Blast O' Joy

Kindred Spirit...Revisited

Because I am on vacation this week, I've decided to run an old essay that was popular when it ran. My best to you! Suzanne

Recently I had the distinct pleasure of speaking at a New Age bookstore/tea salon in Key West, FL called Kindred Spirit. This wasn't a 'must do' stop on the circuit of major bookstores for Authors On Their Way Up. The business was brand new and unknown. In fact, when the owners invited me to speak, they didn't even have a location yet for their store. Still, I had a feeling that this was a place where I had to speak. There was something about Kelly and Karen, the owners, that resonated with me when I met them at a conference. They had a certain intensity, the air of women on a mission. It was clear that their lack of a lease at that moment was pretty irrelevant -- they would have exactly the space they wanted, and it would be great. Not only that, I would do an event with them, and that would be great. The Big G was clearly whispering in their ear.

When I got to Key West, my hunch was confirmed. Here was a beautiful old two-story clapboard house, with a gracious front porch, waving palms, and those cool dark green shutters that are so much a part of the Key West landscape. Every inch of this store held things that were beautiful and unique, each artfully arranged. Karen had hand-painted fresh, original calligraphy on the walls, and they had composed their space so you could wander at will, finding treasures at every turn. There was even a tiny antechamber, beautifully decorated, where you could have a reading with a remarkable psychic. Lace-covered tea tables here and there waited for you to sit down, relax, and have superb cup of tea. The effect of being in Kindred Spirit was that my travel-jagged soul was immediately soothed. This store had the ability to heal people.

That healing comes from what my friends Yannig and Karin calls "the essence". It's an immutable standard for your work that comes from within, a refusal to deliver less than exactly what your soul told you to create. And this takes considerable work. When I met Karen and Kelly, they were coming off of weeks of 12-hour days putting the finishing touches on their store and holding their first event. This is the same kind of effort Yannig, an artisan bread baker, puts into his loaves of Crown Point Bread. It's the same care Karin puts into developing her candlemaking business. It's this slightly insane, but critically important vision you get that pushes you forward, and forward, and forward, until you do create exactly what you want.

And please note that such work is not just a string of non-stop, blissed out moments of creative joy. There are many moments when you want to go home and go to bed. There are just as many when you lie awake worrying. Still, there is something sacred and holy that pushes you forward, whether it be the 'essence' or your own hands-on interpretation of God. Not surprisingly, all of Key West turned out for my talk at Kindred Spirit; the event was electric! All, I say, because people wanted that healing at the heart of Karen and Kelly's hard work.

May be you as moved as I've been by the healing work of all creators, great, small, famous and unknown, who are driven by nothing more than their desire to deliver what they feel. And may you discover the same within yourself.

For more information on Kindred Spirit, call Karen or Kelly at (305) 296-1515 or email kindredspiritinc@cs.com

Take The Plunge

While leading our Writer's Spa in Taos, New Mexico, a few years ago I got a powerful reminder of the importance of being vulnerable.

Your vulnerability...that wormy, queasy, little child feeling you get when you're stepping into rich, new territory, is your sign that you are, indeed, pursuing your dreams as you must. It's the emotional jolt that suddenly puts you in touch with all kinds of humiliating stuff from your past. Your vulnerability makes you feel just plain dumb, and full of doubt.

What if the all-knowing "they" discover what a miserable fake you are?

What if you stumble or make a mistake?

What if your endeavor does not turn out perfectly?

Well. What if?

Your vulnerability is like a well full of pain and fear. It runs cool and deep with all the emotions of your accumulated experience through life. Yet, these are sacred waters. Drink from them, and you'll get in touch with valuable ideas and emotions that can inform your creative work. Sip them from time to time, and you'll stay honest and authentic in your self-expression. Turn to antiseptic bottled water, on the other hand, and you'll lose that achingly perfect, universal tug that can move people to tears. There is no substitute in self-expression for the God's honest truth.

Your well of pain, aka your vulnerability, is the source of all that is truly human and wonderful about your work. And it will elevate your work from just plain competent to brilliant, if you have the courage such truth-telling demands.

Now this does not mean you have to wallow in old painful chapters of your past for days on end. Nor do you have to go around "suffering for your craft" to make it valid. My Writer's Spa co-leader, Jennifer Louden, recommends pulling up those memories by the dipperful -- just enough to refresh and inspire you, without pushing you into a dark emotional funk that seems to have no return.

