AMA with AMA: Answering YOUR questions!
Rituals + Advice I Didn't Follow + Making a Life Change... and the future of AMAs!
Dear Kula Diaries,
It’s Wednesday, which is the day that I try and release my AMA - ‘Ask Me Anything’. The Kula Diaries Vault is the place where you can ask me… well… anything. Each week, I peruse the list of questions (which is quite long at this point!)… and I select a few to answer. It’s been really enjoyable to answer them, and I sometimes feel like I’m getting to live my childhood fantasy of being Ann Landers, the advice columnist. A quick reminder…
Please keep in mind… I am not a therapist. These are my words, opinions, and advice. Please use curiosity while reading them and take what works for you, and feel free to ditch anything that doesn’t. Above all things — trust yourself more than anybody else (including me).
With that, let’s get to this week’s questions!
Dear AMA,
What is a ritual you have?
It probably won’t surprise anybody here that I have a somewhat exhaustive list of random ‘rituals’. I’ll try to share as many of them as I can remember without simultaneously making myself sound like a complete weirdo — which will likely be nearly impossible. I’ve been a strange creature of habit for as long as I can remember, and I think that certain things bring me a level of comfort and familiarity, no matter where I am. I’ve also found that prioritizing things that I enjoy is very important to maintaining a sense of peace and stillness in my life. It’s easy to trick ourselves into thinking that we would be more productive if we skipped things — but I’ve found that without these things, my sense of well being typically decreases.
So, here goes:
Morning walk - I rarely skip this, although sometimes I do. I don’t talk. I don’t listen to anything. I just walk. Up and down the hill. If I’m not at home, I’ll walk wherever I am. I usually do this alone. Often, it is the only point during the day when I don’t have to answer questions or make decisions — so it feels like I’m easing myself into the day… instead of throwing myself into it. I am not the type of person who can set an alarm for 10 minutes before I need to be somewhere. For me, the morning walk is part of a lengthy process that lays out my welcome mat for the day ahead of me.
Push-ups - I have a 6 day per week push-up habit, that I will skip on occasion (if I’m feeling particularly lethargic), but I rarely miss it. I do 60 push ups in the morning after my walk … then 20 push ups before my shower… and 20 before bed. A few years ago, on my intuitive eating journey, I quit doing intense workouts because I was doing them in an unhealthy way and I resolved to do exercises that I really enjoyed. I’ve always loved push-ups (they were always my best score on the police fitness test!), so I started doing 10 per day… and gradually, over the course of almost a year, built up to doing 100 per day. I don’t have plans to increase that number, so I stick to my 600 push-ups per week, and I feel like that’s pretty significant.
Dancing - I dance every single day. Even if it is just for one song, I find a way to do it. On January 1st, I celebrated three consecutive years of dancing — which is 1,095 consecutive days. I never started my Dance Experiment with the intention of dancing every single day … I just wanted to see what happened. Now, dancing feels like brushing my teeth - I can’t imagine a day without it!
Pizza and Cookie Night - As I am writing this weekly AMA on a Sunday evening, I’ve just finished eating homemade pizza… and my weekly Kula Cookie is baking in the oven. ‘Pizza and Cookie Night’ has become a weekly ritual for my husband and I, and we are pretty devoted to it. I make homemade dough every few weeks (and freeze the extra)… and on Sundays or Mondays, we pull out the pre-measured dough, defrost it, and make homemade pizzas. I usually cook all the toppings (mine: bacon, mushroom, onion, olive, peppercini, and bell pepper … Aaron’s: sweet potato, bell pepper, bacon and pepperoni)… and Aaron rolls out the dough into a wonky shape. Currently, I’m using this recipe for pizza dough: Roberta’s Pizza Dough. I recently purchased the Italian 00 flour mentioned in the dough, but I had previously made the entire recipe with all purpose flour and didn’t really notice a huge difference. I also add some honey into the yeast/water/olive oil mixture.
