The Magic Is In…
Today — today is a personal share.
A page from my journal dated October 17, 2018. It’s a page I just randomly came across this week and sat down to read. By the way, I don’t believe in random… There is a reason for all.
And where in the past I used to dwell on that reason, try to worry it out, to understand it — now, now I simply allow.
Ah, sweet relief.
So back to that journal page, or two. Don’t worry, nothing x-rated about to go down here… just something magical you may wish to sink into for a quick dash of JOY.
Jill’s Journal: One Of Many
October 17, 2018
I did something that I will proclaim here and now, nearly one week in, as profound.
I have enrolled in an online course (which the creator calls not-a-course) and the name [to be shared another time, so your focus isn’t split].
Now, don’t get me wrong, taking a course, for me, is nothing new. I mean seriously, I’m still paying for that, what is it?, second Master’s degree.
And online courses, they are plentiful if you start to step into the ether-webs, which I did for the first time back in 2009 with my very first experience that was the-best-non-toxic-drug ever.
And that first course, by Maria A— was the gateway drug to a guy who she had on as a bonus-call-guest. So of course, I enjoyed his talk so much I forked over the cash to take his latest and greatest just so I could learn even more.
Never once stopping to think, do I really need to invest in more learning?
All that learning led me to this moment, and that Q is one I really need to dive into, as while it’s led me here, the couple hundred grand spent — literally — in the online course taking world is worse than some people’s drug habits.
And it really is an addiction. An addiction to learning, to gathering knowledge, to more-more-more and never implementing because the brain, well, when we learn, the brain thinks it’s being productive. Damn it.
But something about [insert course name later] a decade (gasp) later, is slightly different.
Yes, it’s still set up as modules.
Yes, it still has lessons within those modules
And there are videos, PDFs, audio files to download for on-the-go learning, but just below the surface of all that glitters is, well, magic.
Yes, magic.
See, the creator, who I’m not going to bore you with right now, as if you’re anything like me, you’ll stop reading, Google his name, and hello, rabbit hole.
No, instead I’m going to force you to be mindful. Sucker. (Said with love.)
Because quite simply that is part one of the magic I am finding not even a week into this course.
To focus, mindfully. Intentionally.
Focus has become so f-ing hard even a goldfish can do it better than we homo sapiens. 9 whole seconds.
Now this week has not been butterflies, puppy dog kisses and sunshine, although I did see a rainbow midweek, and butterflies are playfully fluttering about this paradise existence I call home.
Amazing when other parts of the world are literally still freezing over and I enjoy watching butterflies!
Hello, flip flops. Hello, I should be loving my life, damn it!
Back to the week.
It’s been, well, enlightening and turbulent and honest and humiliating and a whack upside my head with a much needed two-by-four.
That saying actually makes total sense now, as the board would hit the reptilian part of my brain.
The one that is IN charge at just about all times whether we want it to be or not.
It’s the brain we revert to, unconsciously, because its purpose has always been vital — to keep us alive.
Yep, you heard of that right.
The three parts of the brain
Prefrontal Cortex
Mammalian Brain
Reptilian Brain
This is what I learned about in Week 1 of this course, that I thought was going to help me design my best business...
Well, friend, I’ve been chasing my proverbial tail, in my business and in my life, because my thoughts have been running my ass — forever.
My thoughts about failure.
My thoughts about success.
My thoughts about love.
My thoughts about money.
My thoughts about the story of my life.
My thoughts about others.
My thoughts about how others see me.
Wow. Just. My. Thoughts. So f-ing many of them!
So, this week I’m diving in, I started to work on my mind, mindset, and all things a little woo-woo for some.
Personally, I love woo-woo. I embrace woo-woo. I gotta have me some woo-woo. And when I’m around non-woo-woo peeps for too long, I feel my creative soul draining like the neck of a freshly sucked vampire victim.
Dramatic? Ah yeah. Said the writer.
But enough visuals about Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, if you went there. As I know I did. And who wouldn’t?!
No clue what that reference is? Gosh darn it, grab some culture and rent the movie!
Well, this last week was all about shifting my mindset, looking at my beliefs and seeing where I was whacked in my (turns out) reptilian head.
And there were a lot of areas.
There was a lot of fear, judgement, shame, pain, and maybe even some anger. But what amazed me in the work I did was my physical reaction.
I got sick. Physically. S.I.C.K.
Have you ever had a migraine?
Like a wave of pain that says “Oh sh*t, my gut contents feel like they might come up and I didn’t even eat!” and “Too-Much-Light. When did the world become so damn bright?”
Well, that was me on Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday.
After listening to a podcast not once, not twice, but three times the day before.
The podcast [title to be provided after the need to Google it subsides] was an interview between the course creator [the not named course I am currently writing about, yes, after just one week in] and an awesome dude who’d studied under a shaman for the last 25 years.
