35

you would have picked wrong.

the people you were don’t exist anymore. if it pushed you to the bottom of the ocean, it’s not the same you that will break the surface.

of course your younger parts will want it all to make sense, and if not now, then soon. but that’s not how it works. the answer is the process. the mystery isn’t the story. “what happens now? i didn’t want it to end this way!” rather, it’s, “who must i become now? now that i know? with these feelings that i hadn’t felt before?”

have you ever tried to stir sugar into cold liquid? it can take a long time or you can simply give up, leaving crystals at the bottom of the glass. what you need to do to integrate the experience is to introduce energy. generating heat is just making molecules move faster. so you’re going to move faster, using all the new energy that’s flooding your system, and that’s how you turn sugar into sweetness.

you’ll realize that you were simply being made to choose the person you are becoming over the person who left. had it gone any other way, you would have picked wrong. because nobody wants illness, loss or destruction. we want to be happy. we want to be rewarded with certainty. but remember that when the body breaks, the soul grows. comfort is death. happy = growth. the universe already knows who needs to go and when the new you needs to come in.

34

what will?

what will change you? sometimes it’s a place. it can be art; whether it’s words, images or a song. time can do it but that takes a while. sometimes it’s a person; appearing suddenly, staying too long, leaving too quickly, with you on the journey just long enough for you to stop taking them for granted - and then they’re gone.

nothing is permanent, that’s what makes so many things beautiful: childhood, flowers in a vase, not even the sand on the beach. know that everything in your life has been loaned to you; you are borrowing it for a time. and you exchange the person you once were for the person you must become.

everything is a doorway: that disease, that opportunity, that challenge. enter the portal of your own volition. if you don’t choose, the choice will be made for you. let the change come from within. otherwise, pray that something nice comes along for you; because in this life, something inevitably will. change is coming for you or change is coming from you. it will happen, so do it without being asked. do it when they ask nicely or you’ll have to allow the pain to purify you, instead.

and it’s not just one change. you live enough life and you start to see that it’s constant not just outside; it’s your job to keep changing on the inside, as well. so change your mind. welcome that change of heart. this is what your soul asked for. it asked to come to an earth with seasons and epochs and 24 different times of day. if you don’t let this life change you, what will?

33

good luck.

what if the feeling of lack is a gift, a first step towards what you desire? an unconscious, primal habit just waiting to be transformed into an active, expansive consciousness of discovery and deserving?

i am missing [this] which tells me that what i might want is [that] and i deserve to experience the personal (energetic) and external (practical) journey towards [having it]. we all know that we don’t always get what we want and we don’t always want what we get; we will receive something better or we will get what we need.

there’s nothing wrong with feeling or noticing a lack or absence. our first experience outside of the womb is a crying out for what we think we just lost (safety and connection) and for what we now urgently need (food, comfort). this tells us that we are, in fact, alive.

lack can guide us to what we desire, which can guide us into becoming the next versions of ourselves. and what happens when a desire is fulfilled? well, that comes with a goodbye; the self that has it buries the self that went out and got it. and then we begin again. a new sense of lack is born, and we get to move forward. or we can lament the illusion of, “i’m never happy! what if nothing will ever be enough?” the despair does not have to be true. it might not be terrible to be periodically visited by lack. maybe it just means you that get to want more and have more. that you get to desire differently and grow in new directions. in which case, lucky you.

32

it’s your own song.

the best thing you can do is to let them carry themselves home. you do it for them and they stay lost; they’ll never know the way.

it doesn’t matter if loving them is the easiest thing in the world for you to do; that’s not the problem. that’s not why they were brought to your door. you let them into your hospitality to show them that they are deserving; that’s it. the rest is up to them. the workout video is not the workout. you cannot heal yourself by healing others. they need their own soil (soul) to grow. as do you. every journey unfolds at its own pace. you cannot hurry them up to see what you see.

the most beautiful person in the world starves for compliments [only so that she can disbelieve them] until she can walk in her own light. the most talented person in the world starves for external validation [only so that he can discount it] until he realizes that he must compose the masterpiece for himself alone, an audience of one.

you have to go around singing your own song.

