Life at the Intersection
of Art and Adventure
LoveBeyond is a mixed media, visual storytelling project devoted to immersing you in the imperfect, beautiful wonder of this human experience.
On | The spirit of paradoxes
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”
– Albert Einstein
You know when you meet someone and you’re intrigued by their energy, their aura? They seem to navigate life in a manner that’s hard to describe and the universe seems to coalesce around them. It is this mysteriousness that drives our curiosity to know more about folks we meet through our adventures. Meet Aaron. Paradox in human form.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”
– Albert Einstein
You know when you meet someone and you’re intrigued by their energy, their aura? They seem to navigate life in a manner that’s hard to describe and the universe seems to coalesce around them. It is this mysteriousness that drives our curiosity to know more about folks we meet through our LoveBeyond adventures. Meet Aaron. Paradox in human form.
Somewhere near the sleepy town of Clarkdale, with its copper art museum and divine marble Santa Maria statue, past the ancient sandy Tuzigoot ruins and beyond a somewhat deep river crossing in lands that connect Sedona to the volcanic San Francisco mountains in the north of Arizona, the course meandered among trees and along a riverbed. It was dirty. And dusty. And not the most beautiful thing I had seen since starting this endeavor three days prior. Mostly it was reminiscent of the polluted city creek beds where I spent my youth catching crawdads and cleaning up trash.
Secretly I was searching for a spot to lay down my head for a fifteen-minute trail nap. It was a futile effort. So I allowed my mind to wander. Words and songs swirled vibrantly. And then, Becca {who was mostly my “keeper” at that stage in the adventure}, started in on a question… probably to quicken the pace: “Hey, what do -” But before she could finish, out he popped: a bearded man with a bright blue tee perfectly harmonized to his eyes. He was sporting longish shorts that seemed either tattered or filthy, probably both. Except for the fact that he was wearing a running vest, I would have taken him for a homeless gent, hiding Creekside to drink cheap whiskey or smoke crack.
With his jolly “hey,” we were at once startled and simultaneously entertained. It had been a while since we’d encountered anyone else along the trail.
Aaron.
He had just stopped in the woods for a shit. And post marijuana gummy and a beer he was seemingly in good spirits. Nearly halfway into this 255-mile foot race, he was fueled by anything other than proper running nutrition. And he was smiling, jovial.
A conundrum, really.
The songs in my head were quickly replaced by internal dialogue: “who is this guy? Is he for real?”
And those questions lingered. They still linger. We spent the next hours sharing the trail with this human who contradicted every notion I had of what we were doing out there. We were running a foot race.
And he was just moving forward. He wasn’t in a hurry. He wasn’t carrying much. And that is just how he is: he will cast away the definition others cling to, in service of his truth. In service to the opposition.
He can be in pain and crack a joke. He can be terrified and relish in the horror.
He is random. Entirely surreal; grounded and very much real… all, at the very same time. Aaron is one great big human paradox. He is also a chameleon of sorts. A human… being, ever doing. That is, being fully in all his doings.
He is what happens when impossibility meets redefining.
Aaron grew up near Detroit, and that deep rooted American, heart of the automotive industry, dark and gritty, Motor City feel runs through his veins. The dream and aspiration, the grandeur and heart of a revolution and the sounds of Motown, pump inside him alongside the pain, despair and heartbreak of a city fractured by competition and a flailing economy. But like the city of his birth, he is not broken. He is what happens when impossibility meets redefining. He is that place where anything becomes possible. Because there is nothing to lose. He is impractical and far from any singular definition.
As we made our way out of the creek bed and up into Dead Horse state park, the trees started to thin. Grasses lined the sand. And rolling brown hills gave way to rocky red plateaus. I could feel myself ready to reach the next checkpoint, an aid station at mile 135. I was ready for a hot taco meal. It was Cinco de Mayo after all. I needed fresh clothes and maybe a few minutes’ nap. But as we lingered on the trail, I was fascinated by this human creature. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that if I passed him on the street, I would take him for a philosophy professor or trash collector. They seemed equally fitting. With his bushy beard and baseball hat cocked half sideways, it was hard to discern whether he was a serious academic or total slacker. I asked Aaron what he was doing out there, the essential question for the mostly crazy humans choosing on their own accord to run two-hundred-and-fifty miles.
