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I was watching a video clip the other day and the guy mentioned that the odds of us being here, as a human on this earth, is 17 billion to one.

He said the odds of winning the lottery 7 times in your life is higher.

So why do we think our lives are ruined if they aren’t  picture perfect?
Who do we think we are to punish another human who beat the odds to get here also  because we don’t like they way they are “doing human”?
What makes us think we should control someone else’s gift of life to make ours more comfortable?

And why do we not always feel completely grateful for our gift of life?

I think it’s incredible that we are here.  Please remember that you have already beat the odds.

It’s a beautiful thing to get to experience this life in all of its bittersweet glory.

About 2 months ago I was wallowing in a hole of self pity.  

I went to a yoga class and snot bubbling ugly cried my way through the whole thing.   

I could whine about 5-10 good reasons for my pity party, and my poor mom had to hear them all, bless her heart, but none of them matter because they weren’t the problem.  

Yes there was lots going on that wasn’t favourable for me.

Yes I wanted things to be different.

Yes I thought I “deserved” something different than I was getting (any type of “deserving” thinking is a big trap for spiralling down… I don’t recommend ever going there).

And on and on…

Everything that was happening wasn’t the problem.  The problem was I thought everything happening around me, was about me, and I was focusing on that, making it about me with my inner dialogue.  

After a couple of weeks suffering,  I read the quote from Tony Robbins “the reason you’re suffering is you’re focused on yourself” and wrote about it in this blog post.  

None of what was happening was about me, except for the part I was making about me.

As soon as I quit making it about me, I quit suffering.  

In an instant it changed how I felt, and ever since then if I catch myself going down the same road, I remember not to focus on myself and redirect my thoughts.  

The more I have paid attention to this over the last 6 weeks, the more I am seeing how we all create and magnify our own insecurities, shame, grief, anger, self doubt, and sadness by making external situations about ourselves.

Whatever is happening around you is not about you.  

Sometimes it’s just life.

Sometimes it’s about the other person making it about them, and then projecting that onto you.  

Sometimes it’s none of your concern at all.

What happens inside of you is about you, but that’s another story. 

You just aren’t that special.

You are unique, and you are worthy, but you really aren’t special.

And that’s a tough thing to remember.

We think that we are so different from others, we think they had it easier, or that our situation is different and that’s why we can’t do that thing we want to do.

We think that the people around us need us, we think that other people will be extra offended if we show up, and we think that we need to be a little more coddled, or maybe a little less coddled than the regular Joe.

But we don’t.

Thinking our situation is different is just another form of hiding. It’s no different, you aren’t special. It’s hard for everyone, and you are just as worthy of the next guy.

The best thing you can do is stop believing yourself and get moving forward.

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers

We tell ourselves stories about things are going to turn out.

We don’t actually know if things will turn out they way we suppose, we couldn’t possibly know.

But we gather up past experiences, patterns, statistics and assumptions and form a hypothesis.

In science a hypothesis is a starting point for further investigation.

In life a hypothesis can freeze us like a deer in headlights, leave us shaking in our boots or at best ruin our day.

When all we can see coming is the worst case scenario, maybe that’s the starting point for further investigation.

After all isn’t life just a series of experiments?

Seth Godin has a book called The Dip. It’s all about quitting and when you should quit and when you shouldn’t.

It’s simple advice.

Before you start you need to understand that there is a place where it’s predictable to quit. Don’t quit there. It’s hard to execute.

People who’s New Years resolution is to lose weight quit before February. Or they start in February but don’t make it to March. Either way if they would just decide to do it until April, they would make it through the dip, that predictable quitting place.

The dip can last a month, or it can last 8 years.

And it is where things get hard.

The dip is where you want to give up because you don’t know the path.

It is the part of the journey where you have come to the end of yourself, the excitement of starting has faded, and the results haven’t shown up yet.

It’s dark in the dip, and that’s why it’s the spot everyone quits. It’s understandable to quit there. It’s totally justified. It seems crazy to push through it.

Making it through takes serious resilience because the dip is where you face your demons…all of the questions, thoughts, and doubts wreak havoc in your mind and torment you. It feels like there isn’t another side.

