Anonymous submission via e-mail, shared with permission:
"My one and only directive is busting my own mythology- what ideas do I have of myself that I can test as true or not true. How much can I allow myself to be without believing any one thing as fact.
My urgent and ongoing practice is worshipping at the temple of the self instead of the temple of perfection!
Being different like being highly sensitive and attuned to my environment is very hard and isolating at times but I wouldn’t want to change it because it is authentically who I am. I've tried to change it and heed people's admonishments of being "too sensitive" and not understanding my reactions to seemingly little shifts but that only makes things so much worse. Through self-acceptance I can nurture my sensitivity and allow it to exist in a protected space internally so that I don't feel responsible for other people's projections."
My one and only directive is to put it all on the table, even when I’m afraid of how messy it will appear, even when I’m afraid to be wrong or to be seen as the fool. To accept that I can’t change or control how people see me.
My urgent and ongoing practice is to hold it all with an open hand. To not demand guarantees that are not owed to me. To not let the mirage of perfect safety keep me from something meant to shape me.
I’m late to the party, but gosh is this hitting home! Having our own joy as the only directive and practicing reading ourselves instead of immediately jumping out of our own skin. Amen!
This letter resonated with me so much. I am currently in a state of discomfort that, I have only recently realised, comes from putting myself in places that aren't meant for me and I don't want to occupy in the first place. I put myself in those place to control how other feel about me. I don't feel entirely comfortable going into depth here in the public comments but thank you Anna for being so honest and insightful, for doing the work that helps us do the work too.
My one and only directive is honouring my boundaries without shame or guilt. My urgent and ongoing practice is being honest and holding space for the honesty of others.
Hi Juana. Just want you to know that I resonated with the bit you shared. I feel that I’m in that same state of discomfort, and it’s been very frustrating and disappointing. These are the exact things I need to work on as well. And I love the way you worded it. Thank you for sharing, I appreciate it.
I experience a variation of this in romantic relationships. It goes like:
I want to be what you want. If I'm not, I'm defensive and reactionary (positioning against what you want, sometimes entirely unaware of what I want). Asking for too much, having my own desire at all, has felt like risk. I might reveal myself.
My one and only directive is to ask / desire without shame, and as you say, to let it rest "out there," while others want what they will want. Not shrinking, explaining or qualifying my own desires.
My urgent and ongoing practice is allowing myself to be seen, which includes wanting what I want and giving myself permission to ask for it, knowing I can't control how I'll be perceived because of it.
My one and only directive: being willing to feel, and tell, the truth.
My urgent and ongoing practice: returning to my truest self, over and over.
Both are forever practices/remembrances -- both will never require perfection, doing so 100% of the time, or living from that place always; only the willingness to try after forgetting, again and again.
My one and only directive is to move towards joy and away from cynicism. I am trying not to let the word or the idea of “joy” lose its meaning for me. Since taking a break from instagram, I have noticed that the word “joy” feels less like a brand or a buzzword and more like a warm feeling on my face -- which, in my opinion, is exactly how it should feel.
I have been letting cynicism creep into my life more and more because I have been letting my work, which I love, take everything out of me. I have often confused love with giving myself, body and soul, to someone or something until I lose myself. I was raised by a parent who uses work to escape from/cope with life, and I am trying to un-learn some of the lessons he taught me about work and what it means to be successful. I am a social worker and I see a lot of cynicism in my field. It makes me sad and I know how harmful it can be.
Simply existing in the world today is enough to make anyone cynical. When I was an adolescent/young adult consumed by trauma and addiction, I believed that my capacity to feel joy had been stolen from me and I would never get it back. I finally reached the point where I realized that I needed to feel joy again or die trying, even if it meant trying to have a “positive attitude.” I have never looked back and it has been ten years. As I have been feeling more and more burnt out, the need to move toward anything that makes me feel bright and hopeful has felt more and more urgent. I know that looking for “joy,” whatever that means, is a life or death.
