Step one: Redefine power

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Redefine “power” to mean being in love with life. YOUR life.

What would it feel like if you were in love + lust with your life? What would it look like?

What would the world look like if everyone was in love with their lives? What if that was non-negotiable?

I can’t magically make our problems go away. This is not an excuse to turn away from the suffering in the world and what we all need to do to alleviate it.

But I can learn what I love, and hold myself accountable to honoring what I love with my time and energy. I can learn what makes me feel vibrant, and honor that with my time and energy.

I can learn to scale out my perspective so I see how indescribably beautiful the sheer improbability of this planet is.

I can marvel at the craziness of fireflies, and feel a little bit jealous that I can’t do that.

I can do others the honor of asking them what they love, what brings them alive. 

When I allow myself to do what I love, I feel powerful, happy, generous. When I’m filled to overflowing with my own humanity, I want to do that with everyone else.

I happen to think that if we all did this, the world would start healing in bigger and faster ways. And this is totally doable. It’s not everything (or maybe it is), but it’s something.

Joy loves joy. Power loves power. When power is joyful, and joy is powerful, we will have found ourselves smack in the middle of a new paradigm.

Start right now. Some ideas? Glad you asked! Here are a few:

When someone asks you what you do, tell them what you love.

Then ask them what they love.

What if we were all allies, helping each other to uphold for ourselves what we love, helping us stay true to what we love? What if we were asked many times a day to share what we love, and why? What if what we love is non-negotiable?

We all “do” a million things, play a million roles. I think what you love is the most interesting thing about you. I’d love to know what you love.

Take off your masks.

We all play a million parts throughout our lives. Often, we put on masks in order to fit into different scenarios, to be acceptable to different people, to be valued by various systems—all of which are playing their parts, as well.

The problem is, we sometimes lose sight of who we truly are beneath our roles and masks.

We play our parts so well, we forget that they are just that: parts.

And when we lose sight of ourselves, we need others to validate our existence, rather than knowing the truth of ourselves—and sharing it—from the inside out.

Who are you without your masks? What would happen if you took them off, one by one? What if vulnerability and transparency was accompanied by relief—relief that you can finally respond to life as YOU, not a small subset of you?

We find ourselves in a strange spacetime in history where we are both starving for connection and inundated with it at the same time.

What we’re craving is not just any and all connection, but authentic, nourishing, pleasurable connection: not surface-level, smush-yourself-down-into-a-box-to-conform empty-calorie connection.

We’re aching for quality, not quantity.

There are those of us who want more of you. There are those of us who want to see all of you, and are waiting for you to reveal the rich facets of who you are so we can play as whole, in-it-all-together human beings.

Trust follows truth.

Connection follows trust.

Authentic connection heals the trauma of disconnection—and of domination masquerading as connection.

Taking off our masks is a great first step.

Don’t make an impact ON the world, realign with its natural intelligence. And yours.

If you’re reading this, you probably think a lot about where we’re headed as earthlings. I sure do. You know you want to do good, to leave the world a better place. I want that, too.

But I’ve also realized that life wants something from me.

That my intentions, no matter how noble, how visionary, will rapidly become wobbly if I don’t anchor them in what the world needs and desires along with me.

That imposing my vision on the world is a very old-school, will-based, power-over, my way or the highway pattern. It’s all about me. It’s about making my mark, making an impact ON. This is the type of overpowering that happens when we’re actually unsure of our power.

But my relationship with life needs to be consensual.

Playing WITH life, co-creating along with it—that’s the bigger game. That’s the game I want to play. Then it is about me, and also about everyone and everything else. The beauty of this is that, while I might be cultivating my particular vision of a garden, I’m never doing it alone.

Life is telling us what it desires all the time. It is showing us where there are needs all the time. It is giving us opportunities to learn about our deepest desires and gifts all the time (#naps). It is giving us information about what we definitely want no part of all the time (#math).

When we align our natural intelligence—the feedback system of pleasure, pain, love, grief, talent, joy, beliefs, vision—with the natural intelligence of the world, then we will have aligned ourselves with life as it is: a fluid ecosystem continually giving and receiving feedback about how to come back into balance.

This feels much more real than pretending I’m in control of it all.

This is how you co-create an impact FOR the world, with the world.

This feels much more connected to my natural human intelligence, which intuitively and instinctively knows that everything is interdependent, that systems have innate intelligence.

This feels like a relief. Try it out. Let me know how it goes?

Asking for help is you exercising your agency; it is NOT “victim-mode.”

Enough with the victim-shaming. Asking for help is not the same thing as asking someone to do something for you, it’s asking someone to do something WITH you.

Our true nature is to give, AND to receive. We are not designed to do everything alone.

Do we need to build up our strength, skills, resourcefulness? Absolutely.

Can we be prompted to see and rely on our own power + agency? Absolutely. 

Do we need to rescue everyone? Nope. 

But we need to get real about the fact that there are incredibly difficult circumstances that people need help with. Sometimes, this even means doing something for them.

Telling someone (or yourself) to get out of “survival mode” and into “thriving mode” may be turning a blind eye to the systemic circumstances that perpetuate pain + suffering, and puts all of the burden on the individual to overcome them.

