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Stacy Crep ~

Photo credit – Emy Minzel

Who do you think you are?!

September 24, 2019September 23, 2019 emyminzel

Do you ever dream big and aim for the stars doing something you really want too? Then when you start to take the steps. It seems that once in a while, your self-doubt whispers in the back of your mind. “Who do you think you are?! What makes you think you can do this?”

It’s like there’s a grumpy angel sitting on my shoulder, asking me. “Do you remember where you come from? Let me remind you of all these limiting the beliefs you picked up along the way. Girl, it’s me. Your debilitating doubt, reminding you to watch yourself! Who gave you permission to succeed anyway?! Certainly not me.”

This sounds so silly to write it out and then read. Yet, I genuinely believe I am not the only person to fight these limiting thoughts. It has become a habit for me to write about life lessons and roadblocks to process them. As far as coping mechanisms go, writing is my healthiest. Even then, sometimes, I feel like who cares? Why do I feel this pull and desire to share such personal information?

I believe it’s not that I need someone to care per se. What I need is to feel like I am helping someone else. Isn’t that peculiar? I am a certified massage therapist, I volunteer in my community, and I have a passion for protecting the environment. Yet, with all the action I take to “help” others, I still feel that there is more to do. Then I get frustrated when I don’t see it happening fast enough.

I have this pull to write what I live; in case someone needs to hear they are not alone. Selfishly it feels like I need to write to help myself too. I just listened to a song that said. “Take your time. Life’s lessons are not learned in a day.” How powerful this short phrase is at the exact moment when I seem to be in a hurry to know it all and do it all; like, RIGHT NOW!

Even though I know in my heart that life is a beautiful journey meant to be savored and enjoyed one day at a time. Apparently, I have the patience of Hulu on pause, because when I feel my effort isn’t progressing somewhere fast enough, I get down on myself and just quit moving. That jerk voice in the back of mind kicks in its two cents and asks. “So, this is it then?! Nice try. Remember who you are, sit down and shut up.” Unfortunately, lately, I have been complying.

What an a$$Hole I am to myself sometimes hey?! I mean really, I don’t talk to my friends like this. Why do I speak to myself this way? Where does this icky habit of doubt come from? I honestly think it comes from my lack of patience and just maybe… a buried fear of success. This also seems silly when I write it. Who fears success?!

Most people I know, try every day to succeed on their personal paths. I guarantee they have doubts as well, but do they handle them better than I do? There are days I feel like throwing in the towel on all of it. That dark angel on my shoulder tells me maybe I should just go get a regular job, so I don’t have to worry about doing the books, finding clients, and building my business.

Why do I volunteer my time instead of crawling into bed with a good book and my dog? Why do I pursue politics that get me all riled up, instead of working more on balancing my Zen?! Why do I stifle my creativity because I fear judgment from those who do not create themselves? Why, do I want to have it ALL?! Is what I am working towards even attainable?

Also, why do I have so many questions about life? I hope this is coming across in a friendly and relatable way. There must be others out there who struggle with doubt when pursuing dreams and goals. Are there other people who can relate to my frustration with the pace of life when you feel like you’ve been working so hard but just to feel as if your spinning wheels?

Listen, I believe if every one of us put our problems in a pile, most of us would choose to keep our own instead of trade. This frustration I feel is not a problem, it is an obstacle I know I can navigate. Yet, it feels like I need to a little help to push through right about now. I think we are all in this world together, so I’d like to ask for your help.

What do you do or tell yourself to keep your head up and hopes high? What would you tell your best friend asking this same advice on this topic? I am a fan of sharing sisterhood support, and I’d love to hear from you today!

P.s. I’d love to hear who you think you are! And what obstacle are you working to overcome right now!

Sending the intention of encouragement and self-love to you!

Wishing you the luck you need today,

Love, Emy Minzel

Visit me at :

EmyMinzel.com

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Contact me at: EmyMinzel.AdventureSister@gmail.com

Stacy Crep ~

Photo Credit – Emy Minzel – Slim Lake, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness – Ely, Minnesota

Feeling 43

September 15, 2019September 15, 2019 emyminzel

My forty-third birthday is almost here, and the year behind me was a wild ride with many unexpected twists and turns! I am grateful for them all, even the bummer ones. I grew emotionally stronger and learned valuable life lessons while growing courage I did not think was possible. I hope to express an authentic reflection of personal growth that can happen all in just one crazy year.

In my 42nd year, I took a giant leap of faith and tested my luck by running for State Representative in Minnesota. Whoa! This was an unexpected turn of events for me. I’m talking altogether out of the left-field! I had no idea what I was getting into. I lost the election, but the skills I gained personally made it all worthwhile.

