When Your WHY Makes You Different

It is easy for me to lose perspective when I am immersed in trying to exact change.  I sometimes get to the point where I can't see the forest for the trees and I start spinning in directions I had no intention of spinning and I become so disheartened, first with the behaviors of those around me that are getting me down, and second, with myself for allowing these behaviors to influence me.  I am reminded of the story of the king and the well:

There was once a wise king who ruled over a vast kingdom. Now, in the heart of the city, there was a well with pure and crystalline waters from which the king and all the inhabitants drank. When all were asleep, three witches entered the city and poured seven drops of a strange liquid into the well. They said that henceforth all who drink this water shall be “of a different mind”.

The next day, all the people drank of the water, but not the king. And the people began to say, "The king is ‘of a different mind’ and has lost his reason. Look how strangely he behaves. He is not like us any more."

The king, aware of what had transpired, was faced with a dilemma: drink from the well and become like the rest of his subjects, but remain king; or don’t drink from the well, remain “single minded”, but be swept from power by those who would view his very state of mind as a threat.
There are times when I feel that I am of a different mind, and that the leaders I work with are like those who drank of the tainted well.  Sometimes I feel pressure to move away from my core, my heart space, my WHY, just to fit in.  My heart goes out to anyone who has a "calling" that speaks so loudly to them that they CAN'T resist, but who find themselves so often lonely for like minded company and a sense of belonging versus always feeling different and somehow outside of the collective.  I find myself wondering if I am truly where I belong.

An Amazing Day of Possibilities and Connecting

OK, so, today I went to a local Bed and Breakfast: the Astor House, to tour the facility as a possible site for my PJ Wake Up Call Party.  It was the most charming Victorian House in down town Green Bay.  But what REALLY got me...what hooked me, HEART AND SOUL, was the owner, Barb.

WOW!  Talk about a heart space of sharing and connectivity.  Barb is so a part of my heart song!  SHE ROCKS!  Barb lost her husband of 35 years last year, and at the age of 65 she is working to rebuild her life without her husband.  She is struggling to put it all together and to bring order to a business and a life that was thrown into chaos with his death.  She is gentle, and kind, and thoughtful, and dedicated.  Before he died she had worked full time in Madison as a senior events planner, employed by the county.  She loved her job!  Her husband worked full time at the B&B in Green Bay.  Because of the distance, Barb had an apartment in Madison that she would stay at during the week and then she would come back to Green Bay to stay with her husband and to help with the B&B on the weekends.  The Astor House was their collective labor of love, and it shows.  It is charming and eclectic.  I am sooooo EXCITED to be bringing the PJ Wake Up Call Party to the Astor House and to honor Barb, as well as show case her and her husband's life work as framed in this lovely B&B.

 

My heart sings with this project and the blessings that it brings,  I am excited for our PJ Party and the LOVE that this project holds.  Working on this project is so much FUN!  I can't wait until the event!  We will have the option of staying at the B&B.  There are 5 sleeping rooms.  The upstairs suite is perfect for gathering together, in our PJs in front of the fire and working on our journals.  I have found the PERFECT journal to give to those who participate as a point of rememberance - to carry them back to the event and the LOVE that was shared. 

In the morning we will awaken to the joy of the final exercises, and closing with a lovely breakfast, prepared by Barb for her guests.  It will be WONDERFUL!!  How amazing is that!?!?!