Angel had me explore some great questions today as she counseled me on my business-related frustration. Here are some of them and a few of my answers. Figure I'll jot it down here in case I need to read it and remind myself again sometime.

Who am I?
I don't know

What do I love?
strategizing
creating
counseling
teaching
telling stories
artistic expression
intimate relationships

Where am I happy?
being of service... and helping others to do the same

What is sacred?
health
marriage
spiritual practice
creativity
community

What is true?
connection to higher purpose
authenticity

What is my vocation... my calling?
*to help women be in the world differently. to help them claim their space by standing firmly in their strengths and certainty
*to contribute to a global shift in consciousness by helping change the face of commerce from a me-centered to a service-based model
*to add value to our collective experience

What is my purpose?
*to align with our common universal truth--and help others do the same

I met with one of my favorite teachers today. Her name is Angel and she totally rocks. She helped me begin to sort out some things that have been frustrating me about my businesses.

My first batch of clients are well into the design stage... when we design logos, business cards and websites built on the foundation of the business and brand strategy. This means I have been in production mode... managing a lot of details for a lot of people. The truth is I am not enjoying this stage of the process as much as I enjoy the strategy phase. I am really a big picture person more than one for the details of implementation.

Do not get me wrong. I am great at managing lots of detail, but it is not fun for me and causes me a lot of stress. And now that I own my own business again I am not interested in doing things that are not fun anymore. And I am not willing to tolerate feeling stressed out.

I have been feeling a bit stuck for the last couple months... helping people pump out logos and websites. I serve as the creative director and project manager for my clients and have been handling all communication between them and the designers we hire to create their visual identity.

It became evident after a few hiccups with a couple clients in recent months that this model just is not working well. And today, thanks to Angel and her wise words, I realized I do not need to be the one in control of everything. I can let go of some of the details and let the client speak directly with the designers sometimes. I do not have to bear all of the weight all of the time.

It is a huge relief to just let go. And so hard for me to do sometimes.

Being overly controlling and manipulative is truly one of my biggest character flaws. It is one of those flaws that I hold on to for dear life because it has served me well over the years. Being controlling was effective in my old ad agency jobs. It was my job to keep my clients under control. To keep the workload for my department under control. To keep it together for that big pitch I had to show up for on Friday even though I had already worked nearly 90 hours that week.

But I just can not do it anymore. I can not attempt to keep everything under control. It stresses me out and (literally) causes my health to suffer. The first sign that I have flipped into my old control freak pattern is a constriction of my belly and lack of breath. Then I feel tightness up my spine, into my neck and the MS tingling and pain down my arms and in my hands gets worse than usual. It is like my body is sending up SOS flares, saying, Cami, stop. You are hurting yourself. In the past I have ignored the little warnings of trouble on the way. I would just push through, being unwilling to throw up my hands and say, Enough!

But I can not afford to keep pushing. It will cost me my health and quality of life. It will mean faster progression of this insidious disease that wants to destroy the integrity of my nerve linings. If I do not stop and say,Enough!, my body will eventually find a way to force me to stop. My hands or arms may quit working, which they occasionally do now. Or my legs will stop being willing to take that next step forward.

I must let go of this old desire to control everything. I simply must.

I am starting a business. Well really, I'm re-starting an old business that has been brewing in my somewhat hyper-active little head for many years. I actually came up with the name, Creative Urge Consulting, about three years ago. I created a logo and business card for the company way back then and then just stuck the full box of cards in a desk drawer because I knew I wasn't ready to start using them yet. Well, now I'm ready so I've pulled the box of cards out, crossed out the url and email address, which needs to changed before I reprint the card, written in my temporary email address and I've been handing out the cards for a while now.

Coming up the with the name three years ago was one of those moments of creative clarity I crave in my life... I was writing in my journal and out of nowhere I felt that ping of creative inspiration hit me and I wrote Creative Urge in the center of the page. This happened much like the night I conceived Nutz'so, my now-abandoned community site that served people struggling with mental illness.

