The reason yesterday’s quote hit me was because I’ve been off the last couple of months—holidays, work, all of the craziness.  I’ve enjoyed the holidays and I’ve put on some weight again as I haven’t been working out quite as much and I’ve been eating way too much sugar.  I took time at the beginning of the month and I had put down specific dates and goals and I fell off track with that too.  It’s not an excuse, it is a fact of life that I had to prioritize other tasks for a while.  And a little more truth: I don’t regret it.  There will only be so many more Christmases I have with my family and the family already isn’t whole.  There will only be so many more days that my son asks me to sleep on the couch with him or to cuddle with him in the morning.  There will only be so many more times I can have all those people I had over to be able to tell them I love them and I’m glad they’re here with me.  In addition to these very real realities, it’s no secret that I’ve felt off as well.  At first it was a quiet little trigger kind of telling me that things were a bit imbalanced.  Now it’s becoming a louder demand to refocus the work.  I feel it in me that now is the time to start moving along the track again, to get clear on what the purpose is moving forward and take actions. 

I was feeling a little guilty for the things I haven’t been doing if I’m fully honest, and thinking about all the craziness around me and I happened to be listening to a reading about letting go of control amidst some newly found chaos. Right as I’m thinking about this reading, a post from Loren comes up talking about the day she started to write her book. That was a subtle but firm reminder from the universe that it is time for me to focus on the projects that mean the most to me.  Yesterday I shared what Bishoi said about staying on track while on vacation, and I feel like I’ve been on a long vacation from the work I’ve wanted to do.  I’ve maintained my daily routines, but the big picture has been put on hold. There was a purpose to taking that time to enjoy one of my favorite times of year with my family and to show them all a good time, to brighten their day.  I was able to do it so I did it and I am so proud of what I did.  So I’m not going to beat myself up about it because I still have the drive to meet these goals. What I’m going to do is reprioritize and focus on what needs to be done to reach the place I want to be.  And, as I said yesterday, I’m not going to look at this as a derailing—it was a pause.

There are so many moments I feel more tired than energized.  Getting up early to do this work, working all day, driving home for an hour, cleaning up, making sure I spend time with my family—the clock gets eaten up pretty quickly and I so often find myself asking what happened to the day.  But my plan is to start focusing heavy on what I need to do now so I can spend the next holiday season with even more intention than I did this year.  So I can take some time off in the summer and really enjoy it.  Do the work now to set myself up for something bigger to come.  I can push through the tired working toward a bigger goal.  There are 24 hours in a day and I know I can shift things around to make my bigger plans work. We are allowed to take the time we need to do what we need to do, it’s ok to take some time to prioritize other things—life happens and we aren’t meant to be a machine.  But we get ourselves back on track when we know that’s what we need to do—be accountable to ourselves and our goals and it all comes together.     

“If I reach a milestone that I feel is worthy of time off, then what am I vacationing from?…if I’m going to stay as unbalanced as I am with fitness then I’m going to be just as unbalanced in my time off,” Bishoi Khella.  Khella shares this in the context of taking a week long vacation to Mexico and people asking him how he is going to stay on track with his fitness. His reply was that he is not going to stay on track, he’s going to enjoy his time, not track his food, he will drink, he won’t get up early to workout, and he is going to spend time on the beach.  That is the entire point of vacation—to take a break from the norm and allow the mind and body to recharge by not doing what we normally do.  It’s to see something and do something new.  It’s to feel good trying new things and tasting something different.  We can’t look at the time away from a goal as time wasted or as something that will entirely derail us.  It’s more of a pause.  We only get derailed if we completely stop working.  Otherwise those little pauses are more about routine maintenance than anything.

