Field Notes For Life: Why I Journal

Everyone wants their life to be a meaningful story. A story worth telling. One of scaling great heights, of overcoming adversity, of changing something for the better. But every great story begins with a call to adventure. And from my standpoint, the biggest adventure you’ll ever embark on falls squarely into the genre of mystery – the story of trying to crack the code and understand yourself.

My journals are how I try to make sense of it all. I started on the advice of a beloved and brilliant University of Rochester English professor named James Spenko, with whom I was studying Hemingway.  “Who ARE you?” he said with great drama one afternoon in his dusty, book-packed office. “You’re like the mystery girl…and you need to find something, and I think it’s you,” he said, leaning in for emphasis. “I’m telling you, you have to start journaling,” he said. “Just do it. Someday you’ll thank me.” So I did. (Hey, no one, especially me, would dare to not take a piece of Spenko advice).  And sadly, I never got the chance to thank him. Because journaling has become one of the most profound practices in my life. The gift is there every time I open to a new blank page and throw it down, trying to unpack (for the millionth time) the mystery of being me.

I never could have known how much I would come to need these field notes to myself. Need this early morning ritual of writing whatever comes to the surface. Trying to chart the course, to map out my stories – the ones happening to me, and the ones going on within me. Never could I have imagined filling black hardcover sketch book after identical sketch book with #2 pencil scrawl about the mundane everydayness of my life as well as the huge ‘ahas’ in between.  That I would come to trust the voice of intuition that sometimes speaks to me as I write.  And that one day I would actually be grateful to have a record of the days when I was frustrated or resentful.

You write in a journal to not forget the random person you met one day who turns out to be your greatest mentor.  You write to remember the time you had a gut feeling it was time for a change of friend, or a change of place – and you were right. You write when it’s boring, when it’s sad, when it’s joy.  You write when the writing itself feels like a siren’s song – sad beautiful notes you have to get down on paper even as they pull you into some deep dark cave where painful drama and hurtful people circle around. But you write to get through it – pouring your wounds on the paper, and then, pages later, you write about trying to love the scars you have that tell the story of your resilience.

So keep your field notes. Do it for no one but you, and the you you’re trying to become. Every page leaves another dot – another clue – behind as you venture further into your own mystery. Keep notes so you can look back and see how the dots all finally connect – leading you like a trail of breadcrumbs safely through the forest and back home to some new understanding of you.

Write in a journal so that one day you’ll look over at a bookshelf filled with notes, and realize you’re finding your voice. That these notes string together into a song that no one but you could have produced. You’ll have written a beautiful record – and it’s the soundtrack to your own becoming. And that is a story worth hearing.

What Changes For You in Autumn?

It’s September and change is in the air.  Cooler breezes blow. The kids go back to school. College grads don’t go back to school.  New adventures beckon. New chapters await our writing.

For many of us, autumn is a catalyst for conversations and reflecting on change. What are you ready to harvest? What must fall away? How could we change our mindset -  inviting life to explode with new colors?

Let’s talk. On Friday, September 15, we will again create our X Factory magic by exploring the many dimensions of CHANGE.  Join this beautiful and intentional circle of women sharing their stories and wisdom, and leave feeling reconnected, uplifted, encouraged, and empowered.

We're really excited to be hosting this X Factory at Red DWG Library, a new co-working lounge located at 413 Central Ave, Pawtucket, RI. The space is located in the historic American Wire building which was built in 1900. The architectural details are absolutely spectacular and we are so grateful to have this beautiful and inspiring space as our venue. There is tons of free parking and it's just a couple minutes off of 95!

So how are you thinking about change lately?  What have you learned about – or because of – change?  Was there a catalyst event that sent your life in a new or unexpected direction?  Have you chosen to change some aspect of your life or mindset? Are you being the change you want to see in the world?

If you reserve your seat now, you'll save $5 off the ticket price, so hop to it!  

We can’t wait to see you and dig into some deep, meaningful conversation together. 

xxx
Deb

Unpacking My A Game at Courage Camp

Last week I went back to camp. I hadn’t been to camp since I was 14, when my beloved summer ritual was a retreat to the Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon, CT.  Silver Lake was a place where I felt unlimited and expansive and hopeful and free. Weeks filled with contemplative walks down wooded trails to the lake. Soul-stirring conversation circles on the scratchy rolling lawn. Talks that opened with the nature of our own unique spirituality and ended up with group hugs and backrubs. It was a magical place nestled in the woods by the water. In retrospect, I see how that place nurtured my very young and true spirit: wild and free. Seeking. Philosophical.

