Annual Reminders...

Annual reminder:

So much of what we do is compulsory and not aligned for who you actually are as a human being and your unique way of existing. In order to find peace and joy in life, you may have to do shit way differently than how you're expected to.

I really feel like that's my whole mission in life: to suggest there's a different way. I have seen what a massive difference in someone's life it can make to just have a person look at you- really look at YOU, your full you- tilt their head quizzically, and ask "okay, but like...why?"

Sometimes you have never stopped to ask yourself "WHY AM I DOING THIS"

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things you do not have to do unless you want to:

• Get married

• Stay married

• Live with a partner

• Have a partner

• Be monogamous

• Have sex

• Be interested in sex

• Go to college

• Wear a bra

• Have children

• Be "consistent"

• Immediately respond to every text message you receive

• Spend time with your family of origin

• Celebrate holidays

• Go to church

• Remove your body hair

• Be "ladylike" in expected gendered ways

• Be "a man" in expected gendered ways

• Identify with either gender

• Declare a sexual orientation

• Stay the same

• Change at the same pace as your partner

• Say "yes" to everything

• Share the same values as your family of origin

• Work hard every second of every day

• Be "productive"

• Pretend to be ok when you are not

• Wait till you're perfect at something to do it

• Wait till you're "ready"

• Complete a task before you move on to another one

• Do it how somebody else does it

• Appear sexy or desirable

• "Be strong"

• Hold in your feelings

• Accept poor treatment

• Have long hair, if expected/common

• Have short hair, if expected/common

• GAF about wrinkles

• Grow old gracefully

• Have a perfect body

• Maintain a friendship that doesn't feel good

• Be on social media

• Pretend your life is perfect on social media

• Defend yourself

• Be or do anything that isn't aligned with who you are

• Care what other people think about what you're doing

  
  

Obviously there are things we "have" to do. We have to pay taxes (even tho our govt sucks and we shouldn't have to), drive according to certain rules, and go to school for a certain number of years.

According to capitalism, we have to get a job and make money and pay bills. And we have to keep ourselves safe, which can mean making different calculations.

But in the details of how we live, in our innermost hearts + our communities and other safe places, there's actually way fewer hard and fast "rules" than it seems.

How many of these are you doing just because you feel like you have to or because "it's just what you do"? What would it be like to stop doing some or all of these things in 2026? Can I help? Make an appointment here for a coaching session to look at your shit.

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays (or winter break or winter solstice or whatever!)

Love,

~amy~