AWESOME AT ANYTHING

both can be true - says my friend Alex Dobrenko

“Failure, weakness, and vulnerability is like a connector... it connects you to the rest of the world because what you're doing is giving out a signal to the world that says I need you because I can't do this by myself”

― Phil Stutz

Guess what?

~

maybe I am not an activist

I am just a complainer

I am driving myself crazy 

letting the brain worm 

feast on my fears

I can't be good at something and suck at the same time

a promoter of living simple, making mistakes and constructing a practicable way to champion this race

believing I am good takes courage i don't always think i have

yet when I stretch, it feels right

it is terrorizing me to leap into the depth of a skeptical reality 

i might be in the wrong place, and i might not be all that awesome at anything

~

I am learning.

I am reclaiming kindness as an activist. 

It is impossible to have done this with no other unsure terms. 

It is about keeping its practical meaning – commitment, connection, cooperation, treating others with respect and good faith, disagreeing side-by-side for what we believe in – while staying aware of our darker side. 

And lovingly reserving the right to say no when it's needed to make a difference. 

A surprisingly outward-facing clash.

I am discovering my kind.

Carry on,

Resources:

1. Learning aerial silks is incredibly hard. My brain is boggled, and my body is uncoordinated. Thank goodness for laughter and humility because everything in that class feels hard.

2. My husband and I were asked if we did recreational drugs at our new family doctor intake. Thanks to the encouragement from Carl Hart to normalize drug use, we told the truth.

3. Everyone needs work, always, and Jonah Hill has seen the light from a particularly wise man, Dr. Phil Stutz. They capture and carrying on the teachings by taking unpleasant experiences and thoughts and transforming them into opportunities. The recent Netflix documentary, it is a gift to witness Hill is trying to understand his teacher and give everyone else a shot at the Tools.

4. What is Both Are True? Absurd, honest comedy delivered through the vulnerable personal essays of Alex Dobrenko: friend to all, father to one, and tv actor+writer to anyone hiring.

5. “I buried the girl I had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. She is still small and scared and ashamed, and perhaps I am writing my way back to her, trying to tell her everything she needs to hear.” ― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

6. Legal and available in (most) states, 89% of Mindbloom clients report improvements in anxiety and depression symptoms. 🤯 I like their program a lot. 

7. "A thing can be true and not the truth,"― Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone