To those who tried to teach me such things
*I did not learn them
Dear Kula Diaries friends,
Over the past few years, I’ve really tried to use this lovely space to provide a tiny peek into my life as the founder of an outdoor gear company — but, more than that, I’ve wanted to use ‘all of this’ to help you find inspiration for your own path. As such, I try to share the whole experience of life… including my honest insights about the things that I’m doing to actively maintain my own personal sense of wellbeing and peace. Each of us has our worldly identity… i.e. what we do for a living, our hobbies, and our ‘story’ — but we also have something that is so much more: the eternal essence of beingness and love that lives within each of us. Oddly enough, through writing about my experiences as a founder, I’ve discovered that what really matters is not the things I do or boxes I check off, but rather, how I am when I am moving through the world, and the love that I bring to each moment.
I’ve discovered that, more than anything, the success of my business (and my life) is not dependent on metrics alone because unlimited value is available to each of us, when we step outside the realm of how we are ‘supposed to do things’. How do you calculate the return on investment of genuine love and care? And, more importantly, why would you want to? To prove that it is a good idea? Deep down, we know it is the right thing to do. We don’t need to prove it to anybody — we know, because we can feel it. My business and my life are more successful and abundant when I am living with an open heart. When I’m fearful and doubtful, my creativity and my business suffer. When I’m loving and kind and open, I flourish. It’s that simple.
As I’ve openly shared over the past few years, I’ve been on a bit of an internal journey (as we all are) to cultivate a deeper sense of peace in my life. This is not a sense of peace or belongingness that is based on what I do, but rather, on who I am.
A few years ago, as the stress of running a business snuck into my consciousness, my thinking got… well… sloppy. I let myself unconsciously run down unhelpful rabbit holes where I felt the constant irritation, frustration and disappointment of all of the accumulated negative self-talk that I could clump together. It was, in a word… exhausting. There were days where I, quite frankly, wanted to lobotomize myself so that I could get just a few minutes of a break from the incessant voice in my mind that was continually telling me about all of the things that I needed to worry about. This voice told me that if I didn’t think about these things, that something would go ‘horribly wrong’. As a result, I clung to the very things that I didn’t want to create in my life, and I tortured myself internally for a long time.
Luckily, with my meditation and dance practices, I had enough of a foundation to slowly start climbing my way out of the imaginary hole that I had climbed into. Most recently, I’ve been actively participating in two different coaching/mentoring programs that have vastly helped me to improve my wellbeing:
I participate in a weekly intuitive development course with a coach named Hasna Atry, who was the very first coach that I hired many years ago, pre-Kula.
I’m participating in the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Program, with the guidance of my coach, mentor and PQ Guide, Glory Dole.
This combination of intuitive trust + tangible skills to develop the neuropathways that assist with self-command of the brain have been a very powerful combination. Namely: I’m not wasting my time ruminating about imaginary scenarios, or wasting my time feeling irritated or frustrated about things that simply do not matter in the big scheme of things. I’ve also noticed that with my brain more open and clear, I have more space to be creative and to notice things that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen, if my brain had been closed off to the possibilities of life.
This past week, I went on a somewhat unexpected and spontaneous trip to Portland, Oregon to attend a fabric convention. I went into this event feeling very excited about whatever I might discover there. I was looking forward to seeing the different fabric vendors, but I discovered something else on our trip: when you are open to the love that exists in all moments, you see the entire world through a different lens. Namely, people and moments cease to exist as mere, ‘means to an end’.
In the morning, we ate breakfast at our hotel restaurant, which was very clearly understaffed with only one server. The server was a very kind individual, who was obviously stressed out about being the only person on duty. As I watched him work, with obvious care and attention to detail, I felt a strong pang of compassion for this random stranger, whom I had never met. I took the time to talk with him, and I tried to really listen to what he had to say: he was stressed out, but he also was friendly and explained to me the historical significance of one of the decorations that was hanging on the wall. I had no idea what his story was, or if our paths would ever cross again, but something about the experience left me feeling very grateful.
Once we made it to the event, I (naturally) found my way to the complimentary espresso bar. There were two baristas serving espresso, but one of the baristas — a man — was clearly in the midst of an unexpected espresso machine repair. With interest, I watched him carefully working on the broken machine and using delicate skill to repair it. I felt overwhelmed with a deep sense of appreciation for this man — a sense of reverence for his hard work and dedication to his job.