Why not use the next two weeks to stoke up your courage, and bring the true you out into the light? This may mean trying something you've been aching to do for ages, but somehow "just can't get to". It may mean submitting your creative work for professional review, or making tough cold calls to expand your reach. It may mean asking for something you need you've been afraid to request. It may even mean sitting down to write/paint/create something emotionally wrenching because you know you simply must.

Whatever task you choose, remember that this leap of faith will serve you in the long run. Feeling stupid really is good, because if nothing else, you will grow like a hollyhock, strong in the sun.

Please go forth and take the plunge. Allow yourself to feel stupid! I know you'll be glad you did.

My heart is with you,

Suzanne

If you've taken this ezine for a while, this is not the first time I've gotten on my podium about vulnerability, but bear with me. I have some new, deeper insights to share.

Personal Joy Triggers

Lately, the world has seemed like an especially grim and frightening place; I'm almost afraid to turn on the radio each morning. So in order to help soothe souls, I'd like to offer up this essay which I wrote last spring. May it serve you well!

I was in no mood for joy this morning when I started working on this newsletter. I'd just spent twenty minutes in telephone hell, listening to one recording after another, trying to find an actual customer service representative at one of the long distance phone companies. By the time I hung up, I was convinced I was experiencing the final decline of western civilization. Gradually, as the smoke stopped coming out of my ears, I remembered a certain page on my web site -- a discussion thread on the Joy Boards called Finding Fifteen Things a Day to Be Joyful About. I went there and just read for a few minutes, and as I did the smoke cleared, my mood shifted, and life was good again. It really was as simple as that.

On this thread, people list fifteen things that bring them joy -- and some of them stop by to list them every single day. Some of my favorites: "A walk in the rain on this lazy Sunday." "Sitting in my pajamas on the kitchen floor with my three year old grandson, eating spoonfuls of peanut butter before breakfast." "The moss on a tree outside my window." "The energy I received walking around the strip in Vegas on a Sunday morning." "Being in bed, getting ready to fall asleep, and having my cat curl up on my belly and purr like a diesel engine." "The dancing smiles of friends." "That my neighbor is an 88 year old woman who grows a garden all year long, and does her own yard work."

There is something almost hypnotic about reading what makes others joyful, yet listing them for yourself is even more powerful. In fact, it's remarkably soothing. No matter how sophisticated we think our brains may be, they don't seem capable of holding both tormented, anxious thoughts and happy thoughts at the same time. So by stopping for a moment, and forcing yourself to think about what makes you happy in life, you get a profound perspective shift. Suddenly, the desert you wandered in only a few minutes earlier is gone, and you're back making brownies in the kitchen with a child, each of you licking a beater. I can't emphasize enough what a powerful tonic this is for healing the furious, fed up, frustrated, or just plain downtrodden soul.

In terms of pursuing your dreams, this is also a useful tool. In just a few moments, it can snap you out of your 'beleaguered victim at the end of a long,hard work day' mode into one that's far more productive. I urge you to stop in at our website and list fifteen of your own personal joy triggers on the Joy Boards.

Don't Wait To Be An Expert

There is a sad misconception floating around out there that I'd like to dissolve right this minute. It is the thought that you can't ever move forward with your dream until you are a true master at it.

Now let's take this argument one step further. I contend that not only do you learn by experience, you learn even more by teaching. Whether you're a writer, a coach, an entrepreneur, or a business person, the act of sharing what you've learned with others crystallizes the information for your own use. I learned this from Mr. Baynum, my seventh grade science teacher who was brand new to teaching. Mr. B. had a wonderful habit of saying "I don't know" when he didn't know something, only to return the next day with a full encyclopedic explanation of the very phenomenon you asked about. It became a game to see if we could ask Mr. B. a question he couldn't ultimately answer, which never once happened. Needless to say, some major learning took place.

Teaching mobilizes that zestier, more energetic part of your persona that loves digging for the answers, preparing ahead of time, and sharing your discoveries. In short, teaching keeps you on your toes, especially when it's a subject you don't know too much about yet. After all, what makes a great teacher? Not necessarily a master's expertise, but the desire and caring to communicate what you do know. This is the g-force that great teachers always have.

