Days 139 to 149 – Balance is Bullshit

If someone says to me, “You’re too busy, it’s not a balanced life,” one more time, I am going to…go get another massage. The day they are feeling just as in love with their lives as I am, then maybe I’ll listen.

Check this out:  When you’re doing something you love so much that you could do it all day for free, when what you’re doing fills your soul and jazzes you up like nothing else matters so that you can stay up all night AND be super pleasant to be around, when creative ideas are flowing through your being and you can implement them one after another but not fast enough, you kinda don’t want a “balanced” life. Because the life you’re living is kicking ass.

My most creative periods have had me up till 5am – happily! Or I multitask and forget to go to yoga. Or I am so excited about what I’m creating that I eat pizza two days in a row and have expensive italian food delivered to my door – with a bottle of Chianti thank you very much – because I don’t want to go to the grocery store. Yes, even though gluten makes me feel bloated.

It’s awesome.

And you know what? When I launch that product or have that special call, I see others light up because of coming into contact what I’ve created. They set out into the world to make a difference, they live their lives on their own terms, they create their dreams. They are TURNED ON. Then, and ONLY then, can I rest. Seriously!

Guess what else? I KNOW this is the case with the entrepreneurs and other creatives out there that I know. Maybe not all, but lots (perhaps even most). Lots of happy ones, with fulfilling lives. My friend, Frederick Schilling, who created the wildly successful organic chocolate company Dagoba, says, “Passion is the fuel for doing the undoable.” Danielle LaPorte, author of The Fire Starter Sessions and one of my fave mentors, loves to quote David Whyte: “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s wholeheartedness.” She goes at it full-on, then unplugs from everything for a month at a time. And yes, she has a kid. My own personal business coach, Christine Kane, works joyfully for weeks – even weekends – then takes a month off (and she does this several times a year). My friend and coach Andrea Owen just spent weeks totally immersed, and cranked out a kick as Self Love Revolution program and then took a week off away from her family (gasp!). She has two kids. Maybe three. Not sure. (I point out the kids because not having a kid myself, I am often reminded how much is “not possible” once you have a kid).

Are we manic? No. We are inspired. It doesn’t mean we don’t get massages or acupuncture or have coaches that help us through the wild ride. It doesn’t mean we don’t hire people to help us do the things we don’t want to do like mow the lawn or fold the laundry. It doesn’t mean we don’t create special time for kids in our lives, or for our partners. It just looks different.

For me, I follow those wild times with not writing a single work item for a month, or not creating another product or training call for MONTHS, or sleeping in and waking up sipping tea and rocking in my hammock, or traveling to Africa and not having anywhere to plug in my iPhone for weeks. It is balanced…eventually. Just not the way lots of peeps think it “should” look.

So, perhaps I can rephrase: Balance is bullshit when you expect it to look like an 8 hour day, 8 hours of sleep, a session of sex and three meals a day and 30 minutes of cardio and 1 hour of yoga for everyone. That certainly works for some! It is also perhaps a balance of time, but what about a balance of energy – YOUR energy style?

Personally, I prefer the all-nighters of sex, then sleeping in, cranking out a program segment over the next 3 days, then going into the wilderness for awhile and sweating and having backcountry sex; Making green drinks every day with huge crunchy salads for lunch and organic yummies for dinner for a week or two, then having pizza and PBR and whiskey and staying up until 4am. I prefer days and days of creation, then lounging in my hammock and having hammock sex at lunchtime (see a theme?) and watching three movies in a row. I prefer forgetting to eat until its 2am and I’m starving and there’s nothing open to have anything delivered (see another theme here?) so I bake my frozen shoestring french fries and top them with leftover shredded parmesan and garlic salt. And maybe an egg. Then I make a green drink in the morning and practice yoga for an hour and a half. I love that feeling when I have created what I wanted, and then I sleep the deepest slumber and wake up psyched for what will show up next.

Find YOUR balance. How do you groove? Don’t spend so much energy balancing time. Balance your energy. Go with YOUR flow. (Hint – The the only caveat:  if you’re ornery, you are likely not balanced. Ask me how I know ;)

You need to know when you’re at your peak and what type of work you need to do at your peak…It’s basically figuring out those times where you’re really creative, or really productive, or really energized, depending on how you want to look at it, and finding all that high leverage stuff, and doing it during those times, not trying to push those things when you’re tired.” ~ Charlie Gilkey (another inspired creative)
Please share with me in the comments below what YOUR version of balance looks like (and yes, it’s OK if you sleep 8 hours and have 3 meals a day;). I’d love to see what variety is out there!
Signing out (1am;)

 

Days 126 to 138 I Love You Dad

I am missing my dad. He died in 2008. This was two years after he had been told he was going to die in 6 months, and was subsequently kicked out of hospice when he was trying to get out of bed and they discovered that every bit of cancer in his 82 year old body had disappeared for the time being.

