“Don’t underestimate the power of pain. The power to bear pain without breaking is a strength people underestimate.  It isn’t the pain of other people that we are afraid of, it’s our own pain.”  XMen Days of Future Past.  Like we talked about yesterday—a stumble sometimes teaches us exactly what we need to know.  The break can be painful but it can also be exactly what we need.  Sometimes the things we hold up as sacred and precious are really just tools to get us where we want to be—they aren’t things we are meant to covet and repeat forever.  Whether it is a tradition we need to change or a physical thing we hold onto, it isn’t always true that we need to protect things.  All things end—that is the reality of life.  No matter what we do, none of us will make it out of here alive.  We are a species that fights for familiarity, for status quo more than it fights for the improvement of circumstances for all.  With that knowledge, I would think that we would constantly be participating in our own evolution.  Yet I am the first one who falls into maintaining tradition and I’ve held onto things long beyond their use.  There came a point in each circumstance that the struggle to hold on and keep things the same hurt more than the pain of letting go. 

Sometimes we need the pain to guide us toward what we are meant to do.  This was a tough lesson to swallow.  I craved familiarity at every turn, I wanted to show that I was capable of meeting the expectations of those around me, of keeping people happy.  For a long time I succeeded—no matter how much it hurt to let certain experiences pass me by, I held on and kept things going.  I also held on in circumstances where I saw the potential of something working out in a particular way.  I hoped it would be a certain way and I stuck around thinking it would eventually go the way I wanted it to.  The pain in that circumstance taught me that holding things for other people doesn’t guarantee they will be around to hold things for us, and frankly, there is a level of manipulation that comes with expecting people to behave a certain way because we did things for them.  With all that being said, we look at pain differently.  Pain is a teacher—we learn what works and what doesn’t work through pain.  We also learn that we can bear far more than we think we can.  The human spirit is resilient, so is the mind, so is the body.  That isn’t to say I advocate for pain, but it is to say that I don’t shy away from it any longer.

Gary Brecka says that aging is the active pursuit of comfort.  When we constantly seek to make things easy we lose the ability to adapt and create strength.  Pain has a purpose and we often avoid it because we think it will hurt.  Evolutionarily speaking it was also prudent to avoid pain because we didn’t want to risk dying or separating from the pack.  Now we avoid it because we equate pain with things like embarrassment.  All of that is temporary.  The more we can adapt and use pain as a tool, the faster we heal and move on.  The immediate reaction is that pain lasts forever and we can’t heal from it.  The reality is if we pull that band-aid off and face the fear, we see that it’s far less scary than we think.  The other reality is we put ourselves through far more pain than anyone else: we are our own worst critic, we fixate on mistakes, we worry constantly, we repeat errors over and over again in our minds.  If we let it happen, learn the lesson, then move on, the pain abates.  Don’t avoid it, learn to use it—even if it hurts, even if we are afraid, learn to accept pain as a key to moving on.  The future isn’t soft—but we are malleable.  Let the lessons shape our perceptions.   

“Just because someone stumbles it doesn’t mean they are lost forever,” XMen Days of Future Past.  When we are present and take chances, that doesn’t always mean we will get it right—and it doesn’t always mean the doors will open right away. That doesn’t mean it’s a no either.  Life will always throw us curve balls and always surprise us with challenges and opportunities.  We are meant to take those chances presented to us and we are meant to be present.  That doesn’t mean it will always work out perfectly.  Sometimes we have to understand the stumble is part of the lesson we need to learn to keep us on track.  To keep us present and aware of where we are and what we are meant to learn and do and share.  Sometimes that stumble isn’t meant to break us—it is meant to show us what was already broken and how we can fix it or help us discern what needs to be left broken so we can move forward.  A hiccup doesn’t mean something is irreparable. Sometimes it’s meant to turn us a bit so we can see another option. Life is literally all perception. 

