I Am Not the Best at Anything

I am not ‘the best’ at anything.

To say that isn’t a very smart ‘marketing strategy’ on my end.

We are supposed to claim our expertise.

To exude authority.

To share things with the certainty of a herd of elephants.

To lay out a program with the exact 5 step approach to save your life.

There are so many voices out there, so many smart, convicted, and confident voices.

And they all have valuable things to say.

We love certainty. We love authority. It makes us feel safe. It makes us feel like if we mess up, then it will be someone else’s fault and we won’t have to hold the pain of it.

But pain is a teacher.

We love the idea of a big Daddy in the sky that’s going to save us from all our indecision, failures, and mistakes.

Every time we give up our own responsibility to an authority figure and/or we rely on someone else’s certainty to guide us, we get a little dose of Daddy, and that can feel great, until that Daddy turns out to be another flawed human being, and we are left back where we started, unsure and wavering.

The truth is narcissists exist. So do humans with ill-intent, people who are unstable, humans who have been hurt deeply and are playing that out by hurting others.

There are people who have hidden their soft vulnerabilities so deep down, behind so many layers of armor, they don’t even know or have access to those parts of themselves anymore.

There are people who will take advantage of you and people who you should not and cannot trust.

There are plenty of people who put material gain far above their alignment with Life. There are plenty of people who most of us wouldn’t blame one bit for doing this.

I would never want to send my daughters out into this world without a healthy dose of skepticism, critical thinking skills, and much encouragement to trust their hearts and guts when it comes to if a person is safe and trustworthy or not.

Our world rewards people for being heartless robots. The tougher, the better. The less sleep you can get, the more you can get done. The less needs you have, the stronger you are. The less empathy you have, the higher you climb.

The more you can play into and identify other people’s wounds and not be affected by it, the more money you can make.

On one level, our modern world breeds insanity.

Why do you think we are getting sicker and more mentally unwell every year?

When our world is filled with so much darkness, unthinkable cruelty, and torture, how can we be soft and sensitive? How can we have faith?

When we need to work 40+ hours a week just to keep our homes and put food on the table, how are we supposed to feel the backlog of grief building up or not be tempted by people selling different ways of being?

I believe the only sane response to this, however, is to double down on our humanity. This is why softness is so courageous.

Our humanity does not need more certainty, but more curiosity.

Our humanity doesn’t need more authorities pontificating from podiums telling the peasants how it is, but more true listening.

We need more humility and willingness to do things differently than we ever have.

We need more discernment about where we place our attention and who we give our attention to. And recognize that this is where our power lies. The power doesn’t come from the people out there hellbent on doing harm, it lies within us.

We need to recognize all the places we have misplaced our power, placed it in authorities, gurus, collective societal programming, and take it back into our own human hearts.

We have to stop making material wealth the measure of our success, but instead, make success about how willing we are to meet life with an open heart.

Even writing that feels a little cliche, but it’s actually one of the most important ways to bring sanity back into an insane world.

Can I soften in the face of this?

Can I allow Life to teach me here?

Can I allow this thing to touch me?

Can I feel it, all the way?

Can I let myself be led by something much bigger than myself?

Can I let myself open… even here?

Can I stay in the tension of opposites, indecision, wavering and not knowing?

Can I stay in and with the uncertainty I feel, even if a knight in shining armor offers me clear path forward, so that I may find my own way forward?

Can I resist other peoples’ certainty and wait for the click of my own certainty to lead?

Can I receive my Life as it is?

I am not the best at anything, because ‘the best’ is subjective.

‘The best’ for you, depends on you.

The best diet.

The best supplement.

The best practice.

The best teacher.

The best advice.

It all depends on you and where you are at on your journey.

Your journey is yours and no one else’s. It cannot be compared to mine or your friend’s or that-girl-on-instagram’s. Your circumstances are yours and yours alone. For better and for worse.

We cannot know another person’s journey. It is theirs. And to pretend that we know is actually quite insulting and what I see as quite broken in the wellness industry.

So many people espousing solutions and no one willing to sit in the tension of the symptoms and what they are teaching the individual, on their individual journey.

I will not tell you the ways you are broken so as to tee you up for the ways I can fix you.

