john keats is such a gangster. (& Peter Lindbergh)

"When by my solitary hearth I sit, 

When no fair dreams before my - mind’s eye - flit,
 

And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
 

Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
 

And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.
 

Whene’er I wander, at the fall of night,
 

Where woven boughs shut out the moon’s bright ray,
 

Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
 

And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
 

Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
 

And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof."

-John Keats

photo by Peter Lindbergh. model: Natalia Vodianova

oh here she comes!

heard this hall & oates cover by the bird and the bee and remembered why I love them so much!

Vulnerability.

My last epiphany of the day is this.

To not judge others you must be where they have been. . ......?

That is a good idea, because then you have context and a platform for understanding. But I don’t want to go out and get raped to understand and help someone else through that.

Yet.. I find that my ability to empower and serve others is impaired by my judgment. I put the brakes on with some people and put them at arms length because I don’t understand them.

So hence! I found the broken link and my internal issue that is halting my progress.

Vulnerability. 

//

Doesn’t it always seem that the things that we put on others are really just our own issues?

The only way to connect with others is vulnerability.

But everyone suffers from shame, which is the inability to connect because we don’t feel that we are enough, or that we won’t be accepted because we are messed up. 

And because we fear those thoughts and feelings we numb them.. by drinking, drugging, sexing, God-ing them away. We aspire to make those chaotic feelings contained because they are distasteful to us.

But what do we end up doing? Shutting down the natural ability to feel anything else… love, joy, peace… contented-ness.

So then we feel shame again and we stifle our acceptance and growth by diving back into our cave of numbness and addiction. We become half a human. 

//

I have been pretty unwilling to be vulnerable … and I have set enormously high standards for myself and others, stifling other’s ability to be vulnerable with me.. sometimes to connect with me.

A persons true character should always be assessed in friendships and you may end up closer to those who value similar things…. but I realized that I don’t need to be on the level of others to understand them. I don’t need to loosen up my standards per say; I don't need to do things that disrespect who I truly am and what I truly want.. to have a connection with others .. I just need to maintain a goal with them that is bigger than myself.

Once again, I need to become a servant. To see people through the lens of embracing my own vulnerabilities and being willing to equally, fairly share them too. To not be so self-aborbed to neglect connecting with others. To not be a servant to myself but to my STRONG belief that people deserve to be able to connect, to feel genuinely cared about and fearless about their vulnerabilities in life. To know that, with me, their vulnerabilities will not become a tool for me to tear them down but reversed to be their incredible tool to connect with me in a real, genuine and amazingly wonderful way.

Once I am tied to my beliefs, instead of myself, others can get behind me, because they don't really have to get behind me, the person, all they have to do is get behind me, my beliefs and my ideas! and maybe, just maybe, we can leap frog each other into a better happier, fulfilled and connected life.

!! All these previously random things are making sense. This is so bad ass.

tell me what I can do. to be there for you.

the "why" question

my epiphany tipped off with this TED talk: AMAZING

Being a servant in my life comes from my faith. And as I am learning, faith is not a God thing necessarily. It comes from my faith in God. My faith in people. My faith in what I believe in the world. And that responsibility. Everything I have done, everything I do.. adds up to that. It is intuitive. It is not an analytic choice. All my analyzation and thought goes into pinning down what that intuition and gut means so that I can replicate it. So I can make the rules of my life. Here’s what I think I believe.


Of all the things I have wanted, being a servant always comes up.
Because a good servant is excellent at what they do... serves a good master... is not ALWAYS inhibited and debilitated in learning and growing by by their stuck up ego, because they have a servant's attitude... and always gets ahead because good servants are hard to find :)


A servant serves others. They are consistently willing to put their ego in check because of a bigger goal. As a Christian, being a servant always meant serving God by representing in respecting others, loving others and respecting the gifts and bodies He gave us.

It was represented to me in school and church that godless people couldn’t live a perfectly "good" life because their foundation was built on shaky ground, but I don't think that is true, definitely not by their definition, and it is more objective than that. There are Christians who follow the law who are cruel and hurtful and there are atheists that build their life on foundations of great worth.

I am finding that being a good person is more than what I had thought. It is not about being “good” but being way beyond it. You have to completely shift the way you think.

There are several layers of who people are.

Apparent Value:

-She is a pretty girl.

-She makes me feel good when I am around her.

-She gives me what I want, when I want it.

-She has made a name and money for herself.

Apparent value are traits that might appear in a photo, or when you first might meet someone in a club on a Friday night. Apparent traits are things that society accepts and praises at a distance. Apparent traits are immediately gratifying.

“My she is successful! Look at all the money she has made!”

“My isn’t she gorgeous!”

“She is so funny and charismatic.”

“She gives me everything I want! She is so generous!”

Some people only care about the visible or apparent value people in their life have. Appartent value is easy, apparent value is not that hard to attain and visible value gives the MOST IMMEADIATE bang for the buck, second to none. In some cases apparent value is suuuuuper cheap, but not always.

Invisible Value:

-She respects herself.

-She is loyal. Will not bend. Cares about commitment.

-Genuinely cares about others. Sensitive and aware of the people she cares about.
Listens to others and accepts vulnerability without condensation.

-She works hard for the things she believes in.Works to self improve. Always wants to be better.

-She is trustworthy and honest.

 
Invisible value is found with more time and patience. As you get to know someone you see whom they really are: if they truly are successful as a human being and if they truly are beautiful. 

