I want you to hear me. I want you to meet me. I want your curiosity to wash me open and exposed and delight in what she sees.

We want connection. We want resonance and shared meaning and recognition. We want to give and receive the treats of our meandering souls.

And so we talk about our acquaintance’s failings and our sister’s secrets. We whisper about the underdog’s disgrace or the head cheerleader’s imperfections.

There’s no harm in trading information, opinions, whispers. Except when there is.

Except when the lives and hearts of others are profanely used as the way in to connection. Except when sullied words about about our neighbours are the way to find allegiance with one another.

Why not merely expose our longing to see and be seen? Sure, it’s risky to share our own tethered desires and fears, our hopeful successes and complete fucked-upedness.

It’s far riskier to point to what’s happening in the space between us than it is to point at someone else together in agreement.

But such are the ingredients for real connection. Depth, vulnerability, intimacy, transparency- the exposure of the direct experience, even in the daunting face of being weird or wrong, are the superfood of connection.

You want me to see you. So show me who you really are. I want to know you. I want to know what makes you tick and seek and swoon. I want to hear you whisper the secrets of your own sanity, to the pounding baseline of your heart beat, under the spotlight of the afternoon.

Obviously.

That’s how things are these days, a month’s worth of ideas packed into an afternoon’s schedule only to be half-completed through at frantic speed or trudged through with that nagging feeling that we’re just getting further behind.

Toss some unpredictable life stress in there like a displeased client, project deadlines missed by others, a pissed partner that seems to come out of nowhere, tax season, or your children just being children and those items at the bottom of the list get carried over as the first thoughts to enter the mind when you wake at 3:30am.

Or maybe that’s just me.

My mind does a funny thing with items I need to get done. And by funny, I mean annoying, habitual and exhausting. My mind will remind me of the same darned action repeatedly throughout the day. It’s like a constant loop.

I watch those thoughts, all that stuff my mind tells me I need to do, as passing words with urgency attached.

I can certainly get on top of this by employing time management systems and google calendar, by project planning in Asana and regularly ensuring that all these systems are accurate and up do-date and what’s in my mind is captured in a system.

They can help to organize the ideas, the actions, the appointments. But what remains is that for anyone who’s up to a lot, for anyone who’s carrying a load of responsibility, the systems may bring relief – like those backpacks that distribute the weight to your hips instead of your shoulders. But the fact remains, if you’ve got a case of beer in there, you’re still carrying a case of beer on your back.

(Yes, I did just compare managing a full life with hauling a case of beer.)

When there isn’t a lot of space ‘out there’, when life gets all crammed in, no matter how skillfully it’s managed, it can feel like there’s no space ‘in here’.

At the beginning of the year I was discussing this with a dear friend whose schedule was so packed, it made mine look like I was on holidays. He was so full, that just hearing about it made me want to take a nap.

He said he was just focused on finding inner space, since there was no real outer space. I can locate that inner spaciousness right now, just by leaning back in my chair and breathing into the depth of my belly.

Over the past few months I have been focusing on cultivating inner space such that I can move through all of the beautiful responsibilities I hold with more grace than when I’m striving to catch up or get ahead. Here’s what’s been working.

Sitting Quietly

Meditate. Feel. Breathe. Tune in. Whatever you want to call it, an hour of this in the morning when your life is packed and I’d call you heroic and deeply committed. Twenty minutes is a truly supportive practice and more consistently realistic for me. Five minutes will do the trick. The world within can be fast paced on the upper layers of chatter and mental loops. This time asks us to drop in. My experience of time always alters when I do this.

Doing the Most Important Thing First

Often the thing that will make the greatest difference to our overall well-being is the thing that’s easiest to drop when the schedule gets hot. For me it’s writing and getting outside. If I don’t write, I rot. I work from home. It’s very possible to spend a whole day inside, working. Getting out for a run, a bike ride or plopping myself in front of the ocean reminds me of how vast this whole thing is, how much time I actually have and how insignificant most of what I stress about really is. My mind tells me I don’t have time for this some days.  But I know through my bones to my soul that doing these most important things first sets the tone for the whole day.

