“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

As children, we are steeped in learning. Our minds open. Our potential expansive. New concepts and ideas are presented, practiced, and added to a greater body of knowledge. We learn new skills, build essential strengths. We speak. Read. Write. We learn bad words (some of us earlier than others).

As children, we learn to identify what unconditional love looks like, while others of us learn to identify the face of evil, sometimes in our very own home. We figure out what burns, what stings, how much force it takes to break a bone jumping from the monkey bars. Some of us find out exactly what it takes to infuriate our mothers. Often – for me at least – it involved my hair and a pair of sewing scissors or mixing expensive perfumes in the bathroom sink to create something new and unusual. Unusual indeed.

The learning is constant and steady. Everything is possibility and urgency.

As we grow older, the onslaught slows. The timeline stretches. The lessons grow bigger, more abstract, and less obvious. We become distracted and mindlessly move inward in ever contracting circles. Our lives become routine. Predictable. Time seems to dissipate at an alarming rate. Everything is “have to’s”, “shoulds”, and worry.

One day we wake up, wondering where the possibility went. How our potential went unrealized. Why we “have to” do anything when we are creatures of choice. We wonder when did we start living small lives even though our talent and dreams were always so big? We examine our beliefs and as we begin to question the very nature of the rules that have become our jailer, we realize that this is actually a prison of our own making, that the shout of our mother to move away from the hot stove has become a constant refrain for anything that seems dangerous, different, out of the ordinary.

Perception is reality, and we have been caught looking down at our feet trudging the hard ground instead of up at the horizon alight with possibilities. We forgot what it means to live in the wonder and newness of The Beginner’s Mind. We are afraid. We think that in being The Beginner we are somehow “less than” – that somehow we have wasted our time and have to start over.

Our fear of being The Beginner is our folly.

When we become The Beginner, we never lose the best parts of ourselves. We simply shed the parts that no longer serve us and take with us an assurance that we are growing and moving in an ever-tightening, upward spiral towards joy. In The Beginner’s Mind, we realize that in order to learn, we must also unlearn. Old concepts and ideas that no longer serve us can be examined, then released.

We realize that as The Beginner our learning is fortifying and our unlearning is freeing.

This past year I became The Beginner. I climbed into the attic of my mind and started clearing out old, worn-out stories. I was stretched and pulled and poked and prodded. I was uncomfortable as hell, but I was also loved unconditionally. I looked into the faces of my teachers and saw compassion in their faces, love in their eyes. There were many moments I was afraid that I would be left behind and deemed unworthy. I was told that as long as I retained The Beginner’s Mind, I could not be left behind because as I was always beginning, I was also always moving forward. In contrast, those that live in perpetual fear of being left behind are also those that are too afraid to take in the feedback and grow. They are stuck – holding onto the rock as the water rushes past them, afraid to let go and begin again. And again. And again.

When you become The Beginner you realize that letting go is the best part.

Solopreneur (n.) -  An entrepreneur who works alone, “solo,” running her business single-handedly. She might have contractors for hire, but she has full responsibility for the running of her business.

Gulp.

This perfectly describes me and about 500 or so of my closest friends. Alone. Running my business. Full responsibility. Alone. Full. Responsibility. Alone. Alone.

I recently exchanged an email with my dear friend, Lori Race, of heartyourpackage.com. She is a master coach. A mom. An acupuncturist. And recently launched her very own wellness center with a colleague. In other words, a solopreneur in the throes of becoming a full-blown entrepreneur and possibly half-crazy.

Lori is an incredible talent. She has a million ideas. She wants to go bigger. She wants to make things better. She wants them faster. She wants to do more. And yet she is one person with a whole lot on her plate, living in a serious realm of overwhelm.

Recently, we had scheduled some girl talk to discuss building new programs and products for her business, but Lori emailed me, asking if she could cancel  because the thought of doing one more thing made her seriously consider a hot poker to the eyeball.  I of course happily obliged, once my flow of tears ceased. And then I offered her the following advice, because while I’m not actually a life coach, I do play one on TV.

Dear Crazed and Overwhelmed Solopreneur:

Focus. On. Now.

Right now is setting up and launching your new business and handling your current client load.

Right now is your family.

Right now is taking care of your body and your soul and your weary mind, which is overextended from all your “I should could would want” thinking.

Right now – at this stage in your business – you require nothing more than maintenance. Maintenance requires just a light pressure on the gas to maintain velocity. If you have limited gas in the tank and it requires everything you’ve got just to keep forward momentum, then you must maintain that speed until you can make it to a pit stop to refuel. Planning requires additional energy and resources you do not have right now.

