020 | What’s Right in Each Moment?
7:56 AM, Saturday
My Front Porch
Dear Beautiful Humans,
I am sitting on my front porch, wrapped in a jacket and blanket sipping coffee from my new mug I got at Ghost Town Cafe last week in Telluride.
Isn’t it fantastic?! It reminds me to go fast AND slow. To work hard, but also find time to breathe deep and be still.
I’ve been sitting here reading letters and cards from some of my dearest humans. What a gift to have their presence and words in my life. Even now, their words remind me of important things, of truth, of who I am.
The past week has been filled with so much, I feel like I could write ten letters sitting here. I had a lot of mini-thoughts this past week you can read on Instagram. (I'll link them all at the bottom.) But the thought rising up in me at this moment is something Oprah said. Yep. I got to hear Oprah and Cheryl Strayed have the most lovely, honest conversation last week. It was really special.
It struck me how on one hand, I was a little in awe thinking, “WHAT?! That’s Oprah! Like, right there!” And then on the other hand, as they started to chat, I thought, “She’s a human, just like any one of us in the audience.” It was cool to feel that truth.
Oprah said something I’ve been rolling around in my mind a lot. She said,
“I’ve never set out to change the world. I just try to do the right thing in every given moment.”
That stuck with me from the moment she said it. What is right in this moment? This moment right now. Moment by moment.
I feel like there is something so massive, yet subtle to what she said ... that each moment is asking us to show up in some way, and that if we show up for each moment, do what’s right in each moment, give whatever we can give in each moment, somehow, that ends up changing the world.
I found myself in a space earlier this week where I was about to interact with someone I’ve been having difficulty with. I hashed it out loud with my friend as the person approached, and as I was speaking, I remembered that everything is a mirror. (A whole other massive thought to unpack another day! Haha.) But in that moment, I was gutted and humbled, because I realized the very things I struggled with about them, were things I struggle with about myself. My internal judgment of them, was really a judgment of myself. Ooph.
So I said, “Okay, let’s approach this person differently (which is also approaching myself differently) than I have been.
What is right in this moment?”
Instead of writing them off, I gave them my full attention and talked with them. I asked questions. I engaged instead of avoiding. It was so simple, and yet so powerful. I saw them as a human, a person ... a person who has a story and quirks and things they enjoy.
We didn’t talk about anything particularly deep or profound, and yet, the experience was so powerful to me that I almost burst into tears after we parted ways. I realized I had been subtly dehumanizing them in my mind and making them less than by judging them. Who am I to judge someone on why they are the way they are? I don’t know the whole story. I don’t know where they’re coming from or what they’re dealing with or what they’ve gone through. But I do know this moment I am with them.
It’s not on me to make a judgment about who they are, but to love them in the moment I am with them as they are.
That is it.
And you know what? I would hope someone would approach me that way as well, and it’s also how I need to approach myself, because that’s the way we move forward. We do right by each other in each moment. Love each other in each moment. As each of us navigates our internal and external world and figures it out, we love each other ... and as we do that, somehow we change, we see, and maybe, we even change the world.
Here's to each moment,
Shel
This woman right here is fierce. Her name is Connie, and she writes music under the name MILCK. I started following her a while back on Instagram when a friend put her on my radar, and I had a chance to hear her sing and chat with her at Mountainfilm last week. Her song, "Quiet", has been playing in my head on repeat.
