Archive for the ‘Fearless’ Category

2012, year of the exhale

January 3, 2012

by Roxanne Krystalli

Looking at 2012, with daring hope.

There is a genre of music my brother has dubbed “college music.” In his mind, college music encompasses some combination of sappy lyrics, acoustic guitars, hipsters, or whining lyrically. College music to him involves the likes of Damien Rice, the National, Bon Iver, and Cat Power — in other words, every artist whose music strikes a chord with me. One summer, he and I were sitting on his balcony in Greece and I was listening to Ray LaMontagne.

Worry… worry, worry, worry, worry. Worry just will not seem to leave my mind alone, LaMontagne sang.

“College music,” my brother retorted.

My life’s music, I thought. I am a professional worrier. I worry frequently, and I worry often. It seems dissonant that someone whose whole day can be uplifted by a perfect blue sky will crash with dark thoughts. I am an equal opportunity worrier: I worry about hurting someone’s feelings, about sufficiency and enoughness, about safety, about the world, about my loved ones, about my health, about the future, I worry about what all this worry will do to me in twenty years, about everything that can be a cause of worry under the sun and that perfect blue sky that will fill me with joy.

“Well, duh, you worry. You work in freaking war zones,” I am often told.

Yet, I am less afraid when I am fully immersed. When I am delivering a workshop in a conflict zone, or conducting interviews in a post-conflict setting, or doing something that makes me come alive, fear fades into the background. It is in the quiet moments of the night that the worry gets back into bed with me, holding me in a suffocating embrace, tainting my dreams.

It is not journeys I long for this year. It is not novelty or fireworks I crave, though I welcome all of this into my life and am open to it if it comes. In 2012, I am willing a quiet mind. In 2012, I want to banish Ray LaMontagne for Damien Rice and his belief that I can “look into my eyes and see that noone will harm me.” Some former smokers say that months after quitting smoking, an exhale comes and they breathe deeply, making it all worth it. In 2012, I am living for the exhale.

Roxanne Krystalli writes, photographs and worries at Stories of Conflict and Love. You can follow her on Twitter at @rkrystalli.

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Posted in Aware, Fearless, Soulful

The Moment

October 18, 2011

Note:  I am, at the moment, very sick and unable to create a new post. I have chosen one of my favorite travel entries from my own blog for today’s GGG entry. I hope you enjoy reading about one of my most meaningful moments abroad. Written March 15, 2010.

It was actually a few steps back when I caught my first glimpse of the Treasury at Petra.  After walking through a narrow canyon formed by rock the colors of deep mustard, rust, and blazing orange for a mile or so, the first bit of the Treasury that can be seen is part of the top.  A few steps further and the perspective above comes into view, an image that has been photographed a zillion times over – one of the most iconic images of a city a group of Arabian nomads called the Nabataeans built around the first century B.C.  I had dreamed of this moment for years – tried to imagine what it would be like to stand in front of this structure built into the walls of a canyon and then explore all the other details of an area that goes on as far as the eye can see.  We only had about a day and half to soak in a place that really needs a week or more, but I’m not complaining.  It was this moment – the moment when I took the photo above – that was my reward, a moment that did not disappoint.

I am back home now, still not entirely over jet lag, a husband home sick, groceries to buy, work to do, deeply troubling family issues still to resolve.  In other words, that moment is past now and I have slowly wound my way back into the day-to-day of my life in Santa Monica.  But my day-to-day now has this new piece, this new detail; like the bracelet I purchased in the nook of an antique shop in Amman, it is here with me now, adding an entirely new dimension to the background of my days.  I rode two airplanes, a van and a horse to get to that spot, and then I made my way back home, and even though all the dust from Petra has been washed out of my hair, the memory is lodged in my consciousness permanently, guiding me to my next ideas, dreams and challenges.

While it would be over-dramatic to say that moment changed my life (or maybe it did – it is likely too early to tell), it did lock another puzzle piece into place.  To be perfectly honest, I feel like my bank account of Dreams Come True is bursting at the seams already, but I still somehow manage to forget the immense power of these moments.  I have written much about the smaller moments, the moments that look ordinary and worn out, perhaps sometimes trying to deflect too much attention away from these grander instances when I am standing smack in the middle of a longed for experience.  At the same time, I have also made it my mission to encourage the world to pursue their dreams and create a meaningful life; I built a business around the idea, and I continue to cheer people on as much as I possibly can.  But have I written enough about these moments?  About the exact instance I looked up – not expecting to see the Treasury just yet – and saw it peek through the canyon?  The moment it came into view and I immediately looked away, tears in my eyes and heart pounding, wanting so badly to stop the clock and squeeze every bit of emotion I could out of that millisecond of time in the history of my life.

