Last week, I was feeling stuck, not knowing how to go forward or what to say. It made me question whether I want to continue doing this blog. I am still trying to figure that out and recorded a whole “podcast” (loose term - I went for a walk on the beach and recorded a very noisy voice memo) explaining to myself and an imaginary audience why I’m stopping and how I might want my creative output to evolve. It’s here if you want to go on the walk with me.

In the meantime, I wanted to share something that felt more important - a message from unconditional love. This is a practice borrowed from author Elizabeth Gilbert where you ask “Love” (God, the Universe, your higher self, whatever works for you) what it wants you to know. If you’ve never done anything like this or your BS meter is going off, I couldn’t recommend it more. To get you out of your own head and seek input from an infinitely loving voice.

This is what it told me:

what i want you to know is that i love you. i love you when you try too hard. i love you when it all feels easy. i love you when you’re lost in your head. and i love you when you know exactly where you are. i love you in your wholeness, and your perceived brokenness. i love you no matter how it feels you are doing. i love you when you feel like you are fucking up. i love you when you are your biggest, brightest star, and when you’re afraid you’re too bright.

the love is never gone. but times like these, you struggle to feel it.

you think you have to crawl your way back to it because it feels far away. like you won’t get it unless you do this or you don’t do that. like you had it then you lost it. like it’s one step away or a million miles.

you can’t lose it. so you can’t win it back. it can’t be earned or taken away.

but i love you when you are so hard at work trying to figure it out and piece it together and do the right things. i love you when you give up and start over. i love you when you lose patience. i love you when you cry. i love you when you get angry. i love you just for being.

do you see? you can’t disappoint me. even when you disappoint yourself. even when you fall short of where you want to be. even when it feels like all hope is lost and there’s nowhere to go. even when you’re too tired to lift one single finger.

you can still trust yourself. you can still trust me. i trust you. forever.

When you’re done chucking at that Seinfeld reference, here’s a prayer:

May I be an easy vehicle for laughter

May I be smooth passage for tears

May my heart beat with all that is

I have a lot on my plate this week.

Looking at my calendar, my shoulders start climbing toward my ears and my chest tightens.

I’m tensing up because I assume it’s going to be hard. 

What I see is that it’s going to be full. 

Hard is not actually a requirement. (Unless I’m trying to PROVE I’m good enough because someone modeled an idea of “hard work” that I’m trying to live up to [cough] Dad…)

I’m done prioritizing some dumb Dad story over enjoying my life.

I want ease.

I feel the power of just speaking this into existence. But, how do I actually live it?

Create ease in my body and mind right now.

Create ease in my body and mind while I work.

Since I’m writing this blog now, I’m going to start with ‘while I work.’

I decided that what will best support my ease is to dive into this blog, so I dove into this blog. I started by telling myself, “let it be easy.” It does not have to be grueling or self-punishing. Let me repeat that. It DOES NOT have to be grueling or self-punishing.

As I sit here and type, I’m going slow, breathing, and staying with my body. I’m noticing when tension creeps in, and relaxing BEFORE I continue. 

I also notice my desire to be perfect and sit here until every word is right. My perfectionism won’t rest (ever) and wants me ground down into a pulverized piece of dust, water-deprived and head aching. Thing is, I don’t want that. And I’m the big boss. I wear the leopard print shorts around here.

So I’m just going to witness that part of me and let it sit next to me while I do things differently. 

I write down what’s coming, let it flow “good” or “bad,” and trust that time will be my friend and collaborator and when I come back to edit. (I’m here in the future, editing, and I was right.) It will be clear what is important and what is not.

When I feel complete, I soothe that perfectionistic part of me and tell it, “You can trust me. We’re done for now. We’re going for a walk and we’ll come back later.”

So that’s bringing ease into doing the work. Now for the right now. This one’s for you, version of me looking ahead at the calendar.

I’m often tempted to cover all my bases and prepare and think of every possible thing that might happen or what I might need or what that person might say, or, or, or….

But when the moment actually comes, it never feels like I predicted. Something I was excited about disappoints me. Something I was anxious about actually felt okay. Some random thing I could never have anticipated changes how I see and do everything anyway.

It’s not useful to spend the currency of the present trying to predict the future. 

Part of making things harder than they need to be is drawing the “hard” toward us, into the present moment.

Why do we try to predict the future anyway? Because WE WANT TO FEEL EASE NOW. The irony! (Go ahead, let yourself laugh at how silly our minds are sometimes.)

