For you.

You who puts it out there the best you can, day after day.

 You who deals with the fall out, takes responsibility, wishes quietly for more hope .

You who smiles at moments of great weariness.

You who gets up, stretches, sighs, and does it again, day after day.

You who gives too much but can’t seem to do it any other way.

You who listens and empathizes and doesn’t judge.

You who would like, at the end of the day, just to be heard.  And accepted.  And loved.  Just the way you are.

You won’t be broken.  Because you are a miracle.

There’s one spot left for Di Mackey and my Your Beautiful Truth Retreat at the end of August… come and revel in your story. Di came to Piedmont this week and we had our pre-retreat summit, scheming and laughing, planning and dreaming – all for you.  We want to reveal to you what kind of miracle you really are.

We’re so overloaded by information and inspiration and motivation and perspiration.   Sometimes just figuring out who we are and what we should be doing is worse than going to Macy’s on Black Friday; there are so many possibilities and squeaky shiny new things out there, we just want to grab on to all of them.

But we can’t.  Well, we can, for about a day.  Then we implode in front of our computers. We can’t simultaneously be glassblowers, knitters, potters, fine artists and sage advice-givers.  It’s simply not possible.

But it’s tempting. The Internet has given us a million new possibilities to learn about new things, or to learn new things about things we already know.  This is the magic and the manic about the Internet.  The exposure can grow us, but it also has the potential to burn us out.  It can make us, in the end, insecure and a little scared.  Because when we see how many people out there are doing stellar things and seem to be living stellar lives, we wonder why we don’t have a piece of it.  This can lead to sort of a crazed, unhealthy inspiration that in reality is depletion.

I have come to believe that in order to use the Internet as a cultivation tool for learning about ourselves, we have to be strong.  First we need to understand what makes us tick.  Then we can go in search of others who are doing similar things, or have perfected their craft in the same area.

This might seem simple, but it’s huge. Really, really huge. Because owning your passion is the first step to living it. <–click to tweet

All the people out there that do things well and present themselves in a way that makes your head turn have worked hard, unbelievably and consistently hard, to create their vision.  At some point, they each had to drop a thousand things that held their interest and focus on the thing that would move them ahead and make them stunning at what they do.  They narrowed in on their passion.  They decided to own that passion and make it work for them, instead of letting their passion become diluted by the next shiny thing.

I’ll tell you something – I’m writing this out of personal experience.  I’ve been on a personal quest to narrow down my passions and become more focused. It’s very hard for me, partially because I tend to be a little ADD to begin with, but also because so many things interest me.  I am listening to my guides, my coach and my mentors who have been telling me the same things for years:  you are creative, but you have to decide where you want to focus your energy.  I absolutely love the creative process, and sometimes it’s a fatal attraction.  I’ve been working hard to build good, healthy boundaries between my creative tendencies and my desire to focus.  This part of the journey is now coming to an end for me, and another one opens – the one where I take the passions I have chosen and move them into the next realm.

This is my next step in my work.

One of my carefully chosen passions is to be right here with you – to guide you to your work. To help you figure out what’s yours. My new Creative Coaching Program will be released on July 1st. I’ve been working on this program for the better part of a year, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Stay tuned, stay healthy, and know you are not alone.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it  - Pablo Picasso

I’ve been screaming inside.

For calm,  for a rock on the head,  for anything to move me out of a sense of superficial frantic activity coupled with spiritual and creative inertia.

I know something new is coming out of a sense of WE. 

It started two weeks ago with a 20 pound block of porcelain clay, a clay I never worked with.  I cleaned my studio and opened the sack – and started to work with it.  At first – frustration.  Turned to anger- almost tears. Because it was different than anything I ever did before with clay. And my ego was such that I thought I could work with porcelain without even thinking about it.  Ten pieces ended up on a blob on the middle of my work table before I really thought about what the problem was.  The problem was how I as approaching the process. I stopped – worked my way through the complexity of my own reaction. And started again.

