Home, Belonging & Owning It
I am officially a San Diegan!Today, I moved fo' reals into my brand spankin' new place in Mission Hills, San Diego. We found an amazing place with a view that'll make you wish you wore chin pads. We can see downtown SD, the marina and even Tijuana from our driveway!For the last 3 months, we've been bouncing around between hotels, airbnbs, family houses and friends' houses, all of which have been great experiences and really fun times, but we never really felt like we belonged in those places. They weren't ours. We didn't own them.Walking around San Diego, people smile, they are polite on the roads, and cashiers aren't afraid to talk you up even if there's a line. The person behind you might even chime in! It seemed like each new person we met as we ran our first-day-in-San-Diego errands was affirming our choice to move here.It's the first place in which Rick and I actually feel like we belong, and that feeling extends beyond the walls of our apartment. I think we'll be here for a while.When I was at New Media Expo this weekend, Chris Brogan did an impromptu session with Lewis Howes in which he talked about the feeling of belonging, and how powerful it can be to drive people in their actions. Though he was talking about the feeling of belonging at the conference because we were all surrounded by "our people" (i.e. bloggers, podcasters and otherwise nerdy online peeps ;)), I couldn't help but relate it to what we talk about here.
YOU BELONG
A lot of us who struggle with self-worth and confidence issues have a great desire to belong in our own bodies.So many of us feel like we're just inhabiting these bodies of ours for a short while until they finally do what we force them to, which will make us skinnier or buffer, and then we will belong here. If we're not that way, we're outsiders. We're cheaters, liars, posers, and worse: failures.What we don't realize is that we all already belong, no matter what our bodies look like. No matter how negatively we think.Belonging is an inherent gift to which you have a lifetime subscription. You don't earn it through starvation or overtraining. You don't belong any less than your friend who's been playing sports her whole life and has a "slammin' body" and killer confidence.You belong because you live and breathe. Just like the blogger crowd at NMX, just like us in San Diego, you are amongst your people because YOU are your people!I can say all that as easy as I just did, but I know that actually adopting that mindset is a lot more complicated than reading it. The difference between people who belong in themselves, and those who don't believe they do, is OWNING IT.
OWN IT
Owning this body and mind that you have right now is confidence, radiance, sexiness, beauty, grace and pretty much everything else we've all been looking for our entire lives."Owning it" is the holy grail of being, allowing you to truly be happy with whatever you've got while continuing to work toward whatever you want.Even if you haven't achieved your goals, you are worthy of Love and acceptance (from yourself, too!). Why why why must you wait to enjoy this body you're in as is? It doesn't mean that you'll have to stop working toward what you want!Your body loves you so much that it is changing for you. It's showing you it cares by transforming for you. Don't wait to return the favor.If you wait for perfection, you will never own it.You will never feel confident. You will never feel accomplished. Imperfection is a necessity - there will never be a time in which you achieve perfection (no one does). If we choose to own our "imperfections" and embody them, the flaws we once saw may become our proudest assets.On that same note, don't worry if you're not 100% all the time; owning it will forever be a work in progress. I don't think anyone ever really owns everything about themselves 100%. If we never had doubts or self-consciousness, we'd probably turn into monsters... or at least no one would want to talk to us.There's no magic pill that's going to let an unconfident person go to bed and wake up owning what they've got. It's a practice. It's mindfulness. It's gratitude. It's action begetting action begetting action until you feel you are doing what you can and then loving the process.Love where you are, who you are and who you will become all at once, and you will own it. [tweet this]That little recipe above really is the key to happiness. It's what I feel now, in this space strewn with boxes and bubble wrap. But I don't just see all the unpacking that needs to be done. I see pot lucks with friends who have driven a long way just to watch Game of Thrones with us. I see going to the store and the clerk actually knowing my name. I see a life I choose in every moment, and unending possibilities in every single one of them.I'm owning this space, and I'm finally home. I want you to be there, too.Come home to yourself. You belong here.
Stay classy Stay strong,Amy