#WildlyWoman

I have decided that I want to be wild. Or rather, go back to being wild, like I was born. I am tired of being someone else’s version of woman, of feminine, of acceptable. Of what men think I should be, but just as much, of what women think I should be. Or any of us should be. I have decided that I’m too old, too wise, and too not giving a shit enough to not love and own every inch of my life. My curves, my breasts, my muscle, my fat, my silliness, my temper, my whole self. I have decided that I want to be #wildlywoman. To love every shape and mood I come in, to thrive in that dance of emotion and sensuality and strength and tenderness.

I have shaved my head and pierced my nose (25 years ago), I have run barefoot late at night down the streets of Manhattan, I have climbed a Mayan temple in the jungle at dawn, I have sipped champagne in my apartment in Paris, I have lived alone in an adobe casita in the desert of New Mexico. I have been unemployed and heartbroken in San Francisco. And they were all different versions of me. For a long time I wasn’t sure which one was real. But they are all real. They are all me. They are all acceptable and beautiful and sensual and strong. And if someone doesn’t agree, then that’s fine too. Now I have decided is the time to be #wildlywoman. Which means something different to every woman who decides to be it. It means fully me, fully sensual and empowered at the same time, light and playful and ditzy, if I want. Smart and powerful and strong, if I want. Or one one day, and the other the next. Right now what that means is I work. Hard. I am divorced. I earn all my own money, I support my family, my household, I am raising my children, and several animals. And considering chickens. I run my own business, I (try to) heal the sick. I run. I eat. I drink a little too much wine. I drink whisky. I eat organic sometimes. And junk sometimes. I want it all. I want to sway my hips when I walk, and do ecstatic dance and twirl like a Sufi, or better yet, like a toddler in a tutu. I want to love my body, to feel sensual and powerful – like one doesn’t preclude the other. Which it doesn’t. I want to sleep deeply and naked. I want to run my life with joy, raise my children with tenderness, listen to spirit quietly. To be soaring, but grounded and earth and mother. To be free from guilt. I always feel I’m the one who has done something wrong, I am the one who needs to apologize, to work just a little bit harder to make everything alright. But I have seen the light. I have been conditioned to be that good little apologetic girl, but it’s not who I am. #Wildlywoman means living without regret or apology, which means I must always live with integrity and love, but those are my only boundaries. The rest is wild country.  The rest is whatever the hell I want it to be, and I will fiercely defend my own happiness, my right to love myself, my right to not always need to apologize and be nice and be small. #wildlywoman to me means sensual, twirling in dance, swaying and intoxicating, flirtatious, vulnerable, and at the same time, powerful enough to change the weather, to brew a storm, to change the world. What does it mean to you?

If You Want Something To Change, You Have To Change Something

If you want to change something, change something. I learned this piece of wisdom by trying to get fit. I have always been fit and slim. Then 2 kids in less than 2 years, work, moving and other life stressors led me to be just slightly overweight. No big deal, but I really wanted to lose the last 10 lbs. So for about 6 years, I thought about losing weight. I made very slight, insignificant, tweeks to my diet, but really I didn’t actually change anything in my real life. But boy I THOUGHT hard about how I wanted to look, feel, how much I wanted to weigh. Then one day I realized the scale had reached a point I just felt was not ok. So I changed. I got an app and started to learn what foods had what calories. I joined the gym and went from running the occasional mile to running 4 or 5 miles several times a week. I ate only lean meats and vegetables. And lo and behold, I started to lose weight! This example has been true for me over and over in my life. I often want something to be different, but I don’t actually DO anything about making it different. Whether that is leaving a relationship that isn’t healthy for me or beefing up my income through getting more clients or whatever. I’m really good at imagining things. And feeling I deserve things. And feeling frustrated when they don’t appear. But it always takes me a while to realize I’m not actually DOING anything differently. I wasn’t going to be able to keep eating anything I want whenever I want, and not exercise, and suddenly start losing weight. And I was kind of pissed about that. I wasn’t going to go from living in a town I really didn’t like, to moving to a place I love and really “fit” by thinking about it and wishing it was different. You have to do the work. You have to pack up the 100 boxes and rent a moving van, you have to put down the fourth cookie and go for a walk, you have to change something to change something. Every time I figure this out (again. for the 100th time) I realize that it is both a pain in the butt – the having to change a well worn pattern – and incredibly empowering. I can accomplish just about anything I want in life, if I’m willing to not only visualize it and dream about it, but get up every day and do the hard work. Make the changes. Dive into that uncomfortable place where routines and habits get changed. And when I do, every time, I end up learning so much about myself. It’s like entering a new part of me that had been hidden under layers of familiarity and routine. Changing patterns isn’t easy. It can be scary. It can bring up issues. It can seem daunting. But it is also empowering, exhilarating and invigorating. So next time you want to change something in your life….change something in your life. Most likely you will find that the one small change leads to many others, and that the surprises and accomplishments along the way are even sweeter than you imagined. First think about what you want. But then don’t forget to get up and act on it. When you do, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish!

