Late summer interlude 🍂
Big Life Themes for your consideration as autumn draws near.
Hello + happy Tuesday!
🌀 Group Call #1: (Tuesday, 9/3/24 @ 6pm PST // 9pm EST): Register here.
🌀 Group Call #2:** (Wednesday, 9/5/24 @ 9am PST // 12pm EST): Register here.
**This call features structured breakout groups of 3-4 people.
Today’s inspiration:
“We are not alone. We do not exist alone and we cannot create alone. What this world needs is a humanistic awakening of the desire to raise one’s life condition to a place where our actions are rooted in altruism and compassion. You cannot hide behind a profession or instrument; you have to be human. Focus your energy on becoming the best human you can be. Focus on developing empathy and compassion. Through the process you’ll tap into a wealth of inspiration rooted in the complexity and curiosity of what it means to simply exist on this planet.”
- Herbie Hancock
Hello dear and beautiful readers. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, sipping my second cup of coffee and looking out over the rooftops of my neighborhood, watching as the morning light make it’s slow crawl across the wall. September is my favorite month. It’s the month that the ubiquitous San Francisco summer fog finally lifts, which tends to correspond with a lift in my overall mood. As someone who tends to drop into a bit of melancholy during the summer, I love that we’re all getting back into routine. And then there’s the “back-to-school” vibe that seems to have etched itself into my DNA—more than January 1st, more even than the burst of new life in spring, something about September is the turning of a page. I can’t quite explain it, but good things tend to happen in September. So with this spirit of optimism and freshness, here’s a little update on what you can expect from this newsletter this fall.
Now through the end of the season, the focus of Self Made will be navigating uncertainty.
This is the primary conversation I’m having both with myself, with nearly every client, and with, well—the ether. Today’s newsletter isn’t quite an essay—more a smattering of thoughts/suggestions/and ideas to set the tone for what what I’ll be exploring here, and what I see as necessary conversations, inquiries, and skills that would benefit every last one of us.
Let’s begin:
Learning to navigate uncertainty is not the same as figuring out uncertainty. Instead, we must learn to shepherd ourselves through uncertainty. We must learn to be with uncertainty, which is different than controlling it, managing it, predicting it, fixing it. It’s about learning to be with a new perception of reality, one that many of us don’t have precedent for, because the way things have always been done—the way our parents and grandparents did things/experienced things—do not exist they way they used to anymore, and if they *do* exist, they won’t be around for long. There will never in our lives be a “going back to normal.”
We must accept that the dark is just as necessary as the light. Most of you understand this intellectually but you still fight against the dark as if it’s an indication of failure or a sign that something has gone wrong. We must hold the seasons of darkness more loosely because darkness means the light is coming. We must hold seasons of lightness more loosely because lightness means the dark is coming. We must make a home in the dark even as we soak up and bask in any time we spend in the sun.
If we continue to cling to old ways; if we stay so freaked out by the rate of change and the uncertainty inherent—and therefore the deep fear inherent—that we double down on all our addictive behaviors and stay checked out, good god what a missed opportunity to participate in creating a different world where all life is uplifted, where all beings have what they need to thrive. Humanity and consciousness will continue to adapt and grow and evolve—that train left the station a long time ago—but if we keep CLINGING to the way things were, it’s going to suck SO MUCH MORE and take SO MUCH LONGER than it needs to.
Fortifying an intimate relationship with your inner knowing and developing an ever-deepening sense of self-trust is how you will know what to do when it’s time to know what to do. This is how you strengthen the part of you that gets scared in the face of uncertainty. I have three suggestions for this:
First, bring in the horizon. Think in seasons, and don’t get too ahead of yourself; for the vast majority of you this is not the time to set “five-year goals” or whatever. Thinking about where you’ll be (or what will be) in a year, five years, ten years, et cetera, is probably at least somewhat unsettling; more than likely you can handle thinking about January 2025.
Second: Do what you can to create conditions inside of which your nervous system can rest. When you find yourself deep down the furthest rabbit hole recesses of your overworked mind, come back into the breath; reconnect to skin-muscles-bones; lay down on the ground; take your shoes off and put your feet in the dirt.
Finally! Plug into your people. Strengthen your webs of connection. As long as you embed yourself in community, you’ll know what actions to take. There is always an action you can take. Sitting inside of despair and hopelessness is a very individualistic dance. What can I do? I’m just one person, do my actions even matter? Nothing will ever change, why bother? This thinking has us turn our backs on the truth of our interdependence. Participating in a protest might not make the difference you desire today. But if you tend to your people. If you nurture your relationships. If you get to know your neighbors, if you ask yourself what is one thing I can do right now, you will always know what to do—and it is these more humble, quotidian actions that will sustain you for the long game required to affect more systemic change.
I know this is all a bit intense! But it gives me relief to plug into these ideas and topics because being in conversation about these things with rad humans like you remind me that I’m not alone, and that I don’t have to do any of this alone. When I take reality in through these filters, I feel my eyes open and my feet on the ground, which are helpful qualities to abide inside when faced with chaos and uncertainty.
I refuse to believe we were put on this planet to cling to decrepit and dying structures. Now we create new ones.
Gentle and most friendly reminder that “Befriending Chaos” - is open for fall enrollment.
This 3-month coaching program is elegantly structured and highly personalized to help you quiet the external noise, discover creative ways of living through such intense times, and connect to a visionary orientation to reality that is dynamic, engaging, participatory, and surprising.
Deprogram yourself from:
+shitty cultural constructs!
+bummer self-perceptions!
+outdated narratives!
Take action (instead of just thinking about taking action!) towards designing a life that reflects who you really are and what you really want.
Please don’t hesitate to book an ALIGNMENT SESSION with me if you’d like to discuss coaching prior to making the financial—not to mention, time—commitment. On that call, we’ll spend an hour together and discern mutual fit for an ongoing coaching engagement. I DON’T DO HARD SELLS. Let’s be together and if it’s a good fit, great! You might also leave our conversation with a handful of resources and suggestions for stuff you can get started on on your own. I’m on your team either way <3
SELF MADE empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and step boldly into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Integral Coach, and recovery guide based in San Francisco, CA.
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Thank you.