💃 Triumphs, Tunes, and Think Weekends: A Dive into April's Adventures

My monthly reflection of April with daily dancing (Letter 208)

Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from Honolulu, Hawaii 🌞

Today is a special day…

Happy birthday to my mom, the woman who made me the ambitious, caring, and kind human that I am today. I feel blessed to have her in my life.

Walking down Kalākaua Avenue in Waikiki January ‘ 24

On another note, I feel so lucky to be able to show up each week to write these letters that I love. I always look forward to it and get such an immense sense of satisfaction from sharing. Thank you for caring by signing up and affording me this opportunity to share.

Now, let’s dive into this month’s reflection in letter 208 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

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❓Question to think about

What happened in April?

I’ve recently found out from this poll I launched that many people don’t do monthly reflections. It’s one of my favorite rituals I’ve had the last four years.

I invite you to journal with me reflecting from the month of April with the prompts:

1. What questions have I been thinking about?

2. What are some words that inspired me?

3. What wins have I experienced?

4. What lessons have I learned?

💭 Questions I’ve been pondering:

1. How can my environment make me more “happy accident” prone?

2. What are my beliefs?

3. How can I balance contentment with ambition in my life? (tweet about it here)

4. How can I continue to use tools to support a regulated nervous system?

5. Knowing, thinking and intellectualism, not doing, are a primary block for many creative people. Sometimes, knowledge impedes change. We know more but do less. How can I have a bias for action?

6. What is the difference between attraction and curiosity? How can I use my innate attraction to prompt my curiosity?

7. How can I converge with focus and have vectors (or arrows) on my actions?

8. How can I be more assertive with my thoughts and feelings?

9. How can the story of “being behind” be released?

10. Who could I talk to that would inspire my way of being?

🌟Quotes to inspire

1. “Ultimately, this is not about solving your problems. It’s about realizing that there are no problems. Only situations — to be dealt with now, or to be left alone and accepted as part of the “isness” of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with. Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.”

   — Eckart Tolle from The Power of Now (S/o to Matt Yao for sharing this with me)

2. “The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.”
   — Sarah Ban Breathnach

3. “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”
   — Alan Watts (shoutout to Sara for sharing this with me at the perfect time)

4. “Whatever the reasons, we do not pursue emotional development with the same intensity with which we pursue physical or intellectual development. This is all the more unfortunate because full emotional development offers the greatest degree of leverage in attaining our full potential.”
   — Bill O’Brien (from page 7 of The Artist’s Way at Work: Riding the Dragon)

5. “… one of the most unexpected elements of Frankl’s book is his central belief that every moment of our existence— happy, sad, generous, or cruel— give us our experience of life and should be accepted as such.”
   — John Boyne from the foreword of Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning

🫶 What I loved

1. After reading Bill’s Quote #4 above, I realized that I need to start prioritizing my emotional development and start therapy again.

2. I stuck with the theme of journaling for the whole month of my letters

   1. 💌 Five Years in Pages: A Love Letter to My Journals

   2. ✨ 🦄 I Practice Magic & It Works! ✨ 🦄

   3. 🏊🏻‍♀️🚴🏻‍♀️🏃🏻‍♀️Action Over Words: Sweat, Saltwater, and Satisfaction from Designing A Triathlon

3. I muscled up the courage to go to Hawaii’s Career Expo. I met 12 new people. Handed out three resumes. Applied to three jobs. I might become lifeguard certified this summer for Ocean Safety reasons and as an important life skill.

4. I completed taking Jonny Miller’s Nervous System Mastery course last week. I filmed a capstone reflection as my edge challenge using tools I learned like mindful moments to breathe, APE reflection, co-regulation, and NSDR (non-sleep deep rest concept coined by Andrew Huberman)

5. On the last weekend of April, I had myself A Think Weekend. It’s a ritual I love. I intended to have a container of time with myself to read and write using little technology. The technology I allowed myself was my pen and paper, a car, my Sony camera, and uke. This meant no Internet, watch, or phone for 48 hours. So no googling, Spotify playing, Google Mapsing a new beach, or phoning friends. Definitely different from how I usually fill a weekend.
   I’ve done these in the past. I wrote about my first one right before I turned 25 in 2021 in letter 46.

📸 Nine Mundane & Magical Photos

Here are some photos I took during my April think weekend:

🤓 What I learned

1. I say “I don’t know” too often. I want to be more confident by reframing this statement from my speech at the end of my declarative statements. I do know things, and that is okay.

2. A triathlon doesn’t need to be perfect to be put together. Releasing that pressure makes it a lot more fun to take action. It’s also fun to make my first Gif :)

   

3. Sometimes, I need to feel into things more than think and overthink them.

🎧Listening to songs that make me DANCE 🪩🤩

Below are five songs that I have unabashedly danced around my bedroom in the mornings this past month. Twas a joyous habit to have that I will continue to use when I need a burst of energy with a heart flutter:

1. Marea (we’ve lost dancing) by Fred again

2. The Valley Town by Eliott BROOD

3. I Miss Those Days - MTV Unplugged by Bleachers

4. Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Blue Orchestra

4. Float On by Modest Mouse

Friends and family have sent me all these songs over the years. Thank you. I appreciate you.

💌 Habit this month

I will be writing letters Monday - Friday. I am STOKED about this new project that I’ve been noodling about for about a year, and I’m finally organizing and expressing in my new notebook.

🎬 Watching

A movie I rewatched in April was the 2008 Movie “Yes Man” starring Jim Carrey.

This movie is cheesy, but it's got me giggling and inspired by the possibilities of accepting invitations that life presents me with.

A favorite quote:

"The world is a playground. You know that as a kid, but somewhere along the way, everyone forgets it."

📸Photos of the Week

My sister, also known as Peanut, is visiting me. I love her so SO much.

🙏Shoutouts

• To everyone in my life. Thank you, I love my life and it’s because of all of you.

• I want to give a special shoutout to my clients reading this and to my coach and therapist. Thank you for being such a huge part of my development.

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I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com. If you forgot who I am, I welcome you to my online home.

Keep on learning 😁

Mahalo 🌺

Jen

I wrote a reflection in March called 🥖 Breadcrumbs from March 🥖. You’d enjoy reading that if you like this.

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