Falling in Love Backwards

Rowing in Henley on Thames

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

I am sitting here overlooking the Thames and all the river traffic going by. Not only is this a quaint village with a long history of rowing, but lots of people with boats converge on the town for the Royal Henley Regatta and the Music Festival. So it is constant entertainment.

During this week of the Music Festival, the Beach Boys played the first evening. After their afternoon rehearsal Diane and I met Bruce Johnston, one of the original crew, and he and I talked about being 70 and he said how much fun he was having still surfing and playing keyboard on tour. When we heard them play “I wish they all could be, California girls” I was glad I had my California girl, Diane.

The last two days I have been rowing in the Henley Masters Regatta where I won both the single sculls and double sculls with a friend from Vermont. Sometimes in the past I have enjoyed the training and the getting in shape part of the process and kind of dreaded the nervousness and anticipation of the effort and pain that goes with the racing itself. Even though the racing provided the focal point and brought out the best I could give at the time and I was happy I had competed, it was always a necessary evil.

Since I am committed to enjoying my life at all times, if it is at all possible, I decided I would focus on enjoying the racing this year. While I still got nervous, narrowing my focus as the racing got closer and being a bit tense and short with people over any distraction, I was better about the prerace jitters than ever before. Observing my mind chatter and letting it go when I could. Also, having Diane here to support me helped as she didn’t question what I felt I needed to do next, but just did what she could to make my life easier.

In each warm up I would have to really bring myself into the present moment of each stroke and just do the routine I have developed over the years that I know will bring me to the starting line ready to race. Once the umpire gave the start signal, the racing itself was really a pleasure. I am in very good shape so I was quick and fast off the line. Then I would settle into the main body of the race, trying to conserve my energy while still controlling the race and being prepared to counter any move the competition made and still have a bit left for the sprint in the final minute.

I enjoyed the intensity of the race itself, of putting all those hours of practice into the race – making each stroke smooth, strong, efficient and relaxed. I reveled in my body’s ability to operate at that level of intensity with its pain and effort, overridden by a certain level of observation (being somewhat outside the experience but totally present) and driven by my strong will to win, to dig as deep as I could to make that happen.

I feel good about my performance and deeply respect my competitors as I know how much work and dedication it takes to be competitive. I always thank my opponents as it is a privilege to be challenged to be my best. I am thrilled to be so alive for those precious moments of intensity.

May your life have its share of those intense joyful moments.

All the best,

Landon

Hello from England…

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

July 14^th, 2013

Generosity of Spirit

A post from England…

Landon and I end each day snuggling together before we go to sleep, telling each other what we are grateful for. It feels so good to stop and look back on the day, take a moment and then talk about our gratitude.

Usually, we have a whole list of things, but I also find it useful to pick out the one thing that stands out. Sometimes it is what would have passed as a tiny thing—that Landon and I connected in the middle of the day with a hug and a moment looking into each other’s eyes. Or that I had a great conversation with a friend or a family member. So I notice that, for me, connecting with others is usually at the top of my ‘most grateful for’ list.

We’ve been doing this ritual now for years and it keeps being very satisfying. Recently, I suggested that we add something else: to acknowledge each other for something from the day. That takes a bit more and is also a good barometer to tell how connected we are with each other. If I’m feeling close to Landon, it is easy to acknowledge him. If we’re even a bit distant, it is harder. Such a good ‘wake up call’.

Gay and Katie Hendricks, in their book “Conscious Loving”, talk about the importance of acknowledgement in relationships. I think this is an undiscovered area of pleasure that can be mined for mutual pleasure. But it is interesting how hard it can feel. It is like we have been trained ‘not’ to acknowledge each other.

I call it ‘generosity of spirit’ when you are willing to be generous with positive words. The other day, I was rushing around getting stuff done before our trip and a woman complimented me on my outfit—shorts and a green top. It so took me by surprise, but put a smile on my face in the midst of all the rushing.

At first, I had to convince Landon that acknowledgement is not about your ego. It is more about being ‘seen’—someone saying—‘I see you and I want you to know that I am thinking something positive about you’. And I believe that sharing those thoughts is a gift.

We’re here in England where Landon has just been competing in the Masters Henley Rowing Regatta in Henley-On-Thames, England. Yesterday, he won two gold medals, in the single sculls event and the double sculls event.

