Project Reverb prompt: “Coulda woulda shoulda: What didn’t you do this year because you were too scared, afraid, unsure?  Are you going to do it next year?  Or maybe you don’t want to anymore?”

I didn’t always tell the truth because I was too scared.

I didn’t love myself completely because I was too afraid.

I wasn’t “all the way true to the call of my brilliant heart” because I was unsure.

I didn’t always let myself rest or grieve because I was too scared, too afraid, too unsure.

I didn’t let go of old habits of numbing out because I was too scared.

I wasn’t always present, sometimes didn’t show up because I was too afraid.

I didn’t surrender, let go, give up because I was unsure.

I’m going to next year, all of it. I’m going to be my own soft place to land. I won’t abandon myself, and if I do, I will be gentle, forgiving, have a sense of curiosity and humor about it.

Reverb14 prompt: “Loving what is: It’s all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect. What can you love about where you are now?”

I love that I’m still figuring it all out. I love that I’m confused. I love that I’m distracted, bewildered. I love how sweet and loving I can be, how gentle. I love how generous I am, even though it’s hard for me to receive. I love how tender, raw, and brokenhearted I sometimes feel. I love being able to laugh. I love my friends, so smart and kind and funny. I love my body and all that it enables me to do, how it allows the mess and the brilliance that is me to be embodied. I love that Eric and I still have to negotiate our relationship, that after all this time we still don’t have it perfect or right. I love Ringo’s exuberance. I love Sam’s laziness. I love how they balance each other out. I love knowing what I’m doing, being certain, but also not knowing. I love my practice — writing, meditation, yoga, and dog. I love what I’ve been able to accomplish and all the opportunity and possibility still available to me. I love reverbing. I love blogging. I love you.

Reverb14 Prompt: “What unfinished projects from 2014 are you willing to release now? (Regret not required.)”

The unfinished project from 2014 I am willing to release now: Me. Even as I’ve been living more consciously, rehabbing my life, becoming a better friend to myself, I continued to treat myself as a self-improvement project. I worked diligently to become a better person — healthier, wealthier, wiser, kinder, smarter, more sane, more fit, more skilled, better educated, better rested.

And yet, the underlying assumption to all this effort was fundamentally flawed: something is wrong with me. It required that I judge myself against experts, other people’s success, unreasonable cultural expectations, a version of myself that was perfect — a rubric that had nothing to do with self-compassion or friendship.

I thought my approach had changed so much, but really I just shifted from bullying myself for not being enough to smashing myself to bits trying to be better, more. Fundamentally it was the same old, same old.

My life rehab started with the simple wish to “be a better friend to myself.” Not to be a better person, not to become successful or accomplish things and make stuff, but to practice maitri — loving compassion towards the self. I am not a project.

Project Reverb prompt: “Gorgeous: When did you feel beautiful this year? Why?”

When I was practicing and teaching yoga. You’d think I’d be the most self-conscious and judgmental in those moments, since I can be so uncomfortable with how I look and critical of my body, and yet those are the times I feel the most authentic, powerful, appealing, generous, open. There’s something so lovely about a person who shows up just as they are, offers everything that they have even with the cracks and flaws, isn’t afraid of who they are.

When I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and lovingly allowed myself to rest. There’s something really sweet, beautiful about the offering of friendship, the tenderness and gentleness I’ve been able to show myself. In those moments, I can look terrible, so wrecked, but there’s something soft there that almost glows.