I work with a team of people who are at different points in their lives.  They are younger than me and they have different life circumstances that allow them different freedoms than I have.  I’m also more established and have different opportunities than they have—I also have a family that relies on me and a 20 year long career that requires care and patience to determine my next step.  Balancing all that is a challenge and they tend to look at the things I’ve listed above as an excuse.  These people have their own challenges, but they solve those problems by never turning off.  I’ve seen that lead directly to burnout—I’ve worked like that for years so I’ve also felt that burnout personally.  There never was a milestone I could reach that allowed me to take a break—I was ALWAYS on.  And then I had to be on when other people were off.  Then I had to be on SO other people could take off.  I have seen the power of a project consume people, the power of a lifestyle take over.  In some cases that’s a good thing because we learn to develop it into something massive.  In other cases we lose ourselves to something that can never yield the return we need and it will always demand more. 

So here is the point: we are all worthy of taking the time we need to recharge.  We are all allowed to take a moment to appreciate where we’ve gotten and what it took to get there.  Taking a break, reaching a point where we acknowledge the need to take some time to ourselves away from all of the craziness we endure on a daily basis doesn’t make us weak and it doesn’t mean we are giving up.  It means we are human and need some time.  Sometimes the only way to stay balanced is to allow ourselves to get a little imbalanced.  Allow the brain to work through the proprioception of our location and establish a new equilibrium so we remember that we aren’t machines.  Take the time to be human in the pursuit of our goals.  We need to make sure that progress is measurable but we don’t need to fixate.  We need to know the point when we have to stop and take a break.  This isn’t a limit, it’s about maintenance as I said earlier.  We give ourselves the time we need to recharge and then we get back at it with new energy, new dedication, and a new perspective.  So get in touch with what we need and honor those things that may require us to take a pause but ultimately help us get back on track.        

We recently found out that the president of my 9-5 is leaving.  I couldn’t have anticipated the emotional reaction I had.  At first I was just in shock and a little angry because we’ve been through hell these last few years dealing with this merger immediately after the nightmare of COVID—and it was like you’re choosing to leave now?  Why?  After all that, now you pick up and go?  It really did feel like this utter sense of abandonment and hopelessness mixed with the shock of it.  Of course rumors started immediately; was he asked to leave?  Did he not get along with the new leadership in place?  They replaced him with an employee from the organization that bought us out so was this him stepping down because of “infiltration” so to speak?  We all know there were reasons and he was kind enough to share some of them with us—but I feel there is more to the story, as grateful as I am that he did take the time to share. 

What I didn’t expect was that behind that anger was actually sadness.  I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with this organization in my tenure there.  20 years is a long time to spend with anyone and It’s completely natural to have some ups and downs.  Some were down more than others.  But it has never been lost on me that this place also kept a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my stomach, and allowed me to go through school twice—for my bachelors and then for my LMT.  I was born there.  My son was born there.  My grandparents died there.  I walked away from that place once and it took me back at a time I legitimately needed it to—a new baby and a contract ending, I needed work and it was there.  Plus I actually like this president—he’s a good person and he took time to meet with everyone.  I’ve sat in his office with proposals for my department, I joked with him, I listened to his speeches and believed him. 

There is also sadness that this place that was independent for so long has lost its identity over the last few years because of this merger, and our president leaving speaks volumes to the fact that we no longer are who we were.  He was the last link to what we formerly knew and I know in my gut that part of the reason he is leaving is that this merger didn’t go how he felt it would.  Regardless of all that, I didn’t expect to shed tears over this.  As he stood crying telling us his reasons for leaving, I understood.  And I felt sad too.  Like him, this place is really all I’ve known.  I’ve worked there nearly my entire adult life, same as him.  He had the calling to do something different and to take a more creative opportunity and he said he wants to write a new chapter in his book—and I asked how we know when it’s time to move on and write that new chapter.  But I think I get it now: we just know.  When we see what we’ve wanted and that we can’t get it where we’re at and our goals are stagnate, we know it’s time to turn the page and start over again—or at least add to the book.

