Finding Your Groove

We know all of the hype and stats about how many times the average person changes careers in their productive, working lifetime. Are you one of these people, one of the statistics that we read and hear about? If you are, then you have taken the plunge, so to speak! You have gone through the often agonizing thought process of justifying why you should risk all and go forward with your decisions. You are a risk taker, keeping in mind that there are different degrees of risk!

So here you are, gone through all of the foreplay and find yourself at your new choice of career - whatever it may be. If you made your decision based on your own intrinsic set of values and personal parameters of interest, passion, viability and level of comfort, then you will be looking ahead. If different reasons have generated choices with a less solid foundation, then you may find yourself looking over your shoulder and entertaining wild thoughts of why you did this and experience hot flashes of regret. Lets focus on looking ahead with a clear conscience and an open mind! This is where I find myself now, today, in the moment!

Keeping in line with my character and way of doing things, I not only changed careers, but changed cities, regions and provinces right across the country! Hell, why not? If you are going to make some changes, then make some changes! I have never been one to idly dip a toe in the water to test the viability of a quick dip... I tend more to jump in head first after researching conditions and look forward to enjoying an awesome lengthy swim! So, from Ontario to east Vancouver Island... could not get much farther west in this beautiful country! I Immersed myself in a new career knowing that this is a large part of the fuel for my passions in life. I believe that I have become wiser through my experiences thus far. I worked so hard for so many years trying  to keep my passion as my vocation. I finally acknowledged that in doing so, I was actually unable to continue to pursue my passion for myself, for my own pleasure. Instead I was, for the most part, sharing my passion with others and enabling them to get out there and live their dream! Nothing wrong with that, but I was dying on the inside. Day after day I watched as I kindled the fire in others and they set off to do what I wished I still had the time and resources to do. Was it their fault, was it my fault... who cares! That's not the point. Have you found yourself in that position? Your career resonating around exciting and empowering others to get out and participate in an activity that is your passion in life. Then realizing that your choice to do this does not enable you to get out and pursue that passion yourself? Outcome over time...?

So here I am in a recent career choice that still enables me to excite others about activities that are my passions in life, but also encourages and enables me to get out there and walk the talk! Is this the holy grail of careers for me? I am not at a point yet where I can definitively say YES! Why not you ask candidly? This now, is the focus of "Finding Your Groove"! 

New location, new surroundings, new town ,new province, new... sigh. Being able to go with the flow of change is the name of this game! Change excites me, gets those creative juices flowing and keeps my mind sharp. Must be the rather large amount of Gypsy blood in me - my Oma warned me about this! Most recently, now, the focus is on getting all of the individual components of a happy life to balance and function as an integral unit. New career, family, friends, health, physical activity, love, free time, idle time, passion time, kayaking time, surfing time, climbing time, mountain biking time, hiking time, reading time, expedition planning time, travel and exploring time... now it's time to find the groove where all of this comes together and functions to create a lifestyle that is fun, happy, healthy, passionate and sustainable! Is it even possible? Yes.

How, we ask at one point or another in our lives... how is it possible? The bottom line answer for each of us is that we have to want ti to be. Not just want, but desire it to be, desire it so badly that it hurts! To other grey people who have 'settled for', we then look like people possessed! All manner of slurs end up flying your way... just because you have made up your mind and decided that you want to change your life to the life you wish to lead! Be strong in your conviction! For every one person you will find that supports you, there will be dozens who do their very best to discourage you. "Never Give Up"! Focus forward and strive for that feeling of being 'in the groove', you've had it as a fleeting emotion before or would not be on this compelling journey to begin with! It's that feeling which is so difficult to describe in words! I believe that the French call it Je ne sais qua... iIt's an emotion driven by a combination of adrenaline and endorphines which elicits a feeling of euphoria... a feeling so perfect that you crave being there again! That's being 'in the groove'. Yes, your life, your entire moment to moment existence can be either in the groove, or a series of moments in the groove compiled into one happy human! 