No matter where we are in the world, it feels good to keep doing the same rituals as we go to sleep. It feels like we travel in a bubble of our own little universe together. That feels amazing.

Wishing you all the best from England,

Diane

photos: above: the Thames at night, left: Landon showing his gold medal for the single sculls event and receiving his gold medal for the double sculls event, with his rowing partner, Henry Hamilton.

July 4th: Freedom

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

Independence day is about freedom: freedom to be ourselves without compromise or oppression. On a societal level, we all have a sense of what that means as it is the foundation of the American Dream, but what about freedom as it relates to us personally in an intimate relationship?

The Hindu and Jain traditions call freedom, “moksha,” the release from the cycle of rebirth impelled by the law of karma, the transcendent state attained by this liberation.

Rather than being some remote and unattainable state, I believe this state is attainable and available to us Now, in this present moment, as the FREEDOM or liberation from the reactivity of the mind. You have a mind, but your thoughts do not run you and in the process of withdrawing your life energy from those thoughts, and seeing them for what they are – “programming that you are no longer in agreement with” – you are free to be yourself. To show up in the present moment as you choose to BE. You are no longer repeating your past in an endless loop of karma.

An example from my own life: For those of you who have read Diane’s and my book, “Falling in Love Backwards: an unlikely tale of Happily Ever After”, you will know that I have been plagued by an attraction to beautiful women. Not just that I would enjoy looking at them, but there was some pull towards them, (some attraction, some attachment) depending on whether I was in a relationship or not, and/or depending on how the relationship was getting along.

If I was out of a relationship, then this was obviously a sign from the Universe that I should follow this attraction (the standard: “I saw her across the room and fell in love”), and if I was in a relationship, it might indicate to me that I had something to work on or even make me question the relationship itself.

After much examination of this attraction and recognizing the programming I have been subjected to by our society, I can finally say it is possible to be free of it. While I still recognize a beautiful woman according to society’s current standards of beauty, I am no longer pulled by the recognition. It just doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. It is more like looking at a beautiful sunset or a piece of art. I am so happy with the reality of Diane’s and my relationship that my mind seems to be giving up the struggle that what I have isn’t it. This is such a relief!

And another surprising side benefit is that I find Diane more and more beautiful, which gives us both a lot of pleasure. More on that in weeks to come.

Wishing you all freedom and happiness on this Independence Day,

Landon

Approaching our First Anniversary

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

Some old friends of mine visited recently and commented that they had often wondered if I would ever give up my ‘gypsy way of life’ and find a partner for the rest of my life. I happily report that I have. Not only do I have a wonderful, stunningly beautiful wife, but a lake near by for rowing, some great bike riding trails, and our farm with orchard, garden, chickens, and two cats in the yard, just like the Crosby, Stills and Nash song.

I am constantly reminding myself that I have everything I need and want and am so grateful for the life I am living. Now whenever I get upset, I know that it is only a temporary mind game, that I need to examine, share with Diane and let go of. My relationship with Diane; the depth of our love, the level of acceptance I feel, the transparency in our communication, and the pleasure of living with such an awake partner, provide a safe and nurturing foundation for whatever is coming up on the surface.

Recently, I noticed I was annoyed and blaming Diane in my mind for things not being how I thought they should be – some little things that I had not even communicated about so that she would know how I might want them.
In the middle of being annoyed and upset, I woke up to myself and asked, “Why am I blaming Diane for reality (the way it is) not fitting my expectations, my pictures?”

When I saw it, I saw how utterly ridiculous it is to first of all be attached to my expectations over the way it is – a sure way of making myself upset. In fact this is the very nature of an upset, my ego’s survival game, to take me away from “Being Here Now” by trying to convince me that “this isn’t it”. When in fact, of course, “this is it” and always has been it and if I want to be happy, I better get with the way it is!!

Then there was the pattern of blaming the only other person around, Diane, for things not working out my way. Diane said my energy was like I was throwing a tantrum. For me, since it is such an old and frequent pattern, I just felt annoyed and withdrew from being in connection with her. When we shared about this incident later that night, I agreed with her that it was a waste of time to be upset and withdraw, that I wasn’t having any fun and neither was she.

