We’re ending season 1 on this episode, and I’m taking a much-needed holiday break to align with my own delight and focus on what we’re bringing in season 2. Whether you listened to a single episode or all 17, thank you for joining me on this journey.
My husband and I focused some quality time on rewriting a mission for The Creative Commute, and it is to create a movement of joy. Because that is what brings us joy. We cannot wait for what is next for this, and for everyone who is a part of the movement to move it forward. Enjoy this episode that really digs into the basis of my journey in 2020, and how the word I chose for this year – delight – brought me some unexpected gifts.
This week, Joey and I exchanged closets. We’ve been in this house for eleven years, and he’s always had the spare bedroom. But I just moved in here so I could have the one carpeted room in the house for my office. One, because it’s way warmer in here and also, he was really tired of trying to remove the echoes from my podcast recordings.
Anyway, we’re going through our closets and I decided to Marie Kondo the shit out of my clothes. With every piece of clothing I looked at, I asked “Does this spark joy?”
As guest Kristi Nellor said, if it wasn’t a hell yes, it was a big ass hell no.
And that, my friends, is the gift that 2020 gave me. 2020, the year that came straight from the pits of blackest hell, brought a big gift. It was wrapped in shit, let’s be honest. But it was in there and I was lucky enough – and worked hard enough – to find it.
Backing up.
At the beginning of 2020, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what even was a “hell yes” for me.
That might sound weird, but it’s totally true. True to a point that I didn’t yet understand, but I do now.
My conscious mind had no idea what my subconscious mind actually wanted. What the real ME wanted. There was a complete block there.
But if you’ve listened to other episodes so far, you may know that I choose a word for this year, and 2020’s word was DELIGHT. Which is hilariously ironic. But beyond the 2020 problems with delight, I had this personal problem.
I didn’t actually understand HOW to delight. I didn’t know what truly makes me happy. What lights my fire. Somehow, I’ve been lucky enough to unwittingly find a lot of those things, which is just astounding to me now that I know what I know.
This is going to sound really weird, and I recognize fully that there is a lot of privilege involved in what I’m about to say, because I have not dealt with some of the hardship that many people have this year. Like anyone, of course, I’ve had some disappointments like my husband’s brewery dreams being squelched and not being able to do things. But again, a privileged grain of salt.
However, my truth is that 2020 was probably the most delight-full year of my life. Not even probably, actually. It was.
Now, some people in my life may take offense to that because I definitely didn’t get to see many people I love as much, or experience as many things as I wanted to with them. But the fact is that 2020 was my most delight-full year because I finally understand what actually brings my soul joy.
It was always there. I chased it without knowing it, and mostly shut it down. But in 2020, I committed myself to figuring out what I truly love. And now, I’m learning to lean into it.
We all have an internal compass. Perhaps you were taught this from a young age and you already know how to use yours. But I knew how to use my internal compass about as well as I know to use a real one. I didn’t even know where mine was, let alone how to use it.
Understandably, that has led to some …challenges in my life. Challenges I didn’t even understand were challenges because I didn’t have a grasp on what was missing for me.
So, I’ve been a ping pong ball. My entire life, I’ve just been reacting. Mostly gentle nudges from this thing or that, and occasionally whapped into a new direction. But never understanding where I really wanted to go.
But, in 2020, I discovered what really lights me up. Through a shit load of work and some really happy accidents (manifestations, some might say) I am finally finding my own way.
I am learning how to connect to myself. To truly understand who I am and what I desire and what I can accomplish in this world.
And I now know that this is through encouraging people. Encouraging courage. Encouraging self-exploration. Happiness. Joy. And the delight that can be found within.
Are you feeling some “me too!” in this? You might be like “what is she even talking about?” Either way, I encourage you to carry on with me here.
It’s not anyone’s fault that I didn’t understand who I am. It’s no one’s fault if this didn’t happen for you, either.
Our culture isn’t focused on teaching us how to know ourselves. As toddlers, we’re taught right from wrong. Here, you can have this. Oh, no! Don’t touch that. And then –we’re taught how to please others. We learn how to make people laugh. We learn what makes them clap with delight. We learn to follow the rules. We go to school and learn how to achieve. How to do things correctly. What happens when we don’t.
It’s AFTER all of this that we’re asked what we want. And, even then, it’s not what we want – it’s who we want to BE. We’re asked to find an identity.
