The story became personalized as I grew up. The mental dialogue often being motivation to keep on persevering, until I finally conquered an appropriate demon, and could move onto the next narrative. A couple of times, the antagonist wouldn’t materialize and I became familiar with alternative methods of closure. Instead of beating the bad guy, it was about defeating my bad habits.

I was the same size for approximately 20 years. While I played sports and was on teams as a teen, by adulthood I sat at a desk for many of those years. The lack of movement compounded every injury I’d incurred over that time. For some reason, my body became stiff and filled with acid buildup from the daily strain of my stress and worry. Never mind rehabilitation. I would stretch in the morning and by evening, be hunched over again while walking.

When I started to address my physical health issues, similarly there was no bad guy. However, it was still helpful for me to facilitate the process using the Hero’s Journey. I was a scientist, explorer and researcher at my fiery core (Indiana Jones, eat your heart out), so when it came time for me to decide that I was going to live — it was going to be through data, analysis, and innovation. Victory was going to be my ability to communicate what was happening to my body.

I’d seen aspects in various settings, however the particular cycle I was looking for was simplified, as my experiences have taught me that I operate best when loosely guided by external information. Truly, my cycle was about supporting my Minimal Operational Capacity. The daily routines to manage the symptoms, so I can think outside of pain and resistance, and solve the complex problems that delight me so.

Like so many others I have no road back, only the road forward. My body has reinvented itself over the years. I work regularly to break down and care for my muscles, as well as made multiple changes to my lifestyle as things evolve. Not surprisingly, I can still feel a bit like a stranger in my body. I’ve had to make friends with my inner dialogue, AND my body. They have differing opinions on my life, that’s for sure. Ultimately, I find myself using discipline and routine, in order to maintain emotional resilience. I am finally the brave Hero of my story, and my journey is far from over.

These are fascinating areas of focus that have interested and engaged me throughout my life. What I mean when I say “the art of”, is the mastery or study or lifelong practice of. In thinking of our actions as practices, we can make inherent the finesse and growth of such behaviors.

Now, you’re becoming aware through these articles that I have learned how to climb back onto the horse quite a few (repetitiously so!). Yet, I can still find my inner dialogue turning hostile monologue, from the perspective of a tyrannical ego. Thankfully, I also catch myself cajoling my inner-self toward the high-vibration energy of the loving Universe or Source (or your guiding deity). The practice is to be consistently aware, so when I notice I can simply stop the unhealthy dialogue, and nurture myself to produce a more loving dynamic. To maintain a more compassionate conversation, built on values of faith and humility.

As I’ve been analyzing the social and emotional changes within the lunar cycle (28 days), and rotations through the astrological studies, the patterns of evolution and change have changed little over the past thousands of years. It’s the same 5–6 steps (such as The Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change)) over and over again. So then, using these steps (as an algorithmic approach) in a solid foundation that I can practice and improve the actions — increasing my quality of life in a stable fashion.

As a side-benefit from my increased meditation and mindfulness, I have focused and pursued my studies from the paper last year, to an artist grant process last month. This astounds me. I downloaded, or brain dumped this project after a meditation session in early February 2019. Entitled “Bliss”, I had been ruminating on this since my medical diagnosis in October 2016. It answers, in part, the question of “What role do I have to play in the burgeoning cannabis industry, occurring in Alberta?” In another way, it contributes to my personal musings on entertainment in our society, and how to reinforce the cultural significance of language and storytelling.

While I have designed, coordinated, and executed multiple conferences, summits, and supported expos — there was a gap that appeared in the space of education, and in the startup side as well. These gaps meant that people were starting to wonder how they were being supported through momentous change, here and across the country. While civic leaders do what they can, corporate cannabis has stepped up, and yet the individual Canadian is suffering from a lack of cannabis education, a lack of community-minded conversation, and a lack of support around mental wellness.

