Instagram Re-home: Part Two

As I prepared to break from social media, I felt waves of excitement. It felt like I was starting a whole new way of life and I am still becoming more and more excited to let this piece of life go for awhile.

I also feel waves of anxiety and grasping, as if deleting apps from my phone means deleting my memories from existence.

I began looking back at my digital life on Instagram. Some of the posts held words I needed to hear (again), lessons I could reflect on, and beautiful images of other countries, random days and the like. So, I re-homed a collection of my favorite posts to this mindful community space. My hope is that visitors can spend time here, truly reading and absorbing what resonates with them instead of scrolling to something new in a few short seconds.

Take a deep breath and see what brings you joy, inspiration or insight. No urgency to consume here :)

Last week, I asked a client to think about the time when they were most engaged with life.

Not when they were happiest, but when they were the most fulfilled.

Her answer - living as an artist in Manhattan- took me back to my days as a photographer in Washington, D.C. I shot at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Shakespeare Museum, at fashion shows and at little known places around the city. I was fortunate for the opportunity to explore (a favorite act) and had a blank check to capture black and white images from behind the scenes at my client’s events.

Creativity has been my sidekick since I was a child, but only last year did I recognize it as a front-and-center value that keeps me feeling whole. And it has made all the difference.

Designing an at-home shoot with @josephphilipgardner today allowed me the same familiar creativity. I’m always so grateful for the opportunity to spend an entire day nourishing sides of myself that rarely get a full day to shine. Each time I walk away lighter and with renewed energy.

Living your values, doing what you love, showing up authentically - however you might describe it - isn’t just something that lives in self-help books and indie movies. It’s a choice we make each 👏 and 👏 every 👏 day.

Go do ✨you✨ today. Enjoy the peace and energy that comes along for the ride.

☕️ Got your coffee? Super.

I’ve been seeing a lot of fear show up in sessions these last few months.

Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
Fear of not being good enough.
Fear of being *too* good (really).
Fear of not being seen, heard or understood unless you play by someone else’s rules.

Some of these fears are in direct contradiction. But we behave as if they’re real and true, and that’s the moment we stop ourselves in our tracks.

This paralysis and frustration creates what I call the Glass Box scenario. Something shatters regardless of the direction in which we move.

Here’s the thing about fear, it functions to keep us safe. Immobilized. Free from perceived or actual risk. Cozy. Comfortable.

Fantastic for avoiding death by tiger in the cavewoman days. Not so great (or healthy) as a perpetual state of being.

I’ve been asking clients to list the things they’ve gained, learned, or grown from by playing it safe.

Try it today. Take stock of the times you’ve avoided pain, awkwardness or a challenging decision out of fear, and what happened as a result. Now make a list of everything you’ve learned or gained from the most uncomfortable moments of your life.

Much like Shakira’s hips, the data don’t lie🤓.

Here’s to rolling out of bed and showing Monday who’s boss.🔥 If you need a little kick in the pants, this #MondayMotivation motto is all yours.

🍦Happiness is eating ice cream in Portugal🍦

If we let it, the messiness of the human condition makes its point and teaches its lessons. Then, somehow, we wake up and decide we are ready to keep pace with the sun and the moon once again. To rise and to rest as nature intended.

It does not serve the bigger picture to stay in fear or anger or sadness or loss, even if it is always there in some way. It does not serve us, in the long run, to remain in a daily loop of what isn’t, when so much is.

“There are two ways to feel the wind: be still or keep moving.” - Mark Nepo

Every Sunday I walk to the local flower shop and buy whatever I’m drawn to. This has been a practice of mine for years and somehow still brings me back to all the gratitude I hold for life, regardless of circumstances. I take home my new arrangement and drink my coffee while planning my week, including making a note of everything that went well the week before.

Then I consider anything that’s happened to weigh me down. Eventually the lesson arises and I jot it down under “what went well”. It’s my way of taking the heaviness and noise we would otherwise discount as stress, frustration or anger and reframing it into something that nudges me to grow. It gives me control over how I view life’s circumstances and reminds me that every interaction, every event, is an opportunity to take a step forward. And that’s quite lovely 😊🙏🏼

We can wait for the wind to find us, or we can create our own.

