Represent

After we drop the older brother off at school, my younger kid and I typically listen to some old school rap or underground hip hop on the way to his school.

One morning last week, a song titled Represent from one of my all-time favorite albums, illmatic, came on. Like the phrase "your face is tight" that was popular when I was in high school in Baltimore (it meant something like "ha, you're embarrassed!"), "represent" showed up in a number of hip hop songs and culture.

When I heard the song last week, though, it showed up as a question in my mind:

What do you represent?

In every room we enter, in every conversation we engage in, in every relationship, we're representing something.

We often pick things to represent that make us look cool, or smart, or caring. Which brands do you where and advertise in visible labels on your clothing? (One of my kids refuses to where Reebok because he's a Nike kid.) It's one of the reasons I try not to wear clothes with labels, and it's nearly unavoidable!

What we represent matters, because we're creating and putting out into the world what we're representing.

Not only does what we represent create more of that in the people and the world around us - the world we see is actually a reflection of what we bring to it. (Becoming aware of this in the areas and situations we're struggling in is often a powerful insight for my clients.)

Represent a fear for safety everywhere we go, and we see threats in everything.

Represent a need to be noticed and admired, and we see competition and desperation.

Represent an undistinguished drive to 'be right', and we see problems and not-enoughness in ourselves and others.

Represent kindness and compassion, and we get more of it.

Represent understanding and integrity, and we create more of it.

Represent wholeness and completeness, and this moment and this life become perfect.

What are you already, unintentionally representing?

What would you love to live your life representing?

Much Love. ❤️

P.S. Working with me has a profound and lasting impact on people's lives - their experience, their intentionality, and their impact. If you want some of that, reach out and let's talk.