So, at dinner last night, Carrie introduced me to this little crumb of life coach theory. She asked me what my three favorite things were to do when I was eight years old.
I looked at her like she had three heads and asked her how she expected me to remember such information at my age.
Of course, she hates it when I deflect her questions with another question in an effort to stall or just change the subject, but I hate having to think about myself in an introspective way.
However, she was dead set on me answering this question and not letting me get away with my techniques of conversational derailing. I answered her. I answered her because I pretty much knew the answer and I love her and didn’t want to disappoint her yet again.
My answer was that I loved to read, run around in the woods collecting forest creatures that have no business being pets for the sole purpose of making them pets, and I loved to fish.
Carrie was not surprised by my answers and went on to tell me that these things are what I am supposed to be doing now. These things are what would make me happy if I was able to just do them for the majority of, or a good portion of, my adult life. She, as always, is right.
Nothing would make me happier than to be able to run around in the woods looking for Bigfoot or to be fishing all of the time. Reading can be accomplished on the days when the weather is not conducive to outdoor activities.
But how can this be possible as an adult I asked her. Her response was that the things we loved to do most often when we are of a semi-independent childhood age are what we should do all of our lives to maintain our best lifestyle. The lifestyle that makes us the most happy and content.
I looked at her with a face that she knew meant, “this is impossible, woman.” I have too many responsibilities to ever be able to do that. Knowing me as well as she does, she went on to explain that this is indeed the trap. The responsibility trap that keeps a majority of us from doing what we really want. The trap of social expectations!
We don’t really have to live to make as much money as we can. We don’t really have to live to live up to someone else’s expectations. What we should be doing is living to live the best life that we can, for us.
I REALLY need to start doing the things that I love to do! I need to take my own beautiful and loving wife’s advice and start doing more of what makes me the happiest. So does she.
Don’t waste your life away not doing the things that you love people!
And as you do those things, remember to always Love Your Way Through It!
Shaun
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
This week’s episode is called THE BEAUTY OF NOT FITTING IN. And one of the big aspects of understanding that is understand what it is to feel belonging.
They quote psychologist Abraham Maslow, who worked on human motivation and created a ‘the Hierarchy of Needs’ models, saying that he “saw ‘love and belonging’ as so important he placed them third only to our basic ‘physiological needs’ like food and shelter, and ‘safety needs’ like employment and good health.””
So feeling like you belong is important, but it’s also a way a lot of us feel and there’s a certain freedom and beauty in not belonging.
“Feeling like you don’t fit in with the crowd teaches you to see and appreciate differences in people. It teaches you empathy and compassion for others who are on the outside. It gives you eyes to see things that the crowd, can so easily miss.”
“Everybody tries to fit in because they desperately want to feel at home wherever they are. But fitting in will never get you home. Fitting in is about trying to adapt to a world that’s not your own. You don’t belong there.
“Belonging is about inhabiting the world as the real you. And the hard reality is that you’ll never fit in where you don’t belong. Here’s what it actually takes to truly belong where you’re meant to be—even if you don’t seem to fit in anywhere.”
Writer Marianne Cantwell has made a life work out of telling people that ‘weirdness is your edge,’ and ‘your hidden advantage.’
We look at people with a million followers and have perfect hair and smiles and speaking styles, but those people often didn’t start like that or felt like they belonged or felt comfortable who and where they were.
She said often, “they were the different ones” who didn’t fit in. She looked to her own identity as an empathetic, very sensitive person, who didn’t fit in the business world, which was a bit more straightlaced. And once she adapted and adopted that, she began to be successful.
Anna Wintour – who was allegedly fired for being too edgy is now a fashion editor at Vogue
Oprah – who was allegedly fired for being too emotional when reporting is now Oprah!
Taylor Swift once said: “I remember when I was in school, the whole reason I started writing songs was because I was alone a lot of the time. I’d sit there in school and I’d be hearing people like, ‘Oh my god, this party that we’re going to is gonna be so awesome on Friday. Everyone’s invited except for [Taylor],”
Lady Gaga – wanted to be Boy George and often talks about not fitting in when she was in school
Zayn Malik – has spoken a lot about not fitting in and feeling bullied
Hunter Hayes – cried himself to sleep because of not fitting in and bullies.