Here’s The Secret To Being Happy

 

Know those people who seem happy even when life is kind of crapping on them? The people who seem happy even when you aren’t and you’re wondering what their secret is….? This is the secret to happiness: It’s not a human affair. Here’s what I mean. If you are looking to any person in the world to make you happy, you are looking in the wrong place. Other people may make you happy for a while, but then they will have a bad day, or lose their job, or decide you remind them of their cousin that they hate and then they’ll be mean to you. Humans are unreliable. The true source of happiness comes from above. I’m not particularly religious, though I am very spiritual. You can call this source of love anything you like. But here’s the scoop: True Happiness comes from tapping into the inexhaustible source of love that is available to us all. To be happy, or to be loving for that matter, we need to be full, we need to feel joyful, and then that happiness, that loves flows into others.  Most of us look for happiness in our spouses, partners, children, dogs. It isn’t there. The source of joy is universal energy/God/Great Spirit/Whateveryouwanttocallit. To be joyful daily is to rise above the struggles of daily life. We all have them. Some people’s lives look easier or happier than others, but this thing about being human is hard. It’s hard for everyone. Even the person whose life looks perfect. We can amass friends or money or homes or cats. But true joy is something else, but that won’t make us joyful. Yes, being able to meet our basic needs it important, but beyond that it’s all icing. The cake is being tapped into the source in order to have this flow to you constantly. For me I find it in nature. Others find it through meditation. Actually, meditating in nature is my favorite. But it can be any way you find: prayer, walking silently, petting your dog, drinking wine. Ok, maybe not that last one. But the key is that you need to slow down and quiet down enough to hear that higher voice, that higher source of joy, of love. If you knew there was a constant, uninterrupted source of love available somewhere, you’d want to go there, right? There is. But the source is only found through being quiet, through connecting with something greater than yourself. On the darkest nights of my life I have been able to connect to that and know that I am ok, that there is joy at the end of my struggle, now matter how that struggle plays out. When you take the time to sit quietly and connect to your higher self, to that inner voice, to universal energy, you will know when you’ve connected to it. All worry disappears. All fear disappears. Even the big ones. Even money, even death, even loss. When you fill up at that water fountain, you come away full. And it is only from a place of fullness that we can share. It is only when we are full of that sense of love that we can love. Love without needing anything in return. Smile in the face of anger. Heal when there is sickness. Be joyful for no reason at all. So next time you are wondering why so and so hasn’t made you happy. Stop. Let him/her go. Sit and be silent. And when you connect to that constant, inexhaustible stream of joy, jump in, flow along until you are full, then come back and see how your life looks to you. The same life that may have had you feeling beaten just minutes before. The key to happiness is making your SELF happy. Then you are able to share that with others, not look to others to fill your tank. Then your happiness is unshakable because it is not dependent on some unreliable imperfect human – which we all are. Then you are strong because you can go back twice or two hundred times today to fill up again at that spring of happiness that is there for you any time you want to drink from it.