I didn’t know how much I needed this 2017 camp reboot until I pulled off the main road at the sign reading “Mt. Hope Farm” and to my surprise, my eyes welled up. A signal I was onto something good - and important. Driving into the quiet to reflect on the big questions in the company of strangers. I exhaled and leaned into curiosity. 

My friend Lois and her colleagues Daniel and Gillian had masterminded Courage Camp, though they hardly knew each other and had never done anything together. But, being the rebels and change makers that they are, and after seeing the breathtaking beauty of Mt . Hope Farm, they knew it had to happen. “We all deeply believe in possibilities and know that the human spirit needs nourishing and replenishment to take the next steps and the step after that,” said Lois.  “And we knew it had to center on courage because all meaningful change takes courage. “

Sixteen of us  had taken up their invitation to courage - gathering in a circle of lawn chairs under the summer skies of Bristol, RI.  The Mt. Hope Bridge looked on from the western edge of our camp.  Spangles danced on the bay.  A hawk circled. Leaves rustled. And our stories began.

We opened with stories that defined courage for us. How we had risen to challenges. There were stories of leaving – home, people, countries, family, identity. Of longing – for joy, for truth, for connection, and healing.  Of truth – of finding our voice when we thought we had none. Of breaking the rules and writing our own. We shared how these challenges became the catalysts for personal change and had often unexpectedly given our lives meaning. 

I was in a circle of every day heroes - strangers we knew only by first name choosing to bravely show up and share the most vulnerable and intimate stories:

• Bravely confronting one’s hero
• Leaving when my parents said I wouldn’t amount to much.
• Deciding to break all the rules
• Grieving at the loss of a beloved one, then learning to dance
• Losing your voice
• Turning abuse into a lifeline for others
• Being the rock when everybody else ran tail. 

Camp had barely begun and courage was already revealing itself. 

Courage, I thought, is how we want to make a difference, to be heard, to follow the calls of passion. It is how we yearn to be understood. To be applauded for standing up for who we are and who we think we want to be. To  dance, to write, to walk into the unknown. It is the courage of showing up with brave intention. Intention to change, to choose, and to listen to our hearts – then bravely decide to set sail in that direction.

In my work at X Factory, and throughout my life of telling stories, I know that it is often in the company of strangers that we find our own voice. We hear someone’s story and clarify our own.  Witnessing someone’s courage in telling their story, we find courage to tell our own. Collectively we find strength. We connect with something greater than ourselves. And we become greater individual versions of who we are. 

Courage Camp was an invitation and a sacred space to practice self compassion:

• Finding the courage to rewrite a disempowering script.  
• Choosing to release hurt and offer forgiveness.
• Deciding to experience the exhilaration of travel into the unknown.  
• Being brave enough to ask for a cheering section when our role has always been to support others.

Between stories, we were invited to walk around camp and find our own places to reflect, nap, sketch, or write in silence. To unplug and reconnect. Honor our need for simply being. To trust that our truths would reveal themselves. Facing inward, we bravely asked to hear our own answers:

• What do we really want?
• What needs to grow?
• How can I dance more? Live more? Write more? Love more?
• What needs letting go?
• What are the masks we wear?
• What is the intersection of our roles and our identity?
• What are our unique strengths, and how can they be used to heal and expand ourselves and the world?
• Where can we step beyond the limits of our current selves and expand our own sense of unlimited potential?
• How can I turn pain into healing?
• What do I want to create?
• How can I commit fully to my A Game?  

We spoke of finding our True North – our “yes” - our quest.  And I was reminded of the Native American Medicine Wheel and the teachings of the Four Directions: East, South, West, and North; and of the three “unseen directions” – Above, Below, and Within.

Each of these seven directions represents a sacred path along our spiritual journey and personal development, writes Jamie Sams in one of her many wonderful books, “Dancing The Dream: The Seven Sacred Paths of Human Transformation." 

Here, at Courage Camp, we were witnessing just such transformations:

• In the East, we encounter the first stirrings of the spirit
• In the South, the healing of relationships;
• In the West, we work to build self-esteem;
• In the North, we learn wisdom and the opening of the heart;
• Above represents the world of spirit;
• Below, the earth;
• Within, full awareness of the present moment.

