Introducing my Light
Welcome to our new space! I am so happy you are here!! <3
Hello, my friends!
We’ve found each other, and I cannot contain my excitement about it! :)
To start things off…… I feel like I used to genuinely enjoy and was pretty good at small talk, but now I find it to be a little challenging and unnatural. Over the past few years, I have really just had to come to terms with the fact that I am simply a “big talk” kind of person. This has definitely become both an uncomfortable yet expansive reality of mine. What I mean is that this “personality trait (?)” has led me to feel stuck, frustrated, and sometimes cray-cray in some instances. It has also led me to feel my most curious, wise, disarmed, creative, and also cray-cray (but in the most awesome way) version of myself in others. The more I have practiced actually embracing this part of me, the more I have realized that deep, raw, big talks really just light me the f up. They are what make me feel most connected and in-tuned with my-Self and all the fellow beautifully complex humans I get the honor of truly, deeply learning from. This is a big, big part of me that I believe completes my essence, and a part of me that I now cannot unsee. Lucky me ;)
With all that off my chest, I would now like to actually introduce myself in a way that feels realest to me! My name is Lauren (she/her)! At my core, I am objectively probably one of the messiest and chaotic human beings I have ever met. I can confidently say that my main constants in life are my twists, turns, flips, summer salts, pirouettes, tambés, pas de bourrées, glissades… you get the point (I also used to do ballet back in the days). Subjectively, I am the most imperfect perfectionist I have ever met. There are still so many parts of me that I am trying to radically accept, or I guess in my words, become friends with.
I used to be extremely predictable when it came to life and how I chose to live it. However, as I have surrendered to the evolution of my brain, body, and surroundings, I feel like I have lived through hundreds of versions of myself. Who I thought I was a few months ago is wildly different than who I think I am today. How I feel about myself now also looks different than it did a few minutes ago. Every second of each day, I am in a working relationship with my-Self and the world around me. In every new version, I try my very best to honor and respect whoever that girl is in the moment as I know that we will one day outgrow each other. I look back on many of these past versions and usually cringe thinking about how naive she was about everything she thought she knew. I sometimes laugh or feel great sympathy for the perception she had about herself and the world around her. There are other times when I look back and get re-inspired from the wisdom she learned and leaned on as well as the discomfort she courageously walked into and through. Regardless, I have gained so much from every chapter of my life and am honestly so thankful for how drama I was in each one of them. The more fully I embrace these versions, whatever that might look like (some have been really challenging versions), the more I get to actually experience and understand my-Self.
I am a biiiiig thinker and a biiiiig feeler. I truly don’t know which one takes the cake because they both demand so much d*mn attention all the time. I feel like I came into life like this (especially considering how dramatic and loudly expressive I guess I was when I was a young baby child). Overtime, as I’ve interacted more with the world and navigated people and society, I’ve slowly lost this biiiiigness. When I started my journey of unlearning in therapy during my senior year of high school, I slowly began to live my life a little less in my head and a little more in my body. At 26, I feel so much closer to my authentic drama (“A.D.” is going to become my new acronym haha), and I am now constantly finding myself leaning on her as my main confidant (love you, girl!).
My life sometimes feels like one long conversation, and if you have spent any time with me, I feel like you would know what I mean. I am a literal walking processor. Some may wonder if this is exhausting or energizing. The answer is both (depending on the day, the chapter I am in, and environmental context). Just as any extreme can be wonderful and powerful, it can also be very, very toxic. My writing is a wonderful example of this (as I have recently discovered). My writing journey started off in a little journal I got in high school as a channel of communication between myself and my spirituality/higher power. It was my prayer book turned into optimism book, turned into gratitude book, turned into my processing book, turned into my everything book. Writing has become my release and is has helped lead me back to my wisdom, intellect, intuition, and superpower… my “inner light.”
My inner light is my compass that has guided me to my closest people, my soulmates, New York City (one of my soul’s homes), my passions, my newfound counseling career path, and so many other loves. In my everyday life, my inner light also guides me to those extremely inconvenient and spontaneous routes back to my apartment because I would rather take a wanderlust-y scenic journey back. It also leads me to get into random, deep conversations with strangers on the street. It also leads me to beautiful spots where I might stay until the sun sets and journal. The more I follow my light, the more I notice and feel most connected to all the magic around me. When I live in my light and become it, I can easily recognize my inner sparks (my little kid excitement) and glimmers (cracks of hope and optimism) that transcends me into states of immense gratitude and peace.