I miss him because I have been truly living full-on every day, and that just makes me want to share my life with him even more. I want him to meet my partner, Thai, and know I am with someone who truly loves me and celebrates me. I want them to sit side-by-side on a riverbank and laugh about me, and for my dad to tell stupid stories about my adolescent fiascoes, or how I found a beer in the neighbor’s backyard when I was 4 years old and then he found me dancing on the windowsill when no one was looking. (Some things never change – except now I don’t mind if people are looking;). I want to show him my cute house in Ashland and let him sit in my hammock under the colorful array of leaves draped above it, I want him to see our land in Alaska and show him moose and bear and fantastic scenery.

dancing with my dad at a birthday partyI want to show him these beautiful places – tell him stories of my adventures in Africa, the mountains in Alaska, our sailing to snowy peaks and living in a yurt. My pack-rafting trips and my business adventures and celebrations. I want him to witness all I am creating. You see – when you are living fully, you WANT others to watch. Especially those who love you. And you want others to watch not because of ego, but because you want them to see what magic is possible for them. Like: hey, look at me! I’m flying! So can you!!!!!”

I know he would be so proud of the work I am doing, which he would see as me helping people to see God/Source/the Universe in themselves. I used to take him to Muir Woods and he would stop, look straight up at the towering redwoods with sunbeams filtering through the branches, and say, “THIS is my cathedral. Let’s stop and pray.” I want to tell him how much his whackiness inspired me to dance to my own drummer, how he taught me loving and accepting others was more important than trying not to be embarrassed, I want to tell him how no matter how many mistakes he made, that I’d do it all again with him, because I am so fucking happy right now.

Fortunately, I have already said these things to him. I just want to tell him again and hold him. Smell him. Hear his voice.

my dad
always smiling, even when he was pooped!

I suppose the only thing I worry about is that he might feel I am not happy. He was worried about me for a bit because when he died, I had just gotten divorced, and he really wanted me to have a family. However, in the end I know people don’t die and worry about their relatives. They are stoked because they see truth, the emptiness of our suffering and how, in the end, it is all beautiful and perfect and as it should be. And they are rooting for us to figure all that out here and now, because this, my friends, is an epic playground;)

I have some of his ashes here with me in this remote Alaskan village I am at for the next few days. Thai is here too. We are going to try to go to a spot by the majestic Kuskokwim River and sprinkle some of his ashes there. Maybe he can “See” the moose and fish as he flots by, the thunder clouds and lightning, the reflections of the mountains when the water is still…One day I will run out of his ashes, as I try to take a little wherever I go. But until then, it feels really really good to be able to share this with him on a somewhat physical level.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. You truly amaze me.

PS: I am really sorry for the lag in posts. You see, I have been migrating ALL my other material over to one site, FreedomJunkie.com, as well as working on its re-design (all the new eye candy is almost ready to be made live!), moving to Alaska, trying to sell/rent my house in Ashland, launch the next Ziji Up Mastery Program (which started today – yay!), and more.  But we’re back in the game. Thanks for waiting!

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Jedi Juice™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting FreedomJunkie.com (note: it’s new look will be up to rock your world soon)! Sign up for her next FREE Jedi Juice Training call on the Law of Attraction at anaverzone.com/jedi-juice

Days 118 to 125 – F*#! Cancer

OK Fuck Cancer. I am SO over it. Sometimes I want to yell at it and chew it out and get pissy at it and smack it in the face. And kick it. Then I get scared it will get mad at me and kill me. Then I also see it for what it is. A thing. And I realize maybe I am so pissed at it because I see it as this “thing” that means so many other things, when really it is just being all it is and just doing what it’s DNA is telling it to do.

This all comes from an instance when I was mountain biking this past week. On our drive back to Oregon from Colorado, we decided to hop out of the car and go for a quick ride to get the blood flowing near a pass in Nevada. I was enjoying the beautiful view. And then we came down this steep hill and I could see the steep uphill in front of us. I got ready, and pedaled pedaled and pedaled and then I just couldn’t do it. I was so tired. So I got off to walk the bike. That’s OK. I’ve had to do that. Then I could barely even walk it up.

WTF? I had just rode hours yesterday in Moab up and down all these trails, and I thought I was getting in better shape. I know I am in my own personal worse shape I’ve been in a long time, but I thought it was still better than the average American and certainly better than the beer-bellied dudes who were riding past me earlier in the week. So my only conclusion brought me to tears as I pushed the bike uphill, heavily breathing and not understanding why…

I started sobbing, and my then-boyfriend (now husband) looked back at me, put down his bike,  and as he was walking towards me he asked, “What’s wrong?” “I’m sad,” I said through my tears.