These gaps meant that I would need to step outside of my previous roles as communicator, marketer, creative, or producer. I needed to embrace stepping up as an artist. As an artist, I created a multi-day event to launch in Calgary in August of 2020. I am collaborating with other artists, to showcase our combined efforts in a symphony of messaging, orchestrated to affect the audience with a positive impact. This will help me focus on the artistic mediums that move the narrative forward within the event experience.

I’ve been researching, connecting with various community leaders, and building out the necessary proposals. As these conversations take place, I revise the positioning and audiences accordingly. I note where the stage designers will need to account for traffic-flow, sound design, and artistic staging for the scripted areas.

My personal experiences have been such a major part of this whole process and concept, that I have to note that I was recently invited to attend a camp experience with others that have come through the healing of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse (CCASA). As it’s been years since my last series of sessions with a dedicated therapist, this was a touching reminder that your healing is a life-long journey. I look forward to the time, and to celebrating our latest accomplishments, whatever they may be. My improvement physically, emotionally, and spiritually is such a critical component to Bliss, that the event revolves around this improvement as it’s central theme. Rather than a Dante’s Inferno of fear-mongering and scare tactics, the focus is on education and entertainment, via internationally renowned figures.

Artfully, through a combination of quantum physics, mindfulness, and cannabis — Bliss presents a space to facilitate your understanding of self, within the context of society. It presents an opportunity to educate and inform about mental wellness and cannabis. It’s an “interpretive center” for the human experience. It’s driven by a “choose your own adventure” narrative to build critical thinking skills, and explore how to become aware of what makes up your internal and external universes.

That’s not to say that it will work that way for everyone. Nor that I present a perfect solution. It’s a place to start a different conversation. It’s an opportunity to work on the heart of Calgarians and allow us to explore the idea of a blissful life.

*For more information on Bliss as it develops and launches in Calgary 2020, please see the signup page here.

I am a tarot card reader and astrologer in training. This article is a by-product of a presentation I did earlier this March, to the Astrologers of Calgary group. It brings together different aspects of the research I’ve been working on for the past year, in emotional resilience and coaching. I love bringing up the saying, a smart person knows what to say and a wise person knows when to say it. I assume this, like tarot and astrology, is a life-long pursuit of understanding.

Some of you are aware that I am early in my formalized training as an astrologer. That being said, over the past 18 years as a tarot card reader, I’ve gained some understanding about the value of time. As I have aged and measured my personal growth against the evolution of the major arcana, my readings developed depth and nuance that was not possible before.

I realized the impact of process planning and, as life brought more trials, I became intimately close with time. I find when we are dealing with crises, or moments that are brought to our attention in highly charged situations, this is when we can most clearly observe our relationship with time.

“On the one hand it keeps the burgeoning egos of journeyman astrologers in check; on the other, as when we look at time we are looking at the very stuff of which our astrology is made — looking, as it were, not so much at the face of the clock, where the events that mark time are displayed, but into the workings of the clock itself — the fathoming of time is bound to be harder than the mere tracking of events.” (John Frawley,“How to Beat Time”, http://www.skyscript.co.uk/timing.html)

Don’t get me wrong, at first we don’t want anything to do with time. The period of time between being born and our first breath. Being hungry for the first time and waiting to be fed. Not knowing if we’re going to be fed. Being forced to do what was expected and when.

We actually grow up resisting and can find ourselves hating time. We can agree that this evolved into a complex emotional and physical response by the first spring, after attending school for the first time. Spring break, and then summer break. These were interminable periods for us to experience.

We learn the value of a day through the routines we build into it. Does that make sense? Each progressive act creates an anchor in space/time, and so we can maintain a type of malleability, by focusing on the actions or process. As we grow and develop, these definitions of time will stretch and flux.

Each day is a different, unique combination of emotional, spiritual, and physical development that establishes your unique perspective on life and your existence. A short day could have been filled with loving conversations, important work situations, excitedly shared moments with family, and low-key interactions with our pets. A long day could taken up by hours of being sick in bed, and unable to address the pressures mounting outside of your cold-induced cocoon. How about 36 hours of labour? After not one, but three miscarriages?

