There will come a time when you have to jump a gap.
A chasm between who you are now, and who you’re becoming. A jump so large you can’t say for sure you’ll land on the other side, or if it’s going to be as soft a landing as you wanted when you get there.
But you have to try.

Often, staying true to yourself takes a lot more effort than abandoning your truth for the sake of ease. 
Comfort is only the illusion of having what you want. It masquerades as success. It lures you into a false sense of complacency.
I talk about this balance a lot; of finding that sweet spot between contentment and truly enjoying where you're at, and pushing yourself, whether that's out of your comfort zone or into physical discomfort. It's important to walk this line.

Good things can feel scary and uncomfortable too, you know.

Hope can feel risky because we never know when what we hope for will dissipate, suddenly becoming something else. Sitting in the presence of good circumstances and feelings can be as challenging for some people as sitting with the bad, just in a different way.

When pain feels unbearable, the answer is still love. When the world around us crumbles into chaos, the answer is love. When darkness becomes all encompassing, enticing us to collapse into it, to get lost in it, the answer is still love, because love is more powerful than darkness will ever be.

But love has to be chosen consciously.

The world feels different than it did before 2019. The political landscape has shifted, technology is accelerating, information is becoming harder to navigate, and many people are finding it more difficult to anticipate what comes next.

What’s real, not AI?

What’s true, not misinformation?

Who can we actually trust?

Faith over fear. Mind over mountain. Heart over hardship.

They're easier statements to speak than put into action and embody.

However, the fear, mountain and hardship are exactly what give life its spice. It's important to embrace discomfort, whether that's in your day-to-day living, or a single significant project, challenge or experience.

My story starts with a plethora of injuries.

Not the dramatic coma-in-ICU variety, but a slow, creeping dysfunction from years of abusing my body and shrugging off the warning signs that all was not right.

When I was 26, my body finally said no more. It made me finally pay attention.

The biggest gift you can give yourself while you’re alive… is to live.

The temptation in modern day civilization is to die before our end. To give in to distraction, to give our power away to the future and past long before fully experiencing the present as it comes. To withdraw instead of attack, and diminish instead of expand. 

This is death, only of a different sort.

What does it mean to be genuine?

First and foremost, it means being honest with yourself. It means being unashamed of your humanness… imperfections, questionable choices, and everything that makes you wildly, beautifully you. Being honest enough with yourself to own all of it and stand proud in who you are, regardless of who the world tells you to be.

Life is becoming increasingly hectic, disjointed and fast-paced. You may have days when you wake up feeling less than stellar. Tired. Uninspired. Overwhelmed. Questioning how you got to this current state and where you’re going from here. And why. Why is life so complicated?

When life feels chaotic, it’s easy to lose your footing.

With a few simple tools, it’s possible to bring yourself back to centre.

Where do you imagine yourself five years from now?

It's a question asked so many times that it feels cliché. If it wasn't such an important one, I wouldn't be repeating it. The image you hold in your mind’s eye is who you become, so in that light, this question is a critical one.

Whenever I talk about striving or reaching, I always get kickback.

It's a risk we take in pursuing this personal growth journey that we may one day reach a time when things have become too focused, serious, strict, routine and regimented. This is when our own good intentions begin to work against us.

There will never be a shortage of ‘shoulds’ in our lives. Those things we should be doing to be better, healthier, more productive, more ‘perfect’. Meditate, drink the right amount of water, filter your water, eat organic, write affirmations, walk miles a day, take vitamins, listen to motivational podcasts, read books, do yoga, stretch, cold plunge and sauna. These are all powerfully beneficial.

The process of living feels imperfect more often than not, so it’s easy to constantly judge ourselves or hold ourselves up for comparison against what appears to be perfect. Remember, the journey is meant to be messy.

The mess, the fluctuation between emotions, complications and success, is how we learn, grow and expand. A linear life never made for a good story… it’s the times the straight line went scribbly that we laugh about later. At worst, there is tremendous growth in that chaos.

Even when the world looks entirely black and white, even if it looks like there is no opportunity, you can create something. This is your power as a human, you are a creator. This world is far more grey energy than it is black and white unchangeable substance. You just need to know how to work with it.
Start with this perspective shift

Creating change in your life can be a difficult endeavour.

Changing a lifestyle, routine or pattern has an element of personal growth and discomfort inherently built into it. Sometimes change looks like a small tweak, other times like a tornado ripping through your life. Sometimes it’s wonderful, sometimes it’s terrible, or it lands somewhere in between. Either way, it pushes you to adapt and reinvent. The question isn’t whether change will happen.
It’s whether you will meet it with resistance — or use it to build your power.

Being patient enough to wait is a superpower.
However, waiting for the perfect moment, until you feel better, or to know it's all going to work out is exactly what will keep you stuck and stagnant. Emotions have a way of running the show before we realize they've taken over and are deciding our fate.
It feels like the right thing to do, allowing ourselves the grace to back off the pressure a little bit. This is absolutely a necessary skill to avoid burnout or harm to your health. Forcing productivity or progress never produces positive outcomes and can, in fact, be detrimental to the process.

Let's quickly address the political state of the world we currently live in.
No, not to choose sides, or debate, or amplify the fear and other emotions surrounding everything that's going on. Instead, I want to acknowledge the uncertainty that many people are feeling. We can't control the direction the world takes, or who steps into power and how they use that privilege, for better or worse. But we can control one thing.

Consistency without immediate reward. This is the tough part of learning, growing, or jumping to a new identity. It feels awkward to begin, slow to progress, and suddenly...
Doubt creeps in.
Am I doing the right thing?
Am I capable?
What will the future look like?

Whether it’s fear of failure, or doubt in our abilities, seemingly insurmountable circumstances, or myriad of other psychological barriers we can put in place for ourselves, many of us are used to never fully publishing our lives before we die.