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.