Tag: joy

Make Today Count: Say What Needs to Be Said

This morning at 7:53 a.m., my phone dinged with a text from my sister-in-law. The information in that text was something we feared was coming; however, it still wasn’t the news I wanted to hear. My other sister-in-law her sister had passed away. Almost two weeks ago, Val had been found unconscious from a brain aneurysm and never woke up. Val is my age, in fact, slightly younger. Just 5 months ago, Val tragically had to bury her husband. These should be the best years of our lives. Empty nesters, enough years in our jobs to be making decent money, things starting to be paid off, and more time to enjoy life, but sometimes those things don’t come. Sometimes life doesn’t happen like it “should”.

I have been thinking about Val all day today. She was always the first person on any given holiday to text me, despite the time difference between Colorado and Indiana. She would always text when she was going to be flying anywhere to see if, by some chance, I would be flying through that airport. If I had known that the texts we exchanged just three short weeks ago would be the last text, I would have texted a little longer. We were both busy, and she was planning a trip here in June, so I went about my day, as did she. But today, those texts are just memories. The necklace she sent for Christmas means something different and the name plate that sits on desk will forever remind me of that gift from her.

Let me ask you: Are you putting off trips to see people you love, people you need to forgive, letters you need to write, things you want to do until tomorrow? What if tomorrow doesn’t come? I lost my dad three years ago with so much that needed to be said, and now I can’t say them. I had things I needed him to say, and I will never hear them. Why do we wait until some time in the future and think we have plenty of time?

What if we don’t have as much time as we want? You have heard me say before that I do not want to be that statistic that you so often hear that the most untapped potential lies in a graveyard. Maybe you need to write that book. Maybe you need to tell your family more often how much you love them. Maybe you need to forgive and ask for forgiveness. Maybe you need to take that chance. Maybe you need to risk your heart being broken and fall in love. Maybe you need to be a better person. Hear me today, let’s all just do that thing today and do it with urgency!

To my friends and family, I love you! I love you deeply, and I hope you all know what you mean to me. To those I have wronged, I am sorry! Please find it in your heart to forgive me! Not for me, but for you. Find peace for you! To those who cheer me on every day, support, mentor, coach, and believe in me, thank you from the bottom of my heart! To those who have played a role in my success, I hope I am making you proud, and living my purpose!

I implore you today to choose to live with more urgency. Choose today to live like it could be your last. Be your future self right now! Be proud of yourself, chase those dreams, and do those things you’re putting off for tomorrow, today! Be diligent about your calling and your work! Live with passion and purpose! Love more, hate less, and have more fun! Just start living! Just start doing those things you’re putting off. Just start saying the things you want to say! Do it and do it today because you may not have the time you think you have. There may not be a tomorrow.

With love for you all, Shauna

Do I Ever Lose my Joy?

While on a zoom with my coach this week, he asked me a simple question. He said “Shauna, do you ever lose your joy?” I had to think about it for a minute. Through coaching, growth, healing, and with so much work on myself, it’s harder than it used to be, but the answer is yes! Sometimes I lose my joy. I will tell you what my response was to him in just a minute, but I have to be honest and say that this week, I have struggled to keep my joy.

I was blessed to be able to spend the week between Christmas and the New Year in Arizona and Nevada, and I have to tell you, it was spiritual for me. Everybody has their own opinion of what spirtual means to them, and honestly, when people told me that it was spiritual, I was skeptical. That was until I saw it with my own eyes. It truly was spiritual to me. I came home from my trip relaxed, motivated, and ready to take on the year, and the first week home boom…it hit me in the face. 

As I relaxed into the table at my deep tissue massage this morning, and yes, that’s the only way to go to relieve stress, I realized that I have to show myself some grace, like I do to others. As I lay there with my back completely full of knots, I had to forgive myself and realize I am human. I am going to lose my joy from time to time, and be tested, and that’s okay, but here’s the realization I have had this week. Listen to my response to my coach when he asked me the question. “I do lose my joy from time to time, but I never lose my hope!” That’s what carries me through trying times like this week has been.

This week has been a bit overwhelming to me. We have had some family things, I am trying to settle into a new territory at work, we’ve been snowed in, and yes, it affected me. Part of it is hormones and the anxiety and overwhelm that comes, and nobody wants to talk about it. Yes, I am going to go there, just for a second, but I am going to go there. It’s real! I turned 50 a few months ago, and hear me, it’s real! Guys, it’s not for the faint of heart! Speaking of guys, let me take just a second and say to you, show the women in your life some grace, we didn’t ask for this! We often feel like we are losing our minds, too! Trust me when I say, we don’t like it either, but I think that’s part of what I was experiencing. All the women reading this of a certain age can feel me right now. This caused me to lose my joy! Me! The pioneer of joy! The preacher of joy whose license plate says JOY (remember that for later), I lost my joy. I felt it while teaching a class this week. I feel horrible, but that class didn’t get the best version of me, I felt off, and I don’t like that.