The more I focus on the future and try to pin my security to that, the more I’m actually pushing my security away. The emotion I want to feel, can only ever be felt NOW! When I’m feeling it! 

So, instead of trying to feel ease by fixating on the future, I have to relax and allow ease. Right, the fuck, now.

Here’s one way. I name something in my life that I trust. (I am a creative person. I have things to say. I have done hard things. There are people who love me. I am safe to sit here and just breathe.) These things aren’t going away. I let myself relax into them.

How does trust feel? 

I can exhale. My focus comes back to my body, in the present. My shoulders start to drop. I feel solid. I’m breathing more easily.

So when I notice my body start to get tense or anxious, I practice feeling trust. I bring that into right now. That way, when life comes, I can meet it with ease.

The future will come in its own time.

It’s okay to feel good now. 

Last week, I wrote about slowing down and hibernating during the winter. Allowing life to be more…less. 

This week, I’m sick and work is slow. AKA I’m being forced to practice what I preach.

I feel like shit, I’m bored, and I’m asking myself, “why is it so hard to just BE?”

And guys, trust me, I’m doing all the things. I meditate. I journal. I spend time outside. I stretch. I exercise. I am in touch with myself. (Like, REALLY in touch with myself.) I’m super comfortable being alone. And I have great friends and a loving relationship. I love what I do and it feels important.

And yet, I can’t escape the tedium of existence. 

So this week, I’m going to write as raw as possible. Because life isn’t a tidy blog post about how I’ve figured everything out and here are 10 ways to everlasting peace.

I always get to the bottom of posts like that and feel…well, nothing. I want to feel closer to the person that wrote it. I want to experience their mushy center. I want to know there’s another vulnerable human out there, trying. Being real, not perfect.

It’s soooo tempting though. I catch myself ALL THE TIME. Thinking I have to have it all figured out, presenting a shiny shell and thinking that’s what makes me “good.” 

But that’s how we miss what’s really there. I think what makes me good is my humanness, my energy, my presence. Being and listening with my whole heart.

When I listen like that, the path reveals itself. 

Listening to myself right now, I’m tired. My face hurts from holding in the contents of my brain. My throat feels dry and scorched. I want to feel “complete,” but there is no complete. Life just keeps going. Maybe I wrote something that will touch someone. Maybe I didn’t. But my body says, “I’m done and I’m thirsty.” So I’m going to post what I’ve got, put my laptop away and drink a glass of water. See you next week!

I was planning a blog post about a time this week when I had to set down my expectations and get out of my own way…but something else came out instead, so I had to set down my expectations and get out of my own way. How appropriate. I ended up writing what I needed in that moment: something to help me get in the mood to create when I’m feeling uninspired or resistant. And so, here is my prayer to creativity. I hope it blesses you with a SPARK!

wherever i come from,

willing or…less,

an idea on my soul,

or nothing, just yet.

may the gods crowd around me

and fill up my chest.

may my heart be wide open

to inspiration’s breath.

let my mind be a servant

to gather, then rest,

to surrender its fears

and its thoughts of what’s “best.”

i’m lighting a candle

and making the bed,

so something more precious

can lay down instead.

i’m scattering petals,

a rainbow of colors,

so creativity knows

it belongs in these covers.

i’m singing sweet songs

to entice all the lovers.

to show them it’s safe,

i brought plenty of rubbers.

this is a place 

to be wild and free,

for everything silly 

and sacred to meet.

closing my eyes,

i bough to the tree.

i’m ready to give life

to what’s coming through me.

In fourth grade, we took our first overnight class trip to Colonial Williamsburg Virginia. When I look back on that year, it feels like the last sunlit spot of my childhood. 

I was still a candidate for popularity and I loved my teacher, Mr Carollan. He was fun and engaging and made it seem cool to care about school. 

And I cared about school. A LOT. It was my whole identity.

Everything was about getting an A and being the best. Because if I wasn’t, who was I? How would I earn love and attention?

I won the class spelling bee twice that year, which I’m still proud to report. But I came in second place to Aaron Chennault in memorizing the state capitals. A devastating blow.

I was sensitive and intensely perfectionistic.

I was also lonely and not well socialized, an only child to older, emotionally unavailable parents.

When I look back on that trip to Williamsburg, I see flashes of funny moments with the kids in my class and remember feeling excited to be in the mix. But I also remember something sad. Something I was ashamed and embarrassed by, and kept tucked away until a few months ago, when I told my partner Ike.

