• One For All

    • May 6, 2010 9:16 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Have you ever noticed that the word “community” ends in the word “unity”? You probably have because it’s rather obvious but I don’t think I actually became aware of it myself until last year. I was looking to name an Inspiring Workshop for an NGO and suddenly realized that one was embedded in the other.

    Pun intended. The word “unity”, in fact, comes from the Latin unus, meaning “one”. I have a friend who used to say, “We’re all One,” all the time. Whenever a coincidence happened or when something arrived full circle and we all went, “Wow,” she would pipe in with, “We’re all One.” Well, we are!

    Yesterday I was speaking with someone who said she’d been looking for a community in which to feel “a part of” for years. Last week I heard a woman say she never felt like she fit in anywhere. The experience of feeling “apart from” is more common than we think.

    My whole life I felt like an alien. I was sure I’d been dropped on the wrong planet. You guys got it somehow and I didn’t. Or, the opposite: I got it and none of you did. I felt isolated, different, separate.

    Even though the mind will tell us that the cure for this kind of profound loneliness is isolation, we must not buy in. The cure is Community. The cure is Oneness with our fellows.

    How to find the fellows with whom we can truly connect? First, we have to know who we are. How can I join a community of like-minded people if I don’t know my Self? Self-discovery is a vital part of making that community connection.

    For instance, I used to try to connect with the party crowd. It’s who I thought I was. Bar-hopping, shot slamming, wild and crazy guys and gals. But aside from some drug-induced conversations that felt really deep in the moment I mostly just felt more alone than ever.

    Time for a new crowd! I had to come to terms with the Truth: This is not who I am.

    So who am I really? I am a person who has a desire to live a clean life, a spiritual life, a life of service and connection and Love. I am a person who believes in Higher Guidance. Once I connected with my true Self I could begin to connect with others like me.

    Finding our fellows is not necessarily an easy task. It takes time and energy and a large dose of willingness. But those whom we seek are out there. Whenever I lead Cultivate Your Courage there is inevitably someone in the group who will say, “I can’t believe I’m in a room full of people who live with fear the way I do.”

    Believe it. We’re out here. Come and find us.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: The cure for my loneliness is Community. I will continue on the path of Self-discovery so that I may begin to seek out like-minded people and find my place among them.

    Power Full

    • March 20, 2010 7:25 am

    Dearest Readers,

    As I’ve written before, this URL is called Cultivate Your Courage for a reason. That reason is simple: I have had to learn how to cultivate my own courage day after day after day to overcome deep-seeded fears and insecurities.

    To live fear-less is my greatest vision.

    And Life, (thank-you, Life) continues to present me with opportunities to walk through my fear day after day after day.

    Like today. I am privileged enough to be a part of a Film Forum here in Whitehorse that has brought together a handful of film producers and distributors from outside the Territory to meet those of us who are up-and-coming in the industry and hear our pitches.

    Last evening, we had a chance to mingle with the delegates and chat with them in an informal and relaxed session. A friend of mine and I were speaking after it was all over and giving ourselves credit for showing up at all. Both of us had had the same thought, “I don’t want to go.”

    Fear.

    This morning, we have the opportunity to pitch our projects to the panel and lemme tellya, if there is anything that can bring up the fear of failure and fear of success in a (wo)man, this is it.

    But something has changed in me. I’m not saying the fear is not poking at me like a little pin here and there, jabbing to get my attention. It is. But I am not sick with it. I’m not paralyzed or desperate. I’m okay. In fact, I’m good.

    This is because I am employing the tools I’ve picked up over the years to achieve my vision of being fear-less and they’re working.

    The one that is really bringing me a sense of calm is the “expect nothing” tool. Maybe these people can help me make my movie and maybe they can’t. Who knows? We’ll see. One thing I know is that if someone on that panel really wants to help me, it’s gonna happen.

    So how do I get that person to want to?

    I don’t.

    More tools I’m sharpening and polishing this morning: I can’t make anybody do anything and I can’t force outcomes.

    “I am already enough.”