So, feelings are complicated, truly.  I’ve worked myself silly for that place and lost out on a lot because of it.  I’ve settled for things because of that place because, while I’m comfortable, I am well aware they got a deal with me because I didn’t understand my worth.  But I KNOW that place and I know who I am when I’m there even if that is a part of me I’m trying to change.  The funny thing is when change is thrust upon us we get disoriented and struggle to adjust—even if it’s a change we were looking to make.  When we change on our own it’s usually a gradual thing.  I take it as a good sign that the changes I’ve been working on were already in the works and I’m a firm believer that sometimes we have to take the leap before we are ready, it’s still a struggle when we have to dive in before we are ready.  And I’ve been writing my book for so long that I lost sight of when it was time to start a new chapter—it’s been one long run on story forever.  Thanks to this change in part of my identity, I too understand it’s time to write a new chapter.  It’s time to do something new.

One of my favorite games in the world is “What If?”  I’ve shared it here in old posts and it’s time to bring it out again.  We’re in 2025 and the last 5 years have shown us all that ANYTHING is possible whether it be the most magical experience of our lives or the biggest nightmare that makes it feel like we aren’t living in reality—a twilight zone.  The time has come, however, to take control of that game again and start looking at possibilities in a different way.  This game covers any spectrum of idea from reading a book to leaving a job to moving to buying an RV to travel all over the country to leaving our partner to finding the right partner to picking up a pen and writing a book or opening a laptop and searching for help.  “What If?”  is an amazing gift and we were given not only the brain to imagine such things, but the capacity to fulfill it and make it happen if we so choose.  We overcomplicate so much with control and trying to anticipate every step along the way when all we really need to do is allow ourselves to get carried away every now and then.

So, my list: What if I publish my book sooner than I anticipated?  What if I find a new job?  What if my current job allows me to work from home more?  What if my husband gets a new job that affords me more time to focus on my projects?  What if we created the coolest space imaginable in our basement?  What if my garden becomes highly productive this year?  What if my work goes viral?  What if I get my first speaking gig?  What if we were able to go on that dream vacation to Universal this year?  What if my business takes off within the next few months?  What if I hit every milestone on my health goal?  What if I fall in love with this life as it is?  What if I stop pushing so hard to do all things at the same time and just focused on one main goal?  What if a new opportunity opens up where I’m at?  What if I look at the space differently and realize that certain facets of what I do are enjoyable—and what if those enjoyable pieces become a new opportunity for me?  What if this limbo is the sign I am looking for that it’s time to move on and write that new chapter?  What if we picked up the family business again? 

I ask myself what each of those scenarios feels like for me and it feels like freedom—any of them.  It feels like hope and possibility and something I want to make tangible.  I mean, I have ADD and OCD so sometimes this game can lead me down the path of future tripping and thinking about how to make each scenario happen—and I can talk myself out of each one of them just as quickly as I can imagine them.  But we play this game to realize the abundance we have, specifically the abundance of opportunity we have, and then to find what feels right to us.  Because the truth is that anything can happen.  Life is unpredictable in some regards, and people certainly have their moments of unpredictability as well so there really isn’t anything we should discount.  If it pops into our heads, then it’s a possibility.  Take some time to play what if—feel free to share the what if’s in your life here! 

“What’s funny about doubt?  We’re not born with it, it’s developed,” Loren Ridinger.  We need to remember this because anything we learn we can unlearn.  And if we have the habit of doubt, if we allow doubt to creep in over anxiety and fear, we need to ask why.  We need to evaluate what it is that gives us the illusion that we are out of control, powerless to not believing in ourselves.  Because when we have that doubt, it spreads like poison throughout our mind, body, and soul.  Doubt developed as a way to control people.  I’d like to say that it is innate but that isn’t true.  When we failed at something we would instinctively try again or we’d look for another way to do it or even ask for help.  We start to doubt ourselves when we hold ourselves to the standards someone else sets for us and when we feel there is only one right way to do something.  We doubt when we really just need to proceed with caution and look at all the information.  We need to control and eliminate this emotion because all it does is hold us back.  And once we plant that seed of doubt, it grows unbelievably quickly like a vine entwining itself throughout our entire being, tying us to the wall.