My Mother Just Died. Here’s What I Know

Written one year ago this month, shortly after my mother died…

My mother just died. I spent a wonderful Christmas with her and my father in our home, with our two sons. It was picture perfect. They left on the 26th. By the 29th she was dead. Though she had been ill, she had been so alive just days before, the news rocked my world to a depth I could never have imagined. My mother. I don’t have a mother any more. I feel like I lost 1,000 different people; from the frail old woman my mother had suddenly become due to her illness, to the robust grab life by the horns mother who raised me, to the patient mother who sat in a rocking chair in my bedroom every night when I was afraid to go to sleep when I was 9,  to the fun mother who let all my friends come over and cooked us big dinners in high school, even to the mother with whom I didn’t always get along. I lost them all. And here is what I know now…

Love everyone. Love everyone. Period. That’s it. It is NO more complicated than that. If someone is really bad for you, then don’t have them in your life. But you can still send them love. Love is ALL there is. The second I found out my mother died, I felt her so strongly, I mean really and truly felt her like she was there, all week that we were at my parents’ house grieving and supporting my dad and arranging things, even standing next to her casket, I can tell you with 100% certainty, she was there. And the thing is – she was perfect. She was joyful and light in a way that I had never felt anyone be before. Because when someone dies, they go back to the total perfection from which they came, from which we all came. Perfect complete joyful versions of their souls. But here’s the kicker – we are that when we are alive too, we just can’t see it. We are all perfect, right now. You are, I am, my father is, the grumpy lady at the gas station is. Of course we have to have daily coping skills to not let toxic people effect our lives, I don’t search out unpleasant people as friends. But the point is – love everyone. Did I already say that? Though my mother and I didn’t always understand each other, by my 20s I had finally gotten this – love her. Just give. Stop trying to get all the time. Give perfect love and your relationships will be perfect. I don’t mean there will never be hurt feelings or misunderstandings or they won’t bug the heck out of you. But the relationship will be perfect. Love without worrying about your little needs, without grasping and wanting. Give love freely and abundantly and with joy. Because before you know it, someone you love is gone. Gone. And the main comfort you will have is knowing that you loved them completely. Loved their imperfect, difficult, wonderful selves with our imperfect, difficult, wonderful love.

What I know for sure is that the moment we die, we return to complete perfection. But what I hadn’t realized, is that that perfect soul is within all of us all the time, right now, right here. So don’t wait for death to start seeing that perfection, celebrating it…loving it. Start now.

Possible Side Effect – Miracles!

I’ve banged into a new obstacle in my life. My family has. But I guess that’s life. Things flow along, feel good, and then – wham – the universe throws a wrench into things. At first I did the usual panicked running around flapping my wings and squawking. But the older and wiser I get the faster I get over that. Now instead of weeks of histrionics, I have half an hour, then give myself a spiritual slap in the face and move on. That’s how I know I’m getting more and more aligned with my higher self, even the big jolts in my life don’t really throw me that much. Though of course there are some things that are truly difficult, maybe only a handful of situations that are truly testing, those I don’t know how I’d react. But the other major but surmountable crises,  I take a deep breath in. Deep exhale, and get back to work.

I know the secret. You know “The Secret”. Didn’t you see that Oprah? It’s the he centuries old knowledge that we draw into our lives what we focus on. The secret of manifesting what we desire. Wealth, happiness, or anger, lack. Whatever we focus on expands. I know that the way to bring joy and prosperity into my life is by holding that positive energy, that space of belief and intention that allows the universe to match me, to bring me the health and prosperity and love that I am feeling, envisioning. But, let’s be honest, it’s easier to hold those positive spaces when things are going well. It’s harder when there is illness or anger or financial stress or any other challenge. So this is one more test of my belief. My deep knowing that this is true. That we must hold that space as a constant, not doubt, not flicker, and we will be matched by the universe. In times of challenge it can be hard to know how things will work out. But miracles happen. Daily. And also just small really cool things not quite in the miracle category happen constantly. One of my favorite sayings is:

You don’t have to know How. You just have to know What.

What do you want? You do have to know that, and see it clearly, and have the intention of that happening. And hold the feeling, the emotional feeling, of having already whatever it is you seek. If you keep holding the energy of wanting something, you will be matching with it’s lack, with the wanting of it. If you feel deeply what it would feel like to be in the circumstances you desire, the universe matches that. Sometimes in mysterious ways. Sometimes in starkly literal ways. I spent last year imagining an exact sum of money that  would be really helpful to my life, and that exact sum, to the dollar, appeared in my life like a miracle. From a gift from a relative, totally unexpected. I could never have imagined how that would be possible. I didn’t know how, but I knew what. And it happened. Sometimes the universe kind of takes its time and it’s frustrating, but looking back we often see that even that served us. So, I am holding the positive space in the face of struggle and difficulty. Now more than ever. I’m not flickering in my intentions, in my vision.

