Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Beginning of Opening to What Is
This isn’t the podcast I was supposed to create.
I had something polished and impressive in mind.
This is more interesting.
You should listen to it.
A bit of background:
I’d already committed to publishing a daily podcast when I got (very, very, very) sick with Long (very, very, very long) COVID.
So, I had a choice:
I could give up, or I could keep my commitment and include my constant exhaustion, fever, foggy-brain, relentless cough —and do my best.
I chose the latter.
My “best” varies quite a bit according to how well or poorly I feel on a given day.
The episodes are raw, out of order, unedited, with uneven audio quality, You’ll often hear my Pekingese, Bija barking in the background.
Sometimes I talk to myself, sometimes I talk to you. Sometimes I have no idea who I’m talking to. It’s a true potpourri.
And it’s not just overhearing me wax poetic through a stuffy nose about new insights and the insufferable discomfort of upended plans. There’s more!
In between the fragments of thought, feeling, and utter nonsense, is a timely and universal story about expectations, meaning making, dropping all agendas, and discovering what’s possible when we Open to What Is.
Tune in.
Sample a few episodes.
See if you can drop all expectations and allow yourself to be surprised and delighted by something you didn’t know you were looking for.
all right.
now we're going for real.
this is happening peeps.
what is this? we don't even know!
this is
spontaneous
creativity,
connection.
spontaneous
humaning.
I am
doing my best
to model what -
in my mind -
constitutes
fully expressed,
in the moment,
embodied
courage.
And courage is subjective, right?
And I'm in covid sickness,
so you'll forgive me with that.
But that's part of it.
That's part of it.
Courage is really -
it's personal,
it's deeply personal.
It's about being intimate with ourselves.
Letting go of all those ideas about
who, and how,
we are supposed to be.
All of those expectations about -
like, you know,
what
'Normal'
looks or sounds like-
or
what
'Excellence'
looks
or
sounds
like.
(I go back and forth between putting Normalcy and Excellence on a pedestal)
But courage-
(the courage that I think is most underrated
and that I am wanting to cultivate
and share in this experiment-
-it's about
knowing
what's
hardest
for
you
when no one's looking.
it's about knowing
where you hide.
where you shut down.
where you berate yourself.
and
it's
taking
a
small
step
forward
it's opening up.
softening up.
loosening up.
just
a
little
bit.
and celebrating that choice.
because it's meaningful, and worthy,
and it took a lot of courage
just to start.
so.
I've been doing a lot of writing, thinking, designing -
a lot of preparation -
you could say I've been doing a lifetime of preparation.
Really just an enormous amount of thrashing around, waiting for
‘that place’ -
For feeling ready/ good enough/ prepared enough/ worthy enough
to do this particular project.
And it became evident (maybe it was always evident) that no amount of preparation was going to be enough. Never.
and it's so annoying.
So annoying.
Because all the clichéd things like ‘Just Start Where You Are’, and ‘The Right Time is Always Now’, and…um, whatever they are-
They're just all true.
They're just all true.
Talking. It’s hard -literally - for me.
I talk a lot, most of the time.
Right now my throat hurts, my energy is low,
and so this is going to be a short one.
That's okay.
There's going to be more.
I want to have…
I want to include stillness
and silence
in these episodes -
these conversations -
Because, at least for me,
that's something that
is so easy to rush through,
blow over.
And time goes so fast…with so much noise.
And busyness.
So.
Stillness,
Silence
Shared space.
Step one -
- or maybe it's even before step one -
is just figuring out how to get
the machine working.
I guess I should have a beginning and a middle and end, right?
Next time.