Kerri On Down The Road

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately as I walk, and have noticed a recurring theme around catalysts.  In the context of the discussions, the catalysts being discussed are considered "relationship disruptors" for lack of a better term.  When I take a step back and look at my life I realize how important a role catalysts have played in many of the decisions and choices I have made and how they have taken the shape of people who I have let into my life and situations that I have found myself faced with. The other idea that seems to keep coming up is around tools, and how life tends to give us the very tools that we need in order to move forward or to overcome a barrier that we are facing.  All too often we aren't able to utilize these tools either because we are not in a place where we are ready to do the work, or we are buried too deep in our situation to be able to see what we have sitting in front of us. These ideas have been swirling around in my head and th...

 As I walked tonight I listened to the latest Unlocking Us podcast and as per usual, it resonated deeply.  Brene Brown was speaking with Sonya Renee Taylor on her book "The Body is Not an Apology" and as I listened to their conversation unfold, I heard so many messages that I have been processing lately. The main premise of the book (which I cannot wait to read for myself!) is the practice of radical self love.  In order to make true change in the world around oppression and hatred that is held for so many people based upon their appearance, sexual preferences and gender identity, we first need to address these negative tendencies that we have towards ourselves.  The one idea that she put forward that really struck me was that we possess something called natural intelligence.  Every living thing will become the highest form of itself and will do what is required to reach that naturally.  In other words, we can become the person who we are meant to be, and c...

Tomorrow I will be celebrating turning 49, and celebratory is truly the best word I can use to describe how I am feeling about many things lately.  I look at my life through the lens that I have honed over the past year and I realize just how far I have come in a relatively short amount of time.   It feels like for the majority of my life I have lived as a triangular peg that was trying so very hard to fit into a circular hole.  I was never comfortable with the shape I held naturally and tried so many different ways to try and change it in order to become closer to the image in my head.  So much energy spent on trying to diminish who I was in order to take up less space and slide into a version of myself that I thought would be more acceptable, more likeable, and ultimately would live happily ever after. What I discovered, often to my dismay, is that the parts of me that I tried so hard to change were the parts that make me who I really am.  Not necessarily...

 In Jen Hatmaker's book Fierce, Free and Full of Fire:  The Guide to Being Glorious You,  there is a chapter on setting boundaries that I can only describe as life changing.  That may sound dramatic, but bear with me.  You see, as a first-born Virgo daughter, I feel like I was created to be a people pleaser.  The desire to make others happy runs very deep in my nature and the thought of disappointing anyone through my actions makes me feel physically uncomfortable.  In fact the words "Kerri, I am disappointed in you" are the equivalent of a knife to the heart for me.  This tendency does not lend itself too easily to setting and holding boundaries in any aspect of my life, as there is a strong potential that my boundaries will end up causing disappointment or upset to someone else and that does not feel good.  Instead I have tended towards being a yes person - saying yes to lots of things that I likely should have said no to.  Some of the...