It’s time to start chronicling, and blogging again. A living history of one woman’s experience, in these strange times we are living in.

I silenced my voice for many years because I wasn’t proud of the woman I was, or who I had become.

Today, I am.

And, if you are a high-achiever like me, with important work to bring to the world, and a big, sensitive heart, and who is sometimes way hard on yourself —  I want you to experience the peace and fulfillment that comes with becoming someone you’re truly proud to be as well. 

Because if you can’t tell, the world really needs the best of us right now.

Out beyond the imposter syndrome …

Out beyond the posturing of false pride, faking it until you make it, and hubris …

Out beyond the narcissistic behaviors of blame, self-protection, projection, and defense …

There is a place of rest and true pride where we get to show up, fully.

In this place, you know when you are being of service by speaking, and you also know when to shut up and listen.

In this place, you know when what you are bringing forward is good, and true, and beautiful. And, you also know where you have opportunity to grow.

It’s a place that’s intimate, so very intimate.

Tender.

And real.

Fleeting, felt in moments, and gaining more consistent footing inside of myself daily.

Now, I wish to share this journey with you, through my eyes, heart and soul.

Because if you are a high achiever who holds yourself to the standards I hold myself to, the world needs the you that you are truly proud to be. 

The tender, hurt, scared, sad, wounded, hopeful, truly fucking proud of who you are … YOU.

And maybe if I share my struggle, the journey it took me to get here, the pain and the mistakes, and the ways I made it way harder than it needed to be for myself, your path to real, deep down, damn it feels good to believe in myself pride can be easier than mine.

And maybe you can even be someone I want to create Life with. 

Because, honestly, I’m pretty disappointed in most of us right now. And, yes, I can and do have compassion for it all, but I’m also tired.

I’m tired of the false pride that prevents collaboration, the perpetual competition and comparison despair hidden behind exclusion, the scarcity consciousness shrouded in talk of abundance, the gossip cloaked in “call out” culture, the finger-pointing, the cancel culture, and the projection, fear, blame, shame, guilt, and all the places we are not each taking full 100% responsibility for everything we are seeing and experiencing.

I’m tired of experiencing these things inside of myself. And I’m sure as hell tired of seeing it all “out there”.

It’s taken me many years of finding the balance between “what’s mine” and “what’s yours” to come to see it’s both all mine, and all yours.

It’s taken me years to learn to discern what’s real and true.

What I know now is that “what’s mine” is who and how I be in the face of whatever comes my way, and in the face of whatever I see out there, reflected back to me.

It’s taken me years to discover the source of true pride … who and how I be when life disappoints me.

Can I stay open, curious, and trusting? 

Can I keep relaxing, surrendering and intending?

Can I hold a vision of possibility in the face of the impossible?

What’s yours is the gift you give me of getting to practice being with it all, and choosing how to respond to all of it. That’s where my choice is, and that’s where your choice is. 

Who and how will you be? And what does it look and feel like to be someone you are truly proud to be when we’ve got real wounds and trauma and pain living inside of us that can make it oh so hard to see? 

The paradox … 

Today, I woke up in bed alone, and yet full of love and connection and immense gratitude for my freedom, and the choices that led me here.

I am spending the weekend in the home of my beloved, with his dogs and mine, while he is in Tulum, having a ball with his men friends, and a woman or two he may connect with, while there. 

And, I’m okay. Better than okay. I’m free. 

I’m free to love him, as he has his experiences in the world without me. 

I’m free to be here with other beloveds, having spent New Year’s Eve cooking dinner with my son, and G and his kids, and his pregnant partner, and another couple I care for deeply. We played Catan until we rang in the new year with hugs and love all around.

I’m free to write this morning, and all day, if I choose.

I’m free to work as much as I want, or not at all.

I’m free to be bored and boring.

I’m free to be on Clubhouse (hot new social app) for hours, if I choose. Find me there @alikatz and click the little bell next to my name to get notified when I start a room, so you can join in. 

I got to participate in a room the other night called “rich white woman secrets” started by a black woman, Galyn Fergerson – follow everything she does – who was spoofing on the “Bro Marketer” rooms that have begun to dominate the platforms with their rich white men secrets, and it was one of the best things I’ve gotten to do in a long time.

I’m free to give a friend an hour long coaching session because he was in a lot of pain, and needed it.

I’m free of my craptastic mindset, or at least I can see when it’s sneaking back in and meet the pain of the trauma that led to it, and create a new reality, now.

I’m free to be me.

And, from here, I can truly serve in a way that has me proud.

As we begin 2021, a new year, a new reality … I commit to using the tools of my privilege, my choice, and my freedom to share what brought me here. With the hopes that I can support more of us to truly understand the power of our minds, and the massive gift we have to put our minds in service to our hearts, so we can heal and actually step into a new future together.

This was not a luxury most of our ancestors had.

Our ancestors had to fight, steal, cheat, lie, and protect just to survive. Those patterns live inside of us, and they play out in ways that can unconsciously perpetuate exactly what we do not want to create. 

And, it can be hard to see, hard to take just the right amount of accountability for, hard to forgive in ourselves and others, and I believe it’s THE most important work we can do individually and collectively.

I’ve come to understand narcissistic behaviors (which are different than true NPD) as the protective mechanisms we engage in to protect our fragile image of ourselves. 

And, listen, if you worry about whether you are a narcissist, you probably don’t have NPD, but you very well may be engaging in narcissistic, defensive, protective behaviors that you can stop doing … in service to being truly proud of who and how you are.

It took me many years of “struggle and fight trying to get it all right” before I was able to come to see that I will never get it all right, to be okay with my wrongness, to forgive myself, and come to understand that the uni-verse has always been showing me the way, as one of my favorite musicians Fia reminds us in her song, “The Art of Letting Go”.

Surprisingly, I had to discover and accept and feel the pain of my own wrongness to find the truth of my beauty, goodness and rightness.

This year, I commit to exploring this paradox here with you in service to helping you see where the true root of your power exists. 

It’s time for us to wake up, grow up and show up, my friends. We don’t have much more time … and, yet, we can also trust in the perfection of the timing, as long as we keep doing what we came here to do — to wake up, to grow up, to show up — and, yes, to heal.

If you are a high achiever who suffers from imposter syndrome, and who does not rest into the pride of all that you are, I am here with you, and a stand for your greatness.

Today is the day we get to be accountable for our past actions, and forgive ourselves in service to truly being the change we wish to see in the future. 

Forgiveness simply isn’t possible without accountability. 

And real pride, true pride, pride beyond hubris simply isn’t possible without a willingness to see where I’m not as good as I think I am, own my weaknesses and my strengths, and rest into what’s true.

This is the paradox of pride … to be truly proud of yourself in a good way, you get to know and claim where you are awesome, and also be willing to know and own where you aren’t. And here’s the great part, where you aren’t awesome is where you get to make space for the awesomeness of others and begin to see that you don’t need to do it all yourself. You don’t need to be the best at everything. You get to relax into the support of others. 

You get to relax …

You get to relax …

You get to relax …

Let’s make 2021 the year we all relax a bit more, together. And from this space of ease and grace, we can truly rise, together – with pride.

Ali Katz

P.S. One way to create true pride is to face the reality that you are going to die, and do the right thing for the people you love. I want to give you my Personal Resource Map tool…it’s an inventory of what matters to you for the people you love. Get immediate free access for yourself and your family.