Joe is a master of many trades, and this project has been great fun for him. Each day he greets the morning with a gleeful grin and, after a strong cup of coffee, rushes out to put on his manly construction apron and play. I, on the other hand, usually roll out of bed limping and groaning, wondering what scary power tool or ladder I will have to conquer today (but secretly quite proud of my expanding abilities - just don’t tell anyone I said so). We’ve been putting in long hours and I have the new muscles and bruises to prove it! ​

But lest you think I am seeking pity, let me tell you that I am writing this right now as I look at this:

​As I approached her home, I saw the many lava flows that built this island, raising it more than 30 thousand feet from the ocean floor. These flows destroyed forests and homes, yet each time the lava flowed, the island expanded.

Pele taught me that Death, the very force that seems to obliterate Life, actually regenerates it, for Death frees energies trapped in form allowing them to evolve. Life then becomes a series of experiences and is constantly being renewed. ​

It is a hot summer day in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with sunny skies and 90 degree temps.  It is a good day to float a river.  

Inspired, Joe and I and some good friends pack up the cars with our float tubes, but when we drive over to the drop-off spot there are no open parking spaces.  Evidently we weren't the only ones with this brilliant idea.  

Joe and another driver leave to take one of our vehicles to the end of the route, and they ask us to hold a space for our returning car if one opens up.  While we wait, one hopeful vehicle after another cruises the lot.  Suddenly a car pulls out, and before we can make a dash to claim the empty space, a pick-up truck flies in from out of nowhere and takes the spot.  ​

I suspect that the only way we will secure parking is if someone leaves at precisely the same moment that Joe returns.  I toss my desire for this outcome out to “the heavens” but figure the odds are unlikely.  Neither can I see myself successfully fending off the motivated competition should a spot open early.  “Ya want some of this?  Come and take it!”  I’m real fierce when it comes to competition (and if you believe that, I have some oceanside property to sell you off the coast of North Dakota).

Joe eventually returns.  As fate would have it, he pulls in right behind another driver;  but with no spaces available, the other fella exits his truck mid-lot to unload his tubes.  Then, miracle of miracles, a spot empties out.  Joe is in proper position and he pulls right in.  The timing is exquisite.  I stand in awe.  ​

One might think this was merely a coincidence, but it happens again when Joe and I meet friends for dinner the next night.  

We arrive downtown and the city is filled with people who are going to the evening rodeo.  Many others are gathering to attend the art fair and hot air balloon festival the next day.  Over-stimulated, cranky tourists abound.  

We look for a spot to park and see a woman getting into her car.  We ask if she is leaving.  She is.  We ask if she could wait to pull out until we can turn our car around.  She does…and we get a parking spot right in front of the restaurant.  When our friends arrive, one of them tells us she had to drive almost almost four blocks back to her home to find a parking place.  (Joe and I sneak a look at each other.  Something is happening.) 

Then during dinner, we chat up our very busy waiter.  He is a lot of fun and we are all enjoying the exchange.  He tells us he just loves our table.  He appreciates our joy factor and our willingness to roll with the unexpected; and when the bill comes, he tells us not to leave because he has a surprise for us.  He then returns moments later with five plates of Tiramisu on the house.  

This isn’t the only meal magic that occurs.  Another evening, we call to reserve an outside table at a popular restaurant only to learn they don’t take reservations for the patio.   We feel lucky and play the odds, but when we arrive we are told it will be a 60 minute wait.  While we are considering our options, a table opens up on the patio.  Joe asks if we can have it and we are seated immediately.  (I’m now sensing a definite trend.)  

Finally, when it is time to move to our next vacation rental, we stop by the new place early, hoping to leave our car there for the day and return at check-in time.  The front desk tells us (surprise surprise) our room is ready - 6 hours early - during the busiest week of the season!  This means we can get our food and my guitar out of the hot car and enjoy a cool respite out of the mid-day sun.

First, one must be clear and direct about what one needs or desires.  Wishy washy requests get wishy washy results.  

I find it helps to say the words out loud and then feel the feeling of having what feels right, leaving room for surprise. ​

Feeling into the feeling also shows me when a part of me is not on-board with the plan because I can feel the resistance in my body.  When the blocks are removed and the energies begin to flow freely inside me, things start to flow to me as well. 

