I stumbled upon some new-to-me news this week, and I wanted to share it at both a physical and metaphorical level. Across the world, coral reefs have been seemingly healthy, then they bleach, then they die forever, and the whole process can happen in just a few months.
Stick with me, ’cause this is about your own aliveness as much as it is about the ocean.
“Reefs occupy just 1% of the world’s marine environment, but they provide a home to a quarter of marine species—including a unique set of fish, turtles and algae. Many of these species could be lost permanently, but with temperatures only expected to rise in the coming decades chances are slim that reefs will be able to rebuild from scratch.
‘You can’t grow back a 500-year old coral in 15 years,; says Eakin. ‘In many cases, it’s like you’ve killed the giant redwoods.'” — A Most Beautiful Death, Time Magazine
This faster-than-anticipated dying is happening at a physical level to coral reefs, but it’s also happening at a metaphorical level to our human interiors.
Let’s talk about your interior continent.
Home of the still, small voice within you that whispers wisdom.(See: this blog post and podcast. 1 of the 3 threads that keep you going in the direction of your own depths.)
The knowing that frees you to safely ignore the most prominent voices and ‘experts’ in any given field if they don’t resonate with you all the way to your bones.
The whisper that points to the next step. The never sexy, often-a-pain-in-the-ass next step that will advance your being. Not necessarily your career or your following or your bank account, but your very being. (*Totally* hypothetical example: taking yoga teacher training for the entire month of May even though you don’t actually want to teach yoga. At great cost, and in freaking Texas.)
The interior continent might account for only 1% of your total life, but I would argue that 25% of your good ideas, creativity, clarity, and sense of fulfillment are generated within it. And the tricky thing is…
You can’t hear that voice when you’re scrolling on Instagram. Period.
That voice doesn’t shout over the 43 marketing emails in your inbox. Ever.
It doesn’t pop up and do jazz hands when you’re clicking around on Facebook or playing games or watching Netflix. Not once.
It waits.
Quietly and patiently.
For you to pay attention.
And it’s really, really easy to stop paying attention.
There’s a whole world within you that could go the way of the coral reef population of the world. You could slowly dry up from the inside out, ? in hand, and most people won’t stop you and shake your shoulders to see where you’ve gone.
Except.
Once, a friend was talking about how much she needed more money and so she was going to take a job with a HUGE promotion, only it would require her to be away from home 5 out of every 7 days (she’s a homebody) and drive 4-6 hours per day (she rolls down the window and pants like a dog if cooped up in a car for more than 2 hours at a time), and yah she’d be alone all the time but DOLLARS.
I sat there, listening calmly on a bench outside the Starbucks, and kept asking about her life force. Her ikigai, her soul. Over and over and over, until she heard me and got a little pissed off and realized that I was never going to buy in and say I approved of this new-but-very-terrible plan.
Consider this your shoulder shake.
This is me, holding you gently and looking into your eyes and saying, “You don’t have to live like this.” You don’t have to resign yourself to the fate of a dying coral reef, half stilted and bleaching, with the future of your own vitality hanging in the balance.
You can bet on wonder and delight, on a deeper life and on thriving.
You can reclaim your own interiors from scrolling and never-ending busyness and one more click on the latest content.
Space is how you start.
It’s about making room to pay attention.
It’s about giving the vibrant, vital ecosystem of your own interiors a chance to regain some oxygen.
It’s gently sweeping the detritus of perfection porn, dueling voices, digital noise, and overwhelm out of your being.
It’s about remembering who you were before Steve Jobs decided to make his particular dent in the universe.
Do you remember? Do you remember who you were before you could carry a screen around and escape boredom and despair and deep thinking and empty spots in your day at all times?
Because I do.
I remember, you looked up and noticed things. Weird things and people things and everyday things. And dog things. Definitely dog things.
I remember, you took your shoes off and sat down. Outside. With the trees and the air and the sounds of birds. And snacks. 😉
I remember, you didn’t use to care about algorithms. You used to care about books and clouds and catching the eye of that person you wanted to talk to but were too shy to approach.
The way I remember, you were a little closer to whole.
Space allows you to reclaim your wholeness.
Space is absolutely necessary, today and every day, to do the hard work of knowing what you feel, how you want to live, and how best you can be of deep service to everyone and everything on the planet.
You can reclaim it whenever you’d like. You can turn off the screens, lock your phone away, and step outside with nothing but clothing between you and the great outdoors.
⚡️ If you’d like my help doing that work, Space is *also* a 21-day class designed to help you find more room to live in your own interiors.
Space will help you break up with busy and get a handle on your ? habit.
During the class, I’ll send you one e-mail per day for 21 days in a row, with simple-but-not-easy tasks to complete. There are even options to get gold ⭐️ extra credit on about half of those days, because overachievers are my people. 😉
By the end of those 21 days, your interior coral reefs will be 10-20% more alive.
You’ll also have cut about ***2 hours of phone use per day** from your life if you follow the prompts and play along.
What could you do or become or enjoy or create or notice with an extra two hours a day? What could you pick up or try or make or pay attention to if you weren’t tethered to your phone?
Space will help you find out.
We start on Monday, June 11th, 2018, and class rings in at $69.
?????? 2 for 1 live-in bonus! Once you’ve checked out, send me the name and e-mail address of your partner or roommate and I’ll enroll ’em in class at no extra charge so you can take on the challenge of making Space together. This means accountability with an actual, real-life human you can make eye contact with on the daily!
Whether you buy the class or not, I wish you deep, wide, and expansive space to hear your heart and feel your deepest desires.
With all my love —
Kristen
TL;DR Fight back. Tune in to your own interiors. Don’t let the world and its infinite screens suck your life away, because you are a goddamned treasure and if no one else will tell you that, I will. Today, and any damn time you need to hear it.
??? Space starts June 11th, is $69, and will help you break up with your phone already. Join here.
