fear

Transformation tourism

“I bought the diet book, but ate my usual foods.”

“I filled the prescription, but didn’t take the meds.”

“I took the course… well, I watched the videos… but I didn’t do the exercises in writing.”

Merely looking at something almost never causes change. Tourism is fun but rarely transformative.

If it was easy, you would have already achieved the change you seek.

Change comes from new habits, from acting as if, from experiencing the inevitable discomfort of becoming.

Seth Godin

SETH GODIN is the author of 18 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. You might be familiar with his books Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip and Purple Cow.

His newest book, “What To Do When It’s Your Turn”, is already a bestseller.

sethgodin.com

“Fear shows up unbidden, it almost never goes away if you will it to, and it’s rarely a useful tool for your best work.

~Seth Godin

I’m going to tattoo this on my forehead or better yet, get it as a tramp-stamp. How about you?

“Hiding takes many forms. Inappropriate attention to detail is a big one because it feels like a responsible thing to do.”
~ Seth Godin

Take a look at the two quotes above.

Attention to detail. Good. Necessary for greatness.
Attention to detail bad. Perfectionism. Hiding.

I agree. With both. Seriously.

My belief in the quality that lies in attention to detail remains unwavering.

HOT water causes peonies to open.

Dirty fingernails telegraph all your nasty secrets.

Cloth napkins. ONLY cloth napkins.

Clean underneath your patio furniture. God forbid someone moves a chair and a family of ten thousand baby black widow spiders decide it’s time for a meet-n-greet. (I speak from personal experience on this one).

Make sure you’re wearing your glasses when you shave your bikini line. You don’t want to leave unseen strips of grown out stubble that are long enough to braid. That’ll ruin any day at the beach. (Again with the personal experience.) And men, the same holds true for nose hair. Glasses on, and…Clip it.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg for me when it comes to paying attention to the details, and it’s easy for me to go overboard.

Here’s the thing, as unbelievable as it may seem to some, I’ve lightened up significantly the older I’ve gotten, and you know what? Things still look great—and I‘m so much happier.

As far as hiding in the attention to detail, never one to pass up a neurosis—I’ve done that too.

It’s easy as a writer to convince yourself that “it” will be so much better if you just work on it for a few more days. Who hasn’t done that with a project they care about? It’s got your name attached, so it better be perfect. Right?
Days turn into weeks, weeks turn to months, months to years and all you have are drawers and files full of “rough drafts”.

Just send the freakin’ article! Just enter the photograph in the contest! Jeez! Pahleez! There may be a typo, flub or a mistake.
Big. Deal.

Truth be told, tired eyes miss typos. They just do. I’ve seen typos in published material that was edited by industry professionals! It’s okay, it actually makes me smile and you know what? I’m pretty sure nobody died in the making of that minor error.

I know an artist AND a writer both of whom are so intellectually adept that they over think their creative endeavors to. a. fault. They’re always reading one more book, or taking yet anther class—when they should just be painting and writing! Enjoying the process.

No more details! Flip perfection the finger!

The rest of the Seth Godin essay:
“There are endless small details to get right before you have something you’re truly proud of. No doubt about it. But there are frightening and huge holes in any bridge to the future, and until you figure out how to get across, I’m not sure it matters if you have a typo on page 4.”

One way I figured out to get across the scary bridge is the fact that I take consolation in knowing there always has to be a FIRST DRAFT. Always. For everything.

Carry on,
xox

Happy Sunday you guys!

I advise you, this wonderful Sunday morning, to take the time to read this.

I’ve written about this subject numerous times, I’m a fucking pro at NOT THIS. But as usual, Liz Gilbert manages to hit a home run with this essay.

I know about fifty gazillion people who are in the midst of their NOT THIS moment right NOW—myself included.

(Any two cents in parenthesis is mine, just so you know.)

I think you’ll feel a little bit better after reading this. At the very least, better understood.
I did.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones –
Most of us, at some point in our lives (unless we have done everything perfectly…which is: nobody) will have to face a terrible moment in which we realize that we have somehow ended up in the wrong place — or at least, in a very bad place.

Maybe we will have to admit that we are in the wrong job. Or the wrong relationship. (I’ve left both. You?)
With the wrong people around us. Living in the wrong neighborhood. Acting out on the wrong behaviors. Using the wrong substances. Pretending to believe things that we no longer believe. Pretending to be something we were never meant to be. (yes, yep, uh huh and yep.)

This moment of realization is seldom fun. In fact, it’s usually terrifying.
I call this moment of realization: NOT THIS.

