I launched my kickstarter for my book on April 4 and am ready for an exciting and nerve-racking 39 days left on the campaign. Check it out here....
The past couple of months I have made a lot of progress in getting this book ready for the world. It still needs some professional help with final edits and I am hiring a graphic designer to support me in making a cover and high-quality images and diagrams for inside the book. The process of writing this book has been therapeutic and expansive. It has evolved to become so much more than I originally envisioned.
I have had several moments of self-doubt over the past couple of weeks which has been really fascinating to sit with. I write a lot about fear and resistance and it becomes an interesting experience to deal with it while attempting to write about it in a simple and tangible way. I am working through some of my deepest ingrained limiting beliefs due to this project and I am so thankful for that. It is instilling the confidence in me I need to speak powerfully about this book.
In an attempt to share more about what this book is and why I am encouraging a movement, I want to share a blurb from the final chapter. My goal is to talk openly about my past struggles (some current struggles) in order to change the way many of us approach mental health in our own minds and in our attempts to support others. If you do not personally struggle with mental health imbalances, then you know someone who does. When we are able to know more about how our mind and body works we are much better equipped to make the changes necessary to grow out of the darkness and stand tall in our light. I want to lead by example in this and motivate as many people as I can to trust in their own ability to rise above the dark or negative patterns they have become accustomed to.
*From Chapter 11: My Gift...
"With all of this work in your back pocket, we come back to where we started. Is there an objective truth or goal that we are all striving for? Once we have the foundation set, is there one concept that keeps us on track? Is it balance? Contentment? Living life with purpose? What’s the most important thing? What is my gift to the world? What is yours?
Perhaps the wisdom we are seeking is in the questions themselves. In our day and age, progress and change is happening at an exponential rate. What makes sense today is not necessarily going to be accepted as cutting-edge or relevant tomorrow.
In the fascinating book But What if We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman, the author takes us on a journey of anecdotes to summarize the impossibility of knowing what the future will deem as important and from this we must acknowledge that within our predictions we need the assumption that we are wrong. He notes that it is not that we are failing to make coherent and reasoned conclusions, but rather the problem arises in our lack of asking the right questions or seeing the full picture.
In order to accept our potential wrongness as an inherent part of planning for our future, what we need is a mindset that emphasizes the importance of adaptability and mindfulness to see more importance in our chosen response after our programmed reaction. What we need is to be receptive to our ever-changing environment and allow our inner-evolution to be one guided by love (self-love included), compassion (including towards ourselves), and curiosity (including noticing and being curious about your own patterns of thought and action). What we need is the ability to find contentment in each moment because this present moment is where the magic of life awaits.
Being open and flexible to what the future holds is clearly a valuable quality to practice. How can we build a strong foundation of meaning and purpose while entertaining the possibilities of an unpredictable future?
In Victor E. Frankl’s classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl displays his determined spirit and resilient mind while enduring the brutality of the holocaust. He says that
“[e]verything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. . . When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Frankl reminds us that there is a lot in life that we cannot control, and when we are face-to-face with the question of “what is life’s purpose,” it is up to each one of us to answer this call from within our own being. We can only respond by being fully responsible for our energy. He urges us to “[l]ive as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time. . . Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
Whether you are seeking a purpose or meaning to live up to or simply want to feel the rapture of being fully alive and present, it is up to you to create the life you want to live.
While it is helpful to understand the neuroscience of happiness and habits, it is not the be all end all. Meaning, joy, contentment, and purpose are fluid and cannot be boxed and contained like a formula. As soon as I think I have life figured out, my heart cracks open and I am overwhelmed with comparisons, shoulds, what-ifs, worries, and sadness. “How can I be here again?” I ask myself. “I thought I had overcome this darkness” I tell myself. But then I remember that our universe is ever-expanding and full of stark contrasts. We must dance with the balance and sometimes that means falling below our power to heal and rebuilding a stronger foundation and pathway towards our higher purpose and contentment with what is."
Let me know what you think! And if you feel compelled to support or share this project with your circle of influence, I will be forever grateful. xoxoxox