I then gave her permission to really call me on it next time and that even if I was resisting, to keep going and that I would thank her, for I am committed to ending this pattern. This is a real boon for me, to have someone who loves me and who will call me out (which feels to my ego like criticism of the way I am being at that moment and elicits hurt, anger and resistance) until I wake up and get off it and come back into the present.

Once again, this seems to have been an early childhood pattern in which I would throw a tantrum to get my way and withdraw from my mother to punish her for not paying attention to me. Such is the uselessness of my mind in these instances – contributing nothing to my happiness!

I am starting to see all the elements for re-contextualizing our relationship so that it is a vehicle for our spiritual growth and eventual liberation from these patterns and programming that make our lives miserable. I will review some of those principles in a later blog.

As we approach our first anniversary, I feel so grounded and centered in myself and thrilled to be able to create and share a future with Diane. Our relationship has only gotten better and better over the past year and for this and for my angel, Diane, I am grateful.

All the very best to each of you,
Landon

A conversation about and a celebration of love…

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

As I wake up each day and look over at Landon, I feel so much gratitude. My life feels so perfect. Each day, as we sit and eat outside at the farm, we listen to the birds and admire the tall pines and oaks against the blue sky. When we shower outside, we watch the sun on the leaves and the shadows on the hill that goes down to the creek. We live a wondrous life and I stop often to feel the joy of it and to express my gratitude.

Both Landon and I could have been voted ‘least likely to succeed in happily ever after’, based on our track records. When our paths crossed in 2009, I’d been single for thirty years, just after I took the six-day course from him. After jumping off that mountain on the zip line and (even worse) rappelling down that cliff, I knew that I had to set out onto a different path and live a more authentic life. I was terrified to take those steps, but I’d learned that right on the other side of terror, pure joy, freedom and wild excitement waited.

When Landon came into my life in 2009, he’d been single almost sixteen years and had experienced many different relationships, all ending in ‘not it’. But now it is so clear that our rough start didn’t matter. Our higher selves knew what was right, brought us together and kept us trapped together through all the most difficult junctures.

Hooray for higher selves! Thank God, Goddess that something beyond our ego, monkey minds operates for our higher good.

In the six-day course, Landon created the space for me to take a huge risk in order to find out who I truly was, beyond my fears. At the beginning of our journey of relationship together, again, I had to take a huge risk, to find out who I could be in relationship, in love, beyond my fears. He helped me to do that. Then I helped him back, to face his own fears, (disguised as ‘I wasn’t it’) and we helped each other to find this amazing love.

Now as we celebrate our first anniversary, I feel even more in love with Landon than I was a year ago when we said our vows. Our love feels richer and deeper. We’ve shared more, healed more and trust each other more. Recently, I was expressing frustration with him for being (what felt to me like) a ‘hard –headed male’. Then I laughed and gave him a kiss. “I love you absolutely, even when I feel frustrated with you”. So cool.

It does feel like a fairy tale, where we had to break a ‘spell’ that kept both of us from experiencing true love. And now as we live in the happy ending, I see how little experience I have with living within the joy of the ‘dream come true’.
Exploring that new realm is a journey and adventure that I relish sharing with Landon. It’s pure pleasure! And we’re also excited to share it with you.

So I want to raise the flag of hope, no matter where you are in the love conversation. There is a way through this maze called relationship and Landon and I hope to light some candles along the way.

Wishing you all the best on your journey,
Diane

Missing Landon, a dispatch from Dublin, Ireland

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

I’m sitting in my airport hotel in Dublin, at the end of an amazing journey that included 5-star hotels and lots of Irish adventures—rain and jaunty cart rides up the Gap of Dunloe, among other things. For the past three days, I was at a writer’s conference where we met with key editors from major magazines—very intense and powerful.

Today, I spent the day walking around Dublin, seeing the sights and singing Molly Malone with the other riders on a tour bus. It was a day like so many I’ve spent before, in a strange city, alone, but having fun. But I felt so excited to be going home tomorrow, back to my life with Landon.

For someone who was on her own for thirty years, working and being a mother, in and out of relationships, it still amazes and thrills me that Landon is out there, being my partner, even when I have temporary ‘flash backs’ to my old life, like I’ve had on this trip. This was the first time that I’d left him home at the farm—he has traveled many times for as long as a month and I’ve stayed home. So the tables were turned, so to speak.