Because sometimes that’s all you know, at such a moment.
All you know is: NOT THIS.

Sometimes that’s all you CAN know.

All you know is that some deep life force within you is saying, NOT THIS, and it won’t be silenced.

Your body is saying: “NOT THIS.”

Your heart is saying: “NOT THIS.”

Your soul is saying: “NOT THIS.”

But your brain can’t bring itself to say “NOT THIS”, because that would cause a serious problem. The problem is: You don’t have a Plan B in place. This is the only life you have. This is the only job you have. This is the only spouse you have. This is the only house you have. Your brain says, “It may not be great, but we have to put up with it, because there are no other options.” You’re not sure how you got here — to this place of THIS — but you sure as hell don’t know how to get out…
So your brain says: “WE NEED TO KEEP PUTTING UP WITH THIS, BECAUSE THIS IS ALL WE HAVE.”
But still, beating like a quiet drum, your body and your heart and your soul keep saying: NOT THIS…NOT THIS…NOT THIS.

I think some of the bravest people I have ever met were people who had the courage to say the words, “NOT THIS” out loud — even before they had an alternative plan. (On the GPS map of life, the blinking red dot shows that I’m “currently here”).
People who walked out of bad situations without knowing if there was a better situation on the horizon.
People who looked at the life they were in, and they said, “I don’t know what my life is supposed to be…but it’s NOT THIS.” And then they just…left.(Did you see the word BRAVE? You know who?)

I think my friend who walked out of a marriage after less than a year, and had to move back in with her mother (back into her childhood bedroom), and face the condemnation of the entire community while she slowly created a new life for herself. Everyone said, “If he’s not good enough for you, who will be?” She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about what her life would look like now. But it started with her saying: NOT THIS. (Are you getting this cryptic message Liz and I are sending you? You know who you are.)

I think of my friend who took her three young children away from a toxic marriage, despite that fact that her husband supported her and the kids financially…and the four of them (this woman and her three children) all slept in one bed together in a tiny studio apartment for a few years, while she struggled to build a new life. She was poor, she was scared, she was alone. But she had to listen to the voices within her that said, NOT THIS.

I think of friends who walked out of jobs — with no job waiting for them. Because they said NOT THIS.
I think of friends who quit school, rather than keep pretending that they cared about this field of study anymore. And yes, they lost the scholarship. And yes, they ended up working at a fast food restaurant, while everyone else was getting degrees. And yes, it took them a while to figure out where to go next. But there was a relief at last in just surrendering to the holy, non-negotiable truth of NOT THIS.

I think of friends who bravely walked into AA meetings and just fell apart in front of a room full of total strangers, and said, NOT THIS.

I think of a friend who pulled her children out of Sunday School in the middle of church one Sunday because she’d had it with the judgment and self-righteousness of this particular church. Yes, it was her community. Yes, it was her tribe. But she physically couldn’t be in that building anymore without feeling that she would explode. She didn’t know where she was going, spiritually or within her community, but she said, NOT THIS. And walked out.

Rationally, it’s crazy to abandon a perfectly good life (or at least a familiar life) in order to jump into a mystery. No sane person would advise you to make such a leap, with no Plan B in place. We are supposed to be careful. We are supposed to be prudent. (Uh, Steph?)
And yet….
And yet.

If you keep ignoring the voices within you that say NOT THIS, just because you don’t know what to do, instead…you may end up stuck in NOT THIS forever.(We know these people. They live in a state of quiet disappointment.)

You don’t need to know where you are going to admit that where you are standing right now is wrong.
The bravest thing to say can be these two words.
What comes next? (My mantra is: What Now?)

I don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows. It might be worse. It might be better. But whatever it is…? It’s NOT THIS.
ONWARD,
LG

I’m visiting friends in Santa Cruz this week while my hubby races cars.

I know. Don’t cry for him Argentina. (Or as my friend’s seven-year-old daughter used to sing at the top of her lungs, “Don’t cry for me Art and Tina!” So, Art, Tina, don’t cry for him. He’s got a great life.)

And calling all potential burglars, you can help yourself to the leftovers in the fridge because besides those, there is nothing of any interest or great value left in the house.

All that being said, it was extremely windy here last night.
Like, up-end trees and decapitate wind chimes windy, which unnerved the boxer-shark. She doesn’t care much for any of the chaos brought on by this fast-moving air thing.

