Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself. How will you surprise yourself this week? Sent by Ashley Ambirge.

I love those times! Those times when we wonder if we “have it under the hood” and then we try. And then we succeed.

I’m going to take both of these prompts forward this week and begin a project I have been desiring for a long time now.

I am going to write the book I yearn to write but I am going to do so without hiding myself behind the words.

I am going to be true and open and honest and care not who likes or dislikes it. It may be unsettling to some. My crowd will be small.

“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I will get to reading Self Reliance today, find that quote, and fully grasp the significance.

Back to the task at hand.

Lachlan asks a lot of questions! This may be the hardest prompt yet.

Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

Let’s break this down into sizable chunks because I am not connecting with it as a whole.

What is your dream?
What fear holds you back from realizing that dream?

Next, analyze the validity of the fear, so you can push through it.

My Response:

I have nothing to share here. I’m living the dream! When the dream changes, when each challenge has been met, I allow another dream in.

As an example: I was approached to write my first book. What if I couldn’t do it? What if it sucked? What if the world hated it? What if it left me empty? (There’s the fear, it didn’t stop me.)

Then I was asked to do a radio interview. What if I stuttered? What if the world didn’t consider me as an expert? What if I was challenged on my views? (There’s the fear, it didn’t stop me.)

This isn’t all about people and their reaction to me. There have been other challenges, dreams, fears.

Life is worth living – not shaking in fear.

I think this face your fear mentality stems from a rough childhood. I was raised in fear. When I left at 14 I’d had enough of it.

Although fear does not hold me back from living my dream(s), fear is still present inside me. I am fearful of physical pain and personal disability (I have never broken a bone and choose not to experience that by my own recklessness).

I have faced that fear when weighed against the dream. The dream – to support my husband’s need to build a house after a fire – required my body on shaky scaffolding and ladders many times. I did it, sometimes for hours at a time, but did not overcome the fear of heights in less than safe conditions.

“Now do. The thing. You fear.”

Done.

Today is a perfect example. Yesterday Eric Handler asked: “If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say? My response was “Be You”.

Today Fabian Kruse asks: “Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?”

Sending along this Emerson quote for effect: “Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

How fitting, since I was already on the authentic train…

Areas of my life where I’m imitating? I truly can’t think of any but I’m leaving a space below for this in case one or more points come to me.

What is the divine idea that I represent?

I’d have to say that I’m all about the journey. Learning from others, learning from ourselves. Making mistakes but always striving. Saying “I’m sorry” and actually meaning it.

Allowing only the authentic into your life, your home, your thoughts.

Actually – it goes deeper than that. The authentic and pure of heart. Or nearly pure of heart – because we can all truly see each other’s heart if we just stop long enough to look.

If we only allow love in, the pure in, then we are no help to each other, nor will we grow as individuals. So nearly pure, or on a path to pure, is acceptable.

That’s what I represent. I have these high ideals and I fall short but I am always growing and saying sorry. By doing so I am authentic and set apart – an individual with my own purpose.

I think, it is by living this way, that people are drawn to me and can feel my energy so quickly, not just beside me but where I have invested time.

Be you. Set your ideals high and become them. Say I love you lots (even to yourself) and don’t forget to say “sorry” and “thanks”.

Simple.

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be you.”

That was my response the minute I read this prompt.

A million people…that’s what I’d tell you: “Be You”

I’m not going to tell you why.
I’m not going to tell you how we’re not being our authentic selves.
I’m not going to tell you who you are in a manner that startles you into awareness.

But maybe I can tell you how to get there…

It came in the worlds to a song on my way to town today.

“How can I get you alone?”

I don’t want to meet the million to share my message. I don’t even want to get you alone. I do want you to be alone – every day, an hour or more, in peace and to think.

Think about your impulse.
Think about your ideals.
Think about – everything and get to know yourself.

In the hour do not beat yourself up. Do not let your thoughts run like a broken record. If you are disappointed and do not know why (or have an answer for change), then move your thoughts forward.

Now you are on a path to self-discovery.

Now you are learning to be you.

And when you know yourself, you can be yourself.

There is great power, great joy, great gifts to behold when you: “Be You.”

I’m not afraid of anything.

Talk about it? Sure!

Try it? Okay.

Write about it? I’ll give it my best shot!

And yet after thinking through my darkest secrets I know I am afraid of writing them out for the world to see.

Some of them I won’t write about because it will hurt people that I know. Some I won’t write about (publicly) because I don’t want to reckon with myself. There have been many times when I’ve put something to paper and it is given life. It becomes. It is true. And some of those things are not my higher self. They are primal, negative, cruel – why would I want to give them any air time?

