E is for ME! (Excellent Blog Award)

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I'm tickled pink to be the recipient of my very first blog award. A hearty shout out and humble thanks to Lulu at Redefining Sanity for bestowing an E for Excellent upon this blog.

Lulu found my blog because she generously participated in the latest Bloggy Giveaways carnival and I'm a whore hound for quality free stuff and entered her contest for a Juice Beauty Organics To-Go kit. I didn't win, but I'm okay with that. Not because I'm a good loser, but because I won something else from another blog (Hot Diggity!). And more importantly: because Lulu made my day with this award!

All sarcasm and joshing aside, I'm honored to be one of the 10 blogs that Lulu awarded. Go check them all out here and here. And while you're there take a stroll around Redefining Sanity. Lulu has some good stories about her amazingly wise kids and why she needs to return to the Year of Glamour.

Thank you for sharing the good juju, Lulu!

That Pesky Fear

Sometimes I think that life is a series of mini-post traumatic stress episodes. We live in so much fear. It usually surfaces as stress, irritability, distractedness. We think maybe we're tired or just having a bad day or week or year. Underneath it all, I think we're mostly scared.

A few nights ago I ventured back out into the world of business networking. There was a time in my life when I did this regularly. It was part of my day job working with women entrepreneurs. Later it became a way to grow my own freelance writing business. I like people and have the ability to talk to almost anyone about almost anything. But I can’t eat, breathe, and sleep business nonstop, which is what I was forced to do for far too long. So while the networking was valuable and sometimes even enjoyable, I got burnt out on it.

So for the last 18 months or so, I've been dormant. I quit my day job and crawled over into a corner to recuperate and refresh. And of course, my word of mouth referrals slowed to a trickle. I knew that I needed to get back “out there” and start connecting with people again. But the mere idea of it exhausted me.

Why should it? After all, I already admitted that I like talking with people. One word: Fear.

Because I'd stopped actively networking at the same time that I was mentally and physically tapped out, my fight-or-flight mind connected the two. I subtly started to hate the idea of going to business events because I feared losing myself again. Rationally, I knew this didn't have to happen. Viscerally, I was the victim of a mini-trauma.

Not long ago I laid out a loose plan to generate more business, and of course networking was on the list. Lo and behold, the perfect event showed up on the calendar for this week. How convenient.

Oh how I hemmed and hawed. I came up with every excuse not to go. The weather forecast called for rain during the hour drive there and back. I didn't have any clean business attire. I didn’t even know if it would be a beneficial event. As I threw out these excuses, I saw a look of disapproval cross my husband’s face. A moment later I realized that I was seeing a mirror of my own disappointment for chickening out.

So I rooted through my closet and found some clothes that weren’t jeans and a sweater. The weather cooperated and only rained on the way home. I overcame my fear and was rewarded. I rekindled old connections and made a few new ones. I even met a few people face-to-face after only "knowing" them over the phone. And there are new business prospects on the horizon, some related to the event, some not. (I have a theory that work breeds work, but that's a post for another day.)

I did my best to talk myself out of going to that event. I almost let mini-post traumatic stress get in the way of a good experience.

How are you talking yourself out of something good?

Chain Reaction

Ten years ago, when I still lived at home with my parents, and my husband was just my new boyfriend, I inadvertently caused a car accident. One late summer night I wanted to meet my boyfriend at a friend's house. In order to get to my mom's Ford Taurus (the car of choice, when the choice came down to that or my Dad's blue Buick) someone needed to move the Buick out of the tandem driveway.

We lived near a busy intersection on a busy street. But traffic was sparse this night. So sparse in fact, that the slightly intoxicated lady driving the SUV down the hill at a high rate of speed should have had plenty of time to see my brother backing the blue boat out onto the street. After all, she had a clear line of sight from the top of the hill to the intersection at the bottom.

She crashed into the Buick underneath my parents' bedroom window. I’m not sure what woke my dad: the noise of the crash, or my mom, who was watching us through the window, shouting, "David's been hit!" Either way, Dad bolts out of bed, flies out of the house, and starts running down the street. Only the running was more like prancing because he was shot through with adrenaline and was barefoot on a sidewalk littered with gravel. On his way to save his youngest child, he hadn't thought to put on shoes, his glasses, or any clothes. I should mention that he was sleeping in his tightie-whities.

