Speaker 1: 0:08

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. Today is going to be a little bit different. In the first place, it might be shorter, I don't know. We'll find out. We'll see whatever wants to come forward. Second, I want to share something that is impacting me right now. It's so current that I'm still in it, meaning that whatever I currently understand about this situation is still in process and I'm trying to understand it. So bear with me as I try to put into words what is still very much a work in progress for me right now. And it feels very vulnerable to share something when I know that whatever I think I've learned so far might change, maybe even drastically, by the time it's over. But at the same time, it felt as I was thinking about it, it felt really worthwhile to share the messiness too, because we all get to experience the messiness of journeys. So okay, with that being said, here we go In order to share what's happening. I want to give a little bit of context.

Speaker 1: 1:16

My husband and I love watching shows and movies together. It's like they're shared experiences that we get to have right the conversation points their sparks of inspiration and often, depending on what we're watching, become inside jokes and references, which, of course we also love, but one of the shows that we watched very early in our marriage was Elias, and if you haven't seen it, the premise of the show was that the main character named Sydney, who was played by Jennifer Garner, was a spy working to take down a corrupt organization. The ins and outs of the show itself kind of had its ups and downs, as most shows do, but one of the best aspects of the show was that in order for her to take down this organization, she had to engage in what was really, for all intents and purposes, a global treasure hunt, and the writers of the show created a character named Milo Rambaldi. And in the lore of the show, rambaldi was a scientist who lived in the 1400s, and he was a man of many talents, a Renaissance man, and did all sorts of things, including being an artist, an alchemist, an engineer, a mystic. He also served as chief architect to Pope Alexander VI. So, at least in the lore of the show, he was considered one of history's rare true geniuses. And Rambaldi dedicated his life to finding the one thing that eludes every human being on the planet and that is immortality. So he created all these notes and inventions and plans and those things scattered throughout the world became the main pursuit of the villains of the show, who would use all of their resources to try to track down anything that Rambaldi wrote or made, so that they could put them all together and create eternal life for themselves.

Speaker 1: 3:05

That was the premise of the show. That was what Sydney was doing. She would either try to block the villains or get to the item first, or whatever it was, and it was world traveling and death defying and last minute wins and losses, and we just kept coming back for more. So, in my personal opinion, the show at some point lost its way and our enjoyment of it declined, and we talked a lot about why at the time, trying to figure out what had changed and what just wasn't the same as before, and what we concluded was that the writers seemed to have lost track of what it was that made the show fun in the first place, and fun really is the key word. It was fun to watch, it was fun to think about, it was fun for us to try to guess what was going to happen, and Rambaldi, this character, was a big part of that. And, okay, that was a lot of background information to lead up to the point of this podcast.

Speaker 1: 4:01

But let me provide one last detail. One way that the characters in the show knew that something was related to Rambaldi was because of the number 47. 47 is a prime number. It factors into many of the inventions in the show, even the show itself. So whenever we see 47, it brings us back to Alias and to the fun that we had watching the show.

Speaker 1: 4:22

So when my husband approached me with the idea that, as we were both turning 47 in the next year, that maybe we could have a Rambaldi year, I was all in. So what's the Rambaldi year, you may ask. I have no idea. It may mean different things to different people and, to be honest, I have no idea if this was a thing for anyone other than us. I didn't even bother to check. But for us, we're sort of defining it for ourselves as we go.

Speaker 1: 4:50

And so to answer the question of what a Rembaldi year is for us, having a Rembaldi year is and started in many ways as a commitment to ending the year as a different version of ourselves than when we started. It means looking at patterns and habits that we've known for a long time, that we wanted to change but either haven't had the time or whatever it was, we just haven't made those changes. And it means in many ways, because of where we are in our lives, not just doing the outer work but doing the inner work, which ultimately leads to doing the outer work, but doing the inner work which ultimately leads to sustaining the outer work which we now know. But basically, it just means doing things differently. It means trying new things, it means looking at things in a new way and it means bringing back a sense of fun and adventure to this thing that we have called life right. And, my goodness, this experience has been transformative. Now don't get me wrong, this is seriously hard work.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Embarking on this Rembaldi year, we had discussed a few of the changes that we knew we wanted to make and, looking back these few months, those are very superficial changes. But as we stepped into, those changes that brought up new challenges and new struggles and new leaps of faith that we hadn't anticipated, things that we didn't know we needed to change. And these things are forcing us to dig really deep, to acknowledge failings and shortcomings and to let go of these dearly held beliefs that have been keeping us stuck for so long. And it's really not for the faint of heart, I tell you what. But underneath it all is this excitement of the Rambaldi year, of this idea that we can dramatically alter our lived experience if we so choose, that sometimes all it takes is a change in the way that we approach the experience or the way we think about the experience, and major shifts can occur. And I find this to be so true of so many things and working with various clients for the years and my own experience and stories that people have shared with me.

