There is a disturbing amount of space and eternity in the old growth redwoods.

Disturbing because, as my BFF said in her blog post today, stillness and silence means that you can’t hide behind your addictions, you can’t hide behind your busy, you can’t hide behind the distractions with which you’ve been self-medicating.

In the silence, you can’t avoid the real.

So to begin my annual personal retreat, to end a year and begin the rest, I traveled to the woods and wandered.

I abandoned the facade I had been propped up behind.

I found myself again, in that ancient space.

Mid day, I stopped along a creek because I knew something was to come.

And there, inside the Northern California coastal fog, I heard what really happened last year.

Last year, I grew up. Realized that life, that this world, is not black and white.

I found humility. Surrendered. Relaxed. Got quiet and still.

I let go of control. Stopped waiting for control.

I started to pray.

I started to forgive.

I became aware of the criticism.

I found empathy and compassion. For them. For myself.

I learned how to trust.

I learned how to ground, center, hold space, wait, open, receive.

I let go.

That even though I felt like I didn’t get as much done as I should have (which is not really true, I later realized I got tons accomplished last year), what I needed to take place in this journey did happen.

I did the most important thing possible. I did what was necessary.

I grew.

But of course the journey did not end there.

The next day I spent in a motel room bed, watching television (the prevalence of reality show programming is fascinating) and suffering from a migraine and the side effects of the medications required to keep it at bay.

But I wasn’t upset.

I didn’t feel like I was wasting time on my retreat. I knew that in that moment, what I needed was for my body to process what had happened.

I needed to just be.

Then I woke up and returned to the woods.

I found a stone bench in the middle of a grove and just sat.

I asked.

What do I need this year?

How do I need to grow?

What do I need more of in my everyday life?

I felt it through me, surrounding me, permeating the branches and the moss and coming up through the decaying logs and needles underfoot.

Peace.

I need to learn how to bring peace into my life. Every day. To exist in a peaceful, serene, centered and grounded state.

To have Peace be my daily life, instead of just my vacation.

I returned to the small town of my temporary residence (which of course has a Starbucks, can’t escape that, lol), sat down in a booth with a grande coffee with 5 raw sugars and my laptop.

I wrote. 

I wrote dozens of journal pages replying to my annual retreat writing prompts, revealing who I was last year, who I am right now, and who I want to be.

I recommitted to what my life is about.

I decided how I am going to grow this year.

And I determined how I’m going to do it.

Yes, I’ll be sharing more about the EveryDay project that I’ve committed to this year, in the weekly video blogs, on the daily LYTD podcast, and in future blog posts.

And next week I’ll share more about the Live Your Truth Guide to Your Annual Retreat, where I’m giving you the exact process I went through last week and how you can create it in your own life (including the behind the scenes details of my journal prompt responses and my 2012 plan).

In the meanwhile, for today … here is the thing.

Before you can know anything, before you can hear a voice from a higher power, before you can listen to your own intuition or find the truth or know what you already know deep in your soul, you need something.

You need space.

Silence.

Time.

Connection to the eternal.

Whether you find that connection in the old growth redwoods or a church service or hot yoga or running a marathon or flying a plane across the sky, you must make your connection.

To remember your truth, you must create space for your truth.

#thatisall

Did you do a personal retreat or annual review? What process did you use?

What are your words, goals, vision, themes, resolutions, commitments for 2012?

Please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you!

But my theory is that great change, the big goals, the transformation of a life, does not happen in projects or goals or the grand objectives.

Great change happens in the EveryDay.

It is that time of year.

Whether it’s in the blog post I just read about a last week of December journal-a-thon, or my client yesterday afternoon who shared how she is working on her 2012 goals, it’s time to create the next plan, the next set of goals, to begin everything that will come to be in the coming year.

I feel that shift.

The standing on the precipice, that tension that builds on the edge of grand release of creation.

But I have not begun to plan 2012. Yet.

Yes, I have tons of ideas and outlines and goals and dreams and desires – coming up with ideas is never the problem for me.

But … before I can sit down to create the 2012 plan, before I can begin everything that will come next … I need to end.

Before anything new can be brought into existence, a void must be created into which it will be born.

So, to that end, I am finalizing documents, purging stuff, mourning hurts, forgiving wrongs, recognizing resistance, releasing tension, accepting truth.

I am letting them go – the illusion of control, the idea that I can be perfect, the belief that there is a magic pill that can be swallowed, the theory that I can make them love, like, accept, understand, appreciate, respect me.