Stories poured into our circle - creating an astonishing container of wisdom. Shared discoveries of strength, beauty, truth, resilience, joy, change, creativity, and grace.  

As my new camp friend Simona so beautifully wrote: If you think you are courageous:

• You acknowledge your vulnerability, and are willing to share it with people you've just met.
• You accept your limitations, and practice to overcome them every day.
• You feel raw pain and you choose not to ignore it. Instead, you put it all in one sentence and set it free with your tears.
• You affirm you don't love yourself, but make small steps in becoming friends. 
• You admit you're still trying to find your way, and that is OK.

When the last words were spoken and camp officially ended, it was “a wrap,” but no one moved from the set.  A few more minutes of this unbroken magic before we hugged goodbye and headed back up that winding road out of the woods and towards home. Notes of appreciation in hand - written by 15 strangers I now call friends. Meaningfully changed for the better. Hearts full. On fire. Inspired by each other and fueled by courage.  

To all who produced and joined this magical gathering, I send back love, friendship, and gratitude. We are never on this journey alone, and having discovered you all as my new and courageous companions fills me with joy.  I can't wait to hear how far you've flown when we meet again next year. 

To read more reflections on Courage Camp, visit:

Simona Ralph: "So, you think you're courageous?"

Lois Kelly: "Honoring the courageous elephant matriarch" 

Lisa Lillibridge: "Courage to me is..." 

Celine Shillinger: “What Happened at Courage Camp.”

The Power of Questions: Will You Take That Chance On Yourself?

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Sometimes when you allow yourself to go into free fall, you learn new ways to fly.

Lately, I've been running my own little experiment with questions. Asking a new one each day - a  big, beautiful question that has the potential to reframe my thinking and lead me in more meaningful directions. I call it The Daily Q.  

Warren Berger, author of "A More Beautiful Question," defines his topic as
"an ambitious, yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something - and that may serve as a catalyst to bring about change."  

When you ask a new question, you take a new chance - a chance you might see things differently. The question may lead you to change your story or take you somewhere exotic and strange.  You may cross over a new threshold and become someone new. 

So what questions are you asking?

In this wonderfully engaging book, Berger talks about the trance we can find ourselves in when we stop asking ourselves good questions. "In our lives, in general, there’s a tendency to move along on auto-pilot when we really ought to be in the habit of regularly stepping back and questioning everything—about our career choices, about our attitudes and beliefs, about the ways we choose to live. Questioning is good for us. It can help to open up new possibilities in our lives." 

I remember waking up one day more than 10 years ago with a profoundly existential question rattling through my mind: "Why aren't you living more truly to yourself?" It was a question that shook me to the core - opening up a Pandora's box of buried fears and insecurities as I faced the daunting issue of who and how I wanted to be in the world. In pursuit of answers, I've been challenged to toss old identities, leave unsatisfying work behind, and embrace the more idiosyncratic parts of who I am.  And in the questions, I've found myself on a path towards a more meaningful life. 

Asking new questions is like taking your pulse. What's happening? How do you feel? How awake are you? How alive?

Your question may lead to an inkling that you should try something different. You feel passionate about a project, and say yes, even when you have no idea what you're doing. Then, more often than not, your definition of who you are - and what you believe is possible - expands. You've walked into the dark forest of the unknown, and into the light of your personal possibility.

Not long after I asked that existential Q, I went back to school to study music composition - a chance I took despite a lifelong fear I wasn't "good enough." Along the way, I took another chance and wound up working for a film festival where I met a filmmaker whose short film I would end up supporting along its worldwide film festival tour.  It was a ride into unknown territories.  I met amazing people from all around the globe who believed in chasing their dreams and the power of possibility. I learned things I never would have learned about how I see and understand story. I wrote more. I grew in my understanding of what I valued and what gave me meaning.  I evolved. 

Because sometimes when you allow yourself to go into free fall, you learn new ways to fly.

You see, most people are trapped in a story that tells them their life "is what it is." They don't see themselves as the authors of their own story. Don't see their life as having a potentially greater and more intriguing plot - they're just bobbing along the surface of life's river on an inner tube. They're not asking the beautiful questions. Not taking the chances those questions imply. 

But every time you do ask yourself a beautiful question, your life answers back and you see yourself from a new perspective. Every time you say, "what the fuck," and go for it, your life gets provoked and you expand. Every time you crack yourself open by walking through an unfamiliar doorway, you change for the better.

