Meet my noisy neighbor, Fear

Posted by rebeccainspiresnow

I’m not exactly sure when she moved in. But I do know fear’s been with me since 5^th grade. That year, the boy who liked me followed me home and punched me in the jaw because I wouldn’t be his girlfriend. Fear’s been that neighbor with the music pounding through the walls in my head when I submitted my first poem for publication. She came to visit me when my son was in the hospital, but she spent the whole time talking about herself. She’s been planting her lawn chair on my property poking at my heart each of the seven times I took a risk on love, until this last try worked out. She stands at my fence with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth yammering away as I expand my novel answering the questions asked by characters eight years ago when I didn’t know them well enough to answer. Or I was just too afraid?

What’s your fear?

Is it your boss? Heights? The dark? Your dream of becoming a writer, singer, chef, CEO, marathon runner, spouse, parent? Or is it just a fear of speaking up?

Fear’s that noisy neighbor inside your head. You might be so used to her voice that you think she’s your imaginary friend.

Fear tells you, “You’re not good enough, smart enough, brave enough…” And then there’s the way she controls others: “They’re going to laugh at you, find out your secret: that you don’t know what you’re doing.” Eckhart Tolle might call that voice your ego–those thoughts that are not real. Those voices are not real. What’s happening in the moment is real.

How much power do you want to give fear?

I’m not going to tell you to laugh in the face of fear. Though sometimes, you have to admit that the conversations with your neighbor, from an objective standpoint, or if they were in a movie, might be funny in a neurotic sort of way. Please know that I’m not referring to the fear when in life-threatening situations. That’s a different kind of fear. But even in those circumstances, I think that humans have the capacity to dig deep.

What about “tragedy”?

I asked Pam Teaney Thomas, the winner of my Birthday Blog Giveaway, about fear. I met her when speaking in South Dakota last year. She’s a remarkable woman, an artist and an activist who works with youth. She has seen her share of fear in the form of two life-threatening situations. Her house, including most of her paintings, burnt down. And she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Here’s what she said:

When I think of the hard times…you find the courage to go through them by those who have walked the path before you and are standing on the other side. They understand your fears, pains and needs. They made it, therefore so can I. The support of my Faith, Family and Friends were huge in pushing through. Each hard time made the next hard time not so hard. You become tempered like steel…Sharper, stronger, and shinier. You recognize that by walking through it there can be a sliver lining if you keep your eyes open to it. Count Your Blessings and Name them One by One and you will see what The Lord hath Done. Truly at the first anniversary of our Fire that is what we did, (it was hard especially for my 17 year old son, but was the best thing we could force ourselves to do). We are now 7 years out and we don’t miss that dinner together each year to celebrate the blessings, not the loss.”

Easy Tools to Deal with Fear

My friends, we can learn from Pam and we can learn from Fear. Here’s what I do now:

Ask for help: I did this when I recently experienced a wave of almost paralyzing fear about publishing my novel. (The closer it becomes to a reality, the more my neighbor wants to keep me company.) I asked some lovely people to hold me up in a bubble of bravery, and that’s what they did, in words, through Facebook posts, with photos, and in thoughts and prayers. I also asked the divine for help. I pulled out all the stops, God, angels, guides, universe, fairies, moon—it made me exercise my vulnerability muscle in a whole new way.
Push the button to walk. I actually walk through my fear like a swamp, because I know there is dry steady land on the other side. Steven Pressfield author of The War of Art, wrote about fear as a good thing. It can be a helpful messenger in showing you how much you want something. So the more frightened you are of taking action, the more you know it’s what you’re called to do. It can sometimes provide you with the adrenaline rush you need to get a task done.
Write. It can be a poem. Or just a scrap of paper that you later rip up or burn over the stove. It can be a journal entry. An email to a friend. Try it. In writing down your fear, you face it differently. It can help you separate from those noisy voices and more objectively decide how much longer you want to pass the time with those thoughts and feelings.

Here’s an excerpt from a poem I wrote last week while swimming in the swamp of fear. One fear had triggered another and another until I was all memories and pain. It’s called: “A New Path.”

