January 2021

What is a friend?  

According to dictionary.com, a friend is “a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.” 

In simple terms, most of us would say a friend is a person we enjoy being with and have similar interests; someone who makes us laugh; someone who sticks by us and shares the good times and cheers us on through the hard times; someone who supports us.

In fact, there are many ways to define a friend.

Accordingly, there are several different types of friendships. There are the friends we grew up with and knew us when we were young. The friends who celebrate life’s moments with us. There are friends who hold us accountable to our diet & exercise goals and those who are always up for grabbing lunch or happy hour when we need to talk.  There are friends that make you laugh until your face hurts and friends who somehow inspire you to step out of your comfort zone. There are work friends; people you love and respect professionally even though your friendship may not carry on outside the office. There are the parents of your kids’ friends who you bond with as you raise your children together. 

There are friends who will see yourself in a different light than you will ever view yourself, but because of them, they make you a better person & cause you to grow. There are friends who become family to us who we feel even more connected to sometimes than our own siblings. There are friends who will check in on you just to see how you’re doing and regrettably, there are also friends who will betray our confidences and leave you feeling hurt and shocked only to realize they never truly were the person you gave them credit for being.  It’s okay.  Let them go.  It just means their time in your life is over with and you’ve outgrown the relationship. Be thankful for them because they taught you a lesson. 

Everyone has a friend during each season of life. that fills a space in time for us. Trust that the Universe knows who and what we need and puts people in the proper place at the proper time.  In some cases, a friend can be a catalyst to help you see something you couldn’t see for yourself.  When that season is over, we move beyond that friendship because the purpose of that relationship has been fulfilled. I have also personally experienced this type of friendship. Some of you may call it fate or divine intervention. Call it what you will, but it reflects the seasonality of relationships and life.  One relationship ending often gives way to a new relationship that we need for the present time we are living in, so instead of lamenting it, pause, reflect, and then accept that maybe it’s for the best.

In my life, I am blessed to have lifelong friends who will always be special to me.  There truly is no friend like an old friend.  They are the ones you grew up with and went from having sleepovers and riding bikes together, to going on double dates and maybe even holding a place in each other’s weddings; the ones you grew up learning about life with. It’s amazing to me that the experiences you share growing up with someone can really bond you together for so long. The shared experiences of a childhood together have had a profound impact on our development. Having moved away from my hometown 30 years ago, I am proud of the friendships I have been able to maintain while living apart and sad for the ones where we just don’t keep in touch as much as I’d like. Certainly, social media has made it much easier for people to stay connected long distance.  But moving away from “home” has also given me the opportunity to broaden my scope, experience living in different areas and meeting new people which has also afforded me some uniquely wonderful and diverse relationships as well.

There’s a special blessing in the different types of friendships I have. I have friends of all ages.  Some are twenty years younger than me and some are twenty years older than me.  Some I have many things in common with and others, it would seem, we have little on in common but somehow the friendship just works.  They each bring something different to my life for which I am grateful for. 

I am also proud to say that some of my best friends are male. Growing up, my male friends encouraged me to do things I may not have done.  I can think of two very special friends in particular who forced me to go on roller coasters that I was terribly afraid of and to join ski club even though I was terrified of the chair lift and held on for dear life! The male friends in my life taught me how to water ski and how to do doughnuts in a snowy parking lot. Sometimes they would come over when I was babysitting down the street and heard a scary noise. Sometimes we would go to Taco Bell and chow down for $5 or drink a six-pack in the car on a snowy evening and get stuck in a snowbank (true story)!  I am so grateful for those moments I shared with them. They forced me to let go of my fear and join them. With the guys, there was no drama, just plain fun. They lived in the moment!

In adulthood, the male friends I have made through my professional relationships bring yet another dimension to my life.  I appreciate the insight a male friendship can provide.  Men and women truly see things so differently at times and having their perspective can be very enlightening. Men don’t seem to overthink things as much as women do in general. They are less apt to let fear hold them back and less risk-averse.  Do some men get ahead more because they are less afraid of taking chances and more inclined to make bold decisions?  Possibly.  Having a male friend in the office who supports you is definitely an asset worth having. Male or female, when you feel a connection to someone, respect it and celebrate it.  Indeed, I am happy to say some of my closest friends are male and I love them like a brother from another mother.

