Last weekend, I attended a conference tongue-in-cheekily called the World Domination Summit.  It was the brainchild of Chris Guillebeau, author of the blog and book called “The Art of Non-Conformity“.  The subtitle of the book is “Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World”.  Chris has carved out a life for himself on his own terms and is passionate about writing and creating tools for people to follow in his footsteps, particularly in the areas of work and travel.  He has come to call his readership “a small army of remarkable people”, and he wanted to gather this group of artists, entrepreneurs, and travelers in one place to meet each other, share stories, and generally just be awesome together.

From Chris’s post-WDS blog entry:


“I said at the beginning of our time together on Saturday that WDS was not a “motivational conference”—a phrase that a media article had used in describing our adventure. I’ve never been to such a thing and have no idea what happens there, but my impression is that you go to a “motivational conference” if your life sucks and you need someone to inspire you. Instead, this was a gathering of awesome people working on remarkable things, all learning from one another.”


I love the blog, and at the time I registered for the Summit, I only knew I wanted a different life than the one I’m leading, one that doesn’t involve 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, being somewhere I don’t want to be, doing things I don’t want to do.  In between registering and attending, I decided to pursue Reiki.  So I figured I’d get even more out of the conference than if I were just going to hopefully be inspired with some ideas about what to do.


There was an underlying problem, however.  In the last few weeks, I have completely lost the sense of excitement, and particularly the certainty, I had upon embarking on my new path.  I’m loathe to admit it, but setting aside the time to practice Reiki on myself and others is a bit of a drag, just like when I was learning massage.  I did not expect to feel like this, and revisiting these old thoughts and feelings has been extremely disorienting and disappointing.  It has created a spiral of negative self-talk: “What is wrong with me? Am I THAT lazy? Will I never change? Is Reiki not what I really want to do?”


I don’t trust my own feelings, which makes me feel a little bit crazy.  It might be that I thought I wanted to do Reiki but now I don’t, or it might just be that I have come up against the limits of what I think is possible for myself and am now keeping myself from going any further.


Attending a gathering of people whom I perceived to not be limiting themselves in the way that I do focused and intensified all my doubts. “I’m not an artist, an entrepreneur, or a traveler – what am I doing here?  I don’t belong in this company.  These people DO things.  I don’t do anything.  I can’t inspire anyone.  I can’t even be inspired.”  I was surrounded by positive and excited energy, 500 people listening to, encouraging, and supporting each other – a megafountain of YES – and I was still mired in self-doubt and fear and NO NO NO.


And yet…. I was still in the right place.


I wish I had written down all the synchronicities I experienced.  As I swirled in negativity, I would ask myself what it was rooted in and what I could do to shift it, and soon after I arrived at my own wisdom, it would be echoed by a speaker on stage.  This happened more than once.


My favorite synchronicity came courtesy of Jen Lemen and Andrea Scher of MondoBeyondo.org, an online course in dreaming BIG.  As you can imagine, I was either on the verge of tears or actually crying through much of the weekend – sometimes tears of emptiness and isolation, but more often I would cry when I heard something I knew to be truthful and that really served me in that moment.  At the end of their talk, Jen and Andrea told us they had written out 500 post-it notes by hand and stuck one to everyone’s chair.  Mine said in lovely script, “Your tears are beautiful.”

So what am I taking away from the experience?  I made some notes when it was coming to an end.

“Start telling a new story.”  This was one of the messages I received from the stage shortly after arriving there myself.  I realized I’ve been caught up in the story I’ve been telling myself my whole life about who I am and what I can do, and I need to give myself permission to tell a new story and to believe it.  When I said a couple months ago, “I’m going to be a Reiki practitioner,” I believed it.  My belief has faltered, and it will serve me to allow myself to believe it again.


