Make The Presence
Monday Missives #27 (Back Home Edition)
True confession: I take my weekly Monday Missives post very seriously. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, feeling into it, writing it, and editing it. It is not only a commitment to you, the reader, but also to myself. It is not what I do. It is who I am. So, it was hard to accept that after being on the road for 10 days and driving almost 1,400 miles, this week’s Monday Missives will be different from the “standard” and format I have set for myself. It will be brief. It will have an ad hoc format. It will not be quite the essay or story I typically write. And it will be true to where I am right here, right now. Enjoy.
The last ten days have been an exhilarating adventure of community. I have talked a lot with a lot of different women (and a few dudes). We have covered spirituality and joyfulness (did you know that cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness? Neither did I, but I do now). The beginning of the trip is captured in last week’s post. The rest of the trip took off from that beautiful start and ended in an equally beautiful spot. There is a lot for me to process, and I want to do that before I write about it in more detail. Or maybe I will never write or talk about it. With anyone anywhere. Maybe, just maybe, some of those things are meant to live only in my heart.
What I can tell you right now is that this trip, from beginning to end, changed me. Or maybe it just revealed to me more of who I already am—no, who I already was. Yes, that’s it. This is who I am and so this is what I do. I travel from place to place, sit with person after person, talk and listen, laugh and cry, dream and get real. That is how I make the presence.
So, in the spirit of that, I will just list, in no particular order, some of the things I heard, some of the things I felt, and some of the answers to some of the questions that I had.
Make the content around the presence not the presence around the content.
Right now, I am tempted, very tempted, to use the guilt I feel and the shame I hold to be beat up on myself, or worse, berate myself. Why? Because, in my mind, I did not create the kind of content I think I should have on this trip to capture the things I did, the places I saw, or the people I met. I mean, what kind of traveling content creator am I? Clearly I suck at this. I am a failure. Why drive around the country for four whole weeks in September?
Just as I raise my hand to myself, I stop and remember to ask: what is my primary purpose? Answer: To create a safe place for women’s to share, in their own voices, the complexities of their stories, to record those stories, and then to amplify those voices. Right.
The end of something is just the beginning of something else.
Ok, back to the regularly scheduled programming and my list of take-aways from the last ten days:
Listen for the direct question and answer it truthfully.
What can I contribute vs. what can I get.
Am I open to receive?
Self-care does not always mean self-love.
Shame. Self-righteousness. Neither of those liberate anyone, including myself.
Not a loon but a comedic genius.
Intentional Intimacy! How do I just say what I like or want? How do I express a desire without feeling like I am imposing it onto or making a demand of someone else? Is it even my job to worry about that? How much information is too much information? Leave space vs. avoid vulnerability.
Being present is doing my “job.”
Slotting right into other people’s lives and staying in their homes. Find ways to hold my space to recharge along the way.
Do this calmly.
Orient myself around others or orient myself around myself
If I do not want to take the pizza box, it is ok to not take the pizza box. And it is ok to say that I do not want to take the pizza box. Practice when the stakes are low so I can say what I mean when it feels like it might kill me.
Give myself permission to change the math—my part is not the whole part but it is the part I can change so change it even when my part is only 3%.
Many different people have many different opinions, thoughts, feelings and responses at any given time. I can mark my growth and change, the current state of my internal sense of self, because I am able to hear what they (whoever they are) have to say, feel my defensiveness without indulging in it, arresting it as it starts to come out of my mouth, then come back into myself, and wait while ask, “What do I want to do? What feels right to me?” and then do that without justifying, defending, or explaining it. In other words: be open to what you could do and stay true to who you already are.
None of this would be happening if all of that had not happened.
I am an invited guest so I do not need to earn my place at the party. I am allowed to simply show up.
No need to say it perfectly. Just say it and trust the message will come through.
I was not agnostic or atheistic. I was God-antagonistic.
Make the content around the presence not the presence around the content.
The biggest contribution I can make is to NOT help.
Be an example of what I want to see.
Be the person you are looking for.
Love them and don’t act like you don’t like them.
Learn how to do things by doing them wrong.
All the way in or all the way out.
Be open to what you could do and stay true to who you already are.
This week, instead of my usual round up of things I’m hearing, watching, or brunching, I will insert this short clip I made on Sunday before I drove north from Georgia to Virginia. (note: when I said 785,000, I misspoke. I mean 785).
Here are the cities I am going to in September so please send a message or leave a comment if there is something there you suggest I see or do…
Nashville, TN
Memphis, TN
Dallas, TX
Amarillo, TX
Santa Fe, NM
Denver, CO
Lincoln, NE
Des Moines, IA
Chicago, IL
Indianapolis, IN or Detroit, MI (tbd)
Pittsburgh, PA
Oh, here is a clip I made on Saturday at lunch about when all this really got started two years ago for my 50th birthday…
Oh, and here is one last clip I made on the drive home when I stopped about an hour and half away from getting home.
Monday Monday Meditation: 7.28.25
Hold yourself close, hold yourself true, and know, in your heart, that you will stand for yourself, on your own or with somebody else, no matter how dark or how light it gets.
Is there a topic you would like me to write about in a Monday Missive? Cover in a podcast episode? I am curious about what you are curious about and would love to hear from you so leave a comment below or drop me line.
So grateful to get to be part of the journey!