My Little Blue House

There is a song I listened to on repeat when it first came out.

It was called: Making All Things New, by Aaron Espe. Look it up and have a listen.

It was released in 2015. The first time I heard it, my heart ached with a searing pain, which didn’t make sense, because, by all outward appearances, the song is happy.

The lyrics are full of love, and the melody, while not really upbeat, is uplifting.

It is a song about being grounded in a home and a partnership filled with love, and opening to new light and possibility. (My interpretation.)

It begins…

I leave all the windows open
Let the light come through

It is a song that could be described as warm, wistful and breezy.

Yet, to me, it has always been a sad song. More than once I have cried and felt angry listening to it.

I would tell myself that the song tugged at my heartstrings because, at that time, I did not have what the artist was singing about. My relationship was unstable, and I longed to create a home with a partner where I would feel grounded in love, and where I would feel safe to open my heart.

On some level I knew that wasn’t the whole picture, however. There were many other songs I listened to during that period of my life that directly mirrored my experience of romantic heartbreak and longing, and I could tell this ache was something different. It was something that touched a deeper place in me, one I was not yet ready to visit.

Today, it began playing as I was listening to my liked songs on random rotation on Spotify, and, again, I felt that familiar heavy, angry ache in my heart.

As I now have what he is signing about, I could not brush it off as simply triggering personal longing.

I did think, briefly, maybe its just nostalgia - taking me back to that time when the song first moved me - almost 10 years ago now!

But, a deeper knowing surfaced again. This time, I got curious enough to read the artist’s profile. As I did, something inside me began shifting.

The artist was someone who had quit his traditional schooling before completing it to pursue his creative passion - a career in music. He had travelled all over finding ways to make ends meet while trying to “make it”, but, he had stopped when mental health issues made him reconsider the way he was trying so hard to pursue a music career. Now, he is first and foremost a father and a husband, with a large garden that supports his family. He makes his music in between his regular everyday life.

It was not until he settled down and began home recording that he really hit his stride as an artist.

I can relate in many ways to his story.

In 2015, when I first heard this song, I had quit my traditional career as a lawyer, and was finding creative ways to make ends meet while trying to “make it” as a writer and thought leader. There were high highs and low lows, and no real stability in any aspect of my life.

Even back then, some part of me knew that I would not succeed by trying so hard and giving up everything for my dream, but I was not yet ready to admit it.

The fall that inevitably did come felt 100% like failure, and 100% personal, and the heartbreak and despair that followed was dark and deep and all consuming.

Ironically, the thing that got me out of it, was the thing that got me into it in the first place: writing.

It has taken me years of working through resistance to admit that I have to rethink the way I pursue my writing in the public sphere.

The past nine years have been humbling, and healing.

To be honest, I am not really on the other side of the rethinking part.

But I am getting there.

Today, another piece of the puzzle shifted into place.

I now understand the heartbreak underlying this song. I understand the strength and healing it takes to get to a place of being willing and able to create art from a grounded, stable, loving environment, instead of a place of chaos and volatility.

I now understand the ache I felt when I first listened to this song was a kind of kinship and a foreshadowing of the journey my soul knew it was already embarking on.

I have been feeling for some time now the pull to be public more regularly with my writing, and to begin offering writing workshops again.

In order to do that, there is still some healing I need to do. I need to release the remaining heartbreak of the past “tries” that did not work, and the lingering shame and judgment I have towards myself for “failing” to make it big in the all or nothing way that is idolized in our culture.

I need to allow myself to begin again Making All Things New in my creativity.

I need to allow it to look differently. I need to allow myself to create in moments dotted throughout my ordinary, grounded, and stable life. I need to keep my loving partnership and home at the centre of my world, while I step out into the public arena with my creations.

As I expand, I need to remember what Aaron Espe so honestly sings:

Home, where my heart is

Home, where my love lives

Home, my beginning and my end

Home

xo,

Danielle

Photo by Megan Alcock

After all these years, I still come back here, to this blog, to come back to myself.

There have been many days I have told myself: just let this blog go. You are not consistent enough. You don’t have enough time. You aren’t engaging enough to make it worthwhile.

Enough. Enough. Enough. This story is core to me.

Likely because of this, something always prevents me from pulling the plug. Year after year I pay the domain and hosting fees for this site. Year after year I find myself coming back to write.