Occasionally it sounded like a freight train and at one point a door slammed loudly nearby, causing us both to jump out of our fur. Being that she was completely incapable of relaxing into it, every gust woke us up. I was an idiot for trying to sleep while wearing a dog as a hat because as everybody knows— misery loves company and dogs over fifty pounds, even on their best day, make terrible fashion accessories and bed companions.

Being that I was wide awake, I got to thinking…I am cursed with the four-legged version of the neurotic child I never had AND fast-moving air is similar to fast-moving water. It is loud and rambunctious and once maximum momentum has been achieved it can carry things away. Like leaves, hats, picnic table umbrellas — and at one point in my life, all of my hopes and dreams.

But when you harness their power — it can literally move mountains.

And just like the dog, we can get triggered by the messiness, the unpredictability, the volume, and the speed of fast-moving things, making us twitchy and scared—with a bad case of helicopter hair.
We tend to want them to slow down or stop altogether. Which if you think about it is like paddling upstream. Instead of using that forward momentum…we make everything, even sleeping, an upstream battle.

We become salmon. Except salmon have tiny little brains that have been taken over by their instinctive urge to spawn. And spawning wins. It just does. (Just so you know, there are no urges or spawning happening here in Santa Cruz. At least none on my part. You’ll have to ask Ruby if that holds true for her.)

In the past, I’ve done it repeatedly in relationships, spawning swimming upstream because I was feeling as if things were “moving too fast”.

Certain projects have acquired so much momentum that my instincts advise me to put the kibosh on them, to drag my feet so I can catch my breath.

It’s an energy thing. I start off in the direction of something I want really, really badly, and then I can get overwhelmed by the speedy trajectory. The fast-moving air thing. The torrent of water.
Metaphorically speaking of course.

Does that ever happen to you?

Recently, I’ve been getting into the habit of going with the flow and I’ve gotta tell you, it makes life so much easier than swimming upstream.
I can see how useless it is to fight momentum, it’s as moronic as the dog wishing the wind would stop.
And besides, my arms were getting tired.

Carry on,
xox

Hello, fear. (Said with sneering disdain, like “Hello Newman” on Seinfeld).

Fear reared his ugly head again on Tuesday.
Like me, you probably woke up to the report of yet another terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Brussels. And again if you’re like me your first response was to gird your loins.
To hunker down, plant your feet, cross your arms and close your mind.

In your body you probably felt, along with me, a nauseous gut pit, turning to sadness, then empathy and finally anger. Oh, yeah, and all of that with a fear chaser.

You know you guys, it reminds me of those pharmaceutical ads on TV and their heinous side effects. You know the ones I mean. They’re laughable.

“For chronic chapped lips try *Chaplipocine. Taken regularly, it reduces the symptoms of chapped lips in only three days!
Side effects may include (and this is said at the speed of a professional auctioneer), flatulence, headaches, amnesia, seizures, constipation, swelling of the tongue and testicles, facial hair in men, women, and babies, eventual loss of consciousness — and death.”

And it’s making billions because people are willing to suffer those consequences to get chapped lip relief!
Wtf?

But just as ridiculous and shoved down our throats even more aggressively, are the side effects of fear. They consist of paranoia, anxiety, uncontrollable security cravings, unwillingness to travel, suspicion, inability to turn off CNN, intolerance, giving away your privacy, dis-empowerment, not living your life — and death.

Seriously?

I for one, feel that’s unacceptable.

We all have a choice of how to respond.
I can eyeball the hipster next to me suspiciously while he sits there on his computer with his luxurious man-beard and wonder if he’s crafting his jihadist manifesto. And I can cancel my trip to Europe that I saved years for.
Because I could die. We all could die.
Because it’s too dangerous. The airports. Subways. Cafes. Sidewalks. Everything.

These are some of the side effects I’m not willing to suffer. How about you?

Listen, we have to be aware. We can’t and we shouldn’t walk with our faces buried in our phones or our head in the clouds. But there’s a difference between awareness and suspicion.

Don’t shake hands with fear. Please.

Girded loins never did anyone any good,

And chapped lips go away in three days regardless of the medicine you take.

So don’t endure the heinous side effects just for the illusion of being saved.

Anyhow, carry on,

xox

*you know this product doesn’t really exist, right?

I wrote about this a long time ago, but I’m going to post it again.
Partly because there are so many new readers, but mostly because I’ve told this story more in the past few weeks than I have since it happened. AND it is a fuckin’ great story.

If you’ve heard it before, go make yourself a sandwich. And don’t give away the ending.

