I had a work event this past weekend in a team member’s building in the city.  It was like stepping back in time.  After hearing the stories about family and how they gathered together making memories and the way they spent time with each other, this building and this group was the physical embodiment of that era.  I love witnessing other cultures and this was a European culture where they still focus on things like this—they don’t fall into the distractions like we do.  They still care for each other.  We try to be polite and they simply do the thing.  We arrived late due to parking so we tried to quietly stand at the back of the room to not draw attention and the people there still brought out chairs and told us to eat.  This was all direct communication with each other meaning they were having discussion, there wasn’t a phone to be seen except for transactions related to the event.  They didn’t waste any of their time on distraction.  They take care of themselves and each other and they don’t let time get away from them—if it can be done now, we do it now.  Why wait?   

We have a lot of movement in our culture but there is very little doing at the end of the day.  I’m not trying to say it was better in a different age (there were many horrible things less than 100 years ago) but there was certainly a different priority.  So communication and gatherings and work are not like they used to be.  We talk a lot, we puff, we boast, but the follow through is key.  We talk about taking care of each other but all of the things we do seem to counteract that.  We can barely care for ourselves and we spend a lot of time in survival.  There was a determination to get things done that I spoke about the other day that we truly don’t have.  We are good at appearing busy but we aren’t actually doing anything.  We are waiting for the right opportunities instead of creating them, like we can order it off of Amazon and have it show up.  We might have connection to the world but we aren’t connected to each other—and that is the difference.  They ARE connected to each other which gives them more awareness of need.

I don’t think any of us want to go back in time, especially to an era so blatantly determined to oppress and remain unaware of basic human rights.  But what I think we are looking for is a different level of connection.  We want genuine connection and support.  We are looking for community even if it’s within our own walls.  When we know we are supported we are able to be whole and we are able to live our lives.  There is freedom in that. There’s a reason that as soon as we put power aside the very thing we are looking for, prosperity and love and joy, suddenly become visible. It becomes about the thing itself and we find what we are really looking for—peace and connection.  It’s because we aren’t focusing on distractions or misplacing our energy seeking power over peace.  We go further the more we are able to support each other.  Even if we don’t have that support in our immediate family, we can create that support with our community.  It’s all about priority and the things we choose to carry.  Carry love before pride and purpose before power and see how the world shifts.  

I need to take a moment to discuss the absolute talent and brilliance of the human animal.  We need to spend more time in appreciation of the talent of humans.  I spent this past weekend watching some incredible works of art (some repeated) and my favorite thing is the absolute excitement that runs through me when listening to people perform.  I believe everyone has the capacity to share that level of talent whether it is in performing or in creating something—building with our hands, being able to speak well, gardening, cooking, baking, singing, acting, drawing, writing, playing an instrument, playing a sport—whatever it is, we all have a talent that can leave people in awe.  We’ve all had that moment witnessing something that left us breathless or so full of excitement that we had to say how amazing it was.  Doesn’t matter if it was seeing a beautiful car or watching a movie or seeing our children perform—there is that moment when we feel absolute respect for what we’ve seen. 

Going back to 700 Sundays for a moment, the sharing of that story was ultimately so good and touching because it was so personal.  There was truth in it and at the end of the day we all relate to truth.  When we feel something that resonates at the human level, it stirs something in us.  It’s a sense of security, knowing that we all have this type of experience.  And art/creation, at the end of the day, is about unification.  It brings us all together because we have that common human experience.  We need to feel that awe every day.  We need to remember that we all come from something so much bigger but that we have these gifts to share. This is why performance goes back millennia.  I watched Hamilton as well (again), and between seeing the genius that is Lin-Manuel Miranda and how he pieced that story together, and hearing/seeing that amazing New York cast is an experience like no other–it thrills me every time.  Even if you don’t like the content, there is NO denying the stunning work that was created.  We are blessed to witness that level of talent.

Even if you don’t feel the same way about those particular pieces, the point remains the same.  Immersing ourselves in that level of appreciation and talent is something that inspires the human soul.  We need to spend more time in that state rather than worrying about our status.  Instead of worrying about how much we have and how much power we have over people, we need to spend time coming together and creating.  It’s the most humbling experience while also elevating the soul to new heights.  As individuals we are quite capable of doing extraordinary things.  Coming together we are able to create something even greater than what we can do on our own.  I love directing my focus toward creative pursuits and feeling that energy course through my veins.  When I’m in a zone, the words flow, the excitement buzzes through me, and everything seems to piece together perfectly.  Even if we aren’t actively creating, spending time in inspiration is a spiritual experience.  Life is all about creation and that includes creating works like this.  I am so grateful to have the time and means to witness events like this.  Find something that makes us feel inspired and in awe every day.  Life is in creation.

