Monthly Archives: August 2010

Forever Changed

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Five years ago today, I lost almost everything I owned in a perfect storm named Katrina.  While we drove farther away from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, flood waters moved into our home and carried our refrigerator into the living room.  Hundreds of books became a pile of unreadable mush. We stood in stunned silence in a Florida motel room packed with our girls, four dogs, a hairless rat, two gerbils and boxes of what we thought was important enough to take with us, watching the destruction on the television.  And when we returned, we slipped into an instant shock as we saw cars smashed up against buildings, slab after slab lined along the beaches and the most intimate belongings strewn along tree branches or melded into fences.  At one point, the pile of debris in the front of our yard was taller than the roof of our house. We wondered if we would ever feel better.  Coming together on streets that looked like a battlefield, we asked our friends and acquaintances if they knew who survived and who didn’t.  Helicopters overhead reinforced the feeling that we were in a third-world country.  I questioned whether we should live in a place where something like this is possible. Our children grieved over the loss of memorabilia that spanned their short lifetimes. We cried over the things we didn’t consider important enough to stuff into the cars. We longed for walls, a television, a home cooked meal in a ‘normal kitchen,’ a FEMA trailer and a bed to sleep in.  And we were terrified that we wouldn’t have the means to rebuild and carry on.

We couldn’t think ahead much past the next week or maybe, if we stretched it, the next month. Living in the present wasn’t something we struggled to perfect – it became default mode as we didn’t want to relive the trauma of the recent past and we couldn’t quite grasp the concept of a normal future.

Let me tell you about the volunteers.  I still can’t fathom how people put their lives, careers and school years on hold to come and muck out house after house.  People came to us from all across the nation and cried with us as we took stock of what we lost.  We felt their love and they felt our losses as they were confronted day after day with the aftermath of the trauma.  You would think they would want to run away and stay in their own comfortable homes with their healthy, happy families.  But they stayed, or returned again and again.  Americorps volunteers, students from Queens University and many other colleges, church members from every denomination – they all rushed in to help us when we couldn’t help ourselves.

Now, I sit in my living room, typing on a laptop and watching the Emmys in High Definition.  The air conditioner hums softly in the background and I have electricity in every room of my house at the same time without having to prioritize appliances into a small number of working outlets.  I just returned home from a celebration in the little town of Bay St. Louis where countless friends and community leaders came together to remember those who lost their lives and to take stock of how far we’ve come.  Businesses still struggle to stay open another week.  The oil spill has us all feeling more than a little beleaguered.  And we might always hold our breath through most of July through September, hoping this doesn’t happen again.

Let me tell you about what I gained from Katrina.  I know how to hang and finish drywall now which I suppose sets me apart from many of my peers.  My neighbors and I now know each other by name and we still do little things for each other to make life easier.  Almost all of my possessions are new and my house is more open and comfortable, yet I’m very detached from all things material and mundane.  I found coaching which I believe is my divine, soul purpose.  Gratitude has become a daily practice and my spiritual life is deeper and richer than ever before.  Words like content, delighted and peaceful are used to describe how I feel on a daily basis.  And I have this inner silent knowing of the soul that is unshakeable.

I hope my family and I never have to go through this again. But I know we can survive the unimaginable. As strange as this sounds, I’m grateful for Hurricane Katrina. From much destruction came an incredible rebirth. Five years later, I can tell you – I am forever changed.

A Whole-Hearted Beginning

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“There is a book inside of me.” You too?  I’ve known it since I was a child. In fact, the desire to write has been the only avocation that has been a constant in my life. This yearning to make a living as a writer is what I call my soul purpose. It is also a source of great frustration when I consider that unfinished book that still roams around the pathways of my brain, looking for an unlocked door that will lead to completion, or even a whole-hearted beginning.


What stops me? Any number of things. Time. Fear that I’m not good enough to write anything. Subject matter. Work. Children. Writer’s block. The heat of a Mississippi summer. You name it, I’ve probably tried to blame it.