I won’t get too deeply into the concept of time and it’s existence, however I pose a few key agreements to get us on the same page:

1. Time does not exist as a line from A. to B. We can see this when we look back at this morning or day, even this past weekend. Tomorrow truly does not exist yet. We can only observe the now, and reality consists of the observed life.
2. Time can pass differently for 2 people observing the same space/time. We see examples of this in every domestic relationship, parental or partner.
3. Time can be affected to experience an extension or shortening. We see examples of this with physical exercise training and medical professionals, people who encounter “I don’t want to, this is going to take forever” all the time.

For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll be using a two-step approach to create meaningful time:

1. First, we outline the different situations and transformations that will move forward the timeline. Our individual experience and learning helps us create assumptions about the commonly shared beliefs in the world.

What would move along the universal timeline? The seasons come to mind, and we see that in both tarot and astrology. The 22 major and 56 minor cards of the tarot and and the 12 houses of the zodiac give us 4 quadrants. Typically we will start there, after maybe even taking the Southern and Northern Hemispheres into consideration. That would mean, if we are doing a reading for a client in the Spring, they would have a particular set of experiences and mindsets that are often found during this time. As well, if there focused on something that happens in the Fall, you know you’ll need to take different factors into account.

In tarot, I use the larger agreed-upon values in the major arcana. How does the soul progress along its’ path? How do the seasons progress to allow for a healthy growth cycle? We see this in the 7 year cycles of astrology, concurrent cycles that add up to overall soul growth. In tarot and astrology, we also find notes and meaning that connects us to the mutable/fixed/cardinal factors, the lunar phases, as well as yin/yang factors to ponder.

2. Secondly, we can define the starting and ending points. We need to know what’s important, we need to frame the crux of the issue accordingly, and we need to find out the “how” and “why”.

In Tarot, I will look at the present/future as the point of reference for the client, and the past/wild card as the context for meaningful time. As well, I find meaning in the design of the card. For example, which way is the wind blowing? How active are the characters? Which way are they facing? In astrology, we can take that further with the cyclic movements of planetary aspects and secondary progressions.

The scenario I want to lay out for you sounds like this: Your clients want to see you, gain clarity, be able to try out their new understanding. After some time they come back for more guidance. We are not “advice-givers”, rather we explain the code that we are able to interpret for the client to attach meaning. Does that make sense? Why might giving advice “back-fire” on you? Exactly, we are not in control of how others’ think or respond to our readings. Therefore, to do readings that people enjoy and keep coming back for, we will need to communicate meaningful time in the same way that we craft the experience for our clients. We give them a beginning, a middle, and an end. We need to explain the whole process so that they can recognize what moving forward looks like.

In this way, we encourage our clients to think for themselves, to associate the time frame with their own “signposts” and “landmarks”. This means that they can create a deeper meaning, giving your role in their lives more value. This allows you to be more confident in stating your prices, delivering your readings, and growing your community.

For your clients, their ability to create their own road map, means that you are truly facilitating your clients to live their best life. To grow their self-awareness, and to build their relationship with themselves. Will it be more useful to hear that you’ll get a raise or promotion in 3 months? Or to hear that if they become more of a team player this month, that increased conversations and a better working relationship, that you put forth your desire for a raise or promotion to a welcoming audience? Which path would lead you to a peaceful, holistic growth cycle that builds on your successes?

