One day at a time..

Sometimes it’s easy to close your heart. Easy to suppress feelings, thoughts and emotions. Sometimes we have to do exactly that in order to survive. But it is so important to learn how to embrace your emotions. It’s important to remember that you deserve love. Real authentic love.

For a really long time I didn’t cry. Or rather, I couldn’t cry. Back in October when I attended the I Am That Girl Retreat I learned how bad that really was. How bad it was for me to constantly hide my feelings from myself. How bad it was to live life as if I was emotionless when in reality I felt so much. Ed Sheeran wrote, “So don’t wipe your eyes, tears remind you you’re alive” and those words really resonated with me. When we approached the end of the retreat I made a promise to myself. I promised to go home and live life in the most authentic way possible and that included learning how to cry, as silly as that may sound.

In the months following the retreat I was more honest, authentic and vulnerable than ever before. I made a conscious effort to be real at all times and in turn learned how to open my heart again. And you know what? I cry sometimes now. All of my relationships have completely transformed, I am so much more comfortable in my own skin and I am finally brave enough to let people truly see me. I am brave enough to love myself and to let more love into my life.

It is so important to let yourself feel things. To understand that it is okay to not be okay at times. That it is okay to feel whatever you are feeling, because those feelings mean something— they mean everything.

Overwhelmed with compassion...

Compassion is hard. Living a life full of sympathy and empathy and caring deeply about every little thing is hard. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I crave deep connection and I express myself through art of all kinds. It is through said art that I feel the most passionate and in turn the most aggressively compassionate.

But feelings on that kind of level can be overwhelming.  

We live in a society where we are more connected than ever before, but in such a different way. For those creative types, the internet is a way for us to share our expression and connect with others around the world who appreciate our art. But on the other hand, we are less connected than we have ever been. We don’t express ourselves as easily. We find it strange to share our feelings, thoughts and emotions.

But compassion is good.

Compassion is vulnerable. And vulnerability is beautiful—real.

One of the things that we talked about a lot at the I Am That Girl retreat was how important it is to be authentic. When I was there, I promised myself that I would practice authenticity in every single aspect of my life and in turn have discovered that I am often overwhelmed with compassion. When you open your heart to the world you put yourself at risk for criticism and heartbreak, but you also give the world a chance to truly see you, to love you.

Do what you love. Do the things that makes your soul happy. Share your compassion with the world and feed the fires that ignite your passion. Grow strong enough to love the world and share your vulnerability whenever you possibly can. 

“Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness.”—Katherine Henson

A few things that I have decided while listening to X on repeat..

1. I have never been one to listen to one single artist on repeat. I have an eclectic taste in music and usually listen to whatever is reflective of my mood at any particular moment. Then there is Ed. it is impossible to grow tired of his talent because he does this music thing in such a unique way. He is an individual in an industry of clones. 
2. I have learned that you can “fangirl” when you aren’t even close to a die hard fan (I don’t mean that in a bad way at all). I haven’t been listening to his music for long, but I have that sense of I have to meet this guy that I can’t quite shake. But for a different reason than most— which is saying a lot since he has millions of fans. I want to meet him to ask questions about his story. I want to hear more about the person behind the music. Behind the complex lyrics that tell only a small portion of his visions, experiences and life in general.
3. He’s friends with Taylor Swift. And as a girl involved in an organization that is all about supporting badass women, obviously I have paid attention to all of the epic things that she does in life. And the fact that they are friends is too cool. “Show me your fiends and I’ll show you your future” right? 
4. He sees the world in a different way than I ever have. I know this is a big assumption, or rather an educated guess, but regardless. His lyrics are complex, relatable, emotional and powerful all at once. Hell, I’m a writer, and yet his lyrics still blow my mind over and over again. I want to know what the world looks like through his eyes. 
5. Twitter is weird. Okay, so listening to X over and over isn’t the first thing to bring this point to my attention, but I promise it relates. The only reason I looked into his music at all was due to someone that I accidentally followed on Twitter. Nick’s posts about his music intrigued me and led me to listen on Spotify and later purchase the albums on iTunes so that I could in fact blast this album on repeat for much too long.
6. I now have this agonizing itch to learn how to play guitar. I’m mildly obsessed with acoustic— always have been, but now it’s more than that. I will learn how to play guitar for the first time in my life, because why not pick up a new instrument for the hell of it at twenty-three years old, right? 
7. He’s so freaking funny, you guys. I keep talking about his complex, emotional lyrics, but on the other hand he can make me laugh out of the blue. His sense of humor is reflective in some of his music and that’s so rare and too cool. After all, what is life if you don’t laugh a little— even at your own expense. 
8. And I now want to learn how to cry. I realize how strange that sounds, but my childhood was… interesting. I learned how to suppress way too much. After all, if I cried every time something bad happened— I wouldn’t have smiled near enough growing up. But now, I have no excuse. And like he said, “tears remind you you’re alive”. 

So thank you, Ed. And I hope to meet you one day. I know— Grammy nominated, big ‘ol popular singer so it’s far fetched to believe that you will see this. But that same unexplainable “I have to meet this guy” feeling that I previously mentioned leads me to believe that you will in fact see this. So see you soon. 

Where your passion lingers..