I’m so sorry for writing a novel here; thank you Anna for this thread. It has been really helpful for me to put this in writing and to read everyone’s comments here ❤️
Please no apologies for your comment. This is why I left the prompt. Your comment is such a generous share and it was really nice to read, especially because it speaks to something really foreign to me (I don’t work as a social worker, for example).
This is such a lovely letter about our humanness and how we shield ourselves. As another who wasn't protected by her mother, I feel this. So, my one and only directive right now is to not feel the need to be "on guard" all the time. My urgent and ongoing practice is to be happy. Anger, defensiveness, needing to be right, putting up walls, shutting down are all ways to protect that little girl, and I've worked hard and long to let them go. Because she's fine! She grew up. She has a voice. Now, it's about being able to break those habits and knee-jerk responses so that I can just be. And just be happy. xo
I wasn’t expecting this to resonate so hard! Woomph. Last night I stuck my neck out in a group setting by offering what I viewed as a hard truth and ended up being the target of some (misdirected?) anger. It’s a place I’ve been before, and each time I seem to forget the pain it causes me (to be singled out, to feel targeted). I admire your resilience, and am soothed by your framing here. In that vein:
My urgent and ongoing practice is to keep myself safe. I’ve already learned that it doesn’t feel good to be “right” at the expense of my emotional security. I need to keep remembering that lesson and be more discerning about when I choose to speak up, even if I’m asked. Thank you for your ‘No’ - from one “difficult (*unprotected) child” to another, it is always an appropriate answer
Your comment resonated with me so much too! I’ve been working on my “blind spots” lately, the situations where in retrospect I see that I flayed myself wide open around people or settings that in no way indicated it was safe for me to do so.
my urgent and ongoing practice is reclaiming my attention :) i am often trying to HEAL urgency ~ and noticing that places that causes harm in my relationships. and in this case I loved it as a prompt for what finding out what is VERY important to me
My one and only directive is being proud of myself. For standing up for my beliefs, standing up for others or myself, even if my opinion seems very unpopular. I used to be very much directed into being proud of being helpful to others and that has given me a lot of self confidence over the years, I am now working on being proud of myself because of the things I start doing for just myself. Overcoming my fears, going to box training even though I am scared to being laughed at by the cool boys (which actually never happens), getting a diving license and diving deep in the ocean even though I am scared to being eaten by a shark (hasn’t happened yet), speaking up when people are crossing my lines even though I am scared they will not like me anymore for that (kinda feels like they like me more and I like them more).
My urgent and ongoing practice is not holding back with my truth anymore because in the past I had a lot of passive aggressive behaviors which were painful to me and others. Also working on saying things more in a way that the other person can actually relate and understand and not just gets hurt by me wanting to hurt them back for hurting me first.
I find it interesting to working on myself in a direction that I actually like. I was too scared to be who I actually have been wanting to be for years. I loved big tattoos; never dared getting one until last year, I wanted to be super open, never dared saying things because I thought I’d hurt others or put myself in the center of attention. I had so many doubts about
Myself and life and everything but I am working on just doing things and so far it has felt great and free and makes me happy. A long way to go but just one life right
Thank you for this relatable reflection on boundaries and their tense, but necessary nature. And thank you for this prompt!
My one and only directive is to be a lover (as opposed to a hater) and to live in harmony with myself. I unironically love the world and the gifts it contains.
My urgent and ongoing practice is nurturing my intuition, safety, and sense of self, so that I may continue to plant seeds of hope and love. Loving sustainably is just as important as loving at all.
Being different as a person who is conscious and picky about where my energy goes is exhausting because I’m often met with people’s insecurities and doubts first. But I wouldn’t want to change it because I’m comfortable with loving as praxis and without validation. Being loving helps me surpass surviving and allows me to thrive.
This is really beautiful Stella. I have read it many times and don't want to forget it. Loving as praxis and without validation, and because it helps me surpass surviving and allows me to thrive. It's SO GOOD.
my one and only directive is experimenting with life, looking for ways of feeling meaning, maintaining the feeling that it is good to be on earth, sharing my findings.
my urgent and ongoing practice is walking, tallying up the stock, looking for authors and conversations that confirm or challenge the questions but don’t go around them, cooking well for myself and renting movies from the library. pouring coffee for my coworkers.
