Have you ever found yourself in the position of needing to loose more than 100 pounds?  Have you ever taken a leap of faith from a secure, successful career to choose your own freedom and fulfillment?  Do you know what it is like to loose the weight, leave the job, and learn to fly?

Well, Alison Ottaway does.  As far as miracle stories go, I believe Alison has lived through 3 or 4 of them, and is still going strong.  It all began in her early twenties, when she refused some chocolate raisins offered her by a friend.  One small step gave her the courage to become the woman she knew she was meant to be, exercising at home, shifting her diet, and ultimately loosing over 140lbs.  A year and a half later, she felt like a new person, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

By her late twenties, she was leading a life that by most accounts could be termed 'successful.' She had a stable marriage, a mortgage, and a highly lucrative job at Microsoft. However, her BMW, expensive lifestyle, and nights spent out drinking did not satisfy her, and she found inside herself a growing desire to feel vibrantly free and alive. Again, it was time for

I'd like to share with you something that I am taking on practicing this month:  speaking up without having it all figured out.  This is a major stretch for myself in that I hate looking stupid and/or vulnerable.  I have considerable anxiety around being caught in criticism without my defenses up, without my side ready to explain itself.  I find myself repeatedly gearing up with evidence to present anyone who asks me about my politics, my decisions, my actions....

I am realizing that my compulsive need to have all evidence organized causes me to be in a separation story,  be in defense of the world, be a victim, and live a safe/reserved life.  Gearing up by having everything figured out 100% before I speak up, I'm creating the world as something that I am separate from... as if there are teams to be on or not on.  Not only that, but I am practicing as if I am a victim of an agitator.  I am creating a story that the world will attack me and that I must have everything organized and ready for battle to survive.  

By not acting or speaking up before I have 100% certainty, I've living a stale and safe life... I'm living small and not growing.  See bottom image of the treehouse- I'm visioning how this way of living is like living on the trunk of the tree, settling down and completely living on the most sturdy, solid and unmoving area of the tree (versus, see top image- getting out on the skinny branches: living without evidence. Growing and moving with fluidity).  I've been living a life based on evidence, a small and passive survival technique that I am not committed to.