I am opening up a space inside of me, naked and raw and vunerable – opening my hands unto God and the universe and the energies that flow all around us – taking a deep breath – and surrendering into the quiet expanse.

I have faith that the answers, that the plan, will come.

And in the least likely ways, I imagine.

So the last week of December you will find me roadtripping to somewhere different and quiet, somewhere they serve coffee and eggs for breakfast, where they say hi to strangers on the street, where there are trees and sky and water and the fresh smell of earth.

I’ll be there working on finishing and emptying and space creating. I’ll be reviewing all my ideas, feeling how each of them resonate with my soul and living your truth and bringing acceptance to the world. I’ll be opening myself up to whatever is the next.

We shall see what impossibilities can happen.

I’ll let you know.

–

How are you planning for 2012?

Are you reflecting on this year and clearing stuff out? Are you doing a big end-of-the-year retreat, are you meeting with a coach or are you working through a system? Do you create an annual plan or set of goals or themes for the year, or do you just flow with what comes?

Goals don’t suck for everyone, but they do for me.

Because when I set goals (earn $x or have x# of clients or get x# of visitors to my website by x month) I just sit around feeling lame and frustrated that I did not meet that goal already (“I should be there by now, so and so has already done that, I’ve been trying so long without it happening” etc.), as opposed to the goal somehow creating focus and motivation for me to actually do something.

So I stopped setting mid/long term goals. (And made a video about it.)

Meanwhile, lots of amazing stuff happened. (And terrible, and dramatic, and quiet, and pretty much everything in the human experience.)

But in the last week, I read two things that made me revisit the whole goal sucks theory.

First, Chris Guillebeau wrote in his newsletter about how his old goal was to write for 10,000 people, and now he’s moved on to writing for 100,000 people. And I liked that idea – of knowing how big you want the circle of influence to be.

Then I read the blog post Don’t Get Real. Get Ridiculous. by Kendra Kinnison, about setting completely insane long term goals. Things like making a machine that will fly human beings, which until 1903, was deemed highly unlikely to ever be accomplished.

Here’s how Kendra says to set goals: “Quit thinking about what’s possible right now. Focus on the ridiculous goals that you can accomplish if you’ll commit your passion and energy for a sustained period of time. Then go do it.”

So I thought – what’s a completely insane, ridiculous goal I have for Living Your Truth? What could we do together, given enough time and sustained effort?

Here’s what flew into my mind:

Wake Up 100,000 People to the Real World. Inspire Their Moment. Empower Them to Live Their Truth.

And I’m cool with doing that directly, or indirectly. Especially because really that’s what I do – I attract other evangelists, other people who are also spreading a message. And by empowering them to live their truth, they spread their version of that message to all kinds of other people.

So if we assume that each person I influences turns around and influences at least 100 people on average, that means I only need to directly cause 1000 people to wake up to the real world & live their truth.

And then I thought to myself … hum. I might have already done that.

Or I might already be close.

As of today, I have 14,000+ twitter followers and 3000+ newsletter subscribers. Last month (September 2010) I had 5033 absolute unique visitors to this website (per Google Analytics).

Presumably, some of those people actually read my stuff. And some of them are affected by it, some have had their moment, some are now living their truth (or have started that journey), and some have passed that on to others in their f2f lives or twitter streams, influencing them to live their own truth.

So instead of 100,000 people … maybe this goal is about 1 million. Or 10 million.

Given enough time and effort, complete ridiculousness becomes completely doable.

The Wright Brothers took 7 years from when their little research project transformed into the first sustained human flight.

So, how many people do you think we could wake up to live their truth by 2017?

These decisions seem completely unreasonable.

The program makes money. The book was already printed. The website got google organic traffic.

But sometimes the only way to move forward is to let things go.

Is there anything in your business that’s distracting you from what you really want to be doing?

What’s in your business that’s leftover from who you were yesterday?

What do you need to let go of so you can be 100% yourself?

A “bucket list” is everything you want to do before you “kick the bucket” — everything you want to do before you die.

The first time I made a bucket list was in my freshman year of high school.

It was 1989. Sitting in the back of an auditorium filled with 1600 honors students, while one of those Tony-Robbins-wanna-be hyped up motivational speakers yelled at us from the stage.

His big speech was trying to inspire a bunch of high school students to make a list of 100 goals for their lives:

“Studies show that only 4 of you in this room will actually do it, but making this list will change your life! Decide today to be one of the 4 people!”

So, I decided to be one of the 4 people.

And I made my first bucket list.