Higher self hanging by the tips of angels

feel my fingers slipping

go back to the page

repair one line at a time

fill in the space

between your eyes

there’s a knowledge

in everyone’s heart

and it rests right here

it rests right here

You can buoy your dreams

on a raft of chants, songs

steps on that new path

you wouldn’t have it

brick by brick

heel mark

pebble

rock

the charity of a new day

embrace it before

it’s gone again

So tune out your noisy neighbor when you need to, or shake your booty at her and use her yammering voice to propel you forward. Embrace this new day, my friend, it’s the only one you have right now.

Big hug from my heart to yours,

P.S.: For some other resources on dealing with fear* check out:

Brené Brown: If you just want a 10-minute fix and a chance to laugh, here’s one of my favorite clips from her speech at the World Domination Summit. The ultimate victory over fear is to be able to choose vulnerability, to risk your heart in the face of it. If you’re not familiar with her research, consider watching Brené’s 19-minute TED talks focused on vulnerability and shame. They get at the heart of fear as well. I’ve also just started reading her latest book Daring Greatly and it’s amazing. If you’re already a fan, check out this recent interview with Jonathan Fields of The Good Life Project.
Danielle LaPorte’s Making New Mind Grooves: A Discussion about the Neuropathways that are steering your life. This is a great way to train your brain out of its habits of worry or negativity. She also recently wrote about love and having a gentle heart, yet building a fence around it. You don’t have to let everyone in. That one resonated with me as I balance compassion with self-care.
Hay House World Summit: This is a free online summit that started yesterday. You’ll be able to hear 30+ speakers online on a range of topics. I believe that for $7.00, you’ll have anytime access to 100+ speakers. (Registration fees go to their nonprofit.)

Finally, you can follow Pam Teaney Thomas on Twitter @PamTeaneyThomas

*Items one and two contain an occasional well-placed swear word in case you are sensitive about that. Stick with the content, it’s going to make you feel worlds better.

Dancing with DNF

Posted by rebeccainspiresnow

You are so going to thank me for this one. You’ll feel better about all those DNF projects, all those DNF relationships all those DNF diets.

What is DNF?

Did Not Finish.

It’s my “time” for the Chicago Marathon. In 2011, I trained for months running along the Chicago lakefront. Then I injured my knee. I was blessed with one of the best physical therapists in the city and learned so much about taking care of myself. I asked him, “Can I just go to the race and run for 10 minutes?”

I had my heart set on at least starting the marathon.

He answered, “Sure, you can run for as long as you feel good.”

I ran for 14 miles. So I did the Chicago half marathon. I only had a babysitter for three hours and I needed six hours to complete the marathon. (Yes, I chose to start in the last corral.) Just as I neared my neighborhood, I turned off of the course and ran home. The photo below was shot on my balcony, sweaty and full of joy for trying.

Have you finished every project that you’ve ever started? How about high school or college? How about marriage? Children? A business venture? Did you have plans that ended in DNF?

DNF is way better than DNS –- Did Not Start.

Recently, on a sad morning, I was speaking to Amheric, a member of my personal board of directors and an accomplished marathoner. Towards the end of the conversation, when I was feeling better, I mentioned that I had been contemplating the benefits of DNF. I’m paraphrasing his response below:

So much of life is just an illusion made up of our thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, you’re only DNF when you’re dead.”

Whoa. That’s some good stuff!

So my friends, I’m going to give you some gifts that will get you to your good place. They will help you to start what’s most important to you. I have personally tested past versions of each one of these FREE resources.

1. Start a “stop doing” list to help you focus on what’s important. Here’s a helpful guide in a vintage blog post from Danielle LaPorte (check out her hyperlinks throughout as there’s an excellent article by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great.) Her book, The Fire Starter Sessions is now out in paperback ($15 or less) and can be a very helpful traveling partner if you are figuring out what to start and stop in your personal and professional life—it’s great for entrepreneurs. There are also lots of free resources online related to the book. Here’s a PDF of a workbook to accompany The Fire Starter Sessions as well as short “Circle of Fire” videos to guide you along the way. Try the free stuff to see if it resonates with you.

