Dear Self: Just be.

Dear Self,

You are nearing the end of another year, one more glorious trip around the sun.  This has been a year rife with highs and lows – many of which you opened up and talked about on this very blog.  

You have been so brave in letting people into the inner workings of your story.  More than once, you have tentatively pressed the “publish” button because you didn’t necessarily want to share your experience, but you knew the weight of its message might be of value to someone else.  You have said over and over that stories have the power to connect us and that this world, right now, needs connection more than ever.  So, I’m proud of you for sharing your story despite being scared to do so at times.

I know you feel exhausted right now.  Like you are running the last mile of a marathon that never quite ends.  You’ve worked so hard and finished an EP that will be released next year.  You wrote the songs, you helped play on them and produce them, you did the graphics and the social media and the videos and the soon-to-do marketing push.  You’ve continued to build and scale your business… you now have multiple people on your team (part time, but hopefully full time in the near future).  You managed another person’s company for several days a week for the majority of this year – participating in their client work, as well.  You even kept and maintained a blog which sent out content straight from your heart every. single. week. since September.  It’s good to reflect and admit that you’ve done a lot this year.  I know you still don’t feel like its enough much of the time, but it is.  You’ve challenged your limits and worked yourself past what you thought was possible.  – At times to your advantage, and at times to the point where you didn’t know if you could take one more step in any direction let alone the right one.

And now, in this moment, you are feeling worn.  Tired deep into your bones.  You are physically exhausted, yes, but you’ve had a vulnerability hangover for a good 3 weeks now.  All you really want to do is eat cookies and binge watch Netflix for a week straight, but here you are, showing up again, because you know in your guts that sharing your story is the right thing to do.

You will take the rest you need – only a few more days until then, but for now, I want to remind you why you are here.

You are showing up because you know what it feels like to have a dream that you believe in so deeply it aches in your cells and wakes you up in the hours of the morning that are still covered in darkness.  You know the mystery of that place.  You know the pain of that place.  You know the resilience buried in that place.  And you don’t want anyone to experience that place alone if you can help it.

You are showing up because you want to connect.  You genuinely love people and want to be of service.  You want to encourage people and say the things to them that you wish you had heard when you first started walking the road less traveled.  You know, despite your difficulty in asking for help, that this road doesn’t need to be traveled alone and you want to cultivate the kinds of relationships that will launch people forward, not hold them back.

You are showing up because you want to learn.  You want to grow.  You want to continue to challenge yourself.  Writing, sharing, showing up gives you a unique opportunity to explore your inner workings while encouraging others to do the same.

You are showing up because you believe in the power of story telling.  In sharing vulnerability through words, through music, through video, through art, through your business, through sharing your life – you fervently hold on to the idea that people connect to one another through stories.  Some of your most life changing experiences have occurred when listening to or reading other people’s stories and you want to take part in this.  To feel what it feels like to be a part of the human existence in all it’s fullness.  The good, the bad, the dichotomy of it all because you know that’s the way to an awakened and authentic life.  

You are so goal oriented.  You even created a free course for next year to empower people to successfully achieve their goals, but in this moment, I want you to rest in what you’ve already done.  Don’t get too caught up in the inner workings of 2019 yet.  Bask in the fact that you did what you wanted to do in 2018.

Next year will be glorious (queue Macklemore’s song of the same title) because you will choose to make it so.  I know you will have moments in which you want to explode with happiness.  You will also have moments when the tears will overwhelm you.  All of it is beautiful.  It’s part of the human experience in which you so actively have and continue to participate.  

So, sweet self, for now, be soft.  Eat the cookies.  Watch the Netflix.  Go on your trip and refuse to worry that you’ll drop the ball on the multiple projects you have going.  Just be.  For that is, and will always, be enough. It is the key to happiness.

Love (& Merry Christmas),

Y O U.