Subscribers click here to watch.

Reservoirs of love that if fully recognized and reaped, can elevate us for minutes, hours, days.

Try this:

The next time you are in a setting where a stranger ladles on “how are you” – that seemingly meaningless expression of cordiality swapped by strangers everywhere in restaurants, check-out stands and more, drink it in.

Drink that baby in like it’s your last water bottle in the middle of a desert.

DO NOT GIVE BACK.

This is your time to receive.

Practice receiving, fully, deeply, with your whole heart.

Sound crazy?

What’s crazy is how good it feels.

And how good it makes them feel.

The not giving back part is important.

The problem with our “how are you?” “fine thanks how are you?” automated society is no one is stopping to receive.

If no one is receiving, no one gets to enjoy giving.

That’s why we hate it, call it fake.  No one is getting anything real out of it.

The common mistake is assuming the fakeness comes from a fake giving, but lack of receiving is equally, if not more, to blame.

You can’t change the way they give, but you can change the way you receive.

Even if they meant nothing consciously with their “how are you,” by receiving it as a precious gift you completely change the interaction.

You change what they’ve given you into something huge.

Again, the not giving back part is important.

For one thing, there’s no time.  In these fleeting interactions to deeply receive you must concentrate.

The game?  Finding the parallels between the two.  Also?  I go on a rant about our education system treating people like poodles, hitting my desk several times.

Fun stuff.

Subscribers click here to watch it.

The last you heard (Unless you played with me on twitter today.  I’ve mostly been a good web-nun..) was that some magic had snuck into my firm-as-pudding plans to announce our first offering!

Now it all makes sense.

Of course!

Because the new Magicians had to be born.  And somewhere during the birth I got a lot better at communicating what I teach.  So that was cool.

Now I understand the program I was about to offer was far too boring.

It was serious-me sneaking onto the scene again, disguised as “professional” me.

What got me out of the trap?

Quietly, playfully questioning the whole thing.  Apple pie and soft warm breezes.  A bike ride and some naps.  Plural!

Remembering that which we forget.

Oh yes!  And we have new headshots.  The tiny teacup is back.  It just_won’t_die.

Enjoy the new changes loves.  More good things are being baked as we speak.  (by me, not the squirrel army, who only eat malt balls.)

So I’ve been letting you in on what it’s like to grow a business.

And we’ve talked about both the importance of experimenting with that lost feeling but also knowing when to push through and get it done.

In the last week I went from chasing one epiphany session after the next, to actually scheduling action items.  Hence the “scheduling” of our release date for yesterday.

But here’s where a blind spot got me:  I did not foresee how much time I would need to make the first offering just as I want it.

Yesterday when we were down to the wire, I found myself facing a judgment call:

Do I make this happen for the sake of the deadline, at the sacrifice of quality?

No.

Quality has and will always be a cornerstone of this business.

But it also seemed something mysterious was happening in the timing.

The wifi would break down just as I was about to publish.  Or a fight would break out on the streets (ah seattle) just as my concentration had reached its zenith.

It was if some force greater than myself was bonking me on the head:  Not now!  Can I make it any more obvious?

And now, a day later, I know why.

I was exhausted.  Too exhausted to properly word the offering-in-my-head.  Too exhausted to do much of anything else besides sleep, which I did not.

I remembered:

When our energy cup is filled to the brim we experience more love, more magic, more surprises.

It is also when we create our best work.

Coming next Tuesday:  Our very first program offering ever!

Came today:  A library that smells good.  Just like libraries should!

Coming in three weeks:  The play-flow challenge.  Highly personal.  Integrating my bittersweet relationship with my music career.  Healing, adventure and pushing edges all in one.

Speaking of pushing edges..

This week was a grand experiment in that.  I’ve had so many epiphanies from not-goaling, embracing confusion and its ilk, that I had begun to handily find excuses to never actually create anything.

To not take all the product and program ideas I have in my head and make them happen.

The digital diet has pushed me through!  Even more than abstaining from web-pinions what really got my fire going was publicly declaring I would be a web-nun until I create something of value for you.  And since I adore frolicking on the twitter (and shyly but surly the Ogle+) I knew I would want to return soon.

