Blast O' Joy

Do What You Want!

Do you really believe you can have what you want? Or do you tend to operate with your feet in two camps -- one that says, 'I'm going out there and pursue my dream' and another that says, 'I'll also hedge my bets by doing something I don't love that much, just in case the dream thing doesn't work out.' This is what my coach, Persephone Zill, would call "indirectness", and I am here to say, it doesn't work.

I've spent a lot of time in life hedging my bets under the mistaken illusion that this is mature, business-like behavior. The real irony is that seldom have these supposedly businesslike ideas ever produced income or other results that I thought for sure they would.

The urge to hedge your bets often runs contrary to everything your gut instincts scream at you to do. Your instinct says 'Quit the job! Go get licensed! Be a teacher kids never forget!" Meanwhile, you hedge your bets by continuing to do work that doesn't feed your soul, and taking a course here and there that never really moves you any closer to the dream. You justify your lack of action by insisting you can't afford to quit your job, or deciding you don't want to change your lifestyle and live on a teacher's salary.

And yet ... what do you want? Do you want a life that's half-way, but never all the way, to the dream? Do you want the excuses, or do you want the results? For a lot of us, the excuses, and the half-baked life are all we think we deserve.

We don't focus on getting what we want because somewhere along the way, we decided we don't deserve that much happiness and fulfillment. I trace my own inclination to think that way back to a pivotal lunch with my mother back in my senior year in high school, when she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. As I was about to answer, 'Be a singer or a writer,' she pointed a finger at me and announced triumphantly, 'Communications! You're going to be GREAT in communications!" Whereupon I promptly burst into tears, and went on to spend 18 years in advertising, 'communicating' and hating myself all the while.

Seeds get planted that shouldn't be allowed to grow; ideas get listened to that should have been ignored. We cast about looking for anyone else but ourselves to give us direction -- and yet, WE are the only ones who can give us the permission to really, truly, honestly create what we want in life.

We can do what we want, but only if we are brave enough to seize the initiative, even if it means not listening to Mom and going it alone. The urge to not provide ourselves with what we need in life is a sort of Creative Anorexia, deprivation that is all about a distorted picture of who we are and what we deserve. The real irony is that seldom do the contingency plans and hedged bets work out. During my entire career in advertising I never made half the salary that my other, more eager co-workers made. The simple fact was that I didn't want to be there, nor should I have been.

Perhaps the road to what you want won't be easy or lined with gold, but it will be one hundred percent honest. And that provides riches you can't even begin to count. So get out there, make a plan you can stick to, and begin to do what you want. I'm here to say that you do, indeed, deserve it.

Joy Heard 'Round The World

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. 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 telephone 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.

I'll close with my own personal list of things that bring me joy today:

1. Seeing water (not ice) on Lake Champlain

2. The sound of little running feet as my son follows clues in a scavenger hunt his sister made for him

3. The smell of baking chicken

4. Skiing in soft, spring snow

5. Cleaning the house with my family (and watching our kids mop floors, clean bathrooms, and empty trash cans)

6. Knowing that my future really is up to me -- which is both daunting and joyful)

7. Seeing my book's sales rank on Amazon get better and better (the 1770'th best-selling book yesterday!)

8. Being a writer

9. The photo I saw of a 99-year-old Parisian woman decked out for the Paris fashion shows in black Issaye Miyake plus a lavender ostrich feather hat

10. My friend Laurie's seed incubator, which is roughly the size of a coffee table, and is hatching seeds for about 5000 flowers right now

11. The tenacity of wild strawberry leaves, the only green thing in our yard as the last foot of snow finally melts

12. My friends Bev, Karin, Susan, A, and Lorelei, fellow creative adventurers

13. Skiing in my husband's graceful tracks

14. The words that come as God tells me what to write, as usual, in this Joy Letter

15. The sanctity of doing what I am meant to do in life

Take Your Dream To Lunch

What did you have for lunch today?