It felt like I carried him along in my heart, tuning into him at different times of the day and night. I’d think, oh, now he’s sleeping. Or, oh, now I could maybe catch him on skype. My love for him felt like a warm glow inside, and it made me smile. I found myself telling my new friends about our love story, laughing and grimacing, depending on where I was in the story. They all loved the tale, especially the ‘happily ever after’ part.

When I talked to one of the editors from a major magazine about an essay about falling in love, her crisp response was ‘oh we don’t write about love’. Okay. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I wanted to ask—and why in the world would you not write about love? Is it somehow taboo? Has love become one of those subjects, like sex and money, that is not brought up in polite company?

I don’t know the reason behind her response, but it makes me feel excited and reckless to know—hey—we’re writing about love! Because people need to know that it is possible, especially for people who struggled with it, like Landon and I did. We found our way through the maze!

My dad loved to say ‘Isn’t that grand?’ I think ‘grand’ is the right word here, because it means big and amazing and magnificent.

So very grateful that I can feel my love across the world and know that it is true and good and grand. Thank you for sharing in our lives. Blessings from Ireland, Diane

PS. Attaching some photos of kissing the Blarney Stone. It was a bit scary, but I did it—the 6-day training, all those years ago, was good training for it!

Missing Diane

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

While Diane has been attending a writer’s conference in Ireland, I have been home alone, left with the chickens and cats as company. I thought it interesting to observe what my experience is when we are apart, especially in an environment, Diane’s, now our home, where we have always been together.

I wondered what missing Diane actually feels like and it is not what most of the western love songs portray. It is not a heart ache, or an extreme longing, it is not a sudden sense of unbounded freedom as if I were single and by myself again. I do notice a little freedom to explore whatever I want with out thinking, “I better get home because I told Diane I would be home at such and such time.” As in the other day, I just dropped into the motorcycle shop on my way home on the spur of the moment and had a chat about different bikes. But there is a subtle and fundamental change in my life with out Diane physically here.

Even though we have emailed almost daily and skyped a few times, there is this emptiness. When I am working or rowing or exercising, I don’t experience it, but when I come home at night to the empty house there is no one to share my day with. My most intimate partner, with whom I share almost everything is not here. To share all the little tasks that make up a life together. To share the beauty of the moonlight when I go to put the chickens away. To share what we are grateful for as we go to sleep. So there is a flatness, a one dimensionality, to my life when Diane is not here, as if one important dimension of life has been taken away. Or the color has partly gone out of the fabric of my life.

This dimension of shared intimacy is both precious and fulfilling and something I think I have longed for most of my life. It is a sense of deep connection, of being known because I have revealed myself to another. I am living in a state of transparent authenticity with another on the physical level – at least as much as I can image possible on the physical level at this time.

I think it is why I have been looking so long for a partner with whom I could have this experience of shared intimacy and authentic transparency. And I am not sure I even knew how to describe what I was missing until I had it and now don’t.

For this, I am blessed to have Diane in my life and am counting the days and hours until her return. She is definitely missed!

All the best in life,
Landon

Trying to solve upsets at the wrong level

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

If you try to solve an upset by changing the circumstances or trying to change the other person (“Don’t ever do that to me again”) then you are actually solving the problem at the wrong level – at the level of the external environment, rather than where the upset resides – inside yourself.

So when you are upset, the first move is to stop, breathe, and start to observe the nature of the upset. “What am I feeling? When was an earlier time when I had similar feelings? Where does this upset originate?” These are the types of questions that will unlock the upset and create a whole new level of connection and relaxed intimacy with your partner and freedom to be your Self.

I always find that my first reaction when I am upset in Diane’s and my relationship is, “Diane should change”. And I don’t have to even be very upset, just a little annoyed, like when my blood sugar is low (and really I need to eat something) and something which normally wouldn’t bother me, now does.

A laughable recent example. When I cook and do dishes, I mostly wash things right away after I use them or if I need a fork, I will wash the dirty fork I just used and then reuse it. Diane just gets another fork out of the drawer and ends up with multiple forks to be washed, often by me when she does the cooking.

I resisted saying anything about it for a while as it was SOOOO petty! But then I finally broached the subject and we talked about it. We have plenty of forks and of course it turns out that it is more efficient to wash all the forks at once and it also saves water. So I am now changing my ways and using a few more forks!