1. Finding your tribe is more important than ‘fitting in’
2. Learning what makes you happy is more important than trying to fit someone else’s idea of a successful life
They write,
“It sometimes takes great courage to stop and think about this path and decide what elements we truly choose for our own lives. If we define accomplishment as having these things, we limit what success can be for us. Perhaps success for you is having an afternoon each week to paint, or hike in nature. Or maybe it is having a great circle of friends who really ‘get’ you and where you truly fit in.”
3. Aim for a meaningful life
“Much of our focus on outward signs of success such as making money or shopping might come from an underlying fear that our lives are meaningless. Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, said that ‘When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.’”
So, ask yourself, what is meaningful? Does this thing that I’m doing right now mean something to me?
4. Choose to serve your own values rather than society’s
We grow up in families usually and those family’s praise some things and others? Not so much. One family might think competitive sports are the bomb. Another family might not. Even if your own family you could have those divisions. Those systems of attention and reward push all certain ways, so it’s good sometimes to step back and think, “Holy crap. Am I only a writer because of this thing that happened to me in second grade or because my mom praised it a lot?”
Do I play softball because my mom did? Do I art because the only thing my dad praised me for was that?
As they say on learning-mind.com,
“And countless studies have shown that materialism doesn’t make us happy anyway. I’m not saying that having a steady job or buying nice things is wrong, I’m simply suggesting that you question everything and act upon your own desires rather than society’s expectations.
“When you choose to do the things that serve you, rather than politicians, big businesses, and even family and friends, you will being to live a more authentic life and discover a deep sense of belonging that can never be found by merely fitting in.
That feeling can come from abusive relationships, medical issues, and trauma, but sometimes it comes from a lack of confidence or belief that who you really are is unworthy, which is why we’re going to talk about some awesome stories from Buzzfeed compilation by Allie Hayes about dumb things people do even when their smart.
Look, we all have moments of dumb and weird. It’s better to just embrace that stuff and be the person you were meant to be, the person you are, and be proud and joyful that there are things about you that make you beautiful and unique and so shiny.
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
On BE BRAVE FRIDAYS, we share other people’s stories (unedited) to build a community of bravery and inspiration.
Please let us know if you want to share your story with us and we’ll read it here and post it on our social media and website.
This life is too short to not be brave. We can do this together.
This week’s Be Brave Story is from the wonderful Sheri Boggs!
Sheri, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
You are so brave and so wonderful.
xo Shaun and Carrie
I have a story of bravery to share. It isn’t big, bold physical bravery but rather small, mild bravery in which my foe WAS MY OWN MIND.
I took violin for a few years as a kid and started taking adult violin lessons in my late 40s. I was not great and probably would have given up a long time ago if not for my teacher, (let’s call her Ms.X), who is hilarious and reminds me of Candace Bergen. Half the time my lessons consisted of us ranting about politics or her telling me some marvelously gossipy story about when she played with our local symphony.
A few months before the pandemic we decided I was ready to join the New Horizons Orchestra. New Horizons is an international organization with orchestras in cities all over the United States. Anyone is welcome, regardless of experience or skill, and their motto is “Your Best Is Good Enough.” My first time there, however, I realized I would need significantly more than my best. Everyone seemed to be a music teacher, a retired symphony member, or someone who practices for three hours a day. I stared in bewilderment at the sheet music (a medley of tunes from Chicago) and struggled to keep up. My bow was barely able to land on the right string much less hit the right note.
Needless to say, when everything shut down I was relieved not to have to go back and be so noticeably behind everyone else. I also quit taking violin lessons, falling into a Covid-related funk and reasoning that Ms. X would only want to deal with Zoom for her most promising, high school and college-aged students. I didn’t touch my violin for a full 15 months.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Ms.X emailed me to see how I was doing and to let me know New Horizons was starting up again. I wrote back that everyone had been super nice but I’d felt embarrassed the few times I went, I never had time to practice, and I wasn’t planning to go back. She wrote back that she would “entreat me to reconsider,” claiming that, “some of those people have no talent whatsoever and I would know because I taught some of them.” She assured me that New Horizons is about the joy of playing and that I was already way ahead of some of them, even if it didn’t feel like it.
So, much to my own surprise, I went to my first practice this week! I was again completely lost in the sheet music and unsure what key we were even playing in but it felt good to be there. Everyone was so welcoming and if anyone heard me scratching away at the wrong string with my bow, they didn’t say anything. I came home, practiced, figured out the key, watched videos of other people playing the pieces, and practiced some more. I plan to go back next week.
