How I found love in an online course

I am not big on online courses, but Amy is and thus she lured me into a mini-course with Andrea Scher, she who unwittingly provided the name for Perfect Avocado Retreats. As usual, when I have low expectations and show up with a lackluster attitude, I almost always get something big in return. Funny how the universe gives me the best rewards for just showing up.

The course was called Manifesting 2022 and we had one live call. In the first part of the call we answered questions to close out the year - what are you grieving from 2021, How were you brave in 2021? What are you most proud of? What can you forgive yourself for?...and so on. It feels good to write these answers down - it’s cathartic.

Then we moved on to thinking about this year. A couple of luscious tidbits that have stayed with me from Andrea’s wisdom is the difference between goals and dreams. Goals definitely feel more business-y - you remember SMART goals? Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time based. Goals are what you put on the wall and share with your team. You come up with action plans and timelines. Dreams are different. You don’t necessarily know how you will get there. There may be no plan. You might even keep your dreams to yourself because they are more vulnerable to the slings and arrows of commentary from the peanut gallery.

And then there are dreams that go beyond the seemingly possible. Scher used a dream generator to stimulate us into higher realms of dreams - which is a list of stimulating questions. She gave examples from her own life like wouldn’t it be cool to have Alice Waters teach me how to cook? Or what if I got asked to dance by (fill in the blank with your favorite celebrity crush). That one didn’t really do it for me, because while I really want to have dinner with Shankar Vedantum, I can’t really see us on the dance floor.

Her dream generator has lots of different questions, but the one that got me was “What are you secretly longing for?” When I answer these kinds of questions, I ALWAYS go with my gut, so no one was more surprised than me when my response was to feel really, totally, and completely loved.

Let’s be clear - I feel loved. I am loved, and I know it. I feel loved by my beautiful patchwork family, my cherished friends, and by my sweetheart - and I feel blessed that I have them all.

The kind of love that prompted that answer was more unstinting, all-encompassing and big.