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you are still here

*Trigger warning: In this post I talk about my experience with sexual assault. Seven years ago, you were 21. You were about to start law school, reveling in the freedom and openness of your early twenties. You were at the beginning of the rest of your life, and that excited you. The world felt open and ready for you. The unknown of the future invigorated you. You welcomed it. You were in a…

#WhyIDidntReport - my story.

*Trigger warning: In this post I talk about my experience with sexual assault.

I am sharing my story because there are thousands of others who are not ready and may never be ready to share theirs. And I want the people around me to know they are not alone.  I am not asking for help. I am not asking for opinions. I will not be offering apologies for not including you in this journey until now. If…

SUCCCESS

My definition of success seems to change every couple of years. It also seems that the concept of failure is becoming a bigger and bigger part of that definition. Wise people (who are they again?) would say that failure builds character and makes you stronger and makes the successes greater. I think I agree, but I didn’t always.

At the age of 13, I figured out that I wanted to be an…

What is “success”?

Are you “successful”?

How does it feel to succeed?

Who is someone you think is successful?

What is “your truth”?

What does it mean to you to “live your best life”?

What is “failure”?

What role does fear play in your life?

What role does courage play in your life?

What empowered you to make the choices you did?

How did you end up where you are in life?

Is there a moment you can…

Let’s talk about success. Julia reached out to friends she saw as pursuing what they see as success, happiness, and their personal truths and I had a real, aw shucks moment being thought of for this.

But first, little introduction, hi, hey there, I’m Austin. If you’re reading this, you might know Julia. Or, maybe you know me. Or, maybe you’re an alien intercepting random frequencies from eighteen…

“I am starting off by inviting people to write who really inspire me.” Well, Julia, without people like you helping to inspire me, I wouldn’t be where I am. It’s friends like you that remind me that what I’m doing, what my values are, and what I want to fight for, are worthwhile. So, thank you for asking me to be one of these people to discuss this topic on your blog.

Let’s chat success. Not what…

Julia asked, “Are you successful?” and my first response was “I don’t know, am I?”

My second response was “no.” I haven’t been feeling very successful, lately. I’m finishing up my first year as a Ph.D. student, and for some reason, I had this delusion that it wouldn’t be hard. I’ve always excelled at what I do, so this would just be another notch in my belt. But, what they don’t tell you upfront…

I’m an enneagram 5. If you don’t know what the enneagram is, it’s a personality test with 9 different types and it’s the best. Read about the enneagram and the 9 types here: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com and take the test here: https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test. It’s life changing. You won’t regret it!!

An enneagram 5 is called the “investigator” or the “observer.” We hoard…

Fearless.

It’s one of my favorite words.

It depicts an image of strength, bravery, resiliency.

I admire those traits. I desire to be characterized by them.

You see, I am often scared. Almost daily I feel the weighted chains of fear. Shadows of insecurities encircle my dreams. It’s frustrating. I used to think that because I was scared, I couldn’t be brave. I separated myself from personal heroes’…

So I feel like in order to start this blog post properly, I need to declare that life is fucking weird. But also it is beautiful. Sometimes it can be sad or stressful, but there is good shit too, you know?

Success. I can’t put this word into a box, but I can explain the goods and bads, mostly goods and that makes me feel empowered to be self-aware of what is happening in my life.

They last time I…

Whassup guys!

This my first blog post ever and I’m stoked! I want to give a huge thank you to Julia for inviting me to be a part of this! I’m not the best writer so I’ll try not to ramble! I was given a list of questions that I could choose to write about. I could literally give a novel on each of these so I’ll just stick to a few – failure, success, fear and courage.

I want to point out that I…

Beauty School Drop Out

This post comes after a long break from writing. The break was not an intentional one. Life just seems to carry you away sometimes.

A lot has happened since I last shared with you.

My last series of posts I authored were about my journey with therapy. I began that walk a little over a year ago and a year ago in July I had my last therapy session. It was a good session. My therapist and I both…