Category: Travel

Sidekick, huh?

1/27/2016

So, you’re digging this Happy Trail idea, but not exactly sure how to utilize a free sidekick ?
Well, let me tell ya, the possibilities are really quite endless. Here are some ideas to spark your expedition:

Anything you’d like to try for the first time such as kayak around the Apostle Islands? Take a trapeze class? Start to jog? Bull riding? You wanna try it, we are going to do it!

How about squashing a fear that has held you back in some way, shape, or form? It could be as basic as a fear of the dentist, heights or a tattoo. Perhaps you have always wanted to sing on stage or do stand up comedy but get stage fright? Squash it!

Maybe you're dealing with a monumental crappy situation like your 1st chemo appointment or need help with your divorce paperwork and need a sidekick to kick some ass for you? Been there myself, and we can take on whatever comes your way!

Bring me to your place of work, I will contribute in any way needed. Teach me a new skill, make me do your back breaking work, have me live your life and I will share your story with the world via my blog. Let’s inspire others with all that you accomplish on a daily basis.

Make me face one of my own fears by donating to my Kickstarter fund. You know you wanna see me do something that makes me sweat profusely and possibly freak the hell out, so choose from my list of fears and make me put my money where my mouth is . I will record the act and share via my blog so that you can laugh in the comfort of your home and watch me scream like a child.

You wanna join me on my travels to hang out and be sidekicks together? Do it. Ask for more information about my next destination via email and we shall spend the day spreading the Happy Trail together. Possibly you live in the next city on my agenda and you could give me a lift. We could grab a bite at your favorite restaurant and you can bring me up to speed on you and the amazing city you live in.

Would you like me to accomplish a Fear Challenge for you, and live vicariously through me? Anything you wanted to do, but were unable to do for one reason or another, I will rock it for you.

Anything that you want to do, I will be there for you every step of the way. I’ll take care of the planning, scheduling, and organizing. All you do is show up to kick fear’s ass and begin your Happy Trail. You deserve the life you dream about, so let’s make it a reality!

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It's a happy movement

1/9/2016

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I have started a movement of true connectedness, happiness, and compassion. Of people being there for each other through the joyful and sorrowful, the exciting and the scary. All we have to do is take the step and either ask for help or offer to help.

So I’m beginning one person at a time by being there for you and asking you to be there with me. I hope to inspire you by conquering one of my fears in February: traveling to a foreign country. I’ll be posting my itinerary online, which will be based on either things I’ve always wanted to experience, or the requests I receive from others to help them. I would love nothing more than for you to be a part of my Happy Trail expedition of searching, sharing, and providing happy everywhere that I can, am invited to, or fall upon.

And with each person I help or who helps me, I hope it rubs off on others, and people realize how easy it is to break down those barriers.

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How I Got Here

1/4/2016

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It took me many sticky years and some pretty painful, scary experiences (there was a lot of good in there too) to finally come to my current point of clarity.

During my 20s I made decisions and acted on them in mere minutes. I decided to move to San Francisco at 21 never having been there except for a job interview, and lived everyday like it was my last: parties, booze, drugs, and bands. While attending a packed bike messenger party, I met my 1st husband while making fun of him, and shockingly, that marriage officially ended in firestorm when I was 31…..after a year of looking for him to grant me a divorce. Before that divorce was final (remember, it took a year!) I was back in MN living with soon to be husband number two. He was amazing in so many ways, and didn’t spook a bit when I was diagnosed with breast cancer less than a year into our relationship at age 32. (We had so many hurdles in that relationship which made us very dependant on each other. We got way too comfortable in our relationship and it fizzled out when I was 40 years old.)

The fact that I found a lump in my right breast showing my then husband how to do a self exam is beyond me. With no family or smoking history I was in disbelief and PISSED. I wasn’t about to let this asshole cancer tell me what to do, and somehow didn’t doubt that I am gonna kick it’s ass when I was told The Big News in June of 2004. Thankfully after 2 months of chemo, 30 days of radiation and the unbelievable and endless support from friends and family I did indeed kick cancer’s ugly ass.

