burn down your box.

Just over a week ago, I sat in my parents’ basement looking at four other women on a Zoom screen, getting ready to take a SoulFlow™ embodiment class led by one of my dear friends.

She started the music and dropped us into our bodies with some meditation and breathing.

As I sprawled out on my yoga mat, feeling the weight of my spine, my arms, my legs, my skull on the ground, she began guiding us into a visualization.

A visualization of sitting around a fire together. A visualization of burning all the emotions, stories, and beliefs that aren’t serving us. As the song crackled and popped like a campfire, I felt warmth spread up and down my body.

And in my head, I saw a wooden box around me.

And in my head, I set it the f*ck on fire.

In my head, I watched it burn down to the floor around me, releasing smoke and charred bits into the air until nothing remained.

I burned the box that I didn’t even realize was around me.

We live in a world that tells us to build boxes around ourselves. Follow THIS career path, major in this ONE thing, spend your days mastering this ONE skill.Once we leave high school, we aren’t exactly encouraged to explore anymore. When you hit college, you choose your path and you follow it.

you start building your box and you stay in it.

You choose your state, your choose your city, you choose your career, you choose your life.

Sometimes you choose right. Sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes you choose right, but it still feels like something is missing.

That’s where I had found myself over the last year or two.

I love being in the publishing industry. I genuinely like my job. I actually love my company. I don’t dread working at all, actually.

And yet, I knew that there were other things I wanted to be doing, too.

I’ve always wanted to lead movement classes—whether it was dance, yoga, or some other form. I’ve always wanted to teach college classes. I’ve always wanted to do something with my love of writing.

But they didn’t fit into my box.

I’m a textbook marketer; I’m not those other things.

And then one day, I just asked myself: why not? Why CAN’T I be all of those things? I don’t have kids. My hours and days belong to me. And the hours of 9-5 that belong to my job don’t suck away my entire day. In fact, they conceivably leave me about six free hours each day during which I could be doing those other things.

that’s thirty extra hours each week that I could dedicate to my other passions (not including weekends!).

I could learn to teach movement classes in those hours. Once certified, I could teach actual movement classes in those hours. I could build playlists and plan out visualizations and work on my own energetic practices. I could dance.

I could teach night classes in those hours, spreading my knowledge and love of publishing and writing to students like I once was.

I could write these Substack posts that I love so much in those hours. I could start working on a book. I could submit finished pieces to online journals and literary magazines.

I could read and research and connect with others in those hours.

And one day, I just started.

one day, I just started burning that box to the ground.

And you know what happened?

I became ME again.

And you know what happens when you feel like yourself?

You show up even better for your 9-5. You should up even better in your relationships. You show up with even more passion for your passions.

I’ve been intentionally doing all of these things, but I didn’t realize the importance of them until that moment, on my yoga mat, listening to my friend’s voice.

I haven’t just been incorporating more of what I enjoy into my life. I’ve literally been burning my societal conditioning to the ground.

And let me tell you—when it got to the part of the SoulFlow™ class where we got to call in everything we desire, I let myself GO.

I laughed and swung my hair around and shook my booty like everyone in the world was watching me, mesmerized.

I pictured all the variety that life has to offer raining down around me.

Because now, I know this to be true:

I crave variety. I want to sample and explore and discover everything that life has to offer me. I’m not meant to be just one thing. Heck, I don’t even want to just be in one place. I want layers, options. I want to create a life that is multi-dimensional. One that is always changing and evolving and surprising me. I don’t ever want to be in a box or be put in a box again. I don’t ever want to get complacent and stop pushing myself and trying new things.

I want to live, as fully as possible.

I broke open, dancing my ass off in the energy of four other women in my parents’ basement.

And it felt f*cking good.

xx

Court.