I put it simply. There was no energy for segues or small talk really. Get to the point.
“Why are you here?” I flung the words directly at him. I expected him to respond with something grand. Some big reason or thing he’s chasing or running away from.
Instead, he chuckled, and let out a vibrant merry sigh: “Oh this? Well, it’s training for the Triple Crown.” He was referring to the Triple Crown of 200’s. That is, three 200-mile races, all completed over four months.
Matter of fact. And truth. This. 255 miles from Phoenix to Flagstaff – as a training run?? Humans are never what we expect.
Experts say we are both nature – pre-wired by our genes – and nurture – the product of life experiences. So in Aaron, a quandary of a human – which part of him is which? Was he born this way? Or did his life bring him to some a-ha where days without sleep, traversing lands by foot – is approached somewhat like a walk thru a park on a summer day?
It is clear he was born with something inside him. Maybe a little something, or a lot of something that is “off.” Off by society’s standards. That, plus whatever Detroit and time threw at him, catapulted this person into living a life of paradox wherein between contrary existences, anything could be possible.
Light. And dark. Easy and hard. He is entirely one. Living. Breathing. Contradiction.
When we arrived at the aid station, I felt elation, an emotional catharsis. I needed to let go of what felt like suffering – wading through streams and then waves of desert dust magnetically covering my legs up to my thighs. I was tired of the dry heat and wanted to escape the filth of three days out there moving day and night. Aaron was nonchalant, unmoved by the arrival at this thirteenth checkpoint along the journey.
With a “see ya out there,” we high-fived and parted ways on that day. We both knew we would see each other again. Sooner rather than later. After all, we had another 120 miles left to run into one another somewhere on the trail leading northward.
After hugging my crew, I sat down in a folding chair to remove my shoes and socks. My toes longed for freedom, air, anything. Beating my socks ferociously against a rock, I was desperate to remove any speck of silt that might lead to a dreaded and ruinous blister. And while I sat there slaying the dirt dragons, I hypothesized that this Aaron character is the human version of my favorite made up conjunction: but/and. Perhaps I had finally met the person that doesn’t hide from the fact that we are existing in dual worlds of “but” and “and…” at the very same time. He embraced it with such nonchalance, when the rest of us snuff at the notions that things exist entirely in contradiction all the time. Aaron, it seemed, can be both part of, and apart from, two seemingly opposing natural states.
I thought to myself: “did that really just happen?” After all, ultra-running is notorious for hallucinations, among other unworldly experiences.
But it was true. Aaron is not at all what he seems and he is exactly as he appears; he’s like that wandering man on the corner, obviously a panhandler, but wait. No. He is just standing there enjoying the sunlight, unaware of his disheveled appearance, waiting patiently to cross the road and enter the building where he will take the elevator up to his corner office on the ninth floor.
The depths of the paradoxes Aaron typifies are boundless and untamed. He just lives his life his own way, by his own rules, with unconscious disregard for what society says is acceptable while simultaneously holding reverence for the convention of the Universe. That is, after all, entirely aligned with the state of existence that is required to journey hundreds of miles by foot: balancing patience with impatience, collaboration with independence.
I saw Aaron a few more times over the next 115-ish miles to Flagstaff. Each time, he was blasé and unconcerned. “Yeah,” he’d say, “I’m good.” Meanwhile, carnage everywhere – injuries, blisters, dehydration, hypothermia, exhaustion, sleep deprivation. And there he’d be – like he’s strolling on a beach with steel drums calypso-ing in the background: laid-back, relaxed, merry. He would fling juxtaposing worlds like confetti, at everyone in his vicinity. I decided at some point in those hundreds of miles: Aaron is either insane or unafraid of failure, but more probably he is both.
