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Hey Reader, One of my children recently made it out of the house with a marker in their bag and we were informed by another one of our children that said child wrote on the back of the bus seat😬. Not to throw anyone under the bus🚌 (pardon the pun), but I remember a time when I was younger that my own sister was pinned for destroying bus property and it wasn’t until years later that we learned she didn’t actually do it but was blamed and took responsibility for it. 🤔 But before the real truth came out (we’re talking seriously only about 15 years ago or so), boy were my parents upset when they found out about the damage my sister had {supposedly} done on the bus. I can’t remember exactly what the consequences were, but I’m fairly certain she had to reconcile her mistakes and do something like even go clean the bus on a weekend. Yikes! But she did it. She had the hard conversations and leaned into the challenge.🎖️ And that hard experience grew her. I can’t be exactly sure how, since it’s not my direct story, but I remember being in the midst of the challenge as the little sister. And I do know she didn’t cause or even allegedly cause any more damage to bus seats NOR did she continue to take the blame for other people’s mistakes. In the face of that challenge, she leaned in. She took responsibility, owned her thoughts and actions, and had the hard conversations with the superintendent of the school, our parents and the bus driver and took actions to make it right. She was young and influenced by others to make poor choices. You, though, you have years of wisdom and experience, yet even still, I know that when the hard things in life happen, like they always do, sometimes you just want to blame someone or something else (like the boys on the bus did to my sister) or run and hide to avoid the entire situation. But the stresses in life don’t just magically go away. We encounter them to give us opportunity to actually cultivate greater health, harmony and happiness in life. No, it’s not that everything in life is always going to be rainbows🌈and unicorns🦄, but instead the real living happens when in the face of challenges, when we can reach deep within and find our center and remain there even amidst the challenges. It’s probably going to be messy at times. I know it was with my sister when she took the fall for the damage to the bus seats, and it wasn’t that pretty when my child found out she had to make repair for writing on the back of the bus seat either. But in both cases, they did it – put their nose to the grindstone and had the hard conversations. And in the end, they both walked away with a greater sense of self. Stress has rhythms just like you do. And you can spend your life resisting the stress that arrives at your door, or you can lean into it. I don’t just mean pushing through and enduring the challenges, but instead using the stress to explore your relationship with it and your own ability to do the hard things as you walk through them. To have the hard conversations, to make repair, to reconnect, SO THAT you get to live with more health, harmony and happiness at the center of you. Can you get behind this idea of leaning in instead of avoiding? Reply back and let me know! Cheers, Cathy
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