Who do you want to become?

Hello, lovelies!

I’m writing to you today from my back porch, enjoying the sunshine and the warm 73 degrees. 

I’m super excited to share the 4th quarter learning experience. 

 If you have a deep desire and a commitment to hearing your own voice, speaking your truth, expressing yourself, or just taking a stand, our adventure together is going to be for you. 

It will start November 7th with the new moon and end on the full moon on the 23rd of November. It’s a four-week, personalized experience. 

If you’re interested, join the tribe on Within (U)niversity here.

I’ll send out the first prompt on November 7th, and then weekly on the 14th and 21st.

We’ll complete our journey with a group connection on November 23rd. 

I’m not sure if it’ll be a live stream, workshop, or a community call, but we’ll be able to share space and hear each other’s voice in real-time.

Our learning journeys are always both a personalized experience and a community experience.

If you are interested in building on your voice, then this is going to be for you.

We’re going to create a space where you can first tell your story as a sacred task, and then close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

What is both exciting about this and also a little scary, is we’re going to use a tool called Voxer.

It will work in a couple of different ways. 

If you want to do this on your own because you’re feeling like you need less socialization, are craving silence, or need more time and space for you, then I recommend you take the weekly prompts and journal on them. This means no direction interaction.

If you’re feeling a little bit braver and have a little more courage, you can share your stories using Voxer. You can choose to either be paired with a random member, share with me privately, or open up to the entire community and receive the support and feedback from all the lovely folks in Within (U)niversity. 

I will be hosting this both on the platform in Within (U)niversity and then directly on Voxer, so if you have questions about the technology, don’t let that hold you back. We can make this as easy for you as we need it to be.

However you choose to engage with or (relate to or?) this experience, it’s important to understand that this isn’t a judgment about where you are now because we need to see ourselves not as broken or needing to be fixed but as people who are continuously evolving. Like a rose bush. You wouldn’t really judge a rose that hasn’t bloomed. It’s just not its time, yet.

So, when it comes to your voice, wherever you are—whether you’re struggling to speak up or taking a stand for something—either place is where you’re supposed to be. 

About four or five years ago, the metaphor that really illustrated where I was with my own voice was the feeling of having hands around my throat, choking me, telling me to be quiet every time I tried to speak up. That’s how visceral the fear was about sharing my honest opinion.

My intention for this quarter and as we move into 2019, is to be bold about my teaching. To be consistent about speaking up. To show up for you. This is still about my voice, but it’s not at the same level of struggle or fear as it was five years ago.

My voice and my need to speak my truth, to connect with my truth, to share my truth, will continue to unfold. It’s like I’ll circle back, pick up a fragment from a few years ago, and then bring it out into the outer world.

Wherever you are, don’t judge it. 

You’re on your own unique level, and that’s the invitation.

Join us right where you are. 

Whether you join us or not, I’d like to share some insights that I’ve gotten from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear to help you with building good habits and breaking bad ones. 

(Build these things into the framework of your learning experience, if you’re joining us.)

One of the points that James makes as a self proclaimed expert in behavior change and habit formation is that you really need to have new social norms. The reason why Within (U)niversity exists is because when I went through my transformation—isolated and alone—it was lonely; I don’t want that for you. Within U is a community where you can normalize the behavior that you’re growing into. Where you can have a new tribe and a new culture that supports the changes you’re trying to make. 

Here’s the thing: If you’re faced with a choice between holding on to the habits you want and being alone, or having the wrong habits and being with a group, you’ll be wrong with a crowd rather than being right by yourself.

Bottom line is: you’ll be more effective if you stay with your new tribe to normalize the behavior that you’re trying to implement; it’s easier and faster than doing it on your own. Trying to do it by yourself takes so much more courage and bravery.

This is a habit, an identity that you’re moving into. Join us either on the platform or directly on Voxer if you’re part of our email list.

The reason that you want to have a new tribe or a new social norm is because when you’re with people who believe in the same type of behavior that you’re trying to build, it’ll be socially reinforced, and that bolsters your internal identity. 

Start with changing the environment on two levels.

1. First: Cultivate new friendships, a new tribe, a new socially-engaged circle, whether it’s with us in Within (U)niversity, or within your own group. Maybe do this with a new buddy. Within this new group, help normalize this new behavior of giving yourself permission to speak up or taking time to reflect on your inner voice, on your inner guidance. Take a stand for something, like what I’m doing now: showing up and teaching boldly. That’s my intention. Find a new environment within which you can build and nourish a new culture. 
2. Secondly, I really want to encourage you to find a physical space where this habit is going to live for you. In 2012, this is something that I did for myself. I knew that I didn’t have a group to go to. I couldn’t find anyone that was going through the same thing that I was but I knew that I wanted to build this behavior of taking time for myself, to listen to my own voice. Not the voices around me, not what everyone else wanted me to do but trusting myself with what was right for me. I did by transforming our dining room into my prayer room. It was the place where I found stillness, the place where I went into contemplative prayer for myself, where I found silence, so that I could hear the silent whisper of my own heart; and I built that into a daily habit. I did my repetitions in that room, in that physical space. So, even though I didn’t have a different community to help me generate this new identity I wanted for myself, where I could count on myself, to trust myself. I spent time with myself in that room and this is the idea that James both shares in his book and that I encourage you to do if you’re taking this journey with us. Carve out a time and a new physical space where you’re going to build this habit of speaking your voice out loud, or sharing your story, of identifying what it’ll look like for you to be brave.

Don’t focus on the goal of speaking up, of telling your side, of sharing your voice. We’re going to focus on the action and the repetitions, instead of the outcome.

Answer the prompts, show up for that and if you don’t join us, I want to leave a little jewel with you for you to start to explore this side of how to build a good habit and break a bad one. 

Answer the question, “What’s the story you tell?” And then don’t believe your own story you tell yourself about your behavior because your habits are just learned solutions to a problem that you faced repeatedly through life.

That original habit isn’t the optimal habit to solve the problem. If in my past I solved the problem of someone telling me I wasn’t smart enough, by not speaking up, or by just going to learn more information, then that’s one of the habits I built. But I’ve recognized that more information does not lead to wisdom; and so, that habit of seeking out more information isn’t the optimal solution.

Your original habit isn’t the optimal habit. It’s just the first one you used to solve your perceived problem. First you recognize what the rationalization is. What’s the story you’re telling yourself about the behavior? 

If you’re at work and it’s your habit not to speak up in a meeting the story you might be telling yourself is that no one gives you space for that. Recognize the rationalization of your own story that you’re telling yourself, and don’t believe it. 

Know what your story is and then ask yourself, “Who’s the type of person you want to become?” “What’s the type of identity you want to build?” Start with that identity and then do the behavior.

For me, the person that I want to become more consistently is the person who shows up for you and teaches you what I believe and shares the latest in science, psychology, and behavior change, so that you can grow closer to your own heart. 

What I want for you is you to live more fully in this life and actually move closer towards the promise I offer you, which is to Love Being Human. Not by squashing your humanity, not by … what I used to try to do is be less human … but really to accept it and then strive towards that optimal possibility that you have latent within you. Like the seed that has the potential to be an oak tree.

This journey, and all the quarterly journeys that we take together are the soil that you’re planting seeds into, to grow into the identity that you’re becoming.

I hope to see you either in the (U)niversity or in my inbox when you accept the invitation to stay connected below. 

Thank you.