Miss Jen Young

Cover of Platoon (Special Edition)

Congrats on completing 30 days of writing reflections! The feedback on #trust30 has been so great that Amber has volunteered to continue the prompts as a personal project. The hope is that these daily emails will guide you on your writing journey, and help you to look within and get to know yourself.

To kick off this new leg, here’s a prompt from Seth Godin:

Find something that happened on the day and date you were born. Write about it.

September 16, 1967

Oliver Stone arrives in Vietnam as an infantryman in the 2nd platoon of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Infantry, stationed on the Cambodian Border (Oliver Stone: Interviews).

One of the most profound movie experiences of my life was watching Platoon in the theater.  I was a idealistic 19-year-old college student trying to understand the social and political climate of the era I was born into–hippies, beatniks, soldiers, straights, etc.  My parents were neither hippies nor did they serve in the military, yet I was fascinated by both the Flower Power culture and the experiences of young people that were forced to fight a war over a small country on the other side of the world.

When I saw Platoon, I had not yet seen Apocalypse Now (though, I would shortly afterward) or any other movies about the in-battle experiences of Vietnam.  My parents refused to talk about it because they had experienced the newsreels from military journalists and journalists embedded with American troops.  That was horror enough for them.

Granted I am a big bawler when it comes to stories, but I literally cried for 3 hours after seeing Platoon.  I had to pull over while I was driving home from the theater.  All I could think about was that what that movie made me feel for a couple of hours was only a fraction of what soldiers in that war felt every minute of every day for a year or more. "The horror. The horror." Indeed.

It is fascinating to think that the man that gave me an inkling into the terror, paranoia, pain, imbalance, and primal motivation of war would be about to face exactly that as I breathed my first breath.

Thanks for a profound last #Trust30, Seth Godin!

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Posted via email from Miss Jen Young’s Posterous

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of all the things that are not working in your life. That job you don’t like, that relationship that’s not working, those friends that annoy you. Now turn them all on you. Imagine that everything that’s not working in your life, is your fault. How would you approach it? What would you work on to change your life to the state that you want it to be?

Good Lord, this is what I do constantly.  My trick is to stop blaming myself or feeling guilty or feeling like I've got to make things better for everybody.  I need the "I'm ok. You're ok." way of thinking, man.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Posted via email from Miss Jen Young’s Posterous

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mess up your hair. If you are wearing makeup – smudge it. If you have a pair of pants that dont really fit you – put them on. Put on a top that doesn’t go with those pants. Go to your sock drawer. Pull out two socks that don’t match. Different lengths, materials, colors, elasticity.

Now two shoes. You know the drill.

Need to add more? Ties? Hair clips? Stick your gut out? I trust you to go further.

Take a picture.

Get ready to post it online.

Are you feeling dread? Excitement? Is this not the image you have of yourself? Write about the fear or the thrill that this raises in you? Who do you need to look good for and what story does it tell about you? Or why don’t you care?

To do so intentional is great theatrics. So the story would be about Jen as actor/performer/show-off. The real test would be if I would take such a photo after just getting out of bed.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Posted via email from Miss Jen Young’s Posterous

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine your future self, ie, you 10 years from now. If he/she were to send you a tweet or text message, 1) what would it say and 2) how would that transform your life or change something you’re doing, thinking, believing or saying today?

1) Pack your pillow and blanket and go.

2) I would give myself the opportunity to see the world and its ripple effect.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Posted via email from Miss Jen Young’s Posterous

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down a major life goal you have yet to achieve or even begin to take action on. For each goal, write down three uncertainties (read: fears) you have relating to each goal. Break it down further, and write down three reasons for each uncertainty. When you have three reasons for your fear, you’ll be able to start processing the change because you know where the fear stems from. Now you’ll be able to make a smaller changes that push you towards your larger goal. So begins the process of “trusting yourself.”

Traveling to Asia has been a big goal of mine.

Uncertainties:

• Finances- not have enough money:
• Not being able to afford decent places to stay or food
• Prioritizing travel over bills and groceries is frivolous
• No work, no pay- Old thought from hourly wage days
• Can't decide where to go first:
• Have so many places I want to go that I cannot choose where first
• Feel like I've got to make it count
• Get overwhelmed with travel planning
• (Thinking myself rather independent, I hate to admit this one) Going alone:
• Traveling as a single woman can be unsafe
• Might get into trouble without knowing the culture/language (perfectionist)
• Would like to share my adventures

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Posted via email from Miss Jen Young’s Posterous

Alive-est by Sam Davidson

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? 

Practicing stick fighting with my nephews.

Where were you?

My sister's yard.

What did you smell?

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.”

Anti-Over-Analyzer-Scaredy-Cat Recipe

• A handful of good friends to kick your butt
• 1 supportive family that loves hugs
• A few good mentors to kick your butt
• A scattering of flights of fancy
• A good measure of What-the-Fuck a la Risky Business
• A dose of gone completely broke
• 2 days of surviving as a visitor in Los Angeles with 10 bucks in your pocket
• A wodge of trusting in faeries and spirits
• 1 ton of soul searching
• A dash of magic

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if today, right now, no jokes at all, you were actually in charge, the boss, the Head Honcho. Write the “call to arms” note you’re sending to everyone (staff, customers, suppliers, Board) charting the path ahead for the next 12 months and the next 5 years. Now take this manifesto, print it out somewhere you can see, preferably in big letters you can read from your chair.

You’re just written your own job description. You know what you have to do. Go!

(bonus: send it to the CEO with the title “The things we absolutely have to get right – nothing else matters.”)

Ok, this is kind of easy since I am the CEO and soul employee of my business.

It is time to write the "Manifesto" of Spitfire Fitness Arts.  Time to write the culmination of information and knowledge you have gained from authors, mentors, your own experience and the experience of your clients.  Where are we, Spitfire Fitness Arts and Jen Young, here?  Let the Manifesto stand as a fluid blueprint for building a business that stands for learning and for the wisdom of the human body.

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother).

What are your false comparisons?

As a writer, I compare my level of should-have success to George Lucas or J.K. Rowling. 

What are your false expectations?

Intuition by Susan Piver

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you could picture your intuition as a person, what would he or she look like? If you sat down together for dinner, what is the first thing he or she would tell you?

My intuition says she would look like Elizabeth McGovern's Samatha Stevens in the 60's tv show, Bewitched–wide-eyed, perky blond with great legs and great housewifey 60's wardrobe and coif. You want to trust her but you can never really be sure she's not her michevious, look-alike cousin, Sabrina.

She says that she would of course say, "Trust me, darling. What else would I possibly say?" She's giggling.  "No seriously, why didn't you trust me enough yesterday to just jump on this assignment when you first read it.  Not that I'm offended but I did tell you everything right then." Sigh. "Humans."

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.