Shove or shine…

Today is the 40th day of my 40 to 40 journey. Today I will run my 40th mile, complete my 40th meditation and 40th yoga session. Today my heart is full and antsy for this transition to a new decade, and tomorrow that anticipation will be met with the privilege of beginning a new trip around the sun.

This journey for me was about pausing, appreciating, challenging, and intentionally crafting a path forward in a new decade of life. In it, I have found the process to be beautiful. The practice and consistency of lacing up my shoes, finding my mat, and sitting quietly, to be a revealing mirror, reflecting back the truth of how I am showing up in that moment, on that day. I’ve been humbled and challenged mentally to show up day-in and day-out to face myself in these activities. Some days I have loved what I have seen and felt that I could conquer the world, other days I struggled to simply be with myself.

Last week as I was running, a thought crept into my head, have I set up this frenzy of activity to busy myself to distract me from something of greater purpose? What am I running from, anyway? That thought has been lingering in the back of my head ever since. It has stolen my words and nagged at me from the moment it entered my mind. I think because the answer is, in part, yes. I typically don’t run from my fears (unless you want to talk about vulnerability, I definitely run from that), but this? This I feel I’ve been running from for quite some time.

Here’s the thing, you can’t outrun your purpose (especially not at my pace!), you can’t outrun your fire and candidly, I really don’t want to. My fire is my spirit, I want to embrace it and nurture it. AND… it sometimes feels far too powerful for my own comprehension which causes me to freeze or fidget. So perhaps that is the very point, perhaps that is the vulnerability of living life fully, showing up, trusting, and taking the next right step in a way that honors who you are, who you were created to be, and who you are becoming.

I’ve said it in previous blog posts, but the goal here is to make myself available to become. I do not want to spend my time shoving my energy in spaces that were not meant for me. I’ve spent a lot of time doing that, I have mastered the art of the shove. I have a lot of energy to give and I have wedged myself in so many spaces that were not on my natural path that the effort to get into and out of these situations has been utterly exhausting. Anyone feel me on this? Please? Now that I have a bit of perspective, I think all of this wedging and shoving was a big creative fear-based ploy to hide in the areas that felt safe to keep myself from going after the big stuff.

Damn. Now that I see it, I think I have to do different. And you know what? I’m terrified.

For now, after many cleansing breaths, I am going to lace up my shoes, hit the pavement and finish this 40 to 40 journey strong. I have a feeling that the real journey is only just beginning. Bring it on.

Until then, it’s a beautiful day out there. I hope you do something that lights your fire.

Live MAS!

Powerful thighs and body lies

Over the past 39+ years of my life, I’ve had a rocky relationship with my body. Is that true of most women? Also men? Having grown up in the 90’s when heroin chic was IN and curves were nowhere to be seen, my perception of beauty was skewed at a particularly vulnerable time of life. Look, I am a broad shouldered, athletically built gal with powerful thighs (newly adopted phrasing), no matter how many fad diets I limped my way through, or how many long sessions on the stair master (it was the 90’s after all) there was no way I could manipulate my body to look sickly thin and I regret spending so much energy even trying.

I remember in my teens writing to the editor of one teen magazines proposing that we change the images of beauty and the narrative in the magazines, of course, offering myself as a young writer to address these things. Needless to say, I never heard back from the teen magazine, and it took a very long time for those images to change in my head and on the actual pages.

I share all of this to say that when I talk about the goal category of fitness on this 40 to 40 journey, I’m not talking about getting to my ideal weight or getting into that special outfit (hello, amongst other things, we are in a pandemic!). It’s about celebrating my strength, health, and growth as a woman. Honoring and feeling good in this badass body that has been many shapes and sizes. A body that has delivered and nursed three giant, beautiful, healthy girls, and managed the difficult task of saving room for donuts, beer, and Cheetos in the process ;). This body has lived. This body is happy. This body has a few flats and more wrinkles than I’d like, but it still shows up strong for me every single day. The category of fitness is in celebration of THAT!