2. Attend the Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit. Mark your calendar, April 7-18, for one of my favorite virtual events of the year! Wait! You’ve never attended a video summit? It’s a wonderful event because you can do it on your own time. Here’s the deal: Jennifer Lee, author of the brand new book Building Your Business the Right-Brain Way is a brilliant creative who generously shares interviews with successful entrepreneurs. You can watch them live or in their recorded version during the week of the summit. I won a scholarship last year to join her post-summit Premium Group and it changed my life. I gained authentic connections to people who inspire me to pursue my dreams and take real action steps to fulfill them. Sign up for the free summit here. Even if you can’t view every speaker, give yourself this gift or at least share it with someone you love. You do not need to consider yourself creative in order to enjoy this. There are lots of “left-brained” folks who participate.

3. Sign up for the free 21-Day Mediation on tapping into flow in your life with Deepak Chopra and Oprah starting on April 14^th. I have participated in two of these free meditations and they have served as anchors and personal training sessions for my busy, busy mind. Tapping into your flow gets you to a point where things work and when they don’t, you surrender and stay calm. It’s like when you hit a green light intersection after intersection. Or when you have to wait in line and learn to just chill. That’s tapping into your flow. It’s not complicated. Once you sign up, you’ll be sent an email every day with a guided meditation. I generally meditate in the morning. It takes about 15 minutes. And don’t stress if you read this late or you can’t do all of the mediations. It works if you are slightly undisciplined as well as if you participate rigorously. You can’t beat that kind of flexibility! Sign up here.

Raise a glass to all the times you DNF’d. It means you tried.

Sending you love, courage and a calendar. Pick some dates to take action on something important to you today!

Faith, Boredom and Desire

Posted by rebeccainspiresnow

I’m having an ecstatic moment right now. It’s been swirling since 4:00am or maybe since I went to sleep. Really it started yesterday with this conversation. (I am the mom.)

Son: I’m so excited that tomorrow is Christmas Eve!

Mom: I know! Me too! Remember, tomorrow we go to church in the evening.

Son: I don’t want to go to church. Church is boring.

Mom: It is. I know. I like the people and the music and Father Jerry. I also like when the boring parts let me think about the things I want to think about.

Two things happened here. I am very conscious of telling the truth as I partner in raising this six-year-old human being. (You can call me out on that when I talk about a couple of our magical rituals that bend traditional definitions of truth—the Tooth Fairy, who came to our house last night, for example.) So when my son has feelings or thoughts, I acknowledge them. It would be easy to deny his feelings and say, “It’s not boring. There are interesting things to learn if you just listen.” Or, “How can you be bored? I let you play with cars and coloring books at church.” I will leave my son’s spiritual development for another post since he has already taught me so much from his pure approach to faith.

The second thing that happened is that the conversation set off a path to a moment of clarity which is keeping me awake and which I am sharing with you right now. The truth is that I’ve spent my life on and off, bored at church. And I’ve had periods of not going at all.

When I go back to my faith community, for real, here’s what I find:

Fleeting and sometimes binding instances of clarity
An exalted spirit lifted by music
A relaxation of my soul in the rituals I know
A connection to a community of people lifting up the same prayers of hope that I hold in my heart, but can’t always name
Moments of joy, grief, sorrow, love, laughter, a-ha knowledge

I am writing this to share my faith and boredom and desire. My desire is to create light in the world. Your path to light may be different than mine. I have faith that your path is right for you. I encourage you to find it. Seek it out. And give some of the traditions that you do know, some of the religions that you do know, a chance again.

Why?