Yet, as I am about to turn the page on another chapter in my personal story. I am thankful I conjured up the courage and took that chance to speak from my heart. Pursuing politics still pulls at my protective and compassionate environmental loving spirit. I believe we need good people to stand up and fight for those who does not have a voice.

My campaign motto was, “Protect what you love.” I still believe this, and I just can’t seem to walk away. It is coming time to make the decision if I am going to run yet again. You would think it would be an easy decision, but it is not. It was hard in ways I did not expect. Yet, the pull of this protective passion is something I cannot ignore.

I am beginning to see, it’s who I am and what I came to this world to do. I love to learn, and I love adventure. This is how I chose to see my path. This year’s motto will be; “My work feels like fun all the time!” Because that’s how it feels when you do what you love! Stacy says this is because I am following my Dharma. It sure feels like I am being ‘called’ so maybe she is right.

Getting elected to the Board of the Friends of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge last January has given me opportunity to keep putting my time and energy towards my environmental and community supporting passions. It’s been a wonderful experience that also allows me to share the skills and grow connections I’ve learned from campaigning. So cool how that worked out!

This past year my friend and I came very close to finishing our book series. We really almost did it! Then just feet from the finish line, when it came time to become business partners, it was clear we were not able to do so. Turns out we would rather be friends, than colleagues! We both walked away from years of collaborative creative work as Adventure Sisters, to go our separate ways.

It was an unexpected turn of events but, I believe this also has happened for our highest good. It now leaves me the ability to be creatively authentic and more faithful to myself. I will be able to write about what I wish instead of within the confinement of a partner’s expectations. I really do believe it is for the best. We are still friends, and this is what matters the most.

I am thankful for the journeys we took together and the encouragement we shared with one another during this process. It’s a blessing to have the ability to make tough decisions and put friendship first when it came down to it. It’s best to find out before you get in too deep and that’s what happened.

We both have a different path, and that is okay! I already have started another creative project that excites me and keeps me passionately pursuing my publishing dreams. If it is meant to be, it will be! I am thankful for my friend because she believed in me and encouraged me to write years all those years ago.

Without our friendship and this joint journey, I may have been too insecure to pursue my writing dream. We would have missed out on all the fun we had doing so! It was this same friend who also encouraged to push through my fear to pursue a political path. Now, look! I can’t stop writing or the pull of political passion if I wanted too! They are in my soul and what I love.

I am thankful for all these round-about experience even if they did not play out like I thought they would. This seemed to be the theme for year 42. This year has taught me to embrace my independence, follow my dreams, and the tug of my soul. These lessons in independence gave me the confidence and courage to do the work when it comes to fulfilling my needs.

I even took a solo trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness this summer! #SavetheBoundaryWaters! Never in a million years did I think I could or would, and I did! I am so proud of me. I don’t know how I became so brave. I think it just maybe one of the most valued traits I’ve come to possess! They say when women get older, we get bolder. This part of aging is darn fabulous if you ask me.

I love growing older! I’ve embraced the silver in my hair and the wisdom that comes from my mistakes. Aging is a blessing. I am grateful for the time I’ve been given to learn, grow, and bloom into who I always knew I was. I am so much more than what you see. I realize that I don’t need to prove it to you. I need to show it to me!

If being in my forties means I get to release my fears, trusting the twist of my path, enjoying every minute of being alive and loving myself for who I am. Then I am good with that. This next year around the sun I am going to welcome new experiences, new lessons, be more open to making new connections. Expanding my circle of friends and making contacts that will help me make a ripple of hope in the web of life!

Self-doubt has no place in year 43 for me. “F’ it! Let’s try it and see what happens!” Sounds more my style anyway. This past year has allowed me to see this is my chance to grab the opportunities life has placed before me. I can choose to sit them out or jump in the deep end. We all know I’m the kind of gal who likes adventure so I guess we will see what the Creator has in store for me! I am excited just thinking about the possibilities.

One more thing I learned last year was the importance of balance. Love, Family, Self & Mind, Body, Spirit. These are all important and require my time and attention before they go rogue. I know which ones need attention because I feel it. This year also gave me a lot of time to relax, reflect and really get in touch with my own needs.

It’s no secret there is lots of time that matters laying in between the ‘big stuff’ that needs tending to. Life can be demanding and crazy, but great when we let it! I have realized how vital it is to listen to my inner knowing and the tug of my soul. It’s not always easy, but it’s still worth it! I am worth it. I am beyond thankful for this blessing of time that allowed me this solace.