In the spring of 2009, I went to Hawaii with my dear friend Wes to get some clarity about which direction I should take my life after the death of my store, Atik. Loss can strip a person of their trust in life—and themselves, and I was not lucky enough to escape that unspoken step of the grieving process. Besides, misery loves company.

Oh, who am I kidding? We went to drink Mai Tais, eat like escaped death row convicts, sit on the white sands of Waikiki Beach all day gossiping and people watching—and get massages.

All we did was laugh. Well, he laughed, I cried—then he laughed at my crying. Then I cry-laughed. It was wet and sloppy. Lots of running mascara and snot-bubbles.
You get the picture.

About mid-way through our seven-day trip, I got the sense there was going to be a tsunami.
You know—like you do…
That evening when Wes met me at the bar for happy hour I voiced my concern. “I want to move to a higher room in our hotel,”  I said, stirring my drink. “I think there’s going to be a tsunami and I’m not going to be safe on the second floor.”

“Did you start without me? How many drinks have you had?” he was laughing, flagging down a waiter in order to join this crazy party he figured I’d already started.
“I’m serious. You’re on the third floor, but I’m not even sure that’s high enough. Let’s look into moving.”

All I could see in my mind’s eye were those horrible images from the tsunami in Sumatra the day after Christmas, 2004.

His eyes said: Have you lost your mind? But in order to calm my fears, he immediately whipped out his phone and started to look up ‘Hawaiian tsunami’.

“The earliest on record was reported in 1813 or 1814 — and the worst occurred in Hilo in 1946, killing 173 people.” he recited, reading a Wikipedia page.
“So it happens kind-of-never, and I’m okay with those odds.” He raised his drink to toast “To surviving that rarest of all disasters—the Hawaiian tsunami!” We clinked glasses as he shook his head laughing at my continued squirminess.

Still laughing he mumbled under his breath, “But if it does happen, which it could, ‘cause you’re pretty spooky that way— it will be one hell of a story.”

The first week of March the following year, 2010, our great friends, the ones who ride the world with us on motorcycles, asked if we wanted to join them at their condo in Maui. You don’t have to ask me twice to drop everything and go to Hawaii. I was printing our boarding passes before I hung up the phone.

On the beautiful drive from the airport to Lahaina, the air was warm and thick with just a hint of the fragrance of tropical rain as we wove our way in and out of the clouds that play peek-a-boo with the sun all day on the Hawaiian Islands. With a view of the lush green mountains formed from the ever-present volcanoes to the right, and the deep blue Pacific churning wildly to our left, that place really felt like Paradise Lost.

That’s when it hit me. I turned down the radio of the rental car that was blaring some five-year-old, Top Forty song.
“We’re going to have a tsunami,”  I announced.
It didn’t feel like if — it felt like when. A certainty.
“I think we’re more likely to have a volcanic eruption than a tsunami,” my hubby replied nonchalantly, turning the radio volume back up just in time to sing along with the chorus.

Damn, I love my husband. He cohabitants with all the voices in my head without batting an eye. Most men would run for the hills. He just stays rational. A volcanic eruption in the Hawaiian Islands is the rational supposition.
God love him.

I had never mentioned my premonition from the trip the previous year—too odd; but I let loose for the remainder of the drive, wondering aloud about what floor their condo was on and worrying if it would it be high enough. Having never been there before, neither of us had any idea and I’ve gotta tell ya,  I breathed a sigh of relief when the answer came via text. The sixth floor. Their condo was on the sixth floor, overlooking the pool, facing the ocean.

We spent the next week eating and drinking amazing food and wine, snorkeling, swimming, driving around, and whale watching. As a matter of fact, the ocean outside of our resort was a veritable whale soup.

There is a passage between Maui, Lanai, and Molokai (both which we could see in the distance), that the whales like to use instead of the open ocean, and we could see them breaching from our balcony. They were present in high numbers and especially active. “It was extraordinary!” The guys on the whale watching boats agreed with our friends—they’d never seen a year like that one!

Two days before our departure, on the eleventh, it all seemed to come to a screeching halt.

The ocean was as passive as a lake. I hiked down the beach to a little cove that was supposed to be like “swimming in a tropical fish tank”—nothing. Literally no fish. People kept remarking how odd it seemed. The guys on the whale watching catamarans were perplexed. Suddenly, there were no whales.

That night after my shower I turned on the TV in our room for the first time the entire trip to catch the results of American Idol.
We made dinner at home that night and I was just the right amount of sunburned, buzzed, full and sleepy.
As I got dressed and dried my hair I casually flipped around the channels. American Idol, Baywatch re-runs, CNN. Then I saw it.

