Muddy Buddies.

Brushy Peak Regional Preserve

The soft rolling hills flaunt a lush, vibrant green color after the storms. Recent rain saturates the trails with a sticky sort of mud that glues itself to the bottom of your shoe. It accumulates with each step until you're wobbly and teetering on mud high heels. We stop every so often, out of necessity. Find an angled rock, a stick, a thick patch of dry grass to scrape off the inches of mud and continue on. We laugh. It's so ridiculous. The journey is slow-moving and yet so beautiful. At the end, we pound the mud cakes from the bottom of our shoes and they fling into the air like flying mud saucers. 

Life is muddy. It's not orderly or neat, no matter how hard we try to make it so. You work for a company for 20 years and get laid off. Your kid starts hysterically screaming in the middle of the plane flight. You get a text from your ex at the same moment you begin a new relationship. You get rear-ended on your first day of vacation.

We all accumulate debris and mud along our journeys. The good news is, we're not alone. We have each other. To trudge along with, to hold up, to balance on when we're scraping off the mud. It's messy and slow and precarious at times. And yet! It's worth it- to explore, to see, to experience life together. 

Who can you specifically support this week on their journey? Who needs your help to clean off the excess debris they're carrying so they can get moving along again in life? 

How My Life Improved Once I Gave Up New Year's Resolutions

2016 in a nutshell... #topnine

Instead of New Year's resolutions, I choose core desires. This leaves my life open to serendipity and opportunities rather than checking off the goal boxes. In 2016, I wanted to experience adventure, exploration, creativity and community. Many things come our way during a year. With each new project or idea I encountered, I always asked myself first, "Will this allow me to feel more adventurous? To explore? Will this cultivate more creativity or community in my life?" Using this different approach and framework opened up many new doors, encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and say yes to opportunities I would've normally passed on. Looking back, it's fun to see how 2016 played out...

• I finally learned how to surf
• I created 100 handmade cards in 100 days for strangers and friends alike through my #100DaysofMaking project
• I took a chance and reached out to inspiring runners/entrepreneurs that I followed on Instagram, asked if they wanted to meet up, and became real-life friends with them
• I had the privilege of creating more wellness retreats, plant-based dinners and picnics with my friend and fellow dietitian Praveena 
• I got rid of 500+ items from my life that no longer sparked joy through the Minimalist Challenge
• I wrote every single day
• I solo-explored more coastal trails, saw waterfalls, and experienced the magic of more sunrises and sunsets than in any other year
• I joined my first writers group
• I became better at saying 'no' to the projects and people and things that weren't a "HELL YES!"
• I ran my first nighttime trail run in Marin
• I was a brand ambassador for Betty Designs and had the privilege of racing with, cheering for, and collaborating with inspiring women athletes from all across the globe
• I learned how to dance better with my fear. I got better at holding those two ideas in my head at the same time- "It might work. It might not work." I tried a lot. I failed a lot. But learned from each and extracted clues on how to pivot and iterate.
• I came to more deeply appreciate and understand how much I need my tribe and community, and how much I value the support of my friends and family.

So perhaps, like me, you're tired of New Year's resolutions. Maybe it's time to choose how you want to feel, and go from there. Because at the end of the day, isn't it all about how we feel?

Wishing you a wonderful 2017. May you cultivate and create the life you want!

A Job, A Career, or a Calling?

Triple Falls, Oregon

Do you have a job, a career, or a calling? This is beautifully illustrated with the story of three workers. When asked what he did, the first man responded, "I am laying bricks." The other answered, "I am making a wall." And the third man replied, "I am building a cathedral."

A lot of people are content with their 9-5 jobs. They arrive at work, check the boxes, and clock out. It's the only responsible way to pay the bills, cover the mortgage, and provide for their family. But if asked, they would rather be somewhere else, doing something else. 