I’m not even committed to fiction or nonfiction.  In fact, I think I have at least one of each floating around in there.  And as much as I love coaching, I know that I will always reserve some time to write something, even if it’s just a blog.


“Just a blog.” See how easily that rolled off the tongue?


This book is like an apparition that forms more fully at various times and then drifts away, hiding for awhile so that I settle comfortably again into my life of limiting literary beliefs.


The truth is we tell ourselves a lot of crazy things when it comes to creating art in any form. Creatives are often conflicted by limiting beliefs that may have originally been formed by a 2nd grade art teacher who told us we better not hope for a career as an artist. Or the college professor that ripped our Comp 1 paper to shreds, noting sarcastically in the margin, “I’m not sure you showed up today.”  Criticism is both the thing we crave and the thing we fear the most. It tears us up while validating our secret fears about ourselves.


Years ago, I was introduced to the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I began reading and instantly felt a connection to the author, her struggle and her technique to help artists – creatives – go deep on a spiritual journey and come out on the other side, shiny and new.  I did the exercises and felt small shifts begin. And I kept the practice of morning pages to this day. But, hurricanes and weddings and classes and work got in the way and I put the book and the rest of the exercises aside, hoping for a magical day when everything would come together and words would pour out of me onto approximately 250 pages or so.


It’s not going to happen unless I make it happen.  And I know I’m not alone.


So I created this group – a year long journey through The Artist’s Way with some really neat people that I don’t really know who have the same fears and hopes and dreams for themselves and for their work.  As a coach, I can facilitate the work, bring in resources, guide participants to go deep within and watch synergy happen as master minds come together. As a group, the participants can show up each month and enrich the learning for me and for each other, bringing their best to the call and finding soul sisters and brothers that will celebrate successes with them forever.  


You don’t have to have a book inside of you to bring the element of creativity into your life. You don’t even have to have a desire to be anything. All that’s required is a curiosity about the work you want to do and a willingness to step out onto the path.  I’ll hold your hand if you’d like.

The Element of Fun

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You may have noticed – I hope you noticed – that we were offline for awhile.  A series of wonderful and not so wonderful things happened and we’re back in business, thanks to Aletha McManama and the folks at GoDaddy.  I lost a few posts and learned a lot about the process of blogging and preserving blogs as well as how Twitter can provide instant customer service response.

So here we go again with a do-over of sorts. A mulligan, if you’re into the game of Golf.  

During the stressful moments of the past few weeks, I discovered things were feeling a little rushed and humorless.  I wanted things to feel fun and frivolous instead of heavy and hard. The crazy busyness of the last two months has calmed enough for me to recognize that my connection to the work has been too worky.

So I decided to hire my 3 year old granddaughter Kandyce and my 3 year old Beagle, Charlotte as consultants in my business.  These are two girls who can really draw me into the fun and make me remember to stop taking things so seriously.

Since they started, we’ve incorporated a few additional practices into my business:

  • Playing with the Talking Tom Cat App on my iPhone.
  • Regular breaks to run around the house chasing each other make us more productive.
  • There are endless ways in which to laugh and giggle.
  • We use the Whisper-ma-Phone during meetings to mix things up a little.
  • Naps are a good way to dream up new ideas.
  • Singing at the top of your lungs makes you feel free.

Is the element of fun missing in your work process? Are there eager consultants all around you who can bring more fun or creativity into your business?

For me, bringing the element of laughter or lightness back into the mix can really free up creative energy and move me forward if I’m stuck in a rut. And spending time with the people who remind me that this is what it’s all about makes me happier about the work in general.

In between naps and fun breaks, I’ve been creating a new coaching group and meeting wonderful writers and creatives in person and in my own little corner of the virtual world. I hope you’ll join us the August 31st as we look at the Element of Creativity and begin a year-long journey of reawakening your creative spirit.  Make sure you’re on my mailing list so you can be included in the announcements. Or if you can’t wait, email me and I’ll tell you all about it.

 I’m off for a little giggle before bed!