Hi, I’m Chad Moore. You’re receiving this email as you signed up for my Newsletter, called Presence. I appreciate you being here and reading! I’d love to hear from you, send a reply if you want to chat. If you’d no longer like to receive these emails, simply unsubscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy these, please forward this email to them.

I'm privileged to know a great many wonderful creative people. Form my time working in video games and design, mostly. But also neighbors and friends of friends that have become friends.

A lot of the conversations I have with these folks are about them either not knowing what's next for them, or not knowing how to put things into place. Or not living to their ideal version of themselves.

I was chatting with a friend and they said:

I'm afraid to be wholly me because I'm afraid that version of me won't be accepted

I replied: What I’ve observed in myself and others is that there are several ‘thresholds’.

Silliness - "they’ll all laugh at me". You can hear this in yourself and others when they laugh at a new idea.
Imposter syndrome, where you think you are less than the new idea, even though you’re capable.
Acceptance / love threshold. This one seems to be deeper as humans all need connection and acceptance into the tribe. And love. I spoke a bit about it in that comedy routine I shared with you. That’s all literally part of my inner shit that I say to myself. The threshold I am bumping up against.

Then I asked:

What behaviors does your “wholly me” self have that you don’t now?
What is the smallest action you can take to “try on” one of those behaviors and see how it goes?
Can you talk about this with the people you love? To tell them you’re experimenting and why?

I really like the expression "try on". You try something, and if it doesnt work, you try on the next thing. Experiments and learning are wonderful ways to train your brain that there is no failure, there is only learning.

Listen, I'm no expert on all these things. And I do have the luxury of being able to think and do these things like this. Anyway, aren't we all wonderful balls of emotion and erratic behavior at the end of the day? But small experiments like these can be helpful, and actually be fun.

If you'd like to share your thoughts and experiments with me, just reply to this email. I'd love to talk to you about that! (By the way I fixed some settings, so if you reply to this, it'll actually work. Sorry if you replied last issue, I didnt see it!)

3 (intentional) calming breaths

I've been using three quick claming breaths for years. When I'm axious, stressed. Or about to go into some big meeting or before I take the stage to preform. Whenever I need to focus, to get back to the present moment. To stop time traveling through the hazy regrets of the past, or forward into the scary unclear future.

I love this technique so much I even animated instructions on how to do it!

Intention

I've recently been learning about setting intentions in mindfulness practices. It's not correct, and I need to rethink this, but I feel like intentionality and "meditating on" something is like level 200 mindfulness.

In the Yoga practices I'm starting, I am often hearing the instructor set an intention for the session. In my Concious Creation of the Connector, I "meditate on" the topics of that Being.

I recently learned a very specific three calming breaths exercises. It's the same as the one above plus intentionality.

First breath

Breathe in everything that happened before right now. Everything that brought you to this moment. Brought you to what you're about to do. No judgements.
Breathe it all out. Let it all go.
If your mind wanders during this time, return your focus to the breath.

Second breath

Breathe in the now. Express gratitude that you're here, in your medidtaion spot, or on your yoga mat, about to enter into a big meeting, or take the stage, etc.
Breathe it all out. Let it go.
If your mind wanders during this time, return your focus to the breath.

Third breath

Breathe in your intention and what it could mean for you next.
Breathe it all out. Let it go.
If your mind wanders during this time, return your focus to the breath.

Taking the stage

I mentioned a comedy bit, and how I use the breathing techniques before I take the stage. Well, here's a performance I gave in May. This is an absurd and untrue story, but there's a lot of truth and fact in the shit I say to myself within it. Rated R, by the way. I poke fun at mindfulness and meditation in this. That might seem contridcitory to the above. But it's a reflection of how hard these practices are for me as beginner. It's not you (meditation), it's me, lol.

Oh, if you're in (or can get to) Portland Maine on 8/24, I'm in a sketch comedy show with the fine folks of Hey Party People! 10$ advance, 15$ at the door. https://stlawrencearts.org/calendar/hey-party-people/