Class started this week. The Course in Fearlessness is the third in my series of three classes. I adore this class. I created it during a time in my life when I needed a road map for taking on big risks without leaving the perfect alignment of our true nature. And I love the tools in this class; they remain a tremendous support for building an awesome life.
So, this week’s assignment is to follow my internal alignment—what I call a Delicious Yes—no matter what.
If you ask me, I would say my specific skill as a teacher is that I am extraordinarily practical and clear about how to live your life in freedom. All of your nitty-gritty life dilemmas, details, assorted challenges… I’m great at showing you how to move through them with freedom. And the heart of my teaching is this tool, Delicious Yes.
This tool requires you to connect very deeply with your body and your senses, and then to consider what feels delicious in a moment. And then go do that.
This is much easier said than done. We all have so many fears, so much conditioning about what we must do, have to do, should do. Most of us have been raised to believe sacrifice is what love really is, and all of us have a very powerful fear story that the world is a limited place, and we have limited opportunity, and resource, and compromise is the only responsible choice.
Because of a grace, I get to have a very intimate look at what life really is—a front-row seat on reality, our true nature. I get to see the limitless possibility of all creation. I can see there is no limitation. Fear, sacrifice, compromise, these are simply not truth. I can see that our true nature speaks to us all the time, whispering to us, offering up an option in each moment to live out our freedom. It feels Delicious… An invitation to follow the delicious flow.
For my students who are new to this tool, we go very slowly, unraveling each fear and limited belief to get to the real experience of what a delicious flow really is. Slowly coming upon fulfillment, ease, and grace. For my students who know this tool, this week is about following that delicious flow no-matter-what. And that includes me.
Which brings me to today. Today is the day I set aside to film my weekly video. And I couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t delicious. When I started making these weekly vlogs 18 months ago, I was excited and inspired to learn how to be an amateur filmmaker. I put a lot of time, heart and resources towards that. Then about 7 months ago, I noticed the excitement and inspiration was gone, and effort remained. So I paused, and listened and reinvented these weekly teachings to be effortless and fun.
This morning I noticed, effortless and fun was not the same thing as delicious. Not the same sensation. Not exactly the same precise alignment.
Delicious this morning was more like drive down the coast, sitting on the beach with a friend, eating a wonderful meal. It was not delicious to make a video.
And so I have to consider taking a risk, being brave against a fear that says: “Ooohhhh, don’t stop making youtubes! All that time and money invested! What if my teachings and work fade into the abyss, what if I never get the opportunities I want, what if I lose what is precious for me? You need to push a little, you need to make it happen.”
But I noticed this whole summer my podcast and channel did not grow. My subscriber numbers remain very, very low. And that is a sure sign that it’s not the right alignment, right timing. And when I ask a dear friend what she thinks of my videos? She says that she knows me as a teacher, and WOW, almost unbelievable. But these videos, which she really does enjoy, they just don’t express who she sees when I am teaching.
I understand what she is saying.
So, the solution comes from class….What is delicious? And what if you have to do-it-no-matter-what? Then it opens me up to an unknown, off-road space. In that unknown space, fear is very, very skilled at trying to scare us back to the known. But no matter how skilled fear is, it can’t be more convincing than reality. And if I follow what reality is asking of me—what the delicious movement is—then regardless of the fear beating its drums, there is something unmistakable in the joy and fulfillment. There is something delicious.
A drive down the coast…
