{"id":539,"date":"2015-03-11T14:23:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T18:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallybsedgwick.com\/conversation\/?p=539"},"modified":"2015-03-11T14:23:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T18:23:05","slug":"thank-you-im-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/thank-you-im-fine\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank you, I’m fine…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAre you OK?\u201d We had just agreed to cancel the Spirit Moxie\/Living Consciously retreat \"Me<\/a>scheduled for March 13-14 and my friend and ally Jane was being all pastoral. But I was fine. I realized we hadn\u2019t started with built-in attendees and that the Christians to whom the retreat was aimed pretty much do things related only to their congregation. I\u2019d tried all the \u201cgive this up\u201d so a miracle could happen mind games and sent the numerous (or at least it felt like numerous) emails. But while miracles happen all the time, this wasn\u2019t to be one of them. And Spirit Moxie isn\u2019t explicitly churchy anyway \u2014 and isn\u2019t meant to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Grandkid<\/a>But the major flaw to sharing Spirit Moxie seems to be that I am fine. No one is interested in that. People relate more to struggles and drama. I should still be in deep mourning for my partner Jim\u2019s death. I should be angry at Jim\u2019s family. (Sorry, guys, if you\u2019re reading this. Call and I\u2019ll explain.) I should be much more worried about my lack of income. As an only child with deceased parents, I should be constantly bereft. Heck, my own sons have the \u201cof course Mom is OK, so if we don\u2019t hear from her for a few weeks, it\u2019s all good\u201d mentality. Yes, I have kids. And a grandkid \u2014 but she\u2019s in Bangkok until April and only two years old. So yes, I have family. And mostly, they\u2019ll answer if I text or phone. But to be honest, I try not to bug them much either. So, I guess I should feel guilty too, right? I mean, a real mom talks to her kids at least once a week\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I wrote the conversation post on Be Here Now<\/a>, I was trying to convey the excitement, magic, and straight-up usefulness of being present. But we\u2019ve gotten so immersed in struggle, sinfulness, being wrong, and the attack of the vagrancies of life, that unless you\u2019ve recently fallen in love with someone who’s not a complete jerk or you\u2019ve gotten a new job you\u2019re not yet disillusioned about, we don\u2019t want to\u00a0<\/span>hear about the positive. I mean drama is what life is really about, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

I learned this last summer when I attended<\/a> the World Domination Summit <\/a>(WDS). There was a chance for five minute presentations and I envisioned challenging the whole conference with a couple of Spirit Moxie points and so change, at least a little bit, Portland: 1) Smile. 2) Say thank you to the people where you were staying. (Bonus points for thanking people who serve you in bars and restaurants.) <\/span><\/p>\n

But not a glimmer of interest was expressed in my presenting this. Listening to the other five minute spiels, I realized I had the wrong hook. What people wanted to hear is how I worked for years doing what others thought I should do rather than anything I wanted to do. And working in those jobs, while I learned a lot, was draining and, simply, wrong. <\/span><\/p>\n

But Spirit Moxie is what I\u2019m supposed to do. It is proof that one can follow one\u2019s true self to where one is called.\u00a0 <\/span>However, because \u201cI learned a lot\u201d is my personal take-away from the above, I didn\u2019t even think of the \u201cI finally am following my true call\u201d slant until I listened to the other stories told at WDS. People want to know the stories about how you weren\u2019t OK and what you did about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

So living in the now has it\u2019s disadvantages if only because there aren\u2019t words that truly express the light and excitement and joy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, sometimes being present backfires because your mind will still wander.\u00a0 <\/span>Most recently, I found myself feeling lonely. See the above re family for some details. Add in living completely alone for the first time ever and not having a daily, regular job to provide structure and support. And then there\u2019s the longing for more peer support for Spirit Moxie. People write about mastermind groups, but where do you find one? <\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_5620\"<\/a>A couple of weeks ago I attended an awesome workshop at Kripalu<\/a>\u00a0on leading transformational workshops. To my surprise I found myself participating easily in the big group and generally felt confident I was in the right place. Being present was working! However the whole \u201cloneliness\u201d conversation kept recurring. No one to sit with in the dining room. My being the one to approach others in the cafe. On Wednesday I gave a mini Spirit Moxie workshop to a couple of people which worked well. But somehow in the group feedback, while those participating shared their experience, I heard that my \u201cevent\u201d had been superficial and found myself feeling unvalidated, old, and so forth. As we were asked if there was anything else to share, I found myself sobbing and sobbing with no words \u2014 except to finally share the lonely theme and confess I looked for others for validation. It is said in group process wisdom that someone needs to break by Wednesday afternoon, so I joked I was glad to save anyone else the trouble. But through that meltdown and the time that followed, loneliness just stopped being part of my conversation. It didn’t even make sense any more. And I also learned I do awesome retreats. You should schedule one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Coffee<\/a> \"French<\/a>I could explain more about that brokenness, but I don’t really have time. Today\u2019s Monday and I was planning a solo walk and breakfast, but instead got a call to see the inside of a house a friend just bought in the neighborhood. And of course we went for coffee afterwards. And then, there was the text from my son asking if by any chance I could take care of their dog for a while because he had to work late. And I could stop by his restaurant for a salad and a glass of wine afterwards. Glad my time to talk with Jane about what’s next with Spirit Moxie got moved to Wednesday…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_2862\"<\/a><\/p>\n

_______________________________________________
\nPhotos from top:<\/p>\n

Me playing at the Kripalu workshop
\n\u2014 Joleen Mahoney Roe, Mothers Healing Together, Aug. 7-9, 2015<\/a>
\nThe grandkid in Bangkok \u2014 Tukta Sedgwick
\nKripalu\u00a0classroom\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Jim White
\nCoffee and Scones with a friend \u2014 Spirit Moxie
\nYou want me on your lap, right? \u2014 Spirit Moxie
\nJane & Sally\u00a0selfie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAre you OK?\u201d We had just agreed to cancel the Spirit Moxie\/Living Consciously retreat scheduled for March 13-14 and my friend and ally Jane was being all pastoral. But I was fine. I realized we hadn\u2019t started with built-in attendees … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asides"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DJHl-8H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}