From Testing To Trusting

All week long, a tune has been playing in my head, something in my mother’s tune: “If you’re happy and you know it…” which is odd, because I keenly recall her singing it during times I was trantruming…….

Sure, You could clap your hands….but would someone be around to share it with you?

I’ve been doing some radio spots lately as a healthy habits consultant for the community. I’ve been more and more energized giving public health seminars for parents and educational (motivational) education conferences for other providers on how to cultivate health. The message truly involves getting others to thrive rather than get by. A common theme keeps popping up…..the sense that health is about

Summer 2009, Locks of Love
I look happy but was full of doubt

being engaged and connected in the physical world. Nature. Traveling. A Farmer’s Market. A Walk. Meeting with Friends.

You see, for the past year or so, I’ve been happy. Sure, B Version K shows up some days as if the real me had another engagement or an overuse injury and the pinch hitter has been called in for reinforcement. But really, most of my stressors are combated by a heavy dose of humor, sharing serious and super silly moments with my friends, learning and traveling, being IN the moment rather than MANUFACTURING it, and being outdoors, where life is more wild. Where I must navigate and be aware.

The previous seasons of my life I’ve spent mostly in the intellectual or spiritual sphere. I moved with deliberate hypersensitivity (even when being physical) of what was right and what was wrong and what was expected from me and what I demanded from myself.

And I wrote and reflected and sensed missing the mark, of trying to fit my physical experience into some predetermined shape. I did this mostly with management of my relationships (#1) and of my body (#2).

And then, I moved to Europe. Completion of all these higher degrees accomplished, and I wasn’t in school anymore. I wasn’t being evaluated or tested formally, and after abut a year, I began to stop testing myself.

and started Trusting.

I desperately wanted this self trust three years ago. I prayed for it. Ran for it. Blogged for it. And yet, it didn’t come. I could not manifest it at all.

Locks of Love, 2012
This time, my best friend's 6 year old daughter chopped 11+ inches from my head.
And I am very TRUSTING!

And then somehow, it was there, and it wasn’t a lightbulb “oprah” moment of grace. Rather it was in the dark, crippled perfectionist part of me that oppressed me for years. And hope wasn’t darted in the middle of some moving bulls eye I craved hitting to prove myself, it was in the form of social interactions. The messy acts of caring for people in my physical space, and giving with clear abandon, that got me out of my head and into my life, grace in the act of picking me up in one place and dropping me off in another, even though I don’t always agree with the landing location.

I laugh a lot. The guy has a great sense of humor and one night we found ourselves laying on the floor my walk-in closet and I, no we, were laughing. He was sprawled laying down with his head in my lap,  looking up, and urgently, I realized how bothered and yet FREE i was, that he, me, this US knocked me out of my routine and on a Monday night at 11:07 I was wide awake, and giggling, and oh so very much happy.

Happiness is NOT just about my own individual choices, phisiology, values, tastes. Networks spread and reach us and absolutely influences our health and wellbeing. Who you choose to move, to visit, to speak to (and the definitions of HOW we do these things are changing) MATTERS.

THIS IS WHY SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE SO KEY. (Can you tell that I am a Christakis fan? a vestigal worship from Harvard and Fuller…or J. Fowler )

And yes, even electronic ones, the voices you disagree with, or maybe the ones you choose not to filter out. Being known, knowing, and instead of trying to FIGURE it ALL out, trying to LIVE just a SMALL piece out.

In a social manner.

Which is why, you’ll see, less and less of me here. And the folks will feel more and more of me out there.

I trust, you’ll stick around?