Yesterday I had the totally delightful experience of being on the Today Show with Hoda and Kathie Lee. Here’s the clip!
If you are reading this over email click HERE to get the clip.
(I apologize, you will have to watch an ad from MSNBC before the clip. Possibly an ad about Downy or Cover Girl.)
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I also want to welcome the hundreds of new folks who saw this segment and/or yesterday’s Big Think article. I’m so excited that you are here to connect more, and get inspiration and tools to share your voice more fully in the world.
By way of saying welcome, I want you to know this: the world needs your voice. It is unique. There is a “you-shaped hole” in the world.
You-Shaped Hole
Sometimes the world feels inhospitable.
You feel all the ways that you and it don’t fit.
You see what’s missing, how it all could be different.
You feel as if you weren’t meant for the world, or the world wasn’t meant for you.
As if the world is “the way it is” and your discomfort with it a problem.
So you get timid. You get quiet about what you see.
But what if this? What if you are meant
to feel the world is inhospitable, unfriendly, off-track
in just the particular ways that you do?
The world has a you-shaped hole in it.
It is missing what you see.
It lacks what you know.
And so you were called into being.
To see the gap, to feel the pain of it, and to fill it.
Filling it is speaking what is missing.
Filling it is stepping into the center of the crowd, into a clearing, and saying, here, my friends, is the future.
Filling it is being what is missing, becoming it.
You don’t have to do it all, but you do have to speak it.
You have to tell your slice of the truth.
You do have to walk toward it with your choices, with your own being.
Then allies and energies will come to you like fireflies swirling around a light.
The roughness of the world, the off-track-ness, the folly that you see,
these are the most precious gifts you will receive in this lifetime.
They are not here to distance you from the world, but to guide you
into your contribution to it.
The world was made with a you-shaped hole in it.
In that way you are important.
In that way you are here to make the world.
In that way you are called.
– Tara Sophia Mohr
Congratulations! It’s important for women to discard the false notion of the feminine and embrace their unique beauty, gifts and talents so they are able to share them with the world.
Thank you for sharing this message.
Kudos, Tara for sharing your brilliance and your light with the world! So proud of you. You were beautiful and confident on the Today Show. We need more women like you sharing these empowering messages. Thank you for your generous spirit and for shaking the world in a gentle yet powerful way!
Tara, you did great on the show! You managed, gracefully, to get a lot into a very tiny, tense space.
I agree with the comments above. You are a bright light, so needed in the world, Tara. Your poems touch my heart. The You Shaped Hole spoke directly to me today. Thank you, Dear One.
Tara, can I just say that I love you!
Your poetry alone is worth the click of the mouse.
I so wish I could attend the retreat, but I can’t wait to hear what emerges from that awesome gathering.
love this poem, this idea…i struggled for years feeling like i was born on the wrong planet or in the wrong time or something. and this sums up so perfectly what i have found to be true. if only i had read this years and years ago, when i was struggling {…ah but then the struggle is half the journey and i wouldn’t have believed you then anyway}. which is a strange way of saying: thanks.
You are courageous, living your gasp moments, like being on the Today Show (congratulations!). You are smart and generous in that you encourage others with empowering information and resources. You are poised and gorgeous. In all those ways (and more), you are BRILLIANT!
Terrific interview! Professional, warm and wonderfully informative. Congrats and thanks 🙂
I love both the poem and your interview. Two things strike me about it: First, you engage with the interviewers — it is not all about you. You acknowledge how their stories, their work – and by extension, the stories of their viewer – reflect some of the points you are making. And secondly, I love how your warmth comes through. So many people on TV forget to smile. Thank you for both the link and the poem; they are providing much Sunday inspiration.
Wow! You blew we away with your brilliance, Tara!
I love how you said that brilliance isn’t just about IQ. It’s the gift you were uniquely designed to bring to the world.
Thank you for sharing your gifts so generously!