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changeofair

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I have been in the in-between space these past two weeks.
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Knowing I'm no longer who I was, but also knowing I'm not quite yet who I'm going to become. But I know I'm going to become her, she is almost here, almost fully realized.
It's so uncomfortable, but so necessary.
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The beginning of a new year (a new decade, even) can bring all the pressure to take bold steps, map out all the grand plans. But my heart and all my baggage and all my stories and patterns and ways I behave didn't fit that timeline. I needed more time than an arbitrary January 1st date would allow.
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I'm stepping into something so much bigger for me, so much bigger for Change of Air. I feel it all transitioning. I feel it all leveling up, getting clearer, bigger, more aligned, more necessary. It feels right and also whoa. Very soon it will just feel right.
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If you are in that in-between -- where you have healed enough to have perspective on what could be, all while simultaneously accepting the truth of where you are right now - I see you. If you are standing there -- deep in the uncomfortable reality of what's true today, while being present to what you know can be true for you in the future -- know that you are not alone. Know that you must sit with that discomfort. You must trust yourself. You must trust that it will shift into the true future you envision.
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You can't skip this step.
It's required to sit in the shift.
To feel it all.
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Keep going. We are so close. And we will do it together.
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📷: @loefflerrandall

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I think I need an enemy.
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Yes, you read that right. I think I have grown up in such chaos, such uncertainty that I don't quite know how to motivate myself without there being an antagonist, a problem to solve, a situation to survive, a person or entity in chaos that I must help or fix or all of the above.
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This is shades of codependency.
This is also shades of what has made me very successful in my career. Bring order to the madness, help make sense of disparate goals, ideas, dreams.
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But with amazing clients who do the work and are seeing powerful shifts in their businesses and lives, I don't have a "big bad situation" hanging over me. (Except for taxes, and we've talked about those, and they were/are most definitely a form of this -- allowing something to fester so it feels big and bad and just like home.)
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It hit me last night that I might think I need a big bad situation over me to motivate me. To react against. To forcefully organize around. To be me.
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And that is: WHOA.
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We know that as ACoAs, we can unconsciously choose that which feels familiar and comfortable - even if that "familiar" vibe was chaos and uncertainty and not being seen and not being heard.
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And now, for the first time in my life, I am being seen. I am being heard. I am being valued and loved for exactly who I am.
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It's clear I don't quite know how to handle this kind of loving affirmation long term. In spurts, yes. For a vacation, yes. During holiday break when everyone else is feeling good, yes. But daily life - with all its inherent stresses - feeling good and flowing without a crummy overlord? Without creating an overlord (unpaid taxes, bad biz arrangement, saying yes when I mean no) out of whole cloth to keep the whole ACoA thing going? Never, have I ever.
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And so: i'm just over here trying to get comfortable with the feeling of being ok. Like. Really ok. As in: don't need to seek out bad situations to feel "normal" ok. And it's...weird. And lovely. And weird.

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There is something big shifting for me. Something mysterious and alchemical and twelve layers deep. A shift that does not align with New Year, New You timeframes.
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From day one of Change of Air, I’ve had a vision. A process of healing that has changed me. A process I felt might be so useful to so many of you. I was fired up. I was ready to create it and nurture it and release it to the world.
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But I got scared.
I’m not a therapist.
I’m not a coach.
I’m not any of the things I felt I needed to be to create something I feel is sorely lacking in the world and that I desperately needed and that I think could really help so many of you.
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And so I’ve tiptoed around the edges of it. I’ve even stepped all the way in a few times only to run right back out. Scary. Big. What if I’m wrong? What will people say? Would I do more damage than good?
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I’ve worked with wellness clients and brands for twenty years. I traffic in a fine line every day for work: how do we NOT create fear or play into fear, how do we help instead? And how do we partner with doctors and experts who are truly that - doctors and experts - to give sound and solid advice where needed. Help, not hurt. Tell the truth, no wild claims.
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And so I have been telling myself this story about Change of Air: you are not qualified to share these things. You are not able to make the thing you envision existing in the world. No one will participate. People will laugh. Eye-roll, even.
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This has been the internal story for 2+ years. In that time I could have made the thing. For you. For us.
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Here’s how I know I’m healing: I’m ready to make the thing. All the things, actually. I’m ready to feel the fear and keep going. To make the things I feel I was put here to make.
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It is time to cast off doubt and create. It is time to, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes says in my stories today, “stand up and show your soul.”
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📷: always so inspired to create by @jessechamberlinmarble