I will not align with systems that suggest anything other than each human being as a child of god, because, to me at my point on my journey, this is what sustains humanity.

I will not sacrifice my peace, wellbeing, physiology, my children and therefore my future children’s well being or physiology, for material gain. This is what is being asked of me at this moment.

And, I am deeply flawed and 100% human. I am learning, growing, expanding, and changing always. I do not have anything fully figured out.

One thing I choose to settle into is that Life is sacred.

If nothing else, I make it sacred. I make the not knowing sacred.

I build my life and my choices on faith in this Life and in humanity. Not in a bypass-y way that makes my eyes sprout hearts for every single person that comes across my path or blinds me to the atrocities of the world. (Although, on a good day, one of my practices is to see all humans through the eyes of God.)

It doesn’t mean I don’t doubt. It doesn’t mean I know what you should do. It doesn’t mean I have answers. It simply means I choose to make what happens to me in my life, sacred. I choose to give my life meaning beyond my small self.

Not because it has to mean something, but because devotion anchors my nervous system. It is functional.

Faith quite literally gives us a capacity for wholeness when without we feel broken, fractured, and torn apart.

I don’t know anyone who has gone through something truly heartbreaking and come out the other side ok who didn’t lean on faith and the idea that something mysterious and bigger than them is going on.

Faith and devotion allow me to keep my attention on love, sacredness, joy, and belonging in the midst of the suffering around me.

As a song I love to sing to my girls as they’re falling asleep goes:“I am grateful to be. Breathing, heart beating, joyous and free. Even though hard times are all around me, I am still grateful to be.”

It doesn’t mean we bypass the hard times or we pretend they aren’t happening. For me, devotion literally gives me nourishment as I feel the darkest corners of my psyche and experience.

Devotion fortifies me, so that I may face the world with an open heart and feel what is there for me. Faith connects me to something bigger than myself so that I can withstand and alchemize more than I could on my own.

We all need a little extra space in this crazy world. Devotion gives me that space. And it is a choice I make every day and every moment.

I do my best everyday to BE the thing that I am teaching and transmitting. This is what I am committed to.

That means my “business” and money isn’t the most important thing and it never will be.

Service to Life, even when that looks like making less money or having less “followers/engagement”, is.

And it starts at home with me, always.

It isn’t important for me to look extra special, I am special to my family and my children and that is enough.

We are all standing on the shoulders of giants after all. There really aren’t any new “teachings” or “codes” at this point that you can’t access by getting quiet and listening to the whispers of your very bones and sitting underneath a tree and opening your senses and listening.

I will point you back there, to your bones, to your ancestors, to the trees, to your pain and your wounds and the lessons they are teaching you.

I will point you back to your symptoms, to curiosity, and to your own wisdom.

I will share my experiences and stories of my life. I will reflect back what I see when it is appropriate.

I will share the things I have studied, researched, the patterns in the collective I see and that I have contemplated.

Maybe these will ping something for you to search out and experiment with.

If we work together or have any sort of relationship, I am sure you will teach me and I will teach you.

“We are all just walking each other home,” as Ram Dass said.

Stop and really be with and listen to the people around you tomorrow, you’ll see that the world is filled with teachers and wisdom keepers and they come in all shapes, sizes and the most surprising packages.

God is coming through each experience, person, tree, mountain, animal you interact with, you just have be open to receive it. You don’t have to trust them. You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t even have to like them.

The Buddha said the next Buddha will be the sangha (community).

This isn’t some special community or commune, but literally the people around you, right now.

Listen, open, be receptive, and be discerning at the same time. It’s not about the personality in front of you, it’s about seeing the child god within them and within you.

The Matriarch understands that different situations require different handling. She knows her worth and her power doesn’t come from someone else or fitting in, but in her devotion.

May we see each other in our power.

May we remember our own.

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As an offering related to what I’ve been writing about here I want to highlight a special totally free 3 day event held by Siri Birk, called EARTH BODY, over the eclipse portal, March 13-15. There will be embodiment practice led by Siri each evening and a guest speaker each morning. I will be speaking on March, 14th at 10am PST.

You can sign up here: https://www.siribirk.com/earthbody