Traveling

Just got back from a trip. I gave a day long writing workshop on Saturday. People who know me say they take it for granted my workshops will be a success. These days, I do too. But I remember all too vividly back when I found it hard to believe I could have anything to say that anyone would want to hear or they didn’t already know!

Looking back, I also remember all too vividly how, for most of my life, I would have felt out of place in a new situation with people I didn’t know. These days, travel is an opportunity to make new friends—everywhere. On this trip I did make new friends, I made a difference AND I had FUN! What could be better than that?

I used to worry that if I said something and someone didn’t “get it” that it meant I had failed—and I’d try even harder to persuade them I was right. Now I know, from my own experience, how a person can hear something, think it’s nonsense or useless information, and then discover days, weeks, months or even years later how true the words were. (I can’t tell you how many times over the past few years I’ve felt I should apologize to the counselor I worked with for thinking at the time that what he was saying was lame only to realize NOW how profoundly powerful or right it was!) The truth is that we understand things when we’re ready to understand them. If someone doesn’t get what we’re saying, that’s okay. They will if and when they are ready to do so. And maybe what’s right for us isn’t always right for someone else. I’ve learned to offer ideas and tools knowing that I can’t gauge which will be right for which person. This makes presenting workshops a whole lot easier. I don’t have to worry if someone disagrees with me about something. I can relax knowing that my job is just to share what I know and have faith that each person there will find and use what’s right for them.

Of course, when I talk about writing, I also talk about much more than that. I talk about finding joy in everything we do. I talk about believing in ourselves. I talk about trusting our subconscious to help us resolve all the challenges in our lives. I talk about seeing others and understanding that conflict always rises out of triggered fears. I talk about doing things in small pieces so we don’t get overwhelmed and doing what needs to be done in an order that builds experiences of success.

In other words, I share a lot of what I write about here. Because whether there is abuse in our backgrounds or not, we are all more alike than we are different. We all carry self-doubt. We all have hopes and dreams and fears.

Here’s hoping that in your life you realize what YOU have to offer the world. Here’s hoping that in your life you realize that you DO belong. Here’s hoping that you know that everywhere you go there are new friends to be found.

Sending safe and gentle (((((((hugs))))))),
April_optimist