I had the joy of watching “Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays” the other night—if you haven’t seen this I highly recommend it.  This is such an important work and such a beautiful demonstration of what happens in life when supported, loved, believed in, and when we have faith.  It’s also a testament to the power of living and sharing stories.  I had no clue Crystal was such a profound story teller.  I mean, I’ve loved his work and he is hilarious, but the depth and breadth and connection as well as the relatability of this story cut me to the core in the best possible way.  As we ended yesterday’s piece, I spoke about standing in our light and allowing the bloom, allowing the timing of our lives.  I also spoke about how we don’t know how much time we get.  Crystal affirms this in his piece, talking about how he lost his father after roughly 700 Sundays—about 15 years.  While it was one of the toughest things in his life, he moved forward with love and support and he saw people around him work with determination and drive, and he followed his instincts.   

The story dives deeper than that.  Life is about experiencing life.  It’s about being present and making memories with others and the things we can create together. There was a determination to get things done—if it needed to be done it wasn’t lamented, they simply did the damn thing.  Frustration existed, of course, but they didn’t let that stop them.  They found a way through it and they did what they had to do.  To be fair there were less distractions and there were more opportunities to find ways to get things done.  But today’s society is so used to having things available to them 24/7 and having instant gratification that we have truly become a generation of whiny brats.  We are so spoiled, expecting things to come to us immediately.  We’re more concerned about an incorrect coffee order than we are about people’s lives being taken/infringed upon.  We have forgotten the beauty of the complexity of human nature and what it means to live.  The magic is here and now and time moves too quickly—we never know when that last Sunday will be.      

At the end of the day we are all dealt certain cards in life, some we’d feel are good and some bad.  But that isn’t the purpose of the cards.  Life truly is about how we play those cards and how we react, what we can make of them.  While we never know how much time we get, we know we are here now.  And if we are here now as breathing, thinking, beings, we are able to do something with that time.  See, so many people look for grandeur and fame or things, the reality is life’s joys come from the simplest things—doing the things we love, being with those we love.  Following our hearts and our talents.  Now, not everyone can grow up as Crystal did—he was in the heart of the jazz movement and heavily involved in entertainment because his family was.  Sure they wanted to secure themselves but they were simply doing what they loved—being together and enjoying music. The point we can take from this is the same: do what we love and become so good at it that it becomes a beacon.  Great things happen and we aren’t even aware of all the implications at the time.  We simply live and learn and we make memories and feel and share love along the way.  Again, we never know how much time we get—and we never know how much time we get with those we love.  It’s up to us to decide to play or fold in this life or to sit and bitch about what we have or appreciate every card and play it to its fullest.  I’m all in.

I really started noticing the depth of the seasons last year.  How the buds look in spring and the beginning of life and watching the transition all the way to winter.  Now I watch the beginning of Spring again. Life emerging as it does every year, and the comfort that there is life here. I love looking at my plants and seeing them growing, knowing that they will sustain me.  I love the wildness of nature and the idea that all we need is provided to us.  We are meant to heal, we have the medicines we need provided to us naturally.  How did things get so distorted?  The greed?  The idea of worth?  Fear?  Proving?  Power? Ego?  Maybe it’s all of it.  I see the points in history where we learned about power and how we used that against each other instead of learning to harness it together.  How quickly we forget that nature has power over us all. But seeing the beginnings of spring this year has made me feel a certain coming alive, a coming into my own.  A certain rebirth if you will.

I allowed people to hinder me for too long whether it was because I thought I couldn’t challenge authority, or because I couldn’t articulate an idea, or because I put myself last to help their ideas come forth.  We only get so many years and we have no idea how many, so many springs to begin again.  It’s hard to accept the concept that we are dealing with finite in an infinite world.  Understanding this part of my mortality has made it easier and easier to chip away at the idea that I need to put myself last.  I see value in helping others, but I do not see value in helping others who would cut my legs off in the process.  There are choices we make every day and we need to make the choices that are really for the greatest good.  What good does it do to give the pieces of ourselves to others who never bother to fill their own?  That being said, I can’t expect people to give me pieces of themselves either.   It is my job to fulfill my purpose.