I wondered if maybe that’s his recipe for joy; that elusive thing we are all chasing. And the ultimate reason why 250 brave souls showed up to face the unknown, over hundreds of miles across the Arizona desert – simply, in search of happiness. It seemed ironic, as I climbed Mount Elden to the finish line on that early May morning. It was dark and cold. Gaining 2,300 feet over rocky, boulder filled steps, with outcroppings and cliffs leading off into the cloud covered night sky. I hiked slowly with Becca, matching breaths to steps. Inhale, exhale. The mantra in my head: “just keep moving.” I could feel my lungs in my throat and the increasing dampness of my brim as beads of sweat found their way from my forehead into the folded flap of my cap.
Then, as I came over the other side of the peak, fierce winds gusted in my direction and in an instant I saw Aaron’s world. I understood something he would later tell me over the phone, something I had known all along; something about paradoxes. I found that place deep inside where meaning is made; that place where there is pain, that place where simultaneously all the beauty lives, that place where what “hurts me also blesses me.” That place on top of that mountain, after days and nights enduring and hundreds of miles traversing, with the wind in my face and exhaustion consuming every ounce of my being… that place where nothing but the fullness of life resides.
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
On | Paradoxes - Fear
In one week I come face to face with one of my greatest fears. I will stand at the starting line of Cocodona, a 250-mile foot race across Arizona. And though I have done this race twice before, I am just as afraid. Maybe this time I am even more afraid.
Climbing to the Coconino Plateau during Cocodona250 2021
To be alive is to suffer. It is to struggle and face hardship. These are spaces that hold the source of all the magic.
In one week I come face to face with one of my greatest fears. I will stand at the starting line of Cocodona, a 250-mile foot race across Arizona. And though I have done this race twice before, I am just as afraid. Maybe this time I am even more afraid. I have a chilling fear deep in my soul.
But that’s because I have seen the truth. I have reverence and respect for the sacred space I am about to enter. And I understand the paradox. I know now that fear is the closest feeling there is to awe. They are one in the same. And as much as it scares me, I must go that way.
Cocodona250 start line in Black Canyon City, AZ
I have to chase what I am afraid of because everything painful is also beautiful. And fear is not the obstacle. It is the way. Two halves of the same existence: fear and awe. And yet, like so many other lessons in life, before I came this way, unwillingly, I thought I could avoid everything that hurts. And then I learned the truth…
That to be alive is to suffer. It is to struggle and face hardship. And that those spaces hold the source of all the magic. When I question every ounce of my being, I am forced to become, to grow. I become free to come fully into my being.
I didn’t know this… until my son died four years ago. He was seven and a half. And I couldn’t pick myself up off the floor. I didn’t know then that what hurts us also blesses us. I, like so many, thought the goal of life was to find neverending comfort, ease; that somewhere out there for me was endless joy and “happily ever after.” And then he died suddenly. Without warning. And the pain of chasing the facade of happiness transformed into the pain of seeking to heal my broken heart.
So I went in search of something. What? I had no clue. And over miles and miles and days and weeks, I grew. I changed. I learned. I evolved. Somehow by existing through the darkest parts of me, and seeking out something, anything to mend the pain of loss, I found something greater than I ever expected. I found that the hard things are not darkness. The hardest things are the source of truth in life. I learned that by breaking, we come back together different, realer, bolder, stronger. And the moments that hurt us most, if we can just hang on… and keep moving, will become the source of experiencing every beauty of this human existence.
Two years ago when I first showed up to this race, I had no idea what to expect. I fumbled and I failed. And I kept getting back up again. I was completely and forever changed.
And so I go back. To face what scares me, the paradox, the truth. Fear. And freedom.
Cocodona, I can’t wait for you to consume me, beat me, destroy me… believe in me, love me and build me.
In one week.
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
A doorway to growth along the hallway of life
The last final words on goals.
If you made it this far, you now know a few magical things about effing goals: they suck. And they are completely amazing, too.
The last final words on goals.
{In case you missed it: How we got here. Eff Goals | They are just lines on paper anyway, If not goals, then what? and Goals are not the destination.}
If you made it this far, you now know a few magical things about effing goals: they suck. And they are completely amazing, too.
