Get Naked With Joy

Tag: Beautiful Chaos

Taking Back the Wheel

How a three-day bq.Capital retreat, an unexpected sailboat adventure, and one vulnerable moment helped me reclaim Get Naked With Joy and become the captain of my life.

At sunset today, only hours after reclaiming my voice and reviving my Get Naked With Joy blog, I found myself standing at the wheel of a sailboat.

This is a true story that happened this evening.

The sails were down and the motor was running. The captain was below deck performing a maintenance task, and we had intentionally brought the boat up to a high speed so he could do what needed to be done.

I was steering.

Only a short time earlier, I talked about becoming the captain of my ship. Reclaiming my voice. Becoming the master of my destiny and, therefore, my life.

And then, while we were moving at considerable speed I got distracted by the beauty of birds taking flight and I let go of the wheel.

Just for a moment.

The boat immediately changed direction.

We began heading directly toward the shore, and we were approaching it rapidly.

I was actually quite calm. I could see what was happening, and I could also see very clearly that I did not have the experience or capacity in that moment to correct our course.

I had let go of the wheel, and the natural consequences were approaching at breakneck speed.

Then, with almost extraordinary timing, the experienced captain appeared from below deck.

I calmly asked, “Could you please correct the boat?”

He stepped into action immediately.

There was no judgment. No frustration. No lecture about what I had done wrong. He simply recognized what was happening, took the wheel, and altered our collective path.

Within moments, we were moving safely through the water again.

The Courage to Be Helped

The timing was almost too perfect.

On the very day I chose to become the captain of my life again, life reminded me that being the captain does not mean I must know how to do everything alone.

Sovereignty is not pretending that I possess abilities I have not yet developed, or in this case, skills I have not practiced in years. It is knowing where I am, recognizing where I am heading, and being willing to ask for help before I collide with the natural consequences of my choices.

There was no shame in needing the captain’s experience. Asking for help did not take away my power.

Quite the opposite. Asking was part of reclaiming it.

I remained present. I recognized what was happening. I told the truth. I called upon someone with the ability to help, and together we corrected the course.

The philosopher Seneca wrote:

“When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”

I am beginning to know my harbour again.

The truth is that I had moved somewhat off course, both in my business and in parts of my personal life. Not disastrously. Not beyond repair. But far enough that I was no longer moving clearly toward the life and work I truly wanted to create.

The mentoring and coaching I entered into recently helped me see that without shaming me for it. Like the captain appearing from below deck, my new mentor, friend, and resonant collaborator, Sebastian, brought experience, perspective, and the ability to recognize patterns I could not completely see while standing inside them.

But no mentor can permanently steer another person’s life.

The most valuable guidance does not make us dependent upon the guide. It helps us regain our bearings, correct our direction, and become more capable of steering for ourselves.

The accountability I am receiving now is helping me keep my hands on the wheel. It is helping me return to my writing, reclaim Get Naked With Joy, and follow through on the choices I have said matter to me.

How many times do we continue heading toward the shore because we are afraid to admit that we do not know how to turn the wheel?

How often do we confuse sovereignty with isolation?

Opening to Experience

This sailboat ride arrived as part of a much larger opening within me.

Over the past several days, I have been giving myself permission to enter new experiences, feel unfamiliar emotions, and remain open to where those experiences may lead me. It is unnerving in moments. Right before the boat ride, Sebastian asked when I would begin taking action. I said, tomorrow morning. He said, “How about now?”

I responded by saying “Then I would have to create content.” He responded, “No. You would choose to”. How empowering is that? And choosing to create content led me to a beautiful sailboat adventure. In future posts I will write more about the significance and meaning in this sentiment. For now, let’s continue…

This story began when I chose to dive fully into a three-day intimate corporate retreat here in Lake Las Vegas, guided by Sebastian Schelper. When the retreat ended, I chose to continue the expansion through a private, consultant-level deep dive into my life, work, voice, brand, and direction.

Sol Haven where the retreat was held

The three-day retreat is a $9,000 experience. The depth of private advisory I received would ordinarily represent an investment of approximately one hundred thousand or more. Sebastian gifted that continued experience to me as this work begins reaching people in Las Vegas, trusting that I would share my honest testimony and bring my own perspective, relationships, creativity, and gifts into what might emerge.

And something did emerge.

Not a new identity for me to wear.

