Tomorrow, we will pull out of Hermosa Beach and head toward the Rockies with two U-Hauls, 5 adults (including my ex-husband and my boyfriend), 2 kids, a dog, 3 cats, a snake and a turtle.

Thank God I’ve got two years of Burning Man under my belt as practice.

I’m quite surprised about how shaken up I am by this whole move.  Although everyone I talk to says it’s totally normal and I know it is, I’m still surprised.

The move is bringing me the opportunity to confront all the  pieces of myself that I don’t love and adore.  And most importantly, to see them.

There’s so much that we hide from ourselves.  And it all comes up during any period of transition and transformation.

What’s coming up for me now is the awareness that I am deeply motivated by the desire to have a certain community of people around me.

I moved to a Hermosa Beach walkstreet because I wanted to raise my kids in community.  I wanted to live somewhere in which the kids could run back and forth to their friends’ houses without constant adult supervision.  An open door policy in which my neighbor’s kids would become as comfortable with me as my own kids and my kids would look to the neighbors as second parents.

When I first moved to Hermosa, I lived on 17th street, one of the walkstreets where community is facilitated by no cars driving on the street in front of the houses.

There were two families on the street that had been there for more than 50 years.  The adults living there now had all grown up as kids on the street (and in the houses) where they were now raising their own kids.

Over the years, those friends had turned into each other’s  family.

It’s always been what I wanted.  A family by choice.  An extended group of people who become family, are  committed to supporting each other and working together for the benefit of the whole.  Each person contributing his and her highest gifts to the community and relaxing into the awareness that her or she is part of a greater village working toward a common vision.

Raising kids, cooking meals, relaxing, and growing together.  People who share my values.  That I want my kids to be guided by and learning from.

When I really look at why I am moving to Colorado, I’m heading off in search of that village.

My mind begins to wonder why I didn’t create it here and what will be different there.

There are three families on my street, all of whom have kids Kaia and Noah’s age, all of whom go to the private school Kaia and Noah used to go to.

On the surface, the village I’m looking for is right here.

But, we don’t seem to fit with these families.

They are nice enough, but I don’t see them ever feeling like real I’ve got your back no matter what family.  They aren’t people I could practice Radical Honesty with or talk about evolution of the spirit and truth and awareness with.  They seem to like living behind the veil. Or at least, it’s all they know and they seem happy enough to keep it on.

I’m ready to pull off the veil.  And so I’m leaving.

My mind says I’m crazy.  I should make it work here.  If I can’t make it work here, I won’t make it work anywhere.  It’s the same everywhere.  Wherever you go, there you are.  Stick it out.  Push through.

But, then I remember back to being at the big law firm.

I had many of these same thoughts then.  You are crazy to think about leaving.  People would kill for that job. Are you insane?  Make it work.  If you can’t make it work here, you won’t make it work anywhere.  This is just what life is like.  Wherever you go, there you are.  Stick it out.  Push through.

The exact same thoughts.  A pattern.  Conditioning.  Had I listened to them, I’d still be there, unhappy, wondering what’s wrong with me.  But, hanging in.

As soon as I left the big law firm, I found a freedom unlike anything I had ever experienced before.  I didn’t run out of money.  I didn’t die.  Instead, I was free.

That freedom led to where I am today.  I can pick up and move to a completely different State.  I don’t have to worry about finding a new job. I don’t have to worry about taking vacation time to pack and move.  I don’t have to worry that I won’t be able to make a living where I am going.

The only restriction on me today is my mind.  It sometimes still wants to hold me back, keep me safe, convince me that if only I changed, I would find out that what I’m looking for has been here all along.

But, here’s what I know.  Something is pulling me to Colorado.

It’s something as big as the freedom that came through when I left my paycheck and started my own business.  It’s something as big as the freedom that showed up when I left my husband and re-discovered the freedom of being a woman again.