Once I’m radiating, it’s time to trust that what I desire is coming to me and will arrive at precisely the right time in the most perfect fashion.  I won’t need to fight for it.  I will not have to chase after it.  It will actually come right to me.  ​

Granted, what comes might look a little different than what I expected.  Maybe it will be an intermediary step that prepares me in some important way.  Let’s say I have to release some old beliefs or patterns before I can have what I want.  Then out of the gate, I will likely receive experiences that show me exactly what is standing in my way.   Old programming creates barriers.  We forget life can be easy.  We believe it must be hard, so it is.  Such beliefs must go to allow the flow.  

Receiving grace doesn’t truly become possible until we have cleared away enough crud that we can actually feel the ease-filled potential as viable.  We have to resonate with it on a vibrational level.  We must know we deserve it without question.  Clearing away the crud is tedious.  It requires endurance.  It is absolutely necessary.

This leads me to the third requirement:  we must be both diligent and patient.  Evolution manifests through incremental steps that peel off our past and expand us one magical miracle at a time.  Sometimes, what needs to change within us is so epic that transformation must occur slowly if we are to survive the shift. 

While we wait for the world to realign to our new vibration, all we can do is continue to match our words and feelings with what we desire. I’ve learned my frequency is the address to which my request is being shipped.  If I drift down to a lower vibration and start doubting, I will miss the delivery truck when it arrives.  It is my responsibility to cull out any thought or belief that is contradictory and wait patiently for what I am choosing to appear.  

One might think resistance was not the best strategy, but some of these shadow aspects were really intense, and quite frankly, I didn't want to accept them.  What practically perfect angel would?  These were real halo-tarnishers, if you get my drift.  

Grace, however, had a different perspective.  Freedom required allowing, and about this She was most insistent.  I've gotten the memo that the parts of me I'm resisting will continue to poke at me, sabotage me, and look back at me through the eyes of others, until the day I allow them to fully integrate within me.  ​

​This past week I went on retreat in the mountains.  During my time away, I had the joy of reading some of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, a wonderful collage of fantasy stories about magic and sorcery.  I followed an intuitive nudge to take these books with me, and they gave me quite an unexpected gift. 

In the book The Tombs of Atuan we learn the story of Tenar, a young girl stolen from her family and placed as the high priestess over ancient Powers of the Earth.  She loses everything, even her name, to become the hands of the darkness she serves.  When Tenar is given a chance to escape, she discovers that to receive freedom she must lose all she knows yet again.  It strikes her that it would be easier to die than to go forward, forgive herself, and build a new life.​

Tenar’s story touched me deeply, and the book revealed a great truth:  freedom is chosen, it is not given to us by something outside of ourselves, and the choice to be free can be a hard one and the journey arduous.
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At the end of my retreat, I took a six mile hike back to an alpine lake.  This lake and the valley it sits in are very special to me, but I have not been there in 15 years.  I held it apart from me, afraid I couldn’t get there because of my physical limitations.  Or, it dawns on me now, perhaps I was waiting to go there to celebrate a special rite of passage. 

On my walk the sky was blue and the aspens a brilliant gold.  My body felt strong and my mind amazingly free.  I wept in joy when I arrived at the lake.  ​

Sitting on the shore by my favorite rock and tree, I was held in the beauty of this place that is so special to my heart, and I realized new beginnings are available every moment, no matter the past, if we can but turn forward and embrace them.
​  

This is my story.  I remember the day I asked for grace.  I was deeply stuck, fatigued and in pain, and I asked what it would take to free myself so I could feel vital and alive again.  ​

The answer came from within.   "Freedom is possible, but you must experience a death to have it."  

This was not what I wanted to hear.  "Death?  Like DEATH?  You mean I have to die to heal?"  I panicked at the thought of this. 

"Death is death, my dear," answered Grace.  "Though you may stay in your body, the life you know will end.  You built this life within a pattern.  If you release the old pattern and choose a new one, everything in your life will evolve.  It can be no other way, so choose carefully.  Be sure."

I knew my life force was fading.  If I didn’t change, my health would fail.  Death was an inevitable outcome regardless;  so I chose, and everything started to unravel. 

