Month: September 2013 | Melanie Bates

Some fifteen years ago, when I was deep in the study of Native American spirituality, I traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota to attend a powwow. As I was just about to fall asleep the night before the event – you know that time, when your body is starting to jerk, but you’re still conscious – I saw a vision of a very old Native American woman – “sage”, “wise” and “ancient” were all terms that came to my half-conscious mind. She had to have been over 100. Her withered deeply lined face hovered over me and her black eyes twinkled with light as my whole body tingled and I felt myself start to lift out of my physical form to travel with her to only God knows where. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. It was pure magic and it was what I had been waiting on for seven years, minus the peyote.

About seventy five feet off the ground I started arguing with my monkey mind inner critic.

Me: OMG, this is beautiful. Feel this. I’m traveling with my spirit guide. She’s here. I’ve finally met her! I knew she’d come.

Inner Critic: You don’t even know this woman. She’s probably wanted in ten planes. She’s going to take your soul and you’re going to die on this gray shag carpet with the dark roast coffee stain next to your head. The chalk outline they make around your body is going to look goofy with that stain there.

Me: No, I’ve been waiting to meet her and experience this for my whole life. This is transcendental, dude. I’m floating. See my body down there? Look at her, she’s beautiful.

Inner Critic: Who are you? Fucking Sacagawea? Come back down. You’re never going to be able to find your body if you leave. You’re going to float around up there searching for a way to get back until the end of time.

Plop… just like that she vanished, my fear and asshole Inner Critic won, and I was laying back down in my body, tears streaming down into my ears. I haven’t seen her since, nor have I experienced anything even remotely like that ever again.

And now there is, once again, beautiful magic afoot, my friends. Not just for me, but for everyone I know. Folks are starting businesses they feel called to start, I’m launching a website and a whole new chapter of my life, many are feeling called to be “bigger”, to shine brighter, to be more authentically themselves, and to stand in their power, some even feel as if they’re just being led down golden paths of bliss – morsels of rich, dark chocolate being placed on their tongues while being fanned by gorgeous goddesses wearing shiny feathered headresses. It’s all good stuff, right?

Of course it is. Holy crap! Are you kidding me?

And it’s also really, REALLY scary.

For me, at least.

Recent conversation with the boyfriend:

Me: Holy shit, this all feels so serendipitous and beautiful and terrifying! Everything is flowing so perfectly and happening so fast. It’s magical. Can you feel the magic?

BF: It will all work out. I have faith in you.

Me: Yeah, but it’s all moving so quickly I feel like I can’t catch my breath. I know it’s good. It’s all GREAT stuff. I get that, but it’s overwhelming.

BF: It is all great stuff.

Me: Yeah, but what if I can’t keep up? What if it doesn’t work out? What if I’m fooling myself? What if the magic stops? What if…

BF: It won’t, you’ll be fine.

Me: Yeah, but…

Despite my boyfriend’s wise verbosity, I wasn’t satiated and quickly called a friend who would dine with me on the brunch of my fears with fist pumps and bacon thrown in for good measure.

We deduced that when things are going too well; when the magic is, well… too magical, we have a tendency to feel as if the other shoe will surely drop (and we’re talking a size 14 worn by a superstitious basketball player who’s donned the same pair since 1993.)

I have a sneaking suspicion that my friend and I are not the only ones whose monkey minds go here (and there and everywhere) trying to cling to the magic because they’re afraid it will disappear as quickly as 7-layer dip at a Superbowl party. And the irony is that when we head down this path of waiting for the Converse to drop, of fear and grasping and those “yeah, but’s,” inevitably the Converse is gonna drop. Hard. And we’re going to be smothered in foot powder with no magic to be seen anywhere.

Why is it so hard to stay in the flow and the magic and bliss? Hell, I can’t even allow my forearm to be tickled for too long because it just feels too good.

I’m beginning to realize that the magic is always there. It never goes anywhere. It’s just that we can’t access it when we’re bogged down by our lizard brains. Magic is simply our thoughts, intentions and energy manifest.

But I’d love to hear your thoughts on releasing the fear. Any tricks for staying connecting to the magic? Tips? Insights? Bueller… Bueller…

I just launched my website. It’s been hanging out there in cyberspace, shivering and alone. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ve just been afraid to put myself out into the world in this way. I’ve told exactly five people about it and every single time I feel exposed. Anxious. Naked (With a lover. For the first time. After a bikini wax gone awry.)

The funny thing is that when gunk comes up for you, the big “U”niverse sends you all sorts of direct correspondence if you’re paying attention.

A couple months ago, for example, I read a fantastic article by James Clear about how successful people start before they’re ready.

I didn’t listen to that lil’ tidbit from the Divine. Not really.

So, as I was working with an author on his third book, I read a chapter he’d written about how he’d put himself out into the world in a profession he’d never worked in before and how his very successful business was launched from that experience. (Yes, I’m being vague, the book isn’t out yet. You’ll find no spoilers here.)

I sat up a little straighter when I read that chapter. I pondered and let it go.

Today, as I was talking to the glorious artist, goddess and visionary, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, I realized that part of her success has come from starting before she feels ready and from always answering the calls from the Big “U.”

Me? Well… I typically don’t hear the call because my phone is on vibrate, or I’ve left it in my car, or I don’t have the energy to talk in that moment.

Okay, that’s not true (though if you’ve ever tried to call me you might disagree.) Today, however, in talking to Shiloh my ears perked up, my heart got a jump, and I paid close attention.

As I thought about it – this starting before you’re ready – I realized that I’ve actually started tons of things before I felt ready.

Case in point:

About six years ago I began to build a small accounting business in Cleveland. The clients were pouring in – an Italian restaurant, then an HVAC company, then a coffee shop… My big break, or so I thought, came when I went on an interview with a company who needed someone to do an inventory of their 20,000 square foot building and every nut and bolt in it. As I donned my canary yellow hard hat and walked into the basement to look at pipe fittings bigger than my head, I thought perhaps the job was out of my league given my background of recording pizza dough receipts into Quickbooks Pro 2007.

The company ended up folding before I really got started, thank God, but my little accounting business did quite well despite that loss.

Then there’s blogging, diving out of a plane at 11,000 feet, moving 2,000 miles away from friends and family to an unknown land, bartending Coyote Ugly style, quitting jobs to pursue my next path… I didn’t feel ready for any of these things when I started them and, for the most part, all of them turned out to be fairly successful leaps (literally and figuratively.)

Despite the fact that I may not feel ready, I’m going to “launch” my site. I’m not going to wait until I have the perfect shade of gray (no pun intended) in my headers or the polished-to-the-nub descriptors of my services or the right version of the 5,000,000,000 pictures I had taken to tell my story or until I have sixty years of experience in the coaching arena. I’m just going to show up, here on my site, as authentically me as I can be and wait with bated breath to see what the Big “U” has in store in regards to my latest ventures.

Hell, I’m going to post this blog before it’s ready, edited and re-read for the fortieth time. I’m cray-cray like that.

Go ahead, big “U”, make me a vessel.

What are you ready to do begin before you feel ready? What are you waiting for?