I have a feeling it’s that I will finally find the community I’ve been looking for.  The community that becomes family.  The community that sees me exactly as I am, recognizes me and says yes, you are one of ours.   We’ve been waiting for you.

Image courtesy of Flickr

I’ve never fit in.

I can remember all the way back to Kindergarten wondering why the other little girls didn’t like me?  Why I couldn’t seem to get along with the other kids.

I wanted to.  I just couldn’t seem to figure out the right things to say at the right times.

This awareness that I wasn’t like everyone else followed me throughout my life.  In high school, it was a big problem.  A painful problem.  One I dealt with by turning to the kids who I thought would accept me no matter what – the ones on the corner smoking cigarettes before and after school.   My parents loved that, let me tell you.

In college, it seemed to abate for a while and I even joined a sorority (something I said I would never, ever, ever in a million years do), but of course it was the sorority for the girls who didn’t fit in.  I actually had the chance to join the popular pretty girl sorority, but made the choice to go where I’d feel more comfortable.

In law school, I dealt with not fitting in by studying constantly. That was good because it resulted in me graduating first in my class, which opened up every possible door for me for the rest of my life.  And then I went to the big law firm, where once again I didn’t fit in.

I was a 26-year old wife and mom.  It was one of the loneliest times of my life.  I remember sitting on the beach with my baby looking longingly at the other moms with their babies hanging out together.  I didn’t have any friends with babies. I couldn’t figure out how to make friends with the other moms.

Eventually, I figured it out.  I’m different than most people.  I’ve finally stopped asking why and accepted it.  I stopped only wanting to be friends with people who don’t want to be friends with me (the “in” crowd) and started appreciating the people who seem to be attracted to me (“misfits”).

And once I figured that all out, I began to have this desire for fame on a big level.  Because I wanted to make a difference (or so I thought).

So I began to make myself into someone who could appear on TV.  It turns out, I’m one of those people who actually looks better on TV than in real life, so this was not so difficult for me to do.

I did quite a bit of television in a relatively short period of time.  Then, I started to pitch television shows to the networks and got really close to having one picked up by the new Oprah Winfrey Network.  That was really exciting.  Until it didn’t happen.

Then I began thinking about a reality show.  (And let me tell you, it would have been a good one with all the craziness that has happened here at my house over the last 18 months.)

Fortunately, before I could ruin my life by letting cameras follow me around all the time, I became aware that the whole pursuit of fame was feeding something not particularly healthy in me.  I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I knew it didn’t feel good.

It started to become clear when I did all of the Michael Jackson coverage.  I began to see I wasn’t really making a difference in the world and helping people with the media I was doing.  I was spreading rumors and gossip.  Sure, it was public and not behind anyone’s back, but was it really any less insidious?

I put it out of my mind because I liked getting all dressed up and putting on makeup and getting picked up by a car service and feeling special.  So I kept doing it.

A couple of weeks ago though, I was on Nancy Grace talking about Tiger Woods and it was the last straw.  I cannot do it anymore.

I took 2.5 hours out of my day to get my hair done, get driven down to CNN on Sunset and get my makeup done and then sit in a chair for an hour watching Nancy run the same clip of one of Tiger’s girlfriends saying she was sorry if she hurt anyone over and over and over again at each break.   I was on for less than 2 minutes with half of that time Nancy asking me inane questions I  like “When did he [Tiger Woods] have time to be with all those women with two children?”

How was this a good use of my time?

I searched for anything I could hang my hat on that would indicate my appearance on the show made a shred of positive impact in the world.  No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find anything.  And I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t really there to make a difference in the world, I was there to be noticed, recognized, and fit in.  Just like the article said.

I refuse to allow my life to be run by that anymore.

So I’m taking a stand.  For now on, I will not do any television unless I’m totally clear that I’m doing it because it will help to lift viewers to a new level of awareness.  I will not contribute to the inane dialogue, gossip and drama that is being perpetuated with most of today’s television programming.