So I have to think hard for this exercise. What am I afraid to write, to show the world, that won’t spread negativity or acceptance of the evil within us?

I have to dig deep.

Deep beneath the protective outer shell.

Deep beneath what my anger hides.

Anger hides hurt – almost all the time, in almost every last one of us.

“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mary Jaksch says that since Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do,” I should consider that which is ‘too scary’ to write about and do it.

Here’s what scares me most…

That I am just like you. I am not a superhero, I am not tough as nails, I am not capable of doing all things.

I Am Hurt and I Am Incompentent

I am hurt by the things you say. By the way you have treated my child. By the lack of action, lack of drive, lack of compassion in you.

I am hurt because I thought you were like me. Always striving, always giving, always loving. And instead you turned your nasty head and spoke ill of me, looked for ways to hurt me, cheated and lied, didn’t give your all, and took sides.

I learned a long time ago that the route to a successful marriage is to look after your partner. To make your partner’s needs and happiness your primary concern. While you are looking after them, they are looking after you. Such is true in every relationship. The cashier ringing in my groceries, the little boy down the road, the person at the end of my email.

All to be loved as though they were more important than myself.

But while I lift you up and project love towards you, my fellow man, you continue to misdirect your own rage while hiding your vulnerability (even to yourself).

And I am incompetent to operate with you on that level.

“There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What would you say to the person you were five years ago? What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years?

To Me, Five Years Ago:

Do not be like a child at the universe’s ear. Cherish only a few things. Enjoy all else only to the extent that you are content to hold it in that moment. Nothing more. Do not dream of the day when you can enjoy it again unless you are actively pursuing that dream.

To Me, Five Years From Now:

Well done. Keep growing.

From All This I Learn

People come in and out of your life – your whole life long. You will always have a tribe (whether you’ve found it or you’re searching for it) just be sure to never be without a mentor.

You can keep the same people – learning and growing together – as long as they are of a similar ilk in character, morals, and ethics. You will become them, they become you, you will assimilate aspects of them that you (have) despise(d) based on your journey. You will also pick up the positive traits.

You can also change your people – and learn in through compassionate understanding or in retrospect. If you are lacking in compassion, yet want to grow, then hope for enough inspired intelligence and time to ponder that you can look back and grow through understanding.

You should not stray from those who share your character, morals, or ethics for long if it is less harmonic.

If souls were songs…
And life, truth, and purity created the sweetest sounds.
Then daily-changing chaotic tunes are souls en route to discovery.
(never-changing screeching chants are to be avoided)

So when your life has gone askew,
Look carefully at those around you.
For through their faces and their songs,
You will find out if you belong.

“Our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Next to Resistance, rational thought is the artist or entrepreneurs worst enemy. Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego. Instead, we want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. Its only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.” – Steven Pressfield, Do the Work

The idea of “being realistic” holds all of us back. From starting a business or quitting a job to dating someone who may not be our type or moving to a new place – getting “real” often means putting your dreams on hold.

Today, let’s take a step away from rational thought and dare to be bold. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue? Write it down. Also write down the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.

The only thing left is to, you know, actually go make it happen. What are you waiting for?

I love this challenge but it is leaving me a little stumped. Usually when you think you’ve got nothing to add (or that you’ve already arrived) you find that you are woefully off course.

But I think not.

I have already mastered this one.

I agree on all of the points above not because I have been stuck there, but because I have watched others long enough. They fall into the religion they learned from their parents, they choose the career that some school aptitude test told them was perfect at the ripe age of 13, they dated a fellow (or gal) because friends/parents/mentors thought the pairing would be powerful.

This was not my path.

Unconnected to my parents, disconnected from authority figures, I skated along through my early years simply following my heart and destiny. I worked hard but I also watched for the signs. There were inner promptings. Opportunities for advancement laid upon my work desk. Gut feelings.

• 16 to move to California. Check.
• 19 to live in Texas. Check.
• Taking my 12 year old traveling to many countries alone. Check.
• Travel alone to a major US city. Check.
• Be a city girl and buy a farm to run alone. Check.
• Write a book and have it published with only a grade 10 education. Check.
• Write a second book and have it published. Check.
• Work from home and raise a child without any help from anyone. Check.
• There is more…but why would I write it? I have nothing to prove here.

The list is long of things I’ve done that others said they wouldn’t have the guts or power to do. I don’t see it as being bold. I see it as following your heart and your destiny. I see it as doing what needs to be done.

Another list is long on ‘good advice’ that others provided. That I contemplated but discarded. Not because it was bad advice, it just wasn’t the right advice for me.

