Week 8, Day 6

Empathy, Compassion, and Courage.

Yesterday at work a customer asked me what makes me heart beat outside of bartending. He flat out asked me what my passion in life is. And, 2 months ago I would have something completely different then what I said yesterday. Yesterday, I simply said, "I don't know, 2 months ago I'd have had an answer for you. Today, not so much". For the last four years of my life I've been spending tons of money, time, and energy on acting and trying to make become the best actor possible. Now, I'm not sure if acting is going to feed my soul the way that I want it to be fed. I think my actual purpose for life is so how help other people and spread as much love through the World as possible. You can't heal the World, I'm well aware, but every little bit always helps. In the summer, I am toying with the idea of going back to school for psychology and seeing how I like it. I'm 26, I want to have a piece of paper in my hand that says I am intelligent. Not to say I NEED that, but I want it, for myself.

In the yoga class that I've been taking, the yogi has been talking about working with the parts of yourself that scare you and turning them into things that you can grow and learn from. A way to take all the negative and make it work for you. That is stage one, stage two is working on your heart and learning how to make your own capacity for love grow. The third stage is to stop being selfish and be willing to spread and give love. In the last two months I've learned more and more about what real empathy and compassion is made up of. I've had these beautiful moments where I've had opinions and thoughts to express, but held them back because I realized they would only be self-serving. I'm starting to realize that my life isn't ONLY about me. I didn't realize how much I really put myself first all the time. I guess my mentality was always "if I don't put myself first, then who is going to?" Most of that comes from growing up and feeling like I've had to take care of myself fully since 14. But, I'm not 14 anymore and I have to respect where I am now too.

Courage. I'm terrified, most of the time. I usually have a constant shell of self-protection around myself and I rarely let it down. New York City is a tough place to be sensitive, but so is the World. I'm starting to find the courage to accept people for who they are and love them for who they are, not what I think they could be or want them to be. It's scary to start accepting other people as perfect the way they are, because then you have to start to love yourself for who you are and not what you think you could be also.

I'm going through a spiritual awakening of change. Not because I don't want to be who I am right now, but because I think I am actually ready to become the-best-version-of-myself. Whatever that may be. "Control is the skeleton key to change." But, I have to accept that I can't control everything, and some things I have to just let be.