Thoughts on Living Your Life from 2017

As we step into our first few days of 2018 I have a taken a few moments to reflect on my learning from this year. 2017 was a year of uncovering the impact of my/our words and actions in the world, and how with our words we create the world not just for ourselves, but for those around us. It was also a year of creating new connections and possibilities.

So what thoughts have I discerned? Here are 32 of my thoughts and learnings from 2017 on being in the world, being you, being love and living your life. While I am by no means an expert in their practice, I am grateful for the space and people who sparked them to occur in my world, so that I may share them here with you.

To my friends of the love, light and magic kind, may you too … Love those who truly see and invest in you. If they cannot see you for who you truly are, then look passed who they are pretending to be and fly. Life wasn’t meant to be lived waiting. It is to be lived flying, with intention and with heart.

Be brave. Just love. Start each day with a grateful heart.

Being in the world

1. Start each day with a grateful heart. To change our world, we need to change our words. We design our world and the world for others with the words in our mind, filling our hearts and shared in stories between us. Words on paper, on screen, and in the air create our world. What world are you creating?
2. We live and love in story. It takes listening with your eyes, and seeing with your ears to deeply connect with another’s story. And when you do, act kindly. Stories are like glass, beautiful and fragile and easily altered in careless hands.
3. Privilege is an open door for only some which we need to keep visibly open for everyone. Once opened to you, it is your responsibility to keep it open for others, especially those not like you or who are of you. It is in the opening of doors visibly for each other that we will do more than change the world. We will visibly recreate it for everyone.
4. It is all about the kids. In learning, in school and in life, “it’s all about the kids at the end of the day. Doctor-Teach, Teach-Inspire, Inspire-Hope, Hope-Life.” By Daithi Mac Fhlaithimh, Chicago 2018.
5. Be pro-female, and never apologize for it. You are a stand for equality for women alongside men and the change in how boys and girls, women and men are seen, treated and heard. To think pro-female equates to anti-male, is to continue the comparative competitive culture born out of female/feminine subjugation and male/masculine domination long propagated to silence the voice of women and girls in our communities, in our governments and in our life.
6. 2017 is a slaying it and taking my sisters with me kind of year .Women who slay together, change the world. Kneel down, and hold a shield for others to jump off. By being a shield, especially for women and girls, we are helping others reach higher and further than they ever thought possible. We are also helping our world.
7. #MeToo is about all of us. Men, women, boys and girls. It is about power, control and the fear of vulnerability in the sharing of it between us. And by making it visible together, we have the power to change what many do not see or feel.
8. Live more.

Creative Women’s Co. Speed Mentoring Event. Chicago, 2017.

FWD Collective Summit. Chicago, 2017.

Women in Tech Breakfast. Chicago, 2017.

Being you

1. Be you. You are you and that is your power. Own it.
2. Always be your own best friend. Treat yourself as you’d treat your friends of the bestie kind, and as you’d like them to treat you. When in doubt, friend it out.
3. Be an Aussie wildflower. Found in only one part of the world, they are some of the most beautiful, strongest and wildest flowers in the world. There, they cover the earth in a family of vibrant color always connected, supporting and seeding each other’s growth and survival.
4. We can only truly rise when we rise together. Confidence and success is not just of you, it is also of your ways of being for others. To be your most confident and successful self, be a stand for yourself while also being a shield for others.
5. Never allow another’s fear to quieten the courage within you. When you have a dream or an idea, own it, share it and live it as only you know how. Their fear is not your life. And with your life, never limit it by another’s fear.
6. Know your roots and be proud of them. Where we come from is a big part of who we are, and a big reason for who we become. Our roots are our stories, our strength and the power that connects us.
7. Live in the white space. The white space is the space between titles and credentials. It is where the magic happens. A title and credential is not who you are, it is how your ego wishes you to be seen ~ to ‘look good.’ When we walk away from titles and credentials, we open ourselves up to a world of vulnerability and possibility to create ourselves as we want to be, in a world that cannot imagine us other than how we are.
8. Be you more.

Tanya and Kelly. Rhode Island, 2017.

Being love

1. Friendship is love of the ‘I got you’ kind. Not everyone is your friend, and not everyone needs to be. Yet, everyone is on a journey and for everyone the friends we share the journey with will be different. Friendship is how we are “with” as well as “for” each other, in our moments of light as well as the dark.
2. To love people, live within the boundaries of the “Hell Yeah” and “Hell No” kind. Boundaries of what you will and will not allow into your world creates space for you to breathe, to be and to share energy of the healing, love and unconditional kind.
3. Living fully and powerfully is a choice. When one chooses to take their life, do not judge them for their life taken, love them for the life they lived and give hugs and love of the powerful kind to the lives still standing around them. It is not those who leave us that need us, it is those who are hurt by those leaving, that do.
4. Love those who truly see and invest in you. If they cannot see you for who you truly are, then look past who they are pretending to be and fly. Life wasn’t meant to be lived waiting. It is to be lived flying, with intention and with heart.
5. Laughter is love of the smiling eyes kind. If they make you laugh, listen with your heart open. To laugh is to have the magic of the Irish around you. And if only for a moment in time, it will be a time you always carry with you. Year to year, country to country, relationship to relationship.
6. You are loved. A lot. It is only you, who may not believe how much. So, love yourself more, love others often and send love to those who are hurting the most. We don’t always know why we do what we do, but deep down we know what we want. We want to feel love and to be loved. Every single one of us.
7. Love creating the journey together. To travel together is not to be married to a person, but to be committed to creating a journey together in life. A friendship, a relationship, a partnership, a business, family, a life. How far we travel together depends on how much we love the journey we are creating together, and our expectations of the paths we each wish to take. Be it together or apart, love creating the journey.
8. Love more.

Dance. So only light can catch you. Chicago, 2017

Living your life.

1. Dance. So only light can catch you. In the conversation, dance. No matter how hard, how intoxicating or how frivolous, dancing is a fluidity of conversation entertained. And movement the only language of learning and living life freely.
2. Gratitude is an antidote of fear. And the true paradox of fear is how it breeds on scarcity while also seeding it. To fear less, act more and be grateful always. Grateful for her, for him, for love and for learning.
3. A conversation that grows others, always grows you. When someone gossips to you, know they will also gossip about and around you. Never engage. Switch it up and change the conversation so everyone grows.
4. With agency comes responsibility. Just because something can be shared doesn’t means it should be. To have agency in who we are, what we believe and how we participate is to have awareness of of ones impact in the world. Agency is the power of impact.
5. Create a world of possibility around you as well as around others. Walk away from naysayers and self-doubt, especially when it’s of you. Anything is possible when you create the white space around you and connect with the people who believe in you being your best self.
6. Intention is an unspoken energy shared between two souls. And for the empathetic soul of the storyteller kind, know, we can read your words before they’re said, and hear your voice before its heard. So always, be kind, be honest, and be gentle.
7. Love. Sleep in. Stay up. Dance. Paint. Write. Run. Work out. Sing. Laugh. Kiss. Teach. Learn. Smile. Talk. Never stop talking.
8. Always love and be you, more. The world needs it. We need it.

“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” ~ Frida Kahlo