That original list has passed into history – maybe it’s in a box at my parent’s house, I’m looking for it the next time I’m in town – but I’ve kept that original list & all the additions in my head for the last 21 years, checking things off as I go.

Today is the first day I’ve shared them in public. And, the first day I’ve asked for help.

I’m posting my bucket list for you for three reasons:

• to hold me accountable,
• to see if you have resources to help make them happen, and
• to see if any of you want to come along.

So, do you want to join me on an adventure? Look below, and take your pick.

The EPW Bucket List (in no particular order):

1. walk on the moon
2. see the sun rise over the earth from space
3. spacewalk
4. land a plane
5. ride in a fighter jet
6. skydive
7. skydive solo
8. learn to swim
9. learn to swim underwater
10. dive off a diving board
11. learn to scuba dive
12. finish an Ironman race
13. learn to salsa dance
14. learn to tango
15. learn to belly dance
16. learn to fence
17. chase an eclipse
18. explore the Galapagos Islands
19. explore Antarctica
20. explore New Zealand
21. explore Alaska
22. explore Japan
23. explore China
24. explore India
25. explore Morocco
26. ride a hot air balloon over the plains of Africa
27. hike across the Grand Canyon, rim to rim
28. hike the narrows in Zion Canyon
29. spend the night camping in Canyonlands
30. watch hot lava pouring from a volcano
31. climb a glacier
32. climb a tall famous mountain
33. learn to ski or snowboard
34. learn to speak a foreign language well enough to get along in that country
35. sing karaoke [to do 3/15/2010 at sxsw #techkaraoke]
36. learn to play the piano
37. learn to play the guitar
38. write a song (lyrics & music)
39. learn to horseback ride
40. drive a race car really fast on a race track
41. learn to ride a motorcycle
42. go into a random brick-n-mortar bookstore & see my book on sale
43. be on national TV
44. speak on a stage with 400+ in the audience
45. get paid thousands of dollars to speak to an audience
46. write a fantasy fiction novel
47. write a screenplay
48. make a music video
49. make a full-length movie
50. have a one-liner in a big-screen movie
51. have a TV show
52. host a live event
53. get a tattoo [DONE!! 2/11/2010 with Allison Nazarian]
54. play poker in a vegas casino
55. go to the airport & get on the next plane to where ever & go w/ the flow
56. go dog sledding

DONE! — Completed Bucket List Items):

Listed in order of completion, starting with bucket list stuff completed in the 4th grade.

• learn to not-drown
• get to go in the deep end of the pool
• get a ribbon at the science fair
• sing a solo in front of a crowd
• write a poem
• storyboard a music video
• write a short story
• learn a musical instrument
• complete the high ropes course
• orienteer through the woods without an adult
• slow dance w/ a boy
• dance in a musical
• fly in a plane
• go to space camp
• successfully land a plane in a real fighter jet simulator
• sing in the choir
• water ski
• take a public bus by myself
• have sex
• drive a car
• learn to play tennis
• backpack overnight & sleep under the stars
• backpack & camp overnight alone
• go rock climbing
• go rappelling
• be on the varsity team
• place at a track meet
• explore Hawaii
• learn to play racketball
• get drunk
• go spelunking
• teach a class
• smoke pot
• eat in a fancy restaurant & order a bottle of wine
• move to California
• fly in a private plane
• live in my own apartment
• fly first class
• eat real sushi
• gamble at a real casino
• get a piercing
• finish a marathon
• buy a new car
• take a train across the country
• stay in a 5 star hotel
• explore Australia
• walk through a rain forest
• see the great barrier reef
• start my own business
• have a client who pays me money
• be featured in the newspaper
• give birth
• write & publish a book
• be on TV
• be on the radio
• have a radio show
• stand at the rim of an active volcano
• buy one pair of really expensive shoes (6/5/2009)
• throw a party & have people show up (first tweetup 10/14/2009)
• catch a cab by myself in NYC (10/16/2009)
• sing a song to other people (posted the video online 10/21/2009)
• navigate the NYC subway as an adult (12/31/2009)
• let another person control an adventure (1/8-1/10/2010 adventure w/ Ori)

What’s on your bucket list?

And yes, you are not the only person to wonder, what the heck is up w/ that?

Here’s the video to explain why ….

So what do you need to do to restructure your life & business so you can meet your goals & design your ideal lifestyle?

Do you need to move, change your business, modify relationships, get rid of your stuff, quit clubs, simplify your life?

Here’s the process taught by Pax Programs to find your four words of feminine power:

(go here for a word list to use in this exercise)

—

It’s 2010 and so now we have to do our “setting goals” or “picking our 3 words for the year” post.