Choosing What Not To Do

There are things that I have to do next Thursday that my monkey mind will remind me about at 3 this afternoon. There’s no reason to be thinking about such things and I can usually catch myself and stop it. But what about all those things on today’s list that I want to get done, that I know won’t all get done (because I’ve been witnessing this beast for a while.) Creating inner space means to scan through that list and rather than add and cram and see just how much I can get on there and complete for the day, I look for what can be dropped. What can I consciously choose to leave out? When I know what I’m NOT doing, it gives me more inner space to focus on what I AM doing and do that thing well.

Do it at the last minute

Don’t judge just yet. If I’m brutally honest with myself, most things are going to get done at the last possible minute. Is it because I’m procrastinating? No. It’s because when there’s so much to get done, you’re always on deadline. Here’s the thing… If I try to work on something far in advance, there’s typically not enough creative tension to complete it. I may get a lot done and having space to drop in is great. But when the schedule is crammed, part of what helps me be soulfully productive is putting items in my calendar at the latest moment that I can get it done and get it done well. It eliminates choice for me, it takes away the possibility that there’s something more important that I should be doing right now. Whatever I’m working on is what needs doing.

Do the thing that sucks

Getting your docs to the accountant. Filing your paperwork. Comparing and reconciling budget vs. actual. Cleaning the fridge. Booking a Pap. Backing up your computer. Making that phone call. You know the thing that has no deadline but that eats and eats and eats away at you? Do that thing. I try to tackle at least one of these a week. Sometimes I get on a role and have a day of doing the sucky stuff that nags. It creates space in the psyche.

Say no

You probably know where you need to say no. To more commitments? To messing around on Facebook all day? To late nights with friends? To food that makes you feel like crap? To distractions? To requests to change your agenda for others? When we’re full, and in particular when our inner world feels crammed, there’s usually a bunch of ‘yes’ that needs to be taken to the dump.

I used to imagine that being seen and recognized and validated for who I am and what I have to offer would give me a sense of impenetrable confidence.

Now that I have arrived where I imagined these experiences would occur, I get to confront a different reality.

It’s at once agonizing and utterly liberating.

More on this in a moment…first a short tale…

I was walking down the street after having a beer with my priest and shaman (true story) and was all a muddle with the drama of being human and he says to me, just like a pal- as if he’s not dropping a total wisdom bomb-

There comes a time when we have to confront that that perfect life we imagined in our minds will not ever happen and is not real. Many people never come to terms with this. But for those who do, when they do…it hurts.

Many of us hope for things to get better. And in many ways they do. But in some ways they don’t.

Circumstances may improve. Goals may be reached. But if you’re really working your developmental edges, there’s always going to be something to be working at.

While experience brings competence and wisdom and trust and a whole bag of tricks at your disposal, it doesn’t mean that the fear is gone, it doesn’t mean that the pain is gone and it doesn’t mean that you won’t tremble or puke or dread or sob.

In fact, while I like it here way better than a decade ago, in some ways, things are harder. It’s more complex now, there’ s more to lose now and while I’ve smashed down so many of my walls and built so many ladders, the evolution doesn’t stop.

I’m less ignorant.

I’m more awake.

That brings a whole slew of other challenges.

I’m always at my edge. Creatively. Relationtionally. Spiritually. Professionally.

So for all the seekers out there…

The good news is, it doesn’t get better.

So now we can relax and just engage with life like it matters.

While not helpful to anyone, there are those times.

I almost feel like I got away with something, being born a woman in this place, in this time in history.

These are pretty unreal living conditions.

The reality of the cultural conditions for so many alive today and who’ve come before- and here I am.

Here. I am.

I get this life?

Why?

My own mother can bring me to tears with tales of her childhood and I do say she exceeded her intention of making things better for me.

And what right do I have to all these opportunities?

In all of what I may claim of my suffering, what do I really know of pain?

What pain have I really known?

Why me?

Why this life? Why this time on this planet? Why this family and these friends? How did I get so lucky?

My riches are embarrassing.

And the resources within me, my strengths and my gifts, oh sweet life, how I feel chosen.

And why am I chosen?

May my knees turn bloody as I fall to them in service.