Was it a container of yogurt and half the contents of your 'in' box? Maybe you took in a meeting and skipped lunch altogether, until you lifted your head at 3:30 and ran downstairs for a candy bar and an apple (your nod to nutrition.) Or was lunch yet another escape from a job you hate with some fellow disgruntled employees? If so, was vitriol served alongside the hamburgers?

On the other hand, maybe you used your lunch hour to chip away at your dreams. I've recently taken the somewhat dangerous position that one of the best times of day to do the work of your dreams is during your lunch hour. While the concept may seem radical -- What? Do my painting/practicing/blue sky brainstorming right here... at my DESK? You godda be CRAZY! -- there is a certain logic to it.

Look at it this way. If you are like some people who read this newsletter, you work all day and then come home too tired at night to really put that much energy into your dream. Or perhaps you get up at the crack of dawn, all set to write or compose or paint, and suddenly a child appears in the doorway, wanting an especially early story read to them. On the other hand, lunch hour is technically your time, and it's purpose is to stop, take a break, and refresh your spirit.What better way than to spend your lunch hour than on the work of your soul?

Now you may be involved in something like tap dancing or chain-saw sculpting that could be a tad disruptive at work. No problem. Find a nearby place to do your work. Major cities have rehearsal and even art studios to rent by the hour. Suburbs have church and temple halls you can usually borrow if they're unused. The key here is to be resourceful and use your imagination. Let your mind wander to the place or the means to do what you've got to do. A friend of mine used to use an unused furniture store room at his company to practice tai chi every hour at lunch. Or use the lunch hour to do the quiet work of your dream -- the planning, the research, the marketing, etc..

On the other hand, it may just be plain hard to create in your fluorescent office environment with phones ringing and interruptions galore. You may be afraid to close your door while you work, or you may not even have a door. That's when it pays to walk over to the public library, a friend's office conference room, a park or nearby office lobby with a public space in it -- or anywhere where you can reasonably sit and do your work for a while.

I discovered this option when I worked in Times Square and began to hang around in the Starbucks on Eighth Avenue and 43d Street. A remarkable number of people from my office drifted in there at lunch hour, and there we'd sit, steadfastly ignoring each other, each of us bent over pieces of writing, or business plans, or sketches we were working on. The remarkable thing was that even though this was 'work', its very essence was as refreshing as taking a long, cool walk. Inevitably, I'd come back to work with renewed vigor, ready to face the day.

So what about lunch?

Bring it. That's the only way this particular plan works, because you have to watch the clock when you do this midday work-fest. An hour goes by fast when you're deep in your dream, so you don't want any of it chewed up by waiting in line for a tunafish sandwich. Better to get yourself some sort of lunch box, stock it, and stow it in the company fridge each day. (Enough companies have microwaves that you might even score a hot lunch this way.) Then eat it as your desk before or after you tackle your dream.

At any rate, do remember: it's your lunch hour. You earned it, and you get to use it. Don't ever let anyone persuade you otherwise. Furthermore, you'll be more productive the rest of the day by properly taking care of yourself in the first place. Finally, if the concept of using any lunch hours at all for your dream seems impossible, then you are probably working too hard. That's when it's time to reevaluate your job -- not your dream.

You may even find that once you begin to have your dream for lunch on a regular basis, other assorted dreamers may seek you out and offer support and encouragement. You might even want to start an unofficial group, like a Lunchtime Joy Group, meeting every few weeks to check in on eachother's progress and offer encouragement.

Take your dream to lunch and see what happens. If nothing else, balance may miraculously return to your life.

Easy Silence

Nothing is quieter than winter in my little town. Almost no cars pass by the house in a day. When you go outside, you can hear things you might miss in the summertime, certain soft birdcalls and the dripping of melting snow from a tree. There are no concerts or plays and few, if any, meetings in town. Most people leave to go find warmer, less quiet places; the only sign of life on the lake are two hard core fishermen in a turquoise boat who troll for salmon relentlessly and apparently have anti-freeze in their veins.

