Fall In Love

For the past 4 weeks, I've been participating in Maia Duerr's e-course, "Fall In Love With Your Work".  I started the class because of Maia, her background, and knowing that there would be value in whatever she offered.  At the time, however, I wasn't quite sure how it would apply to me.  After all, I wrote here at LifeUnity, created my art, and parented my children, but wasn't really sure I had "work" that I could learn to love.

My how much can change in 30 days.

If you've been following LifeUnity, you've been witness to what a powerful summer this has been - a culmination of sorts of a swell of change that started over the past few years and 2012 in particular.  (If you are new here, suffice to say it's been quite the year!)

From finding and falling in love with encaustic art, to coining myself an Awareness Artist and honing in on the convergence of mindfulness, creativity & real life as my passion to experience and share with the world (and living up to all of that), to donating and selling my first few art pieces, and opening my first online class through LifeUnity (with delicious success) (and more classes already in the works)...I'm just feeling ALIVE and blessed.

While many factors have been crucial in bringing this all together, a few more recent occurrences have been vital to my "business" growth: a coaching call with Lisa Alessi and Maia's course.

In truth, I've been working on this post for nearly a WEEK now.

I've typed, deleted, revised, and otherwise hacked away at this thing deciding what to share.  There are so many profound insights, so many things that have been invaluable for me and could be quite helpful for others in similar situations.

In this session alone, I've now been at the computer for 90 minutes trying to figure out what to write.  I finally just deleted nearly 5 paragraphs of information below.  (You are welcome.)

Because really, it isn't the specifics that matter.  I'm afraid of failure, of hard work for the wrong reasons, and of having no safety net, and so are many of you.  There are countless, WONDERFUL posts and books on this topic.  But no matter how many personal stories I give you, it isn't really going to matter.

What matters is what you are thinking right now.  How present you are with these words.  What you do when you stop reading this.

When I went into this course, I had grand visions and binders of project outlines and goals of grandeur successes.  But then my daughter's tooth got chipped.  Then we had vacation to celebrate my son's birthday.  Our bank cards were erroneously shut down, the car's check engine light came on, we discovered a new antique store, and my daughter learned to swim.

That.

Amidst all of that, I created an e-course and got it up and running.  I started writing (almost) daily blog posts on weekdays.  I began exercising - EVERY day - for 30 minutes.  No huge to-do list that I was checking off as I did these things -- the class, the workouts, the visits to the antique store.  I just did them.

And that.

That is what I want to share with you.

Sometimes it takes a coaching call or a FABULOUS class to help us see things we'd previously been ignoring and to inspire us to take the next step.  A walk in nature, an engaging book, a conversation with a wise friend...all of these are so important to a happy body and a happy spirit.

But as we do one thing is as we do all things.

Again and again I will remind you of that.

I cannot take a course entitled, "Fall In Love With Your Work" and have any success at it if I can't fall in love with the junk mail pile on my counter.  I can't examine my fears that keep me from getting my business started if I can't run through that inevitable 2-mile mark on the treadmill where every part of my body suddenly wants to do nothing more than just STOP.

I can't love my work if I don't love my life, and I can't love my life if I don't love where I am right here and right now.

(Note: I contributed a guest post VERY MUCH along these lines over at Lisa Rough's Sacred Circle .  If you enjoyed this, I recommend taking a look at that one too.)

Maia's course has been life-changing. What her wisdom prompted me to see has made a crucial difference in many of my choices.  I cannot recommend strongly enough taking it the next time she offers it.

But what I want to impart to you, my readers, after a post that is probably now WAY too long, is this:

 Nothing else matters more than this.

This word.  This breath.  This thought you are having right now as you read this.

Those beautiful goals and passions you will find that get you out of bed in the morning are so beautiful, so important to a life fully LIVED.  Maia's course, along with other sources, can help you develop those goals and passions and real ways to fulfill them.  But what matters most is the feel of your feet on the floor as you place them down after night's rest, the series of words that float through your head when the alarm sounds, and the manner in which you move your body to slither or plop or rise out of bed.

That moment.  This moment.

Fall in love with it.  Everything else will fall into place.

Namaste.

p.s. Thank you, Maia, and to the other course participants for such an enlightening experience.