So I have some questions for you. Have you ever been on a precipice of a major change? One that you can feel so deep inside of yourself, but you can’t put words to it? Or maybe you want to make a change, but it terrifies you? I get it. I have been there – in both places and at different times.

I question everything – especially myself. And I encourage everyone around me to question things as well. Its what keeps us engaged, alive and present.

What motivates you? Are you present in your life? Are you a participant or an observer? Do you answer the hard questions? OR do you glaze over and go on to the next one until you feel comfortable? Are you just pretending? Are you happy with your story? What is it worth to you to change your story? What are you willing to risk? Everything? Nothing? What do you want to leave behind? What do you want to take with you? Are you willing to remain living by the status quo despite the ache you feel in your heart that things are not right? See? These are not the easy questions. But they are SO important and essential to answer before you take those first steps. We have two non-negotiables that are more related to lifestyle than anything else: freedom and family. Those are the two things that we need. And these two things may look different for you. When we road tripped out to California from Wisconsin in 2016, the year before we moved, we realized that we felt at home wherever we were. Driving through the desert. Camping in the mountains in the rain. Really, for us, home is wherever our family is. If that means we are all living out of our Jeep, it doesn’t matter. We were with our people. Even our dogs. This reality was staring us in the face when we got back to our “home” in Wisconsin. It took Mike and I a few days to vocalize this. Our home no longer felt like home. It was too big, too much and didn’t feel like us anymore. I still don’t have the words for it. None of us had that overwhelming feeling of “coming home” when we walked through the doors.

That is when we knew it was time to make our change. It was time to move on.  

The most difficult question for our family was, what do we get rid of and what do we keep? We knew we needed and wanted much less. We wanted to cleanse our lives. I think this process was a bit easier for Mike and I than it was for the kids. If I had it my way, we would have moved out with just a few boxes. I fully embraced the book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondō.

“Does this bring me joy?” No? Toss it. …It was awesome…

Our one physical non-negotiable was our dining room table. It may seem a little unexpected. But it was the one item that we all agreed upon that we would NOT sell before we moved. The kids had actually said that they didn’t care where we moved and what we got rid of, as long as we kept the dining room table. You see, our table has turned into a symbol of what the four of us can accomplish together as well as our love and commitment to one another. We picked up the old farm table from a florist friend of ours who was liquidating her studio. The four of us stripped it down and completely refinished it. It took us for what felt like forever. Maybe that is because the work was done when we discovered the tumor in my spine. On the days when I could barely stand, the boys would step in and take over sanding. They were eleven and seven years old at the time. A lot of sweat and even a few tears went into that table. I can see the table from where I am writing and acknowledge all that it has seen in our family over the past five years. It has seen us through it all. And the beautiful part is that it’s helping us write this next chapter as well. The top is a little worn. There are new dents and a few scratches. One of the legs is crooked. We can’t seem to find chairs that look good with it. And it is the most beautiful table I have ever seen.

So I ask you – So what are your non-negotiables? What are you NOT willing to give up? I would love to hear.

 

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We need to be the one.

Be the one who smiles first.
Be the one who makes room on the conveyor belt at the grocery store.
Be the one who stands up for someone being bullied.
Be the one who admits when they are wrong.
Be the one who picks up the trash that someone has left behind.
Be the one who helps someone.
Be the one who listens without judgment.
Be the one who hugs just a little bit longer.
Be the one who holds the door for a stranger.
Be the one who speaks out against injustice.
Be the one to leave the world a better place.
Be the one who holds space for someone even though you don’t understand what they are going through.
Be the one who never gives up.
Be the one who is unafraid to show their love.
Be the one who supports the person who has no voice.
Be the one to encourage others.
Be the one to look at all sides of an issue.
Be the one who is not afraid to show their feelings.
Be the one who fights for those less fortunate.

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As beautiful as this all sounds, I have to be honest, it wasn’t an easy trip for me. There were so many triggers.

It was difficult to drive down familiar roads that I only see in my dreams. I relived events that make my heart hurt. I looked on as family members struggled with their feelings of grief and their inability to express them. I witnessed the massive hole left by the death of my mother and recognized that she was the buffer in our family. And lastly, probably the most difficult lesson of all was learning who my friends were, and were not.

There was not a single place devoid of a memory.