I want to thank you for understanding when I don’t blog as often as I have been. I know I’ve been slowing down on blogging significantly, but it’s because I’ve been busy chasing my dreams, living a life I love, enjoying my husband, family, and friends while working at smashing my goals.

Along with working, building my business, volunteering, being a wife, mother and taking care of my own needs! This all takes time and effort. So, when I do write, I trust it is because I am being called to do so. I hope that when I post, you find it educational, entertaining, and worth your time.

My goal is to share these lessons with you as I learn them, in hopes you can be entertained and educated from my crazy life! I promise not to portray myself as perfect. I am far from it. My dreams are to share the real me, the soul inside that is following the tugs of my heart. This is what it means to me to feel 43.

Thank you for reading my blog for sharing my life lessons and adventures with me! I appreciate your support and encouragement beyond measure!

Sending joy and blessings to you,

Love, Emy Minzel

Visit me at :

EmyMinzel.com

EmyMinzel.AdventureSister@gmail.com

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Stacy Crep ~

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Solo Adventure Day two!

August 29, 2019 emyminzel

It’s six a.m., and I wake up with the dawn, excited for the new day. I clear the sleep from my eyes and set about making coffee. It was overcast and a bit chilly, it also seemed quite windy again even early in the morning. I had a feeling a storm was on the way, so set about my morning duties, grabbing some food, and the most crucial chore on my mind was getting my coffee fix. I tried to ignore the signs of the weather, but I know when it’s time to retreat.

Startled by the Thunder God’s and some warning raindrops that sent a firm signal to get to it; I knew I had better hurry and put things away to stay dry. I quickly tucked my camp chair under the canoe, filled my coffee thermos, and headed for the tent. Just as it started pouring hard lighting lit up the tent feeling way to close for comfort.

Zipping the rainfly down tight to prevent the water from coming in, but it also prevented me from seeing out. Sometimes not knowing is worse than anything! For hours I was stuck in the tent while Mother Nature reminded me who was in charge here. As if I needed reminding. Luckily even though cell service was very spotty, I was somehow able to make a call to my husband so he could check the weather for me.

He had said that it was going to be a couple hours be for it passed so I might as well get comfortable. Also, he let me know to expect another spot of rain that afternoon. This gave me plenty of time to think, lying in bed with my thoughts. This was when it occurred to me that I should make some videos of my solo adventure to share with our friends on our Adventure Sisters Facebook community. I recorded myself and my thoughts, and it felt comforting like I was able to talk to someone while I was a bit scared and wishing for company.

The storm passed without incident, thank goodness, and I emerged from the tent ready to do some exploring. It was crazy how just an hour before the wind was howling and now the calm after the storm turned the water as still as glass. Since I had nobody to entertain but myself, I took this opportunity to go for a paddle and explore Slim Lake scenery. It was a nice break in the day that allowed me to keep my mind and body active.

I paddled for about an hour or more until the wind changed directions and started to pick up again. The lake began to sway with force, and I turned the canoe around to head back to the safety of my campsite. When I got back to the site, all I had to do was wait for the rain to come, so I made lunch and sat back to relax. Interestingly, I was starting to get antsy, I felt that I was over the rain, but there was nothing I could do about that!

Inevitably it started to sprinkle then come down harder, and I had to retreat to the tent yet again. This time I took the opportunity to journal and gave myself a tarot card reading. When there are no distractions, it’s easy to get into the flow of creativity, and I began to write and write. Even after the storm had passed, I felt moved to keep writing as I sat out and watched the scenery sitting close to the water on the boulder point.

I have always thought that the best conversations happen on rainy days, it seems that it is true when I am alone as well. The quiet time allowed me to hear myself, to listen to my gut and time to digest what it is trying to say. This was why I went out to the Boundary Waters in the first place. To reconnect with myself, and this is what happened.

I was missing the comfort of my family. The BWCA reminded me just how important they are when I am going through the metaphorical storms in my life. We tend to retreat into who and what is comfortable when we are scared or confused, and this experience reminded me not to take my blessings of my great family for granted.

Some days it’s easy to let the dumb annoyances of life get in between relationships and happiness. This time alone helped to take responsibility to catch those times when I get back home. There is real spiritual healing that happens when I go into the vastness of the Boundary Waters. Every trip I make changes me deep inside and for the better. I come home with a new appreciation for my life, tending to see situations from a different perspective that I had not seen before.

Inevitably I miss the solitude and the healing power of the big water and vast forests. The slow time of nature and quite relaxed pace of living isn’t so easy to bring home with you. There is lots of noise in the world we’ve come to know, most of it is just that, noise. I miss the realness of just being. I find it hard to keep centered when I return to home from the BWCA.

