 Feeling emotional today. A mix of sadness and gratitude.
As I hold this position in the middle of all that I've been through, everything I am today and all of the things I know that I'll get to become in the future. I know two things with certainty: 1. Everything I want, everything I can dream of and more will absolutely come to pass. 2. The path may not look or feel the way that I think it will. When I think of the many blessings and accomplishments in this past year even, I know that most of what I get to delight in today is in my life because of the things I learned and the people I met when I was sick and at the lowest point I'd been in a long time. I knew even as I was feeling so much pain and confusion and having trouble seeing my future, that the pain was a part of how I was going to get there. So today while I'm feeling tender, I remind myself that it's all part of the unfolding. And I say thank you. Thank you especially to those of you on the path with me. Cheers.
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So. What does it take to put oneself out there in the world?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a handful, nay a fuck ton of advice out there on just about anything and everything you can think of. When we’re being cynical we point out that Google can show us how to make pipe bombs and when we’re desperate we’ll click on just about anything to show us how to attract the right mate. Or if you’re in my industry and you’ll have to check a few different boxes depending on the day to figure out which of “my industries” I’m talking about here; there are a lot of resources out there that promise a formula to success. But I’ve gotta point out, as far as I can tell, I’m the only one living my life and I’m pretty much the only one that’s ever going to live my life. The good news and the bad news is no matter the advice out there by anyone who’s ever done anything worthy of mention, no person alive or dead will be a better me than me, ever. And for that matter no one will ever get to live your life or be a better you than you can be, ever. Drop the mic, hang up entire career. Oh. But there is this one thing. Or maybe, many several "one" things. One of the things is the fun monkey experiment that taught a bunch of sciency people about the power or usefulness of empathy in our brains. Sciency people are quite fond of and do a lot of experiments with monkeys. Anyway, there was this one time with sciency people and monkeys where they discovered that when a monkey is watching another monkey do an activity that its brain lights up in all of the same monkey brain areas as if it was doing the action. Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re having a hard time keeping track of the monkeys, I get it. But we’re the monkeys. Does that help? Sure, sure, some people don’t want to be monkeys. But, um for this instance, just go with we're the monkeys, it will be easier. We learned to walk and we learned to talk and we didn’t know that we were able to do that, we just thought that we might be able to and we figured it out by watching and listening to all the other monkeys around us. It’s how we work. So the deal is, even though no one else will have our resources, our experiences, or our lives, when we share our experience it allows the other monkeys to find the resources and experiences with in themselves to figure out their own way to walk and their own way to tell their story. So again, what does it take to put oneself out there in the world? I’m not sure what it’s going to take for you, but watch what other people are doing. Perhaps you will get a few ideas that will feel just YOU enough that you’ll be willing to try them yourself.  My cup overfloweth.
In the midst of having recently achieved many of my goals, I find myself exhausted, highly emotional and ridiculously grateful. Just when I feel like I can’t handle another thing, good bad, otherwise, life shows me that I’ve underestimated the capacity of my heart, the flexibility of my mind and the depth of my grit again and it hands me another something or other to be grateful for. Yes I’m being kind of vague and moderately prosaic. Maybe you’re feeling this way too - That there’s a general abundance happening right now. A friend called it the “problem of abundance” and I felt she missed the opportunity for alliteration, so I choose to call it the “burden of abundance.” I remember the first time I lived in Vegas a good friend visited and described the town as “Vast Muchness”... My life, right now = Vast muchness! Thank god. For all of it. Really. I have more responsibilities to more people than I have in a long while. Thank you. I have more joy and love in my life than I have in a long while. Thank you. I am so busy I almost can’t look beyond a single day on my calendar before my brain wants to explode. Thank you. I generally have no idea what day of the week it is. Thank you. I keep thinking of crazy, creative, fun awesome things I'd love to do. Thank you. I have friends in my life that may be celebrating their last holiday season. Thank you. Things I use, things I “need” keep breaking. Thank you. I found a moment to put up happy twinkly lights around my house. Thank you. I'm surrounded by people that inspire me. Thank you. Money keeps flowing in and out when it needs to where it needs to. Thank you. My schedule keeps getting hijacked by unplanned delays and awesomeness. Thank you. The autumn air feels amazing on my skin and heavy in my lungs. Thank you. Every now and then I just find myself crying in the shower, in the car, during yoga...Thank you. I picked up my guitar today and the beginning of a song came out. Thank you. That I’m healthy and alive and able to make a list like this. Thank you. Life keeps handing me lessons, challenges and delights. I can usually recognize how I’ve asked for every single one of them. I don’t really know day to day how I’m going to do all of the “to-dos”. I’m not really sure day to day, what will be asked of me or who I’ll need to be. Somehow each day I keep showing up the best I can. I continue to look people in the eyes with as open a heart as I can offer. Mostly, I keep saying thank you, because it seems to be working. |
Adrianne Gunn(Catalyst, Breakthrough Specialist, Baggage Assassin, Quit Smoking Specialist, Idea Consultant, Force of Nature) Archives
May 2015
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