Be careful what you wish for.  For weeks, I have been walking through life looking for a sign.  God, where are the “aha” moments when everything becomes clear and I see the path of the journey that’s ahead of me.  Where is the light to shine on the road so it doesn’t look so dark and I know which way to turn?  As I’ve been asking for this big sign, I’ve been hearing other things resonate in my life.  Fill up your own cup.  Be responsible for your energy. Listen. Pay attention. Slow down. You know what to do.  You’ve got this.  All the while, looking for the next clue to energize my soul and push me in the right direction. But the real truth is…I always move in the right direction. I just don’t always trust it. I’m not sure that I’ve ever trusted it.

This journey with TDO has been one of ebbs and flows. Finding gratitude in the friendships and working through worthiness in the process.  The vision has changed many times but what I once thought was my journey to help OWN and Oprah has shifted a little.  While it is wonderful to have Gayle King and O Magazine notice your writing and while it is fantastic to have Oprah Winfrey and her team drop your name in a meeting from time to time or put you on a list to meet her…the truth is for 18 months, we’ve been filling up all the cups that we have strategically placed all around us and forgotten to fill up our own…and literally, as I write this, my writing partner and sister is sitting with an IV in her arm having her cup filled up…because together, we have disregarded ourselves but made sure everyone else in our lives and in our work was taken care of…even when they didn’t ask for help or may not even notice we were there.  It’s in this ebb and flow of trying to figure out how we matter in the world that we realized we forgot to answer the question, where are we in all of this? The truth is, we didn’t even ask the question. Through all the giving out and pouring energy into life and out into the world, we missed our own cups… and it doesn’t really even matter if gratitude and accolades come your way…you have to fill up your own cup. Nobody really knows what you need except you.

We began this journey because we listened to a whisper and we took the leap.  We heard, “Just do this…” so we did and my loving sister moved along the path with me, hand in hand.  Soulmates in the journey.  Going in to a world unknown.  Novice bloggers.  Hearts of writers.  Minds of philosophers. Faith of adventurers.  Finding lessons along the way to spill inspiration out into the world and share the experience.  Soaking up any gratitude we can to keep us going.  There have been nights that my sister and I have had passionate brainstorming discussions of how everyone else should move into the future, solving all the problems of the world over red vines and banana chips with no one listening.  Recently, I realized…we need to be having these discussions about ourselves and how we should move into our own future… This energy and passion need to fill our own cups first…a concept that is so foreign and against the grain in our lives that it’s hard to write about, let alone put into practice.

There is a reason for every journey and everything that happens in your life. Sometimes it’s not clear in the moment and you may not understand it until years later.  Sometimes you think you are helping someone else…when really, you just might be helping yourself. I didn’t realize that my cup was empty until my sister was told her cup was empty in the doctor’s office.  Literally …she needs to fill up her own self through an infusion because she’s sick.  When this happened, it felt like the wind was knocked out of me…because it was knocked out of her…and we are soulmates, on this TDO journey together.

Sometimes, what was once a clear vision becomes a little blurry.  When this happens, watch and listen carefully because your life is always speaking to you and maybe the blur is just a readjustment of the lens as it tries to help you focus on what you need to do…and what, in life, is really important.  You.