The takeaway for me is how, when I’m anxious, I try to make my world smaller and talk myself out of things where I have to experience being awful at something, but what actually helps me is to keep pushing outside of my comfort zone, and letting my world get bigger. I had fun, seeing a few familiar faces and occasionally hearing my violin blend in with the violins all around me.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
On BE BRAVE FRIDAYS, we share other people’s stories (unedited) to build a community of bravery and inspiration.
Please let us know if you want to share your story with us and we’ll read it here and post it on our social media and website.
This life is too short to not be brave. We can do this together.
This week it’s Carden’s story that Shaun reads on the coast of Bar Harbor, Maine.
Carden’s Brave Story
Hey Carrie and Shaun!
I thought I’d love to share my story of being brave today! It fits the today’s “dog” theme, too.
So, today I went to the Can Do Canines campus, a service dog organization here in Minnesota, to do a walking evaluation with different dogs.
I was born with spastic cerebral palsy that effects muscle tone in my legs, and causes me lots of trouble with balance and walking comfortably.
Today was a BIG day for me, because up until now Ive been waiting for a mobility assist dog for up to 2.5 years — the first organization I applied for ended up not working out.
But Can Do Canines has gone much smoother.
Going in today I felt nervous, but also very, very excited! I’m a dog lover at heart, and getting to meet these dogs (even though they were already matched with their forever homes) made things feel that much more real. Then came actually walking with the dogs.
I felt a RUSH of anxiety because I had no clue how to walk a big dog, much less the commands and timing of getting the dog to walk forward with me, say “good doggo”, ya know, all that good stuff. It was SO NEW and different and also a little scary.
I felt somewhat in over my head, like “how am I going to be able to function and have a healthy relationship with a dog? How do I learn all these commands? How do I remember commands and to praise consistently? How how how?”
— a lot of it was fear of not being good enough. A good enough student, a good enough handler, a good enough person in general. Internal frustration bubbled up to the point where I wanted to throw down the leash and call it quits. But something else in me knew I could come through.
And then, just like that, I suddenly heard a voice in my head go “aahhh SCREW IT!” and I didn’t feel nearly as anxious!
I took some deep breaths, took some sitting breaks (it was a lot of walking), and made sure to look into the eyes of the 3 dogs I had “tried out”.
All I need to do right now is to focus on the task at hand: walking briefly with a dog to see which harness, height, and handle feel like the best fit for me….thats all. Of course new things, even things I’m looking forward to and that can help me live a more healthy life, can feel scary. But it won’t ALWAYS be scary. Having compassion for myself, and the new dog at my side that I just met minutes prior, helped me push through and enjoy my time much better!!
Carden, we are so proud of you and psyched that you’re getting a dog. You two are going to be amazing together. We know it.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990sor Captain Pontification. And no, we don’t always agree. 🙂
Shaun Farrar
So, I have decided that the problem with the world today is a lack of love and compassion for other human beings. Of course, by “today” I mean almost since the beginning of humanity, but the issue seems to be getting more exacerbated every day. This could also be interpreted as an overabundance of hate but since I believe that love and compassion can always win over hate, I think it is appropriate to say that we need more love and compassion in our world!
I cannot even fathom what drives some of the hatred in our communities or what motivates people to try and change history in an attempt to make their viewpoints the correct ones. I can guess, and if I was to do so, I would say that the biggest motivators are power, greed and for some ignorance, or rather a lack of educating oneself beyond the beliefs that they were taught while in an impressionable state.
Being human brings with it the fault of imperfections and I, being very much less than perfect, often times find myself rushing to judgement or adopting a poor attitude without much thought. However, as time ages me and I write more of these “Love Your Way Through It” blogposts, I do find myself trying much more often to put myself in other’s shoes and to not be so immediately judgmental, condescending or angry. This emotional slowing down actually makes me feel better as a human and more mature.
I have a hard time being mature sometimes!
My point is that we are all human. We all make mistakes. We all need love, compassion, empathy and acceptance as an equal to any other human. Please try to remember that spreading hate has an emotional cost to everyone, spreading love has no cost and the emotional benefits are endless!
Have a wonderful day full of love and compassion and remember to always Love Your Way Through It!
Shaun
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
We’ve all heard that if we just think positively everything will be better.
We have journals and lists that we create every night or morning of how we’re blessed.