“Have fun with it,” I said to myself.  ”Stop taking this so seriously.”

These pieces are different than anything I’ve ever made. I posted a couple of shots on Facebook and the reaction was immediate.  People reacted to these raw, just thrown forms straight from their emotional center.  That reaction broke loose something inside of me that made me want to create.  Sculpt. Write.  Bring my work to the next level – and share all of it with you.

Gather your thoughts.

Look at how you live. Your sense of self expands into all that you touch.  Loving that with which you are surrounded will expand your capacity to grow.  Your life is yours to curate and manifest.  The more you dream about what can be, the more you are able to call those dreams forth into your daily life and try new things that can bring you joy.  The Universe will put things in your path to help the trip. But you have to put in the work.  You have to try what you don’t know, what you’re not sure of.  You have to be willing to be bad at it before you get good at it, and bless the bad stuff as being a beautiful part of the process.

The Universe will give you a green light and let you walk across your own path.  

There’s one spot left on our Beautiful Truth Retreat in August.  Expand your creative landscape, here in Italy, with Di Mackey and myself.  Click below to get to the website.

The heart of creativity is not in its grand spurts of brilliance, but in the tenacity of its sustainability over time.

This is important because burn out happens.  And when it does, we need to remember that not doing anything for stretches of time is part of rejuvenating our creative center. Sometimes other things take precedence that have nothing to do with our creative lives.  Which is perfect.  Because the food for creativity is living, not producing.<- click to tweet.  Producing is what digests the creative food.  But if we don’t occasionally step back into quiet, we’ll become depleted.  So there’s a balance to be found – a balance between creating and rejuvenating.

Our work becomes more meaningful, deeper, and more vulnerable if we let our lives’ experiences infuse our creative tea.  The edges become softer.  Wisdom is present in the work.  Whether we’re writing, potting, painting, teaching, or building, doing so from a place of peace and relaxation always beats forcing it during a period of depletion.  It took me years to learn this.  I thought creativity was about what I was producing, not about what I was living.  I am here to tell you this was a mistake. Our creativity comes from living.  It’s what make our creativity sustainable.

This is nowhere more important than when we want our creativity to sustain us financially.  As creative entrepreneurs, we rely on the health of our bodies and souls to pay the bills.  This is an intricate balance of all that is good, and our work becomes our joy becomes our sustenance.   So it’s very important to remember that being true to our craft means taking care of ourselves and our creative needs.

 The late Rodney King, shortly after having been beaten by LA Police, who were then tried and acquitted of the beating.

Marcus Sheridan recently recorded a podcast where he talks for a while about how chains of events effect us professionally and personally, and bring us to new stages of development and opportunity, and how a chain events led to his being in the New York Times and beyond (Podcast number 16 on this list).

Back in 1992, I was the Marketing Director for a sizable hotel and restaurant construction company in Southern California.  I loved the job and the company.  It meant connecting with executives in the design industry, heads of banks and movers and shakers at the L.A. Times.  I co-chaired conferences for Asian funding of Southern California development projects, met people in government, and traveled through the States speaking about hotel and restaurant design and construction. Our second office in Hawaii had the benefit that our marketing efforts had to include visits and meetings in Honolulu.  I was at the top of my game, in my early thirties, making more money than I ever thought I would, fully engaged in the Southern California lifestyle.

On April 29th of that year I found myself at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  The annual convention and conference for the hospitality design industry was to start on the following day and continue through to Sunday morning, May 2nd.  The guys from our booth company were at the convention center doing the normal setup; I needed to get our marketing materials there and confirm some of the arrangements for our guests flying in from out of town.   We’d be heading out late in the afternoon and meeting up with clients for dinner in Westwood.  I had planned to drive home that night to San Clemente and then spend the rest of the conference days at a hotel in LA.

That was the plan.

Around 4 pm, an announcement came over the loud speaker.