Others are actively climbing the career ladder. Hungry for the next promotion. Their eyes are on the prize, always aiming for the higher rung. Putting in overtime and motivated by an internal drive for more growth, power and prestige. Their purposeful and relentless work ethic is admirable to some.

But the most generous, inspiring and transformative people I know are those who have a calling. They would do what they do even if they weren't getting paid. It makes them come alive. It's why they were put here on earth. They are enthusiastic and their work changes us. They are the cathedral builders and they get me all fired up and excited and have me sketching and brainstorming and placing bricks down. Because now I've decided that I want to build a cathedral too.

There's risk involved. It might not work. People may not like it. But at the end of my life, I don't want to be staring at a brick. I want to be gazing upward, wide-eyed with wonder through the stained glass windows of my life. Wouldn't you?

Tinker Creek Thoughts...

Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park

“I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe delicate air, whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them.”

— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Full-Color, Full-Contact.

Age 4. Already an artist and performer.

Do you ever recognize themes from your childhood? Last night as part of my Minimalist Challenge, I spent two hours combing through boxes containing important and sentimental documents from preschool through high school. Scripts from school plays I acted in, awkward school photos, drawings, honor roll certificates, newspaper clippings, piano recital programs. Even my 8th grade graduation speech, neatly handwritten on 3x5 cards was tucked neatly inside. 

I sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by the tangible record of my life. Term papers that attempted to answer big questions like "who I am" and "the three things I want to have as an adult." (A big family, a lot of money, and to be a doctor or a lawyer, for the curious ones). Quite a big task for an eight year-old girl who loved the monkey bars and tap dancing. My 2nd grade teacher candidly wrote on the side of my report card- "Julianne is artistic and creative. She can, however, continue to show improvement in her mathematics." Still true.

But my drawings! Those were so fun to look through. I came across at least 10 pictures of rainbows that I'd drawn between age 4 up to the 5th grade. They evolved from thick, uneven smelly-pen rainbow lines to more sophisticated ones with gradual, even arches carefully shaded in with colored pencils.

Recently I've had conversation with friends about what I want. We all arrive on this planet with an artist's palette full of colors. Lately, I feel like I've only been painting with gray. But now I have this deep desire to use ALL the colors I've been given. I want to bring more beauty into the world. I want to live a full-color, full-contact life. Meaning being open and expressing all that I can offer. Not afraid to rub up against the unknown and the mystery.

Highway 1, Big Sur Coast

I'm still in love with making rainbows. Except this time I'm taking it off the paper and making the world my canvas. Think about all the colors you have, too. It's not about smelly-pens anymore. It's bigger. We have the chance to make art with our lives.

Creating Deliberate Space.

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park

Have you heard of the Minimalist Challenge? Here's how it works- on Day 1, you get rid of one thing. On Day 2, it's two things. If you continue this pattern, at the end of 30 days, you would've removed 500 unnecessary items from your life. 

I'm more than halfway through this challenge. I've given away bags of clothes and shoes. Donated stacks of CDs and books that no longer inspired me. Deleted emails from ex-boyfriends. Shredded old bank statements. It feels so good. I feel lighter. The things that stay are ONLY those that spark joy.

My dear friend Praveena first told me about this Minimalist Challenge. Today at lunch I ask her what she's been learning so far from it. I love her answer- "It's only when you create space that new and better things can enter into your life."

The most interesting thing is how this concept and framework is permeating into other areas of my life. On Monday, I closed a door to a lovely side-job in order to make room and time for projects I want to grow in 2017. When more and more invitations and opportunities come our way, it's hard to say no. I am excitable by nature. I want to say yes to everything. But this is what I've learned so far: 

Sometimes you have to say no to something good to say YES to something great.

When we're kids, we don't understand this as well. We are shuttled from piano lessons to soccer practice to church functions. We do our homework in between. We are running on auto-pilot with our jam-packed schedules. There is little space. We have no real say in what we can or cannot do.