For accountability, here is my progress:

Goal	Status
run 40 miles in 40 days: day 24, mile 24 (a PR might I add!)	✅
40 days of yoga: day 24, session 24	✅
hit movement goals for 40 days (shoutout to my apple watch): day 24, will close #23 today	⚠️
~~track and hit macros for 40 days~~ >> cut alcohol and sugar until Feb 10	❌>>✅
surf as much as humanly possible: one big happy check!	✅

⚠️ Sick day 21, couldn’t get the rings closed, made up for the running the next day and will certainly be making up for the movement goal on day 41!

You see that ❌ up there? Well all was humming along (yes, 5 whole days) until 1/6/21 when white supremacists stormed the capital and we saw white privilege play out before our very eyes on TV. It was at that point that I cracked open a bottle of wine and hit the Doritos and watched as democracy crumbled. The rest of the week was a bit of a snowball, a big, stressful, delicious, snowball.

After that derail, I decided to pivot that goal to cut out sugar and alcohol from my diet until my birthday. I’ll be honest I’m 8 days in, and I can say, without a doubt, that is the longest I have gone without either in over a year. What I am realizing is that more than fitness, this is actually an exercise in mindfulness. I am catching myself constantly having to say no. No, to licking my fingers after serving a treat to my kids, no to snacking on a crumb of something, and no to mindless snacks. Now I’m painfully aware of how many little tastes of sugar I would have during the day. I’m grateful for that lesson… and I’m also not.

Do I feel better having cut out sugar and alcohol? I know you want me to say yes. I want me to say yes. But so far the answer is NO. Not better, not worse, just more aware of my actions, so I’m counting it as a win for now.

I’m not after perfection, I’m after growth and hoping I am aware enough to celebrate the small wins along the way because I have a tendency to be too hard on myself… and my suspicion is that many of us have the same tendency. So, if you ever need someone to celebrate a win with you – I’m your gal!

One more thought, whatever body you find yourself in now, please love it. Celebrate it. Don’t be ashamed of it. Put on the bathing suit, wear the top, do the thing you’ve told yourself you can’t. Your body will show up for you as it has every day of this beautiful life and we will all be better as we watch you shine.

As always, it’s a beautiful day out there, I hope you do something that lights your fire!

Live MAS!

40 to 40, the obstacle-coursed path to a new decade

For years, my daily prayer has been the same: that I become the very best version of myself. That I shine brightly by the day. That I operate not at half-dim but at full-wattage.
Alicia Keys, More Myself

As a compulsive goal setter, it was both awesome and unfortunate that when setting my goals for ’21, I realized that Jan 1 was exactly 40 days before my 40th birthday. Any of you goal setters out there will instantly see the danger here. With this kind of serendipity, it is really hard to stop at just one goal. Must… keep… reaching!

Not all will understand the desire to reach. Here’s the deal, to the best of my knowledge, we get one shot at this life here on earth. ONE SHOT. We are each born with our own unique gifts and strengths and my fear for myself (and for us all, really) is that in an effort to find our way in this world, we tone down or become disconnected from what makes us each awesome. To site the wise Alicia Keys, that we spend our days walking around at half-dim. That thought hurts my soul.

Hear me, 40 is not old, though my kids tell me otherwise. But assuming we get 80-100 years in these bodies, I realize I’m nearing the middle of the journey and because we don’t know what tomorrow holds, maybe less. That’s okay, and, I am simply at the point in life where I see that, feel it deeply, and don’t want to spend one more minute on this planet disconnected from my purpose or not burning at full-wattage. To honor myself, to be an example to my kids, to love on the people around me as best as possible, there is a sense of responsibility to get after it. Anyone with me on this? This may be my favorite topic… my door is open for discussion.

So what started as a simple exercise to set some goals for 2021, turned in to something much larger, it turned into a 40 to 40 journey that has me taking stock in life, pounding the pavement, and celebrating the beauty that has brought me to this point.

The themes emerged naturally:

Detox
Service
Mindfulness
Fitness
Joy

Okay, that’s good. But what does this mean?

