Do you show up for the day… or do you sort of hide out?

Be honest. Are you bringing all of you to your life right now.

People who typically show up for the day most days will know it.  You love what you are wearing. You feel the energy beaming from you.  You are surrounded by things that make you smile. There is less thought involved.  Your body language is open- open arms, open hearted- and an open mind follows.

But… there seem to be so many reasons to not show up… that its sometimes more typical to hide out and give good reasons for it. Practical reasons.  Awesomely sensible reasons.  Reasons of exercising good caution.

Despite all good sense to hide out- you should show up anyway! And today, here are a handful of ideas to get you here, powerfully present and radiant, right now!
When I lived in New York,  I had a deep prerogative to never leave the house looking or feeling like I didn’t care…. even if I wanted to crawl under covers and sleep for a week… it just wasn’t ever going to happen.

After all, every time I walked out onto the cobblestone streets of Soho I could see people I knew, people who were expecting me to look a certain way, people who judge with intensity, people hiring me to be fashionable (that was my first turn into the realm of art, fashion) and I was intensely aware that without my hair pulled together or a dress on I felt like I was fading into the pavement.  Considering my whole life was a social whirl, without style I felt I had no substance.  There were parties till 3 or 4am and then things to do for brunches by 2 the next day… People I never met had my phone number. I was always “on”…

This was extreme.

And in an extreme reaction to it, I moved to Los Angeles, spent half my day hiking or in yoga classes off the beaten path and, low and behold, I over-compensated. I felt physically great but completely detached from everything that looked, felt, sounded and seemed to relate to who I was.

My house looked similarly vanilla and plain.

I was miserable but “healthy” for a stretch of time.

But… was that healthy?

My noble sense of hiding – getting healthy, getting spiritual, getting my s*&t together, translated into cutting myself off from everything that made me feel like me.

I went into a noble form of hiding to stay away from the attention and energy I couldn’t control. I shut myself off from anything that made me feel vulnerable, I found that work could be my “escape.”

Nothing worked out.

And… I became very, paradoxically, unhealthy.

I’ve come to see over the last decade that the idea of “showing up for life” is incredibly vital.

It’s been more important to me to show up for a day even when it semed impractical, impossible and challenging that on the days when it is just fun to run out the door feeling fabulous.

You know, those days when you didn’t get enough sleep, when the work is piled up, when you have so many directions to be pulled in…

These are the days to really show up.

It’s so hard to show up when you are in the mood to hide.

I know when I am about to lose my inspiration and go into a robotic phase of the “blah”:  I wear giant glasses, my hair is in a bun for three days, I am in pajamas non-stop, my house looks dusty… It’s harder to get out of bed…

Are you there right now, in your own version of hiding out?

When I see it coming now, I react much differently. I actually do things to snap out of it fast!

You can, too.

Donate clothes that you tend to “hide out in”.

Why not have a few things that you just feel great in?  Why not take your “special event” clothes and mix them into every day, since every day IS a special event?

Clean out your closets.

Self-esteem soars!

Buy fresh flowers. 

Simple luxury is impossibly incredible.

Say yes when you might be tempted to say no because it is easier to hide. 

I would have had the worst weekend on record had I said no when I was tempted to say no out of sheer desire to hide out.  Instead it was the best weekend of the year.

Stop making conclusions and judgements about people and events before they happen.

You’ll make it come true!  We can turn anyone into a villian, turn anything into a disaster… Or, you can turn a possibility or a seed or a spark into a majorly amazing thing… It’s in your hands to decide how to approach things around you.

Get into style. 

I happen to have as many fashionable men as women in my life.  Perhaps “stylish” is the best word.  They have style.  They know their style.  When you have more of your style around you, everywhere, you will show up more readily for the day.

And dare I say it: the more you explore your aesthetic (ie: all the art you love)  the more you will know yourself inside and out. 

All of art is emotion, and at its best it is pure, filtered, true emotion.  Emotion that defies words.

The more I connect to art and fashion and film and all kinds of performance and music, the more I find myself unfolding naturally in a day.

Layer in art.

Show up.

There’s so much beauty in the day, even if you can’t see it yet.  Put on some music, shake off the stuck energy and show up for the inspiration.  Soon, you’ll become the inspiration!

xoxo Dana

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