It starts again on August 30th…

Back in the summer of 2009 I was introduced to Mondo Beyondo and I signed up for the class in October.  It changed me in the way that the best things that come into your life change you.  I went from driven to dreaming and out of all the shifts in my life over the last two years I am most grateful for that one.

If you’ve been questioning if you’re on the right path….this course is for you.
If you wonder if you’ve lost who you are….the version that lives way down in the very bottom of your soul….this course is for you.
If you’ve been wondering “is this it” ….take this course.

I’ve taken the course twice and participated in their summer dreaming event and every time I’ve gone in with a different thought, a mission, an intention and I’ve never been disappointed.  It is what you make of it.  But what they give you in this course is an opportunity.

Those dreams that you once had, they matter.  Dream them..even the big ones.

This week I’m learning that I have incredibly ambitious and driven friends.  They inspire the hell out of me.  And between AndreAnna and SarahLena I’ve been dreaming of being force fed frogs and other reptiles….it’s not pleasant.  I took this as a sign and decided to check out the book about Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy.  And in the first chapter where he talks about lists and writing things down and LISTS I was like – I’ve got this nailed – I can write lists for DAYS – hell, weeks!

And then the end of the first chapter happened where he says (I’m paraphrasing) you have to know what the hell you want.  From today.

You have to know what you want from today (repetition because DUDE you have to KNOW!).

Its been weighing on me all day long…I have a whole list of things I want to have happen in my life…but my day to day life is not pushing for those things – I’m just kind of trusting that they will happen somehow…my day to day life is about getting through.  Having a good enough day.  Not crying from exhaustion, or loneliness or disappointment.  Today I’m having a hard time – I’m having one of those days where you really wish that you had someone walking in the door that would just hold you and make sure you had cold wine in your hand in a few minutes.  Today I cried from exhaustion and loneliness and probably most of the ugly cry was from disappointment. Disappointment is a real bummer (you’re welcome for that obvious statement of the day).

Tonight I’m going to spend some time with white wine figuring out what I want from tomorrow and the next day.  And then when I wake up tomorrow I’m going to have coffee with a side of frog.

It’s 7:55pm on Saturday evening.  We’re settled.  Without the help of my Mom, my Gram, my MIL and Val I’m not sure where we’d be….but we wouldn’t be where we are.  The boxes are gone.  The bags of stuff taken care of.  Aside from needing some linen storage we are settled.

As my Mom as leaving tonight I was overwhelmed with gratitude.  With the giving.  I’m so lucky.  I am just so lucky.

Being here is a Mondo Beyondo come true.  And the next session is approaching.  I encourage you to dream.  For me, the process of becoming a dreamer was elevated by Mondo Beyondo.  I’m not sure if it was the validation, the energy, the belief, the timing or what – but I did all of that.  It validated my dreams, put good energy behind them, filled me up with belief and brought a sense of timing to my dreams that made me think it is all on its way.  Because, it is.

I’m going to go to bed – because I am – beyond words from exhausted – but know this: I’ll be dreaming.

There is chaos.  Boxes packed, partially packed and loads of stuff not packed at all.  Movers will be here in 8 days and while we’re only moving 3.2 miles down the road its still a lot of effort.  I want to leave here as fast as I can and I also don’t want to leave at all.  The memories here are both happy and sad.  I am trying to figure out ways to pack the happy ones and leave the sad ones here forever.  It doesn’t work that way though.

Tomorrow is a gigantic day for a professional project I’ve been working on for months.  It has the possibility to shift so much for so many people in a positive direction.  It could also be just okay.  I feel so lucky lately – blessed maybe – I don’t know – good stuff is around me.  Is it greedy to ask for more?  Is it foolish to not ask?  This project would give a lot of people that I care about financial stability – they deserve it – I feel the pressure – so I ask you to send me good ju-ju tomorrow around 11:30.  When the good stuff happens I can’t wait to tell you what comes along with it.  Because part of it would mean starting that library I’m dreaming to start in an inner city school.  And – wouldn’t that be awesome?  It would be really really awesome.

I started to write a paragraph about how I wasn’t asking for ME about seven times.  And it just didn’t feel authentic.  Because the truth is, I am asking for me.  I’m asking for a lot of people…but one of them is me.  Because I do have these big crazy awesome dreams and I know they are in some stage of happening – I’d really love this particular one to happen tomorrow.  So I’m tempering this feeling of being overwhelmed with being excited.  With thinking about how a little girl will find a book in the corner of a library and scoot up on a gigantic hypoallergenic pillow and fall in to a land that is far from outside the window.  About how this good stuff happening to me could help her learn to be a dreamer.  A dreamer who believes as much as I do.