By definition passion is a strong and barely controllable emotion. Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required. People often tell me that they are envious about how passionate I am, but when you really look at what passion is— everybody has it in them.  Harriet Tubman said it best, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

For those who have yet to read the book I Am That Girl that Alexis wrote—do it, especially if you are struggling to find your passions in life. We all imagine having that dream job, the kind of hobbies that make us feel happy and fulfilled, and to feel comfortable in our own skin. These things come from a place inside of you where your passion lingers—find it.

My passion consumes me. Whenever I have a free minute I find myself writing, working on IATG things, reading, business planning. These are the things that I care about, the things that give me energy, the things that I need to plan my life around. Often times I find myself thinking too deeply about how to make this happen. I always feel like I need to have the answers—need to know how to get from A to B in the most effective way. Life doesn’t work that way though. Life is full of surprises and obstacles and it is impossible to predict every little thing along the way. I have to push my perfectionist tendencies aside and put positive thoughts out there and trust that my hard work will get me where I need to be. That is when I am truly consumed by my passions. 

#heartclaps

This weekend is the first time that I ever really believed that it truly is okay not to be okay. I have never been so emotionally drained and sleep deprived—and I am so happy about both of those things because I experienced the best few days of my life!

This weekend also taught me that I no longer have the energy for meaningless friendships, forced interactions, and negative conversations. The people that you surround yourself with are a direct reflection of yourself and you deserve to be around people who feed you energy and encourage your passions. To be completely honest, I was so nervous to spend the weekend with a bunch of “strangers” and even more so was surprised that I left there loving every single one of them. I can honestly say that these girls will be my forever friends. We know each other on a more intimate level than most people ever do and I trust them—huge coming from a girl riddled with trust issues.  

I learned that it is okay to show your feelings and to never ever apologize for them—this goes for guys & girls. That all any of us really wants is to be accepted for all of our faults and that crying doesn’t make you weak—in fact it shows your strength. That you own everything that has ever happened to you and it is okay to share your stories. My entire life I have tried to hold my feelings in to the point that I often make myself sick. I have refrained from sharing things that were happening in my life on so many occasions because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I didn’t cry. I still don’t cry much, but I’m really working on that.

I have no way to put my feelings into words about how much the I Am That Girl Retreat meant to me, but I do know that it changed my world—all of our worlds. Thank you to every single person who helped make this possible. Thank you to those who donated & shared my campaign. Thank you to the IATG team. Thank you to Jack, Audrey, & Sequoia for capturing our stories. Thank you to the IATG Board for mentoring us. Thank you to all of the incredible sponsors including GoPro, erincondren.com, & Dormify.

It is because of you that I commit to being authentic, because only then will I truly love myself.

“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity & her flaming self respect. And it’s these things I’d believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all she should be.” – F. Scoot Fitzgerald

Strange is relative...

Every kid learns the phrase “never speak to strangers”—and for good reason. There is a lot of bad in the world, so much that parents try to shelter their children from the unknown in order to keep them safe. Personally, my mom reminded me of these words every time I left the house when I was young, but my dad had a different take on things.

He had a very rough childhood, to say the least. He grew up on the streets and was involved in gang activity at the all too young age of twelve. The “strangers” on the streets became his family. When my brother and I were growing up he warned us of all of the dangers that we might face in the world, but he also taught us to always give people a chance to prove their worth. My father is to this day one of the most accepting people I know—and because of this I am able to make friends/connections everywhere I go.

 

Being accepting of all types of people does not mean that you have to like them or understand them—it just means keeping an open mind & trying to understand their story. I visited home recently and my mom said “you never were very good at avoiding strangers, but it works for you.”  She said this because I recently got the opportunity to meet my favorite hip hop artist, Logic, all because of a “stranger” who read my blog. The stranger was Logic himself and he happened to stumble across a post I wrote about our similar childhoods & how I admired him for rapping about the positive sides of life and the fact that he doesn’t have lyrics that are vulgar towards women like the majority of rappers.

Others from his music label, Visionary Music Group, stumbled onto my blog after this and connected with me as well & I became good friends with a few of them. I have since had the opportunity to meet the majority of those involved with VMG and the music world in general all because I tried to get to know a “stranger”.

Strange is a relative word, much like normal.

Photo credit: Nick Mahar

If the world was blind...

I am often hesitant to write what is truly on my mind. Not because I am afraid to share my stories—rather I am afraid of how others will perceive them. I was struggling with this the other day when it hit me…

I own everything that has happened to me—I own my stories. If people wanted me to only write positive things, they should have behaved better.

This thought was sparked by an anonymous quote that I stumbled upon. It asked, “If the world was blind how many people would you impress?”

I am the daughter of a violent offender—a statement that makes most people shutter. The thing that people don’t understand is that this statement does not define who I am as a person, nor does it define my father. I understand that more often than not children follow in their parents’ footsteps; however, mine have always encouraged me to follow my own path & to learn from their mistakes.

We are all so quick to judge every book by its cover, there is a reason those words are considered to be “cliché”. The trick is to look a little deeper. If more people did then they might understand that sure, I may be the daughter of an ex-con, but I am also a sister, a girlfriend, a college graduate, a former collegiate student body president, a dreamer—a girl who chose to define herself.

If the world was blind, would people still see your beauty?