I used to be nervous around such quiet. It made me feel I was missing something somewhere else, though I didn't know what that was or where it could be. I didn't appreciate the incredible spiritual depth that can be found in quiet, nor did I understand what quiet can do for my work. Furthermore, I was afraid of such stillness, as if I'd finally have to be quiet and alone with myself for a change ... and what I'd find out would really make the bottom drop out.

Since those days, I've come to understand not only how restorative quiet is, but how necessary it is. In order to connect with our creative projects, we really need that stillness. Our tender, fragile creative voices are hard enough to hear. Once you add the static of these crazy, complicated, overly busy lives we've cooked up, it becomes downright impossible. There is a reason writers have always headed to the hills to write their opus magnus -- they already know the magic of quiet.

I've found there is an orderliness to quiet. Each bird that flies by, each ray of sunlight that shines in the window and each mote of dust that drifts through it seems to exist in the perfect space and time. Deep quiet heals with that very simplicity, for it demands nothing from us. We don't have to be 'on'; we don't have to know anything in particular, or even solve any problems. We just have to be willing to be, pure and simple, without a whole lot of stuff to keep us busy. And should we choose to work on our creative endeavors, the quiet comforts us like a thick, soft blanket, urging us to dig deeper and relax into its spritual embrace.

Take a moment to think about how you could create more quiet in your life right now, even if it's as simple as shutting the door, taking out your journal, and emptying your head of its complex tangle of thoughts. Is there a retreat you've been wanting to make, to a commercial retreat space or a friend's cabin in the woods? Is there a walk you've been needing to take, to an old favorite place or through the nearest park? Or is it as simple as taking a quiet bath, and just allowing yourself to hang out in the tub, uninterrupted, and let your thoughts flow, minus reading material, music playing, mantras to recite or any other stimulus to encounter.

Chances are if you allow yourself to really grow quiet for a while, you will make discoveries. There really is magic in silence, and surprises that are waiting to be found out ... if you've got the courage to calm down, quiet down, and go there. I invite you to drop everything for a while and grow quiet for at least an hour. See if you can work it into your schedule to do this several times a week, or as often as you're moved to. And keep a journal handy for writing down inspirations and illuminations as you find them.

In silence lie all the secrets of the world. All you have to do is get quiet enough to hear them.

TRY THIS

If you're afraid to plunge into quiet, here are some sentances to complete in your journal. Use them to learn more about the truth about you and silence.

I don't like silence because ...

If I were to become completely still and silent for a while, I would ...

Believe me -- I'd spend more time in quiet if only ...

If I were to have an hour of uninterrupted quiet, I might ...

I'm scared of silence because it might make me ...

Push On This Year

Recently, my husband and I set aside a day to have a professional retreat. Since we're both self-employed (Larry is a photographer, I am an author and speaker), we decided to use eachother as sounding boards as we assessed our results for the past and made goals for the rest of the year. The results were both funny, and revealing.

Since we didn't want to spend a lot of money, we decided to camp out in various spots in a nearby college town in Vermont for the day. We began by getting a booth in a sunny deli with fifty cent refills on the coffee. I opened up my briefcase and pulled out spreadsheets, an overview of the year's results in eight different categories, and typewritten goals for last year, this year, this quarter, last quarter, the next five years, and life. Meanwhile, Larry pulled out his checkbook register and began flipping through it.

"Who wants to go first?" I asked, a little too eagerly.

Larry eyed me over the checkbook register. "You'd better," he said. "You've put in a lot more time on this than I have. I'll probably learn something from you."

The fact was I'd spent the last three days tabulating results, digging up old projections, and hunting through files of receipts. In my usual totally mental way, I was determined to make my business a success by thinking it to death. Meanwhile, my husband, who could easily go by the name of Mr. Laid Back, brought along the check book register and a loose list in his head of what he'd made happen.