I just set a five minute time limit on this post…because when nervous I am longwinded.

Here’s what you need to know.  I auditioned to be a Co-Host over at Spring! And I was selected to be a semi-finalist (I honestly can’t even believe it).  And so I completed the next round of requests and today my video was posted over there – some of the other semi-finalists have posted too and the others are coming and because these ladies are brilliant I totally recommend checking theres out too.

You know I’m a big dreamer and I don’t know whats in store for me but I’ve been moving towards things that make me feel good and this whole thing makes me really excited and inspired and its good stuff – so I figure – why not try.  This morning I was washing my face and I was thinking about all the reasons I wouldn’t make a great co-host and how the other women are more equipped because – well – I’m just me and they’re LIFE COACHES with actual people that they inspire and coach – like – ALL THE TIME. And there was a moment where I looked up and thought – huh, I wonder if I could help businesses the way I do now…and help people the way I’d like to even more…and take pictures and explore life and have that be my job – like my life mission…maybe this is everything I love rolled in to this one gigantic red bow package…maybe this is exactly what is meant to fill my clearing…or maybe its the next thing that comes from this thing.

So.  I’m going to ask for your support.  Would you go over to Spring and just say Hi to me over there and help me feel a little bit more comfortable and if you’re so inclined to Tweet this or Facebook it or Share it I would be grateful.

This week I will

1. Read a book
2. Make a gigantic pitcher of sun tea
3. Make a batch of cookies with Lexi so that she can stick her finger in the mix and say “mmmmm Mama good”
4. Remove a to-do from my list that I really don’t want to do.  Either by doing it or letting it go.
5. Strike up a conversation with a stranger someplace.
6. Light a candle and be quiet with all the electronics that buzz turned in the OFF position.
7. Book three new photo sessions.
8. Fulfill a wish – so if you have one – leave it on this post…I’ll see what I can do.

Lexi a year ago – she’s still very thoughtful but now she wears pig-tails.

There’s a technical term that is used in my family called Va-Cooked.  It’s an art really.  It’s when you take something that once was alive and thriving and you cook it until it is so past the lifecycle of dead that it’s actual OVER dead and you say it with a Manhattan accent and all of a sudden you go Va-Cooked.  Green Beans are the most Va-Cooked item I have ever seen…well, until this week.

This week va-cooked me.  It started on Friday of last week and it’s gone all the way through the week.  I see the 3 things rule and I say to it “fuck you” because I’ve had more then 3 things and that’s JUST NOT FAIR.  I mean.  COME ON.  Three things…it’s a legitimate theory that bad things happen in threes.  Well my three things met up with two more three things and the nine things got together and they played “Let’s make the biggest shit storm ever” and they were VERY successful.

At some point in the week I had an entire post written about how for someone that doesn’t kick puppies to have this level of shit going on I have to think that in a previous life I was an oppressor of the highest nature.  I’ve never kicked a puppy, I smile at babies, I give my change away, when I go in the city I bring a whole box of cereal bars to give people that are clearly having a hard time, I donate my time and money to charities…and yet this week <insert blank hands up image here>.  I can only assume that it’s an anomaly and because I believe in such things I’ve gotten some peace in that belief.  But if this continues I’m just going to call in some higher powers and take care of things.  (If you  know of higher powers please provide me with contact details.)

Yesterday as I took a moment to myself and got a massage I was breathing in the essential oils and I was just dumbfounded by the whole thing (which I’m not blogging about because it’s not my business to share and if it were my business to share I wouldn’t because its personal in a way that shouldn’t just be “out-there”).  So yeah.  I’m dumbfounded and it led me back to something that is talked about in Mondo Beyondo…you didn’t think I was going to be all “shit-storm” up in here without bringing this back to dreaming did you?

So in Mondo Beyondo they talk about this experience of “Clearing” – while I love this dreaming business and it’s really made my life explode in great new directions this part is a little “out-there” for me….until this week.  Here’s the essence.  When you build a building you have to have a clearing so that you can build it.  You can’t build a building on top of crap.  I accept that as a truth.  When you are re-building your life you have to have a clearing so that you can build the life you want.  Now that clearing on the life side can be a messy fucking process (fuck totally warranted Gram, can’t wait to hug you in two weeks! kisses!).  I’m sure it’s messy from a demolition process but that’s not my shtick.  But life side.  It’s messy.  The shit comes down around you sometimes and you’re just standing there going WHAT’S HAPPENING?  I didn’t know this place I’m standing was about to blow the hell up?!?!  But then you’re standing there and the dust of your life is just around you and as you’re dealing with the getting through and the cleaning up you see something.  You see the dust is settling.  That the clean up is underway.  And in that space is this really beautiful clearing.

