This is where I start
small, daily pivots that keep me going
When that gut-pang of anxiety hits—wondering where the time went (again), putting off calling the internet company for the twelfth time, or facing a messy kitchen on Sunday night—I tell myself: no drama.
This phrase interrupts the spiral of frustration from why can’t I just wake up with my alarm? to why can’t I keep up with life?"
No drama shakes up the tendency to overestimate the stakes while underestimating my own resourcefulness.
This isn’t just a pattern interrupter—it’s also a cue to widen my perspective, creating space to get curious around easier or more creative ways to go about what’s challenging (like watching SATC while organizing a cabinet bursting with mismatched Tupperware lids).
It gives me a beat to ask questions like, What am I believing about myself—or my life? And Does this actually need to happen at 11pm???
Important: saying no drama feels honest and doable. It’s natural for me to reach for and it doesn’t require convincing or a mental leap. This practice is one facet of pivoting toward wholeness in action.
Today, I’m inspired to share a few small shifts that have sparks major change in my life. In having the intimate knowledge of supporting people to transform their ways-of-being, especially as it relates to embodying their innate creativity in fuller ways, I know this to be true:
The most significant changes often come from small pivots in perspective and practice—through creative choice—over and over again.
I hope that as you read today’s letter, you might feel a spark of recognition or a new way of seeing.
These ideas might seem simple, and on one level they are.
Embodying simple truths means wading through enormous complexity—an annoying but strangely elegant part of life.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or a reply:
What small shifts in perspective, like a motto or saying, have made a major impact on your relationship to yourself and life in general?
Building off of my no drama perspective, here’s another motto I carry in my back pocket: I start where I am.
We can be hard on ourselves or we can just start where we are using what we have.
Another way that I say this: This is where I start.
What’s this look like practically? Publishing my writing used to make me shake with fear. When that’s mixed with a sincere desire to share, it’s frustrating beyond belief. The whole idea of pressing publish made me physically sick and emotionally wrecked. So, that’s where I started.
Instead of getting stuck in resentment or in the painful (and honestly generic) beliefs that a part of myself knew weren’t true like no one cares, what’s the point, I have nothing to add anyway, etc., this perspective helped me to work with the truth of my experience, without needing it to be different than it was.
Yes, there was resentment that my longing was wrapped up in so much fear and that it didn’t feel easier or more natural, so I started with that too.
I start where I am helps to release a commitment to things being different right away… It normalizes that things take time.
I’m afraid of sharing my writing, but I really want to, so this is where I start.
I start where I am gets me wondering:
What possibility am I missing by wishing that life were different that it is right now?
Theses two phrases apply to just about a million circumstances. They’ve saved me from many spirals and have created the space for remarkable shifts.
Thank you so much for being here and hearing the pivots that help me to stay resilient and soft.
Choosing life-giving thoughts is one thing, feeling them in your heart and having them guide your actions is another. This is one part of what we’re going to explore in Pivoting Toward Wholeness, a course on orienting toward what is deeper and truer, all in the midst of life’s messiness.
If you enjoyed this letter, I think you’ll love these:
In this one, I talk about a phrase that came to me when I was walking to an interview that I was in dire need to land, and it added an unexpected rush of levity:
