Laurel O'Sullivan, J.D.

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Discerning Your Truth

I use to ask my kids whenever they finished an exam, or came back from a game , "Did you try your hardest?" Not, "did you do your best?", but did you try hard? (emphasis on the hard).

I come from a lineage whose motto has been, "If it's not hard it's not important." I'm grateful my kids chose to be my teachers rather than my students, and chucked my advice, and this aspect of our family lineage, to the curb.

My whole life striving and trying hard has been my mantra—my truth— that I've worn as a badge of honor.

Efforting, and persevering and enduring, these were the things that made me feel resilient and by which I defined myself.

Working hours on school work, going to law school, attending top tier college, scholarship to law school, coming back from a mediocre start to law school to graduate with honors, and on and on. I have always pushed myself.

My kids know something I didn't--it doesn't feel good to always be pushing and making things happen. It isn’t their truth.

We are energetic beings. We attract what we give out. When we are always trying hard, we become hard on ourselves. And then we attract experiences into our life to prove that.

And slowly we start to forget what it felt like when life was full of ease and joy, wonder and possibilities.

“It's better not to be disappointed”, we tell ourselves. So we endure and play it safe and try hard or stay in situations that feel hard or simply forget to invite joy into our life. We start to brace ourselves, to be prepared for the next difficult thing life sends our way. Until we are all “armored up” as Brene Brown describes it.

Starting several years ago, after I got divorced, I made a conscious decision to open myself up to a Second Chance as I liked to call it. To start over in many areas of my life. To allow myself to open up to feeling wonder and curiosity again. To let go of needing to always “try hard.”

And one of the greatest gifts I've come to realize is that It's a choice we make every day how we walk through this world. And how we see the world is largely determined by what we hold to be “true.”

It’s both the simplest and hardest truism that I am learning to share with my coaching clients.

My kids taught me that we all have different purposes, and different truths to discover. What might be true or have felt true for me at one point in time, definitely didn’t feel true for them, because it wasn’t their lesson to learn.

We are ultimately all our responsible for what color glasses we choose to put on every day and see the world with, based on the truths we hold. Because perspective in this lifetime is just about everything. And the gift is that perspectives can change as we change.

Discerning our unique Truths is each of our super powers, if we choose to claim it.

Astrology is one of the tools that has helped me understand my truths, where they came from what shaped them, and to

If you’re interested in learning how you can use astrology to help you Discern your Life Purpose, then check out my new Course: 7 Steps to Letting Go of Your Fear of Change & Becoming the Hero You Were Born to Be.