Hi!!! I do have several upcoming episodes of the “Is it True?” Series……“Peace is the Word”, “Enjoy the Little Things”, “Courage to be Afraid”, and more. However, today I am embarking on another series called the “It’s All True” Series in addition to the “Is It True?” Series. I will be HONORING MY TRUTH LIVE in action and bringing you along on this journey with me.
Today, I return to work. I work a seasonal job in Door County Wisconsin. I have been toying with the idea of leaving this job, but made a decision to return for another season. Eventually, I will be moving on from here, but I felt it wasn’t quite the right time for me to do so. The money I make here is great and necessary to complete some of the things I have been creating over the past year and move forward. I do enjoy it and I am good at it. That being said, I am transitioning…..just in a different way. I will make changes within the work place, rather than just leaving…..a slower transition.
In the past, I have worked a 100 hours a week (yes, seriously) and my whole life stops other than working, sleeping, and eating. This season I will make the same money with less struggle and stress. I will tell myself that “I am enough and I have nothing to prove”. I will do a good job, as always, but take care of myself and my passion at the same time by setting boundaries.
I have already begun to trust myself and honor my truth. I am finishing this blog before I leave for work. I would never have done this in the past. I would have been there way before we open, making sure everything is going ok……doing everyone else’s job and so on. I am a little late so I better get a move on
I thank you for being here as my friends along the way. We are stepping together on the stones to a higher place, the stepping stones to a higher vibration…..one that comes from HONORING OUR TRUTH!
Debra Hadraba
I invite you to join Honor Your Truth
Inspiration+Action
I am here in Door County working. While this is not my passion, managing a café/motel, I do enjoy it and I am good at it. It’s truly all good. I am making money…..yet, not “a living” here. Making “a living” is when passion and job line up…when they are congruent. When a job is not a J.O.B……"just outta bare necessity", it is something you love that keeps the cash coming in. If it is something you love, from what I have witnessed, it is plenty of cash to sustain a life. Although I am inspired and taking action, my passion does not yet support me. In the past, I would completely stow away the “real me” for 6 months, but this season I am Honoring My Truth. I do feel uncomfortable.
Normally, I would be at work right now. In fact, I would always be at work. I am home now because the staff is doing just fine and they don’t need me. It’s very slow today. I could go back and do everyone else’s job. Even though I feel compelled to, I am resisting this temptation. I bet they think I’m slacking….a slacker. Not only do I have chatter in my head, I think I can hear the chatter in everyone else’s head. I’m a chatter reader. I feel weird, like I am doing something wrong. I should be at work......maybe I’ll call to make sure everything is going alright….to see if they need me. This is silly because I know that my phone would ring if they did and it’s not ringing. Yet, I am paralyzed by egoic thoughts of inadequacy. If I don’t work until I nearly fall over, then I am not working hard enough. Therefore, I am not enough overall.
I wanted to let go of all this chatter, so I took a walk. This usually releases the crapola in my head to the open air. It’s free roaming so be on the look-out. Stand still and let it pass on by. I feel better now……not so stuck. In the past, I felt like the easier thing would have been to do what I always do….just go into work. While this would have brought me relief in the short term, I found it to be way too painful in the long.......always waiting for my “real life” to start. I no longer put aside all that I love, my dreams, for later. I can create a balance while transitioning. It may have been easier to quit one or the other….quit my JOB or quit myself, but I chose not to….I’m juggling them both….teetering and tottering. It is a learning curve….a process. I didn’t utilize my free time today as well as I would have liked to today….but I didn’t go back to work. I got a little bit done. I did somethings I love....I wrote, I played music. I did what I wanted to do for my dream. My passion deserves it and so do I. I am Honoring My Truth!
