Life in Small Bites

A Tribute to

Scott Dinsmore, founder of the global project

“Live Your Legend”

Written by

CHELSEA DINSMORE

October 1, 2015

Sunset over Mount Kilimanjaro

To the amazing LYL community,

First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support. While I have needed to focus my efforts elsewhere right now, please know that every single word will be read. Every single thought is appreciated. And every single well-wish is felt by me and by all of Scott’s friends and family.

This community is an amazing gift that Scott left for us. Thank you for being a part of it.

I am not going to lie about this being a daunting thing to write. To be quite honest, I don’t even know how to begin to talk about what I have experienced every day over the past few weeks. There are no words that can fully describe the disbelief I still feel, the pain that I wake up to every morning and the uncertainty in the life that I have ahead of me.

Scott is my husband. He is my best friend. He is someone who I had plans with for many many more years to come. He is my protector. He is my partner. He is the love of my life.

He is so much more to me than words will ever be able to convey.

I know I have a long road ahead of me and am trying my best to do what Scott always talked about – take unbelievably small steps, steps so small that I can’t fail. The big picture is too daunting to imagine so I’m trying to focus on what I can do today, this hour, this minute. Eventually I know those steps will add up to something greater.

So here’s to me being honestly and unapologetically me…

If there’s one thing I learned over and over during our trip this year (and is proving to be true now more than ever), it is that we are so much stronger than we think we are. If someone would have told me this was going to happen, I honestly would have told you that I would lock myself in a dark room and never come out. I would have told you that this was impossible – and there are plenty of moments that I feel that way! But the resiliency of the human spirit has surprised me.

We are so much stronger than we think we are.

Something gave me the strength to get down that mountain on September 12. Something gave me the strength to get home from Africa. And something is giving me the strength to write these words.

To be honest, I am still sorting out exactly what that is – and trust me, I don’t feel it all the time – but I know the people I have in my life, the beauty in the world and the deep belief that there is something mighty for me to do have helped guide me.

Instead of diving into the depths of what I don’t have, I am clinging to what I do have.

Scott left me (and all of us) with so many of his wise words. While I know he never envisioned this situation, his principles still ring true. I’ve tried to take his wisdom and apply it to this situation. Here are a few ways that I have used his Passionate Work Framework to help me get through each day.

Become a Self Expert

• Meditation:Every morning, I begin the day with 10-15 minutes of seated meditation. This is the absolute first thing I do. I don’t turn on my phone, it stays on airplane mode. While Scott had a regular morning meditation practice, this type of meditation is new for me and I have foundHeadspace to be very helpful.
• Write:I follow that meditation with journaling. I write down everything I am feeling. The good, the bad and the ugly. I write down the things I am grateful for each day. I write down the things I am not so grateful for. And I do this all throughout the day. If I think it, it gets written down.
• Be Outdoors:I spend time outside every day. It is a big, beautiful world out there and being outside helps me get perspective and reflect on all that I am thinking, feeling and experiencing. I do this in the form of walks, drinking my cup of tea outside and watching the sunrise and/or sunset.
• Limit Distractions:For the time being, I have completely removed all social media from my phone. It would be so easy to distract myself by checking Facebook right now, but I know that what is important right now is not Facebook. What is important is connecting with family and friends in person and over the phone. What’s important right now is to be with my thoughts. Scott was incredibly passionate about this topic as many of you saw in his last blog post.
• Be Vulnerable:I feel more vulnerable than I have ever felt. I feel more exposed than I have ever felt. I am terrified to be writing this. But once again, I am taking Scott’s lead. Scott reminded all of us so often of the importance of being ourselves, and he led by example. I know I am probably not doing this “right.” I know in the days, weeks, months and years ahead I will feel many different emotions. But I am doing something. I am being me. I am letting love in. That’s one of the few things I can do right now.

Do the Impossible

• Respect the Process:I think it is safe to say that I am currently ‘doing the impossible,’ something Scott preached religiously. In doing that, I am trying my hardest to respect the process, a great lesson I learned from the grief call we held last week. I know I can’t rush it. It’s a process that takes a lot of time and the only way through it is to feel it. This is going to be the longest physical and emotional feat of my life. Unfortunately there are no shortcuts. So I need to focus on one impossibly small step at a time.

Surround Yourself with People Doing the Impossible

• Find Others Who Have Done It:I don’t know how to do this, but others do… Therefore, I have sought out some amazing women to talk to. To learn from. To see how they did it. And to find some of my own strength through theirs.

It’s helpful to remind myself that everything was impossible until someone did it.

While I go through this process, and it will be a process, I do want to reassure you that Scott created this movement to be larger than himself. He has an incredible team that I love, trust and enjoy collaborating with and he created a global community of amazing people that all believe in the same thing. And even though this is new for all of us, we will learn how to do it. Together.

Scott’s mission will live on because it is too powerful and too important not to.

Thank you again for your love, for your support and for being here,

Chelsea Dinsmore