Project365: A picture’s worth a thousand words

365 days ago I embarked on a challenge called #Project365, which meant I committed to taking a photograph and posting it to my Facebook page every day for one year. Many people asked why I chose to do such a crazy thing. Why waste more valuable time on social media? Why play into this superficial environment? Didn't I have better things to do?

The most vulnerable and honest answer I can give to you is...not really. I was feeling pretty stuck and for the past two years, I'd been experiencing a dark night of the soul. I'd broken up with my no good boyfriend, lost my close friend group, began pulling away from my toxic family and was starting to feel unfulfilled in my career. A perfect storm. I found myself looking in the mirror and not really knowing

who I was anymore. While I had no idea what the next chapter might look like, I felt a need to document this part of my journey and open myself up to a greater community.

On a superficial level, I accomplished a ton this year. I made new friends, got a new job, traveled extensively, redid my apartment, grew out the worst haircut ever, and gave my first keynote speech. However, it was the real work behind the scenes of learning forgiveness, letting go, self-care, adulting, and trust that I'm most proud of.

Brene Brown (love her!) made me realize I was not alone in this wild journey. She explains that "Midlife is not a crisis. Midlife is an unraveling." I couldn't find a better definition for it if I tried...unraveling all my B.S. (Belief Systems) that no longer served me, trying to keep my head above water, while scouting out a whole new terrain.

So I decided to open up the flood gates and share my unraveling with you. My hope is that many of you might be able to relate, shift your perspective, or just feel a little more authentically connected. So here it goes :)

Real Happiness Comes From Within

Without realizing it I'd put the fate of my own happiness into the hands of others. I'd built a community where all of my self-worth relied on how well the group was functioning and how they showed up for me. When this all came crashing down, my sense of self did too. This began a year filled with self-reflection and getting really curious. I listened more closely to my needs, began living more purposely, and spending more time by myself. I came to realize that happiness is a choice you make every single day. You make the decision to become bitter or to become better.

Releasing the Grips of Codependency

In one week I helped put a close relative and one of my best friends in rehab for alcoholism and drug addiction. I spent hours upon hours researching best rehab centers, how to host an effective intervention, and basically put their entire struggle upon my shoulders .

Something they never asked for, but a role I felt I needed to play. After both successfully completing their programs, to my chagrin, they were never thankful and actually held much resentment towards me.

More often than not, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Byron Katie puts it eloquently when she says " there are three types of business: Your business, other's business, and God's business." The more time I invested in their energy, the less I was spending on my own. How could I truly value myself if I continuelly put myself on the back burner while also surrounding myself with people that devalued their own health and own lives?

I came out of this with a much clearer understanding of boundaries and how it relates to self-care. Not surprisingly, as my awareness grew the weaker my relationships with my friend and relative became. I was no longer able to play the role of the scapegoat or the caretaker any longer. However, the real beauty was that I no longer felt obligated to.

Learning How to Trust Again

 I met some amazing new friends who helped spark a light in me again. It was refreshing to meet people on a similar journey as mine who had such infectious energy. However, something in me was really afraid to fully trust them. How could I depend on anyone after everything I'd been through? But then I read this great quote that said:

"When you finally trust someone without any doubt you get one of two results: A person for life or a lesson for life."

This really spoke to me for there should always be room for true intimacy or self-reflection in our lives. There is no greater courage than to open up your heart again and again, even after it has been broken.

This time I will do it a bit more slowly. I'm gently learning the art of discernment and being more selective of who I let into my inner circle. I'm also minding my own healthy attachments while keeping realistic expectations. While this seems morose (especially coming from Sylvia Plath herself!) it holds true: "If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”

Leaving Neverland

Ever since I was little I was absolutely obsessed with Peter Pan. I always wanted to watch the movie, play dress up, and talk about Pan's newest adventures. Surprisingly this infatuation didn't really diminish and maybe even became stronger when I moved to San Francisco. This city is often called Neverland, where adults never have to grow up.

For years I thrived in this atmosphere and traveled to Burning Man, attended festivals, and was always on a brand new adventure every single weekend. I never felt freer...until I didn't. Halfway through #Project365 I had an epiphany. I wanted to grow up.