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddist monk told me (when I read his book), that I can embrace Buddhism and not chuck (my words) my own religious traditions. I had never thought about it that way. I have called myself a cafeteria Catholic because I pick and choose what works for me. I openly disagree with certain tenets of the Church. I spent six excellent years at a Quaker school going to weekly Meeting for Worship and sitting in silence until spirit urged me to speak. What if I took the good of my experience with religions for me and for my family and shared that? What if I took my faith to a new level? I didn’t know how to do that. So unconsciously, here’s what I did:

The Search for Clues

I began studying. Not just books, but through conversations with people of different religious traditions and no religious traditions. And I chose to just pay attention to life and my inner voice. Is that God? My desire? Magical powers? Intuition? Do I have to name it? [Note: I called the examples below, “case studies” just for formatting purposes. I was not actually studying these folks, more loving them and looking to understand their way in the world.] I have lots of friends who “do” lots of things.

Case Study #1: Buddhist Mama When I met her, she did not celebrate Christmas. I was told it was because she grew up in the Bible belt of the South and was turned off by her experience. She has since deeply explored (joined?) a Buddhist community. She has also become a mother and sent me photos of her children standing inside giant Christmas stockings.

Case Study #2: The I Love Almost Everything Jewish Mom She gets most of her Jewish culture from her mother who converted to Judaism in order to marry her father. She also celebrates nature, supports a belief in fairies, teaches her children about native American spirits and Mexico’s Day of the Dead, and has had African naming ceremonies for her children in lieu of traditional baptisms.

Case #3: The Athletic Activist She isn’t down with the whole Catholic thing. But she volunteers like a daemon at a community center. And I venture to say that there are only eight weeks (or less) of the year when she is not playing a sport with some of the coolest women out there. So she’s intensely part of a community. So maybe she’d be called SBNR. What’s that you say? You don’t know that acronym? I didn’t either until I read it in my book, but it stands for “Spiritual But Not Religious.” I’d venture to call her softball and football regimens religious. I’d also say that the way she has helped this community center with fervor points to a faith that is not anchored by ceremony, but in her very simple beginnings.

Case Study #4: The Holy Smokes I Never Knew Grace Like This Catholic She has been an incredible spiritual anchor through conversations and texts teaching me about discernment, grace and faith through recent periods of grief, fear and exaltation in my life. She has become obsessed with Pope Francis. She also sent me the book, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, by James Martin, SJ.

The Written and Spoken Word

I have been reading the Jesuit book, with audio downloads of Danielle LaPorte’s The Desire Map and incessantly reading young adult novels from the 39 Clues series to Chronicles of the Red King. So this morning, I decided, when I couldn’t sleep, that I needed to pull the Jesuit book. If you don’t know about Jesuits, they are the more liberal order within the Catholic Church who have a commitment not to advance to high political levels, but instead, to work for social justice and the poor. When I read the book this morning, low and behold, there’s a chapter on Desire. I couldn’t even finish it because I had to write to you right now.

I have to tell you something: Believe.

Believe in something. In someone. In the Universe. In whatever you want. Just know that it doesn’t have to be one thing, one path. You may want to join a community.

I am only on page 63 of 414 pages of the Jesuit book, but there are two key takeaways I’m swimming with right now.

An Adult Exploration of Faith

An adult life requires an adult faith. Think of it this way, you wouldn’t consider yourself equipped to face life with a third grader’s understanding of math. Yet people often expect the religious instruction they had in grammar school to sustain them in the adult world.”

Lots of us had a childhood experience of God as follows: “Please God. Tell Santa to bring me the red bike.” Or, “Please God, don’t let my mom die of cancer.” God was seen as a problem solver. And when God fails to deliver the bike or save a life, do we give up? Take our marbles and go home? What if grace, faith, spirit, God—whatever you want to call it—was not there solely as an anchor in times of crisis or morality?

Faith as Desire

Desire is a key part of Ignatian spirituality because desire is a key way that God’s voice is heard in our lives. And ultimately, our deepest desire, planted within us, is our desire for God.”