And so I use this body until bagged and broken with so many clumsy stumbles in hopes of doing right by You.

What sweet burdens we carry as the privileged few.

More concerned with creativity than survival.

Overcoming adversity is something we read about and are inspired by.

For us it’s overcoming egos and entitlement.

Since I don’t wonder where my next meal is coming from, shouldn’t I ensure the meals of others?

I don’t want for medicine and so don’t I hold the healing of the world in my palm?

I don’t have to fight for an education, so shouldn’t I use my life to educate?

The greatest privilege of being a first world princess is leveraging all the grace we’ve been given in service of the whole.

Have you ever been going along minding your own business and then got caught up in an idea or concept or project or person and found yourself soaring along and buying in, only to end up feeling totally duped? And as you opened your eyes you’re all- how the heck did I let THAT happen?

You know what’s great about those moments? Your eyes open.

What’s brutal is that this is happening all the time as our world-views, values and perspectives are formed by the culture we’re in and much of the time it’s near impossible to wake up and see it all for what it is.

There’s a distinction in here that’s so important to me for us to be paying attention to…

AM I BEING CREATED BY CULTURE? OR AM I CREATING CULTURE?

My first memory of the moment that such brainwashing occurred for me has to do with the cult of pretty.

I was eleven and flipping through a beauty magazine and in big bold letters, above an ab-workout was the line: Every woman wants a flat stomach

Really?

I remember that moment so viscerally. I’d had no idea that every woman wanted a flat stomach. Being eleven and having gone through puberty early, I was right in the throes of woman training. To be a woman is to want a flat stomach. Whether you get one or not doesn’t make you a woman, the wanting makes you a woman. And thus having a flat stomach makes you a better woman, cause you got what we all want. While body image obsession certainly started before that, this pivotal moment epitomizes what it means to be created by culture.

My values, my views, what I so deeply longed for was not a function of my own heart, my own soul’s stirring, they were constructed by an existing culture.  And lead by the sale of something or another.

Why do you want what you want? The house, the car, the spouse, the big pay-check or the stuff? The freedom to do what you want to do, when you want to do it? Enlightenment? A booming business? Healthy kids?

I think it’s an interesting question, to really question, what feeds our longing, what feeds our desires. Are we keeping up with the Jones’ or have we bought into the importance or value of something? What aspects of our culture are creating us in healthy and sustainable ways and what aspects of our culture are creating us in unhealthy and unsustainable ways?

What I’ve longed for more than anything, is influence. When you have influence, you create culture. Beyond influence, on behalf of creating healthy culture, I want discernment, compassion, wisdom and humility.

Discernment: If we’re creating culture, if we’re choosing to use our influence to create change rather than make a buck-(whatever the cost to society), we need discernment.  Questions must be asked like How do I discern between my own self-serving wants and needs and the needs of the whole? How can I discern what the needs of the whole are? In the midst of paradox, when value systems conflict, how might I discern right action in the short and long term?

Compassion: I need compassion to embrace those who harm through ignorance and compassion for myself for my foibles and unskilful moves and missteps. I need compassion for those who are unable to change for the betterment of all and who even try to drag the rest of us to hell.

Wisdom: I need wisdom to be able to hold multiple perspectives and see wider views. Wisdom helps me to see where I’m being created by an unhealthy culture once again, in what ways that’s in service, and in what ways that’s pulling us away from our greatest potential. Wisdom offers beacons of light to those who want to throw down the straight jacket of the culture that’s created them and be created by something else.

Humility: I don’t pray for humility because it’s around every corner when you’re taking risks. Humility allows me to be open to being wrong, to give this all a go because it feels so damn important but it may turn out that it’s not at all. Humility reminds me that I have no idea what I’m talking about or what’s actually going on. But that doesn’t negate my willingness to throw myself into the fire for what may be on the other side. Humility allows me to be influenced, curious, open and tender.

We could be doing so much better as a people. A global people. So many are finding solutions to really complex problems. So many are giving of themselves to others. So many are labouring to create a global culture that’s in support of all inhabiting this planet. We all get to choose if we’re going to be created by a culture that values perversion and consumption, self-soothing, entertainment and individualized ‘freedoms’ or if we’re going to do the terrifying work of creating a culture that’s in service of sustainability and collective thriving. I know what I’m choosing, however clumsy I may be.

