A 60 YEAR PLAN… the full-er story of how I got to where I am now.

My first moments of truly enjoying being alive, were as a dancer. Dancing gave me the space to move with incredibly different energies, that I might not have otherwise explored. I could be the villain or the invalid or the warrior onstage, without having to worry about what any of that meant about “me.” It was both exhilarating and relaxing. Moving my body brought me a level peace and ease I didn’t realized I had been longing for.

For years I danced and played and enjoyed being creative, but somewhere I knew something even greater was possible. One day I started to ponder what I would like to leave behind after this body of mine died? What mark did I truly desire to make on the world? What delighted me so much that I would like to add to it?

And so I created a 60 year plan.

I had been visiting some parks regularly in the Seattle area and started to read up about the people who designed them. I mean, what an enormous contribution for the future these people had been! Their foresight, to set aside space for the trees and the flowers, was nurturing SO MANY different life forms all those years later.

I thought, “Perhaps I can make a park someday.”
Of course, I had no idea what creating a park actually involved, so I gave myself 60 years to do it. 60 years seemed like plenty of time to let this journey unravel, without being too stressful.

I continued dancing and at one point suffered an injury that might have stopped me from going on an upcoming tour. But, nothing was going to stop me! So I got to work looking into what types of treatment were available for my injuries. I landed upon acupuncture (which, as someone who was afraid of needles, I thought I’d never do). And, remarkably, it was wonderful. I started reading more about Chinese and East Asian medicine, and was both amazed and totally confused.

The healing paradigm that I had grown up with was all Western Medicine. The biology classes I had taken all described the body in ways I was familiar with. Here I was reading about water and fire, and the Taoist philosophies of looking to the natural world around you to gain a better understanding of the body. Very intriguing, and very different. If I hadn’t had such an amazing healing experience with my own body, I might have put all of this aside.

Instead, I started to have a funny little thought. What if I could learn more about acupuncture and apply those principles to working with the land? What if knowing more about a healthy, thriving system, could add to the park I was looking to someday create?

Thank goodness I had given myself 60 years to bring this park into existence. A little 3 year trek into studying East Asian medicine couldn’t throw me too far off the track. And so I became an acupuncturist. I opened a clinic in New Orleans and let myself be taught by 1000s of patients over the next several years.

Just like when I would talk to plants, the bodies started talking to me more and more. They would tell me about the stresses of an individual, how much sleep they had been getting or even what they had been eating. I was amazed to discover just how much I could know about someone, so quickly. My clinic became a sort of playground for me to explore just how amazing it is to be aware. And how it is possible to use that awareness to contribute to other people’s lives.

And, even as my time in the clinic was such a pleasure for me, I knew that there had to be something even more. (Perhaps it was my 60 year plan pulling at me??) So, I started asking questions again. What more was there for me to study? How could I be a part of actually empowering other people to know that they could be aware too? What would the world be like if more and more people were willing to be aware and to use that to contribute to the world around them?

One day, a random email showed up in my inbox. In it Dr. Dain Heer, one of the co-founders of Access Consciousness was being interviewed and he used the Access Consciousness clearing statement.

It sounded like a bunch of jibberish to me, but it caught my attention. I had no idea what it was so I looked it up on YouTube, learned it, and started using it. I would go on long walks and ask myself random questions, say the clearing statement, and then just notice if anything had shifted or not. I even pulled a few of my patients aside to show them this crazy video to see if it would work for them. I mean, why not try it?!

I got so inspired that I started taking Access classes. The more I would play with these tools, the better outcomes I would see in my clinic. I decided to become certified so that I could facilitate these tools and classes as well. After all of my years of study, these pragmatic tools were delivering results that previously I hadn’t even hoped to dream of!

Not only was I being encouraged to work with people and their bodies, but also to engage with the consciousness of every molecule around me, every plant, every animal, every stone, everyone. Yes! This engagement with the consciousness of the entire world definitely plays well with my 60 year plan!

I closed my clinic and started traveling around the world, facilitating classes. Along the way, I became the “oracle” for Dr. Dain Heer. This means that I take all of Dain’s classes, type tons of notes, and use those notes to contribute to even more classes. Basically, I have the great fortune of being right in the midst of a conversation that truly inspires me… one of exploring as many ways as possible to empower people to create glorious lives, all while honoring and enjoying this phenomenal Earth, and each other.

More recently, I have started a specialty series of classes that blends the tools of Access with my love of playing with plants. It’s called Talk To The Plants. (Clever title, I know.) I’ve had such amazing experiences inviting people to play with the plants around them. The results have yielded happy people, greener spaces, gorgeous flowers and fruits… and how does it get any better than that?!

My target

Now I’ve started to wonder… what if this entire earth were to become the park I’ve been asking to create?
I wonder how many other people would like to be a part of creating this?
What if we could, simply by choosing to step into greater consciousness, engage with the entire world around us, and invite it all to thrive?
What legacy can we all leave behind?
Let’s do this!!