✨First, courage. Then, everything else.✨

Join me in focusing on what I believe to be THE skill that precedes everything else:

One of my favorite perspective-changing exercises to nudge this #LifeEdit is the Deathbed Mentality. It’s simple (albeit morbid, but you get over it):

1) Close your eyes.
2) Imagine you’re very old, at peace, and looking back on your life.
3) Now consider the problem, fear, decision or struggle you’re facing today. The person, story or barrier keeping you from acting with courage.

From your deathbed perspective, what will you wish you would have done?

This way of thinking helps us to take ourselves out of the moment (where we think ourselves out of taking risks) to get a 30,000 foot view of our lives.

What is important now?

What are you kicking yourself for?

What does your current challenge or struggle look like from this perspective?

We can choose comfort and sameness, or we can choose to shake it up in pursuit of something truer.

✨If we want something we’ve never had, we must do things we’ve never done.✨

Eight years ago today I boarded a one-way flight to San Diego. I left my life in Washington, DC and stepped into a completely different life — not because I wanted to escape the life I had, but because it was time to move on to all the possibilities before me. The years that followed gave me:

- Three apartments
- My first home
- The best neighbors
- Marriage
- Divorce
- A meditation practice
- A greater understanding and life of wellbeing
- A career that allows me to be my own boss
- Publishing my first book
- Dozens of incredible people
- Hundreds of lessons
- Countless adventures to Northern California, Baja and the PNW
- Epic music festivals
- Four rescue animals
- Redwoods, the ocean and majestic mountains
- So many memories with friends and family ❤️

Jan 1st, I move to LA :)

We’re conditioned to believe that life is linear and our purpose is to find stability and safety. But life is a series of births and deaths. We get to cycle through as many lives as we have to or want to in order to fulfill ourselves. This has never been more comforting to me than it is today, as I watch myself saunter into a new life once again.

Today I pulled some cards as a fun way to ask for guidance in this next life. Then I opened Yung Pueblo’s book, Inward, to a random page.

Ain’t this the truth.

In every new life we celebrate and drop what no longer serves us in order to move with ease into what lies before us. This week I’m focused on gracefully untethering myself from old roles, old stories and old habits, so to enter this next year and this next life with ease, mindfulness and the boundless energy of optimism.

The upsetting truth: most of my coaching clients, at one point or other, share that social media content makes them feel depressed, behind in life, or less than.

It’s natural to compare ourselves to others, but it’s important to understand what is true and real on the other side of the camera.

I share my experiences as a former model and photographer (nothing is as effortless as it seems!), and we spend time discussing the reality that these images serve one function - to attract followers - maybe to promote a product or a person who, while showcasing what looks like an effortless life, has all the same hang ups and struggles you do.

As someone who deeply values truth, I don’t follow accounts that portray a false sense of reality for their followers. I want to see wrinkles, scars, authenticity, and joy ☺️🙏🏼

Life isn’t about being a beautiful person in a luxurious place. It’s about what we put our blood, sweat and tears into, which is rarely glamorous. Its about what a person stands for and the actions they take to serve their purpose. It’s about sadness, messiness, laughter, falling, rising, caring deeply, making hard choices, digging deep, struggling and becoming a more evolved version of ourselves. Which, if you do it right, is rarely pretty.

I challenge you to be mindful today as you scroll around social media.

Ask yourself:
1) Does this account encourage me, ignite me or teach me?

2) Is this account portraying a truthful reality, or is it portraying a fantasy?

Social media can work for us or against us, but it’s up to us to choose what we expose ourselves to everyday. Personally, I choose a messy reality over curated images any day. You can curate your own life and show the world who *you* are ☺️🙏🏼

Give me what’s true and real 😎✌🏼

A friend texted me yesterday with this question:

“I realized that my own kid’s fears are still my fears from when I was a child. Are we all just kids who never really grow up?”

I responded that I believe we grow into adults who carry our fears and learning with us, until we learn to challenge beliefs and unlearn the things that are no longer true for us.

Most of my individual clients have come to me to regain or rebuild their identity. Family, friends, work and society (and say, a global pandemic) can pull us away from the most authentic, whole version of ourselves. We forego our hobbies, we stop dancing in the kitchen or exploring new places…we start acting “like adults”.

As you get older, take the opportunity to become more of who you are. Not less. Not someone who lives to make others comfortable. The world needs interesting individuals who embrace their authenticity and wear it like a badge.

If you need permission, here it is: Fight like hell to keep what makes you whole.