A year without fear... Week 10 begins So what's next....

When I think back, I can't believe it has already been ten weeks.
I must admit not even a quarter of a way into this journey, I am a bit tired. I must admit not even a quarter of a way into the journey, I am more than a bit curious. More than a bit exhilarated. More than a bit still afraid.
There have been weeks fear has been a very worthy adversary, and there have been some weeks in the mix that I have stood in ways I have never seen before.

I honestly didn't know what to hope for, think upon, desire.
I couldn't foresee what would happen.
I just knew that this was a journey that needed to happen. 

So some highlights both personal and professional...

I started a brand! LIKE REALLY...
During yoga teacher training I inquired about a word, and heard back "MANGALISO!"  A word with Zulu origins, it means you are an amazement.
So I let myself dream. I let myself quench the thoughts of "who do you think you are?" And I stepped upon the stairs of an idea and have watched it actually become something!  Facing the fears of failure, humiliation, being embarrassed, the what ifs of if it doesn't work were turned into what ifs this does work? What if I can create something that brings together many streams and modalities of health to empower people into their own amazement, not because they are being told BUT because they really believe it for themselves!  Gosh!!! I had to be willing to at least try!

What other things happened?

I cleaned out the past. Literally a project I had been dreading for over a year was completed in 3 days!  Within two weeks most of the lingering details were taken care of and I'm finishing crossing the last "T" and dotting the last "I."
What was the largest victory of those moments?
I faced not just the project but the emotions that came up. I allowed myself to admit sorrow, frustration, and anger.  I turned to safe places and said, "I can't process this alone, I need help." I let myself  feel and experience an ending. I let myself be vulnerable.

I've journeyed these weeks and months moving step by step ahead and weathering the steps that threw me back a mile or two or three.  I picked myself up, reminded myself of what I am doing and placed one foot back upon the ground and then the other and began to walk again.  OR not. Some days I let myself just sit. I've learned much in silence and quiet. I've met lots of new people. But so very interestingly unexpected, I've been meeting myself.  I've actually been showing up more in my own life. I'm trying to not edit myself or my voice, I'm speaking my truth and living it and that has been amazing!

 I've faced the fears of "what if no one shows up," lived through the times when that happened, and faced the fears of "what if no one shows up," only to then have to face the fears of SHIT, someone showed up, now I've got to too.

I've talked about things that I would rather let lie in some dark, forgotten basement closet, and lived in the reality that sometimes facing dark, forgotten basement closets are just the thing one needs to do. I've gone to more first coffees that have turned into second and third coffees and are becoming friends. I've allowed myself to explore curiosities and found out who I am and who I am not. Having realized that I'm changing, I have faced the things I thought I was, and said good bye.

I'm letting myself have a journey of discovery. An exploration into the unknown. I have laid down what I thought my life was going to be, and am letting it become.  I let go of places I had built up that weren't healthy any more and in so doing lost more than I ever thought imaginable. Except the old adage is true in losing a life so much more is gained.  I white knuckled it in the beginning. Totally white knuckled it.  I had only known one way of living for over twenty years.  It was scary. I didn't know what to expect. It took time. I had people in my life saying that that was ok. It is ok for things to take time. It is ok to walk slowly. It is ok to let becoming be becoming.

There still is much to face...

Launching a new website
Finishing a book
Expanding my yoga teaching and therapy experiences
Getting more training
Meeting more people
Putting myself out there time and time again
Facing lonely times
Facing confusing questions
Sitting with myself
Admitting I am pretty amazing
Showing up to life daily
Loving people who are hard to love
Allowing others to  have their own journey (not being afraid of differences)
Waiting.. Just that Waiting
Dreaming.. Just that never stop dreaming
Admitting when I need help
Being willing to scrap something that isn't working and go back to the proverbial drawing board

SO MUCH TO FACE!!! So much living to be done!

How about you? What are your steps today? We always think big.. website, book, scale the mountain but what is the small first step for you today?  Telling someone how you honestly feel about something? Saying hi to someone you have wanted to meet. Taking a walk by yourself. Shutting off all noise aka phone, computer, etc and sitting in a moment of silence.    What can you do today that brings you further into the life you want to be living?  Maybe facing the reality that you aren't quite there yet? Maybe admitting that you need time, that grief or sorrow or life has knocked you down and you aren't ready to get up yet? You know what is courageous and amazing about that? Letting yourself be ok in that moment! That takes great courage.  We don't give each other enough permission to be with the dark and ugly and unwanted stuff.  Give yourself permission today.  You will step forward.  I know you will. If not today nor tomorrow, a day will come.  For now give yourself permission to be amazing in that you face this day with all that it is or isn't and you breathe.

