Way back in the beginning
Three years ago today, I wrote my first blog post. I titled it “Beginning,” and talked about a fortune from a cookie that is still, three years later, taped to my computer monitor: “Begin…the rest is easy.” In that first post, I talked about the difficulty of starting, the sadness I felt about how long I’d been stuck, and how it was that I finally woke up — stopped waiting for something to happen and happened.
So much has changed in three years. Dexter got cancer and died, some really painful and pretty awful family stuff happened (things I haven’t shared here because they aren’t my stories to tell), we got Sam and then we got Ringo (my echo dogs), my job at CSU continued to change shape, I went into therapy for my disordered eating, I traveled, I essentially did a second Master’s degree with a curriculum of my own making (ecourses, videos, lectures, books, workshops, and retreats), I found my voice, I found my tribe, I shared my writing in other spaces as well as here, I became a certified yoga teacher, and I got really clear about what I want, what I have to offer.
Just yesterday was a really good example of how different my life is now, three years later. I spent the morning meditating and writing, an interview I did with Andrea Scher for her Morning Mantras class went live (we talked about “No mud, no lotus”), I finished a project at CSU that my department chair said was “one of the most stunning things I have seen,” telling me “I think you’re a genius,” and an open love letter I wrote to Cheryl Strayed that I’d posted…well, she read it and tweeted me about it.
Blogging has given me so much. As I’ve put in the effort, focus, and time, it has returned to me:
- A tribe of like-minded people making similar efforts and supporting mine, connection and community
- Kind and gentle readers
- My own voice — clarity about my truth, a direct relationship with my experience, a way to work with my story
- Confidence, as Susan Piver describes it, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment”
- The opportunity to share my work in other spaces
- A public place to practice, which provides accountability and acceptance
Three years has always been a magic number for me. Any time I make a shift, a transition, a move, a change, I know that it will take me three years to get comfortable with it, to settle in. This has always been true for me. The same is so with blogging. I’m comfortable and confident now. I feel like I know what I’m doing, and I can do it with relative ease — I’ve got this.
When I think a little bit ahead, I see a clear path. I don’t mean there are no obstacles, but rather I know where I’m going, feel like I can find where I am on the map, have the right equipment and supplies and support necessary to reach my goal. My most immediate intentions are to finish my Self-Compassion Saturday ebook, begin the real work of putting together the other book I’ve been carrying around, make other offerings, (such as ecourses, in person workshops, classes, and retreats), settling even deeper into my practices, taking the first steps towards becoming a meditation instructor and possibly a coach, and continuing to heal in the places where I’m suffering or stuck. And always, always continuing to blog about my efforts to transform, to rehab my life, to ease suffering in myself and the world.
I’m so grateful to you, kind and gentle reader. Whether you are new here or have been with me the whole three years, your loving witness to my story means so much to me. I adore you.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 