Someday I hope to go back and feel happy nostalgia. For now, I am relishing in the fact that moving to California was the BEST thing we could have done. Maybe you would think that this is such a fantastic epiphany. However, I have been judging myself in the worst ways possible.

We have an entirely new life. We did this. We made this change. I have witnessed my family evolve into the most amazingly strong and confident people. As a result, they are thriving.

But here is where my judgment sneaks in. I recently received a message asking me how I was enjoying my new life. It stopped me cold. Consequently, it took me a few days to even respond. How was I enjoying my new life? The fact is, some days don’t feel that different. I could be anywhere in the world. Am I taking advantage of our move? Am I making the right changes? You can change your physical landscape and location whenever you want. But that doesn’t mean that you will change as well. Internal change takes a lot of work. Everyone in my family has done an amazing job of letting go of their past and bolding plowing forward. My husband would argue that I have made massive strides. I mean, here I am, creating a new business. But the fact is, I still have a lot of inner work to do.

And that is okay.

This is my declaration that I will put aside my judgment and honor myself. Honor my grief, which I have been avoiding like the plague. Honor my spirit, which I have been ignoring. Honor my art, because I worry that it will never be good enough. And I will honor my physical body as it is still healing from over five long years of trauma.

It is easy for me to honor others and celebrate their wins and support them in their heartache. It is time that I practice this love and respect towards myself.

So I am curious, what are you doing to honor yourself? What do you struggle with? Do you catch yourself judging where you should be and not praising where you are? Or are you finally in a place where you can see your beauty and honor your spirit. I would love to hear from you.

Wherever you are on your journey, remember to love yourself.
Sit with your heart and honor it.

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However, the simple act of letting go can be quite beautiful.

There are things in our life that can hold us back. Things that can prevent us from moving forward towards change. Fear. People. Insecurities. Expectations we set upon ourselves.

A few years ago, shortly after I started homeschooling our older son, I was lost. Lost existentially. I was in the midsts of working with a creative business coach when shit hit the proverbial fan. I was in the beginning stages of implementing a plan to start selling my artwork, writing a book and offering art classes. But then life happened. And you know what? That is okay. But during that time, I didn’t know that. All I knew what that I needed to table everything. The most important thing at that moment was my son. Nothing else mattered.

Now, for a recovering control freak, I needed to let go of all of the expectations that I had put upon myself. It was a practice for sure. And not an easy one. It took a lot of mediation, drawing, talking things over with my family and friends, my therapist, as well as support from my coach at the time. I needed to shift my priorities. Someday I would revisit those grand plans – or maybe not. It no longer mattered. Instead, I found great comfort in one simple word. It became my mantra.

Surrender.

What do you need to surrender to? What will allow you to be free of the confines of your expectations and the expectations of others? What is holding you back from doing the most important thing at this moment? Whatever it is, I know you can do this.

Just let go with your heart wide open and listen.
Your heart always knows.

The post The Act of Letting Go appeared first on Inspire Create Be | Business and Life Coaching with Heather Krakora.

During times of grief and hardship when your focus can be more on what is lacking rather than what you have, a creative self-care practice will remind you of the mark you can make. Through the art of creating, it pulls you back into reality, gently telling you that you are here. You are present.

You are capable of doing things that you never dreamed you could.

When you are feeling out of control, it gives you something to hold onto. You can manipulate the fabric, change the words, move slower, or watch the colors blend together. Whatever you are creating, for each person it will be different – like a sweet surprise.

My creative self-care process has also become my form of meditation.

During the process of drawing, it is all about the feeling of ink connecting with the paper. With words and writing, it helps me to hear what I need to understand in the moment. While I paint with watercolors, it is about making something come alive. I can’t control the watercolors, and I don’t have to because I allow the paint to flow. This has helped me to find the beauty in life again after my Mom died. My creative self-care practice has reignited my curiosity which was almost extinguished by my grief.

Initially, I felt tremendous guilt for my creative self-care practice. Self-care had been missing from my life for many years. The act of creating had been replaced by other aspects of my life which I believed to be more critical than myself – taking care of my family, my business, and my marriage.  

With a creative self-care practice, I am a better me. I am more present. I can give more freely without resentment because I am taking time for myself. I am taking care of my soul again.   