The long and short of setting goals - do these things:
Do get curious. Do not take your goal at face value. Ask questions and understand why that goal? Look the goal in the eyes. And ask the goal: what will you uncover for me in this struggle to become who I want to be? How do you help me find my purpose?
Do make your goal an aid station. By that I mean, your goal is not the finish line. There is no finish line. This adventure goes on ad infinitum. So instead, look at it as a tent in the woods along a super crazy long race, where you get to eat all the tacos and potato chips, drink some yummy delicious electrolyte beverage, and sit down just long enough to gather yourself, tend to your blisters and then get back out there.
Do go after that goal with everything inside you, and if you fail: good. Try again. Choose another goal. The point is to keep getting back up. Pick another door to walk through.
I recently interviewed Jeff Browning, a particularly successful ultrarunner. He has competed in over one-hundred ultramarathons and has won over seventeen 100-mile races. He is the 2nd most winning-est 100-mile runner in history, and knows a little something about setting and achieving goals. In reflecting on his career, he noted, “I think we all have unique gifts and if we follow what we are passionate about, then the gifts reveal themselves. Slowly, maybe…later in life;” but the point is to follow what pulls you, and if you follow that, and stay true to who you are, who you want to be, the gifts unfold in extraordinary ways.
Browning continued, “it’s like every goal or experience in our life is a door along a hallway. Our job is to choose the next door and walk through it. Whatever lies on the other side is what we have to live through; and that will inform you for the next door. The point is to live out whatever goal, pick up the learnings and choose another door.”
When I started running, someone told me: “It’s not that running gets easier, it’s that you get stronger.” And that applies as much to life and horizontal bar charts {read Part 1 on Eff Goals}, as it does to the sport of running. It is the showing up that matters. It is the learning and growing and failing and getting back up, each and every time, that matters. Every time I achieve a goal, I get stronger on the path to becoming who I am meant to be, who I dream of becoming. I don’t ever reach the destination, I just get stronger in the pursuit. {***head exploding emoji}
As I have heard it said: Live the life that unfolds before you.
If the goal is aimed at becoming who I want to be, then all I have to do is go after it with everything. Go after the failure. Walk through the door. And love it because failure is the learning for the next goal; the next doorway in the adventure to uncover more about who I am becoming; to choose more of who I want to be. And every goal is a chance to succeed or fail, but either way I will be learning and growing towards something else, something perhaps bigger than I ever dreamed.
If not goals, then absolutely… goals. It is in the setting and accomplishing of none other than goals that I find out who I am meant to be in this lifetime.
So eff goals. I freaking love them.
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
To know thyself
Find yourself. Uncover who you truly are. Then be that. Always. And fight that damn battle. Bring the gifts to the world that only you can bring: truly, authentically, bravely.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is to fight the hardest battle... and greatest accomplishment.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The lesson I wished I learned.
Find yourself. Uncover who you truly are. Then be that. Always. And fight that damn battle. Bring the gifts to the world that only you can bring: truly, authentically, bravely.
Maybe it’s cringy. (My girls tell me I am this often.) But heck, if this isn’t the truest thing there is in this existence. And it only took me half a lifetime to learn it.. and I learned it, not by unearthing it for myself, but by searching for answers for my child. (Hmm... Funny how that works out. Doesn’t it go like: “children are our greatest teachers?”) And yet, THIS thing I learned for my kiddo is also one of the most significant lessons of my lifetime, and the thing I wish I knew as a child.
Not long ago, a particularly evolved and mystical, stoic rabbi let me in on the “secret” of parenting. (Perhaps that seems far-fetched, but let me assure it, it is not. He is real. He is a rabbi, teaches virtue and philosophy and also has a black belt in karate. Incredible. Right?! And he may well be most qualified to teach a little something about being a parent with that resume.) In two sentences, he blew my mind apart and taught me the all of everything that we are called to do as a parent... and in life. He said, simply:
“Your job is to help your child get to know herself. And that’s it.”
