NOT being nice. To myself or others.

I have a friend named Joyce, she just turned 90. When I knew her back in the day she was 87. I met Joyce in the upper room of a church where the most sacred and holy things took place; People told the truth about themselves, their shortcomings, their hopes and their failures. Like a group confessional. Over sips of coffee, laughs and tears, for an hour we bore witness to one another's humanity. At the end of our time we'd cover our invisible pile of situations and circumstances with a blanket of Serenity knit together by Our Father. Ideally, the pile like leaves covered in the fall, continues to break down and becomes part of what feeds future growth.

Joyce told me a hard truth one afternoon. I was returning her home after a doctors appointment. As I parked the car I told her to wait - I would be right around to open her door, because of course I thought I SHOULD.

She kind of yelled at me. "Don't do that!" she said. "There is something in the way you offer that sounds desperate. You don't need to be." I know part of her rebuke was her own stubbornness in accepting help. Still, I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Better to be told hard truth out of love, than to have soft lovely words spoken as we walk off a cliff...

We are not our thoughts. Just because it passed the theater of our brain does not make it true. But here's where the real detective work comes in. Here's where sifting through the evidence becomes essential.

If I am doing my work I try to run shouldy thoughts through this acronym, H.A.L.T. It reminds me to consider if I am Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. If you don't know that these factors can interfere with how you think, feel and behave in the world, start here.

Our brain is not separate from our body no more than a gas tank is separate from the car. It's helped me to see my body in this way; as a vehicle that requires our attention to function properly. Neglect of self looks noble at times - especially if we are taking care of all of the should's on our list...

A thief's field of study is vulnerability. They are looking for easy entry points. Fighting hunger, anger, loneliness and fatigue is our first line of defense to protect our mind. In protecting our minds, we know at least we have done what we can to stay safe and keep the car moving on course.

If these invisible imps are not stopped at the door, they convince us they are our invited guests. Old friends who brought home movies for fun, to replay the least favorite scenes of our lives; stirring our woe, wounds and worry. Rumination pulls us to the underworld of why's, if only's and should have's.

Overwhelmed now with feelings of failure and despair, we let our stinkiest thoughts out and "should" all over ourselves.

You've got to stop them at the door.

If the shoulds are allowed to shove the laxatives for lying thoughts down your throat, the time lost from the slimy spiral becomes another should have to wrestle at another time.

We have to stop the cycle.

Try to anyway.

It takes hard work to field our minds.

It's even harder to get all the should off once we left a door open.

Which is where I found myself at the arrival of 2023, stinking up the dance floor covered with shoulds and should haves.

It wasn't pretty. It was hard to even move. Everything up to the new year had been kind of weird jerking moves, not choreographed, practiced or remotely graceful. Impulsive reactions. Involuntary movements if you will.

Here is another phrase I love. I didn't know what I didn't know.

There is so much grace in that simple truth.

But I do know that I needed to actively reengage my HALT and my SHOULD protocol. The things that kept me grounded when I was in my formerly rooted life - are all the more important since I have transplanted.

I'm doing it. I can actually feel a SHOULD in my gut long before it gets the chance to rise between my ears these days. It is a physical feeling. It was a default trauma reaction that I am having to decode on a cellular level. I don't have to meet everyones expectations to be safe. I don't have to cower on the dance floor unsure what moves others are expecting to see, if they'll like them, if they'll like me.

I don't care anymore. Not as much as I used to anyway.

What did I do last year?

I learned to H.A.L.T. before I "should" on myself again.

I created a home I feel at peace in.

I got comfortable in my own body.

I began a life I can be proud of.

That my friend's, will have to be enough.

2023, thanks for getting me safely to the dance floor; for teaching me how to keep myself safe, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I'm ready to step out, cautiously. Maybe learn some new moves.

Two Thousand and Twenty-Four may you offer redemption and recovery of minutes, years or decades spent pursuing agendas out of fear. May you bring days and moments that linger with love, hours that echo on and on with laughter and weeks that meander into months filled with purpose and passion. A year worth lingering a little longer.

So let it be.

So let it be...