The exuberant part is the dream of heading to Maine, the place where I grew up – to live in the country with my family before the children are grown. A simpler life, quiet pace, land and space for my creativity to take wing. Of course, how all this this comes to pass is none of my business and beyond anyone’s control. Yet it feels to me and Joe that this is the next phase of life calling to us, we said yes, and off we go in just a few days.

The melancholy part is saying goodbye to Austin after twelve years of unimaginable transformation.

When I arrived here I was a recently divorced mom of a two-year old. I had just finished an MBA and secured a coveted position at a high-flying hi-tech company. I didn’t know a soul – lonely but I had signed up for this. Transformation.

It’s something that I said yes to again and again in the years to come. Yes to trying my hand at marriage again. Yes to having another baby. Yes to leaving my job to become an entrepreneur. Yes to meeting new people, forging new connections, joining in and creating communities. Yes to downsizing and selling a home. So many yesses. Yes, in fact, may have been my mantra. And Yes is the light leading down this next avenue.

Yes often feels like ‘uh-oh… oh no….” and can be confusing as hell, terrifying, melancholy. The angels who arrived in my Life during the Austin years are hard to hug goodbye. I have told myself – and I do believe – that I and my women friends are ‘women of the world!’ Which means we are timeless, ageless, beyond borders. I have no doubt that our connections are forever and that we will, never mind how many numbers of weeks transpire between visits and phone calls, pick right up where we left off. But it is a leap of faith to put this to the test. Not to mention, not knowing who’s around the corner, or how lonely might I feel at the start of this next phase? I am going home, but home and I are not the same as we were when we parted in 1994.

While living here I learned what friendship really is. Relationships grown here satisfied an internal yearning for depth of connection that I hadn’t recognized before. So it is that now I’m able feel where this connection exists in other parts of my life, with family and with friends who came before. I grew wiser in this place. I discovered what is meaningful. I have a sense of who I am and who I want to be in the decades to come.

All this is only the tip of the experience my family is having these days. I cannot adequately describe what it feels like to see your son leave the school where he grew to be a confident young man, discover his talents, and say goodbye to friends who mean the world to him. My daughter was born here, believes she is a cowgirl and is bravely facing an unknown town, teachers and classmates. Joe, having grown up in the military, has never called another place his home for so long. We are all reeling with a disquieting mix of sadness, anticipation, and varying degrees of resistance.

The other day I told my son what a gift it is to have these emotions. Who would we be if we didn’t feel the pang of loss, nervousness about what we don’t yet know, or the wheeee of a new idea come to fruition?

I’ll close with a heartfelt thank you to Austin. I love you. It’s been a truly wonderful twelve years.

Wishing you all well and lives full of feeling.

Maddy

in the days to come I’ll also begin chronicling our journey on my other (new) website: HolyShitWereMovingtoMaine.com – please visit me there!

That’s the power of intention to transform. Audacious. Scary as hell. In your face. Personal Growth. Opportunity. Delightful surprises. Dreams coming true.

What’s been wanting to transform in your Life? Is it finding a relationship? Creating excellent health? Becoming a more powerful presence? Enhancing – or ejecting – your career? Improving your sex life? Navigating your spiritual purpose?

What I know for certain is that transformation requires dedicated attention, consistent intention, a willingness to be honest about current circumstances while gently loving ones’ self onward, and daily practice. I find few things more wonderful than being present to the transformation of another – it’s an incredible turn-on to watch someone’s light grow brighter! So it’s no wonder I’ve been busily creating new programs to help guide and facilitate the transformation of women through THREE programs that we’re launching today.

Introducing… the re-launched VIBRANT LIFE MASTER CLASS, my return to one-on-one COACHING, and the brand-spankin’ new VIBRANT BIZ. Whether you want to shift your connection with your mate, your money, your body – there’s a program here that fits the bill. (Click the links to see my smiling face tell you all about it!)

SO – What didja get for mom this Mother’s Day? Or…. Mom, what are you doing for yourself this year? Because I am a mom and I know so many of us put ourselves last I really want to get the word out to moms about these programs. I’m just so excited about this great material and the opportunity contained therein to transform lives! So I’m going to gift THREE Vibrant Life Master Class programs to women who help me spread the word.