That’s it? The instant he said this to me, I felt my body exhale. Goes like: “Waiiiiitttttt a minute. For reals??”
I felt like the wizard had just been exposed from behind the curtain. And not like trickery, but instead, like freedom: one deep, giant breath. The illusion of what I “thought” I needed to do as a parent fell completely apart. You mean, all I am called to do, is help my child uncover who she is? My job isn’t to protect her? Or push her? Or control what her life looks like? Or have her become some (as I define it) successful human? Nope.
I thought I was failing…
... my child, me, society and everyone else in between because it just all felt so damn hard all the time. Like I was going to misguide this little human creature... all because I had no idea what I was doing, all because I was striving to provide, protect, teach, guide, blah blah blah... all the extra jobs I was throwing gluttonously on my already full plate of expectations, assumptions, self-criticizing. And then, poof. Gone.
Who is she?
Let me say the same damn thing a slightly different way: I am here to help her uncover who she is because the core of all that matters in this existence - is that we find ourselves, our true selves. And THEN... love whoever we encounter there, in the depths of our souls. And that we live the life as that human; no one and nothing else.
To Know Thyself
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
Goals are not the destination
Nope, sorry - there is no Utopia or happily ever after when you reach it. The goal is the next important door to be walked through, the lesson to be learned, strength to be gained.
{In case you missed it: How we got here. Eff Goals | They are just lines on paper anyway and If not goals, then what?}
The first most important thing about goals: ask questions. Yo, you goal - yeah you. The pretty one with all the allure - why you? Where are you taking me on this journey to become who I want to be in this lifetime?
Then once that pesky goal has given you a straight answer on part one, it's time to drop into the second most important thing about those damn {beautiful} goals: you must go after that goal with everything inside you - knowing it is not a destination.
The goal is not a destination. Nope, sorry - there is no Utopia or happily ever after when you reach it. The goal is the next important door to be walked through, the lesson to be learned, strength to be gained. And if you fail in pursuit of that crazy goal, well good because then that was entirely the point, to gain something new and to set off in search of the next goal.
In college I wanted desperately to be a fine arts major. I wanted to immerse myself in the creative. I longed to write and paint and bring beauty into the world. I felt called and compelled to do life differently than pursue a “successful” career in some profession where my worth was attached to how well I could out intellect people. So naturally, I did exactly the opposite of what that internal voice called me to do. I majored in finance. The message I picked up was: money is success and your degree will determine whether you make money. The arts will never get you there.
I designed my life around the goal. I took one drawing class. I dabbled in some courses in philosophy and language. I traveled abroad, all under the guise of “electives.” Deep down, I was searching for a way to make my goal of a degree in finance somehow align with finding a career more attuned with who I wanted to become. I just didn’t know it at the time. And since all the exploring seemed haphazard, I eventually just put my head down on a goal I didn’t truly care about, with the promise from the ether, that once I achieved the finance-thing, I’d be good.
In my stubbornness, I graduated with honors. I got a fancy job at a fancy finance firm. And by all accounts, I achieved the goal. I arrived at that destination. I was successful, right? There I was, twenty-two with this high paying job, traveling and living the life of high finance. But I hadn’t arrived anywhere. I landed on a horizontal line somewhere and I had it wrong. I made that goal the destination. And when I landed there I fell over. I had nothing left in the tank to keep going on the path because I had no idea where that particular goal was leading. I had no idea where my compass was pointing. I couldn’t understand that achieving that goal was meant to just be a stop along the route to something much, much bigger; aims along the path, to get me to who I am becoming. Goals are the reprieve. They are the moments to exhale, inhale and begin again. It didn’t feel like a reprieve. Not at all. It felt like a wall.
And so, it couldn’t last. I didn’t have the heart for the work. I couldn’t simply put on some damn harness and scale my way over that wall. I didn’t care enough. It wasn’t me. So two years in, I left. I gave up on that goal. I gave up on the newly-minted “successful” career in finance. Kerplunk. A failure. I reached a goal and there was no exhale, no inhale, no clear next goal to get me to who I want to be. I didn’t know who I wanted to be in that world; I just simply knew I didn’t want to be in that world, at all. So the story goes: blow it all up. Walk away. Try something different.