I read about it and thought, ok that makes sense…easy peasy.

I was wrong. The dip is never easy and until you are in the dip you don’t know what demons are going to pop up. Each new thing brings different demons and more respect for the dip.

Knowing that it exists helps. A lot.

It gives you hope that things will get better, that there is light on the other side of darkness.

It helps you keep going when it’s hard and all you want to do it quit.

If you’re in the dip right now, keep going… it’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

I was listening to Seth Godin the other day and he was talking about art and doing work that matters.

Quite often in our pursuit, we want someone to reassure us that everything is going to be ok, even when it doesn’t look ok yet.

Seth said, “reassurance is futile and you can never get enough, when you are looking for reassurance just do more work.”

Or as I like to say…move your feet.

Being stuck in a downward spiral in our brain is never helpful.

There are a million things that can stop you if you let them.

Instead…

Move your feet.

Do more work.

And just keep swimming.

Progression is key.

Today is going to be a little bit different than other days…

We are going to do a bit of housekeeping because I have a few things I want to say.

I feel like I should have the words to describe all of this, but there are some feelings that are harder to break down than others… and the words thank you never seems like enough.

I want those of you who show up for me everyday, and let me know you were here, to know how important you are to me. 

I am so grateful for you, but it’s more than that… I am relying on you.  

I post my blog every morning and then I check back relentlessly waiting for you to show up and hit the like button. 

I watch for you and I count on you and you never let me down.

I don’t believe that you resonate with everything I say, and I know you’ve seen spelling errors and bad grammar and terrible punctuation… but you still always hit the like button… it amazes me and fills my heart with gratitude every day.

I know I write some really personal things, and I am ok with that. I truly believe that’s how we connect with each other… if I’m not vulnerable we won’t connect…and connection is everything to me.
I genuinely never know if I’ve written something really good or really terrible.  I just write everyday to fulfill a promise I made to myself.  

When you like or share or let me know what you think, or that you’ve been here I use it as my only gauge that I’m actually connecting with someone and not just over here blabbing away to myself.  It matters to me.  

I write to share what I’ve learned in life, and I genuinely want to share it with you.
Sometimes I share what I write to teach, sometimes so I can process something and sometimes to figure something out for myself.

Never ever do I share something and hope that it stays a secret, or hurts someone, or that I don’t have to talk about it again.

I want so badly to hear from you…

I want you to ask questions, and if you see me in person I want you to talk to me about things I’ve written… especially if it struck a chord, it’s been on your mind, or needed further explanation because I didn’t  make sense… lots of the time I don’t make sense. 

I am trying to be as open, honest and trustworthy as I can be because I want to create an atmosphere for all of us to share, dissect, lean into and learn… and I know it starts with me.

As I get better at creating community and writing in a way that invites you to share you thoughts or with your friends, I hope that you will feel comfortable to do so.

Declaring yourself as a beginner is better than declaring yourself an expert.

When you’re a beginner there are no expectations. You haven’t done it before and you aren’t expected to know how.

The problem is that we aren’t good at accepting that we are beginners.

We expect ourselves to know better and be better because we are old enough now.

When you change your story about what’s happening you change the whole situation.

You can try new things if you remember you are a beginner. It takes all of the pressure off needing to be perfect.

I remember my energy lady therapist telling me about her previous life living in the corporate world. As she described it I imagined her sitting on a small chair with glass walls holding her in. She could see a life outside of the one she was living, but she didn’t know how to get to it.

She said now she can see that all she had to do was step around the wall, but it took her a long time to figure that out.

That’s the trick isn’t it? Figuring out how to step out of the walls we build for ourselves.

As she explained the story to me, I had a hard time imagining how I would step around my walls. Until you’ve experienced something for yourself, you can’t quite grasp what another has gone through.

Then I started my year of being brave, showing up for life and coming out of my shell.

It turns out my shell was made of glass walls.

In order to find new life, new experience is the greatest teacher of all.