31

how do you do it?

how and what is detachment in love? it means that you don’t need them to know that you are beautiful.

i know you didn’t ever feel safe or beautiful until you saw yourself reflected in their eyes. it was unbelievable when it happened. and they guided you to so many hidden parts of yourself that wanted healing. but now they’ve been gone long enough, and you’ve found that you could fall in love with yourself through (in) the unfolding of your own life.

remember that you are surrounded by people all day. it’s not only the most beautiful mirror that can tell you the truth or show you who you are. everyone is showing you to yourself, if you let them. you no longer need the one to be in love with you. you no longer need them to be in love with yourself.

“i love you” means: i want you to be happy. i want you to be free. all your parts are safe with me. and there’s nothing stopping you from extending this definition to yourself.

keep them in your heart forever, with gratitude, but now you’ve built an entire life that keeps you in love with yourself. you can let them come back and be loved by you. you can still build something together if that should happen. but you don’t need them for you to exist in love. and this is how you give yourself back to yourself. true love isn’t giving yourself away to the most deserving; it’s coming home.

trust that every time your heart breaks, you’ll get a new one.

30

they must, too.

as you grow, your dreams and desires must grow, too. it does not make sense to be 25 years old and want only what your five-year old self wanted.

what’s difficult is that some dreams take many years to come to fruition. if you embrace a dream that takes 15 years to come true and promptly embark on that same day, you would inevitably have become an older (if not entirely different) version of yourself by the time that dream was in your hands. and what if now that dream is too small? not what you thought it would be? no longer what you desire, now that you had finally accomplished it?

ask yourself if you are brave. are you brave? are you brave enough to have more than one dream? to begin again? to step aside and let someone else have this one while you set off again, in pursuit of your next future? scary gives you the opportunity to be brave. courage requires fear. it’s not courage if it’s calculable. tomorrow is unknown, either way.

do not deny yourself your own growth. do not deny your dreams the freedom to change as profoundly as you do.

29

light it up.

lighting in the sky. knowing its potential for harm and destruction, would you still choose it for its beauty? just to see it tear into the dark and help you believe in something again? maybe not. and maybe that’s why the choice has already been made for us. lighting is a part of nature, as inevitable as death, and a fleeting, powerful symbol of life itself.

there is a timeline where that song means nothing to you. where you don’t find out how powerful your energy is. where you don’t change their life and they don’t change yours. where your heart isn’t blasted open and ripped into shreds. where the unknown doesn’t shatter you every day. where you don’t come to know exactly how prometheus feels —having shared the fire that brought men out of the dark— now that the eagle tears into his liver for a daily eternity. where a song is just a song. where neither of you wakes up.

but you chose this one. you choose this one. and that’s how our choices can light up a sky full of stars.

28

the loving gardener.

a loving gardener doesn’t do dumb things like put the plant in the wrong soil or light, drown it in water, and then call it “high-maintenance” or “needy” or “unlovable.”

she identifies the plant for what it is and then strives to meet its needs to the best of her ability. she tends to the plant and watches over it to see that the plant is taking to its new environment. sometimes the plant has to be moved or pruned. plants get sick but they, too, can be healed. she researches the methods that might possibly delight the plant and help it thrive. this is because she is curious and patient and wants the plant to have what it needs.

you, my friend, contain multitudes. locate within you the loving gardener. tend to yourself and find out how you might thrive. there are people who say things like, “i don’t like orchids. they are high-maintenance and they never bloom more than once with me.” well, those people don’t deserve orchids; orchids do not belong with them.

you belong to you and you are not for everyone. be a loving gardener to yourself so that you can recognize other loving gardeners when they walk into your life.