My light has a personality of her own, and as I have gotten to know her more and more, I have realized that she is both the me I was born into the world as and the me strive to be more like. When I fully embrace her the way she has always deserved and longed to be embraced, I feel biiiiiig and bright. I see, feel, and hear life in a very intimate, comforting, and special way. Life is warmer, clearer, and more colorful. The lens in which I get the pleasure of seeing the world through allows me to find new, fresh, and creative perspectives that help me notice the beauty in the little, seemingly insignificant things and moments. Within mundanes, challenges, chaos, and pain, my truest joy is finding the light and inspiration in every situation and sharing my discoveries with others. Being a biiiiiig feeler, my favorite feeling ever is experiencing life for the first time - childlike wonder and awe. My inner light has truly been my healer (perfect example of me being sooo drama lol).
The more I have learned to truly love this light, the more I have really gotten to know my passions and inner big “WHYs.” The more I have audaciously lived and loved, the more I have realized that life is way too short to not live it boldly, openly, curiously, and “non-judgmentally.” To me, this is my foundation to growth and avenue to greater purpose. With so many biiiiig feelings and thoughts, writing has evolved into a tool to validate, understand and express all the little, valuable parts of me. Now, in this current version of myself, it feels pretty right to utilize my words as a new kind of opportunity to continue creatively strengthening community (so important to me!).
It feels a little uncomfy to use the word “gift,” but my light really does feels like such a gift in my life, and I feel excited and eager to share it more with others. I am optimistic that by listening to my wisdom and continuing to be generous with it, I will not only be able to create safer and deeper connections with others but get the honor of learning about their inner lights. I wholeheartedly believe everyone has one that is uniquely wonderful, special, inspiring, and healing (yes, healing). My hope for myself and others is that as we move through chapters of our lives, we feel inspired to grow into the most limitless, fierce, hopeful, biiiiig, bright, and creative versions of ourselves, especially during times of deep pain and hardship.
Transparently, I do not have any sort of game plan for this page. One of my goals is for this to become another extension of how I am trying my best to live my life - in the most honest, messy, and chaotic way. To me, this endeavor kind of represents me figuring it all out as it feels like a large blank canvas. Two of my biggest priorities here, as in life, are safety and solace (“S & S” hehe). With that said, as a master perfectionist, if my relationship with writing ever gets to the point of feeling toxic, I will gracefully, compassionately, and respectfully take a pause (the way I speak to myself really gives this girl is obsessed with therapy… not, not true!). I will also utilize this space to embrace and share my imperfections as the sovereign way in which I want to authentically connect with other humans. This might also come in the form of imperfect grammar, spelling, and especially learning/unlearning (NEVER a perfect way to do this!!). So, this will not really be a space in which I will solicit advice… just as I strive to not really be an advice-giver kind of therapist, I will also be a non-advice-giver-blogger (ok wow, so does this mean I have already made this part of my identity? :/ ). Surprise!! - I have zero right or wrong answers to life (I’m just a girl!). Maybe I’ll give some suggestions or tentative questions? We’ll see.
I understand this channel of communication is more of a one-way conversation. Everything I write about is from my perspective (of course, I have no doubt will also be inspired by wisdom I have gained from others). Like therapy (at least how I believe all therapists should be approaching therapy), I will do my best to practice considering how my intersecting identities shape my worldviews and how my experiences may differ from others’. How I process life looks entirely different than how you process yours, and that is beauty and potential I see here. We are all humans doing our best. We are on our own journeys and have the privilege of owning our individuality and inner lights. It is how I believe we all get to learn from each other, grow into better relationship-builders, and navigate our own purposes (whatever that looks like and means to you). With that said, I invite feedback, questions, and any sort of wisdom that you feel empowered to share with me (seriously, please. I really don’t actually want this to be a one-way conversation). All-in-all, the feeling I really strive to evoke here is just a biiiiig, warm (virtual) hug.
I am SO excited to see what kind of magic we can cultivate through this new venture. I appreciate everyone who is still reading and supports me (and all the messiness), as always.
The last thing I would like to leave with here, and lead with always, is how incredibly valuable each one of you are. Even if you feel far from resonating with this statement, I need you to know that if I have confidence in anything (anything at all) it is this: you have a uniquely wonderful inner light that is valuable beyond comprehension. The world craves and needs more of you and the inspirational gifts you already possess. With fear (not necessarily fearlessness… imagine a life without fear), I am right here trying to navigate this wild life with you.
With love and light (← still deciding how I feel about this lol),
Lauren <3