When it’s your turn to show up (and it’s always your turn to show up), you will have to sort through nuances, feelings, expectations, and rules you didn’t realize existed. These are important. They are the breadcrumbs that lead you around the wall.

Allow yourself to be led.

One day you look back and realize you’re on the other side of your glass wall.

Life is awesome that way, it takes you where you need to go as long as you keep showing up and keep moving forward.

Once in a while I would get the question, “what do you do for yourself?”

I’m a mom, and I love being a mom, so being a mom was my thing, and that’s how I would answer.  It was the truth.  But I would later find out, it didn’t quite cut it.  

Being a mom didn’t give me enough direction.   

It was good when the kids needed me, but the more they needed me the less I enjoyed being needed.   The less they needed me the more I wanted to be needed…It seemed like I could never be happy or find the balance, I was on a winding road to no particular destination.   

I’ve learned something very valuable lately. 

Finding not only a thing, but a cause, something you believe in, something others benefit from, and something that matters changes your whole life.  

Now I want everyone to have a thing… a thing that you wake up for at 5:55am instead of 6 am… a thing that is important and would be missed if it no longer existed… a thing that makes a difference in someone’s life… a thing that speaks to your heart and soul.  

Here’s the best part about having a thing for yourself… when life falls apart, you have a good reason to not let yourself fall apart with it.

When you have to show up and do your best everyday in a way that matters, you can’t afford to let life or anyone else take your steering wheel anymore.  

You have a reason to not feel hungover from booze or sweets or late nights or someone else’s drama.

You have a personal reason to feel physically and mentally strong and healthy everyday.

You have a personal reason to better yourself, because you can see an immediate payoff for it.  

And you have a clear direction in order to focus on and move towards every day.  

If you don’t know how to find your thing… start paying attention to the little things that  light you up, the things that you do and time becomes irrelevant. 

Then use them in a way that matters.

Stephen Pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art, in it he coined the term resistance.

This resistance is normal for all of us.  It is what we feel when we are creating something or making change happen.

The resistance can get very strong, and it tries to tell you that you can’t do it.

I can see it in my kids when they are writing their 4-H speeches.  When it is time to sit down and write, all of a sudden they will clean their rooms, organize their closets or do their laundry.

They come by it honestly, I am the same way.  Its become a joke in our house.

But ever since reading Pressfields book, I’ve learned to work with it.

This resistance shows up when I am doing something that is important for me and instead of bowing to it – I am ready for it and then I do my best to push through it.

When the resistance wins, you feel bad about yourself, like you couldn’t get there or you couldn’t do it.

But all the resistance is, is an uncomfortable feeling inside of you.  We can feel uncomfortable and do it anyway – we just will feel uncomfortable the whole time.

But its worth it.

This side of the resistance feels awful, but when you finally push the door open and get through, the other side feels so good.

When we come into this world we have so much to learn. We don’t know our feet and hands belong to us yet.

For the next several years our primary focus is on physical navigation, learning motor skills, then communication skills, and slowly we start learning social skills.

Meanwhile we are unconsciously soaking in behaviour patterns from those around us. We don’t need to learn about romance, relationships, money, taxes, self care, and bills. That’s all being looked after for us while we explore the world… but our limited exposure to it is building our beliefs around it.

When this happens we set out into the world and do what we know, and all we know is what we have been exposed to.

We aren’t a blank slate anymore. We operating with someone else’s system and start trying to apply our own ideas and principles.

That’s where the wires get crossed.

If you don’t ever stop and take the time to analyze where your beliefs, thoughts, labels, and ideas come from, the world will never really make sense to you. You will glaze over certain parts and wonder why you aren’t getting the results you want.

Maybe your relationships are failing, maybe your finances are meagre, maybe you have been hiding or escaping from life.

Whatever the case, self awareness becomes a valuable skill set because it helps you stop self sabotage and allows you to rebuild your operating system and then you can go where you want to go.

“Once you get the inside right, the outside falls into place” – Eckhart Tolle

Talking about our feelings is tricky business.  I’m not sure it comes naturally or easy to anyone.  I think first and foremost we need to forgive ourselves and each other for not being able to do it perfectly.  It’s a skill, and a dance, and it’s just plain hard.

