Pt 4: TransForMission and Drive-Time Meditations: Centering On Your Purpose

They cover all parts of life--they cover feeling happy one day, they cover feeling awful one day, they cover the day I saw a zebra on BBC, they cover the day a hawk flew and almost went into my windshield... just all the different things in life that we feel, that we experience, that we see, looking at them and saying, "I wonder what that was."

PROLOGUE:

When was the last time you asked: What’s next for me?

Aloha. I'm Colleen Akiko, welcoming you to the fourth segment of the series, Making Connections with Donna Apidone. In this episode we'll discover some of Donna's non NPR roles, including author, speaker, and teacher.

We explore TransForMission—a five-step framework for personal transformation that Donna began in the wake of loss. This class and book have been guiding seekers and lifelong learners toward meaning and purpose for over 20 years.

Hear what happens when a room full of people are committed to the sacred work of becoming who they really are.

We also learn about the uncanny evolution of the popular book and podcast, Drive-Time Meditations--perfect for setting a centering tone during commutes.

If you've ever wondered about transformation that lasts—what it takes, what it gives, and why it never stops deepening, this episode will speak to you. 

Get to know the Donna Apidone beyond NPR-- author, speaker, producer and teacher.

Colleen:

I'm thinking about another unfolding--a book and course you started before you retired--TransForMission.

Donna:

TransForMission started in 2005--long before I retired, and long before I was ordained, anything like that.

Colleen:

Really? Okay, I had not put that together. That's interesting. So, after your ordainment, ordination, (laughter). . ., did you find that what you had written before still held water? Or was it different?

Discovering the Transformation Path

I can handle five steps right now. Maybe not any more than that. But if I can just put my foot in front of me five times, maybe I'll be walking.

Donna:

The way this whole thing started was from, I mentioned earlier, a loss in my personal life and trying to figure out who I was after that. And I asked, How do I go about this? How do I sort of start all over again? How do I put the pieces in order, and put one foot in front of the other?

For many years I have used a communication theory tool called Monroe's Motivational Sequence. It's really Persuasion Theory. And I turned to that because it's five steps and I thought, I can handle five steps right now. Maybe not any more than that. But if I can just put my foot in front of me five times, maybe I'll be walking.

So I used that tool and just applied some other criteria to what Persuasion Theory is. And came up with The Transformation Path. It is a five step process to find your purpose.

I didn't do this for anybody else. It started out being, I need to find my purpose. And I was in a group who said, "Well, why don't you show us what you figured out there?"

And they started talking to more and more people about it, and it became a class. And then eventually somebody said, "Why do you give us handouts every week? Why don't you just write all this stuff down and put it in a book?"

Oh, there is an idea. So I did. It's like 113 pages. It's a tiny, tiny book, but it lays it all out. What I never said in the book was, I never explained how it was associated with Persuasion Theory. And I also never said in the book that it came from a personal loss. Those were like, I don't know, maybe people won't resonate with that.

So, I'm not just not going to say those two things, but it does. It still holds up. I started this 20 years ago. Wow.

Teaching and Expanding the Transformation Path

They're all kinds of people who just don't want life to pass them by. Who want to know what their purpose is. Who feel like they have something to offer on some level.

It still holds up and it gets richer and deeper every time because I'm still learning from it. I'm teaching it. But I'm in front of the room going, Oh my gosh, listen to what that person just taught me!

Oh, listen to what that person just taught me . . . It's a very interactive class. I've taught it at congregations for all these years, and just a couple of years ago started teaching it at the Renaissance Society at Sacramento State University, which is a set of classes uniquely cultivated and offered to people who are roughly over 55, 60 years old.

These people walk into the room and at first I thought, Hey, I'm at a university. I'll bet these are all really highly educated people. They're not. They're all kinds of people who just don't want life to pass them by. Who want to know what their purpose is. Who feel like they have something to offer on some level.

Most of them are retired, but at all ages. And I think a couple of them aren't quite retired. They walk into this room, and they sit down, and I start going through, you know, how my expectations are--we'll be respectful, we'll just talk one at a time, we won't interrupt . . . Oh, they're way beyond that. They're way beyond that. Yeah, we know. We got the drill. Okay. So what do you do?

In the first session, they realize that they have to be vulnerable. They realize that in order to find out who they are and find that purpose, they have to be really open with everybody in the room.

And in the first session, they realize that they have to be vulnerable. They realize that in order to find out who they are and find that purpose, they have to be really open with everybody in the room. It's very interactive.