“Ask for help.  Connect with the divine.”  I was surprised how much of a spiritual undercurrent ran throughout the entire weekend, if only because it’s not an explicit theme of Chris’s blog.  It makes sense, though, for this group of people, who are dedicated to serving others as they create their own livelihoods.  The talk that had the most effect on me came from Mark Silver, a Sufi master teacher and business consultant (Heart of Business).  I thought he was going to discuss heart-centered business, but he didn’t talk about anything having to do with business or entrepreneurship at all.  He was there exclusively to remind us to connect to Oneness.  As he gave his talk, he would speak for two or three minutes, and then he would stop and close his eyes and go within to connect to that which is larger than us.  I’d never seen anyone do that before.  And I realized again, having come to this idea through beginning to practice Reiki, that my spiritual pursuits have been almost exclusively intellectual.  I’ve read about it and thought about it, but I don’t live it.  I don’t have a practice.  It’s not in my actions, and it’s not in my words.  Mark gave out what he calls Heart Power cards, and mine says, “If a mountain stands between you and a Divinely-guided goal, Al’Aziz moves the mountain.”  I can ask for help.  I can go within and connect.  I don’t have to do this alone.


“Define what I want.”  Before I decided on Reiki, I’d been having recurring fantasies about chucking it all and traveling around the world.  I wondered who might sponsor me on a global geocaching adventure.  I forgot about these thoughts once I decided I was going to learn Reiki and build a practice.  But this weekend opened them up again.  I really do want to travel.  I’m 39 years old, and I’ve never had a passport.  I’m very much a creature of comfort, but I want to stretch and grow beyond that.  There were many people at the conference who have sold all their belongings and travel full-time.  If I build my own business, I am rooting myself in a way that will make it difficult to leave for any worthwhile length of time.  As it stands now, I have a great job that I hate, I am single, I have no kids, and I have no debt except for my mortgage.  It is time to make a plan.  And that plan just might involve taking my Reiki on the road.


“Look for the awesome, and let go of the snark.”  I have a tendency when I’m feeling shitty to want to really dig into the shittiness.  I know I might feel better if I put on some music I like or go for a walk, but instead I choose to just stay down in it.  I also have a sense of humor that is dry and cynical.  I have been afraid to embrace self-improvement because I didn’t think sincerity on that level could be funny and I don’t want to lose my ‘edge’.  But the speakers at the conference changed those ideas for me.


A guy named Neil Pasricha has a blog called 1000 Awesome Things.  A few years ago, in a span of a few days, his wife told him she didn’t love him anymore and he lost a close friend to suicide.  It was a dark time for him, and to lift himself up, he decided to start making a list of the tiny little joys in life: hitting all the green lights, having a row to yourself on an airplane, when your iPod shuffle reads your mind.  He looked for the awesome and realized it is everywhere.  He now looks at the world through the eyes of a 3-year-old.  Life is amazing and wonderful.


Another speaker, Karen Walrond, talked about a nearly suicidal depression she went through, and how she began the practice of thinking of one thing that happened each day that she was grateful for, and in 20 years of doing this, she has never not been able to come up with one thing.


Every speaker was authentic and sincere, which did not preclude being funny.  There was a very long line to check in at registration during the welcome party on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, Chris thanked us for our patience and joked that we non-conformists must have thought, “I don’t need to wait in line… registration is for The Man”.


Having taken away these positives from a turbulent, emotional weekend, I wish I could say I’m now ready to start rocking my way to a fulfilling, creative life of freedom and independence and service to others.  But I’m still sorting it all out and trying to figure out where to start.  There are so many things I want to do, and I don’t know how to incorporate them into the life I am currently living.  Develop my Reiki skills; de-clutter my home to both clear the space spiritually and to prepare for renting it out; write out WHAT I WANT.  The fact that I am overwhelmed and confused instead of inspired and focused reinforces those notions that I’ll never change myself or my life.  I am so good at kicking my own ass.


I became aware in a way I didn’t know before how connected many bloggers and blog readers are through Twitter.  A mobile app was created for WDS, and it required a Twitter login.  I’d been avoiding Twitter because I spend enough time on Facebook, and the Web in general, and I didn’t want to engage in another time suck.  I went ahead and created an account, however, so I could use the mobile app during the weekend (one cool thing you could do with it is look up an attendee and mark him or her as ‘met’ and write some notes about them).  Reading through the #WDS hashtag on Twitter, I’ve seen dozens of post-conference tweets and blog posts (like this one).


Everyone was blown away by the positive energy and the connections they made.  Many people are writing about how excited they are and all the ideas they have.  The one post I connected to the most came from an attendee named Monica McCarthy:


“Once we discover that we have the power to create our own lives, we can’t settle for anything less than incredible.  Which sounds awesome, and romantic, and straight out of a movie.  Until we are faced with the reality of actually going through it.

FAITH.