27

what you want, or better.

if life is a classroom and earth is the school, then what we care about are the exams. and what we want, what we are working towards, are the exam results.

all you can do is your best. all you can do is to give everything. all you can do is prepare and perform. and pray that your pencils don’t break, that your pens don’t run dry, and that your laptop works. what you must not do (what you cannot do) is make them grade the exams faster or make them change your grade. the results are the results and the results are final.

good thing the tests keep coming; this is what your soul signed up for. and after a while, you’ll understand the secret, which is that it’s pretty much the same test, over and over. different words, different exam lengths, and sometimes it’s multiple choice. these tests are asking you about you: who are you and what do you want?

many of the exams are group projects. and if you fail a group exam, you’ll keep getting assigned these same classmates to help you answer those same questions. you may not recognize them as the same, and this will drive your loved ones mad; they will wonder why you keep signing up for the same thing, with the same people, every time.

the assignments won’t change until you do. the results you want won’t come until you allow them through. don’t worry. you will receive the exact people and lessons you need. the results change when you change. you may be asked to wait; there may be delays in getting the results out. but eventually, you will get the results you want, or better.

26

you’ve never been.

different versions of you will be called into existence. the version of you that accomplished the thing against all odds. the version of you that lost what you could not live without. the version of you that had to rebuild after your hopes and dreams were reduced to rubble.

the more versions of you that you allow to come forward, the more confident and authentic you will become. the more you resist at every juncture, the more afraid and less compelling you will be.

why do we value travel so highly? it’s not because being a tourist is fun. it’s not always fun and every place won’t be your favorite. we aren’t always prepared; we overpack, underpack, and sometimes they lose your luggage. it’s because we love people who have been somewhere and made it back to share, wide-eyed with wonder, deeper and more still, with the certainty that all roads lead us back to ourselves.

in this life, some of us will journey within and some of us make the journey without. not everyone gets to go everywhere. but make sure you go somewhere. say yes to the extra ticket, especially if you’ve never been. jump on the train or be dragged. be at the station on time even if you don’t know which bus is yours. it will stop for three seconds and then that version of you has passed.

25

when is it time?

it’s always unlikely until it’s inevitable. the greatest things almost didn’t exist. and now, because they do, of course they exist. we love this story. it helps us believe that we are somehow held and guided. even when it looks like nothing is happening, something is happening.

it’s not true that we have to see to believe. we believe and often expect the invisible. for example, how upsetting is it for the internet to go out? for the microwave to stop working? for the radio to give you static instead of the right frequency? we expect and demand the invisible to work for us. many more important things are like this, like gravity and like God, supporting all potentialities and all actualities.

some things you have to believe before you can see. you will have to get everyone out of your way (be stubborn) and you will have to get out of your own way (don’t be stubborn). lovingly. in a way that makes you bigger and not smaller. expansion over contraction. “how” is as important as “what,” and you’ll also have to know when. do you wait until you’re pushed (from the outside) or do you wait until you’re pulled (from the inside)?

when is it time to take the path of least resistance and when is it time to walk until the path appears? it depends on what is at stake. if it’s for the protection, preservation or growth of your soul, you walk by inner rather than outer certainty. if it’s anything else, chop wood and collect water on the path of least resistance. and remember the two paths: the one in your mind and the one below your feet. only the mind path can make that same water feel heavier or lighter as you walk it up the everyday hill.

you get to choose your regrets: you can regret the thing you did or you can regret the thing you didn’t do. all your life, you’re making this choice, even if you are unaware. so become aware. choose expansion, choose love, and love harder.

24

you have to make it.

after a while, the answer isn’t in other people’s art. it’s in yours. God made you good at something. so now you have to make it.

take as long as you need to find out what this is, but you can’t not figure it out and you can’t not do the thing. and then once you start, you must not stop. do not become distracted by criticism or praise (or worst of all, silence); treat them both the same, as Rudyard Kipling admonishes in his poem.

we create for the purpose of expressing the light within, not for it to be liked. look around you. God didn’t create everything to be liked. that’s not why we create. and God didn’t create to make money; money is man’s own limited shorthand. don’t worry. your day/night job can make you money but it’s your art that must bring you value: does it keep you out of trouble? does it keep you sane? does it keep you from despair? well, keep going and that’s what happiness feels like.

words are so limited. define your own “it makes me happy.” define your own “this is me” and “i’ve always wanted to do this.” God created you to create, not merely to consume.

let me also just say, it’s “create [energy].” your art need not be material. it can be lighting up a room [with your energy]. sparking the joy of learning within a child [with your energy]. showing people that they, too, can be brave [with your energy]. it’s art when the light of the universe passes through your hands and into another. art is how we keep the lights on.

