• Riding the Bus of Life

    • April 7, 2010 9:05 am

    Dearest Readers,

    The city of Vancouver feels a lot quieter now that the Olympics have left town. There are signs everywhere indicating that the mammoth event did, in fact, take place here, but the incredible buzz that existed during that time is gone.

    What has remained, however, beyond the advertisements and the architecture and the infrastructure, is the connection between the people, the conviviality, and the sense of familiarity that comes when folks have shared something special and so cease to be strangers.

    When I was here in February in the very midst of the Olympic frenzy, I blogged about this connectivity because the experience was so heartening. I remember posting on Facebook something like, “The Olympics is making people talk to each other on the bus! No one talks on the bus!”

    Well, that’s how I know that the city has undergone a true transformation. The global party has changed Vancouverites in an enduring and lasting way because yesterday, on the bus, a woman not only spoke to me but practically became my new best friend.

    Although I’ve become more and more familiar with this city I’m still not totally sure of how to get from A to Z. I got on the bus last night heading to my destination without a really clear idea of what route I should take. When I asked the bus driver, who it turned out didn’t know, a woman sitting near the front piped up with the directions.

    After depositing the fare, I moved up to where the woman sat with her young son and she explained to me how best I could get to where I was going. I thanked her and then her son showed me his Easter rabbit, a small bunny made from plastic crystal snowballs with pink felt ears and black wire whiskers.

    The boy and I began to have a conversation and his mother would join in occasionally, the three of us engaging with one another as though we’d known each other for years. The woman told me I should get off the bus with them at the next stop and then they’d walk a block with me to the transfer point. She was happy to show me the way.

    We got off the bus and continued yakking the way people who are not strangers do. Just then, the woman saw my bus and said I should run for it. I did, waving and thanking her, the boy still talking to me as I ran, shouting after me about his love for dragons, waving back with his little bunny clasped in his hand.

    Now, would this story have happened just has easily if the Olympics had not taken place here? Of course it is possible. Friendly people are everywhere. But it is this familiarity that I feel here now, this sensation of true camaraderie that comes when a group of people have been through something BIG together, that makes this encounter more than just your average everyday friendliness.

    After I got on the second bus and reflected on what had just happened I thought to myself that I should have given that woman my business card or at least asked her if she was on Facebook. It seemed a shame to lose touch so soon after we’d become friends.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: We are all strangers to each other until we are not. It doesn’t take much for us to connect to one another, to remember that we are, in fact, all here on this planet together. Familiar, connected, friends.

    20/20 Vision

    • April 6, 2010 11:59 am

    Dearest Readers,

    They say hindsight is 20/20 and that perfect understanding of an event occurs only after it has happened. I experienced this form of awareness-after-the-fact last night after posting yesterday’s blog.

    There I was, writing about beauty, mystery and Spirit and what a magnificent world we live in and I was in a total fit of temper. I was completely exhausted, the cat was crying incessantly, it was getting later and later and I had to get up super-early to catch a plane. All of this was making my blood boil as I composed an Inspiring Blog!

    It wasn’t until after I fell into bed that the irony of the situation smacked me right between the eyes. How could I have expected to inspire others when I was feeling so uninspired myself? Am I a fraud for even attempting to do so?

    Perhaps. But perhaps not.

    Apparently Mother Teresa experienced profound doubt and depression during her long life of service. Did that lessen the effect she had on the people she was caring for? I don’t think it did.

    Believe me, I’m not comparing myself to Mother Teresa but I am interested in the idea that we can still help people when we are feeling helpless ourselves.

    I once heard a story that Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, was in a very deep state of depression when he wrote one of the organization’s most helpful books. Has this stopped the book from helping millions of suffering drunks? No.

    But can we really be effective in service to others regardless of our own personal grief? I think Mother Teresa and Bill W. proved that we can. There was a time in my life when I believed that this wasn’t possible, that only the purest of healers could heal. Today, I’m letting go of that rigid way of thinking.

    Last night, while I was writing that blog, I was genuinely trying to create something inspiring. I was making an authentic attempt. The fact that I was not feeling completely inspired while writing it is then rather beside the point. Isn’t it?

    The amazing thing about all of this is that the blog ended up changing how I felt. As I lay in bed reflecting on all of the above, I remembered the Inspiring Message of the Day that I’d just composed. It helped me to connect to the Big Picture, let go of my irritability and relax into a place of peace.

    Maybe that’s why hindsight is 20/20. If the thing has to happen for perfect understanding to occur then I needed this experience to figure it all out.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will continue to stay open to the idea that we can be of service to others no matter how we are doing ourselves. I don’t have to be perfectly healed to take part in the healing of others.

