Culture…At It Again

“I want you to notice one thing. When you go against your nature to serve your culture, you freaking hate it.”

-Martha Beck

Last week I said that this week I would write a newsletter about emotions and how they play a major role in our lives.

And I did.

(Actually I wrote 4.)

And it was hard. And it didn't feel good. The opposite of flowy.

I have learned so much about emotions in the last few years that I thought it would be easy.

It certainly wasn't for lack of knowledge or even passion about the topic. But the words were just not coming.

Yes I put some words on paper but they felt forced and just didn't resonate with me. Too technical and academic, not enough heart.

So I tried harder and wrote more. I went for walks to try to clear my brain.. I meditated and I did the things that I thought I was supposed to do.. but then I would sit back down at the computer and just blah... no flowy goodness.

I considered changing the subject but then I worried people would see

me as unreliable and scatterbrained (some of my biggest fears). So I pushed through.. and when that newsletter didn't resonate, I wrote another on the same topic but from a different angle. And I pushed harder and gathered data from my books to try and make it sound more impressive, more socially acceptable.

Ding. Hold the phone.

Thats it right there.

"More socially acceptable''- aka "pleasing to my culture".

There I go again.. trying to please my culture over my nature.

I realized that I have been fighting against my own nature (what I actually want to write about) to please my culture (what I feel like I should write about).

I will share one small, but mighty lesson on emotions today and here it is:

All emotions are rooted in either fear or love.

"Doing the work" is the journey of making less decisions in your life based out of fear and more decisions in your life based out of love.

Today this work felt hard because I was acting out of fear (fear of judgement, looking unprofessional, not being taken seriously).

But then I changed to love, and allowed myself to write whatever felt good in my body..and this letter, the one you are reading right now, zipped out of my pen in about 45 minutes. Minimal editing needed.

Giving ourselves the freedom to do what our nature wants us to do, what we yearn for in our bodies, what feels exciting and flowy and good... that's the work my friends.

"Doing what feels good inside our bodies". . It feels almost radical to say- doesn't it?

And it is. Living our lives in alignment with what our true nature wants us to do is perhaps the most radical thing we can do in our lives.

But also the most worthwhile.

Because our true nature is always rooted in love.

Loving ourselves deeply enough to listen to what feels good in our body and

honor it over the voices of "not enoughness" ringing in our heads.... that's the work. The work to live our truest, most authentic lives.

Do you want to do it with me?

Business Updates!

(What I actually wanted to write about)

We are getting closer to the launch of our first project so I thought it was time to share (or at least tease out) the work that we are doing at Let's Change the Conversation Productions, LLC.

We are a collective action organization that empowers women to live a life in alignment with love, authenticity and joy.

Because look what we've accomplished as women when we lived in a culture that made us feel like crap...

Just imagine what we could accomplish if we didn't.

(Men- please stay! We want need you on our team. We can't do this work without you. And also Women's Empowerment benefits you.. it's kind of an "all rise together" situation so double win.)

Our first project is launching very soon! But for now, you can stay updated by signing up for our monthly newsletter below.

It's called The Not Tonight Project.

First conversation we want to change?

We decided to go simple and tackle women's sexuality..  Stay tuned!

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Say love my friends,
Caitlin