It’s all coming together. It’s all happening this week.

We are in the final stretch. The last few steps of the unfolding of an idea into reality.

It began last fall when the couple who organized the art show I was in last year told us (the Basement Bombshells Art Collective) that they would no longer be putting the show on. “Do you want to take it over?” they asked.

“Yes!” We quickly exclaimed.

Several months of prep and organization, getting easels built (Thank you Industrial Arts students at Centennial High School!) postcards created and printed, mail lists merged and a host of small and not so small tasks that had to be taken care of before the show could go on,  we are finally into the last few days of prep work leading up to the big show and sale this weekend!

Colour me excited. Colour me over the moon. But don’t colour me exhausted! I’m not.

It’s been a busy few weeks. While getting everything ready for the Artists Gone Wild Art Show & Sale, I was always preparing my presentation for the Empower Your Butterfly Spirit women’s conference I spoke at on Saturday in Claresholm (it was a wonderful experience!). And, working with This is My City Art Society on the This is Where I Belong project  for the kick-off of the Calgary Homeless Foundation‘s newest affordable housing project in the Beltline Area. Along with the community engagement on two additional projects that the Foundation is getting underway, it’s been a busy few weeks!

But here’s the thing. I’m not  tired because all of these things engage me in living on purpose, in the rapture of now.

And what can be better than that?

On Saturday, as I drove south towards Claresholm where the Empower conference was being held, I thought about turning back. Overnight, a late spring snowfall (read – dump) had turned the roads from clear pavement to a mushy mess of slushy slickness.

It wasn’t pretty driving.

I gripped the wheel hard. Kept reminding myself to BREATHE… RELAX…        BREATHE… RELAX.

I slowed down, which was okay because I’d given myself lots of extra. The weather report had predicted this snowfall and sure enough, this time, they were right.

Driving along the highway, my eyes peeled to the snow/slush covered road ahead, I thought about turning back. But there were no exits within sight. Like Winston Churchill who once advised, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I kept going.

And as I drove further south, the roads and the weather improved. There was snow, but not two feet of it! And, because it is spring, the warmth of the day had kept the lighter snow to the south from collecting on the pavement. It was wet, but not slick.

I made it to the conference centre where the conference was being held and had a wonderful day engaging with women who were all there to get inspired and uplifted. I had fun sharing my  story and insights, and I loved the opportunity to connect with some very powerful and interesting women and to learn new things too!

I didn’t stay right to the end as the forecast was for more snow and I knew I wanted to hit the highway before the coolness of evening set it. I’m glad I did. It was a safe and easy drive home without any clenched hand wheel gripping anxiety!

How we do one thing is how we do all things.

Sometimes, the going gets tough. Do I turn back? Stop? Quit?

Or, do I keep on going? Do I trust that where I’m at is not forever and know that to keep myself in the game means to believe that I am safe where ever I am in the universe.

I didn’t feel all that safe on the highway on Saturday. For awhile, I felt like turning back, but the road kept unfolding before me with no opportunity to quit. I kept breathing. I got conscious. I relaxed, my shoulders, my grip on the steering wheel. I turned my thinking away from thoughts of, “this is scary. Horrible. I can’t do this,” and focused instead on my capacity to drive safely and to take care of myself, even in tricky situations. I reminded myself that I have driven across the Rockies in worse conditions — and it’s true, I have. I reminded myself that I am safe in the universe and that includes even in those moments when I feel scared.

In carrying on, the journey became easier, the dangers less intense.

It was a good lesson.

To trust. To turn off the voice of doom and gloom in my head (Yup, the ole’ critter was looking to act out! I told him to take a long winter’s nap) and to stay present in the now.

I don’t recommend driving on mushy slick highways — not a good idea. But, when in the thick of it, the best response is to BREATHE… RELAX…. and keep on going until safe harbour can be found.

****************

PS — I had a painting to share that I just finished but for some reason, my iPhone has decided I have no photos on it and won’t upload or email to my computer. Very strange!

So, it finally happened, after 8 years of continuous blogging, I am at a loss on what to write.

And then, I read something over at Prophet of Bloom — The Missing Page — that got my mind stirring and chirring and whirring and wheezing and coughing and sputtering and thinking and breaking through the fog of “I have nothing to write about” to that place where I once again simply trust in the process and allow…

What I read was, “I have on many occasions also been a student.”

I am a student of life. I attempt, as often as possible, to enter any situation with the Zen concept of Shoshin or “Beginner’s Mind”.

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”  ∼ Shunryu Suzuki ∼

And then, I forget. I walk in thinking I know it all, or have all the answers, or there’s nothing else to learn and discover once again, the limits of my understanding, the narrowness of my view, the shallowness of my thinking.

And I begin again. To return to Shoshin. To enter Beginner’s mind space.

I begin again to unhook my thinking from what I think I know, to accept there is more to what I don’t know about myself, someone else, or a given situation, than I think.

Ah, the humbling journey in the Circle of Hubris — especially in relationship to me.

Me:  Yeah. Yeah. I know. I got it.

The Critter:  Seriously? You think you got it? Here, let me show you something you don’t know….

And suddenly I see myself doing, saying, being something/someone I wasn’t quite expecting.

Me:  Oh dear. Maybe I don’t.

My Higher Self:   Stop. don’t listen to the critter. Listen to me. It’s not so much about what you know, it’s all about what you’re willing to learn.

The Critter:  Yeah? Well that Louise, she always wants to speak first and listen last. You know what she’s like.

Me:  Oh. Well, I need to prove how much I know. I don’t want people to think I’m stupid or don’t understand.