“The verdict for the officers accused in the Rodney King beatings has come in.  The officers have all been found not guilty.” (For those of you not familiar with these events, you can catch up here)

I look at the booth guys, and they looked at me.  ”We’d better wrap this up,”  the supervisor said to me. “This is not going to be pretty, and we have to get back down to Long Beach by six.”

I shrugged my shoulders.  ”Ok, but we have to get the booth up.  People will be starting to come in in the morning.”  We looked around.  Work through the convention center had come to a dead halt.  No one exactly knew what the announcement was supposed to mean.

Until the next announcement came, about a half hour later.

“We strongly suggest that you wrap up your work quickly and make your way to your vehicles.  Riots have started to break out in South Central Los Angeles.  For your own safety, we suggest you get out of the Convention Center and on the road as soon as possible.”

We hadn’t even made it out the door before the third announcement came.

“You have ten minutes to evacuate the Convention Center, after which it will be in lock down. Leave the premises immediately.”

We all filed to the parking garage in some kind of daze.  By now it was about 4.45.  The streets leading to the 10 Freeway were in complete gridlock.  I sat there, in my car alone.  The radio announced one catastrophe after another.  The airspace above Los Angeles was closed;  flights in and out of LAX were cancelled.  South Central, just blocks from the Convention Center, was exploding.  No one knew where the violence would end.  Would the riots make their way north of the 10 Freeway?  Would we all just be sitting ducks in our cars?  I cursed the fact that I hadn’t booked myself a hotel room for that night, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway; I couldn’t even get more than a half of a block from the Convention Center parking lot.  Finally, around 9 pm, after sitting for four hours, I found myself at the intersection of the 10 and the 110 Freeways.  The 110, going south, which I needed to get on, was closed.  I have no recollection how the next thing happened, because in honesty, it really couldn’t have happened.  But it did.  I managed to get on the closed 110 Harbor Freeway going south even though it had been closed by the LAPD.  This freeway cut through the heart of South Central Los Angeles.  For the next half hour I had the most terrifying ride of my entire life.  I drove through the battle zone at the heart of the Rodney King Riots to get onto the 405 Freeway heading south towards San Clemente.

Black pillars of smoke headed up to the sky; fires were everywhere.  To the east of my car, we were a country at war. I was the only car on the Harbor Freeway in the middle of the Rodney King Riots!  Terrified, I called Micha, who talked me slowly into focusing as I drove.  Finally, when I made it to the 405 Freeway, I was stopped by police who wanted to know exactly what the hell I was doing.  They saw that I was in shock and let me through the barrier.  I got home around midnight, as the traffic trying to escape Los Angeles from every possible direction had literally brought the entire freeway system to a halt.  The conference was cancelled and by Friday, I was back at the convention center, working with the crew to tear down and secure the booth. The riots had spread by then to Korea town, north of the 10 Freeway and directly adjacent to the convention center.  It took me the entire day to get up to smoke and fire-soaked LA and back. The riots would continue for an entire week.

On Monday we had our normal executive board meeting at work and we were chuckling about all the new construction that would need to take place. And laughed about my managing to get onto a blocked freeway in the middle of armageddon.

But I wasn’t chuckling inside.  Something had changed for me. A domino had fallen.

The Rodney King verdicts caused a small yet palpable shift in how I viewed life in the LA basin.  It cracked open something I didn’t want to see before.  I knew that what I had experienced on April 29th wasn’t going away.  It would go under ground and smolder, but the problems that had caused the riots or Rodney King’s beating in the first place wouldn’t get resolved.  Then I had a case of post-traumatic Freeway shock.  I was spending my life on the spidery network – my commute plus work meant more than four hours a day on the road.  I was tired after the weekend of the verdict – tired on many different levels.  Southern California had been a place for me to grow professionally, but it might not be where we wanted to spend our lives.  It took me a few months to realize this at a conscious level.

