Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Day 8 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

It's one of those days where there feels like no room to add "walking through a fear" to my To Do List. I have writing to do. Some other shit. And then Bob and I are off to a taping of a friend's new show, Paul Provenza's Green Room, late afternoon.

So I ask myself, what is this 100 Fears in 100 Days really about? Is it always about an action? Could it also be about claiming? Shifting? Being with myself in a new way? I will meditate on this today.

Tonight there will be lots of fame and talent and funny in the room and a chance to mix in it. In my past, this was a recipe for feeling invisible. But so much has changed this year around all of this. I have had many opportunities to get comfortable with my own power and place in the world and see behind the curtain I constructed around all of this. I know that the only thing that matters to me is genuine connection to others. The rest is bullshit.

I no longer look at these events as places where I feel I have to prove something to the world about my worth. I only know that I love people - their humanity, their perspectives and their hearts and souls. I also love artists who have a wide audience - I am fascinated how their unique brand resonates for many. And I am especially excited when artists get together to talk amongst themselves about their work, life, the world. So tonight will be fun.

I know tonight will offer me a few opportunities to step over some fears.

A couple of updates:
Will get the MRI later this month.
And I got an email from the literary agent - she has read my essays and liked them a lot, and will read the memoir pages this week!!!
I think I just buried the headline. :)

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Interviewing Comedians

This last year, I have had the privilege to interview some legends of comedy for Laugh.com's Con Comedy CD series. Here is the link to an excerpt of my interview with the FABULOUS Phyllis Diller.

It was one of the greatest afternoons of my life.

Day 7 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

Well, I woke up knowing what today's action would be - make my MRI appointment for my boobs. I am in a high-risk program at UCLA (my mom and grandma both had breast cancer) and I was supposed to make this appointment 2 months ago. My mammogram was fine, but ever other year I get an MRI to keep on top of things. And when it comes to this stuff, there is always fear underneath it. The big "What if..." So I will call today and get this baby off my list!!

Yesterday was good. I caught myself a few times almost writing or speaking about someone in a stereotyping way. And I started a cool discussion over at Soul Pancake Rainn Wilson's (of The Office) site about the big questions in life. I hope you check it out - the site and my question.

Since beginning this practice, I have had more energy and feel more alive. I think that subtle (and of course not so subtle) fear saps us of our life force in the long run. It's like it traps it in a hard, brittle case making it inaccessible to the whole system. So when we step over the fear or move through it, we crack that baby open, and get to capture that life force back.

So what are you cracking open today?

Monday, September 28, 2009

Day 6 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

Really? Day 6 already? Jeez.

By blogging about a political subject the other day, I have found a way into a conversation that I have been longing to have and host for a long time - How to reduce the vitriol that is spewing out of American's mouths and at each other, and how to bring back real dialogue about what we ALL want for this country.

I do not have an answer to this big question, but I am excited about doing my part in hosting the conversation here and on Facebook.

So, today, I am stepping out of that comfort zone and claiming a new practice for myself - I am taking responsibility for my own speech. I am now going to make a point in my own communication (speech, blogging, essaying) to stop labeling people.

I know that labeling dehumanizes us all. And dehumanization is what leads to hate, violence and actions we all regret.

I know it will be challengin because at times I just want to say things like, "those damn Neo-con, Christian, Right-Wing Nut Bags," but ultimately I see that when I do that, I am being lazy in my thinking and my speaking (although it FEELS good, but so does an 8 Ball of cocaine and I know where that leads), and I know that when people label ME that way, smoke comes out my ass and ears. I want to discover a new way to discuss all of this without doing that to others.

We are all so much more than stereotypes, labels and single perspectives. And I know that I can vehemently disagree with a person's opinion, and even feel fear about what they are saying, and not have to be sucked into name calling, fear-mongering, and bitch slapping - at least that is the goal.

So, where are you going outside of your comfort zone? What are you willing to do today that will SHAKE your world up? Walk with me.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Day 5 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

Good Sunday Morning!

So yesterday I posted some thoughts about being American, feeling powerless over the fate of this country, and how self-questioning is a path to deeper understanding. I am generally terrified of going into this subject because politics creates such passion in people, and I generally like to be a peace maker. So I offer my remarks ultimately as a peace maker and a human trying to understand it all. But I always fear that I will have to defend myself against an attack and then I will end up getting all hopped up and righteous and red in the face and creating more chaos than peace. So that was a huge step for me.

Today I have already played on with my edges. I woke up early to talk about an upcoming project with someone I immensely respect and who co-wrote my dad's upcoming memoir. There was one thing on the list of ideas I had that I was a bit hesitant to mention. But I did, and it ended up being a really rich idea that will bring much to the project.