Speaker 1: 7:11

There's this one thing that has come up, often kind of like a recurring theme, that the majority of things and events that we experience in our lives are basically neutral. They're not good, they're not bad, they're neutral. It's how we think about them that dictates our experience of it. And I'm not going to go too deeply into that today, first of all because it isn't the point of the podcast and second because it's a bigger conversation. But suffice it to say that I can either try to make these changes in my life from a place of scarcity, drudgery, difficulty, or I can try to make these changes in my life from a place of abundance, excitement and adventure. They're the same changes but a totally different perspective and I think it makes all the difference in the world.

Speaker 1: 7:58

So in the process of this Rambaldi year, some things have come up which I realize, as I'm saying, it is a massive understatement, but, for example, embarking on this Rambalda year has brought up a choice on how I approach change or self-development. One approach is to look at everything that is wrong and then make plans to fix it. We make a list of everything we don't like about ourselves, everything that we feel is unacceptable, and then we start working to change those things. And this has most certainly been my process for the majority of my life, and while I have to admit that I got things done this way, while I have to admit that I got things done this way, it usually ended up with me disliking myself even more than when I started. A totally different approach that people take and I've heard people talk about it, but it finally landed over the last little bit is to make a different kind of list For this version.

Speaker 1: 9:02

The list that you make identifies the qualities of the person that you want to be and you start working toward that, and I know that seems like a nuanced distinction. Let me see if I can flesh that out just a little bit. So, to put it back in terms of the Rambaldi year, if I were to speculate, I would say that Rambaldi was more that second type. He knew what he wanted. He wanted immortality, and everything he did was focused on getting himself to that goal. And I know I don't need to read too much into this. It was a television show, but the character seemed to embody this forward-looking way of setting goals. The inventions he made weren't to fix the person he was. The inventions were to enable the person he wanted to be. And we can do the same.

Speaker 1: 9:53

No list of everything that's wrong with me, just a list of the qualities of the person I want to be. And then, as I work toward being that person, the things that might be in the way of becoming that person actually show up when they're ready and it's almost the difference in phrasing I can choose to be the person who is healthy enough to play with their grandkids. That would be the second way. This is the person I want to become. Or I can look at what's wrong with me and say I need to lose weight, and the two are so very different. If I want to lose weight, I'm seeing myself as that there's something wrong with me and I can get bogged down in everything, all the rules and all the do's and don'ts and don't eat this and can't eat that. By just about every weight loss standard, ice cream is totally off the table, but if I want to be someone who can play with her grandkids, eating ice cream might still be on the table. I don't know. I'll have to find out.

Speaker 1: 10:57

But the nice thing is I don't have to try and change everything about myself before I can move forward. I get to look at what comes up when it comes up as I'm going through the process of becoming this different version of myself, and those things that I think I need to change may never come up at all. Maybe they're not actually in my way. That thing that in one moment I'm totally convinced is a problem and is wrong with me might not actually be a problem, at least in becoming this version of myself that I want to become. If I become that new version and I didn't have to change that thing, then it was just something I had decided was wrong with me that maybe wasn't actually wrong. So I know that's a lot, hang on.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Let me just take a moment to summarize what I see as the big differences in these two ways that I have been playing with. And again, this is messy, we're trying to work our way through it right now, but here are a couple of things. The first version I look at myself, I decide everything that's wrong with me and then I set to work to fix all of those things, those things that I perceive as being in my way, those things that I perceive as preventing me from being able to move forward. And then I stay where I am trying to fix those things so that when they're fixed, then I can move forward, then I can do the things. So that's the first version.