I actually came up with the idea for Nutz'so about three years before the name came to me. It was late 1995 and I was just coming out of the psychiatric hospital after a five-day stay to get my head screwed on straight enough to not want to kill myself. I was not really inclined toward taking the cocktail of psych meds that were prescribed to me as a long-term solution. I knew in my gut that there had to be a more healthy way to deal with my "mental illness" and began my search for alternative medicine. At the time I was living in Lincoln, Nebraska, which is a lovely city full of lovely people but not exactly the Mecca of alternative healing therapies. Somehow I managed to find a woman who was teaching Iyengar yoga out of her basement and also doing craniosacral therapy and other types of body work. For the life of me, I can't recall this woman's name, though she was integral in showing me there was another path to actually heal my depression and anxiety. I also found a therapist named Jan who was open to the idea that medication wasn't the only answer and she began to work with me through talk therapy and what I now know was hypnosis, though she never called it that.

I was a relatively early adaptor of the web and this was relatively early in the evolution of the web as we know it today. The "Information Superhighway" was all the buzz and "Graphical User Interfaces" and "Dial-Up Connections" were finally commonplace--even in places like Nebraska. I remember dialing in to do research online, where I did find some suggestions for herbs and other ideas, but I found it so frustrating because all the websites were ugly, difficult to navigate and offered little guidance or direction. Being a partner in a fledgling web publishing company at the time, I found myself thinking, "There needs to be a really good website for people like me. I'm going to create one someday." Enter the idea for what would later become Nutz'so, which I filed away in the back of my brain. The idea stewed and brewed for three years before one night I had a brainstorm for the actual name and tagline. I was up with insomnia as usual and was making a collage, or "Vision Board," of the things I wanted to manifest in my life in the upcoming year... I think it was December 1998. I suddenly found myself writing in the middle of the big piece of poster board:

www.nutzso.com
you don't have to be crazy to be here
one-million readers world wide

And Nutz'so was finally born. Once I had the name written down, I was able to refine the concept. www.nutzso.com would be a community website where recovering crazies like me could publish our creative work - short stories, poems, personal essays and visual art - in the spirit of healing through art. It would also be an extended network of Nutz'so Journal'ists - or slightly whacko bloggers - whose sites were all linked from a central index. And of course there would be a database of resources that would help connect people to other sites and books that might be helpful in their healing.

From there I planned the site architecture, wrote the content and gathered a great team of designers and developers to help me build both Nutz'so and the current version of S-P-I-L-L, which went up in 2001, over a year before Nutz'so.

S-P-I-L-L became my personal venting platform for many years and Nutz'so became my labor of love. It took three years and $15,000 of my hard-earned cash to build Nutz'so. Were I not working a more than fulltime job at the time, the site could have been up in less than six months for probably a lot less money. Though I had lots of ideas for how to generate revenue from Nutz'so, I never implemented any of them and the site never made me a dime. I published Nutz'so for three years and though I never reached 1,000,000 readers worldwide, the site, coupled with S-P-I-L-L, did help some people. I know it did because during the years I was actively publishing both sites I got LOTS of email from people telling me their stories and saying thanks for giving them something to relate to and thanks for offering them hope. Honestly, those emails made all the time and money spent on the sites worthwhile. I don't regret a penny spent or a minute invested in Nutz'so, but it was a good thing that needed to come to an end to make way for something new. And just like Nutz'so, that something new was an idea that took several years to come to fruition and hatch.

I'm telling this story of the creation Nutz'so because it's a perfect example of a Creative Urge that wouldn't quit - re-enter my new company, Creative Urge Consulting.

Creative Urges are those exciting impulses for creative and business endeavors that take root as ideas and grow into compelling urges that beg to be manifested into reality. It's that novel you've been dreaming of writing for years, or those paintings you've been playing with in your basement that you really want to see hanging in public. It's the change in career you've been yearning to make - if only it didn't mean working your way up the ladder again, or that new business idea that you KNOW will set you free from the corporate world if you can just get your feet on the ground long enough to take the first step.