To you.

For me.

Maybe for you, too.

This past year my life has been in a time of rapid expansion. It has been, and still is, a lot.

The thing that keeps me choosing it (all of it) and going for it (all of it) is that the expansion feels aligned with my soul. It is constantly asking me to access parts of myself I have neglected or discarded long ago.

Which brings me to this:

When I was little I was bossy.

I know it’s hard to believe. Anyone who has known me as a adult would say I am quite the opposite of bossy. I am a quiet peacemaker. Passive. Submissive, even.

Yet. There is a part of me that is a leader. In charge. Decisive.

At 8 years old I was all of those things. The club leader. Miss popular. Perhaps even a bit of a dictator on the play ground and the snow banks outside our school.

That all changed by the time I was 9. By the end of Grade 3 I was ousted from the popular seat, I fell from stardom, and honestly, I felt like I’d never get back up.

It’s taken me decades to rebuild my self worth. For real. Childhood rejection and exclusion has a big impact on a girl.

But I have come a long way since that feeling of defeat. I have grown stronger in myself more and more every year.

As I have done so, I have also learned that the child version of me that was bossy, was just that - bossy.

I was not a true leader back then. I did not have self worth, or I would not have crumpled at the first rejection.

Why do I reminisce on all this now? Why go back to that place?

This past year has made me realize that I left a part of my soul back in Grade 3. A vital part of who I am. Though I may not have been ready to be an authentic grounded leader at the age of eight, I did have that spark within me; I had vision, and I had the urge to lead.

What I have realized this past year more than any other year is that leadership goes hand in hand with responsibility. Just as any commitment does. And the more I say yes to myself as a leader, the more I must say yes to myself each morning, and the more I must show up as the woman I know I can be, though that woman feels awkward and uncomfortable and often just out of my reach.

So I challenge myself to tap into that bossy side of me. To permit myself enough grace to blunder in my own authority. I know that this time I will be different. How could it not be? For I am different, now that I am grounded in compassion from my own rejection and decades long rebuilding of my own self-esteem.

I believe allowing this part of me to emerge fully will result in powerful wholeness, and not the brute force of a bully I so did not want to be. I know there is another way to be a leader. I know there is another way to access that dominant part of me.

I see it more each day. It is coming to be. I am becoming the woman who is brining it to be.

I believe in words as a power and I declare: I am a leader.

I am not just an owl in the night with visions that make your soul stir, I am a lioness prowling mid-day, making her kingdom hers.

xo,

Danielle

Early spring time at Little Blue House and Nikita in the background. She also brings me joy.

Sometimes I feel like my tongue is tied up in tiny little knots creating a lumpy boulder in my mouth.

What would it take to un-knot it?

What would it cost for me to un-tie myself, and to speak?

Something happened during Covid that had me tie myself up. To withdraw from the online world of sharing. To retreat. To reserve. To cease to speak.

In part, it was because the online world became quite hostile. In larger part it was because I did not know what to say or what to think of most things that were happening. I had feelings, that is for sure. I had beliefs in the moment of what was right, and what was wrong. But, I also felt early on that I could not speak for anyone else.

I did not know the answer, though it seemed like most people thought they did.

I spoke out on a few issues at the outset and it cost me a friend. We’ve tried to mend the bridge between us, but the trust and care and admiration that was once there has not come back.

It’s ok, I know. Not everyone is everyone else’s cup of tea.

Yet, I built it up in my mind into something more. Maybe it was. Maybe I needed to ground myself. To humble myself. To retreat.

I have learned a lot from withholding my views from the public space. In some ways it has been amazing. I have learned to connect more deeply with my surroundings - the people and things and places that I interact with on the daily get more of me, and I of them.

These are good things. Especially for someone like me who has the ability to disconnect - to be there but not really there.

I have had to learn to engage more; to be fully present in my life as it is in each moment. This has been hard for me, yet rewarding.

I have realized that I actually prefer living here, now, in my life and in this world with all its messy faults, beauty, uncertainty, joy and disappointment, than in the world I create in my own mind where all my dreams are manifested in perfection.

Yet, I do miss it. Writing. Visioning. Creating. Sharing. Escaping to an other world of my own imagination.

