A year of magical growth
in which I don't take things too seriously.
Dear Kula Diaries,
I celebrated my 44th birthday on October 1st — and while I don’t usually do anything ‘publicly’ to celebrate, I thought it would be fun to write a special birthday post, filled with a lot of things that bring me joy… little snippets of life over the past year, reflections, memories, and intentions.
A few days before my birthday, I had an appointment with my coach and mentor, Glory Dole, where we took the time to cultivate gratitude, reflect on the past year, and set a vision for the upcoming year. We both agreed that having a birthday is like celebrating a ‘personal New Year’ — a perfect time to wipe the slate clean and start again, with a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm.
When I reflect back on the past year, I’m struck by so many things that went right. There were also a lot of really challenging things, but I know in my heart that I handled them in the best way that I could — with integrity and kindness. In the past, I saw these ‘bumps in the road’ as, ‘things that went wrong’, or ‘a bad time for me’ — but I’ve started to be more open to the idea that there is truly no ‘good or bad’. As Shakespeare says, thinking makes it so. Being a business owner does not necessarily get ‘easier’ — there are new challenges every single week — but it does get more comfortable and familiar to step into the unknown. I don’t need to have a detailed set of instructions anymore. I know that I am creating the trail that I walk from the goodness within my own heart. With each step in a new direction, I trust my feet more and more. I know that I will always figure out the path ahead.
During our session together, Glory had me do a visualization of receiving sage advice from my future self. This was a strangely cathartic exercise — and I can’t explain it, other than that the wisdom I felt in that moment really did seem to come from a wiser, more knowing version of me. The advice was simple:
There is nothing to fear.
Let go and have fun.
Don’t take things too seriously.
Intuitively, I know this. Deep down in my heart, I know that this advice is true — and yet, it’s so easy to get caught up in the ‘proverbial rat race’ of life… always striving and pushing and needing and wanting and trying.
When I contemplate the moments of greatest growth and serendipity in my own personal life and business — they have not come during my moments of head-banging or trying hard. They have come during the moments when I really and deeply learned to trust myself. They have come in the moments when I have done something just because it felt fun to do… they have come in the moments when I felt inspired and creative… they have come in the moments when I felt loving and connected to all things. There is not one ounce of ‘efforting’ from a place of fear or doubt that has ever produced more than mediocre results for me. All of the magic that I have witnessed in my life, has come during the moments when I am able to genuinely embody the feeling of life itself within my own heart.
I told Glory that this year was going to be a year of Magical Growth for me. That I was going to trust my intuition and follow my excitement barometer a bit more. That I was going to do the things that inspired me, without questioning whether or not they were ‘realistic’ or whether or not they ‘made sense’.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that we are all equally capable of creating things beyond our wildest imagination. And I’m not talking about stuff here. I’m talking about creating our own unique expression of life in this world — whatever that is for each of us.
What does magical growth look like for me? To be honest, I don’t know all of the specifics of it, because magical growth is entirely about being open to the possibilities of anything. When I was a railroad police officer, I cast a somewhat vague vision for a career in the outdoor industry — without really knowing what it would look like. That openness is a place of fertile ground — soil made of stardust, where anything can bloom. In the garden of my heart, The Musical Mountaineers and Kula Cloth began to grow, and I’ve continued to nurture them over the past six years. I water them with love… I occasionally tend to weeds … and sometimes still, I take them for granted — like a garden that I planted months ago that has already been fruitful, and now I find myself feeling less open to the possibilities.
Just because a garden has bloomed, doesn’t mean it’s finished. New life is always sprouting and shifting and adjusting, and it is only when we can continually stay curious about the ever changing energy of life that we will allow that energy to flow and move. It’s easy to get into a repetitive pattern — day in and day out — doing the same thing, and for some strange reason … expecting different results. But you can’t get different or magical results if you continuously do the same thing.
And so that’s what I’m devoting — this 44th year of my life — to remembering. That magical growth is always possible, and that when I follow my intuition, without needing to know all of the answers, it will guide me on a beautiful path of my own creation. I don’t know what this looks like yet, but I also didn’t know what this path would look like back when I started. When you set an intention like magical growth, it’s easy to think that this is something that you need to go look for… or something that you need to find… or a set of specific step by step actions that you need to take. But that’s the thing — you don’t. It’ll find you. Your only job is to focus on how you feel… trust your intuition… and really believe that you’ll know it when you see it or feel it.
Aaron and I went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, The Krō Bär , for my birthday. After having an absolutely scrumptious and enjoyable meal, we walked outside and I saw a few groups of people excitedly taking photos of themselves. Considering that we were in downtown Bothell, Washington — I wasn’t sure what was so exciting… until I rounded the corner of the restaurant. Above us, was one of the most beautiful and vibrant rainbows that I have ever seen in my life.
A few days later, on my actual birthday, Aaron asked me what I wanted to do. “Eat a breakfast burrito on the beach,” was my response. And so, on the anniversary of the day of my birth — when, at 9:45 am on October 1st, forty four years earlier, I had made the decision to come into this world to stir things up a little bit just to see what happens — Aaron and I rode our motorcycles to one of our favorite parks… listened to the water gently lapping at the shore… and ate breakfast burritos.
There’s this incredible passage by Alan Watts that I’ve listened to over and over again — because it always makes me remember the miracle of life… the unfathomableness of this life — and the fact that each of us have the chance to make a ‘go’ of whatever it is we want to do. I want to share that with all of you, in the hopes that maybe it will remind you of the specialness of you and the specialness of this life that we all share together:
So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have.
And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be."
And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.
What a remarkable dream this is. It’s a dream that has included the multiplicity of anything and everything I can imagine, and I’ve genuinely loved all 44 years of it. I don’t know what this next year will bring — but I do know that I can choose to be who I want to be in this moment. I can choose to connect to the love within me. I can choose to trust the universe — that things will work out. And maybe that’s the biggest gift of all — that, after forty-four years of life on this planet, I really do — finally — believe in myself.
Friends — thank YOU so much for being here and for reading The Kula Diaries. It truly is such a gift to me to have gotten to know so many of you and to be able to share my little stories on a weekly basis. I am wishing all of you a beautiful week — filled with ease, peace and abundance.
Happiest of birthdays to YOU! I miss you, friend! ❤️
Happy birthday!!! The 1st was also our pup Riley's birthday!
The rainbows on your birthday were so beautiful! Earlier in the day I thought it was definitely rainbow weather. I got to see them from Ballard! We were waiting for access to a rehearsal space and had the most beautiful show to pass the time. It kept getting better and better!
My birthday is at the end of June and I've always loved the fact that it's 6 months into the year. Such a great way to reflect on the year so far and the year to come.