Just Do. With Intention. Just Be. With Intention.

‘This ain’t no milestone birthday’ -my mother, who is currently in Mexico (her second summer vacation), after I told her about my very local birthday plans…

Happy Birthday to me!

At the time of writing this I am not actually 31 years of age… so technically there are still a few days left for me to learn monumental truths about myself and the world (and I welcome and receive them should they come) but alas 359 days worth of reflection will have to do. This year was LONG, there is surely enough raw material to conjure some prose worth reading.

I love birthdays, I really do. I love the intentional celebration of self. Last summer, I brought in 30 with a big field day that I had been planning unofficially for years. So many of my friends (new and old) came out and there were games and gifts and enjoyment. I’m still really proud of it. It was a huge endeavor and a huge success. Sooooo. I thought to myself, this year imma keep it looooowwwwkeeeeyyyyyy with four days of slow but consistently paced out organized activities with varying degrees of engagement necessary that folks to join as they so please :) nothing crazy…

It DOES feel low(er)key for me. Or rather. It feels emblematic of the intention I have been trying to carry in this last year of becoming. The dissonance in how empathy and people pleasing behavior can overlap for me comes in the form of over-exerting myself in ways that don’t suit my natural flow and sense of routine to make space to create the rich non-judgemental space necessary for deep connection with the people that I love. It has its rewards in that I have built deep loving kinship and community… but also I am moving beyond my means. And this is the year I learned to sit intentionally with the exhaustion I’d been building for YEARS in that oversight.

There was (and still are) mountains of sadness and grief that were my own that I just hadn’t been making space for. And this year… they made space for themselves. And maybe they always had been making space for themselves, against my will, but this year - I received them. And with it came a maturation in how I engaged with that chord of empathic-people-pleasing harmonies. I found the resonance. Because I’m not interested in dropping the empathy (I mean, it’s my whole brand) and I surely don’t want to be unpleasing to people if I can help it BUt..or rather- AND it does not have to come at the expense of the harmony within myself; and even more than that, what does — is no longer sustainable.

I can dictate the pace. I can communicate what I have capacity for. I can slow down. I can ask for help. I can pull back from things that do not serve me. I can push harder at the things that do. I can make peace with the compromises that self-love and self-prioritization may have on my ability to show up for others. I can let people down. I can offer space that meets MY needs. I can take things as they come…

I want to enjoy self-celebration by taking a few days to do what I love. And where I am in self-celebration, I am also in deep love and reverence for my community who have helped me come into being. And I ask them to dance with me in this year’s intention — come as you may, come as you can, come in your hearts if that is all you can offer (because your heart is enough and baybeeeeee we have to honor our own pace). And in taking it ‘slow’ for me, this year, it is still self-celebration that is true to me. It’s still action and energy and organization and involvement and enjoyment and intention. So it feels homey. At 31 I am home and home is where you’re safe.

And it’s interesting to say that because this was not a year of safety at all! Nor can I say that I am surrounded in safety in anyway. There is only uncertainty at my doorstep and the doorstep is to a home that will not be mine much longer. But I feel safety within myself. Within my own heart and my intentions and my work and my sense of being. It’s home IN HERE. It’s LOVE in here and wooooooo that is such a privilege to be able to say.

I remember there was this period of a few years, back when I was in high school, where my parents went back and forth getting laid off from jobs. Just a cascade of unfortunate happenstances outside of their control (as life is wont to do). I can remember instances when the veil would drop and they would wear their worry and concern for us and themselves on their faces and in their actions; but at the time I didn’t understand it as a veil - they were just moments. Insulated. Fleeting. Now, at(/approaching) 31, after 2 years of unfortunate happenstances outside of my control, I just can’t imagine the anxiety they were carrying. I have spent the year worry about MYSELF (and Cory (and Kona (and all my loved ones of course)))(but honestly, MYSELF) and it has been foundationally shattering. There were 5 of us in that house and the community we carried with us; busting down our doors at all times, eating all the food, making all the mess, getting all the sicknesses, joining all clubs, taking all the trips, having all the birthdays... my heart aches with grief for them every time I feel the load of having to carry my heart in my pockets. And yet they just kept going. They had to. And when I ask them about it, when I share with them my similar and familiar pain — they feel for me (in ways they probably aren’t keen on having to, to be honest) but they say the same. You just figure it out. You just do. And you do. They’re right.

Maybe not ‘just’. Just- with intention. For your loved ones. For yourself. And that’s not me trying to minimize the work. It is not slight work. It’s not easy. But it is simple. You just do it. You live your life. You figure it out. At some point in time, at some point and time, you have to trust that you are enough. That if you lean into yourself, your strengths, your connections, your hopes, your dreams; that you move with intention toward them each and every day that no matter what happens it’s going to come together. And if it doesn’t, you figure that out too… And what I’m learning is that is about loving yourself. Love yourself enough to allow yourself to be so that you can decide what to do. So that you can be confident enough in your choices to deal with the consequences, even if the outcomes aren’t exactly how you’d imagined them when you made your choice. Love yourself enough to be open to change. To be open to releasing yourself from the curses of your abusers. To not have to be perfect to be worthy of freedom.