Why slow growth? The idea is based off of the slow food movement founded in 1986, building on the collective brand sentiment that currently exists within the world’s population. It incorporates aspects of mindfulness, the movement that is slowly revolutionizing our society similar to the way jogging and health clubs/gyms reinvented personal health maintenance. We are living longer, working more, and while professional training will continue to be pushed toward short and viscerally rewarding options, the nature of this particular “beast” forces a longer term approach. The brain is simply too complicated to get the observed data around processing emotions and their patterns of interaction in less than a 7-10 year cycle. Encouraging the idea of long-term personal development projects (15-25 years) and communicating the benefits, will hopefully illustrate that everyone is capable of benefiting from them. By working to eliminate the wars within us, we can work to eliminate the wars around us. Lastly, the social aspect is quite integral, see “Isolation is the dream-killer, not your attitude”.

How did I come to this place? My Mom is a passionate explorer of my family’s heritage, introducing me to the stories of how the various arms of the family came to Canada and the conditions that forged their lives, through both parent’s lineages. I learned stories about my Dad’s Ukrainian side, that more likely came from Austria in the late 1800’s and the Italian side from Udine, Italy in the early 1920’s. How my Mom’s French-Canadian side dates back to the 1600’s France. That’s one of my favourites, as the fille du roi were loaded onto (or jumped onto) ships that were bound for the New World and their future husbands, the coureurs de bois, on the other side.

My parents adventurous spirits are not limited to research, by any means. Their resourcefulness has led to a lifetime of travelling and exploring the globe, however they can with the collateral they have. I carried on this legacy for many years, living abroad in London, UK for 16 months, as well as travelling to 60 cities around the globe. To enable this capability throughout my life, I trained for a career in media and film/tv. I imagined that the medium of my trade would ensure a long-term solution to my “what to do for work” query. Almost 20 years later, I am currently in the midst of an exit-strategy from my current career focus to take place over 3 years, allowing me to do some exploring of my own.

The world has become a global village, and there is such a population spread that our cultural focus on adventurous exploration has been moved to the outer reaches of space or the depths of the ocean cover. There is another environment that has wide-spread interest and engagement, the internal mysteries of our minds. While I will always jump at the chance to support space travel and supporting our natural environment, I reached a personal limit last year which stopped me from these pursuits in late 2016.

X-ray results showed Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease and Scoliosis. The levels of pain I was experiencing 24/7 meant that needed to make changes. I now track my chronic pain daily. I was forced to learn my inner workings as I learned to manage my internal dialogue. Otherwise, the business that I had built from bankruptcy in 2012 and the personal life I had re-built since substance abuse and being a victim of assault for years prior was at risk of falling apart again. See, “Feelings: Handle Them Before They Handle You”

So, my motivation was clear, how can I regain my ability to work independently and manage my own affairs while rehabilitating my body? My Canadian medical marijuana prescription was approved in October 2016. I combined vaping small doses of flower with an intense physio program and support from my doctor’s and specialists. After 23 months of steady effort, I’m happy to say that I have stabilized my income, increased my range of motion to “normal” levels on most days, my clients feel well taken care of, and I jump out of bed in the morning to get cracking in the morning. How did I achieve this?

Long-term versions of this approach, that incorporate the tools I’ve developed, is in my best interests to sustain my quality of life and well-being. I’ve started this with researching and collecting data. I steadily increased momentum of the process over this past summer to compile my findings into a series of papers that will lay the groundwork. For what? A 25 year study, that will focus on tracking cognitive functioning and authentic, creative self-expression. This research and data will widen the scope of current appearances, and really enhance the verbiage and language we use to define the inner workings of our minds.

Some real-world benefits of this range from Creative Directors being confident about their original ideas for creative work, to parents regaining their lives sooner after their children have departed on their own lives, to CEO’s being able to retain the human element when planning long-term strategy with AI considerations. See, “Fractal Thinking”

The assessment period and introduction/customization of the program would last roughly a month, with a 3 month follow-up to check-in and make necessary adjustments. This dynamic model would be put to use via the participant’s preferred data collection techniques.

