Artwork: Enrico Castellani
Good morning beautiful people,
Showing up in your inbox week after week can get a little challenging when I listen to the voices inside my head criticising what I share or when people unsubscribe. But most weeks, I love writing this newsletter, so for today, I will keep going, conscious that I make no mistakes sharing my loving words in a world that is so divided.
There will always be the ones in favour who are supportive, the ones against who are critical, and the ones neutral who are diplomatic. And through the practice of presence, we become conscious of those different voices, whether they are actual physical people, or voices in our head that we took on at some point in life.
Meditation or presence, enables us to stay with how we feel and question it: somehow trusting the timing of our actions and our readiness to jump into the deep unknown. As Theodore Roosevelt said so beautifully in The Man in the Arena (made popular by shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown in her book Daring Greatly):
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
So what if there truly were no mistakes in daring greatly, REGARDLESS of the OUTCOME?
What if stepping through the fear of failure and trusting our call to rise was actually a doorway to success?
We put so much pressure on ourselves because we naturally want to succeed. But too much pressure is crippling, and disconnects us from trusting our timing to act.
I am going to invite you to pause, taking a deep inhale, feeling your feet on the ground, and breathing out, anything and everything you no longer need. You are exactly where you need to be, right now, otherwise, you would be somewhere else. So why not accept all of you, adding compassion to the parts that need to be tended to, and remembering that the only way out, is in.
May we all dare greatly feeling guided and connected to a wisdom and a life force that is beyond our wildest dreams. And If you feel called to dive deeper, I have recorded a new meditation called Guilt Aside, because let’s face it, guilt also stops us from daring greatly.
Do let me know if you have any questions and don’t hesitate to share this message with whoever might need to read it.
With Love and Respect,
Vanessa
