A factory outputs identical pieces of plastic merchandise, no matter what. But you are “operationally challenged” –for you are made of conscious bold choices, moods, and miracles.

A mechanical life requires output, form, and results measured down to the chin hair of the decimal point. An organic life is natural. It’s blemished and mythic. You will not endlessly “produce” without having awakening times of getting to know yourself again and again– and working with riotous forces. . You will not endlessly “produce” without having awakening times of getting to know yourself again and again– and working with riotous forces.

I’m in the biz of helping people live their wildest dreams. I’m also a champion of discovering the wild genius of your current life. These two tracks must go hand in hand– or else they can undermine you. After two decades of being in this field, I want to give you the best of the best of effective focus.

I want to tell you about an unbeatable dynamic mindset duo — Big Desire and True Acceptance – which together are guaranteed to take you into the one amazing life you’ve always wanted.

A whirlwind Western world worships productivity, as defined by how much we “get done.” But I’d love to see you become “undone” with joy. Because let me assure you of this: Learning how to be unabashedly alive is a very productive goal.

It’s so easy to lose touch with your nimble, true self when you are busy with everyday tasks and habits, and a relentlessly “go-getter” mentality.

“Let’s keep in touch,” she said breezily, as the evening ended. And I thought to myself that could get expensive for me, what with the therapy bills and all.

Been there? Ready to stop comparing yourself to others? Here are three things to keep in mind:

There is power in daring to be different.

I encourage you to be a little bit more daring in your one true life. After all, it takes courage to be creative. 

Great advances have never come from the conventionally minded among us.  It always comes from us “idiots” who believe in love and freedom and goodness and peace. The fools of today are the visionaries of tomorrow.

“You can live as though nothing is a miracle. Or as if everything is a miracle.”  – Albert Einstein

What does it mean to live as if everything is a miracle?  It means to dare to experience how loved you are. It means take a damn chance. Find your language. Chase goosebumps, visions, mala beads or hawk feathers upon the trail.  It means to dive into your own intimate relationship with the Presence, the tenderness in between the broken moments, the nudges, the coincidences, and uncanny, joyous juxtapositions. 

Believe me, I know about inspired space. I work in this realm with others.

I’ve been leading retreats in nurturing, scenic places for years. I am the one who encourages others to let go and trust the process. Participants arrive tired, excited, and some slightly frightened with faces white as goat cheese. I sometimes wonder if they think I am going to make them call their bosses, quit their jobs, and run away with me to follow their bliss—or maybe join a new age circus. Some may be secretly hoping I will.

Naturally the bright-eyed overachievers want to get their money’s worth. They are hoping that in the opening circle I can start giving them exercises to figure out their lives now, before they unpack their luggage. I feel the need pulsing within them to attack the problem at hand. I tell them we are going to spend the weekend relaxing, undoing conditioning, and receiving what is already within. I am setting them up to be guided. Because this is how to get inspired.

You may feel like things are challenging at this moment in your life. But let’s get this straight right now. It’s not because you’re failing or broken. It’s because your spirit demands soaring— not coping. It’s your time.

You’re standing at the doorway.

On one side of the door, you can decide that life has not turned out the way you desire. It’s unfair. It’s too hard. Maybe the same thing keeps happening to you– or not happening.

You might feel anxious or discouraged. It’s a young techie’s world. Or a blonde’s. Or someone luckier and other than you. You don’t have real money. Your lover turns out to be a tiny bit misleading, what with being married to 8 other people and all. And the disappointments seem familiar, and yet cut you to the bone, because part of you knows, it doesn’t have to be this way.  

Breaking free from negative thinking isn’t about techniques. It’s a revolution. You are literally going to walk in a different world. Because negative thinking, is just a mistaken idea about what’s possible and who you really are. And you have no idea what this kind of cruel perspective is costing you.

You may be unconsciously sabotaging your own life with negative thinking and fear. Your thoughts can create anxiety, frustration, and pain. A negative mindset can weaken your marriage, career, health, or more.

But likewise, you can shift into well-being and possibility. You can restore your connection to peace, sanity and even infinite creativity.

How? Here are five ways I’ve used with clients to stop negative thinking:

I want to talk to you about money. Actually, I want to talk to you about your real bottom line. Because if you’re like most of us, you may be trapped in an equation that doesn’t equate. Yes, money is important. But there are pearls of greater price. Take this little journey with me-- because I want to talk to the common sense of your uncommon maverick heart.

First, let’s just acknowledge: It’s expensive to be unhappy. You have to continuously prop up a life that cannot and will never stand on its own. 