Debra Hadraba
I invite you to join Honor Your Truth
Inspiration+Action
Years ago, when I lived in Chicago, I banked downtown. Don’t ask me why, but my bank was in the Loop, on LaSalle Street, smack dab in the heart of bedlam. With everyone circling around in a maze of one way streets and scanning meters, it’s a shame there isn’t a means of communicating. It seemed I was always parking a mile away and scrambling for quarters to avoid a pricey garage for an in and out trip. Yes, there is always the option of public transportation, but if you could nail a parking spot instead….the “L” took twice as long. My best friend had a jeep and we could park that thing ANYWHERE it was so teeny tiny. She also had this amazing knack for finding a spot. I may have the bubbly bobbing “parking angel” on my dashboard, but she’s falling down drunk half the time. Whenever I make take a quick turn, the angel's on the floor. She means well but when I stand her back up, she only falls down again. More often than not I was big city blocks away. If I didn’t have enough quarters I might have chanced it, until I got the boot on Wabash. I was coming out of Crate n’ Barrel, after some last minute Christmas shopping. I cannot remember why I would have gone to Crate and Barrel in the first place, and downtown besides, but I was. I couldn’t pass up the rockstar parking right out front, quarters or not, I was doin it. When I was done shopping, I came through the turnstile and there it was…the notorious yellow Denver boot….the heaviest anchor on dry land.
Before I tired of downtown banking and before the birth of plastic money, I came out of the bank with my cash…..a lady was blocking the turnstile with her “mobile home”, a shopping cart. She had it organized like a closet. The bedroom was stored on the shelf underneath where the pop normally goes. She was dressed in plastic and having an in depth conversation with her sunglasses. One hand holding the mirrored glasses and the other one waving around like a bird in flight. She seemed to be in an argument she was losing, until she started laughing and rolled along. I came out of the turnstile and started walking. After the Denver boot incident, I played it safe. I had about a 6 block walk and she was moving slow, but I hung back and followed her. Upon further investigation, her traveling closet had many strategically placed plastic bag drawers full of many things one might need. The mop sticking out of the cart was like a bicycle flag. She had a Furby attached to it. I got a feeling of ownership while following her….she owned her home, her life. She wasn’t asking anything from anybody. She did seem a little “off” with the sunglasses thing and all, but I don’t know if she was any less happy than anyone else. I know I cannot compare outsides to insides. I am certain of that. She had her home and if offered another one, I got the feeling that she wouldn’t take it. Her home was the open road and she wouldn’t know what to do within the walls.
I was scared to commit, but I did buy a house many years ago. When I was in the process of looking around and deciding on one, I heard a term quite often, “starter” home. This is a good “starter” home. I began to feel as if the home I was buying would never be good enough in the “long run” …..and it goes without saying that I will want a bigger, better home in the next “3-5 years”, when my “real life” starts. Ok nothing is permanent, but must I buy a house and plan to sell it at the same time. Moving is so overwhelming, why unpack the boxes. I mean I get it….but still. When I refinanced, I was asked the same type of question. "When do you plan to move?" I don’t know. I do not have any idea. I’ll move when I sell it, and I’ll sell it when I feel like it. Right now I don’t feel like it, so I won’t. I get asked, "Are you STILL in that house over by the train tracks?"The term “starter” home could lend itself to living in the future…..not being present and enjoying what I have right now.
I love my pergola and my fenced in yard. I love my spruce tree and all the plants and flowers. I love the purplish blue siding on top that you can’t buy anymore. My chimney is rock and it looks like a cottage I’ve seen in Switzerland. Even though my cat lives across the street at my neighbor ladys house, he still comes to visit. When I move, if I move, my house will belong to someone else and that’s that. This too shall pass so I'm enjoying it until it does….until something changes….and it always does. I have been unhappy in my house, but it had nothing to do with the house. I enjoy things, but I' m also detached from them. The only thing important about things is how they make me feel…but I’m careful, I am aware. Things are temporary and transient, flexible and fragile…….unlike love, which is eternal. I cherish the moments I can’t bring back, the words I can’t re-hear, the kiss I can’t un-kiss, the touch I can’t un-feel. The gratitude and presence of God I feel when I create something. The peace I feel when I Honor My Truth!