My one and only directive is love, which is of course this ongoing dialogue (between me and the everything!) and practice of presence.
My urgent and ongoing practice is opening to love; to not* believing “Love is not enough.” And instead “Love is enough, always just enough, I just don’t fully understand love.”
Remembering just because I don’t get my way doesn’t mean I am not loved.
My urgent and ongoing practice is to let love in -- just let it in and let it be 🌿 I’m often fighting against it, building my walls up higher, locking the doors, wanting to run for the hills when it actually feels sincere. Thank you for this prompt.
What an interesting exercise. At first I couldn't fathom what filling in these blanks would look like for me, but reading the comments really helped me to reflect and understand a bit more about where I am at right now.
My one and only directive is re-orienting myself - finding myself again after massive upheaval and change, and discerning what feels true and right for me now.
My urgent and ongoing practice is presence - simply being with what is, and not needing to tell myself a story about it, fix it, or even necessarily make sense of it.
This makes my current life wildly boring and uncomfortable, by the way.
Isn't it weird how boring and uncomfortable it gets? The other day I listened to a dharma talk and she used the word "squirmy" to define this experience and I really related. Thank you for sharing.
Anonymous submission via e-mail, shared with permission:
"My one and only directive is busting my own mythology- what ideas do I have of myself that I can test as true or not true. How much can I allow myself to be without believing any one thing as fact.
My urgent and ongoing practice is worshipping at the temple of the self instead of the temple of perfection!
Being different like being highly sensitive and attuned to my environment is very hard and isolating at times but I wouldn’t want to change it because it is authentically who I am. I've tried to change it and heed people's admonishments of being "too sensitive" and not understanding my reactions to seemingly little shifts but that only makes things so much worse. Through self-acceptance I can nurture my sensitivity and allow it to exist in a protected space internally so that I don't feel responsible for other people's projections."
My one and only directive is to put it all on the table, even when I’m afraid of how messy it will appear, even when I’m afraid to be wrong or to be seen as the fool. To accept that I can’t change or control how people see me.
My urgent and ongoing practice is to hold it all with an open hand. To not demand guarantees that are not owed to me. To not let the mirage of perfect safety keep me from something meant to shape me.
“To not demand guarantees that are not owed to me”...OKAY go off.
"have I ever regretted paddling my own canoe?" the way I would hang this poster.
My one and only directive is to pursue my own joys. My urgent and on going practice is to prioritize reading myself over reading the room, for once.
DAMN, that last bit hits Kelton.
Now if only it would hit me in the face a little more often 😂
😂
Reading Myself over Reading The Room
New Tshirt idea??
Really beautiful, thank u
I’m late to the party, but gosh is this hitting home! Having our own joy as the only directive and practicing reading ourselves instead of immediately jumping out of our own skin. Amen!
This letter resonated with me so much. I am currently in a state of discomfort that, I have only recently realised, comes from putting myself in places that aren't meant for me and I don't want to occupy in the first place. I put myself in those place to control how other feel about me. I don't feel entirely comfortable going into depth here in the public comments but thank you Anna for being so honest and insightful, for doing the work that helps us do the work too.
My one and only directive is honouring my boundaries without shame or guilt. My urgent and ongoing practice is being honest and holding space for the honesty of others.
Very relatable and helpful for me to read as well. Thank you.
Hi Juana. Just want you to know that I resonated with the bit you shared. I feel that I’m in that same state of discomfort, and it’s been very frustrating and disappointing. These are the exact things I need to work on as well. And I love the way you worded it. Thank you for sharing, I appreciate it.
May we find out comfort soon, Samantha <3
Oh man, Yes yes Yes yes.
I experience a variation of this in romantic relationships. It goes like:
I want to be what you want. If I'm not, I'm defensive and reactionary (positioning against what you want, sometimes entirely unaware of what I want). Asking for too much, having my own desire at all, has felt like risk. I might reveal myself.