“Why? It’s OK. I’m tired too,” he consoles.

And he put his über-fit arms around me. Hummmph. I wish I was that fit.

I’m getting there.

“I’ve never felt like this. It makes me think I have metastases to my lungs…” I say to him with reservation, not sure if he’ll think I’m a freak.

Are you fucking kidding me?!!! (Sorry, I do swear my share, but even moreso when I talk about The Big “C” sometimes) I haven’t had cancer for years now. For those of you new here, I had renal cell carcinoma in 2004 and melanoma in 2009, I think. That’s right. I don’t remember off the top of my head and I refuse to stop and do math for the Big C. After my second cancer I kinda stopped keeping track of exact dates. Like I do with birthdays. Or AP History.

In any event, it is incredibly frustrating that when I breathe hard at altitude with a sport I’ve only done maybe five times in the last 4 years I think I have renal cell carcinoma or melanoma cancer cells that set up shop in my lungs.

Now that is messed up.

So I let it wash over me, and I cried and cried. I told him it was OK, that I just needed to let it out. He told me his lungs were burning too and that he was breathing really hard. And he has been super-cardio-fit forever and even he was feeling it. Whatever. I guess I believe him. At the very least, I love him for even saying that.

I told myself it was the allergies, the tall grasses and wildflowers, my mild reactive airway issues, and my late nights catching babies on call 5 days in a row several times a month all winter – and oh, yes, those Annie’s cheddar bunnies chock-full of gluten goodness that led to this panting fate.

And I tried to enjoy the ride down…and I dare say I actually did enjoy it.

Then last night I have this caffeine headache because I decided to stop caffeine since I am so hyper anyway, and I swear it just crept into my life unbeknownst to me and my coffeemaker. But it started while I was asleep.

And you know what I dream? That it’s a melanoma on my freakin’ head and no one noticed it so I am pissed that no one saw it and told me there was this massive cancerous crap on my head. And I know too much about medicine (thanks, UCSF) so I know it’s likely categorization/staging and I think FUCK. I really messed this one up. This is what I get for rarely combing my hair.

And I then realize I am dreaming. HOLY CRAP I AM DREAMING! YAY!!!!! And I decide to change the course of the dream, and wake the hell up.

I comb my hair.

I order “Crazy Sexy Diet, ” (written by the badass Kris Carr who wrote Crazy Sexy Cancer and lives with a rare “incurable” liver cancer for WAY longer than they thought she would…plus she’s hot) to be shipped via free 2-day UPS, and think, “Dang. I need to eat more greens. And maybe even a little less bacon. Done.”

We all have “cancer” in our lives. Its that thing that scares you, that makes you feel powerless. Something you want to get rid of. What’s yours? Let me know below…I’d love ya for it!

 

Note: Ana Verzone (Neff) is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie® She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Ziji Up!™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting FreedomJunkie.com

Are You a Thermometer or a Thermostat? Shifting the Vibe and Training Your Mind

Right now I’m feeling pretty good. And I know these moments come and go. But in the meantime, I want to keep my energy positive and up as long as I can. All the work I do every day around my mindset and visioning and smacking down negative self-talk deserves to be rewarded as much as possible!

Have you ever been in a super positive place and you walk into a room or to a meetup with someone and wah wah waaaaaah your energy gets sapped and you get sucked into a funk that was not a part of your vibe until you walked in? I certainly have.
It sucks.

So what can you do about this?

Disclaimer: This is NOT about trying to be happy all the time at the expense of living and feeling authentically. This isn’t about faking happiness and being an annoying bubbly cheerleader bouncing around people who are suffering. It’s about resilience and maintaining a good vibe when you have it, and opening up the opportunity to shift a funk when you’re around.

Most of us are pretty good at being thermometers. Like a thermometer, we gauge the energetic “temperature” of the room, of what’s going on, and the mercury in us rises or falls. If there are people laughing and dancing we measure the temperature as partaaaay! If there’s a fire cracking and the light is low and there are candles, it’s cozy and chill, or sexy. If we walk into a room with our eyes SHUT we can tell if there is tension. You’ve felt that, right? You’ve walked into a meeting or come home to your partner who had a hard day and it is THICK, you are swimming in the bad juju. Oooooh shit.

It sucks because thermometers react to the temperature. Whatever the temperature is, the thermometer reacts.

Many of us were taught to simply accept the negative vibes, or we try to fix the situation externally. So we hang out uncomfortably, or have a drink to try to lighten up, or try to shift someone out of their funk by annoyingly asking too many questions and trying to give them answers.