Not surprisingly,he turned out to be the one who'd met his goals for the previous year. Meanwhile, I was still in the excruciating mode of 'almost there' and 'trying to make it happen.'

My husband is one of the world's great manifesters, which he does by doing practically nothing. After fifteen years of observing this man in action, I can only attribute his results to a profound belief in being able to have exactly what he wants.

For example, some years back he was casting around for the next career move. After two decades as an editorial and corporate photographer, he was drawn to the fine art photography world and had begun to shoot such pictures as well. However, he knew himself well enough to know that he needed a deadline, and probably a partner. "What I really want to do is shoot fine art work on assignment," he announced one day.

Being the supportive wife that I am, I declared that this was impossible and told him to go back to work. Less than a year later, he started shooting fine art photography on assignment for a conceptual artist whose work now hangs in museums and galleries around the world.

He did not seek out this assignment; it found him. Larry did not make list after list of 'what he was going to create'. He didn't set to chanting, or mumble a mantra over and over. Instead, he checked in with his gut, figured out what he wanted, and let it show up. Larry has always done this. For example, once we were out in our small metal boat when he picked up a rotten flotation cushion and declared that we finally needed a new one. An hour later, a brand new cushion floated by.

The key to manifesting anything in life begins with deep knowing -- what we want, and that we are meant to have it.

In the second half of our retreat day, when Larry was meant to make his goals, he kept falling asleep. Maybe it was our lunch (big) or the fire we were sitting in front of as we camped out in the lobby of an old inn. He thought it was because he just wasn't "any good at this goal stuff".

And rightly so. When you're in the quickness of life, stepping out of it to think, plan, and project is uncomfortable and pointless. Larry was quick to note that he hadn't gotten a gallery to pick up his own work in the past year, nor had he sold any prints. "But then ... maybe I don't really even want that," he wondered aloud.

Probably not. Meanwhile, he was manifesting by simply being -- an uncomplicated state that assumes life will roll on as it's meant to, and he will act in kind.

May we all push on this year by simply being true to ourselves, and not thinking our processes to death. Instead, may we truly own what we want.

The End of the Year Is Quite Over

I love the end of the year. I love taking stock of what has been, and envisioning what could be. I love figuring out the right gifts to give, then seeing the face of the person opening them. I love making cards and cookies and bad table decorations. The whole thing is just an awesome love-fest to me -- even the slightly tortured family dinners where you're forced to make conversation with your cousin's wife, and then you realize that you both have Wicca in common!

Most of all, I love hitting the Reset button, for that's what the year's end really represents -- a passage through love, thanks, and a bit of darkness (those family dinners again) into fresh new possibilities. Which is why every New Year's Eve we have a ritual of saying out loud to whomever we're with what we'd like to create for the coming year. The good news is even if you did this at the beginning of the year and have long forgotten your purpose of the task, you can start again...now!

While it seems very simple, this is actually quite a powerful exercise. There's something about saying such things out loud that is uncomfortable . Does this mean I HAVE to do it? What if someone important hears me say this? I'm going to feel so dumb! And what if ... gasp ... I actually accomplish it!

Well, I say the more vulnerable the better. Bring on the doubt and hesitation, for then you're truly dancing with the big boys. That's when your vulnerability and your power are both cranked up to max. Your embarrassment is a sign that you are on the right track, and you not only need to speak your intention, you need to write it down in detail and create an action plan to go with it.

All you have to remember is that aliens did not plant this dream or vision in your head -- you did. You have this idea or interest because you are meant to pursue it. Perhaps it will manifest as you imagine it, or perhaps it won't. At any rate, it will continue to annoy you until you take it on and explore it. And it could very well be the catalyst to the more joyful life you deserve.