    If I go in there determined to somehow make someone want to work with me, I’m doomed. If I go in there feeling like I need these people to make the movie, I’m doomed. None of them have the power to validate me or my work and if I give them that power, that’s right, all together now, “I’m doomed.”

    With or without them, the project I have is of value. With or without them, I have value.

    Might seem like a no-brainer to some of you who are perhaps more evolved than I am but for the gal who has sought validation from others for most of her natural born life and for a gal who has believed that someone else is going to discover her talents and make her successful, it’s a friggin’ miracle.

    Newsflash: that someone is me.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: The Power I have comes from a Higher Source. It doesn’t come from another human being. No one has the power to make me or break me unless I give away my power to that person. Today I will not give away my power. I will own my power by aligning my thoughts and actions with Higher Guidance.

    Anti-Depression

    • December 19, 2009 8:57 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday a friend was talking about feeling depressed. Not clinical depression, the kind that is considered a mental illness, but low-energy depression. The kind that is black and hopeless but situational.

    I suffered from this kind of depression for years. It would come, it would go. I always wondered when it would come back. I learned that taking action, any kind of action, would make it go but that’s like saying, “Get off the couch!” to the depressive. It’s the one thing she needs to do and the most difficult thing for her to do.

    Sheer-force of will. That’s what I would use to make it go, take that action step to change my energy, get it flowing again. Or Higher Will. Pray like a mother-lover.

    Time after time I would use these tactics to get out of the slump. Force myself to do something, anything, or ask for the courage to change because my will wasn’t working. It wasn’t until a few short years ago that I actually started to see that there were things I could do to avoid going there in the first place.

    A gal I knew used to say, “You do good things, you feel good. You do bad things, you feel bad.” It drove me crazy! “It’s not that simple,” I thought, amidst images of strangling her.

    But it is. I wasn’t exactly doing “bad” things but things that would suck my energy and put me in that low energy-fear-anxiety-depressed state. I needed to identify what those things were and eliminate them from my life.

    Eliminate that which is eroding our confidence. What a concept! Again, easy enough to say, more difficult to do. Watching three movies in a row erodes my confidence. Why? I have no idea. I just know I feel like crap after I do it. So don’t do it. Duh.

    Those days of the ups and the downs, the moving in and out of that depression-state are behind me. This is not so much a miracle as a steadfast commitment to do “good” things. There are still “bad” things I hang on to that I’m not ready to let go of yet. But I’m getting there.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will identify that which is eroding my confidence today and pray for the courage to let them go. I deserve to feel good.

    Suck it Up

    • December 14, 2009 8:04 am

    Dearest Readers,

    I vacuumed the apartment yesterday. I could write this as the Inspiring Message of the Day and leave it at that. No kidding. When I vacuum it’s a miracle.

    Organization and neatness are important to me. I like order. The apartment in which I live is fairly spare and everything has its place. My work desk can often be a mess but it doesn’t last. After a couple of days I’ll stack papers and clear off unwanted business.

    But vacuuming? I’ll put it off forever. For some reason cleanliness is less important to me than tidiness. The place will look immaculate because of its orderliness but upon closer inspection you’ll often see that the dust bunnies have turned into full-grown rabbits.

    It’s a blessing that I have to travel a lot for work not because I get to see the world but because I’m forced to vacuum for the housesitter. This excuse brings great relief. “I have to vacuum! Thank GOD.”

    Too bad I’m not going to be around to enjoy it. By the time I get back the place is ready for another pass with the hoover and I’m counting the days until my next trip.

    What’s that all about? How can I love a tidy house but not care about a clean one?

    Lazy. There aren’t too many areas in my life where laziness still reigns but this is definitely one of them. But I’m hopeful. Change is possible. I have often visioned myself vacuuming the place once a week. Hmmm…. maybe I’ll start saving up for a cleaning lady.

    For now, the dust rabbits are gone and the cat no longer has to cautiously round corners fearing an attack by one of them. I’ve got two months before I leave town again. That’s about the time it takes for them to become full-grown.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: If you leave the vacuuming of the house long enough it will actually feel like a victory when you do it.