Home Isn't Always a Place (Storytime)

Hello Sweet Souls,

This episode is a little storytime and how this season was teaching me to trust myself.

If you're in a season where life feels icky and you feel like you have no control over anything, I want you to focus on what you CAN control, and that is you. 

You can control your actions. 

You can control your reactions. 

You can control your behavior. 

You can control how you respond to things.

Focus on that first  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello sweet souls. Welcome to Minding My Manifestation, where I take you along with me on my manifestation and spiritual journey while also helping to guide you through yours. If you're ready to create new habits, discover deeper truths, expand your mind, and become the best version of yourself one day at a time, then this podcast is for you. Each week, I'll discuss my inner standing of the world around us, manifestation, and how you can shift your current patterns of thinking and being to align more deeply with your soul's purpose. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of how you can change the world around you by changing the world within you. So grateful you're here. Let's get into it. So this is gonna be a little different than our usual episodes. I'm going to be going into like a little story time, a little chat, if you will, about all that's been going on with me over the last few months and the lessons that I feel like I've learned or am still learning and what I think it all means. So let's get into it. Okay, first things first. If you did not know, my family and I are a military family. And that means that we are constantly moving. And so we just made a big move from Japan over to the United States. And first of all, I love Japan. Like Japan is my second home. I just love Japan. I feel at peace there. I feel like I belong there. You know, I feel safe there. And to move back to the US was a huge culture shock to my nervous system. I had feared it before I even got here. So I feel like I was already on edge. Anyways, we get here to the US, but because we're the military, we fully know that there is so many unknowns, right? There's a lot of unknowns. And one of those unknowns were that we would not have military housing right away. So we stayed in a hotel for three weeks. And first of all, I have a large family with limited space and lots of kiddos is chaotic. Okay. It is chaotic. And my nervous system was obviously dysregulated and I was overstimulated. And I think the worst part of it all, too, was that I have the tools. And I feel like I know exactly what I need to do to get out of a little funky funk, but I wasn't doing it. Like I was so mentally drained and exhausted from the daily tasks that I couldn't take care of my spirit. And first of all, let me be clear. This is in no way to shame myself. But in those moments, especially when you know the tools to use and what you can do to feel better, but you choose not to do it, that feels really icky. Right? Like you know, you know, no, no, no, no, no, capital, no what you need to do or what you can do to feel better, but you are choosing not to. That is a sucky feeling. Okay. And again, not to shame myself because I had to kind of work through it and understand like these are real feelings, these are real emotions, I'm allowed to feel these things. I want to say that at any given moment I did have a choice. I did. I think the whole point of that whole little rant was that I have the tools. I knew what to do. But at the time, I I chose not to do anything about it because I was so overstimulated. And again, this is not to shame myself or shame you if that's what you're doing as well. Just know that there is tools and options and ways to sort of throw yourself a lifeline to get out of feeling that way. So I will make a very long story short. Move from Japan, come to the States, don't have a place to stay in. So we stay in a hotel for three weeks, go to see my parents, stay in their house for three weeks, move back, stay in the hotel again for two weeks before we move into a house that is not of the military, that we decided like we're gonna live somewhere else because we can't wait forever and live in hotels forever. And the house that we're living in is also smaller than our family size, like too small for our family size, if that makes sense. And so because of that, we also cannot receive our household items from the military. Because if they deliver it, we won't have the capacity for our things to fit. Okay, I hope I'm making sense of this. And if you give her a little bit of frustration, it's because like these are real things that I'm working through. So, anyways, we're here now. And going through all the three weeks of the kids in the hotel, me and my husband, and then at my parents' house and back to hotel, all of that felt like I was on autopilot, just like every day. Autopilot, not doing anything for myself, not taking care of my spirit, not taking care of my body, not getting any movements, and just literally doing mom life, making sure that the kids ate, making sure that I ate, making sure that we were just alive, you know? And I think I spent so much mental energy on worrying about where we were gonna live. And looking back at it now, obviously, like I feel so bad for my own self. But the point of this whole thing is that there was so much going on and I had so many emotions happening. And I think where I needed to pay more attention to is that I didn't allow myself to just feel. I felt overwhelmed, but I didn't express it. I felt scared, but I didn't express it. I felt uncomfortable, but I didn't observe why. And so the core theme of this was getting outside of my comfort zone because I held on so tightly to my routine, to my identity when I lived in Japan, and I was comfortable there. And of course, there's nothing wrong with being comfortable, but I knew that my soul was like ready for an upgrade, ready for a change. And I had spent a lot of time planning, you know, like, oh, I'm a planner and I'm just in the planning stage when really it was just another form of procrastination. And so moving back