All the ego, greed, fear, corruption, power won’t give us more time.  None of those things can improve the quality of lives for others and it isn’t sustainable for very long.  It’s exhausting protecting power.  It’s easier to cultivate and maintain our own strength. When we tend to our own garden we become more concerned about our own bloom than what other people are doing.  We all have seasons—growth, prosperity, slowing down, death.  We go through them every year.  We have to stop allowing others to tell us how to live in our seasons.  We must appreciate each season, we must appreciate ourselves in each season.  There was something in me that feared the bloom for a long time, that feared letting myself be seen in that light.  Like there was an expectation of maintaining a certain glow once the bloom hit.  We need to learn that we are ok to simply shine.  We are meant to bloom and do nothing more than that.  Don’t let anyone tell us it’s not the right season to shine.  We all bloom in our own time.  Let it be seen in its full array regardless of how uncomfortable it makes others.  Stand tall in that light.

Today I am grateful for feeling the actual change.  I’ve been waking up at 3AM to work out and modifying my diet for the last month (at least M-F).  This past week I’ve faced some really tough stomach issues to the point where I knew I didn’t want to work out and I felt like crap, especially on Thursday.  I told myself that there is a point where I would have to listen to my body and not do the workout, but until I actually felt like I couldn’t do it I needed to get up.  I knew that if I gave myself permission to stop for a day that it would be all to easy to stop moving forward.  As much as I hate to admit it, I need to be honest with myself and that means being aware.  Stopping isn’t a behavior I do often when it comes to things I commit to, but the truth is I’ve allowed myself to stop things that are good for me when it gets tough all too often.  It goes to the back burner.  And we all know what happens when we plateau regardless: we stop seeing results so we get discouraged.  I’ve also done it where I’ve allowed myself to indulge too much because I started seeing results.  But I didn’t do that.  I got up and I did the workouts—I did them slower but I did them.  They may have been done slower but I finished.  I actually did get sick during one of them and I cleaned up and came back to finish.  That is real progress—it wasn’t forced, I wanted to do the work to keep my momentum going. 

Today I am grateful for following my instinct.  Things have taken a turn in my work environment and not necessarily for the better.  Some true colors are being shown and I was faced with a verbal threat from an authority figure the other day.  In the moment I felt completely trapped, shocked, and completely angered.  The words themselves would never come across as threatening but the context and the manner of the delivery made the meaning crystal clear.  As it would happen, on Thursday the president of our organization sent out an email offering to meet with people at an open table.  Without a second’s hesitation I knew I had to meet with him—not even to discuss what happened to me, but to discuss the potential of my department and where we could offer moving forward.  The state of and future of the department has been precarious due to lack of understanding of our purpose and I knew after the threat I was going to have to do something.  So I discussed with my employee and on Friday we met with the president.  That brief introduction of our ideas led to a request for an additional meeting.  For the first time in a long time I felt excitement again.  Beyond that I felt power.  Not from my ego, but the power that comes from aligning with and following through on exactly what needs to be done.  I literally told myself, “This is who the fuck I am.”  I told another individual who was aware of the situation and they told me I felt better because I followed my instinct—and that is 100% truth.

Today I am grateful for reaching a limit.  Being under a certain amount of stress for too long of a time has absolutely had some adverse effects.  Everything from making it difficult to concentrate to physically feeling like crap—and honestly even a few incidents where I genuinely feared for my health.  I always knew how lax I was with my boundaries but I didn’t realize the full implications of it.  I thought I needed to be nice, to be amendable, to say yes.  What ended up happening was true physical risk along with losing some of my identity.  I didn’t even know what made sense to me anymore.  Working on taking back my health has meant understanding the limits I can push past/ignore and the ones that I need to hold fast to.  I don’t need to be afraid of anyone—we are all human.  My job is to fulfill my purpose and if there are people in my way it is time to leave that crap, all of the pleasing, all of the fear of how they think, behind.  I’ve been fortunate enough to shake hands with billionaires and millionaires and people who genuinely have power and they operate differently than those I struggle with on a daily basis.  If I’m trying to better myself, then why am I worried about those who choose to create chains?  I need to think like those who fly.  I’m at the limit of those around me and I don’t need to be.  Sometimes limits are there to show us that we need to pass right through them, and that we don’t need to deal with that crap-to show us what we are willing to deal with.