Creative Urge Consulting helps you plot your own personal path to bring that brilliant creative idea to fruition so it actually exists on planet earth instead of only in your head.

I play the role of your Creativity Consultant... your coach who supports and encourages you to take each step, one at a time. Your mentor who helps you identify the best strategy for action. Your confidant who will listen to all of your doubt, uncertainty and fear and then tell you to do it anyway because you're fucking brilliant so just get over your damn self. I'm the person who will give you honest, enthusiastic - and sometimes critical - feedback on the direction you're taking; the one you can rely on to offer the occasional friendly kick in the pants when you lose focus. I'm the person you can trust to hold your creative impulses and talents in the highest regard and help you polish your ideas into the bright, shiny objects you want to make real in the world.

Because I really believe in the power of focusing my energy in a single direction, I have decided I will begin by focusing on working with people I call Lady Light Workers - woman entrepreneurs and business-leaders who choose to use their professional expertise and skills to create positive change in the world. They are women who want to see their work enrich life for themselves and others.

I "officially" began working with clients last week, but really have already been doing the work "on the side" off and on for years. I've helped some great women launch and re-launch businesses over the years. I've also coached countless friends into new jobs over the years. I seem to have a natural knack for this type of work.

When I decided I would begin the business for real as soon as my health improved a bit, I made a list of all the women I know who either already own great creative businesses that I believe I can help develop into mega-hits. I called them all and told them about my idea and several of them said, "Sign me up when you're feeling strong enough to start." I made another list of all the women I know who have a secret desire to be business owners or working artists. This list is LONG and I keep adding names to it every day. Plus, since I started talking up my idea for Creative Urge, several new people have been introduced into my community who are becoming clients.

As of last week I have declared myself well enough to "officially" work part-time and changed my status with my disability providers to "partially disabled," which means I'm legally allowed to work a bit and make a little money. And as of today I have more than 15 women on my list of people who I'm pretty certain can be converted to paying clients and another long list of people who are likely to be clients in the future.

I sat down and worked out my pricing and a couple of package deals specifically tailored to the needs of female entrepreneurs. I have developed a brand identity process that I can use with my clients to help them hone in on their key message and communicate it to their desired audience in a way that really speaks to people. I have received some training and worked out methods to teach meditation and visualization as part of my programs, because I really believe it is the most powerful tool available to nurture our creativity. I have formed alliances with some great copywriters, designers and web developers who can help me in my efforts to serve my entrepreneurially-minded clients. I actually began marketing myself already through networking and personal connections, despite my lack of a website for the company, which is in the works, and despite the fact that my business card has a hand-written email address on it right now.

I'm "just doing it," despite the fact that underneath all of my excitement is a lot of fear because this is exactly what I'm going to teach my clients how to do. Most of the fear is old stuff. Fear that working again will stress me out too much and my MS symptoms will get worse than they are already. Fear that I won't make enough money. Fear that maybe I'll fail... or even scarier... I'll succeed BIG TIME and then get to deal with all the complexities that come along with running a very successful business. I work with the fear in my meditation practice. I talk about it with my own mentors and trusted confidants. I give it a voice so it doesn't paralyze me and then I move on to do what appears to be the next right thing. And truthfully, deep down inside myself I KNOW with 100% certainty that this business will work. Just like I knew way back when that Nutz'so would exist in the world. I have a great deal of experience manifesting the things I want in my life. And I trust that there are divine forces out there much greater than me that are conspiring to assist me, as long as I let them.

I just woke up from a very intense dream. An ex-lover--the CEO Guy--was in it. Kinda weird because other than seeing each other briefly at a mutual friend's wedding a year ago, I've had no contact with him since we ended things. In the dream we were making love... the crazy, passionate kind of sex I seem to be incapable of anymore. I still dream about that kind of sex fairly often, but usually the male role in the dream is played by my husband so this was very odd. This was one of those dreams that feel so real that when you wake up and realize you were dreaming it takes a few minutes to assimilate that fact.

