🦋💜🌿Hi!
How are you doing?
If you are new here to my blog, hello! I usually talk about things like writing, inspiration, motivation, having a small business….but here’s what is popping off today.
Last week a friend of mine asked me for advice.
The question my friend asked was personal so I won’t share it exactly. Let me make up a scenario that would fall into a similar vibe:
A person named Cherryblossom has been trying for years to live a great life, fall in love, as well as have a great career.
They wanted to be famous worldwide (including on the internet), and thus become wealthy and live a high-impact, spiritually purposeful life that would really help a lot of people as a result.
However, a series of unfortunate events befell Cherryblossom in her quest, including deaths, heartbreak, betrayals, disappointments.
Now she says she has lost all hope in being happy, as perhaps everything she tries will always end up in tears and disappointment.
Now I think a lot of people would say something like, “Chin up, keep trying…” but that’s not the advice I gave.
I gave very specific advice that I know from personal experience can be potentially life changing. If given at the right moment…
I’ve been a lot like Cherryblossom in my life.
In my early 20s, I ran out the gate trying to check all the boxes of happiness. I started my first business right after college and began taking my writing really seriously.
I, too, wanted to fall in love. I also wanted to hit that bar of internet fame or success and “make it” so I’d always have work and wealth.
I wanted to make a big impact changing the world with my work, and grow my business as a win-win for everyone. From a young age, I’ve had a very large appetite for what I wanted to do and achieve.
Fast forward to a decade later.
Despite running myself into the ground for all that time, I didn’t achieve all my wildest dreams (although I had done plenty of things)…
I finally found myself at a crossroads.
Crossroads
In this moment, I was sitting in my apartment in Japan – my life had totally changed in order for me to spend a year there, but I was not satisfied.
It wasn’t what I expected.
Some things happened that made it feel emotionally crappy. It felt familiar, the same sort of emotional crappiness that I had already lived a million times already.
I was tired of being in the same place (emotionally)!
I’ve come so far…and yet was still running in place. I’d moved to Japan, but still felt like I was caught in the same mental loops as when I still in America.
On this day, I was watching a dumb reality show where people were getting these career opportunities to be famous, and I was like why is this making me so angry?
“These people are getting all these opportunities on a platter, when I’ve worked 50 hours a week for 10 years to get my small following!”
But on reflection, my anger wasn’t really about them.
I had put so much labor behind my goals and I was angry that I wasn’t where I wanted to be. That I wasn’t instafamous like all these people were going to be because of this dumb show.
Not only had I spent time trying to make a name for myself and for my business (the hard way),
I had spent a lot of money getting help on every level imaginable–coaches, healers, therapists, classes, certifications, marketing people, a masters degree–to try to be somewhere different.
Still life didn’t feel that much different from where I began 10 years before.
I had fans, but couldn’t fill a stadium with them like Taylor Swift. I was on this hamster wheel trying to make sure my bills were paid every month. I got them paid (which is an accomplishment) but it was hard work.
And if I was really honest, what were my big dreams and my anger at not achieving them really about?
It was about proving something. It was about proving how great I could really be. It was about being adored the way I should have been as a kid.
Both Cherryblossom and I have been through the ringer. We didn’t have happy childhoods. We’ve been through a lot as adults.
No wonder we both wanted to be experiencing something else, and yet those same disappointing situations and feelings kept returning.
It’s like the most desperate you are to run away from something, the more likely it is to linger.
When you have a Chinese finger trap, you can never escape if you pull away.
I had been making the mistake of pulling away. You only escape by relaxing and moving towards it.
I hadn’t realized I was running, I thought I was just being ambitious or trying to live my life purpose.
But I was running, and there was only one thing I hadn’t tried: staying in place.
There is a concept called “seeking mind,” that being hooked into ambition or seeking spiritual answers or purpose can cause a cycle of seeking and seeking.
It never stops and causes suffering.
You are only thinking about the future, and you never arrive there, like you are on an endless treadmill.
But getting upset over a really dumb TV show showed me all this about myself: I was stewing and disappointed. I’d been seeking for a really long time.
I finally realized that I needed to just be in the moment. Be where I am and accept how I am, how life is.
Accept the possibility that it may never ever change. It may never ever get better. At least not by a lot.
“How can I find it in myself to accept what I have, as it is?
And to stop rejecting it?
To try to be good with it?
Or at least okay enough to just be with it for now?
It would have sounded negative on any other day–
because on a different day it would have sounded like I have low self esteem or was being negative. Like I didn’t believe I have what it takes. I’m not deserving. Not special. Just giving up on my dreams.
But that’s not it. That’s not what I am saying at all.
Dreams are nice, and I can still have them, but I can’t be so fixated on them that everything less than that feels like a nightmare. Even though some one else would be lucky to be where I am.
For instance when I work with the nonprofit I support in Sierra Leone, Her Future Foundation, it makes me realize how great it is to have running water, toilets, electricity, safety, a fridge, etc.
That I have any of that is a win.
Also, just FYI, one of my big focuses is to feed my optimism on a daily basis.
So I do want to be optimistic.
I think it’s possible to be both optimistic and face the hard knocks of life straight on.
That includes the possibility that all dreams may not be achieved for reasons that may be totally random.