And I know the side effects of living like this…Miracles.

Does Your Outside Match Your Inside? Or…Are You Being a Fake?

What I mean is, are you being a fake to yourself? I was. I sort of started realizing this this year, in little ways. It’s almost cliche it’s such and Oprah eipsode- woman has kids and stops taking care of herself. But I don’t mean in a way that can be fixed with a makeover and a good colorist (well, that would help!). I’m talking about deep down. Does your life around you match who you really are? Who your soul and essence are? Mine haven’t totally for a while. I did have kids, and I work part time, and we struggled financially for a while, and man I was maxed out. I ate food that was less healthy because it was convenient and came in a boil in the bag package. I didn’t compost. I dressed sloppy and boring. I stopped running. And writing. I lost the mojo of my life. There is a wonderful saying, “What is within is without” meaning whatever is going on in your internal life is shown by what’s going on in your external life. If your internal life is chaotic and stressed, your living space is probably a mess with an old bath robe thrown over a piece of pizza and important mail under a pile of unmatched socks. If your internal world is not juicy and alive and plugged into your soul, your external world may be lackluster, career not going as you’d like, home not juicy and renewing to be in. You get the picture. If you’re full of rage you probably have angry friends and are always in conflict at work and at the store and yelling at your cat. That kind of thing. So for me I ended up living in a super wealthy and snobby and not diverse suburb of NYC. Don’t get me wrong it’s wonderful in some ways (great schools, gorgeous beach, safe…), but it SO does not reflect my true inner world. I’ve been dressing in beige sweaters and jeans for years because…well because they were clean and I have kids and that’s totally success if you can have the combo of a clean outfit and kids so I didn’t care what it was. But I had let my life get beige. My marriage got beige and almost fell apart. We just weren’t living our real lives.

This post is about looking at our actual out in the world lives. Not what we are thinking. I can think about healthy food but get drive through McD’s and that’s not a match. I can say I’m green but buy convenient super packaged food and not recycle or compost but that’s not a match. And this isn’t about judgement. It doesn’t matter for the sake of this post what the match is, just make sure your world actually matches, in and out. If it’s important to your inner world to look really good, then dust off that makeup bag and plug in your hair iron. If it’s that you feel very strongly about something political, go to a march, donate $1 if that’s what you can, volunteer. But match. It’s about doing. Creating. Sort of the opposite of how important it is to meditate and go inward. This is about the outward. Are you all talk (even self talk)? Or if someone looked at you and your home and your choices and your everything, would they see a reflection of your soul? Otherwise your soul isn’t really happy. You aren’t plugged into what really feeds you, and you aren’t being authentic. I know, I did it for a few years. I mean I’m always kooky and I do acupuncture and meditate and am generally who I am. But a lot of my external life wasn’t a match and I told myself it didn’t matter. But it did. I wasn’t lying to anyone, but I also wasn’t me. Suddenly I got it. I have to compost (for some reason this is so important to me, almost symbolic of my being authentic), I like to dress funky even if I’m in a town full of Stepford wives, I need to write to feel good, it’s important for me to eat well, to eat as organically as I can afford, to support local businesses, the list goes on. But when I get off track I don’t do these things and it just feels bad.

No one but you will ever know if your inside doesn’t match your outside. You won’t ever be called out on this except in your own heart as no one knows what’s inside unless you show them. But when the outer world matches the inner world, that’s when authenticity starts, that’s when we feel real and empowered and happy and fearless because there is no disguise, and no hiding, and no excuses and no false statements. You’re just you. And it feels great. It’s like that fabulous outfit you once bought, or dreamed of buying, where the top and the bottoms and the accessories all match and you feel like a million bucks walking around in it. It’s like that perfectly matching outfit – for the soul. 🙂

Believe, Believe, Believe In Yourself!

Believe, Believe, Believe in yourself. Listen to the universe – the mother and father of us all – it is saying, Yes! It is saying you are smart and capable and brave and you can soar to any height, accomplish anything to put your mind to. Let that be the only thing you hear in your head. Yes! Work hard. Believe. And you can be wild with success at whatever your soul desires!

