Fun or Fear?

I woke up this morning with adventures on my mind. Unfortunately I have chores to do so taking a ride to the landfill, and then on to my storage unit, is as close as I’m going to get to taking a road trip!

Do you like road trips? Where do you like to go? Are you a solo driver or do you like to bring friends along? Did you know there are people who DON’T like road trips unless every detail is planned out ahead of time? I found this out the hard way.

One of the things I love to do is just take off on a road I’ve never been on before. Sometimes it’s a road I’ve passed many times and wondered what was at the other end, but sometimes it’s one I’ve been on already and just really love.  When my son was growing up we’d often play the game of “left, right, forward” and I’d let him choose the direction we went. This made it fun for me because even though I knew where we’d end up, I didn’t know where he’d take us. I guess I just love the surprise. It was a great way to show him that he can trust his decisions too because even if we hit a dead end, we could just turn around and try another road. What a great metaphor for a successful life! My son is fearless when it comes to driving and recently made his first solo cross country trip at the age of 19. He’s fearless in life as well and started his own videography business when he was 17. He knows, without a doubt, that if he tries something and hits a dead end, the ride isn’t over, it’s just time to choose another road.

Back to that lesson I learned…So, I was 21, driving around somewhere in the redwoods near Duncan’s Mills in Sonoma County. My fiancé was in the passenger seat and he seemed to be on board with the driving around thing, but also kept asking me if I had a map. Of course I had a map, but of course I wasn’t going to use it…where’s the adventure in that??? What I kept missing was his mounting agitation as I’d go from a fork in the road leading down a mountainous rocky road, to a mossy lane climbing to a mountaintop with glorious views from here to the end of the world.

Then he screamed, “STOP!! I’m getting out of the car!” and I knew he was serious. He really did get out, he was flailing his arms and stomping his feet (literally, I swear) and said he wouldn’t get back in until I told him where we were and proved we could get home.

Of course I knew where we were! Geez.  We were somewhere between the Pacific Ocean, the Russian River, and Highway 101. I mean, we were wandering, we weren’t freaking lost! It’s not like we were on another planet, or like our planet had edges we could fall off of.

I learned a couple of valuable lessons that day, and since then have encountered other people who are afraid of getting lost. I can’t imagine how many things they’ve missed out on in their lives because of this fear. It’s probably kept them safe a number of times too, but oh, how many adventures I’d have missed had my defining force been the fear of being lost!

I rarely let fear win over fun. There was one time, and it had to do with a shark, in Guam, but that’s a tale for another day.

Do you remember a time when you said no to an adventure and wish you’d said yes? Is there something you wonder or dream about but are afraid to try? What’s the worst that could happen? You could die? That’s a valid reason for choosing to say no. Just remember though, just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean you’re living.

LOVE YOU!!! Just for today, do one little thing you’re afraid to do. If you can’t do it, at least think about it and smile because you’re alive J

Corey

What's over there?

A life long curiosity has driven me to find out what's on the other side.

My earliest memory of this is as a 3year old growing up in Marin County and driving to Strawberry Village, near Mill Valley, to go shopping. We had to drive because there sure as heck wasn't anywhere to shop in our little sleeper town of Novato!

What I remember most about that drive is the approach to the Richmond Bridge, one of the last exits before leaving San Rafael, and how my excitement would build the closer we got to the turn off. I'd cross my fingers and my inside voice would say over and over in my head, "take the exit, accidentally take the exit, take the exit!" Sometimes my magic spell would work and we actually would take the exit!

Are you asking yourself why on earth a 3 year old would want to go to Richmond? The answer is, I could have cared less if it was Richmond, or Timbuktu. My adrenalin would pump through my racing heart because it held the possibility of adventure in the unknown, and I really, really, really had to explore!

I've had this happen all my life, maybe it was a tree on a hillside that called to me, or palm trees swaying against a deep blue sky, they all beckoned...come see us, come find out what you can by being over here...see how it's different than being over there...

Waking up to the Dream

To all the harsh people and dashers of dreams: You lose. 

When I was cold I allowed you to cover me with your blanket of foreboding and woe, slipping into a trance where what you had to say about me and the ways of the world were true. I fell asleep, pricked by the poison you’d tempted me with, and I lay there dreaming I was awake and wondering how I’d forgotten the rules to my own game.

You should have left well enough alone, you wrinkled and warped trolls and creatures of the dark. You got greedy when you felt my sadness and loss, closing in for the kill without your usual finesse for deception, forgetting that chaos is where I find form. You might have won had you maintained the slow and steady degradation of my soul, for I was beginning to believe I’d gone mad. 