What would it look like? To use my particular case, the idea is that I can use this to enforce my daily choices toward living my “best” life. It reduces stress, aligns me with my intuitive purpose through analysis of intention, and using designed surveys to “interview” myself and get the required feedback to create my ideal creative outcome. I want to extricate visual memories from my subconscious to create a visual resource that meaningfully illustrates my cognitive functioning. I have experiences recurring dreams throughout my life, that are related to each other through geographic connections. Similar to the landscape method to memorization utilized by the Greeks thousands of years ago, I believe that there are visualizations that can help us think better. See “The Mental Map and Memorability in Dynamic Graphs”

This is not an easily answered path of questioning, nor is it meant to be. It’s an excuse for me to care deeply about the world that has not always been kind to me, for a significant portion of time. This ensures that I retain my best qualities as a human, and can support an arm of research that will highlight the human path, as we continue to travel down the robotics and technology roads of evolution. This is where I choose to join others in pioneering research and conversation. A courageous commitment to creativity. This is a path to adventurous exploration.

So, the good news it’s gone over well. People are intrigued by my point of view. They seem curious in the aspects I had hoped they would be. Which means, it’s time for the next paper. I’m thrilled that I’m feeling more confident, however I realized that there is so much more that needs exploring, and explaining. It’s so helpful to get the feedback that helps me decide where to start. Why do I think this or that? In which article might I have found that insight, or was it my own conclusion?

The position paper was, in a way, a wonderful failure. Not done in time, each of my arguments did not have clear or direct lines of rebuttal, and I wasn’t sure it needed to be written at all. After editing it to the appropriate amount of words for a policy advice, I found myself advocating for a study to be established. In the presentation, I started to see how this might be a worthy focus for the next 25 years of my life. I find out my final grade on the 6th!

Not to say that this would start this week, far from it, as I prepare for another round of studies – this time focused on my established career path. What do I hope to attain from a Strategic Communications Management Professional (SCMP) designation? Ideally, this global standard will help my clients see me as an established, credible, and powerful choice to solve their marketing challenges.

How does this designation help me with this current line of study and learning? Well, I had discussed my coaching practice that I’m building, earlier in this series. The idea of being able to extract consistently authentic self-expression, and use it as a qualifying measure in a long-term study would help to establish a wider variety of non-tangible markers in cognitive behaviours. These data-derived markers could help to chart the affect of mindfulness-based stress-reduction practices. It can help to align doctors when treating chronic conditions and supporting at-risk populations.

In “resilience: Why things bounce back” by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy, they examine scenarios where similar factors were addressed successfully or not, and the differences that may have made the difference. I used to view sustainability as one of my brand values, until they clarified something that was holding me back:

“More seriously, sustainability suffers in two respects: First, the entire notion that the goal should be to find a single equilibrium point runs counter to the way many natural systems actually work – the goal ought to be healthy dynamism, not a dipped-in amber stasis. Second, sustainability offers few practical prescriptions for contending with disruptions precisely at the moment we are thinking them. Resilience-thinking, on the other hand, can provide a broader, more dynamic, and more relevant set of ideas, tools, and approaches. As volatility continues to hold sway, resilience-thinking may soon come to augment or supplement the sustainability regime altogether.”

More than this, my studies and practice help me to stay on top of my personal health. I was able to skip rope today for the first time in over a year. If not longer…because when was the last you jumped rope for the fun of it?? It took me 30min to skip for 10min. Still, worth it. The muscles are definitely tightened up and are functioning within a much better musculature framework. I even threw 25 jabs with each arm to test the obliques, after skipping, with not too much pain. Wait till tomorrow :)

So, the first place to start is what I base everything in my tools and practice on. The premise that time is not a linear construct.

By now, you may have gathered that a combination of active development and environmental influences has rendered me capable of getting lost in unconscious thought for inordinate amounts of time. This mental processing ability came back into focus last year, as I found myself in dire straits, unable to move without causing excruciating pain. I am an independent woman, was in an unhealthy relationship that was draining me, and a contract freelancer. While thoughts of suicide did push me to call my doctor, therapist, physiotherapist, social worker, government worker, and more over the next 8 months — I found myself pushing through incredible situations, and wanted to know why. I cycled through realizations, meditated to facilitate neural repair and began to download/capture the data.