And this is how I got sick.

Not like sick-sick. Not like out of time or options or resources sick. But my body said no through more than whispers. It was a dull illness that came and went for a year. Adrenal fatigue, I was told. YOU stress they call it (y’know the kind you bring on by being an A type). As soon as I’d start to feel better I’d be sprinting again. And I loved it. The sprinting, not the sick.

I’ve been working my own edge with giving it my all for a very long time. I see it in almost every one of my clients, every one of my friends. We’re going. We’re moving. We’re striving and climbing. Sometimes joyfully, sometimes laboriously. We’re feeding our families and pushing boulders up hills. We’re championing our lives, our loves, our passions, our principles. We’re staring glassy eyed at the screen to get out one more tweet, invoice, email, article. We’re looking, seeking, searching for the new thing, best strategy, cutting edge, deepest value.

And it’s not just about stuff and dollars and success tracks, though let’s be honest, the hierarchy of value has her material claws in us culturally.

But the drive to give it our all- IT’S THE CULTURE OF CARE.

There’s a fire in us to deliver and it’s burning upward from the ground of being.  You’ve got to be buried in delusion to not be noticing the trouble and the suffering we’re in as a planet and the majority of the people I know are right striving to do something about it.

But what can little old me do to really impact the enormity of what’s happening? How can I possibly feel adequate in the face of what’s needed? At every turn there is evidence for each of us that we’re not quite good enough yet. Whether compared to what’s needed or what others are doing, or the dream we have for ourselves or who we’d be if we met our parent’s expectations.

No matter how you slice it, unless consciously worked with for some time, most of us have got some version of not enough or inadequate as our orienting filter. (I happen to think this is very simply a spiritual predicament as we’re identified with being separate from one another and partial as a being. But that doesn’t make it any less painful.)

And so what can be done about feeling inadequate or powerless?

Maybe some resign and hide under the covers, or disconnect from the stirring growling ache within. Distract, numb out, withdraw.

But many of us work, strive, give ‘er. And how do we measure how things are going? How do we check for the value we’ve provided? By asking, have I done everything I can?

Have I given this my all?

What a beast.

So when I first started to confront that I would be healthier, happier and of more sustainable service if instead of giving everything my all, I actually contained some for me, I was left with a tremendous amount of anxious energy.

How can I hold back giving when there’s so much need? How can I contain energy that may serve others? If I don’t go balls-out or labia-out or heart-out or however that saying translates across genders, aren’t I somehow ripping the world off?

Don’t we, as the privileged and the educated, have a moral obligation to make things better?

I believe we do.

But there’s a difference between serving sourced from the heart of compassion with the resources to deliver and serving sourced from an inner emptiness and unconscious need to earn, prove, do enough or be enough.

For myself, I’ve discovered that I can only healthily give something my all when my identity doesn’t gather its worth from my action. Giving has to be sourced from wholeness.

Giving our all has been glorified to a point of pathology and we’ve got a culture of busy, stressed, overworked and run down people. I wonder if some of the solutions we’re looking for, the deeper service we want to provide may be found in kinder, more sustainable and connected ways of loving and giving to one other. With more emphasis on what’s already here that we can draw on, rather than what we need to generate and strive towards.

Wait. She lives here.

So do I.

Damn, I’m lucky.

But what she is doing in Vancouver is this awesome one day gig called the Freedom to Create. Who doesn’t want the freedom to create?

If you’re subscribed to my work, chances are high you’ve come to know me through Danielle. I probably don’t need to tell you how brilliant and savvy she is. You already know that her words knock down the walls around your heart and her wisdom cracks a fierce whip for raising consciousness. Yours. Mine. All of ours.

Five minutes with her can change the way you do business, an hour might recalibrate your life. I’m not kidding.

When Danielle asks me WHY? My soul has to answer. Why are you doing it that way? Why are you dating that guy? Why didn’t you say no to that? Really? Why do you want to do what you do? Why are you charging what you charge? Why do you want to live in that neighbourhood? Go to that city? Start that project? Seriously, why are you dating that guy?

