Opportunities

I am twenty days into publishing daily morning musings and if I told you how many opportunities are coming my way right now, your mind would be blown.

I know that because my mind is blown. And surely, if something’s true for me, it also has to be true for you, right? That’s how human-ing works. I can safely operate on the assumption that anything that works for me must also work for you. And I’ll be right every time…right?

Oh, wait…

But anyway, that was a tangent based on my aversion to that sneaky and persistent misconception. Just because something works for you, it doesn’t mean it’ll work for me (for example, deadlines, to-do lists and rigidly scheduled days—“universally-accepted” productivity boosters—result in me doing less, not more).

Likewise, just because something works for me, it doesn’t mean it’ll work for you (I’ll refrain from suggesting that everyone publish a daily essay about their thoughts and feelings. I will, however, suggest that everyone sign up for a Human Design reading so they can learn what actually works for them).

But back to the point: I’m twenty days into publishing consistently and doors are already opening.* Twenty days in! How’s that for fast returns?

One such door that’s opening is the opportunity to offer a workshop to a friend’s community.

“It’s a diverse group,” she told me, “But they’re united in wanting to hear interesting, motivating ideas. So share an interesting, motivating idea and they’ll be happy.”

“Great,” I said, enthusiastically agreeing to do it. I love interesting, motivating ideas. I also love public speaking. Surely I can find an interesting topic and wrangle it into workshop format in the next seven days.

Surely!

On Saturday morning, as I mapped out some possibilities, one particular idea kept standing out. It’s about the “stress-vulnerability model of mental health.”

Basically, this model tells us why some people struggle with their mental health and others don’t.

It makes it clear that we all exist on a continuum, that there’s not a group of “mentally ill” over here and a group of “mentally well” over there. There are just humans trying to do their best to have a rich and rewarding life.

I want to start the workshop by sharing a foundational belief: I believe that a fulfilling life filled with frequent experiences of bliss, gratitude and awe is available to all of us.

All. Of. Us.

I don’t believe that many of us will live in a perpetual state of peace and joy or that life won’t feel really hard sometimes. I don’t support toxic positivity and don’t think anyone should feel pressured to be happy and perky all the time.

But contentment? Ease? Fulfillment?

Yep. I believe that’s available to all of us. 

I simultaneously believe that we’ve been handed the wrong map to get there. Cultural conditioning is real and scary. And our conditioning revolves a lot around chasing wealth and status. Is wealth great? Yep. Status too? Mm-hmm. Personally, I want both. But putting them ahead of everything else? That’s a recipe for disaster.

So I want to talk about how people can use the stress-vulnerability model to find their personal well-being formula. How they can begin to crack the code on what works for them.

I want people to leave the workshop with a sense of hope. I want them to feel inspired.

Then I want them to take aligned action.

I want them to start paying attention to what feels good and to do more of it.

I want them to start paying attention to what feels bad and to do less of it.

I want them to trust their inner wisdom over what society is shouting at them.

And I want to remind them that maybe inner peace matters a smidgen more than the number in your bank account.

Or maybe it doesn’t and I’ve got this all wrong.

I guess we’ll find out after the workshop!

*”I’m twenty days into publishing consistently and doors are already opening” - this is me taking artistic license. I want to believe that my writing is opening doors, which is why I wrote it that way. But a re-read made me realize I wasn’t being impeccable with my word. The full truth is that opening my mouth and trusting people with my hopes and dreams is what’s opening doors. This daily writing practice: it helps with so many things. But these opportunities? They’re coming from my relationships, not my musings.