Speaker 1: 12:30

In the second version, I start walking toward where I want to go. If something comes up that is in the way of that movement, then that's an opportunity for me to do the inner work, to look inside, to heal and to release and to let go and then keep moving forward. With that first version it's probable and for me I would say most likely that I would always be able to find something else that was wrong with me, and so I would be stuck trying to fix all these things that were wrong with me and waiting to start whatever it was or to do whatever it was until that was fixed. But in the second version, I not only get to where I want to be because I'm actually moving forward. I may end up somewhere better just by the sheer fact that I'm actually moving forward. I'm not waiting until I'm perfect to do so. Okay, so that's just one piece of the messiness that we're working on, but that seems important and it has been a vastly different experience for me as I've been going through this process.

Speaker 1: 13:44

Now there are a couple of things I knew to expect in embarking on a Rambalda year, because it is a journey after all. So of course, there are things that I need to learn how to do or how to do differently. I expect that I can expect that there will be some experiences of failure as I'm trying new things. But I also know what the lessons of failure are. I know what failure teaches and what it doesn't teach, and I can keep those in mind as I'm moving forward. And I talked about those in a previous episode, if you're interested, so I'm not going to go into them here.

Speaker 1: 14:19

But I think destruction is also an expectation. This is part of the abyss, and there are things that will need to be cleaned out in order for me to move forward, and that's pretty scary for me right now, but it's worth noting. Right, and that's probably a topic for a different podcast. But destruction is a very real part of journeys. I think helpers and mentors are a huge part of this process. I have seen my understanding deepen and grow to the point where I was ready to make these changes, and that has been a direct result of being open to seeing things differently. The world is full of smart, insightful, caring people who have a lot of powerful things to share, and bringing these influence into my journeys has had, I would say, an immeasurable impact. They can't change me, those helpers and mentors. They can't change me, they can't do the work for me, they can't heal me, but they can open up the possibility of a new way of thinking, and I think that's the most powerful thing that we can do for each other. So, in addition, opening ourselves up to this kind of revolutionary change leads to well, revolutionary change. We're almost a third of the way in at this point and I am looking back at the striking amount of work and change that have happened in such a short amount of time.

Speaker 1: 15:56

It really is not for the faint of heart. I am measurably different than I was before. As I was telling a friend about this the other day, the word that kept coming up is unraveling. I'm experiencing a pretty significant unraveling right now and in the past the feeling of unraveling, like I kind of get this picture of me and there's, for whatever reason, the yarn is red and it's just spewing off in all these places as this unraveling is happening and I'm grabbing armfuls trying to hold it all together. But this year I'm letting it unravel and it's difficult. But what I'm noticing is not just losing the parts of myself that were ready to go in this unraveling. It's also revealing the foundational parts of me that are solid, that are surviving the unraveling, that are becoming more clear and more stable than they were before.

Speaker 1: 16:55

This includes my faith and my belief in God. This includes my family and my relationships and it includes the things that are closest to my heart, the things that I feel called to share, to do, to pursue, to learn the ways that I want to grow, and I understand that not everybody has the same experience. For some people, this unraveling process would have an impact on those things, and this really wasn't anything that I was expecting. But I'm really grateful to have had all of these things be deepened in beautiful and I honestly and I don't use this word lightly sacred ways, that I have opened to seeing things as they are, to seeing my faith and my belief as it is, to seeing God or the universe or whatever word works best for you as it is. It is in seeing my spouse and my children as they are, in coming to accept what I feel called to in my heart as it is. That has been a major part of the changes and shifts that have happened for me this year so far, and I guess that leads to what's going to happen at the end of the year.

Speaker 1: 18:16

I have no clue and I'm a little scared to ask because it has been such a massive undertaking. I think we could stop right now and I'd have to call it a success, just by the ways that I already know that I'm not the same person as when we started and there's still a whole lot of year to come and maybe it will be more unraveling. Maybe at some point the unraveling will be done and I can start building. Who knows? I guess we'll see when we get to the end. And maybe another question is based on this experience. Would I want to do it again, and I'm noticing that question is causing me to pause, which is interesting. Maybe I need some time to settle and integrate before I can answer that question. But the Rambaldi year, the excitement, this idea of this adventure has really been underlying the whole thing and I really appreciated the influence that has had on this experience. So maybe we'll set up for Rambaldi year two and Rambaldi year three.

Speaker 1: 19:24

I'm a big fan of sequels when they lead us to deeper understandings of the characters and I guess, as long as it still feels fun and exciting, I would probably be in. And if you're listening to this and thinking, I wonder if that could be for me. Please reach out. I would love to have a conversation about it, to see what's possible, because really, after all, life is a journey, even an adventure, if we let it, and it's time to start living like it. Thanks for being here. I'll see you in the next episode.