My big progress toward enlightenment essentially began when my second marriage ended in 2012, and I lived alone for the first time in my adult life. I dealt with it pretty much on my own since my best friend had moved to Charleston, SC, I didn’t have any immediate family in state, and I had distanced myself from friends during the end of the marriage because I was so depressed. My ex pretty much was my best friend, but now he was gone and I had never felt more alone in my entire life.

At times I wanted to embark on trying something new to get me out of my apartment, like take a class or muster up the confidence to have a drink alone at a bar, but was so insecure there was no way I could do it by myself. It honestly seemed totally insane to even ask anyone to go out with me, anywhere, because who in the hell would wanna go out with me? Everyone seemed to be in a relationship, or busy doing cooler things than I was, at least it seemed that way looking at social media.

After confiding in my sister in-law about how lonely and isolated I was feeling, which is so unlike me, she introduced me to meditation. The fact that a no BS, non gooey person said it helped her, I thought I’d give it a shot. That meditation shit was and still is a massive and total game changer. After trying it many times with no success and umpteen failed attempts, I soon had a major “ah-hah” moment, and it provided me insight to find my true happy.

I then sunk all my energy into my personal training business, stopped focussing on what I didn’t have and my business and social skills flourished .

Thankfully I was in such a positive head space when I got the news that my mother wasn’t quite right, and more depressed than normal. She had moved to Sparks NV where my brother Matt, sister-in law and nephew live, and she wanted to move back to MN after living there about a year. At her first doctor appointment in MN she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and It looked like I was going to take on the position of primary caregiver,and proceeded to be that for her until she passed in August on 2015, 5 days short of her 75th birthday.

Watching my mother live in fear every day and seeing her constantly worry about what other people thought, made me feel helpless and heartbroken. Reflecting back, I realized she had pretty much started to check out after divorcing my father after 24 years of marriage when I was age 18. She had proceeded to lose herself and any scraps of her brilliance seemed to dwindle away . She taught me so many lessons in the year she was in MN it is honestly mind boggling and I will be forever grateful....That being said, I decided after losing her, there is no way I wasn’t going to let my life slip through my hands to ever say “I shoulda, coulda, woulda”. I was given wake up calls in the past and this one finally slapped some sense into me: I AM IN CHARGE OF MY OWN HAPPY

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Beginning of the Happy Trail

1/1/2016

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One morning I was journaling at a million miles an hour, wishing my mind was calm enough to meditate. It had been a little over a month since my mom had passed away from alzheimer's, and I realized it was the first time in my life that I didn’t have to factor in another person’s needs when planning my life since I was about 19. I had always had a mate, husband or family member that depended on me in some way.. It was an amazing, exciting feeling and so began the following inner dialog:
Excited Me: What’s next?! What have I always wanted to do?
Scared Me: Go to Europe, travel any and everywhere while meeting cool people.

Excited Me: Why don’t I?
Scared Me: I have no one to go with. Friends always say they want to go here and there, but no one ever commits.

Excited Me: Why don’t I go myself?
Scared Me: I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m terrified of getting lost, not having a place to stay, doing something stupid to solidify the belief that Americans are jerks.

Excited Me: Really? THAT is why I won’t go, because I am scared of essentially doing something “stupid” ?
Scared Me: Well, yes. (I know it’s ludicrous.)

Excited Me- aloud: I am not going to let fear dictate my actions anymore. This is bullshit. I am going to Europe and I am going in February”!

I literally yelled that last sentence out loud, and jumped out of my seat feeling like I lost a bagillion pounds. I gave notice on my apartment the next morning ( I need deadlines) and proceeded to make a plan for how I am going to help people all over the globe to find their happy by conquering our fears together. And I knew it was going to be huge.

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Sidekick, huh?

It's a happy movement

How I Got Here

Beginning of the Happy Trail

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