It worked!

What also was most helpful was..

Hearing someone say something smart that just clicked.  Basically he said, you never feel fully ready.

When it comes to your dreams, your most important projects, anything important..

You never feel fully ready.

So what are you waiting for?

This video is for those of you who are feeling lost at the moment, in your life’s purpose, a project, or even on what to make for dinner.

Featuring a new angle of my cabin-office and an adorable as-of-yet-nameless plant.

(Email subscribers click here to see it.)

I had gotten in trouble for reading on the job.

Well, what else was there to do?  I finished all my work ahead of the hour, and observing criminals squirm beneath the laser-stare of our fresh-scrubbed, pin-striped-suit lie detector expert gets tiring after a few days.

He took us out to fancy lunches, my boss.

The best in Hollywood.  Old Hollywood he would say.

I loved the man dearly.  All four feet of him, or five?  Even though his drinking at 10am was hard to handle.  Red-faced.  We didn’t get much work done.

I was working for an FBI celebrity.

He had solved a famous case, which I won’t mention here, because he is probably reading this now.  Wise thing!

This man had a heart of gold.  The day I broke down in the office, when I got the call about my Mom, he was right there offering to pay for the best doctors in the country.

But I’m not sure if he meant it.

Because he had also promoted me to head detective, one night after too many drinks.

And in the morning his assistant had to delicately “take it back.”  You’ve got the best mind in the company!  He had raged, swinging his glass.

The office smelled like hot paper.

Every morning we ate carbohydrates:  Stuffed Cinnamon roll things, fresh breads, streusal-topped puddings.  All free.

But I made a mistake that could have cost me my life.

When 9/11 happened, I still did not know you don’t have to follow your boss’s instructions.

When we heard the news there was total shock.  My boss calmly got on the phone and shut his office door.

Shortly he emerged, announcing,

“Intelligence tells me our building may be hit next.”

Our building was the main Jewish center in Los Angeles.  A tall thing, with a Starbucks nearby.

Yet I didn’t run.

I wanted to, and I didn’t because my boss told us to stay put.

That is how indoctrinated I was into the system:  You do what your boss says.  Even if it threatens your life.

Also?  I never got feisty  about the inappropriate body-comments these dudes ladled on me.

It would take another job for me to learn this lesson, where thankfully, I found the courage to become a whistle-blower.

Agents from all over the world called me.

I was the one answering the phone.  See how important it was for me to be there?  Why it was worth risking losing my life?

For $18 dollars an hour.

*deep breath*

My co-worker who was secretly dating a black girl (secret because boss was racist and may have fired him) began to fall apart.

He didn’t believe in recycling either, fucker.  – My main battle with the FBI.

Later he told me I needed to get pregnant soon, because my time to be a mother was running out.  I was 21.

FBI dudes are weird.

The sadness, the pain of 9/11 did not come until much later for me.  The next day I think, from my apartment in Beverly Hills with my roommate who put sugar in everything.  “It’s a Chinese secret.”

It was all shock and discombobulation in the FBI office on 9/11.

And my main lesson emerged as:  Don’t blindly follow your boss’s instructions.

It could cost you your life.

(The biz is fresh and shiny as of July 15th! Although technically a division of a not-ahole-corporation I’ve had since 2007.)

Video Vednesdays and Friday articles (anyone have a fun name to suggest for that?) will continue vigorously, as usual.

Rare appearances on The Twitter and Ogle+ shall be made.

(Subscribers click here to see the video.)

Since I know she isn’t the only one feeling wonderingish about it, I decided to dive deeper.  With you.

Jump in my magic Santa bag!

Here’s the thing about this epiphany tool:  It takes time.

It is not a quickie epiphany tool, but once you learn it, it is super easy and you will do it all the time because not only are you discovering new parts of blocks, fast-tracking your epiphanies, but it acts as a fountain of youth. 

The more you do it, and the better you become at noticing tension in your face and releasing it, the more good-lookin’ you emerge.

But vanity aside (and I believe vanity is an important skill to relearn) – you’ll love it just for the epiphanies, too.

Here’s how!

Most of you guys are already observers-of-people.  If you are not I would be quite surprised.  Not kicking-you-to-the-door surprised but…faintly concerned.

