Sunday Seeds of Thought: Your Life Is Not in the Waiting Room

Dr. Carmela Maxell: Happy Sunday, my beautiful people, and welcome back to another Sunday Seeds of Thought on Rooted in Rising with Dr. Carmela Maxell. Now, before we get started, I have a question for you. How long are you planning to keep putting your own life on hold? No, seriously. Because some of y'all have been sitting in the waiting room of your own lives for so long that I'm starting to wonder if you brought snacks, a phone charger, and a change of clothes. And listen. I'm not judging. I've had a reserve seat in that waiting room myself. Waiting until work slows down. Waiting until the kids get older. Waiting until there's more money in the bank. Waiting until somebody finally figures out whether they want to be in your life or not. Waiting until your body looks a certain way. Waiting until you're less tired. Less overwhelmed, less afraid. Waiting, waiting, waiting. And before you know it, you've spent six months, a year, maybe even five years, preparing to live a life you haven't actually allowed yourself to enjoy. Baby, at some point, you've got to get up out of that chair. And here's the thing: we have somehow convinced ourselves that happiness is a reward we receive after we've accomplished enough. That joy is something we earn. That we're only allowed to feel fulfilled when everything is finally in its proper place. But who made that rule? Who decided that you can't be a work in progress and still have a wonderful life? Who told you that you couldn't be healing from heartbreak and still fall in love with a beautiful Saturday afternoon? Who said you couldn't be stressed about your finances and still laugh until your stomach hurts? Or that you couldn't be uncertain about your future and still be excited about tomorrow. Two things can be true at once. You can be exhausted and grateful. You can be afraid and courageous. You can miss someone and still enjoy the company of somebody new. You can have absolutely no idea what you're doing next and still be doing something right. And I think that's where we get ourselves into trouble. We confuse uncertainty with permission to stop living. We tell ourselves, once I figure this out, then I'll be happy. But life doesn't work like that. Because once you figure that out, something else is going to happen. The car is going to need tires. Somebody's going to send you an email that should have been a two minute conversation. Your child is going to remember at nine forty seven Sunday night that they need a poster board for school tomorrow. And somebody somewhere is going to have the audacity to schedule a meeting that could have been an email. That's life. It's messy, it's inconvenient, it's unpredictable, and sometimes it's downright disrespectful. But it is still yours. And I want you to hear me when I say this. You do not have to have everything figured out to deserve a beautiful experience right now. You don't have to wait until you lose the weight to buy the outfit. You don't have to wait until you're in a relationship to go somewhere romantic. You don't have to wait until you get promoted to celebrate how hard you've worked. And you certainly don't have to wait for somebody else to recognize your worth before you start recognizing it yourself. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Okay, Carmella, that's cute, but I have actual responsibilities. And yes, so do I. I'm not telling you to abandon your responsibilities, max out your credit cards, and book a spontaneous trip to the Maldives. Although, listen, if somebody wants to sponsor that trip, I am available. What I'm saying is that somewhere between surviving and succeeding, we've forgotten that we're also supposed to be experiencing life, not just managing it, not just scheduling it. Not just documenting it in a calendar with 17 different color-coded categories, actually experiencing it. And sometimes that means doing something simply because it makes you happy, without explaining it, without justifying it, without turning it into a productivity goal. You can go to the gym because you love how you feel afterward, not because you're punishing yourself for what you ate yesterday. You can take yourself to dinner. Because you enjoy your own company. You can try something new and be absolutely terrible at it. You can dance in your kitchen. You can flirt a little. You can laugh a lot. You can let yourself be surprised by something wonderful without immediately trying to figure out how it's going to end. Ooh, and that last one? That one's for me too. Because sometimes we're so busy anticipating the disappointment. That we forget to appreciate the moment. We start rehearsing endings to stories that are still being written. And I don't know about you, but I'm tired of giving imaginary disasters so much of my real life energy. So here's your Sunday seed for today. Stop treating life like it's a dress rehearsal. This is not the practice round. There isn't some magical future version of you who finally gets permission to enjoy everything you've worked so hard to build. There's just you, right now, with your responsibilities, your dreams, your complicated