It’s always so easy for me to know when my feelings have been hurt, and my knee jerk reaction is to blame the other person, “what you did/said hurt my feelings”.

While on some level this can be true, and always a place to start, I’m beginning to understand that deeper connection comes from sorting out the underlying reason for my hurt feelings and talking about that.

Enter vulnerability.

Am I trying to please someone who has rejected my efforts?

Have I voiced an opinion that is important to me, and been left feeling disregarded and unheard?

Have I attached my self worth to something that has failed, and now I feel like a failure?

Have I self sacrificed for too long, and now I don’t even know how to choose me, (and the other person won’t choose me either)?

This work is extremely humbling. If I don’t feel completely humbled and vulnerable when I’m searching for the answer, I know I haven’t quite figured it out yet.

If by this point if I haven’t reached out to someone, now is the time.  Left unspoken these feelings breed shame and resentment, or leave me feeling like the victim.  None of which is healing.

Sharing these vulnerable and humbling feelings with the right person is magic.  The pain and shame dissipate, and you are left feeling whole again and stronger, more deeply connected and loved.  You will go from hurt to loved and loving.

Vulnerability is never comfortable and it requires a whole bunch of bravery, and almost always some tears.  Don’t be surprised by that or try to hold back, it’s a good sign that you’re doing the work in a way that will heal you because it’s coming from your heart and not your head.

I write this blog everyday.

It helps me figure out life, how I’m feeling, and what is important.  And when my oldest son moved out at age 14, it gave me place to document all of the things I wanted to teach him, but didn’t get the chance.

But I have always had a larger vision.

Those of you who know me know that I have been grappling for a long time with how to share this powerful and life changing information in a way that will evoke change in others.

On the blog I share where I am at and what I’m learning daily, but I’ve realized that although there is so much good stuff in this blog, the information is scattered and hard to follow if you are serious about making a change in your life.

It is only helpful if you happen to be going through the same thing at the same time as me.

There needs to be a roadmap, and that is why I am doing this workshop

Here is what I have learned.

We are always growing up and there are times when growing up is hard.  Sometimes crappy things happen and we become fragmented and scattered.

Elizabeth Gilbert said it so well when she said this on a facebook post one day… “if you have been around for three or four or five decades, the fact is — some really crappy things have probably happened to you…just by EXISTING.

You’ve been dumped; you’ve been lied to; you’ve been betrayed; you’ve been physically harmed; you’ve been disappointed; you’ve disappointed yourself; you’ve had people fail you and you have failed yourself; you’ve been fired; you’ve been discriminated against; you’ve been unfairly blamed; you’ve been taken for granted; you’ve been stricken with disease; you’ve been impoverished; you’ve lost the people you loved most in the world; you’ve been screwed and sued and abused and used…”

And as existing happens we leave little bits of ourselves behind all the while we strive to be the best we can be as good moms, good spouses, good citizens, to provide for our families, and be who we think we are supposed to be in this world.

Those little bits of ourselves we leave behind need to be gathered up again to bring us back to feeling whole.

That is why I am doing this 8 week workshop.

There is a joy and peacefulness to it that you can’t quite grasp when you are feeling fragmented.  You already know this because you can feel it.

Become whole again.  There is a magic inside of you waiting to come out.

You can get details on how to register when you enter your name and email in the ribbon at the top of this post.

So there we sat.  

She looked me square in the eye and said, “when you love someone with a heart that is already broken, it’s like you keep trying to fill it up for them, but it just keeps leaking out the bottom.”

And that’s when I began to understand, you can’t love someone enough.  

Until that point, I believed loving someone “enough” would heal their broken heart.  

Looking back on my relationship history, it is apparent I chose people that I thought would be healed from my big, loving, generous heart.  

The problem is, if they don’t believe they are loveable, it is impossible for them to accept love.   Their personal belief prevents it and you can’t love that out of them.  

I couldn’t see that from the inside.   

I always heard that a relationship isn’t 50/50… It’s 100/100.  So when things weren’t working I would try to give more.   