The truth is sometimes that stumble turns into a tumble and it can feel like we have lost our way forever or that there is no way out.  I’d be lying if I said that it’s easy to see every set back as an opportunity.  But what I do know is that I believe in both sides of the coin: we aren’t lost forever just because of a perceived mistake and sometimes it can take a while to find the way back to where we are meant to be.  We will always find ourselves though as long as we keep looking, as long as we keep going.  What matters most is the belief that we will find our way.  That we have a way to find and that we know we can trust ourselves enough to master our circumstances to get to where we need to be.  We all have the ability to turn our lives into something magical.  We just need to remember our purpose.   How we look at things matters so much more than what actually happens.  They say something like 90% of life is how we respond to it—so that means we can make the most of any circumstance, we just need to be aware of the opportunity.

Life is this alchemical playground where we are meant to take what we are given and turn it into something else.  That means we can transmute our stumbles and pains into lessons we can use for the good of all.  A stumble doesn’t mean all is broken or lost, it means we are given a reason to pause and see if there is another way.  It all becomes a matter of perception.  Those who go the furthest weren’t necessarily the ones with the map—they were the ones who saw another way.  How many stories have we heard about finding a mysterious room or pathway when the character fell?  There are ways that can only be seen when we are on the ground.  Sometimes the only way up is to look down—because when we find ourselves at the bottom, the only way we can go is up.  And I’ve written it before—if we can’t go up or down, we have to learn to go sideways.  It’s an old school mentality that judges someone from their stumbles, that we categorize a stumble as a failure.  No one makes it through this life unscathed.  That is a life unlived.  Any time we ask what the chance is, we are taking a chance that we will turn up a bit worse for wear.  More knowledgeable and further on our path, but marked in a way that will take us further on our path.  Welcome the stumble and the chance to find ourselves, to challenge ourselves, to learn something new.  Love the playground and find that joy in the dance.

“What’s the chance?” Lewis howes.  The question that changes everything. Brings up that if you don’t ask you’re not going to get it. On 9/5/2024 I wrote about taking the chance to ask for what we need.  I needed to work from home, it made sense to work from home, so I asked for it under a circumstance where I normally would have made an excuse that my staff was in the building and I should be there with them.  But a different question struck me: how much use can I really be to them when I am this burdened with these things and I know I can better serve from here?  When we ask for what we need in a way that supports not only ourselves but others, we open the doorway.  Howes was talking about opening doorways with this question in situations like “What’s the chance I can get an upgrade?  What’s the chance I can get 10% off?  What’s the chance you want to collaborate?  What’s the chance you want to go later?”  All of those things, that phrasing opens possibilities.  So we need to remember to take the chance on our own lives and see what magic it can bring by simply asking “What’s the chance I can do this?” “What’s the chance that this works out infinitely better than I thought?”

This question ties in with the presence we spoke about yesterday.  People are more willing to do things than we think and I believe that we are all kind of tired of working in a world that we feel is functionally NOT working anymore.  We are learning to work together so we can change how things work overall.  That requires presence and awareness of who we are and a willingness to take a chance.  Go with what we feel because the worst that can happen is a no—and that no may lead us to something better anyway.  Presence is different than impulse, I’m not talking about reckless action, I’m talking about aligned action that feels right and creates connection rather than self-serving purpose.  If we are going to learn who we are and fully embrace ourselves, then we need to learn to take the chance and find ways to enjoy the now—to be in the now at all times. 

We’ve all faced a “no” in our lives and we’ve all had to decide what to do after we’ve been denied.  Do we give in and do nothing?  Or do we find a way to compromise and find an alternative?  Or do we say screw it and do it anyway?  We never know what will happen unless we take chances.  I’m not saying we need to jump the Grand Canyon or quit our jobs all at once or anything like that—but I am saying we need to see that there are more opportunities open to us than we think.  Sometimes all we have to do is ask the question to open the conversation.  All we have to do is be willing to open that door ourselves and not wait until the time seems right.  Sometimes people are waiting for us to create that opportunity so they can jump in on it as well.  We don’t need to overcomplicate things or continue to follow some perceived hierarchy.  Sometimes we need to slow down, learn to connect, have the conversation, and simply ask the damn questions.  Just learn to take the chance, be in the now.  Stop spending time dreaming of what it could be and take the first step to making it a reality.