The last group I had, I was so blown away. I never let more than 20 people in the room because then the dynamic is too much. And I try to make it not fewer than 10 because then there isn't enough of a dynamic. The last group came in and it was supposed to be a six week class.

And after the first three weeks, they said, "Would you continue for 12 weeks like the full semester instead of just six? Would you give us more than that?" And I thought, Well, okay. I know we all get something out of this, so I'll do that. And then they said, "Well, we want to take a few weeks off during the summer, but will you come back just with our group? Don't let new people in, but just come back with our group for fall semester too, for another 12 weeks?"

This is the most amazing group of people, really. I say the most amazing group of people and I realize it excludes a lot of other people--that's not fair, but they are; they're extraordinary. I mean, we have bonded in a way I didn't expect.

There are no recordings of those sessions because people are speaking so deeply and so openly that I will not allow recordings. Nobody can come visit us. If you don't start with us, you certainly can't.

A beautiful, beautiful group of people who look at themselves so deeply, it has been a spiritual experience to be with them. I know other groups will not be quite like that. Other groups will be wonderful, but this, this was unique--and it taught me so much. And one of the things it taught me, by spending a year with them, is what is possible if we do this work for more than six weeks. It also taught me new ways because I had to go from six to 12 to 24 weeks now--that's half a year included in one year.

What's the best way for me to lead this group? What's the best way for me to continue to make them productive? Still learn from them, but carry out what I'm learning for them in real time? It's been extraordinary.

We left each other on December 6th, and we were crying. What are we going to do next Friday? It's, yeah, it's hard. Class reunions in the future. So, that's it in a nutshell.

We're opening up ourselves to ourselves--to find out what's really deep inside, and find purpose.

It's a five step path. When I say it's based in Persuasion Theory, it's because we're opening in persuasion. You open up so much that you find yourself doing something different. Maybe I'm persuading you to take out the garbage, but eventually you open up to that and you accept it. And that's sort of what's happening here.

We're opening up ourselves to ourselves--to find out what's really deep inside, and find purpose.

The book has held up for 20 years. I just talked with a doctor I've gotten to know recently, a couple of months ago. And I said, "I'm wondering if I should do a sequel." And he said, "I can't think of anything that you would add except maybe new case studies." He said, "Everything you've laid out is just as it needs to be. I'm not sure you can do anything more with it." So I guess it's holding up.

Colleen:

That is really, really neat because it sounds like there's a structure or a framework in what came to you back in 2005. And isn't it beautiful that when we're raw and bleeding, and we need to bandage ourselves, that we reach out and we find these

tools or modalities or teachings that are life-giving to us. And then, when we're not bleeding anymore, and we're healing up, we share them--and they're life-giving and helpful to others. I found that out as a coach and a friend, in different roles.

That's where the life is, you know, when we are so raw and on the edge and it's sharp and we're still getting cut as we're trying to take care of ourselves--and then we find something that holds us together. Which of course, we're not separate from all these who are also cut and raw and having a rough time. And so we offer, and here we are.

It sounds like this group you're describing, maybe they were providentially gathered up in the corral called the class because they were ready. They were ripe and ready. Well, you all were; you were all ready together. And I feel this when I speak or share music with groups, when I come very--oh, I don't even know what the word is, I feel very raw sometimes. But we all attune with each other and the dynamic in the group has its own life form. I don't know what that's called exactly, but it is really mystical.

We're entering into a room with the purpose of finding purpose.

Donna:

It's mystical and it's magical. It's never ending because it's about purpose. You know, we're not just going into a room and having counseling or something. We're entering into a room with the purpose of finding purpose.

It does end up being that old Buddhist saying, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Yeah, they were all there.

It's life-giving because in some way it is Life that is showing up and breathing us and moving us to share in this and that way, and to hear in ways that we have never heard before. Kind of like the inner Star Trek, right?

Colleen:

You had a class full of teachers appearing. Yes, it is really wonderful that when we drop the agenda and show up--and it does help to have a worthy framework, which you've put together, we don't know what happens, but it's life-giving because in some way it is life that is showing up and breathing us and moving us to share in this and that way and to hear in ways that we have never heard before. Kind of like the inner Star Trek, right?

Donna:

Where no man has gone before! The Inner Star Trek--that's so good! Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And you just never know.

Drive-Time Meditations: A Creative Journey

Colleen:

It does remind me a bit of also your Drive-Time Meditations. As a music person, I love how you put out some distilled words, and they have life. Each word has its own frequency, its own vibration. And so, the word kind of goes out in a very easy way, and there's a little music so we can just kind of process it all the way through our bodies.

