Sep23
Posted on Sep 23 by Ruth Davis
I have been back at the beach for three weeks and I hear myself chastising my writer self, “Why haven’t you started writing your book proposal yet! You created this space and your wasting time!” I tell myself it’s only been here three weeks, that I needed to acclimate, settle in. And that I had a big Mac course to launch and begin. Still, I am having trouble getting started. So I have been listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Magic Lessons Podcasts. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and has just published a new book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. In one of Gilbert’s podcasts, she is talking with a woman who is stuck in her writing. Gilbert invites the woman to have an affair with her writing, to keep it secret and sneaky and exciting, to counter how open and generous she is with everything else in her daily life. The energy of a sneaking around affair didn’t resonate with me, but I loved the idea of growing a new relationship...
Sep16
Posted on Sep 16 by Ruth Davis
As a coach, I often work with other coaches to get clear and stay connected to my bigger heart visions. I’ve been wanting to do some kind of coaching, to push me out of my comfort zone, to poke me in places where I’m feeling stuck, to identify some old patterns so that I can create new ones. But I didn’t want to do the same kind of talking coaching work that I usually do. I had heard that coaching with horses can be a powerful way to learn things about yourself. It’s not about riding or horsemanship, but about interacting with the horse’s energy. So when a friend announced that she was facilitating an Equus Coaching Day just 45 minutes from home, I signed up. I have very little experience with horses. I’ve gone horseback riding a handful of times but I’ve never been one to dream of horses. In fact, the only thing I knew about horses I learned just last year when the man that owns the hill next to Paradise Park got a new...
Sep13
Posted on Sep 13 by Ruth Davis
I’m settling into being back at the beach at the mobile home and RV Park I call Paradise Park. The sun rises an hour later here, so we’ve been sleeping in past 7:30. And that’s OK. I’m finding my rhythm with the tides-when to walk on the beach, when to walk along the street above the cove that I call Hawk Walk, and when to hang out at home, in the cool of the air-conditioned RV. And I am settling into why I am here and what I want to be focusing on over these next four months. Surprisingly, some ideas are popping and they are clear and obvious and easy first next steps: register the domain for ruthrdavis.com, gather a group of women for an in-depth 7 week Heart Sparks group, and go to Patti Digh’s Live is a Verb Camp later this month. When I realized how many of the people I engaged with during my trip were people I had met at her first camp 2 years ago, I knew I had to go. Because these are the kind...
Sep02
Posted on Sep 2 by Ruth Davis
(This is a re-post from 2010 but, like with many things I re-read after some time has gone by, it was a great reminder about WHY I want to find the fun. I hope it reminds you of something, too. <3 Ruth) You’ve heard the saying, “all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.” Well, last week I was in Florida to meet with my Mastermind group. It is two full days of intense coaching, talking, brainstorming, releasing, planning, growing work. For past meetings I’ve always arrived a day early to acclimate to the weather and the time zone, but usually spent the time in my room, just hanging out. This time I wanted to do it differently. I wanted to have some FUN! I have always wanted to canoe through the Everglades. So a few weeks before the trip I looked online and discovered that the marshy, boggy part of the Everglades was too far from Miami for an easy day trip. I was bummed. Disappointed. I couldn’t believe that I was so close to a...
Aug26
Posted on Aug 26 by Ruth Davis
If all goes as planned, I will be back to the beach a week from today. Even though the RV is at the mechanic again. I had picked it up last Friday, all systems go. I drove city streets to the state’s emissions test center, then decided to take the freeway home. When I hit 65 mph I felt a slight hesitation, then the a/c stopped blowing cold. I didn’t hear any noises but I smelled something piney. I got home without incident and asked Marika to join me for a test drive. First we checked under the hood and that’s when we saw the belt on the ground, under the engine. I left a message at the mechanic and towed it back there on Monday morning. He called Monday afternoon to tell me the a/c compressor had seized up, causing the belt to snap. He knows I am leaving town on Monday and I am at the top of the priority repair list. Meanwhile, I’m not able to do any of the things I need to...
Aug19
Posted on Aug 19 by Ruth Davis
(Note: I wrote this in September, 2010, five years ago. Seeing the life I have created since then, I know it’s because I committed to a plan.) I was never one for having a long-term plan. When people asked “what are your goals for 5 years, 10 years?” I’d look at them blankly. I had no idea. I would tell myself, I live in the moment, I can’t possibly know what I’ll be doing in 10 years. And yet, in the deep of my heart, I DID have a vision of what I wanted to be doing, where I wanted to be living. I just never shared it. Not even with myself. Because some voice inside of me said that, if I wasn’t doing it NOW, then I must be a failure. I only knew how to have short term goals. I didn’t know how to create a long term plan. And so I tucked my secret dreams deep and away and continued to believe that the only long term goal I needed was to just be happy...