My one and only directive is to ask / desire without shame, and as you say, to let it rest "out there," while others want what they will want. Not shrinking, explaining or qualifying my own desires.
My urgent and ongoing practice is allowing myself to be seen, which includes wanting what I want and giving myself permission to ask for it, knowing I can't control how I'll be perceived because of it.
Yes! I really tackle this exact thing in my essay from January, https://lordcowboy.substack.com/p/i-have-an-idea-of-myself-god-laughs
Romantic relationships, Art, too. Same same.
My one and only directive: being willing to feel, and tell, the truth.
My urgent and ongoing practice: returning to my truest self, over and over.
Both are forever practices/remembrances -- both will never require perfection, doing so 100% of the time, or living from that place always; only the willingness to try after forgetting, again and again.
Love these reflections; thank you <3
May we always be remembering. 🫶
My one and only directive is to move towards joy and away from cynicism. I am trying not to let the word or the idea of “joy” lose its meaning for me. Since taking a break from instagram, I have noticed that the word “joy” feels less like a brand or a buzzword and more like a warm feeling on my face -- which, in my opinion, is exactly how it should feel.
I have been letting cynicism creep into my life more and more because I have been letting my work, which I love, take everything out of me. I have often confused love with giving myself, body and soul, to someone or something until I lose myself. I was raised by a parent who uses work to escape from/cope with life, and I am trying to un-learn some of the lessons he taught me about work and what it means to be successful. I am a social worker and I see a lot of cynicism in my field. It makes me sad and I know how harmful it can be.
Simply existing in the world today is enough to make anyone cynical. When I was an adolescent/young adult consumed by trauma and addiction, I believed that my capacity to feel joy had been stolen from me and I would never get it back. I finally reached the point where I realized that I needed to feel joy again or die trying, even if it meant trying to have a “positive attitude.” I have never looked back and it has been ten years. As I have been feeling more and more burnt out, the need to move toward anything that makes me feel bright and hopeful has felt more and more urgent. I know that looking for “joy,” whatever that means, is a life or death.
I’m so sorry for writing a novel here; thank you Anna for this thread. It has been really helpful for me to put this in writing and to read everyone’s comments here ❤️
Please no apologies for your comment. This is why I left the prompt. Your comment is such a generous share and it was really nice to read, especially because it speaks to something really foreign to me (I don’t work as a social worker, for example).
This is such a lovely letter about our humanness and how we shield ourselves. As another who wasn't protected by her mother, I feel this. So, my one and only directive right now is to not feel the need to be "on guard" all the time. My urgent and ongoing practice is to be happy. Anger, defensiveness, needing to be right, putting up walls, shutting down are all ways to protect that little girl, and I've worked hard and long to let them go. Because she's fine! She grew up. She has a voice. Now, it's about being able to break those habits and knee-jerk responses so that I can just be. And just be happy. xo
Gosh, you nailed it - right from my brain. Thank you for this sound reflection and share. May need to revisit it.
I wasn’t expecting this to resonate so hard! Woomph. Last night I stuck my neck out in a group setting by offering what I viewed as a hard truth and ended up being the target of some (misdirected?) anger. It’s a place I’ve been before, and each time I seem to forget the pain it causes me (to be singled out, to feel targeted). I admire your resilience, and am soothed by your framing here. In that vein:
My urgent and ongoing practice is to keep myself safe. I’ve already learned that it doesn’t feel good to be “right” at the expense of my emotional security. I need to keep remembering that lesson and be more discerning about when I choose to speak up, even if I’m asked. Thank you for your ‘No’ - from one “difficult (*unprotected) child” to another, it is always an appropriate answer
Your comment resonated with me so much too! I’ve been working on my “blind spots” lately, the situations where in retrospect I see that I flayed myself wide open around people or settings that in no way indicated it was safe for me to do so.