Detox: Release the things, thoughts, behaviors in my life that are blocking my energy and heart. Service: Discover opportunities to give my time and abilities while stoking my passions.
Joy: This one is my favorite, because it can be so many things. Basically, extract the maximum amount of joy from this life, the people, and the opportunities in front of me.
Mindfulness: Reclaim my mental energy and gain awareness. Meditate every day for 40 days. Fitness: Celebrate my health and push myself to do MAS (more awesome stuff). Specifically:

Run 40 miles in 40 days
Hit movement goals for 40 days
Track and hit macros for 40 days
Surf as much as humanly possible

In case you missed my last post I am now 23 days in. Tomorrow, we’ll dive into the fitness journey. I’m finding that the goals above are all interconnected and the themes that bring everything together are mindfulness and joy which is fanning my flame.

In the mean time, it’s a beautiful day out there, I hope you do something that lights your fire!

Live MAS!

Dusting off… clumsy transitions from what was to what is becoming

I launched this blog back in 2019, a time when I was working to find my way out of a difficult period in life. A phase in life which had me swallowed me whole. Simultaneously obsessed with work and not actually challenged by my job, exhausted mom of 3 girls who were brought into the world in the hazy span of three and a half years, sub-par wife, and a deeply passionate human being with no healthy outlet to pour myself into.

It was only a few months earlier I had the idea that I would spend the next year, 2019, infusing my life with MAS (more awesome stuff), which then prompted a whole flurry of activity including a life-changing year-long fellowship and gathering groups of girlfriends (new and old) to do all the things: dance classes, hikes, cooking classes, book clubs, fitness classes, surfing. I was on a quest to find something I could get lost in. The blog was one of those things, until it wasn’t.

As things go, the writing came easy for a bit, it shaped my thoughts and it lit me up. Then, I got in my head about it and kept pushing out my next post until, eventually I lost my voice. Has that ever happened to you? You’re on track with something that feels awesome, get scared, and step back, only to lose yourself in the process?

I know myself to be a positive, can-do person. Determined and driven to a fault, walking around on this planet with far too much fire burning in my belly 24/7 and yet it seems the things I burn most passionately for, scare the hell out of me to actually go after. What is that? Side-note: one book calls it an upper limit problem, where self-limiting beliefs keep you from accomplishing what you’re after. I’m adding that on the “to be addressed” side of the list. I see you upper limit problem, and I’ll deal with you later.

Anyhow, for the sake of this blog post, let’s keep moving along. It was suggested to me by a great writer friend of mine, that I should dust this blog off and give it another whirl. He had been watching the story of my “40 to 40” journey unfold on Instagram (@live.mas.love.mas) and both chatted and texted me suggesting that I get back to bloggin’. People like that in life are priceless. They are the ones who push you in the ways that are most uncomfortable urging you to get after it. I am crazy about people like that, and they can be super annoying because they don’t accept fear-based excuses, meanwhile getting all fired up to see you accomplish your goals. How do I know? Because I am one of those annoying people, and so I say all of these things affectionately and with confidence ;). (If you are reading this Tom, thank you for the push and you only annoy me when you are right, which is often.)

SO… I’m dusting this thing off, getting the first (again) post out of the way, and inviting you all to follow my journey tracking my overly ambitious obstacle course list of goals to keep me entertained (and swearing under my breath) as I near my 40th birthday. Today is day 22 of 40, but we’ll start at the beginning of the journey tomorrow. Until then, I hope you do something today that lights your fire!

Live MAS!

Lessons from a New York yogi

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

At the end of 2018 I was meeting with our CEO at work. As we talked about measuring the impact we had on lives through the work I lead, I closed my eyes, held up my hands in a meditative way and said “when it comes to impacting lives and engaging our clients, the journey is the destination”. Then, I opened one eye with my hands still in the air to see how much he hated what I said. To my surprise he smiled and didn’t disagree, which only fanned my flame.