Starting The Radical Empath, LLC has been a crash course in that self-love stuff. I branded myself as an empath. I have always wanted to people to hear what I have to say in this regard. That’s an honest truth. And now, I have to say it. Which means I have to be open to people disagreeing with me. And even worse than that I have to be open to people agreeing, and then not being able to follow through. I have to be okay with my beliefs being fundamentally connected to my livelihood. I have connected my journey of self-discovery as a revolutionary act - to my financial security in a capitalist and colonialist system that fundamentally rejects the person I want to become and the opportunities I want to offer the world. I am trying to game an un-gameable system that has gamed me time and time again. All while trying to grieve.

Grieve the loss of my family, the changes in my friendships and relationships that come with aging in the world, the versions of myself that I have been and wanted to become, and everything in between. I am trying to rejuvenate. To honor years of moving beyond my means in a body that has worked so hard to gather the energy to keep pushing. To rest in a body that is still being formed and knows its capable of doing more and that loves it. I am trying to keep a balance of humility and pride, of hope and disillusion. Because I know I am meant for the work that I do, that I am gifted with a high social intelligence, and that I have something unique and impactful to offer in this regard; but I also know that pride can become/be mistaken for (if not worn properly) arrogance and that can distance myself from people - which is the opposite of my goal. I also know that I am asking for people to confront the deepest parts of themselves and embrace their hurt and that is a TALL order and I have to be okay with the disappointment that not everyone will be interested in the spaces I have to offer, no matter how well I wear my belief in their healing abilities.

This shit is SCARY. I’m terrified everyday. Loving myself. Seeing myself as enough. Understanding that if I am worthy, then everything that has happened to me - good or bad - has made me who I am and that is a person who is valid and deserving of their most authentic free existence. That is the only way through those feelings. It’s the only way to confront the fear. I can be okay with being wrong and then growing through my mistakes. And it’s an ongoing process, don’t get me wrong, but this is where having family (chosen and gifted) has made all the difference.

If home is where you’re safe. Family is where you’re seen. The reverence I have for my family, in my short (but recurring, don’t you worry) season(s) of self-celebration is about a lifetime of them bearing with me through my change — through my ever-evolving expressions of self — and loving me anyway. No, not ‘anyway,’ loving me because of it. My heart-engine burns white hot for them. It is how I can so often burn out my body in service of the gratitude I have for their reception of me that allows me to so easily model it in the service of learning to show it to myself.

But again, as with safety, being seen has its own complexities in practice outside of our bodies. Because when we are choosing to create a loving communion with ourselves, amidst the deafening roar of a system of self-hate, sometimes being seen also means being exposed — and exposition leaves you vulnerable to attack. Intentional or unintentional. When you are seen seeing yourself clearly, you can become a mirror to those around you — and not everyone is interested in seeing themselves (in you or anywhere). Not everyone is on a journey of self-love. And not everyone needs to be, especially not at the same time as you… but it does leave room for harm. You have to protect yourself. You have to be careful, and you have to build boundaries around that potentiality. And that can be hard on you, and on the same relationships that helped developed the love that allowed you to just be in the first place. Being open to that grief is the way through. I keep reminding myself over and over again that grief is just love dressed for the occasion. Because you still have to be, with or without that boundary. And so you will- with intention.

I feel that the weight of being seen and must the call to surface a sense of safety within myself everytime I write one of these posts. If 5 people read it, if 50, if (maybe one day) 50,000 are reading what I have to say. In some way, in some form, they will now know me. They will now see me. And how they feel about what they see will impact me and impact the lives of the people around me. How much do I share that speaks to my own real life story that I live everyday so that I can show my work while honoring the safety and desires for (in/)visibility of the people in those stories (myself included)?

30 and the journey to 31 told me the answer is to remember that who I am here and now is enough. If I can trust that what I want for myself is meant for me and fully within my grasp — then I don’t need to rush. 30 told me that the answer is within my body, my home, it is speaking to me from the hearth. Sitting beneath the crackling blaze of the voices of my family, my inner child, my inner teenager, my ancestors, my future, my self-love. I can just be. With Intention. I can just do. With intention. And it’ll come together.

And it has before. The evidence is glaring at me in the love I have for myself. I have every reason to believe it.

This has largely been a career year. I would say a money year but we’re not there yet and that would just be framing it around my anxiety. If I frame this year around my pursuit of passion and wholeness — this has been a career year. I recently saw this image (I’d seen it before, but this time in a new light) it frames the concept of Ikigai. [Note: I should do research to make sure my understanding of the concept hasn’t been perverted by western ideals but alas] Ikigai says that the work you do is truly fulfilling if it encapsulates: what you love, what you’re good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs. And the more I have come to realize that I have that, I really do, the closer I inch toward true self-actualization. And even more than that, the more I realize that imposter syndrome will really have you out here acting like you don’t belong in YOUR OWN HOUSE. In your own body. Like bruh - I built this shit. ME (with the support of my riders). BRICK BY BRICK. And that colonial engineering will really Christopher Columbus you into thinking it’s not yours. That you have no place standing ten toes down in who you want to be. NEVER AGAIN my friends.

For my 31st year I would like to offer myself (and anyone else is welcome to take from it as the well is endless) the peace of certainty and self-assurance. I am enough. You are enough. I am worthy. You are worthy. The tools are within us. The love is around us. The fear is not greater than us. it is simply apart of us that is as welcome as our joy and our pride. And they are welcome. You can invite them in too. It’s okay. You deserve kindness. From yourself more than anyone else and still from everyone else. Celebrate who you are. Just Do. With Intention. Just Be. Within Intention. Try it. I implore you. See what it has to offer.

Thank you for embracing me in my becoming & joining me in my learning <3