Where do you find your quiet? Is it through mindfulness, writing, dancing, baking, drawing or making music? Forgetting the importance of self-care is easy. It’s even easier to only see what is right in front of you.

 A creative self-care practice benefits you
by allowing you to see life through a new lens.
It’s about being mindful.
Experimenting. Playing.
And choosing joy.

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There is no doubt that each of our stories is complicated.

Since I was quite young, people would come up to me, and they would talk. Not just the ordinary conversation mind you. They’d tell me everything that is on their mind and then some. And more often than not, it is followed by, “Wow, I don’t normally talk about things like that to anyone. I’ve never told anyone about that.” Perfect strangers, acquaintances, good friends, sometimes even fur-friends… I’ve always been that person.

I’ve known from the beginning that I’ve wanted to “help people.” I started to explore nursing while I was in college. After a year of working as a Nurse’s Aide in the Women’s Oncology unit at the University of Minnesota Hospital, I realized that my soul could not take it. I felt genuinely incapable of helping these beautiful women. I would not watch as these amazing women lost their lives day after day. Ultimately, I decided to pursue my passion for art/creativity and became an art major and eventually a graphic designer and photographer. This time of self-discovery was also a time of self-destruction. During my early 20’s I struggled with major bouts of anxiety and depression, was suicidal and suffered from anorexia for several years. The only way I was able to survive those years was through the love and support of my parents, a couple of really good friends and art. This was when I first realized that art indeed has the power to heal.

The time I spent focusing on my art, was time spent focusing inward. I slowly stitched my spirit back together through my art practice.

I met my husband, Mike, right before my 21st birthday. His grand life plan was to become a dentist like his father. The further along in school he got, the more he realized that this was not the path he wanted to take. A few years later, he listened to his heart and a little help from me, and we moved our lives to Santa Barbara so he could attend school at the Brooks Institute of Photography. Shortly after, I landed a dream job with a family-owned publishing company designing inspirational greeting cards and books. I met some of my dearest friends there – people who helped shape me and to realize that the world was not all that bad. I helped Mike walk tall while he struggled with his demons during this time. Through the guidance of one of his photography instructors, who was also an art therapist, he undertook a 100 Day Project where he was to do something creative with a single object for 100 days. He produced the most beautiful photographs, writings, and sculptures during this intense time. It wasn’t all bad and dark back then. Don’t get me wrong. We were happy. Really happy. We were in California, thriving, falling more in love each day and becoming closer at every turn. He is my rock. And I am his. We take turns being the strong one. That is what we do.

In April of 1999, we got married, had our first son in December of 2001, moved back to Wisconsin, bought our first home and started our photography business. We like to do things big – so many life changes in such a short period. This is pretty much how we Krakoras roll. In January of 2005, our second son joined our family. In the early to late-2000’s, most of our life feels like a blur. I blame it on being thick in the weeds of parenting two small boys. That, and maybe not slowing down enough to truly enjoy our blessings.

Shortly after I turned 39, I found myself not at all where I expected to be. My anxiety was out of control – I was diagnosed with severe social anxiety. Not an ailment that you want to have when you photograph people and weddings for a living. Everything came to a head in September of 2013 when blew out my back. The pain was indescribable. After my Physical Therapist realized that no amount of PT (nor heavy medication) was going to help, they did an MRI to confirm that I had ruptured my L4-5 disk (that is to say the disc between my 4th and 5th lumbar vertebrae.). This was when we got the surprise that changed our lives. There was an incidental finding in my L1-2 disc. So on December 3, 2012, I had a double laminectomy. Okay. Shit just got real. It was a tumor called an Ependymoma. To be really specific, a Tanyscytic Ependymoma. Pretty fancy word, huh? I am one of 6 in the world to have this.

I always wanted to be special, but this is a bit extreme.