Way back in my lawyer days, I remember rushing back to the office from a therapy session, sixty minutes of honesty with myself, wiping away tears, then slumping back into my zombie existence. I was crawling on thorns to survive my life. Then I had a realization. I make good money. But it costs too much.

Lately, I’ve had another revelation. My real bottom line is more than a sum-total of shekels. I’m paying attention to where I come alive. Yes, when you choose meaning over money in your lifetime, you may earn less dollars initially or maybe always. But contrary to what you’re trained to believe, money isn’t security. And it’s security you really want and need and crave.

I’m going to share with you some of what’s on my unconventional balance sheet. I hope it opens your mind to yours.

Many of us will hit fear season, the winter of our work. It’s when things go inky, evaporate, slow down to a crawl, or simply collapse on the side of the road. It’s when insecurity whips up like candy wrappers in a tornado. Most of us see the slack times as the pink slip of self-employment or some bad plague from which we will never recover.

But every creative success story seems to require a plunge into pain. It’s the emotional jalapeno that wakes up the creative grit to succeed. It’s when you call up your will power, leave chance behind, and summon the immensity of your own unspeakable strength. Nothing is happening on the surface. But know this: there’s a surge of growth mounting within you.

When I’ve hit dry skids in my speaking and coaching business, I have often gone on wild red alert. You would think the aliens had finally arrived, closed Starbucks, and brought the end of civilization with them. Friends say comforting things like “The land needs to be fallow before it yields new crops. It’s all a period of gestation.” But I am gestating demons, bankruptcy, and new strains of anxiety attacks. I am growing crops of hallucinations. I’m not so good with this passive little time out for spa days and redirection.

I don’t know about you but I’ve often felt like I must be doing it wrong—missing the secret ingredient to life. But that’s so over now. I’ve seen through the veil. I’m rocking out to a new hymn. It’s a shift in focus I’m going to share with you:

Screw “doing it wrong.” I’m doing things. I’m making wacky, inevitable progress.

I’ve put wobble girl in the closet. I’ve muzzled Ms. Perfection who would like to ask a few more questions throughout the next decade, get it right, before ever getting it wrong.  But I’m showing up to the party now.  I’m wearing a tiara or a tent, but I’m going forward. I didn’t get the memo. I may never get the memo. Maybe I haven’t life-hacked a thing. Maybe I don’t even really know what life-hacking means.

It’s time.  Please stop hiding your love under a bushel or a credit card statement. Do not apologize for believing in greater things—for yourself and for the state of our planet. It’s time to stop treating your quest for self-realization like a crumb of lint on your jacket, brushing your truth away.  I am asking you to stop listening to the noise of the media or your relatives. What does your heart whisper? What does this uncanny prophet know?

Here’s what I know: You’ve been chosen, marked, assigned. We all have. We are here to discover our light, a capacity within us that turns every “problem” into a portal of freedom.

Where you’re stuck, believe it or not, you’re blessed. Because here is where you can meet the alchemy of self-love and a whole new level of progress. 

When I’m frustrated, an inner dark knight moans, “You are broken and there are a thousand armies to hold you back.” This ancient foe covers the sun, chills the air. You will always feel this way. You will always be stuck. And yet this dark knight crumples immediately before the magic of willingness. 

Here is the willingness I have used to change my life:

I am willing to walk past my resistance. 

I am willing to believe that something will shift or give way. 

I am willing to stay true to my love.  

The struggle to love and forgive is a heroic struggle. It will affect every other relationship in your life. And guess what? For me, all movement comes from forgiving and loving myself. Go figure. 

I wrote some of this piece years ago, while visiting my mother in upstate New York. I wanted to be the perfect daughter. But there’s something about dealing with our families that’s like taking acid. You go on a trip. Things come out of the blue. People sprout extra heads. Then you come back and you think-- what was that all about?

“Those who see themselves as whole make no demands,” teaches A Course in Miracles. Well, clearly, those who seem themselves as threatened wildebeests act accordingly. 

Being with my mother, I can’t believe how quickly I am triggered. I teach workshops in A Course in Miracles , a form of spirituality which emphasizes choosing love instead of “being right.” But as I hide away upstairs in the cutesy, cluttered guest bedroom of my mother’s townhouse, despising every artificial flower I see, I consider a different line of work. Maybe I could be the anti-Gandhi. Because my blood pressure is definitely higher than my consciousness.

Are your ideas crippling your chances? An inspired life has different parameters and party favors. Throw away everything you think you know. Because this is Float Your Boat University. It’s a different curriculum for a different way of life. 

