Making Alive Choices

“What life choice feels the most alive or ‘juicy’ for me right now?”

I often ask myself this question. It is particularly useful for breaking out of ruts or stale routines.

On this particular evening, I was driving to the beach to exercise, as I often do at that time. As I drove the familiar route, I suddenly realized that I felt chilled and hungry, and bored with my usual routine. But I had no idea what the most alive choice would be. In fact, I felt like just going home and eating soup (which is sometimes the most alive choice!).

But I felt restless, so I just drove my car until I felt like stopping. I stopped in front of a favorite restaurant, and the little table in the window was available, so I went in. As I sat and ate the delicious food, I read the paper and saw that two of my favorite authors were speaking together that night. Pema Chodron (author of “When Things Fall Apart”) and Jack Kornfield (author of “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry”) were hosting a benefit for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and I’d forgotten to get tickets.

I felt resigned to missing the event, as it had already started, so I went to a neighborhood bookstore. As I walked down the aisle, I noticed a book on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was one of Pema Chodron’s!

Now my most alive choice felt clear. I needed to go to this event.

As soon as I had this thought, the “practical” part of me began speaking. This “practical” part of me loves to find reasons things won’t work and to state them emphatically:

“Oh, it’s too late now, the event has already started.”

“It’s probably sold out anyway.”

“You’ll never find parking.”

I’ve learned to ignore those messages and proceed anyway. This ignoring is a crucial part of finding my alive choices and having serendipitous adventures. I’ve learned that the “practical” part of me doesn’t “know” how things will be. In fact, most of its messages are based on the past, fear or someone else’s experience. It’s so tempting to listen to why it won’t work and just do something safe and familiar. Often, the most alive choice feels a bit risky in some way.

As I drove to the event, I began to feel quite elated and very alive at the prospect of a fresh adventure. This was what I needed. It was exercise of a different kind.

Twenty minutes later, I was still searching for parking and feeling frustrated. So I decided that if a parking spot didn’t open up in the next five minutes, I would do something else. Four minutes later, a car pulled out. As I went into the center where the event was being held, I was over an hour late, so the only person in the large lobby was a kind-looking man sitting at the table with books and tapes. I asked him where I could buy a ticket, and he replied, smiling, “Oh, here, just use mine.”

I thanked him profusely and went in to find my seat. I told the woman next to me that I knew it would be over soon, and she said, “Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much at all. There was some kind of computer glitch, and we all waited over an hour for it to even start.”(Take that, “practical” voice!)

I heard such wise, tender, funny words that night. I heard exactly what I needed to fill my soul.

As I exited the event, I stopped by the book table to buy books and tapes and to make a donation to Spirit Rock. The kind man who had given me his ticket told me I looked familiar. I explained that he’d given me his ticket to get in. He grinned and asked, “Are you…SARK?” I said rather shyly that I was, and he exclaimed, “Oh, I just love it! Isn’t this just like something that would happen in your books?”

We laughed together about serendipity and how it works. (His name is Colin –- thank you, dear Colin.)

Then I walked over to the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral and walked beneath the moonlight, which led me to swing on the swings at the park across the street, which led me to have tea at the Fairmont Hotel while listening to violin music.

My most alive choice had been made, and it led me to other alive choices. I felt refreshed, renewed and reminded that serendipitous adventures can occur anytime. We just need to choose them.

Are you making the most alive choices? Why, or why not?

Yours in splendor, Susan (aka SARK)

For more information on how to optimize your life, visit PlanetSARK.com

Photo credit: staci myers

Shoring up Your Support System

What does it mean to feel supported? How can we expand our experiences of it? We all have the opportunity to educate others in the best ways to support us. Most of us try to ask for as little as possible, and hope that someone guesses or knows what we want or need. Instead, we can specifically let others know what feels supportive to us and our particular ways.

Independence is highly valued, and “doing things for ourselves” is thought of as a virtue. Some people have learned about the value of support through illness or aging, and are able to welcome care and attention from people in new and different ways. Others “soldier on” and just do it all alone. Most of us carry an internal scorecard in our heads and measure how much is OK to accept, or how we will repay it.