    Dance of the Spirits

    • April 5, 2010 10:09 pm

    Dearest Readers,

    Today’s post is being written at the end of the day instead of the beginning due to the fact that I was on the road this morning, traveling back to Whitehorse from Dawson city post-filmfest. I thought about not posting because it is getting late and I am tired but I have committed to posting six days a week for one year come hell or high water, so here I am.

    Last night, after the festival wrapped, I was lying in bed on the top floor of the inn where I was staying listening to the last few stragglers leave the festival building. I’d cracked open the window beside the bed to breathe in the fresh night air and sounds of laughter and footsteps crunching on gravel traveled up and into my room.

    I heard someone yell, “Look up!” and then an immediate cheer from a number of voices. I pulled up the blind and hauled open the window to see what had caused the shouting. I sucked in my breath. The whole sky was alive and dancing with ribbons of pink and green and white.

    The Aurora Borealis.

    I looked down to the street below to see the small crowd of friends gazing up in wonder at the light show. As everyone oohed and aahed, one of them began to play an accordion.

    Was I in a dream? Maybe a film.

    EXT. STREET — NIGHT

    A woman leans out a third-floor window, her chin resting in her hand. Below on the street, a man plays the accordion, softly singing a French lullaby. Above, the black night plays host to technicolour shards of swirling light.

    Maybe a short film.

    This is what Wikipedia tells me I saw: “Auroras are associated with the solar wind, a flow of ions continuously flowing outward from the sun. The Earth’s magnetic field traps these particles, many of which travel toward the poles where they are accelerated toward earth. Collisions between these ions and atmospheric atoms and molecules causes energy releases in the form of auroras appearing in large circles around the poles.”

    Yawn. I just call it magic.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Beauty! Mystery! Spirits! What a world, my friends. What a world!

    And the Oscar Goes To…

    • April 3, 2010 3:00 pm

    Dearest Readers,

    If you had the opportunity to meet someone who had won an Academy Award, wouldn’t you be tempted to ask him about it? Isn’t it something you’d be curious about despite the frivolity of it all? Come on, admit it. You’d wanna know. Wouldn’t you?

    Yesterday I attended a workshop here at the Dawson City International Short Film Festival with Chris Landreth, who won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2004. Mr. Landreth is a good speaker and an even better teacher and it was a super-informative session on psychorealism in animation and creative inspiration.

    When the time came for Q&A some of us asked questions about Landreth’s process and personal history and this created all kinds of further fascinating discussion. But not one person asked about the Oscar. So I put up my hand.

    “What’s it like to be the only person in a room who’s won an Academy Award?”

    Pause.

    “To be honest, that all feels like a really f%&$ing long time ago.”

    Oh. Okay. Was this a sensitive issue? Maybe not. Maybe he just gets tired of being asked about it. After all, who cares? Really. It’s just a gold friggin’ statue. Most winners keep it in the bathroom. Or on the top shelf of the walk-in closet. It’s totally meaningless in the Big Picture.

    But I pressed on.

    “You have to admit it’s a huge thing, though, and people want to hear about it, because the Oscars play such a big role in this industry.”

    At that point someone in the audience, a friend of Landreth’s called out, “What were you wearing, Chris?”

    After making a joke about his friend being a shill (a person deliberately planted in the audience to play along — I had to ask him later what he’d meant by that) Landreth admitted the Oscar had been a good thing, he’d had fun, he’d enjoyed it.

    Boy, was I glad. I had begun to feel like an arsehole for even asking about it. I’m a showbiz junkie, I admit it. I’ve got a whole mental filing cabinet of Oscar speeches ready to go. If it’s featherbrained to want to know how winning the biggest award in the entertainment industry has changed a person’s life then, yuppers, I’ve got feathers for brains.

    But come on, man. You won an Oscar. As a storyteller I’m like, hello! Great story opportunity, ya know? Tell us about it why dontcha!

    Sure, it gets tiring answering the same question all the time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, “So what was your inspiration for the idea behind XYZ?”

    It’s tempting to say, “Oh, God. That is such a boring question. Next!” But I have to remember that I’m in a different place each time the question is asked and the people in this particular audience haven’t heard the same answer I’ve given a thousand times. I consider it my job to be responsive and engaging.

    Don’t get me wrong. Landreth was all of that and more. I was just a little taken aback by the F-Bomb. But I put myself out there to ask the question he’s probably been asked a million times and that’s what I got. It was interesting.

    And he wore a black tux.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Nothing ventured, nothing gained, folks. And if I ever get a chance to use one of my Oscar speeches and you ask me about it later, I will do my best to give you the full story, even if it’s the 489th time I’ve been asked.

