The Growing Report

For April we focused on growth and preparing our soul soil to foster the new blossoms that need that happen. In case you're just tuning in, or if you need some encouragement when those weeds get prickly - here's a recap!  ​

Preparing the soil for growth:

• The necessary pruning process.
• ​Weeding the garden of entitlement. 
• You can't control everything - you have to let go to grow!​

Planting and nurturing that growth:

• Don't let uncertainty stand in your way!
• You have no room to grow when you refuse to leave the cage of comfort.
• ​What are you waiting for? Uncover those dusty dreams and go for it! 
• ​Forward momentum feeds growth.
• ​Our of the flower pot, into the field.

What has influenced YOUR growth this month? 

Underlining Uncertainty

Asking out the cutest girl in your class.

Building a large project with your dad’s tools in the garage.

Introducing yourself to the star quarterback of your high school.

Suggesting a new way to handle things to your boss to improve company productivity.

Following a path in your life that looks unlike any other you have ever seen.

What causes someone to not do these things? Uncertainty.

Uncertainty can be a sense of intelligence telling you to protect yourself from doing something, or it can be used like a bolt of lightning to power your inner ‘flux capacitor’ and send you to a 1985 that is changed to a new and improved life.

Let’s face it, we all stop ourselves from following through on an idea we had because we are uncertain about how it will turn out, uncertain how will it make us feel after it is completed, or how it might make us look to others. This uncertainty hinders the idea that spawned in our imagination from becoming reality, meeting its potential. I recently heard an interview with the original creators of the television cartoon, “The Simpsons”, where they explained it is very rare in TV and music for all the components to be right from the outset of the project. Just like any task, getting every component perfect the first time around is highly unlikely. You will have a better chance at finding Waldo in a candy cane village than you will at getting each component exactly right the first time around.

Take the uncertainty that rolls into your mind and run with it. You may fall right out of the gate but your persistence and the evolution of your journey holds so much potential that you cannot just let it slip on by, leaving you wondering: “what if?”.​

Ben Heydt is the Media Director for The Authenticity Project; you can contact Ben at TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com

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Uprooting the Weeds of Entitlement

Have you struggled to truly live with a grateful heart? Do you desire to have a heart that looks out into the world as half full rather than half empty? Have you ever wondered at what point this view of seeing your life as half empty will transition to knowing that your life is as full as you allow it to be?

I believe this switch happens when we no longer allow ourselves to think and believe that the world owes us something. As Mark Twain put it: “Don’t go around saying that the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first.”

I know from personal experience that I easily and quickly assume that I’m entitled to many things: a good life, to be treated well, for things to happen easily, to someday find the ‘perfect’ job, and to be able to do what I want when I want to. I’m not saying that desiring is the same thing as feeling entitled. Entitlement convinces us to believe that we deserve this or that. At the core of us all, we know what is right and wrong, and just versus unjust. It’s healthy to desire to have a good life, to be treated well, and to have human dignity, etc. Those should be a given, but unfortunately the reality is we live in a broken world.

The problem that arises every time we feel entitled is that any sense of gratitude is instantly squeezed out of us and all we can see is tunnel vision of what we deserve and our vision of seeing the good is blocked out. As Steven Furtick states: “Gratitude begins where my sense of entitlement ends.”

In order to grow and to allow the good in ourselves and in our lives to flourish, we must clear out the suffocating weeds of entitlement. We must frequently check our motives and intentions and expose any sense of deserved privilege, uprooting this poisonous weed in order to allow the life-giving flowers of gratitude to bloom.

Stephanie Zeller is the Community Director for The Authenticity Project, you can contact Steph at TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com.

The Pruned Truth

I am in no way a gardener.  It could be because the first “plant” I attempted to start when I moved away to college was a bonsai which is perhaps not the best starting point for this black thumb. A delicate planting, pruning and nurturing process needing wise and careful care. I was in a new city thousands of miles from home making my way and was lucky to brush my hair before I ran out the door let alone nurture a bonsai. I cried the day I had to face facts and throw away its dead and brittle carcass.

Though I still haven’t been incredibly successful at growing an abundance of plant life, I have realized there is one thing the “experts” do that I missed: pruning. There is a beautiful rose garden where I work and there continues to be a few hardy blossoms and green leaves throughout the rainy winter and near the end of the season I am always horrified after the pruning. There stands a naked, stunted, and pathetic looking plant. How on earth could that be helpful ?!