My friend Patricia had cancer and was bald from chemotherapy in her home, with the electricity turned off, before she asked for help. This kind of behavior is more common than not — perhaps not that dramatic, but the same core issues:

“I’m not worthy.” “Others need help more than me.” “I don’t want to be dependent.”

We are meant to feel supported by our communities, our loved ones, and by ourselves. Self-support starts with you practicing receiving more. Here’s a mantra to practice with: “Ask more and more, don’t keep score.”

See what happens if you use this. Practice asking without attachment to the answer. You’ll know you’re expanding your capacities if you feel slightly, or more than slightly, uncomfortable.

This kind of practice will result in you receiving as much as giving, and multiply feelings of support and love in your life.

Here are some suggestions you can experiment with:

1. Extend surprising invitations: Offer to cook someone dinner and give them a foot massage, with no reciprocal expectation.

2. Create an opportunity to spend time with someone’s child and don’t call it “babysitting.”

3. Recognize areas where you will appreciate more support and make a list of those.

4. Admit feelings of fragility, vulnerability and being less than perfect, and give others the opportunity to do the same.

The author Henry Miller said, “Cluster together like stars,” and this is our opportunity now more than ever. The world will benefit greatly from you learning and practicing receiving more. The more you receive, the more you are able to give. It’s meant to be like the infinity symbol — where we lose track of who gave and who received, and each nourishes the other.

I invite you to nourish yourself and others in innovative ways. See if you can surprise yourself or someone else with what you’re willing to offer or receive. I send you strength in your vulnerability, wisdom in your asking and expansions in your ability to allow new kinds of support in your life.

Tell me about your experiences. I want to hear.

For more juicy inspiration from SARK, visit http://planetsark.com.

Photo credit: Martin LaBar

I Had My Inner Critics Arrested and So Can YOU!

My newest book, “Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change into Gift and Opportunity” was just released from New World Library (I love them!) in November.

While on the book tour in Arizona, I appeared on a morning TV show. Soon after, my inner critics all showed up to tell me how I wasn’t “good enough” and other mean things. After the show, I stopped at a grocery store and noticed a police officer just getting out of his car.
I approached and asked if he had time to hear an unusual request. He smiled and replied, “Depends on what it is!”

I explained that I was starting my book tour and had appeared on TV and was besieged by inner critics afterward, and asked if he could arrest them and take them to jail, and keep them there until after my book tour. He laughed and said, “Sure I can. I know about inner critics!”

He opened the squad car door and I escorted the critics in. He then asked what the book was about, and I told him it was about being glad no matter what, and that there are processes in it for utilizing our awakened wise selves, which is what I’d just done, by asking him to help with my inner critics.

He said he’d be getting the book, and wished me well. I watched the squad car drive off and felt such relief that the inner critics had a place to be while I connect with people and facilitate transformation and change.

To further inspire transformation and change, I invite you to join me in playing one (or more!) of the games below.

1. Miracle Walk

A “miracle walk” is where you go out of your house or wherever you are, put your hands out, palms up, and say, “Miracles, find me now.” And then walk until you see or find one (or more!). Be aware that miracles may be disguised or in unlikely places. Use love to recognize them. A variation is to say, “Miraculous people, find me now.”

2. Transforming What Hurts into What Helps

Share one thing in your life that’s challenging or difficult, and one thing that you’re glad about related to that challenge or difficulty. Something like this:

“I sometimes feel overwhelmed with all there is to do in my life and business, and am glad that I am healthy and able to do things.” That reminds us of the “marvelous, messy middle” of feelings. I call it “practical gladness.” This will further develop your transformational abilities.

3. Be GLAD No Matter What – Give Lovingly And Daringly

This does NOT mean feeling glad when you don’t – how annoying. It means finding the GLAD parts in as many of your feelings as you can and then finding ways to help the world with your GLAD heart. Blog or post your GLAD offerings on social media. It might be large or tiny, common or uncommon. One of my GLAD heart gifts was singing “Amazing Grace” in the DMV office until everyone joined in!

