My daughter had a 25 minute break before her next remote class began.
I was hoping to bust out some writing before my call with a client.
But fuck it, let’s throw on our sneakers and go for a walk instead. My husband was home and able to join us as well.
What a unique moment. Both parents home together, able to spend time with only one child. It’s a gorgeous fall day and there was nothing we had to do, that couldn’t wait.
What a mistake it would be to think we should be doing something else, something more productive or serious.
My choice to go for a walk wasn't one of default. It was wholeheartedly deliberate. I wasn't about to get out on the road and ‘should’ on myself; telling myself a bogus story that I should be working instead.
If you’re going to ‘should’ on yourself for a choice you intentionally made, then you might as well go make a different choice.
The news came in, 10 minutes before, that a second High School student in our town has died. That’s two tragic deaths in the past two weeks of young people in our community; neither one COVID related.
The news is gut-wrenching.
I’m deeply concerned that the amount of stress our young people are under right now is too much for many to manage. It’s also nearly impossible to know and measure accurately until sometimes too late.
This is why I take my rebellious choices seriously. It’s why I’m more a fan of doing what you want than following along.
Especially in the midst of great suffering. Stress is a very real thing, but suffering is what happens through self-imposed measures when we prevent ourselves from living the way we want.
Our way out of stress and suffering isn’t to work harder, with more focus and discipline. It’s not about fixing the ways we believe we are broken.
It’s about uncompromising permission to start making the choices you want, accompanied by the self-worth to feel damn good about them. (Rather than bad, apologetic or guilty.)
It’s about the self-nurturing kind of inner rebellion that allows you to free yourself: from rules that don’t resonate, systems that create suffering and choices made because they’re similar and more comforting to others.
The greatest harm we self-inflict is living in a way we don’t love and measuring ourselves against metrics that we eventually come to realize, never mattered much.
The way we begin to build a way of life that feels deeply satisfying is found in the smallest moments, on a Monday at 11A when we come face to face with ourselves and dare to do what we want; instead of what we shame ourselves into thinking we should.
It’s not the path less traveled that makes all the difference; it’s feeling deeply Worthy of walking the path we wanted to begin with, with our head held high.
Finally.
We’re so deeply afraid that if we really let ourselves do what we want we’d struggle to accomplish anything significant. We’re afraid of allowing our kids to do the same.
We couldn’t be more misguided.
Loving the way you’re living will never take you down a path that disappoints; it’s the missing piece that reveals the potential you’ve always had to achieve what you’ve always wanted.
Lastly and most important of all; your ability to make different choices; the ones you’d much rather make, has its roots in how Worthy you think you are of feeling really fucking great.
You can never out-earn or out-perform your Story of Worthy. It’s reflected in everything you do.
Everything is easier from a solid foundation of Worthy.
Please don’t take my word for it. I hope you’ll want to see for yourself.
xx Lori