#541 – How will your life improve when you start "following the aliveness?"

Did you also confuse dedication with sacrifice? Commitment with martyrdom? Perseverance with pushing through?

Yesterday, I realized how wrong I've been about life all along. Yes, despite my writing about watching life unfold and being okay with whatever is, I failed to embody the most fundamental principle: being okay.

I let myself feel like crap when things didn't go my way and even felt justified. I looked outside for reasons to feel okay, and if/when I couldn't find any, I waited for the rescue team inside the not-okayness.

Ironic: I coached dozens of clients in the "you're responsible for your feelings" mantra. (Hello?)

I'm responsible for my feelings means it's my duty to feel okay, no matter what the world gives me.

Years ago, while training towards my co-active coaching certification, I was the example client for an exercise. The coach asked me to recall the moment in my life when I felt most alive.

The scene still lives in my mind: a light pink cotton scarf around my neck, sitting in a hotel conference room in Midtown Manhattan, I moved my hands as though I was typing. The moment I'd felt most alive was when I was writing my novel. I still feel the gigantic smile, on my face and in my heart, as I recalled that moment of past aliveness. And the sadness I felt for not being there anymore.

I'd ignored my aliveness. Because, money.

I'd engaged in things that killed my soul a little every day. Because, money, status. Ego.

I felt unhappy because I was dead inside.

But choosing to engage in what brings me alive safeguards my happiness.

And when I need to do meaningless work for money, I'll reframe it as, "providing for my family brings me alive." I'll thank my paycheck, a smile on my face, and create time for what truly brings me alive.

Because I can only count on myself for my own happiness.

Where would your aliveness take you, if you followed it?

Love,

Carolina