Data, I recently discussed, is my go-to space for a solution masterclass. The simple, clear bits of information can offer a sense of peace in the collection methodologies alone. It can be studied, learned, and used to build custom, cathartic tools that enable an aligned response, no matter the situation. So that you can generate a consistent and sustainable evolutionary response algorithm. No matter what comes at you, over you, underneath you, etc. I knew my conversational partner understood, as he enthusiastically supported the idea, exclaiming “Of course I get that, it’s the same concept as complete the task with the least amount of work.”

Interestingly enough, while I was aware of this concept, it disagreed with my intrinsic values of hard-work and reward. I knew it abstractly, I did not know it concretely. The opportunity for me to see that concept as critical, was the realization that the combination of my recovery cycle as my muscles rebuilt and scar tissue was broken down, made the timeline much longer than my previous healing timeline and used immense amounts of energy. Just over a year since I had received the x-rays, and now understood I truly only had a finite amount of energy in a day. On the balancing end, an infinite amount of challenges, based on my current choices and perceptions.

Well, the first thing I realized was that “stream of consciousness” coping was not going to cut it. I started to tweak my timelines, tools, and routines. I used a collection of methods — journals, tracking sheets, online and offline calendars, audio, visual, and more until I felt that I had a baseline of emotional security achieved. After 6 months of collecting the data, bringing various parts of the data to physicians, mediators, therapists, etc. and adapting to increase the efficacy of positively influencing my well-being — I found myself ready to put it on paper. Better than I am here :) The data seems to show a network, that mirror aspects of fractal energy groupings or patterns, which could go toward explaining the bigger picture of how we all are drawn together despite large geographic spaces and time. i.e. How we can access the Akashic records, and how the universe is all interconnected, that kinda stuff.

And so, to be able to study it further. To garner support and funding for a long-term study, I’d need to start writing about this in a way that people can potentially understand what I’m trying to communicate. Two nights ago, as I was explaining a particular concept (or thought I was), my friend looks at me blankly and spurts, “It’s like you’re speaking another language.”

Understandably then I had to really force myself to publish my paper to my class today. As is. With hand-drawn illustrations included. No stick figures, at least. We’ll see what they have to say. My next challenge? Creating a PowerPoint presentation of the material.

I was lucky enough to spend countless hours fishing out of boats and off of piers. While sitting on docks with all sorts of family, from my grandparents to my many cousins, listening to lessons on how long to wait, how far away to dangle bait, how to move the bait, and when not to move at all. In between was the most important lesson of all: how to act when, after the countless times you do every step to the letter, and no fish are to be found.

To get to some of these moments, my Mom would drive a Plymouth Reliant station wagon (with no air conditioning) across Canada, between Ontario and Alberta, every summer for a few years. Most of her family lived out West, my Dad’s out East — my brothers and I living on the road, all around the globe, somewhere in between. Over the long drives, those 1800 kilometres, those 4 provinces, I thought about moving away from friends, fights with my brothers, potential loves left behind. This was the early nineties, so I read books, listened to my Walkman … or simply watched scenery roll by. We put 300,000 kilometres on that station wagon. We had put 300,000 kilometres on the Suburban we owned previously. Once my parents drove from Sioux Lookout, Ontario to Florida and back, likely with a final total of around 6,000 kilometres.

Life was interesting, it became my classroom. When other 4 year-old kids wanted a easy bake oven, I requested my own school desk. I had my wooden desk and my workbooks months before I even went to pre-school. What wasn’t in those books – I found in vehicles, homes, and on the road. I studied what was said, what wasn’t said. Observed interactions, as people like me do.

