The fancy article I wrote to post today felt too distant from the trust-work I’m personally doing right now, so instead, I offer you these: notes to myself, written from the edges of my trust and fear. I’m fully inside the human condition, so trust that one or more of these might speak to you, too.

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• Everything belongs.
• Stop running from the thing you fear. Even though you don’t know what it is exactly. Even though you don’t know how big or small it’ll turn out to be.

  Stop running especially because you sense it actually isn’t a monster, but a threshold beyond which is freedom.

• Your impulse to be saved by something outside yourself – named, reassured, told what to do: unlearn it. Notice it at work as often as you can. Imagine yourself at a fork in the road each time, turning a new direction. Do this because:
• You know way more than you think. Though you’ll surely collect more, your toolbox is FULL. Your role is not Amnesiac about this. Your task – your great adult responsibility – is to remember.

  Remember how capable you are when you put your heart and mind to something. Remember that hard work ≠ bad or evidence the universe is unkind. Remember how great your questions are, and the beauty you find in the places they take you.

  With practice, remembering gets easier.

• Owning your life is necessary for the inner rest you want to know.

  It has nothing to do with becoming an island, or closing your ears to good advice, or not asking for help when you need it.

  Owning your life means reserving a quiet space inside yourself for The Last Word to arise from within you – The Last Word about your worth, your opinions, the action(s) you want or need to take, the questions you most want to guide you.

  The “easy way out” of looking to others for Last Words is, in actuality, a long life of graspy desperation.

• Respect your ego, but don’t fear it. The worst it can do is guide you down paths you decide, after all, not to take. And good heavens, those paths are fantastic teachers anyway. Either way, you win!
• Your public persona can be complex. No need to flatten it. Find ways to fold in the pieces of you that feel important, regardless of how slick they appear to be.
• BIG is not always better. But neither is small. Both have great value. Discern which applies when, and where you might inadvertently short change yourself or others by valuing one over the other.
• Fast is not always better. But neither is slow. Both have great value. Discern which applies when, and where you might inadvertently short change yourself or others by valuing one over the other.
• Nihilism is usually unexamined fear. In your moments in the shadow of “what’s the point of any of this?”, try to name what you’re fearing. Better yet, find someone who loves you to whom you can speak your fears out loud. Regardless of anything being said or done about your fears specifically, turn your antennae toward the feeling of being heard and not alone. See what happens to that shadow.
• Sleep is precious. Strategize how to get more of it. Put that plan into action.
• You are fantastic.

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Lot’s is going on in my inner and outer worlds these days. I look forward to sharing more of it with you soon! I’m heading out of town for a few days and will see you here again next week.

In the meantime, check out the wonderful work around “Place” that Helen is doing at Dixon Hill. I’m delighted to participate today in her Changing Places series, talking about how Los Angeles has changed me.

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