As I said, whatever we can learn we can unlearn.  It is up to us how we frame an event or an emotion.  It takes a lot of practice to sit with something and ask ourselves what it is and what we really feel.  For example, has anyone ever expressed anger when what they really felt was sadness?  Absolutely.  What about frustration when we really feel desperate for something to work out?  Of course.  So, what if we have labeled insecurity as doubt or fear and what we really need to focus on is building ourselves up enough to prove to ourselves we can handle anything that comes our way?  Eliminate the insecurity because insecurity is the pathway to doubt.  We need to practice keeping our word to ourselves and I can attest to that first hand.  As soon as we start to let ourselves off the hook for things because we don’t feel like doing it, it becomes a slippery slope of lowering that bar we talked about last week.  When we do what we say, we learn what we are capable of, the more we show ourselves what we are capable of, the less we have time or room for doubt. 

The mind is a really cool thing when we stop to look at it.  It’s a grey mass, a lump of tissue that has neurons and synapses firing through it and it is literally the operating system for our entire body—and even cooler, it tells us how we feel about it and how to get to a certain thought or feeling.  It tracks what we do, it remembers and we can access that memory.  Even cooler is our ability to channel the energy, the very palpable energy, generated by the brain toward specific goals—we transfer a simple neuron firing into a trigger for action throughout the body.  If we can learn how to do that we can train ourselves to learn anything.  Don’t let doubt be the marker that keeps us where we’re at.  Ask where it’s really coming from and address the source.  Most of the time we can find the source with some effort and address it head on.  We dig up that seed and put it where it belongs: in the garbage.  If it’s no longer there, it can no longer wind its way through our mind.  Once we remove that source and doubt no longer creeps into our lives, the path is clear and we realize there was never really anything funny about it at all and we could remove it all along. 

Today I am grateful for a reality check.   Unexpected things happen all the time and we had a doozy thrust upon us this week at my 9-5.  Change, even if you think you see it coming, can still be unexpected.  The change we thought was coming happens but it is completely different than what we thought it would be.  I’m not entirely shocked as much as I am completely blown away so it’s an odd feeling.  And I will talk about it more later in the week because I need some time to process this now, but it feels like part of my identity was just taken away.  Yes, I know, I often use my 9-5 as an example of what I don’t like, but I’m seeing things a bit differently.  It’s hard when the symbol of something you’ve know nearly your entire adult life is suddenly taken away.  It’s hard when you were afraid something like that was coming and then it happens in the most unexpected time.  But when big change happens and shakes things up, it’s a chance for us to reorient ourselves based on where we are at and what we want to do.  Yes, it will test us to the point of fight or flight.  Yes, it is scary even if part of you was prepared for it (I was honestly already actively working on transitions in my life).  Yes, it’s sad to lose something that you thought was a possibility for the future/a possible way the future could go.  Sometimes the path of least resistance is a slide and it’s taking us all the way down, away from the top after the climb.  Sometimes we have to take the scarier path to keep going up.

Today I am grateful for truth.  Always and forever, I will be grateful for truth.  No matter how much it may hurt, I would rather know exactly where I stand with someone than believe we have a certain type of relationship only to be devastated to find that’s not the case.  I’ve had an inkling for a while about some people close to me whom I considered near and dear to my heart, an inkling that told me something was off and that we weren’t on the same page with this relationship.  I’ve had confirmation of just that within the last 48 hours.  Relationships can be a slippery slope—they are complicated and we all have different dynamics and experiences that make for potential issues with interpretation.  There are constant decisions whether we are working toward the same thing or if we are on the periphery of each other’s lives or if we are passing through.  Relationships change—and I have learned that I need to make a new decision regarding the type of relationship I have with some friendships around me.  And that’s ok.  I don’t want people around me under false pretenses or if they feel obligated and I don’t want people around me who only use me.  I’ve met some friends, people I never thought I’d see eye to eye with, and they have shown me a new level of truth and respect, a new level of aspiration—going for goals without malice or fear, but encouragement.  Not fixated on the negative or looking for the next wrong thing—but people who want to advance and move on and tell a new story—one that isn’t solely about them.  And I let them be.  

