The Audacity to be Ourselves
a poem & some special (time sensitive) invitations
She will have the audacity to take up space,
to follow the trail of her own wild longings,
to be herself, all of herself. Only herself.
She will invite you to join her. 🪶
I shared the below poem exactly 1 year ago.
As I have been thinking about the word audacity, what it means to be audacious, in preparation for my conversation with Laurie Wagner this Friday, the below poem came to mind.
No one gets to decide your worth, my love, it is not an outside job.
How audacious it is to decide our own worth, to say the hard thing, to give ourselves permission to be all of our messy, human selves, to create our own definitions of success. To claim our own knowing.
It is tragic to me that we deny ourselves the healing, beauty, joy, connection, release of saying what is true/creating something new because we are afraid it won't measure up in someone else's eyes. And it points to so much of the pain in the world.
No one else’s permission or approval is required, not ever. You can give it to yourself right now, in this very moment.
What if we stopped focusing on trying to be impressive, and instead put the focus on simply being ourselves?
This is the conversation Laurie and I will be having this Friday.
Click on the below image for more information & to register.
In Laurie’s words:
“We are conditioned to perform, to be impressive, to scrutinize the beauty that comes out of us and wonder if it’s up to snuff. We hide the messy, human parts of ourselves because it might reveal too much or be misunderstood. Because we fear it might not make us worthy.
And yet, so much of what is alive in us exists beneath that effort to hide. So much of what is beautiful about us isn’t the contrived and curated, but the simple and the spontaneous.
This is an invitation to loosen the grip of perfectionism and create space for what is honest, ordinary, tender, and real. A chance to write without the critic standing over your shoulder.
Come listen. Come write with us.” —Laurie Wagner
We would so love to have you join us for this very important, very real conversation.
You absolutely do not need to consider yourself a writer to join us.
And now, the poem…🧚♂️
I’m So Tired, Aren’t You?
Aren’t we all aching? Aching for what? For permission to be all of ourselves. No sugarcoating. No trying to impress. No one-upping. No cleaning up the mess. Aren’t we all too damn tired to try to be anything other than who we are? What other way is there to be? This being human is holy, hard, messy, scary, uncertain. Terminal. There is no cure for the hard. Please, stop trying to get rid of it. It too belongs. Let it clear the way for softness. In case you are wondering—you are not the only one who aches. You are not doing it wrong. You are beautiful in all of your messiness. Really, you are. This morning, something deep inside me whispers: No one gets to decide your worth, my love, it is not an outside job. Stop measuring, stop holding your breath— be like the falling leaf, let yourself freefall— notice how the net always appears. Rest now. Rest.
The above poem is one of 100 poems in my brand new book “This Too: Words to Walk You Home.” Click here to get your signed copy(s).
Something fun…
I would so love to see This Too out in the world!
If you have a copy & would be willing to share a photo of the book somewhere meaningful to you—in nature, in a buzzing café, in your lovely hands—I’d be delighted to see it!
I will be sharing some of these images here on my Substack page & on other social media platforms.
Mostly, it will just make my heart smile to see my little book in your world.
Below are a few photos that have blessed me!
Come write with me!
This month’s Write Yourself Free class (for paid subscribers of my Substack page) will be on Tuesday, July 28th, from 4:00—6:00 pm (PST).
Write Yourself Free is all about freeing ourselves so that we can write & live from true, rather than writing and living from a place of trying to be “good.”
I so hope to see you there!
I love the message in your beautiful poem, thank you 💞