your big, brave life
Welcome to the BIG BRAVE BLOG HULLABALOO, a celebration of gutsy women from all over the world, connecting and claiming our power! It’s not too late to join our circle… if you’d like to share your story on my blog over the course of the summer, please read what this is all about HERE, and connect with me!
We have so much to learn from one another!
I have felt a profound connection to my next guest for a few years now… and it’s no wonder, really… we’re both creative dreamers, and we’re both moms. In fact, this post she shares below- it almost feels as though she’s written it just for me! I so appreciate the reminder to soak in and savor what we often think of as mundane or ordinary or an aside to our big, big dreams. And I look so forward to our sisterhood growing.
Please welcome the ENCHANTING Lisa Wilson!! And please leave her a love-note in the comments below and let her know what her post means to you….
The type of photo I imagined taking to accompany a big, brave post. (Credit: My 8-yr old son)
I think it is easy to believe in dreams. I think it’s easy to believe in the magical, the wondrous, the bigger-than-life, no-way-it-could-happen thoughts. It’s easy to believe because those things are “out there”. They are someday, some place, somewhere.
We believe in them because they give us a daydream to slip into when we’re at the computer staring at row 37 on yet another spreadsheet and counting down the hours until the fifth pointless meeting of the day. (Seriously, who SCHEDULES those things?!)
Thoughts of a magical, ideal, art-filled day on the beach tempt us while we pick up the barbeque chip crumbs that the kids left from the kitchen to their room even though they swear they hadn’t eaten any.
It’s easy to dream.
What isn’t so easy is to live the dream.
“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans”
–John Lennon
“Living” can get really uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to actually feel the body we are in, that slight pressure of the fat as it rolls over in places it never used to be. It is uncomfortable to realize that tomorrow morning we will wake up and go to exactly the same job that we SWORE three and half years ago was just a “temporary gig”.
No wonder so many of us strive for the dream. But have you ever stopped to consider why so few actually reach it?
Hold on…there’s some good news coming up.
A hint: There’s nothing to reach.
There is no “out there”. When we get “there”, suddenly “there” becomes “here” and we are just as uncomfortable being in this “here” as we were in every other “here”.
Did you get that?
That beautiful, authentically wild life filled with creativity and children who don’t talk back and adventurous travel and a clean home with no single, dirty socks stuck in between the couch cushions? It doesn’t exist anymore than the life you fear to even think about.
What really happened when we tried to get the photo. Much better. (Credit: My 8-yr old son)
This life you are living RIGHT NOW – the chair you are sitting in, that slight ache in your body you were ignoring until I just mentioned it, (sorry), the air slipping past the tip of your nose and, yes, even the imagined sounds of seagulls on your dream beach…that is what matters.
The feel of skin against skin (fat roll or the caress of a lover) – THAT is a delicious moment in which we can know of being immersed in nature. We don’t need to escape to a cabin in the woods. Touch, be touched, feel what we are blessed to sensually experience every moment of our lives.
We don’t need some dream job in which we work for ourselves and make six figures and fulfill our spirit all while everyone sings our praises. (Really, you don’t. Though I think everyone should be in this position. But I digress.) We need to be able to take a breath while typing – a nice, organ-drenching breath. We need to be able to hear the fatigue in our co-worker’s voice, to meet their eyes when they share with us last week’s financial stats, to know a peace in our core when told to re-do that 80 page report.
If we don’t experience beauty, bliss, authenticity, and peace in this moment, we won’t experience it in any other moment.
Dreams are beautiful things. An authentically-lived life certainly is a beautiful thing. But they are not goals nor accomplishments nor something we have to turn to some guru or class to find.
We’ll all do it, again and again, turning to another book or another job or another medium of art or another type of wine or another type of parenting style. We’ll keep searching out there.
But that wild, beautiful, peaceful, authentic, bliss-filled life is nowhere other than in the to-do list, the clothes left in the washer for too long, these words you are reading and the random thoughts you had while doing so.
Right here, right now.
Welcome to your big, brave life.
Thank you so much, Lisa, for inviting each of us into this space and to the fabulous reminders of what life can be…and what it already is.
Lisa Renee Wilson is an Awareness Artist, exploring the union of mindfulness, creativity, and Real Life. She writes regularly at LifeUnity.com, and is currently guiding others in two classes: a free online mindfulness class, The Wild Elephant Project, and two, a class in self-awareness and creative expression through the medium of wax, The Encaustic Experience. (Join the Wild Elephant Project at http://www.lifeunity.com/wild-elephant-project. Learn more about the Encaustic Experience, to be offered again in late fall, and an upcoming class in Awareness Arts, at http://www.lifeunity.com/classes.) Lisa also creates a variety of art in her home studio area in Bloomington, IN, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Find Lisa online here:
Website: http://www.lifeunity.com
Facebook (personal page): http://www.facebook.com/lisareneewilson
Facebook (LifeUnity) http://www.facebook.com/lifeunity
Twitter http://www.twitter.com/lifeunity
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5 Comments »
I’m not sure how you did it, but it really does feel like this post was written just for me. As we near the end of summer shenanigans, and I’ve propelled myself into this lofty goal of finishing my book, it’s easy to take for granted the magic that’s sitting right in front of me. Thank you for this. Really. And thank you for joining this circle…. it’s so wonderful to keep connecting with you…
xoxo
Lisa
This must be what many of us need to hear now. Well said, Lisa. Thank you! The last two paragraphs are the best. I might like to print this and hang it in my art studio.
Lisa, your wisdom and depth of spirit speaks to everything I think and feel. I needed these words today in order to feel my heartbeat, remember my passion and take the time to stop and see that I’m grateful for my life despite all it’s challenges. Thank you for always bringing such breathe and joyful beauty to my life. Your big, brave life inspires me and many, many others! Thank you as well for this series it’s simply extraordinary!!
Hi Lisa,
Lovely post. We seem to be on similar creative wavelengths. I also “guide” rather than teach and look at self-awareness using creative methods. Cool. I agree with what you write here. We’re taught not to see the magic in our every day lives, that life itself is magic. We are taught to just get on the treadmill and run as fast as we can to nowhere we want to go.
I’ll check out the Elephant Project and your web site.
Thanks! G.
LISA: Thank YOU for allowing me this space! This is such an honor to be here, with these other amazing women like you, who recognize that book as magic. It is, and I am thrilled to see into what it transforms…
JENNIFER: I am humbled, thank you!!! There are no kinder words to here than those that indicate my truths resonate with you. That’s a fancy way of saying it makes me super happy that you like it.
NATASHA: I am always feeling your kindness vibe, loving seeing you, hearing your words. Thank you for continuing to be there.
GIULIETTA: How wonderful!! I definitely want to connect further. Isn’t it tricky finding those words, knowing we are not imparters of wisdom, per se, but just awakeners? Even those words sound odd. But yes, yes…. and I had to laugh – I literally just got off of my treadmill. (The real one)