My brother was fine, the car needed some work, Dad didn't seem to be embarrassed by the ordeal, and the SUV driver got off clean, even though the cops said she was "borderline" on the sobriety test. And my boyfriend thought I was joking when I called and said, "Can you come here instead? My brother's just been in a car accident and my dad's half naked."

Thanks to Jenna Glatzer at Hot Diggity! for prompting me to share this story. I was lucky enough to win one of Jenna's books, The Street Smart Writer, during the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival.

2008: A Mondo Beyondo Prospective

sky, summer 2007

Because a look backward is only half the story...

In the middle of 2006, the word "Pentecost" became my theme word. You can read how in this post, but here's an excerpt about why that word resonated with me:

Pentecost marks the day when the Holy Spirit descended on Christ's
followers, after his ascension.

Acts 2:1-4 says, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

This image of rushing wind and tongues of fire. And the ability to speak in new tongues. It's so powerful. Those people must have felt that their souls had been scrubbed clean and empowered. They must have felt so alive.

I long for a Pentecost of my own. I feel so flat inside.

Be careful what you long for. My own personal Pentecost did indeed come, scrubbing my spirit clean and empowering me. Rushes of wind and tongues of fire turned my world upside down and left me breathless, all the way through 2007. I gained the ability to speak in new tongues. I learned the language of self-kindness and self-forgiveness; of living without crippling fear or constant dread. I allowed myself to speak on the page, and even started to listen to a new language of images. My personal Pentecost was exhilarating, exhausting, painful, and healing.

Now I live in a post-Pentecostal world. I can no longer go back to the old ways of living in fear, jealousy, hurt, and denial. I've been visited by the proverbial Spirit and been made new.

So what is my theme for 2008? I've settled on a group of words that are very similar, but with distinct differences.

2008 is my year of:

• Opportunity


• Abundance


• Prosperity


• Plenty


• Creation

I’m tired of being so afraid of failure that I berate, belittle, and limit myself. This year I’m going to change the list of things that I should do into a list of opportunities that I have. (For more on shaking the shoulds, see this.)

**Instead of stressing out about how I should grow my business and make more money, I will focus on the amazing opportunity to pursue my passion and create income doing what I love.

**Instead of feeling guilty and embarrassed because I should lose weight, I will seize the opportunity to keep my body in good working order and to stay healthy as I age.

**Instead of feeling jealous and diminished when I see what other people have accomplished, I will remember that each person has her own opportunities. Just as someone else’s opportunities aren't meant for me, mine are not meant for her. All I can do is pursue my own opportunities.

In 2008, I will continue to live intentionally.

• I intend to seek, pursue, and embrace opportunities in my business and creative life.


• I intend to be happy for others’ successes, knowing that there is plenty of goodness and blessings to go around.


• I intend to spend more concentrated time working on my writing, editing, and coaching business.


• I intend to send at least one article query to at least one magazine per month.


• I intend to love my body and to treat it to fun exercise activities and healthy/yummy foods.


• I intend to spend my free time reading, creating, and doing things that feed my soul.


• I intend to continue living a life full of joy and wonder.

There's a place beyond intentions; a place that feels like the wide open sea or the starry night sky. It's wild and beautiful, and it stretches for as far as you can see; far beyond your field of vision. Perhaps even beyond your imagination. You know that it is immense, and the immensity awes you so that you feel both tiny and huge. It's just too enormous to understand. This is the world of Mondo Beyondo dreams. So you look at what you can see--the waves breaking on the shore or the stars shining up above-- and you choose to believe that there is more than you can imagine. You can't see it, but you believe it. You can't see how your dreams could possibly come true, but you choose to believe that they will.

My Mondo Beyondo:

• I want to write and publish my first book.


• I want to start creating mixed media art and find my own path as a visual artist.


• I want to be debt-free and financially secure.


• I want my family to be debt-free and financially secure.


• I want to travel to the U.K. and Italy with James.


• I want to travel to Iceland, to a land of people who believe in elves.


• I want to travel to Ireland with my parents, brother, and husband.


• I want to develop and nurture deep, supportive relationships with people in my immediate and far-flung communities.


• I want to uncover and be at peace with my decision about having a child.


• I want to find, buy (or build) and live in our dream cottage near the beach.