In the scenario where we are a thermostat, we get brought DOWN by the bad vibes. Our energy line drops and we leave the situation feeling drained and heavy. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Raise the Vibe
OK so now you’re over it. You’re over being so susceptible to other people’s energy and circumstances. You want to maintain your vibration. And not only that, but you want to raise the vibration around you if its right.

While you can’t control other people’s responses, you can control yours. And if you walk into a room and don’t allow yourself to get brought down, you have a high chance of raising the energy overall as well. A thermostat SETS the temperature of the room. You – being the badass thermostat you are – sets the temp that YOU want. The kind of scene YOU want.

So when you walk into a situation and feel the funk, notice it, and say to yourself “I’m a freakin’ thermostat!” (I bet you never thought that would sound quite so badass, right?). Decide how you want the vibe to be. Most importantly, the vibe in you.

This is what true leaders do. This is what happy people do to keep it sustainable. Walk in, decide how you want the vibe to be, and rock that shit. And if it doesn’t shift, maintain your inner energy, and when you leave, cleanse all that juju away with deep breaths and whatever methods you have.

So the next time you’re in a situation and you feel your energy shifting, ask yourself: Am I going to be a thermometer, or a thermostat here? At least be aware it is a choice.

Whether or not you succeed at shifting the vibe outside of you, it is important to practice sustaining your own happiness, so here are some quick tips below:

How to Support Your Own Happiness

Acknowledge your feelings. When you feel distressed, don’t make it worse by beating yourself up for being upset. Do your best to accept your feelings. When you give your feelings respect and attention, feel them fully and let them wash over you, they usually begin to shift on their own, and you start to feel better.

Work with your thoughts. This is probably the most important tool that I’ve seen used. Did you know that 80% of clinical depression (NOT of major depressive disorder, which is much more biochemically based) is cognitively based? Thought – which affect our emotions – have a HUGE role in our level of happiness.

If you’re having thoughts that are hurtful to you, try reaching for a better thought or scenario that you can actually believe. For instance, if you’re constantly criticizing yourself, make it a point to reflect on three things you did well/succeeded at that day (getting the house cleaned, finishing that project, not picking a fight with your partner when you really wanted to). If your mind returns to negative self-talk, apply an antidote that is positive. Same shtuff, different perspective. The crux is we often think the negative thought is more true than the positive. That’s B.S. It’s why we work on it daily in the Ziji Up Mastery Program.

Decide that you want to be happier. It’s that simple. Decide to be happy. SNAP! When you make that decision, you start to notice choices for happiness that you may have missed before. Those choices may be small, such as lying down for 10 minutes when you’re tired rather than powering through a task, but you start to create a habit of seeking happiness that grows.

Celebrate success. Whether it’s the achievement of a major goal or a week when your children got along, take in the accomplishment, and give yourself and your children a yeeehaw! Better yet, do a happy dance, or howl at the moon (I know…I’ll take any excuse to howl at the moon;). People who express success physically and verbally are, well, more successful!

Seek meaning. Happiness comes from doing something that gives us pleasure and meaning. If your job doesn’t provide that, find something that does. It could be a hobby, volunteering, taking a course, or allowing time to read a book or cook something uber yummy.

Express gratitude. Be grateful for everything that makes your day better, from a colleague’s smile to your morning green smoothie. Think of three things each night before you go to bed, or anytime when you are feeling down.

Let me know what you think of all this below, or add your own tips to the comments. Join the Freedom Junkie tribe! Let’s get this party started;)


6 Things I Learned Getting My Ass Kicked Mountain Biking

A gorgeous tree and moon at a water break

I went mountain biking in Moab for the first time. Ever. I can’t believe I waited that long! Perhaps it was because mountain biking scares the shit out of me.

Yes I know…I climb mountains and travel to exotic places and miss kidnappings in Africa by a few hours yada yada but we ALL have things we are comfortable with and things we aren’t. And its different for all of us. For me, going fast freaks me out. That includes on two wheels on rocks.

But I’m improving, and now it scares me AND is pretty damn fun. Here are some things I learned while getting on trails a bit over my head, which I think apply to life in general. If you don’t think you’ll ever mountain bike, keep reading because you can learn what I did without having to do it. And if you LOVE mountain biking, please add your thoughts about what it (or any other sport) has taught you in the comments. Share the love!

1) When you want to go somewhere, focus on where you want to BE, and NOT on what you’re trying to avoid. If you see a tree you are trying to not hit, look at where you’d rather go instead. If you keeping looking at the tree in the hopes of avoiding it, guess where you’ll go? Yup. Into the tree. Focus more on what you want, and not on what you don’t want in life. A simple way to start doing this is to stop complaining…and start requesting.

2) Anticipate by looking downstream. This does not mean living in the future. It means being totally present with everything around you in the NOW. And when you are indeed present, you can actually better prepare for what is to come, because the path before you is that much more clear. Seeing only the rock 1 foot in front of you isn’t being present. it’s tunnel vision. Lift your chin up…what do you see?