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Raise your hand if spending time in nature sorts you. 🖐🏽
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🌾Being in nature, or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings. Exposure to nature not only makes us feel better emotionally, it contributes to our physical wellbeing, reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of stress hormones.
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🌾Nature also helps us cope with pain. Because we are genetically programmed to find trees, plants, water, and other nature elements engrossing, we are absorbed by nature scenes and distracted from our pain and discomfort.
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🌾In a recent study, 95% of those interviewed said their mood improved after spending time outside, changing from depressed, stressed, and anxious to more calm and balanced.
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🌾Time in nature or viewing nature scenes also increases our ability to pay attention. Because humans find nature inherently interesting, we can naturally focus on what we are experiencing out in nature. This also provides a respite for our overactive minds, refreshing us for new tasks.
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Convinced yet nature is a powerful space for your own healing? If you've followed Change of Air for any amount of time, you know how important nature has been to my own healing and my own daily mental and physical health. I also know how powerful that same nature can be when shared in a group of other ACoAs. It's. Magic.
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I'm putting the final touches on all of our 2020 Change of Air hikes right now. I cannot wait to meet you all and hike with you all and share the magic of nature together as we heal.
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Raise your hand if you want to hike together in 2020. 🖐🏽
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Study/data linked in bio

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If the preceding years of healing felt like walking down a dark, never-before-traveled hallway that required me to hold my arms out at all times as I shuffled forward tentatively, never knowing what I’d encounter, scared to proceed, but finding the courage to move forward anyway, this year feels full of healing, too. But the corridor isn’t dark, my arms are at my sides, I can see where I’m going, I’m still afraid from time to time but I’m able to marvel at every step. Wishing you the same emergence from darkness.
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📷: @laura_made_it

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There is a new year ahead of us. A new decade, even. And there will be all the planning and goal setting and pressure to commit to big dreams and elaborate plans about who you want to be and how you'll get there.
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You are YOU. Right now and when all these new years and decades begin.
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You are worthy of celebrating where you are RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW. You are enough without big plans.
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You have healed. Oh my goodness, have you healed.
You have been working on yourself. Learning your triggers. Deepening your mindful practices. Learning how to set boundaries. How to choose you. Again and again. Even when it's really hard. Even when it means family and friends shut you out because you've finally, finally, finally chosen you.
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Look around you and dream big - yes. Live on purpose - yes. But don't let your big dreams for tomorrow (or the next year or the next decade) take away your most powerful weapon: the ability to be present to what IS. To what is happening right now. Today. This minute. This hour.
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There is magic in the sunlight. In the snow. In a tiny flower. In the sound of laughter.
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There is magic in the discomfort of growth. Of finally facing some really tough stuff. And loving yourself as you face it and learn from it and heal.
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If we are always planning and dreaming big about some distant time in the future, we cannot be present to what we feel now: the good and the ish. And to heal, we must feel it all. We must feel it, face it, process it. THAT is choosing YOU amidst all the striving and planning to be a different you next year.
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My one wish for us all: that we honor what is. That we take time to notice it, own it, face it. That we are still enough to hear our own thoughts and desires and act from there, honoring ourselves. And that we celebrate every single magic moment we notice -- this is healing. This is YOU. In this moment. Right now.

