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changeofair

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What this moment requires of us is our absolute best. As humans, as citizens, as parents, as partners, as business owners, as neighbors, as friends.
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Let us feel all the things, however confusing and conflicting, however scary or frustrating, however daunting or uplifting. Let us hold all these disparate feelings at once. But let us be there for each other.
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We are all in this together.
We are all connected.
What I do affects you, what you do affects me.
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It has always been this way, but now we see it plainly. And in the face of so much uncertainty, I choose you, we, us. It is our only way to the other side.
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Sending you all so much love. May we dig deep and find the best of ourselves right now.
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📷: @inspiredbyallthings

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Right now self-care feels a lot less like a fancy latte and a lot more like:
1) Wash your hands. Again and again.
2) Do not panic but prepare.
3) Boost your immune system.
4) Get all of your info from a trusted, vetted, honest source.
5) Pause for deep breaths as many times a day as needed to simply come back to center, come back to YOU, and know you are making the best choices you can with all the information you have.
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In moments like this, it can feel like “healing from trauma” needs to take a back seat to “let’s not get sick omg what’s happening.” It can even feel like: “well, dammit, just as I’m trying to finally figure out ME all of this is happening!?!!!!”
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You are still on your healing journey. The very tools you’ve learned in your healing are going to help you navigate this now, whether it turns out to be nothing or kind of a something.
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Breathe. Trust. Come back to center.
Breathe. Trust. Come back to center.
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You’ve got this.
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📷: @nectar.foodstudio

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They won't be met by YOU, they won't be met by others.
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We grew up in homes that told us our needs not only didn't matter, but that they were dangerous. In my home, simply expressing my needs could result in explosive anger, days of silence, the throwing of things through windows. I learned that it was safest to keep my needs to myself.
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When we keep our needs to ourselves long enough, when we know the cost of expressing them is grave, we eventually learn to ignore them altogether. We engage in people-pleasing, in doing whatever it takes to make others happy and/or not angry, and we forget who we are. We forget we have any needs at all. So we become malleable to other people's needs instead. We begin to believe our only value comes from pleasing others.
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YOUR NEEDS = WHO YOU ARE.
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Your needs, your desires, your dreams - from the simplest basic need to be fed and clothed and safe, to the grandest dreams and desires for living a life you absolutely love - are YOURS for a reason. No one else has needs and dreams and desires exactly like yours for a reason - they are unique only to you. And that's because you are meant to have those needs met and exceeded. You are meant to live a life of your dreams - dreams only you have. The world is ready and waiting for YOU to live YOU.
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And every time we sit in fear of expressing our needs, we risk never living our dreams. We risk those needs never being met - by ourselves, by others. We risk never being fully known and seen - by ourselves, by others.
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It is safe to express your needs.
Notice every single time you feel it is not safe.
And get yourself out of that moment, that situation.
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YOU ARE WORTH EXPRESSING YOUR NEEDS AND HAVING THEM BE MET.
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Say what you need.
Acknowledge it to yourself.
GIVE IT TO YOURSELF.

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He made plans with me often. Got me excited about all the fun things ahead. I'd spend the week thinking about where we'd go, what we'd do, how fun it would be just to spend time with him.
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I'd wash my hair the night before and set it in those squishy sleep-in snap-in rollers so my hair would be bouncy and curly and cute the next day.
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The day would come and I'd do my hair. Get all dressed up. And sit in the window a little early waiting for his arrival. An arrival that rarely came.
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The longer I'd sit in that window, the more ashamed I felt. Why didn't he want to see me? Why wasn't I worth his time?
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My mother. halfway through who knows how many bottles of wine for the day, had her own thoughts about why: "He doesn't love you. If he did, he'd be here right now."
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This scene in the window, repeated again and again and again, has shaped the woman I've become. It has colored all my choices. And it gobsmacks me to find this old, painful story still controlling my actions, my reactions, my triggers, my sense of self-worth anytime anyone (romantically, professionally, platonically) doesn't show up both figuratively and literally.
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I am brought right back to the window. Sitting there. So pretty. All dressed up. Waiting to be worthy enough for him to show up as he said he would. Waiting for a father's embrace, a reassurance of his love, a confirmation of my value to him, a validation of my worth to myself. None of it ever came.
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And now, anytime I feel that same sitting in the window feeling, I am hurt all over again. But more than hurt? Anger. That someone else's actions all those years ago still tugs at me -- hurts me, controls me, makes me feel unsafe and as if no one can be trusted -- from afar.
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The work that remains: I must love myself wholly. I must give to myself everything sitting in that window took from me. So that I feel safe and loved and lovable and worthy of someone's time. Most importantly: my own.
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📷: @barneyandflow

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It is easy to encourage others to see every ending as a beginning, every rejection as protection, every closing as an opening, every crummy thing actually being a really magic thing. It’s so easy to say.
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I think I’ve said it to you. And to people I love. And I’ve meant it. And it is true.
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But when it applies directly to you — right now, in the suck of a situation — and you know you can choose to see it all as in your favor or you can just flop down and let the victim vibes wash over you...THAT is when we see how much we’ve healed. THAT is how we can feel our own trust in ourselves. Our own belief that yeah this is not ideal but I’m going to sort this and it’s actually probably for the best and it might actually end up being utterly amazing.
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I’ve been wavering for days. Swinging between victim on the floor and “let’s just trust this is another door about to open in my favor.”
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I’ve learned a lot about myself in the waver. I’m still scared. And I don’t know how it will all turn out. But my goodness have I healed a lot in the last few years.
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If you are in the suck, or on the floor, or ready to fling the doors of opportunity wide open in your favor because you trust it’s all happening for you - I see you. I am you. I am all phases. Suck and floor and ok here we go this is magic.
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Know that you are worthy at every phase.
Know that you are loved at every phase.
Be gentle with yourself at every phase.
Listen to yourself at every phase.
You’ve got this.
We’ve all got this.
Even as we waver.

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When you cry through most of Miss Americana about Taylor Swift because it absolutely slays you to see a mom be so proud and supportive of her daughter.
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📷: @brookeholm

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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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