It’s officially the second month of my Complete Life Renovation program.

Wow, time flies when you’re building a new foundation.

I was going to talk about how I shed 20lbs from the day of my engagement to now, with really specific guidelines, but then I lost a dear friend – and it seems far more important to discuss the inner work, first.

I’ve been on the phone for hours connecting with, and laughing with, a few people I haven’t talked to in over a decade. I’ve lost a friend I assumed I’d have more time with, a friend I had future “someday, we’ll all meet at Disneyland together,” plans with. Someday is now forever cancelled; it lives in the heart only, along with my wedding day.

I’ve discovered a hidden room within my heart that can feel even more gratitude. I’ve discovered that love is a way of life, and it’s not at all scary.

A deeply damaged person taught me from birth to adulthood that love came with a steep price. That if I loved, it meant I had to endure the agony of maintaining silence while someone else made my choices. I am now discovering in a way that is rewriting my very bones, a whole new truth. Turning up the light, switching from gaslight to sunlight, The very opposite is the truth.

“Martyrdom is not a love language,” a wonderful friend (and founding member of my life-decisions-committee) said to me.

Love means bringing myself to the conversation. It means saying, respectfully, “no.” I cannot say yes, not really, until I have said no. Until I have owned my “no,” and found out where it exists, I don’t even have a self, and cannot truly be with someone else.

I’ve been so wildly enjoying rediscovering my very own life. Mine, and only mine. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Don’t get me wrong – there have been days battling depression. Days lost to tears and falling back into chewing on my own brain and spending far too much time zoning out on social media (one of my depression-habits. It clues me in now, when I do that I need to go for a walk.)

I was about to make wedding vows. I was on the threshold of that. While my heart still feels fairly shattered around that loss and bewildered by it, I am also deeply grateful there was a pause in that conversation in my life – because the vows would not have been able to be truly given. Oh, I would have meant them, and I would have kept them, even if it killed me. But we can’t give vows, not really, when we don’t fully own, know, and love ourselves. I wouldn’t have been able to join with someone else at all – the real me would not have even been present.

How could I pledge myself and my life to another, vow to walk by his side in all things, when I wasn’t even standing on my own two feet? When I didn’t know my heart, when I was so dissociated from myself that the simplest of decisions caused major (MAJOR) anxiety and stress, because I didn’t know what I liked, needed, or felt?

No wonder my emotions leaked out all over the place like sputtering fireworks. My subconscious was desperately trying to get in touch with me.

To Choose Change, Turn to page 25.

Stop looking for your life in other people. Take complete custody of your own life.

Stop. Pause and be where you are for just a moment. This is the deepest Jedi training of all. Put down the lightsaber, the fancy flips and jumps, set down the weights and the jump rope, take off the boxing gloves, set aside the costumes and games, the light shows and laughter – all those things are reflections, shadows.

External things have helped me gain access and insight into the next steps. Exercise helps. Getting stronger helps. Eating right helps. My head is clear, my emotions are flowing in a much more even and peaceful way, because my body is supported, and I feel good and strong.

These things are all well and good, great for the confidence and such, but they’re still external. Sitting down on the ground in stillness, sinking into the world inside, finding my center and truly releasing everyone and everything, the chatter of opinions and beliefs and the endless words from others I had forged into chains that bound me so entirely, I couldn’t make simple decisions on my own –

I have found joy. It just is. It’s not formed of action or external approval. The chains dropped away. I didn’t have to force it, break them like the Hulk; I didn’t have to squirm out of them, breaking myself into new shapes like Houdini – all I had to do was follow one spark of joy. Then another. All I had to do was listen, and allow. All I had to do was be extremely firm that I wasn’t romantically available to the wonderful men who reached out; all I had to do was take that courageous step once, then again, and each time it got easier, and my chains fell away so lightly.

On page 25, my new-old-friend-former-future-husband said to me, (speaking about film structure) invariably, that’s when the change comes. We have the “ordinary world” of our hero, and then *boom,* page 25, the call to adventure.

Page 25 isn’t found by making it happen. Page 25 is going to find us, wherever we are. But at the same time, the hero can choose to refuse the call to adventure- then, I suppose, go back to page 1. As long as it takes.

My page 25 didn’t announce itself dramatically. It slipped into place as if it had been waiting patiently. I couldn’t get to it until I finally let go of all the pages before it, you see.

I think perhaps some never reach their page 25.

Please don’t let that be you.

Let go. Anything you’re afraid to release, that’s a sign that you really need to release it.

That which chooses you truly will choose of its own free will. It will do the work. Situations and people- let them show you they see your worth.

That which doesn’t choose you doesn’t need your energy or focus. Love, bless, and release. Your life is waiting – your self is waiting.

This is a call to adventure. The hero of the story (you! I!) must walk alone for a time, or they won’t ever be able to find the kyber crystal that is waiting for only their heart.

It’s so much fun, this Jedi training.