Then, on Sunday, June 28th, 1992 we were woken from a dead sleep at 5:00 in the morning.  The room changed dimensions;  I heard everything falling from the shelves downstairs, glass cracking, and terrible screeching.  By the time the shaking stopped, the bed was in the dead center of the room and we were bolted upright in the bed.  Outside, we watched transformers that ran from the San Onofre Nuclear Station up to the northern part of Southern California explode, one after the other, snapping and wizzing and cracking.

The Landers Earthquake, with its epicenter a good 70 miles away, caused structural damage to our living room and bedroom.  We couldn’t find our cat for two days.  She had sandwiched herself in back of a closet unit in a space so narrow that a fly couldn’t have lived back there.

Another domino dropped.

In September 1992 I sat on the board of a conference, led by the Los Angeles Times, at La Costa in Carlsbad, for Asian investors seeking development projects in Southern California.  The economy in Southern California was in the tank; projects had been put on hold all over the region. Japanese money, the bedrock of development during the eighties, had started to dry up.  The thought was if we could find other Asian funding and match that funding to developers, we could get things moving again, and of course, our individual businesses would reap the benefits.  The conference was touted for weeks in the Times and we had managed to get diplomats from Taiwan to attend, and even had snagged Grey Davis, then the State Treasurer, as our key note speaker. Representatives of Asian banks from both California and abroad registered to attend.   Because the idea of Chinese investment potential was in its infancy at the time, we were really in sort of new territory.  None of us knew what would happen, but we were willing to try if it meant getting projects built.

Our main focus was golf club development in the desert.  My company had built club houses and hotels in Palm Springs and Indian Wells.  We were well positioned to leverage that experience. I was ready to make deals, and call my boss down from Anaheim Hills if I had to.  A new clubhouse or hotel contract would have been a real feather in my cap.

As we prepared to introduce Grey  Davis as speaker at the main luncheon, the doors of the reception room opened with a crack.

Within seconds, the luncheon had been taken over by Greenpeace activists screaming and ready to spray paint the room.  Their main point?  We don’t need to kill the desert any further with more golf clubs, golf courses, hotels, casinos, or development. This conference is a plague on the face of the environment of Southern California! 

Within a few minutes, hotel security had gotten the protestors out and off property.  The day continued as it had started, with all of us heading to the karaoke bar after the break out sessions and dinner.

Everyone had pretty much forgotten about the incident by the end of the conference.  Everyone except me.  I couldn’t get one singular thought out of my head.  Why on earth DO we need more golf courses in the desert?  How many were out there already?  20?  50?  100?  Why do we have to destroy more native habitat so that more people can kick a ball around a vast field of grass with a piece of metal?  What exactly was I doing with my marketing efforts, anyway?  Killing off the red fox as a species?  Propagating more attacks on humans by mountain lions because the mountain lions had no home anymore?

I didn’t know it at that moment, but the final domino had dropped.

We left Southern California forever on December 2, 1992.  I was offered a position at another company that would bring us back to the East Coast.  Micha left his job in La Jolla and found a new position on the east coast with Staples, a choice that would eventually land him in the Vice President/Managing Director’s chair at Staples Germany, and propel us forward to our lives here in Italy, in our B&B on a hill in the wine country.  It’s here that I’ve learned the lessons of self-sufficiency, digging into my own creative wealth and pulling out a lifestyle that’s unique to me.

On the morning before the verdicts came down, I equated personal fulfillment with financial and professional achievement.  Today, over 20 years later, fulfillment is much more based upon contentment, connectivity, love.  Twenty years ago I would have seen vulnerability as a weakness. Today, it’s the basis for an honest, meaningful life.

So much has happened since those heady days of deal making in southern California.  Had they not taken place, had I not had that opportunity at that time to dive into corporate life, I can’t imagine that I would find this existence on the other side of the creative spectrum quite as fulfilling or meaningful.  The business experience I had there has been so useful later on in life.  All of those dominos  - every single one of them, prepared me for creative entrepreneurship.  Every single one of them was necessary for doing what I do today.

YOUR TURN: Do you have a chain of experiences that led you from one place into another and defined your personal development?  I’d love to hear!

