The Beautiful Answer

Leaving Some Behind

One of the things that happens when you approach a goal — losing weight, say, or even publishing a book — is that you find you’re doing stuff other people aren’t. It doesn’t mean you’re better or really all that much different in terms of the stuff that makes us all human. We all want love, for example. We all need water, food and shelter. We all push away what we don’t like, and pull toward us whatever has caught our fancy. 

What this stuff does do, however, is illustrate how you’re different, highlighting precisely the things you don’t want to look at, at least if you’re like me. Not a lot of people will write book during this lifetime, the same way most will not know what it’s like to lose a lot of weight and literally become a new person. While the person doing those things is trying to catch up to the new “them” they have become, they also realize, sometimes as they look back where they’ve come from, that they’ve inadvertently opened up a pretty big distance between them and other people. 

It’s not intentional, and it’s not why I do what I do. But sometimes, even when you’re not trying to, what you do opens this distance. Other people are doing what they do. You’re doing what you do. It’s just what happens over time. 

Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot more OK with the fact that this happens. I used to fight it really hard, wanting to bring everyone along on my journey. But then I got really tired, and realized this really wasn’t possible. 

It has to be OK to leave some behind as you take big leaps in your life. Though it’s sad, and you miss them a little (or a lot, as the case may be), it’s necessary to keep you on your path toward your highest development. For me, this is beginning to move pretty fast, and is only likely to get faster after Saturn goes direct (more on that soon). Getting more and more and more into allowing as this begins to manifest. Whatever is left behind worked for a time and then needed to move into the past. I’m OK with that. 

Me 2.0 

It’s starting to sink in that I’ll soon be finished with this blog, 365 days of almost daily posting, reframing my experience to find the beauty in my daily life if necessary, and finding ways got work with the challenging and the rest. Before I’ve even finished the 365th post, though, I’m noticing that a profound change has already come over me. 

I started this blog because I was noticing a lot of negative people around me. It started to really build up for me — all the bitching and griping, spending previous moments complaining about the same things over and over instead of ever doing anything about them. I got the feeling that these people somehow expected others to build their lives for them, to take the responsibility that was rightfully theirs to make them happy. 

Beauty is always the antidote to complaining, I have found. Try spending a day in nature when you’re in a bad mood if you don’t believe me. 

The Me 2.0 that’s emerging is less afraid, less burdened by other people and their issues. Not that I don’t care about people. I just find their intentions to stay stuck a lot less interesting, and a lot less of a drag on my own energy fields. I feel freer, lighter and happier overall. I enjoy doing my work, and so many new avenues to work have opened up for me of late that I enjoy a great deal of gratitude as well. I’ve met some great friends during the past year and, if we’re continuing the software metaphor, believe there are fewer and fewer sucky people in the world. 

In an era of few morals and even fewer reasons to believe, that’s a pretty big deal.

A Breath, A Year & Ten Thousand Experiences

Isn’t it funny how time shifts? When one moment marks the difference between this feeling and that behavior, this year and the next? It’s always in these twilight times that I feel most comfortable. After all, I choose to make my living navigating between the worlds. The line between day and night, living and dying — that’s my wheelhouse. 

I resolved this past year to keep this blog, and I’e been proud to not have missed a day except for the odd blackout (I’ve since caught up). I’ve finished a book, won a pitchfest in New York, pitched some pretty darn powerful folks in Hollywood, and made a few great friends in the mix. Oh yeah, and I wrote two plays (a long one and a short one) deepened my relationship with my husband and made all kinds of intentions for 2012. I’m even considering opening a brand new kind of healing center here in L.A. as a long-term goal. 

It really has been a year of ten thousands experiences. 

The list of intentions is just as long, if not longer, for 2012. I’ll keep this blog until I’ve done a year’s worth of posts, sometime in June most likely, and I’ve already started on another book. But it’s not all about work stuff. I’ve begun to do Pilates classes with the Reformer, and I freakin’ love that shit, even though it hurts like a mofo. I care less about time than ever before in my life, and embrace the unknown with an un-casual kind of resilience, and I want to travel, meet new, interesting and likeminded people this year, and give myself some time and space to see where I want to go next. 

To reframe any resistance about the unknown, I sat for a few minutes, watching the thoughts shoot through my mind. After a few breaths, it calmed down to display as much curiosity as I was showing it. We sat watching each other, my mind and me, until we nodded at each other, chins moved up and down as if to say, “Hey You. Don’t think I don’t see you. I’m here and you’re here and why don’t we try to cook up something pretty damn cool this year?  For too long we were on different pages, but together we can probably move words and mountains and even minds belonging to others. Right?”