I needed to learn the next most important thing about setting goals - that they are not destinations. And that it is entirely ok to not get it right, to fail, to change course and to pick up the next goal more aligned with who I want to be.
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Artwork by Becca Williams
Peonies and the raven
I wonder sometimes – how or if I might be remembered when I die. Goes something like: will I be remembered for the things I did? the “stuff” I leave behind? or maybe even, more righteously, the way I loved and how I made others feel?
I wonder sometimes – how or if I might be remembered when I die. Goes something like: will I be remembered for the things I did? the “stuff” I leave behind? or maybe even, more righteously, the way I loved and how I made others feel?
Perhaps.
But the truth is, when it comes down to it, I just don’t think I will be remembered. At least, not years after I’m dead and gone. And no, this is not some sad sob about being forgotten, not at all. It is a recognition of “what’s the point?” and perhaps maybe a call... to do this life differently.
To live life here and now. To stay true to myself. To uncover who I am: truly, deeply. And then to fight the battle and to teach my children to do the same.
And here’s why: it is all there is.
The other day I met a woman, who was taking out her trash as I was coming down the street, motivating to kick up my feet from a slow walk to pathetic jog. Despite me putting my headphones in my ears as I approached her house, she looked up and asked in a calm, inquisitive voice: “what do your tattoos mean? Or are they simply art?”
I was rather caught by surprise. Life was feeling so damn hard, thick, heavy, uncomfortable. My eyes felt weary and wet. And here was this random older woman asking me about my tattoos? Hmmm. {ok, Universe.} “Um,” I paused then started rattling off an explanation, some sort of validation for the permanence of the ink on my body.
“They mean various things... these peonies are my mom’s favorite flowers. The raven is a connection the spiritual world, where my son is. And the desert, well, I go there to heal.”
“Ah...” she responded, closing the lid to the trash can and looking directly at me, peering into my eyes. “You know you are going to see him again, right? I mean, we are here such a short time: seventy, eighty, maybe ninety years... and then you will spend an eternity with him.”
I could feel the tears welling in my eyes. Tears, because she was right...we are here for a short time. I am on earth for such a short lifetime. This, one of the innumerable paradoxes of life. It feels like a long time, and then suddenly, it will end. And all the things I think matter, will be gone. They will die with me.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
“Yes,” I cleared my throat and wiped a tear.
“It’s just that this week has been really hard. Humans. We just, we just... don’t communicate well and its hard: this human experience.”
I was feeling an overwhelming sense of - what’s the point-ness. She nodded, acknowledging me with a kind look and added “well, when people hurt us, it is because they are hurt. When we are wronged by someone, it is because the wound inside them is big, or at least, bigger than ours, especially in that moment.”
I could feel my tears filling my heart, warming my face from the inside. “Are you a human?”
I could not believe I had to ask her, but this just felt so extraordinary. How did she know what I needed to hear? How could she see into my heart? “Or maybe you are an angel?”
She chuckled, “Gee, I hope not.”
I spent the next 40 minutes on Cheryl’s porch, chatting. For that day, a conversation with a random stranger, dropped in my path for a very particular reason, felt more important than miles on the shoes and before I left, she left me with words I am known to proclaim. She said “you know, all there is, is love.”
She paused and added “the rest is, just really, an illusion.”
And with that, I could see clearly: the Universe speaking loudly for me to pay attention. “Here are YOUR words. You have everything inside you.”
We all do. And that’s the thing of it, why it matters to find ourselves, and be that, be whoever that is. I get stuck in my humanness and the ways I feel hurt by others, misunderstood by those closest to me. In those moments, it feels not ok to be me. It is painful. And that pain is real. Except, as Cheryl reminded me, none of that is about me, actually. {Wow, ok Universe. Listening.}
Perhaps, then, my duty, the entirety of why I am on this earth, this battle of the human existence, is to just be me. And to let go of every other thing. Every other damn thing... and in so doing also allow others to be themselves, as much as that sometimes that also feels like a battle.