Case Study #5: Caregivers too Busy to Pick Passions I know several people in their 40s who say that they don’t have a passion outside of what they do for work or their families. They have been so lost in the busyness of life and commitments, that they say they don’t need their own passions or couldn’t find them if they tried. If this resonates with you, check out The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte. If you want a community, worldwide book clubs are being launched on January 7. Don’t worry, I’m sure they will continue in waves, if that timing doesn’t work for you. This book and the optional audio components are not religious, but they do help you get to an ecstatic point of desire. I know to some, that may sound scary. Just imagine, though, that if you became clear on your desired feelings for your regular every day life, how much easier it would be to make decisions about family, work, relationships, money and faith.

So light your candles, your incense. Do your trance dance. Genuflect. Move that Elf on the Shelf. Lift your glass.

There is light in this world. And it resides in you.

Shine on, my love, shine on.

Dreams for Sale: Meet Fay and Katherine

Posted by rebeccainspiresnow

I recently finished 21 days of Chopra Center meditation on Desire and Destiny. This is my 3^rd round of 21-day meditations in 2013. The last day focused on this: Your destiny is joy. If your destiny is joy, then how do you live your life every day to get there? Well, maybe you are there. And if you are not, what intentions and actions can you take to get there?

Something clicked for me during this last time. I realized that I’m there every day. Even as I look (with unabashed fear and excitement that sometimes makes my shoulder blades ache) at the summer 2014 publication of my novel, I know that right now, writing to you is my joy. Over the last 21 days, I realized that I’m doing what I love. My day job focuses on volunteering and education, my life focuses on love, family, friends, health, writing and faith. And lots of fun and laughter.

I’m sharing the story of two dreamers, who took intention and action as well as two tools to help you follow your own passions and take your joy to the next level. I’m going to use them this year. What if we used these tools together?

I met Fay Shaw and Katherine Carey through Jennifer Lee’s Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit. (I won a scholarship to participate in it last year.) I’ve never met them in person, but through facebook, I have watched these two women create businesses I love, admire and support.

FAY SHAW, Bitwise E-Textiles Fay makes soft things light up. She is an engineer and crafter who has found e-textiles to be the perfect intersection of her passions. She likes to build things with Arduinos and on the crafting side, she likes to knit, spin, and sew. (Yes, I had to look up “Arduinos” too, that’s why it’s hyperlinked.) She sells craft kits: you can make bracelets, or two of my favorites, a jellyfish or a firefly. I asked Fay three simple questions about her journey:

1. How does it feel to be the inventor of bitwise E-textiles running your own business? It feels really empowering to think of ideas and then bring them to life. I never imagined that I would run my own business and it feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. What keeps me going is feeling a responsibility to educate people. There are so many ways to learn science and engineering; using art is one of them.

2. What brought you here? One year, I had taught friends how to make LED Christmas ornaments. They suggested I try to teach e-textiles workshops regularly. So I started to think of an interactive project and the light-sensitive firefly was born. It has a light sensor in its nose and turns on in the dark. All of the components are sewn together using conductive thread. I taught a few workshops and decided to make it into a kit and sell it on Etsy.

3. What keeps you pursuing your dream(s)? My greatest joy is when people work on their project and are delighted with how it works! I also love when students have come back to me with their own projects based on what I taught them. A woman came to a show with an LED bracelet she had created for her running group who ran an all-night race. A 7-year old, who had taken my class, brought in a dragon she made with a recycled sweater, LED eyes, and fiber optic whiskers! It feels really good to see people create something new from something I taught them.

Using art to learn science? Wow! My childhood experience with science could have taken a completely different direction! Fay regularly checks-in with a committed group of Washington-state entrepreneurs who met through the Right-Brainers in Business Group. What has struck me over the last several months of reading her check-ins (I’m an honorary member since I love Washington state), is that she shows up. She does the work that she loves. She takes ACTION. I invite you to take action and during this holiday season, consider purchasing one of her kits for yourself, families or friends. What a productive and fun way to spend time! Consider subscribing to her newsletter for updates on kits and workshops. Here’s where you find her: bitwiseetextiles.com and bitwiseetextiles.etsy.com.