Today I am grateful for understanding my needs.  I’ve fought for ages to be clear about what I need and I have found myself in a constant battle expressing what I know I need and convincing those to help me get it. There comes a point where it doesn’t matter if others understand what we need, we need to know what we need.  That means we have to find a way to get it even if we second guess ourselves because of other’s opinions.  We have to trust ourselves—and figure out how to get it.  It may take time and effort and a few creative passes, but do not give up on what we know is right for us.  I got myself the help I needed mentally, physically, spiritually, and professionally this week and I see how having the right resources in place moves things forward.  While we don’t all have the same access, we have the same capability and capacity—and we are able to form our own networks or support.  And support is something we need above all. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“It’s ok to do things scared,” Bruce B.  I love that this followed my talk on fear yesterday.  I want to share this brief follow up because it’s clearly a message we need to share right now, especially if the topic came up two days in a row.  We need to know that it’s ok to do it scared.  I once wrote about how the body can’t neurologically tell the difference between scared/nervous and excited.  So that means so much of what determines how we move forward is how we interpret what our brains are telling us—how we decide to label what we are feeling in that moment.  This is another key reason why it’s so important to really connect with ourselves and learn what our bodies are telling us—to discern between discomfort, fear, and excitement—and to learn how to trick ourselves into feeling one of the higher level emotions.  If the positive and negative are so closely aligned neurologically, then it’s only a matter of deciding how we want to feel in that moment. 

The other side of doing things scared is having faith in our own abilities.  Often times we think we need to be perfect at something to do it or to voice an opinion on it.  Like if we aren’t an expert, we aren’t allowed to say anything on the matter—or try it.  The truth is we learn through sharing ideas and inklings of things.  Just as often as we think we need to be perfect, we hinder ourselves because of our own interpretations of who we are.  For example, we think people won’t accept us as an authority or a resource on something because we are too short.  In those cases we need to remember that we have no confirmation of what people truly think of us and we aren’t meant to.  We are meant to know ourselves and decide that we are going to move forward, that we are able to do what we set our minds to.  I know for me I have to throw in the issue with ADD because we lose faith in ourselves when we don’t follow through on things because we are trying to do all the things at once.  I’m learning to give myself grace in those moments and try to train myself to focus on one thing.  But I still do the thing.

We can’t get discouraged if we don’t feel like the lion in the moment.  We have to tell ourselves that our progress is ours alone and that a single step is all that it takes to keep us going in the right direction.  We can’t progress on all things at the same time at the same rate.  We are meant to focus on one thing and take the time to develop that skill, develop our confidence until we can do the next thing.  So don’t be afraid to start with one thing.  Don’t be afraid to not know everything about that one thing.  Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward.  Allow ourselves patience and grace and acceptance of who we really are, trust that we are guided and that we will find the answers we need—and then do the thing.  Even if we aren’t able to tell ourselves that we aren’t scared and manage to move forward, then we need to do it anyway.  Don’t let our minds play tricks on us so we fear what we need to do—just do it.  It gets easier all the time until the thing is done.            

“It’s not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it.  Sometimes you’ve got to blast through and have faith,” Emma Watson.  For millennia people have shared similar sentiment and it’s something I want to echo.  There are parts of life that are super complex—the intricacies of survival and determining what we need and what we want and how we are going to live aren’t necessarily easy.  Perhaps a simple decision, yes, but easy to execute and stand by, no.  Life requires a certain finesse of knowing when to alter our decisions and when to stick with our boundaries and when to hold back and when to go for it.  There are absolutely times we need to put that fear aside and simply tackle what we want head on.  We need to understand that sometimes life is less about doing and more about having faith—and sometimes it’s having faith enough to take action no matter the potential of the outcome. 

There will always be something that terrifies our primal brain—we simply work that way as it is part of our survival mechanism.  Additionally, none of us are born without emotion so there will always be some type of external influence.  We just need to learn to manage that and we need to learn what is ours to carry.  Some of those fears aren’t even ours and we need to learn to put them down.  It really is ok to say, “I will not be burdened with something that was never my issue in the first place.”  That can apply to generational things as well as current coping/adapting behaviors—a parent being afraid of failure doesn’t mean we have to be afraid and just because people demand our energy doesn’t mean we have to give it.  The beauty of fear is that every time we face it we learn something more about ourselves that we are capable of.  And in order to overcome it, we need to face it.

At the end of the day the only way to move forward is to face everything—especially our fears.  The more we run and choose to ignore what’s in front of us, the longer we delay living or doing what we actually need to do.  Plus I can’t tell you how many times the act of facing something I didn’t want to took so much less energy than avoiding it.  We build up the things we don’t want to do to a degree they become this unpassable mountain in our minds.  Truly, even if there ARE challenging parts, all we need to do is put one foot in front of the other and allow things to pass as they are meant to.  It’s a matter of tackling life one thing at a time.  The biggest mountains are in our minds—and so is the biggest prison.  Master the mind and understand what we need to do and the rest becomes easy.  Have faith that we will always know what we are meant to do—and then do it.