]Going through a major life change or event will also reveal who your friends really are.  Who really stood beside you when you went through a breakup with your boyfriend or a divorce?  Who was there for you when you were dealing with sickness or the death of a loved one? Again, I speak from experience here. When I was going through the end of my first marriage & my divorce, I truly felt God was putting people in place to not only look after me, but to look after my two boys.  There were people I was surprised to hear from, calling me to offer support, to take me to lunch, and to keep a watchful eye on my kids.  Those people gave me the faith I needed to see that people cared and that everything would be alright.  

This is so important because when you are going through something like that, it literally takes everything you have to get out of bed, put on a happy face and keep things as normal as possible for your kids.  So many times, I dreaded doing the “normal” things because nothing felt normal anymore.  I was paranoid of what people were saying behind my back because, let’s face it, divorce always makes for juicy gossip and some just can’t resist. 

Despite all that though, I felt very insulated and that was so very comforting. It’s true what they say;  friends are the family you choose. Now that that season has passed, some of these friends I speak to or see less frequently but they forever left their mark on my life. They were there for me when I needed them and made sure I never felt alone, but now their lives and mine have moved beyond that point. They will always have a place in my heart and my gratitude, but the Universe has us going in different directions now and that’s okay!  I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences and can relate to what I am saying.  

This past week, I was able to reconnect with two long-lost but not forgotten friends.  Much to my surprise, I received the most wonderful phone call from one of those dear friends who moved away a long time ago.  We haven’t seen each other in about 6 years and at that time, she was making plans to leave her abusive husband. I feared for her, as did many others. Can I tell you it was so good to hear her voice!!!! 

This friend was able to finally pull herself out of a physically and emotionally abusive marriage and rebuild her life.  What courage and strength that took! Hearing her sound so happy and so strong truly made me cry tears of joy for her.  What caught me even more by surprise is that she told me she looked up to me and that she admires me for rebuilding my life and for the courage and strength I showed her.  Can you believe that? 

All the while, I am telling her that I can’t even imagine living through what she endured to get where she is now.  I truly felt she was paying me a compliment I was not worthy of receiving. We ended the phone call telling each other we loved the other and promised to meet up in a couple of weeks. 

Never doubt that whatever trials and tribulations you are going through, someone else is experiencing something similar and looking to you as an example.  When you come out the other side, know that you are now equipped with the experience and lessons that someone else needs you to share with them! Don’t be ashamed or afraid to share your story with someone who may need to hear it! 

You are their inspiration and you don’t even know it.

How powerful is that? 

Just as other strong women reached out to me, now I hope to be reaching others with my message. Truly, the best friendships are the people who never give up on each other, who pray for each other, and believe the other deserves better than the hand they have been dealt.  The people who Fearlessly and Faithfully believe in each other. Who Fearlessly and Faithfully move forward inspiring others. These are the warriors.  These are the people who make a difference in the lives of others. These are the people I want in my tribe.  People who lift each other up.  

This week, let’s pledge in our own lives to go out and love our friends with a Fearless and Faithful kind of love! 

A Life By Design

Some of you may know that I am a Realtor with Keller Williams, and in the real estate world, Keller Williams is well known for its training and agent development programs.  One of the things that are central to our culture is the acronym BOLD, which stands for Business Objective a Life By Design.  We talk a lot about whether we are living life by default or by design, and we have what we refer to as BOLD Laws.  BOLD laws are basically rules that we are trained to internalize as they strengthen our mindset and the way that we go about our business, but they don’t just apply to real estate.  These BOLD laws can be applied actually to everyone in every aspect of life.  Throughout my posts, you will likely see me reference different BOLD laws on a variety of topics, but today I want to talk about one that is so important to me, and that is

Building Life By Design, Not By Default.

I think it is so easy to fall into a life by default and not one we are designing.  Things happen.  We go down a path and before you know it, we just go with it even though something inside us knows that maybe this isn’t the right path, but “I’m here now so let’s just see what happens,” or “it’s too late.  I can’t change things now.”  This could apply to a career or job choice, a college major, a relationship, a move, anything.  We end up feeling “stuck,” in a rut and less than satisfied with where we are in our lives. Sometimes we feel powerless to change our circumstances or we remain too afraid to make that change.  We live by fear and by default instead of by design. 