I’d like to introduce you to my good friend Barrie Davenport.

A few years ago, when I was learning how to blog professionally, I made the acquaintance of a very special lady.  She was one of those people who could light up a computer screen with her presence.  We stayed in touch, and  I watched her groom, grow, feed, and care for her beautiful blog Live Bold and Bloom.  For anyone interested in change and personal development, that blog is a must.  She’s moved forward from there, and created a personal development website, written a book, has gotten thousands of followers all over the globe (including me), and is generally unstoppable in her quest to help every person she meets find his or her passion in life.

Last year, Barrie came to visit me here at my B&B.  Those days were amazing and I learned one additional thing about Barrie that wasn’t really clear to me before her visit.

She’s funny.  Like double up and hold your belly in the middle funny.  Humor is at the center of her monstrously generous heart, which is one of the main reasons I adore her so much.

All of which makes it such a pleasure for me to bring you her newest and brightest offering:  The Path to Passion Course.  This eight week e-course, which runs from April 6th to May 4th,  is packed full of powerful materials, experts, and knowledge, all geared to bring participants to their own life passions and to be able to live those passions to the fullest.  

She’s generously offered me the opportunity to be one of her affiliates – this course is open to only 100 people and the enrollment opens today (hundreds of thousands of people will be informed about this course today and it will book up immediately so if you are interested, I suggest you dig in and take a look at the outline right now): 

I decided that the best way for you to get to know Barrie was through her own words, so here are the answers to a few questions I asked her about herself and The Path to Passion on your behalf.

Barrie, please tell my readers a little bit about your professional background and how you came to your true work as a Life Passion Coach.

I chose the highly-lucrative major of English Literature with a minor in Philosophy in college. So my career path after I graduated was not very clear to say the least! I landed in a job in retail public relations and special events by accident even though I knew nothing about the career — but it sounded fun and glamorous. That’s how I began a 25-year-career in PR, moving up the ranks from positions in Atlanta to a major national retailer headquartered in New York. I eventually returned to Atlanta and opened a public relations consulting business once I started a family.

As my children grew older, I knew something was missing in my life. In spite of all of my blessings—a loving family, beautiful children, a successful career in public relations —there was a hole inside of me. At the time, I couldn’t really pinpoint exactly what I was seeking But my restlessness was sending me a strong message from deep inside.

I’d spent over 20 years in PR helping others reach their dreams and live their passions. I’d stood by the side of actors, artists, dancers, politicians, designers and business professionals as their passions propelled them to success and happiness. I loved helping others on their journey to living a life of passion, but it made me realize that I was missing that same passion in my life. It felt like I was standing on the sidelines, watching but not participating in something amazing.

Finally, I took the time and space to figure it out. And I forced myself to stop believing the lies and limitations about myself I’d clung to for so many years. I knew this was the only way I could move forward. I didn’t believe I had any other marketable skills or talents beyond my PR work. I felt I’d never do anything that was deeply meaningful. Fortunately, I I knew my restlessness and longing were leading me somewhere.

After years of feeling stuck, I took a leap of faith and left my PR career in order to begin a process of self-discovery for my true calling. Through my self-work, I uncovered the same interests and passions I had as a child—an interest and sensitivity for other people; a love of learning, reading and writing; creative and imaginative abilities. I went back to school to get certified as a personal coach.I have found a place for my inner callings through my work as a coach, a writer and a blogger. Along the way, I’ve uncovered other passions for drawing, traveling, teaching and exploring.

What do you consider to be the biggest obstacles  that keep a person from realizing his or her true calling, work or passion?

There are many obstacles, but the core of all of them is fear. We fear change, we fear failure, we fear the unknown, we fear other people judging us, we fear losing what we have for something we can’t identify. However, the vast majority of our fears have no basis in reality – or very little basis in reality. We have these negative voices in our heads telling us all of the reasons it won’t work and all of the bad things that will happen if we try. But when you challenge those voices with action in the direction of your dream, you’ll discover that your fears are just smoke and mirrors. And any real problems or challenges that arise can be addressed and overcome.