Whatever that means, you might be thinking, right?
And yeah, I get it.
All you need to know is one, it’s cool and two, it means he walks the walk that he talks. Something most people, I find, myself included, do not always do.
Then I pressed play. And had to press play again.
And took a notebook full of notes and felt my mind literally being blown. In the best and worst ways.
It was magic.
Suddenly, I could see clearly all the ways I’d held myself back, let myself down, let others down and agreed to ride this merry-go-round of, well, insanity.
I could see where I judged, where I blamed, where I thought I was committed but wasn’t in the least.
I could see the stories I told myself over and over to the point that those stories were my life, one year later, seven years later, twenty years later.
I could quite literally see. In friggin technicolor. It was awesome and enlightening and horrifying and freeing.
I fell asleep amazed, after pressing play three-flipping-times, and awoke to a new reality.
A reality where a migraine took over my head first, then my body, second, and forced me to stop EVERYTHING.
Forced me, for not just Friday, but all of Saturday, and most of Sunday as well, to simply stop.
To purge.
To rest.
To heal.
To be — still.
And wow, what a flipping powerful experience having that God-awful migraine was. A no pill-popping-to-take-the-edge-off happening here migraine experience that put me down and out for more than 36 hours.
But at the same time, it was magic.
At the same time, it was a blessing.
It was a cleansing, a healing, a reboot to factory-settings — if you will — of my reptilian brain (perhaps).
Well, that’s what I like to think, because now there is simply clarity.
Clarity that for anything in my life to happen, I must commit 110%. Not just when it’s convenient.
Clarity that my words mean something and if I say them, I must honor them.
Clarity that I can do [this]. This being anything I put my damn mind too.
Clarity that I need to shut the stories down from my past and keep to fictional ones on paper.
Bring on the characters! [ Rubbing my palms together a little manically! ]
Clarity that I need more/better balance in my life and this will take practice and patience and forgiveness as I stumble.
For I will — stumble — because there’s no growth without a few speed bumps to trip you up along the way, right?
Clarity that my time, the time, is now. Only now and not as linear as all those dang teachers, school bells and shrink sessions taught me.
Clarity that my ego is not my best friend but more like an enemy I want to keep close yet not buy into the flirtatious temptation to believe her again.
Clarity that I can, I will, I am.
And that, friend, is magic one week in.
And the magic, the magic did not stop there, but expanded upon itself. See that was October 2018 and just from that one podcast, I knew I had to learn from this man, this guest, who’d spent more than two decades learning from a shaman.
I didn’t even comprehend what a shaman was…
And didn’t care. I was sold. I was in. In what I had no clue.
And it was that lust for more knowledge that led me to exactly where I needed to be.
It was that desire for more learning that brought me to the edge of extraordinary come January 2019.
It was that crack-like-addiction to the next shiny course, program or thing that had me FINDING a way in where there was no offering, no way to learn but to keep searching for more podcasts this dude had been a guest on.
At that time, he didn’t have a podcast.
At that time, his website was basic and I thought — crap. [Sorry, Tom. It just didn’t have a way IN!]
At that time, I was so lost, I thought I could fix that for him, if he’d just open his damn door and let me in now.
But nope, like everyone else, I had to wait until the doors to his program opened again and that was in mid-January 2019.
And I had no clue what his program even was.
But what I did in the meantime, I pressed pause on all things.
No more courses.
No more shiny buys.
No more nada.
Even the magical course I’d written about in my journal on October 17, 2018 after experiencing that devastating migraine...even that I pressed pause on.
I’m not one for headaches and migraines, that was a first for me.
And a doozie, but what it showed me, was that I needed to dive into this work and I needed to step back from all the spinning I’d been doing before.
Because man-oh-man was I ever the perfectionist, plate spinner with poor health and an unhappy life, struggling to keep it all together, as I worked on my business thinking that more money was the solution... back then.
And now, now I know such peace, such JOY.
Well, heck, I created a website, as myself, based on JOY… and a paid membership option to all my words called the JOY-Subscription.
Seriously, can’t get much better than that, now can it?
I don’t know where you are right now, as you read these words, but if something calls to you… listen to that.
Does it sound woo woo for me to say that? Abso-f-ing-lutely. But hey, if you’re like I was — constantly seeking, forever searching, never finding that thing that’s just out of reach…
Well, isn’t it time you tuned into the knowing you instinctively, naturally, intuitively have.
Leave me a comment if you are interested in knowing what it is I have come to know deeply that has transformed my life from one of struggle to one of pure JOY…
I’ll share more about that podcast that changed all for me… including a link when you heart this message, leave a comment and share it with someone you believe might need to read these words.
Photo Credit: Garidy Sanders @garidy
