The hardest thing I did this year was to tell the truth to myself and others - when it was convenient and inconvenient; when it felt like relief and when it was excruciating. I found bravery in corners of myself I had long ignored but which knew me by heart. I also felt a lot of dormant grief, the kind that was awkward to greet at the door as another welcome guest. The grace is in receiving, and I learned a lot about that while watching myself fumble. My life keeps revealing that healing is not linear but we can still move from the center of the body. How complicated and how simple. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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The hardest I laughed was with an old friend one night before falling asleep together in a queen-sized bed across the world. It was the kind of banter that used to break up slumber parties because of the ensuing clamor. “FINAL WARNING.” As soon as one of us would surface the other would knock her down with something exponentially more stupid and priceless. My stomach hurt the next day from the way my lungs tried to come up for air. That soreness is everything I want for anyone I love. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The hardest I worked was while sitting on a couch in Santa Monica, weekly, with an expert and generous soul who helped stir what was sleepy so that I might learn to be more awake. As often as I left her office looking like Charlize Theron in “Monster,” I also looked forward to wading into that shadowed abyss, the best work I did all year. In it I was often asked, “What would it look/feel/be like if it were easier?” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The most effortless, most accessible thing in my life is a profound gratitude for my people. I am wishing so much for 2019 to bring an easier world to us all. May we create it and know it. The micro affects the macro, and the smallest steps each of us takes moves the whole to more magnificent vantage. I am committed to the practices of discernment, embodiment, the love of self and you.