Another big obstacle is confusion. So many people have no idea how to go about finding their passion. They know that want it, but they don’t know how to go about finding it or what exactly they are seeking. Some people believe you must be born with a special ability that reveals itself in childhood – like a talent for singing or writing. There are a few fortunate people who find their passion that way, but most of us have to do the work of clearing all of the messages, limiting beliefs, and expectations we’ve gathered over the years. We have to remove all of the gunk covering up and blocking our authentic selves and our deepest desires. So finding your passion is a process that involves clearing up the old ways of thinking and believing to explore natural life force within you – the things that make you come alive with joy and purpose.

What role to trauma play in a person’s search for passion?  Do you think that people have to suffer first before coming to their true work?

Not necessarily, but it does often happen this way. There are some people who were raised in families where they were encouraged to explore, to experiment with what excites and inspires them. They were encouraged to follow what makes them happy rather than follow what makes the most money. And there are people who, even into adulthood, somehow found their way to a passionate life – through their work or an avocation or otherwise. But for many people, somewhere between childhood and the time they graduate from school, they plodded off in a direction that was not soul-satisfying. They might have been encouraged in this direction by well-meaning parents or peers, or by their own feelings of what they “should” be doing. Over time you get entrenched in the life you create for yourself, even if you aren’t happy.

You have responsibilities and expectations that bind you to your work and lifestyle even if you are miserable. And for some people, it takes a rude awakening in the form of a job loss, a divorce, a death, a depression, a mid-life crisis, or some other major life event, to provide the wake-up call that they can no longer live this way. Trauma can be a huge gift. It can crack you open and strip away all of the barriers to your true self. It’s painful – but it can be life-changing in the best possible way.

Many people believe that true change is impossible because of the limits in their lives:  family commitments, relationship, financial hardship, the need to work – that self realization is a luxury they simply cannot afford.  What’s your opinion?

There are realities of life that can prevent us from living our passion immediately. That’s why many people avoid seeking their passion, because they don’t think they could actualize it once they find it. It’s like Cinderella getting an invitation to the ball only to be told you have to stay home and clean the toilets. But I believe with planning, patience, and determination, most things are work-out-able. If you really want something, if you really see the value of living your passion, then you will find a way to make it happen. Maybe it will require saving money or going back to school or downsizing your lifestyle. Maybe you have to pursue your passion part-time or on a volunteer basis for a while. But a little passion is better than no passion at all. And if you are doing something you “can’t not do” – you will be highly motivated to figure out a solution. When you really want something, you will jump through hoops to make it happen. We talk about these obstacles and how to overcome them a lot in my Path to Passion course.

Tell us about this wonderful course:  The Path To Passion Course  -  I love that name!  What can my readers expect if they enroll?

The course is a 4-week interactive program with 8 modules that includes articles, videos, podcasts, case studies, and a workbook for assignments related to each module. These materials will be presented weekly for students to review at their own pace during the week. There is an interactive forum where participants can ask questions and share with others. And we’ll have weekly live teleseminars with some amazing guest experts. The course leads you step-by-step through the process of uncovering your passion and offering personalized attention and guidance from me as your coach as you create a plan for making your passion real in your life.

The course is a holistic approach to living a life of passion and purpose that involves . .

Gaining a thorough knowledge of your personality, aptitudes, and interests
Acknowledging and addressing your fears, limiting beliefs, and emotional roadblocks
Creating priorities and finding balance in all areas of your life
Defining your core values and life purpose
Researching and experimenting with your strong interests
Finding mentors, supporters, and a tribe of like-minded passion-seekers

After you complete all of these steps, you will create a personal plan of action re-design your life around your passion.

Note from Diana: This is a fabulous opportunity for personal growth.  I offer nothing on this website that I don’t absolutely believe in.  Rest assured, it will be more than worth your time and hard-earned dollars.

Is it your situation?  Or is it your narrative?