Hope your edges are expanding!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Who Do They Think this "Government" is Anyway?

We so often hear these days how much people hate the government. I get it. There is a lot wrong with our country and most of it seems to involve the government - policies, bureaucracies, politicians that no longer serve the whole but only serve the powerful with their short term interests. Right, Left, poor, not so poor, black, white, young, old - we all feel fucked one way or another.

But I am really, really sick and tired of all the mud slinging and gridlock and especially feeling like a victim about all of this. I think a lot about how there are special interests just to big or just too powerful to tackle, and that as an average citizen I am powerless. It feels hopeless. Some people who feel this way even suppose that these special interests are a small number of white, very rich men who have devised all this so that they can rule the world. I do not. That just seems a little too James Bondish for me. (Recently it occurred to me that conspiracy theories are just convenient rationales that perpetuate one's political victim story - "I don't have to do anything or take responsibility because the system is set up by a secret cabal that squash every solution that could make the world a better place for all").

I have bought into this rationale myself for years. I was raised on this rationale. I know that in part, it is true (okay, probably not the part about a group of 10 guys meeting in a secret location to decide how to rule the world this week, but the part about the system being tipped in favor of those who get to make the big decisions).

So, what to do.

Well, I know that when their is a dysfunctional situation, and I am a part of it, then I must look at my part in it.

Therefore, I must ask myself - who do I think this "government" is? In my understanding the government consists of Americans. Americans working in an American institution created by Americans. Which then leads me to conclude we can't blame this shit on no one else. (Even if there are only ten men in a room ruling the world - I am guessing that at least seven of them are still Americans.)

We AMERICANS raised, educated, and shaped the people who make up this thing we call "the government." We Americans have some shit to figure out. And me as an American contributed to this in some way.

So, if we don't like this American government, then just maybe it is time to look at ourselves. Maybe we should be looking into our own hearts and minds as individuals and be asking - how did I contribute to this reality? what have I done to allow things we don't like to carry on, what am I ignoring in my own actions that perpetuates a system that does not serve us?

These are not easy questions. It is never easy to take a straight look at how we are contributing to a dysfunctional situation. But the reality I am glimpsing these days is that even if I don't feel powerful, I am a citizen, I am a being on this earth, I am here, and in some way my perspective, my consciousness, and my actions are either part of the problem or part of the solution.

Trust me, I would much rather spend time reading some esoteric philosophy, watching Glee on my Tivo, and eating my Double Chocolate Milanos than having to ask myself what can I do to be a part of the solution. But, it feels like it is getting precarious out there.

And now that I'm doing this 100 Fears in 100 Days, I cannot ignore the fact that looking at my part in all of this scares the shit out of me.

And besides, I like this place we call America.

Day 4 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

I feel I am facing a conundrum this morning with this challenge. You see, first of all it is Saturday. A weekend day. What kind of fear to face on a Saturday?

Secondly, I have done some things the last three days that make me feel full and satisfied. Isn't there supposed to be a day where you rest a bit on your laurels?

And yet, there is this commitment - to face a fear every day for 100 days. Hmmm. What to do...

My weekends don't feel like a bunch of fear facing opportunities like the work week does. But I am probably full of shit on this one. I like to think that most of my fears are about putting myself out there in the world - and there are many around this issue, trust me. But, I am guessing that there will be moments today when I can witness myself hesitate, censor or stop in the face of some voice in my head saying, "Stop! Danger! Don't go there!" And I will see that fear is a subtle little bitch that shows up ways that I had no idea about.

And when it does show up, I will say, "Step aside honey, there's a new bitch in town."

More later.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Day 3 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

Good morning. So I caught up all my accounting yesterday. It was GREAT! GOD that one has been gnawing at me for months. Today I will contact my book keeper to sort out a minor accounting error so I can then reconcile it in the software.

I need to write today - and on these days of writing, I tend to not do much else. So I am trying to think what I want to do to scare the shit out of myself today....

I know. I will send a copy of a screenplay that NO ONE has ever read to a friend that said that she would read it for me. The thought of sharing this with another makes my stomach go huooaa partly because it is a piece of work that shot out straight from my soul. It was like bliss writing it, and felt so resonant when I did it. I wrote it to be part of my thesis for my Masters in 2004. It is a musical that uses modern popular music to weave the stories of the Demeter/Persephone myth together with my own journey of mourning the loss of my mother. It was inspired in part by Baz Luhrman and Julie Taymor.

YIKES. Okay here goes.