That way for me is beckoning some personal exploration in what I do, and what I share also--and maybe even in this podcast, to use the music. The waves go in and out a little bit, and then, something else. It's really beautiful. I like them a lot.

Donna:

I like them too. We should explain it. It's a book called Drive Time Meditations, but there are recordings too.

Colleen:

I haven't seen the book, but I have heard the recordings.

It occurred to me that if I was waking up and writing them, if a person were to wake up and listen to one every day, maybe on their commute, maybe before they got in the car or on the bus or on the subway, that it would set a tone for the day.

Donna:

They're all one page long. There are 183 of them.

I started writing them during COVID just sort of as, I didn't want to write a traditional here's what I've done today kind of journal. So, I started writing these things and I'd write them as soon as I woke up. I figured that that was when those thoughts and that heart was in me, and I was getting up early to go to work at the station at the time--which meant that I had to get up at like 1:30 in the morning to write these things. But that's when it was so clear and so real.

And I stopped writing when I ran out of things that I wanted to say. When I ran out and stopped writing, I had reached 183 meditations. I looked at that number and I said, isn't that interesting? So if you go through the book twice, you've got leap year--wasn't planned that way, but if you read one a day.

So I recorded them, I set them to music--music that comes from just an adorable musician who I discovered who lives in Scotland. And I don't know how I came across his work, but he provides all of the music for these recordings, and they're on Substack; you can find them there pretty easily. They're all one page long in the book, and all two to three, like less than five minutes, maybe two to three-ish minutes as recordings.

And they cover all parts of life: they cover being happy one day, they cover feeling awful one day, they cover the day I saw a zebra on BBC, they cover the day a hawk flew and almost went into my windshield--just all the different things in life that we feel, that we experience, that we see, and looking at them and saying I wonder what that was. I wonder what that was.

They're only called drive-time meditations because I worked in drive-time radio for so long. And it occurred to me that if I was waking up and writing them, if a person were to wake up and listen to one every day, maybe on their commute, maybe before they got in the car or on the bus or on the subway, that it would set a tone for the day.

Colleen:

Setting a tone. I like that. And it seems for me that it gives my mind enough to center on without the pressure of, Oh, I've got to stop all my thoughts. You know, that's very stressful for me. But it's good--my mind is given a worthy thought to just contemplate--turn it over and kind of feel it out, breathe a bit. And then there's another one. That's so simple, but it feels like, more and more, that's what I being drawn back to. Maybe it's my second childhood or something, but it's simplifying, you know, things being more distilled, more simple. And this simplification is by no means making it inferior in any way--if anything, it's making it more clear. And it's helping me be more effective with a hundred and eighty things.

Donna:

They're on an app that is for families with trauma. An organization that I became aware of was putting together this app, mostly for teens and young adults with trauma. But it turns out to be for families in general, who have been experiencing some kind of trauma--young people who are going through what is called social and emotional learning, SEL.

How can they get some courage? How can they be a little lighter? Because when I was 14, walking around like this (slumped) and everything was a bummer. So every one of these, without saying, "Yeah, get up and go!"--every one of these is meant to be a little bit motivational to take you, as you said, from where you are to where you can be.

And it's like--in the Wizard of Oz where they open the door and everything's in technicolor all of a sudden--from black and white to color? That's what I wanted each one of these meditations to do--to just let you see through that door what the possibilities are. And then, maybe eventually, you might step over that threshold.

Colleen:

Well, you make it feel very safe. And I like it. It would be a really good thing to step through that door. I like it because I'm starting to feel it a little bit already. I appreciate that so much.

Donna:

Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad. Thank you for saying that.

EPILOGUE:

Inspiring, isn't it--to learn and hear how Donna's class, book and recordings materialized? Here's something she said that I especially loved:

We're opening up ourselves to ourselves, to find out what's really deep inside, and find purpose.  

I hope that's how this episode feels for you.

The podcast recording closes with a teeny tiny clip from one of her brief drive time meditations. To hear the complete episode, click HERE. You can also access more info about these on her website, donnaapidone.com.

For additional resources, including a FREE eGuide, Embracing Your Evolutionary Luminary, click HERE. And fresh, delicious Bonus Content awaits Subscribers, too!

Make sure to catch the fifth and final segment of Making Connections with Donna Apidone called Fear: A Stop Sign or a Doorway.

Until then, love and grace to you as you center on your purpose. ​🙏🏽💕