{"id":185,"date":"2016-07-21T00:23:30","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T00:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/?p=185"},"modified":"2020-05-24T14:26:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T14:26:58","slug":"let-it-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/21\/let-it-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Let It Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard for me to believe that it has been so long since my last blog post. Time has flown by. Choosing a topic to write about given everything that has been going on in the past few months is not an easy task. We\u2019ve traveled to Ireland and had some heavy, beautiful, and fun experiences. It seems like I\u2019ve resolved some big questions in my life. And then there\u2019s just the daily living part of life.  \"IMG_3094\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the myriad of topics floating around in my brain, the one that has had the most impact on me is having my path made clear. Over the past couple of years I have been in search mode. It\u2019s the classic \u201cI\u2019m about to turn 40 and what am I doing with my life\u201d theme. One day recently it was like I looked up and noticed that I had become surrounded with messages about finding purpose, stepping out on faith, taking risks, and other jargon aimed at giving someone the encouragement to do something better. Along with these messages are endless stories of (mostly) women that have created a financially successful business. The bloggers seem to have taken over the world. A great number of the innovative app developers are women or the companies are run by women (class pass, Yahoo!, Eventbrite, etc.). An endless number of interesting and creative ideas by women run through my Instagram feed. It is exciting and exhilarating to see what women are doing in today\u2019s world. I can only imagine the triumph in the faces of all of the women in our past who have fought fiercely for this moment in time.<\/p>\n

A potential negative byproduct of this view is to compare oneself to these women and come up short. I\u2019m guilty of it and have been using that measuring stick. The biggest problem with this kind of comparison is that we\u2019ll always come up short\u2014there is always someone that has made more money or worked harder or accumulated more accolades. Instead, the proper measuring stick is the one we use to see how far we\u2019ve come and how much we\u2019ve grown. Otherwise, we are engaging in the frustrating comparison game that is unwinnable. For me, it drips into other areas of my life \u2013 if I\u2019m not doing or making something incredible that the world takes notice of then I might as well eat what I want and spend a lot of money on clothes, shoes and handbags. It\u2019s self-destructive behavior and it becomes a spiral that is hard to stop let alone reverse. Yet, it is possible and the way I have found is to turn to gratitude and meditation.<\/p>\n

I heard someone recently say that they changed their life by being grateful about what they have instead of focusing on what they didn\u2019t. As a child, it seemed like you were told to be grateful when you were whining about something or under threat of something happening. \u201cYou should be grateful your father\u2019s not home.\u201d \u201cYou should be grateful it\u2019s [not worse than it is.]\u201d The idea of being grateful somehow took on this negative connotation. Gratitude wasn\u2019t taught as a virtue to aspire having in your daily life.<\/p>\n

After seemingly banging my head against the wall over this \u201cpurpose\u201d question and \u201chow am I supposed to spend the next 20 years of my working life\u201d question, I just gave up. Defeated by not coming up with the answers, I decided to just say to the universe, I\u2019m done trying to figure it out and I\u2019m just going to be grateful for where I am, which isn\u2019t a bad place by any measure. Instead, I\u2019m dropping these big questions into your lap for you to figure out and trust that you will show me the way when it is time. Because I believe that the questions and searching don\u2019t nag at us if there isn\u2019t an answer on the other side, I also believe that the answers will become apparent when we are ready to see them. And, of course, as soon as I \u201clet go\u201d of trying to figure it out, a beautiful resolution unfolded within a matter of days. While I don\u2019t have every step of the way \u201cfigured out,\u201d I feel very confident that I am on the right path. I feel deep gratitude for where I am and where I\u2019m going. So, I\u2019ll leave you with a prayer written by Thomas Merton that I turn to when I really am having a hard time letting it go:<\/p>\n

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard for me to believe that it has been so long since my last blog post. Time has flown by. Choosing a topic to write about given everything that has been going on in the past few months is not an easy task. We\u2019ve traveled to Ireland and had some heavy, beautiful, and fun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[12,44],"tags":[39,5,47,46,49,48],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hz1R-2Z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":103,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/18\/the-next-big-trip-ireland\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":0},"title":"The Next Big Trip: Ireland!","date":"November 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Ireland is a place I've always wanted to visit. \u00a0Partly because I have always been told that I have an Irish heritage - along with half of America! \u00a0(More about that later . . . ) For me, one of the best parts of a trip is the planning stage.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":181,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/18\/181\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":1},"title":"The Journey is the Reward","date":"April 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"For some travelers, planning a trip is almost as enjoyable as the trip itself. It generates excitement and wonder. Nothing else can compare to this kind of freedom of exploration. Recently, we met with the couple we are traveling with to Ireland to plan our itinerary. With our plane tickets\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.navigationmaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/20150502_Brandy_40_088-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":272,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/21\/ireland-redux-part-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":2},"title":"Ireland Redux, Part One","date":"March 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 A friend of mine recently told me that when you get older you have two birthdays. This point comes to mind as I turn back to writing on my blog. This particular post started off as a redux of our \u201crecent\u201d trip to Ireland that we took in May\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.navigationmaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/DSCF0384-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/19\/hello-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":3},"title":"Welcome to Navigation Maven!","date":"July 19, 2015","format":"image","excerpt":"The inspiration for this blog came from a friend after discussing my most recent trip to the South of France. \u00a0In the midst of explaining what we did on our trip, how I organized it, and the planning that went into the trip, \u00a0she said \"You should start a blog!\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/31\/how-flexible-are-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":4},"title":"How Flexible Are You?","date":"October 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for me to believe that our Prague - Vienna trip is over. (It\u2019s equally hard for me to believe it has taken me over two weeks to finish this post!!) As I\u2019ve mentioned in the past, one of my favorite parts of going on a trip is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ADVENTURES"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.navigationmaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IMG_3376-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/16\/avoiding-altitude-sickness\/","url_meta":{"origin":185,"position":5},"title":"Avoiding Altitude Sickness","date":"August 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Altitude sickness is defined as an \u201cillness caused by ascent to a high altitude and the resulting shortage of oxygen, characterized chiefly by hyperventilation, nausea, exhaustion and cerebral edema.\u201d (so says google) Typically, one suffering from altitude sickness experiences headaches, a loss of appetite, and sleeping difficulties. It\u2019s a serious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Colorado"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.navigationmaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/altitude_sickness-273x300-273x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navigationmaven.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}