A straight forward question becomes spirit’s quest for truth- on the most practical of matters.

Imagine what a day with her would be like. My own life’s purpose is about working with others on expressing their calling in the world. Danielle has been one of the most influential people in my life in keeping my own alignment in my work sharp and clear.

Let’s have a day where we play in this together shall we?

I’m urging you to come to this because I’m a fervent believer in the value Danielle provides when it comes to soulfully rocking your business. If you get on a plane, car, bus or bike to get your booty in this class, I so look forward to the deep satisfaction of sharing space with you and seeing your world shake as we whisper to one another ‘Gawd, I’m so glad I’m here.’

Here are some deets…

FREEDOM TO CREATE:
Full-day, Direct Access, Bring it on…

Smart marketing. Big bucks and social impact. Raising capital and raising consciousness. Building a team, a digital empire, a product line. Wheeling the deal. Doing the right thing.

Stamina. Service. Wealth. Creativity. Failure. Love… ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

Date: Friday April 19, 2013
Time: 9:30am to 4:30pm
Place: District 319 in Gastown (319 Main Street btwn E. Cordova & E. Hastings)
Tickets: $500 CAD – includes lunch, a few surprises, and $50 from every ticket goes to charity — to be voted on by participants.
Note: Only 130 spots.

FULL INFO ON DANIELLE LAPORTE’S SITE:
Vancouver! I’m thrilled to announce a very special event this April 19.

This is a power team of business acumen and insight. It’s going to be a great experience.

It’s important to know who you can and can’t trust right? What do you draw on to discern such a thing?

Our judgements and past experiences often get lumped into our future projections. Generalizations can be hard to avoid. Hell, I’ll be wary of someone just because his teeth look like that ex-boyfriend’s of mine who was such a disappointment. But was the problem how untrustworthy he was? Or was I failing to trust myself and stop that train-wreck before it began?

We’ve actually got amazing perception skills. I’m often curious when someone’s surprised by something going sideways when they’ve been sharing their uncertainty the whole time. The girlfriend who’s shocked that her guy cheated on her. But didn’t you bust him lying to you like five million times before that? The friend who’s dumbfounded that his boss is withholding severance. But haven’t you been disgusted about all the ways in which he was unethically billing his clients?

When we’re blindsided or betrayed, when we find that another is not acting in the way we think they should, it’s common to feel victimized by their less than trustable ways. It’s easy to metabolize these experiences and conclude that you don’t know who or what you can trust.

But what if we dig a little deeper? What if we dug into our own wisdom? Wouldn’t we find twinges and whispers? Wouldn’t we recall moments that tugged on us and said, something is off here darlin’, pay attention. What are those bits of wisdom?

Our own wisdom can come through in many forms, the little tugs and pokes and urgings to wake up come from more than just what our brains try to discern. Let’s explore…

Gut Wisdom

These are deep body feelings that often don’t come with content. Something is off or it’s on. Someone feels threatening, or safe. Maybe you don’t even have those words for it. Maybe there are no words, just a stirring feeling. I can remember so many significant times in my life when I’ve ignored a deep ‘no’ within me. Because it’s just a feeling, because it has no rationale, because I can’t articulate what’s off, I plow forward. Or I’m moving too quickly, am too attached or dug in. And other times, all rationale points to no. But deep within is a yes and moving towards that yes opens and lines things up in unimaginable ways. Learning to trust our own gut wisdom can often come from the agonizing consequences of failing to do so. Yes, no, maybe so because my body is saying something that needs my attention.

Heart Wisdom

The feelings I’m feeling are an elegant compass I must pay close attention to. It’s amazing how much negation occurs when it comes to how we feel. Similar to the gut, the irrationality of the heart can be so easily dismissed. So many times I have felt that I shouldn’t feel the way I feel. And yet how I feel can be a megaphone for how things are going. Is my heart opening here or closing? Am I feeling excited anticipation or am I contracted with anxiety and fear? Emotions can be confusing and many of us have had the experience of our hearts leading us astray. And yet, and yet, if you listen deeply, beyond the surface fluttering of rising and falling feelings, there’s a depth to heart wisdom, a deep longing that exists and what we’re up to and who we’re engaged with touches that, or not. We know. Deep deep down in the heart beats, we know.