Just take the first step…

More times than I can count over the last few weeks, I’ve had conversations with friends who are at a crossroads in their life and considering taking a new path. The level of anxiety and time spent trying to anticipate what will happen as they explore the unknown is considerable. Fear and aprehension is at an all-time high, but so, too, is the excitement about what lies ahead. And so there they stand, teetering the fine line of taking the first step and backing away from the path, retreating into the familiar.

As I observe this process in them, I can see so much of myself in their journey causing me to think back to all of those times I told myself I couldn’t, without even trying. Or that I’m not the kind of person who… because I held certain beliefs about myself.

The journey is the destination…

This week, I traveled to New York for work and took a MAS moment to visit a local yoga studio (and see my first Broadway show!). Standing in the studio, there was something powerful about finding peace in the middle of a chaotic city.

The class theme centered on how we, in this busy world, measure success by our level of productivity or the outcome, paying little attention to the journey and the feelings along the way. This message resonated with me, as, by nature I am a driven, goal oriented gal who has probably missed many of life’s lessons and special moments as I barreled down the road toward my destination.

My energetic yoga instructor wove this theme throughout the practice urging the class to pay close attention to their feelings emotionally and physically as the practice unfolded. Not pushing their bodies to perform how each person thought they should, rather, to do what felt good and right in the moment. Soon, I was fully immersed in this concept, I found myself pretzeled into a shape I didn’t even know my body was capable of forming. At that very moment, at the crescendo of his message and the practice, he said “I want you to pause, breathe, and reflect, because this shit is deep”.

At that point is struck me – I could have never have found my way to that crazy position if I did not let go and trust the process, if I did not fully immerse myself in each step of the practice along the way. By trusting, letting go and getting out of my own head, I was able to achieve something I never could have imagined for myself. New Yorker yogi was right, that shit was DEEP!

And so, as life these days has a way of doing, my experience in the MAS activity loops back to the conversations I am having with the people I love, and with myself. So often, it seems, the most important thing is to take the first (or next) step and fully immerse yourself in the process. You just never know where you will end up… and, I’m pretty sure that’s the beauty of it all!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.
Henry Ford

“I’m not the kind of person who…” have you ever said this? I have said it, a lot. Looking back, I realize I used it most frequently when I was faced with a situation, opportunity, or idea that scared me or made me uncomfortable. This is a powerful phrase, because as soon as you speak it it becomes true, even in just that moment, closing a door on what could be.

And so, it seems, my professional career has conspired to teach me more about this concept – and it has gripped me.

Wait, I can’t ride this thing!

In my early 20’s I stumbled into a career in the non-profit sector and the endurance sports training space. We would see individuals at all fitness levels, but my favorite was the person who would most closely identify as “couch potato”, and believe me we saw a lot of those. I would meet them in the information meeting, hear all their fears, convince them they could do it and then they’d show up terrified on day one. One of my favorite stories was a woman in her mid 50’s and out of shape, she signed up to complete a 100 mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe. Day one, she showed up to training with a basket, a bell, too few gears and when instructed to get on her bike for the short ride she said “Wait, I can’t ride this thing”(oh boy). She crossed the finish line (different bike) just 5 months later.

In this time, we saw thousands of people triumph, everyone with their own initial challenges to overcome. Every time, I was moved beyond words by the transformation. Right before they crossed the finish line, I’d have a distinct recollection of who they were when they started the journey and, with a tear in my eye, know that as they completed their event, they would never be the same. They had unlocked something new and powerful inside themselves.

Time and time again, the theory was proved: show up, put in the work, get uncomfortable, fall down, get up, lean on community and amazing things will happen.

Your yesterdays don’t determine your todays…

Now, in my day job, I’ve spent the last year working with emerging talent from low socioeconomic backgrounds, people who are working to change the trajectory of their lives. They are mavericks in their family, traveling unknown paths and reaching for more. They are putting in the hard work, leaning on community and seeing the transformation along the way. We talk regularly about the fact that your yesterday does not determine your today. That every day we have the power and ability to choose who we will become that day and every day forward. The thing about it friends, is that this stuff works! These lives are changing at every turn.