    Willing to Risk

    • April 2, 2010 10:07 am

    Dearest Readers,

    I’m in Dawson City, AKA Dodge, and the sky is clear, the air is fresh and the water tastes a little bit like sweet nectar. It’s a great place to be for the long weekend.

    Recently someone was asking me if I’m still leading the Cultivate Your Courage workshops and generally, when someone asks, it’s because he is hoping to take the workshop himself. This person in particular was struggling with the fear of expanding his business practice to new heights. We had a good chat.

    One of the things he asked me was, “How do you cultivate the willingness to take risks?” What a great question!

    The only thing I have to offer is my own experience. As I always say, “I’m an expert on that.” So how have I cultivated the willingness to take risks? As is most often the case, I’ve taken a deeper look at the underlying fear.

    Why am I afraid to take risks in the first place? Is it fear of failure? Fear of success? Both? Fear of making a mistake? Fear of exposure/being discovered (I’m really a fraud)?

    Once I understand which fear happens to be driving the bus I can then begin to work on walking through it, which will eventually lead to its decommissioning and my freedom.

    For example, if I am afraid that people will find out that I am, in fact, less than they think I am (which, in itself is a LIE, so best to fire positive affirmations at that one ASAP, i.e., I AM GOOD ENOUGH etc.), then what is perpetuating that Old Belief System (Old BS) in the first place?

    Perhaps I am carrying around some shame from my past. Something that I did, something that was done to me. So we gotta exorcise the demon! Get rid of it. Let it go for F&%$ sake! It is time.

    I’ve had a few crying/letting go sessions that have led to my finally releasing the shame burden(s) and what followed, not surprisingly, was a greater willingness to be seen.

    By “seen” I simply mean known. I’m not talking about exposure in the sense of going on a reality TV show to air dirty laundry. I’m talking about expanding my personal playing field, in business or socially, to encompass a wider spectrum.

    Today, I am able to “put myself out there” in a bigger way because I am no longer ashamed of myself and I am no longer afraid of being “found out”.

    If shame is not the issue and just-plain-and-simple-fear-of-making-a-mistake is, then I can look at that, too. Taking risks means making mistakes. I know mistakes will happen if I take a risk. It’s a given.

    So can I become willing to live with the feeling that comes when I make a mistake?

    Can I allow myself to be imperfect?

    Can I allow myself to feel uncomfortable/vulnerable/powerless?

    Can I do these things knowing the excruciating turmoil that comes from change will not last, it will not kill me and I will not die?

    Can I trust that I will come through the other side of this change with a greater sense of confidence in my abilities and a whole new (radical) level of self-esteem?

    Say “yes” and then stand back and prepare to be amazed.

    None of this stuff is easy, BTW, but all of it leads to greater and greater freedom. The freedom from fear is worth the pain of change.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I don’t have to change the Old BS in one day. I just have to become willing to be changed. The rest will come through opportunities that arise as a result of my willingness.

    Just Did It

    • April 1, 2010 7:04 am

    Dearest Readers,

    It’s a holiday weekend and I’m heading to Dawson City for the Dawson City International Short Film Festival. I’ve got a few things to pack, some folks to pick up and then we’re on the road, heading into Dodge.

    The DCISFF is a great fest altogether, as we’d say in Ireland. Great town, great people, marathon films of all calibres. I’m looking forward to it, not least because I have a film in the program this year, a 2-minute animation.

    There were ten filmmakers commissioned to create 2-minute films for the DCISFF’s 10th anniversary last year and I was lucky enough to be one of them. I’m a rookie filmmaker but the shorts I’d made were pretty big productions with full crew and mad locations (back roads of the Yukon, Paris, FRANCE). For the 10North Project I decided to go small.

    The challenge I gave myself was to make a film without a cast or a crew. So I did that. I used a digital camera to take photographs and then I downloaded them into iMovie on this laptop and edited them with sound I created on the iPhone. It’s a pretty rough piece but I’m extremely proud of it despite its jagged edges.

    Some of you may know that I lead an Inspiring Workshop called Cultivate Your Courage, which is all about learning new tools to do the thing we think we cannot do. Last year, at the end of one of these workshops, one of the participants, an Adult Educator, shared with the group a little song-and-dance number she likes to perform for her students when they’ve accomplished something new.

    This woman, a tiny, compact little fireball, held up her fists, wiggled her hips, sashayed from side to side and sang, “You did it! You did it! You did it!” It was as endearing as it was powerful. Whenever I accomplish something now I cannot help but hear that song.

    So, today, for the wee film I managed to put together all by myself I’d like to sing it. Join me, please:

    “You did it! You did it! You did it!”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I accomplish something, no matter how small it is, I will sing the YOU DID IT song for myself. I will also offer it to others when the opportunity arises!