The bright red BREAKING NEWS banner at the bottom of the screen: Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami.

I screamed something incoherent as I ran out into the family room, half-dressed, knocking things over, becoming hysterical.
“You guys, Turn on the TV! Oh my God! Turn on the TV!” I grabbed the remote, but it looked like something that powers the International Space Station, so I threw it toward my husband.

“Oh, I don’t want to watch TV…” I heard someone say, but Raphael could tell something was wrong. He said later that it felt a lot like 911 when everyone was calling and the only thing they could manage to say was, turn on the TV!

“CNN. Find CNN!” I was so freaked out I could barely speak.

When the images came up on that big screen HD TV they were even more terrifying.
It was a helicopter shot, high above the coastline of a small city. There was a wave with a white cap as far as the eye could see. it looked like it spanned almost the entire coastline and it was headed straight for cars, boats, houses…and people.

Now we were all transfixed. Silently glued to the screen with the frantic sounding Japanese commentary running in the background. This was all happening LIVE.

The CNN anchor sounded reassuring, telling us that Japan had one of the most advanced tsunami warning systems on the planet. Sirens had started sounding a few minutes after the large off-shore earthquake, warning the population to make their way to their pre-determined evacuation points up on higher ground.

We watched in horror as churning brown water began rushing onshore with a ferocity that was nauseatingly familiar.
It just kept coming and coming. Undeterred by the breakwater…and the thirty-foot wall they had built to withstand a tsunami.

“God, I hope they had enough time,” I whispered.

Suddenly the CNN picture was minimized as the face of a local anchor at the Maui station took up the entire rest of the screen.
“Good evening,” he read off the cue card, “The entire Hawaiian Islands have been placed on tsunami watch due to the large earthquake off the coast of northern Japan. We will keep you posted as scientists get the readings off of the tsunami buoys that dot the span of the Pacific Ocean from the coast of Japan to the west coast of North America. If it looks like a tsunami is coming our way, the watch will turn into a warning.” He swallowed awkwardly, I saw his Adam’s apple quivering.
“Stay with us for further instructions.”

The screen was filled again with the escalating destruction in Japan.

I started to shake uncontrollably, my eyes filling with tears.

Then I saw him flinch out of the corner of my eye. It got my attention and when I looked his way his face looked as if he’d seen a ghost. With the remote still in his hand, my husband turned toward me slowly, deliberately.
His mouth dropped open, his eyes were full of…questions.

Then with no sound; his eyes locked on mine as he mouthed my prophecy from earlier that week: We’re going to have a tsunami.

As an aside, I cannot explain to the wives reading this, the satisfaction I felt when the look on his face telegraphed to me that my tsunami prediction had been real and not the result of some questionable tuna salad at the airport.  

Then I snapped back to reality. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Really, the hair on my entire body. Even my chin hairs stood at attention.

The shrill wailing of the Disaster Alert Siren brought us both back to reality.
It was official—the tsunami was imminent.

To Be Continued…

LESSONS FROM A TSUNAMI ~ THE CONCLUSION
(It’s a flashback, I’m not gonna make you wait!)

What in the hell was going on? I had unwittingly been given a front-row seat to a disaster that I’d known was going to happen—for a year!

Why in the hell was I in Hawaii again? What was my part in this tragedy?

I never wanted to be someone who predicts disasters. Seriously Universe? Give me another job. Anything.
Something else. Something not so fucking scary.

Be careful what you wish for. Now I talk to dead people. But not the scary ones. Funny ones. The bossy but kind ones.
Thank God for small favors.

Anyway, the local anchor came back onscreen to inform us that one of the deep ocean buoys had registered a tsunami fifteen feet high and getting larger, with a velocity of over five hundred miles per hour, and it was headed directly towards the Hawaiian Islands.

It would get to us in five hours.
3 a.m.
Fucking three a.m! Of course, it was coming in the middle of the night!
The witching hour. The time when nothing good ever happens. Oh, and by-the-way, dark water is one of my biggest fears.
I was petrified!

Ginger was feeling sick and went to bed. The guys opened another bottle of wine and started playing cards, remaining lighthearted, partying while waiting for the inevitable. Just like they did on the deck of the Titanic.

I went back to our room, shivering under the blankets with anxiety, glued to the TV while the disaster siren wailed in the background. Right around midnight, they announced the second buoy reading. The wave was larger and picking up speed as it headed our way. Suddenly the intercom came on inside the condo. Nobody even knew there was an intercom connected to the main resort which was run by Marriott.

