Grateful for my tribe...

There has been an article that keeps popping up on my Facebook feed lately.  When it comes up that many times, it is a message and not a coincidence.  An interesting title to it:  The Health Benefits to Finding your Tribe.  There was another article about connecting with your tribe earlier as well.

Have you ever thought of it...your tribe?  Who is your tribe?  We tend to think of family but I know in my family there are more than a few family members that I have decided with their toxic attitudes and lifestyles, they are not going to be my tribe.  Thankfully, several have "unfriended" me from Facebook :) so we have a mutual understanding it appears.  I am fine with those tribe members finding another "tribe" to be a part of.

Does your tribe remain the same or change?  I know that over my 57 years, my tribe has changed a great deal.  In some cases I have made the decision to cut the ties that bind, in others, they moved along as they decided I was not the fit.  As it should be...

This article had interesting points to consider

• Be Authentic
• Take Responsibility
• Consciously Decide
• Evaluate Relationships
• Cultivate Relationships
• Cut the Ties That Bind
• Shine and Evolve
• Raise Your Vibration
• Seek Higher Guidance
• Recognize Your People When You Find Them

I found them so interesting.

Being authentic sometimes is not very popular, yet I have found as I have gotten older and this is my path, my tribe is so much more comfortable to me if I am allowed to BE me.  I am loved for who I am and not exhausted trying to be someone I am not.  I don't care if they don't agree with me or don't like me, I am solid in my good heart and my integrity and I am not compromising that.

Taking responsibility was interesting to read about.  It commented that we often turn to blame to justify our shitty situation and do not take responsibility for creating what we want, including those nurturing and mutual relationships.  Guilty of that here and there.

Consciously decide.  Yep, need to do that.  Hard as it is sometimes to say what you want and where you are headed, it is part of calling in the right members of the tribe.  I sometimes have to remind myself of that quote by Penelope Cruz (who I love!)  "You cannot live your life looking at yourself from someone else's point of view."  So.  I choose to be me.

Evaluate and cultivate relationships.  Easier said than done at times.  Take for example a sampling of my "colleagues" over the last several years.  Some I am happy to say "buh bye" and kick to the curb and some I treasure for their amazing energy.  Those where you just know they are your tribe.  Same vision, same path, same soul, same level of integrity.  Same sense of community and friendship...

Take Shirley and Ana who are my former boss and former co-worker.  We worked for a small non-profit that the board shut down virtually overnight (less time than that actually!) and put us out of jobs.  That story is too toxic to give space to, but what I so love is that 5 years later, we are still getting together for lunch to laugh and cry and support one another.  I knew they were tribe, but when I got an email from Shirley to Ana and I recently saying "I need a dose of women, it's been too long, we need lunch!" it reinforced our "membership."  And she was so right..  We sat on a shady patio on a river having lunch for over 3 hours.  We laughed, we bitched, we commiserated and we committed to doing it again in another 60 days.  We need it.

Cutting the ties that bind can be so easy and so hard at the same time.  But SO necessary to leading a healthy life and having the tribe you are meant to have.  Who do we move away from and how do we do it so that we remain in a good space?  This has been something I have had to learn the skill of and find at times I still struggle with.  Especially family.  Sometimes my extended family has me wishing I was an orphan, then I remember my brother and Lisa and the hubs and his brothers and their families and the ones I love on the east coast.  And people you think are friends for so many of the wrong reasons...  Longevity does not make them a tribe member as a requisite.  There are times you need to evaluate those "friendships" that have disintegrated into nothing more than bad connections and do the hard work.

Likewise those that are lacking in the same level of integrity that I feel committed to I have found needed to go away.  We left a church because of a pastor whose moral and ethical compass clearly was not pointed due north and yet his aim of other sorts was pointed at us.  I refused to work with a group that was not grounded in integrity and honesty in how they used donations and proceeds.  And it felt liberating and damned good to cut those ties.

Shine and evolve and raise your vibration...  Have you ever noticed that sometimes the universe clears away the trash for you?  As you shine, evolve and grow into a human being you want to be, and raise your vibration to attract those like-minded, the rest falls away.  Be courageous, open up to the right people being put in front of you and it will happen.  Call  into your life those tribe members that only hold love and good in their heart and space for you!  And they will appear.

Higher guidance...well that is so different for so many people.  I pray a lot.  To God, to my angels and guides, to the Archangels, to my parents and loved ones in spirit.  I trust I will be given the answers.  I ask specifically for help (you must ask or they won't help) in having the right people and situations put in front of me.  In making the right decisions.  I ask for a neon sign to tell me...because sometimes I just need it.

Recognize the people when you find them.  Hard sometimes.  We have a perception of who we should "be" and who we should hang with.  Let go.  Let in who is supposed to be there and it could be the person you least expect and think you are least like.  I have so many that I love and are part of my tribe that I least expected to be in my life.  And they bring the greatest joy and laughter and they challenge me to think beyond my world and my little spot in the woods.  We all think we know who we are, we should be, who our tribe should be.  We are often surprised at what we thought we would never be that is way cool and part of our soul.

I was in a group in college and then involved with them as an adult again in my late 30s until just about 5 years ago.  A group that puts forth that everyone is accepted, loved, and a member for life.  Until you challenge "the group."  Then the tribe changes and the ones who run the show circle the wagons and decide if you are to remain in the tribe because you stepped away from "Stepford."

And then extinction occurs.  A blessing and a curse but you know that your tribe does not include this vibration, this pathway.  Outgrown and you have risen above but time to move on despite the pang of pain.  It was bittersweet realizing this and seeing them wave goodbye but several years later it is a weight off my shoulders.

My tribe is something that has evolved and changed a lot over the last couple of years.  And I am grateful for it.  Some members I see and talk to all the time, others here and there but they are still my tribe.

My gal pals for lunch last week, my sorority daughters always there for me (and that is a list of very special women), my pal who runs a leadership conference who is an amazing guy that pushes me to raise myself in more ways than I can count, my puppy pals who have been sending kind words of love for Maya's cancer and my heart, my grade school BFFs still around, my work pals of late that seem to have appeared and shared the vision...  my mind races with the people who have been there, who are there, whose love and laughter I enjoy and whose lives enrich and lift mine to new levels.  Sometimes they are people I see often, sometimes rarely.  But they are my tribe members.  I wish there was room to list them all, I wish they all came to mind here at the same time to call out to in profound gratitude.

Call in your tribe, ask the universe for help in bringing in your people.  Create a loving and healthy group of tribe members who love you and support you and enrich and enhance your life.  And do not be afraid to break up with those who do not if it is not working for you.

Thank you tribe, you know who you are... hopefully you know because I've told you my heart is grateful for you.  I am a better person with you and because of you on so many levels.

Namaste tribe members <3

"I bow to the divine in you"