who says you should have your life together?

having it together has nothing to d with what you see
having it together is not about what you see

Here is a conversation I want to retire.

“I should have my life together by now.”

Says who?

What does it really mean- “have my life together?”

A perfectly clean and decorated house?

A new fancy car?

A 6 figure income? Or is 7 figures the new success marker?

Getting to your goal weight?

Having a neat and tidy family where the members never come home late, forget to call, fight over homework, leave the leftovers and dirty dishes out all night, or forget the one thing at the grocery store they went for in the first place?

Maybe when you can do the head stand in yoga class (unassisted of course), or run the half marathon, or just learn to love green juicing already- then, then, you will feel sure of yourself and have it together.

But of course, even if you could pull it all together you realize it’s too late anyway because shouldn’t you have checked all this off the list by the time you were 30?

But feeling decades behind can be motivating, right? Like you need to catch up.

Here is a not-so-secret secret:

You will never be all together.

Not all at the same time. And the bits that do come together, they will not last. Life will forever be in flux, it doesn’t have a timetable, and you will always being adjusting to that.

No matter how neat and organized the house, it will get dirty again. Laundry will pile up, the couch will get stained. Your hair will clog the drain and you will have to fish a big, slimy, black hairball out of the pipe with the bent end of a coat hanger. This last bit may or may not make you want to throw up. It happens.

You will overindulge at the holidays, gain back the 5 pounds you lost, yell at your kid/ friend/partner/neighbor because you haven’t slept in the last 5 nights and you just don’t have an unfrayed nerve left. Or because your cat died 6 months ago and you still miss her like crazy.

And when these things happen will you use them as proof that you don’t have it together and have that mean you posses an inhuman flaw that must be hidden until it can be eradicated.

Here is a bigger not-so-secret secret:

You are not alone.

We are all at least a little crazy, more than a bit imperfect, and ever so likely to fall painfully short of our own expectations on a regular basis.

You do not have exclusive access to the striving for perfection and failing miserably club. The membership is huge. I know this does not really make you feel any better about how not together your life is.

So you buy the fancy car. But it comes with a big car payment and insurance bill that stretches your budget just a bit beyond comfortable. It will ongoingly need gas and oil changes and new windshield wipers and at some point it will will get scratched or dented.

Making more money will help, yes? Surely the 6 figure (or is it 7 figures?) income will help you feel better. Except that it doesn’t because you worry about losing the job, the clients, the business, or you get so burned out trying to make it all happen that you have a knot in your stomach all the time because all you really want to do is sit and sip your tea by the window and maybe embroider a fancy handkerchief like your mother told you your grandmother use to do when she was growing up.

The weight of it all is overwhelming.

Which leads you right back to the demand, the plea, to just get your life together already!! You may find yourself embellishing this with one or more colorful swear words. It’s okay. You would not be the first.

And here is the tragedy:

All this wishing, trying, wanting to have it together and what you make it mean about you that you don’t, it drowns out your inner guide, leads you to grasp at the illusions of a meaningful life rather than allowing your Soul to lead you where you are most meant to go. It leaves you cut off from the part of you that holds your purpose, your vision, your sacred life journey.

 It keeps you from your Priestess self.

Who is she, your Priestess self? Most simply put, she is the practical expression of your feminine divinity in the world. Kind of like your personal, cosmic superheroine. More about her coming soon. For now just know that the worry about “having life together” is the spiritual equivalent to getting stuck in quicksand and the rope that will pull you out is your connection to your Priestess.

 

Next time I will talk more about your Priestess, who she is and how she shows up in your life. Until then check out these other posts. I think you will find them interesting.

finding your heroine goddess

the power of self-forgiveness