~Simply Rebecca~

Feeling like summer is just running away from me now, like I can’t even catch it by the tail. After three days of rain the sun is breaking through, so that’s where I’m headed. How about you?

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It’s not everyday that I get to cool off in a gorgeous river, so when I get the chance I tend to leap at it. The day was hot and muggy and the only relief to be found at my aunt and uncle’s farm in Maine was down the steep hill behind their house that terminated at a sandy meander of the Saco River affectionately dubbed “their” beach. This “beach” was a mix of orange and black sands spotted over with river grass and low brush. It would be different each year, widening or disappearing altogether depending on the Spring melt flows. If there was enough room for a couple of sand chairs we all considered it a good year.

Strong in the middle, the current of the river is a soft and gentle push along the edges, with perfect knee high pools stretching into waist and chin deep drifts. The bottom littered with old logging trunks means you have to watch where you step, but other than that, it’s the safest I’ve ever felt in any body of water.

I was due to drive back to CT that same day, but had decided to get a later start to allow for this quick trip down to heaven. The trees were in their muted September greens and the sky was without a single cloud. I knew that in a matter of hours I would find myself back inside my life, and all the aspects about it I wished were different. Nothing helps you get a feel for the changes you’d like to make than kneeling down in a constantly flowing river watching the water curl around your shoulders and then keep right on moving. Stagnation knows no river.

I was alone about a third of the way to the middle, my knees resting on soft sand, my arms stretched out on either side of me, with my fingers just barely breaking the surface when a tiny white-bodied dragonfly perched on my middle finger tip. I hardly felt it land, and was starring up at the trees, so I almost didn’t see him. If it wasn’t for that glaring white body, I might have missed him there altogether.

Instinctively I froze. He was such a tiny little thing, maybe an inch or two long with see-through wings and fragile looking legs. My pruney finger tips bobbing in the current looked especially washed out next to his vibrant punch of color. I found myself smiling widely, feeling blessed that this graceful creature found me fit enough to land on.

We sat there for many minutes, long enough for me to start thinking about what might have drawn this dragonfly to land on me. From where I sat I could see the distance over to each edge of the river and it wasn’t any short sprint. I had no doubt that he could fly the length of it, and would, but perhaps he just needed a rest in that moment and my fingers looked like a handy place to take it. At least that’s what I really wanted to believe.

But I couldn’t help blinking and sometimes losing my balance as the current pushed against me, and so I would move and he would take off. But he kept coming back. Over and over he would fly a short distance away and then return, even as my hands were closer to my body, and even later as I started to slowly knee-walk my way closer to shore.

Altogether we were in contact for nearly fifteen minutes that day. And I remember each second like it were happening now. Even the feel of his tiny legs clasping onto my finger print ridges is still there in my mind. I had the thought at some point that he might bite me. Do dragonflies bite? But it drifted away as effortlessly as the breeze down the river valley.

And I know that it might seem silly, but it really felt like that little soul was trusting me that day. I was his gentle place to land, something we all need from time to time, while the waters swirl around us. And if indeed he was tired, and in danger of not making it to the other shore, then he needed to trust me probably more than he wanted to trust me. I was so in love with the whole experience that I needed to trust him, too. I needed to trust that the vastness I was feeling in that moment was real and that the beauty I could feel swelling inside me was leading me somewhere, that I didn’t have to leave it behind when I climbed back up that hill, into my car, and made the five hour journey home.

I was home a few weeks before I gave notice and quit the job I was at. I just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that there was something more beautiful out there for me and that the ability to change, to ride out the current of life, was something I needed to trust was within me. I can tell you now, years later, that I didn’t find my softer place to land right away or easily, but I did eventually find it.

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Sometimes it can seem like no matter how important, beneficial, even pleasurable a task might be I cannot get myself to do it. I am sure I’m not alone. Getting started on anything can truly feel insurmountable some days, and the more stuck we feel the more stuck we stay and so on and so on.

This was just happening to me. I have been meaning to come here to write and share, but the longer I went not having time, ahem, making time, to do so, the more HUGE the effort it seemed to require.

So what brought me to the keyboard?

I told myself it would be easy. I didn’t lie to myself, that wouldn’t have worked. But I focused on the fact that I didn’t HAVE to write a novel, that I didn’t HAVE to write the perfect post, that I didn’t HAVE to create poetry, solve the world’s problems, or figure out all the issues that reside inside my own heart and mind. All I had to do was sit, let some thoughts come and put them down on paper. And here I am.

I’m not saying this is necessarily the way to get started on all the tasks that call to us each day, but it can definitely work on some. Maybe you don’t have to finish cleaning the WHOLE house today, perhaps the bedroom is good enough. Maybe you don’t have to be the PERFECT parent today, perhaps playing Candy Land for an hour is enough. Maybe going for a 3 mile run isn’t required, when half an hour of yoga could do the trick even better.

