Category: Meaningful Connection

What’s interesting about every new relationship is that with each one, you get to look closely again at who you want to be.

It’s as though you get to look into this person’s eyes as they look back at you and paint each stroke of your character and color in your personality as they fill the blank slate that is you…

It’s as though you get to decide if you want to start telling yourself a new story… about who you are and how things have come to be… whether or not you want to invest in new ideas… fresh thought processes… in shadow work that’ll allow you to more calmly be…

It’s as though you get to more prominently feature a more evolved version of you… a more brave version… a more loving version… the version that maybe wasn’t ready or far enough down the path to count as a whole number upgrade… because maybe you were closer to a 1.1 version than a 2.0.

…What’s interesting about every new relationship?

It’s that with each one you get to meet a new—hopefully upgraded and better—version of you.

Bring to mind somebody who helped you but you never formally thanked.

…Somebody who maybe inspired you indirectly via their presence or example they set.

…Somebody who might’ve casually said something that deeply resonated with you and had a big rippling effect on your life.

…Somebody who you follow online who you’ve never officially met who created (or creates) content that regularly impacts and improves your life.

And then… open up a blank email, text, or piece of paper and complete the following sentence: “You may not know this, but you really helped me by…”

Only take as long as you have available to you right now to complete this—whether that’s 1-minute or 10 minutes or longer. But, don’t wait to do this until later.

Once you’re done, send it to that person.

Unprompted. Imperfect. With no expectations of return.

Being with the right person makes you a better person.

Not a more socially liked person…

Not a more financially stable/rich person…

Not a more envied / talked about person…

…Although it could include each of those things.

…But, a better person.

…A more compassionate and empathetic person.

…A more generous and value-adding-member-of-society type of person.

…A more down to earth and loving person.

What makes being with the right person so great is that you become a better version of yourself when you’re with them.

A version that’s free of masks and facades… free of acting and fronting… free of hiding and manipulating.

…Free of anything that cages you behind any kind of bars and in fact, makes you feel more free than ever before to be your true and authentic self.

If you’re not sure if the person you’re with—or thinking about being with—is right… ask yourself this: Am I a better me when I’m with them? Or am I becoming a version of myself that is moving away from my highest version when I’m with them?

Act accordingly from there.

I uploaded a quote today that read, “The more the heart expands, the less offended I feel by other people working out their particular stage of being a human.”

And boy, isn’t that the truth?

It wasn’t until I understood that hurt people, hurt people… that I started softening my approach towards people who hurt.

It wasn’t until I experienced the fear of having to stand up to a bully and put my own wellbeing in danger… that I understood why people might choose to be a bystander in the face of an injustice.

It wasn’t until I experienced loss and had emotional outbursts… that I understood the potency of the fuel and blinding effect behind emotional outbursts and learned not to take outbursts pointed towards me personally.

Before you take offense to something somebody says or does… try expanding your heart a little further. You just might find yourself observing a very human stage that you, too, once experienced and had to work through yourself. Or at the very least, a stage that you—a very human kind of human—could’ve found yourself in if you experienced all that the other person experienced, too.

---

Inner Work Prompt: Bring to mind some of the recent experiences you’ve had where you found yourself feeling offended by something somebody said or did. How can you expand your heart to better understand where that decision stemmed from?

One of my martial arts students decided to have his birthday party at the school I teach at.

The week leading up to his party, my team discovered he had only one person RSVP.

So they quickly went to work and called his family to let them know, put together a list of other students who might enjoy coming, got the family’s permission to invite them, and took the initiative to do exactly that—successfully having six kids show up to his party.

Can you imagine how that child might’ve felt if the one person to RSVP got sick that day or got too busy to go?

I often write about being the one to take initiatives to connect people… to set up meetings… to plan gatherings that allow for IRL FaceTime… to do the inner work that gives you the confidence to be the first to say hi, start a genuine conversation, and ask the person out… etc.

…But today, I was reminded of how important it is to be the one to do the showing up when invited… to take the initiative to confirm an RSVP… to share your excitement about being a part of their gathering and finding ways you can add even more excitement to the already made plans… and so on.

Showing up might not feel like that big of a deal to you… but to others? To the ones who did the inviting? Who are doing the hosting?

…Trust me when I say very little could be bigger.

---

Inner Work Prompt: Who has been inviting you to connect that you haven’t been able to RSVP with? Could you confirm that today?

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…