Today I am grateful for Love.  I’m understanding on a much deeper level how important love is to keeping life rolling and things healthy.  When we feel drained and exhausted by those around us we aren’t able to keep up with the day to day of life let alone other demands on our time.  Any demand that doesn’t align with who we are takes time away from the things we need to be focusing on.  Things we don’t do out of love, but obligation, become tiresome, and that translates to our live feeling tiresome.  When we get in that state of mind, we lose sight of the blessings around us—and the blessings around us are infinite, even in the thick of pain or trouble or annoyance or any of the other million and one problems we have/create in our lives.  But when we operate out of love, everything becomes clear.  Love isn’t just the warm, fuzzy, casual “love” thrown around where we feel a momentary thrill pass through us—love is a driver.  The reality is love is a state of mind, not just an emotion.  When we enter that state it’s easy to see possibility and joy and flow.  We create in love.   

Today I am grateful for work.  I’ve been peeling away the layers of the things I like doing versus the things I feel obligated to do.  We so often say that we hate doing work but the truth is we hate doing work that isn’t fulfilling.  If what we are doing doesn’t resonate with us, it feels exhausting and motivation is nothing more than to get the task done.  But when we are focused on something that has purpose, will enters the picture and suddenly we have a desire to do the work.  Humans are capable of amazing things.  I’m watching my husband tackle a project he has never done before and he’s doing it beautifully—like it’s innate to him.  I’ve watched him take on projects before and the thing I sincerely admire most about him is his ability to DO.  He has an ability to understand things that is unparalleled when he sees it one time.  It sticks in his brain.  As I’m getting older I fear I am losing that level of elasticity in my mind, but I digress.  I find I am still able to focus and do the work that calls to me, the work that makes sense.  I also had a realization that I’ve been forcing myself to do things I don’t necessarily want to do just so I can prove I can do it.  Like, I want to be strong, but do I really need to be able to lift an armoire on my own?  It’s cool, but I would rather apply my skills and time to my writing/business etc.   My goal isn’t about proving anything anymore—I don’t want to show the world that I can do anything and everything.  I want to do the work that holds meaning and be a creator, not just a do-er.  And when I’m in the middle of that work, life feels different.  I like the work that creates stability in my environment, that allows me to create the environment that I love.  I don’t need to be the strongest, biggest or the -est of anything.  I just need to be me, do the work I love, and feel the reward of that effort.  Do what feels right. Make time for that.  That is the work worth doing.

Today I am grateful for standards and metrics.  This one I am struggling with but my gratitude for it is real.  I’ve operated for too long in ambiguity where I have a general idea of what I want to do and I work a little bit toward everything every day.  That’s all I’ve known.  I try to fit in what I like to do in the time I have available when my brain thinks of it.  I’ve realized how hard it is to lead whether it is in our own lives toward goals or leading others.  Leading is about guidance and influence rather than sheer force.  It’s about clarity and level setting and understanding where we are at in relation to where we want to be and then knowing how to close the gap.  I always felt I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be—and I do—but I was always fuzzy on the how to get there.  I wasn’t sure of what the RPAs looked like to ensure that I was heading in the right direction and the work I was doing was meaningful.  I did a beautiful job planning out my January—like I am really proud of the work that I did and put down on paper.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stick to a lot of that even though it was really specific.  I had put down too many things for each day, I overestimated what I could do in my time, and I also gave in to temptation too often.  I spent some time this past weekend working on developing a better plan with clear metrics so I’d know if I was meeting my goals.  I’m still struggling with putting down the timeline for these goals, but I have a better idea of the work I need to do to get there.  I have a better vision of what I need the day to day to look like.  When we have a clear vision of who we want to be and what we want our lives to look like, when we find that inspiration, it’s easier to know when we hit a milestone.  I’m grateful to have a tool so I know my efforts are meaningful and progressive. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