Because your situation might be what it is because of the narrative you’re telling yourself.  And that might be what’s causing you to suffer.

Suffering, unless you have a serious or life threatening illness, is mostly self induced.  I know it hurts to hear this.  It hurts me particularly this week because I have been doing some pretty intense suffering of my own, but if I am completely honest here, I brought a lot of it on myself. Ok. No.  I brought it all on myself.  I have a million good excuses that I could roll out right here  and now for having put myself through some pretty tortuous mental gymnastics that have gotten me absolutely nowhere except sleepless.

But instead of beating myself up about it, I’m dissecting it – and turning it around. What if the situation that I was in was happening to my best friend instead of to me?  How would I react then? I know exactly what I would do.

I’d tell her that objectively speaking, her situation is just not that bad.  That there are a lot of people who would just love to be in her position, even though it’s stressful right now.  And that she’s got the strength and ability to change things up and make herself feel better.  That she’s strong.  That she’s got a lion’s heart and that she is courageous.  Then I decided it’s time to be my own best friend. Because those are the things I need to hear right now about myself.  That I have the power to change the things that are not working about my own situation.

This doesn’t just work for me, by the way.  I’m not the only one holding on to things that hurt me.  What about you?  What can you let go of today that is going to help you change your narrative about your situation?

Let go of trying to be perfect.  You know this.  I don’t have to repeat it.  Do I?

Let go of judging people.  Even the ones you think you know especially well.  Don’t judge anyone.  Everyone has the chance to learn new things, to change and to grow and be different than how you perceive him or her to be.

Let go of thinking you can’t change.  What you believed yesterday or ten years ago might not hold water any more.  Shed the ideas and notions you have that no longer work.

Let go of resisting. When resistance comes to visit, know that you feel it the most when you need it the least.

Let go of the past. The past counts, but not nearly as much as you think.  And it does not in any way predict what you’re capable of in the future.

Let go of trying to be fabulous at the things you suck at.   <- click to tweet  If you blast through life riding the tide of your strengths, you will have a blast.  If you struggle through life trying to be masterfully good at things you don’t like doing, you will suffer – and that is completely self induced suffering.  Don’t like accounting?  Get an accountant. Let her explain what you need to know, and let her do her job.

Let go of telling yourself you don’t need any help. 

Let go of believing that other people are making you miserable.    You can feel anything you want.  Just know that your feeling world is about you and not about anyone making you feel anything.  It can also be divorced from reality – feelings often are.  If you are feeling sad and anxious, it’s very likely got more to do with your perception of your situation than the situation itself.

Let go of haters.  

Let go of the idea that past traumas keep us from moving forward.  Our stories effect who we are.  But the upshot of this is that these stories, however they happened to us and worked through us, are there to help us understand ourselves.  When something moves us, it’s like a crack appears, and through that crack glows a warm light, and that light propels us forward into a new understanding. Let your past move you forward.  Your stories are your wisdom.

What do you want to let go of today that would make your life joyful?  

I am talking about letting things get messy.  Well, you know, things do get messy, right?  As much as we like to believe that our story is a clean one, one that moves towards the light, step by step, until one day we wake up, fulfilled and balanced, we know deep inside that that’s a crock.

Uh-uh.

I am a grand starter of projects.  Have an idea?  Call me.  I’ll get excited about it for you.  I have an exuberant amount of creative energy.  It took me years, however, many of them, to turn starts into creations of any significance.  And what I found in that process was very interesting and kind of shocking.

I found a veritable minefield of messy bombs that I needed to step on so they could explode all over the place.

Writing True Vines, I was about half way through the first draft when I started to worry.  What would people think of the book?  Would someone actually want to publish it? What did I think of the book?  Would it be worth reading?  Would anybody buy it?  Would it be worth the money they paid?

Why in the world was I even bothering?  I wasn’t a writer.  What made me think I could be a writer?  Who gave me permission?

Who in the hell did I think I was? 