Facing fear and the giants that come with them and all the details takes time... ten weeks in and the journey has only begun.

My Journey as of Late.....

People have asked about my journey as of late. I have not known how to categorize nor have I had language to articulate the way I like to as to bring about anything coherent or beneficial.  I still don't feel like I have that language per se... but it is getting closer.  I have sat more. I have been stilled more. I have returned to Spirit more. I have rested more. I have quieted more. I have trusted more.  I have found depth of salvation and new strength amidst weakness.

So more in the form of statements here goes I ......

Twenty three years a non-denominational Charismatic believer and ministered in various capacities in various places among various groups of various sizes.

Saved through a visitation that stamped upon my life the reality of God, the reality of Light, Spirit and beauty.

Led to a place and a group of people that would quickly have me touching the non-denomination, denomination, I would be a part of for the next ten plus years.

Within months would met a man who reverberated with light and energy and spirit and while paths would not truly cross again for almost 8 years, knew that that which was upon his life was upon mine and hungered and sought out what it meant to be revelatory, intuitive, sensory, empathic.... (Words such as prophetic would be used for decades but I like other words better now... I believe language is important, so utterly full and it is in that heart beat that I decide to describe actuality instead of just stamp one label upon something.)

All of that journey would be from 1991 to July 11, 2010 of the non-denominational charismatic genre.
July 11, 2010 found an experience that would light my life towards life.  A blending of liturgy and Spirit. A beautiful community, an incredible idea and action.  Songs and words and experience would touch liturgy and creed and Eucharist and I would have hunger fed.

A remembrance would only begin... a very quiet calling back to what I had discovered upon new and fresh days of entering into relationship with the Holy back in 1991... touching contemplatives and mystics of old... St John of the Cross, Madam Guyon, St Theresa of Avila, Brother Lawrence.  But still even in 2010 I wouldn't personally transverse the divide that still existed within me... Much still needed to happen.. Many labels still needed to fall off....

As with the little wooden wimmick, Punchinello, from Max Lucado's book, You are Special, many a star and many a dot still needed to fall to the ground.  I was still too self absorbed in the journey.  I was still to aware of  the "me" in the equation. I was still to aware of thoughts/opinions of others.

I would actually join a church for the first time in 2010 and enter into an expression that was under renovation. I would begin to be changed.  I would begin to touch that which is holy and precious and beautiful.

I was still being  formed from the exterior.  It was still another's journey.  It was still another's thoughts. It was still the experience of another. Whether it be 1800th century mystic or 21st century preacher.  Who was I?

Then almost two years ago, a beautiful woman would ask me that question... "Who are you outside of ministry?"  I had only begun to touch the fringes of what is slightly beginning to emerge but fringes are still fringes, hunger still hunger, and the promise of those who hunger and thirst after a rightness will be made full was beckoning me on in my journey.

I remember several things about that time....

I remember the phrase, "I can't do this anymore," beginning as an annoying utterance in the back of my head.  It would move forward from a whisper to a shout, from head to heart to practice and my life would be changed.  Not wanting to live in the negative I began to search out what then could I do.. if I didn't want to live the social media, marketing, strategy this and strategy that, meeting after meeting, experience seeking after experience seeking exhaustion; then what did I want?  What could I do?

Whether you could classify it as the best of times and the worst of times like Dickens or a more modern voice like Brene Brown and cross off emotional breakdown for spiritual awakening, something was happening.  Energy, spirit, and truth were pushing and pulling me forward and away.  But moving away from over two decades of known into the unknown was beyond unnerving and began to take its affects.

But a prayer labyrinth, an incredibly wise husband, some amazing friends, an incredible spiritual director and supervisor, an episcopal priest and a very talented therapist I don't know where I would be... Yes, friends it takes a village.  I am grateful for each one and how each one helped me to learn how to step forward leaving a heavy backpack behind (proverbial not actual) at the entrance of said labyrinth in Charlotte.

I think the beauty of what is emerging in these days and what has begun to show me that the agita (my grandmother's Yiddish word) of this season has been beyond worth every drop of sweat and tear is the interior work.