However, I was actually annoyed and if I had suppressed it, I would have started to lose the authentic transparency, which is the foundation of our relationship. My annoyance stemmed from a misguided desire for efficiency and not wasting things as in “why don’t you use just one fork like me?” At least that is how my adult mind justified being “legitimately” upset.

As Diane tends to be tidier than I am, I could not complain about orderliness or cleanliness. I knew the upset linked to some programming of mine, some way it should be, and like a little child, I was internally throwing a mild tantrum because reality (what Diane did) didn’t fit my picture of how it should be. So I started looking into where the programming originated.

Once again the upset had the “This isn’t it or this isn’t how it should be” element and of course I felt a “victim” of all those forks in the sink! It went back to an early trauma where I felt out of control and helpless in the midst of life’s chaos and then later was punished for being messy. Later, I compensated by having everything in order and not wanting anyone to touch my stuff. These memories and feelings all surfaced, as I looked deeper.

Seeing where the annoyance came from and recognizing my own fallacious thinking, I was able to easily let it go. And now we joke that Diane’s major fault is that she uses too many forks!

I am happy to say that in our life, we mostly deal with these little encumbrances to being in present time. There are no lasting dramas, upsets or residual resentments because we keep talking until it is all unravelled. Yet, I find I must always be on guard for my ego/mind trying to hook me into “this isn’t it” and to prevent me from having a good time in life. I am committed to ending that pattern.

Otherwise my life and our relationship are wonderful and better than I ever imagined it could be. I think I am struggling with being able to hold or let in just how good it is – and that can be a topic for another blog.

All the very best in life.
Landon

“Girl, Where was your Pride…”

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

Landon and Diane in the apple orchard right after their wedding, June 2012

Landon and Diane, down in the apple orchard right after their wedding ceremony, June 9th, 2012

“Girl, where was your pride,” she stated, challenging me across the outdoor lunch table, on our last day in New Zealand. Her eyes never left mine as she added, “if my husband ever spoke to me like that, I’d hit him and then I’d leave.”

The words came from a woman I’d just met, a friend of a friend who’d read our book and wanted to have lunch with us before we left New Zealand.

I admit I was a bit stunned at that moment and stared back, looking for the right response. I didn’t want to say to her, “that’s not the point,” or “you missed the point.” I knew that she had a point to make, one that many women had already voiced to me about our story. In fact, if all the women who wanted to punch Landon after reading the book could have, he’d be very bruised and bloodied.

But as we made our way to Air New Zealand to board our flight to Auckland and then to San Francisco, her words haunted me. Where was my pride? How should I have answered?

The truth is, my pride was right there, along side my ego, screaming bloody murder. “Get out, run!” was its repeated plea. But that was the point. I’d listened to my pride and my ego my whole life and where had they led me? Years alone, with no true love in sight. The scoreboard would have looked like this: Ego and Pride intact, True Love and partnership, 0.

And there is an important distinction here. Landon was an amazing man, not in my fantasy of who he was, but who he is. I knew that from spending six days in a powerful training with him in 1979, six days that changed my life and set me on a course of personal growth that I would never have been on without it.

Just before Landon and I met again in 2009, I’d also read his book, Living Awake, so I knew that he wanted to free himself from negative patterns and to find a true partner. Once we got involved later that year, I also knew that the quality of connection that we shared was real, alive and precious. And that’s why he’d get so afraid.

I want to be very clear that this is not about staying with an abusive partner or being a doormat. Every time Landon and I came to a difficult place and I stood up to him, he’d wake up, we’d gain ground and move forward.

We’re all afraid of being hurt. When Diana Krall sings the old favorite, ‘Let’s fall in love’, when she gets to the line ‘why be afraid of it…’ she adds, ‘I’ll tell you why…’. She voices the feelings of many, that being open and vulnerable can feel terrifying.

In the course of our relationship, Landon and I faced our fears about love together. Mine were around not being good enough. His were around making a wrong choice and then being trapped. But by hanging in there and talking through all of it, we proved once again that when you confront your fears and don’t run away from them, you become more free.

