The Crucible of Experience

Starting out 2023 its important to think about the #cruible you have been through and consider how those experiencescan forge you into something new.   

Contact Chance

Transcript

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Welcome friends, both old and new. Welcome strive seek fame podcast, I'm your host chance with home to lifestyle advice from a fellow traveler on the road to better life, brought to you by a longtime educator, writer, parent, and outdoor enthusiast, who may just may like a good draft, because our future is set through not just our choices, but our willingness to explore and find a better way. Welcome to 2023. as I record this, it is January 2, I am running a little bit behind this week, and I am trying out new gear, my family got me a very nice new microphone swing arm that finally will hold my mic where it needs to be. And the headphones I'm using. So hopefully that takes care of some of the buzzing that sometimes sneak through and recordings. I'm excited to try it. So as I've been trying to put 2022 to bed and get ready for 2023. Or as I like to think of it, the latest in a series of years where people are going to say to us, this one's going to be better, so much better. Because isn't that all of our goals, people are going to talk about their goals and aspirations about what's going right or at least better than it has been of late. But a lot of the time, we're going to ignore what put us in those situations. And I don't mean this in a negative way at all. I'm not pointing the finger and saying this is happening to you, because you deserve it. More of this is the crucible you've been through in the past year, you are new and better because of it. Now like most things in life, it's tempting to claim that's easy. And let's be honest, it's not. But nonetheless, let's get started. The origin of the word crucial comes from metallurgy, literally a ceramic or metal container to melt metal. It makes sense that over time, we've taken this literal change of state and use it to represent changes in life, where we feel the heat as we go through trials. And there are always trials. And that is a good thing. After all, to quote an axiom that is popular in my peer group, iron sharpens iron. So it's like a speck across 2022. And with it the several years prior. And think about the fact that if we are wise, rather than dwelling on the challenges that we have, we take them and forge them into the experiences that make up the middle of our life. Life isn't one size fits all, any more than say any one alloy is good for 14 Everything. After all, wild gold is beautiful and wonderfully conductive. You don't want to build an airplane, out of something that flexible and heavy. Any more than your significant other would like a ring made out of lead. Well, at least my significant other would prefer not to have that. And before I tried to carry this adult analogy even further down the road and make it make even less sense. I'll throw this out. The past year, each of us have faced some sort of challenge. For some of us, it may be in the worst years of our life. For others, the struggle may have been simply avoiding complacency. For me, there were a variety. And out of the ones I can share, or dare share, I should say, I'll start with this. I'm still learning despite my willingness to give others grace. I'm not great at handing it out to myself when I need it. Like most of us, I tend to be my own worst enemy. I've noticed a slow improvement. And yet when things are at their hardest, I'm at the hardest on myself. So this year, I'm going to try a few reflective techniques to help me get through that without continuing to repeat what has been a constant problem from the almost Well, let's be honest here. Friends, almost as of Thursday, completely on 50 years of my life. And if you've listened to the podcast at all over the last year you know there's been me dealing with some grief issues and And a big challenge that came out of grief. Were my trips home, once to process and figure out the loss of dad, and once for the holidays, learning from those trips, that it's going to be different. And intellectually you knew that, but experiencing it, and that that's okay. First getting used to the pain, and then learning not to feel guilt when it doesn't hurt as bad as it once did. And there's still moments that hits me, but it's getting better. Another change or challenge that I think many of us dealt with was life was supposed to be normal. And while that was certainly dropped back to us at warp speed, we're not the same people we were when we first got on board the ship, pent up stress and trauma. And the alterations and expectations have just punched us in the mouth. We were eager to jump back in what we could handle before. And we didn't take the time to process whether we thought we should. We're now learning to deal with unresolved stress and trauma, alongside exhaustion so you have the Triple Threat going. We're tired, and quote from Blazing Saddles, a movie that could never be made today. So damn tired, and you're doing good if you have your nose six inches above the water. We've been building the plane while it's flying for so long. We don't know what it might be like to have it worked on on solid ground. That's helping me to be better prepared walking into this year, I've been looking at the things I've given up that I need to work my way back into because nothing happens instantaneously. Everything from finally recognize how I turned my creative endeavors into an additional set of stressors. That is slowly ground my production down to nothing. This is true in podcasting. This is true in writing, I allowed those creative releases, which for the longest time have been my truly release and stress reliever to start beating me up because it wasn't going the way I wanted it to. Or because I didn't feel like create as quickly as I needed to. And that's still something I'm struggling with. But I'm sitting in front of a mic today. Pretty damn happy to be here to the fact in my attempts to be the person that is completely put together. I let the stressors continue to build in cost me stress relief to the point where I gave up working out or even going out for a walk. So I gave up everything healthy when it came to dealing with stress. I'm hoping that in 2023, I can take what's crucial brought me and reforge myself into a slightly better version of me. I'm not looking to make wholesale changes. But I want to get better. So as I work on this, I posted the question both on the stripe seek find faith Facebook group and to Twitter. And I thought I'd share a couple of the answers I got. Kathy wrote, learning to hold back my thoughts, my opinions, let life play out. Sometimes the natural consequences and let life unfold on its own is all the lesson a person needs. love unconditionally. And I learned I can survive despite how low life can go. Letting life play out is damn hard. And I wish I was better at it. The world could use a whole lot more of unconditional love. Well set. Phil pulled from what he relearned in the past year that he tried to give people a chance. And in this case, he should have listened to his gut which He had done all his life. Great message. Because some of the times I've been hit hardest the mouth as those I have failed to trust my intuition. Thank you for sharing. Alicia is facing a challenge I wouldn't have wanted to handle at this point in my life with style. relearning to be a student feeling pretty good so far. Good luck, Alicia with grad school. I know you're rocked first semester. Looking forward to seeing you rock the next one. And finally, Ian has been learning from multiple major upheavals in his life. Sweet Jesus, the biggest was learning how to be still in quiet periods of downtime, something I haven't had in years. Let me tell you folks, I have learned to waste time with the best of them. Sometimes with intentionality, it's Sometimes by spinning with stress but I haven't learned the skill of being at peace with doing it. So in please share what you learn as you go through this journey. Hey, please get involved in this conversation. More questions to come both on Twitter and on the strife seek find page on Facebook helped me learn helped me get better. Give me ideas. It's greatly appreciated. Well, my friends, that's it for this week's edition of strife seek fine, I believe it's episode 123 Hard to believe. If you'd like to help support, strive seek fi please share the podcast with friends or leave a review on your favorite podcasting app. It helps drive other people to the show, consequently making the show a little more discoverable online. Like I said, greatly appreciate if you'd rather help financially. I have a buy me a coffee link is in the show notes 100% of everything or it goes towards purchasing materials that will keep the podcast right now, eventually I'd like to get a podcast or pro but that's down the road. Again, thanks for listening. Until next time, friends. Keep seeking your own brilliant future