You're already good

You don't have to hustle, if hustling feels like trash.

We are indoctrinated into a society that tells us we are not good enough as we are. We need to improve ourselves, fix ourselves, go for the gold, crush it. Whatever “it” is.

We are taught that there is virtue in self-sacrifice, that suffering brings us closer to god. We are taught to glorify concepts like hustle and grind that attach self-worth and success to stress, lack of sleep, and pushing through pain.

I would like to offer you the opportunity to consider that your suffering is not your self-worth, that you have nothing to prove, that you are already a good and compassionate person.

I would love for you to consider the idea that rest, pleasure, and doing the things you enjoy does not make you selfish. It also doesn't make you lazy. Lazy isn’t real. Lazy is an invented concept designed to keep the colonized working for the colonizer.

Sacrifice doesn’t make you closer to god. In fact, there is not such thing as being closer to or farther away from god. If you want to access god, dip into your own heart right now. Consider the trees. Spend some time with moon. Listen to your intuition. Have coffee with a friend. Listen to the music you love. Notice the web of synchronicity that holds you like a soft hammock swaying in the breeze.

In our quest to heal from our wounds and traumas, our quest to earn money in the capitalist religion we’ve been born to, in our quest to speak and create and let our voice be heard, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking we must fill up our schedule with the things we don’t want to do, exist in environments we can’t tolerate, file down our edges until we are docile and domesticated. Hide ourselves, alter ourselves, and grow distant from ourselves. How many times have you been told that everything worth having exists outside of your comfort zone?

What if your comfort zone is actually your healing zone?

What if healing is the wholeness, the peacefulness, and the pleasure that arrives when you choose to do the things that are easy? The things you enjoy? What if your success has absolutely nothing to do with your productivity?

What if instead of pressing or pushing or working your way into some other place, you just sank into the acceptance of this place, of where you are and who you are right now?

You don’t have to become good or worthy. You are already good. And worthy.

As of right now, we all have to figure out a way to get the money we need to stay alive. As of right now, we still have to pay for things like food, shelter, and healthcare. Our basic needs, in other words. So, I’m certainly not saying you should chuck it all and run off to live in the woods (as delightful as that sounds,) what I am saying is maybe stop beating yourself up so much.

If the concept of hustle and sacrifice lights you up, if it motivates you and gets you going, if you find it exhilarating, then by all means…have at it. But if the concept of hustling feels like trash, let it go. Breathe into your being and remember, the things that feel good, the things that come easily to you, the things you enjoy - those are the things that illuminate who you are.

The system tells you it is righteous to orgo your own well-being. The system has self-serving reasons for wanting you to believe that. The truth is, you can take care of yourself and others. You can care about your well-being and the well-being of the planet because we’re all connected here.

The moon, my cup of herbal tea, my art journal, my sleeping pug, the hot salt bath, and my heart tell me I have more to give to others and can better tend to the wellness of the world, when I tend to my own wellness. I am my true good self; you are you own good true self; we are free.