Finding my tribe...

When you find people who not only tolerate 

your quirks but celebrate them with glad cries of

"Me, too!" be sure to cherish them.  Because those

weirdos are your tribe.

I have been feeling out of sorts lately and it wasn't until I reread this quote that I understood at least part of why I was feeling this way - I've lost my tribe.  Feeling as if I've lost my tribe has made me incomplete and that has caused some inner struggle/turmoil.  Because I have often felt as if I walk/dance to the beat of my own drummer, to find individuals who move to the same drum are priceless.  On the flip side of that though, because I'm an introvert, I find it difficult at times to keep with the tribe.  Maybe that's it - I didn't lose my tribe, I was the one who wandered away without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way home...

Losing this tribe may not have been a bad thing - maybe this is my opportunity to find/join a new tribe.  I'm sure this will mean me going outside of my comfort zone but that may not be a bad thing for me.  I often try to avoid situations that make me feel overly uncomfortable but there are times the most growth happens because of those uncomfortable situations.  If nothing else, when you feel as if you've hit the bottom of the barrel, the only place you can go is up.

Wow... rereading what I've written, I've used quite a few metaphors but I think they help to sum up pretty much how I've been feeling lately.  I'm also trying hard to stop edit my posts as I write them - if that's what popped into my head as I wrote, why overthink it and then change it?  I encourage other people to recognize/embrace how they're feeling at any given time and then I edit myself.  That's something I want to get away from.

This past weekend, I taught at two different studios and I will teach class again tomorrow.  My instructor took a couple of days off so I taught for her yesterday and will teach for her again tomorrow; and I subbed again for the instructor I did last Sunday.  At the studio yesterday I had a private lesson for almost a half hour, a beginner class with 5 people for an hour and then ran choreography rehearsal with 8 people for an hour; the class today was for an hour and a half and there were 6 people in that class.  While my body is sore, I did enjoy taking the opportunity to help these dancers find their "lightbulb moments" when it came to their dancing.  I had dancers tell me that they are thinking about moves in new ways and able to figure out moves that they hadn't before so that's exciting to me.  These "lightbulb moments" are some of the things I miss about teaching...

Something that just came to me is maybe I need to find ways to create "lightbulb moments" for myself in different aspects of my life and see how that works for me.  I want to start challenging myself to not only go outside of my comfort zone but to also do things to push myself above and beyond.  One aspect I definitely want to challenge/push myself is at work.  I know that I need to do something to turn things around at work so it's not such an effort to make myself go in on a daily basis...

Well my dear readers, I have given myself some things to think about and I think the time change might also be catching up with me so it's time to bring this to a close for the evening.  Next weekend we have a huge dancer performance (one of our biggest of the year); I'm running the rehearsal tomorrow after work, Wednesday is our dress rehearsal and some of the gals have asked me if I would work with them either privately or in mini-classes in the evenings - so we'll see how all of that goes...  I hope you have opportunities this week to find your own tribes!  =)

Chewed up and spit out...

Not a very ladylike title I know but it's definitely how I've been feeling this week...  I have felt as if decisions I have made have been questioned at every turn to the point where I'm questioning myself and it has left me doubting myself in almost every aspect of my being...  Things that I thought I had a handle on I feel, because of self doubt, have slipped through my grasp and I'm left clinging to the edge of a precipice.  That may be slightly melodramatic but I feel as if my grip has been slipping...

I'm am currently writing in the middle if the night because I cannot sleep.  I'm hoping that if I get some thoughts down on paper that it may lead me to being able to at least get a few hours of sleep tonight as I do have to get up relatively early to run to a neighboring town and be a substitute dance instructor and then run back here to sing in the church choir.  While I am looking forward to teaching this class (it's a wonderful group of women and I adore the woman who has asked me to teach in her absence) I feel as if I have let the teacher (and also her class) down because I haven't had an opportunity to learn the choreography they are working on and I was asked to teach.  I sent a note to the instructor telling her I would completely understand if she wanted to try and find another substitute since I feel as if I let her down by not learning this dance but she still wants me to teach so I guess that's a plus...  Maybe I, once again, am just being to hard on myself...

I have a tendency to focus on perfection rather than progress and with how I've been feeling lately this is something I definitely need to learn how to change.  Because of feeling this way, I have felt "me" fading away behind my protective walls and allowing those around me to affect me in ways that I don't like.  I have found myself apologizing for how I've been feeling on more than one occasion, once again taking on monkeys that don't belong to me and I have even had someone at work leave me on the verge of tears.  What's happening to me?!  Whatever it is, I need to work towards figuring it out because I don't like feeling this way.

Many people have told me that if I don't like how I'm feeling or how a situation is unfolding that I should just change how I'm feeling or change the circumstances of the situation.  Neither one of those options is easy.  I don't know about you but I have never been one who can change my emotions or how I'm feeling at the drop of a hat or as if by switching on/off a light.  Maybe one of the reasons I have this internal struggle is I can be a bit of a grudge holder and in being a perfectionist maybe I'm holding a grudge against myself for "failing"..... Time out...  That thought is too deep for the middle of the night; I think I just caused my brain to implode a little bit...

At this point in my writing, I decided it was time to head to bed last night (it was almost 1:30 am when I called it quits).  I just reread what I wrote last night and for writing in the middle of the night, I didn't end up changing much because I allowed myself to write how I was feeling.  I'm actually pretty surprised at how coherent my thoughts were since I was writing that late.  There are times when I'm writing that I either get distracted and lose my train of thought or I want to find the "perfect" way to word something that I write and rewrite a sentence over and over.  When I was writing last night I didn't do that - I just wrote.  I encourage other people to express themselves and then there are times I have trouble doing so - either because I want it to be "perfect" or I don't feel as if people want to read what I have to write.

I think one of the things I need to do is give myself permission.  Permission to take some time for me.  Permission to feel how I'm feeling.  Permission to fail.  Permission to leave the headaches of work at work.  Permission to say "no."  Permission to say "yes" to something I really want to do.  Permission to go for it.  Permission to be me...  Maybe if I do some of these things, I will feel better and not feel as if I've been chewed up and spit out.

Well my dear readers, I think I'm going to bring this to a close for tonight since I was up late writing and I have a long week ahead of me.  I hope that you have a wonderful week and give yourself permission to be you.  Thank you, once again, for joining me along my quest...  =)