Ana mountain biking
Beautiful rest spot (yes, that’s snot)

3) Be in Shape. You can’t hop off the couch and expect to have fun crawling uphill with a bike. You have to prepare for it and be fit enough to enjoy yourself – OR admit you are out of shape and do it anyway, knowing you are getting more fit as time goes on. But don’t be out of shape, bike uphill and hate it, then claim mountain biking isn’t fun. In life, when you want to do something, be prepared. And if you don’t prepare and you don’t achieve what you set out to, don’t blame it on what you were trying to do OR on who you are…instead, be better prepared next time. Yup, that means no excuses. Sorry.

4) Easy is boring. Easy is cool if you are injured or exhausted or sick. But barring those things, life is generally more spicy and juicy when a bit of challenge is involved. Not freaked-out-scared-shitless kind of challenge (at least not all the time), but stretching. I was scared to go on my first Moab ride so elected to do a “moderate” gravel road. It bored the hell out of me. It was hot and dusty and easy. I opted to turn around after 4 miles And mind you, I am anxious about riding.

I elected to go for a single track route. Awesome. Then I elected to go down a “black diamond” route which I super loved because I got to pull off sections of trail that I originally thought I wasn’t ready for. It was so scary and fun at the same time! There are few things more thrilling than doing something you thought you couldn’t do. And the only way you get to feel that is to try shit scared (see below).

5) You can always walk around. Choosing not to do something because of a few challenges will be safe, but it will also keep you from growing at the pace you are capable of, AND it can even lead you to stay stuck…and (heaven forbid) bored. I went down the aforementioned black diamond trail knowing full well that I would have to walk my bike down some sections. But guess what? That amounted to far fewer sections than I originally thought. What might you be avoiding just because of something you could simply “walk around” should it not work out?

kane creek canyon
view like this (in Kane Creek Canyon) are priceless

6) Do it scared. If you wait for fear to go away before doing something, it won’t happen. Fear is telling you something exciting is going on.  It tells you you’re on your edge and are about to grow. Or maybe you’ll screw up, but hell at least you’re not bored.

Fear will be there if you’re doing anything worthwhile, like a first date with a big crush, or a job interview for your ideal position, or traveling on your own for the first time, or going down a freakin’ steep trail with gorgeous views on two wheels. Do it anyway. Did you know that in studies on love, people rated their feelings of love higher on a date when there was an element of fear involved (i.e. a scary movie or a roller coaster ride)? Our entire being is stimulated by appropriate fear and excitement. Start seeing fear – in the absence of real immediate physical danger – as excitement. And do it!

What have you learned from doing something out of your comfort zone? Please share below! I’d love to hear from ya.

Days 114 to 117 – Full On Forgiveness

I’m at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival and it has been full on for the last few days: amazing powerful films (Fambul Tok was one that particularly moved me), fun evenings, mountain bike rides in the San Juan mountains (pic to the left) and being inspired every which way I turn.

This film fest is not just about adventure films. It’s about social awareness (this year’s topic is Population) and hanging with a tribe of people hell bent on making a difference in this world.

I have so much to write about, but I only have my iPhone and my thumbs would fall off…so more later. But in the meantime, ponder this:

Fambul Tok (“family talk”) is about the grassroots reconciliation process that was created by Sierra Leonians after the horrifci civil war. Brothers had raped their friends sisters, best fiends killed each others’ parents, a man watched as someone killed his children as he his behind a bush to save his life and hopefully the rest of his family…horrid events that most of us are privileged to not have to ever witnessed.

But community is the most important value in the culture of Sierra Leone, and after the horrors, it was hard to come back as a family/community – and this proved unbearable for the survivors.

Me and Thai at the ice cream social – Mountainfilm, Telluride, CO

In this movie, people gathered around a campfire and forgave the atrocities committed by another- a woman hugged her rapist (who expressed remorse and shared how he had no choice but they were going to kill him otherwise), and they danced together around the fire. Two best friends reunited after one had first beat his friend then killed his friend’s fathers by slitting his throat (under command of the rebels that captured him at gunpoint). They now grow a garden together.

I tell you, it was fascinating to watch. I will write more about this later, but it made me think:

1) our culture would have said they had a choice, that they could have been killed rather than commit those atrocities. But in Sierra Leone, they completely understood the human desire to preserve their own life, and this helped forgive

2) forgiveness is a state of mind that can happen so quickly if we let it

3) what do I value so much that it puts my pain second? (like in Sierra leone, it was the need to live like a family again. The pain of isolation and living as insidious was more awful than the pain of what had happened)

…I have many thoughts on this. I’d love to hear yours, and I’d love for you to watch this if you get a chance!