Mind Wisdom

This is where the elegance of the past challenges really comes into play. We’ve been here before. But this time it’s difference. Or is it? We draw on the wisdom of our mind by drawing on our experience. Not the generalized, ‘I can’t trust those jerks,’ kind of experience. But the small and clear moves that can protect ourselves and others by bringing clarity, communication, structure and agreements. Our mind respects what it knows, what it’s seen and moves forward with eyes wide open. When we trust our mind’s wisdom, we don’t need to set up a blockade, we just need to draw on the shimmering clarity that’s already there when we can quiet all the nattering and questioning on the surface.

Trusting our own wisdom allows us to move forward

If we can better trust those inner stirrings, if we can trust ourselves to feel them and heed them, we needn’t try to crack the formulas of who we can trust and who we can’t, we could simply wake up to what’s happening in our experience and honour it. That means setting boundaries or asking questions, that means clarifying or testing out the waters or taking a step back or taking a chance or a leap. Whatever it is we do though, our compass is coming from within rather than trying to deconstruct the behavior of another or the circumstance, analyze intention or predict the future or outcome. We’re not striving to be in control because we trust our Self to show up for what’s happening. The more we can rest in the truth of our own knowing, the more we can align ourselves with people and circumstances that support our deepest longing and calling.

In such times we may ask ourselves, why am I here again? I thought I grew past this.

When we find ourselves in a place that we’ve been in before, it can feel like we’re in developmental regression. Here I thought I’d changed from all these insights, all this work I’ve been doing on myself and yet, I find myself right smack in the midst of the same old shit. Shit.

I often find myself looking over the horizon aching for the moment when things all settle down.

But things don’t get settled for me- really.

The second something is settled, I want to dig deeper, explore further, take on the next adventure or challenge or creation and express and learn all I can. And when I do this from a less centred place I find myself in the midst of a nightmare that starts to feel like those early days when I was flying by the seat of my pants, building blinding visions from booming enthusiasm with little capacity to ground all that crazy into something sustainable. Big promises, lots of deadlines, little sleep, less chill time, everything off to a strong start, messes abound and the burden of having to follow through on every last thing I gave my word to.

But that same scene with a dash of wisdom, realism and a neon soul compass and it feels like creation rushing through me, productivity flows easily, I know where every project is at, paper is filed, which action is next and if I’m likely to put it off so should call in some support.

The difference between what feels like my stressful scattered past rearing its head and chomping my ass and me being grounded, trusting and aligned with what’s most important to me to create may only be a goodnight sleep or a yoga class, a clean house or cleared inbox or cleansed liver.

Thinking I shouldn’t be the way I am, that I should be ‘over’ something is NEVER helpful. 

The variations on our own personal dramas are 7 billion wide but what they have in common is they’re all cyclical. Old patterns or past issues are generally less destructive than the way we react to it.

It’s probably one of the most crazy-making beliefs we can have-  ‘I should be past this’. Particularly when it’s one of our long standing habit patterns because every time it creeps in just a little, we’re likely to plummet into some cycle of shame or despair (and we all know how useful that is for getting over something!)

Development isn’t linear, it’s cyclical. Our brains are pattern recognition machines and so even if one of these things is not like the other, our brilliant minds will find the ways in which it is.

If there are two paths and one is more difficult and painful, but familiar and the other is easy and joyful, but unfamiliar, we’ll be hard pressed to not go where we’ve gone before. That’s just how we’re wired. If we can bring kindness to ourselves in the midst of such a cycle, we’ll be better able to interrupt it and move in a new direction.

For those of us who are really engaged with the questions of who we are and what we’re here for and how to bring our deepest, highest and best selves forth, with each round of lovingly recognizing ourselves going through what we go through, with that flavour that is unique to us, our capacity may expand, hearts open, critical assessment soften and wisdom deepen.

We are where we are. It’s exquisite.