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Poisoned Dragon’s Liver

January 13, 2020

“Do they poison the dragon, or just the liver?”

~ Paul in Bedknobs & Broomsticks

It’s been a funny old few weeks over here. It’s been hot, the cicadas are up and at ’em (someone tested them at almost rock concert levels!), and I have been experiencing some concentration challenges. When I have trouble concentrating, I often start scrolling. This lets me feel like I am doing something when really I am just creating more challenges for my focus muscles. A moment ago, for instance, despite my 47 item to-do list, I suddenly found myself surfing Pinterest for colour palettes. Colour palettes? Is that one of the 47 things I was hoping to get done? No, but it made me feel like I was doing something.

Silly me.

The other thing that has been happening is that my social media feeds are full-to-bursting with ads that slightly resemble something I might have looked for once. Ads for Growing My ‘Biz’, Six-Figures Promises, Insta-famousness, and Marketing telling me how to Market burst from the screen at every opportunity.

Because of afore-mentioned numb scrolling happening, yesterday I found myself actually hovering over a Learn More button under a dude telling me about his method for manifesting. Even when I came to my senses, I couldn’t understand why I felt so yuck.

And then I realized what it was. It was Poisoned Dragon’s Liver.

Have you seen the movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks with Angela Lansbury?

[Warning: spoilers below.]

Lansbury plays Miss Price, who is learning how to be a witch. One of the early scenes has a trio of children poking around the shelves of her storeroom, and one of them finds a jar of Poisoned Dragon’s Liver. It’s a perfect way for us – the viewers – to see that she really is a witch.

Cut to the end of the movie and Miss Price says: “l realised some time ago that l could never be a proper witch… lt was the day my poisoned dragon’s liver arrived. l knew that anyone who felt the way l did about poisoned dragon’s liver had no business being a witch.”

I realised that anyone who feels the way that I do about marketing funnels has no business trying to funnel their marketing. (Hear this: there is nothing wrong with marketing funnels if marketing funnels feel good for you, or if they make sense in your business. It just doesn’t do it for ME.)

But that really didn’t have to be the end of the story for her magic. Dear Miss Price could have remained a witch. She could have created a witch-ness that did feel good for her, or a magical life that had nothing to do with poisoned dragon’s liver. She could have listened as much to her yes-ness as she did to her no-ness. From there she could have figured out her own path, rather than following the path laid out for her by some guy with a book.

There is a meme out there that says: “I want a simple life. I want to get up late, drink tea, and read old books. I also want a spaceship and a pet dragon.”* I can’t tell you how many people sent that to me. (So many that I am seriously writing a book about it.) But almost all of the people who sent it to me told me what else they would want. They said, “plus chocolate” or “and dogs/ cats” or “no spaceship, but give me a dock and a boat.”

My point is you know. You know what feels good. You know what feels bad. You know what you have no business doing. You know what would feel like a good pursuit. You know where your skills are and where your skills are not, and where you could learn and where it’s really not for you.

You know what feels like magic for you. Listen to that. You know what is True. Listen to your feelings – all of them, not just the no’s – and follow them. Understand them. Pay attention to them. Show up for them. Don’t let your fears close you off to a whole realm of possibility, because one thing feels wrong. Find a path for you that feels right.

Follow your instincts. Create a life that feels good more than it doesn’t. There’s magic in just doing that.

As for me, I’m creating a business that scares me a little and inspires me a lot, but doesn’t make me feel yuck. It’s going to include a lot less poisoned dragon’s liver and lot more pet dragon.

I can’t wait to share more of it with you.

With so much love,

Meghan

P.S. This was originally a newsletter. I write those way more often than blog posts! For more like this, I’d love it if you signed up here.

* If you know the original creator of that meme, please let me know!

Stories, writing

Let me Tell You Seven Stories

June 10, 2019

 

When there is a story on the tip of my tongue, it feels like champagne bubbles and tastes like honey. It’s the sparkle of sunlight on water and the warmth of golden sand under your bare feet. It’s the bright pink of a basket, woven in a faraway land. It’s the wishes that sit in that basket, wanting to be spoken aloud. It’s the waft of a scent that –just for a moment – transports you to a different time and place.

That’s the magic of story, you see. It will take you places that you never thought you would go, and ask you questions that you never thought you could ask. Story gives us the chance to play with our memories or try out new things: to dance on the deck of a ship in the moonlight, or to stumble through a dark wood, pursued by… what?

Who was with you on the deck of the ship? What was in the woods with you on a dark and stormy night?

You see, you are the key to the story. We are made up of story. We tell stories about who we are and what we want and why we can or cannot have those things. We tell stories about our loves and our laughter and our losses and our delights. We tell stories to fill the gaps in conversation and to understand the parts of ourselves that we haven’t quite gotten on a first-name basis with yet. Stories delight us, help us, distract us, and fill the spaces between our cells.

That’s what I really think stories are – the spells that hold us together. When Carl Sagan said, “We are made of Star Stuff,” for the first time many of us finally understood who we were in the universe.

Now I would like to add a little something: I believe that we are actually made of star stuff and stories.

So when I tell you that I have a story on the tip of my tongue, what I am actually saying is that – just for a moment – I was on the brink of something wonderful. The moment before a story settles feels like an eternity. Will it choose me? Is it time? Will the words come? Then there’s the moment when the story decides to stay – when it settles in and sinks into the spaces between my cells – and I get just a glimpse of swirling tents, and smoky campfires, and castle keeps, and humble hearths, and talking birds, and a pocket full of wonders, and a woman – there’s always a woman – who has something important that she wants to whisper in my ear…

“Let me tell you a story…”

There is a story on the tip of my tongue. It’s a story about how magical you are.