“Instead of taking ownership and saying I fucked up and I’ll do better moving forward, you change the standard, you drop the bar so low you end up with [nothing]. It happens so gradually you don’t even notice it.  So hold the standard, even in those seemingly insignificant little things.  Stop lowering the bar to meet your current level of effort,” Bishoi Khella.  Yesterday we talked about not shrinking to fit in and this goes right along with it—don’t change our standards when things get rough.  Don’t become something we are not, don’t make it easier for ourselves because we either fear we can’t do it or the thing we love becomes a little less convenient.  One mistake isn’t a reason to derail anything we’ve done so don’t let one mistake become another and another until nothing remains of what we want to become.  Each time we allow ourselves off the hook (with the exception of when we physically ACTUALLY need a break), we lose accountability over what we are trying to accomplish.  We push off what can be done today until tomorrow because we’re comfortable now.  But then tomorrow becomes today and suddenly today becomes tomorrow over and over again.  We learn we can’t hold ourselves to our word. 

The dreams we want will not create themselves.  We are powerful creatures and we can do a lot of things, but we can’t make something out of nothing.  The ironic thing is we can turn something into nothing if we continue to ignore what we need to do.  This is the smallest box we can think of.  We know we’re meant for more and we know the space is already too tight but we still try to force ourselves to stay tiny even though all it takes is standing up.  Admit when we want to sit for a minute—I’m not advocating for senseless overdrive and burnout.  We need to know when it’s time to get back up and we need to actually do it.  Don’t bring the bar down to our level unless we are going to use it to stand up and then raise it back where it needs to be.  When we keep it there, that’s when we get in trouble.  No, change isn’t easy, but when we make it non-negotiable and we take responsibility and authority for it, suddenly it’s all in our hands and everything we want opens up for us.  And yes, even the little things matter.  So stay the course, every single day.  Our integrity and commitment will get us where we want to be—and we are the only ones who know what we’re doing when no one else is watching.  Don’t betray ourselves for the sake of a chance to put in less effort.  Just put in the max effort we can when we can, give 100% of what we’ve got even if all we’ve got is 25%, and we will never regret it.     

“Change is hard but staying in the places you’ve outgrown is destroying you.  It’s making you not trust yourself.  The truth is the magic happens when you stop shrinking into places you no longer fit—you’re bigger than that,” JB Copeland.  Oh how we make ourselves adapt and change and play the game instead of calling the shots ourselves.  We are inherently creative and that isn’t meant to be caged.  Guided and developed, yes, but not altered for consumption. The change I spoke of yesterday is the deepest level of unbecoming that we can think of.  Most people aren’t able to handle full expression because we have attached so much and so many different meanings to how we are supposed to act and interpreting behavior rather than outright asking what someone meant by something.  We are so jaded with self-importance to a degree that we expect everyone to know everything we mean anytime we say it. We’ve allowed ourselves to believe that just because we have the ability to share our thoughts at all times that we need to—and that people will understand everything we say from our frame of reference. The human mind doesn’t work like that.

The opposite is true as well—trying so hard to put ourselves in a box that we lose who we are in favor of appeasing others.  When we cage ourselves into the definition others have of us we lose all creative space.  Here’s the thing, the stuff we tell ourselves we do out of necessity becomes a cage as well.  I’m guilty of it too.  I adore my home, I love this life I’ve created but I really struggle with my 9-5 but I absolutely need that work if I’m going to continue to live in this home with this lifestyle.  Can I make changes that feel like a better fit?  Of course, but there is the risk of losing the pieces that I really like as well.  The trick is to discern between what is serving and what isn’t—and that requires knowing what we’re going for and who we are.  One lesson I’ve learned is that staying where we are if we have a desire for something else absolutely sucks.  We waste time doing the things we think we need to do to maintain something that isn’t fully us.  I can attest to that.  It’s only recently that I’ve understood what it means to let go of how we defined ourselves.  I thought I needed to have an entirely new version, a new person in place in order for me to move on, but the truth is change is a gradual thing.  Not to say there aren’t life-changing events, but more often it’s the little things we do on a daily basis that have the biggest impact.

