I was telling someone I recently met (virtually, on LinkedIn—thank you, internet) that writing this newsletter is, by far, my favourite part of everything I do.
This is where I take the privilege (thanks to you) to be a little unhinged in my writing—to let myself wander into the messy parts of life and share something that might stir something in you.
Some days, I’m scared I’ll rub some of you the wrong way because, well… I’m not always diplomatic.
But then I think: why even bother doing this if I’m simply talking on the surface?
So with that, consider this your warning for today’s edition. :p
In today’s email
- Do you hate your life or the circumstances you’re in?
- How to get out of a cage that is your life.
- What can pollute your mind?
Something to consider
- Just because you dislike your life’s circumstances doesn’t mean you dislike your life. It’s not the same.
Takeaway: Learn to separate your circumstances from yourself.
How to get out of a cage that is your life:
This part from a book I read echoes in my head, even though I finished it months ago:
(Spoiler alert from ‘May Be You Should Talk To Someone by Lorri Gotille)
The author is a middle-aged single mother and finds herself stuck: feeling lost, unfulfilled and frankly, overwhelmed.
It’s not easy being a single mother of a six-year-old boy, having gone back to school to study.
Despite the difficulties and the hard times, she knew this is what she wanted. So she doesn’t mind the all-nighters, running from her kid’s school to her own and then to work.
It’s a grind, for sure. But also worth it.
She made a great therapist!
Only she didn’t feel right. She feels stuck, troubled and done for. Something isn’t right. She doesn’t feel joy as deeply as she used to. She’s snapping at her son, who can pick up very easily that something is off with mommy.
Amidst all of this, she tells her therapist at the beginning of the therapy sessions:
I feel like I’m sitting in a cage.
…No matter how hard I try, I stay stuck in there. I scream for help, but no one can hear me.
Cut to the end of the therapy, in her final session, she tells him:
I had no idea I could walk out of the sides. It was open on the sides all along. I just couldn’t see it.
Profoundly deep, but deceptively simple, right?
If you’re thinking something must’ve changed, then no. Nothing changed. Not one thing.
The circumstances remain the same. More or less.
But when we heal and the voices in the head disappear, something else changes: your perspective.
It puts you in control of your life.
It frees you from your self-limiting beliefs.
And gives you the greatest gift of clarity, not just in your work, but also in relationships.
All it takes is:
> Awareness
> Acceptance
> Realignment.
You don’t build empires in chaos or anxiety.
You build them in calm.
Quote of the edition
The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind’s proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions.
– Epictetus
(Taken from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday)