• I had no idea that helping to carry the group food to be eaten before and after each of our solo journeys would add so much weight to my pack. And to my initial thoughts. It was challenging (to say the least) hiking two to three hours in the heat straight up granite rock with approximately 40-45lbs on my back when I’m 114 lbs (my knee was hurting which added a level of difficulty I was not anticipating). ⁣

• But we ARE capable to hold and carry ourselves through the toughest terrains of our lives. And we know that it’s made easier by what we tell ourselves. The initial hike up and subsequent days were made deeply enjoyable by this very thing ~ what I told myself and the non-physical “tools” I had to calm my nervous system. I definitely used them. ⁣

• You CAN (also) ask others for help. I did going up the mountain (in addition to the big pack, I also had a small day pack I was holding on the front of me and I asked someone to help me carry it). In solo, however, that “help” came from yours truly in the form of compassion. Allowing myself not to DO anything which was a hard habit to break and to simply allow myself to sit longer and sit again and again (I used every tree nearby to sit next to, against, under), because I didn’t have much energy to walk around. Or — meditating or praying as many times as I needed to throughout the day when I felt I needed an energy boost or to calm myself. As social creatures, we do very much need each other to survive (one of the stories I will tell at GGP is a beautiful one around this topic: how I kept myself safe during those three nights and days in the wild on my own with the “help of others”, but without us ever seeing one another) — but but but no one can take the journey for us of growth, emotional strength, forgiveness and/or of enlightenment, whatever that means to you. ⁣

• What is natural is being fully you. If you’re not feeling all of you, if you’re feeling stunted or stagnant in any part of your life, a check has been forged or a part of you, maybe an emotional arm or leg or two, has been deeply society-influenced or man-made (~>not natural/sustainable). Remembering this may help: nothing real can be threatened. Be real, be you.  ⁣

• I had a few fresh bear scat droppings around my solo site and though I threw the small plastic bag of emergency food my guides gave me (3 dried apricot pieces, 2 emergen-C packets & 1 Luna bar in case we felt too weak or sick) high into a tree, as they had taught us, I spent a few minutes of each day wondering if bears, with their heightened sense of smell, were walking around me and I simply would turn at the right time and not see them off in the distance. Though I felt genuinely safe and was surprised post solo at how calm I’d enter each evening, my favorite time of day, my bear bell was around my neck every minute, even when I slept…⁣

• I loved the crisp (filtered) creek water up there. Yum. I got bored of. only. drinking. the. crisp. (filtered) creek. water. ⁣

• I’ve never had a more beautiful bedroom. Had the best sleep I’ve had in a long time! ⁣

• Seriously, choose your hardships/challenges — you’ll suffer less at the hands of those unchosen challenges that come. ⁣

• Our kids need us to bring the light received from the proverbial mountain (and from more consistent interactions with nature and from wherever we get that “light” or lightness from). They need us, the more present, calm and honest us, more than ever before!  ⁣

• Just as a car — and love— is a tool, nature is one, too. Most of us just haven’t “picked” it/her up in awhile. ⁣

• I didn’t want to come home (and you know how I lo-hove the people in my home). ⁣

• Get/stay wild about your life! And while I’m at it, what are you really hungry for???⁣

[Did I mention that three of the five of us ran into bears, some right next to their sleeping bag? That I saw at least two shooting stars per night and one comet a few seconds after I was talking to Dino and my Mom about communicating with me even more overtly? And that I only started to fantasize about food for a few minutes on the fourth and final day of fasting?]⁣

#visionquester⁣

#brandofwoman⁣

#greatergoodparty⁣

#creativeheroine

We *are* the elements – it’s where instinct, passion, our emotional strength and creativity come from.  And the more we work our way away from or against what we naturally are (or wish to do at any given moment), the more dis-ease uses us as it’s muse. 

But we already belong to someone, to s o m e t h i n g else…⁣

⁣Here in Guate and especially after climbing the Pacaya volcano, I‘m feeling the vision quest — the essences of self remembered that came without the distraction of food, company, even shelter — as alive as ever.⁣

There’s a woman we all have living deep inside (yet who wishes to fly on the surface of the deepest oceans), connected to her moon, to her own sun…the She who is often restless between adventures because she IS both rest-less and adventure and because modern life, too, has told her to be all things to all people, but be little to herSelf (belittle ~> being little doesn’t become us). ⁣

It’s this woman — the one who lets herself go all the way back to herself, the creation and creator, who knows exactly who she is and isn’t — this is who we miss and who we are lonely for (we needn’t be fooled, it is not anyone else we long for).⁣

Today, while sitting at temple number four in Tikal watching the sun rise over the ruins, listening to the monkey songs below, I felt as deafening a gratitude to and longing to know even more of these Mayan ancestors —⁣

⁣The ones who saw to it that women, with their unique, NATURAL gifts, be expressed, not allowed to rise, but recognized as already risen and already holding a place equal in leadership and good counsel (inside the civilization, the path to power was beautifully open to both men and women).⁣

Our guide confirmed today what I had known before as this statement-turned-question: how could a civilization so close to nature, the skies, stars and the natural world, not be close to and revere women who are a stellar symbol and part of it all?⁣

In his most adorable words, he said that men in power looked to their wives often, potentially one day also governors of the people, valuing them deeply “…knowing they were connected in a way they, themselves, weren’t and that they, the women, had great ideas and [as he leaned over pretending to tell someone a secret] also always gave GREAT advice.”⁣

And maybe where it all comes full circle is here — our connection to the natural (which is also the spiritual and the emotional, that which allows the rising) — if we don’t stop it, move further and further away from it, or feel like we must be or act any different or less creative than what genuinely courses through our veins *keeps* those great ideas and GREAT advice flowing like the river beside the temple that provides and sustains life..

We gotta get good at facing the upsets in life. 

There’s at least one small, medium or bigger “thing” we each wish was different— for me, for a while, it was wishing that Dino and my Mom were back — back to enjoy life with us, enjoy his nephew, her grandson, his sister, her daughter *and* back to the new normal of what family had become wasn’t so new normal’ish (bargaining phase of the grief process much?). 

Ask Josh, but I’m normally one for new (the adventure in it), for the unfamiliar, (at least five times now over the last 15 years, I’ve thrown out new countries we should plan to live in and twice, by my push, we’ve made it happen), but this time, more recently, I was holding on, wanting the previous, the old, the familiar and, generally, more comfort……..able.

If I’m comfortable, I’ll be more able.

…if I’m comfortable, I’ll be more able?

I know that’s not true, but it’s striking how our knee-jerk reaction, many times, is to reach for what preceded us versus what is becoming us…

Unfortunately, of course, no matter how hard we want, kick or scream, some things are beyond our grip or control.

When Nolan was four, I picked him up from school in Guadalajara (this was four years before Dino passed and six before Gigi would) and the cutie shown here was upset that he had ruined his pants with these grass stains and a couple rips.

He had tears in his eyes as he talked to me about it. 

I got down on the same knees I’ve seen so much work during the grief journey and told him two things which are still true today (as true for kids as they are for adults): Honey, that’s ok, the grass stains are signs you’ve had FUN and that you’ve enjoyed yourself today, the dirtier you get, the better! (I would repeat similar words dropping him off at school for YEARS, he finally got it and would come home messily fantastic without a care in the world). 

We sat on the side of the road taking in the rest of his initial emotion and you could almost hear him making sense of what I had just said.

There are SO many things in life you can fix, I continued…we can wash your pants or buy you new pants…or, if we haven’t been nice to someone, we can communicate with them and say I’m sorry and do better next time, I paused, but there‘s one big thing that we can’t change (pause) and ( ) that’s ( ) death.

…when 
someone 
dies, 
I told him,
you 
can’t 
bring 
them 
back.  

Those last words.
Ay, those last words.

And these, too: “we gotta get good at facing the upsets in life.” I think about, use and ACT on those specific words a lot these days (these years). I share them with myself, with Nolan, Josh and to anyone who will have a convo with me about it…

I’ve realized over the last five years and, specifically, after losing my beloveds, how important it is for us to prioritize getting good, just a tiny bit better each day, at the upsets.

And surprisingly, I’m not talking so much about grief or the losses that leave us massively stunned (though I have also found there’s a way to mourn or grieve feeling the pain, but not ***suffering*** unnecessarily ~ there IS a difference), but, specifically, getting better at moving through the daily, smaller upsets of the grass stain variety). 

We spend life or seasons of that life, prioritizing and working at getting better at everything else…learning everything we need to learn to make the money, beefing up our communication skills, signing up for sales trainings (if you’re your own boss), focusing on the health or weight stuff, or establishing the habit of getting up earlier to start the day more productive or whatever it is, that we rarely consciously *also* think about or say, “hey, I want to get better at not holding onto the upsets in my life, specifically, the daily, small to medium-sized stuff for as long, so I can “hold” onto the rest of the BIG things that may come OR that I want to CREATE.”

Because if we can more quickly or easily let go of scratching at the mosquito bites or thinking excessively about the paper cuts, there’s no way NOT to have a larger capacity for, say, loss when that comes. Or for cause when that, too, comes a calling.

We can get better at facing upsets in life — the daily, smaller ones (and, actually, the more massive ones, too), by consciously creating the physical, emotional or spiritual challenges we WANT to solve…

But it has to be conscious. 

I’M AWARE THAT I’M SAYING YES TO THIS OR THAT FOR A TYPE OF EMOTIONAL TRAINING that helps me trust I can get through anything ~ and *create* any-thing…

Because when you’re in charge of creating your own “problems” (those you’re trusting yourself to get through, to find a solution to, no matter how scary), that’s what you’re saying yes to ~ an emotional type of adventure that builds a unique muscle…

Not surprisingly, all the other stuff we normally prioritize studying or making time for…the money-making, evolving our communication or whatever it is, becomes more effortless, too. But studying ourselves first or alongside everything and how we react to the tough stuff we’ve said yes to somehow needs to come to light.

Getting better at the annoyances, bumps, and bruises is so important that part of my business now helps women plan and create the physical, emotional or spiritual challenges (those they WANT to solve), so when the small upsets — or much larger ones — arise that are genuinely outside of their control, they don’t suffer at the hands of them as much.

We all have things that come hard every day, but we can get through them by creating some of those hard things ourselves.

Once we also “get” that grass stains don’t just come with the bad times, but with the REALLY good, too, our life, this life, we start li-ving.