relationships, your unanswered questions, your laundry that is probably still sitting in the dryer, and your one beautiful imperfect. Unpredictable life. So this week, I want you to do one thing. Not because you have to, not because somebody needs you to, not because it makes you more productive, more desirable, or more accomplished. Do something simply because you want to feel alive. And when that little voice starts telling you that you should wait until things settle down. Remind yourself that life isn't waiting for you to become ready. It's already happening. And you deserve to be present for it. And you know what else? I think sometimes we become so accustomed to surviving that we don't even recognize when we finally have an opportunity to live. Think about that for a second. You spend years trying to get through something a difficult marriage, a demanding job, financial struggles. Raising children, losing people you love, rebuilding yourself after somebody made you question everything you thought you knew. And you tell yourself, When I get through this, I'll be alright. But then you get through it. And instead of celebrating, you start looking around for the next disaster. Because somewhere along the way, you became so good at preparing for things to go wrong that you forgot how to let things go right. Whew. And listen, I'm talking to myself here too. Because sometimes peace feels unfamiliar when you've spent so much time managing chaos. Sometimes happiness feels suspicious. Something wonderful happens, and instead of saying, Wow, this is beautiful, your brain immediately launches a full scale investigation. Okay, but what's the catch? How long is this going to last? Is this too good to be true? Baby, can we just enjoy one thing without turning it into a forensic investigation? Not everything beautiful is a setup for disappointment. Not every good moment needs to be analyzed until you've squeezed every ounce of joy out of it. And not every experience needs to become a lesson. Sometimes the lesson is simply that you are allowed to be. That's it. No hidden meaning, no dramatic plot twist. No character development arc that requires you to cry in your car at 6:30 on a Tuesday evening. Just happiness. And I think we need to get comfortable with that. Because here's something I've been thinking about lately. What if the life you've been waiting for isn't some distant destination? What if pieces of it are already happening? What if it's in the conversations that make you laugh until you can't breathe? The music you turn up a little too loud on your drive home. The mornings where you wake up and realize, for once, your mind is quiet. The unexpected connection. The new hobby you never thought you'd enjoy. The little moments when you catch yourself smiling for absolutely no reason. What if those aren't distractions from the life you're trying to build? What if those moments are the life? And that's what I want you to carry into this week. You don't have to abandon your ambitions. You don't have to pretend that everything is wonderful when it isn't. But please stop postponing every opportunity to experience joy until you've checked every box on some imaginary list. Because I promise you, that list will never be finished. There will always be another responsibility, another problem to solve, another email to answer. Another bill to pay. And yes, probably another load of laundry. That laundry is never going anywhere, by the way. I've accepted that as a permanent member of my household. But your time, your time is not unlimited. And I don't say that to scare you. I say it because I want you to recognize how precious it is. I want you to stop apologizing for wanting more than just getting through the day. I want you to experience something wonderful without immediately wondering whether you deserve it. I want you to take the picture, wear the outfit, make the reservation, try the class, say yes to the adventure. And if it doesn't work out, well, at least you participated in your own life. At least you gave yourself the opportunity to experience something instead of standing on the sidelines wondering what might have happened. Sometime this week, I want you to catch yourself saying, I'll do that when, and I want you to stop right there. Ask yourself, What exactly am I waiting for? And if the answer is fear, perfection, somebody else's approval, or some imaginary version of your life where nothing ever goes wrong, maybe it's time to get up out of that waiting room. Because you know what? Your name. has already been called. You've just been too busy waiting for the perfect moment to hear it. And I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in spending another year sitting in a chair flipping through outdated magazines, waiting for somebody to tell me it's finally my turn. It's my turn now. And it's yours too. So go live a little. Actually, scratch that. Go live a lot. You have a whole life happening right in front of you. Don't miss it because you're too busy waiting for a different one. And as always, take care of yourselves, take care of one another, stay rooted in who you are, and keep rising into who you're becoming. Until next time.