Then there’s the mantra, “Change your thoughts, change your life.”
And sometimes when I see these things I get a little ragey because it isn’t always that easy. It’s hard to always think positively when your dog has just died or you’re in a war zone or your being hurt.
We’re all allowed to be a little ragey sometimes or sad or gleeful or even covetous. That’s because we’re human, but it’s also because of something even more important that we all need to remember.
WE ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS.
We can think, “I am Jesus” all day long but that doesn’t make us Jesus. We can think, “I am Beyonce” or “I am the president.” But it doesn’t make us so.
What makes us who we are?
The things we do.
I have a friend who does one act of kindness after another, who cares passionately about the people she loves. But people can annoy her sometimes. Injustices REALLY annoy her.
And after she has a judgement-free rant, she’ll say, “I’m so awful. I know! I know!”
But that’s the thing.
She’s not awful. She’s amazing. She’s one of the best people I know. And that’s because who she is isn’t just about her thoughts. Who she is stems from her actions, her choices, her decisions.
When she needs to persist or overcome, she doesn’t give in to her thoughts of doubt, her insecurities, or even her anger. She acts. She makes a difference.
How cool is that?
Yes, it’s important and super healthy to have a positive outlook. But it’s not always possible, and when you don’t achieve that? It doesn’t make you bad. If you think you’re bad, then you’re just going to end up in another negative thought spiral.
You’re too awesome for that.
And you can’t sit around waiting to be happy, hoping that this will be the day where you aren’t in pain, or someone isn’t a troll, or the basement doesn’t flood. You have to make the choice to be happy and take the actions that help you feel that if that’s what you want to feel.
You can think about changing all the time, but actual change come from doing the work, the actions, making the choices and going for it.
You can do that.
So, how do you do that?
DO THINGS
Acting/doing/participating in something takes you away from negative thoughts and thrusts you into the action, gives you focus. People in Asia and Europe have talked about the flow state for a long time. People in sports tend to call it being in the zone.
But it’s a place, and damn it’s beautiful.
To get there though, you have to do the action. That might be running, writing, painting, climbing, figuring out a theorem, creating a blog post, but it happens because you are doing an action. Do the things.
PUT YOUR THOUGHTS IN THEIR PLACE
Really. This isn’t new either, but it works. When you feel that negative thought spiral coming on, call it out. Say, “Yo. Negative thought. Just because I forgot to close the bedroom door before we made the sex and forgot my avo and Aunt Rose Marie were coming over does not mean ‘I am so stupid.’ It just means I was so in the moment that I forgot to close the door.”
You’ve got to try to see those negative thoughts for the bullies they are and sometimes all they need to chill out is just to be noticed.
I have wicked social anxiety. It’s like a weird kind of stage fright. And the only way for me to battle it is to just act right through it. So I get in the car and drive to the party and tell my negative thoughts that nothing horrifying will happen and my actions won’t make people go to jail. I go to the board meeting. I do the live podcast. I buckle up and stare down the negative thoughts and once I’m doing the actions? It helps tamp down the anxiety. But if I hesitate? That fear builds up and up, gaining so much power that it’s a vicious battle to tamp it back down.
And I love people. I love the joy of public speaking. I love moving people and inspiring them in person, right? So, it’s almost like my fright is excitement gone terribly wrong. It’s almost like a part of me thinks, “Who am I to get to do this? To be this happy? To have people listen to me?”
For a kid with a speech defect (and now an adult with one), that’s a pretty amazing thing. Middle-school Carrie would have never imagined it.
Pay Attention To The World Like A Tourist or a Poet Would
I know! I know! Poets and tourists don’t seem to go together, but they both search for experiences and explore their worlds.
A Roman emperior, Marcus Aurelius, would detail the world like the best of writers or artists. Ordinary things became extraordinary under his pen.
Noticing things is an action. Seeing things is a gift. Empathy and understanding can be byproducts of observation. Be present. Don’t overlook the ordinary. You’ve got this.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
Does it not seem that it is often the case that it is much easier to remember negative events in our lives? Our miraculous vessels of life and the brains that control them are and probably always will be a bit of a mystery to us.
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990sor Captain Pontification.
I believe that to enjoy soup to the fullest, you must regularly stir it while eating, this way you can prevent all of the tasty bits from constantly sitting on the bottom waiting until the end.
