stop fooling yourself

hey there my rad readers,

first up, big hugs & high fives to all the readers that made time for the reader survey. your feedback is so insightful & i’ll be reporting back on my findings next week!

🚨 the survey wraps up TONIGHT. this is your final chance to sculpt the future of our little cozy corner of the internet with this < 60 second survey.

now, onto today’s timely topic — fool’s day.

except i’m not talking about april fool’s day. pranking isn’t my forte.

i’ve only successfully & consistently fooled one person.

her name is MacK 🫣

in my journey to stop these shenanigans, i’ve discovered one tool that helps me more than any other & that i can’t wait to share with you.

champs of self-foolery

we’re creatures craving comfort.

so fooling ourselves is a go-to safety strategy. we’re reviewed many of our classic moves in this newsletter over the past several weeks:

• we drown in “busy”

• we fail to prioritize

• we chase perfection

• we guilt-trip over nos

• we avoid consistency

• we break self-promises

we over-serve ourselves shots of self-doubt, self-denial, & self-sabotage.

a little harsh, but very true.

it’s not your fault; it’s our hard wiring.

but the good news it that rewiring is totally possible & so very rewarding.

because you can’t live or connect authentically if you’re fooling yourself.

your self-acceptance letter

we all deserve to embrace who we are.

full self-acceptance requires full self-honesty of the good, the bad, & everything in between.

this is the requirement to meet & be your most confident self.

here's the kicker: this is a never-ending, ever-evolving process.

why? because you’re always changing, too.

so you must learn to meet yourself wherever you happen to be at that time.

through trial & many errors, i’ve discovered one practice that helps me “find” myself more than any others:

journaling.

the benefits of which are very well-documented, but are more importantly very much felt. when i write by hand, i unlock a part of my brain & subconscious that i can’t always access when speaking or doing or typing.

put it in writing

i flirted with journaling a long time before committing.

chances are you have too with 1 in 2 journaling at some point in our lives. but only 1 in 6 actively journaling.

i didn’t get consistent with journaling until i read “the artist’s way” by julia cameron. this book that made me a devout believer & practitioner of journaling

aka morning pages.

julia cameron beautifully describes journaling as wiping your mirror clean, removing the blur you keep between you & your true self.

we’re all guilty of fogging up our mirrors with filters, fears, judgments, criticism, limiting beliefs, & all the other jetsam of life.

journaling grants you an opportunity to have heart-to-hearts with past, present, & future you.

ditch the rules

unfortunately journaling’s gotten a bit over-romanticized & over-programmed.

which is helpful for kickstarting the habit, but distracts from the real magic which happens when you throw out the rulebook & expectations.

so consider this your formal invitation to:

• write about anything @ anytime

• forget grammar, spelling, & logic rules

• drop the goals of beauty or perfection or depth

the beauty of journaling is in its chaos.

just how the beauty of us lies in our chaos.

let journaling be your guide on your journey of self-acceptance.

consistency can help expedite the process, but is not a requirement.

here’s to being beautifully, messily, authentically us.

what’s making me merry: the pathway membership

if you’re really looking to turn up your personal development work, i highly recommend exploring the pathway membership from to be magnetic (tbm) by lacy phillips.

the tbm method is backed by neuroscience, psychology, EMDR, epigenetics, & energetics with a little spirituality sprinkled on top.

yes it’s woo woo.

but as you probably guessed, i’m woo woo & i’ve learned so much about myself through the journaling part of this program.

if you’re interested in joining me & 25K people practicing this process, i invite you to learn more & get 15% off your membership with the code “MACKENZIE"

be merry messy,

p.s. last time i’ll ask, will you pretty please complete our survey?