Tag Archives: passion

Water Warrior

Drop of water

By Vicki Hughes      Posted April 22, 2013

Chelsey has been working non-stop for a solid month to make our annual Earth Month charity event at The Fairhope Salon & Spa a big hit. We’re co-hosting a Water Warriors Crawfish Boil at Fairhope Brewing Company, with live music, a cornhole tournament, a bachelor auction and a drawing for a complete spa day. It has been quite a project.

The stories she has heard in the years she has worked for Aveda have imparted a heartfelt calling into her. Her passion is to plan ongoing events for clean water projects, including but not limited to this year’s beneficiary, Gulf Restoration Network. She wants to work with other groups such as Wine to Water, and Global Green Grants. If you have never heard Doc Hendley’s story about Wine to Water, you need to. We had the honor of hearing him speak at Serious Business in New Orleans in January, and it was life changing. I will never look at a glass of clean water the same way again.

When your children really get on fire about things, it makes an impact. Watching her immerse herself in this passion, self-teaching herself about building websites, obtaining grants, the ins and outs of non-profits and fundraising, and event planning, I realize how driven and amazing she is. I see a lot of me in her, but I also see lots of her, in her own right, too. Your kids may be influenced by you, but the come pre-wired too.

From me she got that impulsive, “let’s do it” thinking, that is full of ideas, and a little light on thinking through how much actual time and work each idea requires. We both secretly believe Smurfs will show up and make lots of stuff happen, and then we go out and recruit lots of Smurfs to help us when we start to panic. Let me say, thank God for all of our Smurfy friends!

She’s persuasive. We can both move people to action when we talk about ideas we’re passionate about. We share our excitement easily, frequently and boldly. If you don’t want to know what we’ve been up to lately, you best not ask.

She loves anything social, by nature. A party, an event, some music, anything that sounds fun. She was the kid who hated bedtime because she was afraid she’d miss something good. If we put her to bed, and she heard John and I laughing in the other room, she’d holler, “No fair having fun without me!”

She is tenacious when she gets an idea into her head, and as John would say, once she gets a bug up her butt about something, it’s all or nothing.

She is constantly learning, moving, and changing. Interestingly, she is a Pisces, a water sign. She is just like water: Beautiful, powerful, persistent, constantly changing, unpredictable, life giving, and will move anything that gets in her way. I think it’s destiny that her passion is to provide clean water for people who need it most. I for one, know better than to get in her way.

What are you passionate about?

© Vicki Hughes 2013

How To Get Clear on What You Want to Do (and also freak out)

catterpillar

By Vicki Hughes    Posted March 30, 2013

A couple months back, I posted as my Facebook status, “Caterpillars are just butterflies in fur coats.” I’d been going through my own caterpillar experience. I had a lump in my breast. When your fingers make that discovery, it takes a few minutes for your brain to process the implications. And you forget to breathe.

Due to some insurance complications, I wasn’t able to run screaming into the ER, demanding immediate answers. So, I began a waiting game that felt like a combination of Russian Roulette, Operation, and Perfection, that nerve wracking game where the little plastic pieces fly up in your face if you don’t get them crammed in the right spots before the end of the world, “POP! Goes Perfection!”

Having the lump was freaking me out, and yet I didn’t want to discuss it with anyone until I knew exactly what we might need to discuss. Why should we all be freaking out?

So, I’d breathe in, and breathe out, and then I’d think some scary-ass thoughts and then I’d turn it over to God, and then I’d feel a twinge in my chest and wonder what the hell that was, and then I’d quote a healing scripture, and then I’d read, and then I’d distract myself, and then I’d take a shower and try to decide if I should feel the lump again, and then I’d tell it to dissipate. I laid hands on myself, I tapped, I drank tea, I drank martinis, I praised God for insurance, I laughed at funny shows, I felt numbness in my arm, I felt freaked out, I felt guilty for not saying anything to anyone, then I decided there’s nothing to say to anyone yet, and I’d tell myself to calm down. I’d discover that I was breathing very shallowly and wonder if it was stress or some sort of a symptom. I mentally calculated the hours I’d work that week, I looked forward to seeing my best friend for the weekend, and rejoiced that this delayed doctor’s appointment meant our visit would not be marred by possibly bad news.

I freaked out some more and wondered how long it would take to get the mammogram results. I reminded myself that my family is very healthy, I caught myself thinking morbid thoughts, I made myself take a deep breath. I went for a walk, I made cookies, I played on Facebook, I wrote quotes in my quote journal, I pet the dog and listened to the rain. I made tacos and I swept the crumbs off the counter, I lit a candle and I took out the trash. I got choked up reading a story about a woman whose dog died, and I admired the puffy white clouds that were floating by. I listened to Chelsey lament all the things she still needs to do at her house and I felt bad that I didn’t have the energy to offer to help her. I went to my room and flopped, face down on the bed, and appreciated how good it feels just to lie there. I wished I had more time to write and contemplated ways to make that happen.  I considered how writing is my gift, my calling and my purpose, and I realized that it would suck if I needed an illness to give myself permission to pursue it with passion. I felt mildly guilty that John wanted my attention and I felt selfish and I just didn’t want to play, and then I justified it with the fact that I’d baked him cookies. I allowed myself room to be both scared and confident that it would all work out. I was doing my best. In the end, that has to be enough.

Sidenote: Simple cyst, no malignancy. Resume breathing.

© Vicki Hughes 2013