I learned that my parents are both “glue” in their respective families. They come from 5 and 6 kid broods, and they spend their lives traveling from one group to another. Helping, supporting, celebrating. Then, leaving the world behind for a few weeks or months to be alone together, exploring the natural parks of the world. As you may imagine, this lifestyle didn’t happen without a lot of planning, as well as a lot of trust and patience when no plan is available.

My parents teach me constantly about roles, partnership, limitations, compromise, faith, and love. Sometimes it’s in-person, these days it’s more through the conversations I have in my head. The archetypes I’ve created of them are fairly realistic – they help when I can’t say what I want, or I can hear them tell me things I wish they might say. They’re still living, it’s just another way to love them as they are.

Because of their example of “flying free”, it’s helped drive my research into what people need to have or be to be satisfied in life. I know that the main limitation is your own imagination and creativity. So I researched into how to bolster these functions. I practiced living with less material possessions, and less in-service extraneous relationships. Started to develop the networks in my mind and heart, as well as my relationships with my support network.

This all adds up to my research paper. Which is postponed. Not surprising. The paper and presentation will be available after Sept 6 or so. Til then I now have another 5 books to read, countless articles and conversations to process. And so, I leave you until the next piece.

It encourages our capacity for perspective and clear, two-way communication. All people deserve, and are capable of learning about and applying strategies, theories, different ways of thinking, being, and living. At any time, one has the freedom to change their life for the better. This short animation (https://youtu.be/HJvDrT6N-mw) via Alberta Family Wellness is particularly descriptive of the concept of resiliency.

So why aren’t we jumping into change at any given moment?

This is partially attributed to the physiology of our brains. The signals from your body travel through the Limbic system before reaching the Prefrontal Cortex. Meaning, you must experience the emotional impact of a signal from your nervous system, before rationalizing it.

I’m of a generation that was born before the invention of the internet. I was raised by parents that loved and wanted me. I have younger brothers I still remain in touch with. Our family grew up on highways, boats, planes, and all over the globe. My parents are still travelling the world. I am cognizant that I am very lucky to be raised like this, to be connected. This family group, my friends, and my support network allowed me to be able to experience emotions and learn “around" them. Again, very lucky.

Speaking of learning around, I was reading to my cousins at the age of 2, and was in the local library reading books by age 3. By that age I had two younger brothers, and by 6 there were an additional 4 to care for, while our home was a foster home. Between the ages of 7 and 8, I travelled with my family for a year and a half to a list of countries. All those years, I was reading and writing. Processing. Some earlier journals were lost in a flood, however I still have the majority. Proof of a very active, enthusiastic helper personality.

I’ve received certificates, awards, letters of thanks and congratulations since I could, for community service and scholastic endeavors. Some are treasured as honoured posessions now that still bring me joy. I have also encountered abuse, assault, bullying, night terrors, and so many negative experiences as a result of my choices. These “trophies” reside mainly in my mind, now. Part of my inner library. Maintained by librarian ninjas (or would they be ninja librarians?), these rows and rows of books hold my memories, ideas, and images I’ve held onto in my subconscious.

This algorithmic approach to emotional resilience, is based on our paradoxes and is for my self, as much as others. Like meditation it serves in a simplistic fashion, however consistent practice empowers one to improve their quality of life and that is the fiery core of this study.

I look at my friends in debilitating chronic pain, with cancerous tumors, daunting adversity thrown at them. Some living joyful lives that I, nor they, could see have seen as a likely outcome. Some choosing lives riddled with a painful mindset. Choosing pain is no longer acceptable to me. It doesn’t need to be this way. I will often tell my clients to call me after they’ve given up. Because only after you surrender the ego, can you truly be open to change. It’s like getting lost in the woods. Only after you calm down, and stop calling your surroundings “good" or “bad", can you start to make your way out of the trees. (See Emily Fletcher’s video here: https://youtu.be/06PYOwotgMY)

My first journal (that I still have in my collection), has entries from my 14 year old self, and the collection stretches through until my next entry. At that age, I was infatuated with obituaries and eulogies. I had written a few versions of my own. I’d given up the hobby, for the most part, by age 17. By that time, I had graduated high school and started working. As I did my own taxes at the time, I was shocked in 2001 to have had 14 different jobs and roles after graduating high school. I tried serving, cooking, filling, typing, calling, answering phone calls, and more.

