Save Her. Savior. Save Your Self.

I often find myself in the role of the untamed heretic of my tribe, unwilling to fully digest the kool aid. The Enneagram would attempt to explain that is a normal consequence of my being a “7”, the jack-of-all-trades, master of none syndrome. My astrologer assures me it’s my Gemini moon giving levity to my Taurus sun, while disarming my Scorpio rising. I suppose I’d say the same if I could fully devote myself to any one manmade system compartmentalizing all the gorgeous chaos of this juicy messy life. Instead, I keep flitting around from idea to idea, tribe to tribe, checking out the wares and never buying the proverbial real estate. 

Here’s the deal, I don’t care about your fucking business. AT. ALL. I could give not one shit how much money you make. Seriously, this is me not caring, lalalalala.

Here is why: I care about your soul. I’d love to introduce your ego to her. I’m here to rouse that sleeping Goddess in you and get you dancing in ecstasy, howling at the moon, and becoming the most radical, unapologetic, honest version of yourself. Maybe making butt loads of money is a symptom of that, or maybe it means you’re quitting your business entirely and go straight up Eat, Pray, Love on our asses.

Over the last decade I have witnessed myself, my clients, colleagues, and mentors cycle through a similar process. It has become tediously predictable, it’s practically paint by numbers. Maybe you’ll recognize it…

Part 1 is sparkly with lots of glitter, investment invitations, and over the moon promises, ahem bought it hook, line, and sinker. It feels like a hot crush, and smells like cookies baking.

Part 2 could simply be called the workaholic phase, but we can only use that term waaaay later in hindsight. For now let’s just say, she has no time her friends, lovers, children, personal hygiene, home cooked meals, and free time. Social life now means networking.

Part 3 is success finally! Or kind of, well almost, I mean I’m not getting paid for it yet but…

Part 4 is making a living. Poor choice of words since “living” usually entails having fun, hobbies, vacations (as in computer turned off), spontaneity, leisure, enjoying nature, parties and such. I mean the bills are getting paid.

Or maybe she’s even crushing it financially, and still she wonders at what cost.

Part 5 is the break down, which is comprised of sub stages: depression, feelings of being a fraud, lack of inspiration, addictions revisited, weight gain, faking it til ya make it, hours wasted on FB, and general self loathing.

Part 6 depends on if she hears the full moon whispering her name, and is she willing to betray her calendar in order to save her own soul. Can she open her mouth and fill the space with the guttural cry that looses the dam of truth and tears? Will she remember who she was and still is underneath her brand, her vision board, and her team? Will she do whatever it takes to dive in and rescue that precious pearl of her inner knowing, to adorn herself with the only accolades that ever mattered, the glorious truth of her own priceless essence? Yep I’m talking about the reclamation baby. The moment she realized this was the only prize she was desperately craving. Her own approval was all she was ever yearning for. The business, the clients, degree, titles, fancy figure income, all of it was only there to fulfill the old proverb: “Ya don’t know what ya got til its gone.” She had to lose herself, to find Her Self.

I call it the Shero’s Journey.

Like I said, I could care less about your fucking business. Show me your soul.

Take off your shoes, maybe all your clothes too. Get out there under that big sexy moon tonight and soak it in. Bathe your sweet self in mystery, inhale autumn’s seductive musk, while the soft animal inside of you runs wild again.

Let your ego root itself in your soul.

I’ll leave you with this quote from a wise, wise teacher of mine.

“It is best to be humble and not expect something majestic, for then we would probably miss what does arrive. Yes, if our sensing is subtle, such that each bodily cell becomes a star or a rose, we will recognize the mystery when it arrives. Its impact, like an earthquake, might rearrange the very ground of our lives.” Bill Plotkin

Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?

They started showing up, bringing with them their pain. The layered scabs of sexual abuse, and the punishment of eating disorders were laid at my feet. 

 "Who do you think you are to help anyone? You're a frickin train wreck." 

The cruel belittling voice that had kept me playing small, suddenly ceased to commandeer my life. (I didn't say it went away mind you, it had just lost it's totalitarian grip on me.) Simultaneously, another voice became painfully audible. I believe it's often referred to as The Calling. Sounds cliche I know, but still, there it was calling me... calling me out. No more stories about being too young, too old, too messy, too white, too poor, too privileged, too loud, too imperfect... 

I stepped forward with bold humility, having no answers, but some ideas, no cures, but some practices, no beliefs, but some curiosity. I asked to be a vessel for something greater than my ego's mandate. 

Ironically the wounds of these women were the same wounds I'd been healing in myself. It was nothing I had advertised about. Actually I wasn't even talking about it to anyone yet. Nowhere in my branding did I even hint at molestation, rape, or bulimia. Apparently the energetic ad world superseded my website and brochures, and my niche market was barreling straight to me. 

What I saw in my own journey was the common denominator these wounds shared: Self/Body loathing. Yeah, turns out it's quite a pervasive thing. In the last decade of doing this work I've come to realize that no matter what brand of abuse women have endured, or self inflicted, the same common demon, I mean denominator is present. I have yet to meet one of us who doesn't come face to face with this insidious symptom of our cultural conditioning at one time or another, let alone the millions of women who are driven, consumed, and crushed by it.

We can fling around the ball of blame, hurling it at the patriarchy in general, media, the modeling world specifically, parents, or whatever your fave flave of fault is. It doesn't actually help other than that immediate and fleeting exhale of "at least I'm not to blame." Oh, but aren't you? On some level we are all agreeing to this collective cruel consumer contract. They're only selling what we're buying.
But that is a whole other blog, speech, or lifetime workshop about voting with our dollar.

