Thoughts on Living Your Life from 2018

As we open the door to another year and close the windows of a year past, I find myself looking back in order to look forward. Reflecting on the moments of how I lived this last year and why. Drawing out the insights of who I interacted and collaborated with, what I learned and how? What did I gain from the experience and most importantly how did I share and give to others during this past year?

Every year for the past two years I’ve undertaken this process. A simple but effective one for learning, for letting go and for moving forward. A process by which between Christmas and New Year, I write down about thirty-two (32) thoughts and learnings from my year. About eight (8) reflective statements on ‘Being in the World’, ‘Being You’, ‘Being Love’, and on ‘Living Your Life’. You can read my thoughts from 2016 and 2017, and below I’ve included my thoughts on the most recent, living my life in 2018.

While I am by no means an expert in their practice, I am grateful for the people who and experiences which sparked these insights so that I may continue to learn, and to share them here with you.

To my friends of the family, work, life, and fitness kind, one learning that resonated with me most this year is the importance to … ❤ Be in the world with your eyes and heart wide open. See and feel what others can’t, and create space for them to stand beside you. To see with your eyes, through your heart how amazing they are and the world is. Be open. Be giving. Be heart. ❤

Being in the world

1. Be in the world with your eyes and heart wide open. See and feel what others can’t, and create space for them to stand beside you. To see with your eyes, through your heart how amazing they are and the world is. Be open. Be giving. Be heart.
2. Be where your feet are. In a world of swiped distractedness, be where you are, with the people around you. Not just where your device wants you to see or promises to take you.
3. Look up and put down the phone. Turn off the computer and connect with those right next to you. The post can wait, yet those closest to you may not.
4. Create a table for multiple people to sit and share at. Friends. Family. Partners. Friends Like Family. Colleagues. Youth. FitFamily. Strangers. An international table of love, story, and life where multiple stories, beliefs, and dreams are nurtured and find a home.
5. To move the needle in the world, move it in your own backyard first. Your friends, family, and colleagues are the place to plant the seed for change, and to nurture it to grow. Start today. Tomorrow is too late.
6. Community IS the world. We are a collection of heartfelt groups all sharing as a way to do, live and be better. Together. Connect to one today, and share. WE are the community. The community is of us.
7. If you don’t fit in the world, create a new one. A space and place where you do fit. A world for you and those around you trying hard to fit in, to live as they are. Everything in this world we create. With our minds, our hearts and our imaginations. So if you don’t fit, switch the world up.
8. Youth are changing the future. They always have. Encourage them. Create space for them and inspire them in the possibility of where their ideas may take us while honoring whichever path they decide to take to get there.

Being you

1. Embrace imperfection. Perfection is a myth. A tool of procrastination. An excuse to avoid what is truly possible. To be successful one must take action in imperfect conditions. One must navigate messiness and find order and calm in the chaos. Perfection is an excuse to not taking action, not taking a risk, and preventing us/you from achieving what we truly want.
2. Be real. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Do whatever feels natural and real and without fairness or pretense. We were born to be real not to be perfect. Being real is being in action no matter the conditions or the risk or the mess. Being real gets results in what is truly possible.
3. Being strong is believing in you. Being strong is not about muscles and power. It is about believing in yourself. Who you are and who you are creating yourself to be. To be strong in the world, embrace the beauty and power that is your life and love YOU.
4. Dream out loud. Always. Forever. Today. To yourself and in the world, by dreaming out loud you will make your dreams an action of reality not just a figment of your imagination. So dream. Dream big and dream out loud.
5. Love your voice and the way you use it. It is of you and is inspired by the experiences that have bought you to this point. Like your fingerprints, no two voices are the same.
6. Live your life with intention. Wake up, step up and be intentional with all you do, who you are and why? We are the intentions we share in the world through our words and our actions, both now and long after we’ve traveled through the world. So be intentional, and make your words, your actions and your life count.
7. Never apologize for who you are and what you love. If people don’t get you, that is okay. Not everyone needs to get you for you to live your life. Only you need to get you. So learn, unlearn and embrace who you truly are. That is the magic of living.
8. Own your world. Follow the gift that is inside of you. Look deep, dig deep and follow it. Be it, Queen or King. Gamer changer or Superhero. Lover or giver. No one is you in this world No one feels what you feel and that is your power. That is your gift. Follow it. Feel it. Be it.

