#7: The Fellowship

Hi everyone!

Excited for today’s newsletter!

If you are new here, welcome! This is where I explore the four pillars of my life: society, spirituality, human psychology, and nature.

Inspired by the book Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure, I’m committing to releasing a newsletter every Monday for the next two months.

So excited to get into it!

Society / Human Psychology (Two Parts):

Part 1:

Last Wednesday, I was set to give my first-ever formal talk at Edge City.

As an attendee, I had submitted a proposal to speak, and to my excitement, I was approved. I was scheduled to speak from 6-6:30 pm, sandwiched between two VIP speakers. One discussing the Next Frontier of Neurotech and the other covering The Next Generation of Nuclear Energy.

Mine? Living Your Truth.

A bit different.

I sat through the presentation before mine, watching as 6:00 pm approached. He showed no sign of slowing down. 6:05. Still going.

I stepped outside and asked the organizers when he’d warp up. They shrugged. He was a VIP, and they weren’t cutting him off. The next speaker? Yep, also a VIP, so no delays there either.

Note to self: next time, be a VIP.

It was 6:10. I had a decision to make:

Option 1: I could wait for the speaker to finish, introduce myself, and then immediately pass it off to the next VIP.

Option 2: Turn the outdoor lawn area into my stage.

Option 2 it is.

The lawn was slightly larger than a tennis court. I cleared a small area in the back left corner while people mingled. No chairs? No problem. I grabbed some cushions lying around and made a makeshift seating area.

As I set up, a few people gathered. Let’s go! I didn’t even know if anyone would show up.

Ten career professionals sat down, curious about Living Your Truth.

I spoke in stories. Talking about my upbringing, college experiences, travels, and moments that shaped my understanding of myself.

But something felt off.

I delivered the words, but I didn’t feel them landing. Two people left midway. I tried to engage the audience, looking them in the eye, but I could sense the disconnect. The talk ended, and I intuitively knew no one was walking away with a new thought or idea.

The next day, I sought feedback. Internally, I was thrilled that I had taken the leap to give a talk, and I also knew there was a lot of room for improvement.

People complimented my presence and delivery, but no one mentioned the actual content of my talk. Their lack of words told me how it went. After some prodding, I uncovered a hard truth:

I was unrelatable.

I had positioned myself as someone who had figured things out, rather than as someone still figuring things out. I shared how I had made hard changes in my life, but I hadn’t shared the real moments of pain or loneliness that led to those decisions.

I had this belief that because I was a 23-year-old speaking to career professionals, I had to prove why I was worth listening to. I avoided sharing my struggles, believing I thought I would lose respect.

Ironic, given my talk was about Living Your Truth. And I wasn’t fully living mine.

I learned that speaking ‘words’ may get compliments, but being real and honest in those words is what creates connection. People want to know you’re human too.

Lesson Learned.

Part 2:

Here’s what I would share with them now.

My current understanding of self wasn’t developed by choice. It was how I got my needs met.

Growing up, externally I was a normal kid, but internally, I was different. I felt things deeply. In retrospect, that’s a gift, but as a child, it felt like a burden.

It felt like I was given this avalanche of emotions that I had no idea how to handle. I spent years trying to understand what was going on inside me and feeling like something was wrong.

I didn’t talk much. I absorbed everything. I took in people’s emotions, my environments and surroundings but I had no language for what I was experiencing.

But I had a lot of questions.

Why am I taking longer to process things than other kids? Why do people exhaust me so much? Does anyone else see the kid in the corner having a bad day? Why does it hurt so bad when my friends insult each other but they don’t seem phased? And on…

I was lost in my head.

And because I didn’t understand what was happening, I didn’t speak. When I attempted to express these emotions, I was met with resistance and pressure to be like the rest of the class. They didn’t have these questions so why should I. So I learned to keep them inside.

As a parent, you aren’t given a playbook. You do the best with what you have and that is enough. There was no playbook to identify a kid who felt deeply and my parents had to figure it out.

They found personalized tutors and teachers, and funny enough, I did well in those one-on-one learning environments.

One of the greatest years of my life was when my family lived in Guatemala. That year, I had the freedom to create my own life playbook. But even then, my journey was a constant battle to exist in a world where I didn’t feel understood.

Sports saved me. It was my outlet to express myself, and society understood me through sports.

I noticed people valued my ability to score goals more than my ability to express emotions. The more goals I scored, the more understanding I got and love I received. I learned that achievement earned me love. The formula in my head became:

Achievement = Understanding = Love

It’s been an ongoing journey to untangle my associations between love, understanding and achievement.

For years, I’ve had this deep desire for a mentor. Someone that would see me and understand me. I was seeking external understanding because I didn’t believe I could give it to myself.

But in the past year, I started to give myself the understanding I was seeking and I no longer needed a mentor to fill that. Suddenly, all the time and energy I had spent unconsciously seeking external validation was freed up, allowing me to put more time into what was meaningful to me.

My new formula: I am love

I can see clearly now that I was meant to be on this lifelong journey of self-understanding because it was preparing me to help others do the same.

Spirituality

I have a new awareness that my path is no longer solo.

Wayne Dyer once said, “If you knew who walked with you on the path you have chosen, you would never experience fear or doubt again.”

I believe there’s an invisible arm guiding us toward our purpose. But it’s still our choice whether we get out of bed each day and show up for life.

When I do get out of bed and begin to pay attention about how I can best serve, I start to see that God and the universe has been guiding me all along.

Nature

A few years ago, I started taking walks in nature.

At first, it was an escape from the world. A way to pause from the pressures of life. But over time, I noticed something.

The birds chirping. The leaves swaying. My own breath. They had been there the whole time, but I hadn’t noticed them.

The amount of times I’ve heard, live in the present, is absurd. But I am realizing that nature has been teaching me about the present moment all along.

When I stop chasing everything outside of me, I start seeing what’s been in front of me all along.

Chirp Chirp.

That’s it for this week’s newsletter. If you enjoyed it, please share it with someone who might benefit.

Peace and love,

Ben