When people find out my bag of artistic skills, they often ask, more as a compliment, \u201cIs there anything you can\u2019t<\/em> do?\u201d And I developed a canned response in an attempt to be funny. \u201cYeah, there\u2019s a lot I can\u2019t do. If it\u2019s athletic in nature, you name it, I suck at it.\u201d As I closed my eyes to ask what year thirty-seven would look like, that tug I was feeling on my heart was whispering a new challenge. In my mind\u2019s eye, I saw my feet in a pair of orange running shoes hitting the pavement in slow motion as I heard a still, small voice say, \u201cCandace, this year you\u2019re gonna be a runner.\u201d<\/p>\n Certainly, this vision meant that I was going to face some obstacles and successfully overcome them, not that I would actually have to get my butt off the couch and run. I asked myself why I was so resistant to this vision. Why was I so quick in my opposition? That was a harder task than just getting off my butt and running. I hadn\u2019t spent much effort looking within, to wonder why I always tended to rule out things that would or could benefit me. I had done this with many things in my life, not just physical exertion. I had created a long list of activities that I felt were not for me, or were too hard for me. Statements such as:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At this juncture, I knew I was either going to live another year believing I was all those limitations\u2014or defy the list.<\/p>\n There is such freedom when you embrace what you don\u2019t know and acknowledge your shortcomings. You don\u2019t have to have your act together all the time. Some of the most liberating moments in my life were confessing things I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Each day I would lace up my orange running shoes and leave the front porch of my home feeling a calm and peace that I had tried to gain in my thoughts for years. It\u2019s as if every step I took was stomping out tiny remnants of campfires of deceptions I had long believed. I began feeling such a freedom while walking and running that I didn\u2019t want to miss a single day.<\/p>\n That was easy enough before the Chewbacca Mom video went viral. In its aftermath, however, the interviews and travel made it a nightmare to find extra time and places to walk. But I was determined. The walking and running were so essential to honing a new skill of calming my mind and were so important I made it a priority no matter where I was or what I was doing. So much so that I found myself running across a grassy knoll atop the Facebook headquarters in California.<\/p>\n The media and press whirlwind was overwhelming, to say the least. Imagine the pressure of never doing interviews or being on live television before, and now the entire world seemed to know your name and wanted you to retell your experience. How would you deal with the overnight success? I didn\u2019t have a game plan. I had, however, established a way to center my thoughts.<\/p>\n Currently, I am on a quest to abolish the list of can’ts. I have believed about myself. One common obstacle consistently rears its ugly head when I consider changing these thoughts. What word is it? Should<\/em>. I cannot tell you how many times I shame myself or my past or my present struggles with that cuss word.<\/p>\n I am still tempted to embrace counterfeit joy over authentic joy. Yes, I know. The person who shared four minutes of straight-up joy with millions struggles daily with maintaining authentic joy. Since shutting up the shoulds<\/em>, nothing within me feels pressure to maintain this false platform, because the moment the door was opened to me was one of raw, authentic, and defiant joy.<\/p>\n That tiny word, should<\/em>, tries desperately to lay claim on my future as well. If you\u2019re ever going to break up with the list of lies you possess about yourself, it\u2019s not only time, but vital to do so. Today this is my invitation to you: Shut the should<\/em> up!<\/p>\n There\u2019s beauty in living each and every moment knowing that you can take any path you choose and find each step that is authentic to your story. Live authentically with the grace to know risks are where bridges of joy are forged over many waters of disappointments, regrets, failures, and lists of can\u2019ts. Loving others and living brightly as a light to a hopeless and hurting world is possible because you are<\/em> enough\u2014even if you\u2019re a work in progress. Authentic and defiant joy embraces the fact that it is more than okay but absolutely necessary to quit should-ing yourself.<\/p>\n So, go ahead. Make your list of lies. Pick just one small lie you\u2019ve believed far too long about yourself. Decide to replace that lie by doing the opposite of the core belief that has held you back.\nShut the shoulds<\/em> up! Run, Forrest, run! Do what you were made to do. True joy waits on the other side of every small victory.<\/p>\n Excerpt from Laugh It Up by Candace Payne, viral sensation of Chewbacca Mask fame<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2018","category-winter-2018-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6557"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7488,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions\/7488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Laugh_it_up_-600-h-cover.jpg\")
<\/a>If you\u2019ve followed me online at all, you soon discovered after the Chewbacca Mom video, there was more talent within my voice than the laugh heard around the world. I am a singer, a communicator, and now an author. Real friends who have known me for years know that I am also an illustrator, artist, crochet hooker (yes, that\u2019s the term), songwriter, and musician.<\/p>\n\n
Excerpt from\u00a0Laugh It Up<\/em><\/strong> by Candace Payne. Copyright \u00a9 2017 by Candace Payne. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com<\/a><\/h5>\n
Candace Payne is a viral sensation whose video of trying on a Chewbacca Mask became the most-viewed Facebook Live video to date (170+ million views). She has been featured in more than 3,000 media outlets and has interviewed with major media such as \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d \u201cThe Late Late Show with James Corden,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, PEOPLE<\/em> and Cosmopolitan<\/em>. Candace\u2019s first book, Laugh It Up<\/em>, is available now. Candace lives in Texas with her husband, two children, and ornery pugs. Connect with Candace online at CandacePayne.me<\/a>.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"