“Don’t leave anything for later because later the coffee gets cold, later you lose interest, later the day turns into night, later people grow, later people grow old, later life goes by, later you regret not doing something when you had the chance, so stop waiting for the perfect moment that may never come, do it today, do it now, because life is happening right now and remember time slips away when you least expect it,” Denzel Washington.  This year has been a lesson in doing things in the now.  When we save things for later, we are only putting off what life can be now.  Why do we need to wait for what is available to us here and now?  Why do we put some arbitrary time frame on experiencing what we have now or what we can build now?  With the losses I’ve faced this year, the limbo myself and my family have lived through, and with how rapidly this year seems to have gone by, this quote resonates powerfully.  All we have is now.  Anytime we wait, we are delaying our lives.  I want to throw in the caveat that sometimes waiting is necessary as we need certain things to align or we need to accept guidance toward a better path—this type of immediacy is better served with decision making.  Don’t allow fear to stop us from doing what calls to us, from doing what makes sense to us, from doing what we love.  We are never too old to experience life or make changes—we tend to regret what we don’t do over what we did do unless that is a missed opportunity. 

This year my family has experienced first hand the pain of unexpected illness and loss repeatedly.  Witnessing what it is like to spend a lifetime hoarding things, waiting for the right opportunity to do what we really want only to see it fall apart, to see the things we so lovingly held onto for that right moment crumble away due to no use, made it painfully clear that all we have is now.  We have each other and we have this gift of time so there is no reason to not move forward when we have the opportunity.  The universe has show repeatedly that when the opportunity presents itself, that opportunity is meant for us.  Don’t hold back because we are waiting for something else to come, some evidence that we are truly worthy of who we are.  That “evidence” we seek may never come.  We are responsible for receiving, managing, expressing, and utilizing our gifts to the best of our ability.  To seizing the moment and creating the life we desire, the life we are meant to have.  This world has opened up in ways we couldn’t have imagined even 40 or 20 years ago.  The way time moves has changed, and because we are all connected all the time—time is irrelevant in many ways.  So don’t let good things go to waste waiting for what we think is the perfect time.  There is no perfect time, there is only now. If we wait for the fruit to ripen too long, it rots. And someday we wake up and we are seeing an old face in the mirror.

This also follows on the heels of what we spoke about yesterday: sometimes we surprise ourselves when we take the chances we didn’t think we could.  Sometimes all we have to do is recognize the feeling and listen to the little voice that says, “This feels right, this might be something we like, we should do this—we could do this.”  In many cases that’s all the universe needs.  We just have to be willing participants in our own lives.  I think one of the biggest regrets I have now is how many times I said no.  So much of my self-doubt and fear led me to believe that I could never do the things I wanted to do, that somehow they weren’t meant for me.  I held a lot of resentment because years later I saw that many of those doubts weren’t even mine—they were residual from beliefs of other people around me.  Now I am surrounded by people who do nothing but take chances and have fun and live exactly as they want to, exactly as who they are.  They have no shame or regret, they just live their lives as they see fit.  I used to think that was selfish, now I see how smart it is.  I also see how embracing themselves fully has allowed them to not only be more present, but to be more generous and ABLE to give.  They aren’t sacrificing what they don’t have hoping for more later, they are developing what they do have and multiplying it.  Presence changes things—it shows us who we are.  It allows us to be who we are—and it is as simple as this: that’s all the universe wants, the fullest, most authentic version of who we are, right here, right now. 

When clarity hits we can’t ignore it.  We make this world so overly complicated at times we think we’ve lost our way.  We allow ourselves to forget that all we have to do is put our feet down.  It’s like we are in 10 inches of water floating on our backs and we forget how to stand.  We have a primal instinct that tells us everything is dangerous and, often in the moment, we forget what danger actually is.  We perceive danger in loss of ego, loss of power, loss of material.  Danger is life threatening, and to be fair, we have now evolved to the point where we need a sense of ego, power, and material control in order to survive.  But we no longer have to go about obtaining those things in the same way.  As a defense mechanism (and something I am working through—I call myself out on it as soon as I see myself falling into that old habit) I tend to hold incredibly rigid points of view.  There are moments if something doesn’t make sense to me I feel it’s a waste of time and I dig my heels in and do what I think is right instead.  Or if someone pisses me off I have no issue cutting them off.  Sometimes it works, other times I feel left behind.  I don’t’ like giving into other people’s authority when I know there is a better way—or when I see there is a better way and I despise being ignored.  Those are all parts of my ego but the truth is we all contribute so we need to be allowed to bring something to the table—it isn’t about dominance, it’s about contribution.