23

do you ever wonder?

what if we are being called to re-enchant our own worlds? why do you think we have been beguiled into thinking that we already know (and don’t care) what’s under that rock (it’s bugs not gnomes) or inside this tree (it’s just rings not dryads) or around the corner (it’s just the neighbors not any nymphs)?

we have renounced our collective heritage of symbols, fairytales, fables and mythological archetypes, which require interaction, a solitary poring over and many visits as different versions of ourselves, to derive meaning over knowledge. they’ve moved us away from the interpretive experience of books and handed us these screens by which to take in pre-processed entertainment and explainers.

we have replaced foods with nutrients. chewing is optional. this is the difference between being spoonfed and learning to forage in nature. both traditions have a time and place but we’ve lost motivation for the latter. why? because it’s not straightforward and it requires the time and attention that consumerism has already claimed.

remember that we do not know what’s coming and that we have an extremely limited grasp of what’s here now. be in awe of it all and the experience of wonder that eludes us will waft ever so gently back into your daily, moment-to-moment consciousness, back into who you are. to the child within. this is the energy inside you that uses this world to create and imagine. we won’t have to remind ourselves to be grateful when we allow it to be threaded back into our perception.

22

be who you are.

knowing what you like is not the same as knowing what you want; having preferences is not a desire. doing the practical things that need to be done in your life each day is not the same as being who you are. what you came here to do is probably not what anyone outside of you would consider to be “practical.” we are looking instead for “necessary.” it is not practical for the statue to be found inside a block of marble; it is necessary.

“be who you are” happens in three parts: [1] be where who you are can thrive, [2] do what you need to do to thrive, and [3] keep going in that direction. you have to find the right environments where you can do what you need to do, and grow into more of you, not less of you.

because we are always in motion, because we represent and because everything around us is experienced as a divine unfolding, being faithful to ourselves includes finding out what you can’t help but do. here’s a hint: it’s already been happening this whole time, especially if you have been somehow trying to stop or discourage yourself from doing it. the answer is inside of you. you’ll admit it to yourself after you’ve lived enough life and sat in enough silence. that’s the digging. it’s in there deep. there’s no treasure sitting at the surface. you don’t find diamonds in the topsoil.

and you might never understand it, even as you are compelled in that direction. you don’t have to understand your life to live it well. people don’t have to understand you to love you.

21

what you want.

there is abundance in your life even as your focus goes to lack. children are abundant in potential and lack agency. adults claim their individual agency only to discover an unsettling lack of control over the world. the tweens and teens have an abundance of angst because they lack the velocity to match their dreams. the poor lack material wealth, while the rich must go out of their way to meet the ecstasy of faith. we all have and have not. and yet. to be human is to desire.

how do we desire well when a healthy appetite is a gift and craving so often becomes a curse? when does “more” help us and when does it hurt us? we have to find out for ourselves and live into the correct answer. it will not be perfect, but there is a version of right and wrong that is specific to you and to you alone.

the question is, “how does what i want help me find out who i am, who i am not and bring me closer to who i want to be?” it’s not about getting the thing. you want the thing because getting the thing means something about you and not about it.

sometimes the question is a dilemma. and i will posit that the correct answer is: both and neither. how will you know? cake or pie? it’s both. new or old flame? neither.

the right answer is always “you.”