I learned, however, that pruning improves circulation, rids the plant of any dead matter, and redistributes the plant’s energy to the healthy branches to create new growth and better blossoms.

Yes, but it’s so bare and ugly in-between – isn’t there another way?

Without pruning the plants grow wild, feral – dead leaves and branches leech energy and the roses suffer and wilt easily. The whole purpose of a rose plant to blossom boldly withers under the weight of untamed chaos.

Perhaps I stop and ponder the pruned rosebush because that’s how I can feel when growth is pushing forward in my life. Laid bare full of sharp edges and brown stems. Wondering how this could possibly lead to green growth and a rainbow of blossoms. The sharp sheers cutting back what has since withered and is sucking the energy from my soul. The very things I may think are “good, strong branches” are the very ones that need to be clipped to make way for new growth.

The hardest part? Facing the fact that pruning is a necessary step for health and growth. Pruning away the fear, the dead-end job, the abusive relationship, the negative influences, the stuff that becomes normal and convinces us staying put is easier than moving forward. That’s because the sheers have a sharp pinch. Unpleasant nip. Pain. The shears of taking a risk to follow a dream, the shears of deciding a relationship is too toxic and threatening your well-being, the shears of seeking outside professional help when some branches have wrapped tightly around your neck in the shape of addictions, depression and grief. Though other people are essential to support and even point out the hard places that need to be pruned – only you can decide to stand – ragged, and shed the dead weight, chase those dreams of the big, healthy blossoms you’re capable of.

Here are the shears – you decide what kind of gardener you want to be.  

 -Jennifer Anderson is Content Director of The Authenticity Project, you can contact Jennifer at TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com.

Bored to Death

Well it’s been over two hours since I died and I’m already bored. At least I think it’s been over two hours, it’s hard to tell.

My day started the same way it always does: wake up, contemplate going to the gym, run through several excuses not to go, and finally decided to go later, maybe after work. Slide out of bed, avoid looking at myself in the mirror, take care of business if you know what I mean? And I think you do. Pour myself a cup of coffee with one hand while checking twitter with the other, share a morning acknowledgment grunt with my teenage daughter while she peals an orange, wake up my son, who at the age of 10 is already running through the same morning ritual that I do minus the gym and the twitter - yes I let my 10 year old drink coffee, don’t judge me! After all the morning grooming, packing, plucking, and acknowledgment grunts are done, it’s off to work.

And that’s when it happened. That’s when I died.

It happened very fast and with just the slightest pinprick of pain in the chest. One minute I’m driving down the same road I drive every morning, looking at the same billboards and muttering the same criticisms: “Who would choose a hospital based on a stupid billboard?” and “Why do all real-estate agents feel the need to put their picture on everything?”  Once again passing that new park and thinking how I should take my kids there this weekend, a thought I’ve had for the past 5 weeks. I had just bent over to grab a mint from the center console to combat my coffee breath and WHAM! A flash of light, a brief tickle in the back of my throat, and then…

Nothing… endless, seamless, vast and empty nothingness. Not at all what I expected, not at all what I had been told by all those movies, books, Lifetime Original TV dramas, and not at all what Miss Haddie, my third grade Sunday School teacher, had taught. According to her there was supposed to be a tunnel and light, warmth and a big gate with trumpets. But here, in this place or lack of place, there is just never-ending vistas of nothing.

Well not “nothing”, there is this…thing.

Sitting in the middle of this wide expanse of nothing that can only be described as ‘something’. It’s like a plant, not a particularly good-looking or healthy plant, but in the middle of this empty someplace it stands out in stark contrast and I can’t tell if it’s the surroundings that make it look less than impressive, or if in fact the contrast makes it look better than it probably is. For example, if it were surrounded instead by other plants it might look even worse, if that’s possible. Sorry I’m rambling, but this being dead thing is a new experience for me and apparently there’s not much to do here except look at this plant and think out loud.

More time passes - no trumpets, no gates, just me and the plant, and the sea of nothing/something. At one point, I bent down to take a closer look at this thing planted, or a more accurate description would be: stuck here in the middle of neverwhere. My knees both pop when I do and it gives me that same nauseous sense that my body is slowly wearing out like an over-played record.