I recently had dinner with some new friends that have experienced similar rebirthings.  We were laughing about our tragi-comic journeys and how they were nothing like what we expected at the onset.  One of the ladies compared her experience to the children's book Fortunately, Unfortunately by Michael Foreman, saying she always landed on her feet like a cat, but each fall seemed fraught with more danger and somehow set up the next worst thing.  "It was as if I avoided an accident by swerving around the car in front of me, but then, Oh NO, I was flying through the guard rail.  I lived through that, but then Oh NOO, I was falling straight toward a river.  Okay, I somehow survived the epic splash, but then, Oh NOOO, I realized I was floating right toward the lip of a huge waterfall!"  Each challenge always led to another bigger one until the core issue was resolved.

Here are some examples of how this has panned out for me:

• I changed the dynamic in one relationship, and much to my surprise, all my other relationships changed too.  In fact, most of them ended, because I was now different and the magnetics that held us together weren't the same.

• I decided to claim my abundance, and then lost my job, my money, and my creative passion.  In each area, I was looking outside of myself and bartering for energy.  I could not continue these power games and receive my inner grace, so they fell away.

• I chose health, and all the old stuck energies in my body rose up for clearing.  As a result, I felt sicker than ever.

• I decided to free myself from ancestral patterns and both my parents died.  I was deeply attached to them so this was a difficult loss.  I then faced the daunting task of sorting through generational possessions and beliefs, releasing everything that no longer served me so I could truly re-invent myself.

• I realized loving myself had to be my priority, but the more I loved myself, the more my inner demons and un-loved aspects came forward so I could integrate them and eventually trust myself again.

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A whole new life began to emerge through this process, but getting there turned me upside down and forced me to face some very challenging things.  I grieved my past and felt ungrounded without it.  I was also very uncertain about the future, but Grace kept moving me forward in the present, pulling my fingers away from my eyes, showing me what I needed to see, and catalyzing the next leap.

My  re-imagining took several years.  The more I allowed, the more my imbalances rose up in that safe space for healing.  Distorted strategies I had relied on for survival started to unravel.  I had identified with these strategies and made them part of my persona, so when they dissolved, I actually felt like I was dying.  My terror was enormous.  

During the darkest days, Grace wasted no energy making my circumstances prettier.  It did not redecorate my prison cell, because it's goal was nothing less than freedom.  It revealed the price I was paying for my choices and why I had chosen them, and then it showed me a different path.  My job was to trust implicitly, receive every experience as perfect, stay curious, and release my attachments to results.  I couldn't micromanage anything, because ironically, the part of me that wanted to control my journey was the very part that was being remade.  

If this sounds hard, I admit it was; and yet, it was also perfect.  Releasing what I wasn't so I could experience what I Am was worth everything that happened, and I'm eternally grateful for the freedom I reclaimed through the process.  I wouldn't want to relive the journey, but I would not make a different choice today.  In truth, I'd reached a point where I couldn't sustain the old patterns any longer.  I needed to create a different reality to thrive.​

We've come a long way together, Grace and I.  My life is now much more harmonious and simple.  I have greater clarity, and therefore less drama.  There is flow and synchronicity that now holds and carries me.  Fierce Grace has been the gift that just keeps on giving.  It is the merciless mercy of unconditional love.

I had a brilliant, witty, and oh so insightful blog for this month on creation and what it really takes, and then I stumbled upon this:  a very clear discussion of the physics of consciousness with easy to understand words and fantastic examples.  It is simply excellent!  I couldn't think of a better follow-up to last month's post than this description of the science of creation!  It puts Joe's and my personal experience in scientific terms.  I've attached a link below.  

What you will hear is a panel discussion included Gregg Braden (a scientist and New York times best-selling author), Dr. Joe Dispenza (a researcher and chiropractor featured in What the BLEEP Do We Know!?), and Bruce Lipton (a stem cell biologist and recipient of the 2009 Goi Peace Award).  All three are experts in their field and are exploring how the principles of quantum physics dovetail with mind-body medicine and spiritual principles.  During this panel discussion on June 12, 2016, Gregg, Joe, and Bruce answer questions from the audience at the Kryon Summer Light Conference in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  

They cover the following topics:

• How consciousness animates energy and potentials.
• How we create by expanding awareness into different parts of the quantum field where all possibilities exist.
• How we must release our stories, let go of identity and attachment to time, past experience, and existing forms.
• How we must release our mental focus to expand awareness beyond the five senses.
• How the choice to be in the present moment in a state of gratitude can synchronize the brain and create coherence with the heart, releasing neuro-connections that were created from past conditioning.
• How expanded coherence with our greater Self attracts other potentials that have always existed in the quantum field (our future is no longer limited to our past).
• How the building blocks of creation respond to this new information and manifest fresh experiences.