The bomb I  stepped on made me crawl under the covers and cry or zombie out for weeks. I felt shattered by self doubt. Until I stopped and made the decision that I was going to write the book anyway.  I wasn’t going to care if it sold, if a publisher wanted it, if anyone else gave a damn about it.  I was going to write it because it was important to me.  If nothing would come of it, I would somehow be ok in the knowledge  that just writing it was a worthwhile task. I stopped wallowing and I put my canoe back into the current.  But don’t believe the wallowing was a bad thing!  It was necessary part of coming to the conclusion that the book would get written at all. The book that became published, that people are reading, that has brought me so much joy and assured me that I am indeed the writer I always felt I was inside. I didn’t need anyone’s permission or approval after all.

Getting the most out of life means allowing the mess.  Understanding that we are, in all our sum parts, quite messy, beautiful creatures, full of contradiction and pain, love and hurt, light and dark, who manage to still weave through and shift ourselves back into gear. 

We get to be shattered.  We get to be broken.  We get to be not ok.  And we get to understand that those are all parts of authenticity.

The mess has a point, and that point is passion. To get to the passionate part of our life’s work, we have to open ourselves up to the fact that we are, in fact, capable of shooting ourselves in the foot in uncountable ways. It’s the minefield, my friends.  But it’s not the minefield that you have to cross gingerly, hoping not to disturb the peace. It’s the minefield that you must trample on with a pair of clod hoppers.

Because if you go after your passions, the peace, my friends, will get disturbed.  You can count on it.

And you will emerge, maybe a little scarred, some mud stuck in your hair, with your chin set, your eyes clear and you will be saying to yourself, “There you have it.  I did it. And here I am .  Still alive.”

More than alive.  You get to have yourself, really and truly.

Don’t fear the messy bomb, people.  Don’t fear it at all.  Because good things, very gorgeous miracles come from the your very special mess.

******

My friend Andrea Maurer is putting together a super interesting project based upon our stories.  It starts this week, so go and check out We Need To Talk.  Go and watch her video – it hit home with me. I’ll be participating this week, so maybe I will see you there.

We have two spots left in Di Mackey’s and my Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, to be held here in Italy at my B&B this August.  Professional photography workshop, food, wine, ceramics and storytelling.  An amazing project.

I have to share my fellow potter David Greenbaum’s project, Shohola Bells.  These ceramic bells are not just stunningly beautiful, but also weather resistant and soulful.  If you find yourself in Northeastern Pennsylvania, stop by David’s Studio in Milford, PA.  And check out the video of the bells on his website.

I had so many wonderful and deeply emotional moments on this trip; it was packed with loving and meaningful encounters.  I visited with people who had been through so much suffering and change.  I saw old friends and new ones, got to speak to people who came to hear me read from my book, and  talked for hours with loved ones.  It was a trip to savor and to reflect upon; so much of what I experienced confirmed that stepping in to love is the only thing to do.

So many of those I saw on this trip have been through journeys of illness, pain, anxiety and struggle, in situations that were or continue to be incomprehensibly sad and difficult.  In each of the interactions I had, I came away astounded by the human ability to demonstrate grace at the darkest moments.  I was filled with gratitude and respect for the human spirit in the face of seemingly impossible odds.  The grace seemed tenacious to me.  Gripping.

So I named it intrepid grace.  It’s that thing that keeps us human when we are battered by inhumanity.  It’s the grace that propels us forward, helps us focus, and lets us know at an existential level that all is truly well.

And to experience it in such a personal way was deeply moving.

Now back in Italy, we’re only four weeks out from opening the B&B for the season. That might seem like a lot of time, but it’s a flash, considering there’s still snow on the ground in spots!   There will be major cleaning, planting and cooking taking place over the next month.   The yang of the season is calling, pulling me out of the retrospective winter into movement and activity.  I’ll step into the flow, and see where it takes me.  Big change is in the air.  Just around the bend.  I can feel it.  I’ll do my best to meet it with intrepid grace.