Twenty

why do you think?

why do you think they’ve made it easier to buy a major league baseball hat than for you to be on your own team?

every team is composed of a variety of players. it always ends up this way, whether the owners want it or not. of course everyone wants all superstars for every position. and to bring home the championship season after season, even if our losses have more to teach us. and yet, within each of us, as men, we too, are internally divided, with different strengths and competing desires.

the most beautiful thing i’ve seen on a television is a team that plays well together. yet it’s more common for one or two of the strongest to lead and carry an entire team to victory. but what if you gave all of your parts equal time on the field? do you think it’s fair for whole, real parts of you to get zero playing time?

you are composed of both shadow and light, beautifully so. do we not give equal significance to midnight and noon? to the equinoxes and solstices? to the new and full moons? then why not ourselves? why do we reflexively push parts of ourselves away and down —why tolerate this from our handlers— when we all know what happens? that every bubble bursts?

offer a home to all of you. we all belong somewhere, even if we each cannot belong everywhere.

Nineteen

your turn.

everyone gets a turn. if you’re lucky, you too will play villain, martyr and king. every villain receives the opportunity to recant. the martyr may set down her cross at any time. the king always loses his crown.

in this life, we may be invited to play different roles, and we will faithfully take our places as usher, orchestra, understudy, patron and stagehand. do not disrupt the show. no production runs forever. there’s a story wanting to be told and all roles are equally important.

play your part. show people to their seats; light their way in the dark. relish the script; it’s already inside you, revealing itself. show them that the hero is a human and that the villain was also once a child. play the harp or hold the spotlight, and don’t worry that you’ll be asked to do both at the same time; that’s not how it works.

everyone gets their turn, whether in this life or the next. there is a divine unfolding and discovery playing out. while there are no rehearsals scheduled for this production, you’ll know what to do, and rest easy that you’ll never be called to direct.

Eighteen

what you need.

are you having trouble getting what you need? does a good night’s sleep elude you? have you been a lighthouse for too long, with no ships on the horizon? or is it external recognition that you so desperately crave? what about the right job with the right people doing the right thing for the right clients? are you worried that this may not even exist for you? do you need something you can believe in?

maybe stop judging everyone for their blessings and their misfortunes. let them have what they need.

let them have the best. forever daylight is a nightmare; allow them this moment in the sun. everyone deserves to be a child at three years old. but not everyone gets to have that. so let them be 33 and a mess. let them go the wrong way. let them be ready when they’re ready. let them experience the exact journey that they’re on.

the worst things will visit each of us, even if we don’t tell it to anyone. you can’t stop what’s coming for you or for those you love. even your enemies will get what they need. just give it a rest and see what this dislodges for you.

Seventeen

tell it to yourself.

you know that thing? that thing you keep telling them to do only because they keep not doing it? what you’ve been telling your friends over and over because it keeps happening and happening? that thing that turns you into that version of you? and you know you enjoy it a little bit; don’t lie. everyone loves to be right about something.

it’s that thing you’ve been saying for years now. you’ve been telling anyone who will listen and you’ve been trying to explain it to that person who still can’t and won’t ever understand. that thing that was bothering you so much that you even told it to your kid? you know which thing. that thing.

tell it to yourself. get yourself alone and say it aloud. as many times as you have to. until you can hear it. until it sinks in. and then stop. it’s probably not even your thing. it doesn’t even belong to you. and you know what? they heard you. they know how you feel about it. you told them to choose and they chose their bullshit over you.

so no more talking about it. no more talking about the problem. no more talking about the solution; it’s time to be about it. you think people haven’t been listening to you? you haven’t been listening to you. that’s what’s been hurting your feelings. leave it alone and find the solution within you.

Sixteen

we can only see ourselves reflected.

how do people know you? they know you by your face and your voice and your gait. how your voice sounds reverberating within your own skull is not how you sound. anyone who knows you can see that it’s you from a mile away; you didn’t know you walk like that.

you know yourself by your actions and your feelings. you know your own hands and feet like no one else. but have you ever seen your face outside of a mirror or a loving gaze? no, you haven’t. this is why we need one another. we need one another to know who we are and to recognize who we were.

this is how everything in this life serves you, how everything is a mirror. if you don’t like what you see, it’s an invitation for you to change your insides. what you see is dependent on who you are; what you feel arises from within you. your outsides will show you today (these are yesterday‘s fruit) but your insides (the seeds of your future) will show you tomorrow.