Celebrating stuff mamas say

Yes Forrest’s mama, you are right – you never know what life is going to bring you!

You can be thoughtfully working your way through your box of chocolates. Carefully studying each chocolate. Imagining the deliciousness of each artful creation. Selecting the chocolate bit of goodness to surprise and delight.

Despite the studying, imagining and selecting – bam! You discover the rancid chocolate.

In its rancid wake are elements of chaos and fear. Perhaps even a sense of great loss, injustice, instability, isolation and a long crappy list of other challenging emotions.

Your beautiful box of chocolates, has let you down – just like life can.

Working through the let-down requires heeding another long-standing “stuff mamas say” saying:

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps

Granted, the ensuing chaos of the rancid chocolate may completely annihilate any trace of your bootstraps. Yet creating or rebuilding new bootstraps offers a solid starting point to move beyond the chaos – to move beyond the rancidness.

The best part of creating or rebuilding your bootstraps? You don’t need to go it alone!

Recognizing that either alone or in the presence of others, you may need time to grieve, be angry and cry. By all means take that time.

Do grieve.

Do get angry.

Do cry.

In between, gently begin considering what you may need for support. Perhaps time alone; rest; journaling; doodling; temporarily pausing a commitment; talking with an individual who will listen and not judge providing suggestions or advice if requested. Perhaps allowing others to gift you with help or a kindness to ease your burden.

When you’re ready, begin to identify how you can best help yourself.

Pull out paper and pen. Open a note in your smart phone. Use the bathroom mirror. Write two things.

First – your intention for this period of chaos.

Second – what you want on the other side of the rancidness working its way through your life.

A rancid chocolate has made its way into my life.

In order to begin my own bootstrap pulling-up, I wrote my two things – opting out of the bathroom mirror option…! Based on today’s Abraham-Hicks daily quote I included an element of time.

My intention for the next fifteen days is Celebration. To celebrate the good, the bad, the happy, the sad – all the many contoured elements of living.

What I want during these next fifteen days and beyond is a Healthy Lifestyle (i.e. food, thoughts, actions, discipline, media consumption) and Exploration (i.e. learning, discovery, adventure).

My wish for you – whether you’re faced with something extraordinarily wonderful causing you to vibrantly dance or something appallingly horrible violently knocking you to the ground with fear and agony – is to take the time to write your intention and your wants.

As a result, you will never be very far from your own perfectly, perfect bootstraps.

Listen up!

Living in Milwaukee I am fortunate to have a go-to source of inspiration – 88 Nine Radio Milwaukee (which you can stream if you’re not in Milwaukee).  The station grew out of an idea, an intention, a purposeful aim of Peter Buffet’s.

Peter’s intention was to create a non-profit radio station to broadcast Milwaukee’s diversity and creativity via the air-waves. His intention grew in strength and possibility as he invited and encouraged others to join him.

Celebrating Peter’s intention in Radio Milwaukee’s new collaborative and creative space – Nov 2013

Now in their 8^th year, Radio Milwaukee has stayed true to Peter’s intention. The station serves almost as a town square where barriers are broken down and creativity thrives through their focus on music (a distinctive blend of rock and urban music, and spinning at least one track by a Milwaukee artist every hour), arts and culture, and neighborhood and community organizations.  The station continually invites others ideas and input so that together with the community, Milwaukee’s creativity and diversity are continually honored, shared and celebrated.

Who will you invite to share in your intention? Your purposeful aim? Who can you invite to help make your ideas thrive and launch?