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Whatever tonight is or isn’t for you.
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However many times you must sidestep a conversation about forgiveness or “can’t we just get over it, it’s been years.”
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Whatever crummy memories the thought of tonight or tomorrow brings.
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However many drinks you notice them all having. However scarily loud your Uncle is getting. Again.
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However much you miss the presence of a loved one who really understood you.
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However mellow (by your own brave choice) you’ve made today or however fraught it may be even if you’ve done your damned best.
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Whatever your holiday looks like or doesn’t — you are not alone in all that is coming up for you. You are not alone in trying to protect yourself and still be with family or protect yourself and decidedly not be with family.
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This is not easy.
This may not be fun.
But you are not alone.
There are thousands upon thousands of us trying to sort this holiday, too. Right along with you.
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My hope for us all this holiday is that we find time for us. Whether that’s a moment, an hour, a day, a weekend. A moment for us to check in with ourselves, ask ourselves how we are doing, ask our younger selves how they are doing. A moment to breathe deeply. A moment to celebrate ourselves for how far we’ve come, even as we’ve got yet farther to go. A moment to honor that we are in this moment, aware enough of all that came before to know that we matter. To others, yes. But we matter to ourselves. And we will give ourselves what we need, even amid the wild roller coaster that is the holidays. A time that seems perfectly crafted to bring up every people-pleasing bone in our ACoA bodies.
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I ask only this: find time to do something that pleases you. You are worth it x 1000. Let’s put that people-pleasing tendency to good use!
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📷: Sara Shultz (Insta currently refuses to allow me to tag her)

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I’ve been on a long healing journey of peeling back layers and shedding untruths (picked up by myself, gifted by others) and getting to the core of who I actually am when all the trauma debris is cleared away.
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This type of healing can feel like you are in a dark hallway no one has ever been down. There are no lights to guide the way. You must hold your hands out in front of you and out at your sides, walking slowly, to find your way. And you don’t know what curves are up ahead. Or what weird rocks and broken sidewalk may appear beneath your feet. But you keep walking down that dark corridor because you want to be free. You want to know who you really are so you can live the life you are meant to live.
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I finally feel like the dark corridor has become a lighted path. There are still shadows (always will be) but I know my way around. I can walk forward confidently. I know how to handle an unseen curve or stumble or total trip and fall.
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I am emerging. Me. The me that I was before it all happened. The me that I am because it all happened. Me. I am becoming me and loving me and emerging as a me I can really get behind. Shadows and all.
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I wish this emergence for every one of you.
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And may we guide each other down every dark corridor until we each begin to see the path was always full of light. We just had to heal ourselves and clear away all the debris to see it.
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📷: @wear.cleo

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The seasons are undeniably changing - something I noticed so much less when I lived in San Diego and LA for so many years. Now that I spend a lot more time in the desert, I notice the shifts and I’m learning to ride the shift, the flow of the seasons, rather than resist it or wish it was otherwise.
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I find I’m looking forward to these clear markers. These clear identifiers of a season ending and another beginning. The flowers bloom or they crisp up. The air is either hot or bitterly cold. The desert is full of color or full of every shade of gold and brown.
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The thing about these shifts that I love most: it gives me a chance to notice. To feel the beginning of a shift. To savor what’s left. To notice the first signs of colder air, stronger winds, curling leaves.
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The noticeable changing of the seasons has been a wonderful change for me after living in comfortably warm at all times for so many years.
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And that’s because that’s how I lived my life. Comfortably warm. No awareness of the shifts. Not present to what was really going on around me and within me.
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Cliché as it is, I relish the seasonal shifts because I am alive enough, aware enough, grateful enough to finally notice them. And that means I’ve healed a bit. And that means a little more joy creeps in. And that means more room for yet more healing, yet more growth.
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Do I love a freezing cold desert as much as I love a bright spring day in full bloom? No. But it has its charms (day fires, booties, cute socks and coats) in the same way that each season of our lives have their ups and downs. And I’m good with that. And I will look for the good in each season of my life. Even as I wait for super bloom.
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📷: @priscillia_fayan

#seasonschange #changingseasons #bepresent #beherenow #seasonalshift

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Resist the urge - the social media directive - to plan the next decade of your life right now.
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This time of year can feel so pressured with expectations and grand gestures and big plans for becoming someone else.
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All you are learning is what you are meant to be learning. All you are practicing is what you are meant to be practicing.
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Be present to what IS. Plan if you wish, but do it with a full heart, with joy. Not from a place of fear, of scarcity, of pressure.
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Healing requires we feel our full feelings and deal with them, not hope they sort themselves in a new decade.
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Be present in this moment. In today. Stay true to you and your healing. Because guess what? You can also be present next year in each moment without planning all of them right now. Really.
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📷: @susan.oubari

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