Looking back, I was curious to know how I avoided the high school drama and stayed focused on my career? Sure, I had stunted social experience from travelling so much, changing schools a few times, and hadn’t acquired a lot of dating experience. In fact, I was bullied quite a bit. Hence the, fascination with mortality, being an active member of the poetry club, getting arrested a couple of times, and coming home pregnant — okay, so I didn’t avoid teen-time drama.

My parents were definitely key to my getting back “on track", throughout my teen years. My parents still picked me up from the police station, still consoled me during my first big betrayal, and still drove me to the abortion clinic (and home).

Sitting down now and looking back, it’s easy to see how I found my way out of those times of toxic stress. However, at the time, things weren’t so clear. So, how was I able to “stay on track”? What composed my idea of “keeping it together”? After many years of cycle, experience, and recording data I had a reason to review the data – and trends started to emerge. In University, as I was bringing my notes and research to my various teachers and teaching assistants, I brought my notes and research to a school psychologist.

I begin with support, via Coursera, an app that allows users to engage in Massive Open Online Courses . These MOOC’s provide access to an international community, regular progress checks, and opportunities for peer review. I received my approval for financial assistance this past weekend. I’ve already purged my head of 7 or so pages of loose framing. This needs to be tight. Basic. So it works for as many people as possible.

My question is: “Can the multitude of paradoxes that drive and shape us be triangulated in such a fashion that we might illuminate the way to a high quality of life? One that is connected, creative, and sustainable?

My thought is that by establishing a meaningful framework of values and principles, it frames the mind in such a way to facilitate self-awareness and allow authentic, creative self-expression in even the most trying of times. I believe that authentic, creative self-expression is a way to empower human beings to live their best quality of life.

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”

― Ansel Adams

My training has given me skill sets in project coordination and management, personnel management, interpersonal interaction, and many more. To me, “work” has always been a sacred calling. Helping my Mom help around the home with younger siblings and more, gave me a sense of satisfaction. Eventually, it was also was rewarded with a small hourly allowance, which increased every birthday by $0.25. By age 12, I was a provincially certified babysitter, making $3.00 an hour. My parents did impose a “work-free” time when I was around 15 years old, when we moved to Calgary, Alberta. By 16 years, I was working on my first work placement, a local female-led production company. A phenomenal find in the late 1990’s.

I worked in film and television around 5 years of post secondary education, and my career even includes a 6 month stint on an international board of directors on behalf of Women in Film and Television, as Vice President, Southern Alberta while in my mid-20’s. I’ve worked and volunteered around the world, in my own (I toured with my high school choir in competition) since 1998. How did I manage to learn to keep my head, then manage to lose my head, and learn how to regain my head in the past 35 years? Multiple times? How have I managed to experience so much in my life that most people will never get the opportunities to? Some of it is outside of my control, some came from fiends and family, some from myself.

As I’m sure you have gathered, there’s a lot to consider. A lot to take in still, after so many years of learning and practicing how to get up after failure, after failure, after failure. Wait, what?

Yup, failure, after mistake, after misunderstanding, after rushing in, and after taking too long. So many behind me, and ahead of me.

I am an organizer, a pattern analyzer, a researcher. So this is my kind of challenge. These failures and successes show evidence of emotional resiliency and the lack of. Over the past 17-18 years I’ve organized a myriad of groups, projects, and companies from a variety of industries — such as communications, to film production, to corporate events. As always, this material is from my own observations. As I pick up research and material, I know I won’t be able to fit it all in. So I’ll be working through sections here to refine the final piece.

I appreciate your time and attention moving forward.