Over the past year, as I’ve been trying to embrace a consistent meditation practice, one question often comes up: “What do you like to do that is absent of any resistant thought?”

My answers usually go something like this:

Drawing? Nope. A professor told me that I was terrible at drawing knees. Guess that’s out.

Music? Eh, I don’t know. When I was fifteen my brother told me the song I wrote used the word so too much, so . . .

Baking? That sounds fun . . . but then I’ll have to take a perfect picture of it so I can post it on Instagram. And it probably isn’t healthy, anyway. I can do it later.

Writing. That has to be it. Ugh, I don’t know. What if it never gets published? And then if it does, what if sells about as well as my cookbook sold?

I also realized, that besides the obvious Jaime-bashing, most things that are enjoyable to me have become less enjoyable because I have always tried to justify them by figuring out how I can turn them into some sort of business, a way to make money.

Basically, I haven’t been allowing myself to enjoy something just to enjoy it. I haven’t been allowing myself to have fun. I haven’t been allowing myself to be . . . myself.

I’m not even sure when this pattern started.

As I’ve been digging up my past these last few months to find some clarity, I found a lot of evidence that supported a story I’ve been telling for awhile now. That my default setting is guilt, and that I was trained by teachers or peers or my religion that I wasn’t good enough, and that I would never be deserving unless I lived up to some impossible standard. Maybe I was trying to please a husband that is long gone now, or an old boyfriend who once told me I was hot for wanting to make millions of dollars a year on my own.

I’m not sure whose influence I was under. But none of that matters now.

Because this year, I have decided to tell a new story:

That I create my own reality. That I am worthy of good things. That I know the feeling of love, for I have been surrounded by it my whole life, even if I got lost sometimes and went looking for it in the wrong places.

It is so obvious to me now that my default setting is actually joy, and always has been, I just wasn’t letting myself feel it.

This past December, whenever I felt myself slipping into feelings of guilt or overwhelm, I would think the words, “Let your heart be light,” and would imagine myself releasing any self-punishing thoughts or emotions. Then, my mood would lift, as if I had stopped trying to wrestle a helium balloon to stay on the ground.

For Christmas, I thought I had asked for some microphones and other equipment for the videos I want to start posting.

Instead Matt gave me a Lego set. (Apparently I had asked for some of those, too. But I was thinking he’d give me something small—something fun to do for the afternoon of Christmas Day, and then I’d get right to work filming the videos).

But this set was huge—over 2,000 pieces huge. I saw it once at the Lego store and said it would be cool, but I didn’t think he took me seriously. When I opened the present, my first thought was excitement, but when I realized this was my big present and there were no lavalier microphones or anything else for my business, I started to panic—just a little.

But then I remembered that I was going to “let my heart be light,” and I thought of the word allow, a word I had started saying to myself on days when I’m meditating and too many thoughts are crowding my mind.

After a few minutes, I decided I would allow myself the pleasure of doing something just for fun and I kept the Legos. (I confess, I also thought I could take pictures of them and write a post about it, but then I realized I was trying once again to justify a reason to have fun, so I ditched that thought as well as I could, and only decided a couple hours ago to write what you’re reading).

The day after Christmas, I got to work. I allowed myself to take the time, to stay in my pajamas, to connect to myself. The Parisian Cafe might as well have been made specifically for me. It was an absolute delight to put together and the exact set I would have gone nuts for when I was ten years old. Turns out I’m not much different thirty-three years later.

When I finished it this morning, I decided it would be the symbol of what I hope to focus on in the months to come.