I had just finished a music performance at a preschool in Minneapolis. The children were playing on the playground while I was loading my car. Lucy who is barely three was standing by the chain link fence with her hand reaching out to me. As I walked over to her, she gently said, “Here, this is for you.” “You can take it home.”

What else could I say except “Thank You!” Doing my best to echo the sweet sincerity that the tiny white pebble from the playground was given.

The object had no intrinsic value, but the gift was priceless.
Kings cannot possess riches as precious as the generosity of Lucy’s pebble.

Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet and Nobel Prize winner, is quoted as saying, “Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.”

In one sense, this concept seems so easy to grasp, so simple and so obvious, especially to those of us leading a conscious, intentional life.

But our world, on a global scale, needs a reminder.

Much of the strife we experience and witness today is because of ideas of false separation, ones that enable people to behave in ways that dehumanize, exploit, and divide.

But together, we who live in Oneness and with the Divine energy of the Universe working through us, can be a collective force for change.

Take a deep breath in and for a moment imagine the ideal world where everyone understands Oneness and Love is the great motivator…

Then imagine thousands and thousands of people coming together from all over the globe to hold this intention, to expand awareness, to change the frequency, to hit the metaphorical reset button.  

This is, in fact, the focus of “The Power of Love: Resetting Humanity to a New Way of Living on the Earth,” the 11th annual Global Oneness Summit and the first-ever International Shout Out Love Day…

After almost seventy years, I confess that though I have struggled I have never been lost and have never stopped loving—everything. And this has enabled me to inhabit life authentically. In the beginning, there were goals I was taught to work toward and these longings for worth were honed in time into personal ambitions, which all fell away. For staying true to the love of everything as our teacher has turned out to be the most enduring ambition of all. This love has made me get up when I have fallen, and has given me the strength to enter the breaks in my heart where I have retrieved my gifts. And so, I have very little to offer beyond the confirmation that unending love without preference will lead us to drink from the Mystery without leaving the world. Unending love without intent will fill every contour of existence the way light fills every hole. So, there is very little to teach. Just that love awakens everything. And care erases the walls we build between us.

It is my personal opinion that most people are unnecessarily insecure. These insecurities can hold people back from being truly happy, and living life to the fullest. Where do these insecurities come from? How can we become more confident?

The need for the approval of others is one of our first learned behaviors. As we started life, many of us learned that we received our parents love when we did things that pleased them. We were met with negativity, or not as much love, when we did things that upset them. Our parents were the gods of our universe at that time, and their love was not only desired instinctually, but was necessary for our survival.

As we move out into the world as individuals, we still feel that the acceptance and praise of others keeps us validated, and defines us as meaningful contributors to society. So this means that a large motivator for doing anything is the expectation of positive feedback from someone else.

When we receive praise, we allow it to lift us up, and we feel good about what we have done. A negative reaction from someone, can make us feel bad, and can even make us question our validity.

I’m still coming down off the gratitude cloud from last weekend’s OraclePalooza Virtual, and equally swimming in the searing truth of my best friend Doug’s crossing over the rainbow bridge a few short weeks ago. The entire weekend I was in two places as I stepped into one of many “firsts” without him. Being my wingman and emcee at OraclePalooza was the thing he loved best. It was strange to be without him although it was an important new beginning and I felt his spirit the entire time. 

I miss the brave, real, loving human though. In the flesh with me backstage eating gluten-free snacks and giggling about how lucky we were to do what we did, and him crying reminding me that not everyone’s stuff was for me to take on. God, I love that man. What a pair we were. 

Doug was with me for 16 deep meaningful and fun years of friendship, but what made it special is that we shared a mission. Those kinds of friends are gifts from the Divine.

As a lawyer turned writer, then as a creative turned business owner, not to mention as a plain old human being, I have often felt helpless. Flustered. And full of self-hatred and shame. I often assume, no, I know, that everyone else knows how to do everything just right-- and frankly this makes me sick.

But I am moving past “helplessness” and it’s like seeing the sun rise for the first time.

I want to take you with me. If you have ever felt inept as though you can’t run a business, write a screenplay, find a lover or an answer, or roll up your yoga mat evenly which, personally I think is a covert form of hell, I want to tell you a story about going past imaginary limits. It’s a story of self-forgiveness. It’s a story of hitting your full potential. Actually, it’s a story of folding a goddamn blanket. But it’s really a story of unfoldment, of how to teach yourself to do anything in this world you want or need to do.

I’d been visiting a friend who is a famous author and speaker and staying in her charming guest house in San Francisco. “What do you want me to do with the bedding?” I ask her, as I’m leaving early the next morning and won’t see her. “Oh, fold the blankets back up and leave it at the foot of the bed with the others,” she says casually. I try not to twitch or gasp. I was hoping she would say “Just leave it in a reckless heap like you leave everything. I’ll take care of it. I’ll be the good mommy.” But no such luck. I am on my own here. With bedding issues.

In the morning, I pack up and the only thing I need to do is face the dreaded task of “folding the blanket.” I stare at the crumpled outrage. Obviously, I was fighting Godzilla in my sleep. Then I study the other white blankets at the foot of the bed, deriding me, white cotton folded with German engineering, resting like smug doves.

My stomach clenches. I am going to screw this up. I am a screw up. I am going to create a lumpy, ugly, bulging inept pile that announces either raw disregard or reprehensible incompetence. I think about writing a note apologizing. I feel like an idiot. Folding things neatly. I missed that class in kindergarten. I was probably having a cigarette or a Jujube.