For the first time I am cross posting this newsletter on LinkedIn! 🥳 For now it will be the same content each Friday, but feel free to view on the platform that is most convenient to you. As always I am so happy you are here. 💚
Dear Team Joy,
You know that feeling when someone or something lights your soul on fire? It’s one of the mysteries of life that makes everything both scary and amazing. Do we run? Do we let it light us up?
My friend Symone and I were on vacation in Park City. We went to the hotel’s hot tub and met a couple from Texas, two gorgeous young women with obvious plastic surgery, and a man sitting on the edge with his feet dangling in the hot tub. He was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt made of towel material: kind of like those Juicy tracksuits from 2006, but this one was clearly made for male adults. It was giving Miami. He had a small speaker in one hand and was playing techno music for the whole group. As we got in, it became quickly obvious that the couple from Texas was embarrassingly obsessed with towel man.
Symone turned to me, “I think he’s a famous DJ.”
If I’m honest, the rule follower in me was inching away from this crowd. I was getting major drugs/rock-and-roll/chaos vibes.
I whispered back to her, “How do you know he’s not just a fake? He kind of seems like a tool.”
Symone who is consistently much cooler than me said, “Trust me.”
And she was right. Over the course of our conversation, we learned he was a famous DJ. We quickly looked him up on Spotify to discover his 1 million monthly listeners. And the two women? Gorgeous groupies who were very happy to be part of this lifestyle. Then there were the Texans, continuing to unabashedly delight in their luck of running into a famous person. No, sweetie, he is not going to stay with you when he is touring in Dallas. 😂
As much as the chaos made me nervous, I was also fascinated by the whole situation. As of late I feel myself drawn to people who are seemingly freer than me— who have questioned the implicit handbook on how to live and thrown it out to write their own rules.
I was peppering him with questions (as I do when my curiosity is piqued) and the DJ started to share his life philosophy with me. “You need to run into the fire in life. Because that high of being lit up, that’s how you know you are alive. That’s the elixir that sustains us. Even if you get burned you can always write a song about it.”
🔥 Analyzing fire
I don’t remember most of the conversation or how we got to that phrase but it has been stuck in my head for weeks. “Run into the fire.” But how do I know when the fire will sustain or consume me? Does it matter? Should it matter?
I grew up doing the “right” things. And I swear being around this DJ transported me back to feeling like an uncool high schooler.
I got good grades, didn’t do drugs, and rarely stayed up past midnight. “Going into the city” for me was visiting grandma in Manhattan, not using a fake ID to get into a Brooklyn rave. I was nerd cool, but not “cool cool.”
And yet… despite my rule-following tendencies, I’ve learned I secretly love being on fire.
The high of meeting someone you have intense chemistry with. All your senses suddenly light up. Things feel more possible and more dangerous. Life feels more alive.
The high of leading a workshop and getting to the section where I coach a stranger live. With 15 pairs of eyes locked on me, trying to narrow my focus to the one volunteer. Not knowing what will be said or where it will go, but trusting myself (and the universe) to navigate us through.
The high of improv dancing in front of a crowd, choosing to step into the middle of the dance circle at a party. To let myself be seen.
The thread here is that running into the fire is running towards vulnerability. It’s that sparkly feeling of my wild essence playing in the unknown, not sure if I will get burned, but being willing to find out. It’s living from my whole body and not just my head.
When I live from this space, my presence precedes my desire to control the perception of me. I am not acting, I am letting myself be known and trying to know. I am truly connecting.
“If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it…Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention.” - Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
I recently got introduced to Rick Rubin, the music producer, through his appearance on one of my favorite podcasts called Honestly. He talked about trusting your gut in the process of creating art. I am not sure if he runs into the fire in real life, as he gives off very zen master vibes, but the above passage struck me nonetheless.
“Analysis is a secondary function.” 🤯
Staying in the fire is challenging. I am constantly trying to understand my experience as its unfolding. What does this fire mean? How long will it burn? Will it hurt? Should I tend to it? What does it say about me if this is what lights me up?
Because I can get so in my head with anxiety trying to control the direction of the fire, I bypass the enjoyment of being lit up. Experiencing the rush of heat. The warmth and glow it provides.
On some level we all know it’s not responsible to play with fire. That rule-following high schooler in me wants to do the “right” things as an adult too. Get a good corporate job, pay all the bills, go to all the workout classes, drink responsibly, go to some nice dinner parties, find a cute boy, settle down with cute boy… *poof* turn into a pumpkin because I have earned all the gold stars.
Nowhere in the adult manual does it encourage running into the fire. It probably says keep a safe distance from anything that could burn the house down.
But I find myself craving it. I don’t crave destruction, but I do crave dancing with the unknown. To be brave enough to live a fiery, passionate life. To learn how to find the strong ground within myself that lets me know I can never be burned to the ground. That my being is expansive enough to hold this magic.
To relish in the rarity of my soul feeling ablaze.
It’s giving the Dark Phoenix vibes.
I know it’s an interesting take to tell you to play with fire more. But to all my responsible ones out there, maybe we let things burn for a bit? 🙃🔥
Big hugs,
Isabel
I've been running into the fire more each day. Scary at first, but totally ignites the soul. Thanks for sharing!