But no matter how loving I was, or how hard I loved, it went unappreciated, rejected and ignored, or at best it was taken for granted.   

So I would try even harder.   Love more.  Hoping to prove my own philosophy to myself.  

Sitting there that day, hearing those words, changed everything.  

That started the unravelling.  

I competed as a kid.

A lot.

I competed with horses from the time I was 7 or 8 until I was 19 or 20.

My life pretty much consisted of practicing, preparing, and competing. There were no parties, there were no other sports.

I rode fast. And I rode slow. I led my horse. I rode western, and English. I rode flat and I jumped.

In my teenage years I primarily showed horses. And I loved it.

I loved the level of perfection needed to win. I loved all of the nuance and the details that made the difference between first place and last place.

While every class at every competition was a big deal, there were some shows that meant more and therefore had higher stakes.

I won a lot. And I won some pretty big titles.

And I learned a lot about life.

Competition teaches you so many things you don’t easily learn otherwise. It puts you in a pressure cooker and you have to perform your best. When you slip up, or let down – you pay the price.

The amount of pressure we put on ourselves when the stakes are high can be debilitating.

There were times I walked, or rode into the show pen and made mistakes I should have never made… basic things would be left behind like having my reins too long in horsemanship, or blowing a pattern.

My trainer would tell me before the big shows – this one isn’t any differnt, its just another horse show.

And yet the stakes were higher.

The titles were on the line, and there wasn’t any hiding that part.

Was he right?

Yes, he was right.

The big horse shows were always just another horse show.

20 years later, looking back, nobody cares about any of the titles I won. There have been a lot more kids come behind me, and they have won those titles. Nobody knows who I am.

But I know.

And the people who were close to me at the time know.

And although that still feels like such a special time in my heart, it is the journey to get there that really mattered.

Every intense situation.

Every failure.

Every lesson.

Every tear cried back at the trailer.

Every tear cried in the winners circle.

Every harsh word spoken

Every word of encouragement.

All of the sweat in the practice pen.

And all of the miles travelled… contributed to who I am and how I see the world today.

In the moment it always feels like you need to make the goal, or win the thing.

But once you’ve done it, all you have left is who you have become along the way.

Competition has a way of making you want to be better.

It drives you to climb the ladder and to keep improving.

But it also teaches you that you get another shot, and that winning isn’t everything.

Find ways to compete. Find ways to be better. And celebrate every win along the way.

This is something you won’t regret.

I assumed we fall in love kind of by accident.  

Love seemed like it was something that just happens…one day you wake up and realize oh my! I think I love you now.  
I thought sometimes you fall out of love.

I thought sometimes you figure out you never really loved that person like you thought you did.  

I thought when someone treated you poorly, or hurt you bad enough you would stop loving them.

I used to believe I had a choice when it came to love.

But I’m beginning to understand there is no choice when it comes to love, it’s what happens when you really get to know someone, even if you don’t like them.

You don’t have to fight to be loved and you don’t have to fight to end love… because it never ends.

Love is just there…without any ownership. 

It stays forever more.

Once I love you, I will always love you… I can never unlove someone.

And I’m learning to be ok with that.

Love is the only feeling I ever want to remember anyway.



If I knew what a difference telling my story would make in my life, I would have done it from the beginning of time.

But there were many years I didn’t have a safe space to tell my story. I was ridiculed for almost everything that was my choice, even the middle name of my oldest son. Apparently we had to “bury that name” before it went any further… I didn’t know we had done that until my son was about 5.

The constant judgement of our actions keeps us small.

It makes us question ourselves and our choices and we wonder if we are a good person because our mistakes seem so bad.

Sharing our story helps us figure out the pieces that don’t make sense but also connects us to others, which is a magic all in of itself.

Other people see themselves in our stories. Sometimes they wish they were the main character, and sometimes they see themselves as the villain.

The more I opened up and shared my stories, the more I wondered why I thought I couldn’t before.

Silence isolates us.

Stories connect us.

Please share your story with us, of the real you inside, it keeps you human, it helps us connect to you, and we learn.