by Tara Joyce | Jun 1, 2016 | My Journey | What's On My Mind
So good at the act that you forget what’s true.
So good at pretending that the unreal becomes real.
What you feel is under your control.
You can simply act it away.
A mask of neutrality.
Leads you to believe you might actually feel it.
You can ignore your feelings.
You can act forever.
Yet at some point, the inevitable curtain comes down, and the performance ends.
You are left with you; and the feelings you’re pretending aren’t there.
If only for a moment.
The act is over.
What then?
Who are you when your truth has space to be?
The question, terrifying.
Its answer even more so.
It lies in love and the shape of it.
What does your love and care look like when there is no performance to mask it?
photo credit: Ania
by Tara Joyce | May 19, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
Emotional littering is when I attempt to alleviate my own overwhelming emotions by disposing of them elsewhere, when I inherently know they’re mine to be responsible to.
In those moments, I don’t want to own what I’m feeling and how I’m reacting to it. Instead, I’m trying to drop my responsibility into another’s backyard. To put it on them.
I’m not making space for my stuff, and I’m attempting to alleviate this by leaving it for someone else to take care of. I’m pretending to not be attached to what I’m feeling.
I am emotionally littering. And in doing so—in not being responsible to how I feel—I’m giving away my power to feel differently. What a waste.
photo credit: Steven Pisano
by Tara Joyce | May 13, 2016 | Innerpreneurship, Self/Business Growth
A plant needs space, and a seed, as its container to grow. The seed is a boundary from which the plant grows, as is the space that it takes root and grows in.
To ensure our plants—the ones we choose to nurture and grow—have the space they need to grow free from invasive intruders, we weed our landscape.
Our relationships are no different. They are a landscape that needs our attention.
Weeding is necessary, as is protecting our space from the things we do not need, nor want, within it.
Defining our boundaries in this way is not as a fear-based act of protection, but rather a necessary and abundance-ensuring act that supports the growth of what we care about nurturing.
Everything living needs boundaries to build strong foundations from. What grows from us is no different.
Our boundaries nurture what we care to come to fruition.
photo credit: Enid Martindale
by Tara Joyce | Apr 26, 2016 | My Journey | What's On My Mind
Here’s a bit of my garbage… I have a tendency to attach to other people’s garbage.
I magnetize to the parts of people that they have decided have no value and have thrown away.
I can’t stand how their not responsible to these parts, and I determine someone needs to be.
And now their garbage has become mine. I’ve attached to it.
Except, I have my own garbage to manage. So, why do I think I have room to take on theirs? Being responsible to theirs, I can’t fully be responsible to mine.
I need the emotional space.
Other times with garbage, I like to think other people are responsible for the garbage in my life. I like to think I’m a victim of their littering and ignorance, their garbage creations.
When I’m not being responsible to the garbage in my life, when I’m blaming it on others, this action holds me back from being the complete person I am.
Taking responsibility for both the things I’ve made and the things I’ve wasted—my creations and my garbage—I change myself, and the world around me.
In owning my complete experience, I am free to be whole in my tragedy and in my joy. I can now acknowledge both my waste and my creations without shame.
In creating space for own my handiwork, both its darkness and light, I create space for others to own theirs. Magically, my garbage problem disappears.
photo credit: habeebee
by Tara Joyce | Mar 31, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
I need to talk more about all the people I’ve left behind. We need to talk about them more.
We talk of the relationships we have, and the ones we desire—but we don’t talk often enough about the many more people we’ve met and have not moved forward with. We don’t talk enough about all the people we leave behind.
I want us to talk about them more. I want us to talk about what we leave in the past, and how it changes over time. I want us to talk about what remains for us. And what (and who) does not. I want us to understand the relics of our past, and their value to us today.
I believe there is much to learn from the people I have not taken with me, the relationships I have not sustained. Whatever happened between us, I understand to move forward fully, making space for my future and the relationships it holds, it is necessary to more fully honour you—and all whom I’ve left behind.
photo credit: Spiderdama
P.S., I love this recent interview I did with The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show, about how we can best serve each others unique challenges (and more). You can listen here. Enjoy!