Life is about mental discipline. It’s also about all the feels. . It’s not one or the other. It’s not half and half. It’s about embracing the two simultaneously. It’s about acknowledging the endless complexity of what we feel and what we think and living in the midst of it all. . For a long time, I tried to make sense of everything. I tried to control through understanding and making sense of things. And, to some degree, it’s nice to know. But our sense of “knowing” is often a sign of how little we actually understand. . The more knowledge we acquire about a thing/person/idea/situation, the more we discover that thing’s endless complexity too. . For me, this is where I find grace. I find grace in knowing that sometimes we don’t even understand ourselves — much less the world around us or the depths of other people. And when we mess up or hurt someone else or hurt ourselves, sometimes it comes from a place of just not being able to embrace the complexity of things. . Now, of course, the fact that things are complex isn’t an excuse to not try and suss it all out. It’s the opposite, it’s an opportunity to sit in the complexity, let it swirl around us, and open our eyes to see the pieces as they whiz by. 📸 @iambradleyadams

Discovering the intimacy we’re all looking for beings with the hard work of learning a new language. . Honestly, if there’s one post of mine you read this year, I hope it’s this one. It’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned this decade. . Relationships necessitate doing some unseen work. In the way we work out our bodies, we have to labor for deep connection. And in the way we study to learn a subject, so too must we study the emotional workings of our hearts. . Relationships require emotional maturity. That begins by knowing the vocabulary of the emotional life. It is necessary that we can speak the language of the unseen, emotional realm. It is a foreign tongue all its own, and it is not innate. It requires study. . There are words that describe how we feel, and if we don’t know those words, there is a barrier between us and others. There is also a wall between our daily existence and fully knowing ourselves. Others don’t fully know us, but equally as important, we may not even know ourselves. . Once we know the vocabulary, we can begin pairing the words we have learned with the feelings inside us. We won’t succeed at first. We will say we feel one thing when, really we are feeling another. But over time, we learn. And, in fact, over time we become more specific — more acute. Where we once labeled a whole set of feelings “sad,” we learn to get specific. We develop the ability to name our sadness as “lonely,” “fragile,” “inferior,” or another 20 specific types of sadness. . Learning this language is hard work. And it can be uncomfortable. But it is necessary if we are to get the thing we desire most — true intimacy. . As we learn the language, we can begin practicing another aspect of intimacy. That is openness. . Once we can speak the language, we can whisper how we feel to ourselves, in private. Then we take the next step. We begin saying how we feel in our full voice so others can hear it. We practicing speaking the language of emotion with others. . ... continued in the comments...

Confidence and neglect can look exactly the same. . Both can say, “I don’t care what other people think.“ . Confidence says it from a place of healthy maturity. It leads us to make our best contribution to the world for the sake of what we understand to be good for all. . Neglect says “I don’t care what people think” from a place that lacks consideration for others. It is self-centered. It is hurtful. . It’s good to live with confidence — something that gives us the ability to love from a place of strength. Let’s mature toward that. . I think one of the indicators of neglect is when we say “I don’t care what people think” in a way that pushes us away from connection. Like, “I don’t care what people think, so screw you. I don’t owe you anything.” . Conversely, I think one of the indicators of mature confidence is when we can say “I don’t care what people think” in a way that gives us freedom to draw closer to others. Like, “I don’t care what other people think, so I’m free to love.” Or, “I don’t care what people think, so I’m not afraid to exhibit radical compassion.” . The world needs confident people. The world needs people who aren’t afraid to love without reservation. People who aren’t afraid to step outside what’s comfortable and care for others. Let’s do this.

It’s weird to speak at a conference... and then be referred to as “the guy who talked a lot about feelings.” . Grateful to the conversations with artists at @thebreathandtheclay this weekend. . Sometimes, we have to let our emotions run wild. Sometimes we have to wrangle them. But the key is making sure we never harden ourselves to how we feel. . There’s a joy in feeling the full spectrum of the ups and downs. They lead us to places of life and growth. . #thebreathandtheclay #northcarolina #winstonsalem . 📸 @garettleewalker

The world is a complex place. It holds contradictory perspectives that are simultaneously true. And each of those perspectives, every one of those ideologies, seems to set out to convince us that it is most true. . Standing atop the Whitney Museum — looking out over NYC — it’s just one glimpse of how big and complex and varying the world is. . The individual philosophies and religions of the world set out to monopolize our time and attention. And when we give ourselves solely to one perspective, there’s so much we miss. . There is value in going deep into one thing. But there’s equal value to exposing ourselves to other ways to experience and perceive the world. Diversity of perspective isn’t a liability. It’s an asset. . Embracing the complexities of the world and seeing value in seemingly contradictory perspectives is helpful. . We learn to navigate and adapt to varying circumstances by developing an elastic way of thinking. It frees us from a narrow mode of operating and opens us to a world of possibility. . There are billions of people alive today. And there have been billions of people who have lived before us. We’re wise to open up and listen.

It has been easy for me to live in a self-induced emotional middle ground for most of my life. Eliminating the risk of the emotional highs and the emotional lows is safe. And it’s comfortable. But it’s not the way we’re meant to be. . Humans are meant to feel. We’re meant to feel the amazing moments of life — moments of joy, happiness, exhilaration, and euphoria. And we’re meant to feel the sting of pain when it comes. We learn and grow in those places. They open us to feel. They make us more empathetic. . These emotional highs and lows come from allowing ourselves to connect with people and things and moments. They come from being fully present. They come from not fearing the moments and — instead — embracing them fully. . It’s an honor to be alive. And we honor our lives by giving ourselves to them. Sometimes, that’s messy. And sometimes it’s amazing. But always, it’s worth it. . Let’s not half-live. Let’s be fully alive. . 📸 @iambradleyadams

This tree isn’t a real tree. But that makes it a better metaphor, I think. It’s manufactured, and - in a lot of ways - so are we. . We’re shaped by the people in our lives. We’re shaped by our upbringing. We’re shaped by our experiences. All these things contribute to the structure of who we are. . This tree doesn’t have real roots. But it sits on a foundation. And that foundation and the structure itself is supported by an underground infrastructure of steel. That unseen foundation supports and holds up the whole tree. . This is us. For too long, I’ve neglected the underlying infrastructure. I haven’t tended to the unseen bits that truly hold our lives up. And, when untended to, that can make the whole thing crumble. . 2019 has already been a crazy year. I find myself sitting across from people I love more open and connected than ever before. And so much of that is because I’ve done some things on the inside. Tended to infrastructure. Done some repairing. And in tending to those things, it’s made the seen bits just a little stronger, a little bit healthier.