Debra Hadraba
I invite you to join Honor Your Truth
Inspiration+Action
Well, here I am and it’s Meatloaf night. It’s Meatloaf night and it’s gonna be busy no doubt about it. I’m taking a little break so I can breathe, gather my thoughts from where ever they went to, and write. This is new behavior. In the past, I would never sit down. I’d fall over before I’d even consider it as an option. If it was slow at the restaurant, I’d send people home and do their jobs for them. I have made some changes. At one place I used to manage, I actually slept in A4, a booth in the annex section….and more than once…..always the last one to leave, even when I no longer needed to be. I trained someone else who could close the front, wait for the dishwasher, lock up, and go to the bank, but more often than not, I’d do it myself. I had something to prove.
I had to go above and beyond in order to even consider myself as having done a “good job”, and even then I wasn’t sure. For the most part, I could never do enough. God forbid someone thanked me. I might feel satisfied in the moment, but live on the edge for a while……anticipating the day that I’d let them down. I thought if they only knew who I truly was, they’d feel differently. I wanted to prove I was enough, but to whom? Surely not to my current employer, who totally freaks out at the slightest mention of my not returning and begs me to come back each season. Certainly not to the staff, who, although it is difficult to say, always loves me. Last year, they made me a huge plate signed with all kinds of wonderful things that are so hard to hear. If I accept them, that the staff and my employer do love and respect me, then what about the day I screw up. It matters not if that day ever comes; but I live in fear of it. What will happen? If there is a crack in the outside, they may see inside. Inside, I was ashamed and unloveable. If I never accept the compliments, then I have nothing to fear….I’m always rising.
I’ve lived like this so long, motivated by having something to prove, that if I accept that I don’t, will I lay down and die? I didn’t know another way. I had to learn it. If I have nothing to prove, I have something to give. If I have something to give, I have something to lose. If I give you the “real me”, you could reject the “real me”. If I am wrapped up in proving, aiming to please at all costs, then it’s about those I bind myself to, not me. It’s about their reaction to me, rather than what is coming from me, what I am giving. I could disappoint, make a mistake, say no…any number of things…but if I accept myself…..then all I do is learn from what applies and leave the rest. If I don’t accept myself and have something to prove, then I must somehow fix everything “wrong” because I rely on how you feel to gauge how I feel.
A cup can’t hold water with a leak in it. Nothing from the outside can fix the emptiness on the inside. It can ease the pain, but it cannot erase the shame. No amount of water can fill a cup with a hole in it. I have to fix the hole. If I accept the things I cannot change in the moment, I can make a start at accepting the whole. I decided to come back here for another season. No one made me. As much as I would have liked to walk away, it didn’t feel like the right thing to me. That being said, I know change doesn’t necessarily feel “right”. I wasn’t thrilled with either option all that much for varying reasons, but here I am. I chose this and I am not going to hem and haw about it now that I did. Although it is more challenging to make changes within a system that already exists, the growth is more profound.
I have set up a dynamic over the years that I am shifting. I am uncomfortable. All the things my ego used, to give itself the artificial boost it needed, are being taken away. Those around me who had also grown accustom to expecting my usual MO, may feel uncomfortable too. This is unfamiliar to the system. It asks, "Will I have to change too, because I kinda liked it how it was?” “Am I going to lose something I have because I liked it when she had something to prove and therefore would do everything and anything?” All sorts of shifts happen when an element is taken out or changes. I can accept that too. I can follow the voice in my heart, rather than the chatter in my head that sometimes tells me I am not enough. I am HONORING MY TRUTH!
Debra Hadraba
I invite you to join Honor Your Truth
Inspiration +Action
I’m going to write a book about ketchup. What do we do with the ketchup? I have been exposed to so many “ketchup policies” in my restaurant career. In the restaurant I manage now, I have changed the “ketchup policy” several times for one reason or another. Recently, we went with a red plastic bottle, and therefore, unlike the glass bottle, you cannot see the ketchup inside. Believe it or not, this changes everything. I had to rewrite the whole policy. It is posted above the ketchup bag, plain and simple. However, it remains confusing, particularly in Door County where most of the staff come from other countries and don’t know what a straw is. They have taught me so much about so much. I listen well and I adapt to what I learn.
