There Is Nothing Wrong with Us

33 things because 11 wasn't enough

1. A lemon cupcake with cream cheese frosting, just because.

2. A text from my daughter asking if I want to go out to lunch tomorrow. Yes. The answer is yes.

3. Watching my skin absorb lotion as the new tattoo heals. This simple thing that is actually quite miraculous.

4. How a comment I left on an Instagram post about Marianne Williamson a year ago led to a meaningful connection with a woman on the other side of the country.

5. Again and again, this: We do not know our impact.

6. So many ideas that go unwritten. Notes everywhere. The recurring thought that I should be more organized.

7. A little boy eating a cookie as big as his face a few tables over.

8. So many new friend requests. What is happening??

9. I've been thinking about doing a writing group around our religious upbringings and stories.

10. It wasn't until after we quit smoking that we were able to see how insane it was that we were literally paying for our own slow deaths.

11. Denial is a powerful force.

12. This wants to keep going, so I'm going with it.

13. I know denial well, and how lying isn't always some obvious, overt thing. I also know how powerful honesty is, and that once you see a thing, you can't unsee it -- including your own worst habits.

14. Change takes time. It's the most obvious thing ever, but aren't those so often the ones that take us the longest, maybe even a lifetime, to learn?

15. I heard two young women speaking Russian today, walking behind me in town. It was like hearing a language in a dream, where you understand it without actually understanding it.

16. I have been thinking a lot about the Impostor Syndrome, or Impostor Complex as the briliant Tanya Geisler calls it. I hear writers ALL THE TIME doubting themselves, questioning whether anyone will care about what they have to say, and comparing themselves to those they believe are the real thing. It takes many forms, but wow, is it ever rampant.

17. And it makes me wonder, who is it we're trying to be or become? Most of us will never be a household name, nor am I so sure I'd even want that.

18. I really believe many of us want to be and become ourselves, i.e. be more at peace with who we are without all the effort to be better and different and somewhere other than exactly right here.

19. I always come back to practice. A client this morning told me she was "failing" at being good and kind to herself. I offered that the fact that her awareness was even going to good and kind to herself might itself be a kind gesture towards herself. What if that was it right there? It brings it down to the micro-movements and the milliseconds and the fierce belief that everything really does count.

20. We are so damn hard on ourselves.

21. You are beautiful. Can you hear that? More importantly, can you say it in the first person, out loud?

22. Don't worry if it feels silly or embarrassing. We don't mind.

23. Ready?

24. "I am beautiful."

25. Again.

26. "I am beautiful."

27. "I am beautiful."

28. "I am beautiful."

29. Keep going.

30. "I am beautiful."

31. "I am beautiful."

32. You are all blowing me away right now.

33. There is nothing wrong with us.

Photo by Luigi Colonna on unsplash.com