This is huge. Enormous, even! Daunting to most if viewed as a singular state of being, all at once. I prefer the trickle approach, one precious moment at a time! The culmination of these individual more-or-less sequential moments will eventually evolve into my state of wholly being in the groove. I know I am close. I am still on the teeter-totter leg of my journey, but am finding myself in that moment of balance for longer periods of time, and the sway out of balance to be more gentle and less distressing in amplitude! In plain English, I am beginning to create the time and the means to get out there and do the things I am passionate about. This has everything to do with where you choose to live and what you choose your career to be! I am so fortunate to be working in a career environment where all of us collectively understand the vital importance of this concept. The tag-line of the company is "Getting You Out There". The vision is dualistic and intended for the staff as well as the customers! This vision can only be fully actualized if it is kept alive, in focus and made a priority every day! If it's to be, it's up to me... you too can be the catalyst to positive change! If you find that you are in a place where this is not condoned, where you are the odd-one-out, then it's time to visit your inner most needs, wants, desires and emotions! Time to make the change... NEVER GIVE UP!

This is a work in progress! I'm just over three months into a goal I set back in 98! Stay tuned. Much love...

Rain On The Roof...

Have you ever had that perfect picture of something in your mind? it's a vivid scene of something you so incredibly yearn for. Kodachrome pastels and vibrant Fuji Velvia greens, every detail, faint scent, nerve tingling texture, direction and intensity of wind, aspect of the waves... all there in your mind to create the most incredible scene - perfect according to all six of your senses!
The holy grail in ones life may be to achieve in reality those scenes that one plays out so perfectly in ones mind. Have you accomplished that... at least once? What was it like? Was every detail as intense and intimately the same as it was in your vision? How long did the euphoria last? Did the scene live on to become something permanent in your life or was it transient and shifting on the breezes of loose emotions to transform into something vague and indifferent with time?

Before I ever physically ventured to the mountains I had my very own picture-perfect vision. A scene of what my ideal life would be like if I indeed gathered the courage and took the cue to 'get the hell out' and move from my perceived state of misery and quasi-pathetic existence to where I truly understood I needed to be. I have been to mountainous areas in four different countries and on three different continents searching for that very same vision. You know, it's the vision that is so vivid in your mind that you just know you will recognize it instantly when you see it, feel it, hear it... become immersed in its intensity of purpose! You will just know.

When I close my eyes and let myself into my inner thoughts I perceive the sense that I have almost been there. I intrinsically know that several times I have been so very close to wandering into that special scene, that special place with its unique site and situation that entices each of my senses just so. In all of the most sincere honesty though, I must share, that I have never truly arrived! Not once have I been able to stop, to freeze and fiercely proclaim that "this is it - my perfect vision at last!". I am left with a primal sense of deep longing for what I almost found! This feeling of longing is mixed with an intense euphoria derived from the realization of being so very close to something that I crave so much. What I found and experienced was a piece of my vision, a segment that when combined with others begins to complete the picture much like an incredibly complex puzzle in ones mind. This drives me to keep looking, to keep believing that my vision can indeed be a blissful reality. So I continue searching for my very own aspect of tranquility, knowing deep inside that I will find it... I know I have been there before, just not quite able to put my finger on it!

So, some of us develop the courage, the ambition and the immunity to the adverse advice of the Grey They and embark on a journey of discovery. A journey to capture the rapture of that pristine vision and to live within its intricate details! I have truly met a few souls on my own journey who could solidly state that they have arrived, that they are indeed immersed in THE life within their very own special vision! Yes, they were innately happy, full of joy, peace and had a powerful sense of vibrant energy about them. Their scene, it's site, situation and accompanying stimulants may not have been for my senses, but it was theirs, the actualization of their very own special vision. These unique individuals gave me hope and the strength I needed to continue my on my own journey for the reality of my own unique vision. Knowing that I was not alone on such a quest was monumental. The realization that there were awesome others who had believed against all odds and left much behind to discover their own unique vision of existence renewed my confidence and fortified my resistance to the incessant negative barrage from the Grey They! I am sure that you other visionaries out there experience this debilitating 'friendly fire' from Grey friends and family too! The guilt trips and pointing of crooked fingers in your direction... mmmmm, you've been there too!