The cookie is something that I have mentioned many times before, and a desert that I look forward to every single week. This week, we are doing my current favorite preparation of the cookie - the Chocolate Cookie Mash Up, which is a mix of a whole wheat chocolate chip oatmeal cookie and my Kula Chocolate Chip Cookie. Once baked, I let it cool… and then eat it with a miniature knife on a plate. I’m not sure if this is ritualistic or not (I think it is)… but I simply cannot enjoy eating the cookie in any other way. In fact, the conditions must be perfect in order for me to enjoy the cookie… otherwise I’ll postpone it - ha! If we have company over and we aren’t able to do our ‘normal’ pizza and cookie night routine… I won’t just eat a cookie for the heck of it. It decidedly looks a bit odd to sit and eat a chocolate chip cookie in front of other (unsuspecting) people with a small, golden knife (haha!). It’s definitely a somewhat sacred ritual — I suppose if there is anything that I want to be ritualistic about … a cookie seems like a really good reason.
Meditation - I don’t know if this is necessarily a ‘ritual’, but it’s a daily practice. It doesn’t always look the same. Some days, I do a simple 1-minute meditation. Other days, I will do a longer meditation. I always try to incorporate some visualization and/or recitation of a few poems that I’ve written that help me stay focused on the things that I want to create. Often, I do a meditation in the morning, but sometimes I do them at random times throughout the day, if I feel like it would be helpful for me.
Overall, I would say that I’m a pretty ‘routine’ person — I do a lot of the same things on a regular basis, but I don’t have too many rituals that would be surprising (minus the hobbit knife that I use to eat my cookie - ha!). I am a genuine believer in doing what works best for you, sometimes I’ll change things up when I feel like my energy is a little ‘stagnant’. Mostly, I try to be OK with letting go of practices that I don’t resonate with anymore… and staying open to trying new things.
Dear AMA,
Have you ever gotten advice that didn't resonate with you?
“You can’t make a living doing what you love.”
“All businesses always fail.”
“You can’t sell 10,000 Kula Cloths.”
“Nobody is going to buy that. You need a Plan B.”
“Nobody will buy a pee cloth with art on it.”
“A pee cloth with art on it is overkill.”
“Businesses aren’t ever profitable in their first year.”
“People won’t buy that when they can just use a bandana.”
“You won’t be able to sell anymore when the market is saturated.”
Every single one of those quotes is a direct piece of well-meaning advice from another person who wanted to chime in during the early days of my journey with Kula Cloth. Some of the comments were made prior to the birth of Kula… others were made during the creation process… and, still others, were made after the product already existed. In the very early days of an idea, it is much more fragile — and I was much more receptive to people’s advice. Afterall, I was terrified… so I needed to be worried about everything… didn’t I? As people peppered me with their fears about the dream that I had to leave my job and begin a career in the outdoor industry, I began to carry those fears around with me. Fear is heavy enough to carry on your own… let alone hauling around everybody else’s fear too. My near death experience taught me that fear was an illusion — created in my mind. Afterall, I had experienced absolutely no fear in a moment of facing my own mortality. So why, when contemplating something so unbelievably miniscule in comparison to that moment, did I feel paralyzed? I stepped away from the fear that I was identified with and I looked at it. The fear was compounded by an endless list of ‘what-ifs’, and I realized with shocking clarity: none of them were real. I was stuck in place because of a list of imaginary possible outcomes that had not happened.
As I looked more deeply at my own fear, I realized that the fear was not even really about starting a business — it was a fear of failure, a fear of disappointing the people who cared about me, a fear of lack, and a fear that I wasn’t good enough. With this recognition, I decided to consciously choose to look somewhere else — I decided to focus on the infinite abundance of the universe around me and within me. I ‘forced’ myself into performing ridiculous, daily exercises like sensing the energy and infiniteness of the sky… the stars… the cities and landscapes that surrounded me. I even spent time contemplating seemingly mundane things: I’d stand on a street corner waiting for a crosswalk light to turn and I’d try to contemplate the infiniteness in that moment — all of the people and life and energy that had to occur in order for everything in that place and in that exact second of life on earth to exist. The sheer vastness of even trying to grasp such a ‘normal’ moment of life is mind-boggling. I’d even go into Costco and look around at the insanely ridiculous amount of food available. I’d look at a palette of M&M’s and somehow I’d start to feel the abundance of the universe. This was only one palette of M&Ms… and I knew that there were a bajillion other Costco stores… and M&Ms in pretty much every grocery store and convenience store on the planet. Suddenly, the ideas of lack and saturation and limits were replaced by feelings of awe and abundance and infiniteness. My methods were a bit wacky, but bit by bit, I started to sense something other than the fears that I was being told to think about. I was starting to feel hope and possibility.