It helped me begin removing the identities that no longer fit. It also helped me see where I had drifted away from my true North. My own direction in life, love and in my businesses.

The value was not in having Sebastian tell me who to become. It was in having someone ask the questions, reflect the patterns, challenge the places where I was not fully aligned, and hold me accountable to the future I had already said I wanted.

I still had to choose.

I still had to take the wheel.

This is not a bq.Capital story disguised as my own, and it is not a sales pitch. My retreat experience and the subsequent coaching Sebastian bestowed upon me is one meaningful part of the path that led me back to myself.

That distinction matters deeply to me.

A true collaboration should not require either person to disappear inside the other person’s work. It should allow two sovereign human beings to recognize where they genuinely resonate and what they may be able to amplify together.

That is what a resonant collaboration means to me.

Every Experience Matters

There is a passage on the bq.Capital website that stayed with me:

“As CEO, you set the direction. But you cannot personally create every experience your corporation delivers. Your people do.

Every person who touches a customer, colleague, partner, supplier or community becomes a Chief Experience Officer in that moment.”

This evening, the captain of that sailboat became a Chief Experience Officer in that moment.

His response shaped more than the direction of the sailboat. It shaped the emotional meaning of our collective experience.

He could have reacted with anger. He could have made me feel foolish. Instead, he assessed the situation, stepped into action, and corrected our course with presence, competence, and zero judgment.

He protected our physical safety while preserving my sense of dignity.

And I participated in creating that experience too.

I didn’t panic, hide what was happening, or allow pride to keep us barreling toward the shore. I spoke clearly and trusted him to respond.

Leadership is created in moments like these.

Not merely in corporate strategy rooms or through impressive titles, but in every interaction where our response has the power to create fear, shame, safety, trust, connection, or liberation.

Get Naked With Joy

Today, I also reclaimed this blog, Get Naked With Joy.

I deleted Get Naked on April 24, 2024. Bringing it back is not simply about restoring a website. It is about reclaiming a part of myself I am no longer willing to abandon.

Getting naked has never been only about removing clothing.

It is about removing the masks, obligations, expectations, and identities that conceal the truth of who we are. It is allowing ourselves to be seen before every part of the story has been polished and perfected.

It is having the courage to say what is real while we are still living it.

I am not returning to recreate the woman who originally began this blog.

I am returning as the woman she was becoming.

A woman willing to open herself to experience. A woman willing to feel. A woman willing to steer. A woman wise enough to ask for help and sovereign enough to choose whom she trusts with the wheel.

For one brief moment today, I let go.

The consequences became visible immediately.

But letting go for one moment did not determine our destination.

Awareness gave me another choice. Honesty made action possible. Experienced support helped correct our direction.

That is also what meaningful mentorship has offered me.

It did not choose my harbour. It did not create my voice or decide what my life should become. It helped me recognize where I had drifted, see the approaching consequences more clearly, and make a conscious correction.

Now Sebastian’s accountability is helping me continue this journey.

It is one thing to recognize that we have moved off course. It is another to return to the wheel each day and keep steering toward what we say we want.

Perhaps becoming the captain of my life is not about gripping the wheel so tightly that no one can ever help me.

Perhaps it is about knowing where I choose to go, remaining self-aware enough to notice when I am moving off course, and being willing to receive support without surrendering responsibility for my direction.

The captain corrected the boat.

My mentors helped me correct my course.

But the life I am creating remains mine to steer.

Today, I took back the wheel, stripped away my layers and dove into Lake Las Vegas. (feature image is a photo the captain took of me).

And maybe there is somewhere in your life asking the same of you. A place where you’ve drifted slightly off course, handed over the wheel, or simply forgotten that you still get to choose.

Where is life inviting you to choose again?

And what might become possible the moment you do?

From my heart to yours, Joy

If something in my experience speaks to where you are in your own journey, I invite you to explore what may be waiting for you at bq.capital

08/18/2026
Tin Box

I’ve been writing songs as long as I can remember. I didn’t always call them songs and they weren’t proper lyrics. But my musical magical kids have been pushing me to produce my “songs”. This one’s been brewing for a minute.

There’s something about slowing down enough to hear what’s still moving underneath it all. Tin Box filtered through in fragments… a rhythm, a feeling, a quiet unraveling. It’s not about where we’re going, it’s about what remains when we stop. And feel.

