What If I Told You . . .
A call to courage
What if I told you
nothing is wrong with you. You are just trying to survive. You have always been just trying to survive.
What if I told you
every decision you’ve ever made is ok. You were doing the best you could with the evidence you had. You have never been wrong. You have never been bad. You have never, no matter what people said, no matter how heavy the boulder of life felt on your chest, been unworthy of love and belonging. Love and belonging are your divine inheritance. You have just been collecting stories and characters. Bright patches for your quilt.
Every decision you’ve ever made has been perfect. There are no mistakes. Just different paths for getting to the same place. Look back and see how the storms and hinterlands, the wilderness and ocean bottom led you here. To this crossroads. There is nowhere else to be. There is nothing else to do. You have never been bad. You have always been just right.
What if I told you
“The cave you fear holds the treasure you seek.”
~ Joseph Campbell
The thing you are most afraid of facing is the portal to your most elevated existence. Would you press your hands into your shaking thighs and leverage the courage to stand and meet it?
What if I told you
there are other people out there just like you. Waiting for you. Hoping you’ll show up. And sit around their campfire. Tell them your story. Decorate night smoke with your song. Free them from bondage. Whisper a latch open with the timbre of your truth. Remind them they’re ok, too. You’ve been there. They were never alone.
What if I told you
You can have everything you’ve ever wanted. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted. You are standing at the threshold. The key is in your hands.
What if I told you
Your dreams are not accidental. Your dreams did not press into the topsoil of your psyche by mistake. Your dreams are not joking. They want you to know that they are no joke. They would like you to stop laughing at their audacity. At your expense.
Your dreams, my friend, want you to know they have no intention of clearing out. No matter how many times you try to drown them. No matter how much scrolling or binge-watching, shopping or gossiping, drinking or smoking, online dating or empty sex you have. You can let them haunt you or you can let them grow you. The choice is yours. I’ve tried both ways.
What if I told you
Their reality does not have to be your reality. It is possible to lift the velvet curtains of other people’s expectations, to peel back the eyelids of someone else’s picture of your life. To take center stage and wrap the audience around the ring finger of your truth. The crowd will stand and cheer. They will weep and know. They will recognize themselves in your story. And know that it is their story, too.
Your life is the medicine. Your life is the work of art they walked miles through inhospitable desert to behold. Your story, yes, your story, is waiting to be told. Take the pen back from all the people, systems, and beliefs you lent it to.
Take the pen back.
Hold in your shaking hands.
And for the love of god…
Start writing.
Every effort we make to reclaim our story is an investment in the future of theirs.^