This month The IS Collection is coming clean with Soapbox Therapy! Check it out…

A funny thing happens to your authentic inner amazing fabulous self and your hopes and dreams and goals and talents and creativity, when they don’t get expressed to the world. When you keep them inside, afraid and unsure of your interest in letting them be seen and heard and witnessed and challenged. They get stuck, weigh you down, and, drum roll please…make you depressed. Yes, really.

Not the I-just-lost-someone-or-something kind of depression. Not the transition and change and new chapter of life kind of depression. Not the post or pre or during or after that new thing started or that old thing ended kind of depression. This is the I-have-no-idea-why-I-feel-so-down-and-dark-and-heavy-and-I’ve- talked-and-analyzed-and-told-my-story-from-childhood-to-now-and-haven’t-yet-found-a-clue–kind of depression.

This is the kind of depression that grows from light…inner light. We all have it, this bright inner light that’s made up of all of our fabulous parts that we know on some level are there, even if we wouldn’t be caught dead admitting them for fear we may sound… confident. All of our gifts and beautiful potential and everything in-between finds itself in that inner light. As it turns out, though, light isn’t so pretty when kept to ourselves.

When you hold back your inner light from the very world it was made to shine in, things go dark.

It goes like this: When who you really are and what you really want are suffocating inside of you, when too much light attempts to compact itself into a tight container with no room to breathe or express or be honest or come clean…it’s blinding and weighing and darkening. Simple as that. Dramatic? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

Try it. Really (not really). Put a million beautiful things into a teeny tiny container, close it off, and swallow it. Not so beautiful anymore, huh? Those beautiful things, inner diamonds if you will, can’t be seen, they can’t be appreciated, and they’re not doing healthy things to your body being kept inside, that’s for sure. Keeping our amazing inner gifts and selves from the world is darkening and deadening and dirtying…and depressing. So, come clean. Simple? For some. Worth it? In every way.

The thing about coming clean with your light, and dislodging it from inside of yourself to share it with the world is that it’s scary and beautiful and necessary…and cleansing. What is it that you’re holding back? What’s inside of you? What are you hiding or shoving or pushing deep down in an attempt to keep it from the world? And most importantly, why?

What are you doing with all that extra creativity and beauty? Who are you saving your intelligence and curiosity and talent for? While your real self hides under your skin, who is it that you’re bringing to the world each day as a false representative of the real you?

Come clean. Come clean with who you are, with what you want. Tell one person, tell your journal, tell yourself. Announce your goals and hopes and everything in-between. Represent yourself with truth, with grace, with pride. See what happens. Let your light seep out slowly, or open the gates and let it flow. Cry and laugh and be relieved and open. Because a funny thing happens to light when you give it permission to be seen…it shines.

And that’s the thing about coming clean.

Once in a while I learn a word, a phrase, a way to explain something I’ve been trying and craving and yearning to explain in that perfect I-get-it-and-it’s-never-made-more-sense-than-it-does-now-kind-of-way.

Last week, while having tea and catching up with my beautiful friend Rebecca, it happened; I learned the phrase I’ve been looking for.

Here’s how it went down …

Rebecca and I were talking and all of the sudden I was far away from the table, from my cup of tea, from our conversation, from the moment I was supposedly living. My body was still there, but my mind was in the future … in the what if-when I have-if I don’t have-when that happens-what-if it doesn’t happen-what will I do if-when and maybe and I’m not sure and I think so … and later and then and in a few years…and and and… She stopped me mid-sentence.

Come back, she said. You’re future tripping.

Future tripping? Yes. Future tripping. It’s a phrase nothing short of amazing.

The thing about future tripping is that it’s different than simply thinking about or planning the future. It’s a trip, in every sense of the word: a leaving, a getting away from, a zoning out, a seemingly drug-induced exit which takes you away from the very moment you’re in. It’s unplanned and unexpected and sends you to a place of worry and fear and what-if’s and what’s-next and then what’s-that are completely and utterly consuming. And intoxicating. And addictive.

We all do it, this future tripping thing. We all think about what’s to come, we hope and consider and ponder and worry and plan and discuss and wonder. We pack up our past and leave our present to sit, wait, and have some tea without us while we skip into tomorrow or next week or next year or 10 years from now.