Some of you may argue with me and say that you enjoy those tasty bits sitting and waiting, and that the last few bites are therefore always the best. I can see your point and often times actually agree!
However, for this blog post, soup is but a simple analogy and if you hear me out maybe you will see my point.
Last night while Carrie and I were taking an evening stroll and enjoying our unseasonably warm weather, she started to ask me questions about how I recall things. This of course led to a full blown discussion about recall and memory and how people do that in different ways. Some people can vividly picture an object in their mind, some people can picture an object in their mind with less detail and apparently, some people cannot visualize objects at all. Very interesting, I thought!
This morning I was pontificating upon that subject matter further and I began to wonder how the human brain works. I mean, a memory must be built upon all of the different sensory inputs that we possess, right? What makes the brain decide which ones to discard, which ones to keep vaguely and which ones to keep for a very long time, if not forever?
Think about some of your earliest memories for a moment. I would wager that some of them make perfect sense that you can still remember them because they are attached to something special. It could be a hyper-negative situation or an extremely special one in a positive way.
However, I would also wager that some of them are just run of the mill memories and you cannot attach any significance to them that would make you understand why you can still remember them. These are the memories that have put me into a quandary.
I could type forever and actually research this subject and learn not only myself but maybe some of you on this topic, but alas, I am too lazy for that and I don’t feel it necessary. I will say one more thing on the subject, however, just to throw in some more confusion for myself. Does it not seem that it is often the case that it is much easier to remember negative events in our lives? Our miraculous vessels of life and the brains that control them are and probably always will be a bit of a mystery to us.
So, back to the soup analogy. While it is true that the tastiest bits often times sink to the bottom, and therefore need to be stirred up, the real essence of the soup is in the broth! The mundane. The day to day. The memories that come and go so fast that nobody could have an accurate visual recall in their head. The flavor and the all of the components that could possibly make this soup we call life better, are in the broth. Just like all of the flavor and components that make you who you are are in the minutiae of the broth that makes up your being.
Point? Always work on making the broth the best that it can be! Remember to stir up the tasty bits of memory regularly! One without the other is merely chunks of meat or veggies or glorified dishwater, but together they make a very tasty dish!
And most importantly, remember to always LOVE YOUR WAY THROUGH IT!
Shaun
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to evolve, to care, to succeed, to be awesome, it just means that you can let your quest for perfectionism pull you down into despair.
When I was a little kid, I would sometimes be afraid to draw things because I would have to erase the mistakes every time I made Snoopy’s head a little wobbly. That only happened when one of my older siblings laughed at my drawing, told me it looked like crap, and to go put my head back in a book.
Now, I don’t care too much about drawing Snoopy perfectly. I just explore with form and e texture and color and those positive and negative spaces.
Here’s another not so harsh truth:
Every day is an opportunity to live.
That’s right. Each day we get is a day we probably have to work and deal with people, but it’s also another day to just get out there and live, to live each moment and think, “Holy poop. What’s going to happen next.”
When we worry too much about how we look in our bathing suit, we lose the opportunity to jump in a Maine lake with our friends.
When we worry too much that our book’s copyediting won’t be perfect, we lose the opportunity to share our story.
Our perfectionism about our work, our body, our minds, our selves keeps us from playing, from joy, from wonder, from living in the damn moment and living beyond that moment.
When your life goes a bit out of control? That’s when your perfectionism really does you in. You have to cultivate the playfulness inside of you that allows you to spend each day as an opportunity that you can approach with curiousity and wonder and maybe even joy.
I know! I know! What kind of wildness is this? Joy?
Yes, joy.
When you feel stressed because you feel like you aren’t good enough, try approaching yourself and the problem differently. Applaud yourself for every little victory you have the way we applaud toddlers for taking their first wobbly steps, first full word, first full sentence, or even first time they make it to the potty.
Allowing ourselves to approach ourselves with wonder and acceptance is really an amazingly strong and brave thing.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I am not a therapist or a minister an influencer or a teacher, a psychiatrist or a medical professional. At all.
I’m just a normal human living a pretty normal life where there are ups and downs and cataclysmic events and occasionally monotony.
But I’ve learned something.
I’ve learned that love is a powerful force and that even when you rage and sob, even when anxiety makes you pace across the bedroom at 2 a.m., you can still survive and that love? Love’s the reason that you can. Love and hope and belief.
