Take a deep breath in.
Exhale.
Breathe in deeply.
Let it go.
Welcome to a hit of hope,
And this one is salty.
It's been hard lately.
Harder than usual.
The uncertainty,
The headlines,
The violence,
The despair.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Maybe it's been harder than usual for you,
Too.
Maybe it's taken everything in you to get out of bed.
To find the grit to make it through another day.
To find any sense of purpose,
Any glimmer of hope.
Inhale.
Exhale.
There's no denying it.
How broken the world is.
How broken so many of us feel.
But what you might not be seeing right now,
What you might be finding it hard to see right now,
Is how compelling and complex you are.
You have this unique signature of energy and character.
Are you familiar with the word bespoke?
It's a British word that means made to individual order.
Custom made.
My mind first went to shoes when I was thinking about this.
The shoes that are mass produced.
Everyone is exactly the same.
But then I went to stormtroopers in Star Wars.
You know those bodies in the plastic shells?
They are perfect.
There are no oddities,
No blemishes.
But you can't tell one from the other.
There are no quirks or idiosyncrasies.
They are absolutely interchangeable.
And let's be honest,
Dispensable.
Because no one cares.
Because there is nothing to care about.
Because every single one of them is that hard plastic shell.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Fuck the perfect shell.
Let me repeat that.
Fuck that perfect shell.
Be you.
The bespoke you.
The made to individual order you.
The you the world needs.
Be the most strange.
The most spectacularly you.
Because the world needs strange and spectacular to snap it out of the numbness.
The world needs you to be the weird,
Small wonder.
There is life and breath and pain and woundedness.
And maybe you feel it more than most.
Maybe you know the need for hope and grace,
Mercy and kindness.
But maybe you are too tired to do that work anymore.
I get it.
It is so hard.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Seriously,
Inhale life into that body of yours.
Bring life into that weary spirit of yours.
Bring the air that the trees have gifted us with into you.
Because the world needs you.
The world needs to hear your voice.
To benefit from your hands.
To heal because of the love in your heart.
So let your voice run wild into every corner of the earth because you never know who might need to hear it.
You never know who might stop,
Lean in,
Maybe start to cry because you reminded them that they too have this voice inside.
And imagine if we all did that now more than ever.
What if we all become suddenly awake to what is inside of us?
What a gift we are to the world.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Breathe life into your bespoke body.
Do your work.
And please take care of your amazing self.
Be the one the world needs.
Now more than ever.
Inhale.
Exhale.
And breathe life into your bespoke body.