I’m not really sure how to do it in a way that is safe to be honest - and safety is important to me now. I’m not willing to sabotage what I have created in this world for a moment of blissful indulgence into the ecstasy of my visionary inner world. But, I do long to indulge a little. I do believe that I, and my close circle, and also the world in general, would be better off with my creative spark and my joy lighting me up just a little bit brighter.

So, I’m reaching for something familiar to jolt me back into my imaginary inner realms - a writing challenge.

I’m not going to take it to the extreme as I have I the past: like 40,000 words in a month, or waking up at 4am every day to write for 2 hours before work.

Instead, since it is national poetry month, I am simply committing to writing three poems in each of the next three months, and sharing them with at least one person.

Who knows, maybe I will finish my next poetry book after all.

My heart does feel lighter thinking about the possibility of releasing a new creation into the world. Maybe it is time.

Thanks for being on this journey with me. My first poem is for all of you: a spring haiku!

That musky spring smell
Has me hopeful even though
The flowers aren’t out!

xo,

Danielle

I am writing my life, to write my life.

I declared these words to myself seven years ago looking out at the ocean from the Granville Street Bridge.

My next journey is holding it all. I declared this too, not really knowing what the journey would entail, just knowing it was mine to walk.

I am on it. Still. That I know. Will I ever arrive? I can’t be sure.

Just like I can’t be sure that I have arrived at the end of the journey I was on prior to writing my first book in 2015: I am Enough.

There are still moments, when I come face to face with that old wound. The healing continues on new layers. But that is not what I am here, writing about, today.

I am here to write about Holding It All.

What that means to me now, some years into the journey is different than I thought it would be when I started out.

Let me tell you this: it is harder than I thought, and richer.

There is less time for escape into magical realms, yet, somehow, more magick in the every day life I am living.

I still struggle with the three Rs: responsibility, resentment, and rejection. I still have deep emotions, and moments of doubt.

But I am getting good at choosing my engagement points.

I am doing it - Holding It All. I am getting there - if there is a there.

I am holding many things: a legal career, a retreat-like property, the romantic relationship I always wanted, an upcoming wedding, a dog, friends, regular bonfires on the weekends, and a condo that is mine, with the responsibility of a mortgage. A beautiful life. A beautiful little family. Interesting work. A paradise to retreat to.

I have in recent months been doing less writing, and running. Things do come in cycles, I know.

What do I want?

It is not what I thought I wanted. That much I have learned on this journey.

It has been humbling.

I have learned that the spotlight is not what I was craving. I don’t want the responsibility of being on display. Nor is a deeply spiritual existence, where I escape the drudgery of normal everyday existence. A part of me does still wants to be special - to make a change for the better in this crazy world.

People tell me I am already doing it. Just by being in the legal profession, and carving out a path that works for me, I am already creating a change to the system. I am making a change for the better just by being true to my own soul, in a world where most follow external guidance.

Is that enough? Can I be ok with that subtle behind the scenes difference?

My ego gets up in arms some days.

Most days, though, it is enough. I am enough, as I am.

I am at peace, because I am aligned. While I have made some decisions the past couple years that appear conventional, it is not because I have given up on my soul path.

To the contrary. I am accepting that my truth is not to reject the old way, and create a new world. It is to be me, fully, in the world, as it is, and let my inner light ripple out, and spread.

I am also accepting that, while I will not likely be recognized or praised for living my ordinary-yet-soul-aligned life, the silent rewards of my inner transformation and expansion, make the journey one that is worthy of my trust.

So I keep trusting. I keep clearing the ashes and stoking my inner flame. I keep listening inwards as I let my light expand outwards. And I know that right now the path that I am on is the right one for me because my light keeps shining brighter. On some days I burn as bright as the bonfires I light on the weekends (example above ;).

I trust that a time of increased writing, or perhaps other creative work, will come for me again. But even if it does not, I trust that the light of my inner fire will be enough, no matter the task I am engaged in.

My wish for you for 2023 is that you take time to tend to your inner fire. That you don’t forget to listen inwards, before expanding outwards. And most importantly, that you know, that whatever soul journey you are on, your light is making the difference this world needs.

New Year’s blessings to all!

xo,

Danielle

I need to write a blog post about Magick. A dragonfly told me so.

I need to write it for myself, but maybe you need it too.

I often doubt that magick exists, in the ordinary.