Glad During The Holdays: No Matter What!

The holidays are full of pressures to be glad even if you don’t feel that way. People talk about “holiday cheer,” “finding the silver lining,” “looking on the bright side,” all of which are fine when we feel those things, but can actually add to feelings of loneliness and depression when we don’t. There is also a certain kind of “holiday tyranny” where we are encouraged to hide how we’re actually feeling, for the “sake of the holidays.”

We are meant to feel what we feel when we feel it, then let it go. Most people don’t know how they’re feeling, or that it’s okay to feel it. We are not taught how to have, or hold multiple feelings simultaneously, so many people choose one and cling to it. That one feeling might be described as happy or sad, but it’s not a true reflection of our complexities as humans, and results in our feelings not flowing. Instead they get stuck, or other feelings are left untended.

For example, you might feel happy to see your mom at Christmas, sad that she’s physically declining, angry that your sister isn’t doing more, and worried about the future. If you fixate on just one of those feelings, it will not be as productive or helpful. Instead, it would be much more effective to feel all that you feel, respond lovingly to yourself, your mother and your sister, and create good systems for your family and self-care practices too.

Practical Gladness means living in the “messy middle” of all of your feelings and finding your “glad ground” underneath. From this glad ground place, you can be aware of and hold all of your feelings, notice ways to respond instead of react, and transform what’s possible to transform.

When we find our glad ground in the middle, it is possible to enjoy the holidays truly, authentically, and with grace and wisdom. Here are some practical ways you can experience more gladness this holiday season:

1. Create a new self-care plan — Think of what you need to feel good during the holidays, and provide it for yourself. Some of these things might be:
*Special foods that you know you will enjoy.
*Call a friend to share how you’re really feeling — not how you think you should be.
*Practice ways to experience less stress, like going for a walk or attending a yoga class.
*Write in a journal or book with lists of things that nourish you, and do the things.

2. Adjust and lower your expectations, or better yet — have none — Notice how your expectations bring suffering when they aren’t met.  For example, if you feel ignored or overworked at holiday times, take yourself out for champagne and ignore some things you “should” be doing. Change your expectations about what you or others “should be” doing or acting like, and practice allowing how it actually is. Focus on what’s good and working.

3. Educate others in the best ways to support you — Become clear about what actually feels supportive to you, and ask for others to contribute. For example, if you typically care for others and wish others would or could care for you, figure out what they could contribute to you that would be easy and fun. You might ask a friend to meet you for tea and laughter in the midst of a busy shopping or cleaning day or sit with you while you wrap gifts or write cards.

4. Experiment with new traditions and rituals for the holidays — Do things differently. We all tend to repeat and become habituated. For example, “We always have our meal at _______.” Some of my greatest holiday experiences have taken place at the movies, miniature golfing or serving food at a shelter instead of trying to participate in rituals or traditions that no longer represent who I am now.

5. Allow yourself to experience your holidays imperfectly — Revise your ideas of perfection and increase your capacity for spontaneous joy. For example, if you get tense and pressured about preparing a meal, buying gifts, sending cards, or trying to do it all, try:
*Doing less and feeling good about it — refuse to be a prisoner of others’ expectations.
*Doing parts of things — fix the dessert, ask others to bring the other things.
*Doing tiny amounts — consider attending a holiday party for 5-15 minutes with no explanation about why.
*Asking others to help and then don’t control or manage “how they do it.”

6. Practice transforming what hurts into what helps — Find the places that aren’t working and speak up about them. For example, you might ask a group of people in your home to talk about different subjects like what they’re loving in this moment, instead of sitting there judging how bored or dissatisfied you are feeling.
*If you’re cooking and get crabby, let others know and help you!
*If you hate shopping, ask others to create experiences or adventures for each other instead of buying gifts.
*If you keep complaining about the holidays, see if you can put your complaints on paper and resolve to have new experiences.
*If you feel ungrateful, find someone to listen to who is facing challenges that you’re not.

