I’ve spent my whole life focusing on the things I don’t want.

❌ I don’t want to be anything like my mother

❌ I don’t want to end up with someone like my father

❌ I don’t want to work 9-5

❌ I don’t want to buy a McMansion or live in the ‘burbs

❌ I don’t want to get married

❌ I don’t want to go to college

❌ I don’t want to stay in the town I grew up in

❌ I don’t want to feel trapped

❌ I don’t want to be hurt

❌ I don’t want to be lied to

❌ I don’t want to be told what to do

❌ I don’t want to feel hopeless

❌ I don’t want to be friendless

❌ I don’t want to be ugly

❌ I don’t want to be broke

❌ I don’t want to be a failure

❌ I don’t want to feel like shit

❌ I don’t want to be forced into decisions

❌ I don’t want to do shit that makes my skin crawl

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I could “I don’t want…” for a week straight without sleep, but I WANT an inner peace that makes me smile for no damn reason, more.

After nurturing my nervous system like it’s my beloved grandma on hospice for the last few months, I’ve finally started laughing really hard at the messy experiment that is life again.

Like last Monday…

I put my sick kiddo to bed, popped a gummy, and got back on the sofa, feverishly trying to wrap shit up before he woke up barfing (I had 45 mins. MAX). This isn’t my first rodeo; he’s a barfer; it doesn’t even have to be the stomach flu. You put him to bed, and within an hour he’s barfing.

But before the gummy kicks in or the puke starts flowing…

Suddenly, it sounds like Niagara Falls crashed into my kitchen.

Water is barreling out from all sides of the fridge.

WTF??! **I say out loud 45 times as my brain tries to process what I’m seeing**

This is when you find out how quick your reflexes are.

Spoiler alert… mine are not quick!

I still don’t understand WHY an ice maker line would need this much fucking water pressure? 🤷‍♀️

It took a solid 6-mins. for me to figure out what was happening, move the fridge out of the tight nook it’s wedged in (adrenaline, baby), catch the unwieldy micro-fire hose, and string together all the brain cells I still have into enough common sense to pinch off + rubber band the hose.

In that time… the entire kitchen + pantry flooded.

It’s after 8pm at this point; I’ve got maybe 20 mins left before Pukemageddon starts, so of course, I call my contractor frantic AF. This is one of those gloriously human moments that it really pays to live in a small town and hire “mom + pops.”

He says,

He gets to my property… and of course, my gate that’s 120 yards down the road won’t open… which hasn’t happened ONCE in the year I’ve lived here. He has to take the pins out and manually open it to get through.

He finally gets up to the treehouse and busts through my front door. I look up from the puddle I’m sitting in, totally gutted + defeated, so happy he’s come to save me, and he says, hunched over and swaying back + forth…

🤣🤣🤣

I start fucking rolling on the floor.

😥 I stop laughing and immediately feel like a giant horse's ass for calling him + putting him through this.

Just then, his business partner, who would have been my 2nd call… comes around the door… with crunches and a thigh-down cast on, dragging a wet vac behind him, firing off questions

Totally reasonable, in a calm but urgent tone, ready to save the day. He starts assessing the situation, but NO acknowledgement that he’s literally dragging a wet vac around his broken leg, just sort of heaving the whole right side of him forward with each step – the dude is 6’5”.

🤣🤣🤣

I fucking lost it again.

It took three adults to make a whole grownup who was capable of getting downstairs in my basement, climbing up a ladder, and turning off the right water line.

I mean, is ice really worth all this??

We get the water off + cleaned up, but at this point I’m WAY OVER the puke grace period… I can hear my son coughing his balls off…

They weren’t even to their car, and I opened my son’s door.

I was too late.

Like, waaaaay too late.

Like, I had to throw him in the shower, late.

Like, we had to say goodbye to all the bedding, late.

Like, one of my biggest regrets in life will be that slice of pepperoni pizza + blueberry smoothie I gave him before I realized he was coming down with something, late.

I could live 15,000 more years, and I will never forget that smell.

I don’t know where I was when they were passing out the ‘being able to see or clean up puke without puking” gene, but I didn’t get one.

The mental redirect it takes me to not throw up, is like a dude trying not to get a hard on; I tell myself… baseball, kittens, the library, mini golf, rainbows… DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING PUKE, DRE! (repeat)

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If I was still talking about what I don’t want… I wouldn’t have been able to laugh my way through (most of) last week.

It would have flung me into fight or flight.

I would have fixated on all the things that went wrong.

I would have let it snowball into weeks of depression + self-doubt.

I would have retold myself all the go-to stories about how I have no control over anything.

I would have shifted into survival mode.

It would have perpetuated a toxic cycle that I’ve been stuck in for years – looking at everything from a glass half-empty place.

I don’t want my kid to be sick.

I don’t want to have to clean up all this barf.

I don’t want to do 15 loads of laundry tomorrow.

I don’t want to spend 3 sleepless nights sliding a barf bucket in front of my son.

I don’t want to have to write when I have a sick kiddo + I’m sleep-deprived.

I don’t want any of this shit!

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I don’t know if this is “woo” or what, but focusing on what I WANT has offered an internal peace that I would love to get used to.

I’ve ended my day feeling fan-fucking-tastic about myself more times in the last 6-weeks that I’ve been trying this than I have in the last few years combined.

It’s been helping me:

✅ Take whatever time I need to know for damn sure that I’m making a decision based on what I want + not what I’m afraid of (a.k.a. don’t want).

✅ Approach every single part of my life + business like it’s an experiment – to live it, breathe it, try it on, and then be able to pause + reflect, and see where to go from there.

✅ Find the humor in the dumpster fires, pick my battles more wisely, and not take everything (including myself) too seriously.

✅ See that I’ve got a ton of control and that I’m the sole deciding factor on what I CHOOSE to spend my energy on.

It’s a “simple” reframe, but it’s done wonders for my nervous system.

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Things feel different in this place of what I WANT rather than what I DON’T WANT.

It’s been like getting lasik after years of not really being able to see very good.

NOTHING externally has significantly changed in my life or business over the last few months.

But, I’ve changed. In simple, micro ways that I’m soooo proud of.

🥰 Smiling for no damn reason.

🥰 A nervous system that’s slowly becoming untriggerable by internet BS.

🥰 Thriving rather than surviving.

🥰 Fixating on the things that actually matter.

🥰 Getting out of my head.

I want this for me… and you.

​This is what the Hot Dog Cart way is all about… making this shit natural + feel good.​

What a crazy concept, huh?

👆 If you’re looking for a safe, supportive place to make your cart-sized aspirations a reality, I’ll be waiting with the party bus over on Substack – come grab a “dawg,” which is the new Dre-slang for Subscribe to the new newsletter + Join the new community, Buttercup!

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To chugging the woo we need to be able to smile for no damn reason, ALL THE DAMN TIME,

Dre ‘Gettin' Her Smile Back’ Beltrami