In that state of doubt, I feel resentful that I am not living an extra-ordinary life. I tell myself that I am missing out.

Those thoughts I know are fears. They are simply not true.

I am writing this post as a reminder.

I hope that I will come back to it, many times, every time, I feel the doubt creeping in.

The truth is, I live surrounded by magick. You likely do too, though I can’t know whether that is true – or, even if it is, whether you are willing to allow that truth to be real for you.

To experience true magick we must be vulnerable to life. Its no wonder most of us fail to experience the extra-ordinary, the wonder, the awe-inspiring beauty – the magick of life – most of the time.

I include myself in the ‘most’. Though I’ve always been a secret believer, and an indulgent escapist into the realms of magick, living open to the presence of everyday magick is something I have not quite mastered.

I have in the past few years, in response to heartbreak and other consequences of living heart-wide-open, resisted my knowing and experience of magick, on the every day. I have been living happy, and mostly fulfilled, but not ecstatic.

You may say that if I am happy and mostly fulfilled, that is more than a person can really ask for.

Well, that may be true, but I have experienced more. My heart and soul know that there is more to this life. There is desire. There is passion. There is creation. There is…

Magick.

So I am writing this post as a reminder.

Magick has always been here. I am just often closed to it. I dismiss it. I am unwilling to feel it, and so I do not experience it, even though it is right here beside me; with me; in me.

I have always wanted an oasis. A retreat. A place where I could offer sanctuary not only to myself, but to others – a place where healing could occur.

I am now living in exactly such a place.

We have five acres – four of which are forest which has been untouched for many years. We have abundant blackberries, salmon berries, raspberries, cherry trees, plum trees. This fall, I made my own jam for the first time since I was a little girl. It was good. But more than that, it felt good to create it.

This oasis did not come ready made, and it is not really “ours”: we have had to put sweat and blood into the land to create something special, and, we are renting. I use these facts to discount the magick of the place. It is not exactly how I pictured it so it’s not real, I tell myself.

On some level I am still waiting for the perfection of my vision to arrive on a silver platter.

This is how my mind tricks me into resentment, and keeps me from seeing and from dreaming.

Tonight I was walking out back in the alcove we have created for community gatherings around a fire, and I allowed myself to dream a little.

I saw an archway under the treed canopy. I saw rows upon rows of people we hold dear, and I saw myself, walking arm in arm with my father, out from under the twin cedars on the island further back, over the bridge my lover built with his own two hands, looking up the aisle, between the smiling faces, seeing that same man looking at me like he’s the luckiest man on earth.

To dream is to be vulnerable.

To want your dream to become your reality, even more so.

To dare to pursue it. There is no greater joy, nor heartbreak.

If you know what I’m talking about, then, you are my people.

And, I know, that you know about magick, too.

The truth is: Magick is always right there – here – in the ordinary.

If only we are willing to open our hearts enough to allow it.

Xo,

Danielle

Magic forest near our place in Mission.

The questions I have yet to ask gnaw at me. Their invisible teeth grating ever so gently on my conscience. Pressing tenderly in all the right places.

Inviting me to open.

I stopped writing my book almost a year and a half ago. I stopped writing my blog shortly after that.

I have had a few brief spurts of writing since, but they have mostly been a slog, and somewhat forced.

I still journal, of course.

And I have still been writing my life – in big ways, too. I am engaged to be married. I am building a law practice. I am renting an acreage in Mission, BC – 5 acres to escape to every weekend. My own little retreat.

Life is good. Full. Fulfilling.

Yet. Yet. Yet.

The questions I have yet to answer prod me.

Quietly, so that sometimes I cannot even hear them. I feel them whistling in my bones.

When will you write your book? Why have you stopped blogging? Will you start again? What about coaching? What about law? Can you hold it all?

Is there a right time to begin again? Will things slow down? Will there be an opening? Will I open?

What will I say? And to whom?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Prod, prod, prod.

God, I love to write.

Writing is freedom if I have ever felt it.

Yet I hold back.

For good reason.

I needed to pause. I needed to stop. I needed to rest.

I needed to reassess.

What are my priorities? Are my feet on the ground?

Writing is flying if I have ever experienced it.

Pure exhilarating bliss.

Can I write, and be sure to land?

The questions I am asking are hard ones. Big ones. Pervasive ones.

They permeate all aspects of my life. The consequences are sharp and unforgiving… if I crash.

