the crazy ones.

I was recently introduced to Joseph Campbell and his model of the hero's journey. (Let's not dwell on how I made it this long not knowing who Joseph Campbell was but just in case you've been living under this rock with me: here you go).  The hero's journey outlines the common cycle of events that occur within the singular human experience we all share over the course of a lifetime.  

It might be easier to think of it as what it means to be in charge of our own adventure.  This might sound obvious, but Campbell points out that we are all responsible for our own adventure and we have no one to blame but ourselves for the outcome.  But choosing to be our own hero?  That part is not quite so obvious and at first sounds like a whole lot of responsibility...but it is up to us as well. 

Highly recommend the documentary 'Finding Joe' (thank you Mrs. B)

It would be fair to say I am currently in the transformation/transition stage of my own journey.  I am, even as I write this, still discovering, still putting together the pieces of what I've learned, and cautiously peeking my head out of the cave to prepare for what lies ahead.  My greatest teachers these days seem to be fear, courage, pain and love.  The current relationship I have with these four powerful emotions looks something like this:

Fear:  It's okay and normal to be scared.  It's what we do with our fear that matters.

Courage:  Courage is knowing what to do and doing it.  Lack of courage is knowing what to do and not doing it. (Joseph Campbell said this, but I feel like I wrote it with my heart a million times before hearing his words).

Pain:  The uncomfortable and often dark experiences that create change and teach us the most.

Love:  The reason.  The "why" behind every choice we make. (*Note: this includes love in every form including self love - not romantic love only).

Lately I have been paying careful attention to living in a way that feels courageous.  Not wrestling a mountain lion level courage.  More like being brave enough to make choices that feel honest and accepting the results.  Making sure I am the hero of my own journey by having the courage to make complex and sometimes hurtful (or unpopular) decisions.  The courage to be in charge of my own adventure.  I have known for some time that this is what I was doing, I just hadn't found the right words for it.

Joe found the right words for me.

So if the hero's journey is so challenging and uncomfortable why would anyone choose that path?  It is human nature after all to desire security and comfort in the reality we create - and there is no shame in that.  The problem lies in wanting that security so desperately that we're not willing to consider if the reality we exist in aligns with our truth. What if the daily life we use to comfort ourselves is actually false comfort?    

Then what?

Well, then we have to do some hard work and take some chances.  We have to enter the cave.  It means seeing ourselves through an honest lens and making change accordingly.  It means honoring our fear but being brave enough to take that incomprehensible first step on a more awakened and thoughtful path.  Many of us open one eye half way, assess our options and decide ---

Screw that.   

And that's fine.  Our lives are our gifts and we have the good fortune of deciding how we choose to spend however much time we are given.  However, the magic that enters when we elect to start living in the light makes closing our eyes again unthinkable - because we don't want to miss a single second of what our life has become. 

I don't claim to have it all figured out friends, but what I am sure of is that the power and peace we give ourselves when we live in the light is more than any fortune could grant us. When we dismiss the opinion of others, own our choices, and stand in our truth there is no telling what a person can do.  With power like that anything and everything becomes possible.

Disingenuous words get lost before leaving our lips.  Relationships that fill our social calendars but leave our souls empty fall away.  As the golden version of us rises to the surface things that aren't serving us in a healthy and authentic way begin to sink.  Suddenly, Laurel from the movie Jerry Maguire makes perfect sense when she claims to be "incapable of small talk". 

Preach Laurel.  

This is where our contribution begins.  This is the part of our adventure where we take what we've learned and share our experience with the people whose lives we touch.  We share ourselves in a way that feels generous and supportive, not judgmental and forceful.  That is our hand written thank you note back to the universe for giving us the opportunity to grow and live an awakened life.  That is our legacy and the marker of how we spent our time here. 

And sure, we may run the risk of sounding a little crazy.  I'm comfortable with that.

The alternative is to turn our heads, close our eyes, and walk in the opposite direction when life is trying to point us toward our truth. And, well...I just can't think of anything much crazier than that.

So in the words of Steve Jobs, "Here's to the crazy ones".

Here's to you and your hero's journey.

Here's to all of us finding the courage to follow our bliss.

...and to the great adventure that is a life lived fully alive.

xo - juli

Brian Andreas for the win (as usual).

the picnic blanket.

In her book Yes Please, Amy Pohler uses a really interesting analogy to describe a time of major change and transition in her life.  She writes it was as though her entire existence was laid out perfectly on a picnic blanket...and all at once someone picked up the corners of the blanket and sent everything flying into the air.

(Highly recommend on Audiobooks - so much funnier in her voice.)

Amy said she felt as if she was just standing there, waiting to see where all the pieces of her life would land, and the uncertainty was paralyzing.

That feeling.  That waiting.

With the safety of a carefully crafted life lost, what do we have left to hold on to?  There are so many unknowns, and everything feels so terribly out of control.  Where do we go for the answers to the countless questions that won't stop swirling around in our heads?

Well it's 2018.  So I guess we turn to the internet.

The infinite wisdom of cyber-spirituality offers us uplifting bite-sized mantras:

• "If you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
• "Nothing will change unless you do."
• "If you want something you've never had, then you must do something you've never done."
• "Be messy and complicated and afraid.  And show up anyway."

And we think:  

"Yes Pinterest!  You are so right.  This is the truth!  This is what I will do!  I will be messy and complicated and afraid and I will show up anyway...just as soon as I finish this conference call and make dinner." 

Meanwhile a little voice whispers from the smallest corner of our soul saying:  'These words can't help you.  They aren't even your words.  Only you know how to exist in a way that honors your truth.'

So we thank the internet for the solid starting point and dig deeper in search of that honest place.  That place inside ourselves that is so raw and so exposed there is nowhere left to go.  No more stones to turn over, no more self doubt, no more feelings to consider, no more options to weigh, no more fucks to give.  

Exhausted, exposed and scared we realize this is it.  This is the time for change.  And so we grab the corners of the blanket, give it a loving shake...and we wait.

We stay still and listen for direction as we watch the pieces of our life fall one by one back down to earth.  Bearing witness to the sequence of events as they unfold, accepting that we can only affect those things which are in our control.  And the rest...well, the rest will just fall where they will.

We think that by a certain age we shouldn't find ourselves in these situations.  It's easier to believe the blanket has been put down, the basket is unpacked, and that goddamn picnic is staying right where it is.  It's unsettling when someone else's blanket gets tossed because it exposes the idea that nothing is ever certain, that safety is an illusion - that a real life doesn't fit inside the tidy little box we want to keep it in.

Who brings a galvanized metal tub and three bags of ice on a picnic?

It suggests that maybe our time here is not about waiting for the period at the end of the sentence.

Maybe a full life can just be comma, after comma, after comma. 

Lesson.
         After lesson.
                       After lesson.

So long as while we're standing there exposed we are acting with intention, love and grace.  As long as we continue to honor our decisions and stand by our actions.  If we are able to celebrate the uncertainty of a life lived awake it doesn't matter if our picnic blanket gets tossed.

Because we know we will always be right there,

our faces turned toward the sky,

ready to catch everything that matters most to us,

and put it oh so gently back down.

Meg and our girls last summer at the coast.  Tossing blankets just for fun.