But you stepped it up, going for my jugular because you thought I’d been beaten down when all I was doing was pausing to catch my breath. You forget this isn’t my first enchanted forest, or you my first monsters.  

Chaos is my friend. I understand it. I find the form in it. All great dreams are born from chaos. You were under the false impression that the nightmares you were serving would break me with overwhelm. You underestimated me, and overestimated your own powers because in your moment of triumph, you gave me the antidote to the hypnotic tapestry you’d so cleverly and patiently woven. The depth of your own despair was your undoing.

I could have led you from those depths but you chose your own voices. You believe your own deception because it’s one that is shared by so many of your kind. As harsh as your words have been for me, I can only imagine how much harsher they are for yourself. You believe the only way for you to live with that unbearable pain is to invite others to share in it. I know this for I was once like you.

You are strong. Strong, and powerful enough in numbers to have poisoned me beyond hope. You were almost strong enough to pull me into your mediocrity. In the end your deceit has failed and all your cobwebs of confusion are nothing more than the tattered wisps of your own unlived dreams, swinging in the dead air of ancient decaying tree limbs.

I am the light that pierced your darkness and reminded you that you’re here for another reason. I am the mirror in which you see your own failings, the reflection that you blame for your despair and desperation.  I am strong enough to stand for you but your fear of the pain is greater than your desire for relief. You thought to bring me into the fold but instead have made me even stronger to stand against the dark.

Let your failure to destroy my light awaken you from your poisoned trance. Leave the enchanted forest. Don’t let the trolls win.

The Only Constant in Life is Change

It’s a day of epiphanies. One year ago this month, I went mobile. Emptied my house, traded my truck for a motor home and hit the road with my cat, Lily. We spent six months wreaking havoc throughout the southwest, then returned to California and have been parked at Madre Grande Monastery, deciding what’s next.

The epiphany is, as mobile as my house was; my career was immobilized, at a dead standstill. I was immobilized, hanging in limbo while I sorted through my past to clear up any lingering debris. I was stuck in old client rates in a new economy, and old relationships that didn’t work the first time but somehow they got a second (or third) chance only to fail once again. 

The verdict on all this dipping into the past is, enough is enough. I know for a fact that all you have to do to change your life is to change your mind. And mean it. No lingering pity party, no hopeless wishing it was  different, no more waiting to have a happy childhood. 

This is your life. You chose this incarnation. The good news is, if you don’t get it this time, you’ll get another chance in another lifetime. Or is that the bad news? Do you really want to numb out now, give up on being all you can be, of being at your most joyous every possible moment of the day, just so you can come back in another life and survive all the hard stuff all over again in order to get back to where you are now?  That sentence is nowhere near as long as repeating a lifetime because you don’t believe you can change your mind in this one.

Whatever you’re holding onto that hurts; the first step is to decide today to tell a different story about it. You can change your mind about anything, once you’ve decided you’re willing to do so. Sometimes it’s necessary to dip into the past in order to make peace and release those things that are hanging so you can move on. Just be sure you don’t get stuck there.

To Hang or Not to Hang

Let’s talk closets. Some of you are really organized with your stuff. I have one friend who color codes everything so even in storage his stuff looks nice. His clothes are hung according to the color spectrum and his shoes are lined up neatly across the floor below complimentary colors and patterns. He doesn’t even have closet doors, heck; he doesn’t need them because his closet is a work of art.

Then there’s my best friend’s closet. She tries to get things onto hangers, sometimes facing the same direction, often holding more than one item for the sake of saving space. Of course her closet isn’t filled with all the lovely hues of the rainbow because she figured out long ago that by wearing only black she could save a lot of time getting dressed in the morning. Sometimes things are slung across the foot of the bed, or a chair, or thrown randomly over the rod to get them off the floor.

Now let’s say these two friends decide to live together in a house that has only one closet. They are in love and agree that this is his half and that is hers, and as in the beginning of most things, they laugh at each other’s closet idiosyncrasies. Each secretly believes the other will eventually see the error of their ways and come around to doing things the right way. Umm. Yeah. Not gonna happen.

Something else happens. They begin to take the way the other takes care of their half of the closet like a personal insult, like one is doing something to the other. They forget that this is how their closets have always been, and neither is doing anything any differently than they ever have just to be spiteful. She isn’t disrespecting him by throwing her clothes on the floor, anymore than he’s trying to control her with his color coding. This is how their closets have always been; it has nothing to do with the other person, AT ALL!

These are just closets. Think about it. An orderly closet is no more divine than a messy one; it’s merely an outward reflection of an internal process. Life is way more complicated than closets. Then again, maybe it isn’t.

Never Forgive Again

OMG, you say?

Before you click away, let me explain.