I will not crash. I tell myself this as I start to get a taste again now, of this flying.

I feel my heart skip a beat, and then catch itself. Like the first days of being in love when the risk still outweighs giving in to the rush. But barely.

I know the love is going to win.

It is just so, so good. The wind. The endless sky. Being up there in the clouds where the pulse of that other world is so near. I can feel its magic. Its beckoning.

I will do this differently, this time. Slow.

I place my feet on the ground now, to make sure I am still here. Tomorrow I will be sharp, focused, and on the ball, in service of my clients.

The fluttering quiets.

I know what I need to do. I always have.

I am on a journey of holding it all.

The choices I have before me are not easy ones. To stay true to my soul my decisions will need to be more measured than my dreamers’ heart would like.

And yet, some questions have been answered. I can do this. And I must.

I can not deny: I am alive when I write!

Xo,

Danielle

Photo by Megan Alcock

I’m going to try to explain something fundamental about the way I create lasting transformation in my life using the metaphor of a warm coat. Bear with me here. I’m not too sure how it will go.

I am someone who’s language is emotion but who lives in her head. I am passionate and idealistic. In my natural state this culture would call me naiive. Someone who has her head in the clouds and wears her heart on her sleeve. A dreamer. A visionary. A romantic. A fool.

A learned the hard way a few times, in this culture, that you get hurt living like that. A searing kind of hurt that freezes you numb like bare skin exposed to a -50C wind chill in Manitoba, and then jabs you again with one thousand needles as you warm up.

So I put on a coat. A really warm, double-lined parka, with fur in the hood. To be honest I went whole hog (Manitoba farm reference there - see how I did that) and also put on snow pants, boots, wool socks, mitts, toque and scarf. Let’s just say I bundled myself up real good, and then went back into the world.

To get the idea, you have to picture this: my whole body was puffed up two times its size. The only thing you could see were my eyes, and even they were narrowed and partially covered by colourful folds of yarn. But that was ok by me. In fact, initially I felt good.

Winter passed with ease. No more hurt. No more pain. No more cold.

When springtime came and the weather warmed, I found I could not bring myself to take off the coat. How could I be sure winter was really over? I asked myself. What if I take it off, and then tomorrow wake to find the temperature has dropped and I have hypothermia?

The risk was simply too much, and so, I endured the discomfort of a warm coat to appease the fear of an unpredictable winter.

Summer came, and I was HOT. I sweated profusely and shied away from all fun in the sun, but still, I would not take off my coat. It has done me well so far, I would retort to all nay-sayers. In fact, it has saved my life! I could not have survived that cold without it. I simply cannot give it up now.

Within a short time it was fall. The air was fresh and crisp and magnificent-coloured leaves began to fall. I was unable to go out and enjoy either in my too-warm lumpy layers, but I could sense cold weather was around the corner. Winter is coming, I whispered to my coat, who was now my friend. I’m so glad you are here.

When winter finally arrived I was of course was ready, but by this time I didn’t really care to go out. I was so accustomed to avoiding the warm weather, it seemed absurd to go out into hostile conditions simply because I had warm clothes!

So I stayed inside with my coat and missed out on all of it: the first snow, the ice-lined trees, the whiteouts and the coldest darkest nights of the season.

At first, it felt great. Inside, with my coat, I no longer had to worry about the weather.

At least not the weather out there.

After a while, I began getting chills without going outside, and without taking off my coat. The chills became more frequent, and brought with them aches. I layered on more coats, but the pain would not break, until I realized one night: I had not avoided my pain by retreating in my coat; rather, I had created the coldest night of the season in my very own house!

I threw my coat down on the floor and stomped the ground. How dare you trick me like that!? I shouted. I’m done with you!

That night was a cold one, let me tell you. By the time morning came icicle tears covered my face and my arms were dead blue.

I rolled over, and put on my coat, as it was the only thing I knew to do.

And so began the season of "Trying to Remove a Warm Coat”.

It is understated how hard a thing that is, to remove a warm coat. It is a warm coat after all, and it really does protect you from cold weather.

In my experience three things can happen when you realize that the warm coat that protects you from frostbite in -50C Manitoba winter cannot protect you from the cold of a closed heart:

1. You force yourself back into denial, and weigh yourself down with so many coats you can no longer think clearly enough to identify the coats as the problem.

