“Keeping up with the Joneses” is an American phrase for a global issue, a mindset that keeps us small, petty and distracted.

It is comparison analysis paralysis. It is one upping a neighbor instead of partnering with them. It causes us to adopt external standards for our family and our personal worth.

Media and companies with fancy marketing bombard us with messages to do or buy the things to be like all the other people who have done or bought the things.

There is literally a show called “Keeping up with the Kardashians.”

Signing the opt-out form to that rat race is a conscious choice, but when the pool you swim in is filled with everyone trying to keep up, it is easy to be pulled into the group think mentality, blindly follow and perpetuate that mindset.

However, opting out is not a cop out. It is a declaration of life on your own terms.

Life is not simply black or white, lucky or fated, stressful or carefree. It is all the shades in between.

True healing cannot happen until we can simultaneously hold opposing truths. The power in the space in between is like the magnetic power between two opposite poles – nonexistent when only one side is held and undeniable when the two are brought together.

When we are able to hold opposites, we sit in a space of tension, practicing and experiencing the complexity that life is. Seeing the good and bad and in between enables us to see our full story.

When I think of the qualities of the feminine, of Yin and of nature, there is an ease to it.

A natural flowing of season to season…of river to sea…of moon to moon.

As women, we are a microcosm of nature as our flowing cycles match the cycles of the moon…as our curved hips match the fertile hills of the earth.

Knowing this, others may expect us to go with the flow – but whose flow is it?

We need to be discerning of who we flow alongside and protect and preserve our flow.

When I worked for a commercial architecture and civil engineering firm, I learned that architecture is very intentional.

As the architect, you have to consider the whole experience of all the types of people who will occupy the space. This includes what they see when they walk in, how they flow through the rooms, where the entrances and exits are, and so on.

It requires a lot of up front thinking because once you start pouring the foundation, framing and putting up walls, it is a whole lot harder to change things.

Lucky for us humans, as architects of our lives, we get opportunities to re-design whenever we want. Sure, sometimes it feels like change is the equivalent of demolishing a perfectly fine building, but what if your intention is to plant a new forest on that land?

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Haven’t ever architect-ed your life before? Don’t worry – that funny feeling is normal. This isn’t something that they teach us in school.

I’m excited to offer you the opportunity to be the architect of your life this Saturday, January 23rd, with Your Word, Your Year, a class where soulful moms get back in touch with their dreams and the things that move them.

January is the perfect time to pour a new foundation for the year.

With intention and a dash of magic, set forth a new design for your 2021. No, it’s not too late.

Learn more here.

“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Why should I care about the wellbeing of Black lives as a Chinese woman?

Why do I read about news in California while living in Massachusetts?

Why would I focus efforts on changing the status quo in a small town when there are bigger problems in cities?

These questions indicate that there is some sort of hierarchy to what is more important, more deserving of attention, more relevant, and more racist.

This is what a lot of people get wrong – there is no hierarchy.

As Dr. King says, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

We are all connected.

People with uteruses are creators. If you can bear life, you have a breathtaking, undeniable capability that the other type of human doesn’t have.

As creators, we are not meant to only bear life – nor do we have to. It is a choice.

However, creators are meant to create.

We are meant to do and become and craft and mold and sculpt and then we are meant to share them. Creations are not our work – although they could be.

But work is too simple of a term. Our creations are our soul’s calling. The manifestation of desires, lessons, and purpose.

As moms, we often think we aren’t cut out for parenting.

We doubt our ability to nurture, teach and raise our children. We believe someone else can do it way better. Someone who is more understanding, less triggered, more emotionally supportive.

We fear we are going to fail our children (if we haven’t failed them already). We fear misleading them, not teaching them the lessons they need to know, not being the role model they need.

But what if it was quite the opposite?

What if your child chose this life – with you?

What if you’re the chosen one?