The crux of the problem concerning the ketchup is that you cannot put new ketchup on top of old ketchup. The table runs low at some point during the day and it looks messy and gross, not very appetizing. We need to get the old ketchup out and the new ketchup in. So……what is considered too low? Is marrying ketchup ok? What the heck is “marrying” the ketchup? How do we know which ketchup has been “married” when all the bottles are now full? What to do with the old, but not bad ketchup only the bottle looked icky? How do we not make a complete mess? Anyone who has worked in a restaurant understands this…and my need to create a “ketchup policy”. The team must work together and maintain consistency by following the policy which has been proven to work.
There are ways of doing things that have been found to work best. They become “policies”….not hard fast….but they are the rules nonetheless. It is a must especially when you have a short term, new staff every season. Without the rules, the guidance, it is bedlam, for real. This is not to say that if a new employee comes up with a new idea, I won’t listen. It’s kind of like when everyone is sitting at the kitchen table working on a puzzle and you’re trying to find that “one piece” and then your sister walks up, looks down, and grabs it….and gets the satisfaction of putting it in the spot. It’s sort of annoying, but then you do have the piece which was the goal after all. I am aware of this phenomenon so I always listen to suggestions and make changes. The current “coffee policy” is not mine....nor is the “dessert tray”. I don’t care, it works.
However, there is often that one new employee, and they are usually above average or better, who comes along who “thinks” they know everything before they know anything. You cannot train them until they are humbled. They get in their own way. I find it sad because I feel that low self esteem is quite often the issue, and as I said, they have amazing potential. They are often more skilled than I ever was at this business. Their “need to prove” what I already know about them hinders their being all that they can be. If I am not able to help them with this feeling of low self esteem and not being enough, no one will like them. They will be the outcast. So the challenge is….how do you humble someone and build them up at the same time? How do I help them claim their leadership in a humble way without losing their boldness? How do I bring out the team champion in them?
I know about this because I have been there….gone into a new situation, felt scared and uncomfortable, and even when I knew I was good enough, I still felt like I had to prove it. Prove my right to be there….my right to be alive, my right to be a part of the human race. It is a juxtaposition when the self esteem in your heart…the God within your heart…the excellence in you…does not match what is chattering around up in your head. The feeling that I am not good enough, that I am strange, that people won’t like me…all the noise I hear when I walk into someplace new. It helps if I don’t “try” so hard and just be…breathe…listen….take it all in…I do not feel the same sense of urgency to bring resolve to the situation the minute I get there anymore….to feel instant love. I think it would be strange if I did. This lesson applies to many areas of my life. I can feel peace even amidst the jitters….if I breathe. It is funny how easily I forget what helps me most. I don’t know what you would call it when I’m not breathing…..gasping? I breathe and I begin Honoring My Truth!
I just got back from a walk in the rain. I released all of the expectations that I had for this day…..one of the very few days I have had off since I started working and I won’t have another one for a while. I had a therapy appt over the phone this morning which was cool and then I drove to town. It’s a big deal around here when you drive to town….Sturgeon Bay. I never want to go there but sometimes you just have to…..some things just cannot be done up here on the peninsula and it is what it is. It takes 2 hrs if you don’t even do anything. So I did that…..along with laundry and stuff …and there’s the day. I did talk to my sister which was the highlight. She’s a genius and she is getting her PHD. I don’t know in what exactly, duh, but she’s basically a shrink…which makes sense because she totally “gets it”.
I kind of set myself up today because I had a list that could never be done. I know better. I made the list knowing there weren’t enough hours in the day, but I said to myself, “I’ll do what I can” but of course, I thought, I hoped, I expected to do it all. I didn’t come close. I took a nap which took an additional 2 hours….but it was soooooooo good, worth it, so I’m not going to beat myself up about it now that the day is coming to a close. I’m listening to the rain. It’s comforting and I feel peaceful. I may be a little frustrated right now because I don’t have the time to do what I want, but again, it is what it is. If I trust my decision to come here, then I accept the consequences….the good ones and the bad ones….because really….its all good when I follow my heart. I do love it here. I love that in the next few weeks 14 more employees will be coming from all over….some of whom I am part of their first experience with America…..the land of the free. I want to embody free. I can’t if I feel imprisoned and it is a choice.
