A Day Well Lived®

10 years of passion.
A Day Well Lived® has been a passion project for more than 10 years. What started as a way to teach my then six-year old son about gratitude grew into a social community across several platforms hundreds of thousands strong. ADWL generated tens of thousands of daily impressions and engagements. I started to imagine it as “Life Is Good” for gratitude. It never quite became that. I don’t think it wanted to.

Celebration.
I still post daily content on Instagram, but it’s not all gratitude focused. I’ve abandoned my attachment to the analytics and (misplaced?) dreams of being the next Life Is Good. I now see ADWL as an opportunity to spread connection, joy, belonging, and maybe raise some money for mental health initiatives by creating some products. I see ADWL as a celebration of our collective Humanity.

The Bead.
We worked with Laura LewAllen to produce a custom bead that encompasses the ADWL story. Featuring the Sun, Moon and Stars brought together by a Spiral of Connectedness, the ADWL Bead is not for sale.

We gift this Bead to those who carry within themselves a kind of Humanity as a Platform uniqueness. These are Infinite Minded thinkers who possess an energy that lights up rooms. They are Magicians. Lightworkers. Spirits. They are Love.

We also gift the ADWL BEAD to Humans in need. We routinely ask for nominations from our social community. Who needs Love? Who needs a Reminder? Who needs assurance that they aren’t walking their path alone?

Sign up and follow along.
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I was thinking about and writing about what it means to be whole. To have all the emotional and spiritual bits intact. To have all the love. For yourself. In yourself. To be completely self-sufficient. Aware. I wrote it—as I do. And I saw “olé” at the end. Off to the races my mind went! What if we considered being whole as something to cheer? Olé! Would it then be Wholé?!? An action. A celebration. Every time we make one of those aligned, true choices that support our wholeness, we get to say “Wholé!” like fans do at soccer games or wherever. Make a healthy choice for yourself, Wholé! It becomes an active reminder of the times we do hard things, but know they are the right things for ourselves. We all do them. Daily. But do we notice? Seems we’re far better at noticing the sabotage than we are the inner support. At least I am. And even noticing that deserves a WHOLÉ! #adaywelllived I have a friend who introduced me to the idea of “chose your hard” several years ago. The premise is that we are constantly faced with hard choices and we have to choose our hard. In her case, it was about getting healthy. She said it was really hard to live unhealthy and it was really hard to lose weight. She had to make her choice. It’s so simple and profound. Yet—I’m constantly forgetting this lesson. It’s hard to be a good student and it’s hard not to be—Choose your hard. It’s hard to face your traumas and do the work and it’s hard to live with the consequences of not facing them—Choose your hard. We can do this over and over, can’t we? It’s hard to tell ourselves the truth. And it’s hard to lie to ourselves. Choose your hard. Choose your hard. Choose your hard. #adaywelllived Note to Self: Trust yourself. Forgive yourself. Love yourself. Sometimes I forget to do all of these things at once. It doesn’t go so well when that happens. But when I remember? Well those are magic times, aren’t they? Anything is possible. Everything is possible. Leaves are brighter. Air is crisper. And I’m gifted with so much awareness. Check in with yourself. Remind yourself. Trust yourself. Forgive yourself. Love yourself. #adaywelllived As we roll into and through gratitude season, I want to pay tribute to the people who didn’t treat me so well. The ones who gaslit me more than they loved me. The ones who crushed me in meetings, stole ideas, created fear and encouraged me to play small. The ones who fed me a steady diet of doubt. Because they, more than any others, are the reason I did and do the work. They helped me find the wounds, the grief, and the trauma so I could better understand myself and grow into healing. I spent a whole of time chasing the wrong returns. Thank you for treating me in such a way — that I was able to finally see that I could show up differently. #adaywelllived Ad(d)vice: When your life has become so routine and without fire that you need to add a little vice. Now, this is not any kind of advice to break promises with yourself or to hurt others. This is not a suggestion to blow shit up or get arrested. It’s simply suggesting that maybe it’s time to add some cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Time for some extra seasoning. Time to dig deep into the memories and remember the times when we didn’t feel quite so heavy. A time when we took some chances and did stupid things because they might be fun. Depending on where we are in our lives — this “vice” will be different. Perhaps it just means to stretch a little further than we think we can. To forgive more. Love more. To break free of programmed definitions and alg*r*th*ms that spin us into neatly packed boxes and cages. #adaywelllived Feels like we all need to be grounded. Not in the punishment way, but in the feet on the ground, aligned, with steady breath kind of way. We all need to go to our rooms. We’re just yelling without listening. If we can regulate our nervous systems—maybe we’ll be able to see just how far from the narrative we’ve gotten. We are being played. I don’t feel hopeless, but I do feel helpless. I’m trying to stay in a space of love. It’s not easy. It’s fcking hard. Sometimes impossible. #adaywelllived Launched a new “purpose project” last night: The Laurel Project. @paulliszewski started this with a question: Can we take all the bits that made the Laurel Canyon music scene in the 60s and 70s and reimagine them for today? I don’t actually know why I woke up with “Re” spinning in my mind. Refocus. Reengage. Refuel. Reestablish. Last week was one of the most productive, creative, and aligned weeks I’ve had in many years. Certainly since the Pandemic and likely well before that. So why the Re? I *am* focused and established and engaged. Aren’t I? What does my unconscious know that I don’t? (Besides fcking everything, I mean.) What isn’t quite as aligned as I think? To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. But let me share the rabbit hole through which I traveled as I considered this question. I thought about the word, refine in this context. And I thought, I don’t want to Re-Fine; I want to Re-Great! And when I wrote Re-Great, I noticed how it’s an “a” away from Regret. Maybe that’s what this whole Re thing is about—the Regrets I carry. A reminder to (A)ct, stay (A)uthentic. To be (A)ware. To (A)llow. To (A)sk. And to (A)nswer. I had an opportunity to do something last night and I froze in an avalanche of old narratives. I was buried by their weight. Ah, there it is: Refocus. Realign. Reestablish. Fck the regret, move on and Regreat. I truly didn’t get that until just now. Makes all the sense in the world. #adaywelllived I woke up this morning and things just felt like they were in order. I knew the day was going to launch with creativity and easy access to my daily practices. Even the dog wanted to walk. And that’s not really her jam in the am. Then there are those other days. The ones when we know we just don’t have *it* — and we need to sit with it. Yeah, we have to power through, but do it without fighting ourselves. I suck at that. But those days are part of the experience. They are impossible to avoid. And they make days like today that much more amazing. #adaywelllived