There is a time and place for “thriving mode,” for sure. But we need to be able to discern whether or not our minds, bodies, nervous systems, and external experiences are aligned enough for us to make that transition. If not, we end up stuck and feeling the shame of yet another “failure” to live up to our potential.

Please, be kind with yourself + others. It’s entirely possible that we have within us conflicting parts, some of which are able to thrive, some that aren’t. This is just fine, as long as we don’t bulldoze the parts that aren’t yet ready to shift or glorify the parts that are.

It may be that the “victimy” part desperately longs to know it doesn’t have to do life alone.

We will likely flow in and out if thriving + surviving, victimhood + creatorhood throughout our lives, just because life is life.

We are works in progress, always. So is life. Understanding this might be the most powerful thing you can do for yourself, and others.

Create what you desire, don't just push against what you don't

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Put your energy into creating what you want to see in the world, not just against what you don’t.

Here’s something interesting:

The root words of “control” are contra and rota, which mean “against the wheel.”

The roots of “influence” are in and fluere, meaning “in the flow.”

Control is against.

Influence is flow.

We are so much more powerful in a flow state, when we are riding with a current we desire—even if we’re trying to redirect it—than we are when we’re pushing against a current, a force, or someone else.

Pushing against something by attempting to control or overpower actually reinforces the polarity and strengthens each opposing force.

If we’re not careful, we become entrenched in the pushing itself and don’t put any energy into where we’re actually trying to go—which deepens that groove of polarity.

“What we resist, persists.” This is why. This is the trap of the binary.

If we ride the current—or create it—we’re accepting what is AND adding our input to help direct it. It gets us out of the polarity of for/against and into some other possibility.

Choosing not to push against doesn’t have to look like surrender: it can look like transformation.

This is one of the reasons I work with my clients to focus on what they are FOR, how they desire to move the needle—and not just on what they are against.

For sure, there is plenty of work to be done in the world for those of us who hold a vision for a more beautiful planet—but true power comes from creating new possibilities.

Power is drained when we focus solely on resisting the old.

The power of creation amplifies itself. The power of control drains itself.

Make sure you are directing as much energy as possible to the NEW possibility, the one you are here to help create.

This is why I often use creativity as a gateway for self-development + systems evolution with my clients—to get us into our own unique flow of authentic power.

It’s our truest power because it’s generative, procreative, and evolutionary—not just a resistant stance to an external force, which creates a closed, binary system.

Doesn’t it feel more fun to be wild, playful, and expansive to create something with that energy than to try to control everything?

Aren’t there more possibilities in creativity and generativity than there are in destruction?

What’s the thing that only you can create? That’s your r/evolution.

How to practice partnership

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How to practice partnership

The first step to practicing partnership is realizing that you are already in partnership—with everyone and everything.

Everything in the universe is interdependent.

You are in a partnership with yourself: your body, your mind, your spirit.

You are in a partnership with other humans, and with their bodies, minds, and spirits.

You are in partnership with communities, institutions, ecosystems.

You are in partnership with the planet.

We all are. What would it look like if we all acted like good, conscious partners to elevate and nourish each other and the planet, rather than individuals jockeying for rank and position perched on top of a randomly spinning sphere?

Sometimes, we forget that every possible thing in the entire multiverse is connected.

That WE are connected to everything.

That every act and thought has ripple effects in the immediate and over billions of years. (Or, that perhaps there is no time and it’s all just happening NOW.) That every possibility is right here, right now. 

That every action has a reciprocal reaction.

What we do for ourselves, we do for others. What we do for others, we do for ourselves. I think the Golden Rule must have danced with the laws of thermodynamics.

We can’t know all the arcs of every story we’re connected to.

But we can make sure that the fundamental pattern of reciprocity is the basis of our relationships: with ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, our systems, our planet.

This isn’t just stuff for the meditation mat, this is our blueprint for taking action in alignment with all that is.

We are living in a sorely divided world; forgetting that we are all connected, and fearing that connection, are taking a massive toll.

What if connection felt amazing, not unsafe?

What if sharing what we love wasn’t used as a way to manipulate us, but as a way to see where we’re the same, AND where we’re different—and celebrating all of those perspectives?

What if re/membering connection helps us realize that we are IN THIS with every other thing, and that we better take care of ourselves and our world, because it’s all US?

If this sounds like a lot, start with yourself. Love yourself. Hold yourself accountable to what you love. Hold yourself accountable for your nincompoopery.

Hold humanity accountable to its humanness—to its great capacity to love, and to eff things up—and to the idea that maybe if we loved outrageously all the freakin’ time instead of rationing it, there’d be less nincompoopery to deal with.

And if you’re ready for next-level partnership?

Invite others to elevate their game along with you.

Steel sharpens steel.

Vibrant, joyful, creative humans love playing with other vibrant, joyful, creative humans.

It’s how we evolve past our own edges and see new possibilities.

How we potentiate ourselves and each other.

How we feel the fullness of our humanity.

How we create a new paradigm by embodying the power of being fully human WITH others, FOR others.

Daring to be fully human with others—and with the planet, not just on it—is how we evolve.

If you’re a visionary who wants to co-create a more beautiful world, not leave it behind—let’s elevate.