“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”~ Buddha

Water Damage

This process of living with Intention is more then a change of careers. I’m not switching companies here. I’m switching the way I view life and the way I view myself. I’m trying to take on all those if only’s and make them into reality. So how does one really go about a task such as that?

I think step one has been opening my heart, or rather listening to my heart. Step two – line up the teachers, step three trust, step four make those leaps, step five trust, step six . . .

How to best put it? Cleaning house? Maintenance? Repairing the cracks? The Universe in it’s ultimate wisdom has reminded me that ‘hey it’s great that you are on this path finally, the future holds so much, but remember when you never fixed that leaky pipe, well you’re not going to be able to get where you’re headed until you do.’ And to drive the point home the crack sprung a leak.

So down, down, and back, back I go to address, yes, the past. Sounds so cliché doesn’t it? Or wise. Upset me a bit I can tell you that. That danged crack shot a line of water right into my back when I was looking the other direction this weekend. But after a bit of negativity and basic disbelief that a tiny little crack is still causing me problems over a decade later, I think I’ve realized that I need to be thankful for it leaking a bit. Cause I’m finally gonna get it repaired for real, and along with it all that water damage it did over the years, cause I have things to do and I can not afford it getting in the way. You know I never realized just how much water damage there was - seeped into all the woodwork, some parts rotted out.

I apologize for the plumbing analogy, but in true Midwest fashion, you don’t talk about it. You ignore it. You get really good at ignoring and you start living as if it never bothered you. Let your defense mechanisms start creating within you actions, habits, thought processes, and beliefs, all the while it is attracting as much negativity as effort put forth to ignore it.

Okay so I’m working on something here. I’m going to be thankful for my crack (I do realize how that sounds) and I am going to find a way to embrace it, own it, and forgive it. I’ve got to do a lot of reprogramming, a lot of forgiving.

I really do feel like this came up for a reason – I’ve got to acknowledge it.

Walk To The Edge

Now when, Radmacher wrote, Walk to the Edge, she didn’t really elaborate. The thought is enough it seems, but really what does that mean? Walk to the edge look down and say ‘wow, that’s a long drop.” It could be walk to the edge but hold onto the rail so you don’t fall. Or perhaps walk to the edge and jump off but be sure you have your parachute intact.

Well I walked to that edge and darned if I didn’t jump off feet first, putting me in the state of free fall from which I now have to keep my cool and trust that it is all going to be what it needs to be. Like that spider in the air, you can't always see it, but the footing is there.


There were some moments this weekend when I found myself looking down though. Forgetting that recommended position of free fall before the parachute opens and waving my arms around like Wiley Coyote when he realizes he's been duped by the roadrunner into running off that cliff. You can imagine what I saw, yup there they were those jagged rocks of insecurity and doubt, and what was I really thinking? Who am I to think that I can do this? Who makes a living writing? And why leave my job, I'm good at it, I'm appreciated there. Deep breath, deep breath, trust, trust.


So in this state of free fall I looked for a little reassurance. I started listening to my little guru of choice, Wayne Dyer, again. Of course playing the live lectures entitled, The Power of Intention, gotta keep up with the theme. What I love about the universe is the way in which it works to get you in the right place at the right time, put the right people, place or things in your path just when you need it.

I like to play this audio book at random. Not start from finish, as I’ve listened to it so many times. So I randomly found a spot, and pushed play. Low and behold there were the words I needed. He say’s it in so many ways, but the gist is: Envision yourself as if you were already where and who you want to be, envision yourself surrounded by abundance.

Perfect timing as you see I had one of those moments of, I will not have a paycheck, seriously, what was I thinking? But it was good. It will be good. I’m just going to trust that I will have what I need - and I trust that the web is there, even if I can't see it.