No longer is what is happening in me because I love Brother Lawrence, or Madam Guyon, or a modern day preacher.  No longer is what is happening in me solely because of an exterior movement.  I
have grappled with the reality that after over two decades I could no longer find within myself the expression of a charismatic, I laid bare my being before He who it is promised will lead us into all truth, and lived in the unknown and touched the unknowable yet searchable.

I am learning to live within the questions.  I am learning to touch silence and quiet more.  I am learning about breathe and body and movement and space and time and light and beauty and lingering and am coming to life... I have touched rest in a restless society that exists both inside and out of church and faith communities, and my heart, body, mind, soul and spirit are saying their thank yous by how they are responding...

So my journey.... it continues... without titles and without labels at this point.. Sure, I could use contemplative etc etc etc but right now I won't.. right now it is too new while the practices are ancient.. I am but below a novice and there is no expertise that resides here.

A few last thoughts...

Return .. return... return towards mystery and self and spirit .. Return or search out perhaps ways that beckon upon the wind or in the world of dreams.  Those whispers that won't leave your heart alone, that stillness that pushes you towards a place that is full of unknown. Return.

Rest... rest... rest... Rest is not passivity nor is it inactivity.  It is beauty and energy and life and liberty. REST.

Quietness... be still and know, cease striving and know... know that you will know if you trust within those quiet places and explore them out and linger ...

That is it ... linger over life.. over your day, over your moment.. over you .. over your time.. over others that are in your life and path whether for a moment, a day, a lifetime... learn to linger, enjoy and enjoyment will erupt... touch now and live the moment and in so doing a life force will meet you there and bit by bit an exchange will be made and life granted...

I was afraid and timid and scared and unsure and I took tiny step into tiny step into dark and unknown places allowing my travel guides to be new and not known to me as well.  I wanted to control the outcome but was suffocating enough and desperate enough that I finally was tentatively willing enough to let go with one tiny pinky finger and that was enough.. that was enough... I have been caught up in the unexpected and the new and the old and desire and the passion of God for humanity and for love and relationship.  Into discovery and freedom and joy and life was I catapulted.

One tiny nod of willingness and hunger spread throughout my person and I do, I feel like I am touching the robes of Christ for the very first time and being made well in the most beautiful and simple, profound and gentle, small and practical ways I have ever known.  Grateful for my new and old teachers, new and old friends, new and old practices... grateful... Gratitude is  a power and force that erupts and works wonders... practice gratitude daily.. moment by moment.. We need to breath.. Touch breathe.. Be aware of you, your life, your breathe, the community of life, breathe, humanity, creation that surrounds you.. Be aware of joy and depth and life and live

Learn to linger and be lingered over and pause and pause again and pause some more and linger some more and be still and enjoy

Where we go from here.... softness... time... being equipped

I was raised not in a culture that appreciated slow passing of time, lingering over each other and time and space was not the mode of activity or preference.

When I came into Christian faith I experienced not a culture that embraced waiting and the delicate and sweet passing of time and allowed for that ebb and flow.

It has taken me much time to come to this path and to embrace the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. There is a time for everything and everything under the sun has its time.  I have participated and only known cultures that push upon the natural order and boundaries of things as to have their desires accomplished in a some what more harried fashion.

If something takes 10 years then every moment of those 10 years serve in whatever is being incubated.

I haven't liked that...

We, as the Western church expression of Christian culture have no liked nor embraced that reality to its fullest.  In not reaching for depth of understanding into this reality and  circumventing process, in not reaching for understanding or appreciating this reality I wonder about how many abortions or miscarriages of the works of our Lord upon the earth and the people we have participated within.  I have participated in.

I hear about this and that person falling away from faith and yet when I hear their stories or read their accounts, it is not God they are rejecting.. it is culture and religion.  I hunger to learn the immense difference in expression and have Christ made manifest within me in a reality that really represents Him.

Four days away from having said and given a "yes," to the Lord for 100 days... expanding it to a year... and to a lifetime...

The lessons being learned and the interior transformation are beyond my wildest imagination.


It has taken time and the passage of time, and letting each season come and go and come and depart... upon the waves I am being brought out into the depths and I will never be the same...

It started with trusting Holy Spirit when upon being asked to do that which is His calling, lead us into all truth, He comes and does it well.. does it very well...

May love encompass you and saturate your very being..
May you know you are loved
And may you learn to rest in that love...