How do you discern the difference between incubation (listening for what wants to come next) and paralyzation (over thinking anyone)?

Step one: don’t think there is ONE answer to this question or that you can know FOR SURE what the best perfect thing to do is.

Wanting that is a sure sign of being paralyzed. So remind yourself there isn’t ONE answer but it’s so adorable of you to want one. I do, too.

But waiting or hoping for one is victimhood in designer clothing. Not a good use of your energy.

Looking for the answer for whether you do something means forgetting that good questions are an invitation to grace. You want grace, right? (yes, you do)

Here’s a couple more inquiries - inquires, not questions to find the right answers to.

Are you proceeding at the pace of guidance, as my mentor Christina Baldwin says or are you hiding in the basement of your heart, hoping against hope the call to do your thing doesn’t get any louder? (Quick, put your fingers in your ears and starting humming really loud.)

Proceeding at the pace of guidance feels giddy, edgy, luminous and tenuous. Hiding feels hunched, oppressed, leaden and lonely. Pace of guidance rings the bell of your heart, hiding feeds the growl of your fears.

Are you researching, researching, researching because you have yet to get your mind around your tender new idea – you are calling on and expanding your lineage - or are you constructing a cacophony of factoids so you won’t have to hear yourself?

Good research feds your thing, bring clarity and excitement, gives you shoulders to stand on. Too much research drains the color of your thing, makes you feel bloated and defeated and “who do I think I am?”

Are you fussing over logos and tag lines and website design because you need a beautiful home that can hold the riches you are about to pour forth or are you rearranging the furniture because it feels easier (and safer) then moving in and proclaiming, “I live here!”?

Having a beautiful container is a beautiful thing and it’s never necessary to getting the work started.

Are you listening for the answer to Wayne Muller’s question from his new book, “Am I truly able to say that I really love this?” or are you waiting to be in the mood to take action?

Discerning what you love, what beckons to you, is the crucial act of navigating your life and very different than being in the mood. What you love is the undercurrent of truth you want to swim in, mood is mostly surface turbulence.

What inquiries do you engage in when you’re discerning between feeding your muse and burying her under more, more, more?

I’d love to hear!

P.S.

It’s an uncertain business, this bringing your ideas into the world. It’s uncertain and so what? Really – what’s so wrong with failure? It hurts but you won’t die. You will still be, at your core, the same miracle of goodness, the same innate, natural perfection. That can’t be hurt, maimed, or changed.

And if this didn’t help read this by @wildheartqueen and this by @rockyourday – you’ll balance the feminine and the masculine and then have a cup of tea, take a nap and then you will really really know what to do which is to ask, “Am I truly able to say that I love this?”

Fankle 1# – Tribal Authors

I’ve had a crush on Jonathan Fields ever since I bought his yoga video oh probably 10 years ago. I love a guy in a bandanna who is gently telling me what to do with my body. (coy blush)

Fast forward a year or so ago and we connected via Twitter over his first book, Career Renegade.  He didn’t contact me so I could help him — he wanted to see if he could help me! Major mensch.

Watching Jonathan develop his kickassiness via his blog this year has been so enlightening but you know what made me fall in love even more with him?  When a client o’ mine signed up for his Tribal Author Camp and then had a family emergency and instead of him saying, “Shine it on baby,” he gave her the recordings for the entire weekend. As we say around my house, “Good form! Good form!”

Jonathan interviewed me via video Skype last week on my Tribal Author Book Biz Plan – watch me admit that I don’t have one and talk about what I’m doing to keep reinventing myself.

Thanks bandanna man, I love learning from you.

Fankle 2# – She Does it Again

How does Cairene MacDonald keep doing it?  I want to be her when I grow up!  She takes ideas that could be so surface and pat and she digs into them and makes you see new ways of being.

Lots of my peeps at the Comfort Cafe are big fans. She was one of our Wise Persons last year (we have a call every month with someone, um wise, who teaches us something wise – get the theme?).

Picture this: I’m hanging out with my Lillian (she’s 15) and we’re talking about how she can’t decide whether to date this boy and how making decisions is hard for her in general (I’m talking even ordering in a resturant) I’m trying to explain to her “good enough is good enough” and how you have to leave the not quite right and be in the unknown so the right stuff can find you (can you imagine how annoying it is to have me as a mother?) and then

THIS POST ARRIVES IN MY IN-BOX.

Oh. How. Perfect.

(and no, not because she talks about me.)

Fankle #3

I’m all et-up (as my grandmom used to say) with retreats these days.  The Virtual Retreat and my live mini-retreats. I’m on fire with new material to help people end the dreaded deadly cycle of depletion.

Then I read Andrea Lee‘s last newsletter in which she says, “If you’re stuck in any way, or even if you’re not stuck but you want to amp up your flow of energy, ask yourself:

In what way could I be applying the things I sell, teach or stand for, to myself?”

I remembered I have canceled not one, but two, retreats this month.

I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But I have so much to do!

I have to keep pushing through!

Oh my god, I will not believe that lie again!

So here is the word: Starting Friday at noon, 24 hours of total retreat time.

I will not be a liar who sells one thing and does another.

P.S. Next two live retreats are soon:

Wisconsin, near Madison.

Texas, near Dallas. Early bird price for Texas goes up February 27th. I’ve added local beloved yoga teacher Brandie Werner to our day – easy restorative yoga, yes ma’am!

Fankle #4 – Another Mensch!

Charlie Gilkey has been my coach and he is certainly my friend.

I love him because he is so smart and yet he still wants to talk to me.

I love him because he is so smart but gives away too much stuff (like me) and refuses to do sleazy marketing stuff (hopefully like me).

Let me admit right now: I am a planner whore — and I created a few myself back in the days when The Life Organizer was a date book.

Isn’t there something so Garden of Eden about hoping you will find the perfect planner?

Charlie thinks so too (or he’s a planner whore, too,  you’ll have to ask him) so he keeps creating these cool planners for creative types.

It’s all about chunking it down to the smallest action.

Action, people, action. Which might make some planner whores uneasy because you would actually not just be planning but creating.

Please check out Charlie’s hip and helpful planners for creative people.