I realized many years back that I could quit my job if I wanted to….prior to that I felt like a victim to “the man”…..like I was forced to be at a job that I hated. I didn’t know that I had choices. The truth was that no one was making me do anything. I guess I felt I had to do what I was “supposed to”, what I “should do”, what was “acceptable”. I allowed the chatter in my head to dictate my life and then I was resentful about it. Once I realized I could quit and took responsibility for my life…..I felt free and I actually worked there many more years after that…..and happily I might add. I have grown way past the victim mentality but it is one thing to lose the victim role and quite another to take back, to claim life and take action.
I got stuck in the grey area, the “Yah I know, but I can’t cuz I’m afraid” area. Limbo. Limbo is the worst. Limbo is when the old way doesn’t work anymore but the new way is too scary and uncertain. Afraid to trust yourself and afraid to be wrong. Paralyzed. Not blaming. Not complaining. Knowing. Listening. Receiving, but unable to renounce the fear. I know personally that if you don’t follow your heart enough times…your heart stops speaking….waits for another time when you might be more receptive. Its conscious of its time…..its energy….and isn’t going to waste it. The result is isolation. Unable to connect to the spirit inside, I feel alone. This is an awful place to be, but it is a choice I have made in the past. It seemed easier, safer….but it is painful and lonely.....so I do my best to follow.
It was a difficult decision whether to come here or not. I kept trying to make the “right” one. It can be tricky to discern the voice in the heart from the chatter in the head. I lived with both alternatives independent of each other for a while and then I went with how I felt as a result, not what I thought. So now that I am here…..it is what it is and it’s all good…..and when I am done…..and I will be…..I’ll see further. There are no “mistakes” really, only opportunities. I am ok….it’s simple…. I Honor My Truth!
I get up, I go to work, I take an itsy bitsy break, I go back to work, I come home, I go to bed, I wake up, and I do it all over again. This is my schedule. I don’t need to write it down. I know it and I am not whining. I chose this and I love my job. Despite loving it, I’m leaving it. Why? because I feel that I am called to do so……my heart is not at rest. I am in motion. You can love a thing, and still want to leave it. It’s ok to miss something. It takes a lot of courage, but it can be done….a leap of faith, despite the fear.
I’m fazing myself out….training myself right out of a job. I will be done soon, and then I will come and go, as needed, until the fall. October is crazy busy. What with the Pumpkin Patch and Fall Festivals, the fall colors; some of the busiest weekends of the season are at the end. The staff, which is primarily made up of students from Eastern Europe, will have all taken off to travel, leaving us short handed. So, I will come back here and work, much as I am now, all day, every day until we close at the end of October. I am not here the entire season, start to finish, but I have not left entirely yet either. It’s all good. It is a period of transition, spanning over the last 2 years.
While I am not doing all that I want to right now, I am paid well. I cannot create with ease when I am worried about paying my mortgage. It takes too much of my energy away from what I am truly passionate about doing, so I compromise. The things I am creating require some serious “hay”. I thought about quitting my job and putting it all on a charge card so I could continue creating. I decided not to, but at some point, I may. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do to move forward. I charged my guitar, my amp, all kinds of stuff because I didn’t want to wait until I made the money, once I felt inspired to play again. Since it was my hearts desire to play again, I trusted that I would make the money to pay the debt.
I felt it best to come here, where I am valued, and where I can make a bunch of money in the least amount of time. The challenge has been to set boundaries…..and to continue writing and working on my projects, if only a little bit every day. I find extremes much easier. This has been an exercise in balance. I would say I am doing fairly well. I have been uncomfortable at times because I am doing things differently, but I do it anyway. Right now, I often feel like I am not enough because I am not able to over deliver and do it all. I used to put in 80-100 hrs a week. I kid you not. I did it because it felt safer than following my heart. It was easy to trick myself. I am good at this and I make good money. I thought maybe this is what I “should” be doing. It got too painful to ignore the passion inside me. I can do this job in my sleep. I don't, but I can. I could work all day, every day…..and run.