Being love

1. Be someone's choice, not someone's option. In a world of dating apps, dating sites and serial daters dating, choose to opt out of the virtual and wait for what is the real deal. A relationship forged in friendship, in the real and the now. Look up instead of swiping left.
2. Love is devotion and a commitment to being there. It is showing up for someone in their times of struggle, as well as their light. It is being there, even when they don’t think they need you and not giving up when the journey gets tough. And it will. Love is traveling together, no matter what.
3. Love. We all share and express it as we are, not as we or the world want us to be. Embrace love as you are, whatever that means for you. Celebrate love as we are. Whatever that means. For we all love differently and for different reasons. Yet, love is love. Embrace and celebrate it.
4. Don’t hold back. There will never be enough expression of love in the world. Never. Tell people you love them, and show them. Tell the world. Love shared always grows. You. Them. Us. Everybody. To grow the world, show, express and be the love in the world you want to feel and see.
5. Loving yourself is the hardest love there is. It takes committing to you, forgiving you, accepting and being open to you. To seeing you for who you truly are and taking the steps to be a better you. Start today. To share love unselfishly in the world first requires creating space to love, honor and be committed to you.
6. Invest in experiences. They will remain with you always. As memories, as steps in your journey as stories to share. The best part, you can take them with you. Wherever you go, and whomever you are with. Experiences matter.
7. Invest in others. Their dreams. Their loves. Their struggles. With your words, your actions and your time. There is not bigger bolder love then investing in those you love. And those that invest in you. They are your people.
8. Love is an action. Kiss the world. Hug. Talk. Give. Be there. Love is a way of being. To uncover your love action, complete this statement. To me, love means being …

Living your life.

1. No one has there shit together and that is what makes life interesting. We are all figuring it out. If you are striving to have your shit together know, you never really will, for there is no such thing. Laugh instead and embrace the messiness that is your life.
2. Messiness is good, it is fun and it is color. There is order in chaos if we choose to let go of the need to control ourselves and others and embrace the uncertainty of a life lived unknowingly. Be messy and smile through the chaos.
3. From nothing we create everything and during struggle we create life. It is from the grit when the sand and shell collide that a pearl is created. If you are feeling the struggle, be patient. Light and love of the pearl-kind is on the horizon.
4. There are no poor life choices. Only choices. In the moment and in the now, every choice creates your world, as well as the world for others. So choose wisely, with intention and heart.
5. Create space. For you and for others. For love and friendship. For growth and success. By creating space in our world, we create space for a life we never imagined and an openness to what is truly possible. Living a life bigger and better than you ever imagined is always possible if we create space.
6. Make each day your masterpiece. Paint. Draw. Sculpt. Cook. Bake. Sing. Dance. Make love. Joy comes during the creation of experiences in the world in any and all of its forms. Create more, joy.
7. Live in the struggle and the summers. We only have so many summers on earth. Live every day like it's your last summer. Bathe in the light, and share it wisely and with intention.
8. Face towards the sun and the light. Open your eyes and breathe in the air around you. Breathe out and let go of what is not meant for you. Let go of past loves, past hurts, wrongs, rights and what is hanging in the grey space around you. It takes letting go of the dark in order to be able to let in the color and the light. In order to stand in happiness.

Photos with: Tanya Thompson, Brissa del Mar, Nathaly K Salas, Ari Krzyzek, Georgia Gerber, KC Councilor, Amy Wielunski, Julia Millon, Biz Price, Erik Gunderson, Donna Marie, Andrew Westcott, Christine Ward, Jonathan Goz, Behati Hartt, Thomas Harris.

❤