“Remember records?” I say to the plant, lowering myself down to sit cross-legged next to it.  The plant doesn’t say anything, probably because it’s a plant or because it doesn’t remember what records are and is just trying to be polite.  Instead, it just drops a leaf and continues to look misplaced and unhealthy. Between my popping knees and the plant dropping it’s leaves, I smile, thinking how fitting it is that in death I’m still suffering from the ever-moving momentum of age and that my only companion in the afterlife is going to be an average houseplant with the same affliction.

We continue our one-sided conversation for what seems like days, me laying on my back staring up into the emptiness, the plant just…well, keeps doing what plants do, unmoved by the complete lack of a breeze. Every now and then out of the corner of my eye, I think I see some type of movement, some indication that it’s responding to my endless thoughts on politics, pop culture, and religion. I even try discussing horticulture, but it must have sensed my complete lack of knowledge on the subject and simply remains passive and plant-like.

I start to feel guilty that I have nothing to offer my new companion. I honestly couldn’t tell you how long we’ve been together now, but I feel this deep commitment to this little guy, like some real (after) life version of Charlie Brown and that Christmas tree of his, you know that twig-like thing that just needed a “little love”.  

My inability to care for this sickly dull green plant is seriously starting to wear on my nerves, I get to my feet and begin screaming into the void, nothing profound mind you, I wish that I could say that my verbal tirade was somehow noteworthy, but it isn’t - helplessness can do that to you - no, I simply rail against God, the Universe, and everything. And when I run out of words I take off my shoes and throw them as hard as I can into the nothingness. It’s funny how being dead can make you lose all sense of decorum and make you act like a five year old throwing a temper-tantrum. I sit back down hard, crying and laughing at the pure ridiculousness of my actions. I’m actually ashamed and embarrassed to look at the plant, can a plant judge? Normally I would say no, but in this case, with it just being the two of us I’m unsure.  

“I’m sorry” I say, still not able to make eye contact with the plant, which I guess would be hard to do anyway, even if I could bring myself to look at it.

“You know, it’s funny…” I continue still not looking at him, God, did I just call this plant a ‘him’?  

“…This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end  (or begin, I guess). I had all these big dreams when I was young, I was going to change the world, you know?”

Maybe it’s the new found courage I feel in bearing my soul, or simply the pain in my back from sitting, but I roll over onto my stomach and prop myself up on my elbows and stare face to face…or leaf, or whatever with Mr. Houseplant. Great, now I’ve given him a surname!

“Anyway… when I was a kid, I was surrounded by people who told me I was smart and funny and that I had the capacity to do whatever I put my mind too. And for a while I did, sure life wasn’t perfect - my dad died when I was 12, but I got through it with the help of some people who shared love and strength with me without ever asking for anything in return. High school was a major pain in the ass, but for the most part things came pretty easy for me. I had great friends, a decent home life, I went to college, met a wonderful girl who was smarter and funnier then me and we settled down, bought a house in the suburbs and had two amazing kids.”

My voice cracks, and my eyes sting.

“I don’t know what happened, at some point I made a few bad financial decisions, a couple leaps of faith that didn’t quit pan out, and the next thing I know, we’re struggling to pay the bills, my wife and I don’t laugh as much as we used to, and parenting has become a list of chores. All the joy, all the adventure just stopped. I’m dull, soul-sick, and completely un-extraordinary…

…I’ve become as empty as this place.”  

And with those words hanging in the vast ether it hits me.

This place.

This plant.

The symbolism of it all becomes as clear as a Las Vegas Marque on a dry desert night. I jump to my feet, ignore the popping in my knees and the ache in my lower back. I start running, making tight circles around what was once a simple out-of-place plant but has now become the talisman of self-actualization. I’m dancing around like a fool, laughing like a mad man and screaming into the empty expanse.

I fill the space with the sound of my voice and it’s easier than you might think because this emptiness, this nothingness, is mine to fill: it’s me. This place is not empty at all, it’s simply unoccupied, except of course for this struggling little plant, this last remnant of who I once was, who I could still be. Because the great thing about a plant rooted in a never-ending expanse is that there is no limit as to how much it can grow.

How much I can grow.