You don’t need to get anywhere faster. I’m not even saying you need to slow down. Just maintain.

If you believe you should be doing more creative development for your business (which you conveniently cover with the thought “I want to be doing more creative development for my business”) but the very idea of doing more makes you want to come to a screeching halt, well is that a thought to believe?

When you are through this patch, then you’ve got tons of awesome ideas to implement. But right now you’ve got to keep your eyes on the road, your awareness on your tank,  and your focus on the stretch of asphalt that’s in front of you.

And when you reach that destination, celebrate your journey. Celebrate your achievement. And then rest. Because, girl, you have got to be some kind of tired.

Sincerely, The Wise and Knowing Jessica

I realize now that this place that Lori found herself is a place many solopreneurs and small business owners find themselves while in the midst of building a business. Launching a new venture, program, or project takes a lot of fuel. Because we are often doing it all on our own, we forget that our resources are limited and precious. We get caught in the cycle of “Bigger Better Faster More” and forget why we decided to do this “solopreneur” thing in the first place. To enjoy the journey. To be in control of our destination. To do what we love doing the way we love doing it. To help others while we’re doing it. When setting out to start her own business, no one says “I want to become a solopreneur so I can run myself ragged and make myself bat-poop bonkers until I end up hating my business, suffering a nervous breakdown, and running away to join the circus. I love elephants.”

When we are in the thick of our hero’s journey and everything feels so much harder than we ever expected, we forget we have choices. We can keep adding pressure to our gas pedal. We can keep it steady. We can slow down. We can stop. We can ask a buddy to join us for the ride. We can hard focus on the road ahead of us or we can stick our head out the window and take in all the wonders that the solopreneur’s journey will bring.  As solopreneurs, we are in the driver’s seat.  We don’t have end up like the poor bugs on the windshield. No. Feeling like squashed bug guts is always optional.

This is not my shame.

(It is yours.)

I have borne it for far too long,

and it has grown bigger than myself,

A bezoar of self-loathing, bitterness, and fear.

For this is not my shame.

(It is yours.)

It has festered in me, born of your lies,

your supposed sins against her. Against yourself.

Why will you not own it?

For this is not my shame.

(It is yours.)

A secret that started, before I was born,

held in trust, while you

tried to move beyond it.

For this is not my shame.

(It is yours.)

I do not want it any longer.

Take it. Take it back.

I can bear it no more.

It has grown too heavy for this one person. Alone.

This is not my shame.

(Nor is it yours.)

A surprising twist to a fairy tale…

One cannot own that which was never real.

For years I believed I was meant for something bigger, bolder, more daring.

I believed I could bring the magic.

I believed until I stopped believing. One day, at age fourteen. Watching her cry and cry. The first sense that it would never be all right. That she and I would always be riding the edge between This World and The Void.

I knew I was smart. Creative, funny, talented. I knew it. And yet the circumstances of my life seemed to prove otherwise. The evidence was mounting and not in my favor.

People died. Rejected me. Abandoned me. All I wanted was to be deemed worthy and lovable. Yet I could maintain only the most tenuous connection to either of those qualities.

And so I became who I thought they wanted me to be. I took a job doing what I was supposed to do.  All for their love. A love that never came in the way I wanted – without strings or condition. A love that was never complete or fulfilling. Because it wasn’t for me. It was for them. Always for them.

I grew to hate it all. The job, the life, those people. Myself.

I descended into Hopelessness, a place that comes of constant disappointment and regret. It is a place that is easier  to get to once you’ve toiled in Unrecognized Desire and Unfulfilled Dreams. A place where I became slave to the other and not in service to myself.

Hopelessness is a black hole that sits atop my liver, the secret place where I store my anger. My shame. My fear. It’s where my ambitions and aspirations go to atrophy and die. The bottom of Pandora’s box. Hopelessness is sticky and sour and desperate. It is The Void. And when you are in it, it feels real. More real than anything made of flesh and bone and sinew. More real than reality.

But then I met you. All of you and each of you. Tiny flickers of light that shone out, illuminating the blackness of my hole and scaring away the creatures that dwelled in the shadows of my fear.

Hopelessness became the false bottom of the magician’s hat. And below it I found soft folds of silk, a vast and infinite realm of possibility, a place beyond imagination. A place of fearlessness and wonder. Of curiosity and play. A place to be big and bold and daring. I found the place that I always dreamed existed and never dreamed I’d find.

The place where I keep my magic.