I have to say I feel guilty writing this down... like I'm cheating on Mark. But ultimately I think the dream was showing me that it's important for us to do something to rekindle the passion in our relationship. I only really remember the end of the dream, right before I woke up. The CEO Guy and I were making out. He was on top, kissing me madly like he used to. I was naked and he kept playing with my nipples, making me moan. I remember removing his pants and touching his penis before he entered me and we began to have sex. I came intensely and suddenly blurted out, "I love you!" and he stopped in his tracks, looking me in the eyes. I was overcome with dread, just like that moment in real life several years ago when I asked him if he loved me and and our relationship came to a cashing halt.

Tears came to my eyes as he looked down at me and I panicked. "I'm so sorry," I said, trying to retract the offending words. "Ignore that. I was just overcome by that orgasm." He bent forward and kissed me softly on the lips, then both nipples, my heart, and both of my now-closed eyelids. I opened my eyes again. His gaze locked on mine and he said, "I love you too," before he kissed my lips again and began to make love to me again more slowly.

When I woke up, I cried for quite some time. As I whimpered next to my sleeping husband, I wondered where that ability to let go with such crazy passion has gone. Where is the woman who used to abandon herself to that frenzied rush she felt at the mere sight of her lover? I wish I knew where she has retreated to.

Sex for Mark and I has been almost nonexistent since our honeymoon in July. Since our world was turned upside down by my M.S. diagnosis. We're supposed to be trying to get pregnant--on doctor's orders--because they say it's best that I have the child we want before going on any of the medication that may slow the progression of my disease. I haven't decided I will go on meds for sure, but do know I want a baby. Mark does too. We likely would not have begun trying for another year or so had things gone differently. And it does seem to make sense to speed up the plan now in case I decide I want to try taking the drugs.

So the last few months, sex has been timed around my ovulation dates. I've been charting my temperature, cervical fluid and cervical position each day and entering them into a fertility charting website, which tells me when I'm fertile. When the little box on my chart turns green, we obligingly begin having sex each day until my temperature shoots up and the little box turns red again.

While we've tried to keep things romantic, having sex on schedule whether we're really feeling like it or not, is exhausting and things have become relatively mechanical. A means to an end rather than an experience to savor and enjoy. And the truth is I'm rarely feeling like having sex for the sake of sex. I can't even reach orgasm easily anymore unless I've got a little help from a vibrator. This is sad to me, because I remember a woman in my not-to-distant past who would usually come three times to a man's one.

I think I'm in some kind of shock. I feel like the body I'm living in isn't my own anymore. I feel like most days are reduced to taking tally of the symptoms I feel each daily... the fatigue, the chronic pain and stiffness in my neck, upper-back, shoulders and hands, the lack of sensation in my hands and other random parts of my body, the intense headaches and occasional blurred vision. And I'm often consumed by fear and sadness and anger at this disease that I now know sits at the root of it all.

So far, I've been seeking natural ways of dealing with my M.S. and it's challenging because there really aren't many resources available to help someone who doesn't want to take the immuno-suppressing drugs that must be injected regularly and make one feel as if they have the flu for several days each time they are administered.

The neurologists who see me--all of whom work at the leading MS research facility in the world--tell me the drugs are a necessity for me. That because I already have spinal cord involvement with my disease, it's essential that I take these drugs if I want to stave off the horrific possibility of ending up paralyzed or blind or both later in my life. But I can't let myself ignore the voice coming from deep inside my body that says, "No!"

"There has to be another way of dealing with this," I say to them. "What about herbs or acupuncture or supplements or nutrition... or any of the many other alternatives to healing that are out there in the world."

"There are no other options," they tell me. "Nothing else is proven to slow the disease."