Part of the reason I think I’m moving to Colorado is so I won’t be tempted.  Because believe me, every fiber of my being is screaming out that I’m making a mistake, that I’m meant to be on TV.

I do believe I’ve been given a gift of looking great on camera, being able to convey a message quickly, and think on my feet.  And I do not want to waste or deny that gift.  But, it will need to be utilized in some way that does not make me feel dirty afterward and that is driven by my highest level desires to make a real difference in the world and raise people to a new level of awareness.

So bye-bye Nancy Grace.  Please don’t call again.  I’m not available.

Photo courtesy of AP

You know how it is when you see someone every day and they look the same to you from one day to the next, but then you are apart for a week and suddenly the next time you see them, you notice they’ve grown or aged or lost weight or gained weight?

We are a lot like that with ourselves.  It’s hard to tell from one day or month or year to the next how much progress we are making.  And most of us are so focused on how far we have to go that we completely lose sight of how far we’ve come.

One of the best parts about blogging is being able to look back and become aware of the evolution.

Tonight, as I write this blog post on the eve of Thanksgiving, I’ve done just that.  I vaguely recalled being in a different emotional space last Thanksgiving, but couldn’t remember exactly what that space was.  Looking back to my blog post from last Thanksgiving, the emotions of where I was then have come flooding back in.

And along with them the awareness that a major shift has happened in my own consciousness regarding gratitude.  A shift that you can make here and now without waiting another year.

Last year, I didn’t know how to be grateful for EVERYthing.  My gratitude was conditional on the “good” things.  I even shared a gratitude exercise that helped me connect with all the good things happening in my life.

Here’s the big, exciting shift … you can be in extreme, deep gratitude even (especially) for the experiences you are having in your life that no one would call good.  And that’s something huge to realize as we move through a global shift that is impacting the economy, our weather patterns, and our old traditions.

With this shift is coming a lot of experiences that no one would call good – economic collapse of families, increase in bankruptcies, foreclosures, divorces, and a loss of jobs across the board.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s possible to find gratitude, even in these things.  And that’s where the real power is in your business and your life.

When you can find the gratitude even in the tragedy,  the heartache, and the pain, you have freedom.

So many of us claim freedom as one of our highest values and yet we are seeking it through on the exact things that will keep us in bondage.  More money, more time, more, more, more …

More is not where freedom comes from at all.  Freedom has nothing to do with the external circumstances of time, money or our work.

Freedom comes when you can be truly, deeply grateful for whatever is happening in your life right now.  Whatever is happening.  All. of. it.

To show you how serious I am about this.  Here are a few things I’m grateful for this year that I might not have been before I understand that gratitude for EVERYthing is the secret to true freedom.

The summer before last, my ex-husband got a DUI.  With our kids in the car.  You would think I’d be pissed, right?  Actually, I was grateful. GRATEFUL?!?  What?  You might be thinking (or even saying right now).

But, really I was.

For the 6 months before the DUI happened, I had been wondering fairly consistently “should I try to take full custody of the kids?” I really, really, really didn’t want to have to go there.  I knew it could mean a protracted court battle and I wasn’t willing to subject my kids to that. Plus, I wanted them to have a relationship with their dad.  And, frankly, I was working a lot and having them with him half the time worked for me from a business perspective. (It’s hard to admit that last part, but it is true).

I had been in Orlando teaching Personal Family Lawyers for a few days and flew to Virginia to speak to another group of lawyers about building a law business on a new model.  When I landed that morning, there was a message from my sister-in-law telling me everything was okay, but to call her as soon as possible.

That’s never a good sign.

When I called, she let me know that she had my kids.  My ex-husband (her brother) had been arrested for DUI with the kids in the car.

After I got over the initial shock, I felt an odd sense of calm.  My question had been answered.  I would have full custody of the kids and there would be no custody fight.  I didn’t know what else would happen.  But, I did know that.  And I was grateful.