We tend to create some high expectations for ourselves and are really as nasty as can be when we fall short. Perfection makes bitches out of all of us, quite frankly. And what I’m saying here that you have complete power to give yourself the permission to do whatever it is you HAVE to do imperfectly. Let go of the need to be the Master of the Universe, and all the tension that brings, and instead let yourself be the Master of the Moment and feel how good doing one thing, one single thing, even only halfway can feel. My guess is that the rush of accomplishment could lead to even more effort, but the good kind, the kind where we feel lifted up by what we’ve done, not trodden down by obligations and expectations.

And even if you don’t feel that high, even if you don’t want to do anything else after you do your one thing, halfway. That’s totally fine. Rest. Relax. Let yourself savor the moment, the moment you decided you are more than your To Do list. And you are. So much more. Cheers.

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Have you ever had a dream that just felt like it would cost too much if it came true? As if the dream itself might not be worth all the work it would take to have it, or it would use up all your resources and leave nothing left for all your other dreams?

I did.

My childhood dream was to have a farm and horses. I loved to ride and felt a connection to the huge beasts for as long as I can remember. It was as if I was destined to keep some one day, I could practically taste the barn dust.

Over time though, as the realities of life sunk into me, I turned my back on this dream. I “thought” I had just grown out it, or past it, or had chosen to make the “smart” decision to hope and work for things more attainable. Sure seems like a good idea. Why pine for things you can’t have? May as well stick to reasonable dreams. Reasonable dreams? Is that an oxymoron?

I convinced myself that I like to travel too much and would rather use my money to do that, and besides who would look after them while I was gone? It’s not like I could afford to pay someone, because I was also convinced that doing work I enjoyed, work that felt good at the end of the day, and made a difference in the world, would never bring in much money. I was ok with that, so long as I had some freedom to travel. Good work, and travel, those were the dreams I decided to believe in, horses would just have to be forgotten.

But dreams kind of refuse to die. That’s their way.

In a marvelous turn of synchronicity I came to this amazing woman’s website and was savoring the videos there when my “long forgotten” dream slammed into me like a Mack truck. I found myself crying, slowly at first and then sobbing. I felt in that moment like I had committed a brutal act of betrayal years ago when I stuffed that dream away, and started telling the parade of lies meant to keep it down.

Of course I still wanted horses. Yes, I wanted a meaningful career and to see the world too, but no part of me had ever actually stopped wanting to have horses in my day to day life. None. Zip. Nada. My heart flew as soon as I admitted this. I mean it took off and it hasn’t touched back down since.

The reality is that I still have NO IDEA if, or how, I might manifest this dream. But that’s ok. It’s better than ok, actually, because most of the time the ways we think up are pale in comparison with what the Universe can deliver. So for now I just savor the possibility. I have some work to do before I’d be ready, but it just hangs out waiting for its right time to come true.

Interestingly, not two weeks after I had this light bulb moment I found a listing in a local paper looking for help exercising a couple of horses. Free riding for a little work. It was as if the Universe winked at me, and this time I winked back.

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I think sometimes in our pursuit of the right life we focus so strongly on our dreams, our desires, our hopes and goals that we can forget to acknowledge with enough attention and compassion the things that are trying just as mightily to hold us back: our fears.

We make vision boards and write in dream journals. We make lists of goals, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years out. We envision our ideal day and take steps to create that reality in the present. So much energy is expended in beautiful ways on bringing our dreams to life, but one might wonder why we have to try so hard in the first place? Don’t get me wrong I get a rush when I pull out the magazines and the X-acto knife too, I’m just proposing that our efforts are in opposition to something, to whatever is pulling us in the other direction.

I didn’t realize this until I saw a pattern in the cards I was pulling each morning from my very special deck encouraging me to face my fears. I casually thought; I am facing them, that’s why I’m going down this new path, that’s why I’m writing more, that’s why I’m bravely stepping into my truth each day. But then this morning I saw that I had never taken the time to actually LOOK at what my fears are. They swirl in my mind like some huge back cloud, some din of voices, or like some tangle of chord, no end or beginning in sight. How could I know I was addressing each of them, when I wasn’t even aware of what they were?

Besides the fact that I was in essence dishonoring a big part of who I am, I was missing a huge opportunity as well. Just as our dreams point us to who we truly are, so do our fears. Perhaps even more so. What we fear of losing shows us what we value. What we fear of failing at shows us what we are striving for. What we fear won’t come to pass is what we can trust we want above so many other things.