But there’s a problem with this if we don’t have a connection to our inner selves. An understanding of what lights us up, what we’re good at, what makes us feel good.
This is deeply embedded in our culture. In fact, we are a culture entirely built on response. From our buying habits to our health, we are a response culture.
We look for outside signals to tell us what to do. We look at the ad, we want the new sweater. We see a job posting open up, we want the new job. When we get sick, we take medicine to cure us. When we feel depressed, we eat 15 Reese’s peanut butter cups.
As a kid, when I was asked, “what do you want for Christmas?” And I pulled out the Toys R Us catalog and started flagging pretty things. With no thought to WHY I might want those things.
t’s funny, because I think my husband could have given reasons. He has a much stronger inner knowing than I do. It makes me think that a great task to have kids do is to have them write a “reason” beside each item they want. Probably a great thing for any of us to do when we think we want to buy anything.
I digress.
Now, there’s actually nothing inherently wrong with responding. It’s natural and good to experience and react. To see and want. Mother Nature crafted our brains to do exactly that. It becomes a problem when we don’t understand the root, the why, the base level. What actually delights your spirit. What brings you true joy.
Looking at a signal and responding to that signal does not bring us joy. Having a bad day and eating a Reese’s are not directly related in the way we want them to be. Yes, you love chocolate and it makes you feel good. But that is not the thing that will truly help you process the bad day.
It’s looking at the bad day and finding a lesson, finding a positive, finding the why behind the bad day, and mentally puzzling at how you can make it more joyful next time. That’s how you feel better about a situation.
Add the Reese’s and now you’ve brought yourself some other unrelated joy, too. Nothing wrong with that.
Those learned responses we perform with mindless repetition? Those just keep us safe and comfy in our well-trodden paths.
If we’re tired of the path we’re on, we’ve got to figure out what brings us joy, purpose and light. We’ve got to stop filling our lives with distractions. Thank you 2020 for unintentionally clearing some of that shit for me.
We have an opportunity. Right now. Those of us who are privileged enough to not be completely decimated and ravaged by 2020, we have an opportunity to make this world a happier and better place for those who have been reamed. But we cannot do it without knowing who we are, what brings us joy, what we delight in, so that we can give that back to the world with love.
So, cool. But how do we do that?
The how is going to be different for every, single person. Because your level of disconnection to yourself is different than mine is different from your neighbor is different from a listener in Australia or Asia.
But I’ll tell you where I started, my very beginning, and something that I keep coming back to. I heard this from a podcaster about a year ago, and oddly enough, I heard a version of it from a leader at my corporate job. I’ve been helping find ways to share it with people across the company, and it has been so cool as we get to see the lightbulbs that are going off for people. It is just spectacular.
>> ME GETTING TO SEE THOSE LIGHTBULBS would not have happened if I did not do this self-exploration. My own journey at work as transformed this year because of this self-discovery. I cannot express enough to you how important what I’m about to tell you is.
Now, there are a lot of ways that what I’m sharing is talked about. I’m going to share version of it that I personally connect with the most, but you can look up other versions of this same concept all over the internet.
It’s based on a Japanese concept called Ikigai. Ikigai means “a reason for being.” The entire idea here is helping people find a direction or purpose in life.
It is an amazing model for figuring out what lights you up, and turning it into good you can create.
Think of it like a triangle
What do you love?
What are you good at?
What does the world need?
What do you love? What an amazing question. That is the heart of this. Sit with that question. Really think about it. Really consider what in the world lights you up? You might know, and that is freaking awesome. I didn’t. It took me almost all year to figure that out.
Whether you look to God or Jehovah or the Universe or yourself or tarot or finding signs in cookie crumbs or a grilled cheese, it’s imperative that you figure out what really delights you at your core. Explore a new way if the way you currently know isn’t working for you.
It’s not in a bag of Reese’s, thought, I can guarantee you that is not what actually lights you up. And I’m the peanut butter queen.
My end of 2020 challenge to you. Start seeking what delights you beyond the reactions of your conscious mind. When you know what that is, you can return to it time and time again as your compass.
Start aligning what’s inside of you with what’s outside of you. Put everything you do through a joy filter. Does this bring me joy? If it doesn’t, chuck it. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no.
Invite more delight. Shoot, make it your word for 2021 if that feels good for you.
I haven’t decided what my word will be yet for 2021, and I’m looking forward to figuring it out, but I’m so glad I learned to delight.