A voice cleared its throat.

A young man’s voice, extremely nervous, shaky, cracking and squeaking, blared loudly throughout the condo. Haltingly, he instructing everyone in units below the fifth floor to evacuate to the roof. “Bring blankets…pillows…water and, um, your shoes, it’s going to be a long night.” His anxiety was palpable.

Uh, okay Voice of Authority.
Didn’t they have anyone available with a more mature tone? Something deep and fatherly? A voice that could console us and instill calm. I was thinking Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones.
This kid’s voice and delivery were comical to me. In my imagination, he was the pimply-faced nephew of the lady who fed the stray cats behind the parking garage. One minute he was doing his calculus homework, the next, he was behind a microphone, advising hundreds of tourists what to do during an impending disaster. He was the only one that was expendable in an emergency. Everyone important had a task.
Holy crap, he was the best they had!

Thank God something was funny.

One of trembly, squeaky, scared guy’s announcements advised us all to fill our bathtubs in order to have plenty of drinking water in case the sanitation plant was wiped out. Intermittently he’d come back on with further instructions, Anyone with a vehicle in the lower garages, please move them to higher ground behind the main hotel, he advised, sounding as if he were on the verge of tears.

Not long afterward, I heard voices, car keys, and the front door slam as the guys went to move our cars.

In the dark from our balcony, I watched the groundskeepers running around like headless chickens rushing to clear the sand and pool surround of hundreds of lounge chairs. Then they emptied the rental hut with its kayaks, snorkels and fins, inner tubes and dozens of surf and boogie boards.

If you watch the Thailand tsunami videos it is those seemingly innocuous beach toys that become deadly projectiles in fast-moving water. You may not immediately drown, but a surfboard or a beach chair coming at you at hundreds of miles an hour will kill you for sure.

It was too much. The destruction in Japan was too much for me to handle.
I watched multi-story buildings get washed away like they were kids toys. We were so close to the water. Could our building withstand the rush of the initial wave? How high would the water come?
The third floor, the fourth—or higher? What was going to happen?

I finally turned off the TV plunging the room into darkness. Once it was quiet I instantly felt a drop in my anxiety level. Say what you will, cable TV can suck you into an endless loop of death and destruction—it’s like a drug. Unhooking the CNN IV, I grabbed my phone, inserted my earbuds, pulled up a meditation, and started to calm my nervous system down. Slow…deep…breathing. In…and out… after a few minutes, I could feel my shoulders drop and my face relax. I’d been unconsciously clenching my jaw for hours.

Slowly, my mind started to unwind. The siren went way, fading into the distance, the boy’s terrified voice becoming a muffled form of white noise.
I actually slipped into a half-sleep state. Aware of my surroundings, but extremely relaxed.

The meditations came to an end. Silence. I was still okay.
No longer spinning in fear. No longer afraid.
“What’s going to happen, how bad will this be?” I asked no one in particular.
Just a question I needed answered.

Here’s where the magic happened.

A very loving, clear and calm voice answered back:
What do you want to happen? How bad do you want it to be?

What? I get a vote? This answer left me flabbergasted. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this felt extraordinary. Somehow, instinctively, I knew that I couldn’t say make the tsunami go away—there are some things we are powerless to change.
What I could change was MY experience of it. What did I want to happen to me—to us?

Script it the voice said, and that has changed my life.

Okay…I said in my head, remembering the videos from Sumatra, You can come up to the palm trees that line our pool area and define the boundary between the beach and our resort. That’s it! To the palm trees only—NOT into the pool—and NOT into our resort.

No further conversation was needed. No idle chit-chat, no more Q & A.

I fell asleep. A deep sleep rich with meaningful dreams that I can’t remember
Inside one, a muffled voice that felt like it was underwater warned: Stay away from the ocean, Do NOT get near the water. We are on lockdown, stay inside your rooms.

It must be happening, crossed my mind, but I was too deep to care.

Only as far as the palm trees…up to the palm trees…

When I finally opened my eyes I could see daylight. Raphael was asleep next to me and I could smell coffee.
Obviously, the tsunami had come and gone—and everything seemed…normal.

These are pictures of the waterline the tsunami left behind. It is still waaaaay up the beach at this point, about three hours after it came ashore. It surged forty feet UP the beach, over dry sand, and stopped right at the palm trees that line the pool, and our resort.

Script it. Imagine it. Feel it. Ask for it. Relax.

