(Photo Credit: Grey D.)
I was introduced to Laura McKowen on, We Can Do Hard Things podcast. She is on episodes #272 and #273 and I highly recommend taking a listen. It was as if I was dropped into one of the most transparent and honest conversations I’ve heard in quite some time.
Laura has written two books, We Are the Luckiest and Push Off From Here, and I’m currently reading Push Off From Here, and cannot stop! In episode #273, Laura goes into the nine things that she wished she had heard in early sobriety and was able to provide for a friend’s sister.
It’s not your fault.
It is your responsibility.
It is unfair that this is your thing.
This is your thing.
This will never stop being your thing until you face it.
You cannot do it alone.
Only you can do it.
You are loved.
We will never stop reminding you of these things.
Kelly McDaniel shares, “Whether letting go of an addiction, healing a broken heart, or looking for a new direction in life, the answers are for you here.”
She unpacks each of these in detail that you can listen to and read as well in her book, Push Off From Here. These feel like the golden keys to the locks we might have been in search of? The Holy Grail so to speak when trying to sort out what the next step may be? Having Push Off From Here, our go to in our back pocket may become the single most potent and healing gift we may offer ourselves and one another.
I have been recalling some of my own push off from here moments. Those central times in my childhood, formative years and throughout adulthood.
My father noticing that I was shrinking and beginning to play small. Encouraging me to raise my hand to ask questions and take up as much space in class as I needed. Reminding me that most of my classmates were having the same worries as I was and wondering what I thought of them. It was a game changer in jump starting my sense of worthiness and self.
Upon my parent’s divorce at age sixteen, acknowledging that I must first care for myself and allow my siblings and my mom to do so as well. We were each inhabiting our own spiritual ICU intubated and on life support.
Unsure of what direction to take after my graduation from college, a childhood friend mentioning an amazing graduate program back east for my masters in education. She doesn’t even recall doing this, divine assistance is the only viable answer.
My move to Utah where my sister lived to find a teaching job and a grand adventure beginning living in the wild, wild west. Meeting my husband, raising our children, and all our amazing camping trips come flooding in often now as I do some gazing in my rear view mirror.
Discovering my need for a 12-step community in Al-Anon, so that I could uncover my part in our family disease. I had no idea what codependency was and then learned, yes, I suffered from this “ism” and it became my responsibility to learn all about it so that I could observe when I was entangled within it.
Finding a community of women who had experienced losing a child, and recalling how freeing it was to not have to explain myself to anyone. We were speaking the same heart language and I observed their steps, how they were living their lives and it offered me hope that I might learn how to live mine too in time.
An offering for working with a mentor, literally appeared when I wasn’t even searching and the timing was exactly what I was in need of. Discovering myself at a critical juncture and unsure how to take my next step. She took my hand we have been in a very deep dive ever since. I am a sponge absorbing what she is teaching me, and allowing it to ripple forth with those I’m in relationship with.
Pushing off from here is a life affirming way of remembering that it is something we actively engage in each time we hoist our anchors up and set sail once again. Such is the errand of our souls as Sarah Blondin, so brilliantly shares. I sense mine has numerous ports and endless ones yet to discover.
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