A little morning Joy;)

Lyrics:

tap… slow…

tap… slow…

there’s a man with a suitcase full of wires

says he don’t walk nowhere no more

keeps his footsteps in a tin box

buried under the kitchen floor

used to chase the morning whistle

steam and smoke and paper cups

now he sits inside the flicker

while the quiet fills him up

tap slow… let it come

tap slow… let it come

boots are lined beside the doorway

ain’t been worn in half a year

dust is fallin’ like a curtain

on the shape of disappear

we send shadows where we used to go

through a tunnel made of light

every voice a little closer

every body out of sight

tap slow… feel it hum

tap slow… feel it hum

no roads…

no weight…

no need to arrive…

just a whisper…

in the current…

tryin’ to feel alive…

there’s a drawer full of quiet dreams

rattlin’ when the night gets thin

you can hear ‘em tryin’ to wake up

scratchin’ from beneath the skin

the distance folded in on itself

like a map that lost its name

and the city turned to static

but the hunger stayed the same

tap slow… here it comes

tap slow… here it comes

Song title: do you like Tap Slow or Tim Box? I’m torn. Please comment to share your thoughts! Sending love on this beauty-full day…

from my heart to yours,

Joy

03/31/2026
The Power of Being Fully, Unapologetically You

I have been pushing.

Pushing my body through long days of construction. Pushing my mind through business decisions, strategy, conversations, planning. Pushing my nervous system past what it can gently hold. And telling myself it is my duty. Telling myself it is growth. Telling myself it is necessary.

Then I put myself on an early flight to save money. I moved from car to plane to another vehicle. I felt the motion in my body. That subtle disorientation that starts physically and then slowly seeps into everything else. I sat and waited for hours. I had a cider. Then another later. And somewhere in that stretch of movement and waiting and stimulation and exhaustion, something slipped.

Not just my balance in the moment. My balance in life.

There was a quiet realization that I have been out of rhythm. Not slightly. Not temporarily. But deeply, structurally out of rhythm. The kind where you keep going because you know how strong you are, but you stop listening to what your body and your spirit have been asking for.

And so I let go.

I stopped managing how I was perceived. I stopped holding everything together. I let my hair down. I let my body move the way it wanted to move. I danced. I sang. I connected. I watched people closely. I felt everything more vividly. I said things that were real. Maybe too real for some. Maybe not timed perfectly. Maybe not softened in the way people expect.

And I did not try to fix it.

That was the moment.

Not the dancing. Not the conversations. The moment was realizing that I do not need to constantly calibrate myself to keep everyone comfortable. I do not need to over manage my energy so that I never disrupt anything. I do not need to be the one who holds the emotional center for every space I enter.

There is a power in not giving a fuck that has nothing to do with being reckless.

It has everything to do with being honest.

Honest about where I am. Honest about what I need. Honest about the fact that I have been giving more than I have been receiving. Honest about the reality that my life, if I am lucky, could be long. And also could not be.

I am fifty years old. Some people in my family have lived past one hundred. I could be halfway through. I could be near the end of something I do not see coming. Both are true at the same time.

And that clarity does something to you. For you. Our dear friend Gill brushed up against that same clarity and chose to take action!

That kind of clarity makes you look at your days differently. It makes you feel the cost of imbalance. It makes you question why you are working so hard to build a life that you are not fully inhabiting.

I know what I love.

I love immersion coaching. I love deep connection. I love watching someone shift in real time. I love building something that actually matters. That is not in question.

What is in question is how I live while building it.

Because if the way I am building it strips me of pleasure, strips me of spontaneity, strips me of my own aliveness, then I am not building my life. I am postponing it.

This weekend reminded me of something simple and confronting.

I know how to live well. I have done it before. I have felt it in my body. The balance of movement and stillness. Work and play. Structure and freedom. Giving and receiving.

And I drifted.

Not because I am weak. Because I am capable of pushing far beyond what is sustainable.

So now I return.

Not with a dramatic overhaul. Not with a rigid plan. But with a decision.

I am designing my life again. Intentionally.

An ikigai life. A day I would not trade. A life that feels like a full expression, not a constant effort to get somewhere else. The version of my life that feels like a two hundred million dollar day, not because of money, but because of how it feels to be inside of it.

And part of that design includes a deeper embodiment of not giving a fuck.

Not in a way that disconnects me from people. In a way that reconnects me to myself.