It all started with me getting up one morning, just like every day, and walking into my living room to discover that nothing in my apartment "fit me" anymore. It was almost as if overnight I'd completely morphed into an entirely different person and all of this "stuff" just had to go. I gave Marie Kondo a run for her money and took over 50 garbage bags to Good Will because goddamnit that shit didn't give me joy!

In the end, it was a really transformative experience. I went from living in a bright Crayola clutter box to a beautiful sophisticated living space. With this transformation came other ways of "adulting." I began making my bed religiously every morning. I became a total clean freak and started taking care of myself more with things like facials, massages, and sound baths. My new Sunday Fundays consisted of going to church, volunteering and slipping into a QiGong class. Gone were the days of bottomless mimosas and feeling hungover on Mondays. Here were the days of self-care and taking responsibility for my life.

Dream Big and Dare to Fail

Six months before I left my job as the Producer of Character Day, I started visualizing what I really wanted out of my career. This meant a lot more money, a team that valued and respected me, a way to change the world for the better, and a job that I could fully be seen. I was ready to step out and finally own my power, however, I found myself paralyzed with fear.

Marianne Williamson knew exactly what I was up against in her famous quote::

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?"

So I made a very deliberate decision to leap outside of my comfort zone, despite my fear. This meant betting on myself and taking the entire process into my own hands. By doing this, I received 15 job offers on the day that I specified I would be making my final decision. It was beyond what I had ever imagined! I'm not sharing this to brag in the slightest. I'm sharing because it's miraculous what we can accomplish when we step into our own power, get purposeful, and jump past our own fear.

I'm not going to lie. The weeks leading up to starting this new job were rough. I faced extreme self-doubt, had a lot of anxiety, and even broke out into hives! It took a lot of work and determination to walk into my new job on the first day with my mantra of "I belong" and own my new space with sheer confidence.

"Fake it till you goddamn make it" became my new way of life! I began to realize that everyone else is doing the exact same thing. People that create success for themselves in business and in life, are just more comfortable jumping ahead of their fear than most people are.

Surrender

This last lesson was probably the hardest but most rewarding: accepting and appreciating the life/death/life cycle. In other words, realizing that everything is only temporary.

My favorite quote from my beloved Clarissa Pincola Estes from "Women Who Run with the Wolves" writes:

"Like the chambers of a heart that fill and empty and fill again we "learn to learn" the rhythm of this life/death/life cycle instead of becoming martyred by it. What must die, dies. We might try to fool ourselves for various reasons, but we know. By the light of the fiery skull, we know."

So much of my suffering came from not accepting change and not learning to let go. I learned that pain is absolutely inevitable and part of the human experience, but suffering is a choice. How we choose to tell the stories in our mind can lead to absolute freedom or imprisonment.

This can be exemplified by a story that I heard about a man who was a prisoner for many years. Every day he woke up in a dark dingy cell, ate the same miserable food, and never thought that he would be freed. He was so lonely, depressed, and helpless. Until one day he went to the door of his cell and was amazed when the door flew wide open! Sheepishly he crept by the guards on duty, but they did not seem to care or pay any attention to him. It was not until he ran out of the front gates of the prison walls that he realized he had been a prisoner of his own mind all along.

I'd been holding onto people, places, and things that I knew no longer served me. I felt such a release when I decided to put the past behind me and walk out of my own prison, into my new life. Jack Kornfield says it beautifully when he writes "Like a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it. Tend it. Enjoy it. And when the time comes let it go."

Fully letting go allows for new life to be born. “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” We

resist and often resent the changes. But change is the key to life, because, despite change being seemingly painful, it's ever necessary.

So the time has come for me to say goodbye to you, #Project365. Thank you for holding me accountable to show up fully this past year. Little did I know what a great impact you would have on my life.

Thank you for making me more aware of all the beauty around me and always showcasing the things that I should be most grateful for. You made me a greater adventurer, more open-minded, creative, and gave me a larger sense of wonder. Because of you, I will always be able to look back and see with my own eyes one of the greatest years of transformation in my life.