The popular game of my teenage years, Two Truths and a Lie, captures humanity in a nutshell.

The way the game works is you share in a group two truths and lie about yourself with hopes of stumping the others. I have participated in it during ice breakers in college and at jobs as well as at the occasional late night gathering with friends old and new.

If the people playing don’t know each other that well, the game is played relying a lot on assumptions about who that person is, who they are similar to in your life, and what “group” they belong to (e.g., racial, political, economical). A lot of mental gymnastics is performed to see if what that person says makes sense in relation to those three aspects.

Minds are blown when the person reveals that one of the truths or the lie is seemingly not in line with who this person is based on those assumptions.

The fact is, we all have these seemingly contradicting truths and facts about us that fall outside the realm of what “makes sense.” But we are humans and we do not fit neatly into demographic profiles.

Looking up at the almost full moon, my mom said, “Do you see that ring around the moon? It means it is going to rain.”

There was not a cloud in the sky and then, about 1.5 hours later, there was a torrential downpour accompanied by thunder and lightning.

This knowledge was not something she read in a book but from simple observation over time. Observation and a connection to nature that we don’t have in our modern day culture.

It is bits of this wisdom from my mom that remind me I have so much to learn from her and from Mother Nature.

Give yourself room to breathe.

Most days feel like there is more giving than receiving.

You have permission to take back some of your space, whether that be brain space, physical space or emotional space.

Almost nothing needs to be as rushed as it feels.

Settle in, stretch and breathe.