There’s No Right Way to Live Your Life.

At my last community sound bath, someone told me they spent most of the session watching me.

Usually, people lie down, close their eyes, get cozy, or sometimes (not surprisingly) they fall asleep.

This person told me they have ADHD, and lying there with their eyes closed wasn't actually what felt most soothing to them. Watching me move around my magic sound bowl wands creating my symphony of good vibes did.

My response was basically: Yeah. Do that.

Another woman fell asleep during the same sound bath and afterward asked me if that was what she was supposed to do.

Also yes.

Or no. Whatever.

I fucking hate the word "should."

I don't think there's anything wrong with guidance, structure, tradition, or learning from people who know more than you do., but I do think we spend an incredible amount of our lives looking around for confirmation that we're doing things correctly.

Am I meditating correctly? Am I resting correctly? Am I making the responsible career choice? Is this what a relationship is supposed to look like? Am I where I'm supposed to be by this age?

Sometimes we get so concerned with doing something the "right" way that we stop paying attention to whether that way actually works for us.

Mindfulness Isn't About Following the Rules

One of the reasons trauma-informed mindfulness matters so much to me is autonomy. I'm there to create the space. I can offer suggestions, and I can tell you what an exercise is intended to do and give you some options for experiencing it, but you are still the person living in your body.

If closing your eyes makes you uncomfortable, keep them open. If lying down doesn't work for you, sit up. If watching me swivel around hitting gongs and chimes is what settles your brain, watch me wander around banging on bowls.

If you fall asleep, apparently your body needed a nap.

I don't want someone leaving one of my sound baths wondering whether they were "good" at it. I want them to notice what happened when they were given an hour where they didn't have to perform anything at all.

When Your Experience Doesn't Match the Instructions

Being gay taught me pretty early that sometimes the version of life you're handed simply doesn't apply to you.

There was a whole script for dating, relationships, marriage, gender, what women were supposed to look like, who we were supposed to want, and for a long time, I tried to locate myself somewhere inside of it. It turns out, sometimes the instructions are just wrong.

I've had a similar experience with gender. Gender-fluid is probably the closest language I've found for myself, but even that doesn't mean I wake up every morning consulting a flowchart about exactly where I land. I'm just me. Some parts of womanhood feel deeply connected to who I am, and other expectations attached to it have never made any fucking sense to me.

There was a time when I probably would have spent a lot more energy trying to figure out what all of that meant, but Now I'm much more interested in noticing what feels true, and maybe that's part of why I have such a visceral reaction to the word "should."

"Should" assumes there's an answer outside of you that you're failing to follow.

Sometimes there is. Please pay your taxes.

But when it comes to knowing yourself, I think we're often looking for instructions where we need awareness instead.

Pay Attention to What Actually Works for You

There's a reason mindfulness keeps finding its way into almost everything I do. It's very difficult to make choices that feel like your own if you're never paying attention to yourself.

What makes you uncomfortable? What makes you feel alive? What are you doing because you genuinely want to do it? What have you been tolerating because you've never considered that you could do something differently? What feels good when nobody else is there to tell you whether you're doing it right?

That's the kind of awareness I'm interested in- not becoming so self-aware that you analyze every decision to death. God knows we don't need more of that.

Just knowing yourself well enough to recognize when something works for you—even if it doesn't look the way you thought it would.

The person watching me during the sound bath didn't need me to tell them how to experience it. They figured it out, and so did the woman who fell asleep.

You don't have to experience your life the way somebody else would. You're the one who has to live it.

If you've been feeling stuck: I work one-on-one with people who want a different perspective on whatever they're navigating. You don't need to have a goal, a five-year plan, or even know exactly what you want to talk about. Sometimes you just need somewhere to start.