Birthday Goals And Birthday Poles

I am working on a new thing. Every year on my birthday my friend Josh asks me what my goals are for the next year. I have begun to take it to heart and I make my birthday my sort of “new year” where I develop a personal thing I want to work on. This past year it was “Learn how to trust myself.” I wanted to be able to trust my inner voice- trust my inner navigation. To know that when I am walking down the street- I can rely on me. This came as a challenge to me because…. I have a lot of feelings. Sifting through my feelings to what was important and what I should listen to has always been hard and confusing for me. I feel like I am constantly told not to hide from my feelings- to feel them fully and to listen to them… But trusting myself was not as simple as “listen to your feelings”. If I listened to my feelings and trusted them to run my life- I would likely be in a psych ward somewhere. Maybe. (Sorry Mom). I recently came across a Robcast where Rob Bell is interviewing Susan David who wrote a book about Emotional Agility. She said to me in my little ear bud headphones- our emotions are ‘data, not direction.’ This has been incredibly useful for me. This clears much of my confusion up. -My emotions are to be listened to. They are telling me something. But they are simply information. They are not concrete truths. They are fleeting and if you are me- all over the place. Identifying this was like a final clue to unlocking the next step of trusting myself.

This year I am working on a new thing. A new two things.

The first thing.

I want to practice celebrating other people’s accomplishments. I want to practice immediately rejoicing when someone tells me a thing they have done or a thing they received or a thing that happened to them, or a thing they have booked.
I am all about letting yourself feel what you actually feel. I don’t think it’s helpful to suppress feelings of shame or jealousy. This will just get buried into your body and cause blockage, or cysts, or acid reflux. (Did you know I’m a doctor?). But I want to experiment with this. -With replacing whatever initial thought I might have when someone else gets something good (whatever thought that might be) with “FUCK YEAH MAN YOU ROCK!”. I want to practice authentically rejoicing for others. I want to practice making them feel big and bold and wonderful for what they can do and who they are. It is so easy up here (New York) to look at those around you as a constant threat- to your career, to your happiness, to your prosperity. (As I talked about in my last post). But that gets so tiring. So boring. And ultimately so so sad. I want to train my brain to not look at those around me as a threat- but as an opportunity to celebrate. To put on a party. To learn from their captivating essence and stand in awe of them.

It is usually not hard to celebrate friend’s accomplishments. But I want to practice celebrating even for those I don’t like. For those who shove themselves and what they can do in my face. For those who feel like dropping in everything on their resume upon meeting new people. For those who have to make you know how important they are. -These people exhaust me. But they are everywhere and they do not go away. So what if- for the next year- I could practice being a cheerleader for these people too. Perhaps a genuine joy in their resumes will soften their push a bit.

The second thing.

I want to remove all hesitancy from the way I talk about myself. Remove doubt. And allow for flourishing and pride in my language. (A healthy kind of pride). A pride in myself that allows me to meet people openly and unafraid of showing people my bigness. I am so afraid to talk about me and what I can do professionally. I have realized I am constantly downplaying myself, my career, my abilities, and my accomplishments. Don’t want people to think that I think I’m hot shit. -But honestly is that really the worst thing? So maybe I am hot shit. And maybe I think it. And maybe someone else thinks that I think it. ….Nope no one died.

It is no wonder that every so often I don’t like how I hear someone describe me. -This did happen recently. I was visiting someone very important to me that I haven’t seen in a long time, and I talked about what I have been up to. I didn’t go into great detail and I downplayed things a lot. I made sure not to be too positive and not to “brag”. Then when I heard this person describe what I’ve been up to the past several years to others- I was crushed. How could they describe me as so small, when I actually felt that what I have done in my short career was pretty big, and I was pretty proud of it. -Oh wait. I didn’t say any of those things to them. How would they know I feel great about myself and my work? I didn’t tell them.

How I talk about myself will impact how I feel about myself and how other’s feel about me. It is crazy how much control I actually have over that. This whole thing where we have to “brand ourselves” as artists and “market ourselves” seems unappealing to me honestly feels blah. But I can easily impact my “image” just by adjusting the way I frame what I have already done. I have done some cool things- and instead of owning it and celebrating it in my description to others I relive the challenges and hurt I had while on the road to accomplishing those things. (Did I mention I’m a four on the enneagram?). I think this comes from hating when other people describe their paths as all roses. -That’s not the truth and it is so obvious to me. The truth of someone’s struggles and ups and downs is what will help others more on their path- so why are we covering it up? I think, in attempt to combat what I feel I sometimes receive from others- I have gone too far in the other direction. It’s okay to be proud of who you are and what you are doing in this world.

My roommate Annie mentioned to me that these two things are probably pretty related. Now there’s a thought. If I can celebrate myself more openly and unabashedly- It will be simple to do the same for others. And if I can openly and purely celebrate the things others are doing- why not celebrate mine as well?

So where are the birthday poles you ask? No where. Tricked ya. But pretty good title eh?

Here is a picture of me with my two roommates, Annie and Josh. What to say about them? Words cannot describe. My loves.