To let the wildflowers be the wildflowers. And the trees be the trees. And the rocks be the rocks. To understand that each plays a distinct and meaningful role on this earth.
Because we each have everything we need. And when we are gone, all we leave behind is love.
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Written by Courtney Sawyer
Artwork by Becca Williams
If not goals, then what?
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
Henry David Thoreau
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
-Henry David Thoreau
{In case you missed it: How we got here. Eff Goals | They are just lines on paper anyway.}
I am going to get right to the point: if not goals, then what?
This might surprise you. The answer is: Goals! That’s what! {WTF? Me, and maybe you, too: scratching head. How can it be a big ex-nay on the goals thing only to hooray for goals? I promise I will get there.}
“My commitment is to truth, not consistency.”
And before I go down the wandering path, here's the point: First, you must ask questions of your goals. You must inquire of the goal, that bright shiny object: why you? Where are you taking me on this journey to become who I want to be in this lifetime? And second, and maybe most importantly, you must go after that goal with everything inside you - knowing it is not a destination. It is the next important door to be walked through, the lesson to be learned, strength to be gained. And if you fail, that was entirely the point, to gain something new and to set off in search of the next goal.
I learned all this the hard way. I gave goals the middle finger. And I committed whole-heartedly to a deep “throw out goals in search of something else;” and here’s what actually happened: I found a deep and true love of goals. I mean, totally and completely fell madly head over heels in love with them; nope, not the frenemy kind. And it was entirely and completely, magic. The Universe is that.
Maybe you’ve been there. It happens a lot. When I put these bold statements, reflections, out into the world, especially when they come in the form of uncomfortable judgements, criticisms, comparisons like: “eff this” and “screw that” proclamations. Then the Universe quietly gets to work. I question my beliefs; I unload the dirty laundry about my judgments; and I come face to face with how scared I am. I search for the source of that fear.
Then, suddenly, like what happens when the Wizard is revealed behind the curtain, I open myself to see the world and my “eff it” mentality in a totally different way. Crazy how that happens. Suddenly: wham-o, right in the face, some sort of realization like the door that hits me on the way out of the building. The Ah-Ha! My disdain transforms into love. But it takes work. And the willingness to fail. {Which is entirely ironic because if you read Part 1 of this whole meandering, then you know I am deeply afraid of failing. Hmm.}
Fear and failure. Disdain and contempt. A willingness to see things differently. The humility to question my judgments.
Then suddenly, something totally and completely new.
{Which we will dive in to in our next Goals musing.}
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
On | Trust and Surrender
“Try something different – surrender.”
-Rumi
“Try something different – surrender.” - Rumi
Trust and surrender. That is the only way through.
I used to believe that I needed to be able to “control” my way through things in life; like I had any control. But somewhere along the way, I learned that the only way to survive hard things unscathed is to trust and surrender.
To trust that whatever it is, it is exactly how it needs to be.
To surrender to whatever is happening and to just keep moving forward.
I sometimes get so caught up when things feel uncomfortable, when pain sets in. When something feels hard or different than what I expected. I resist. I fight. I imagine this is some survival instinct: to try to maintain what is. But the truth is – the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. And the only way to survive the constancy of change, is to just freaking let go already, to stop fighting and to start loving.
Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams
On | Anything is possible
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
-Vincent Van Gogh
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
-Vincent Van Gogh
Anything is possible.
Really, truly.
But here’s the big catch: any big thing is only possible because of a tiny, fleeting thing. That is, that for just a moment, I believe maybe I could; that maybe I have what it takes.
We each have that little spark inside us from time to time.
And once the tiny seed of belief is planted - truly, without doubts or reservations, I find there is often nothing else left to do, except to take a small aligned action and let inertia do its thing: commit to a plan of small things, and do those things day in and day out. And if I do that, suddenly, without notice, I become the person capable of showing up and achieving the “anything;” the anything that became possible because of a tiny, fleeting thing.
“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
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Written by Courtney Sawyer
Art by Becca Williams