I fall on my back next to the plant, arms and legs stretched out like a kid about to make snow angels, with my right hand I gently pinch one of the leaves, feeling its smooth waxy texture, it’s feels much healthier then it looks sturdy, almost, and very, very alive. I close my tear-filled eyes and whisper:

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome” comes a voice from what seems like a mile away.

My eyes snap open and I sit straight up wiping away the tears.

“What the…!?” is all I can manage to get out, my eyes adjust slowly to the light, a blurred image slowly comes into focus. My wife standing next to me, wearing her old worn out pink bathrobe and holding a cup of coffee in her hand.

She speaks again and I’m able to process about half of what she says:

“I thought if I brought you your coffee this morning you might be more motivated to get up and actually use that gym membership we keep paying for each month.”

She puts the cup on the nightstand and starts to walk away, grabbing onto the bedpost as she turns and smiles.

“You must have had one crazy dream last night - you were giggling, kicking, mumbling and at one point it sounded like you were crying…are you alright?”

“Not yet” I say truthfully, and reach for the coffee cup. No need to explain just yet what I really mean by that.

On my way out the door I kiss my daughter on the forehead and steal her orange, pour a small amount of coffee into my son's Star Wars mug and grab my gym bag. I decided that after work I’m going to stop at the florist and pick up some flowers for my wife and a small houseplant to fill some space.  

I might even give him a name.​

Erik Ewing is the Program Director for The Authenticity Project; you can contact Erik at TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com.
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The Cage Door

Alright, time to really get in that heart of yours and do the tough work many of us are avoiding.  Not ready? Then stop reading and return to that comfort zone you have carefully fought to preserve. Believe me, you have been led to this exact spot today, and although we may not have met, I know you will read exactly what YOU needed to hear at this moment. For some, that ends with this sentence.

Still game? Then buckle up, because I am just going to lay it out there dripping in honesty.

In the logo our team created – a caged heart hanging from a tree - there is an unyielding edge to it. What edge? The door on that cage - have a look - it is open. Totally open.

That door, that small little row of bars hanging from tiny hinges, can feel like the most chastising little invitation you have ever been handed.

 I mean really, life is not easy. I myself have been handed (and please excuse my language here) some real shit-covered cards over the years. And there is no need to lay them out for you, because you have your own deck, and some days it is as if those cards multiply just by getting out of bed.

And our hearts? Well, no offense, but caged living becomes the norm after a while. I mean, at some point, you get used to life not quite living up to that vision you have deep in your heart. Eventually you find yourself swinging with the masses in search of that perfect pain killer to line your cage in elusive hope.

Come on, let's get real, we have all searched for the empty hope pain killer.  What was it for you? Perhaps small chalk pills in varied colors in your palm, dried plants rolled in paper, ice cubes coated in fermented liquid courage, piles of paper shopping bags...

That open door speaks with an audacity that asks us to glimpse into the idea of worth, and frankly, it is often easier to just ignore the fact that there even a thing called a door.

Self-worth. Just those two little words spliced together with a hyphen and some of us are done talking. I know the feeling.

Perhaps the conversation in your heart goes something like this: "What do you want? Do you want me to just lunge right out of this cage, fling the door wide open? Well, that is not going to happen. That thing you call happiness, true happiness, that left this station long ago. In fact, I can't really remember the last time it all worked out for this heart. So don't think that just because there is a door on this cage I call home, does that by any means suggest I could actually allow my heart to exit this pain. Maybe in my next life, but not in this one. This heart is not one of the lucky ones."

Sound familiar? Definitely has for me at times. I just turned 40 and let me tell you that I have only recently begun to try on a type of self-worth that believes that the fairytale type of magic is possible, and that maybe I am worth that magic. For more than 23 years I believed that this human, was ultimately at the core, unlovable. I had become used to things not quite adding up. And somewhere along the line I convinced myself that I was unworthy.

Now, of course, if you had just moved over the surface you would see strength. Funny thing how well we can coat that deep self-deprecation in a nice shell of work, hobbies, and even dutiful actions to those in our care. Whatever it takes to not admit we want that door wide open. We want to uncage our heart, dreams, and beliefs.

Self-worth is a difficult piece of humanity. It is amazing how the small things can eat away at us without us realizing it, and how the large things that happen to us can leave holes we think we will never fill. And over the years, I found that it is those holes, small or large, that keep us in that cage.