With the rigid views I’ve held, I know I’ve cut people out of my life or refused opportunities to some who fell into categories that I wouldn’t have normally given a chance to—so they don’t have a seat at my table and I pre-judged them and who they could be in my life.  It took a long time to realize that some of those definitions of right and wrong weren’t even mine—the truth is they weren’t even those of the people I learned them from.  The trouble with being raised with huge age gaps is being exposed to different generations and ways of doing things, often ages past.  I never knew to question what was right or wrong, I believed what I was told and I believed that those were the only ways.  But time changes things and we need to be comfortable being our own people.  That means taking chances and understanding the views that are and aren’t our own.  I made a decision early on to believe when people show me who they are but I had a really weird pattern of who I would believe and who I would give second chances to—so some people I cut out before I even knew them and others I kept around for way too long.  I was recently humbled to learn that I needed to give a particular person/group another chance.  It hurt me at first and I was frustrated because what cause the issue in the first place was something that led me to the decision to standing my ground and knowing myself.  How could I let someone in who violated yet another boundary?  Well, the universe works in funny ways.

The truth is we are brought to the same circumstances, the same people, the same patterns until we learn the lesson.  The universe doesn’t give a damn about ego or feelings, it cares about energy.  If we are who we say we are we will be tested to match that energy—and if we are meant to learn something from a particular person, they will continually be brought into our lives.  I was annoyed at first because certain behaviors felt outright disrespectful—and I was frustrated because it felt like no one in the group gave a damn one way or the other about how this was impacting me—which led me to further want to separate from the group.  But no one went away.  So this became a test then of my ability to communicate what was wrong to the parties involved.  And as we continued to talk, not only did they understand but I started to learn that we shared more in common than I thought.  My ego didn’t want to be wrong and I wanted to be justified in the boundary I set—I was proud of the boundary I set and I even spoke about it here.  But there is something bringing this group together, there is something bringing these people into my life.  So I have to let go of the rigid views, and learn—gain the clarity of who I am through new experiences.  I’m surprising myself in learning what I like—because there are new things—and in what I can do.  Hell, in what I want to do.  It’s also surprising to see how much easier some of these things are when we simply DO it.  Sometimes we have to stop thinking and just do.  When we trust, the universe seems to get us right where we need to be.  And if we have idiosyncrasies ourselves, so does everyone else.  Don’t be so quick to dismiss. Allow a few surprises in there—it may be exactly what we need.

Today I am grateful for a new perspective on boundaries.  I held rigidly to many ideas of what it looked like to have boundaries—always getting what we want, saying no to anything that wasn’t what we wanted, arguing for what we wanted.  There are facets of that that are true—if we want something we can’t let people deter us from our path, and if we believe in something, even if someone else can’t see it, we need to stick with our conviction and understanding.  Our job isn’t to convince people to see things our way, it’s to live things how we see fit.  I had a tendency to cut people out of my life when they conflicted too greatly with my values and beliefs or when I felt they were pushing me too hard in a certain direction.  Now I see that sometimes people do that when they care about us and are afraid of losing us.  Our boundaries aren’t always about keeping people out or protecting an image—sometimes they are about stretching those boundaries and learning new ways.  Sometimes they are about accepting parts of ourself that we didn’t know existed.  Sometimes it’s about being firm in who we are and understanding that if people don’t accept that we need to move on.  Boundaries aren’t always about keeping things out, they are about keeping us on our path.  Sometimes paths weave with certain people—that doesn’t mean they have to guide our path—sometimes we cross and part and cross again.  And that is ok. 