Fear keeps you stuck. Hope and possibility grease the wheels of creation and keep you moving, even when the world tells you that you are being irrational or foolish. And so, I kept moving. On each step of the way, more and more fears were handed to me, and I always had a choice: I could stop moving based on an unknown outcome that hadn’t yet happened… or I could believe that this was possible for me, without exactly knowing how. I’d take another step, and the fear would dissipate.
Along the way as a business owner, the fear has not gone away. It is still there — it just changes. And, the advice that I receive changes too. People no longer tell me that it’s foolish to start a pee cloth company or that ‘nobody will ever buy it’… but they do give me forewarnings about all of the other things I need to worry about. Sometimes I do worry, but I quickly recognize that there has never once been a situation in which worrying has been even remotely helpful. Being prepared isn’t a bad thing, but attempting to control the future by obsessing about preparations for an imaginary what-if scenario will keep you stuck in place. I’ve learned to accept advice for what it is… consider the source of that advice and how that person is living their life… genuinely thank them for caring and for coming from a place of love… and then, ultimately, trust my own heart to decide what is best for me and for Kula.
When I look at some of the advice I’ve received throughout the years — a lot of it has been great, but a lot of it has not been great. Advice is just that — advice. It’s not a fact. Just because somebody tells you something, doesn’t mean that it’s true. Above all things, trust yourself. Take time to listen to the stillness deep within and allow the questions to answer themselves in the quiet of your own heart.
Dear AMA,
What would you say to a friend who is thinking about making a radical life change? For example, something in the style of “Wild” or “Eat, Pray, Love.”
I genuinely believe in the power of uplifting others, even if I do not necessarily understand what they see for their own life. As I mentioned in the prior question, there were many people who did not understand my own life change, and many people decided to chime in and give me advice that was fear and lack-based. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that none of their advice was helpful or constructive. I don’t blame them for saying those things at all, because they were acting out of a place of fear in their own life and a genuine desire to help me — but it’s very important to realize that other people’s fears are not yours to carry.
So, if you have a friend who is considering a life change, I believe that supporting them and cheering them on is the most important thing to do. Ultimately, they are going to come to the right decision for themselves, no matter what you say. We often think that we are ‘helping somebody’ by peppering them with questions and making sure that they know all the answers before they do something drastic… but I can assure you… if you are asking them a question about something you feel fearful about on their behalf, it is already something they have considered. When I first started Kula, people asked me ridiculous questions about my ‘Plan B’ and my ‘Business Plan’ and ‘How are you going to make money’ — and while I completely understand why they asked these questions… they were asking them as if these were things I had not yet considered. When you make a drastic life change, just getting to the point where you are genuinely considering jumping off into the abyss of the unknown is a tangled mess of trying to climb through all of the fears that you’ve been saddled with your entire life. I guarantee you that your friend has contemplated all of these things… and more. I can also say, as somebody who has made a drastic life change, that you cannot possibly know all the answers before you do something. Needing to know all the answers is what keeps most people stuck.
Ultimately, the best thing you can ever do for another human is to give them love. You don’t have to agree with their decision or understand it — but you can still love them. Nothing you say is going to ‘save’ them. They are going to need to jump into the water and figure it all out for themselves. There is not one piece of advice that I’ve ever received that was fear-based where I looked back a year or two later and thought, “Wow, I should have listened to so- and- so.” In fact, when I look back on those bits of advice, my overwhelming feeling is that I’m glad I didn’t listen to them… because the most beautiful parts of my life have been created as I walked through and past the fears that kept me stuck for most of my life. Even when I’ve experienced challenges and obstacles along the way — I’ve never been regretful of my path, because it has always led me to a place of more growth and understanding. I’ve learned to let go of worrying about imaginary ‘what-ifs’ and started trusting myself that I’m going to be able to handle things, as they arise, in the moment.
So, if I were going to say something to a friend who was about to embark on a drastic life change, I’d probably say this:
I don’t know what you are about to experience in your life, but I know that you are infinitely brilliant and that you’ll be able to handle everything that arises in the moment. You are about to embark upon an adventure into the unknown and I’m sure it will be challenging and beautiful and exciting… and I know that you will figure it out. I am here to support you, cheer you on, uplift you and most of all, love you, for exactly who you are.