Chances are, you'll have even more access to it when you tackle a subject you care passionately about, even if you're NOT an expert at it yet. Then you get the pleasurable task of learning all about your chosen subject as you learn how to teach it.

This was the impetus that drove me to write my book, How Much Joy Can You Stand?. I was stuck with a major case of writer's block, and a certain sinking feeling about my fate as a writer, the only career I really cared about. Only by writing a book that encouraged other people to pursue their dream, was I able to move forward and have that career. This was because the endeavor forced me to learn why and how a creative person can actually keep going, something I desperately needed to know!

Let the desire to dig into this project guide you every step of the way, for it will...if you let it. Share the work, and its benefits will come back to you in spades. I promise!

How many of us linger forever in endless training and classes, waiting to get really good at something before we plunge a single toe into the submission/rejection pool? How many of us don't even start our dream, because we figure we'll never get "good enough" at it to make any difference at all? How many of us give up along the way because we'll never be the expert that so-and-so is?

Yet, here is the ironic little truth that blows all of these perceptions away. You cannot become a master until you actually take the leap, do the work, make several thousand mistakes, and live to tell about it. Experience is truly the only thing that makes experts so expert.

Spring Clean Your Dream

Here is a potentially gnarly question for you...

Where do you do the work of your dreams?

Is it in a well-lit, organized place with plenty of space for you to stretch out, find your tools, and get to work? Or is it nothing more than a few dusty piles in the corner of your living room? ? Is it a place of concentration and serenity? Or one of neglect and clutter?

Take a moment and think about this, for the answer holds a key to exactly what may be holding you back from creative fulfillment. I once took a seminar with a fellow who insisted that the interior of a person's car reflected the shape their life was in. And while I pooh-poohed the notion at the time, I've never forgotten it because there is a grain of truth there.

So what shape is your dream studio in? Do you even have one?

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that everyone must have 2000 square feet of space with hardwood floors and northern exposure to get on with their dreams. But they do need to have enough commitment to that dream that theyÕve created some kind of space for it in their life. Exactly how that space is treated is key.

For many years, my "dream studio" consisted of a small room with a sagging day bed for a filing cabinet, a wobbly arrangement of shelves and cinderblocks for a bookcase, and a hard, wooden school chair to sit on. And my dream progressed in frustrated little fits and starts as a result.

It never occurred to me to build shelves, buy a filing cabinet, or get an office chair because somewhere deep inside I was convinced my writing didn't deserve 'the luxury' of a properly set up office. That sort of thing was for official jobs, I thought -- the kind you get paid for. This, of course, is that same self-doubting nonsense that keeps many of us from ever attempting our dream in the first place.

In other words, your dream studio may be in your home office or a corner of your bedroom, and that's just fine. But make sure it reflects a true, serious commitment to your dream. Is it a place you can actually work in? Is it efficient and organized? Can you find files and materials easily? Is there a door if you need quiet in order to concentrate? Is it clean, and basically clutter free? Is it uplifting, with a generally spiritual, serene feel?

Are you treating your dream with love and care É or is it collecting dust and clutter? Do you believe in your work, and yourself, enough to provide exactly what is needed?

Take a look around your life and decide. And know that you do, indeed, deserve the best.

Open Your Heart

A few years ago, a psychic in Key West, FL told me something I'm only just now beginning to understand. As I sat there in front of her, in a darkened room all full of incense, she intoned:
"You'll have the success you want, Suzanne, but only when you open your heart."

I wasn't sure what this meant, exactly, but I did what any good self-help devotee would do. I set out to crack the code on what "opening your heart" meant.

My first stop was the aromatherapy store, where I spent a good hour sniffing this and that until I'd whipped up my own little brew designed to split open a congested heart chakra. (Mind you, I had no idea what I was doing, but this did seem like the place to start.) Then I headed over to my friend, Mary, the Oriental Medicine Woman. Mary listened to me quite seriously when I requested she set lots of needles that would open my heart. After the third treatment, she gingerly asked how it was going. "I don't know," I replied. "Well, what would "opening your heart" be like?" she asked. Again, I could not answer. Meanwhile, a nightly application of my heart chakra oil was giving me nothing but a greasy, rose-scented chest.