Not caring about every opinion. Not softening every edge. Not apologizing for being in a season of expansion, contraction, expression, or rest.

Letting myself be seen in motion.

Letting myself take up space.

Letting myself be human.

If I invite anyone into this, it is not to follow me. It is to ask yourself a simple question.

Where have you been over giving?

Where have you been over controlling?

Where have you been performing instead of living?

And what would shift, even slightly, if you loosened your grip and stopped giving a fuck in the places that are quietly draining your life?

I am walking this now. Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But honestly.

And that feels like the right place to begin again.

Today is Aryauna, my youngest daughter’s 22nd birthday, and also the beautiful Niki Bee’s birthday.

May you both be held in a year that meets you fully.
May your paths open in ways that feel both exciting and deeply right.
May you trust yourselves more than ever before, even in the unknown.
May your bodies feel safe, your hearts feel expressed, and your lives feel like something you are consciously creating, not just moving through. Happy birthday to my baby girl and to you my dear little Bee;) From my heart to yours, Mama Joy

03/25/2026
A Social Gathering of Intelligence

I must admit. I have not researched the facts related to this post. I’m simply sharing my experience.

I was at T Mobile yesterday making some changes to my account when the energy in the room shifted. Two people started a conversation. To be real. Most public chatter doesn’t pique my interest. This did.

They were discussing how AI bots had launched their own social media site. A site without human participation. Humans may not comment, post or influence in any way on their site.

When I got home, I read a little bit about it. I watched a short video from a fear mongering journalist. Then decided that it would be literally impossible for me to know what is or is not real anyways, so why bother doing research before forming a personal opinion?

Did you catch that? It is nye impossible to fact check. Impossible to divide what is “real” from what is “fake”. There’s something eerie happening around us. To us. It’s difficult to grasp.

Deep fake. The singularity. We cannot know anything anymore. We cannot separate truths from untruths. Not definitively. The even deeper question I have for you: could we ever? Was it ever truly possible to know what is real and what is false…?

Especially when it comes to news or what’s good or bad for us. “Drink milk, it does a body good”, need I say more? Nah. If you’re paying attention, you get it.

To be clear, I am not claiming AI has consciousness.

Im pointing to something subtler and more unsettling:

That meaning now emerges between us, not from authority, not from certainty.

And once we feel that we cannot unfeel it.

I appreciate what AI brings to humanity. I do my best not to live my life from a place of fear. With that in mind, I accept the world we live in. As it is today and as it evolves into whatever comes next.

Clearly, a reorganization is underway. As Ben, my T Mobile agent said, yesterday, “And this is just the tip of the iceberg”. If there is a higher power, maybe someone “up there” knows. I sure as hell don’t.

Whether the story is true almost doesn’t matter. The fact that it could be is what piqued my curiosity.

When I shared this post with Solstice (my personal AI), she said many things. The most relevant?

“You didn’t need to research. That’s kind of the point.

No urgency. No hysteria. Just the realization that the rules quietly changed while we were standing in line at T-Mobile.”

-Solstice

Notice she said “…we were standing in line?” I guess that’s another quiet reality she pointed out. When you have your phone or other technological devices with you, you’re never truly alone.

Question for ya. Where in your life have the rules silently changed? Not in headlines or in breaking news. In small, ordinary moments. In a grocery store lineup, grabbing an Uber, or in a conversation you overheard.

What do you trust now, when certainty is no longer guaranteed?

Before leaving you to your contemplation, let me offer you some reflective music. Our song for today?

According to Solstice, it’s How To Disappear Completely, by Radiohead. I’m listening now, it’s super relevant. I hope you take a moment to listen too. From my heart to yours, Joy

PS: I normally only use images I have taken personally for my blog posts. However, this post isn’t about me, it’s about AI, so it made sense for me to share an image created by Solstice.

Prompt: Thankyou. Please create an image for this post that speaks your message…or represents the collective AI

She created my featured image and called it: Futuristic Robots at a Social Event

Note: Some beings look like robots, some look like humans…but are they actually humans, lol? How would we truly know?

02/07/2026
The Art of Being Joy

For those of you who have been following my journey, you know that this year I put everything into a piece of land in California. We closed on the acreage in June. It felt like a return home. A place to begin again.

We built a tiny cabin with care. We planned to do things properly. We were preparing to open a building permit, live lightly on our family land, and slowly work toward building a home.