Ependymomas in adults are definitely not the worst thing that can happen. However, even though they are stated as benign, they really are not. They often re-occur. I was lucky. Really, really, lucky. My tumor was just millimeters shy of my central nervous system. If it had been in my central nervous system, I would have had permanent neurological damage. The other tricky thing is that people really don’t know that much about these types of tumors, like what makes them occur or how to treat them. They are a mystery. This was the universe giving me a swift kick in the ass. As if the anxiety wasn’t enough of a wake-up call for me. I needed to make some serious changes in how I chose to live each day. I could be lucky and live another 50 years without another tumor. Or it could be 1 or 2. You don’t know. All I knew is that I didn’t want to ever look back at my life and wish that I would have spent more time with my boys, did that photography project that I had been thinking about, or miss out on some other adventure merely because I was afraid of failing. Waiting for a better time was no longer an option. This was when my true journey of self-discovery and growth began. I immersed myself in all things personal growth and healing. I made it my mission to figure out my life’s purpose – my “WHY.” You know…the “why” that helps you get out of bed in the morning. It’s become my motivation and the answer to all of my questions. My Why is what keeps me going when I feel stuck. I go back to three words that remind me Why I am here on this planet, living this life.

Inspire. Create. Be. {Inspire myself and others to Be present and mindful in our lives and to Create every day.}

It is simple really. I live by these words every day. It is ingrained in all aspects of my life, and it’s how I have been making major decisions ever since – some of them simple, others are life-changing. And guess what? It’s helped me through SO much freakin’ stuff.

But little did I know that the Universe was not done with me yet.

After I recovered from my back surgery, we decided to change our business model for our photography studio. We were no longer going to photograph weddings and instead focus on photographing families and commercial work. Long story short, it didn’t work well. We were busy, but not busy enough. In the midst of problem-solving and trying to figure out how to make our business function, our older son, who was in 7th grade at the time, began having troubles at school. He had been verbally bullied throughout the years. But in 7th grade, the bullying turned physical. Within a month and a half of school starting, he had been physically assaulted three separate times. One of the times, his head was smashed into a locker repeatedly. Ultimately, we had to file a police report and were told by the Assistant Principle that they could not guarantee his safety. He was scared. We were all scared, and emotionally, he was broken. We felt we had no choice other than to pull him from school and homeschool him for the remainder of middle school. This bump sent us hurdling and knocked me off of my feet. I spent the next year and a half focusing on rebuilding his self-esteem and courage. During this time, I turned to art as my therapy. I committed to a daily practice where my focus was on illustrating words and quotes of encouragement. Little did I know how badly I would need to re-read those words in the future…

On July 16 of 2015, just six months after we started homeschooling our older son, my Mother was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer after being admitted to the hospital in septic shock. She died seven weeks later. She went from, what I thought to be a vibrant 68-year-old to a woman, to fighting for her life. Her death destroyed me. She was my best friend, my next door neighbor and my encourager when I felt like I was failing (which had been quite a lot during that time.) She was an eternal optimist. I would joke that she was like Pollyanna, but truth be told, she was always filled with hope and was the most positive person I knew. The way that Mom died was anything but graceful, or peaceful like how its described in novels and obituaries. She was in an incredible amount of pain from the day she was admitted. Her pain, for the longest time, was the only thing I could remember about her. I have PTSD because of it. I try hard not to let any of this define me. However, it is difficult not to.

These trials have forced me to embrace my life and my time here on this earth.

I aim to be as present as possible and to not live with regrets. To trust my intuition and create from deep inside. And to inspire others to do the same. My creative practice has been instrumental in helping me rediscover my voice. So I’ve started over. Some cold morning in February of 2017, my husband and I looked at each other and decided that this was not going to be our story. We closed our photography studio, sold our home and most of what we owned to start our lives over in the Bay Area. Many people have said to me how brave they think I am. Honestly, I think to have remained in Madison, Wisconsin and in our old lives seemed far more frightening. To make significant changes, you must take big leaps. So here I am.

Open. Creating. Alive. Every. Damn. Day!

Welcome to my journey! After our move to the Bay Area in July 2017, we couldn’t feel more at home. It has been the BESTchange for each of us. Yes, even our teenage sons love it here.

As I have settled into my new life, it has become glaringly obvious that it is time for me to help others rise up from the rubble. I will help guide others, after their time of significant transitions, and work with them through creativity and an open heart, inspiring them to rebuild their lives to match their dreams. I want to help people live their best life, a life without regrets, a full heart and one where they are free to be themselves. It is my mission to be a catalyst for other sensitive spirits by helping their souls shine through creating art and cultivating compassion to navigate towards their best life.

I would love to join you on your journey to be your encourager, catalyst, and guide!

The post Our Stories are Complicated appeared first on Inspire Create Be | Business and Life Coaching with Heather Krakora.