As you listen, you are gifted with an understanding of how to create using the new energy physics of consciousness.  It is a very inspiring and informative session.  I couldn't think of a better gift to offer you this month! 

Kryon Summer Light Conference Panel Discussion  
Sunday - June 12, 2016
Gregg Braden - Joe Dispenza - Bruce Lipton
Moderated by Elan Cohen
One hour 30 minutes - (90 minutes)
108.6 megabytes

Last month we described the three criteria for creation - or the magic methods you must master to “live your dream”.   They are:

1. Feel and Choose - Pull up the energy of different potentials and feel the feeling of experiencing them in your body, then pick the potential that feels the best. 
2. Act As If  - Hold the frequency of having what you desire, knowing it is coming to you, even when your “reality” appears otherwise.  
3. Trust, Receive, and Respond - Receive everything that comes to you no matter what it may look like trusting that it is coming in service to your choice, and then respond by refining your frequency to attract your desired creation. 

This month, I want to give you a real life example of how this works.

A while back my partner, Joe, and I decided to take a journey to the Pacific Northwest.  As we planned our journey, we kept sensing some chaotic potentials in the state of Washington.  When we arrived there, the intuitive nudge got even stronger, so we decided to feel into the potentials and pick the best one.  

We did this independently, each doing a little imagination exercise where we pulled up three different bubbles and filled each one with the energy of a likely potential.  Then we felt into each bubble and compared notes.  

​Amazingly, we each got the same results!  Bubble #1 felt very depressing, Bubble #2 was jagged and extremely uncomfortable, and Bubble #3 gave us happy tingles.  We chose the third potential because it felt the best by far.  We didn't know any details, though, needless-to-say, we were very curious!

A few days later, we set up camp in Mount Rainier National Park.  It was late, we were hungry, and we rushed the job.  As we started to lift the top of our pop-up camper, one corner didn’t lift. We had forgotten to unlatch it, and much to our horror, we bent one the metal bars in the lift system, almost to the point of breaking it.  

Despair and self-recrimination loomed.  It was one of those moments where you wish you could go back and have a do-over.  The roof was listing badly, and we weren’t sure if we could get the top up, if it would stay up, or if we would be able to get it back down.   

It was getting dark, but we had to take a "time out" and stop before we made anything worse.  It was time to put away the big hammer we were using to beat ourselves up and take a few deep breaths.  As soon as we calmed down, we remembered the bubbles.  Here was our opportunity to walk our talk!  We had picked ease and grace, and going into a despairing pity party was not going to help us receive a positive outcome;  so we closed our eyes and called back that beautiful bubble until we could feel the energy of those happy tingles and affirm our choice.

​After assessing the situation again from a calmer vantage point, we lifted the roof and propped it up with a board so it wouldn’t collapse on us.  Then we made a nice dinner, had some wine, found the humor in the situation, and decided to see what the next day would bring.

In the morning we went to the pay phone and called the manufacturer to see if spare parts were available.  Our pop-up was deemed a dinosaur and we were told our best bet was to find a machine shop.  When we felt into the potential of driving into Seattle to find a place, the energy was very very jagged.  Not the best choice.

​Out of ideas for the time being, we went for a hike, trusting a solution would appear.  We walked for a bit, felt we should walk further, walked some more, and then met a gentleman resting on the side of the trail.  Our eyes connected with his and I could feel a spark shoot between us.  We ended up walking together, and by the time we reached the waterfall, Joe had shared our situation with him.  He gave us his phone number, suggesting we call him when we left the park.  He thought he might be able to help us.  