I remember it vividly. 1999. A hot day in Colonial Williamsburg. We were given a couple hours to wander freely. Alone, I stumbled into a highly sought after attraction. I went to the back of a long line of people waiting to have their photo taken in the old-timey stockade. (I did not know what a stockade was. I stuck my neck out, held up limp wrists on either side, and said, “the thing they put you in when you’re in jail.” “Stockade,” Ike said.)

That day in 1999, we could hardly wait to wriggle our body parts between those slabs of wood and pretend we’d been captured for our heinous crimes.

In the beating sun, I sweat and waited patiently for what seemed like an eternity, trading my precious free time for a turn to have this sensational experience. I inched forward, clutching my disposable camera, watching person after person wedge their arms and head in, smile for a photo, then bounce off contentedly.

I was finally next. I looked down at my disposable camera, and after all that waiting, realized there were no pictures left. And no one I knew was around to take it. I looked around, helpless and ashamed. I wondered if it was still worth wedging my arms and head in. That was the part I was excited about anyway. But I was too embarrassed. So I just walked away. 

That memory sat frozen in my mind for over 20 years, coated in the sinking loneliness I felt that day. A feeling I knew well.

If you’ve been following along, you know that we’re currently traveling the East coast. Last Saturday, Ike and I had some time to kill before we had to be in Maryland.

“…We could go to Colonial Williamsburg and get that photo of you in the stockade.” We erupted into laughter. 

To drive all the way to there to redo that moment from 1999 was absurd. But it also meant the world. To reach our arms back in time and hug that lonely 9 year old I’d given up on all those years ago. Laughing and crying, I agreed.

2023. A crisp day in Colonial Williamsburg. There was no line outside the courthouse, no swarm of sweaty kids waiting to be publicly arrested. Just me. A 33-year-old woman, standing exactly where I stood 24 years ago, looking at those same pieces of wood. Everything around me snapped into place. I was there, in the past and the present. Standing with my child self. Waiting. Not for one click of a disposable camera, but for 24 years to pass, so I could show her how worthy she was. Show her the person we’d become. 

When I got in the stockade, I told Ike to hold his phone up like he was taking a picture, but never tell me whether he took it or not. The mystery seemed more fun. Because it isn’t about a picture, or a spelling bee, or an A. It’s about going on absurd adventures, revealing your vulnerablest parts, and walking yourself through becoming cooler than you could have ever imagined in your wildest, 9-year-old dreams.

I’ve been reflecting on how I dampen my own creative spark - how I inflict the same wounds that were inflicted on me when I expressed myself growing up. Whether through criticism, perfectionism, shame, or invalidation, I’m blocking my life force and hurting my spirit. It adds up. It sits in my heart and strangles my joy. Even when I’m telling others how important it is to support their creativity, and KNOWING IT, later, I still turn around and disrespect my own. WHAT THE FUCK?! This poem is an exploration of that heartbreak, and more importantly, a vow to meet myself differently.

Tender seed 

bursting forth.

My heart 

asking timidly

for permission to fly.

So many times

I’ve taken a hammer

and smashed you to pieces

before someone else could.

Bravely, you healed,

and waited,

beating quietly 

behind the door.

Taking orders

to swallow and ignore 

impulses

pulsing through you.

I can feel the bruised places

where you hid

under my skin

while I shouted,

No. 

Not here, 

not now, 

not like that.

You don’t belong.

But that’s my shame, not yours.

Acting on ancient orders

willed down through DNA.

Be small.

Shut up.

Obey.

I don’t want that anymore.

I want your raging river.

I want you spilling out over the banks,

slamming against rocks,

splashing and playing

with every creature that calls you home.

I love you deep.

I love you shallow.

I love you still, sorrowful, quiet.

I love you strong, willful, thundering.

Whatever

is the truth.

Thank you

for staying alive.

Now is your time.

I will be your biggest fan,

instead of head of the committee

of reasons why not.

I will put you on my shoulders 

instead of standing on your grave.

I will use my legs and hands

to bring us closer.

I will use my tongue and skin

to taste warmth.

I serve your army of love. 

A soldier of delight, 

marching toward wholeness,

jumping with joy,

dancing like a dolphin in your veins,

smiling at you, belly up,

from the inside.

You’re the leader now,

not a pet I let out

once a day to take a shit.

Take your place as Lion,

King of the Wild.

Fiery.

Unchained.

Loud.