Ultimately, I forgot about opening my heart as the whirlwind of life sucked me on toward the next endeavor.

Then the other night I sat up in bed, suddenly aware of exactly what opening my heart really means. It means working hard on your passion, and investing time, money, and energy in getting it out there. It means doing whatever you have to do to follow your gut instincts and act on them. And it means having the courage to truly share yourself with others.

"Open your heart" is another way to say "Touch someone else, as truly and deeply as you can." And as you do, prepare to be touched in return. For this is the continuum your creative gifts will always provide. You long to express yourself, so you do. And what you receive in return is not only creative fulfillment, but the beauty of knowing you have had an impact on another soul.

So why does such a pure act of goodness require courage? Because ultimately we fear that very power that we crave, just as much as we shy away from the tenderness of our love for our fellow man. Such intimacy brings up all our most "uncool" feelings; it makes us realize the tremendous responsibility that comes with living a life of integrity. Suddenly it is no longer okay to live with mediocrity. Instead, you've tasted true depth and meaning, so you have no choice but to open your heart, again and again and again, as you make sharing your gifts a regular part of your life.

This is a perfect plan, one you can even enjoy once you relax into it. I invite you to dig a little deeper and open the piece of your heart that remains hidden. All you will receive in return is love, growth, and a sense that all is right with the world.

One Step On The Way

Recently, a reader sent me this question:

"What about when you actually reach a huge dream, and then realize that it was just one step on the way? When I finally got my dream, after a lot of work, I found myself weary on Step One of a huge staircase. I'd like to hear about the disappointment/joy/weariness/pride mixture, and everything that goes with reaching a dream and continuing after that."

This eloquent little note speaks about something so true and wonderful, specifically, the moment that your dream urges you to grow. I have said it again and again: our dreams are in our lives to teach us how to become bigger and more generous adults. They are here not just to fulfill us, but to give us a gift that we can freely share with others.

So yes, looking your dream dead in the face can be intimidating, especially once you've begun to achieve it. (It's the old "careful what you wish for" syndrome.) And yet, I attribute that overwhelm to some outmoded thinking. ("Can I keep up? What if THEY discover what a phony I am? What if I fall flat on my face?")

When doubt and overwhelm creep in, you have to stop and breathe. Then you have to get in touch with these basic truths about the whole dream-seeking process:

1. Remember that you're not alone. You are guided on this little mission of yours, and that guidance is never, ever going to leave you, no matter what! So even when the going gets impossible, help is actually at hand. You just have to remember to go within, ask for some direction, and do as told.

You will expand to meet the job. When my friend Marla, a mother of a two-year-old and ten-month-old found out she was unexpectedly pregnant with twin boys, she burst into tears. But then, in an inspiring moment of truth, Marla decided she had been given this challenge as a gift, and she was going to rise to the occasion and be an excellent mother. Marla ( who also runs a sales department of more than 200 employees in a high-pressure job in New York City) has never looked back and is, indeed, a dedicated Super-Mom.

In other words, no matter how intense the pressure becomes, you can handle it, or it wouldn't have been given to you in the first place. Learning to make that leap is, indeed, the lesson.

Accept that life is a roller coaster. There is a persistent belief out there that if you do pursue your dream, it will be one long, rose-tinted joyride. NOT! Dreams do not come with money-back guarantees for happiness and contentment. Not at all! They are fraught with all sort of stressors and inconsistencies. And that doesn't mean they are wrong or bad. It simply means you are living a little more on the edge than usual.

2. Don't collapse into your drama. Don't get all wrapped up in how tough and scary things are. Instead, consider that overwhelm is actually a sign of being fully alive. So when you're out there living on the edge, simply expect to be overwhelmed from time to time. And know that this is a true sign of being fully engaged with life. Overwhelm can be a tremendous catalyst to your creativity, as it was for Marla. The trick, then, is to turn that overwhelm around so it no longer plagues you, but feeds you.

3. Go within, pronto! To get past overwhelm, first calm down and go within through meditation, yoga or journaling for at least half an hour each day. (Yes, you have time for this, I guarantee you do.) I'm learning that a daily yoga or meditation practice is the one truly effective technique for enhancing your ability to receive clear guidance. Make this the priority when panic creeps in.

Dream & Act Big!