Meh.

Setting goals and picking three theme words for the year may work for some people. It’s really common in the coaching & blogging & business worlds. If theme words and goals work for you, party on.

But thinking my way into what my year should be about — that does not work for me.

The power, the magic, the serendipity of my life is more complicated and amazing than anything my tiny little brain could think up. And anything I would think my way into would be smaller than what will naturally unfold, if I trust myself and take massive action as inspired along the way.

But I don’t proceed themeless. Without any words or mission or principles to direct my life.

The opposite, in fact.

I’ve recently become aware of the four words that describe who I am.

These words are not just my themes for my year. These four words are the themes for my entire life.

Why clients pay me money. How I help & lead my tribe. Where all my success and enjoyment comes from. What friends get from me.

The reason I am on this earth.

You see, last year, when I was studying why men are awesome & was on a journey to embrace my own femininity, I discovered a series of seminars from PAX Communications. The last such seminar I went to, nicknamed the “Queen Workshop,” explored, among other things, where the power of a woman comes from.

To understand, first we need to look at the opposite, masculine power. Masculine power comes from doing, single focus, applying force, making things happen.

(And, there is nothing wrong with that. Masculine power is awesome and one of the reasons men are so yummy. But while women can get results from masculine power, it drains us of energy & is not what makes us magical.)

Feminine power comes from who a woman is being in the moment.

Feminine power is what a woman brings with her when she simply walks into a room.

Each woman brings with her qualities that only she possesses in a particular unique combination. That’s what makes her magical. Inspirational. Fascinating. Irresistible.

I don’t mean this in some magical fairy law of attraction kind of way. And I don’t mean that women are not doing work or that action isn’t required (obviously). Or that we can’t focus, or that some women get results from their masculine power instead of feminine power.

What I mean is that when I finally became aware of how I change people when I walk into a room, I finally understood why clients pay me for what seems effortless. Why some marketing campaigns work for me and others don’t. Why people comment on certain blog posts but not others. Why some people want to be my friend, and others don’t resonate with me. Why I can get tired after 20 minutes of doing one thing — but can work for 6 hours straight on another project yet finish feeling energized.

And, more importantly, what I am called to bring to everyone in my corner of the world.

And you know what the somewhat weird thing is? Many of you have independently used these particular words (or various derivations thereof) to describe me — when you say what you get from reading my blog posts, or from a coaching session with me. So this is not just a mambsy-pambsy seminar thing … my four qualities have been confirmed by independent sources (aka, you guys).

So now after that huge amount of wind up, here you go …

ElizabethPW’s Qualities (or, the themes for EPW’s life):

1. Love

The world “love” in the English language is such a ridiculous oversimplification.

Here I don’t mean just romantic love, or the “I love you’s” that family & friends say to each other. Or even loving yourself (the greatest love of all? oh, gaud, let’s not go there.).

I mean really seeing another person. Their soul. Who they really are. Not their “potential” — what makes them amazing, right now, in this moment.

Allison Nazarian, Sarah Robinson, and I have developed a friendship via twitter (and now, skype/email/texting/facebook/in real life) that has gotten some attention. So many women have contacted us to say that they wished they had a friendship like this. That we are example of what friendship between women can be.

That’s amazing. And terribly sad.

I remember what it was like before 2009. When I really didn’t talk to anyone (and I mean really talk). When no one knew that my marriage was falling apart or how my business was screwed up. When I had no one to confess my insanity to on a daily basis.

It seems like a different life.

My great hope is for all of us to have friendship and love like that.

To all to feel that we are truly seen. Cared about. Heard. Appreciated. Supported unconditionally. Never alone.

If everyone felt that … I don’t know what amazingness would be possible. Would people really need to compete over resources? Hurt each other? Fight wars? Would the problems of the earth all become solvable if each person felt truly cared for?

2. Ecstasy

Here’s where it really gets yummy.

Ecstasy is the joy of being in the present moment.

It is fully experiencing the deliciousness of the world and everyone we encounter, as it naturally unfolds in front of us.

In New York City last week, Allison Nazarian and I were randomly wandering around downtown looking for falafel (I had never eaten it. Oh, and I had no idea what it was made of except that it’s vegetarian.). We saw a few falafel places as we walked around but were just not feeling them.

Until we saw Mamoun’s Falafel Restaurant, a little hole in the wall place in the village. And, for some reason, we knew that was our place.

