What do you have to gain when you lose control?

Hello from New Mexico!

I'm here for my Create Space retreat, and as the retreaters are heading here from all around the country, I'm having lots of omg-it's-really-happening feelings.

A gif of a curly haired brunette older woman wearing a black and white striped shirt and glasses sitting on the couch lifting her hands and wiggling her fingers indicating spooked movement. The screen says “Scared Jazz Hands.”

I'm so excited for the week, and/but: will everyone have a great experience??

I have so many evocative coaching experiences planned, and/but: will they work as well as I think they will??

I love the idea of my Create Space retreat, and/but: will I love the reality??

This is the thing, of course, about keeping ideas as ideas: they're protected from the radical co-creativity of real life.

Like: the book you haven't written can't get bad reviews.

The project you haven't proposed can't get rejected.

The podcast you haven't recorded can't struggle to find an audience.

The new offer you haven't launched can't fail.

The retreat you haven't hosted can't disappoint anyone.

This is all to say: when we keep an idea in our minds, we shield it from reality. We keep it “Impregnable of eye,” as Emily Dickinson writes:

         I dwell in Possibility –

         A fairer House than Prose –

         More numerous of Windows –

         Superior – for Doors –

         Of Chambers as the Cedars –

         Impregnable of eye –

         And for an everlasting Roof

         The Gambrels of the Sky –

         Of Visitors – the fairest –

         For Occupation – This –

         The spreading wide my narrow Hands

         To gather Paradise –

I'm with Emily: Possibility does feel like a window-full, roof-less sanctuary, protected from all but the fairest co-creators.

There are no critics, no mistakes, no disappointments. Only the fairest Visitors.

But there's also no THERE there.

When we keep an idea stuck in Maybe Someday, we are effectively making it an Actually Never.

So.

I was so nervous several months ago, when I brought my Create Space retreat out of my head and into the marketplace.

I rode the rollercoaster of people responding to it, with No Thanks and Oooh YES. 

And because enough people said Yes, Create Space began to become a co-created reality.

Now for the next rollercoaster: actually DOING the thing. This will have its ups and downs, too. We'll be co-creating: with the weather, with people's moods, with the altitude, with the coaching experiences that resonate and the ones that irritate.

So I'm nervous again. I'm not in control, and definitely not certain.

But this just the way it goes when it comes to making ideas real.

My dear: if you are waiting to feel certain about your idea, sure that it's the right step, and the right time for it, I'm sorry to say: certainty isn't coming.

The only way to be certain about your idea is to keep it an idea.

But if you're willing to be courageous instead - willing to ride the co-creative rollercoaster as you bring your idea to life - then I'm so pleased to invite you to my next idea-made-real:

Crucible.

We'll be co-creating with Spring energy and Aries fire and so much en-courage-ment, and best of all, one another.

It doesn't begin Maybe Someday.

It begins April 10. 

I'd love you to come along for the ride.

love,

Natalie