As a mama, I have the most unique privilege to witness my son’s firsts.

Witnessing a tiny human learn to be in his body from crawling to standing to walking and now running almost as fast as his parents – it’s nothing short of remarkable.

Now, I get to witness the first processing of ideas or concepts. We’re learning math. Words. Building. Describing feelings. Talking about skin colors. Celebrating the hard stuff.

My son tends to enjoy new beginnings, new activities. I believe that most children do because they know it’s their nature to grow and evolve.

Why is it so hard to be a beginner as an adult?

Because, for the most part, we’ve lost the why behind the beginnings.

Starting anything new can feel really hard – especially when you’re not sure why you’re doing it.

And, in particular, the new beginning can be especially hard when shame was the motivator, rather than the motivation coming from within.

Like, take these two scenarios:

You know you want to learn more about racism and how it exists in our culture. You can either:

Feel like you have to do in order to show people you’re a good person, and you start to scramble and react and repeat and repeat.

Or

Take a breath, listen, and read information from people of color who have been writing about racism in culture for a really long time. Decide how you’re going to change by getting real as you ask yourself:

why am I doing this?

Taking action from knowing your why prepares you for growth, discomfort, and truth. Often, we avoid this step because it’s less satisfying (at first) then immediate reaction.

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen myself take action without a why. That surface layer reaction was really unrooted.

Not only is this finding my why, in this time and always, a spiritual journey for me, it’s a stressful one. Stress, in this scenario, is good. It grows my muscles of inner fire.

My big why: because I trust going consciously in this time will be integrated, informed, and impactful.

My why is that if I work on being present, I have more reserves. If I have more reserves, I can keep doing new things, fighting for a better world, without burning out.

This is also a practice I use with my painting and creativity students. Root into your why. Or else you’ll be too attached to the final product. And more often than not, that final product will never be good enough.

Tell me, dear one: what is your why today?

As always, I believe in you. You can do this.