I Will Build.

Have you ever felt you were on this planet to build something of significance? Or have some longing to bring to fruition a dream you have?

Tonight, I listened to an author, Annie Downs, speak about the innate desire to build starting when we were kids playing with blocks. There is this desire to bring to fruition different things, maybe it's: your heart's dreams, your body's health, your soul's growth, your mind's ultimate plan for your life/business/relationships/etc. 

I was reminded of my own dreams; innate desires lodged in the very depths of me that I believe as a human I was made to bring into this world: to spread love, peace, self reflection, beauty, and joy. Since I was 16 I have known I will write a book. (Not if, it's when.) I have started at times and stopped. My senior year of high school I wrote 80 pages of a book. It was messy, it was vulnerable, it was all broken up. In college I was mentored by a well known author to start writing and she coached me through exercises and through different disciplines to start my book. Then my life got busy and chaotic. I do not like starting and stopping something but at the time I had to give myself the grace to stop the process and figure out part of my 'adult-fresh-out-of-college-life'. It honestly sucked, I thought that dream was going to come true earlier than that. I've written more letters to people I know and random people in coffee shops than I can count, I've written prompts and blog posts that I have never posted, and I've done more outlines of my book than I even remember...

Doubt creeps in when we start to build what we long have thought we were meant for.

Lies start to crowd, making you second guess if you are really the one who should be doing this. Then as you begin building you start seeing cracks, broken pieces, and parts falling off. How are we supposed to keep going? It does not even look like it will pan out to be anything of beauty or worth... We sit looking at our failed business, relationship, dreams, marriage, schooling, etc and we feel defeated.

And in that defeat we wonder about our own beauty and worth because maybe we confused our identity with part of our purpose. 

What we DO is not WHO we ARE. We are: messy, beautiful, vulnerable, strong, desirable, worthy, capable, and meant for more than what others or even what you yourself believe. We have a society that focuses on what we build and what we do, but that is really only a few chapters in our whole life's story. 

I believe 'building something' in our life is important. It is personally what drives me every day, even when it's not working out. I do not have to have a book typed up in a year. I write to people every day whether that is a co-worker, or a friend, or in my journal. I hate that my road to writing and building a book is is not exactly what I have pictured as I soon turn 27, but I'm where I need to be.

Maybe you see what's ahead and you have some big dreams, or you have already been let down by your expectations - but the older I get (and I know I'm still pretty young) I realize that the things I think I want or what I want out of my dreams may be different than what they are supposed to be used for.

Since I was 16, I have always told myself that even if I do not finish my book until I'm 60 and only one person reads it and finds and understands more of their identity from it - that I have fulfilled my purpose. It is as simple as that.

We learn more in the building and in the reckoning than we do when we get to gaze at the final product.

Our minds, hearts, souls, and bodies were meant to come this world and create beauty, life, peace, joy, and growth to everything we encounter. Sometimes we will take a job, get into a relationship, jump on board with something that may not be the proper thing for us at the time and it will crash and burn - BUT - what we chose to do on the other side of that is where we learn. That is where maybe, juuust maybe, we become even better versions of ourselves.

I may not have conquered all I thought I would have by 2018, but I have grown so much in my whole identity: mind, heart, soul, and body. I have an understanding of the tension between discipline and grace, I am a heathy vulnerable in how I approach life, I check in on how I really feel and take it into consideration, and I strive to live healthy in my physical choices. The very subjects I desire to speak to others about have been my paths of growth. 

If you feel like you have been striving and it has not been working out how you wanted - stop for second. Take a breather. Close your eyes and try to reflect on what exactly you are striving for. Is it recognition? Is it money? Is it to be better than someone else? Or is it to grow? To be stretched? To try something new?

When a baby is learning how to walk and it falls flat on it's face, the father doesn't yell at it. It rushes over and picks it up and says, "Good job!!! Wow! Try again, come on, you can do it!" Falling flat on your face is OKAY! So if your fear of building something is failing (letting others down, letting yourself down) then DON'T HOLD BACK. 

Yes, it seriously sucks to fail or have something fall apart. Do not try and discount any terrible feelings that come with that - it is okay to mourn the loss of something you have been striving for - but just know it does not define your identity. 

Your mind, heart, soul, and body were meant for some incredible purposes. Take a step to find out what that is, and when your foot falls, do not worry. But when your foot hits solid ground, keep running. 

No matter what: we will build, because that is who we are.

Do not punish yourself quote-on-quote failures - they are what bring you character and growth. Go forward in a light and joy knowing more of who you are and do not discount what you bring into this world through your mind, heart, soul, and body.

xx Liv