When you say the words, "I forgive you", you're saying you've the right to judge another person and have the ability to wipe away what’s been done. However, karmically, religiously, righteously, cosmically, even comically, it’s just not in your power. That’s up to a power greater than you, one that hasn't made mistakes or hurt anyone else, ever.

According to the books, the religions, and the righteous, you’re supposed to forgive those who’ve caused you harm in order to heal the wounds, so as soon as you realize you’re hurting from something that’s been done to you, you rush to forgive.

I’ve got news for you. You can’t forgive. It’s not your job. You’re not the divine. You’re not god. You’re a soul having a human experience, and in this body you’ve been hurt.

But…but…but…If I don’t forgive I’ll never heal!!!! So you’ve been told. Probably the last thing in the world you want to do is to forgive them, but conditioning tells you that you must. So you say the words: I forgive him, her, them, my parents, friends, boss, whoever. You experience a cathartic moment of peacefulness. If you're like most people, the moment doesn't last.

When you forgive someone you're denying your own experience and causing yourself more harm! You've entered into collusion. You're saying that what they did to you was terrible but it’s okay. It's not really okay though, and you know it. Here comes the shame and guilt. Didn’t you say you’d forgiven them?  Now you beat yourself up for not being strong enough or good enough. You must be bad because you’ve failed at forgiving. You forgive them again. And again. Can you feel that in your gut, the feeling of betrayal to your own self? 

I do agree that we have to do something in order to heal and get on with having a happy life. What I've offered to my clients instead of forgiving is RELEASING. Release whoever has hurt you, for whatever reason. Dig up the details and examine them. Admit all the pain that's been caused. Then leave them to their own karmic experience. It will come. You may or may not be there for it. Trust me, it will happen. It’s physics. What goes up must come down. For every positive there’s a negative.

 

Try this right now and decide for yourself. Think of someone you’ve forgiven. Think of what they did then forgive them again. Say the words out loud "I forgive you".  Check in with your body. Is there anywhere in you that has a twinge? Do you feel nauseous or the need to clear your throat? Are you breathing? Do you feel resentment, or do you feel love? If you feel anything other than love, forgiveness hasn’t happened, and if you haven’t released them then you’re still making impaired life decisions that are influenced by pain and denial.

Now think of the same situation and release them. Let them go, knowing with absolute certainty that you can’t possibly know their entire story or what consequences their actions have, are, or will, cause them. This is the real meaning of letting go. Releasing is letting go. Literally. You might say they are just words. I say words are energy and they matter.

What you'll find is when you release others, you too are released. You can move forward. It's over.

To err is human, to forgive is divine. Last I checked I was still human.

Kite Surfing anyone?

Feeling comfy and settled? Successful but unsatisfied? What secret thing do you want to try but are afraid to risk? If you knew you could not fail, what would you try next?

I'd try kite surfing! I've watched them flying through the air beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and could almost feel the wind in my hair, the sea spray on my skin, and the adrenalin pumping through my veins, as if I were the one jumping the wake of an enormous passing freighter.

It's entirely possible that what I'm told is correct, that I'm too old, not strong enough, lack the skills and coordination...but so what???

Sometimes we don't pursue a dream because we're "experts" and to try something new would mean someone might see us not being our most perfect self. I think this leads us to leading partial lives of caution.

I know for sure I'm going to try kite surfing soon.

What do you want to try? I want to know because maybe I need to add that to my list too :-)

You're so Brave!

You're braver than you give yourself credit for. I'd bet on that.

Today is a good day to think of all the things you've done and continue to do in the name of honor, love and integrity. You make sacrifices every day for the people you love, and you do so with an open heart (most of the time). And really, they aren't sacrifices if what you're doing comes from that gifting place we all have. It's another story if your actions are coming from anywhere else, and something like that, it's not sustainable. You can do it, but at a cost to your soul and psyche.

The trick isn't to squelch your dreams into oblivion and pretend you never had them. The trick is to find ways of living them AND taking care of those you love. Recognizing that the deal is, we came to this planet with one body, one life to live, and no one gets to live ours as well as their own.

In every moment, there are options, choices, possibilities. Shhh...don't argue, just think. What first comes to mind are all the impossibilities. Okay. Write them down. Empty them out of your head. They are real. So are the possibilities waiting just on the other side of them. We can't hear what's possible til those loud-mouth demanding voices get their moment in the sun. Thank them. Then dismiss them. Now invite in the possibilities.

Today's challenge:

1. Make a list of 20 things you love to do, or used to love to do. Holding hands. SCUBA diving. Gardening. Concerts. Knitting. Getting a massage. Giggling. Playing board games. Kissing.
2. Now think back to the last time you did each thing. Write down the date, or year if that's as close as you can get.
3. Choose 1 and do it. Today. Do this daily from now on.