I stop talking out loud to them at this point because they'll never be able to support my belief that my body can heal this if given the right kind of healing energy and support. Instead I tell them, "Ok. I'll get pregnant now. And then I'll revisit the possibility of taking the drugs."

And in the meantime, I hold out hope for a miracle. I investigate every alternative I come across. I visit healers. I take supplements. I eat the things I'm told may help my condition. And I pray each day that for the courage to accept this and live my life to the fullest anyway.

After a very long hiatus, I've decided to return to journaling here at s-p-i-l-l. I took a break from living life online and am hoping I can return to writing and publishing here in a more healthy and positive way. I reached a point where I was writing for my audience and not for me anymore and that just didn't feel good or right to me. So I stopped for a while. While I was away, life continued to happen of course so here's a quick recap of a few of those happenings.

I got Married.
This is the biggest and most exciting news by far. I met the man of my dreams (Mark) and decided to keep him. Luckily he decided to keep me too. We love each other so much we decided to get married twice. We did a legally binding ceremony in April 2006 at San Francisco City Call with three of our best friends as our witnesses. In June we had a beautiful beach ceremony at the Shangri-La Caribe in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We had 40 great friends and family members join us for a week of fun and then Mark and I stayed on a couple more weeks for our honeymoon. It was the most amazing, dreamy, wonderful three weeks of my life and I'm SO HAPPY being a married to Mark--even though he snores. Here are some photos of the wedding.

I got a job. Then had to quit.
I took a job at a small direct marketing agency in June of 2005. My title was Creative Strategy Director. I'm still not quite sure what that is even though I did the job for a little over a year. I met some great people, helped create some good work, helped some nice clients and generally enjoyed myself on the job. After being unemployed-by-choice for 18 months prior to taking the position, the adjustment back to full-time work was rough though...especially on my body. It became painfully clear that I'm not cut out to sit at a computer eight to ten hours a day. I also had a horrible conflict with a co-worker about three weeks into the job and nearly quit, but stuck it out after they made a surprise decision to can the nut case I was having trouble working with. About a month into the job, I began to have flare ups of my familiar old chronic pain in my neck, upper back, shoulders, arms, wrists and hands. I was in a lot of physical pain most days. I went back to my old support tools of chiropractic and acupuncture to try and manage the pain, but things kept getting worse. My hope was the three weeks off for the wedding and honeymoon would give me relief and help me recover a bit, but oddly not long after I retuned to work I lost sensation in both of my hands. They went numb and began to tingle like they were constantly asleep. Then they began to stiffen up so bad and hurt so much that I couldn't type at all. I also started getting horrible headaches after being at the computer not even an hour. I finally decided to go to a doctor and got rushed in for an MRI of my cervical spine. Then I lost my sight in my right eye so got rushed in for another MRI of my brain. This leads me to my next bit of news.

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
MS is a chronic, progressive, unpredictable neurological disease that affects the central nervous system. It turns out that MS is the source of many of the strange and seemingly "psychosomatic" symptoms I've been experiencing for a very long time...possibly as many as 5-10 years. I got the diagnosis in August and have spent the last few months absorbing the news that means a complete change in my lifestyle is necessary for me to stay healthy and functional for as long as possible. I made the decision to leave my 12-year career in advertising behind. I'm not physically capable of working at the pace that's necessary and stay healthy. Right now I can't work at a computer for more than one hour per day...and even that is tough because my hands start locking up and hurting. Since I want to go back to writing here, I've got to get some voice recognition software so I can at least write without flaring my hands up. But even with the VR software I can't stare at the screen for more than an hour or I'll end up with a horrific migraine. Limiting my computer time to one hour per day is actually totally fine with me. I don't like computers much anyway. They're just a tool I've needed to become accustomed to using to do my job. But now I don't have a job. I'm on state disability for now and am in the process of filing a Long Term Disability claim with my old employer's insurance carrier. I'm praying it will get approved because Mark and I are struggling a bit financially now that my income has been cut by over 60%. We're getting by because we moved into a cheaper, smaller apartment and are sticking to a strict budget. The supplemental income from the private LTD insurance would really help a lot. In addition to leaving my career behind, I've also been trying to make some dramatic changes to my diet. No sugar. No wheat or corn products. No dairy. No red meat. My success so far with the changes has been limited at best, but I'm working on it. Giving up the sugar, wheat and dairy has been torture. Even though I really didn't eat a ton of these things before the changes began, I seem to crave all three constantly right now.

