31 Days of Truth: Let Yourself Be Your Why. Let Your Truth Be Your Guide

Dear Jen,

You’re on the bus ride to the airport and starting your journey home. Journey—that’s what this is. That’s what all of this is. NH is so beautiful (you just looked out the window. 444 on the car next to you. Angels. The Divine. They’re there. They’re always there we just have to pay attention and invite them in).

And just like that you lost it—writing started to get me to think about doing and with my cell phone so accessible and the Internet even more accessible I just went on email and Voxer and looked up Illuminate and Mike’s schedule and talked to him. I started thinking about dates and plans and to do lists and just like that I was in the thick of it.

Why is it so hard for me to just be? I can’t be the only one. No wonder America is tired—as my friend Rose says.

Tired—for once I have received plenty of beautiful, nourishing rest (thanks Jackie for being the best hostess and having the most comfy guest bed)—and yet I’m burning myself out with my thoughts and my actions and my addiction to busy.

I’ve been thinking about the month of May. Last year I did 31 days of surrender and it was necessary—surrender is always necessary, but last year it was critical—with all the uncertainty of my pregnancy and delivery and meeting and raising and nursing a new human. My 1st time having a son.

Lately the call is to be and so I started to feel the idea of 31 Days of Being (which spoiler alert I think is a topic for a future book).

But then last night I had a wake up in the middle of the night download about TRUTH.

Karen Kenney says, “If it’s not truth it’s theater” and I spent the past weekend at a live event observing all the theater I saw around me.

Yet I know I can be a part of this “theater” and in my resistance I don’t want to feel pressured out of doing something that feels right to me.

So I’m left with some questions:

What is real?

What is truth?

What is alignment?

FOR ME.

Right now I’m feeling a resistance to being online and on social media.

I’ve developed some really great relationships online and grew some relationships because of this platform yet I am so repulsed by its role in my life right now.

And I find that sometimes/often, truth is in the contradictions of life. (Side note: originally I Freudian slipped the word contraction---maybe truth is in the contractions. There is a whole birth and rebirth metaphor coming up soon anyways--spoiler alert)

I love being a mother and I hate the exhaustion.

I love connecting via Instagram and the internet freaks me out.

I love living in Charleston and I miss home.

Truth—what is it anyway?

I just went back to my phone because I can (and damn it: I’m addicted) to look up the definition.

It’s defined as a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

True?

One definition uses true as a verb “bringing into the exact shape, alignment, or position required”.

Alignment—that word jumped out at me right away.

Finding our truth is finding our alignment.

Yes!

Finding our truth is finding our reality.

If it’s true and real for you, it’s true and real. Period.

Our perception is our reality.

But here’s the kicker: what is OURs?

It is hard to know and understand and uncover and decipher what our reality is.

I know what I perceive is true for my parents.

I know what I perceive is true for my husband.

And the people I follow on social media

And my children

And my colleagues.

But what is true for me?

How do I find/uncover/ discover my truth and voice and reality and alignment?

How do I trust the truth and voice within?

How do I tune out the noise and the news and the opinions and get quiet enough to hear the answers within me?

How do I stay present in a world that values distractions?

Kate Northrup says, “the world doesn’t need you busy, they need you present”.

So how can I get and stay present?

And how do I make all these ideals sustainable in my everyday life?

I certainly don’t have the answers and I know one thing for sure—-my truth evolves with me and that’s okay.

When I wrote The Language of Transformation, I discussed and discovered a process called 1. Keep it real 2. Clear the stuff 3. Do the things

And recently my brother interviewed me about this book and process on his weekly show. He asked how can listeners “keep it real” and make these ideas tangible in their lives and I responded I don’t know the answers—but they do.

Some days I find truth in journaling and other days it is in voxing with my peeps. Sometimes it’s a walk in nature and other days it’s in the laughter of my children. Some days it’s the space between—the transition—the messy middle—the rock bottom where the truth lies.

I don’t have a prescribed system or process and I’m choosing to be okay with that.

In fact, scratch that—I realize that I do have a system—we all do. It’s an internal system. A guidance system. Intuition. Divine blueprint. It all comes down to my feelings, vibrations, and alignment. And giving myself the space, grace, and permission to listen and feel and process.

So that’s what this month will be about for me.

Deep, generous listening as Karen Kenney says—only this time that listening is to the voice within me.

Conscious, intentional vigilance of my own thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

Permission to tune out distractions.

Permission to release that which doesn’t serve the purpose of this practice

A dedication and devotion and commitment to myself and my truth and my alignment

Compassion and forgiveness for the process

Grace for its imperfections

And strength to work through the stuff that inevitably comes up when committing to this level of heart openness

Spaces to share when it feels right with whom it feels right—free of guilt and conflict

My sister calls these things “out loud breakdowns” and I feel synergy and support in their loudness and process

Being held and embraced by those who’ve got my back. They can’t help me rise if I don’t let them see me fall. There is an intimacy in truth that makes me squirm with discomfort but which I know will set me free.

Truth. Beauty. Surrender. That’s what I called my most recent birth story and maybe that’s what this is.

A year into motherhood (times two)—maybe it’s time for my rebirth.

And maybe this is all 31 days of surrender again after all. Because maybe truth is just surrender and beauty and truth.

Surrender all the doing and the excuses and the stories and the lies

Surrender to something deeper and higher and more profound within myself

This whole process feels like a recovery too—just as my last 31 days of surrender was. This recovery is to recover my truth and voice and story and soul.

You’ve got this Jen. I’m proud and supportive and grateful for you and this journey and this process and this life.