Now here comes the hard part. I AM WORTH MORE. Say it. No, I mean really say it. Voice those words in the way it becomes a balm soothing that heart. I know you felt that. Somewhere in there that cage door creaked. Ready for more?

Try saying it out loud. “I am worth more...”

What if you repeated that phrase throughout the day? And not just to play along, but you meant it each and every time. You have to see your heart as something that not only can heal, but is healing.

This past year I looked hard into the deepest parts of my heart. I took a look at those past wounds that were festering under bandages. And as I slowly pulled back all the layers, layers which I thought were comfort; I found this heart I had long ago put away. My self-worth was damaged, but what I had not realized was that in refusing to acknowledge my true worth, I had now built a cage.

I could never live out any of the dreams in my heart,  become the person I thought I always would be, or have the life I had imagined - magic and all - until I alone decided that I never really lost that self-worth. It was without a doubt damaged, but it was never lost. It was there all along. Did you catch that? Your self-worth never left you.

Sometimes those bandages and false comfort we think will heal our wounds can cause us to forget what was wounded in the first place. That beautiful heart that is eager to live.

I got a glimpse under those bandages, and there was simply no going back. I was living in a way that was only further wounding my self-worth. So I changed.

I changed it all: my job, my relationships, where I lived, the ideas that I would never have those dreams, and most of all the idea that I did not deserve the magic. I had believed for so long - 23 years or more - that I was so unworthy that it had infected almost every area of my life. And you know what happened when I realized that self-worth was still beautiful? Magic walked right in the door in all of those areas. No kidding, all of them!

The greatest magic has come in finally believing I am lovable, at the core. Cage door open, baby, and I am loving this thing called life!

I know it is not easy and there are still days when I forget there is a door that I can open, but what I have come to realize is that I just have to remind myself that I am worth more.

I challenge you to take those words for a walk today. Take them out for a week. Let that soil in your heart begin to take in some nutrients. And don't wait for others to hand these words out, for it will all remain hollow until you can say it to yourself.

And the magic? It will happen. Believe me, it is waiting for you too, but it will never be found in the cage. Go ahead, open that door.

"It's not that there hasn't been evidence that you are a powerful, capable, magnificently lovable and loving human being. Perhaps you simply haven't allowed yourself to fully believe it, to integrate it, to be grateful for it, to make the remarkable choice to amplify and demonstrate it with joy and mastery every day." - Brendon Burchard

Heidi Rickard is the Creative Director for The Authenticity Project, you can contact Heidi at TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com.

Life Garden Supplies

You know when you hear someone say: “I have a plan that I am going to follow through with," there is a likelihood that they will never actually complete it because when the going gets tough everything in their “5-year plan” crumbles apart only to leave that person confused as to how they ended up where they are.

What could it be that can so easily ruin a person’s plan to do something that they have every intention of following through with? It is clear that the majority of the time the decision is in order to make a change that is much needed in their life, or maybe just to reach a goal that they would like to meet. I believe it is important to do your best to not deviate from your plan if you know it can take you to the destination that you long dream of.

Just like preparing for a spring garden in your yard, before you can enjoy the beautiful final product, you must prep weeks beforehand in order to get the best results.

Supplies needed for a Life Garden:

A Safe Area in the Yard: Choose a place in your life that you want to work away from or work towards that is safe from predators, accessible, and visible for you to admire when you look out the window. In other words, keep that goal realistic and in where you will be reminded of where you are headed often.

Quality Soil: Sit down and spread out a plan that you can plant everything into without feeling worried or hesitant about it. Without a quality plan, nothing can grow to its full potential. Think about time-frame, who will help support and encourage you and of course why this work is important to you!

Your Desired Seeds: Only commit yourself to the things that you want to see growth in from your plan. There is no need for extra colors to make your garden look prettier. They will only take up space. Stick to your essentials.

Plenty of Water and Sunlight: Surround yourself with those friends in your life that are supportive and willing to lend a hand to help your plan grow. Those people in your life can be the sunlight that will combat all the darkness you may run into from what I like to call, a “negative Nancy”. Finally, give the garden plenty of water. Give it all the attention and care it deserves. Without it, the garden will wither and die before you can see the beauty that it holds within.

Ben Heydt is the Media Director for The Authenticity Project; you can contact Ben at TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com.