A year and a half ago, I recorded this episode after a VERY HARD first half of 2020. The moment it was released, my whole life changed for the better. We are replaying this episode today as a reminder. A reminder to be the change you need to be for yourself, your family and your community.

OLD SHOW NOTES:

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

• We had rain so I hope to do a batch of beets this week
• Added lamb to the freezer
• It is time to do the now quarterly freezer defrost and audit - a thing that has been keeping me honest on using stuff up
• Still drying herbs like mullein flower and bee balm

Featured Forrage: Wild Raspberry

For berry advice

https://nicolesauce.com/2015/06/14/wild-raspberry-summer/

Herbal uses

https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/raspbe05.html

• Tea: high in calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, and vitamins B, C, and E.
• Excessive menstruation
• Antidiahrreal
• Reduces fevers

Operation Independence

• This whole show is about this topic, really

Main topic of the Show: Change

It is always there under the surface. Ready to push you just a bit further. Ready to get in your way when you are in your stride. Ready to show you opportunities when you are least ready for them. Always there no matter how much you wish to cling to today and yesterday. Change happens.

Many people fear it, hate it, resist it. But change is part of life and if you are living, change is simply something that you must learn to integrate into everything. Because it will happen whether you want it or not. 

And yet we can guide change, we can shape it and shift it in ways that suit us. Yep. Change is hard but change is also good.

I haven’t done our usual lftn spring workshop debrief episode this year. You know the one I speak of? Where I run through it session by session and talk about all the things we did and learned and how powerful the community is when we get together? A community of doers…

I haven’t done this thing because this year was different. Now don’t get me wrong, the workshop was fantastic, fun, hard, good, educational, and the community is why this is. 

But unlike former years where the best outcomes of the workshop were on the surface, this year was different. It was more subtle. The group was both quiet and social and sometimes raucous. The sessions were usually focused and thought provoking. The group had a comfortable companionship about it and conversations tended toward long and deep over surface and short.

The whole time the event was happening I was worried that we would not meet the benchmark. You may wonder what the benchmark is. The benchmark for every lftn spring workshop is that at least 1 or 2 people figure things out. They find that it they have been missing. The thing that shows them a way forward toward building the kind of life they want. Usually, this happens quickly and obviously. But not this year.

The day after the workshop, Jenni stopped by. You know who I mean. Jenny of Word of the Year Jenni - to get her stuff and she said - I think we turned a corner at the workshop.

And she is right. There wasn’t one or two “aha” experiences, but rather a more subtle shift for most of us there. 

Setting the stage for the workshop, we have seen the following in six short months:

• A strong financial environment to start out the year
• A scary pandemic illness that brought along with it the following:
  • Population-wide acceptance of the top-down control of private lives.
  • An awakening that people seem to want a crisis really badly - so they won’t let go when new information comes to light
  • Acceptance of politically charged narrative on a topic that should not be at all political - both sides have shamelessly used this pandemic to desperately further their agendas with no consideration for the impact on real people
  • A media meltdown - To this day, media is frantically reporting increase in cases with no context on increase in testing, or link to hospital beds needed - the more important measure of the impact of covid. Literally - Tennessee saw it’s largest spike in cases the same day that they also finalized testing of all people in all old folks facilities, for example. 
  • Government overreach in the form of shutting down private businesses - you can say what you want about if it was or was not the right move, but it was an overreach and court cases are starting to show this
  • Destruction of our livelihoods, retirement accounts, educational facilities, ability to travel, and autonomy
• Racially - charged, divisiveness in a world where I truly believe most of us want to coexist -- followed by rioting to further the clear division between a and b, 1 and 0, r and d, because that is the only way to control us
• A recession that very well may melt into a depression, especially if the masses continue to let the oligarchy that runs this country bring us to ruin lest they lose power

As a group, we had people facing sudden loss of jobs, income, business revenue - paired with people who are still doing basically ok, and even some who have seen growth as a result of the turmoil of the first half of this year.