Not only was their food absolutely amazing (and I am totally in love with falafel), it’s listed as of the 1000 Places to See Before You Die & is apparently one of the best falafel places in the city. And we found it by simply following the flow.

Life organically happens in an amazing way that is more than you could ever think or plan your way into.

When we let go, follow the flow, engage with people, embrace ecstasy as it happens … that is when live becomes full of excitement. Fun. Joy.

That is when we are successful.

That is when we are rich.

Yum!

3. Courage

When I talk about living your truth, doing crazy sh*t so other people are inspired to do their crazy sh*t, getting okay with being uncomfortable every day, what I’m really taking about is courage.

Courage is taking action when you have fear. When you are uncomfortable.

In my Senior year of college we had a professor for our Environmental Chemistry class who was totally incompetent. And mean. And a real crazy person. I’m serious here … she was a travesty of the profession and should have been immediately fired.

But she wasn’t because the school did not want to get sued.

So instead of sitting around complaining to my classmates, I wrote a manifesto to the editor of the paper signed by every student in the class (that’s what we did before blogs!), met twice with the Dean of Academics (who looked very nervous to see me), and got the necessary paperwork filed to bring her up before a committee of her peers to review her violation of the competency provisions of her contract.

From that hearing, every student’s grades in her class was raised two letter grades (I went from a C+ to an A-). And, she was fired.

One of the reasons I was put on this earth is to speak the things that everyone thinks and no one says.

People speak to me their unspeakable things. I can almost hear what the collective consciousness of a crowd is thinking & not saying when I walk into a room.

And unlike everyone else, for some bizarre reason I’m the one who raises her hand to ask the question. Writes the blog post. Sends out the tweet. Schedules the meeting. Makes the call.

And yes, every time I do this, it still makes me ill. I still can’t eat, have digestive problems, my face breaks out, can’t sleep for days, want to run from the room and hide the bathroom.

The only difference between me and most people, is that for some reason, I speak the truth anyway.

(And most of the time I wish this wasn’t true, that I could be a normal person, damnit. But I’m getting over that.)

4. Enlightenment

Now here I am not talking about Zen or whatever. Cause I don’t do Yoga or go to India or teach feng shui or do any woo woo stuff.

I’m talking about the magical moment when the complex sudden becomes simple.

Back in my sophomore year of college, I studied 14 hours in 1 1/2 days to memorize all the mechanisms for the alkene exam (Organic Chemistry). It was so forced. Painful. I spent the entire time in the chalk room of the Olin library writing and rewriting the mechanisms, over and over, until they were drilled into my brain.

But sometime during that marathon I had my moment. From then on I did not have to memorize mechanisms. I could intuit them. I had figured out the general principles of how molecules enjoyed hanging out with each other, and could just b.s. my way into getting a 94% on the exams. (Side note: from that day on I was bored with Chemistry. Hence why I did not get my PhD.)

When we learn anything – internet marketing, organic chemistry, time management, cooking, guitar, twitter, quantum mechanics, the inner workings of a new friend, why a marriage failed – in the beginning it seems infinitely complex. Without a system or pattern. Hard, tedious, illogical.

And then, after hours, months, or years of studying & practice, there is a precise moment when it clicks.

Where the illusion of complexity falls away and the pattern emerges from the chaos.

And yes, even after that moment, there is work, study, practice involved.

But after that moment you are fundamentally altered.

You can never go back, because from that moment, in some small way, you are a different person. Your outlook and understanding of the universe has changed.

And that moment of enlightenment is one of the most sexy things that human beings experience.

–

So I invite you to think about not just what you are doing to do this year, but also who you are going to be.

Wait a minute. That’s not it.

I don’t mean who you are going to be, but who you are, already, in this moment.

And instead of worrying about what you should do or make happen this year, embrace who you are … and take massive inspired action from that place.

Because the magic, the serendipity, the power all comes from who you already are.

—

amendment 1/7/2011:

I’ve realized that my first noble quality, my first word, my most important priority is Ecstasy. But my ideal woman did not approve of Ecstasy as my #1 – Ecstasy was a selfish and self-indulgent thing to put as my most highest purpose in life.

But as I am no longer being dictated to by her, I am embracing Ecstasy as the truth of who I am.

So my new order is: Ecstasy, Love, Courage and Enlightenment

So in the interest of Being Real and Being Uncomfortable, here’s the truth of what’s going on w/ me right now.  Cause everything is not all rocking-out and super-cool all the time … sometimes, it’s confusing, stressful, crappy, and weird.

Oh, and by the way, you also hereby have permission to not be happy all of the time too.