How (and Why!) to Stop Caring What People Think About You

“Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

– Steve Jobs

I was at the post office yesterday and had to listen to the post office clerk being almost rude to  the very old, hard of hearing woman in front of me. Almost. She kept repeating questions that the sweet old woman didn’t quite understand and she’d say them with a really nasty edge to her tone, but then she’d pull herself back and soften up a bit. Next question and the answer would come out the same. It made me think of how important it is not to take almost anything personally, and not to care what others think of you. The reason is just what I was seeing at the post office….most people out there in the world are asleep. Meaning not conscious of their actions. I take almost nothing personally. Unless it’s something from a good friend or family member who I know is being awake in the moment they say something (because all of us say things unconsciously) I just instantly brush it off and go on my way. I am never, ever upset by a rude check out lady or someone yelling at me from their car because I didn’t take a left fast enough. Criticism, opinions….nope. Why bother? They have nothing to do with me. And it’s so important to get to that place because we can only live OUR lives, the lives we are here to live, if we know who WE are. If we spend all our time listening to other people’s opinions of us we loose the connection to our own selves and purposes. So it’s a double whammy really, the reasons we need to turn a deaf ear to pretty much everyone are, one, because we need only listen to our inner voice to really live our best lives. And also because most people are not talking to you, they are talking to themselves. How do we stop caring what others say or think of us? By understanding this point – by truly getting that what others are saying about us is almost never actually about us. Knowing that, why on earth would you care for a minute about those opinions?!

When the PO clerk says, “I told you already, it’s 20 cents more first class!” in a really rude tone to a deaf 90 year old woman, of course that’s not about the old woman. She has in no way earned that nastiness. It’s about the clerk. The poor clerk is empty. Walking around with her tank on empty all the time so she’s frustrated, angry, resentful all the time. This woman walked into it. The next slightly demanding person she encounters will get the same treatment, all day, every day. Kids, husband, everyone. It has NOTHING to do with any of the people she encounters. It only has to do with the clerk. Alone. And in fact my reaction to people like that is to not engage at all, but to give them a little love. Poor people, how awful to feel that upset 24/7. I try to smile and be kind and even give a little extra love if possible (the really nasty ones I just try to get my stamps and run), but the generally running on empty type people I encounter I try to give a little love fuel to in my passing encounters. When I see someone at a check out line, or wherever, getting riled up by one of these encounters I always feel surprised. Why they are bothering? Why they are letting something so not personal become personal. Don’t they realize they could be any person on the planet and the clerk would talk to them like that? Then they start answering back and getting nasty back. Stop the madness! (Unless it’s the opinion that you are gorgeous and wonderful in every way, I always listen to those opinions. Throw all this advice out the window when you come across those people :))

The only positive that can come of noticing how you feel when you come across an balloon popper type person is this – if negative opinions of you get you riled up, good. It’s a signal you need to heal something. It means whatever that person  has said to you is something you believe about yourself. That is the only way in which it’s worth being affected by their words. If someone says to me, “You’re a really nasty person.” It rolls of my back in an instant. I know all the way through me I’m not a nasty person. No bells get rung inside me. But if someone says, “You’re irresponsible!” I feel a tiny twinge, a teeny clang of that bell because some small part of me believes my fun loving, non-planning, live by the seat of my pants personality is actually irresponsible. (In fact I see it as being a “big picture” person, that’s my preferred interpretation of myself :)). But my point is, if you do react to someone’s negative opinion of yourself – be glad. It’s letting you know an area you need to heal, a mis-belief about yourself and you can start to change that belief. But other than that healing, just start disregarding everyone’s opinions of yourself. They are not about you. They are about the person saying them, almost without exception. Things they hate about themselves. Dreams unlived that they now resent seeing take flight in someone else’s life. Who knows what. Who cares. They are not relevant to your life. All of this is true also about general opinions about you, from people you know, often from family members moreso than anyone. Most people in your life are probably not as bristly as the PO clerk, but in general most people’s thoughts about your life are the same, really just thoughts about themselves. So start now…take nothing personally! And listen to almost no advice! (see disclaimer below)