Changing your circumstances requires changing your mindset, which coincidentally leads us to another BOLD Law:  Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. Change always starts within us.  We one day experience a shift in our thinking and decide we are ready to make the changes we need to make in order to live the life we truly want to live, or something paramount happens in our lives forcing us to make a change.  I believe the first step in making that change is learning to not be afraid of that change.  So many of us fear change and it’s understandable. At the outset, change can look scary.  We aren’t comfortable with what we don’t know and there is security in where we are right now even though we know that comfort zones aren’t necessarily a good thing.  But once again, if we have faith that this change will take us in the right direction, then we have nothing to fear.  It always comes back to faith over fear.

So when you think about your life and whether you are living a life by design or life by default, know this:  that it is never too late to make a change and design a life you love!  I have so many blessings in my life and so many aspects of my life that I love, but for a while, I have been feeling like something is missing.  I was guilty of living a life by default and not fully by design. I couldn’t get out of my own way.  Even though I could clearly see the life I have been imagining for myself, I continued to hold myself back for far too long.   So I made the change.  I missed writing and the fact that I kept thinking about it and reliving my dream of being a published author was a sign that I needed to make a change and do something that fulfills this one box I still need to check. And this is how my blog was born. I have adopted a new routine that allows me to make time to write and research ideas for my blog and I can tell you it has energized me so much!!!!  When you are doing something you truly love, you don’t find yourself making excuses not to do it.  You lose track of time as you immerse your energy into what you are doing, and you ignore the phone that is ringing even as I type this (yes, it’s my mother who has now called me twice within 15 minutes but I am not allowing the distraction into my space right now!)

So as you look at your life, maybe think about whether or not you’re living a life by design and not by default.  If you need to make a change, go ahead and make it.  Don’t let the fear of change hold you back.  Fearlessly and Faithfully go about designing your life!

Thank you for joining me on this journey. I am excited about the launch of my blog and the opportunity it presents to reach so many of you and hopefully, to build connections with you through my writing and sharing.  Mostly I want this to be a place where you return to read something that will inspire you, touch you or speak to you in some way.  If I can accomplish that, I will consider my blog a success.

As we contemplate what it means to live a Fearless and Faithful life, this quote from Nelson Mandela comes to mind:

               “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

When I read that, I think of the choices I have made in my life and why I made them.  I also then think of the choices I didn’t make and why.  For me, and for most of us, one of, if not the biggest reason we choose not to do something, not to take that leap of faith, is fear.  Fear of rejection.  Fear of not knowing.  Fear of failing.  Fear of embarrassing ourselves. What will people think? (Can we all agree that is one excuse right there that we need to step away from!)

Fear holds us back in so many ways and in situations we sometimes aren’t even aware of, but if we take a step back and reflect on our choices and our decisions, we may see that the fear is something we really need to learn to let go of. If you are a Christian, then you know that the Bible makes 365 references to fear, specifically “Do not be afraid!”  That is every single day of the year the Lord is offering his reassurance!  Just think about that for a minute.  If you truly believe and you let yourself internalize this message, you will come to the understanding that there is no-one more powerful on your side than the One who created the universe!!!!!!  Isn’t that amazing?

The flip side of choosing to trust the process and move forward in faith though means letting go of control, and that’s where the rub is.  We want so much to control our lives, our schedules.  We have things to plan, places to go, goals to hit in the timeframe we want to hit them, etc. But at some point, something in life forces us to realize it’s really never been in our control and if we just let it go, trust the process, have some faith, we will live so much more freely and happily.  I will write about control in a future post because there’s a lot to unpack there, but for today, concentrate on this message:

You can either walk in fear or walk in faith.  It’s your choice, but if you choose fear over faith, you will never live your life freely the way it is intended to be lived.  I have a bracelet I bought myself a few months back with the saying “My faith is stronger than my fears.”  I can tell you when I wear it and look down at my wrist, it’s a gentle reminder to me to be stronger than my fears.

We are living in unprecedented times right now and there is so much uncertainty, so much to fear in the world.  There is the very scary threat of this pandemic we are living in and of course there is political and economic unrest.  People are literally fearing for their lives and fearing for their security.  The fear is so palpable it’s bringing out the worst in many of us, causing us to be short-tempered with one another and perpetually angry.  On edge.  Living in fear indeed is taking a toll on humanity.  There is no better time than right now to stop living like this and go out into the world with some kindness. So my challenge to you today is to take a look at your life as I have.  Identify your fears.  Identify the things your fears have held you back from, and then decide what are you going to do about it.  Move away from the negativity and even the negative people in your life if necessary.