Ahh I wrote a response and it didn't post! This solidarity feels great, thank u x1000
my urgent and ongoing practice is reclaiming my attention :) i am often trying to HEAL urgency ~ and noticing that places that causes harm in my relationships. and in this case I loved it as a prompt for what finding out what is VERY important to me
Important but not urgent, a memoir by me and now maybe you, forever
My one and only directive is being proud of myself. For standing up for my beliefs, standing up for others or myself, even if my opinion seems very unpopular. I used to be very much directed into being proud of being helpful to others and that has given me a lot of self confidence over the years, I am now working on being proud of myself because of the things I start doing for just myself. Overcoming my fears, going to box training even though I am scared to being laughed at by the cool boys (which actually never happens), getting a diving license and diving deep in the ocean even though I am scared to being eaten by a shark (hasn’t happened yet), speaking up when people are crossing my lines even though I am scared they will not like me anymore for that (kinda feels like they like me more and I like them more).
My urgent and ongoing practice is not holding back with my truth anymore because in the past I had a lot of passive aggressive behaviors which were painful to me and others. Also working on saying things more in a way that the other person can actually relate and understand and not just gets hurt by me wanting to hurt them back for hurting me first.
I find it interesting to working on myself in a direction that I actually like. I was too scared to be who I actually have been wanting to be for years. I loved big tattoos; never dared getting one until last year, I wanted to be super open, never dared saying things because I thought I’d hurt others or put myself in the center of attention. I had so many doubts about
Myself and life and everything but I am working on just doing things and so far it has felt great and free and makes me happy. A long way to go but just one life right
I really valued this share Lizzy. "I am now working on being proud of myself because of the things I start doing for just myself." Thank you.
Thank you for this relatable reflection on boundaries and their tense, but necessary nature. And thank you for this prompt!
My one and only directive is to be a lover (as opposed to a hater) and to live in harmony with myself. I unironically love the world and the gifts it contains.
My urgent and ongoing practice is nurturing my intuition, safety, and sense of self, so that I may continue to plant seeds of hope and love. Loving sustainably is just as important as loving at all.
Being different as a person who is conscious and picky about where my energy goes is exhausting because I’m often met with people’s insecurities and doubts first. But I wouldn’t want to change it because I’m comfortable with loving as praxis and without validation. Being loving helps me surpass surviving and allows me to thrive.
This is really beautiful Stella. I have read it many times and don't want to forget it. Loving as praxis and without validation, and because it helps me surpass surviving and allows me to thrive. It's SO GOOD.
my one and only directive is experimenting with life, looking for ways of feeling meaning, maintaining the feeling that it is good to be on earth, sharing my findings.
my urgent and ongoing practice is walking, tallying up the stock, looking for authors and conversations that confirm or challenge the questions but don’t go around them, cooking well for myself and renting movies from the library. pouring coffee for my coworkers.
thanks for these Zac. Really nice to read.
These resonate so hard 🙏🏻
My one and only directive is love, which is of course this ongoing dialogue (between me and the everything!) and practice of presence.
My urgent and ongoing practice is opening to love; to not* believing “Love is not enough.” And instead “Love is enough, always just enough, I just don’t fully understand love.”
Remembering just because I don’t get my way doesn’t mean I am not loved.
That last one Samantha!!!
My urgent and ongoing practice is to let love in -- just let it in and let it be 🌿 I’m often fighting against it, building my walls up higher, locking the doors, wanting to run for the hills when it actually feels sincere. Thank you for this prompt.
*raises hand*
What an interesting exercise. At first I couldn't fathom what filling in these blanks would look like for me, but reading the comments really helped me to reflect and understand a bit more about where I am at right now.
My one and only directive is re-orienting myself - finding myself again after massive upheaval and change, and discerning what feels true and right for me now.
My urgent and ongoing practice is presence - simply being with what is, and not needing to tell myself a story about it, fix it, or even necessarily make sense of it.
This makes my current life wildly boring and uncomfortable, by the way.
Isn't it weird how boring and uncomfortable it gets? The other day I listened to a dharma talk and she used the word "squirmy" to define this experience and I really related. Thank you for sharing.