The good news is, we're adults now. We have agency over our lives. We can decide what stays and what goes. It's only when we've intentionally cleared space in the forest of our lives that we can recognize and welcome in new opportunities, new forms of beauty. The things and people that make us come alive. The things that matter. The GREAT things.

Love the Details.

“We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp’s half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer’s task to say, “It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home.” Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.”

— Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Metaphors in Nature.

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

The dahlias at this time of year are pruned down to mere skeletons. This plot of land resembles a cemetery, containing the secrets and sighs that are only released when Spring unveils herself. While others pass by convinced that there's nothing of value to see, I stand still here, enamored by this sight. I imagine what the same part of land will look like in June, bursting with magenta and coral dahlias. 

Seasons are the best metaphors for life. They teach us to recognize the beauty and lessons in the present moment, knowing that it too, will eventually shift and change. Without sadness, the experience of constant happiness would feel flat. Without emptiness, it's hard to appreciate fullness. Without a stark winter, spring wouldn't appear as vibrant and magical. For me, this dahlia garden in the dead of winter represents hope and potential and things that soon will be. Like you. Like me.

Hidden Hands.

I have been more attune and aware of how the right people are coming into my life at the right time. I sip on my almond latte in a corner table at Elmwood cafe, nose buried deep in The Diary of Anaïs Nin when a man approaches me. He looks at me, my furiously scribbled notes in the side margins, and sits down. "It's rare to see someone not on their phone or laptop here," he says. "I needed to know what you were reading. You're so engrossed in that book." We share stories, dreams, career paths. It turns out he leads creative writing courses. He invites me to join. Later that week, a friend who I'd lost contact with I surprisingly see again. We chat and reconnect, and the energy we exchange activates a part of my creativity in the form of poetry that I had forgotten about. Words flow freely again.

Some may call it serendipity. I am reminded of Bill Moyers' interview with Joseph Campbell about this subject. He asks, "Do you ever have the sense of being helped by hidden hands?"

I love Campbell's response:

“All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time- namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

My Flashlight.

My journal entry from a year ago, October 27, 2015:

Lately I've felt the need to experience life more- to go on more adventures, step out in the world, create stuff. I need more things to write about, more perspective. I need to fill the well. Right now I'm scraping the bottom, looking for water. It borders on pathetic. I need to get a life. I need new mountains to summit. New trails. More coastlines. More redwood tree canopies. More sunrises and sunsets. More books to give me a richer context and a broader vocabulary to describe the world.

I started journaling at an early age. My parents were cleaning out their house recently and stumbled upon my first journal. The simple words I recorded even at the tender age of five are still a true reflection of who I am- I love the outdoors and I don't mind long roadtrips to a beautiful destination.

After a long hiatus from journaling, and in essence, from confronting myself, I started again. I began consistently journaling almost two years ago after reading Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way." Every day for the past two years I've kept morning pages- unedited pages of my 'first thoughts'-- these ranging from my daily to-do list, my fears, new ideas for projects, current relationship issues, to big dreams and deep desires. It began as a daily morning practice at a time in my life when I was in the middle of a dark forest and struggling to find the path back home. Back home to myself, really. My journal was a flashlight. It still is.

To see how a life unfolds in organic and unexpected ways is precious. To witness your own growth trajectory in real-time, in your own handwriting, is perhaps the greatest gift of all. Since writing this entry one year ago, I have summited mountains, run along new trails, broadened my appreciation of the California coastline, and buried my nose in beautiful writing. I don't ever think I'll be done, but I'm appreciating how much life can actually be experienced in one year.

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Big Sur

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Big Sur

Ewoldsen Trail, Big Sur

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur

Russian Gulch State Park, Mendocino

Mendocino Woodlands.

HELL YES.

“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”

— Joseph Campbell

Point Lobos State Reserve

One of the best pieces of advice I received this year came from Derek Sivers. Use this rule if you're often over-committed or too scattered:

If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no”.

When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say “no.”

When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”

Every event you get invited to. Every request to start a new project. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about it, say “no.”

We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out.