KATHERINE CAREY, Katherine Carey Millinery Katherine is another passionate soul. She is a milliner creating the most gorgeous hats, for women and now, she’s working on her men’s line too. A native of Maui, she came to New York City to pursue her dream. While caregiving for her father, she began making hats by his bedside. Like a lot of artists and entrepreneurs, she has been pursing her dreams for some time while working another job. During the last two weeks, she took the final leap and launched her business full-time. I’ve watched her journey to Paris and create a board game in which each hat sold gets her closer to her dreams (and to paying her bills). Most of all, I have witnessed her faith. Katherine regularly asks people to send her love and prayers because she openly declares her passions, her courage and her fears. I have a special affection for milliners because my grandmother had her own shop. Katherine has so much love for what she does (and for her gorgeous cat, Pinto), that “big” success for her is inevitable. I’d venture to say, though, that she has created success and certainly joy, already. She is doing what she loves. Personally I’m in love with the Hudson Cloche below. Here are the best ways to explore Katherine’s world and to purchase her breathtaking pieces of art for your head and the heads of your loved ones: www.katherinecarey.com and https://www.facebook.com/kcmillinery.

So, perhaps now that you’ve read about Fay and Katherine, you say, wow, amazing people! They are so talented! Next, I invite you to declare, “So am I!” You are full of passions and talents. If you know it and embrace them, hooray for you! If you are getting that slight twist in the tummy, shoulder blade ache, want to stop reading because their passions make you anxious, I have a solution! I have two solutions! December is a great time for reflection. (If you are a regular reader, you know that I will find a reason to tell you that anytime is a great time for reflection.) Let’s focus on two easy ways you can get involved with your own life on a new level and elevate your game, your heart and your soul. Many of these resources are free.

THE TOOLS

Life Reimagined Have you visited www.lifereimagined.org? It’s a movement you can join for free that’s dedicated to helping people find and pursue their purpose in life. You can participate in a calling card exercise that helps you narrow down your passions. You can read about other people who have had their “life reimagined moments” and decided things like working for 30 years in a civil service job wasn’t their passion and now, they pursue marathon running or they open a pizzeria or sell the house and travel the world. Sometimes the transitions don’t have to be so dramatic. If you like what you see, consider reading the new book Life Reimagined, Discovering Your New Possibilities. The authors know their stuff. Richard Leider was named one of the top five most respected executive coaches in the world by Forbes and Alan Webber is founder of Fast Company magazine and former editor of the Harvard Business Review. I’ve met Richard and he is grounded in reality, simplicity and a passion for people finding their purpose. The book walks you through six practices: Reflect, Connect, Explore, Choose, Repack and Act. It’s quite logical.

The Desire Map just re-launched on December 3rd on a whole new level. It’s a completely inverted approach to goal-setting. It’s a show up in the world, take your time to choose your core desired feelings and let those feelings guide you through your life, your work, your love, every single day. It’s the birthing of a great heart idea by Danielle LaPorte. Here’s what others say about her:

“Danielle’s passion leaps off the page, and reading a few chapters of this book will ignite you into action.”–Gretchen Rubin The Happiness Project

“Danielle LaPorte is scary smart, yet so kind and practical that she kindles the fire in you without causing you to feel consumed by the flames…. Lean in and listen close. What she has to say is what our spirits need to hear.”–Martha Beck Steering By Starlight

I have used the Franklin Covey planning system for a decade. The Desire Map is my new guide. Danielle has launched a book, day planner, audio downloads, you name it. And if you are not ready to take the plunge, just sign up for her daily truthbombs, weekly newsletter or monthly digest. Here’s where you can learn more: bit.ly/desiremap.

Want to meet Danielle? Marie Forleo interviews her here calling it “Four Steps to Set Goals with Soul.”

I thank you, my friends, for reading about Fay, Katherine, Richard and Alan and Danielle. I thank you for celebrating passion, action and commitment. I invite you to step into your own light with a toe, then your foot, your leg, just hokey pokey yourself on over, dreaming is the gateway to joy. Live it every single day.

Who is on your personal board of directors?

Posted by rebeccainspiresnow

I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle, I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.