The year's end is your chance to clear out the clutter, redesign your life, and move forward in a refreshed, positive direction. Forget about resolutions. They are grim. guilt-laden tasks traditionally used to bash one's self with come mid-January. Instead, I invite you to take some time and take stock. Begin to dig into what you'd really like to have in your life in '08 now that the holidays are long over.

Finally, I want to thank you for your readership this year, your support and sharing of my work, and the hundreds of emails you've sent telling me your stories. You are the reason I do what I do, so keep on dreaming and venturing forth. Let us see what we can create together!

Be Moved By The Healing Work

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 bliss. 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 [email protected]

Meditation

Recently I heard from a reader that she'd like more practical, hands-on ideas about moving your dream forward in The Joy Letter. I'm all for that ... so let's talk about meditating, which is one of the key tools for connecting with the work of your dreams. Or better yet, let's talk about finding that secret place where you feel God's presence in your life. For me, that's what meditation is all about, and there is no one way to achieve it.

My problem with standard seated meditation has always been that I wasn't sure I was doing it right. I'd heard you should inhale to the count of four and exhale to the count of six or eight. Which I did for a while, and it did seem to focus my mind. Yet, once I'd calmed down and gotten into some sort of alpha state, my mind was hardly empty. I was going through yesterday's grocery list by the time my meditation was officially over. I would open my eyes feeling vaguely guilty, and not really sure the meditation had "worked". Another option I tried was staring at a mandala, a design, or a candle flame, which was a complete failure. I didn't like the idea of staring at anything; it gave me a headache.

Through trial and error, I eventually came up with my own sort of mongrel meditation which I've found to be highly effective -- one it turns out that pray-ers have used for thousands of years. I simply close my eyes, take a few breaths to relax, and say hello to God. There is almost always a warm, secure, taken-care-of feeling that takes over, a sense that God is there, waiting, wanting to help. I thank God for various blessings in my life, and I ask for information and ideas, and help on challenges. Then I do my best to stay open to whatever divine thoughts or images may roll along. Above all, I let my intruding thoughts come and go, with the understanding that they will never leave altogether -- that I can simply include them, and move on.

It took some years to realize that a process this simple was indeed 'doing it right'. I was sure everyone else's technique was better than mine. And yet, when I finally gave up and trusted my method, I truly felt that nod from God. After all, God does want to speak to us ... He or She is always patiently waiting for us. The question is, can we muster up the courage to tune in?

Let me also add that guided meditations on tape can be a terrific solution, especially if you're new to meditation. You can just sit back, turn on the tape, relax and let someone else take care of you for a while. Tapes can be wonderfully specific, too, guiding you to work on specific issues. For many years, I happily climbed into Shakti Gawain's pink bubble on her "Creative Visualizations" tape whenever I wanted to help prod my goals along. I put together my own tape for going into your creative space, and asking for help on your dream.

The important thing, of course, is not how you meditate but that you do meditate. This is your pipeline to your dream, the work that will bring you further along your path. And the more often you do it, the more clear and fertile that channel will become. Just pick a regular time of day to meditate and stick to it -- first thing in the morning, right before you go to sleep, just after you get home from work, even behind closed doors on your lunch hour at the office.

Once you discover the lovely, honey-light of God's essence warming your soul, it will become too hard to resist, and you will find yourself waiting for the moment each day when you can connect.

Sit back, relax, close your eyes, and enjoy!

It's About Surrendering and Listening

Why is it that we must often go to a place of complete bleakness before we can really get what we want in life?

Lately I've been puzzling over the inevitable, incredible power of 'hitting bottom' -- a place it seems we all must travel to sooner or later in the pursuit of our dreams. For some of us, that bottom feels like a tepid place; everything's 'fine' but nothing's really happening. We're dying a slow, psychic death, but there isn't a lot of twisting and writhing going on. Others, like the man I interviewed below, must lose everything they have before traveling out into the calm seas of true spiritual connectedness. They must suffer extreme loss and be stripped clean of everyday reality as they know it. Either way, there inevitably comes a day when we all must reckon with who we are, what we've created, and whether or not we will surrender to the greater spirit the guides us.