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Jedi Juice™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting anaverzone.com (note: it’s new look will be up to rock your world soon)! Sign up for her next FREE Jedi Juice Training call on the Law of Attraction at anaverzone.com/jedi-juice

Days 110 to 113 Loving is Awesome and Scary

Last night I got home from an awesome biz conference in the gorgeous town of Asheville, North Carolina (there are fireflies! FIREFLIES! little tinkerbells!). I had an very cool time at our “Come As You Are In 2017” party. I pretended that my vest was of camel fur that I found in Mongolia, and that I worked 6 months a year and traveled and hung out with my family in epic places the rest of the time. Ooooh there is more. It was juicy.

Here’s a pic of some of us. To the left are some pretty incredible women entrepreneurs. To start is there is AudreyReynolds, epic travel consultant, of BeYourOwnTravel Hero.com. Then there’s post-partum botique doula, Devon Clement, of MamasBestFriend.com, (me of Anaverzone.com) and Lani Harmon – supah natural light photographer and inner radiance capturer of, duh, LaniHarmon.com. There were also women helping families with the challenge of autism, travel photography coaches, legacy story capturers, gluten-free mentors…on and on!

a few of us at the Come As You Are in 2017 party

The biggest lesson from that: many of us tried to think about what to wear or what we’d look like, but in the end, it was about how we were feeling in 2017, what we had accomplished, what we were creating, what we had learned...and, for me, how we had loved.

When my partner, Thai, opened the door after I arrived from the airport at 1am, I was soooooo happy to see him. Like, hugging and cuddling and holding-for-several-minutes-before-tearing-the-clothes-off kind of missing. And as we fell asleep, I found myself wanting to stay awake, just holding him and being held by him, reveling in being able to totally be present with experiencing my love for him.Wanting to stretch out the minutes into hours and days. I wanted to so KNOW this feeling inside and out, so that I may recognize it as it passed me by on the street, or to sense it in the air.

I played with opening my heart more and more. I felt this warmth overcome me. I had flashbacks of when we first met 12 years ago, his helping me open my first email account in Kathmandu (“anapurnas” my username;), the subsequent love letters sent over that email…the struggle to try to make it work, but the distance that made it so difficult. The 12 years between during which we were friends. And more recently, hearing him tell me as we fall asleep by rivers and mountains that sometimes he can’t believe he is finally with me, that’s it’s me next to him.

I am brought to tears as I can’t believe the same thing. He’s here. Right next to me. Let me feel this fully and deeply.

Thank fucking god he’s asleep, cuz this would look kinda weird, me all pretzled around him with wet eyes and wide awake staring at him.

Then I got scared. My heart wanted to close. The idea of loving someone so much was kind of freaky. I was full-on basking in love, but not full-on opening my heart.

I don’t even have kids…but the idea of loving another being so much is so powerful, and it created a pause.

I let myself imagine what it would be like, to love completely and with reckless abandon, mindful presence, and respect. There was a sappy movie called, “The Vow” on the flight home, and the one thing said in it that stood out the most to me was this phrase:

I promise to fiercely love you, in all your forms

Deep breath. Don’t we ALL deserve that?! And, we all MUST experience loving another in that way, whether it is our parents, or our children, or our partners. And then we need to extend it to ourselves. Ironically, perhaps we need to start with ourselves…

So the protecting, the pause…I’m OK with it for now. This is juicy, precious stuff. I AM juicy, precious stuff. And so are you. I choose to see this pause as a bow to myself, my sacredness.

I will love fully. This I know because, as Hafiz says below:

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

…and he has done this 🙂

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, mentor and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Freedom Junkie ™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting FullOn365.com Her new site and blog, Anaverzone.com, will be up to rock your world soon!

Days 106 to 109 – The Culture of Nasty

Yowza! What a full-on past few days! I had an awesome Jedi Juice training call on The Power of Choice (and the Freedom of Owning Your Shit!) with supah cool peeps, received my badass Co-Active Coaching Certification (yeah…not required but I’m a geek that way), launched the newest version of my Ziji Up Mastery Program that starts June 17th to my Jedi Juice Peeps (no worries – the early bird launch goes public next week!), and I am flying to beautiful Asheville, North Carolina as I write this in the Chicago United lounge. I’m going to spend a few days with my business coach, Christine Kane. She is always so cool to hang with. I can’t wait to get there and have a glass of wine at my fave French bistro…

In the meantime, holy crappers I couldn’t believe some of the rudeness that I saw on the plane today. A woman’s baby was crying and she was doing her best to try to calm her down, and someone says, “Hey ma’am, can’t you just give your kid a pacifier or something?” and people kept staring over their shoulders at her and sighing and giving her dirty looks like sitting there was SO MUCH HARDER than having to actually deal with your baby.