So, I guess the question becomes, who do you want to be today? Tomorrow? Speak it, share it, get after it, and don’t for one second tell yourself that you’re not the kind of person who lives the awesome life you dream of!

Live MAS!

Let your freak flag fly

“Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than the first” – Kanye West

Kanye’s not often right, but in this case? He’s spot on. As I start to write I wonder if the pressures of the sophomore album also apply to the second blog post?

Well, the truth is, my words may not resonate, or even be read. But at the end of the day, that’s not exactly what all of this is about and, to be perfectly and painfully honest, there is a part of me that needs to detach from that desire for broader acceptance anyway. So… on I write.

Owning it…

About a year ago, an old acquaintance of mine posted an image and in the caption he wrote “let your freak flag fly”. As soon as I read it, I was struck deep down. Those simple words celebrated a transformation I had been undergoing for a number of years and breezily celebrated the quirky uniqueness in us all.

You see, in my early days working in leadership positions I really struggled to unveil my own style. I tried unsuccessfully force myself to fit molds that had been cast before me. Emulating something that seemed “right” which caused me to become formal and awkward. As a result, I was miserable.

Finally, fed up with work and frustrating circumstances, I decided just be me. At this point there was nothing to lose. I had to throw my preconceived notions of leadership out the window, leverage my strengths, and be cognizant of my weaknesses and pitfalls.

The result was a pure and genuine joy found in rebuilding business and myself as a leader. I was able to better see the opportunities that lay ahead and better utilize the strengths of the people around me. It was deeply rewarding and transformational leaving me feeling free and creative.

So, what does this have to do with MAS?

Everything! This journey is about just that, exploring those hidden and quirky parts of ourselves, loving them, and sharing them with the community that surrounds us. It is about intentionally being surrounded with people who are striving to be better, traveling their own journey and sharing what they learn while taking chances and asking questions. For me, it is about becoming a more complete version of myself enabling me to have more authentic impact on the surrounding world. Oh yeah, and it’s about having a boat load of fun along the way!

Thank you

I am grateful for the public and private responses that I received from the first post and am encouraged that the concept of MAS resonates with so many. I have so much to learn from each of you as you navigate your own paths and truly hope that you will share your lessons with me.

In the mean time, friends, let your freak flags fly and make the world a more colorful (and awesome) place! Thank you for the inspiration.

The Journey Begins…

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
― **Paulo Coelho,** The Alchemist

The reality of this blog is that I’m terrified to post it. I’ve never shared my writing publicly and the vulnerability of publishing something for even a small audience to read has always been a bit too much for this girl.

But, for me, this is the year of taking chances and trying new things, so here it goes.

Becoming MAS…

This journey was birthed out of a simple desire to get more out of and put more into life. More love, excitement, connection, joy.

Minus work, I have never really had a true hobby. At the same time, I have always been a gal with just a few close female friends. In social settings I almost always gravitate towards the guys. This becomes a positive thing later in life where I am able to build healthy relationships all around. But as a teenager, a lack of hobbies and patience for the traditional “girl stuff”, I found myself a bit boy crazed. It wasn’t until college when I became a feminist hippie that I was able to let go of a lot of unhealthy patterns.

Now, as a mom of 3 GIRLS and having the perspective of a slightly older and much more confident version of myself, I want to dig in and learn, grow, and challenge myself both for my own personal benefit and as an example to my girls.

Imagining MAS

One sleepless night on the couch in late 2018, I lay awake thinking about this concept of MORE. It had been following me for a while and when I paused to think about it, the concept was simple. I just wanted to do more awesome shit! (sorry for my language mom) I wanted to have fun and grow. I wanted to take risks and explore my list of somedays AND I wanted to do these things with women I respect.

After sharing the idea to a few of my friends and getting enthusiastic support and laughing about the ways we could bring MAS to life, MAS was set in motion. Suddenly it looked like 2019 would become the year of MAS and it would be amazing.

“I stopped waiting for the light
at the end of the tunnel & lit that
shit up myself!”

Here’s to a year of building community and discovering MAS!
Follow the journey here.