• I want to spend a week at a writers’ retreat somewhere beautiful, comfortable, and nurturing.

Some of these feel within my reach, while a few feel impossible. But I'm choosing to dream and believe big.

What are you intentions for 2008? What's beyond those intentions?

2007: A Retrospective

roots, saint clair park, greensburg, pa; summer 2007

Because you've been waiting for me to write something here, and because a real story is the only story worth telling...

In 2007, I found myself again, after years of wandering lost in the wilderness of depression and despair. Ironically, I found my joi de vivre in the same year that was one of the absolute hardest of my life. During seemingly endless months of fear, anger, and sadness, when the building blocks of my life shook and threatened to shatter, I discovered that the foundation of my self was being repaired, rebuilt, and shored up.

At a time when trust seemed treacherous, foolish, and mostly impossible, I learned to trust myself again. For much of 2006 and the first half of 2007, I let myself be manipulated into believing that I was the problem, the failure, the reason for so much strife. By mid-2007, I realized that this was false. I found a vantage point of clarity, where I recognized my own true faults and mistakes without taking on the blame for every issue.

I realized—much to my surprise—that I would be able to change course and build a different life if that was necessary. I didn't want to do that, and so far haven't had to do so. But where I once thought I would fall apart and die, I realized that I would survive emotional devastation and eventually embrace new opportunities. This scared and somehow saddened me, but also made me realize that I'm brave and strong.

In 2007, I reconnected with my creative self. I tried painting and began to explore the idea that I could try my hand at different types of expression. I accepted that it's perfectly fine to make art for art's sake, not as a high-minded pursuit, but as an expression of myself and the world, just for the sake of doing it. At the same time, I unearthed my love of writing and rediscovered that it is truly my gift: a gift given to me, whether I share it with the world or not. I reaffirmed that I want to share it with those who will listen.

For the first time that I can remember, I had days when I was just happy to be alive. Each day suddenly held beauty and joy and meaning. I was shocked to realize that I was excited about the coming day; that I looked forward to the possibility of getting up tomorrow and seeing what would happen. This new sense of euphoria left me breathless. For so long I've wanted to live a life of joy and wonder. And for so long, it escaped me. I finally realized that I had to create such a life if it would not just come to me. Of course, the more I sought to create it, the more it came to me.

I'm no longer certain of some things I used to know for sure. It's painful to question long-held beliefs and waver on what were once absolutes. Still, I think that to be unsure and seeking is better than steadfast and sleeping.

In 2007, I learned to be kind to myself, true to myself, and open to myself.

Still, I grieve for all the time that was lost in misunderstandings and hurtfulness in 2007. I spent a lot of time terrified and lonely. Sometimes I'm still disappointed in myself for not taking a harder line and demanding more. But I forgive myself for that, because it's hard to navigate the canals of heartbreak and trust. If I was talking to a friend in my situation, I'd tell her that she was too hard on herself; that she did the best she could at the time. As my dad says, we make the best decisions we can with the information we have on hand. I did the best I could, even though I wish I'd done better in retrospect.

I don't think I've forgiven as much as I need to. But I won't wallow in guilt over that. Things are so much better than they have been in so long. Despite the lingering pain and still-tender scars, I'm happy in a way I can't ever remember being. I'm working on forgiveness with a watchful heart.

I'm afraid that things will go back to the way they were. When I have a bad day, I'm terrified that the depression is returning. But I've been to the mountaintop, and I know I can find my way back if I end up in another valley. That knowledge alone comforts me and gives me hope.

What's done is done. There is no way to change the past. Now that it's over, it couldn't be any other way. (I kind of hate that, but mostly believe it to be true.) Linear time is God's gift to us. Imagine the muddled situations we'd get ourselves into if we could move forward and backward in time. Think of how much we'd lose or throw away if we had the ability to go back and change things. It would be so easy to get stuck in a loop of trying to perfect the past, of trying different actions to affect the outcome. Linear time frustrates us, but it keeps us sane. The alternative is unthinkable. (But would make a good episode of "The Twilight Zone.")

God knows the end from the beginning. All I can do is to keep moving forward.

I declare 2007 complete.

2008 is my year of opportunity.

"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning." ~George Baker

I found the quote above and the format for this retrospective on Superhero Journal.