Back in October, 50 women gathered at X Factory to share stories around the theme "CHANCE" in all its myriad forms - second chances, and crisis chances, and chances that led to happiness and new hope.  In January, X Factory met over the theme GIVE to share stories of giving, gifts, and gratitude. We came together to ask questions and search for the meaning and wisdom in our stories. We walked in as individuals - many of us feeling sorely disconnected from 'something greater' - and we found that connection.

I want to think that many of us took authorship of our story that night. Inspired and encouraged to re-write some chapters and take new chances.  As one woman said, "Leaving X Factory, I felt I had control over my life again. I had forgotten my own power. For years I've been letting other people and circumstances dictate my happiness. I will not stand for it any longer." 

So where will you take that next chance? And what question will you ask? 

"There are beautiful and wild forces within us," said Saint Francis.  How are you letting yours shine? 

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X Factory returns to Rhode Island on Friday, March 10 around the theme BEAUTY. We'll explore the myriad facets and frameworks of beauty and leave more connected, conscious, and compassionate about how we find and experience beauty. Want to join? Reserve a seat here.  Can't wait to meet you there. 

Finding Interruptive Beauty in The Everyday

“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”— Andy Warhol

A young woman steps out of darkness into a pool of bright light, looks to a hushed crowd and begins. “There are things we say when we catch the eye of a stranger or a neighbor walking by. We say, ‘Hello, how are you? It's a beautiful day. How do you feel?’ These sound kind of meaningless, right? And, in some ways, they are. They have no semantic meaning. It doesn't matter how you are or what the day is like. They have something else. They have social meaning. What we mean when we say those things is: I see you there.”

Kio Stark is the author of the TED book “When Strangers Meet,” and has nearly 2.5 million views of her mesmerizing TED talk, "Why You Should Talk To Strangers" from February, 2016. 

“I'm obsessed with talking to strangers,” the New York City-based “stranger enthusiast” continues, laying out the origins of her social experiment in finding beauty in the interactions we have with strangers. “I make eye contact, say hello, offer help, and listen. I get all kinds of stories. About seven years ago, I started documenting my experiences to try to figure out why. What I found was that something really beautiful was going on. This is almost poetic. These were really profound experiences. They were unexpected pleasures. They were genuine emotional connections. They were liberating moments.

“When you talk to strangers, you're making beautiful interruptions into the expected narrative of your daily life – and theirs.”

Beautiful interruptions. What a lovely description of everyday moments that can strike – and move – us with their beauty.

Like Stark, we can also practice the art and possibility of seeing beauty in the everyday and most ethereal aspects of living.  She asked a new kind of question that prompted a new experiment in finding beautiful interactions among strangers. So can we. 

How much richer could our lives become by cultivating a practice of looking beyond the “skin-deep” when we hear the word beauty?  By seeing, hearing, listening, and feeling the world through a new set of filters?  

We'll be coming together on Friday, March 10 to do just that. We'll spend a night at X Factory - a community of women seeking a deeper and more intentional conversation with other women - sharing stories about beauty and coming to understand the many facets and frameworks of beauty.

In a wonderful passage from her  book "Becoming Wise - An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living," On Being host Krista Tippett recalls her conversation with the late Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue, and his more generous and expansive definition of beauty. "Beauty isn't all about just niceness, loveliness," he says. "Beauty is about more rounded substantial becoming...an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth." 

“Naming beauty in all its nuance in the moment-to-moment reality of our days: beauty is that in the presence of which we feel more alive,” said O'Donohue.

So what makes you feel more alive? What stops you in your tracks and fills you with awe? Is it, like Stark, creating a chance encounter with a stranger in the market - or noticing how a beautiful piece of music transports you beyond time and place? Do you find beauty in science or physics or a perfect mathematical equation? 

Could a new mindfulness about beauty provide you with some respite from the fractiousness of our current modern lives? Might it expand your sense of possibility and wonder?

Maria Popova, the brilliant and prolific journalist/founder of Brain Pickings, once reflected that "Life, even at its most difficult, is a scavenger hunt for beauty."

Where will you search for it today? 

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X Factory is a global movement and community of women cultivating a more connected life. 

Join X Factory in Rhode Island on Friday, September 15  for an evening’s conversation about CHANGE. Four stories exploring the many facets of change - and an intimate community of women sharing their vision, stories, and wisdom about change in our world.

To reserve a seat, go to www.debrawalsh.com