Do What You Love

Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a writer. As a child I would hide away with a book whenever possible. The characters and stories would spur my imagination taking me to far off places and into the minds of others. Books and the characters within became my ‘guides’ for life situations. I would rack my brain for the right character for the given situation to influence my actions and words. Often I was a Hemingway Character, sometimes Tom Robbins, I was even a Janette Oak character, hell I’ve even been a Jean M. Auel character.

I looked at life as an opportunity for stories, I still do. Sometimes staying a bit longer in a situation than good sense would warrant just to see what would happen next, in hopes of someday writing about it.

It was around 12 that I decided the only way to begin my own great adventures was to become a journalist. I would be a war correspondent, or work for National Geographic. I wavered a bit through college, starting as an English major, then deciding that art was my true calling, realizing I may not make a living as an artist brought me to art therapy, from there I found Montessori. And that is where I landed for 5 years.

Not only did Maria Montessori speak to my heart as she spoke of changing the world by teaching peace to children, Montessori offered me a chance to have a trade, and a trade that could take me anywhere in the world. It was the first time I remember someone very important to me telling me they were proud of me, because of this new found trade, and unfortunately that made me completely sad, because I knew that teaching would not be my life long work, however much I did enjoy it, it was only a step.

In fact I must take a moment to remark that I don’t think I was as much a teacher to the children as they were to me. Those little ones are truly the teachers as they remind us of all that we once knew to be true and make sense before our life got muddled with, well, with life. Thank you dear ones.

The need for change comes to me physically. I get antsy, I get irritable, I get dissatisfied. A little voice starts piping up that this is not what I want to do, I have bigger things to do. Often that feeling has been paired with a giant move across the country or world.

A year ago I decided that it was time, I’d been putting off what I wanted to do for far too long. So I had student loans hanging around my neck, so I had no savings to speak of, so I had not written anything of substance in years. No more excuses that I had to finish some adventures in order to write about them. It was time. I needed to do what I always wanted in life. I needed to write. So I started to try the title out. I verbalized it. I went home to visit family and I said the words, ‘I am going to be a writer,’ I wrote my Intention down.

I wrote all of my intentions down. It took a year of angst, questioning, and reality checks. But soon things started to happen. It wasn’t even apparent. But the universe started to work towards my Intentions as I repeatedly put them out. Before I knew it my student loans were cut in half. Those digits did not haunt me anymore. People have started to come into my life that are influencing and affecting me in a way that is pushing me towards my Intention to write and live the way that I find most fulfilling. And now I am in a position where I can say goodbye to the classroom, thank it for its many lessons and opportunities to know so many wonderful people, small and large, and to embark on my quest.

I am immensly greatful to those who are spurring me along.

Live With Intention

The concept of living with intention came to me first in the form of a mug. Yes, one blue coffee mug covered in gold writing found in a little store in Cannon Beach, Oregon that seemed to make so much sense and spark within me a desire to:

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.” ~Mary Anne Radmacher , http://www.maryanneradmacher.com/index.php.

It was just a few weeks after I had picked up and moved myself from the Midwest to Portland far from the familiar and into the unknown, that I took a drive in search of the ocean. In that same day trip I not only found my first solace in the waves, but those words of Radmacher.

I drank from that mug each day, sometimes remembering to reread the words, to absorb them, work towards them, more often then not forgetting them. That was nearly ten years ago. Between the time of that purchase and now I've gone down many paths, made many discoveries, some pleasant some not, and though every once in awhile I was able to fully embrace those words - live with intention, I often forgot as the insecurities, anxieties, and fears got in the way. Yet they were there, planted. And I believe that they influenced some of the biggest changes I made in my life, for even though there were some crazy times where It seemed that I had lost myself to the negative, I always had a bit of Intention within to get me to the next phase.

As I embark on yet another new adventure I have Live with Intention engraved on my mind, for this adventure is not taking me across oceans as in the past, it is taking me into the unknown as I have leapt off the cliff of what is considered mainstream stability, a steady paying job, in hopes of creating a life that encompass’s all of my intentions and strives to reconnect to my source.



This is my journey.