a team member

This week I stepped out of who I usually am being in so many ways. I wrote previously about my experience making requests for my trip to LA, but even before I wrote that email I was stepping out of my old ways.

I travel for a living. I am almost never home. I am in a different city everyday, sharing space with many people, mostly sleeping on a tour bus. So, I savored alone time. I savored hotel rooms, having my own space. In the past, when returning home I would prepare for a short hibernation, an escape from company. I may still spend time with friends and roommates, but was also making the time to hole myself up in my bed alone to read or watch movies or fuss online. I made up that I needed that time alone to recharge.

After the most recent leg of tour ended, I kept the traveling up. I flew home to visit friends and family, driving from Cincinnati to Asheville to Beaufort to Tallahasse and back and more. So, in a sense I was still on tour. I was still moving. I kept thinking that November 2nd was when my "time off" started. That was the day I was returning home to San Diego. That was when my hibernation gift to myself would kick in.

Then, one of my best friends who tours also and I barely get to see, told me that she would be in LA for a few days, leaving early AM of November 4th. I thought, I would love to see her, but go to LA the day after I get home? I had planned on hibernating, that is what I do. After deliberating, I decided I that I would rather see my friend then start my hibernation. So, I arrived home to San Diego on the afternoon of the Second and hopped on a train to LA the afternoon of the Third, thinking I would just stay 2 days and then return home to hibernate.

Once I opened myself up to my friends in LA, though, I got so recharged that I can not verbally express it! The best I can do is to have you visualize me jumping as high as I can, both arms erected to the sky, moving my hips from side to side and yelping, "Waaaahoooooooo!!!!!!!". That feeling started when I sent my request email and has yet to stop! It is miraculous!

I feel like I am part of a team now and all of my team members don't even know each other, but we worked miracles this week! They were all a part of my becoming and declaring myself as a writer. I was and am Touched, Moved, and Inspired by each of them. Even, if I only saw them long enough to give them a delicious hug in passing. We are all a part of each other. We can make anything happen together. We are never alone. Everything that I do is because of them. Everything I do is with them.

All of this time, I have told myself that I need "my" time to recharge. I thought if I spent too much time with other people that they would drain my energy. Wow! I am not creating myself wrong for doing that, but thanking myself now for that old way because I am so much more present to how a thrive and recharge when sharing my energy with my team.

I thrived so much with my team in LA that I am just now on a train back to San Diego and it is Sunday evening! I had only planned on staying until Thursday and you know what? I have absolutely NO plans of hibernation! I now can not wait to see my San Diego team! To create with them, to share energy with them, to merely be with them!

We are all on the same team! Can you see it? Can you feel it? Even if we have never met, we are on the same team! Even when it feels like we are playing against each other some times, we are really on the same team!

I invite you to step out of an old way of yours. Just try it on. You never know, you may end up re-creating who you are being too!