The challenge is to get creative. If you wrote down SCUBA and aren't currently in Hawaii, listen to the impossibilities. Thank them. Dismiss them. Then, Google "exotic pet store". Go to the store and be with the fish.

If you wrote down Concert or live music. Again, listen to the impossibilities. Thank them. Dismiss them. Then, Google "live music [near your town]". Go. Too far? Jump on YouTube and watch your favorite bands. Turn on Spotify (it's free) and make your own playlist by dragging and dropping songs.

If you come up with something you can't think of an option for, post it here and maybe someone else will have an inspiration to share. Or have a great solution for a challenging dream? Please share that too!

xo, Corey

Are you the you you think you are?

No one has to agree with us about who we are. 

Bravo or Boohoo? 

It’s easy enough to say something like this on paper, but is it possible to live our lives as if other people’s opinions don’t matter? Are you living on the outside the life you dream of on the inside? Does the image of who people think you are mesh with the “who” you know yourself to be? How can you even know? How can they, when everything we perceive is based on our own life experiences?

Who are you?

Are you a composite of what those around you have chosen to see? Are you who you are based on who you’ve spent your time with? Have commercials told you what you lack, or need, and movies and television shown you what friendship and love mean?

I sometimes wonder, do country music songs sing of how love is, or how we wish for love to be?

We notice how our parents and others respond to us, and how they speak to each other, what their words say as well as what their body language broadcasts. We measure ourselves against the background of the music we listen to, our ethnic norms, social class, religion, and education. Even our horoscope adds to the soup that we call “me”.

None of us grows up in a bubble. We are surrounded by millions of silent visual clues that approve or disapprove, a frown, a smile, a sigh, and we respond in ways that conform or rebel. Either way, we come to know “who” we are through the fusion of our input.

The good and the bad news is, you are more than a sum of our parts. You are more than an iPhone filled with apps. You are a unique spark in an infinite cosmos. Corny, I know, but the only way we can be defined by consensus is if we agree and believe that who others say we are, is the “who” we feel ourselves to be.

Dreaming: It's not just for kids

Imagine. Imagine that the dreams you have of your perfect life are actually possible. I mean the dreams that you don’t share. The ones that seem impossible, beyond your reach, or that others would say are irresponsible. Maybe they are new dreams, or maybe they’re ones you’ve pushed away for so long that you’ve mostly forgotten what they are. Maybe you’ve given up on them because you’ve gotten older. Maybe they’re just images that don’t go away.

The image I carried with me, or that carried me along, were of palm trees swaying against a vivid blue sky. Those trees spoke to me, they whispered for me to follow them, like clues on a treasure map. They were promises of relief from the pain and discomfort of living a life that didn’t fit. They were the peripheral vision, the carrot on the stick, the promise of an adventure if I were brave enough to believe in them, and in myself. For me, there was no question. It was do, or die.

What does your heart dream of? I’ve asked hundreds of clients and audiences this question. What I’ve discovered is that most people have forgotten how to dream BIG. Most commonly, the answer is one rung above where they find themselves. An unemployed single mom wants to be an administrative assistant. An abused teen wants to paint houses with a friend’s dad. That’s not dreaming. That’s settling for what you think you barely deserve. 

Don’t get me wrong. Painting houses, or being part of an office, those CAN be dreams, if they truly are dreams! The question is, are they your dreams, or are they simply as far as you can allow yourself to imagine? Who in your life told you one too many times to be realistic, to stop daydreaming, to settle down?

If you could be anything what would you be? The first time I was asked this question I said I wanted to be President of the United States. The other people in the room protested, “Can she do that?” The trainer’s response: “of course she can, so can you.” That set off a chain of responses like a brick of firecrackers on a fuse and there were shouts from around the room of, “I want to be a pilot”, “I want to be a stay at home mom with lots of kids”, “I want to be a bear…”! 

Nothing is impossible. Even being a bear. Think about that. Argue if you must. It’s not the point. It’s not for you or me to decide. It’s not our dream. Nor are we in a position to say it isn’t possible. Who are we to tell anyone something’s impossible? Who are we to have the audacity to say such a thing to ourselves? The word impossible is a self-imposed hurdle, an obstacle of our own choosing.

Are you living into your dreams? Or are your true dreams a secret because you’ve been told they aren’t possible? Is the risk too high? How high? Says who? 

Great success means the risk of great failures. We’d like to think that by avoiding the desire to be our greatest selves, we’re also avoiding the risk of experiencing great pain. That’s one of our greatest myths. Pain happens. No matter what, it happens. So the question is: Are you willing to risk the pain you are already living, for the possibility of experiencing the joy you've so far only imagined?