Hey there,
Good morning and happy Sunday to you!

I have a morning routine that I do – prayers, mediation, journaling, and stuff – that is extremely helpful in creating the type of day I want to experience as well as creating the type of person I want to be through out the day.

I am incredibly grateful for this routine. I just finished it and it feels really nice.

What are you incredibly grateful for this morning? In fact, stop reading, ask yourself that very question and what is THE first thing that comes to mind?

Embrace that please. Really take the time to say thank you for whatever THAT is.

I am also extremely grateful for last weeks newsletter exercise. It had a profound impact on my day and my week and brought so many gifts into my life that I would have missed.

And based on the wonderful comments from so many of you, it’s clear it helped you as well.

If you didn’t read it, I asked you to spend the day slowing down your life. And I meant slowing everything down  – EVERY THING down really slow.

For those that did take advantage of it I’d like to encourage you to join me and go again today.  Of course, we’ll forget. We’ll get swept up in our lives and “all we have to do and deal with that is SO important” but what’s more important than really showing up for our lives? Really being present and graceful?

Believe me I am preaching to the choir. My greatest strength is my greatest weakness. You see I have this blessed, beautiful life living my dream of being an actor, teacher, and filmmaker. And one of the reasons it has unfolded is because of my work ethic.

I am consistent and dedicated and have been for twenty nine years now.

But for me the dark side of being this driven is impatience. And man can I be impatient with life. Sometimes I can be a complete ass when life is not unfolding on “my terms.”

Balance. Balance is the key.

What great strength of yours is your great weakness as well?

What about you and in your life is out of balance?

If you’ve been part of or weekly check-ins you know that one of my favorite sayings/teachings is, “The only way out is through.”

I believe that little statement has so much wisdom and truth. For me it means, “Are you awake enough and honest enough to see what needs to change in your life? And are you ready to make that chance? Do you have the courage to make that change?”

The first step to change is to be awake enough to catch it.

By getting into the habit last week of slowing things down I gave myself a beautiful gift yesterday.
I went for a drive up the Mendocino Coast in my one guilty pleasure – my convertible sports car. I was smiling a huge smile while driving (it’s impossible to not have a smile on my face when I’m driving that car) because the top was down and I’m cruising along with no traffic, hitting the corners safe but hard.

So much fun for me!

But then, just as I approach the most beautiful parts of the drive – a section of 10 miles of nothing but gigantic redwoods lining the road, beams and rays of sunlight bursting through – I came up behind a big UPS delivery truck.

At first I was patient and graceful but after he/she passed several turnouts to pull over to let me by but DIDN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (he/she actually tried to speed up and turn it into a competition, too) my impatience began to highjack this beautiful drive and for the next several miles instead of seeing breathtaking beauty all around me, all I saw was a UPS Delivery logo from hell on the back of this truck along with several opportunities to pass that were to narrow for safety.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! is how it felt inside of me and so I was literally missing my favorite part of the drive because why?

Uhhh, because I wanted to be in front of this truck.

And then a voice of balance/sanity/grace gently said, “Hey, I have an idea. SLOW DOWN. I mean do the impossible for you right now, Jimbo and pull over, let the truck get way ahead and then instead of going 50mph this redwood forest, go 30mph.”

The only way out IS through.

So I did the impossible (for me). I pulled over and let the truck get way ahead. Then I slowly pulled out and went very slowly and gave myself two great gifts. Of course being present for the rest of the drive was one but the greatest gift was “catching it while the hell I was creating was happening” and that came from a week of consistent work of slowing my life down and showing up more for each moment.

I want you to have the same gift so let’s do this together once again. Let’s create a day today – a real, deliberate exercise in slowing our lives down so we can show up more.

I’m in.

I hope you’ll join me!

And let me know how it goes either by hitting reply or posting something on our Facebook page so the rest of our artistic family can benefit from you.

As always, thank you for your time. You are greatly appreciated.
Always,
Jimbo