Run from what my heart is telling me…..run from the uncertainty of change…..tell myself that I will do it later……listen later…..justify…rationalize. Wait. There are always good reasons to wait…..getting ready to get ready. I can keep running, but it will catch up with me. I do not want it to catch up with me on the last day of my life…..as I take my last breath. I asked myself some very important questions a few years ago. “Am I ok if I never own a restaurant, if I never work in another one again?” The answer was unequivocally, yes. I then asked myself, “Am I ok if I never play music again, write again?” I burst into tears. I missed it so much. Although I love what I do here, it does not fulfill me. I have felt a strong feeling deep inside me to write…to play music…..to create.
I am transitioning…..jumping out of the safety net….letting go. There comes a moment. There is always a moment…..a fork in the road. Follow your heart or not. Take a risk or not. I Honor My Truth!
I feel like I’m crawling out of a cave. I went directly back to work after attending the RISE event and I have been working everyday, all day, ever since. My plan for balance in regards to my job went out the window this month. Now that the season is over and done, I am ok with it. I’m even glad I did it, but I’m glad it’s over too. We clean up and close up for the winter. It is what it is… a seasonal business in Door County. It has been good to me and although I feel myself moving on from here I will miss it nonetheless. I have tried many different ways to do this job and maintain some kind of serenity, some kind of “normalcy”. Anyone who does it will tell you that while it’s a lot of fun and great money, the hours are literally insane. Although I have gotten better at it, I find it nearly impossible to do much else other than work and get adequate food and sleep. If I do that, I am doing fairly well.
I made some progress this season. I did set some boundaries and let go of some perfectionism, but in the end, I worked like crazy, no holds barred. For the past few years, I have intended each to be my last season when we shut the doors. However, when it came time to return for the following season, I always did. It seemed easier, saner, safer, yet it has become increasingly difficult to put what I love up on a shelf 6+months. Now that I have been following my heart, I’ve done my best to keep the desire and inspiration alive while I am here working. I pull it down from the shelf just enough to know it's still there waiting for me when I'm done. I will work another season if necessary financially, but I really don’t want to. Consequently, there is a sense of urgency to cram as much cash as I can in my pockets for the lean years I’m certain are coming. This, I feel, is not a very good mindset… planning on being broke if I do what I love, if I honor my truth.
Every year I work as hard as I can to stow away as much as I can for this reason, for the moment I decide to take a risk and go for my dream. I prepare for the day I quit my J.O.B. like I’m preparing for a blizzard. I was even thinking this morning that it would be a good idea to stock up on canned food and water for a number of reasons. One reason being that were I to decide to create my own destiny, it appears I plan on struggling. It seems to go without saying. Somewhere I got the idea that following your heart, at least my heart, was a sure fire way to end up homeless and penniless. I worry about emergencies, can I take care of myself in an emergency and so on. I can't seem to imagine making any money doing what I love. I may hope and dream but ultimately I decide I’m not good enough or something. I'm just a dreamer with an imagination gone wild. I couldn't possibly succeed. If those of us with a lot of negative thinking and chatter just turned our profound ability to imagine the worst case scenario in detail around. It's just inverting out imagination.
I had a dream the other night from which I woke up saying, “God knows how I’m going to support myself” The sound of my voice startled me into consciousness. In the dream, I was telling my employer that I was done, that I quit. When I said it, I instantly felt scared and pessimistic. I was doomed. My prospects were dismal. I thought there is no way I will be able to support myself, and even if I could, I will never live an abundant joyous life. As I lie there, I thought wow I have a really bad attitude. I am already building my “I might as well work another season because I don’t know what else to do” case for next year. I'm already setting myself up to return. Not because I want to, but because I have to... interesting. Then I realized... I don’t need to change the dream and what I said, just the inflection of my voice, my interpretation of it. "God knows how I’m going to support myself". My heart has a plan my mind knows nothing about. How it’s all going to work out, how it’s all going to happen, is none of my business. I truly believe we are given all that we need to do what we came here to do. The universe shows up to assist us if we show up. I believe all that is required in return is to continue following our heart, one small courageous step at a time despite the doubt and fear. God, the universe, the heart knows the way. I need only Honor My Truth!
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