I don’t point out these tiny instances of gratitude in jest — instead, the feeling of deep love that I had for these individuals was not from a place of feeling sorry for them, but, rather, in true admiration for who they were and the journey they were on. It is so easy to miss these moments — particularly if we are caught up in our own minds — but, when you consciously activate the love within your own heart, you see that love reflected in unexpected places.
During one of my more recent coaching sessions with Glory, I did an exercise where I wrote down all of the things that my inner saboteurs told me — these are untrue, limiting beliefs that still pop up occasionally. These inner voices are cruel, and they say things that I wouldn’t say to anybody. In a spirit of complete transparency, I’m going to share my list with all of you. Perhaps some of these statements sound familiar, and perhaps you can relate to the painful sting of their unhelpful presence:
UGH.
As I wrote that list a few weeks ago, I felt a shudder run through my body as I penned the sentence, You are a loser. Suddenly, without warning, a distant memory that I had long forgotten bubbled up into my consciousness. I saw 5th grade me… buzz cut short hair… moving from North Carolina to Pennsylvania with my thick, Southern accent. I saw my first few days of school and the other kids, tormenting me with cruel words: Southern dork. She probably pees standing up. She looks like a boy. She’s a LOSER.
I gasped as I realized that these saboteur thoughts in my mind were, very clearly, not coming from me. They were not coming from any true place. They were fragmented remnants of the things that I had heard repeatedly (for years) as a young child. The bullying in my (ironically) Catholic school was so severe, that my parents ultimately removed me and homeschooled me. Over the course of my life, the bullying that I endured for several years as a kid, bloomed into a precious gift of empathy and compassion for others — and a deep desire to truly love all humans, even the ones that were not exactly like me. My years of being homeschooled offered me the opportunity to spend more time volunteering for the National Park Service, which eventually led to my job as a Park Ranger. I have no doubt that the creativity and independence that I developed during my years as a homeschool student were critical for paving the way in my ability to innovate as an entrepreneur. All of the things that I hold the most dear to my heart in my business — making love the priority — exist because of my experience being bullied as a child. The most challenging part of my childhood bloomed into one of the most beautiful gifts of my entire life.
After I wrote my list of untrue thoughts, I wrote down, I forgive myself for judging myself that… (and then I filled in the negative statement in the blank). Then, I declared, My new truth is that … and I wrote an entire list of truths — things that I felt and knew in my heart to be true and real… things that were not coming from a place of fear, lack or doubt:
I don’t think I’ll ever have life figured out, and I don’t think that’s the point. I think the point is that we’re always trying our best and learning and healing — walking our own unique path that brings us closer and closer to the love that exists within us. We’ve encrusted ourselves with a thick outer shell, and do you know what? That’s OK. It happens to everybody, and it is the chipping away of that shell that allows the light within it to shine through, and to touch everything that we do, and the people who we meet along the way.
A long time ago — in 1999, to be exact, I wrote a poem about my experience being bullied as a kid. I called the poem, TEASE, and I’ll share it with you now:
Many years later, in 2019, I wrote a sequel to the poem, in the midst of the early days of what I would consider my personal, ‘spiritual journey’:
Friends — thank you so much for being here! Each moment, each opportunity, each experience in this life is a gift. We might not know it right away, and we might experience a lot of pain — and if you do (or if you are right now), please know that you are doing nothing wrong. If you were the recipient of bullying as a child — my heart also goes out to you. It’s generally shocking to me (at the age of 44), that some of those hurts are still buried deep within — but I’m also deeply grateful for the experience, which provided the fuel for the love that I choose to focus my attention on today.
I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness in external places, and neglected the present moment. Instead, I was on the eternal quest for when… an imaginary future moment when things would be better. Ticking off boxes is a temporary balm… and true peace comes from the only place that ever exists: right now. Please know that the infinite love of the entire universe exists for you in this exact moment. See if you can feel it, if only for a moment — and take that feeling into your day… see what lights up for you. You might be surprised at how even the most ‘ordinary’ things are, in fact, quite extraordinary.
Sending you so much love, friends!
I got goosebumps hearing those poems!!
This piece is beautiful. Your poems resonate deeply. Thank you for being so courageously vulnerable!