That’s why we started the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast. It forced me to have a voice. And it forced me to listen to my own voice when I mixed down the audio and get used to that voice
And then we started a live podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which was even scarier because:
It’s live.
My face and my sloshy voice was out there.
You can’t control live things especially not when your husband is the other person there with you. And that lack of control? It can be scary.
LOVING THE STRANGE is important to us though and that’s because we truly believe that people should feel okay with getting their strange on, to fly their strange flag proudly, to own it, right? You get to love who and what you want to love. No judgement. Just love.
How cool is that? Now, it’s just about all of us inspiring each other to live that, right?
So, I hope you’ll take this journey with me and that you can embrace the love inside of you and around you and love your way through it, too.
Here’s my work in progress for art this week. Hey! Don’t forget we’re all works in progress, right? So, um, don’t judge too harshly?
Yes, I did paint on part of a box from Man Crates. Canvasses are expensive!
And I would love to start telling your stories about being brave. You can stay anonymous if you want. No story is too big or too small. I’ll start sharing them every week on my Youtube channel and here. Let’s all inspire each other, okay? This isn’t about me. This is about us — all of us.
Real love is when we see the crud in someone else, in ourselves, and we love our way through that anyway.
What if you weren’t afraid?
I know! I know!
Stay with me here. But what if you weren’t afraid to do things that you’ve always wanted to do, but have been holding yourself back because of possible ridicule or ‘failure?’
What if you weren’t afraid of your own goodness and light?
What if you actually believed in it, believed in yourself?
As most everyone knows, I was (and sometimes am) a person who gets scared of things a lot and I avoid them. I do Be Brave Fridays to force myself to show my art and that side of my creativity.
I write novels even though I’ve spent a lot of time being terrified of bad reviews.
I’ve talked a lot about my voice and my sloshy s’s and how that kept me from singing and acting and public speaking because I just couldn’t handle the potential ridicule.
I once had a teacher tell me that nobody would ever hire me or love me, that I’d never get into college or get married because my voice was so ridiculous. I was little. It hurt. I believed them.
To be fair, even as a successful grownup, people still mimic and mock my voice sometimes. It still hurts a bit, but mostly it makes me sad for them. Once I was lucky enough to talk to a man on NPR about just this and he said, “It’s better to have a distinctive voice. We love that in radio. It makes you stand out.”
Standing out can be scary, can’t it?
Anyways, that’s why we started the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE and then our LOVING THE STRANGE podcast. It forced me to have a voice. And it forced me to listen to my own voice when I mixed down the audio and get used to it.
But despite these bit leaps I’ve made in two years, I still notice things that I do that might be based in fear, that might be me trying to hide anything shiny in myself because of fear.
My fears:
Being super poor again.
Ridicule.
Being thought of as arrogant.
Hurting other people by being too vulnerable, out-there, shiny, honest, whatever.
Not making a difference
Those fears are probably why I have such a hard time with videos, why I assign my own daily motivational/inspiration thoughts to my dogs and cats on social media posts, why I’d rather be behind the camera instead of in front of it.
So, I obviously still have some work to do, right?
But that’s okay. Work is a good thing. Growth is a good thing. And allowing yourself to realize that you are more than adequate, that you can create yourself, that there is something shiny inside of you and you need to uncage that, cultivate it, let it flow?
That’s a big ass deal.
When you let your own self be shiny, be real, be kind, you give other people a chance to be lights too.
In a way, it’s selfish to hide your shininess, your belief because not only is it holding yourself back from making the biggest contributions to your family and your world, but it’s also teaching by example.
If I hide my light, you can hide yours.
If I show mine, you can show yours.
We all have goodness and crud inside of ourselves, right? Real love is when we see the crud in someone else, in ourselves, and we love our way through that anyway. Love and acceptance are huge things. So much of the darkness inside of us is about fear, anxiety, pain, trauma. And there are so many shiny, gorgeous humans who have been through so much and they still light up the world.
Shouldn’t we want to be one of them?
This is so important that I’m going to repeat it. When you accept how amazing you can be, how good you can be, then you show other people that they can do it, too.
People get addicted to fear. We watch scary shows. We search for the rush of adrenalin. But what if we could turn our stage fright, our minor anxieties into excitement? How cool with that be.
What if we could allow ourselves to see the good in ourselves and other people, to step away from judgement, admit mistakes, be okay with being embarrassed and transform?
I think we can. We can love our way through it, right?
animal friends being shiny
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