I continue on my journey-quest. I do enjoy meeting and sharing with like-minded souls. You are relatively few and far between, but take to heart what it is that I am sharing. On each leg of my journey I meet more of you and cherish all of you. Most recently, thank you to a special person on their own journey who took the time to be a true friend and to allow me to live in a very special place in Otter Point, BC. This special place turned out to be yet another elusive fragment of my vision, one that makes complete a critical series of pieces to the puzzle. I am close, so very close now. You know I will persevere, I will continue my journey until it is abundantly clear to me that I have arrived... am indeed immersed within my vision, senses tingling and an intense life energy vibrating in tune with every cell of my being!

For those of you who identify, who understand my ramblings... please say hi... stay tuned, follow my blog... and make sure you keep in touch! Much love and ciao for now!

New beginnings... raw emotions!

So you fall in love with a certain aspect of nature, to the point of craving, urgently desiring to be near or immersed in it. Mountains for me. Climbing, crag, mountain, high alpine, ice has consumed my life for so many years! It has had a profound effect on who I am today, on my character and my physical self. My passionate goal in life has always been to live in those mountains, to immerse myself in their grandeur and humble my existence to their vibrant beauty. Until recently, I had succumbed to the profound excuses ones mind fabricates to avoid the potential pains of massive change.

Yes, change is grand, but always comes at a price, the price of inevitable but real consequences. The often delicate fabric of ones very being becomes challenged when faced with decisions that have raw, nerve grinding implications. These include leaving behind family, friends, familiar places and enchanting memoirs in the quest for achieving ones objectives and living the goals of ones passions! Oh, but we will visit often, and yes, we will call every week, write as often as we can and...  The raw reality becomes everyone busily scurrying about to continue to make ends meet. Days turn into weeks and become months which we then celebrate on December 31st into years! Alone.

But, remember, everything is a choice and therein lies solace that one can indeed live their dream and still stay connected to everything that truly matters. This is the secret, the holy grail to breaking  free and moving on to live your dream! You choose to stay in touch, or not! You choose to write, to phone, to text, to visit, or not. You do this because it is what you truly want to do, without any pre-conceived motives... any return from others then becomes a beautiful thing and not an expected one! How incredibly simple and sweet is that!?! Once one plugs into that kind of psyche, into such an energetic space, no barriers really matter. And the most incredible aspect of choosing to exist in this mind space is that other like-minded individuals sense your clarity. Unbelievably, from ground zero, new souls seeking similar friendship appear!

I made the choice to leave almost everything that was familiar behind in my personal quest to be close to the mountains... for the second time now. Again, I have re-discovered my true self, my very own vibrational frequency in the larger space of this incredible world. I have revisited the state of being alone by choice and have found myself once again working through the emotional minefield of my own doubts and insecurities. It is truly an amazing experience from which the resulting growth as an individual is simply awesome! My fears and perceived shortcomings have transformed into something truly unanticipated... the simple joys of breathing, touching, seeing, hearing, putting one step in front of the other to cover distance! I have learned to take nothing for granted and to accept and live each moment as it unfolds. Yes, I miss my family, my children, my friends and even the familiar places. It is however no longer a painful emotion. I am excited that I understand it's up to me how and when I will see them and interact with them. I am so excited to receive any communications from them as I have not placed any expectations on that premise. Each moment is truly special. Each moment spent in that space has enabled me to be open to fresh friendships here in this new place I choose to call home.

Thank you to all whose lives have brushed by and left a lasting impression! I am here, in the mountains, by the sea and immersed in nature where I love to be! What choices are you making to chase your dreams? Are you ready to accept the inevitability of their consequences? There is no shame in being real, raw and true to who and what you are!