let them show you who they are ✨

HIIIIIII just before I dive into the juiciest post I'm officially 30 years old and I feel sexier and more flirty and thriving than ever. And I’ve been using that since my birthday saturday with zero shame, why would I not be broadcasting feeling the most sunshiney and wonderful. I said it to a guy I met in Mexico earlier this year, that I’m even more flirty and thriving, and his response was “I’m sure all the canadian gentlemen don’t mind one bit” (he’s from the states) and I went be SO FOR REAL RIGHT NOW as if anyone that knows me is out here thinking i’m flirting with anyone but myself and being wrapped up in my own divine sexy little golden world. Because until someone else has a similar world and wants to mesh it into mine it’s ALL FOR ME. And you just happen to be a witness to it and therefore I hope it inspires you to continue creating your own stunning beautiful world however that looks for yourself too!! I’ve actually never been a huge birthday person and to be honest I don't love planning things so I didn’t do much other than pamper myself and worship the sun but I fully plan on escaping to the beach somewhere once the gloomy Vancouver rain starts becoming more frequent. Turning 30 though feels so fabulous, I don't much care about age it just feels to me like an annual recognition of how much fun I've been having and then how much more there is to have!! What a privilege to be here, you know.. Also I feel 25 so that’s a treat. 

Having three decades of experience under me has me feeling so excited going into this chapter of my 30’s because if you’ve been around, actually wait let me tell you what my best friend who’s known me for 12 years said because it recaps what i was just about to say… in the sweetest best friend birthday message ever she said “if your depth and expansion in your 30’s is anything like your 20’s then ohhhhh ma god watch out world bahahaha (we all know you’re just getting started let’s be real).” First of all, sweetest, I adore her, and second, yes exactly. Looking at the evolution of who I’ve been, who I am and how deeply I’ve come back home to myself just even in the last few years, it feels like an actual treat that I get to continue to meet myself over and over again as I expand and how I get to experience my life through the lens of someone who deeply loves themselves. Healing the fragmented parts of myself that I once mistook for separate has been the greatest gift I could myself and moving into this decade from a place of wholeness and embodied love is straight up sex appeal. Forever turned on by my own existence and willingness to create. And in that creation process I adore sharing my thoughts and experiences through writing so this one I’ve had simmering for a while…

I would say this is one of the more potent things I've moved through thus far so it’s been impactful as hell to have become aware of it and integrate it from this side. I recognized that it’s a very wonderful quality to have and is an indication of deep care that I know so many of us have, however when you hold onto it too tightly it ends up creating more resistance in your own relationship to self and that only trickles into your relationship to everyone else in your world. Maybe this is the greatest takeaway from the last decade but you are doing yourself and others the greatest disservice by wanting them to be anywhere other than where they are at this moment.

And you can most definitely apply this to yourself, actually I implore that you do because it does kind of have to start there maybe before you’re able to give that gift to others. But let’s just talk about both because I can't help but shout it from the rooftops. I personally spent so much of my energy applying this to others I think more than myself, and maybe in some way that was a subtle projection that I’m not quite seeing at this second because if I'm being honest I am quite good at being present with myself. Even in the depths of my self exploration I didn't rush myself out of it, so maybe I put that onto others until my late 20s hahahah and now I very consciously try not to do it to any of us, hooray. What I mean by wanting someone to be anywhere other than where they are is, you know when you’re observing someone's life and their choices and you go holy fk how do they not see it or how come they’re not doing this or I can't believe they’re doing that or, simply anything that looks like not being okay or at peace with the choices that other people are making in their own lives.. It invites judgment.. superiority.. It’s a projection of the ego. And like I said before, I do find that a lot of the time it’s coming mostly from a place of care, most of us want the best for others and hope they will create those conditions for themselves, yet we somehow get wrapped up in a sense of responsibility towards that for a minute or two. Or forever if you never become aware of this. And that is rooted in fear and results in a need for control. Which will reach a point where that no longer serves you. 