We had no idea where he lived, but I remembered his T-shirt had a nearby town printed on it and we headed in that direction.  After finding a campsite, we called him, and learned we were about a mile from his home.  The next day this delightful gentleman drove Joe an hour away to a metal shop where his buddies built boats.  They dropped everything to weld a repair…free of charge.  Meanwhile, the man's wife and daughter took me to lunch in one of the cutest little towns you could ever imagine.  All-in-all, a grace-filled, joyful day!  Bubble #3 was right on the mark.  We just needed to trust, allow the solution to come to us, and follow the thread so we could receive the grace.  

So there you go, a real-life example of mocking up the best possible outcome.  We had three likely potentials when we broke the camper.  Bubble #1 was depressing.  We could have beaten ourselves up and chosen a victim mentality, but we didn’t (at least not for very long).  Bubble #2 was jagged.  We could have chased a solution in Seattle, but the energy of this potential felt very risky so we let it go.  Bubble #3 was beautiful.  It came to us.  It met us on the path and brought the perfect solution straight to us with no struggle or effort or expense.  Ease and grace!  Our experience was joyful and we even made new friends.

Creation can be as easy as feeling and choosing your best potential, acting as if the solution is already present, and then trusting what comes to you.  Play with this concept this month.  See what miracles you can conjure!

​Until next time, may you be in awareness.

In our last post we talked about how challenging it is to look away from what we don't want so we can see other potentials.   Regret about the past and fear of the future tend to focus our awareness on familiar limitations and keep us stuck on the same old path.  

An interesting experiment sheds some light on this phenomenon.  Scientists studied light waves as they moved through a double slit and realized the light behaved differently when the experiment was being watched.  Unobserved, the light moved in waves, but when watched, the light waves collapsed into particles.  From this experiment, scientists concluded that observation creates reality…what you are paying attention to influences what you create!

Our consciousness acts as a magnet attracting energy that matches the frequency we are holding.  Then this energy starts to consolidate into form.  For example, if we are holding a consciousness of victimhood, we will attract energies that match that frequency and give us the experience of being a victim.  

The following parable about two travelers illustrates this:

To get out of an old cycle, we need to hold a different expectation.  If we want to experience freedom instead of victimhood, we must hold our awareness on freedom, and vibrate with the feeling of being free...which means we must believe we are capable of creating freedom, are worthy of having it, and are choosing to experience it right now. 

Whatever beliefs we hold will limit and color our creative potentials.  They reveal the assumptions we've made about what is possible based on our past experience.  

When we have a negative experience, it can be very compelling.  Pain is addictive.  Our emotions create a chemical reaction that our cells get used to and they want to be fed more of the same.  These feeding patterns nurture our stories about "who we are" and "what always happens to us."  They anchor our beliefs more firmly in place and our mind eventually becomes trapped in this conditioning.

When we try to think our way out of our stories, our mind resists and digs in deeper.  It is much like the old Chinese finger trap where the harder you pull, the tighter the trap becomes.  Force only re-enforces.  Thinking only thickens the illusion.  You have to relax into it to get out.
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To get free, we must question our beliefs and limited perceptions.  ”Is it really true?"  Maybe I used to think it was true.  Maybe I was once very attached to it being true, but if I change my perspective, does a different truth emerge?  Does believing this belief still serve me?  Just the act of taking our awareness into the issue and posing these questions loosens the trap.

There is a wonderful teaching story that illustrates the value of an expanded perspective.  Variations can be found in Jain, Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu and Bahá’í lore.  This parable tells us of a group of blind people who explore an elephant, each feeling a different part (trunk, tusks, tail, etc.) with their hands.  From their unique experience they each draw a completely different conclusion about the elephant that is based on some truth, but the actual elephant is much greater than any one person’s interpretation. 

Here is another example from the world of science. When technology allowed us to observe very very small particles, scientists realized these tiny particles behaved differently than very large objects and a new type of physics was born.  Do the emerging findings of quantum physics mean Newton’s laws of motion are untrue, or are we simply seeing things from a different perspective revealing other possible truths?

As our awareness grows, our perspective expands, and our sense of what is “true” or “real” shifts also.  Truth, like all of creation, is constantly evolving.  The key to seeing new potentials is to loosen our beliefs so we are able to see an expanded perspective.