I think I was reading a children's book when I first spotted the phrase "Tiny Brains". The phrase referred to dinosaurs, whose gargantuan bodies dwarfed their rather small mental faculties. (A Tyranosauraus Rex evidently had a brain the size of a pea, or a golf ball, or a marble...or something very small.) If they were the "Tiny Brains", then I suspect we are the "Big Brains".

Think about it.

We spend a good part of every day worrying, analyzing, thinking, stewing, fretting, imagining, fantasizing, pining, and otherwise mentally gestating over our lives and our dreams. So basically, we spend our entire day thinking ourselves to death.

That was the image that came up on our "Dig Into Your Dreams" teleclass the other night: of a tiny little person teetering around beneath a huge, cumbersome brain.

This is both the joy and the curse of being human. And it's the irony, as well.

We labor through life, convinced our circumstances dictate every last shred of our lives. We don't have the money we want because of our boss, or our education, or our local economy; our neighbor keeps us up at night so we're always sleep-deprived, etceteras, etceteras. We don't have love because of our weight, or our car, or our kids, or because we don't have time to go out and meet anyone. And we don't have our dream because...well, just because.

And yet, to quote my new favorite writer Joe Vitale, author of Spiritual Marketing, "Everything in life seems to be plastic. You can mold it to fit what you want and where you want to be." So yes...life is plastic. Life is this wonderful pliable stuff which you can shape and form any old way you want. And yet, under the weight of our very large brains we forget that. We think we are given a life that is already formed like quick-dry concrete and by somebody else!

This is patently not true.

It never was and it never will be because we do have the power to change and mold our lives. We have the power to walk out of our job at 5PM, or tell our children or our spouse to leave us alone while we work on our dream for an hour every day. We have the power to create savings we can live on while we transition from one career to the next. We have the power to affect millions of people if we want to Ð and share our gifts as abundantly as we possibly can.

What we don't have the power to do is control and dictate outcomes. We can say we'll walk out of work at 5PM and we can't necessarily control the reactions of those around us. BUT we can control how we feel about those reactions. If we connect with the absolute necessity of taking that action, and the positive benefits it will bring as we begin to live our divine purpose (which we have to leave early to do then the dirty looks our co-workers or boss gives us begins to seem less significant. After a while, they just seem sort of sad.

And if we find ourselves out of a job because we've reshuffled our priorities, our new groundedness can take us far in creating more harmonious work. (Please note, I am someone who lost my job because I made my dream my priority which just fast-tracked me on to living my dream!)

We find that once our big brains are focussed not on worry, longing and fear, but on our purpose in life, then things get more grounded. They get easier, too. We become clearer. We feel our divine connection more intensely. Every day seems to count more.

Joint me in some of the work I've described below if you want to see how "plastic" and moldable your circumstances can really become. I'm thrilled that the Big G is helping me spread my work further and further to all who may benefit.

And by the way things look for this newsletter in two more weeks, instead of three. The Joy Letter is now on a bi-weekly schedule to accommodate an exciting new wave of inspiration.

Bon courage, and don't be afraid to dream and act big!

Love Being A Fool

From time to time in this ramshackle life we lead, we get called upon to be a fool. I do. You do. We all do. Not only because this is just the cost of being human, but also because we have to. Being a fool is one way we actually grow and expand.

My daughter, Teal, reminded me of this lesson just the other day. We found ourselves with nothing to do one morning recently, and Teal suggested we go cross-country skiing on the trails in the woods behind our town. Ordinarily that would be a sure-fire, excellent suggestion cross-country skiing is on my short list of great things to do in life. In fact, I hadn't even been cross-country skiing all winter, as it had been warm and brown in the Adirondacks with far less snowfall than usual; naturally, I'd assumed I couldn't. So sage mother that I am, I looked out the window at the exposed, soggy grass, and said "I don't think so, dear."

Fortunately, my daughter is one of those people who never, ever gives up. Gently, she kept pushing and pushing, until finally I got tired of arguing. "Okay!" I cried, "Just quit bugging me, will you? We'll go skiing. Maybe then you'll believe me when I say there's no snow!" And with all the grace of an aggravated rattlesnake, I stomped out the door, skis in hand.

