The 4 best sentences of the past week
These have been the most interesting and productive thought-producers I’ve come across this week (and their sources):
Intimacy comes from consistency. - Eric Uresk, coach extraordinaire
What you want is different from what you’re committed to. - Also Eric Uresk, coach extraodinaire
Feel the fear and do it anyway. - Every coach on the Internet ever, but a nice reminder/refresh
Does this option support the life I’m trying to build? - Jennifer Joseph (@naturalmagics on IG)
On #1: Intimacy Comes From Consistency - I expect people to read our potential for friendship as fast as I do.
Nay nay!
99% of the world thinks you’re dead or a stranger until you’ve shown up in the same spaces and gradually built a pile of surface-level interactions over the course of many times seeing one another. Whereas I, a Golden Retriever, expect to be loved as much as I. Love. All. Of. You.
However, I’ve noticed how my initial judgments blossom too. The people I don’t see as immediatefriendsorlovers do often become much more warm and beautiful as they let me experience more of them over time.
Most people just need more time and to see you show up more than once before they’ll make an investment.
There’s an old joke-not-joke in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World that you don’t learn anyone’s name until they reach blue belt (the second belt in the sport, usually a promotion that takes 1-3 years to achieve), because they’re not worth investing in until then. I’ve been lucky enough to, and especially with Elevate MMA in Durham, NC, have a crew around me that was ready to invest in you as soon as you showed up and maybe even before, though that could of course grow over time as you showed up consistently, too.
In relationships, intimacy comes from consistency is one to think about, huh? Where are you or I not showing up consistently? This leads me well into number 2.
On #2: What you want is different from what you’re committed to -
Thinking about this made me of course wonder
a. What I say I want
vs
b. What I am actually committed to
And what commitment means to me. I see it as an energy, a way of being honest with myself. We can talk about desires and wants all day but what actions am I taking to align with those things I say I want.
God said, “Bring a shovel.”
Lol. You can’t JUST pray. You also can’t live in the negative of “well I know what I don’t want.” You gotta try speaking out loud the things you would actually want to be happening to make them real. Focusing on what you don’t want is cowardly.
Immediately I thought of friendships, and in fact this line piled on top of something that had been stirring in me ever since my friend Marco asked me how that friendship thing was going, calling me TF out/holding me accountable in the best way possible on my stated desires for MOVING TO SAN DIEGO. The truth it struck me with was that I was energetically holding back from some of the friendships I have stated to care about most when I could be fully committing to them in ways I wasn’t doing now. My interactions weren’t saying commitment. They were saying scared, and maybe a bit entitled. I’ve noticed subtle shifts in myself since deciding that these things really matter to me, and it’s still building.
Commitment is hindered by our fears.
Well…
#3 Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway - is probably something you’ve read a hundred times from as many people. Some of my greatest growth periods were drawn from living by the idea that if I wanted it, AND I was afraid of it, I needed to RUN towards it. I’ve drifted away from this into drowning myself in psychoanalysis that, while interesting and enlightening, is kind of pussy territory. Very easy to hide in forever. Reminder: you can be afraid of things and move toward them anyway.
#4 comes from the witchy wonder and new-mom Jennifer Joseph, or @naturalmagics on Instagram. I’ve bought a few things from her before and her grounded energy is wonderful and refreshing.
Does this option support the life I’m trying to build? - she put this out in her IG stories after talking about the option overwhelm so many of us, (and me recently), can find ourselves drowning in.
She encouraged her viewers to drop down into the aesthetics of the lives they wanted to lead and then view the options as either building that life or -not-.
If options themselves are viewed as a threat because we haven’t been practicing this kind of discernment for ourselves, then staying stagnant is actually the choice our body will help us stay in. Perhaps letting us stick around for as much time as we need until we develop our own system of discernment and begin to practice it.
Eric is located on Instagram as @ericthegentleman, check him out there too, especially if you’re in the market for a men’s coach.
One more name-drop, two of the people I enjoy listening talk about Jiu-Jitsu and life most have started a podcast, and the first episode is out now. Kyle Perkins and Joey Diehl are fabulous competitors (Joey recently won the prestigious ADCC trials in Chicago on their home turf), professors/teachers, and men, and I love hearing the smiles in their voices as they chat about starting something new, why they train, and becoming better at something every day. Check out the first episode here.
-Sam
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