In 2009, when I was preparing for the ‘Big Love’ to come into my life, I wrote a list of all the qualities I wanted in a partner and he matched them all. Here are a few words from that list:

“He’s physically, spiritually and emotionally healthy. Together, we know that in real love, issues arise to be resolved and healed and we’re not afraid of that. We embrace and welcome the adventure that love is. We can talk about everything and contribute to each other. With him, I can begin to live the life I have wanted to live my whole life long—in love, in joy and relationship, full, alive and happy.”

The life that Landon and I now share validates not only what I wrote on my list but what I sensed that we could have together. I am so grateful that some kind of grace gave me the strength, this time, to not follow my pride and my ego, so that I could discover a whole new world of love, joy and true partnership.

Sending you good wishes on this lovely spring day, for more freedom, joy and love in your life.

Diane

Living the Awakened Relationship

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Falling in Love Backwards

THE AWAKENED RELATIONSHIP

I have resisted doing a blog until our book, “Falling in Love Backwards” was out in the world. Now I am committing to writing once a week so that I can answer the questions that people have about Diane’s and my book or my earlier book “Living Awake.”

I will also describe some of the upsets Diane and I go through and how we have been able to resolve them. One thing I am clear about is that the Awakened Life or Enlightened Life is not devoid of upsets. Rather it is about resolving current issues so they do not continue to plague you and then being open to deeper, more fundamental issues arising.

An interesting observation is that each dysfunctional pattern, a product of some earlier conditioning or decision made by us when we were children or perhaps even in the DNA of being a man or woman, always first reveals itself in the form of an upset. Even though I am now awake to myself, observing myself in action in the world, the first indication that I am off track from who I want to be is that I am upset. This is the entry point for the process that follows. So do not deny or ignore your upsets. They are the door to freedom. Freedom to be your Self, and to choose how you want to BE.

All upsets have as their nature, being out of present time. In an upset you are reliving or rerunning an earlier incident from your past. You are unconsciously putting your life energy through some programmed pattern. Also upsets (your mind) are telling you, “I don’t like the way it is right now. It should be different if he/she loves me. I don’t like what he or she is doing or what he or she did. If they change I will be happier. I want something different.” So the very nature of upsets is “This isn’t it.”

Now if you are not upset and want something to change then you take some action, from a neutral position, to change the circumstances. But in an upset, we find ourselves a victim to our own programming and it almost always looks like we are victims of the circumstance or the other person’s actions. So there has to be both the “This isn’t it” and “I feel like a victim” for it to be an upset. Of course as evolved beings we don’t want to admit even to ourselves that we are victims, but it is the starting point as I mentioned. And it is “the way it is” right now, so don’t resist it, work with your upsets and they will become a welcomed doorway to your becoming a more refined and evolved human Being.

By way of example, a recent incident. Diane and I were shopping for a couch in IKEA. I entered the store without paying much attention to the store layout on the information board as you enter, as the couch section was fairly near the entrance. After not seeing what we wanted and wandering for a while from display room to display room along this programmed path through their giant store, I was ready to leave. I mostly dislike shopping anyway. My motto is “get in and get out.” I started looking for the exit but couldn’t find any, then we seemed to circle back past the same displays we had seen and still there was not an obvious way out and to top it off, the signs seemed confusing.

About this time I started to feel angry and trapped, a tension in my chest and a kind of panic. I was definitely not in control, a victim in their planned maze, and I hated it. As there was no store personnel around to help, I started to raise my voice, “How the f…. do I get out of here?” Diane who is my angel, and did not make me wrong for being so angry, said “Take a deep breath Landon, this does not seem like you.” I did and started to calm down and then we found a store person and finally got out. My immediate comment was, “I am never going to go to IKEA again.”

Later as we were debriefing the incident in the car, I realized that the feeling of being trapped, in a maze, out of control, all seemed to harken back to being born into a world of chaos and confusion. I also saw that I could have taken more responsibility for knowing the store layout, and of course taken a breath and asked someone how to get out quickly – all without being upset. But at the time, the as yet unhealed part of my birth experience got triggered which allowed me to look at it and see it for what it was – a baby’s confusion and anger and helplessness at being born into a world which “couldn’t be it.” The original “This isn’t it.”

I also saw that IKEA had done a masterful job of marketing, as I was forced to see so many things that I wasn’t looking for, but now when I think, “Where will we get the sinks for the new studio, I think IKEA.” So I am sure I will be going back!!

May our lives continue to deepen through the learning that comes from our upsets.

All the best,
Landon