Want to get to know yourself?
Pay attention to what you envy.
And once you start to understand what that is…
Understand that it probably isn’t that.
What you’re probably after are the feelings that having that thing evokes.
And once you understand that…
You can begin the real inner work of evoking those feelings without needing the thing(s) at all.
Just as you wouldn’t compare the rise of one rollercoaster with the feeling of finishing the first fall of another… so too shouldn’t you compare the rise of one relationship with the peak feelings you had in another.
Give each relationship space to breathe… give it time to rise… let yourself fall… feel like you’re feeling each moment for the first time. And let the rollercoaster of your past fade into the background.
Let the best rollercoaster be… the one you’re currently on.
Feeling awful from the toxic cycle of hate, division, and fear that is constantly spewing from your modern day screens? Let me offer you some top tier advice:
Go to more music shows.
I have yet to experience another place on earth that is more universally uniting, accepting, and love spewing—generally speaking and with some exceptions.
The thing about music is that it emphasizes vibe above everything. And removes from the emphasis divisive topics and accompanying differences.
The thing about us humans is that we all want to feel seen and heard. And we want to experience the good vibes that result in joy, excitement, and pleasure. Nobody truly wants the opposite of that. Which is why music is such an incredible medium… it connects people from a vibrational standpoint and then facilitates the flow of good vibes that come from that connection (feeling seen and heard) and the music itself.
It allows us to meet others from a vibrational standpoint first. It allows us to see what unites us first. It allows us to find the common ground between one another first.
And then…
And then… how much better it will be to discuss divisive topics and differences…
Laying in bed the other night, I felt a wave of grief and paralyzing fear come over me as my mind drifted deep into the thought of death—the inevitable conclusion and reality of my life.
And I laid there with it for quite some time… Imagining the various ways it all might unfold for me.
I imagined the various ages I could be… I imagined the various ways it might occur… I imagined the types of regrets I might feel…
And it absolutely terrified me.
To think about this unimaginatively impossible occurrence happening only once… getting no do-overs or heads up as to when it’ll all come to an end… being gone for the rest of time as life continues on without me… being forgotten… being nothing…
…And then I woke up the next morning.
And not only did it feel like another chance… but it reminded me that sleep is a type of exercise in death. It’s time spent being completely unconscious and evaporated from reality… and there wasn’t even a single moment of fear from when I fell asleep to when I woke up.
Live your days as mini-lives unto themselves. Fulfill as much of your life as you can from that moment you wake until the moment you sleep. Exercise and familiarize yourself with death. And, as Leonardo da Vinci said, the rest should take care of itself: “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.“
In the opening scene of the movie Up, we’re immersed in a five minute recap of the life and love shared between the two main characters of the story: Carl and Ellie Fredricksen.
If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s must watch animation. Here’s a link.
For whatever reason, this scene popped into my mind today as I was thinking about life and love and relationships (once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand) and it got me thinking about Carl and Ellie’s dynamic.
The above link doesn’t show it, but essentially Ellie comes crashing into Carl’s life when they’re kids and just lights up his world. She’s talkative, energetic, and filled with a contagious sense of adventure. Carl doesn’t talk much, is portrayed to be a little awkward, and seemingly defaults to routine and what’s comfortable.
…Inside each of us is both a “Carl” and an “Ellie,” eh?
What I got to thinking about as I replayed this dynamic is how important it is to try and nurture the “Ellie” that’s inside. Not that there’s anything wrong with the “Carl,” but waiting for an “Ellie” to come crashing into and light up your life simply isn’t a good strategy.
The one that tends to show up is simply the one we choose to feed with the nourishment of our attention and energy. There was a point in my life, for example, when I could distinctly identify as being mostly “Carl.” But, since I’ve started nourishing my inner “Ellie”… I’ve made so many new connections and experienced countless incredible adventures.
Which is all to say… being the “Ellie” who does the crashing and lighting up… my friend… is an excellent strategy.
Daylight Savings Time—the day in the United States when, each spring, we lose one hour in our day because we turn the clocks one hour ahead to make better use of the longer daylight in our days.
…It’s also the day when everybody whines and complains and kicks up a storm about only have 23 hours in their day.
Which is understandable, of course. It’s hard enough to get everything done we need to get done in 24 hours let alone 23…
But, what about the hours we lose on the daily from time… wasted? Why don’t we whine, complain, and kick up a storm about those hours? Why aren’t we more upset about the hours we willfully flush down the drain… or maybe better said… the hours we’re manipulated into flushing? The hours algorithms are designed to consume and swallow from our lives… never to be returned.
Maybe if we took as much offense to the hours we get robbed of on the daily as we did during Daylight Savings Time… we’d start making more changes in our lives and lifestyles that left us with an actual 24… and not 23, 22, 20, or… gulp… less.
P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.
I am writing to you today with a pretty intense headache.
And I know exactly why I have it.
I’ve been drinking coffee at 3pm-ish every day since I was 14 (which is when I’m usually getting ready to teach Martial Arts for the rest of the evening).
…But, today, like I do every now and again, I didn’t.
Now, I could have poured a cup or popped a pill to make it go away… but, working through this experience is also a part of the inner work journey.
I want to truly feel what my body feels when it doesn’t get that substance… I want to learn how to receive the pain and keep moving forward… I want to learn how to think with clarity even when there’s a throbbing pulse blanketing the circumference of my head.
I’m not going to cold turkey coffee and I’m not advising you to skip taking substances in your life per se.
I’m simply reminding you that not all pain needs to be erratically avoided. Sometimes it’s the pain we’re so avidly trying to avoid that we need to learn how to lean into before we can (finally) grow what strength is required for our next evolved version.