I recently read Stephen King's amazing account of being hit by a car, and his subsequent recovery. In less than two seconds, for no good reason at all, he was stripped of everything comfortable and ordinary about his life. His body was so badly injured that it took virtually every ounce of courage and stamina he had just to sit in a wheelchair and begin writing again, months after his trauma. The essay left us with no neat conclusions about why this had happened, but it made it clear that he still had his writing, and though his output has slowed, he is grateful for it.

I'm not sure why one must suffer at all in this life, but I know this: crises lead us, ever so humbly, back to the rich stuff of who we are and what is dear to us. They can be the portal to God, spirit, intuition, or whatever you see that great body of wisdom to be. And when the dust has settled, the bottom can leave you marveling at the smallest things, happy just to be alive as you finally get the joke.

It isn't what you do, necessarily, that creates the success or failure of your journey -- it's how well you listen, and surrender, along the way.

When All Seems Lost...Just Ask!

Recently, I had a fantastic crisis. It was fantastic because not only did disaster NOT strike, but it reminded me of a truth as old as the hills: when all seems lost, just ask.

When I was in the throws of doing lots of radio interviews to promote the new Ballantine edition of my book, the worst thing that can possibly happen to an author (and a publicist) happened. I forgot an interview. It was just one of those mornings when I had a houseful of guests. In fact, I was busy serving blueberry pancakes when it struck me that something was wrong ... something was very wrong. Just like Miss Clavel in Madeline, I ran fast and faster, trying to figure out the disaster. When I reached my upstairs office, I fumbled through my file and saw that I'd been scheduled for an interview on a Colorado radio station at 9:05 AM, and it was not 10:05 AM! I could feel the bottom of my stomach drop out.

How was I going to face Joanne, my beloved, trusted publicist who had worked so hard to schedule the interview? And how was I going to face the folks at Ballantine who were counting on my to show up and do my part? I just stood there, doing my best to curse quietly so the children, and houseguests, wouldn't hear me.

For a good twenty minutes, I hung around my office avoiding calling Joanne. Blueberry pancakes and my houseguests were totally forgotten. Instead, my mind was full of excuses, which The Big G kept patiently answering. The conversation went like this:

ME: It was only 7AM on the West Coast. I can't call NOW.

THE BIG G: Joanne would be at work already, as she has to be on East Coast time often to do her job.

ME: I've already blown it, right? So why bother calling anyone?

THE BIG G: You never know, Suzanne.

ME: I just can't tell her... I can't. She'll kill me.

THE BIG G: Joanne will not kill you. She'll help you.

ME: But remember the other time -- when the station gave my publicist the wrong time? Remember how mad the DJ was when I got him on the phone? This guy will yell at me!

THE BIG G: Everyone's different, dear.

Finally, I called. Joanne was not mad and certainly did not try to leap through the phone and kill me. In fact, she was the essence of grace under pressure and said, quite sanely, "The host is a really nice guy. Call him up. He'll probably put you on."

So I girded my loins again, dialed, and explained to the man why I was an hour and twenty minutes late. "Can you hold on?" he asked, and two minutes later I was doing the interview, marveling at the fact that all I had to do was ask.

So often we assume we 'know' how it's all going to turn out. We're completely certain of future results, and base our information on previous circumstances that have little to do with the here and now. I'm here to say that we don't necessarily know a thing -- all we can do is ask and try, ask and try, no matter how scary it seems. Otherwise, the only certainty is that we've once again caved into our fear and stayed stuck, instead of moving forward.

Or, as the sign my friend Ellen Nalle used to have above her desk said, "Just Ask".

After my interview, I called Joanne back and told her how it all turned out. "This is so great!" I gushed, "I can write about it in the Joy Letter." "Fine," Joanne replied. "But don't miss anymore interviews, okay? Even for your newsletter."