On wishing things were different

Hey there, Reader!

Have you ever found yourself wishing things were different?

This past week, I found myself saying some version of that to myself. In doing so, I was creating dissatisfaction with everything around me.

Just a few weeks after my Grand Teton backpacking trip, I couldn’t have felt further from the peace I experienced while hiking.

Rather than just accept my irritability and unhappiness, I decided to dig into what’s going on underneath.

What exactly do I want to be different? Why?

In the middle of excavating those less-than-enjoyable feelings, I did what many of us do. I opened Instagram, because who doesn’t love a good doom scroll while spiraling?

And that’s when I saw Andrea Gibson had died. Pardon me while I sob over a stranger on the internet.

But someone that shares words as intimate as theirs doesn’t feel like a stranger. They feel like someone that sees and loves all the unlovable parts of all of us. I poured over their writing, watched their videos and enveloped myself in their quotes.

I realized something while doing that: I’m in a season of uncertainty in multiple areas of my life. Instead of turning towards wonder or curiosity, I’ve been living in judgment, stress, and resistance to everything. I’ve been wishing things would be different—though if I really pushed myself, I could name very few things that I would actually change.

I know how the hard stuff shapes us. I coach people through that very process, and yet, I defaulted to wishing it away.

Sometimes, how we relate to the issue is the issue. That reminder alone can change how you move through it.

In case you aren’t familiar with Andrea and their work…

Andrea Gibson was a spoken word poet. Their work will touch your soul if you let it.

Their wife, Meg, shared that some of their last words were,

“I fucking loved my life.”

Inspirational and aspirational to the very end.

Below are a few quotes from Andrea’s writing pulled from their Substack, poems, and social media. These are the words I needed this week. Maybe you need them too.

“To be in a state of not knowing is to be open and receptive, and to be otherwise is very often to be shut down. As I got older, my particular brand of rightness often landed me in judgment, criticism, and blame—which are quite miserable places to be in (regardless of how addictive our culture has made them.) I was never really happy being right. I was rigid, stressed, critical and vulnerable to the shame I felt whenever I was wrong. And most impactful was the fact that my rightness wiped out the curiosity, wonder, and awe that was the pillar of my joy as a child.”

“Once we admit we are not sure where life is taking us, then we are ripe for transformation,” wrote Mark Nepo. I now understand that to not know where I am going is my only true compass.”

”The harder I tried to sever ties with the person I had been, the more I found myself embodying that self. Only when I began to offer Old Me compassion, kindness, and love did a more permeating sense of freedom begin to emerge. When we hate ourselves, we suck all of the air and light out of the room of our being. And nothing can grow without air and light.”

“You keep worrying you're taking up too much space.

I wish you'd let yourself be the Milky Way.”

“You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy.“

“In any moment, on any given day,

I can measure my wellness

by this question: Is my attention on loving,

or is my attention on

who isn't loving me?”

“Commit to loving yourself completely.

It's the most radical thing you will do in this lifetime.“