My wish is to embody that Zen flow of poignant peace folding into myself so securely to be mine forever. If I were able to do bottle that feeling of serenity, I would be rich! What I can do is continue to go to the places and do the things that allow this feeling as much as possible. To make sure I do the things that feed my soul is just as important as caring for my body or my work.

Mind, body, spirit is all of me, neither more important than the other. It’s up to me to take care of all three. As day two ended with clear skies, a peaceful campfire, and a nightcap, it was clear to me this solo excursion into the wild was precisely what I needed to do so. I felt the peace I had been craving, I felt the gratitude for just being, I was genuinely relaxed and connected. Yes. This is the stuff that helps make life great.

Good night friends.

I hope my words help you or even allow for a short escape while you envision peace and serene solitude. Thank you for sharing my journey with me.

Sending joy and blessings to you,

Love, Emy Minzel ~ Adventure Sister

Visit me at :

EmyMinzel.com

EmyMinzel.AdventureSister@gmail.com

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Stacy Crep ~ Adventure Sister

You’re in the soup.

February 23, 2019February 20, 2019 emyminzel

Adventure Sister Stacy is an excellent friend. One reason for this is that she lets me know when she thinks I should try and step away from a situation to get a clearer picture. She tells me kindly “You’re in the soup. You can’t see everything from the inside. It’s time to step away and out of the pot, so you can see a bigger perspective.”

I love that she cares enough about me to tell me the truth when I am in a soupy situation.

Like most everyone, I tend to complain and vent to my best friend when life gets frustrating. I share with her because I can trust her to give me feedback from a different point of view. It’s like taste testing a spoonful of soup and asking. “What’s missing? What can I add to make this better?”

They say it is the journey and not the destination that we must find enjoyment in. It’s taken me years to figure out that’s because the journey is the process of planning and doing that almost always takes a much longer amount of your time and effort, before we finally get to our target aspirations. There we end only to start all over again towards another destination.

The journey is life! Life is the journey. I love to cook and that’s why I like to use cooking metaphors to express my messages and share my life lessons. My life is the soup and I am the chef on the journey to making the best, most scrumptious soul-warming soup I possibly can!

When I try to add too much to my soup of life, it becomes unbalanced and not nearly as tasty as a simple chicken soup with few tasty ingredients. That’s because the less ingredients and seasonings I add, the easier it is to experience the simple flavors that we savor.

Isn’t this also true of life? When we add too much to our lives its overwhelming and not as enjoyable as a simple, balanced life full of the people and activities that we enjoy.

Sometimes we think if we add ‘just a little more’, that we will be even happier and our soup of life will be all the better, yet that doesn’t happen. We end up wishing we had not added those things after all. But now they are in there… and you can’t take them out and you are stuck with the flavor, even though it just doesn’t taste right. This is when you are in the soup!

Now you’ve learned though, and you are not going to do that again! It’s still okay to eat this soup and so we do; because we invested our time and effort on the journey to make this soup. We may think we need to add just a little more of this or a pinch of that to make it ‘better’. When really, we just need to enjoy our chef’s journey. Learn to enjoy the feeling of contentment our simply delicious, homemade chicken soup truly brings to our lives.

That the best thing about soup! It can be the same or different every single time, depending on how the chef is feeling that day! I hardly ever make the same soup twice because I don’t like to use recipes. My daughter once said to me, after tasting a delicious homemade concoction. “I am sad because I know, I just had the best soup of my life and I will never taste it again.”

That’s because there was no recipe, same as life, it was handcrafted by the Chef’s spirit that lives inside of me and I don’t even remember what I used. I see our lives as one batch of soup after the other. Sometimes we must try what we don’t like just to figure out what we do.

Sometimes others can see your soupy life better then you can when we’re standing in it. That is why I love my friends and family who love me enough to say to me. “You’re in the soup!”

Maybe if you step back you will see it also. Who knows, you just might be in the best soup of your life right now!!! So savor and enjoy it with all your senses! Remember what ingredients you used and how you balanced those flavors with your attention to detail. (What amount of each Mind/Body/Spirit/Family/Love/Work feels and tastes just right to you?)

Try and remember the amount of attention it took to craft it just right and remember: “You are the chef of your life.” Remind yourself of this whenever you feel unbalanced or overwhelmed, that you can go back to the basics and make your favorite, soul comforting, simple soup. You have the power. You are the Chef of your soupy life.

I love you. You got this.

With love,

Emy Minzel ~ Adventure Sister

https://emyminzel.com

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Stacy Crep ~ Adventure Sister