For now I've made the decision not to take the powerful drugs the doctors have recommended for my MS. My past experience with the Western medical world leaves me wary of what they have to offer. Plus, I really want to have a baby and don't want to go on any hard-core immuno-suppressants before I get pregnant and have a child. Making this decision has been frightening and empowering at the same time. It means I'm willing to experiment with alternative approaches to manage my MS and risk the disease progressing further. So far I'm investigating homeopathy, acupuncture/Chinese medicine and am using a lot of meditation and healing visualization work. I really believe in the depths of my being that this supposedly incurable disease can be healed. It's just logical to me that if my body created this disease, it can heal it too. Holding this belief is difficult sometimes, but staying in this hopeful, faithful place is where I find the most peace and sanity so that's where I chose to stay no matter what I hear from my doctors or other people in my life (especially my big-time AMA programmed family full of pharmacists, doctors and nurses.)

More later.
My hands are feeling tight and starting to hurt so I need to stop now. These three items are the biggest news from the past year anyway so this is a good stopping point. I'll be back to write more when I'm feeling up to it.

Spill is coming back online soon... and will eventually morph into something totally new. Right now I'm just trying to figure out how the hell to use Moveable Type again...it's been so long.

My first final is this Friday. Luckily I get the hard one out of the way first (stats). My other two finals are next Thursday and Friday and then I'll be done with the semester. I've officially started the job search. I sent out a couple of resumes to agencies on Friday and got a call from one of them yesterday. The position sounds interesting and I think the agency is kinda small (definitely smaller than the last place I worked), which is a good thing.

I'm also getting closer on nailing down a wedding date. Right now, it looks like it will be June 17, 2006 or July 29, 2006. I'm just waiting for my two bridesmaids to confirm they can make it June 17, which is my preference. One of them is in the National Guard and has drill that weekend so she's trying to get out of it. The other has a little girl who is a flower girl in another wedding in June, but that bride hasn't set her date so Mollie is trying to nail her down to make sure the two weddings don't end up on the same weekend.

Mark got all pissed off this morning when I told him I'm waiting for confirmation from my girls before we confirm the date. "Why do we have to set OUR wedding date around your bridesmaid's schedules?" he screamed at me. Then he proceeded to tell me that if one of his groomsmen couldn't make the date we set he'd pick someone else.

That set me off and I screamed back. "These are my two best friends and I want them there next to me. I don't want to just pick someone else!" I think I might have told him to fuck off at that point, or something equally mean.

I think it probably isn't a good sign that the screaming has already started between us over something as mundane as the DATE. What's going to happen when we get to cutting the guest list to a manageable number? I'm trying to stay positive and chalk this fight up to both of us being stressed with finals and me being on my period.

I've also found a hotel I want to have the wedding at in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and am waiting for the wedding planner to contact me to start discussing estimates. I'm really hoping we can work out something affordable, the date will fall into place and then we can move on with the plans. I'd really like this wedding planning stuff to be easy and maybe even a little fun. Is that too much to ask?

Ugly Dress.com | Bridesmaid Dresses From Hell | This site is really funny. Go check it out. And don't miss the ugly wedding cake story.

Our relaxing vacation has already become a distant memory. This week I'm burried in school work, plus I kick off a new job with PayPal (which is a good thing because my checking account is nearly empty.) Today I'm preparing for a speech I have to give on Wednesday and a stats test. I also have a philosophy paper to write and a speech test later in the week. To remind me that a mere two weeks ago I was lounging on a beautiful beach, I'm posting a few more photos from the trip.