Tell me more Ep 2. My expander for joy-as-a-choice.
Expander is a term that is thrown around often in manifestation work. To define it loosely, an expander is someone that shakes your world view of what you think is impossible and moves it into the tangible reality column. For example, Oprah is an expander for women of color (and really all women for that matter) by breaking the glass ceiling on what can be achieved professionally and personally. When Roger Bannister ran the first recorded mile in under 4 minutes in 1954, a feat deemed impossible by the “experts” of the day, it inspired hundreds of runners to follow suit. 1,700 athletes have been recorded running a mile under 4 minutes since news of Bannister's victory was made public. While you won’t find me running even a 40 minute mile these days and founding a media conglomerate sounds too exhausting for my work life balance loving self to commit to - I do have many expanders in my life. And I’m thrilled to share one with you today.
My sister and I were the baby cousins in our family brood (in retrospect my strategic expander of a mother probably did it intentionally for the access to babysitters...genius, mom). All of our cousins were these impossibly cool role models we deemed to be the epitome of being a cool teenager or young adult. The one that reached the highest ranks of cooler-than-being-cool was Angie. Angie was a graphic designer which just sounded like the most impossibly chic, New York City vibes career of them all. She dressed cool, wore her hair cool, spoke cool. (All still true). Her first born child’s middle name is Patout which is just...COOL. She was someone it was easy to look up to for a child who knew at an early age, a basic life wouldn’t be the life for me.
But let’s talk about how she moved from admirable to expansive. I speak openly about my lifelong battle with anxiety. It came on at an early age seemingly out of the blue (I’ve spent much time and many resources in adulthood to attempt to find the root cause to “cure” it but no such luck). My particular flavor of anxiety is one of “the shoe is about to drop”/“the rug is going to be pulled out”/“you accomplished this once but it was luck and you’ll never accomplish it again.” Think just general dread that the good life doesn’t stick around and might be taken from you at any moment. Lack mentality is the thief of joy, friends, and an affliction we see far too often in modern society yet rarely speak about. Fortunately, 6.5 years ago when I had my first child I was gifted the rare experience of being free from anxiety during my pregnancy. I felt what it was like to have the volume turned down on the part of my head that loved to tell me “yes, yes you are good at all these things TODAY but you just wait.” After birth, I was slapped with the huge axis shift that is postpartum depression. The anxiety came flooding back and I. was. devastated. The positive side of that experience was it inspired my mission to chase that high of being anxiety free. I started a meditation practice, I started learning the power of boundaries, I changed my diet, sleep, exercise - you name it, I’ve tried it. I am happy to report that my relationship with anxiety is one of a rare, situational-based stressor and I plan to detail my concoction of what worked for me to achieve that in later letters.
I don’t think I would have believed that traumas in your life don’t have to be the end of “you” as you know it if it wasn’t for Angie. Angie was the expander I needed to take that power away from the dark cloud of “bad times are just lurking around the corner. beware.” She was the 4-minute mile I needed to see that actually, yes, really bad shit can happen to you but it doesn’t have to define you. You can still live a joyful life, you can still be the world's best hype girl (she is), you can still be a badass mother/ wife/ friend/ daughter/ cousin/ community member despite the world having different plans.
Angie will admit that she is no saint (although I disagree - if there was a church were stories like hers were the ones we learn about, I would be in the front row every Sunday). Her life isn’t perfect, she isn’t perfect, but she makes the effort to choose the life she wants to have.
When I was thinking about the stories I would want to steward on this first series of podcasts/newsletters - I knew she had to be featured but I feared she wouldn’t (validly) want to relive the past. I’m so grateful she did and I am honored to share her tale. I hope you take a little time to listen to her story and feel a little more expanded about what is possible in life despite the circumstances we cannot control (which these days feel like are mounting).
Until next week my friends!
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