That was a title to make you ask all these questions like, “I thought Dunbar was already married….What did I miss? Did she break up, move out, start dating and find someone else while I was busy rewatching all eleven seasons of The Walking Dead??”
No, I’m just being a dumb jerk and telling you I’m engaged.
In my life. I’m engaged in my life. There, I shoulda said that from the beginning.
Lemme tell you what full engagement feels like to me and then you can say, “Oh yes, I have experienced that before.” Or you can say, “Confirmed. Dunbar’s off in Lala Land.”
In full engagement I am coaching, writing, songwriting, parenting, booking, walking, living in a way that all feels connected and in flow and it is so much fun. And it is hard work but it’s the kind of hard work that feels exactly right for me. I am stretching and thinking and deeply engaged (there’s that word again) in what I’m doing and pursuing and ya know what happens when full engagement takes over?
Suddenly the tiny problems just seem to vanish. Like I don’t want to check my social media every other minute and I don’t want to watch Netflix because that seems boring compared to what I’m doing and I don’t shimmy over to the kitchen looking for something to nibble because I’m too busy fully engaged in work that feels like a pleasure and pushing up through the ground in green pointing to the sky with an inkling to bloom is a wonderful feeling.
Engagement eliminates distraction, activates clarity and changes how time moves. We know time is static and unchanging, but engagement/flow rearranges and bends and expands minutes and hours like dreaming- where a whole world opens up and we get lost in it so that we look up and it’s been five hours that feel as light as a single leaf falling falling gently intensely with purpose onto tall green grass.
And that feels pretty great.
Have there been hang ups and hiccups and hitting heads against the wall? Yup but those get reimagined too where there’s no road block there’s just walking deeper into somewhere I haven’t been before solving puzzles I’m not sure how to solve, reaching for anything I think might break through.
And breaking through opens doors and breaking through ain’t as hard as all that and breaking through becomes the new game. What else is there for me here to break through?
All of which to say, dear reader, is that the general consensus on how things are done usually involves hustle and hard work and striving that leaves us exhausted and sometimes in judgment about not being good enough, not knowing enough, not being ready for this or that or the other thing, whereas engagement in what you love and feel passionately about offers new information about work. This kinda work does not exhaust instead it expands. This kind of thinking skips confusion and mines the gold found in clarity. Its plans in a way that embrace process and passion MORE than perfection. It puts us in movement that has us feeling like ourselves- integrated, unapologetic, alive and dialed in.
I’m inviting you to let yourself be drawn in by what you love. I’m inviting you to let it be easier than you think it is and watch the ripple effect of engagement.
We live in a world warning us at every turn about how closeness is a trap, closeness brings danger and heartbreak when really, closeness, falling in love, commitment, and offering up of self in wholeness is the most powerful and counter cultural move there is. There she goes again, my friend, talking crazy. And if this is crazy, well I don’t wanna be sane anymore.
Sane can go find another lover to torment. I’m engaged.