The Critter:  Yeah? Well, that’s just stupid-thinking. How can you understand if you don’t first seek to understand?

Me:  Well, I have all this information and I thought it was all I needed to understand.

My Higher Self:  Shhh.  Breathe.  Deep breath. Remember, you cannot know everything. you must first seek to understand. It is the path to being understood.

Me:  But what am I supposed to do with all this information I’ve got?

My Higher Self:  Does it live in your head or your heart?

Me:   Ummm… Well…. Now that you ask….

My Higher Self:   Seek to understand, not to judge — and that includes yourself. Now, breathe again.

Me:  (sighing)  Yeah. Yeah. I know. I got it.

Years ago, in the early stages of my healing from the very difficult relationship that almost killed me, a friend asked, “So, tell me Louise. We know he was a psychopath and lied and manipulated, but what about you? What does being in that relationship say about you?”

I asked my friend, “Are you asking to understand or to judge me? Because if it’s to judge me, don’t bother. You’ll never be able to judge me as harshly as I’ve judged myself.”

And it was true. I was writhing in self-condemnation and judgement. I was awash in dismay that I could have been so stupid, so weak, so gullible as to fall for his lies.

Even though I knew the space well, holding myself in self-condemnation and judgement was not serving me well. It was keeping me stuck in what he did, in what happened, in the past. It was limiting my capacity to step freely into the now, loving myself for all I was worth — and that included as a woman who was abused, a woman who was so lost she deserted her children because she believed they would be better off without her in their lives.

That woman needed to be heard. Understood. Known, in all her woundedness for me to find myself again in the light of Love.

And I couldn’t do that if I was continually turning up in the blackness of my limiting belief that who I was then was all I could ever be.

So many of my answers to life, to living free can only be found in my willingness to learn, to stay open, to stay in beginner’s mind space so that I can take each step of this journey called “LIFE” as if each step is a brand new way of being me, without fearing the me I was in the past is the only way I can be today.

I woke up this morning and told myself I had nothing to write about.

Whether I believed it or not, in the telling myself I didn’t have anything to write, I was limiting my capacity to step into the unknown and simply trust in the process and allow…

Hmmm…. I wonder where else in my life I do that? Turn up and assume I’ve got it covered. I know it all and in my knowing don’t need to understand anything else…

Hmmm… Breathe.  And begin again.

Breathe and surrender all fear of the unknown to fall into Love.

I slept in this morning. Two long days this week, back to back, and I was tired.

So I allowed myself to continue sleeping even when my mind said, “It’s time to get up!”

I feel refreshed. Rested. Excited about my day.

It’s all about giving myself medicine first — and for me, that begins with giving myself permission to not listen to my head when it is urging me to get going, get up, and instead, to go with what my body is telling me — to rest, refresh, restore.

Even in listening to my body, however, my thinking mind still wants to jump in and say, “C’mon. You shouldn’t be tired. So what if those were 12 hour days with lots of prep work and lots of personal interactions with strangers. You shouldn’t be tired.”

Actually, what it’s really saying is, “you don’t have the right to be tired.”

My mind thinks I should be super woman.

My body knows better.

It isn’t the length of the days that was tiring. It was the personal interaction. The talking to strangers. The ‘being on’ and while I am authentically interested in connecting to people, hearing what they have to say, learning their stories and listening to their perspectives, I find myself in need of a great deal of quiet time when I’m done, especially as I’m not done yet — with the personal interactions and connecting to people.

That work is never done — and this week, on Saturday, I am off to a Women’s conference to be the keynote speaker and to present an hour-long workshop on…. blogging!

So…. here’s where you can play a part in my presentation — Pretty please.

For those of you who blog, the question is.

What makes blogging? Why do you do it? 

And for those of you who don’t blog but read them… the question is still “what makes blogging great?” and:   What do you like/get/find worthwhile about reading blogs?

What I plan on doing in my presentation is to present some of your answers — with your first name or online name or whatever name you tell me you’d like to be recognized as — to provide my audience a big picture of bloggers and blog readers that speaks to our diversity and geographic location and in particular, our inspiration.

If you read here on WordPress, feel free to leave your response in the Comments section — pretty please. 🙂

If you read on Facebook — please just fill in the reply box and send away!  Pretty please. 🙂

And, if you’d prefer to simply send me an email, please do — louise[at]louisegallagher.ca

Pretty please and thank you!

And to answer my own questions — I started reading blogs firsts. Sometime in 2006 a friend send me a link to Mark is Musing. I started following Mark’s blog and then, inspired by Mark’s commitment to the craft of writing, I started my first blog in March of 2007 — “Recover Your Joy“. My original intent was to keep myself writing daily. Now, with eight years under my belt of daily blogging, it’s about keeping myself balanced, centered. As my eldest daughter, Alexis, said when she was writing her daily blog, How I survived myself” for a year, it’s a form of meditation.”

And it is. A form of meditation. I write free-flow. I don’t generally pre-plan my blogs. I don’t have a pre-determined message. I simply trust in the process and allow the words and ideas to flow. I have about 45 minutes every morning that I allot to blog writing. And then, mostly in the evenings, I will visit blogs I follow — I’d like to do more of that but some days there simply isn’t time (like this week). I love to learn from others. To be a part of their life experiences. To read their stories and be inspired by how their lives are unfolding and the things they do to make a difference in the world.

Bloggers are another form of community — and I love community.

So… that’s it. If you’re willing to participate. Thank you.

Your presence here is wonderful participation, connection, everyday — I love our community of spirited living!

Blessings to all. May your day be filled with moments so tender your breath escapes your body with a sigh of delight as your heart softens into Love.

Namaste.