It's Friday the 13th, and day 55 of Collin and me in the 5am club.
Fifty-five days of voluntarily waking up before the sun.
Honestly, I'm as shocked as you are.
This morning, what started as a stretch turned into a twerk.
As one does at 5am.
Which led to my new Apple Watch telling me I don't have permission to do that.
Anyway…
Somehow, moments later, I was telling Collin I wanted to write a story about accountability.
Don't ask me how we got from twerking to accountability.
That's just how my brain works before sunrise.
More specifically, a story about how more people should lean into the feeling of accountability.
Which, I've since learned, isn't technically a feeling.
It's more of a heavy cocktail.
Which works out great, because that's the only kind of heavy cocktail we're having around here.
But you know the feeling I’m talking about though.
It’s that drop in your tummy when somebody calls you out on something, and before your mouth can even start arguing, your gut already knows they’re right.
Like, excuse me…whewt did you just say?
Trust me, I get it.
But that feeling is a flashlight.
And most of us spend our whole lives making sure that flashlight never turns on.
We keep the thing in the dark, where we don’t have to look at it.
The habit we know we should quit.
The thing we keep doing that we swore we were done doing.
Here’s what I know now: what keeps you in the dark holds you back.
The beautiful part is what happens when you stop running from it.
Once you start to see it, once you start to feel it, once you lean all the way into the discomfort of the truth, that’s when true change actually starts.
Not before.
The discomfort IS the door.
What helped me:
A little introspection.
A little retrospection.
What i recommend:
Just being honest with yourself in the quiet, before anybody else gets the chance to tell you what they think you should or shouldn’t do.
And I am not going to pretend it’s pleasant. It’s not. Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom before you finally look up and say, nope...that’s not who I want to be.
And sometimes it’s quieter than rock bottom.
Drinking less.
Working out more.
Complaining less.
Proactively looking for the beauty in your actual life, and the blessings you DO have, instead of keeping a running list of everything you don’t.
There really is abundance all around us.
It was never hiding.
The question is whether you’re searching for it, or doing that thing that helps you not think.
Tomorrow I’m 5 years alcohol free.
And we have a little nugget dropping tomorrow to prove what clarity can build.
Stay tuned.
42, orange and blue, i love you
Shawnee