In my past life as a TV producer I sometimes got to do really cool things. One of those things was to do a live broadcast from the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Because we worked directly with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities we had fantastic access to places few tourists get. This included the interior chambers above of the Great Pyramid, and the presumed burial chamber below it. These were not spaces intended ever intended to be visited.
The chambers underneath the 5.75-million-ton structure were meant to have an ancient casket rolled down it and closed up tight for eternity. The ones high inside the top of the pyramid are believed to have been architectural elements designed to prevent the massive, largely solid structure from collapsing on the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber. As such, both spaces were only accessed by teeny tiny little dark tunnels. It was a privilege to get to go inside them.
However, it was a really bad time to discover I was claustrophobic.
This happened to me as I was crawling on my hands and knees through a 3x3 tunnel. My boss was in front of me and another colleague behind me when I began to panic. Someone told me to sing. That we just had about four feet left to go.
Me, actually singing Raffi in a tunnel in the Great Pyramid of Giza. It was 1999, so sorry, no video
(See additional pics below)
The only song I could come up with was “I Wonder If I’m Growing” by the beloved and probably equally hated children’s singer, Raffi. My youngest nephew used to sing this while pooping in the closet. (With pull-up on. It was a very transitional phase.) The gentle melody and the sound of my nephew’s sweet little voice muffled behind the coats in the closet singing “I wonder if I'm growing, my mom says yes, I'm growing, but it's hard for me to see…” got me through. And I got to see the hidden insides of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Fast forward thirty years and I was facing my first ever MRI. I closed my eyes and listened so intently to the extreme sounds of the machine as it took pictures of my insides that it became like some kind of futuristic symphony. It got me through. [BTW- All tests good]
Our minds can do incredible things to take care of us. The same brain that developed an irrational fear of small space confinement made a pyramid full of tv producers laugh, and turned a scary test into a meditative sound bath.
What’s your brain keeping you from doing? Find your own Raffi sound bath and see what wonders you might experience.
These tunnels were blasted open by 19th century explorers looking for treasure. Writing on the wall is graffiti they left behind. It was the trip of a lifetime.
What I’m Consuming This Month…
The Regime (HBO Max)
Lord, this is a whole heap of awesome craziness. Imagine the Vladimir Putin & Catherine the Great had a baby with serious daddy issues. Oh, then imagine her running a small country. Kate Winslet gonna get some awards for this insanity.
How to Know A Person
by David Brooks
I always enjoy the work of New York Times & The Atlantic columnist David Brooks. I just started this one, but the content speaks so much to what’s important to me. From the book jacket: “How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.” We need as many remedies as we can get!
News About StepOne
Put Me in Coach
Many of you may not have known that I have added coaching to my skill set over the last three years. Been coaching clients since 2020 and am now working to finalize my coaching certifications, which will include ACC level Certified Productivity Coach (CPC) and Positive Intelligence Certified PQ Coach. I offer 1-on-1 coaching, and my group Mental Fitness bootcamp.
Mental Fitness Bootcamp
Would you like to have more fun? Be content every day? Have relationships with great communication and understanding? Be less stressed? Achieve peace of mind? Live a life of ease, and flow? Have the clarity to design a life that aligns with what matters most to you?!?
Sounds like a tall order, but if you are mentally fit, you can have all this and more.
My 10-week mental fitness bootcamp, a program founded in neuroscience that incorporates all the essential elements to lasting change: awareness, mindfulness, accountability and daily practice. Low time commitment, life-changing results.
My next group starts in April. Email me or schedule a discovery call if you’d like to learn more.
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