2. You try to use discipline to stop wearing coats cold-turkey and beat the crap out of yourself whenever you feel yourself reaching for their comfort.

3. You practice staying aware of the “problem” of the coat (that it is not really helping you stay warm), and having compassion for yourself when you still want to wear it, until the day comes that you honestly don’t.

In my experience most people try #1 or #2. I have tried both, and neither really works. #3 is the only way I have ever removed a warm coat sustainably. The process of #3 goes like this:

After realizing the coat is not solving the problem of the deeper cold within me, out of a need for comfort and familiarity, I reach for the coat. I practice not shaming myself. I honour my process. I trust.

The next day, still remembering that the coat is not really keeping me warm, I set it down. I tentatively try something new - I journal, breathe deep, draw - find some other way of dealing with the pain than the coat.

The next day I panic. The pain is still there. I put on the coat. But at a deeper level I am still aware the coat is not what I need. On days 2 - 5 I set aside the coat. On those days I research ways to deal with pain that are not related to the coat. I reach out to a friend. I express myself through art.

Day 6, I panic: back to the coat.

Months 1 - 6 look similar to days 1 - 6. Yet, there is no doubt, the deeper awareness has not wavered: pain does not go away if I smother it with a coat. I am committed to finding another way that actually heals the pain. Forward/backwards as this process may seem eventually I cross a threshold, and I realize that my days of wearing coats year-round are over.

I might burn my old coat ceremoniously, or simply hang it up in the closet for a rest, until -50C rolls around next winter. Either way, because of the permission I have given myself throughout to choose and the compassion I have shown myself no matter my choice, I know the threshold I have crossed is genuine and the transformation irreversible.

Without my coat, I am free to smell the roses, soak in the sun and jump in the freshly fallen leaves as they say. I can even skinny dip in the ocean on a crisp winter morning, but we’ll leave that post for another day.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, “a warm coat” is a metaphor for the substances and/or habits we use to avoid or numb our feelings. It can be as extreme as an addiction, or as seemingly benign as “being busy with work” or avoiding creative expression or deeper intimacy with loved ones. For me it has shown up as all of the above at different times.

I invite you to consider how it shows up for you, and how you are relating to putting your warm coat down to enjoy the sunshine.

Wherever you are at I hope you are being kind to yourself. I know its not easy. But transformation requires love, not self-flagellation. And you are worth it.

I’m on the journey with you.

xo,

Danielle

I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things this year.

And it hasn’t been easy.

My home. My career. My philosophy. My creative work in the world. My beliefs about politics, government, healthcare, and law. My understanding of who I am and the ways I can contribute to the world. All of these things have undergone a revision. A layer of glossy idealism (and escapism, and spiritual bypassing) has been stripped off to revel the raw tender skin of a fresh start.

I feel like a baby learning to walk, but saddled with an adult mind that wakes up every morning believing her chubby little legs ought to run. The result is repeated stumbling, falling and grabbing on to things for support (some helpful, some not).

This is not a pity post. 2020 has been a tough year for many (most? all?).

I don’t feel sad or mad or sorry for myself. I have many times felt those things this year, don’t get me wrong. But those feelings are more surface level than where I am writing from right now.

Embracing the humility of being a beginner is the thing I have been avoiding. It feels good not to be doing that anymore.

It feels good to be where I am at, and to be honest with myself.

I still have trouble being with all of the feedback that comes from being at the beginning of a new chapter. Can there really be so much more to learn? So much I don’t know?

And at the same time can I still be confident in what I do know, and what I do have to share with the world?

It is embracing this duality that is frankly the hardest. I’m comfortable being the student, and I’m comfortable being the teacher. When the roles are defined and its clear that either I know more on the subject, or you do, I am fine. Either way I do not have to risk anything. My ego can stay unchallenged and my heart can stay closed.

It is when I don’t know for sure that I’ve got it, but I confidently try my best anyways, while keeping my heart open to feedback that is constructive - that is where the teacher and the student disappear, and the leader shows up.

So many people speak about this superficially. Be confident. Do your best. Put yourself out there. Be willing to accept feedback. That is how you grow.

Yada yada yada.

Yes. These things are true. And they are f****** hard.