Today I am grateful for change.  Every year I am reminded that change is necessary.  This year in particular seems to have flown right by—I’m not sure how we got from January to April and then suddenly we are in October already.  This year I have faced numerous irreparable changes and I’ve had to dig deep to trust and have faith.  Frankly there are moments my faith feels borne of not being able to do anything else—no other choice.  I do understand at this point trying to hold onto things the way they were or how we want them is entirely futile.  Things change, time moves no matter what we do and all we can do is learn to be present enough to enjoy what we have in front of us right now. There is little we have control over so we need to manage our thoughts, feelings, and who we are instead of the entire world around us.  Sometimes there is need for us to change along with the changes around us.  The world doesn’t slow or stay the same so I find it odd that we now look for routines that keep our days repetitive and predictable. Perhaps that makes us feel safe and in control, but the spirit doesn’t work like that.  We need change, we are change, and we are responsible for change.  Embrace it and see what comes of it. 

Today I am grateful for chances.  I have no idea what’s coming next for me—I like to think that I’ve made my decisions in several regards (career, relationships, health, etc.) but that doesn’t mean I can see the future.  I have a vision of what I want it to be and I’m doing what I think is right—I’m learning to trust what I feel is right.  I have to trust my belief that I can get where I want to be.  I’m no longer the child that needs to play nice or go along with things for the sake of other people’s comfort.  I am equally allowed to build and live the life I see fit.  The only way things will ever go in the direction of my dreams (or anyone’s dreams) is to fully commit and live according to what makes sense.  If we are ever to live the life we want to live we have to start taking chances to do the things that would correspond to creating that life.  We have to take the chance.  Sometimes that means giving people the chance—or at least a chance.  We never know what people are really like until we take the time to get to know them and we never know what we are capable of until we slow down and listen to ourselves and start working like that—working on the things that align with what feels right, what triggers our inspiration.  Give chances, take chances because the biggest regret people have is not taking them when they can.  You never know what you will find out about people, you never know the connections you may make.  You never know what you will find out about yourself until you take the chance to see what you like and what the options are.  Chances can be scary but it’s scarier to not take them.      

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to learn about myself.  Yesterday was the last day of a series of business events we’ve been working on since June.  We recognized early on that the TYPE of event is good for us but the particular event/location/audience isn’t right.  During the course of that realization, a deeper sense of clarity about how I want my business to function and what I want the rest of my days to look like started to develop.  I stared to sense other things that interest me and other things that I may enjoy.  I have many irons in the fire and it takes a lot to keep up with them and it’s time to acquiesce and take some of them out.  That means pausing long enough to see what I’m doing and what’s around me.  That means seeing who I am and what aligns with who I am—and learning that facets of myself have evolved even in these last few short months.  Rigid opinion and belief no longer have room in my life.  Staying steadfast on my path, yes, but making snap decisions doesn’t seem to work anymore.  We are in unprecedented times and we need people and community more than ever and shutting people out is dangerous—I don’t have to do it all on my own.  I’m learning that I can take the chances mentioned above, that I can be a different version of myself than I thought or believed, and that it’s my responsibility to live the best life I can and share that with others.  We surprise ourselves all the time and the universe is there to help us along the way.  Dive in and explore the deepest depths, the highest heights, and just let it all out.

Today I am grateful for releasing.  I’ve had an overwhelming urge at this stage to let go.  Feelings, thoughts, emotions, things, behaviors, habits, certain dreams, certain needs, patterns, crutches, safety/defense mechanisms.  This is the very definition of letting go of what no longer serves or works in our lives.  When we hold onto things that don’t work they become a lead weight.  When we take the time to truly understand where people are coming from, we learn to expand their views and our views as we come to an overall understanding of who we are and what the dynamic needs to be.  We form healthier relationships with others when we have healthier relationships with ourselves.  Clear the clutter, organize what we need, feel better, be better, trust.  The speed this year has passed through seems to be a big indicator/reminder that time is short, life is precious, and that we only have one go around in this iteration of existence, so take what we understand and do the best we can and let go of the rest.  Do our best, be our best, help others how we can, and strive to be who we are meant to be.  Live fully and enjoy.  Love completely, starting with ourselves. Be grateful always.  Spread joy and light, and be fully authentic.  Release the fear, release the weight, release the expectation, and embrace the flow of who we are and love life as it is.  This is a gift—don’t make it hell.  The more we embrace the beauty of who we are and the beauty of what life is and can be, the more we let go of the fear of what we hold onto out of habit.  So let it all go.  Allow, flow, align.  There is great hope and great beauty in this world and we are blessed to be a part of it.  Let go of the rest of the crap and be with the beauty.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

