This past month has felt like a dream — a dream so grounded in reality, I’ve truly been floating.
“I’ve learned that life’s a current and you just gotta catch its flow… your flow.
I feel like I’ve been coming undone and coming into my own lately. Maybe it’s the new birth year, the spring awakening. But I’m living in it. And with it. With myself. Wholly, fully, wholeheartedly, bare. Sometimes you’ve gotta come undone to really find yourself.
And I’m flowing like hell right now.
When you operate from a place of heart center, focus and clarity, and really find the time to meet yourself there, I’ve found that everything we’ve ever wanted or needed is already inside of us. We’ve just gotta wake up to it, allow it to come out of us, and let the life and music and poetry flow out of us.”
– 04/14/22
I am overcome with so many emotions right now. I don’t really know where to start. But I’m really happy. So much has amounted to who we are today. The journey I’ve taken — the inner soul searching, the stripped comfort and sense of home and family, the odd jobs that break you, make you, and force you to grow up and learn about yourself and grow confidence, self-reliance, and hope.
There are so many songs inside of me I wish to sing, to share, to write. Your story’s already written — it’s just a matter of getting it out, as a friend told me. I feel so much, embody so much, and give so much. It feels like my responsibility, my gift, my creative urge to share. What a shame it would be to not honor yourself the opportunity to do so.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on the seasons in my life, and I realize just how pivotal each moment was in order for me to become the person I am today.
2021 was a pretty sh**ty year, if I have to be honest. I was stuck in a job that robbed me so much of my time and energy, upholding extra responsibilities, wearing many hats, carrying a team, being a voice, all while trying to maintain my peace and sanity. I had an incident occur that changed the way I would walk and view this world. And the attachments I had held onto while I was at a time of so desperately craving and needing genuine support when I was giving so much of myself to others, had come to an all-time high.
When I look at myself now and the ways I have transformed my life — the ways in which I hold space, hold attachments, create boundaries, and prioritize my own needs and peace and sanity — I’m proud. I’m proud of the ways I have stood up for myself when I let all those unnecessary attachments go. I’m proud of the ways I said no and explained myself as clearly and openly as possible, knowing my intentions are true and good in my heart. I’m proud of the ways I trusted myself — always — to follow my heart and my intuition, to listen to the ways I moved towards or away certain things or people in my life, and to listen when I was truly ready and willing to fall into something.
Growing up with a single mom, I never saw what a relationship looked like. I secondhand took after her example, learning to fight for and fend for things on my own — to be gracious and kind, to lean on yourself, to always give yourself grace in times of turbulence, uncertainty and change.
For most of my life, I’ve so hungrily chased this place of internal self-reliance, independence, and purely chased my joy for myself and only myself.
I always knew I was capable of feeling so much. The ways the world moved me at a young age — from songs and stories that moved my heart, brought me to tears, lifted me up, made me feel included, or excited me like no other — will always stay with me.
My twenties have truly been a rollercoaster and journey of self-discovery, hope, hardening the backbone, developing strength and character, guided by my moral compass that I always knew who I was and to trust myself in that to lead me the right way.
Five years ago, I was just a new, fresh face to Los Angeles, packing my car with my guitar and suitcases, just because I wanted to chase something new. The music, the excitement, the big city, to make a name for myself. What I was met with were growing pains. It forced me to grow up — to learn how to take care of myself, take care of the essentials, support myself, make a home in a place that felt anything but home to me.
What my hopeful naive self didn’t realize at the time, that through all my searching and seeking, so desperately wanting and craving, that it was just a matter of needing to find it in myself. To look within than out. To find that that life you were so craving was already within you — you just had to do all the mental rework and mindset changes and shifts to manifest a life where you are already living it out loud.
Taking ownership and responsibility for your life instead of blaming it on external circumstances is really the only path to freedom.
And so, I had to pull up my big girl pants. Do the work. Do the reflecting. Listen when my heart hurts or aches or yearns. Take a look at how my actions and lifestyle affect my everyday. Take a hard look and have the courage to make the necessary changes, for myself, my happiness, my joy. When I did so, and when I look back at where I was a year ago, six months ago, to even two months ago, I see and feel so much of how drastically my life has changed.
Those little steps of slowly leaning back and leaning in really pay off.
I realized there was so much fluff and distractions in the way of allowing myself something good for myself: my job that I called the “toxic boyfriend” — that as long as I was in it, I wouldn’t have any real time or space for a real relationship, to open my heart, have the time, and really expressing and owning that to everyone I knew; the relationships in my life that carried a lot of weight, that took a lot of my energy, because my heart and empathy went out to them.
When I finally put myself and my needs first, I realize just how open my heart was. I was never looking for it, but rather it was always there as long as I was ready and willing to show up to it.
“I’m glad I trusted myself,” I remember saying to you, that one hazy April morning as my eyes watered and our hands intertwined, afraid of the overwhelm of our own emotions.
My eyes welled up as I laid on top of you, your eyes staring back into mine. A feeling of knowing. I have never seen or heard you express or feel or share so much. The overwhelm of your emotions caught me off guard and it all hit me at that moment — when I realized and felt everything you had just expressed to me.
What we have shared and built has blown my mind. And I’m just so glad I took my time, trusted myself, and trusted my journey to be truly ready to show up. And you were always there for me, too.
“To be honest, I’m not scared at all with you. And to be honest, I feel like are both so ready for it all. It can feel like a lot but for some reason I’m not scared of it? I feel like I trust you so much and you make it so easy for me to trust you,” I wrote to you. “I’d normally feel scared or uncertain or unsure, and even unsure of your thoughts and intentions with me… but you’ve done nothing but make me feel every ounce of of safety and security and comfort and sincerity.”
I’ve always been scared of so many things, but when I feel hard or feel deeply, I don’t mess around. I’m sure of myself. I commit to it.
I continued: “It’s honestly all I could ever want or ask for from someone else, and I thought I’d never be able to find that or match that. It’s a level of self awareness and selflessness I never knew I’d find or need… I’m also so damn confident and comfortable in my own skin that I don’t worry. I just feel and sense this intuitive energy that we show up for each other in the ways we both need and want, without even speaking it.”
“I felt no one ever respected the way I best communicate through writing as you. And it makes sense. The way you were first moved by my blog writing and became a secret stan — haha. It all means so much.”
I’m just glad I trusted myself. And waited. I gave myself time. I wanted to find myself, be sure of myself, do things for myself — serve myself first and foremost in order to better show up for the people around me. And once I let go of all that wasn’t serving me, giving so much of myself to others instead of giving that energy to myself, I found I could live my life much more vibrantly and true and real, because I wasn’t pouring it into the people who weren’t so deserving of it.
“I’ve always wanted to feel like I could be a part of some family or world or community, and you’ve been doing that for me… and it brings me a feeling of so much comfort and joy that I didn’t know I was looking for. My ‘free bird’ spirit that always needed a home to land on… It’s really good for me. You’re good for me.”
With love and honesty,
Rachel
beauty within 