Abolish $

What if everyone did what they wanted? Not for a purpose, not for a “job,” but because it is what they wanted to do. Imagine a world where you wake up each day and do whatever your heart desires. You walk out of your house and show up at a destination because it is where you want to be.

I dream of a world where I go to my office each day to see people who want counseling. I am not going to work. I am not showing up to get paid. I am making myself available to help guide others because that is my true calling. That is my heart’s desire. That is what I want to do each and everyday, what brings me joy and energy.

A world without work would allow everyone the freedom to create and participate in whatever way that works best for them. When we take our enjoyment, and call it a “job” we immediately steal some of its vibrancy. It is no longer this free, beautiful thing that we are choosing. It is now a shackle telling us what to do and how to do it. We all desire freedom and flexibility, the opportunity to choose each and everyday. In a world without working for a “living,” we are given this opportunity.

Notice I have not used that word that we show up each day for. Because I want to manifest my reality. I want to speak into existence the world that I dream of. Our beliefs create our reality. And where our attention goes, that thing grows. So I am not bringing that construct into the equation. I am exiling it from my life. If I don’t pay attention to it, then it ceases to exist in my reality.

What do you dream of? What reality do you want to create? If you could woke up each day, and did only your soul’s calling, what would it be?

Self-love and Vulnerability

Self-love and vulnerability are your cheat codes. Much like what I shared on attention, people who were raised to believe in themselves, and that their words had value are winning the game. I am envious of those people. People who find it easy to be confident and don’t second guess putting themselves out into the world. They were taught that expressing yourself would receive positive praise and attention.

Now, not all of us had this experience. But that is okay! The good news is we can learn to love ourselves and learn how to express ourselves to others.

Self-love. How do we learn to give love to ourselves? Let’s start with your thoughts. Are they positive or negative? Do you have a constant feedback loop of criticisms for your behaviors? We start with becoming aware of our commentary. Then, if there is some negativity we begin stopping those thoughts as they come up. Notice you’re being critical or judgmental and just cut yourself off right then and there. Once this is a habit we can begin replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. We’ve all heard about gratitude lists and how important it is to notice what is going well everyday. Well, it is really important. You can start cultivating positivity by listing three good things that happened at the end of each day. No matter how small or mundane, being able to pick out a “positive” (I still have a job, I had coffee, the world isn’t on fire for once), will help shift the way you view the world.

An intermediate step is “fact checking.” Maybe you don’t quite believe you’re good at something yet, but if you can factually check did I “fail/mess up/cause harm” and the objective truth is no, then you can at least remind yourself of the facts of a situation. It is also helpful to acknowledge what was actually said to you if this involves another person. Review the exact words they said and compare them to what you are telling yourself they said. As you become comfortable removing the emotionally charged, personal responses to situations and begin seeing them simply for the objective truths that they are, you can remove the negative narrative of yourself you’ve attached to them.

So once we’ve become aware of our default thoughts, and we’ve begun learning how to see positives in our day, we can apply it more specifically to ourselves. Where are you actually doing well? What have you actually accomplished? Spoiler alert, just waking up this morning is an accomplishment. And maybe listening to your body and staying in bed all day is an accomplishment for someone who struggles to take care of themselves. We think an “accomplishment” has to be some huge achievement, instagram worthy, brag that would put others to shame. With that mentality no wonder we are all so hard on ourselves and never give praise. In reality, everything you have ever done is an accomplishment. Look around you. This entire life you created was out of your hands, your mind, your design. You’ve created an entire universe. Everything you lay your eyes on exists because of you. That’s some power in my opinion. Begin to view the world you live in as the world of your creation, your are the creator, and praise all of your work.

Now what do we do with this creation? We share it with others. That takes vulnerability. The willingness to be open and expose ourselves to others. Self-love is the first step because without self-love there is no way you’re going to feel strong enough to be open to others. We have to be open and vulnerable with ourselves, see every side of ourselves, the dark emotions to the highest highs and accept everything that we see. Once we truly love and accept ourselves, it won’t matter as much what other people think or say. If we don’t hang our self-worth on external validation from others, then we won’t be afraid to put ourselves out there. We will share from an internal desire to put something out into the world, rather than a place of trying to please others or conversely holding back out of fear of others. We should not think about others at all when we are creating! Creation is for the creator. It comes out of love and joy of one’s own experience. It is a life force that cannot be denied and in order to fulfill our own life purpose we have to create. And as long as you stay focused on yourself, your self-love, and the passion of your creation, there is no room for fear. Fear of being seen comes from thinking about the eyes of another. Stay in your eyes, look through your world view, and appreciate your accomplishments.