I had a moment watching Inside Out (the first one, I’d never seen it) where I was getting really angry with sadness.  Like I found myself yelling at the TV, “Don’t fucking touch the memories!!! How many times do you have to be told?!?!”  When I heard myself say that my first reaction was justification because people don’t listen—they always want to be right even if we know the consequences—more accurately, even if they know the consequences they still do it.  And then I realized that getting angry at an emotion (let’s not even analyze the fact this is a cartoon) says more about my inner demons than anything.  Perhaps I was really yelling at myself for all of the things I’ve done that I’ve known I shouldn’t do that led to my own misery.  How human is that?  We all do that, thinking we have it under control or that we will somehow be able to manage the situation.  The truth is I couldn’t finish watching the movie, not just because I got annoyed, but also because I really started feeling pain about this.  Like the pain we cause is caused by ourselves, we don’t have to put ourselves through that.

It made me question the nature of our brains and how we think things will actually take place.  Is the mind an accurate retainer for all that happens?  On some levels we already know the answer is no.  We are subject to our own biases and experiences—and those biases are often created by our experiences and environment.  I grew up relatively restrained—if I was told no, 9/10 I listened.  My parents didn’t want to bring me somewhere (like an after school activity or a friend’s house), I didn’t push it.  I think I didn’t even question it when I was younger because I understood (and still understand) that they were dealing with a lot and they were tired, and the things I wanted to do could often wait.  So I learned self-restraint and managing my wants early on.  It is a real struggle for me to see scenarios played out like in the movie—like there are real consequences to someone not being able to control themselves. 

What I’ve had to learn over time is that not all consequences are as bad as we think they are—or as bad as we are told they can be.  While some consequences mean that things will not turn out how we think they will, 8/10 it is not something catastrophic.  Not everyone has the same desire, drive, or motivation for things so their priorities and what is important to them isn’t the same as it is for us.  And we have no control over what other people do, so if something doesn’t go as planned as a result of someone else’s actions, we have to learn to mitigate and manage that layer of emotion.  We can be hurt by it but we can never expect people to do what we want them to do.  I was so angered by this character because all she had to do was listen—and the truth is much of life is like that—all we have to do is listen to understand what someone really needs, and often that is very little effort on our part.  We can save other people a lot of pain by simply hearing what they have to say and respecting their boundaries.  So there are two sides to this: we aren’t responsible for other people’s feelings  or particular outcomes in their lives, but we have the power to help by actually hearing people out and paying attention.  And it starts with listening to ourselves: we know what we need to do and what not to do—so just do the right thing. We all put ourselves through hell at times—the joy comes when we wake up and realize that we can stop at any time.  New choices are made, and we get new results.         

“It’s up to you, you are the only one [to take action], and you can break the barriers,” Loren Ridinger.  This is a nice follow up to yesterday.  No one is going to take the time to develop us to the level that we can develop ourselves.  We have all experienced those people who would hold us back at all costs—the people who actively stop us from moving forward; some of them prefer to spend their time looking for ways to stop people from succeeding rather than even find something that interests them.  Then there are those who prefer the status quo, and while they don’t try to stop us, they don’t promote us either; this is usually borne out of fear and the desire to keep their heads down.  They aren’t harmful, but they aren’t entirely helpful either.  Then there are those who cheer us on but won’t actively do anything to assist—to be fair there are multiple reasons for this (not enough means to support others, actively engaged in their own projects, already committed to other things, etc.) so if we can find those cheerleaders in our lives, they are worth having around.  Then there are the rare breed who support their own ideas as well as our own and have shared resources—those who learn to collaborate and share the responsibility of progress.  Then there is the tippy top which are those who have already developed their goals to a point where now they are helping develop other people’s goals—this is true progress.   

