113 | Unlocking the Doors of Understanding
NEW SONG "waking" IS OUT!
Very excited to release the first song of 2024! It is a vocal instrumental track called "waking". Out now on Spotify and a few others places. Out everywhere soon. More on the song in the letter!
Hello beautiful humans,
Being human is about being here, REALLY being here. Otherwise, what's the point? But there are a lot things that sometimes get in the way of fully living our lives. A lot of these things we're not even aware of.
Sometimes we self-sabotage ourselves because of past trauma and trying unconsciously to protect ourselves, or we let fears shrink us down and become small, or one of the other hundreds of things that is hard about being a human happens.
There are endless things that make really being here a challenge at times.
Here's the thing, no matter what happens, so long as there is air in our lungs, there is always something we can DO about it. But knowing what to do becomes clearer when we have awareness about what is going on or why.
Awareness unlocks the door to understanding.
Understanding opens the door to compassion and action.
Action is how we walk through the door and live life. Action is also how we change our lives and choose our lives.
I guess you could call a growing awareness akin to waking up, and throughout our lives, we are in a continual process of waking up to things, which is what the song "waking" is about.
Although the song has no lyrics, I wrote it late one night as an expression of the feeling of waking up to my life I am having in this season. We will experience this feeling many times in many ways over the years because we will never be done growing and becoming more aware and hopefully more present.
Photo by Ashera Ennikl
Honestly, I feel like I've been passive in my life for a while, or at least, I haven't been as proactive as I want to be, or maybe I'm just ready now to be more proactive. Whatever the case, I'm realizing how I've been letting life just kind of happen to me in some ways, instead of actively choosing my life.
I suppose I'm learning to engage in and enjoy the process again.
Over the course of our lives, we go through endless iterations of being stretched and growing. We forget things, we remember them. We lose touch with people, we connect again. We have great habits, we develop bad habits, we develop good habits again. We fall asleep to things, we wake up to things.
We're in this continuous cycle of remembering in some ways, but we also discover new things, we learn a little more, we grow a little more.
Example, I feel very rusty writing these letters write now. I'm finding my voice again and feel like these letters aren't that great, but also, who cares?! I'm SHOWING UP and DOING IT. I'm writing something each week, and that simple act is adding some kind of deposit in my spirit that matters.
So whether you are feeling really awake to life, or you're waking up to some things, may you bring understanding and compassion to yourself, and may you truly live.
Sending love,
Shel