I had a long day the other day and I found myself walking around the halls of my job like a zombie, lamenting that I wasn’t outside or with my child.  I realized that I often say no to playing with him because I’m exhausted—even though I’m constantly begging for more time with him.  When we start playing he never wants to stop and I appreciate that because it shows me that there is purpose in play and that we can always push beyond.  At the same time, because he never wants to stop, that often piles onto the exhaustion.  Even if I say yes, it’s still not enough—someone is always demanding more attention.  I know wholeheartedly that I am exhausted because my cup is empty.  Ok, not totally empty, but it is often depleted.  I know I’m in an unhealth environment (and I have for a long time) but this is confirmed when I am up at 3AM to work out every day and I feel great but then automatically feel fatigued when I get to work.  There are places that simply take the life out of us.

When we surround ourselves with light and joy there is always time for play.  We don’t have to shirk responsibility but we also don’t have to take this life as seriously as we do.  Play creates bonds and alleviates stress and offers a creative platform.  But it has to be genuine play that stimulates us, not forced play where we have to give more than we have.  We have to find work that complements us, that allows us to share our gifts but also replenishes that cup so we have the desire and drive to do more.  We need to do what we need to do to fill our cups including taking a day or making something we really love doing a priority.  This is the only way to truly connect, not only with others, but with ourselves.

I could go on a rant about how this society, the way we live today is thrilled to have us exhausted.  That it’s designed to keep us exhausted so we are kept in our place.  I don’t want to go off on my theories about that but I do believe it’s true.  When we are distracted and tired we become complacent and less likely to push for our own desires/dreams or our purpose/joy.  Too often people are comfortable putting those feelings up as the norm—that because the majority of people feel that way that it’s normal.  The truth is that in the animal kingdom there is always a hierarchy, but that is often based on survival—and I have written many pieces about the transfer of the human need to actually survive and the evolution into the ego’s need to survive.  We truly don’t need to waste our energy and resources in this pissing contest of power and the game of who got more.  In fact playing that game feeds into the system even more and perpetuates the cycle.  We need to wake up to our lives and embrace them, love them, and fully live them. To do that we need to play and we need to set boundaries, make time for what is important to us.  You never know, maybe that will be the example to others.     

“Think of all the times you’ve upgraded certain aspects of your life.  All of this is the power of what it feels like to continuously evolve and view life through a higher lens.  Life’s number one skill that you need to develop is programming you..deciding what outcomes you want, setting goals,” Rob Dyrdek.  Rob shared this wisdom after telling the story of how he bought his first ’93 Honda Civic and knowing that he overextended himself.  He said he overshot the mark.  But he shared this in the respect that he was upgrading his life and that he needed something a little beyond reach to keep him moving forward.  To get bigger you need bigger goals and bigger vision.  You need something to keep you growing.

I never enjoyed the kind of pressure of taking on a project I knew couldn’t be achieved.  I mean I had an outright aversion to it.  Plus I had a chip on my shoulder about being the kid who did the project all those years in school—if I didn’t want a bad grade I had to do it myself.  Ironically, even though I have this aversion, one of my favorite quotes is from Eleanor Roosevelt, “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll still land amongst the stars.”  I love the idea behind it, but I secretly always knew I would hit my mark—if I wanted the moon, that’s what I would get.  I wanted more but I settled for mediocre so I wouldn’t get stuck with something I didn’t want long term.  Putting the idea of going for something just out reach into context with Rob’s quote, I understand the point because if you aim for more than what you have and more than where you think you can go, you will get further than you would have with a smaller goal in mind—even if you don’t get the exact goal.

For me it was a matter of fear—fear of judgment or other people telling me I could/couldn’t do something.  I didn’t want to make a big production out of it because of the fear of failure.  And believe me, I always had a contingency plan.  I always knew what I would do if I failed—I would make it not my fault saying so and so needed me or I was supposed to do x and when those things didn’t come through I could say it wasn’t my fault.  I was scared of the task, I was scared of success.  I didn’t know how to listen to my body or my mind or my soul—it was all outside influences and fear that directed me.  Now I want to set the bar a bit further ahead because I don’t want to stay here.  I don’t want my progress contingent on what other people do.  It isn’t so much about the pressure, it’s about learning what we are capable of.  If we tell ourselves we are only capable of x, when we hit x we will stop.  So go for y.