–Mother Teresa

Maaaaaan, I know some people who are getting it in the gut right now. Loved ones in the hospital. Physical pain. Grief. What can you do when you are stuck in the muck of stuff you can’t control? Three words:

Ask. For. Help.

I remember several years ago arriving at National Airport, at one of my lowest, most exhausted points, and just crying as I waited for my luggage. I was under so much stress at the time. A friend picked me up and handed me this little plaque with the Mother Teresa quote above. Ever since then, it sits on my desk every single day.

No matter if you believe in a higher power or not, you need your people. You need your personal board of directors. This same friend that met me at the airport, periodically, calls me “Madam Chairman” and asks for advice or simply calls to share the fact that all is well. We also have that “bruja” magical connection where one of us is thinking of the other, and the other knows.

Do you have a personal board of directors?

Knowing what to do comes from knowing who you are. Sometimes, we need our circles, our tribes, to reflect the best parts of ourselves, to hold up hope when we have none, and to carry concern over worry. The latter is a nuance I recently relished from the empress of inspiration, Danielle LaPorte.

Do you have people whom you can call to share “here’s what” and they do not need fifteen minutes of context because they know your life?

Even if you don’t talk all of the time, there’s a heart connection.

My board has never met all together. I receive and give one-on-one consults and referrals. We rarely have long conversations unless we have planned time together. Many of them do not live where I live.

Somehow, we stay connected. Through phone, text, Skype, handwritten letter (try one quickly before they become obsolete) and when circumstance strike, they are live and in person, over coffee, tea, wine, water, tears or luggage.

Love your people. Find your people. Ask for help.

Everything always works out for…you.

Posted by rebeccainspiresnow

I have this cousin. We’ll call him David. And his sister, also my cousin, we’ll call her Kelly (pseudonym after my favorite Charlie’s Angel). So David has this saying, “Everything always works out for David.” So Kelly started her own saying, “Everything always works out for David’s sister, Kelly.”

You know another word for that saying?

Mantra.

Yup.

You might have a mantra and not know it. One year ago, in my first blog post, I mentioned Jimmie. When I ask how he’s doing, he always says, “I’m good, I’m above dirt.” So that’s Jimmie’s mantra, it centers on giving thanks for being alive.

Recently I used that mantra on the teacher that began the year greeting us at the front door of my son’s school. Everyday on glorious cool mornings, when I asked how she was doing, she launched into “I’ll be better when this heat it over.” Mind you, in that moment, there was no heat. It was a glorious cool Chicago morning. She brought that weight to the front door as child after child passed through it. So one day when she asked me first how I was doing, I answered her, “I’m good, I’m above dirt. That’s what matters, right?” She responded, “You got me there.” And when I exited the school three minutes later after dropping my son at his classroom door, she had shifted her response to folks, saying, she’s good, she’s above dirt. And she said it loudly, so I could hear her. We gave each other a knowing smile. Hers said, “You called me out.” And mine said, “Yup.”

I have been practicing Sanskrit mantras to music for free (again) for the last ten days or so thanks to Deva Premal’s 21-day meditation series. Sometimes I “get them” and sometimes I just do my best to listen and not chant because my morning brain-mouth connection is running on its lowest setting.

What’s your mantra? Do you think things will work out? One of my favorites (thanks to my friend Tindi) is:

“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be at this moment.”

I used it again and again on Friday when I was delayed for eight hours at National Airport. Try it.

“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be at this moment.”

One of my favorite writers, thinkers, life-changers is Danielle LaPorte. She just started a weekly prompt related to her book and multimedia tool, The Desire Map. She writes about Kali, the goddess of transformation, destruction and transcendence. Translated, that’s some fierce love. If you have a mantra that works for you, keep it up. If you don’t, or your mantra hinges on lament, anger, discomfort or self-pity, ask Kali to destroy that. Remove it from your life. Burn it like that outside of a roasted marshmallow. Get to that soft, gooey, s’more-ready center.

Remember we are nearing the end of Self-Care September. If you haven’t already, pull out the fierce love. Be a peaceful warrior and know, “You are exactly where you are supposed to be at this moment” and “Everything always works out for…you.”