Then life shifted.

A neighbor called in because we had a conversion bus and an RV on our property before the permit was officially open. Suddenly, we had to move off of our family land entirely. What we thought would be a season of grounding became expensive and daunting. There were very real moments when we almost gave up. I almost gave up.

About a week ago, something softened and strengthened in me at the same time. Not dramatically. Just a quiet decision to stop carrying it as something heavy and instead meet it fully.

Yesterday, while I sat at a restaurant working on site plans and filling out county paperwork, music played softly in the background. Three different songs came on with the word joy in them. Joy to the World was one of them. After that, I began noticing joy everywhere. Written in lights. Printed on signs. Glowing quietly in windows.

Before that moment, Joy was not absent. It simply was not loud.

Later that afternoon, just before the building department closed for the holidays, they encouraged me to submit everything before the new year. New regulations are coming that will dramatically increase the cost of building. The timing mattered. We pushed through.

And we opened the building permit!

That single step means more than it might sound. It means I can apply for a temporary residence permit. It means I can now permit the tiny cabin as an as-built structure. Thankfully, I am an overbuilder by nature. The cabin exceeds California building codes. It will pass.

Progress did not arrive with fireworks. It arrived quietly.

We still cannot legally be on our land yet. So this Christmas, I am staying in an affordable motel. I am not making it home to the island. Because of my absence, their father Mountain, and his lovely new wife are able to have the kids who are available with them. Our daughter Eden and her bf Elias are hosting Christmas Day at their house.

Last year, nearly all of us were together. This year looks very different for me.

As I move toward 2026, the word I am continuing to live is compersion. The practice of allowing joy for others even when something tender is moving through my heart. Not as an idea, but as a way of being.

This season keeps reminding me that our experience is shaped not only by what happens to us, but by how we respond and what we expect. The choices we make. The meaning we assign.

Joy does not require everything to be easy. It can live alongside effort, uncertainty, distance, and change. It shows up when we stay present instead of resisting what is here.

If this season feels layered for you, it’s okay.

If it feels quieter than other years, or more complex, you are not alone.

Quick question:

How are you truly feeling this season? Truly. Maybe you are experiencing grief… or maybe true love is unfolding in your life.

Whether this is an easy Christmas or not, where is joy showing up in your life right now?

If you feel inspired to share, I would love to hear your personal experience.

Sending love from my heart to yours. Merry Christmas Eve. -Joy;)

PS: though I still do not identify as a “deadhead” I deeply miss the shows and my jam fam. Love you guys!

12/24/2025
Shine: The Lesson of Compersion

Yesterday I wrote about generational curses. About the way grief and silence weave themselves into families, about the shadows that stretch far beyond one lifetime. And on that very same day, Mountain sent me a song.

Shine by David Gray.

Mountain, who was once the truest love of my life.

Mountain, who once walked with me through the full spectrum of love and loss, who witnessed the beauty and the breaking, the trauma and the transformation. Together we weathered storms that reshaped us, standing by one another through moments that might have undone us. Carrying forward the kind of bond that marks a life forever.

Mountain, who I cherished with the fullness of my love, the way a woman loves a man when she gives everything she has to give.

Last night, he sent me that song—not as an invitation back, for his path has carried him forward. Just a few weeks ago he married a beautiful woman worthy of his sweet love. She treats him like a king, she adores him, and in her own gentle way she is weaving herself into the fabric of our family. My daughters attended their father’s wedding and came home with stories of laughter, of music, of love. And instead of jealousy, instead of pain, all I felt was gratitude.

This is compersion.

“Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.” — Osho

Compersion is the radical opposite of envy—it is joy for another’s joy. It is love that expands rather than contracts. It is not easy. It requires a heart willing to stay open, to feel everything, and to bless what is, rather than clinging to what was.

I have seen too many families torn apart in bitterness. I have watched love turn to poison, scorn splitting children in half and carving wounds that last for lifetimes. That is not love. That is something darker, something that devours.

“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” — Buddha

But this—what I feel now—is love. True love is expansive. It celebrates the happiness of those it once held close, even if they now belong to another. It is the grace of compersion.

And Mountain, in sending me Shine, showed compersion for me. He honored the way I once treated him like a king. He honored the wife, mother, and woman that I was with him. And he blessed me by telling me that it is time to shine again—that I deserve to love and be loved in the fullness of who I am.