Perhaps you can tell by how I have framed this what I was feeling at the outset of our event: scared, a little sad, and scared some more. I got to pair all the big picture angst we all share with other, more personal stuff and that all ramped up the week before the workshop. And there I was, supposed to be the positive influence, the coach to help others find their purpose and go there. The find your opportunity lady doing an event that is supposed to spark the kind of change that brings people up. Let’s just say the weekend before the workshop I had a pretty intense meeting with myself about my attitude and the need to focus on the most important and let go of the crap.

Because when you think about opportunities and prosperity that we make for ourselves, much of it is SEEING that there is something there, but there is also the impact that a group of great minds can bring by deciding to make the change that will come into a positive change. And what better place to do it than here, in the Holler, where people come to rejuvenate?

As we navigated topics like how to work through grief, how to make sauerkraut, how to easily make a hoop house, phases of building a business, and talked about the ideas that some folks have for starting new things -- my internal angst got lighter and lighter. As people played cornhole together, sang karaoke, shared food and fun -- things got lighter still. And sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, as Jenni said, we turned a corner.

We stopped talking so much about the covid stuff, we stopped worrying about burning cities, the Trump and Biden jokes faded away, and we got real. Some people started taking stock. I know I did.

Because I was wrong all along. Change is not coming. Change is here. It  has been here the whole time, inviting me to take that next big step. And like the bad habit tempter that it is, the wealth of opportunities presented to me include some that will keep me stuck in the wrong place while I miss the boat to the better one.

But you can’t grab that boat if you can’t see it is there. And to see the boat, you have to open your eyes.

I am not really sure what everyone got out of the workshop this year. So many have reached out to me to say. Some who have been struggling to get their dreams going are starting.

But I know what I got out of it this year. I got sight. 

All my life I have been preparing to soar. And I have soared here and there, and sunk other times. And all my life, I have been ready to weather something like the first six months of 2020. But these last 6 months are not my destination - they are a lesson about what has always been there. Change. Unpredictability. A subset of people who wish to be in control. These things simply are.

And now I can see beyond them - I have often railed against that last category and will continue to do so. But think about what is on the other side of those people: the masses that ultimately cannot be controlled.

Through all of this, the real opportunities are within you, within me, and within everyone else who is willing to first see, then act. It is that simple. We already have what we need to prosper, built in and we just need to turn the corner. To change. To make the choice to jump on that boat.

And the best part is that this looks different for every single one of us. And what that means is that any solution that looks the same for everyone is the wrong solution. This small measure makes choices much easier to make.

I was doing just fine before we all got together a week ago. There was no big risk of losing it all for me because I have been moving toward better stability for some years now. 

But the change that was there the whole time was largely energetic and perspective.

Think about that - all in the mind and heart. An acceptance that now more than ever, it is the best time to change they way we want to. To make a move. To grab another bit of independence -- and to help others do the same.

I apologized at the workshop for choosing the word grow for this year. Because in order to grow, something has to happen to motivate you and usually that thing is pain. And pain is something we have all felt this year as things have unfolded. But I am not sorry - sorrynotsorry. 

Because of covid, I know how insatiable my biggest source of income was -- and now it is gone so I get to focus on building something better. I can either grow the things I love, or try to get back what I once had. I choose grow.

Because of the racial strife, I understand how much further we can go to build a society that decides based on merit, not heritage. I can either refuse to look at what is happening, or I can grow my understanding. I choose grow.

Because we have landed in a recession, it is harder to leverage what I have to expand the rental properties, to close new deals, and to find things that used to be easy to get. I can either use recession as an excuse, or I can grow by business. I choose grow.

Because many people in our world are easy to control, to leverage, to pit against one another, the oligarchy that has controlled us for basically every is gaining ground. I can either poke that oligarchy in the eye and moan about it, or I can help as many people around me grow beyond the chains. I choose grow.

Yep, the change that happened at the workshop was not loud, it wasn’t a fireworks moment, it wasnt an in your face thing. It was just a little shift. A small move from one not so bad track to a much better one. On little jump really.

And now I can’t wait to see what the next six months of 2020 brings! What about you?

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