What is Creative Spirit, Playful Discipline? What do they mean? What do they have in common? And why am I choosing to call this series by that name? 

I sat and thought for a long time about what my manifesto is. What I believe. What my values are as a woman, as a partner, as a parent, as a human. And what it comes down to is: 

I firmly believe, down to my core, that we are all unique. There have been 108 billion humans that have walked this earth since humans started walking this earth. (Yes, I googled it. That's what I do.) And as a genetic counselor, I know that every single one of those 108 billion humans has had a unique DNA recipe for their life. 

Their DNA has been unique, nobody else has had that same combination of DNA. Even twins, we know that there are epigenetics, there are ways that the environment impacts the genes during pregnancy, and then after birth, so that even twins who have in theory, the same DNA structure, they have genes that are expressed differently. Tiny micro mutations. And that's why often identical twins, one might be right handed, one might be left handed, why they have... they're mirror images of each other in terms of, you know, handedness, like I just said, dimples. And then even if you get to know them and look at them, you will see that they are not 100%, identical in how they look. 

Out of 108 billion humans that have walked the earth, you are unique. And what makes us unique on top of that DNA is the combination of experiences that we have had throughout our life, not a single person has the exact same shared experiences. And as I watch my children grow with that knowledge, what I realize is how quickly they lost their innocence, their creative spirit and their playfulness. Because we as parents, we as adults, their teachers, the people around them that they were looking up to, we're trying to put them on a path that, in some way, made us feel more comfortable because it was our path or the path we envisioned or what we experienced. And it made us feel more in control, to be able to lay out that path and see that path for our children. I am totally guilty of this. 

And the second that I realized how much pressure I was putting on myself, literally to the point of burning out physically and mentally, my health at put tremendous risk. It was because I was trying to control the creative spirit and the playfulness of my children, because I was trying to fit into a box because my creative spirit and my playfulness had been controlled away. And embracing our uniqueness, embracing our creative spirits and our playfulness allowed me to show up and provide discipline and structure and love and support and guidance for my children and for myself in a completely different way. 

And it has become my motto, my manifesto, my belief that the way that we can truly be ourselves and be fully aligned and fulfill our own destiny and our own personal development, is to honor the creative spirit and the playful discipline in which we live. In which we want to live. And so this series this, these musings are me showing up in full messiness, with my creative spirit and my playful discipline to take chances, get messy, make mistakes, and fully align with what I believe to be true. We are here on this planet, at this time, with this DNA, and with these experiences to be fully an unapologetic, unapologetically creative and playful. And isn't it beautiful? 

Transcribed by Otter.ai 
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