BTW - What are you conquering today?

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Day 2 of 100 Fears in 100 Days

I see a few people have joined me here to walk this together. Welcome to Margaret, Ni, Laurie and Bernadette!

Today I am going to face the fear of my finances. I am going to reconcile my business accounting after ignoring if for 6 months. I am SO glad to get this one off my list.

And just a little update about yesterday. I called my manager and said I need an editor to help me finish my outline for my book - he knew of the perfect person - my dad's first editor on his book who is now an agent. He is calling her today. AND he brought up wanting to start contacting speaker's bureaus for me.

I really get that this work of facing your fears, taking actions that scare us, is a HUGE act of co-creation. When we move, the world reacts in some new way. We are stirring up energy.

Feel free to post what you are doing today to face your fears.

Peace Out.
Kelly

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

100 Fears in 100 Days

So, a friend on Facebook - a life leadership coach named Laura Neff - shared that she is committing to doing one thing that scares her for 100 days.

I figured it out that if I start today then on December 31st will be my 100th day. I cannot resist that kind of synchronicity.

Here is the quote that really got me thinking:
What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. that phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be – it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversation he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice.
~ Ferris, Timothy. The 4-Hour WorkWeek. New York: Crown, 2007.

BTW - what scares me might be a walk in the park for you - so cut me some slack and go scare the shit out of yourself today. You'll feel better for it!

So what scares me today? Well, I really want to move my writing, speaking , teaching career forward, so just about anything to do around that makes me nervous. Today I am working on creating a new website to showcase ALL of my talents past, present and future. I am assembling a list of all my content (writing, video, audio) and the steps I need to take to get them web ready.

Join me if you like on this 100 Day Adventure. Parties are much more fun when there are people to pass the pipe around to (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Friday, September 11, 2009

Zen and the Art of Web Spinning

These last few months I have receded from the world to my backyard deck spending hours each day meditating, journaling and then working the outline of my memoir. I have been here so much, I am now embedded and a part of my garden's ecosystem. My niche in this system is to be the amazed witness to the buzz and hubbub of it all - a young pair of Phoebes nesting and raising their fledglings, the daily feedings of hummingbirds, bumble bees and various shaped and colored butterflies, and the juvenile crows hanging out on my trees like bored teenagers at the mall.

And then this week I noticed, with excitement, the garden spiders are back - the spinners of the most magnificent webs.

Every day I watch as her (her because of Charlotte, because she is me? I do not know) perfect web gets battered by the wind and destroyed by insects too strong to be held by its delicate threads. And every evening I watch as she begins her delicate and beautiful spinning again, as if she did not face this herculean task only 24 hours before. She does not mourn. She only knows that she must spin if she is to hope of catching a meal to sustain her. But sustain her for what, a perfection, or stasis? No, there is none of that here or anywhere. There is only spinning so that she may spin again and again until all her days of spinning are gone.

Every day I too face the ways life breaks down my body, my mind, my carefully crafted stasis. But unlike her, I pout, whine (really, I have to wash my hair again?) and often mourn how life does this endless dance of creation and destruction. And at times I feel it dismantle my own resolve to push forward. I ask, "what is the point?", and ponder what could be so wrong with just lying on my bed watching reruns of Law and Order until my death.

And yet, like it or not, every day, like the spider, I am also caught up in an urge to move forward, make order and fix what has been undone by time. I am inexplicably given invisible marching orders to spin more tales and unfold more of my delicate webbing into the world, so that I may catch a morsel of something that will sustain me for another interval, another turning of the earth across the day and into the night.

There is no preserving this web of hers. There is no way to create it to withstand the ravages of time and preserve the precious and precarious nature that brings us its beauty. I, with my conscious mind, fight with myself daily over the need to have things last forever, and the need to face the reality that it all passes away, some slowly, some in the blink of an eye, but in the end it all goes.

I suppose that is how the beauty of life emerges - in the chambers of my melancholy heart where a constant sadness for what was is felt, and in the unknown territories of my hopeful soul where a constant joy of what might be is born again and again.

And then there are those moments in between the creation and the destruction of it all, when it is all just as it is to be. Here I see that no matter what, there is something that lives beyond death and birth: The very urge to push, participate, spin, eat, kill, create and survive. It becomes crystal clear in those in between moments that my personal participation in this urge will die one day, but not the urge itself. That was here long before me and will be here still long after I have gone.

And then I see all the beauty, the joy and the melancholy. I am the spider. I am the web. I am the wind destroying the web. I am that which has been caught in the web. And I am the urge to spin and spin and spin until I am all spun out.