That proved to me, without a doubt, that we can script our circumstances. There are things we can’t control, but there are so many that we can.

Get calm, and set boundaries. How bad/good do you want it to be? What do you want to happen?

We have control over our immediate circumstances.
Script it.

This changed my life–I hope it changes yours.

Carry on,
xox

So, you guys, in the past 36 hours, three of my squad, my spiritual tribunal — Liz Gilbert, Danielle LaPorte, and Marie Forleo, the ladies who I look to to give it to me straight — they ALL wrote or talked about looking fear in the eye, saying “fuck it” — and then moving forward.

Carry on through the fear you guys, (Like Lizzie into the fire, *wink).
xox

Take it away Liz!

Question of the day: DO YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO?

Dear Ones –
Here I was yesterday in the South Island of New Zealand, where I am visiting my beautiful cousin Melissa. You can’t really see Melissa in this photo (she is the tiny figure on the right) but trust me: She’s here.

Why is Melissa here?

Because four years ago, my cousin quit her good steady job (during a recession, no less!) and left behind her safe and familiar life in her small Midwestern hometown, and moved HERE, to begin a new life, starting from nothing, at the wild ends of the earth.

My cousin didn’t know anyone in this entire hemisphere. She had never before traveled. She feared she was “too old” to change her life. She had always been risk-averse, and the thought of moving across the world was terrifying. But she had been stuck for too long. She was suffocating in her day-to-day existence. She couldn’t take it anymore. She was tired of faking happiness.

Then she realized: “If I don’t face my fears, I will never grow.”

So she did it. She followed some deep, irrational, inner instinct that led her right to this place. She planned to stay in New Zealand for only four months…but she has now stayed for four years. And holy shit, has she grown. She sees this wild ocean every day. She has bungee’d off cliffs, and climbed glaciers, and repelled down mountains, and bought a house, and started a business, and — most amazingly of all — she has conquered her fear of public speaking!
(And oh yeah…she also met and married the love of her life here.)

As Melissa told me today: “I wish I had changed my life earlier, but I didn’t have the courage. I always knew what I needed to do, but for years it made me sick with fear to imagine actually doing it.”
This observation made me think of all the times in my life when I was stuck, and also knew exactly what I needed to do — but I might have put it off for years, because I, too, was sick with fear about actually doing it.

In fact, it made me wonder if maybe we all have some deep inner instinct about our true destiny — about what we need to do next, at every turn — but our fear and insecurity and self-doubt sometimes makes us put it off for years. Or forever.

I do believe that every single time in my life I have ever said in desperation, “I don’t know what I should do!” — in fact, I DID know what I needed to do. I was just too afraid to do it.

And then one day, you’ve had enough.
And then one day — you just freaking go do it.
And that’s the day when the best part of your life actually begins.
ONWARD,
LG

If you need more convincing, take a look at this!

I overheard a woman in Trader Joe’s today and I had to stop and pretend I was looking with great interest at the ingredients on the side of the microwave macaroni and cheese.

Trader Joe’s is an eavesdropper’s paradise. Especially after school gets out and always around the microwave comfort food.

She had a seven-year-old girl with her, Sophie, (presumably her daughter), and she was on her cellphone with someone who, after listening for several minutes to her conversation, is a saint.
Literally.
The Vatican has spoken. This person earned it!
I’m guessing a sister, best friend, or telemarketer.

Anyhow, I was riveted to her rant because the nature of it was well, so absurd — and I could totally relate.

She was going on and on about the dangers of camping. Like her kids were Tributes in the Hunger Games.

Hypothermia. “What if it gets below fifty? We don’t have the arctic down bags, only the light down summer bags. I mean, I could bundle the kids up with hoods, socks, and gloves in their bags…oh, yes, they’ll be in a tent…”

Sand fleas, (so, like the Mensa member that I am (not) I surmised a beach campout. “Sam had bites all over his privates last summer.” Ouch. And TMI.

Fire. “Josh is gonna have his hands full. What if Lizzie runs into the fire.”
I’m no expert here, but I think both Josh AND Lizzie have a bigger problem on their hands if she’s running into fire. And yes, camping could turn poor Lizzie into a human s’more. So, I’m with the worried lady, no camping for Lizzie.

Wait. Maybe Lizzy is a dog. Oh, that’s even worse.

Ocean. “I heard there’s gonna be high surf. What happens if the waves are so big the kids can’t go in the water? Then what’ll we do?”

Oh, I don’t know, play cards or board games, build sand castles, run into fire, you know, the normal kid stuff.