If we ignore our brilliance and choose to hide behind what we are told we are capable of rather than finding our brilliance for ourselves, we will never be able to take the reins, take action, or break the barriers.  So many of those barriers are imagined anyway—they are from people who aren’t able to see the bigger picture, who aren’t able to choose a path, who are afraid to break out, who are afraid to listen to their inner voices and trust creativity or their ability to work with others.  For many of the systems in place, ignoring our own brilliance is a plus for them.  When we have someone (a person or entity) telling us they have all the answers, we tend to follow that because we feel that is our only option—or we feel it is a safe option.  Now, entering that type of arrangement is fine if we have a plan or an overarching goal and are using that as a resource to further develop who we are.  But if we are using that to hide our brilliance, afraid to step out and share our skills, then we have fallen into a trap that becomes harder to escape with time, and more attractive as we seek comfort and believe that we are running out of time or have limited resources.  We can choose to do something different at any time, we have our own beliefs, we have our own ideas and we are meant to hone them and use them.  Break the barriers, develop the idea, take the chance—that is the most important part—take the chance to take actions on our ideas.  That is when we shine the brightest.

“You have no idea what brilliance is going to pour out of you that’s already in your heart until you say it out loud to yourself.  Nothing moves emotion like moving your body including your voice,” Stephanie Keiko Kong.  I don’t know if self-doubt is engrained in the human condition or if we are taught—likely it’s both.  I’ve written much and often about the debilitating nature of self-doubt as it relates to unleashing our brilliance and ability to step forward.  We seem to have lost the ability to believe in our ability to shine.  THAT is the nature part of this: we are taught that we aren’t meant to shine.  We are taught that it’s better to go with the crowd, blend in, keep our heads down, do what it takes to survive all filling and building on the same dreams as everyone else.  We are taught a unified belief of what it takes to survive, the fed definition of what success means—and we never question that it could be different in spite of what we feel.  We are trained to lose that trust in our intuition and belief in our abilities in favor of the what we are told is the right thing to do.  We rarely stop to question whose definition of right it is. 

We are built with inherent gifts we are meant to share boldly, broadly, and completely with the world, but it scares the status quo, the people who have a system going that benefits them.  They are of the mind that they have the right idea.  We are in a generation now where we need to start questioning what the right idea really is and seeing how much the systems we were taught to put so much stock in are really serving those it claims.  The truth is we know none of those systems are benefitting the masses.  We are all contributing to our own version of the hamster wheel, caught in the golden handcuffs, and when we can’t achieve that we are told we are failures and blamed for it.  We never question the definition of failure either. But there is always that spark, that voice in the back of our heads that asks, “what if?” That says, “there could be another way.”  And for whatever reason, we ignore that voice because it isn’t something the world at large agrees on.

We are given these flashes of brilliance, these ideas in order to do something with them.  We aren’t meant to sit on them.  Instead of focusing on ways that we can shift and change the world and bring these ideas to light, we are told to keep them quiet and do what everyone else does.  We are taught it’s riskier to share these ideas than it is to develop these ideas.  Then we wake up and suddenly these ideas are things we wish we had done.  And the time is gone.  We no longer have the ability to see these things through.  Look , I don’t claim every idea we have is a pathway to greatness, fame, or fortune.  But I do claim that every idea we have has the potential and the capability to become something that can shift the world—even if it only changes the world for one person.  The ultimate goal isn’t always fame or notoriety—it’s value and assistance, in short, service.  We are here to be of service to each other and we will never know the extent of our ability to serve and help others if we are constantly hindering our movement, hindering our voice, hindering the expression of our creativity to discover who we are and what we can do.  So shuck the idea of having to conform and keep quiet and stifle.  Learn to move, learn to discover clarity, learn to share the ideas, and learn to develop them.  We never know how brightly we can shine until we start practicing living in the light.