When someone gives me negative feedback on something I’ve confidently said or done, I find it so hard to not take it personally. Either I make myself right and get defensive, or (more likely) make myself wrong and feel stupid and ashamed.

If I am going to be really honest in this post - and I am, because that is what writing is for me: a place where my truth can find its voice - my inability to consistently receive feedback without crumbling is probably the biggest reason why my staying power in my creative and professional endeavors has been short.

Without confidence and a willingness to grow in front of others, real commitment cannot be made.

This is something I have learned in my romantic partnership. Which I am proud to say has been a safe space for both confidence and growth for two and a half years now, and counting.

Saying yes to committed partnership in my romantic relationship is what created the possibility of me showing up as all of me, and for that to be enough. When I had one foot out the door in my past relationships, that was never possible.

The same is true for my career. Since graduating law school in 2010 I have always had one foot out the door. I am saying yes now. I am committing.

I am still in the middle of the transformation instigated by my ‘yes’. I am not yet secure in who I am becoming inside of it.

Every day asks me to give more of myself than makes me comfortable, and every day I face the reality that I am still a beginner. Every day I practice choosing confidence and the willingness to grow. Every day I choose to have faith in myself and in my choice.

Talking about a thing is always easier than becoming it.

I am becoming a person who has the confidence to speak her mind and also change it in the face of feedback that is warranted. I am not yet her every day, but she is in me.

So, I am hereby declaring it.

Leadership is possible within my ‘yes’.

xo,

Danielle

Sometimes I get angry when I remember that life works in cycles, and not a straight line.

It’s not really the cyclical nature of life that angers me; it’s that we are taught that it is not. It’s that in our Western culture we are taught that if we just try hard enough, and do it right, that we can by-pass the back-peddling and bee-line straight for the heavens. 

I know these false promises well. I have lived them and written about them and tried to let them go for years.

I have also been on the West Coast long enough to know that on the way to the top of a mountain there will be switchbacks. Giving yourself a little talking to for failing to bring the right climbing gear, sure. But telling yourself that if only you had tried harder you would have been able to glide straight up like a gondola. Now that is just cruel.

That is why the red-hot anger rises up my throat when I realize again that I have been measuring myself against an unnatural line of accomplishment.

Can you relate?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets angry for finding themselves in the same quandary that they found themselves only weeks or months or years before.

I mean how many times do we need to learn the same thing?! (*throws hands up exasperatedly and looks towards the sky*)

When I get over my anger (which I have), I find it comical that we are so good at telling ourselves (and believing) that trying harder will stop the world from going round, and place us on a staircase that leads only up, to higher and better ground.

It is actually quite a beautiful flaw of humanity that we can believe in such an absurd alternative reality. But blindness (even blissful blindness) always comes with a cost. And the cost of this, frankly, delusional belief, is that we keep trying harder and running faster even when there is no where to run to, or from.

If another species capable of empathy were looking down on us, I’m sure they would see beauty, but they would also be sad. And they would whisper to each other, “With the magnificence of creation existing on this planet all around them, where are they going to, and why are they going so fast?”

Oh my, the truth of this hits me hard. I have caught myself again running.

I have come full circle on another cycle of expansion and integration; I am practicing “holding it all”. But because of the conditioning of our culture running deep within my veins, instead of feeling celebratory and accomplished, I have been resisting and resentful, and judging myself for not being “further ahead” on the imaginary linear trajectory of success.

Well, F--- that.

Mine is a practice of rewriting, and this story of straight-lined success is one that runs deep. So, I will keep practicing to come home to myself in the present. I will keep circling around the mountain, rewriting this story in the depths of me, and reminding myself at every switchback that “I have not gone backwards”: It is an illusion.

You must always retreat, and circle around, to arrive at a higher plane.

I am at a higher plane within myself. I am more deeply connected with my soul. I am more expansive, and more aligned. External accomplishments are not adequate measures of what I came here for.

So here’s what I have learned (and keep learning again):

Some years we go forward, and some years we switch back. Not because we are conceding the climb, but because we are, in our rest and recalibration, cultivating the depth, the breadth and the stamina needed to keep showing up to the journey our souls came here to have.

Life always has been, and always will be, a sacred spiral. 

The straight-line to success is a lie. It is a product of our Western culture that has forgotten that humans are not machines, and success is not separate from Life.

Remembering with you.

Xo,

Danielle