So when we wake up and we don’t feel like the life we’ve created fits, when we get the urge to do something different—do it.  I’ve had issues getting up and ready for work the last couple of weeks to the point where I have actually ended up leaving the house late.  Like I’m creating unnecessary stress and scrambling because I can’t get myself moving toward what I used to do.  It used to be no issue to see the time and just stop what I’ve been doing and get ready for the day.  Now, it’s harder and harder to pull away.  I’d be lying if I said the vision is 100% clear because there are still a lot of factors at play here, factors that don’t involve just me.  But I am well aware of what I am able to do and I am taking more time to do the things that make sense for me and my family.  I know the little things that we’ve been working on are difficult but it’s more of a discomfort.  We can get past discomfort.  We can’t get past missed time to do and be who we are.  If we know something isn’t working or doesn’t feel right, then we need to make different decisions and undertake the change that will get us where we want to be.  

My experience with the song I spoke about yesterday has me fixated on that type of expression—the raw completeness of it.  It got me thinking about music in general.  Most humans have a deep connection and appreciation for music because of its ability to move, evoke, and express emotion.  Sound alone creates healing and as far back as we can see, humans have utilized sound for just that reason as well as for celebration, notification, inspiration, and for sheer fun.  I’ve always loved music intensely.  From the time I was a kid, I used to sing.  On the nights I would go with my parents to play cards, my dad would often bring his guitar and I remember singing along with everything he and my uncle would play—I almost couldn’t stop myself.  Days I would go to work with my dad we would always sing in the car—perhaps not well, but I was always compelled to sing.  My mother and I would dance more than we would sing but that same level of compulsion to move the body was there.  I remember at any wedding we would go to I’d end up dancing with my mom because she loved it so much and I loved it too.  I’d actually dance with my grandmother too and she used to sing in church all the time.

I shared my gratitude for music this past weekend for its ability to say what I haven’t always been able to say.  There is a very real emotional and spiritual connection to music.  Tell me you’ve never been absolutely moved by something you’ve heard, something that stopped you in your tracks, something that clicked and connected to a feeling you’ve had or wanted to have.  Music truly is the highest form of expression as it is nearly universally understood.  Perhaps sound in general.  It falls right into what we’ve always talked about with frequency and vibration.  Tesla’s understanding of the numeric equivalents with sound, and how we’ve developed our understanding of the harmonics, tones, undertones, melodies, and timing of it.  Sound isn’t just noise—it is language.  Ancient humans understood this and it’s why we still use sound to calm ourselves, our children, and even animals respond.  Think of the soundtrack to any movie and imagine the scenes played out without that music.  Would you feel the same way? Would it have the same meaning?

The point of what I shared yesterday was the desire for that level of expression.  The need to be able to share exactly what I was feeling rather than dance around it or hint at it—but to outright say it exactly as it is.  To share the desire for desire itself and no shame in that feeling.  We have a shared humanity and there are things we all feel deeply.  There is no need to beat around the bush about it.  We have lived in a world of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, imagery, and imagination—and there is NOTHING wrong with that.  That, too, is the magic of human creativity.  But what we need more of now is an understanding that the direct expression of the real emotion we have is just as beautiful.  We don’t need to make it sound a certain way—we just have to talk about it as it is—we let it be what it is.  I’ve twisted and manipulated my words to make them sound a certain way because I thought I had to imply rather than show.  I was a fan of the classics and thought it was, I don’t know, classier to suggest a theme than be blunt. 

I think I wanted to dive deeper into this because I’m working on changing this facet of my personality—I want to be more direct with people.  Not in a mean way, but in a clear way that fosters more connection.  The dancing around and hinting at things that were important for me to convey isn’t working and as I’m getting older, I see more and more how important connection really is.  My intent is often lost in translation so to speak.  If we want to be understood we need to express clearly.  Words are so important to me and I have the ability to use them to say whatever I want on the page—I do not take that for granted.  There is no need to be shy or discreet about it because that only confuses the message.  Don’t dilute what we have to say to make it acceptable to others.  That isn’t the point of creative expression.  The point is to share what we have.  Change isn’t easy.  It’s taken me nearly a lifetime to develop the courage to start sharing as I have, a further several years to make this writing a consistent habit, another year to make it a scheduled practice, and now I want to refine it so I’m saying and living in truth rather than implying it.  We can change with focus and effort.  We can learn a new language.  We can learn to be healthier.  We can learn anything as long as we are completely raw and receptive to it.  One step, one thought, one song can change everything—we just have to let it.   