It’s not alone. For the past few months I have been collecting stories in my big red book; stories about magic and bridges and smells and tastes; stories about wonder and enchantment and questions, and above all, stories about the Mysteriousness and Magic of being alive and on this grand adventure of being here, now.

Would you like to hear some of them? Would you like to come along on this adventure? Stories, after all, only become magical when we become a part of them.

Come closer. Join me. Let me spin you a tale. It’s about a woman who is made up of star stuff and stories….

 

My new course, Seven Stories, is now open for registration. I hope you will join me.

 

Finding the Magic, I AM

Comparisons, Truth, and Magic

September 10, 2018

 

One of the things I am most grateful for is my ongoing relationship with Magic (the moments of connection between me and the Mystery). I say that because it is a relationship. That connection is a choice that I make more and more and more times a day, and the more I connect to it, the more I am led and the more connections happen.

I am now at a point where I can see magic in almost everything – even in the things that seem hard or impossible.

Once when I posted something on Instagram about being grateful, I got an email from someone telling me that I shouldn’t ‘only post good things’. She said people wouldn’t be able to relate to me if I wasn’t telling them the truth.

The truth?

That little email made me question everything that I put out into the world.

Whenever I send out an email that has a positive message, or gives the impression that life is good, I get unsubscribes.

I’ve had friends stop commenting on my posts, and stop answering emails – ones who were huge supporters of our move.

Comparison is such a brutal companion for so many of us. I feel it. Sometimes I am compelled to unsubscribe or to just stop looking at certain people or certain feeds. I feel triggered by the beauty or the youth or the truth or the challenge or the anger or the love or the success or the questions or the depth or the wonder or the insight or the delicacy or the talent that I see, and in the past instead of wondering about that, I have turned my face away.

One of the easiest examples of where I feel comparison is with our house. We have a beautiful house (for which I am profoundly grateful), but it’s not finished or even very furnished yet, and when I look at some of my feeds, I see lovely cozy spaces full of books and candles and comfortable furniture and kids and cats and art supplies and desks and plants and a real feeling of ‘home’. When I look at these I feel a deep longing for this in my own life.

The trouble with comparison is that it often also comes with guilt or shame or irritation or some other super-fun side order. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to, and that comparison can be one of your biggest teachers.

 

 

I invite you to try this:

1. Scroll through your Instagram feed until you find an image that gives you a twinge.
2. Really look at it.
3. Ask yourself these questions (but try to keep it in a spirit of learning more about what your soul wants. Don’t add guilt or shame to this.)

What is it about this image that makes me want?
When I look at this image, what do I want?
Is there healing or grieving that I need to do here?
What is this showing me about how I want to feel?
What can I do to bring more of this feeling into my life?

Seeing your own pain, your own wants, your own needs, and your own fears reflected like this may be scary at first, but by doing this you have a massive opportunity to heal your old stories and your old patterns. You may have some healing to do, but feeling those feelings will free up space for new dreams to come through.

In that space, magic can happen.

One version of the truth is that I have experienced heartbreak and devastating loss. There are things and people and dreams that I mourn, that I regret, and that I deeply wonder about. We won’t ever have kids. I struggle pretty much every day with visibility and relevance and who do I think I am? I have made peace with food, but I still carry weight. I am a hermit who has had her heart broken, which makes making and keeping friends difficult. There is stuff in my life that breaks my heart. I have guilt about where my life and my choices have brought me. I am a rebellious good girl (a Scorpio with a Virgo rising), so I am often in heated negotiation with myself. I miss my family and my country – and now my old adopted country – deeply.

There’s more – not the least of which is that I am afraid a lot of the time.

But the other truth is that in all of the hard and the sad and the afraid there is also a place where I choose to connect to an even deeper truth: that there is more to all of this life business than I can ever imagine or understand.

In those places and those moments, more and more each day, I actively choose to find the Magic. I know that the only power I have is the one to decide how I am going to react in this moment. Over the past 15 or so years, I have consciously developed a way of being in the world that is more curious than careful and more wondering than fearful.

I’ve discovered that I am more powerful when I do things on purpose.

I don’t run from sadness or comparison or fear anymore. I also don’t ignore it, or pretend it isn’t happening, or always put it out there for the world to see. I actively turn my face to it. I wonder about it. I feel it. I talk to it. I do everything I can to not install it into my stories and my cells (just to have it come up again later on).

Yes, I am still afraid, and yes, I still compare, and yes, I still have a ways to go, but I also have come to a place where it seems that everything has something to say to me. I have come to a place where I can see the story more than I see the fear. I have come to a place where nearly everything is magic.

It’s been a lot of work, but the work has been worth it.

So the truth – for me – is that there is more to this life than I can possibly imagine, and that I get to choose to be present for and to respond to it in the best way I can in each moment. None of those moments are perfect, but I’m doing my best to make more and more and more of them Magical.

That is my work in the world; that is what I want to share with you! That is what makes me want to run up to you, laughing, and show you the latest weird bug that has appeared, or the family of monkeys who wake us at 4am, or the way the sun is touching the trees, or what is in my heart. That is what I want to write about.

There is a path through the forest, and there is a light just around the bend. Can you see it? Do you want to find it with me? Let’s go together!

The more magic you see, the more you’ll find. 😉

That’s the truth.

xo

 

 

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