It’s time to become a smoothie

I’ve been going through a very big time lately. I told myself that 2016 was going to be my Year of Transformation, and boy oh boy stuff is transforming. A lot of things are falling away, new things are emerging, and in general BIG CHANGE is happening in every aspect of my life.

One of the reasons I’ve been interested in transformation is that I feel like I’ve spent most of my adult life racing to catch up. Always rushing to meet a deadline, hurrying to not be late, swatting to put out proverbial fires. I’m tired of living like that. It’s no way to treat my nervous system, and it’s certainly not a way to become present. It’s worth adding that it’s hypocritical for me to be running around like a chicken with my head cut off when my work is teaching other people to be present. Now yes, I’ve made enormous progress in becoming a more grounded, more centered person over the years. I’ve spent nearly a decade studying voice work, yoga, meditation, and psychology, I’ve spent about half that time teaching, and every day my ability to stay present improves. But the reason I chose to call 2016 the Year of Transformation is because I’m ready now for a paradigm shift: a shift in the tectonic structure of my life. Rather than trying to slow down within the rat race, I want to change the race altogether.

I think that part of the reason our lives become a rat race is because our energy gets spread in so many different directions. We strive to be a good worker at work and a good lover/partner/friend/family member at home. We need to go to yoga, go to the gym, be attractive, buy the groceries, travel, read the news. We have so many expectations about the ways we’re supposed to be, the things we’re supposed to accomplish, and how to live our lives. Personally, I struggle with the tendencies to push and to try to please everybody and to say yes too much and to spread myself too thin. These are my big issues, but I’m darn near certain I’m not the only one who has them.

So recently I’ve become fascinated with the idea of being a more cohesive, full version of myself in all the areas of my life. In bringing all of my octopus tentacles back together towards my core. In the process of considering this, an overarching mission statement for my life and my work has emerged…

I seek to embody and express my authentic self more fully and more often, and to empower others to do the same.

I’ve been thinking about how I can take the 80 gagillion versions of me that I am everyday and integrate them towards one core, towards one center. I imagine that way my life can become less spread out and less frantic. I’ve been thinking about all this a lot, and one day recently I came up with this analogy:

I feel like for so much of my life up until now I’ve been

sometimes spinach

sometimes mango

sometimes banana

sometimes hemp seeds

And now it’s time to become a smoothie.

The thing about becoming a smoothie though, is that you’ve gotta go through the blender. The blender is a swirling vortex. It’s not comfortable. Everything spins around like crazy. There’s no way to know which way is up and which way is down. The thing though, is that the blender is the only way to become a smoothie. And I’ve decided I’m ready to live my life as a smoothie.

I’ve spent recent weeks spinning, but I can feel the blending starting to slow down and the smoothie starting to coagulate (yes, definitely proud I thought of that word). I’ll have some announcements soon about new things that are emerging as I step out of the blender, so stay tuned. In the meantime, might I highly recommend that you go make yourself a spinach, mango, banana and hemp seed smoothie. I happen to have thought up the recipe recently, and I can report it’s truly delicious ;).