This year has been a ride. The highs were very, very high and the lows were very low. In those lows, I have been served by skill. I’ve cultivated the ability to sit with a feeling, shift my energetic state, and pivot rapidly thereafter. This comes from a willingness to engage with myself. I want to warn you: we have become so intimate with death that it is vital we cultivate intimacy with life.
The latter takes time, care, a lot of tenderness, and, truthfully, no small measure of bravery. I know you can do this. My aura doesn’t call people who can’t. (Not for long. If you can’t cut it, you get bounced right out.) If you’re newer here, here’s the truth about me: I don’t speak unless I really have something to say. (Yes, I grew up.) This is to ensure I don’t waste your time or mine because time is valuable. I don’t ever take your attention for granted. Thank you.
Intimacy with life means you have to show up. You will be called upon to see things differently so often that it becomes fatiguing if you resist.
We all have these moments:
The sooner you accept that rigidity won’t serve you, the more you reduce friction and accept flow. If you find yourself running into the same barrier, it may be time to look at it (and actually address it) differently. When there’s a pandemic people are pretending isn’t happening, multiple genocides happening the world over, and an ongoing climate crisis, nihilism is your easy choice.
Make no mistake: it is the easy choice with the hardest consequences. Nihilism is simplistic. We already know that we will die. It’s our only certainty. Our timeless souls operate in organic machines, subject to decay like all things under heaven. Nihilism isn’t a productive philosophy unless you are one of the select few that allows it to be an all-access pass to daring. (Quite rare, I can give you a list of places it’s usually found.)
Reconnect with us here on earth. Reconnect with yourself. When you are feeling pain and angst at the task of being alive, choose to acknowledge the experience of pain, divest from prolonging it, and create a memory of connection. Pain requires contact. You’re being touched. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to witness another. It’s a priceless thing to recognize yourself.
You’re not the only one I know that feels the weight of existence… of having the power to operate in the material world. A bit of gravitas is required. A bit of gravitas is earned through cultivating your intimacy with life. The death cycle is the counterweight of the life cycle. When either is disrupted, we naturally feel off-kilter. Now is the time to be vigorous about rebalancing the scales. Affirm your own life, which is a prerequisite for affirming the lives of others. Honor your humanity in the real ways, the ways that will count. Yes, please go drink some water. Eat the butter. Stop having proxy wars with other people because you’re afraid to stand up to yourself and for yourself. Stand up for those you care about and the values that need the support of your voice.
Make good choices. Don’t wait for the new year. Start whenever you’re able, preferably right now.
Sincerely because words actually mean things,
Keylee