You like to study yourself (inner-adventuring) and thus, you are interested in studying other people too.

To access this epiphany tool, begin by studying others.

Specifically watch for tension in their face.

Start with obvious moments – they are interacting with a stranger, or paying a bill, or trying to control a child/spouse.

This is a subtle, tiny, fleeting thing to notice.

The tension will usually appear – a brief tightening – and then disappear under a well-trained mask.

I want you to watch for that transition between relaxed and tense states.

Like in a conversation between two people – they are having a good time.  Then one of them says something that makes the other tense their face briefly.

See?

Once you become aware of this pattern you will see it all the time, and eventually, you will be able to trace back wrinkles to tensions that people hold long-term.

Second: begin tuning in to your own face, for when it is tense.

Right now in this moment your face may be tense.  It’s in the eyebrows for me, that ridgey-thing above my eye-lashes that I call my caveman bone.  Oh!  Now that tension is gone.  See how fast it moves?

Scan the sensations in your face.  Find any tension.

Then be sure to release it, let it on its way.

Sensation is always changing.

If you can’t feel anything in your face just scan the sensations in one small part.  The upper lip is good, because you will feel your breath cool on the inhale, warm on the exhale.  Once you master one small part of your face, expand until you can manage the whole face.

Probably sitting at your computer isn’t the best example though.

The prime situation for you to learn is when interacting with others.

They will say something, typically, that alerts one of your blocks and causes tension to ripple across your face.

Communication with others is a wonnnderful secret access point to epiphanies!

So go downstairs and strike up a conversation with a family member, or talk to your office neighbor, and the whole time have one part of yourself in your face.  Watching for any tension that may arise.

You may be tense from the start of the conversation!  Many people are.

One place where I typically tense up is in the grocery-store-line, then during the entire awkward conversation with the clerk where I am usually stymied by the perennial “how are you?”

So let’s use me as an example.

I feel my face tensing up whilst in line at the grocery store (actually other bodyparts too.  Eventually you get to the whole body and it will feel not only fascinating but delicious.)

My eyes harden a little and my cheeks freeze.  Lots of minute hardenings are happening as I speak to the clerk.  How are you?  Good.  How are you?

I get my bag and leave, feeling enormous relief, then frustration for why can’t I get this right?

Later in my inner-adventuring time alone I can revisit this moment, and the tight sensations in my face.

That moment held valuable information.  Information that gives me the KEY TO EPIPHANIES.

(I wasn’t yelling just there.  More excited bellowing and waving of arms.)

So later, as I sit quietly alone, consciously inner-adventuring, I can go there, though I probably won’t.  I’ll procrastinate because that one is painful.

I’d rather work on a block I know, that I feel some control over.

But that’s how epiphany digging tricks us!  Just when we think we know how to access epiphanies around one block, we are challenged all over again by a new block.  And we usually avoid what we need most to work on now.

So I sit quietly and take myself back to one specific moment in the grocery store.

As those hardening sensations revisit my face, memories come up.  Epiphanies come up.

The epiphanies are hiding in the sensations. 

Now we know epiphanies can sound obtuse.  (Mostly because they are supposed to.  They were never meant to be harnessed to written form.)

Epiphanies for me in this instance, involve stuff about my mask, stuff about my identity, my judgments, fears of others, my power, early childhood social situations, etc.

So I’m seeing new layers of my blocks, and just by seeing those new layers, I’m automatically receiving new epiphanies.

You will too.

Want a taste of the Results?  Well, aside from the ripple effect that one epiphany can have on your entire life, speaking on this one situation?  Though I still feel tension when speaking to the clerk, I also feel elation.

I’ve now almost become addicted to talking to strangers, because the epiphanies have taught me how to make it magical.

Now, I use face tightening as a signal that a new epiphany is surfacing.

Hidden in a block, of course.

It’s not too often that I sit and recall sensations to work with them, because I’m constantly doing it in the moment.

But it took me years to get to that point.  You may want to re-read this article and decide where you feel most ready to start.

We went deep today!  I hope it was helpful.  If you’re looking for the video again, it is here.

Much love to everyone reading.

~

Amy