It’s green and living and not at all va-cooked.  It’s just waiting there for what is about to happen next…for what’s supposed to be made there.  And you realize.  It’s your life.  And it’s your clearing  And you see the shit storm, the three things of three, the really awful week in a new way because while you are completely va-cooked and in need of a long soak in the tub you have this space now.  You have it.  It’s a clearing.

The shit week has made the most beautiful of clearings.  And I’m here to enjoy it.

Sometimes not knowing is a good thing.  Being curious this is something that I struggle with. I like to know.  I am the worst at surprises both giving and receiving because I want to know.  I think that the known is easier.  Because, well, at least with knowing you know.  And knowing is half the battle…oh that’s not how that goes.

I asked some questions recently.  And I got answers.  Answers I never wanted to hear.  I shouldn’t have asked.  I should have just been curious.  Wondered.  Because the knowing it stung.  A lot.  It’s changed how I look at a person, a situation, the future.  So sometimes I just shouldn’t know.  And I need to learn to accept that.  I also need to learn when to temper my curiosity. And also when to shut up.  That’s a tough one.

There’s a lot that I’ve been mulling about – what to do next, where to go, how to live, what to dream about.  I’ve added a whole lot of items on to my Life List and I’m believing in the possibility of it all in a way that I never have before.  I mean who wouldn’t want to go bath tub shopping?  The rhythm of life is coming easier to me and I’m putting a lot of effort in to being compassionate and open. And this effort is cultivating some really great beginnings.

For as long as I can remember I’ve slept on the right side of the bed.  It’s just where I slept.  But with the sleeping problems I’d been having I decided that was part of the problem….there was all this space for what was missing.  So I’m sleeping in the center.  And I’ve been sleeping.  The last three nights I’ve slept.  It’s my bed and no one else is requiring space so…I’m using the whole thing.  And I’m dreaming.  It’s good.

You know I’ve been doing Mondo Beyondo again and the first week of the class I took a really close look at the list that came out of my first adventure in big dreaming and I made a little note about what I wanted the end result of these items to be.  Some of them I wanted something, the experience, a moment, a feeling, or I wanted to give a feeling.  And I started realizing that I could do things TODAY that would give me those feelings.

See Life List Item #3 - Be a Barista for a day and right compliments on the coffee collars.

I didn’t really want to be a barista….my ability to burn myself on my own tea pot is pretty refined so the idea that you’re going to give me steaming milk in metal containers is well…ill advised.  But the part of that Mondo Beyondo dream was about making someones day.  About handing out compliments.  So I did it.  I wrote on a handful of coffee collars and I stuck them back in the basket randomly.  So if you were at the Greenwich Starbucks and you got a special message and it lead you to google.  It was from me.  And I hope you’re dreaming really big today.  Because I am.

You’ve made it to March – Congratulations!  And for  the month starts even better for Susan from SpaceSuitcase because you won the Mondo Beyondo pass for the course starting next Monday.

We had a really nice weekend full of playing and laughing – I had a small taste (like a teeny tiny taste) of what life would be like with twins when Autie came over for the night on Saturday and it was SO much fun (and also, no thanks, I’m good without twins for now).  The girls had such a fun time playing and it’s so cool to watch Lexi learn from other kids.  At one point Autie rolled off some of these giant play bricks we have and Lexi thought it was hilarious and then she tried it and the next 15 minutes were spent rolling off bricks.  Any activity that occupy’s two little girls for more then 10 minutes is pretty much unheard of.  Rolling = Good.

Lexi and I made muffins on Saturday and it was her first time being a helper in the kitchen and she loved it.  And I loved it too.  Watching her stirring the muffins was like watching a dream come true.

Speaking of dreams coming true.  Just because you didn’t win the Mondo Beyondo gift certificate doesn’t mean you can’t still participate.  It starts next Monday and I’ll be doing it again so you’ll be surrounded by people believing in dreaming and one person that you actually “know”.  If part of you is thinking that is something I should probably do sometime….decide that sometime is now – you won’t regret it.