There is a myth based on the writings of Joseph Banks, who was a botanist on Captain James Cook's 1770 voyage, that the natives off the coast of Australia paid no attention to the 106-foot-long ship, Endeavour.  Perhaps they did not understand the ship could be a threat.  Yet another perspective is that the boat was such a foreign concept that the natives did not even see it!  In either case, conditioning severely limited their perception.

The ability to focus our awareness on new potentials and attract them into our reality requires we first be able to perceive them!  In our next blog, we will explore how to go beyond and sense the unknown possibilities that we may have never seen before.
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Until then, may you be in awareness.

My thoughts are often like cows who walk the same path day after day to the feeding troughs in my mind, which are filled with all the stuff that nurtures my story and keeps my addictive pain cycles alive.  

My little cow thoughts believe that what was true yesterday is still true today and will, of course, be true tomorrow.  They’ve worn a deep path into my psyche and cells that very effectively lures my past right into my future over and over again.  

I’ve tried to herd the cows and force them in a new direction, but then my body hurts, my mind gets scared, and my thoughts start screaming, which creates a cow stampede back onto the path.  

How does one get beyond this?  I know freedom is out there...somewhere...but how do I experience it?

I’ve been watching this madness for a while now.  The cows know they are being watched.  They look about nervously, scanning the horizon, sensing change in the wind, but then they scamper back to the path and hot-foot it straight to the feeding troughs.  It’s fascinating.  And frustrating.

One day, from my vantage point as the observer, I realized I’d only been looking at the awful path and the stubborn cows and so had no idea what else was out there!  By keeping my attention on the crazy cow antics, I'd created a deeper path and more neurotic cows…

Which reminds me of when I tried mountain biking. There were so many rocks on the trail, and when I looked at them, my tires went right where I was looking (ouch).  Once I hit a really big rock, which showed me that hitting rocks sucks.  I didn’t want to do that again, so now those rocks really had my attention.  I saw another big one up ahead.  Fear surged through my body, and I locked eyes on that sucker, panicking.  I could not look away!  I knew how much it was going to hurt when I hit it…and guess what…it did.  

If past experience has taught us we will hit the rocks, and the pattern has been worn into us like a bad habit, how do we create a different outcome?  

The answer I discovered is this:  look somewhere else.  Look away from the rocks and beyond the story.  There are a million possible choices perpendicular to the path.  I can’t force my little cow mind to let go of beliefs (it just resists and grips them harder);  but I can choose to just look “over there” and the cow part of me will eventually follow out of sheer curiosity.  By looking away I create a bypass around the disaster unfolding in front of me. 

Sounds simple, right?  It is simple, but it isn't easy.  If you happen to be screaming down the cow path at 90 miles per hour, motivated by pain, anger, fear, and a compelling story of being the victim, and the potential accident that lies ahead of you is dramatic and terrifying, and you really really REALLY want to stare at it in fascinated horror, it seems like a mighty feat to look away.  But trust me.  Just try it.  Look…left.  

"Won't I crash into the rock?  Don’t I need to steer around it?  Shouldn’t I slow down first?  Wouldn’t one little peek help me avoid the disaster?”  

Nope.  Analyzing the situation or trying to control what happens only keeps you on the same miserable trajectory.  Your mind is still in charge.  To get out of the story you must go beyond the cow path of the mind.  Look left…just over there.  A small shift will do it.  There you go! 

At first glance it looks like NOTHING is out there in the unknown wilderness off the path.  It’s as if there is a veil between you and any other possibility.  Let’s call it the “impossibility veil”.  Any other reality feels…well…impossible.  

This is because your senses have been focused on what has always been true (a.k.a. the path filled with rocks) and they can't yet perceive all the other potentials of what could be.  Those potentials aren’t in your reality just yet.  They exist in a slightly different dimension, but they are still yours to choose.  

I know what you are thinking…there is a lot of momentum pushing you down that old cow path.  The cows still want to go to the feeding trough and get their hit, and your destiny feels solid and unchangeable.  But trust me, just by looking off the path you have changed the game.  You may not realize it yet, but the rules of creation just opened up. 

In our next blog post, we will explore how to sense those mysterious possibilities so you can choose a new one.  Until then…enjoy being the watcher of your thoughts.   Consider if there might be other new and joyful, rock-free experiences you would like to explore, and lean into the possibility that they exist and are waiting for you to choose them.   Because…they are.