Recently I was out walking, listening to a one-on-one recorded session on my iPod between my mentor, Martha Beck, and a client with whom she was coaching on unleashing her creativity.

For those of you who don’t know Martha or her work, she is brilliant. A voracious, keen, and clever mind trapped inside a tiny elf’s body. Her ability to memorize and retain information is truly remarkable, as evidenced by the fact that she can whip a fact or quote out faster than a card dealer in Vegas.

Now I – on the other hand – have a terrible capability for recounting facts, stories, or remembering the precise details of a conversation or a quote. Sadly, I can only remember four jokes – three of which are not appropriate for children or adults. When I try to verbally relay a story to others, it generally goes something like this:

OH-EM-GEE!  You remember how I was supposed to go meet my sister at the mall? Well we got there and I had to park over near that thing at the thing and she called me when I was trying to park and was all like ”blah blah blah” and I was all like “whatever I’m trying to park.” and then I had to walk like fifteen miles to the store and then I got in and she was all “whatever” and GAWD she makes me so mad.

Alas, I am exaggerating this only slightly. I am great at remembering the feeling state of a situation and can cobble the facts together if given enough time, but remembering enough of the dramatic details to build and relay a great story, real time and in-person? No. Surely I could have been a great actress if only it didn’t involve memorizing lines and reciting them near verbatim with affect and emotion. If only.

During my walk – listening in on this session between coach and client – I was struck with the most terrible feeling. I will never be able to coach like Martha Beck because I cannot retain and regurgitate awesome and appropriate information at exactly the moment my client needs it. Instead, it is more likely that when a troubled client comes to me, I will awkwardly grope around for the perfect Hafiz poem that is always so readily available to Martha, having it come out something like this:

Girl, have you heard of that poem by that Sufi dude that’s about trouble? No? It’s like “Troubled? I’m not. So get over here.” Except he said is so much better. Anyway, that totally applies to you right now.

[Note: the actual quote is “Troubled? Then stay with me, for I am not.” ~Hafiz, ancient Sufi]

In that moment on the walk, I was comparing myself to Martha Beck and realizing I cannot possibly ever measure up and therefore I should quit right now. It felt terrible – super duper crappy and… after the feeling ran its course, totally pointless.

What a fruitless exercise it is to compare our inside to someone else’s outside.  Of course I can’t measure up to Martha Beck. First of all, I’m like a foot taller than she is. Second of all, I am a completely different person altogether. We have different backgrounds, different tastes, different areas of deep practice, different experiences and –more importantly – different strengths. It would be like comparing a French Bulldog to a Whippet. (I am the French Bulldog in this situation. Stocky but adorable and fancy.) Yes, I am fairly certain there are things that I am more proficient at than Martha Beck. And thank goodness for that! Because that means that she and I can serve different people and provide different and complementary services and support to a wider variety of people.

But there are a lot of things that Martha and I have in common. I am on my own unique journey. Just like Martha. I have my own particular things that I need to learn. Just like Martha. I bring my own brilliant gifts to the world. Just like Martha. If I try to do things exactly the same way she does by sharing all the same anecdotes, writing with the same voice, or reading all the same books, I will fail. It is an impossible task. So rather than compare and despair, I say “Compare and Who Cares?” Who cares if I’m not exactly like Martha Beck?  It doesn’t trouble me that I am different than Martha.

Besides, if I were troubled, Martha would probably just say to me, “Troubled? Then Get your butt over here and sit down because I ain’t.”

Or something to that effect.

(c) Peggy Nguyen <3

Having trouble forgiving yourself?

Forgiveness starts with love. Loving yourself enough to belief you are worthy of forgiveness. Forgiving yourself enough to create space to let love trickle in.

Love your body for pumping your blood and filling your lungs with oxygen. Day in. Day out.

Love your loud, braying laugh that comes from those very lungs and is sometimes the only thing that keeps you feeling truly alive.

Love the strong calves your ancestors gave you that help carry you through the hills and valleys of your life.

Love your fat and how it keeps you warm. Love it even when it feels like the only thing that keeps you from being happy. It’s here for a reason. And it is just doing its job. You asked it to come here and you can also ask it to leave.

Even love your weird little toenail. You got that from your mother who taught you the meaning of love.

Love your cowlicks and the grey sparkles in your hair. You earned each one, even if you like to keep them undercover. Love that about yourself, too.

Love your enemy so she can finally know what it feels like to be loved by another. You two probably have more in common than you think. While you’re at it, love the enemy inside of you.

Love yourself enough to ask for help. Love yourself enough to accept it.