Our fears have so much to show us, but only if we take the time to let each one stand alone, be seen and honored for what it reveals. What marvelous guide posts they make on this journey; flashing lights and fog horns, they can give us more direction than maybe we ever wanted to admit.

I love the term “living fearlessly”, but I think now that means something different for me. It no longer means I have no fears, it means I have taken them and turned them into something much more useful. The crowded din of voices sings to me of what I truly desire, the tangled chord stretches out now a dazzling lifeline keeping me safe even as I venture into the unknown. What are your fears telling you today?

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People change. Maybe not in really huge ways, but we do. Sometimes life forces change upon us, and sometimes it just opens a door. A door that when walked through allows us to get closer to who we actually are at heart.

This is what happened to me.

First you have to understand that I fully believe there is a difference between “a life” and your “right life”. We all have something (or many somethings) we are meant to bring to the table and the more we honor that, and do our real work, the more joy and fulfillment we’ll both feel and share. Living in tune with your true self creates a cycle of positivity that can honest-to-goodness change the world.

Second, you also should know that I didn’t hate my life, or my work (which as we all know makes up the majority of our lives). What happened was that I started to feel more and more as though I were trying to like it, trying to find fulfillment in it, trying to see it as my purpose, instead of feeling like it truly was. When I started my photography business my whole world opened up, and I brought an enormous amount of enthusiasm to every aspect of my work. Over time, though, I saw how much I was struggling, really in the pits, about how that work was falling short of many of my deeper values. The further I got from living in line with those values the more I knew I needed to change something, I just wasn’t sure what the next step would be.

Then I saw the door.

The door opened to me over time in the form of blogs I’d find by clicking one link then another until I couldn’t have told you where I started; courses I would take that would encourage me to dream and live in alignment with my truest self; ideas I’d be exposed to from artists, writers, and healers; books I’d read and find myself excitedly nodding along with; and terms I’d never even heard before but would come to see parts of myself in. It wasn’t an overnight thing; possibly because I fought the changes I felt happening, and definitely because I was afraid of whether or not I was good enough. It’s one thing to know the values you’d like to live by, it’s another thing entirely to believe yourself capable of doing it.

Eventually the fear of falling short was overpowered by the deep need to be who I really am, and I had no choice but to step through. So last week I did. I am officially in training to become a Martha Beck certified life coach. Most of me hates the term “life coach”, it sounds like something only really perky people could pull off, but the intention behind that title is simply beautiful to me.

Already I can tell that this experience is going to open me further than I’ve ever been before, and in doing so bring me into tune with my true self with more honesty than I’ve ever known… with every cell in my being I can tell you; I can’t wait. This is a gift. All of it, and one I cannot wait to share.

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I wish I could say I set out with no expectations, but I can’t. I live in a swirling stew of hopes and ideas and so when I took off for Oregon last week I had hours in flight to marinate in all the ways I thought my four day adventure might go. I was thinking of creativity exercises, maybe some photo walks, perhaps a little dancing, and even a return where I would be grateful for having learned some new art techniques, too.

And this is why it’s important to TRY to live without expectations; because they will always fall short of the magic of reality. There was simply no way expectations, no matter how grand, could have prepared me for what was to transpire on that gorgeous crescent of a beach, under sunshine no one was prepared for, and among women who came as strangers and left as a Tribe.

From the very first embraces outside our temporary home I was scooped right out of my pre-trip imaginings and held instead on the gentle open palm of possibility. Surrounded by souls that knew better than our minds did, we began the process of pulling down stresses and titles and tasks to sit shoulder to shoulder and speak our truths, somehow fully aware that they would be received and that we would find comfort in the spaces we were creating.

There were tears, and laughter, snorts and sobs, gentle knowing glances and closed eyed listening. As the weekend went on it felt more and more like while we had come there perhaps for our own reasons, at the core we were all drawn there for the same one: to be seen.

To be really, truly SEEN.

And let it never be doubted the power of another kindred heart truly seeing you; it can change your whole life. Now imagine eight hearts of like-mind bearing witness to your truth and you can see why some of us are still reeling.

It’s no secret to those who know me that I don’t have many close friendships, or many at all really. I’ve been lucky to find the few I have and cherish those as scared blessings helping me through this journey, but they haven’t always come easily. Perhaps that’s why I never expected, AT ALL, to come home feeling like the greatest gift I took from what was supposed to be a four day retreat about creativity, was in fact the most elusive treasure; true, honest, deep, inspiring connection, eight times over.

That’s the kind of thing you can’t predict. The kind of thing I’ve learned to not even hope for. But it was there for me, ready and waiting in the hearts of eight of the most amazing women I know. And the most spectacular miracle is that we get to do it all again next year (with our two absent members too!). Thank you to the women of my Tribe… you know what for.

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