The once exception to this rule is that I do now think it’s ok, sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, to listen to beloved trusted friends/family. Those people, I suggest you do listen to, though still with a grain of salt as we are all wrapped in our own mists of issues most of the time. But I do wish I had heeded advice of a few trusted people when I was younger. I had some great adventures living my life not listening to anyone on earth, but those wise advisors could have saved me a few years of metaphoric train wrecks along the way. But even then, you can take that healthy advice and hold it up to your inner light. See how it feels when you check in with your own inner voice. Shine some self love on it and see what it looks like in that light. The main advisor you need to listen to is your inner voice. On a good day. On a self loving day. All other voices, opinions, and definitely snotty post office clerks should be greeted with a compassionate smile and instantly forgotten. And stay with the real business at hand – living your own best life!

Do You Feel Worthy Of Love (Money, Success, Health…) You Are!

Some people create the most amazing lives for themselves. I have a friend who was a single mom pumping gas at a gas station after college who now owns, OWNS, 2 real estate agencies (not to mention a gorgeous house in Cape Cod and another on an island in the Bahamas. She’s 42). Then there are people like Martha Beck, the fabulous life coach who has a column in Oprah magazine and has written several books. She travels the world telling people how to live well, be happy. She recently spent a couple of weeks being paid large amounts of money hanging out at a luxury game reserve in Africa helping clients find their inner potential. How do people pull these things off? Well hard work for sure. Work and passion. But there is a piece that is often missing in creating the lives we want and it’s a hard piece to nail down – worthiness. Do you feel worthy of wealth? Success? Love? Health? Key Lime Pie? (that’s an important one for my quality of life). Self worth like the cousin of self love, we have to feel self love to be able to allow goodness to fall into our lives. I feel like it often does fall in, if we just keep busy loving ourselves, amazing things just appear, sometimes out of nowhere, right?! But worthiness is like self love’s cousin – I think it’s when self love materializes, becomes specific.Feeling worthy seems to me like knowing it’s ok to receive specific things in our lives. So, do you feel worthy of love? Do you feel worthy of a rocking body? Of wealth? It’s hard to grab worthiness with two hands and really have a good look at it, for me anyway. It’s a slippery little bugger. So to get in touch with this slippery guy, if there is a part of your life that is not flourishing as you’d like it to, try this:

Get a beautiful leather bound journal, (or scrap of paper covered in spaghetti sauce like in my kitchen) – and write:

“I don’t feel worthy of _____ because…” and write down every single thing that pops into your head before you even think about them. Let even the really bad ones come out. Don’t edit, don’t think you’re being too harsh, or silly, or anything. The things that fly our of you in this moment are what you believe so get them out. Now have a look at what you wrote. Some may hit you kind of hard. The truth hurts is an expression for a reason. Somewhere way back when most of us get injured and we internalize it, we feel unworthy of something in life. And when it’s unconscious, it’s powerful. Once we take those things out in the sunlight and look at them and understand them, they loose their power. So now try this:

Rewrite those feelings in positive terms. If you wrote, “I feel unworthy of wealth because I’m a bad person.” Switch it to read, “I am worthy of wealth and prosperity, it flows to me freely as I am a loving and generous person.” Or whatever…just write something positive and self loving and even if it feels fake, it’s ok. Say that sentence to yourself any time you think of it all day, every day and just that action will slowly start to change that belief. At first you’ll be faking it, but slowly you’ll actually believe, because it’s true! And your inner self knows that, it’s just buried under someone else’s garbage that they dumped on that sense of worthiness many moons ago.

So imagine the most amazing, fabulous, glowing life you can – job you love going to every day, fit energetic body, financial prosperity, true love, imagine it all and then know you’re worth it! Tell the universe your worth and you will see your life change. You will receive what you believe you are worth. So you better up the value on the cosmic tag hanging off your soul! (and of course I’m not talking just about money here with this heavy financial metaphor, I’m talking about joy!) If you think of yourself as bargain basement, that’s the sort of life you’ll create. Know that you are worth the gold, luxury, diamond studded life that you desire. And let the riches begin to flow!

 

Incredibly Inspiring! 2012 Sports Illustrated SportsKid Of Year Winner.