Here I am in Asheville heading out for a hike before my biz conference begins tomorrow. It’s gorgeous here!

LIKE THAT HELPS, people! And like she didn’t already think of a pacifier, douchebag! That’s almost as bad as a guy I saw ask a lady to give her one year old gum to chew on. Yeah. That would work. Because it would block her airway when she choked on it and then we could have an emergency landing. I guess she’d stop crying…WTF?

Then, everyone had the shades down as the movie was on. We got served drinks, and shortly after, everyone had to simul-pee. The seatbelt light goes off and then there’s a huge line of people. This older man starts tripping out, disoriented, thinking the plane has landed. He tries to get his bags. His wife is frantically trying to tell him he CAN’T get off the plane and people are staring and telling him to sit down and chill out all aggressive-like. So he starts freaking out, shaking and yelling. The wife starts to calm him down and its working. I can sense this because they are across the aisle from me.

Then the flight attendants come and say to his wife – in front of him – that if he doesn’t chill out they’ll have to HANDCUFF him. So he starts freaking out again! The wife is crying, saying how he used to be a professor and was so smart, and begging people to please be patient because his mind isn’t working right. That they have a grandson in Chicago and this is a big trip for him. How she just needs a few more minutes, then she can calm him down. And people are still pissed! He’s not even hitting anyone or swearing. At this point, he’s not even yelling.

I ask people (yes, nicely) to please open their shades (movie was over) so that he can see we are in a plane flying in the air. People are annoyed, but comply. His wife points out the window and he sees clouds. He has this look that’s like, “Ohhh! Ya mean we’re 30,000 freakin’ feet in the air! Why didn’t ya say so!” He starts calming down, and eventually they take their seats across from me. And people keep staring over their shoulders. Like that’s the thing a demented person needs – people staring at them confirming their paranoid thoughts. I grew up with a schizo-affective father (that means he had both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) so I am a little more sensitive to these things;)

I mean for realz, where has our society gone? Do we all think WE aren’t going to get sick, get old, or get a little (or a lot) loopy; or do we really believe that WE never cried and pissed other people off when we were kids…I mean, it appears people have forgotten what it means to live in a society with babies, and old people, and people with mental illnesses, and crazy wild women like myself. I like to do yoga by the bathrooms – so what! I’m not bugging anyone, and I won’t be the one getting a blood clot either. So there.

I am so pissed at the disrespect I saw! (Can you tell?!).

Guess what. We are humans – even YOU! And we have to do this thing while on this planet called living in a body. And shit goes wrong with that body. When you’re tiny, your eustachian tubes get squeezed shut as air pressure changes and it feels like you’ve got a knife stabbing into your brain. You’d cry too. And probably whine while you’re at it.

When you get old, no matter how much fish oil you take or how much you exercise, or how much you meditate on white light and eat organic food, you too could get really sick – physically and/or mentally. And you will hope people are patient with you – and the family that is taking care of you.

So be nice, will ya? Don’t stare. Smile. Try to help. We’re all doing our best out here.

Since when did we have to be perfect to be public? As my friend, Lani Harmon, said, “It’s a culture of nasty.”

No thank you! Let’s gather our tribe and be über nice today to make up for the nasties, okay?

 

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Jedi Juice™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting anaverzone.com (note: it’s new look will be up to rock your world soon)! Sign up for her next FREE Jedi Juice Training call on the Law of Attraction at anaverzone.com/jedi-juice

Ziji Up! Mastery Program

New Course Starting This Fall, 2014!

Please contact us to be put on the waiting list for the next round.

 

Start living Creative, Courageous, Wild and Free EVERY DAY. In this program you will receive:

 

  • 7 video lessons to guide you on each step of the Ziji Up! System and it’s cornerstones
  • 5 group laser coaching calls
  • worksheets and activities between sessions
  • daily emails with insights and activities pertinent to the Ziji Up! step you are on
  • online (and local!) community
  • email and additional online support
  • Q&A sessions online
  • a successful SYSTEM to help you create  – and live – the life of your dreams
  • increased accountability so you are more likely to DO the things you set out to do
  • …and more!

This content-rich program is a great place to start, and is my most popular program. It allows you to be a part of a community of awesome like-minded Ziji Peeps, as well as have access to me during our live group coaching calls and online question and answer forums.

Together, over a period of 7 weeks, you and I will be covering the five steps (plus a few bonus steps!) of the Ziji Up!™ System to create transformational results in your life. You will get more clarity, less struggle, an effortless approach to manifesting your goals and dreams, clearing away the obstacles, and higher levels of energy – and living a kick-ass life, aligned with your purpose and goals!