Dare to be bold, sure.

No guts, no glory.

You might wonder how well that ‘follow your heart’ journey worked out for me. You might think that if a person is that tuned into their destiny that life would be full of rewards. I’ll be honest and tell you that it hasn’t been fantastic – but it has been ‘true’.

I was doing well, living happy, top of my game at work and then, at 27 years of age, I met a scoundrel. I’m not sure what attracted me to him but he was like a drug – everything about him was so wrong for me.

He was abusive and controlling. By staying with him I was altering my fate and the path was dark. Through association I was headed into his world of crime and drugs, fights and abhorrent behaviour.

As my light grew dim oppressed by his dark and vile force, a child was born. This child made sense of the years I allowed him to infect my world. This child healed all.

I held onto her and ran. Threw everything I’d worked for out the window and ran. Hide her away from evil. Hide me safely so I may protect and raise this precious bundle.

If you know her today (at 17), you’d know that this worked out precisely, wonderfully, as it was meant to be. We have an uncommon bond. She was never subjected to all the things he might have brought into her world at a tender age. She is a fierce, creative, know-thyself, young woman – unfettered by societal dribble and the “you should do” intents of others.

She dates whom she wants to. She says what she thinks (within reason). She jumps with boldness even when it may be scary to do so – but counts it all as life to be explored.

She is, in essense, the best part of me.

Getting to the heart of today’s challenge is eating up words and time and getting me nowhere.

I thought that since I was stumped by this one – because I feel I have already mastered it – that if I would just write, the truth would flow and I would find that I have a long journey ahead to Dare To Be Bold. Perhaps I need to look at it from a different angle. I’m learning nothing here…

Main Question: What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue?

Answer: I can’t think of a damn thing! Everything my heart has called out to me to follow or obtain has been attempted or completed.

However…maybe I’m looking too closely at the word ‘afraid’…

I did set out, last year, on a new challenge and have not completed my goal yet. I desired to get back into shape, to firm up and tone, to re-sculpt my body. For four months I worked out, ate better, and was seeing results. I felt great. And then I let life get in the way. First, a book deadline. Then, other people’s needs. I ended up with another mouth to feed, another damaged-by-parents soul to nurture, and my dream of being ‘fit at fifty’ was put on hold.

So, not afraid, but forgotten. And it doesn’t require boldness, but a re-dedication.

So tonight I head to the gym – reminded of my goal and restored to the path I’d laid down in January.

I hit the “Save Draft” button and the server crashed. Meh.

I’m not rewriting it. Life’s too short. I’ve posted the prompt below if you’re interested but here’s the gist of my response.

I am already in motion to end the “always something better” spiral. I have already put goals into motion to remove multipe items off my “To Do” list (largely associated with the sale of this beautiful but unfinished log house). The act that I would perform if only given one life to live would be to write “the Veronica book”. And in the end I do resolve to not wait another week, to remove items immediately from my “To Do” list (without waiting on the house sale), and make time for the book I yearn to write.

Come Alive by Jonathan Mead

“Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive.

Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?

Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

If we live truly, we shall see truly. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This one is an easy write.

I never had an urge to travel the world. Never cared much about “getting away from it all”. In fact I lived in downtown Toronto for years and didn’t even take weekend trips – what for the city held all kinds of interesting surprises and escapes any time I desired one. It wasn’t until a week before my wedding that I even considered taking a honeymoon.

To me, travel meant sun, sand, thrill rides and catching up on sleep.

But then came an incredibly long season. Some hurtful events took place and I felt the need to run away from this place. To forget them and the pain they caused. The opportunity arose to leave for a month with my daughter (just 12 at the time) and see Europe.

We went 12 places or more on a trip that began in Puerto Rico and ended in Rome. We saw sand and sun, culture, architecture, and more. Towards the end of the journey we relaxed in a little Tuscan town in Italy called Lucca. I have actually written about it on this very website.

So to Lucca, if I travel again, I will go. Ideally I will take two months. I will rent an apartment there or I will stay in one of the pensionnes (hostels) as they are clean, safe, and cheap.

Within those two months I will take a side trip. I will walk the Cinque Terre – on both the easy and the difficult path. I will do so without a schedule or a plan. And when my soul has settled I will return – either to Lucca or home here to Canada.

I have been thinking of this for the past few weeks already. The house is for sale and I mentioned to my daughter that once it sells I would like to return to Italy for a reprieve before I move on with the next phase of life. I guess then, that’s what I’m doing to ensure it happens.