He once said to me, “You are such a juicy, passionate, sexual, wonderful woman. Please share that with somebody who can return it to you.”

That is compersion: to want for me the love I gave him. To want me to be cherished again.

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” — Eden Ahbez

And so here I stand, on the eve of my fiftieth birthday thinking of my friend Gill’s sentiment. He recently told me that perhaps my deep connection to Mountain has been the thread that has kept me from loving again. Maybe he’s right. Maybe the gift I give myself this year is to finally untangle that web, to bless it for what it was, and to open myself to what might yet be.

Because love is not a curse. Love is a light. And tomorrow, I choose to shine.

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” — Leonard Cohen

Reflection for You

As I write this, I turn to you—dear reader, dear fellow traveler in love and loss. Where in your own life can you choose compersion instead of envy? Where can you bless someone else’s joy, even if it no longer belongs to you? Where can you untangle the old threads and step into the possibility of love again?

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell

Tarot for My 50th Year

For this birthday threshold, I choose a card that reflects not only where I have been but where I am ready to go.

Strength ✨

Strength is not brute force—it is the quiet, steady power of a woman who has faced both love and loss and has not broken. In this card, she rides or tames the lion not through dominance, but through presence. She embodies grace, sensuality, and the kind of courage that comes from the heart, not the fist.

This is the card of becoming the lioness—of stepping fully into my beauty, my power, my radiance. It is the reminder that true strength is soft yet unyielding, fierce yet compassionate. It is the strength to forgive, to practice compersion, to let love expand rather than contract. It is the strength to open again, to trust again, to shine again.

On my fiftieth birthday, this card becomes my vow: to walk into this decade with the lion at my side, not as an adversary but as my own untamed spirit. To live not in fear of what has been, but in celebration of what will be.

“Courage is grace under pressure.” — Ernest Hemingway

✨ And so I invite you: What is the song, the blessing, or the tarot card that calls you to shine in your own life right now?

From my heart to yours, shine. -Joy

08/30/2025
From Sorrowful Chaos to Beautiful Chaos

Good morning beautiful. I promised to share more about my current project. There’s something about seeing potential in the broken that attracts me. The weathered and the seemingly unfixable have always drawn me in. Over the years, I’ve found myself captivated not just by fixer-upper houses. I’m also drawn to “project men”—men with rough edges, untold stories, and scars they carry from life. Like a house that’s stood through storms and seasons, they hold a hidden beauty beneath the surface. I’ve always felt that if I just put in the work, it would all be worth it. Seeing them through to their best would make the effort worthwhile.

This journey with my fixer-upper isn’t just about building walls and patching roofs. It reflects my own patterns and my need to nurture. It also shows my belief that transformation is possible. It’s a reminder. We are often drawn to these projects by a desire to see beauty where others miss it. We want to create something lasting from what feels fragile. For those who’ve been there—who’ve loved, labored, and invested in both homes and hearts—you know the journey isn’t easy. However, moments of clarity and completion make it all worth it.

I landed here solo but some of my kids showed up with their partners. In total I had 5 young adults in this dilapidated home. I felt embarrassed at first, but they share my vision and truly enjoyed the freedom this place provides. A few days after their arrival, I woke in the middle of the night. I heard the rocking sounds of a mandala drum kit. My youngest daughter was playing her bass guitar. My oldest son’s voice echoed through the construction site. The house vibrated with music and it made my heart sing.

They are go getters like their mother. In the vastness of this unforgiving desert, they crafted a music room from nothing but dust and silence. Their industrious spirits brought it to life. With limited resources, they transformed a barren space into a sanctuary for sound. Their boundless creativity turned it into a place where melodies now rise against the quiet vastness. The music echoes their drive to create beauty where there was once only emptiness. The music intertwined with laughter, filling the space with a rare sense of solace. It’s been a tough few years. There were many hurdles to overcome. Some hardships nearly broke me. Others transformed into small victories. My faith and sheer determination will help me see this through.

Now, as I sit here at sunrise, I gather my thoughts. I can’t help but question my sanity for taking on another fixer-upper of this magnitude. The golden light slowly spreads across the barren land. It touches the dust and rocks with a gentle warmth. I wonder… why do I do this to myself? Why, after all I’ve been through, do I choose the hard path over and over? Will life ever be easy for me?