Before I wrap up where I’m going with this, let me tell you something that was the tipping point. I drove to our local Walmart in the middle of yet another snowstorm, and after waiting for 40 minutes with no groceries, and nobody answering the phone in the store. I lost it! As I get out of my car to speak to one of the employees loading groceries for another customer, I tell myself not to lose it on him. Long story short, I was there over 40 minutes only to find out they had given my order to someone else, but wait for it…if I wanted to wait, they would refill my order. Am I being tested this week for what I preach? I think so. Well, I didn’t lose it, but I wasn’t the nicest to the employee, I have to admit. As I am getting back in my car, I look over, and there is an elderly lady who has been waiting very patiently beside her car for her groceries, and she is smiling at me so kindly. As I backed out of the space to leave, she knocked on my window and says to me “I love your license plate.” I thanked her and told her I was struggling to find my joy and she smiled and said “You can get it back.”

As I drove home feeling condemned thinking about that dear sweet lady, I thought of how happy she was, even in those conditions that day, and having to wait. It smacked me in the face. I know better! Life’s circumstances don’t have to cause me to lose my joy! I get to control that. So for those of you who read my posts and wonder is she always joyful? I work very hard to stay joyful, but no I’m not, but hear me, I never lose my hope! The lesson to me this week was just that nobody can take my joy from me without me letting them. There’s very little in life I can control, but that is one that I can. So maybe like me, you’ve lost your joy. I’m here to tell you, you can get it back. It is my hope that even if you lose your joy, you always remain hopeful, despite how hard life can be at times.

With love, and joy, for you all.

Shauna

Get Better Everyday

I recently ordered cutouts to go above my office closet doors that simply say get better everyday. I heard a speaker say he had those words in the entryway of his home, and seeing that is what I try to do every single morning, I decided to have it made for my office. While we were hanging them, my perfectionist self couldn’t get them just right. I decided not to make them perfect, isn’t that kind of the point? I’m not going for perfection, I’m going for growth each day, even if that looks messy. So, if you stepped foot into my home office, you might look at them and think they’re off. Do you want to know a secret? Some days, I’m off, so they’re staying that way, off.

I have worked hard over the past six years to improve, and I know that it has only come by taking steps every day. These single steps that have added up to years of amazing powerful positive change and growth. I see it in the greatest manner in the way that I react, or should I say no longer react, like the old Shauna would have, and did. I am no longer triggered by situations that have broken me and caused me great pain and sorrow. Or am I? Oh, who am I kidding? I still have days! I wish I could tell you that I am totally healed from some things, but the truth is, I’m not totally healed, and that’s okay. My greatest fear in trying to live and breathe growth and a positive mindset is that somebody is going to think I’m trying to portray this perfect life where I’m always positive and full of joy and life isn’t still affecting me. I can tell you 100% that I have been hurt, and even recently, but I still have my joy and I’m not living in that hurt for very long. I pull up my britches and get going, no time to lay in the trenches upset, and besides, who likes to wallow in mud anyway? Well, unless you’re participating in a mud race and doing it on purpose.

I want someone to know today that you can have joy, and even though you have healed from hard things in life, you will still have times when you’re sad, your feelings are hurt and it still affects you. Just because you find joy doesn’t mean you aren’t human with feelings! You don’t always have to be strong, and if you tell yourself you do, you will be disappointed. It’s okay to still hurt sometimes, it doesn’t mean you regressed! Just don’t live there very long! I have found myself numerous times feeling hurt about something but feeling like I can’t show that emotion because I preach growth. That is ridiculous to feel that way. The real key to growth is allowing yourself to have those feelings but having the tools to pull yourself out and not letting those feelings wreck your day or worse relationships. Joy is a state of mind and you can still have joy and sadness or sorrow or hurt. You are not going to live on a high 24/7. That’s now what having joy is all about.

Why do I want you to hear this message? I want you to know that you are not going to wake up every day full of joy. You are not going to be immune to life getting to you sometimes. You are not going to be immune to hurt and pain. We will always have that, we live in this world, and it’s not always good. What I want you to hear me say today is just get up every single day and be determined to get better, but show yourself some grace in the meantime. In this journey, you will have days where you move ahead ten steps, but then the next day, you may go backward two. That’s why this is a journey, not a sprint. With each movement forward, you will learn something about yourself. With each movement backward, you will learn something about yourself. My message is simply this…Get.Better.Everyday!

With love for you all, Shauna