But if you can be real and optimistic at the same time, you basically become invincible.
The way Cherryblossom and I have lived, we know that life isn’t always fair or kind or enjoyable.
Stuff happens.
Maybe you know how that is?
So this sort of advice is just being real about that.
THE THING THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Eventually I realized that I needed to reassess my grand ideas about the future, and for a while just focus on being ok with life, right here, right now.
Since I began making that shift in 2019, a lot has happened.
-I met the love of my life and got married.
-I have moved from Japan to USA to Japan, back to the USA, but to a region I never lived before.
-My dad died suddenly and, with time, I learned to smile again.
-I grew out my hair and died it so I look like a new person.
-I changed my business a lot and acquired a second one. I don’t work 50 hours a week anymore.
-I created writing groups that sold out. Made several courses and sold them online. Took private clients to help them write and market their book or business.
-I’ve done a lot to support a NGO in Sierra Leone Africa called Her Future Foundation to help women and girls escape FGM, and child marriage and live better lives through education.
-I’ve made new friends where I live.
And these are just things on the outside.
Learning to accept the possibility that change won’t happen, and to accept my life as it is, has created INTERNAL changes.
A lot changed on the inside that no one can see.
That is what really matters.
That is what began it all FIRST.
If I didn’t shift this internally first and accept my situation as a whole, then nothing else would truly have pleased me. I could do all these things externally and still feel like crap. Because there’d always be more I wanted.
I know that because I’d already lived it multiple times. I had collected many successes and achieved many goals that ended up making almost no difference in how satisfied I felt with my life. I’d just be on to the next.
The thing that changed everything, and what I told Cherryblossom was:
The only time good things have really happened for me is when I accepted my life as it is.
A humble life, a small life, that doesn’t need to be a big important life to make me happy.
Accepting the idea maybe there is nothing bigger in store for me. And that life can still be okay.
I don’t need to be famous.
It’s ok if I don’t make a million dollars.
It’s ok if I don’t save the world and just help a few folks. Honestly just helping myself sometimes has to be all I think about.
Sometimes the most important thing is just to think about what am I going to eat for my next meal. Or finding a way to take a few breaths outside. The little stuff.
I have to be happy with the little things, or there’s no happiness at all.
I asked myself, What if little stuff could change but overall my life and work would just be 90% the same no matter what direction I went in?
Could I be okay with that and be accepting of it?….or even happy with that?
That was the new goal. Acceptance.
Paradox
There’s a marvelous paradox about that.
Because acceptance actually can produce change.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers
It’s how I met my husband. I wasn’t looking for anything, I was fine if we just dated a bit and it went no where because I was going to move out of Japan anyway.
And when I wasn’t looking, there I was getting to know the man who would ultimately become my husband.
I’ve heard that sort of story from a lot of people.
So to my writers and entrepreneurs, maybe you want to think about this in terms of your career:
What if you applied that
To your business?
To a writing project you are stressing over?
To a course you want to teach?
TRY ON THIS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Acceptance could look like:
What if you achieve your goals but don’t become super famous?
What if you don’t achieve anything that is out of this world amazing?
If your work didn’t change the world instantly or take your life to a whole new level, would you still see value in doing it?
How could you be ok with a small success or a microchange rather than the kind of success that flips your entire world upside down?
What can you accept about the things that aren’t going so well?
Can you try to be happy anyway within this thought experiment?
You could change some of what you do or keep doing it, but how could you accept the general scenario as it is?
You may feel some sadness or anger even trying to think like this, but it can really help reveal the hidden motives you have for trying to achieve things.
That’s healthy.
These emotions under the surface can actually make it harder to achieve your dreams or to be happy with what you are able to achieve.
Process them, get to know them. Move towards them not away and see what happens.
Remember this is all just an experiment, you can end it anytime if it is truly not for you.
But if you embrace it…
Weirdly when you accept things won’t change…is when it actually is more likely to change anyway.
That’s a Paradox of life
You just have to try it to see what I mean.
Accepting things chills everything out and removes a lot of that emotional noise.
Then you can actually think clearly about whatever you’d like to change and it doesn’t feel so personal or high stakes.
Because at the end of the day you don’t have much to lose since you know you’ll be fine no matter what happens.
And you’ll be ecstatic and grateful with achieving smaller, easier to reach milestones that don’t require you to be superhuman or burnout.
So if you’ve been trying everything else in your business, in your life, in your writing and you still aren’t satisfied with your results…
give acceptance a shot.
It just might change everything.
Quick Writing Prompt
Something I do weekly is think about my challenges, and I write a quick letter to a friend.
If my friend had the same challenge as me, what would I say to them?
It’s always a nice way to step into deeper self compassion, and step out of any confusing emotions. I often come up with some really sound advice.
If you only have a few minutes, Give it a try!
P.S. Did you like this?
Here’s a way to get more from me…
I made a program inspired by all the tools that have helped me find my optimism and motivation again after my father died in 2021.
If you’re feeling sluggish and pessimistic about the future, there’s a way to feel more alive and upbeat about the things to come. And yes, you can still be real about whatever is going on that you don’t like, as well. Do both.
Get more optimistic (without the B.S.) with my Optimism Program.
xo
Thanks for reading