Determining the source of funds and preparing your family for your departure. What else is there? There is shape – and getting back into it – before taking off on a walking trip in the Cinque Terre. That must be the purpose of this prompt – to remind me to get off my computer and start walking more.

If you haven’t been following along (and I don’t for a moment suspect you have), these prompts or questions are part of the #Trust30 writing challenge created through The Domino Project (aka Seth Godin). More information on the challenge can be found at http://www.ralphwaldoemerson.me.

This particular prompt has me wondering more about the project than the topic. Why was that Emerson quote chosen for this prompt? (The other pairings seemed to make logical sense but this one seems as though it may have something more hidden behind it.) What does that ‘one last place to see before we die’ have to do with living truly? Is the quote something that the prompter has been working on personally when called and has little to do with those on the challenge? Or is there something more here that I’m missing…

Day 4 morphs into Day 6 – Here Is The Challenge

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.

The question I finally chose “How can I resolve the revisitation of toxicity?”

On first response my question was “How can I recognize toxic people before letting them into my life?”

That will not do as the only answer involves an assessment of character before shaking hands with a person. My core belief is that people are inherently good. (But I’m seeing that although one may not be good for me, they might be good for someone else.) And to look deeper still: As careful as I may be, I know that my existance may be toxic to others.

It is not the person who is toxic, it is our ‘clash’ of moral fiber (and perhaps other elements).

So why this question? Because I am always doing the dance of skirting around vile, rude, interactions. I am offended by the stories I hear from local girls about the things their father has said to them. I am dismayed by the low class texts passed between teens. I see filth and cruelty and abhorrent behaviours that would not be in my existance if I could just stay on my small farm and never let these people into my world.

But they infiltrate anyway. They come via Facebook. They enter as my daughter’s friends. They are a story of woe shared by a friend. They are my blood. They are a news story.

Oh to simply nuke them from my existance! Learn to ignore them! Send them away from my door!

I know that these things cannot be done because I must “do that which is assigned me” — resolve the filth of my upbringing so that I may move forward. If I do not – it will continue to infect my world.

I have made my post-it my Facebook profile picture. I have a copy of my question on my desk. And I shall see you on Sunday with my answers and evaluation.

Not a final resolution but a self discovery and thoughts are posted in the comment.

Today’s awareness prompt is brought to us by Buster Benson.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

Summation of the thought stream below: Most people are good. Perceive one as bad and you can throw them away with indifference. This is how a tribe of ‘like minds’ is created with a driven clarity. A tribe with the same moral base provides roots capable of supporting positive individual growth. Not so much about powering the world as it is making my own world liveable.

This prompt brings out the battle, my pain, the angst I have with the world at large.

My one strong belief that is not shared by closest friends and family? That people are inherently good.

What inspires this belief? My childhood. Up until the age of 14 my world was full of liars, drunks, cruelty and abuse. Something inside of me (I don’t know what or why) said “Life won’t always be like this. You were just born into hardship. Other people aren’t all this way.”

Perhaps it is what I needed to believe to survive each day at the hands of my abusers.

I understand it is a Pollyanic approach to life. The belief at times serves me well. At others, it hasn’t. At best it allows me to see the beauty of other’s souls. At worst it exposes my heart. When you trust that the world is full of goodness and purity, the cruel march towards you chanting: “Yes, another soul to exploit!”

The alternative extreme – to shut down completely, believing that the world is full of selfishness, pettiness, or rage – is more painful.

I have tried both.

“Find a happy medium and live your life.”

I can find no middle ground.

I am (so far) incapable of being ‘half this’ or ‘half that’.

I am ‘all or nothing’.

I either love you ferociously or (if you have purposefully hurt me) you do not exist.

What have I done to actively live it? Herein lies the difference between how I choose to live vs. how others tell me I should live. Countless elders have told me, their faces smacking with self-righteousness: “People are not like pieces of paper. You cannot throw people away.”

But I can.

And I do.

I begin every relationship believing that the person is pure of heart (or nearly pure), is kind, is thoughtful, is loving, is ‘aware’. (That’s the Pollyanic – unshared by my closest friends.)

And should it come to my awareness – through personal suffering or by observation of action – that my associate is completely self-serving or cruel, I toss them without guilt and (sometimes) with as much kindness as I can muster. Some people have not allowed me to easily dispose of them – then I have been less than kind.

To resolve: I state that we are not of the same ilk. Not in a snobbish fashion, but in a tribal sense.

The result: my souls to love can be counted on one hand. I live my final days believing that people are inherrently good and I have just not found my tribe.

If, as Buster Benson says, “The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action,” this strong belief is not meant to power the world — but to make my own world liveable.