RESILIENCE STARTS WITH KNOWING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF
For most of my 20's I was On the Road - Far East Asia was my Mexico. (Jack Kerouac as spirit guide)
Kerouac had jazz and beat poetry; I had The Beastie Boys and Dostoevsky.
With deep dives into Zen Buddhism and Russian literature, my inner exploration was just as alive as my outer one.
Teaching & traveling in Asia provided endless time for reading and writing - the main attraction to life abroad.
I'd been stuck behind a desk in an "air conditioned nightmare" - stealing a description from my role model, Henry Miller.
Miller up and left his life in New York choosing Paris in the 1920's as his landing pad.
My outer nomadic life ended soon after my 30th birthday.
The inner one is alive and well, however.
Recent deep dives into Human Design and The Enneagram are living proof.
This is the why I choose the word "exploration" when describing myself.
If you had to choose a few words to describe yourself, what would they be?
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Think of 4-5 words that describe the core pillars that sustain you - words that speak to who you are and what makes you tick.
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Another one of mine is "connection".
It's important for me to be connected to people but also to make new connections and prioritize existing ones.
As an independent contractor, relationships are my social capital - two of my current clients are from connections made ten years ago.
To Be Magnetic calls it your Authentic Code (company, podcast, app).
What acronym might your code get?
Starting with “connection” and ending on “exploration”, I landed on CASIE.
Following C is A for “admiration”:
It's important for me to be seen as smart, funny and competent.
I love to be admired.
Recognition is important too, but not as important as the admiration of the people I care about.
I spent way too much of my life worrying about what other people thought of me – even people I didn’t care about!
I wish I no longer cared what people think.
Unfortunately, I do.
Fortunately, I’ve let go of the people I don’t care about.
S for “stability”:
Things don't always have to be the same, but I need a few things to be stable to feel safe - house, car, job.
For sure this has to do with getting older – I didn’t need much beyond my journal and a good book when I was younger.
I love when Ethan Hawke tells Winona Ryder in Reality Bites that all they need is a“couple of smokes, a cup of coffee, and a little bit of conversation”.
“You and me and five bucks.”