Originally published on the blog I started for my bookkeeping biz, but in my heart, this post belongs here at My Remembering Place! So here it is. 🙂

Lately I find myself struggling to balance the dualities in my life.  I wasn’t consciously aware of this pattern until I heard myself say something to Stacy the other day.

I’ve been very aware of the juggling act within my business because I’m consciously focused on allowing this blend of head and heart, money and love, being and doing, speaking and listening, creating and being a conduit… It’s still not a totally effortless process, nor do I anticipate that it ever will be.  But I’m really aware of the dualities that exist in my business right now.

I can feel the polarization most when I try to do analytical mind-intensive type work.

For some reason my being is really, really resisting that type of work right now, even though I’m quite good at it and do make a living by working in that state!

But it was in my conversation with Stacy that I realized something more profound.

I’m also dealing with this issue in my parenting.  I think I’d been skirting around the realization of this over the past few weeks and it was in talking to Stacy, hearing myself say something I’d said a couple times before, that it really sunk in.

My relationship with my children is nurturing my ability to provide safety while at the same time sinking deeply into a connection, in the moment.

In my “work,” I’m able to usher in an environment that is safe, while also engaging.

With my daughters, I’m often so preoccupied with their physical safety, especially when one is going one way and the other is going the opposite direction, that I forget to connect with the *person* in front of me.

It was pretty eye-opening for me to realize that in trying to keep my daughters safe, I was creating a huge disconnect between me and them.  Disconnection from people that I love is the LAST thing I want to be encouraging in my life.

I’ve also been noticing just how much of my Mom and my Dad I’ve integrated into my own way of being and in seeing the world.

My Dad is–among other things, of course–extremely safety conscious, going to great lengths to physically protect all those around him, literally.  I call him “Safety Mike” for a reason.  He’s the one who’ll notice an accident prone environment and quickly make adjustments to prevent someone being injured.  He’s always got an eye out for my kids and watching him protect them often transports me into the past where I’m absolutely certain he did the same for me as a child.

My Mom–the deep well of inspiration, love, and kindness that she is–tends to be very mindful.  At least from my perspective, it appears that my Mom is almost always in the moment.  She’s the type of sleeper who can fall asleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow.  She takes extremely good care of herself and *always* has.

I can remember scenes from my childhood where my Mom would be exercising and I’d be goofing off along with her VHS video-guided exercise routine.  My Mom is really great with spirited children like my older daughter (and I know where she practiced and learned a lot of what she knows about handling kids that are spirited because it’s pretty obvious that I was one myself).

So here I am, a blend of both of my parents.  And interestingly enough, it’s these two prominent traits that seem to be battling within me.

In so many aspects of my life, really.

I want to do what’s practical, what’s safe, within my business AND while taking care of my kids.

But I also want to sink deeply into the moment, follow my heart, and let go of control.

(And the same is true for my relationship with myself and probably just about every other type of relationship I can conceive of, really.)

I want to help my clients by conquering their mountains of disregarded bank statements, tackling their piles of paid yet unprocessed credit card statements, and guide them to better understand the money story within their business.  I want to do so in a way that’s extremely helpful for them, yet incredibly sustainable for me.  I want to bring a little bit of “head” into their business, which is already overflowing with “heart.”

I want to create safety and peace of mind by serving the role of the analytical and money matters-oriented bookkeeper within their micro business.  I want to bring to them the practical and functional tools they need as business owners in order to succeed in the world.  I want my gift of having an accounting mind to complement their incredible talents, skills, and gifts.  And I do so in a heart-centered, kind, and gentle non-judgemental way.

But I’m also incredibly called to help people who need to sink into the moment, connect with their heart, and find their own source of deep guidance.  I want to follow the crystal clear Guidance that I am receiving about what I really have to offer the world.

When I think about this in a head space, I get overloaded, flustered, and feel like it’s just not possible to exist in a duality like this one.  I feel like it’s impossible to bring both my head and my heart into the world within the framework of my little business.

I crave expanses of time where I can just sit and write, like I am in this very moment.

I pine for photography time.  I want to view the world through the lens of my camera.  I want to share my visual perspective of my little itty bitty piece of this glorious paradise of a world in which we live.

I dream of unlimited time to create the soundtrack of my life while losing myself out on the open road.

I long for days spent underneath a giant tree, reading book after book, while lounging in the shade.

I hear the creative yearnings of my heart as they call to me.

I see visions of the future that is to come, of ways of working that seem inconceivable to me in the here and now.

I daydream about concepts of work presented to me by my incredible heart, my doorway, my deepest source of true guidance and connection…

I feel almost overpowered by the need to sink deeply into the moment and just show up, fully present, as those who have unanswered questions come to me so we can sit together, in a heart space where our heads are also welcome to contribute thoughts and ideas.

I feel so incredibly drawn in by what is being asked of me.

So I’m moving toward whatever this new aspect of my business will be.

I’m following the Guidance, just as it comes, one step at a time.

Most days I’m more in my heart than my head.  Other days my head gets the better of me and although the end result is often helpful when I take the results of that time into my heart, sometimes it’s just another layer of the process painfully unfolding for me, as I better understand my true calling.  Which I suppose, in and of itself, is all just part of the unfolding, as it’s meant to unfold.

And then there are my daughters.

I’m always learning and growing as a parent too.  I think a huge part of me resists carrying my heart around on my sleeve for fear of the unsafety that sometimes seems to dominate our society.

I think I’m also afraid of failing them.  I fear showing up fully present with them because what if it still doesn’t “work?”  What if there’s still a lot of struggle and challenge and tears?

Today, I realized something.

If I have no fear of pain, tears, struggle, and challenge within my business and myself then why the hell do I have such a significant fear of those things within my relationship with my children?

So here I am, today, sitting in my creativity cottage, which is a work-in-progress, welcoming in all that goes along with all of my other lifeworks-in-progress.

I am standing up to say, I am here, I am present.

I am inviting in more connection, more intensity, and more of all that makes myself, my business, and most importantly, my relationship with my daughters REAL.

I face the duality of my life–the head/heart, the analytical/creative, the safety/falling, the thinking/feeling–I face all of it and say, HERE I AM.

I am ever ready to learn and grow.  I show up, fully, with a complete willingness to be surprised.

I invite in the messiness, the chaotic, the unsureness of my next steps.

I ask my own heart and the heart of my business and the hearts of my children to be patient with me as I learn and grow.

I don’t yet have all the answers, and I don’t even hope that I ever will.  I crave the questions, the journey, the connections.  I turn toward The Divine and then, swimming in my vulnerability and deep in wonder, I turn back to The World.  I only hope that I am able to bring at least some of what I truly have to offer out into the world where others can benefit from it.

Because my only purpose has always been to help others, however I can.  So every day I’m sinking more deeply into my heart, knowing that if I can stay in connection with Source, the path will be laid out before me, every step of the way.

Even if I don’t yet know how to put it all into words.  Even if I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to spread the word.  Even if I’m scared sometimes and doubtful from time to time as well.  Even when my head complicates what my heart makes so incredibly simple.

I am committed to the living this without the knowing how.

“Just one tiny ring of hope, on my finger now, the commitment to my living this without the knowing how… except for breath and the fire from within, yeah…

I can feel it, because I have been to hell and I have been to heaven and everywhere that’s in between… Looking for the answers, finding only questions, you know what I mean…”

The Ring by Lisa Hunter