Simply tweet:
RT @MaddyV1 Moms who come 1st Transform the World! #VibrantLifeMasterClass http://bit.ly/JcCIwh

I’ll randomly select three lucky winners on Sunday, Mama’s Day, and notify you on Twitter. Any woman can use this for herself or gift to a mom of her choice – it’s up to you. Let the transformation begin! Wheeee!!!

Yup, that’s what I’m up to. And since I always gotta share what’s going on with me – I’m kicking off a few ways for you to transform too. Namely….

• A re-launch of the Vibrant Life Master Class.
• A brand-spanking new Coaching program.
• The opportunity you’ve been waiting for, a chance to work with me! I’m calling it Vibrant Biz.

It’s the #TransformationLaunch people! And it kicks off May 8. Stay tuned for the juice!

I may be a little high at the moment from such wonderful company, delightful weather, and fabulous Austin food trucks. I am also supremely gratified to have selected this day, these people, these conversations as time to emerge from a weeks-long haze of self-indulgent pity-partying in the (mostly) solitude of my inner sanctum. I’m not the only one who’s been doing it. My last post (Looking for Love in All  the Wrong Places) elicited several replies plus personal emails and phone calls. Seems I struck a nerve – it’s been a tough time for lots of folks.

From a place of having just had two quality retrospective conversations, here is my shout out to anyone finding themselves in a similar place:

Honor your time on the couch, under the covers, deep in a dish of fudge-covered cookies and ice cream. Revel deep into this depression. Sink into your sorrowful moans, really cry it out – extra points for drool and snot. You could journal the heck out of it – or instead head straight for apathy-land (usually the comfiest spit in front of your television). Just don’t sweat it. You will not get the full benefit of this experience if you try to push your way through, learn some lesson too quickly, or put on your game face and dive into an unrelated distraction (like overwork).

The truth is that the darkest parts of who you are  - are extremely relevant to you living a full Life. There’s a reason why I refer to Vibrant Life being full-spectrum… every color and nuance is richly informative  and deserves to be a treasured aspect of your Healthy + Beautiful self. Knowing all parts of one’s self intimately – including the ‘not pretty’ recesses, deepens our humanity. Approving of these, allowing them to be witnessed, has a unifying effect on our relationships, improves our ability to partner, parent, and collaborate.

I’ve discovered that the shiniest, brightest, loveliest, most beguiling people in our lives – you might even call them Vibrant Ones – wallow in despairing days. It’s why I dare call myself a Vibrant One, how I know you are one too. ‘Healthy + Beautiful’ isn’t a prescribed state of being that’s earned. It is embracing every aspect of ourselves and creating our lives from this place of multicolored experience. So please, whether in your PJ’s on the floor, or in your sequined party dress dancing on the table, let’s indulge all of it.

What ‘it’ is, on the face of it, is not so critically important. It can be characterized as a miscommunication, a misalignment, an incongruency – or – a natural evolution in relationships which have served important and specific purposes, whose time came, and went. If I were to share details you’d say “That’s all?” However, I feel the truth of it, that nothing will ever be the same. And as I begin to search for new confidence and belief in whatever lies before me, I am grieving what has passed. And I am learning an important lesson in refining my skills and trusting myself.

I am pretty good at creating community. That story is a true one. It is also true, that I have a 40+ year history of depending on the good opinion of others. To an unhealthy degree. I may have become a little less needy over time, stopped looking over my shoulder for nods of approval, but this isn’t quite done (and may never be completely). As an off-the-charts extrovert I decidedly enjoy the limelight. I bask in the affection of others. And I’m fed on words of validation. Fed, but not nourished.

It is time to return to me. Worthiness, self-love, to my inner Beloved.

The awareness of my malnourished soul has come, in these past days, from a desperate awareness of reaching for all things addictive. I have wanted to eat, drink lots of coffee, alcohol, craved bad television in large doses, and made phone calls to people who I know do not support me fully. I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places.

In a time of transition such as this, it is ok to retreat. So I now choose to retreat into a more warm and loving place. My soul. I’ll return to looking myself in the eye every day and reconnecting with me. To silent meditation. To solitary walks in beautiful nature. To conversations in my journal. And like the caterpillar weaving her cocoon, I will prepare to leave much of what I know, with utter faith that there is beauty in this process yet to be discovered.