Surprise! You just learned something (Or, Surprise! It's the boring version.)

Wow, my brain has been on a huge journey over the past couple of weeks and it appears to have ended in a big exploding ball of both joy and humiliation! It's all very complicated really and I don't intend to be too much clearer about the details, but HOLY COW! Just too much stuff. Instead, I've just decided to skip the details and hop right to the learnings. (Which I realize is very annoying. I hate it when people don't dish the whole story, but oh well. This time you just have to trust me.) But the results are pretty universal and can apply to many situations, so deal.

Here are some lessons learned in real time over the past couple of weeks:

1. Don't be surprised by surprising events. You can be bee-bopping your way merrily along every day in the same way and all of a sudden, SMACK!, the way you see the world will change. I didn't realize how dense the fog was that I was living in, I guess. Shaking that up has brought me great joy.

2. Don't be afraid to put it all on the line when the moment arrives. It probably won't be pretty, but that's ok. It's part of living a passion-filled life. And it's a way to see who you really are with crystal clarity.

3. There is a big downside to putting it all on the line. You cannot take it back. Some people have a harder time putting themselves on the line than others. I've spent a lot of time being afraid to do so, but I think I'm learning that I don't want to do that any more. This is a good lesson for me, albeit a painful one. Not all the lessons can be completely good, I guess. This is epitomized in the words of Martin Blank (Jon Cusack, in the movie Grosse Pointe Blank) while talking to his therapist (Alan Arkin) after seeing his childhood home turned in to a 7-11, " You can never go home again, Oatman. But you can shop there." Which brings me to lesson number 4....

4. Accept pain as a part of change. Embrace it. It is an integral part of makes us human. The part of us that feels pain also feels joy. And if we find a way to dull the pain (there are lots of good ways!) we will also dull the joy and who wants that? (Just think of our good friends the cavemen. Just imagine how many people got hurt in the making of the wheel. If they didn't work through the pain, we would still be wearing stinky wooly mammoth skin dresses. Men and women. Seriously.)

Oh, stop snoring! Learn it your own damn way!