And before you let any shame into the equation, don’t ever for a second stop wanting the best for people… we need that energy and love as we navigate the shift we’re currently in, and there’s also room for compassion because that sense of responsibility comes from a deep place where I thought it was up to me to create these conditions for others rather than just putting that energy into creating my own internal state of peace and alignment and trusting that everyone else has the ability to do the same if they so desire. Surely the same goes for you if this is speaking to you. I used to find myself thinking well I can see this for them, how do they not!? And I'd want to show and tell them all the ways in which they could shift so they could have what they were after, but what that does is skip a whole lotta steps of embodiment and experience required for our nervous system to stay calibrated with what we have the capacity for. I used to genuinely expend so much of my energy trying to help people see something they either weren’t ready for or didn’t even want to see, and if you’ve found yourself in that space before then you can probably agree that all that does is invite a whole lotta resistance into the dynamic. But being aware of a pattern, a circumstance, a narrative or concept, and trying to explain it to someone so they understand and comprehend it before they’re even aware of it is like explaining fractions to a kindergartener. Honour them where they are and allow life to guide them while you continue on your own path. There’s no superiority or hierarchy to awareness, it’s just a matter of experience, curiosity and interest in examining our own lives and depending on where you are in your journey, people will be in similar arenas or entirely different ones, but why spend our energy trying to convince others to be in ours when they’re doing just fine in their own… And okay, maybe you can see they’re not in fact doing fine but first ask yourself, well who am I to decide that, actually.. And then if it’s someone close enough to you that you care about and can express a concern from a place of love while still allowing space for their autonomy, go nuts but from what I’ve experienced up until now, you can pour all the care and love in the world into someone and want for them to create something different for themselves but unless they have that same level of desire, your effort often only invites a resistance in which will have them going in the opposite direction. So boundaries or repositioning myself is where I find more ease and flow. 

When I started letting myself honour where people are at in their journey and recognizing that we live from fragmentation until we remember our wholeness, it allowed me to simply observe others and let them show me who they were, and then decide the proximity at which I hold them at. Because the only thing we actually have control over is the access we give others to ourselves and therefore how we position ourselves around our experience. Meaning that you might have deep deep love and care and history and relationships with people, AND you can allow space between them because your values and priorities don’t align. I’ve said it before but it takes courage and expansiveness to be able to hold multiple contradictory truths at once. And once you start to really dive into your own experience and explore your entire being, become aware of the ways in which your experience has shaped you before you remembered your original form, you don’t get to decide how someone navigates that for themselves. All we can do is be so bold in our own expression and allow for others to come along if they choose to, while discerning whether or not they add to your experience or take away from that expression you so intentionally curate.

I feel like I could write a novel on this but I do hope it makes sense in what feels like such a concise explanation. I recognized myself in someone recently, the version of me who used to expend a lot of energy wanting differently for others and getting truly frustrated over where someone else was at, which was just different than the way I would personally carry myself with the awareness I’ve learnt to integrate… and the way I responded to it was just with compassion and understanding because I’ve been that person, AND I’ve been the person they were frustrated at……so naturally I just giggled on the inside and held patience and understanding on the outside while offering a perspective shift if they wanted to look at it differently somewhere along the way! And the peace that comes with that is vaaaaaaast I tell ya. So carry on in your ways if you so desire, OR remind yourself that we’re actually all one and if you’re wanting someone else to be anywhere other than where they are, go inward instead… it’s a whole lot sexier to allow others to navigate their own experience while you focus on the way you’re creating yours!!! I suppose this also comes with an abundance of trust but there’s no need to teach others what you’ve learnt with any force unless it’s invited in, because if it’s not, you really have to trust that life will absolutely show them the way!

Enjoy your week and don’t forget to light a candle or something cute for fall equinox today as we transition into introspection through the balance of light and dark. How nice is that???? I’ll be letting this in while simultaneously mourning and grieving summer for the next 7 months thank you very much. Love you endlessly!!

xx Sarah