Today officially marks the final day of our Expedition.

Honestly, I feel such a sense of relief right now. It has been a fairly grueling Expedition for me and I am very, very happy to be bringing it to a close today.

Grueling, yes. Challenging, yes.

Totally worth the effort? Absolutely.

Yesterday I wrote a bit about how my flailing varied from my original intentions.

Today, I want to share some of the insights I gathered along the way with particular attention to my chosen theme for these 40 days.

So… Vision.

First, a recap: in this post I talk about how little conscious attention I was giving my theme. Then, just over a week ago, I wrote about how insights and clues are finding their way to me anyway.

This past week has continued that trend, with more and more understandings about myself and how I relate to my work and my life emerging.

And, it is now clear that I’m not truly in need of or seeking a vision for my life and work. I already have it. I know what it is. I carry it in my heart.

What is needed is for me to trust the vision that I do have.

I’ve been floundering, feeling lost, and craving some super concrete, clear, detailed path to follow – both for my business and my life.

What I finally realized, nearly 40 full days into the Expedition, is that all of my floundering, feeling lost, and desperately seeking a Vision (or a path or a goal or whatever you want to call it) is this:

All of that floundering was simply a distraction from actually following what feels right in my heart and in my body.

As long as I allowed myself to believe I didn’t know what my next step was, I didn’t have to take it.

I was safe. I didn’t have to venture out in the unknown, take any risks, or do the new, more challenging things life is asking of me now.

So, here I am now, at the end of this Expedition, basically where I began.

Only now, I have deeper trust in my own instincts.

And now, hopefully, I will be able to actually take the steps that are before me vs pretending I don’t see them and searching for something else.

I think that is all I want to say about that.

Before I go, though, I have a thought about upcoming Expeditions and a question or two for you as well.

40 days is a LONG time. I like Expeditions of this length because they do require a LOT of focus and commitment and those are two things that seem very important to cultivate to me.

However, leading these Expeditions requires a lot of time and energy from me – especially if I am posting daily.

And, it seems that people drop off pretty quickly after the first couple of weeks which can make things feel a bit lonely.

**Thanks so much to Beth and Kalyani for visibly – through the comments – sticking it out with me through the entire Expedition. You rock!**

Therefore, I’d like to give a mini-expedition (10 days perhaps) a try next – most likely in the fall.

I’m curious what might happen if we commit to a shorter version of this Expedition.

My questions for you:

1) I’d love to hear how your 40 days went. How long did you continue? What came up for you? How did your theme influence and guide your Expedition?

2) Was it helpful having me post daily? Any suggestions or changes that would be more inspiring and supportive for you?

3) Do you think a shorter Expedition would be beneficial for you?

Thank you!

To all of you participating whether actively or passively, thank you! I so loved reading your comments and hearing about your experiences on this Expedition.

Truly, knowing you were out there flailing and/or reading is what made it possible for me make it through these 40 days.

And now, I can’t wait to do it again!!!

*much love*

Let’s get started!

Overall, this Expedition took a pretty surprising and unexpected twist for me. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute.

First, a review of my intention:

My intention for these 40 days was to flail for a minimum of 5 minutes a day every day and to spend 5+ minutes free-writing after 4 or 5 of those practices sessions every week.

Simple, right?

On top of that, for this Expedition, I committed to posting here every day of the 40 days as well.

Did I follow through on these intention/commitments?

Um… no, no, and yes.

Interestingly (for me) I had a very lackluster Expedition as far as the actual flailing piece goes. Most of my Shiva Nata sessions were quite short (less than 10 minutes) AND I likely only flailed 25-30 days total of the Expedition.

In the past two Expeditions, I flailed upwards of 35+ days out of the 40.

That’s a pretty big change.

This difference is due in large part to me following through on my commitment to post here every day.

I did that!

I posted here EVERY DAY for 40 DAYS… assuming I do post tomorrow, of course.

I cannot even begin to tell you how big of a deal that is for me.

I’ve never posted more that TWO days in a row before. Forty is a lot more than two.

At one point, in the comments, I mentioned how my brain was confusing posting here with my actual Shiva Nata practice…

…in that I was posting here daily in lieu of practicing and then feeling as if I had flailed for the day.

I have this sense that posting here daily, supporting the Expedition in this way, was actually having a similar effect on my brain as doing actual Shiva Nata.

A new pattern was definitely being created.

New habits were being formed. Old patterns and habits destroyed. And, I learned so much about myself through this process of posting daily (more on that tomorrow).

In any case, the posting daily for 40 days became more the focus of my Expedition than the actual flailing itself. I’m ok with that.

Perhaps in future Expeditions, I’ll be able to more readily do both at the same time.

For me, that would represent a fairly huge breakthrough.

Ok, that’s my overall practice reflection.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk a bit about what I learned regarding Vision (my theme) thanks to this Expedition.

Plus, I’ll give you my new Vision for future Expeditions.

For now, for you…

…how did your actual Expedition progress compared to the intentions and commitments you set 39 days ago?

And, how do you intend to wrap up your Expedition and transition back into daily life (with or without daily Shiva Nata)?

Yesterday I spent as much time as possible  resting and recovering from my super-ultra-mega busy weekend.

Today I’m going to flail it up.

Tomorrow and Thursday I will wrap up the Expedition in a (most likely) two part post.

There, you now know the plan.

See you tomorrow!

Today is Day 37.

Only 3 days to go.

It seems pretty unreal to me that we’ve been on this Expedition, flailing daily (or interacting with our relationship to Shiva Nata) for 37 days already.

And yet, I also feel such a sense of relief to see the finish line approaching.

How about you? How are you feeling as we enter the final 3 days of this Expedition?

Not only is it a full moon, tonight is the night when the moon is the closest to the earth. The closest that it will be for all of 2012, that is.

How auspicious that it reaches its closest point to the earth when it is full this year!

I wonder what magic and mischief will be brewing on this most mystical night?!

May the magic of the full moon bring you vivid, inspiring dreams, clear insights, and a deeper connection with all that is sacred in your life.

*love*

So… I’m sending love and thoughts of happy and insightful flailing to all of you now.

To you!

What qualities (playfulness, rest, integration, ease, joy, etc) might be helpful to infuse into your final week of the Expedition?

Nothing too intense. Just a bit of free-writing.

It’s been interesting… for a couple of reasons.

For one, it seems that even though I haven’t been consciously interacting with my theme much (some might say I’ve been very consciously avoiding it) little insights and clues have continued to arrive – often from unexpected places.

For instance, part of a talk I went to focused on vision – specifically how vision comes to everyone differently.

Some people receive true visual visions. Others receive visions through auditory means (hearing messages) or through flashes of insight/understanding or perhaps simply through a felt sense of rightness.

He went on to talk about how it is important to pay attention to how you (I) receive messages and to work to cultivate that vs thinking visions need to appear in a certain way and discounting all other forms of communication.

Then, there was this book that my husband brought home from the library that helped me see a way to approach something that has been stumping me for TWO years.

The second point of interest is that, as I’ve been writing these past 2 days, it’s become very clear that everything that I thought about my business (my old vision) is no longer in alignment with who I am.

I knew this already thanks to everything feeling so murky and me not following through on any of the things I thought I *should* be doing.

However, I’m slowly starting to understand (to see) how things are out of alignment. And, a vision for how to bring things into alignment is slowly materializing.

I could go into more detail. Instead, why don’t you take over? How has your theme informed the past couple of weeks for you?

Just saw the new OK Go video for the first time last night. Their music and videos feel very Shiva Nate-esque to me. Check it out:

Happy May Day!