We set off up our driveway, clotted with melting snow and muddy leaves, and immediately I began playing all of my longest, loudest self-pity tapes. Poor me, having to ski in the mud! Poor me, having an adolescent whom refuses to believe her mother! Poor me, who could be home chipping away at her massive to-do list! I was so ensconced in how wrong this all was, that I didn't even notice when we got to the trail through the woods.

"Look, Mom," said Teal. And there before us was a glistening stretch of unbroken white, with easily enough snow to ski on. "Do you want to go first, or shall I" she asked sweetly.

"Oh, you go right ahead, dear," I mumbled, feeling Stage One Foolishness kick in. And of course, that foolishness kept right on building to Stage Two Foolishness. Instead of enjoying the pleasant surprise of the moment, I began looking for problems the snow might clump on my skis, or be too heavy to move through! I could fall down and get soaked! And what will the fields be like up ahead? Probably totally bare!

Uncertainly, I began to ski, still sure that Teal's idea wasn't going to work. Meanwhile, Teal disappeared up ahead, and I found myself moving faster and faster through the woods to catch up with her. My skis were gliding, the snow was glistening, blue sky and sun were all around me, the air was soft and welcoming, and all at once, I struck me that this wasnÕt actually a bad ski at all. In fact, it was a good ski, even a great ski!

I caught up with Teal at the farm fields that lead to the rest of the trails. Again, ahead of us was a swath of white, broken only here and there by small patches of brown. "So," said Teal, "what do you think?"

"I think I'm going to listen to you a little more often," I said.

It's this simple: if you want to do something inherently ridiculous, by all means do it! Turn off the chatter of your busy brain, and all the assumptions of how much you know, and be willing to just go out there and try. What you'll probably discover is a delightful, surprising reality you hadn't even planned or counted on.

And that, my friends, is learning to love being a fool.

Managing Fear

In October 2001, as the US began military strikes against Afghanistan, I was standing in Central Park in Manhattan, watching toy sailboats glide around a small pond on a letter-perfect fall day. A stranger approached us with the news and I burst into tears. It was as if the other shoe dropped in that minute. Finality kicked in. We, too, were now part of the cycle of destruction. More lives were being lost, property destroyed. Our safe, wondrous, small world would never be the same again.

I have to admit my first impulse was to flee the city immediately.

My mind went straight to reprisals, grim possibilities that kept playing themselves out non-stop in my imagination. I just wanted to go home. But then my husband, a far calmer person, reminded me that I was caught up in the heat of my reaction. "Look at everyone who lives here," he reminded me. And I did. Around us, mothers were calmly pushing strollers; couples wandered by hand in hand. My friends Laurie and Roger were going home to do laundry and make burritos in their Greenwich Village apartment. Life was, indeed, going on, and it certainly wasn't going to stop because of a small thing like fear.

In the coming hours, we talked to friends who live in Manhattan, fellow riders on the bus, strangers on park benches, and all agreed. Even though life had suddenly gotten very shaky, you have to keep on rolling, whether you're in the middle of New York City or the middle of nowhere. Even here in the relative security of the Adirondacks, we are fewer than fifty miles from a nuclear power plant as well as a US base for the Strategic Air Command. As my brother who lives in Philadelphia put it, "Where are you going to go?"

So the question isn't really about going anywhere. It's about managing our fear.

I've come to see that fear, like serenity, fulfillment, and even joy, is a necessary condition in life. Without it, we would not know the quickness of our love, or the preciousness of our time here. Nor would we know the magnitude of our power. In that moment just before we stride out on stage to address a crowd, or pitch our business plan to a bank, or hand our precious creation over to agents, we feel the importance of what we've created. Its very power can make us shrink back, questioning whether we're up to the task. Or it can propel us forward, confident that we are right where we should be, moving ahead with life.

We have a choice in the coming weeks, months, and possibly even years. We can use this moment to get on with the work God's given us to do in this life. Or we can hold back in fear, daunted by terrorists both out in the world and deep in our head. We can no longer pretend that thing we long to do in life doesn't matter, any more than we can pretend that we are not afraid.

So be afraid, but also be honest -- this is the gift inherent in these tough times. For now more than ever, we're called upon to tell the truth about our lives, to be utterly and totally authentic. Fix what needs to be fixed, and reach for the that which calls to you. You're still here -- and now, more than ever, the world needs a piece of your joy.