As a result of my gratitude, I was able to respond to the situation in a way that resulted in the near complete healing of my relationship with my ex-husband.

Had I not been able to see the blessing in the situation, I would have been outraged, enraged, and in rage.  The ramifications of that would have been enormous for my family.  Perhaps my children would have been alienated from their dad.  Maybe he would have made it difficult for me to obtain custody of the kids.  Whatever it would have been, it would have been painful.

But, it wasn’t painful. Well, it’s been painful for my ex-husband.  He lost his license and his house and has been staying in a room above my garage while he gets back on his feet.  Even in that though, there’s freedom.

He’s finally found his passion and begun pursuing it.  He no longer feels as if he can’t be truthful or hide what he really wants.  We can have the hard conversations without too much drama.  And, of course, the kids absolutely love having him around.

So, that’s one thing.

Another thing like that is the circumstances that led to me closing my law firm.  My firm generated more than a million bucks in 2006 and 2007.  In 2008, I sold the firm to another lawyer so I could focus my attention on helping more people.

I sold it with the belief that he would take great care of my clients at the standards I had created and continue to build upon the foundation I had laid.

That’s not what happened though.

Within a few months, I began to see signs that he wasn’t handling things the way I did or would have.  I tried to ignore them and pretend it would get better.  It didn’t.  Within 6 months, he had stopped paying the bills.

It had been nearly a year since I’d seen new private clients, the firm had brought in nearly $700,000 for the year anyway, and I had to decide whether to come back in and take the reins at the firm again or close it down.

I decided to close it down and arrange for the Los Angeles area Personal Family Lawyers to service the ongoing needs of my clients.   An extremely painful, difficult decision to make.

That firm was my baby.  I had painstakingly designed the office.  Invested my heart and soul into it.  And it was still making great money.

But, I couldn’t trust that it would be run to the standards I set and so I had to let it go.  It cost me nearly three hundred thousand dollars to do it, not even counting the lost income I would have made if I would have kept the firm in the first place or kept it going.

What’s to be grateful for in that?

So much, it turns out.

As a result of my own experiences with building my law firm, selling it, and then closing it down, I learned a tremendous amount about the right way to set up a business and the wrong way, I got to see what it is that actually puts businesses out of business, and I gained confidence by seeing how hard it actually is to get to the point where a business cannot continue.

I also learned firsthand how important it is for entrepreneurs (especially those of us who identify as creative entrepreneurs) to understand legal, insurance, financial and tax issues.

It’s more than a little embarrassing that I had so many problems in these areas considering I’m a lawyer and I felt as if these were things I “should” have known about.

But I didn’t.  And my lack of knowledge cost me dearly.

And yet, I’m tremendously grateful for it because as a result I decided to learn everything I possibly could about legal, insurance, financial and tax and put all of that knowledge into a system for other entrepreneurs who, like me, are not good at those sorts of things.

This January, after nearly 9 months of intense effort, we will finally launch my LIFT Foundation System for business owners who are tired of wondering whether they have a solid foundation under their business, want to be able to count on their business surviving for the long haul no matter what happens, and are ready to cut through all the legal mumbo jumbo, hard pressure insurance and financial sales and want the straight truth on what is really needed to build a business the right way.

I never would have put this together had I not experienced a lawsuit myself without the proper insurance in place to cover it or made the mistakes I did when I sold my business.  Sure, I could beat myself up for those errors.   That would be normal, right?

But, I choose to be abnormal.  Instead, I’m grateful for these hard knocks.  Yes, they cost me a lot of money, but they taught me far more.  And now I get to teach it to you.

And to me, that’s what life’s all about folks.

This Thanksgiving season, do everything you can to find the blessing in each and everyone of the hardships you’ve experienced this year, this decade or this lifetime.

Write em’ down, thank God for them, and ask yourself how you can share the gift you’ve received from that challenging time in your life to make the world a better place.

Namaste.