You Sleep Next to Me
on authenticity, osmosis and snuggling with Kermit the Frog
At the end of my senior year in high school I was awarded Most Unique. My best friend got Best Looking, and although part of me would have liked to receive that award, deep down I was pleased with my own.
As I matured, I realized the award really meant Most Authentic. I simply wasn't drawn to do things the way the popular crowd did, even though a few of them were close friends of mine. From my perspective, group dynamics at lunch on the quad were often superficial and I found that unappealing, so I did my own thing — brought my boombox to the quad stage at lunchtime and played Prince, Madonna, Garth Brooks and Michael Jackson instead.
It feels unhealthfully foreign to be inauthentic. Life is far more powerful when we tell and live our truth.
If we were all highly authentic, would there still be an award called Most Unique?
How do you stand out, seeming unique simply because you show up with more authenticity than most? Do you high-five yourself for living your truth?
One quirky way this shows up for me is that I am a prolific writer who very seldom reads. Maybe I've read 200 books in my entire life. A man I’ve known for 25 years who is a globally best selling author isn’t alone in finding this odd. I remember the first time I told him about my dynamic with writing and reading. He mildly scowled, as if I couldn’t possibly be a worthy writer if I didn’t read a lot. At his gorgeous home, nearly every table is blanketed with books.
Should a shoemaker have 50 pairs of shoes?
Just because someone likes giving hugs, does that mean they should also like giving kisses?
Who made these rules? How about prioritizing the choice to turn within ourselves, listening for the truth about what lights us up, instead of letting society dictate how we live?
For decades, my core intelligence has clearly guided me to consider myself a reader by osmosis. In the numerous places I’ve lived since college, my nightstands hold books like an altar. The information in the books is simply energy, just like our own human bodies, and the energy I choose to sleep next to, transmits into my consciousness every night while I sleep.
While I lay surrendered for eight hours, out of resistance, open...
Ram Dass’ Be Here Now, sleep next to me.
Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are, sleep next to me.
Jim Henson’s It’s Not Easy Being Green, sleep next to me.
A Course in Miracles and Coleman Barks’ Rumi, sleep next to me.
The energy held in all of the words within these books slithers sweetly into my subconscious mind and I don’t even need to read them..? Yes.
Which books lay on your nightstand, which clothes you wear, which friends you meet for coffee, which dreams you feed… Everything is — simply and profoundly — energy. You get to decide which energies you want to absorb, embody and attract in your one precious Life.
Say yes to to the people and things that leave you feeling more joyful, alive and free.
Days are your canvas, your own fertile space of possibility to enthusiastically co-create with the divine — whether you call it God, Spirit, Source, The All. Nights are your open door to let in whatever you choose.
Truth is powerful. I celebrate and give thanks for the freedom to live it in a way that feels vividly right for me. I don't need anyone to believe it. And I want this freedom and fullness for everyone else in the world.
Thank you for being here. Ode to glee!
Jessica Rios
Writer + Love Coach + advocate for glee :)
Founder, Leaning into Light + Making Love to Fear
IG @makinglovetofear
Here’s a dose of straight-up soulful ecstasy from the two mega-gorgeous men I’ve written open Love letters to (Stevie Wonder in 2018, Overjoyed, a Love Letter to Music and last week’s Open Love Letter to Sting). This performance was in NYC on October 11, 2011 in celebration of Sting’s 60th birthday. Prepare to melt.