The Ziji Up™ Mastery Program is unique in that it addresses your whole life at the mind, body, and spirit levels: career, money, significant other/romance, friends and family, health, your physical environment, fun (and wildness!), and personal growth/spirituality. The whole shebang. I’ve found that people feel disconnected and unfulfilled when the various aspects of their life are not in alignment with one another. When life change is approached in a holistic way – taking into account your whole life and not just one aspect of it (such as career or relationship) – the results are lasting and you feel more whole and fulfilled as well. Your results grow as you save yourself years of coaching, reading and workshops by participating in this program with me teaching you throughout.

I don’t hold back with my coaching, and you’ll get a great experience of that in this program. We at Ziji like to say: “You Kick Ass – it’s time to start living like it!”

You are getting all the essentials of the many years I spent studying, learning and teaching others how to create and live a wildly fulfilling life, paying MANY of my coaches over the years who were with me as I was doing this intense work myself, and personally discovering which methods are truly effective and which methods haven’t been so helpful. I should mention: it is also a great value!

As we move through the 7 weeks, we will dive into each of the steps of the Ziji Up™ System, and you’ll get assignments related to each step. Each week, you’ll participate in a Training Module which will be presented in easy-to-access video modules, taught by me. Each training will include worksheets, checklists and other creative tools to help you apply these lessons immediately to your life. Sometimes, the assignments might give you something to think about, or there might be a writing exercise to get you absolutely clear (if you’ve read my Getting Clear eBook, you know that your clarity is key to getting quick results!). You can download everything easily onto your computer.

Our group laser coaching calls will be a place for you to receive direct support from me, gain more clarity, learn from others’ questions and experiences, get some feedback about what you’ve been doing/thinking, and help you get unstuck if you happen to me in the muck. These calls will be recorded in case you can’t make them live. There is also a great community of Ziji Peeps you will have access to, with forums and other avenues for building a powerful support group. It really fires you up!

Use the contact button to get on the waiting list now!

 

Days 101 to 105 The Good Fear – FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

Well dog my cats! I went pack rafting today and didn’t shit my pants! I have this thing with drowning…and the way I tend to address my fears is dive straight into them. Inevitably they seem far less freaky than what my mind was making up. Buuuuut with whitewater kayaking or pack rafting, it feels a little harder to embrace being dumped into a rapid, upside down. It’s that “airway” thing, I guess.

The depths of the ocean freaked me out, so I learned to scuba dive. It was much prettier and mellow down there than the dark muddied world of ugly gray breasts that I’d made up whenever a strand of seaweed would brush against my leg at the beaches in Santa Cruz.

Heights made me dizzy so I learned to climb, and discovered that getting over that fear for the kick ass views was well worth it.

Here I am after packrafting Clear Creek, where it runs into the Klamath River

I was afraid to have my heart hurt again, so I flung it wide open for my soul mate, who is – as I write this on my iPhone on the banks of Clear Creek – on my mountainbike riding uphill 8 miles to go get the car, which we left at the put-in upriver. We’re uber happy, to say the least;)

In any event, until recently, I allowed myself to be afraid of whitewater, because I figured it’s ok to be afraid of <em>something,</em> right? But then whenever my friends did it, I felt like I was missing out. They’d come back all tan and happy, and with this cool shared experience. And deep down, I knew I could do it. And deep down, I wish I was better at it. So, I did it:)

Hey! There is it again! That fear I’ve written about a few times: FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out.

Well thank God for FOMO. Without it, I might be better rested and comfortable, but because of it, I keep having amazing new experiences, meeting absolutely amazing people, playing in the wilderness, getting stronger in body, mind, and spirit…and heart. And I feel ALIVE!

Of course, you don’t have to be on whitewater or a mountain to feel alive. We all have our own thing for that.

What is yours? What helps you feel alive?

And what are you fearing you might be missing out on? What could you do to drop into it and have a cool experience?

Does it require you to call a friend, or go on a date by yourself and check out that new wine bar and hit up that long yet awesome movie you’ve been wanting to see? Does it mean you need to stop protecting your heart so much that you don’t take anymore risks?

FOMO is a good fear – at least for me. The fear of missing out often overpowers the fear of whatever it is before me. And I grow as a result. I mean, I’m with my freakin’ soulmate!!!

It keeps me on my toes, taking inner and outer risks, and opening to the opportunities that the Universe present before me.

This planet is so utterly, epically, über amazing. Being human is such a precious gift. Our spirits and hearts are so much more resilient and magnificent than we can ever imagine them to be.

So, what’s your FOMO? Please do share below! I’d love to hear from you.

 

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Jedi Juice ™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting Anaverzone.com (note: it’s new look will be up to rock your world soon)! Sign up for her next FREE Jedi Juice Training call on the Law of Attraction at anaverzone.com/jedi-juice