Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes

Everybody’s a Blogger Now

I don’t publicly share that I write for a few reasons. Mostly it’s that I have a few people that I follow… 3… who are writers (whether they’ve woken up to yet or not). Yes, they write on a blog—but I’d place good money on one day feeling like I know a celebrity because their name graces the cover of a hard back. I can be the obnoxious hipster in BookPeople that says to passing strangers, ‘Oh, I followed them when they were just writing for a blog!’

The other issue is, ‘Do I really have anything new to say?’

Here’s why I choose to keep writing: For the almost 1,000 of you that land here monthly (what? Where are y’all coming from?) maybe this is the first time you are hearing this. Maybe this is new to you. Because, not too long ago, it was new to me too.

I Don’t Know any Mean Girls

I recently stumbled on another blog’s post about ‘Mean Girls’. In it, she talked about how she was just over girls talking about each other. That she was making a vow that she was not going to gossip anymore. She was putting her foot down! It was time that we build each other up instead of tear each other down.

And I felt… nothing?

Was I so spoiled that this did not resonate with me in the slightest? There was something… maybe a slight eye roll? But in checking in with myself, if I’m being honest, it was only a little while ago that I was the Mean Girl.

I began sifting through old Google Hang-Out chats that a friend and I used to use. I almost screenshot a conversation and put it here but deleted after some contemplation for the sake of anonymity.

What it would have proven, if I had, is that I was an ass. Jaw dropping-ly Mean (with a capital M).

‘I vow to never gossip’ is probably something that I said before too. Because I knew after I was done being that person, I felt like hot garbage. But vowing to make a change isn’t the same as making a change.

But now, I don’t have that feeling. I don’t even see the opportunity to be that person anymore. So then what finally shifted?

So much.

Stop Doing the Stuff that makes you feel like Shit

Just making a change in your life requires more than will power, or a new year resolutions or good intentions. For real change, you are going to… scratch that, you are required to piss people off.

The life that you create for yourself puts structures in place to keep you there. Friends, job, spin classes, mentors. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

I use the word ‘structures’ intentionally. You have to tear them down or literally move away for them to no longer hold you in place. Either act is not easy. Either will make you feel like a bulldozing, needy, radical woman. (But, to me, these titles describe a bad ass.)

I picture this sweet young blogger going out with her same group of friends to the same bar where she runs into the same boy she used to date with his arm around the same new girl he’s dating now (all this context taken from the blog—apologies if it’s too telling)… Is it surprising if she doesn’t have the same conversations in the bathroom with her same best friend?

If I kept trying to please the same person, kept trying to fit in the same ‘not-me shaped box’, kept using things to make me feel better instead of doing the hard work of tearing down structures I had in place that gave me a false sense of security… would it be surprising if I was not still ‘the mean girl’?

Surrounding yourself with people that vibrate on a higher level will also require of you to get rid of the people who are not.

I didn’t want to be this two faced monster that fed toxic gossip on one end and then smiled and held space for someone on the other. What I found was, it wasn’t the two-faced monster that I needed to kill. It was the stuff around me that was feeding it.

It wasn’t the two-faced monster that I needed to kill. It was the stuff around me that was feeding it.

Yesterday morning, during my meditation, my mind wandered into a day dream about what I would be like in 15 years. Here’s what I wrote after:

She’s done with a long day of making connections under forgiving and gentle light. She’s wearing linen and her hair is wilder than ever. Her coffee is expensive and her mug is old. Her home is smaller now but filled—with people, love, candles, bare feet, girlfriends; sexy, articulate, deep girlfriends who bring over casseroles and store bought cookies tonight because who has time to bake?

Her eyes age faster then her body and those readers frame premature crows feet that she flaunts like a badge of honor; a patch on her vest that says ‘I feel rich, golden joy’. She speaks wisely and confidently and with her hands that have too many freckles on them because, though she takes care of her body, she still refuses to put on sunscreen.

As if she caught me eves dropping on her night, she comes over to me. Loving, she looks me in the eyes, cups my cheeks in her hands and gently gives me this:

“Who the fuck’s permission are you waiting for?”

Timely, because I know that I am holding my own self back. I’ve been waiting for those I look up to to say ‘YOU, Victoria, YOU are allowed to live big. You are allowed to go after what you are craving, what is going to feed your soul. You are allowed to say ‘no’ to the things that are not serving you.”

Why are we waiting for this permission? We know better.

Who fed us the idea that we have to settle for where we are at and just work real hard to find the good in it?

If it’s not bringing you joy, then what the fuck are you doing?