We trick ourselves to believe that if we talk and think about what’s next, we could possibly relive ourselves from being where we are, in this place of who-really-knows-what’s-going-to-happen … but it doesn’t work. The future trip just takes us away, spins us in a circle, and throws us back to reality just in time to realize that while we were off planning on how to have the perfect life–we just missed something … we just missed everything.

This present moment – this very second that we’re in – no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable, deserves our attention. Planning is amazing, preparing is responsible and beautiful. Future tripping…that’s a diversion, a distraction, a trick, a seduction.

There’s an extremely important difference between future planning and future tripping. Planning takes planning. You can choose to take an minute or an hour or a day to think about and plan a certain event. Plan to plan, make an agreement with your brain that that’s where you’ll be–planning for the future, rather than tripping over the present moment to get there.

So plan to plan, but other than that…be here. Be in this moment. Not because the new must-have book you’re reading, yoga teacher, mother or best friend told you to be present because that’s what they heard is the new fad; be present because you choose to. Be here because you finally get it..in that perfect I-get-it-and-it’s-never-made-more-sense-than-it-does-now-kind-of-way. Love it.

Choose not to miss anything. Choose to experience all of the tiny perfect and imperfect and scary and exciting and joy-filled moments that are right here. So unpack your bags, and stay a while. Don’t miss a thing.

And that’s the thing about future tripping …

Check out “The Thing About Future Tripping” this month on TheISCollection.com!
Love,

Here’s a little something I wrote for The IS Collection this month…

In my house, presented proudly amongst candles and a vase of flowers, is “The Art of Doing Nothing,” a book by Veronique Vienne. Despite being an amazing resource, this book became a decorative accessory describing ways to relax and recharge I had yet to sample. I loved having it on display, even though I hadn’t picked it up or read it for years, because simply walking past it on a daily basis made me feel like one day, preferably in this lifetime, I might just get around to learning about doing nothing.

Finally, I did..

I took my always going, working, doing-something-self to boon hotel + spa, with hopes of not only celebrating travel, but practicing shifting gears, changing scenery, slowing down … and with some luck, learning a bit about nothing.

It worked; I’ve come back from my trip not only renewed, but eager to post myself on my soapbox and make a strong claim … doing nothing is quite something.

I’ve concluded though, after some soul searching and practice, that doing nothing, in our modern go-do-accomplish-succeed society, has found itself in a bit of an unfortunate predicament. Often attached to self-disapproving descriptions like “lazy” yet sometimes swooned over as a privilege after accomplishing, working, completing, and doing enough, doing nothing has become both a fear and a fantasy.

Afraid to do too little and afraid to do too much, our relationship with doing nothing could use some work. From where I’m sitting, it seems it’s time we not only begin to see value in our nothings, but appreciate them in every shape and form. From travel to a bath, a book that has nothing to do with anything to a TV show just because, the thing about doing nothing is that it’s not nothing at all … it’s something big and amazing and important and nourishing and necessary. Doing nothing is a gift, if we’re willing to receive it.

Nothing is the way our body-mind-spirit-soul prepares for all of our other something’s. Nothing serves and feeds us–in all we do. Nothing is how we heal, how we cleanse, how we shift. Nothing is the before, the middle, and the after. Nothing is everything. Doing nothing is an art.

It’s time we give our nothings their luster back, restore their shine, and award them the credit they deserve. Be curious about your nothing. What does it look like and feel like? How have you described it, judged it, put it down? Can you describe your nothing differently? Can you commend it, praise it, and be proud of it … even on a Tuesday?

Nothings are not only for vacations, or Sundays. Nothings are gifts to give ourselves whenever, wherever, however we choose. Don’t judge, don’t fantasize, just schedule a little something of nothing … and practice.

Practice breathing, practice stretching, practice laughing and reading and watching and sleeping. Practice. Ask your human-doing self to step aside. Invite your human-being self in. Practice being. Practice nothing.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in your bed, in a coffee shop, on your couch, or at boon hotel … your nothing is for you to decide. Notice your breath, appreciate yourself, give your mind permission to rest. Be reminded that you do enough. You do a lot of enough.

There is in fact an art to doing nothing, and it’s time we appreciate its value … because there’s just something about nothing.