Then love yourself enough to let people love you exactly as you are. Let them cheer for you and support you without condition. Love them as your chosen family. Value their words more than those who try to break you apart. Then love that there are others who love to love you and bask in the knowing…

Love is the only language that transcends time and space. It is the only thing that transcends language itself. It  is indelible and unending. It never dies; it only morphs and changes into something bigger, different, better, stronger.

Love is the only four-letter word that can truly invalidate the potency of hate. The only thing that can create lasting, meaningful abundance.

Love yourself and in turn, others will follow.

Love when it feels like there is no love to give. When you are hopeless. Where there is love, there is hope. It is there. Trust me.

And when you are done loving, start it all over again.

For you are never done. You are simply transcending.

Forgive yourself.

Right now.

For not making your husband’s coffee this morning.

For yelling at your kids.

For deciding to curl up in a fetal position all day rather than folding your laundry.

Forgive yourself for your imperfections. For your humanity. For sitting on Tuesday when everything you want is on Thursday.

Forgive yourself for whatever harsh indictment you’ve been holding onto for years. For getting fired because you said something mean about Lori Markle in high school, even if you believed at the time it was true. It wasn’t nice and it wasn’t necessary. Just forgive yourself. It no longer matters. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t go on your permanent record.

Forgive yourself for not exercising today. For eating half a pan of brownies in one sitting.

For spending thousands of dollars on fertility drugs and not being overwhelmed with joy when your baby arrives.

For cheating on your husband.

Forgive yourself for working at a job you hate because you are too afraid to quit.

Forgive yourself for being afraid. For resenting your sister. For loving someone you wish you didn’t love.

For being different.

Forgive yourself because there is simply no hope of changing the past. There is only the hope of living in a better future and in order to do that, you must forgive yourself in the present.

In this moment.

Forgiveness is the deepest expression of love and compassion. It is a gift only you can give. And you deserve it.

Right now.

I stand here
arms thrown wide
surrendering to
these glorious imperfections.

Having cast aside
the vagaries of shame
unburdened from the blame
I remain tethered by
the specificity of forgiveness.

Inside a fervor reignites
for this once ill-learned life
now unlettered of its history
unlearning in perpetuity.

In my freedom
I do a wild dance
for sovereignty
when I with power
unite.

~Jessica Steward, 2011

Betty McCaw Steward: Supernova

Eighteen years ago today my mother shuffled off this mortal coil. While the sadness and longing for her still comes to me in waves, the indirect gifts of having her die have grown in direct proportion to the years of having to live without her. The lessons I’ve learned, not only from her passing, but from the consequences of living a “shadow life” once she was gone, are instilled in everything I do for myself, my friends, my family, and clients.

What does it mean to live a shadow life? Recently my friend and fellow coach, Deb Droz, asked me to to do an interview with her to share my experience of losing my mother so young. We discussed the fear of losing the one person I believed I could not live without and what shape my life took once I did lose her.   In it we explore how once my mother died, I went into a kind of suspended animation – holding within me the tender heart of a seventeen-year-old girl whose worst fears are realized – while I continued physically aging and taking on a shroud of normalcy in my life.

I stayed in that place of stunted emotional growth for a long time. I didn’t know how to live a life exploiting my  personal gifts and thought I needed permission and guidance on how to move forward. And because I had lost the one person who I believed could love me unconditionally – the only person who could ultimately  understand my innate value as a human  -  I never learned how to love myself in that way or how to take care of my wants and needs in order to thrive versus survive.

So when did I stop living in suspended animation?

Shortly after my mother died, my siblings and I drove up to Western Massachusetts to scatter her ashes. We were sorting out the ceremony of the event when my brother-in-law interjected,  ”You know. Your mother isn’t really dead. She’s alive in Egypt.” This idea that my mother could still be alive, living in some far off, exotic country filled me with the lightness of hope. I started babbling about how cool that would be. Curious I asked him, “Why Egpyt?”. Confused, my brother-in-law replied, “Egypt?? I said she was alive in each of you.” I deflated when he said that; it was an empty and useless sentiment as far as I was concerned and I retreated back into the darkness.

Eighteen years later, I realize I stopped living in the shadows of her loss when I finally made a decision to do something that I yearned for and didn’t ask for permission or approval to do it.

It was when I…

… accepted my gifts and started using them.

… saw the beauty in shades of grey rather than needing the concreteness of black & white.

… learned that I had an inner guidance system called “wisdom” that came from trusting myself and the breadth and depth of my experience.

It was when I realized I no longer had to live in fear of being without my mother, because truly she is alive in Egypt.