I had lunch with a couple of friends the other day and as I was leaving to head back to work, a song came on that I’d never heard before.  I’ve been on a big audio book kick so I haven’t been listening to satellite much.  Regardless.  This song stopped me in my tracks.  My heart pounded as I heard the lyrics—and it was one line that caught me.  I felt something absolutely transcendent in me.  I was fully, entirely connected to that moment and everything my body was doing—everything my body wanted and how it felt.  This is the music that comes from raw, honest, pure feeling and expression without filtering.  Like I always do when something catches me like that, I started looking up everything I could about it when I got back to my office.  They lyrics, the artist, who this person was, listening to the song again and again.  As the story of the song consumed me, I asked myself something: have I ever told a story with that much feeling and honesty as in these three and a half minutes?  Yes.  But have I shared it?  No.  Those are the words I still keep for myself, afraid of what people will think.  The life I’ve created is so separate from what I show, and I only let a few people in—once you’re in, I’m an open book, but before that, I’m giving you the professional me.

Being vulnerable takes tremendous courage and skill.  I’ve honed that practice over the years with over 1,700 posts here plus what I have on social media.  And for me it is a practice.  I’ve been trained to protect myself and I’ve opted to protect myself based on experience—while I share the true stories of my life here, they are absolutely chosen and tailored before I share them.  But I’ve learned that the real connection and beauty in life isn’t protected–It’s fully exposed.  The things we do to protect these most precious parts of us or our experiences end up suffocating them.  What I thought was protection and self-preservation ended up taking the life out of me.  It wasn’t the real version of me—I always felt like I needed to be edited, that I shouldn’t show it all.  But that isn’t real.  That’s a half-truth and the full truth is that makes me feel like a fraud to fear sharing the whole thing.  I’ve been pretty open here, there really isn’t much I’ve censored, but I’ve tailored the message in an effort to make it palatable and relatable.  There comes a point where we simply accept the story as it is and we just tell it.  We hope there is a connection from it but we no longer try to force it to relate to everyone.  Not every experience we have is a grand universal truth—I know there are certain things people will NOT experience.  Truly, I’m not talking universal truth, I’m talking about the stories we make fit into something else-0mitting details or changing them to how we wished they had gone instead of what happened.

So. I realized that I need some time to get in touch with the raw talent in me, the creativity that I feel surging at all times that I don’t know if I will ever be able to keep up with it because it’s a never ending torrent of thought I try to catch with a net.  I love that feeling and instead of trying to funnel it into one thing, I need to let it be all things.  It’s all connected in who I am and I am certainly more than one thing I show.  I need to let it be what it is just as we all need to let ourselves be who we are.  There is absolute magic when we let ourselves be seen like that.  The freedom.  Yes, that level of out-there-ness can be terrifying, frankly it is terrifying, but there is nothing like taking that chance to walk in our full truth and authenticity only to discover that we can fly there. We are always supported on that venture.  We are always welcomed in the space between potential and reality.  Sometimes we feel it and are lucky enough to put it all out there, and it catches like fire in people.  Sometimes we do it on our own, sometimes it takes hearing a song to remind us of how much further we can go in sharing our humanity.  I want to be a flame and I want to fan the flames in others.  I want to dance in the fullness of my creation, content and secure that my message will get where it needs to even if it doesn’t get to everyone.  I’m not a fraud for having a façade—we all do.  I’m a fraud if I know it’s there and I keep wearing it.  The holes are there, so there is no point in keeping it whole.  Don’t fight who we are and the mask is never there.