Being glad no matter what is not about feeling glad when you don’t — how annoying. It’s about practicing with all of your feelings and feeling glad as often as you possibly can — especially during the holidays!

Based on the book, “Glad No Matter What” © 2010 by SARK. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. http://www.newworldlibrary.com or 800-972-6657 ext. 52.

The Wonder of You and Your Creative Dreams

When I was 6 years old, I came home and said to my Mom:
“Mom, show and tell should be me every day!”

She gently told me that the other kids needed a chance, and I said:
“They don’t want to- and they’re begging me to do it!”

My first-grade teacher set up a system where I went to a different grade each day to do my show and tell. I loved it, and it was a big part of my creative dream to share what I was finding each day. I didn’t know it was a “creative dream” in first grade, but I knew what I loved doing and what brought me joy.

We all know this.

We become conditioned to make a living instead of making a creative dream life. We can do both, if our creative dream isn’t yet or ever meant to create enough money to live on.

When I was 10 years old, I told my Mother:
“I’m supposed to be a beacon of hope and write books for the world.”

She told me to eat my peanut butter sandwich, and I wrote my first book that summer, and then wasn’t published for 25 more years.

In between, from ages 14 to 26, I had hundreds of jobs after my Grandfather told me: “Do everything you can think of doing so you know what you don’t want to do for the rest of your life.”

I found out a lot about humility and service and what I didn’t want to do through doing all of those jobs. I also found out a lot about what I loved doing and what brought me joy.

When I was 26, I started trying to live as the artist and writer that I knew I was, and couldn’t figure out how to make a living, so I opted out of the money system and lived on barter and trade for 10 years. I also discovered that creative dreams don’t die. They are very resilient and will wait forever.

Even though I attended college for 4 years, I decided that a degree was meaningless and quit before receiving one. I told people that I went to “collage,” because I was collaging my creative dream life together.

When I was 35, I published my first book; A Creative Companion, and started my business; Camp SARK. I created the books and products I had dreamed about all of my life, and a business to support the structure. Many books and hundreds of products later, through all my business successes and mistakes, I find myself at 56, as eager and excited about my creative dreams as I was when I began- perhaps more excited.

One of my many mentors was Maya Angelou, and I appeared on a national TV show with her. The show consisted of talking about how my creative dreams had been supported by Maya Angelou, and audience members whose creative dreams were being supported by SARK. It really showed me the value of talking about our creative dreams, sharing the processes, what worked and didn’t, what wisdom we gather along the way with each other. This energy MOVES MOUNTAINS.

I created a book called Make Your Creative Dreams REAL, and a card game to play about this book. I’ve witnessed countless businesses and great ideas become real from people working with these materials.

In April 2010, I launched my first comprehensive online and on the phone course called Dream Boogie: Dancing from Dreaming to DOing.

We gather in Dream Boogie for 8 fun and focused weeks, to discover and accelerate our creative dreams, and gain support from our creative community.

Some people launch businesses, others create systems for self-love and care, all experience growth of more money, love, time or revelations. We all do our transformational work. I offer “intuitive flashes” which are my quick intuitive answers to any creative dream questions. I’ve long been an intuitive, I just haven’t named it as such. The questions and answers are profound. There’s a live weekly class, and a reframe of homework, called “ownwork.” Each week, there’s a “Boogie Book” to work from, and everyone receives copies of everything at the end of the course. There are also videos by me, and audio interviews with other “Dream DOers.” There’s a colorful website to interact with everyone on, and a voluntary program of “Boogie Buddies.” People can participate as much, or as little as they wish. Both styles will create growth and results.

I am thrilled to offer our third Dream Boogie session and witness all of the transformations, revelations and incandescent learning that takes place. Our creative dreams FLOURISH with this kind of attention and care, and the world will turn eagerly towards every creative dream in process, and help it to grow and GLOW for all to see. I invite you to experience it and the successes that will result.