Receiving a message of encouragement like that would be an uncommon jewel in a sea of doubters and eye-rollers. I promise you… your friend will carry those words in their heart, and they will go a lot further towards helping them than anything else you could ever say.
Dear AMA,
What would you write about on Wednesdays if you ran out of AMA questions?
Currently, there are 167 questions total in the Kula Diaries Vault — I’ve answered a lot of them, but if I limited myself to 1 question per week, I’d have more than enough for an entire year worth of AMAs. That being said — it’s pretty obvious that I have a hard time limiting myself to only one question (ha!)… so I usually try to do at least a few of them per week.
If I were able to answer all of them… and if nobody else asked another question ever again, then I would trust that it was time for the ‘AMA’ column to either go away… or morph into something else. I am a very go with the flow type of person, which means that I rarely waste my time trying to force something that feels like I’m swimming upstream with it. If something feels good and fun and organic and natural… I’ll go with it, but if I feel like I’m trying to make something happen because I think it has to happen… I’ll probably be open to other ideas.
Honestly, I’m not sure what that would be here in the Kula Diaries, but I would be really interested to see what that could look like. As I sit here writing this AMA, I think that sharing poetry… or music… or random ‘snippets’ of entrepreneur life would be fun. As the owner of a business, there are also a lot of very frequently asked questions that I receive on a daily basis, and it’d be fun to do a FAQ type of series. I also have written 4 of my ‘How to Create Anything’ posts — and I have a 5th one that I haven’t shared yet, so I’d like to finish writing that soon and share the entire series, since I have heard that folks have received a lot of benefit from the information. I also have a request in the AMA Question Vault for a post about Backpacking Basics information, and I would love to invest some time into writing that series as well.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been taking a very serious look at how I’m spending my time — and I have a very devout belief that it is most important to do the things that feel the best to me. If you look at the activities that you do on a daily basis, you can rate them (honestly) from 1-10… with 10 being something that you absolutely love doing… and 1 being something that you absolutely despise doing. While any given day is often a combination of numbers… I try to spend the majority of my focus on doing things that feel like 10s to me. And when I say 10s, I don’t mean leaving work for the day and flying to Tahiti and sitting on a beach (although that would definitely be a 10). I will honestly look at my work day and decide what feels the most exciting for me, and I’ll focus on those things first. For me, the things that usually feel the best are: writing, anything even remotely creative, designing products, writing poetry, etc…. Lately, I’ve been having a lot of fun writing in The Kula Diaries, editing my poetry book (I’m at least 20+ pages into it right now!), designing my new pair of shorts, and sending out sample packets to retailers.
All of this to say: I really love answering all of your questions, but if you don’t have any questions, I’ll definitely still find something to write about. To be completely honest, I just genuinely hope that The Kula Diaries and these AMA columns can be helpful in some way. If you have a question about anything that I might be able to provide some insight on, I really enjoy answering them. When I was first getting started with Kula, I had to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. I’m a person who has been stuck… had no idea what to do… and I somehow managed to muddle my way through the mess. If I am able to use my own experience to help others, it means a lot to me. If you’re feeling stuck … or frustrated… or not sure what is next for you right now, it’s easy to feel really alone in that. There is something very important about knowing that others have been there before you… and that they’ve come out on the other side. Above all things, I hope that my words can encourage everybody that anything truly is possible, no matter what the rest of the world might tell you. I’m not going to tell you that you’re being unrealistic or foolish. People told me that a lot, and I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. You are a unique, precious and special being and you matter very much — the world is a better place as you bring your own unique goodness to the things that are important to you.
Friends, as always, thank you for being here. This entire column only exists because you submit questions, so I really appreciate you taking the time to write to me. All comments, suggestions, questions or queries can be submitted anonymously… if you’d like a response, please make sure to include your e-mail address. Thank you all so much for your support — may you have a joyful, peaceful and beautiful week!
Wonderful post! I just put my oldest two daughters on a plane and sent them back to college, so excited for their future. I took a screenshot of the advice you would give to anyone embarking on a big adventure and sent it to them. Those are beautiful words and that’s the kind of supportive mama I want to be for them 💕
Thanks again for another great Wednesday post! By the way - I think the miniature knife makes the cookie look enormous!