I want to give you a tangible example of how thinking differently will help you create differently . Here are 3 lessons from creating/leading a writing group I called “Freewriting Fridays” for twenty years. Read on, if you want to grow your dream career/business, empower your relationships, or get out of your head and be led-- by the wild mojo that makes things happen. 

1. The Sweeter Plan: Everything Has Its Own Form:

But there is already an innate expression or form that exists. When I first began my writing group, I met 5 people who wanted to write. We tossed around times. “I can only do Friday mornings,” said Ralph. The rest of us paused. We could do that. And Freewriting Fridays was born. Ralph came once. But Freewriting Fridays continued at the same very unusual time for more than twenty years—and attracted the souls who were meant to be there.

There’s always something that wants to happen in a situation. Try discovering it instead of fighting it. This is organic creation.

Today, I see this with the talks and events I do on the road. Each trip has its own signature. I look for the gifts, treasure hunting instead of collecting disappointments or brooding over what’s not happening. Believe me, the mind is born to rummage. So, I rummage for promise instead of pain.

Working on a long-term dream or goal? Oh, I see workshop participants worry like grandmothers, patting down an imaginary apron, as they talk about their perceived lack of progress. Because those of us daring to live unconventional, inspired lives often feel plagued by this: Why does it take so long to succeed? 

I don’t know about you, but I kept thinking I must be doing something wrong. It was obvious everyone else had it altogether.

I saw other’s perfection on T.V.--- though I managed to ignore the drug commercials for depression, high blood pressure, fatigue, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts---which should have been a clue. I kept looking for my pattern, my ancestor’s pattern, a fly in the ointment, something to blame for still sorting through a life in process. 

Maybe I just didn’t go to the right astrologer, business-coach, or witch-doctor. Maybe I should have seen John of God or spent a tiny bit less time plundering Nordstrom’s and thrift stores. Maybe I should have shoveled out my subconscious mind, gotten a chiropractic adjustment for my karma, taken an internet marketing course, or moved to the Bay area. And don’t get me started on family. 

I have a question for you that just might unlock a secret and set your life on fire. 

Where do you hide your juice and authenticity? Where does your “self-image” thwart your self-expression?

I’ll put it another way. Do you sometimes “position” yourself to look/act the way you’re “supposed to”? I have news for you: The part of yourself you’re trying to deny-- is the dynamite that has all the power.

I muscled through my days as a corporate lawyer, hiding my poet and my mystic—even from myself. I remember those years as I listen to a coaching client sigh: “I’m a vampire. The real me only comes out at night when I play music.” But for me, there came a day when I wasn’t okay being the walking dead anymore. I had to breathe. I left my law firm—and I also left my identity. And I wrote my first book, This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love the manifesto of freeing myself that I needed to read.

You would think that was the end of hiding myself. But it’s not true. 

It turns out that growing is a continuous process of moving into the parts of ourselves we both love-- and fear.

The Doorway

You’re standing at the doorway.

On one side of the door, you can decide that life has not turned out the way you desire. It’s unfair. It’s too hard. Maybe the same thing keeps happening to you-- or not happening.

You might feel anxious or discouraged. It’s a young techie’ s world. Or a blonde’s. Or someone luckier and other than you. You don’t have real money. Stable true love. The recognition or freedom you deserve. It almost works out sometimes. But then it rains. You lose your ticket. The job is taken away. Your lover turns out to be a tiny bit misleading, what with being married to 8 other people and all. And the disappointments seem familiar, and yet cut you to the bone, because some part of you knows, it doesn’t have to be this way.  

This is a life that is “happening to you.” This perspective denies your power. I am not demeaning your feelings of frustration. It’s just that I have something more useful in mind.

You can walk through this doorway.

(This message is dedicated to all of us who long for more meaningful relationships, even with people who mean the most...)

My father is no longer alive. But when he was alive, I always had the fantasy that I would have an intimate conversation with him. It would be a bit like the Brady Bunch dad, cut with some Gandhi, Tony Robbins, and my favorite therapist. He’d ask me, “How would you describe the meaning of life? ” Or “How can I support your essence most?” But, instead, my father, a practical and private man asked, “So, what’s the population of Denver?” I’d cave with disappointment and shrug my shoulders as an answer and a rebuke.      

“Delta flies over here at least twice a day,” my father said, as though this was a clue to all existence. We sat together on the front porch of our house in Brooklyn, way before Brooklyn was cool. I flew 2,000 miles to be back home, and not on Delta, to see my parents, and this is what he wants to share with me. Flight patterns of major airlines. I am already telling the story to all my friends in my mind. I am drowning at this point in my life and crave support. But that’s not what’s for dinner here.