here was uncomfortable. And it was pushing me at all moments to recognize that I needed to really just detach from the outcome, detach from my reality and just let it be and trust myself. And in that moment, I couldn't see that. I was too emotionally invested in worrying. And again, this is not to shame myself, but it is to hopefully pass along some wisdom and some hope to you that if you're in a season where life feels chaotic and you feel like you have no control over literally anything, know that you have control over you. Know that you have control over how you act, how you react, and the behaviors that you implement with what you have going on. And I'm sorry, I'm saying and like a thousand times. It's like a never ending sentence. Anyways, the point is that at any given moment, at every given moment, we have a choice. Sometimes life will give us obstacles and challenges and situations will arise. And it is not to say when you learn to be aware and you learn to be spiritual that these moments do not occur. What it does mean is that in these situations, will you remember that you have the tools, that you have everything you need to go inside of you to create a different outcome? My soul was literally begging me to just wake up and pay attention and just really lock in and say, Hey, you have a choice. You can either stay like this for the next year, or you can choose to do something about it. It was like a random Tuesday, I'm sitting on the floor talking to my husband, and this little like message, this little download, this pops into my mind, like, hey, are you gonna do something about this? Or are you just gonna consistently let this be? And I'll tell you right now, I feel like this is proof that our inner reality becomes our outer reality. Our inner world influences our outer world, right? Okay, so that was a story time. And now I'm gonna talk to you about what I realized and what I'm doing to now shift out of that. Okay, first things first. I started getting my movement back in. I started working out and just really feeling good in my body, really feeling good about even going to the gym. That is a choice, that is a decision, and it's one that I feel good about. It's one that I always feel good about and I know always makes me feel better. Meditation. Meditation, but not just like guided meditation. I mean, I love good guided meditation. Love them. And that's actually how I started meditating to begin with was with guided meditation. But if you know vipassana, vipassana is like a Buddhist meditation. Anyways, look into it, but basically where you sit with yourself in silence and you just observe. Anyways, a good meditation. Just to slow yourself down, be in silence, be with yourself, hear yourself, listen to yourself, let everything come to the surface, see all things, hear all things within your mind, and then just let it be. Observe it and don't cling to it. Let it be there, let it show up and release it. And so much of what I was doing was not releasing anything. I was holding on, I was clinging, I was mourning my life in Japan because I loved it that much that I wasn't seeing that this growth and uncomfortability to come here was literally the push that I needed. Anyways, and so the next thing I did as well is to realize within my scope, what do I have control over? What can I control? Okay, I can control the meals that I eat, I can control what I'm doing on my downtime, I can control, you know, the time that I go to work out, those sorts of things. If I can't control anything, focus on what can I control? What do I have the ability to control? I have the ability to control myself, right? I have the ability to pause and to just be aware and to recognize when things don't feel right within me, like what can I do in that moment to sort of shift things from that place? And I'm a mom. And so I say this with love and with grace. It is not easy at all moments to be in this calm, regulated place all of the time, 24-7, at all moments of the day. Like there will be slip-ups and there will be times where I raise my voice and I yell and I feel bad, and then I feel like I shame myself. But I'm working on letting the moment be there, feeling the emotions, letting it pass, and then taking responsibility for how I reacted to that moment and shifting them. I sit with it, I feel it, and then I let it go. And so after all this, I've realized the one thing that I feel like shows up time and time again for me, especially in these situations where I feel like I'm being pushed out of my comfort zone, stretched out of my comfort zone, and essentially tested. I feel like the bigger message was always to learn to trust myself. This entire time of uncomfortability, I was so stressed about a home, constantly searching for a home, looking for a home. Over the months, I realized that home isn't just a place. It's something you remember within you. It's somewhere you go inside of you. It's about learning to listen to yourself long enough to go within and find out how you can guide yourself back to a place of balance, of love and peace. And I don't mean this to sound so woo-woo or whatever, but I do feel like it is important that we remember just how powerful we are. Our souls literally came here to experience life because this is a soul school and we're here to experience soul lessons. Anyways, I won't go too far down that rabbit hole just yet, but I want you to sit with that. If you're in a season where life feels icky and you feel like you have no idea what you can do, what you can control, I want you to focus on what you can control. And that is you. You can control your actions, you can control your reactions, you can control your behavior, you can control how you respond to things. Focus on that first. Alright, sweet souls. Until next time. If something I said today resonated with you, take it as a sign. You were meant to be here. I'd love if you'd subscribe so we can keep exploring the truths beneath the noise, unlearning what we've been taught, and remembering who we really are. If you want to connect more, you can find me over on Instagram at Minding My Manifestation. Alright, sweet souls. Until next time.