DITC September 01 2023

Hi, Welcome, Bienvenue, Let’s Dance,

Ethan Hawke | TED Talk | Give yourself permission to be creative

“It’s a thing that worries me sometimes whenever we talk about creativity, because it can have this kind of feel that it’s just nice, you know, or it’s warm or it’s something pleasant.
It’s not.
It’s vital.
It’s the way we heal each other.
In singing our song, in telling our story, in inviting you to say, “Hey, listen to me, and I’ll listen to you,” we’re starting a dialogue.
And when you do that this healing happens, and we come out of our corners, and we start to witness each other’s common humanity. We start to assert it. And when we do that, really good things happen.
So, if you want to help your community, if you want to help your family, if you want to help your friends, you have to express yourself.”

Here we are in the month of April.

How does it feel for you?

Outside, spring is upon us.

New life is blossoming! Sun’s blazing ever warmer! The igloos in which we’ve hibernated are melting!

Yes yes, that’s all fine and wonderful. But how are things feeling for you, on the inside?

I want to start here as a place of ponderance because our ability to hear and follow our inner truth means we express ourselves in uniquely on the outside. No one has our inimitable flavor combo of intuition -our sometimes little sometimes loud voice of knowing- therefore, no one will respond to some other something/somewhere/someone as you will.

This is cool and important!

In fact, I think there’s no more important act of self-nurturance than to simply pause for an extra heartbeat in any situation (be it a tough conversation with a loved one or an ecstatic moment with the sunrise) to listen to your inner workings:

Dear me, what’s going on in here?

Dear me, what are you feeling about what’s going on out there?

All day, every day, we walk around with a microphone in our hand pointing outward:

You, Email Inbox, tell me what I should respond to today.

You, Podcast Host, tell me what I should feel interested in today.

You, News Reel, tell me what I should be concerned about/afraid of/anxious over/depressed by today.

You, InstaTock Influencer, tell me how I should look and dress and feel deficient today.

Isn’t it exhausting to hold out our arm like that every waking hour? And I won’t even get started on how these external stressors nestle themselves into the backseat upholstery of our subconscious minds, hitchhiking their way into our dreams… My right arm feels achy just writing this.

I think it’s high time we hug the mic in nice and tight and give voice to whatever the heck is going on within us. Let our girl sing for a while. What does she sound like today? Tonight? What is the quality, the texture, the volume of her voice? What is her little or loud message, right now?

(This is where you actually pause, for like 30 seconds, and hold your invisible microphone up to your heart,

-I thoroughly enjoy placing the skin of my right palm on the skin of my chest just over my heart; feels so gentle and nice-

and you’ll breathe in slowly and out just a beat slower,

and you’ll remember that you are here

and you are you

and you are whole

and you, right now, are all that ever needs to be.)

Let us honor that an exquisite wisdom lives within. Let us

And, with that, let’s venture forth into a celebration of life and feeling good. Let’s!