...At playing the cello. 

I’m scared of anything I’m not an expert in Kindred. And that’s why two summers ago when I decided I wanted to learn, I did absolutely nothing about it. 

Except obsess over how long it would take me to master the basics and how terrible I’d sound at it and would my struggle learning to read Hebrew when I was five translate into a struggle learning to read music and also would I even like it once I started and would it just be another project I started and didn’t finish or maybe even failed at. 

Welcome to the inside of my head. 

Surprised it sounds a lot like yours?

I’m not that different from most other humans. I’m also scared of failure. And stumbling. And ridicule. 

So like many people I know, I hold back. 

Life has given me many opportunities to start over, to learn new things, to transform. 

And I’ve taken some of those opportunities. 

…Generally the ones that have come without giving me a choice. 

Like the transformations I was forced to make as a result of illness or loss or pain. 

But there are other kinds of transformations possible for us all. 

Choices and new beginnings that are born from curiosity and desire and love. 

…Those are the ones we often pass over. 

People love to tell me that I’m “so inspirational” for the ways in which I have chosen to deal with the hard stuff in my life. 

And secretly I roll my eyes inside my head, because it's easy to do inspiring things when you were literally given no choice.

You know what's much harder?

Doing the cool and scary stuff you dream of doing just because it lights your soul on fire. 

I’m terrified of learning to play the cello. It takes about five years to start sounding decent. 

Do you know how old I’ll be by the time I sound good?

….The same old I’ll be if I don’t learn to play at all. 

I can’t control the outcome. Only the decision to begin. 

This is me birthing something new for myself, and accepting that birth comes with stumbling and silliness and being awkward and making lots of mistakes until I’m awesome. 

Many of us have dreams we resist birthing because we don’t trust the process and the time it’ll take for us to see it through to the end. 

Or maybe it’s because we can’t see the end clearly. 

We might have a glimmer or a hope or a prayer, but the full picture isn’t forming and so we keep ourselves locked in old patterns that don’t bring us joy. Because we’d rather stay with the stagnation we know than the potential and freedom and goodness that we don’t yet trust. 

I’ll never forget how it felt when I emerged from the water after my first experience with Immersive Breathwork*. I had spent an entire breath session completely submerged and held by a partner as I breathed underwater through a snorkel.

There were distorted sounds and movements coming through the water and I viscerally felt the turbulence of the life I was living at the time. Unintelligible fragments of information were coming my way that I couldn't make sense of no matter how hard I tried. 

But at one point my breathing changed. And my heart rate slowed. And my spinning thoughts became one clear voice saying, “It’s time now.”

And I didn’t even know what it was time for. 

Only that it was time. 

And my body felt it so fully. 

In every cell of my being.

I knew it was time for it all.

It was time for me to be born.

Because the world I was about to create couldn’t exist for another moment without me in it. 

And my head popped up out of the water.

And my breathing partner scooped me up and hugged me like a baby

And I cried. 

Because I knew I was ready.

 For the breath and the business of trying and failing and learning and laughing and testing my limits and tasting the beauty in each moment. 

I occasionally forget the magic of that moment. Because I fall back into fear. 

But every so often a new opportunity for rebirth comes my way. 

And every so often I’m brave enough to say yes. 

I would love to spend July 30 in Toms River with women who are ready for a little more YES in their lives. 

Are you in?

Fally

* I talk a lot about the breathing underwater bit of the day. 

And not enough about all the other goodness happening around it. 

There is an entire workshop planned with meditation, constellations, and reorentiation* of our paradigms way before we even get into the water. 

** I like when things rhyme. And work in threes. 

*** I fear getting too wordy in emails. Because I learned that the perfect marketng email does not exceed 250 words. 

So I stress about telling you about all the good stuff happening, without outstaying my welcome in your inbox. 

Which is why I'm trying to get your attention in the PS. 

So that even if you skipped to the end, I hope you'll read this. 

**** I didn't know what to name this upcoming wrokshop. Because Immersive Breathwork doesn't really do it justice. It's like a homebirth. In a pool. With other like minded, powerful, incredible women. Without the labor and delivery. Just the endorphins and joy. 

But also so much more. 

And I'm going to go dig up that jar of quarters now. Because I'm talking too much. :-)

***** Also, here's a song that we started our Immersion Breathwork with last summer. 

*****And how cute are these mini sunscreens for next week's event?!