All I could think as I walked towards the opening in the canyon to stand in full view of the Treasury was, “I am here…I am here,” not quite believing I had managed to get myself to a Middle Eastern country surrounded my all kinds of tension and chaos, to this place that was once a thriving metropolis so long ago as to be unfathomable.  It is not like the high of a drug – an experience that becomes a craving, something that I live for in blindness to all beauty in my everyday life – it is more a reminder of the expansiveness of possibility in the world:  What is possible?  Anything!  On the same note, it provides a bittersweet recognition of how strange the story of a life sometimes is…how it can be easier to travel 7000 miles away to one of the most dangerous regions of the world and return home safely than to open one single door of communication between myself and a member of my family.  How I felt more seen and understood by people I had never met before this trip than someone I have known my entire life.

It is dichotomies like those that I love exploring.  I cannot help but turn the bright side of a coin over to its darker face, wanting to understand every possible facet of meaning in these moments.  Because to only expose myself to one or the other, I lose the opportunity to fully understand and embrace all that I am given.  And it is not about wanting to downplay the magnificence of the moment of realizing a dream – it is not about wanting to hang a dark cloud over it or smother its voice – it is about seeing all the feelings and thoughts it inspires, and instead of judging them as good, bad, happy or sad, I simply sit with all of them, knowing they all have their place in yet another extraordinary story in the journey of my life.

Christine Mason Miller is an artist, writer, and explorer who recently enjoyed her second Coca-Cola in Rome.

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Posted in Courageous, Fearless, Inspired, Places

in honour of the women in my life

September 22, 2011

We walk on our heels. We talk loud and laugh boisterously. We cackle, really. Or, as my brother in law likes to say when my sisters and I get together, we often create an unholy trinity of ear-splitting sonic weaponry that sometimes makes him convulse and forget who he is for a minute (his exact words). We’re opinionated. We don’t always have the facts to back up our statements but we have blood that boils. We’re short tempered and stubborn and impatient. We hate that we are stubborn and impatient, so we work on it, every day. And we are reminded of it when we are together, each mirroring the other. But what makes us all those things also makes us strong and energetic and witty and anything but boring. Or so we like to think because we are each other’s biggest fans. We are sisters. We are family. We are blood.

Sometimes, when I fear the next step, when all I want to do is escape the hard stuff and avoid the challenges, I am reminded of my lineage. And how, beneath this exterior that is capable of so much kindness and generosity, there is a “you don’t want to mess with me” warrior inside. It’s wild and feral and woven into an animalistic instinct for survival. I am reminded that the blood that flows through my veins once pumped through the veins of my great great grandmother, who left Ireland and worked hard to bring each of her 8 children, one at a time, and her husband across the Atlantic ocean to the United States, where they started a new life for themselves. She lives inside me.

And I am the product of a mother who’s survived cancer. Three times. And walks around like the happiest woman on earth. She is the embodiment of grace.

And I am the sister of a woman who’s just found out that her son is autistic and sends emails such as this:

Dear Family and Friends.

For the last few weeks, Samuel has been going through multiple tests at the hospital to try to determine why he does not talk and why he throws so many fits. They have come to the conclusion that Samuel has Autism. They have not yet determined his level however believe he should be considered a medium to high-functioning Autistic child. To us, he is Samuel. The same Samuel he was before they put a word to his “disability”. Now we just understand why he reacts differently to certain situations and why parenting Samuel has been somewhat (okay VERY) difficult. We will all be OKAY!

These are the women who shape me. My tribe. My daily inspirations. And because of that, I know that I will always be okay because beneath the insecurities and the fears is a core. A hard core. Created by centuries of strong women, forging the way. And the only way I feel I can honour them is by having the courage to follow my own dreams, to lift anchor, to cast sails and leave the safety of the harbour. I might need a few more kicks in the butt than some, but I trust that I’ll get there, eventually.

For a New Beginning
by John O’Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Who would you like to honour today?

Jeanine Caron is a regular contributor to Gypsy Girl’s Guide.

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Posted in Fearless, Inspired, Soulful