I have really high expectations for myself. Bordering on impossible.

It’s sort of an unavoidable byproduct of believing I can do anything. 

That’s my platform. I believe it for myself and I believe it for you. (We are all magic. That is a fact.)

I believe it because I’ve done things I never could have imagined. I’ve seen myself do supernatural shit beyond my wildest dreams. (Literally sitting in my own brain, watching my body do something and thinking, how am I doing this?)

Any prior concept I had of what my life could look like has been completely blown apart. And I expect it to be blown apart again and again. Because that’s been the pattern. (And patterns are science.)

I am unlimited. 

BUT, I am also limited.  

I am unlimited and limited. (I DON’T GET IT. Me either.)

I have superpowers that transcend time and space. 

AND, I am a human being.

It makes no sense. It’s infuriating. It’s weird. And it’s…humbling.

I think we all feel the struggle of toggling between different levels of functioning.

Some weeks, this very blog pours out of me like Niagara Falls. Other weeks, I’m wringing out a dry towel.

I can use insane wizardry locked in my body from a past life to locate and clear a past life wound in someone else’s body…but I can’t cook rice?

Sometimes I’m on fire, and other times, life is burning me to a crisp.

How can I be so good at some things, and so embarrassingly bad at others? Why do I regress to an angsty teen sometimes? Why can’t I just be at my best all the time?

Because our capacity for greatness doesn’t rescue us from our human-ness. And being a human means progressing, then falling back. It means certain people and situations bring out parts of us we don’t like. It means…sometimes, there is no answer. 

We can’t transcend being human. We can have transcendent experiences, but at the end of the day, we all still poop out of our butts, ya know? 

If I expect myself to be 24/7 god-level, I’m going to be disappointed in myself for just existing. And I’m going to miss the jewels hidden in the weird, gross, normal stuff. 

Having a body means we get to do amazing things. Having a body also means we have to do mundane things to take care of it and get through life.

If we don’t accept our humanness and our limitations, we overburden ourselves with perfectionism, frustration and disappointment.

But if we don’t believe more is possible, we miss our unimaginable potential. We don’t express our divinity. We feel isolated, lonely and depressed because we don’t realize we are all a part of this crazy, contradictory magic.

When you’re done chucking at that Seinfeld reference, here’s a prayer:

May I be an easy vehicle for laughter

May I be smooth passage for tears

May my heart beat with all that is

I have a lot on my plate this week.

Looking at my calendar, my shoulders start climbing toward my ears and my chest tightens.

I’m tensing up because I assume it’s going to be hard. 

What I see is that it’s going to be full. 

Hard is not actually a requirement. (Unless I’m trying to PROVE I’m good enough because someone modeled an idea of “hard work” that I’m trying to live up to [cough] Dad…)

I’m done prioritizing some dumb Dad story over enjoying my life.

I want ease.

I feel the power of just speaking this into existence. But, how do I actually live it?

Create ease in my body and mind right now.

Create ease in my body and mind while I work.

Since I’m writing this blog now, I’m going to start with ‘while I work.’

I decided that what will best support my ease is to dive into this blog, so I dove into this blog. I started by telling myself, “let it be easy.” It does not have to be grueling or self-punishing. Let me repeat that. It DOES NOT have to be grueling or self-punishing.

As I sit here and type, I’m going slow, breathing, and staying with my body. I’m noticing when tension creeps in, and relaxing BEFORE I continue. 

I also notice my desire to be perfect and sit here until every word is right. My perfectionism won’t rest (ever) and wants me ground down into a pulverized piece of dust, water-deprived and head aching. Thing is, I don’t want that. And I’m the big boss. I wear the leopard print shorts around here.

So I’m just going to witness that part of me and let it sit next to me while I do things differently. 

I write down what’s coming, let it flow “good” or “bad,” and trust that time will be my friend and collaborator and when I come back to edit. (I’m here in the future, editing, and I was right.) It will be clear what is important and what is not.

When I feel complete, I soothe that perfectionistic part of me and tell it, “You can trust me. We’re done for now. We’re going for a walk and we’ll come back later.”

So that’s bringing ease into doing the work. Now for the right now. This one’s for you, version of me looking ahead at the calendar.

I’m often tempted to cover all my bases and prepare and think of every possible thing that might happen or what I might need or what that person might say, or, or, or….

But when the moment actually comes, it never feels like I predicted. Something I was excited about disappoints me. Something I was anxious about actually felt okay. Some random thing I could never have anticipated changes how I see and do everything anyway.

It’s not useful to spend the currency of the present trying to predict the future. 

Part of making things harder than they need to be is drawing the “hard” toward us, into the present moment.

Why do we try to predict the future anyway? Because WE WANT TO FEEL EASE NOW. The irony! (Go ahead, let yourself laugh at how silly our minds are sometimes.)

The more I focus on the future and try to pin my security to that, the more I’m actually pushing my security away. The emotion I want to feel, can only ever be felt NOW! When I’m feeling it! 

So, instead of trying to feel ease by fixating on the future, I have to relax and allow ease. Right, the fuck, now.

Here’s one way. I name something in my life that I trust. (I am a creative person. I have things to say. I have done hard things. There are people who love me. I am safe to sit here and just breathe.) These things aren’t going away. I let myself relax into them.

How does trust feel? 

I can exhale. My focus comes back to my body, in the present. My shoulders start to drop. I feel solid. I’m breathing more easily.

So when I notice my body start to get tense or anxious, I practice feeling trust. I bring that into right now. That way, when life comes, I can meet it with ease.

The future will come in its own time.

It’s okay to feel good now. 

Last week, I wrote about slowing down and hibernating during the winter. Allowing life to be more…less. 

This week, I’m sick and work is slow. AKA I’m being forced to practice what I preach.

I feel like shit, I’m bored, and I’m asking myself, “why is it so hard to just BE?”

And guys, trust me, I’m doing all the things. I meditate. I journal. I spend time outside. I stretch. I exercise. I am in touch with myself. (Like, REALLY in touch with myself.) I’m super comfortable being alone. And I have great friends and a loving relationship. I love what I do and it feels important.

And yet, I can’t escape the tedium of existence. 

So this week, I’m going to write as raw as possible. Because life isn’t a tidy blog post about how I’ve figured everything out and here are 10 ways to everlasting peace.

I always get to the bottom of posts like that and feel…well, nothing. I want to feel closer to the person that wrote it. I want to experience their mushy center. I want to know there’s another vulnerable human out there, trying. Being real, not perfect.

It’s soooo tempting though. I catch myself ALL THE TIME. Thinking I have to have it all figured out, presenting a shiny shell and thinking that’s what makes me “good.” 

But that’s how we miss what’s really there. I think what makes me good is my humanness, my energy, my presence. Being and listening with my whole heart.

When I listen like that, the path reveals itself. 

Listening to myself right now, I’m tired. My face hurts from holding in the contents of my brain. My throat feels dry and scorched. I want to feel “complete,” but there is no complete. Life just keeps going. Maybe I wrote something that will touch someone. Maybe I didn’t. But my body says, “I’m done and I’m thirsty.” So I’m going to post what I’ve got, put my laptop away and drink a glass of water. See you next week!