“She always has my back. I can trust her 100%”

“She never says hurtful things or holds grudges. She is forgiving and respectful. I can be vulnerable around her”

“She gets things done and sticks to her word even if it is hard”

“She invests in me as a person without reward. I love her”

“She respects herself and me enough not to give me everything I want. She values a dynamic relationship with depth”

Kind, considerate, committed, loyal, meaningful… just think of all the internal virtues. And that is great. Internal virtues are harder to attain. They require learning. They require discipline. But they aren’t always apparent. They aren’t alluring to everyone and some people basically aren’t patient enough to discover whether someone has them or not.

But I know a lot of people with generally good internal value that I still can’t count on. I feel a gut reaction to them. Something is off.
I feel like they would do what they do, but as long as it serves them or only on their terms

It’s off putting.
 
I can’t really invest or feel like I can give back. It’s suck-ly invasive. 

And I just realize, it is because what I am really searching and wanting is the final level, or “the why”.

Why do you strive to be better? 
Why do you commit, have faith, are loyal, dream, are honest, love others? 
Can I believe in your why? 

And, as the TED talk suggests, the "why" can be as diverse as a passion for achieving flight, like the Wright Brothers, to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s believe in the higher justices of equality and civil rights.

A purpose so much more important than yourself that it drives you to be that thing and that purpose that keeps you consistent, growing, bettering.. Something way beyond you.

A “why”.. that is something I believe in.  Then I will buy all your “ whats”, the products you have to offer as a person. Inside and out.

And really, transcending being a good person and having that "why" is somewhat about being a servant.

Why are truly good leaders also servants? Because they are incredible people. They have the inner value, they have the outer value.. and their focus and “why” is something beyond them. Something that is continually refining them and driving them to be better when they don’t believe in themselves, when their own self-investment is bankrupt. They have fireproofed their life from discouragement, they have fireproofed their lives from inconsistency and carved out a meaning and belonging from it. 

They inspire action because they are not self-indulgent about life, because they have a dream, not just a plan. They have strong and amazing beliefs, versus just actions.

Since ACTIONS are only SYMPTOMS of BELIEFS.

And truly that is what Christianity was meant to be. Faith in action. Your human product a symptom of your heart and belief in something bigger not visa versa.

Those leaders are inspiring because they are focused on the cause and not themselves. They strive not for “the what” in the situation but “the why”.

And I want to be around others with the same “why” in their world because it will be 100 times more satisfying to work and support them, really their beliefs (which are also my beliefs), with all my blood, sweat and tears and have guarenteed no regrets.

And, I believe, visa versa.

Do you know what you want? Do you know what beliefs you stand for? Remember, its tied into why you do. Not what you do.

Ahhhh! Its like my head is finally above water! Like I am standing on this awesome new platform. Thank you, world :)

BELIEF in the time before twitter, facebook and guerrilla marketing moved 200,000

a good man.

a great servant.

music for when you are walking and you wanna feel like a badass.

ever just need a break from being lame?
having a day when you seem to fail at everything?

have a gansta-walking-down-the-street-like-a-badass break.

I do it all the time when I check our company mailbox. Here is my current playlist so that you can feel like a badass too.
Sorry, it is not an equal opportunity playlist and is kind of gender bias.

happy humpday!
xx
Sahale

apirations of being a refined woman.

Marc Jacobs, my fav designer, does it again!
How does he manage to make high fashion also completely highly refined and classic?
I'm inspired.

Also, I have a secret.. if you can't afford Mr. Jacobs, as I can't...
check out Zara 
Classy at an affordable price.

 

macklemore + ryan lewis. my new fav!!

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - Can't Hold Us by Worldofundergroundhiphop

shadow play.

me and my brother had some fun at a Southern Oregon museum exhibit.

\

secret lives of rockers.

I had an epiphany over Memorial day weekend.. while me and my brother were attending Bumbershoot, Seattle's biggest music festival.

Rockstars.. rockstars rockstars rockstars. Everywhere.

All I could think is, I wanna be a rockstar!!

Not in the way you think. I don't want to trash hotel rooms and dance wildly across the stage.. well, I do.. but what I really want is to be incredibly good at what I do. To be so good. that I am a rockstar at it. 

I'll never forget what one of my friends Jon-Michael told me. Shhhhh.. don't tell anyone else. He is pretty conservative. Super fun and kind hearted. But on stage! he is like an animal. He gives the audience exactly what they want. What they expect. The fantasy they want to experience. 

What if you could be a rock star? What if you could live that life?

But under that facade. Rockstars are truly rockstars. They are all the things that refined people are. People at the top of their field. They are true and extraordinary professionals. To do at anything at that level you have to be. There are no short cuts, like rockstars would make you believe. They are highly honed and motivated individuals. 

They get things done. They make things happen. They show up, they follow through. They entertain.. they are accurate and on time. They preserve.. they conquer. They are like CEO's that are required to have awesome hair and play guitar like a mofo. 

That sounds like the kind of professional I wanna be!

Their job description requires them to sell the fantasy. The fantasy of being a rocker. 

That is something I have never seen a film director do…

Couldn't a director be that bold? Wouldn't that be interesting? Wouldn't that sell?

I wanna be the director that sells the fantasy. I want to be the slickest, craziest most awesome rockstar professional of film you may ever meet.