Consistency.
Sending you my first anniversary newsletter had that one word come to mind, the same mind that needs to gamify consistency in order for it to be on board. Discipline and consistency have felt like my enemies at times. I share the seat of being inundated with the illusion that things should easily come to us just because we will it to be. It's an alluring mindset, that if you just align yourself in a particular way, everything will always work out for you.
Play with that belief if you like it. That's fine. Just play a game with me and add some consistency. Sometimes practicing something or letting yourself be bad at it for a while feels like a plan B to the idea that if you can imagine it properly in your mind, that it will just come to fruition. The sting of having to go through the trial topped with a terrifying unknown of whether it will even work out is enough for many people not to bother, not to go beyond just wishing it could be "that way," whatever way you'd like the world to be that's different from your current experience. Worse even, some take that fear as a solid reason not to even wish. Not to even dream. To start convincing themselves they're satisfied with such essential parts of themselves being hidden or ignored.
I stopped trying to have a relationship with consistency when she refused to stop dressing up like perfectionism. Any time I would ask myself to be consistent with something, I pushed myself past the point of the joy that ignited it in the first place. And I have some intense emergency brakes when something dries up my joy. It's a quick indicator that I'm forcing myself. I want to clarify that when I say "joy" I do not mean happiness. I do not mean feeling good even. And this change in relationship with joy is actually what shifted my abilities to be consistent.
When I thought I could only be joyful in spirit when I felt happy about my circumstances, then external things had the ability to steal my joy. When I started practicing joy as a way of being (practicing being the operative word here), I found a way to feel the pulse of this undercurrent of joy within me always. I have heard people attribute this to themselves, to their interpretation of god, and to other catalysts in their lives, so look out for your own stories that may fall into those categories. There is an undercurrent of joy that requires nothing about your outside world to be a certain way.
Anyway, when I had the idea that there was no way to have consistency and joy at the same time (this may show up for you like workaholism, procrastination, a closed heart), I chose to compensate for a lack of consistency with anything I could find. These would be those self sabotaging behaviors AND the shortcuts that look good but are not (look in your own life at those things like dating unavailable people, staying in a job that drains the absolute life out of you, convincing everyone in your life that you don't care about something that actually keeps you up at night and calling that healing).
It took untangling that mindset around what consistency really required of me. It took peeling off the layers of perfectionism and finding a solid place where consistency didn't have to mean force. It could mean art. It could mean alignment between what called my spirit and what occupied my time. And it made me want to work. It made me want to go through the parts that felt super risky and unknown. What used to feel (and still does when I temporarily forget this wisdom) like pressure and stress and force now feels like a creative outlet.
I could not have created that relationship with consistency by setting a phone alarm, writing it on a calendar, or even promising someone else I would practice whatever it is I wanted to accomplish (which funnily enough is what some people think coaches do, just be that somebody you promise to force yourself to do something and call it accountability). I had to look within and really listen for the stories I've made up or have been told based on my experiences. I had to admit they had a hand in what I thought it meant to be consistent. I had to give those thoughts up even though those belief systems were instrumental in building my idea of myself (like if you really resonate with "exceeding expectations" or if you're "not a morning person"). So, there is some resistance there, some grief there to the part of you that believes those things can't be let go. I had to listen to those parts and tend to them before I stopped rebelling from consistency or overdoing it.
This exact example is for all of you who may either lack consistency or overdo it. It's actually the same issue in a different hue. Overdoing it is just more celebrated in our society, but your proximity to yourself is the same. Too far. You lack resonance with who you truly are.
This process of discovery, this deep inquiry, this willingness to look within in and of itself is for all of you, whether consistency is in need of attention in your life or you plug in another theme to it instead. Jealousy. Insecurity. Abundance. You name it. Your beliefs of all kinds greatly impact the way you show up in the world. And you can keep trucking along efforting the hell out of those mountains you're climbing, trying to force yourself out of a cage you made up or worse, settling to just live in it. Or you can examine those bars, locks, and slats. You can see what they're truly made of, where they came from, and what it will take to move them out of your way. Everything you have wished for is on the other side of that fear.
Everything we've ever wanted collectively is on the other side of that collective cage, too. Do you hear what I'm saying? Practice here. Start with your ideas. Spread them out. Question the cages that hold more of us, too. Remind more people that we will not live in fear. Can we dream up a cageless existence for more of us? For all of us?
Talk to me 1:1 about this. Join me for a free grief workshop July 10, co-hosted by the illuminous Chelsea Cotton. Check out our retreat in October to get into inquiry like this on a scale that only in-person and group experiences can offer. The four leaders met earlier this week to develop our curriculum, and I am so grateful for what this has already given me. Keep reaching out with your questions about it so that we can determine what you'd get out of joining us.
Welcome back to my magical executive assistant, Lorena Parker! Current clients, feel free to keep messaging me for things like scheduling for now. Lorena has taken on the role of Creative Director in addition to EA work, and we're keeping her busy with collaborations, development ideas, and other secrets in the back of house at CEA.
Happy anniversary to this tiny space in your inbox where my dream of sharing my heart with the world started taking form in a community newsletter by way of my profession. It feels like the same energetic pulse as the travel blog I used to write, an in-person nomad meet-up I used to host, an online forum I had for transformation work at the beginning of my career, a networking event series for entrepreneurs I ran. This is my expression of it all now, and I'm grateful to all of you who are here and interact with this version. Consistency is not cosmetic. Even though all of these activities had a shelf life, the "way of being" (the expression, the thread, the community piece) remain. There is my consistency. I find that thread, I celebrate it, I ask it how it wants to move next, and I give it life. And my favorite thing in the world to do is witness you find yours, so much so that I found a way to make it my job. What art life turns out to be.
PS. It's my birthday. Riff on this convo in a reply as my gift. I love to hear from you always!