OMG Lady, seriously? You are a piece of work! Oh, and can you talk louder? I don’t want to miss a minute!

But by this time, I’d lingered too long. I was skirting the edges of stalker-ville so I moved on. But grudgingly. I was worried about Asbestos Lizzie the fire-walker.

The woman did leave me with a parting worry as I scurried into the cookie aisle.
“Sophie, don’t run with the pretzels in your mouth. What if you fall and choke to death.”

And…scene.

I’m not a worrier by nature but if I do go there if I start with the “what if’s” then I’m on the train, miles down the track before I even realize it.

And it gets even more ridiculous as it goes along. You know what I’m talking about!

After the 1993 Northridge earthquake, I was terrified to be anywhere besides home (preferably under my bed), in the event of an aftershock.
I could “what if” myself into a full-blown panic attack.

What if I’m at the movies? Dark, crowded, scary as shit.
What if I’m in the shower? Naked, wet, embarrassing as shit.

The one that could send me over the edge was:
What if I’m sitting at this light, caught in bumper to bumper traffic, STUCK UNDER A FREEWAY OVERPASS!
Trapped, crushed, flat as shit.

I would go out of my way to avoid an overpass. If it looked like I was going to be stuck underneath I’d gun it and jump over cars like fucking Vin Diesel. I’d lay on my horn and make people move out-of-the-way. I came thisclose to causing accidents and hurting myself. I was Lizzie looking for fire.

Eventually, (like three years later), I realized that all those “what if’s” never happened and I started to lighten up. But even now, if I think about it when I’m sitting there, it makes my butt cheeks clench.

“What if” is imagination gone awry and once you board that train you may as well find the bar-car and liquor up because it’s nearly impossible to slow down a speeding train.

Well, maybe Vin Diesel can, or The Rock, or that little firecracker, Lizzie. Apparently NOTHING scares her!

Are you a “what if” worrier?  What are some of your best “what if”s”?

Carry on,
xox

Let’s be serious here. I think this is a really important question to ponder since I know we all have one. You’ll get what I mean in a minute.

Who is that person that derails you? Your harshest critic personified. Not necessarily just that voice in your head, but an insecurity that has taken on real flesh and blood to become your saboteur.

Danielle La Porte admitted on a recent podcast with Brene Brown, that in the past hers was the Silicon Valley dude who’s sitting in the front row of a talk she’s giving, wearing a $700 hoodie, not giving a rat’s ass about who she is or what she’s saying. “He thinks I’m too woo-woo, too flakey. I can see him and I can tell he can’t wait for me to shut up so he can get the hell outta there.”
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Danielle  0

Brene’s saboteur was any academic colleague.
With twenty-something years in academia, she can spot her nemesis in a hot second: Arms crossed with the prerequisite scowl. Academics want hard facts. They want words, no pictures. They don’t trust anything heartfelt as ‘fact’ and vulnerability, Brene’s wheelhouse, is well, it’s better left to Super Soul Sunday — don’t call it hard research.
Big shame happens in that space (another Brene Brown specialty).
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Brene      0

Stand-up comedians can tell you exactly where the ONE person who wasn’t laughing was sitting.

Actors on stage have literally stopped the show to confront the guy who’s on his cell phone.

When I’m in the middle of telling or reading a story I’ve written and the listener yawns or sees something shiny and changes the subject, that sabotages me — every time.
Clearly I’m a bore’ I lament to myself. I take it personally. It can be a stranger or my best friend. It is often my husband — It was ALWAYS my Dad.

We all feel like we’re being judged and not only that — their reaction confirms that somehow — we’re not enough.

Brene Brown had a great suggestion. She says to her critic, “Hey, you can look at me however you want. You can judge me all day long. I know you and I know your story. Everybody has a story that would break your heart,” she goes on, “Even the Silicon Valley dude. And then they armor it up. What I’ve learned is to never take on a job or a project JUST to win over this critic, this saboteur.”

Amen sister.

That, my tribe, is the takeaway. Well, one of them anyway.
Don’t waste one moment of your precious life trying to win over the saboteur.

You ARE good enough. Better than good enough, you’re the best YOU on the planet!

Don’t read your reviews, even on Yelp, especially on Yelp, and DO NOT listen to the haters.
Haters gonna hate.

I want to hear from YOU but I don’t want any comments unless they’re nice and by-the-way, I saw you yawning.
Carry on,
xox

If you like writers, and who doesn’t, Check out the Beautiful Writers Podcasts on iTunes, they’re awesome.