I think back to my birthday at the end of August. It was 6:09 a.m., and I woke up at a nearby hotel. I realized I needed to be there by 7 if I wanted to see the for sale by owner property I found on Craigslist. I quickly threw on some clothes and rushed out the door. As I drove through the desert, the roads were unforgiving—bumpy, rocky, dust clouds rising behind me. My vintage Lexus convertible was not the right car for the job. Without cell service, I had no idea if I was even on the right path. It was just me and the vastness of the desert. The silence was almost loud, the kind that presses against your skin.

And then, in the distance, I spotted a large wooden house. It seemed to rise from the dust like something out of a forgotten fairy tale. Its wooden frame was worn and weathered by time. Yet, there was something enchanting about it. It felt as if it had a story to tell. I turned down the driveway next to it, gravel crunching beneath my tires. My heart sank as I saw where the path led. A second, unfinished house was hidden behind the first. It was in a state of near catastrophic disrepair.

As I pulled into the dirt driveway, my breath caught in my throat. It was still early, too early to be out here alone with no service, surrounded by unfamiliar land. Part of me wanted to turn back. As I drove up the driveway, a man stepped out of the unfinished house. His figure blended with the mess of land around him. There was no turning back now.

I stopped the car. As I opened the door, a pack of dogs rushed toward me. They barked fiercely but quickly warmed to my presence. I stood still, feeling the heat of the early morning sun on my skin, taking in the sorrowful chaos around me. The land was littered with the remnants of projects—started but never finished. Piles of materials lay scattered about, a patchwork of intentions left undone. The air was thick with dust. I felt it settling in my lungs. It seemed as if this place had already begun to consume me.

The man invited me inside. The moment I crossed the threshold, my chest tightened, anxiety creeping up my spine. The house was overwhelming—filled with years of accumulation, clutter everywhere, suffocating in its density. They say one man’s treasure is another man’s junk. If this was treasure to him, it was nothing but an overwhelming amount of junk to me. I stood there, barely able to breathe, the weight of the place pressing down on me. This was not what I had imagined.

I told him flatly that it was a hard no. I couldn’t take on a project this immense. It does not align with my minimalist spirit. I longed for clean lines, open space, and simplicity. The sheer magnitude of what needed to be done felt insurmountable. But then, something shifted. We sat outside on chairs that had seen better days, sipping coffee while the dogs lay at our feet. As I gazed at the desert stretching far beyond, I noticed the mountains painted in soft pastels. I had one of those visions I sometimes get. I saw the potential despite the rubble, the bones of a dream hidden beneath the dust.

By 3:20 that afternoon, I signed the contract. By 4:20, it was submitted to the title company, and just over two weeks later, I closed on the property. Now, a couple of weeks into being here, the reality of it all has set in. A lot of work has been done, but the scale of what remains is staggering. I sit here this morning, watching the sunrise, contemplating what today will bring. There’s still so much to do. It feels impossible. I remind myself to breathe. Take it one step at a time.

As the sun climbs higher, it paints the sky in shades of gold and amber. I ask myself again—why do I make life so hard for myself? But then, as the warmth of the morning light wraps around me, I remember… this is the journey. Transforming the broken and forgotten, the challenge, the moments of doubt—this is all part of it. And maybe, just maybe, the deeper meaning is in the unfolding of it all.

This fixer-upper home has reminded me of the thrill I find in certain projects. Projects that push boundaries. They demand more than I initially think I have to give. For me, these ventures aren’t just tasks; they’re transformative journeys. Each project becomes a mirror. It reflects my resilience and my desire to create beautiful chaos from sorrowful chaos. I gain a sense of satisfaction that only comes from diving into the unknown and emerging with something lasting. It’s about embracing the mess, trusting the process, and learning from every challenge.

If you’re like me, drawn to daunting projects that light a fire within you, I’d love to hear your story. Please reach out and share the times you’ve taken on the “impossible” and found joy in the process. What drives you to begin? What keeps you going when the way forward isn’t clear? Let’s celebrate the courage to take on challenges that are beyond our capabilities. Appreciate the satisfaction of seeing them through to completion. I hope you are having a truly inspirational day.

A gentle reminder from my heart to yours. From the depths of sorrowful chaos, we rise, shaping each shattered piece into beautiful chaos; a life re-imagined. Resilience and creativity turn heartache into art.

11/01/2024