Follow the Fun

Learn to Trust Fun and Change Your Life Forever

When I was a high school English teacher many years ago, I would often wake up in the middle of the night fraught with anxiety. I was failing to reach my students, failing them horribly I feared, even though I was doing all I knew at the time to help them succeed and create a great life for themselves.

Twenty years later I know the truth was I had been failing them miserably, but not through any fault of my own, but that is another story.

This is the story of how I got tired of feeling horrible, sick to my stomach with dread at the thought of going to school in the morning. Instead, I transformed my teaching and my life in one session with my best friend, my journal.

The Power of Dialoguing

In my Journal Writing for Teachers class I had been taught a journaling technique dialoguing. You can dialogue with anything, I learned, including aspects of a dream or even voices inside your own head.

I decided to dialogue with that Voice inside my head that was waking me up at night and this was one of the first times I ever faced my shame, the fear that I was a disgusting mistake which needed to be eradicated, wiped from the face of the Earth.

Brave, indeed, I was when I picked up my pen and wrote:

• Me: Okay, Voice That Wakes Me Up at Night. What is it you are trying to tell me? I want to know everything.
• Voice: You are a failure as an English teacher.
• Me: I know. Why am I a failure? What should I be doing?
• Voice: Your students should be writing essays with footnotes.

Note: As a college graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English, I had never written a paper with footnotes in my life. 

• Me: Okay. What else?
• Voice: Your students should have their papers publish.
• Me: My students should write papers with footnotes that are published in academic journals, Right?
• Voice: Right.
• Me: And then that would be enough, I would be enough?
• Voice: No, of course not. These papers would be written about Beowulf, the Old English classic. Your students must read in the original Old English.
• Me. Right. My students in my Mass Media class should be reading Beowulf in its original Old English and writing scholarly papers, which are published in academic journals. Is that all?
• Voice: No. You and your student should win some awards, some national awards.

Perfectionism Kills

At this point I realized for once and forever that I would never please this Voice inside me. Every time I succeeded, this Voice would just up the ante and I would be a failure again.

A Vow to Follow the Fun

So, I sent this voice to Hawaii for a vacation and decided to have fun instead. From that day on, no kidding, my goal has been to have fun. If I am not having fun, I change what I am doing. I am willing to work hard, proofreading this essay is no walk in the park when you are legally blind, but it is still fun, even if I am occasionally frustrated.

Taking a Stand for Fun at Work

Once when I was an elementary school counselor, I was leading a musical, life skills assembly. The students were rowdy and I could not get them to quiet down. "I’m not having any fun," I said. "I’m working too hard. If you don’t settle down we will have to stop the assembly and try again some other time."

They did not quiet down and, with a smile on my face, I said, “Okay, the assembly is over. We will try again some other time when you are able to listen better."

My students were shocked. I'm sure the teachers and parents were shocked. I even shocked myself. Wow! I had taken a stand for fun and I stood my ground firmly and cheerfully, even in the face of mass disapproval.

I never had trouble at an assembly again. I had credibility with my five hundred students and, more importantly, with myself. I could count on me when I was being invited to do something that was not working. I had learned to Follow the fun.

Trusting Fun

So now I follow the fun. I trust Fun. Fun happens when I am living in the present and when life is juicy and creative. Because I follow the fun, if I am struck by lightening in the next second, I will have no regrets. I have not spent my life worrying and flurrying, fussing and fretting.

 Since that day in my backyard, sitting in the sun out on my weedy lawn, that day I faced the Voice of Shame within me and sent her packing, I have been more creative, effective, and happier than I was when I was allowing Shame to dominate my life.

Desmond Tutu invites us to Follow the Fun and save the world. He is full of laughter and is a Nobel Prize-winner. If you don’t believe me, you can certainly trust him

So there.

What is a Dream Midwife?

I am blessed with a kind of perfect pitch. I can hear and even smell what is out of tune, out of alignment, out of integrity. Sometimes when I touch people, such as when I give them a shoulder rub, I get visions that are fun to play with.

I call what I do Magical Muse-ical Listening because I listen with imagination and heart that often combines with a coyote-like sense of humor. I don’t make pronouncements – that would feel too arrogant and serious. Instead, I offer my impressions and sometimes song lyrics in in an effort to help give birth to what is inside other people clamoring to be born.

Because of this kind of intuitive knowing, I can help people identify what is in the way of their moving forward. I help people remove obstacles so they can joyfully manifest their bravest dreams.

You Are in Charge

Sometimes this is a fun process, full of belly laughter. Sometimes tears come. Sometimes a stubbornness born of shame rises up in someone I’m working with. It’s like an emotional No Fly Zone, an unspoken “We will not talk about this anymore.” I hear this unspoken request loud and clear. I honor your Stop Signs, but I don’t forget they are there. I know how to stay with you and soften what is supporting the shame or the fear until we can venture together with love into territory formerly off limits.

Your inner emotional obstacles are like a logjam in your dream stream. I know how to find just the place to put a little pressure to get the logs to break up and get your life moving again. If you trust me, we can shift anything that is blocking the embodiment of your passion and allow your dream to be born.

It takes courage. It takes trust. It takes commitment. But if you stick with me, I will stick with you and together we can give birth to the best that is in you, the reason you were put on this Earth.

Speaking My Dream into Creation

Let this or something better manifest this year:
I want to teach a song to Oprah’s audience. I want the book I’m writing to go all over the world and create invitations and opportunities for me to contribute my greatest gifts to meet the world’s greatest needs. I want enough abundance to flow through me, so that my husband Murray and I can take our gifts globally and have abundant support to manifest all of our creative ideas to empower people all over the globe.

No Excuses: It Doesn’t Matter What has Happened to You

How's that? I've done a good job of manifesting what I set out to manifest. My mother and sister both dropped out of high school and I have a Master’s degree in counseling. My family did not vote, travel, or discuss ideas. I have been all over the world singing and teaching, getting people on their feet, and believing they can do anything they believe they can do. I got myself to Bali, Africa, Dubai, Europe, South America, Central America, Mexico, Canada, and even Florida.

If I can do it, you can do it, too. Let me help you help yourself be more than you ever imagined you could be, do more than you ever thought you could do. It will be fun and everyone will win.

Manifestation Tip

I’m going to end each section with a tip.

What I Say to Myself to Help Keep Me Keepin’ On

• I get to go anywhere I want to go anytime I want to go.
• Either I trust everything or nothing. I don’t get to trust only when Life is feeling good. I need to trust it all, especially when I do not feel positive, optimistic, hopeful, or safe.
• I want to work with people who want to work with me.
• I want to work less and earn more.
• I want to have a lot of fun, help a lot of people, and make a lot of money.

Until next time,


Vicki