#Fact: Stop living the "out there" and start feeling the "in here"

I am twenty seven. TWENTY SEVVEEENNNNNNN. Feels so weird to say that - even weirder is the fact that tomorrow my big (and only) brother turns thirty. THIIIRRRRTTTTYYYY

Holy moly roli poli oli. I remember when we looked like this ...

Yep, that day felt like yesterday.

Wait, am I sure that that wasn't yesterday ... I still think I have those shoes.

Shhhh ... quiet Friel.

Old people tell us all the time how fast time goes, and all that fancy pants stuff - but I'm here to tell you as someone who is not quite yet "old" but am definitely not quite "young" either ... time goes by really freaking fast and you should say yes to everything ALWAYS. 

True story ... little Jen Jen growing up was a ferociously neurotic nerd.

Here is me at age 8? I think? Could those overalls be ANY closer to my chin.

And here I am with my friends playing ...

Oh wait, did I say those were my friends? No, those were my grandparents friends from high school. I was eight, they were 80. Same diff.

I grew up a people pleasing perfectionist. I smiled on command, got nearly straight A's, never got a SINGLE detention in my entire academic career (although I did serve one once with a friend). I thought I was on this fast track to life. I always hung out older people (sometimes 10 times my age), I worked really hard in school (even finished high school in 3 years when I was just 16) and by 17 I was already living in Manhattan with my own studio apartment going to acting school.

Do you know what I did in Manhattan living on my own at 17 while going to school?

I studied.

Literally.

(Well that, and crash an SNL after party once.)

But for reals, I had only smoked pot twice in high school (and honestly never inhaled because I didn't even know what the fuck I was doing and it wasn't cool to ask), and didn't even get drunk for the first time until I was 20. I was COMPLETELY convinced I was on this fast track to life and this fast track to happiness (because of course happiness could only ever arrive when I had all of my ducks in a row) - and instead all it lead me to was a nervous breakdown at 22.

I was always SO PARANOID of how others perceived me, and always SO UNBELIEVABLY self aware (as all nerds are) that I never really lived life.

I was perpetually this person that said no to everything out of fear and it lead me to isolating myself not from just bad things, but from EVERY thing.

I wasn't alive, there is no other way to say it. I was depressed, I was anxious, I was angry, but I never wanted to admit that to people because no one EVER likes to be around the depressed, anxious, and angry person ... so even worse than being all of those things- I was all those things with a smile.

Here I am back in 2007 with a friend I met off of Myspace ...

I had every sort of cutesey picture ... every sort of "hey look at me - I'm having fun" photographic evidence imaginable carefully placed on all of my social networks ... but it wasn't me.

I was incapable of telling you who I was, or anything that I felt. I just smiled and posed ... smiled and posed.

Then, the following year I started really getting into commercial modeling, and all of the "good" pictures my agents liked were the ones that I mentally connected emotion to.

This was a genuine smile from something that genuinely made me happy ...

YAYYYY happy!!!

FTR, throwing petals in the air is an art form. Those mother fuckers did NOT want to fall right ... you had to catch the wind but not have them be too high ... this was about the 10th shot. I epicly failed at this art form.

There is an emotion attached to each of those pictures.

I couldn't fake that ... and if I did it showed, and I wouldn't get booked again.

Being a commercial model provided this ah-ha for me that wow, faking shit sucks; people can totally tell!! So to not fake, I have to feel ... hmmmmm what was that like? I was always so busy going going going, and wondering what other people thought of me that I never actually sat there and felt ANYTHING.

Well, a year and some change later that sense of "feeling" is what launched this site and launched my personal mission of doing shit that didn't suck and genuinely finding my own inner zen.

It hasn't always been easy, but it has always always always been honest.

I'm not mad at the journey that I had to take to get to where I am, but if I had ONE MOMENT to spend with my 16 year old self, I would say slowwww dooowwwnnnnnn.

The questions that we can ever have in life we already have the answers to. EVERYTHING IS INSIDE OF YOU!!! YOU JUST HAVE TO BE STILL AND LISTEN!!

I was so afraid for so long that if I wasn't in control of everything that I would lose it all - and now I laugh my ass off because I recognize I control ZERO. Even in running a brand and business! I control ZERO of you - I merely sit and watch to see what is working and adjust accordingly. There is no magic, there is no nothing - I just have to be, and simply in that state of "being" things arrive to me.

I've stopped focusing on wondering what other people are thinking about me - and started finding my inner awesome ... and fuuucckkkkkkkkk what a shift in consciousness. SO MANY FREAKING PEOPLE ARE ATTRACTED TO YOU because all you're doing is FEELING GOOD!!! And other people are like ooohhhh what's that that this chick has ... why the fuck is she so happy??

Are you kidding me?!?!?!!?!?!?!?! You mean it was THAT EASY!!!!!

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

It is that easy.

Put down the judgement, put down the preconceived notions of self and let it all just be, man.

Life is SO FREAKING SHORT (holy crap I can't believe my brother is turning THIRTY), so go out there and LIVE IT!!! Stop faking!! IT GETS YOU NOOOWWHHHEEERRRRREEEEEEEEE.

And now to break it down into doable actions ...

Step 1: Find things that feel good to you. For me, it was tech. Tech was my heart, soul, my ... EVERYTHING growing up. I knew that happiness was somewhere in the digital world, I just didn't know exactly where that was.

Through inspired thought one day I decided to start a website and call it Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover and now two years later I have a new media production company ... and ... and ... and ... yeah.

But step 1, ask yourself what feels good to you. Then keep searching down that path, and don't stop til the day you die, nerds!!!!!

Now scuse please. But I have some more living to get back to.

OMG OMG OMG I'm so excited!! Friday night I'm having a threesome. I'm a little too excited to be alive right now! BAHHH!!!!

Eat drink and be merry because yes, one day, like me, ... you will die.

#kthxbye