What are you going to do today to start living you’re best Fearless and Faithful life?

Here we are. If you are reading this post you have survived 2020 and no doubt you are looking forward to 2021 with optimism, hoping things look better in the new year than the one we just left behind. Between the pandemic and its collateral damage, the nastiness of the election season, the craziness of the holidays and everything in between, I think we can all agree it’s time to move on and move forward.

This is the time when people make New Year’s resolutions and promises to themselves. It’s a new year full of hope and optimism. A fresh start. Everyone is full of good intentions and motivation for a couple weeks, but like the saying goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Many of us will drop those new years resolutions like a heavy bag of hot potatoes once we return to the routine of normal life and start feeling ourselves pulled in different directions by all the things in life that demand our attention & distract us from what we really want to do if only we had more time….our kids, our aging parents, our jobs, (or insert your own reasons here.) Come February, there will be plenty of treadmills available at the gym and no more wait list for the spinning class. Then we will wander down the path of self loathing, beating ourselves up for not keeping said promises to ourselves. We will rationalize our feelings of failure and defeat. It was a lofty goal anyway & life just got in the way! Far too many of us fail to make our own goals and aspirations a priority. In fact, most of us don’t even really have goals in the true sense of the word because we are too scared to write them down or speak aloud of them with our friends and family, so really then, they are just ‘ideas” or “wishes” that we keep to ourselves.

Human nature sometimes allows us to get paralyzed by our own fear of doing something. Something we can see and visualize for ourselves but just can’t quite seem to make it happen. Something we want so bad we can taste it. We make excuses. We find other things to do to keep us busy, like taking on another volunteer opportunity, getting involved in another committee, obsessively scrubbing our floors, whatever it is, we subconsciously distract ourselves from doing the ONE THING we really want to do because we are secretly afraid of doing it. We perfect the art of procrastination and become olympic athletes in avoidance maneuvers. If you can relate, then follow along with me and let’s go through this journey together.

I am not speaking from a place of judgement. I am also one of those people who has been too afraid to really commit to my dreams and my goals. I’ve had lots of ideas over the years, some really good ones actually! But without writing them down, sharing them with others and taking action on them, they have just stayed there, in Idea Land….waiting to become a reality. I have not been fully utilizing my gifts and holding myself back too. “No more,” I say!

And that, my friends, is where this blog begins. With the promise to myself that I will begin working on my goals, my dreams, my ideas and become the writer I know I have in me. There’s a story in me that I know needs to come out. Heck, maybe it’s not even a story. Maybe it’s just a message, but I know one thing..if it’s on my heart as heavy as it is, it’s because God put it there and the only way to fully honor our Creator and the life he gave us is to manifest what it is he put us here on earth for. Whatever your belief system, if there’s something inside you telling you that you need to do something, then trust that it’s there for a reason & you owe it to yourself to make it happen!

So here goes. I am committing myself to using this blog to perfect my craft, express my creativity, my thoughts, my experiences, and hopefully & more importantly, to inspire others to do whatever it is they are holding themselves back from doing.  I believe we all have the power to manifest whatever dreams or ambitions are living inside us but sometimes we hold ourselves back. I no longer want to live like that. I want to share my words with others and raise other women up from where they aren to where they want to be. My message will not resonate with everyone and that’s okay. But for those of you who feel compelled to keep reading and following along, I welcome you into my world. It is about my journey. The journey from living in fear to living Fearlessly & Faithfully.  To living intentionally, bravely, boldly, purposefully, hopefully and freely! To creating the life I envision for myself and the life I deserve. The life I was put here to live.

Am I speaking to you yet? Are you feeling like you too have not been living up to the potential you have inside you? Do you feel like there’s something more waiting for you but you’re not quite there just yet? Are you afraid that time is running out and you may be too old to set new goals for yourself? Forget that! That’s a crap story you are telling yourself in your head! It’s time for you to flip the script and write your story the way you want it told!

I invite you to join me and see where this journey takes us. I won’t make you empty promises about what’s to come when I simply don’t know what the future holds. None of us do. But I can promise you it won’t be boring and we will grow together. So I ask you, what are you going to do today to begin living your life Fearlessly and Faithfully?