Do you every feel like you've missed out on what is for you?
Each week, on Sunday morning, I write a blog post/newsletter that I share with those of you on my email list. For the month of December, I’ll be sharing my weekly posts here as well as in email form so those of you not on my email list can get a peek into my messages. My hope is always to encourage you to grow through what you go through, to challenge you to think in a new way and to give you tools to shape your life. If you’d like to sign up for my email list click here.
In addition, I’ll do a weekly Instagram live that will share what I wrote during the week before. So if we aren’t friends yet on Instagram, find me here:-)
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Sunday, December 1
I hope you had a relaxing and cozy Thanksgiving weekend snuggled close to people you love. I'm spending the weekend with my parents who are visiting from Ohio, and yesterday was my son Blake's 11th birthday. We started the day the Dasher Dash 5K. He loves to run, and nothing makes me happier than doing something special with just him on his birthday.
Recently I came across this quote by Morgan Harper Nichols; one of my favorite Instagram follows. I posted this on Instagram this week, along with some of my thoughts. I received quite a few messages about my post, so I wanted to share it with you and offer some of my ideas and encouragement.
I was in my late 20's living in Chicago, newly married, climbing the ladder in my marketing job, working towards an MBA, and honestly having the time of my life. Erik was a new lawyer, and we pretty much did what we wanted when we wanted. The world was our oyster. I had big plans for my career and of course, always looked forward to being a mom.
Ethan was born when I was 29, and I spent the next decade in a life I could never have imagined. My 30's were spent having kids, congenital heart disease, facing grief, and facing chronic illness one more time. I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with Ethan, so I quit my MBA but got to keep the student loans:-) My career was on hold. My hopes, dreams, and goals were not a priority. I was trying to save my son's life and figure out how to mother my other kids, keep my marriage intact, and frankly get through each day. I don't say all of this to sound dramatic, but it's, in fact, the truth as I experienced it.
The night before Bodey was born, Erik and I sat on the couch in our friends' Chicago home, finalizing legal documents for the Ethan Lindberg Foundation. Little did I know that the next day would launch me once again into the unexpected. As the years have passed and as each event has unfolded, I've learned that if I only look at my life through the lens of my difficult circumstances, I will be disappointed every time. Instead, if I choose to see, yes, the disappointments, but also the opportunities that have come (and that I've created) along with the giant perspective shifts I've chosen, what looks like disappointment is simultaneously a beautiful invitation to growth.
Can I let you in on something? I have wasted a lot of time focused on the idea that I've missed out. I've watched friends climb in their careers. I've watched some pursue their dreams and now be in a place where they are "seasoned" and accomplished. I can feel jealous of people who have not been hamstrung by the hurdles of parenting kids with chronic illness and the many layers of difficulty that come with that. But this feeling of lack, of not enough, comes from looking around at others. Instead, now I keep my eyes focused straight ahead. I take the energy that might be spent looking around at everyone else, and I refocus on what I'm here to do. Do I do this well all the time? Nope. But each time my eyes wander, I know it's time to reframe my thoughts.
What about you? Life rarely unfolds the way we planned. There are so many twists and turns. So, if this idea of feeling like you are or you have missed out resonates with you, here's some things I'd like you to do:
Acknowledge you feel this way. The first part of working through something we are struggling with is validating it in the first place.
Write down all that you HAVE accomplished and learned during the season where you also feel like you missed out. Maybe that season is now.
Reflect on how your goals and dreams may have changed during this season. How has your perspective shifted? What have you learned?
List out or be thinking about what you feel called to do because of what the season (present or past) taught you or revealed to you. I guarantee there are superpowers and wisdom that have emerged.
Here is where I sit today. I believe this with all my heart. Life prepares us for life. I certainly could have been the woman I thought I would be, but I would never have reached my full potential (side note: I'm still a work in progress). My experience in advertising and marketing help me with the foundation. The pharmaceutical sales job I hated so much gave me the tools to understand reading medical journals and package inserts. It also gave me the thick skin to ask people for help and support and be okay when they say no. The seven years of intense cardiac training Ethan's life offered me primed my brain and gave me the confidence to advocate for him and my family and to go toe to toe with some of the smartest people I've ever met. What I've learned through starting the Ethan Lindberg Foundation has helped me advocate for and care for Bodey. I know I'm capable of learning anything at all. All of these experiences define the way I live my life, what matters to me, and what I want to contribute.
These detours are gifts. They have also been invitations that I have accepted. If I could, I would sit with each one of you, grab your hands, look you straight in the eyes and say, "You have not missed out. What is for you will come." Now, to be clear, what is for you won't happen if you sit and wait for it or hope someone will show up on your door with a gift bag filled with your dreams. Instead, you have to do the work, walk your journey, and take one step at a time. You will feel many days that the deck is stacked against you and that as you push forward, life will push back. This path can seem like it is going nowhere, but I assure that is not the case.
Keep listening to yourself. The dream that won't stop keeping you up at night? Take one step toward it before the end of the year. That skill you want to build, write a list of what you need to do to make that happen, and do something. That relationship that needs some love and attention call that person or write them a text to schedule a meetup. Or maybe you are in a season where action is simply not possible. That is okay, too (I spent many years here). Be where you are. But remember, you have not missed out. There is always a new day. There is always another chance. I still have so much to learn, and so much I want to accomplish. But instead of focusing on what I don't have or where I am not, I ask myself and God, "What is next? Show me how to use what I have to become who I'm created to be.”
And then I listen.
So I leave you with this:
You are right on time. You have not missed out.
Sunday Love to you.