In the black sea of body dysmorphic retail campaigns, there is one who has risen of above and replied to the cries of young girls, moms, career women, menopausal mavens, and our wise women elders. I've never been to one give a rah rah to corporate anything. I'm a small business owner, farmers market, buy local, organic, chem free, kinda babe. And yet here it is on a massive scale that only the corporate world has reach and breadth for, the 10 year old Dove campaign. A seed of consciousness was injected into the corporate cookie cutter machine, an infiltration of sorts. I can not deny the smile that rushes in, or the tears that these commercials have brought. My heart whispers thank you. 

It's as if the work I, and so many of us have been devoted to, is being broadcast on the big screen. A macrocosmic recognition of what the microcosmic grass roots feminist revolution is doing. Rather than diss it with arguments of what Unilever's other companies are up to (ahem Axe Body Spray, yes I get it.) can we just pause, nod our heads and admit that this is significant progress? We all know the road to wholeness, respect, and Self love is a long one. Let us welcome every ally, even if they are making money at it, because last time I checked so are we.

I'll keep doing the work of bringing women back home to the wisdom of their unique perfectly imperfect bodies, and bringing women back together in Circle, in community and collaboration. You keep doing your part. We are affecting the whole. We are influencing the collective, or Dove wouldn't be mirroring this back to us. 

Keep looking for what IS working. In the meantime, eff perfect, you be you! 

Confessions From One Vain Broad to Another

Never in my wildest dreams could I have known the day was coming. Never was there a glimpse, glance, let alone a gaze lent to that covert patch of litmus flesh. How could any of us have known?

We’d been bombarded with the miracle eye creams, wrinkle plumping serums, and “cover that gray” hair dye ads since birth. But this clandestine tell tale pocket went undetected until it was too late.

This is not an "I hate my body, only youth is beautiful" propaganda post. It is however, a "woah for reals guys, this most natural thing in the world is actually uber strange" post. So if you can deal with my real...read on.

The first round of “don’t know what you got til it’s gone” debuted post childbirth, that smooth flawless taut belly skin. Love handle? What’s that? Followed by the fast fading ass to thigh demarcator, and then the “Girls Gone Wilted” post breastfeeding funeral.

How many youthful mirrored moments were spent blinking back teenage tears, all of my luscious, fresh bloom eclipsed by my war against zits? My babysitting fortune repeatedly plundered by Noxzema and Clearasil promises that never delivered anything beyond interesting smells and some red flaky dry patches.  Meanwhile the smooth supple zit free skin that covered 99.9% of my sweet lil body went unnoticed.

We all go through it cellulite, spider veins, and the general entropy of the Earth suit. Still I feel like I’m actually the first, last, and only woman who will ever traverse this human aging sojourn. Adrift in a sea of my entire generation I suspect I am alone in this. I’m the only vain broad in the bunch. Everyone else gets out alive and in tact. My bullshit story and yet…

Back to the latest shock, I attributed it to ill-fitting bras. Where is this strange textured stuff coming from? Is it my boob, arm, armpit? Is it fat, or is it skin? What is going on here? Help, someone come quick, bring duct tape, and maybe some Windex or hemorrhoid cream too.

I had over 40 years to admire my armpits, and never, not once did it happen. Hidden beneath deodorant, tucked so neatly under my arm was this lovely little spread of tidy not going anywhere epidermis. Right up until it went. I’m watching now, (call me an ageist) I’m in the know. I see the next phase, I’ve noticed how it spread down my older friend’s entire upper arms. Everyday I’m reminding myself to look beyond the armpit goo to lovingly appreciate the parts of me I’ll be wishing I had appreciated.

I want to be graceful about all this, taking it in stride as I assure all the babes around me that we got nothing to worry about. Keep calm and age on sisters? Fuck I don’t know, this is weird shit and it’s only just begun. Frankly I’m tired of some of my “ultra spiritual, love light and rainbow” peers saying it doesn’t matter, I think they’re lying. I bet deep down it makes most of us a tad bit squirmy. Can we just admit that? Everything else up until this point: heart break, child birth, divorce, loved ones passing, and losing my religion, was only basic training for the biggest challenge ahead. The slow and steady deterioration of the body I was finally getting used to, just learning to love, is the main event.

A friend of mine who volunteered in war torn countries, told me about sitting with groups of refugee women. These women had lost children, husbands, seen their entire villages burned to the ground. Once the initial shock had worn off and a state of normalcy had returned, the conversations sounded similar to what one might hear in a LA salon. “My hair looks awful, my grays are showing, this stress has given me new wrinkles, did you hear so and so is sleeping with blahblahblah” Yeah, same old tiring drivel. WTH? I only judge because I had hoped to point the finger of blame on my western privilege and having never experienced something truly worth complaining about.

Lately I’ve read articles and heard lectures about new advancements in extending human life via interesting stem cell magic and other sciencey voodoo. While this certainly appeals to my immediate vanity and the primal urge to cling to life, something else in me shudders. I remember reading some new age thoughts on growing old years ago. The author surmising the reason we age and die is because we believe that we have to. I think back to my old English sheep dog, Chauncey, lying cold to the touch. I doubt she was busy believing in the aging process, plagued with the fear that she would someday die, and yet she did. Trees, animals, humans and all of nature dies, so something new can be born. Defying that feels like more human egoic lack of foresight. BTW, the author making these claims has long since gone gray and aged like the rest of his generation.

What if this fantastic bizarre freak show called life, as grand as it maybe, is only a larvae stage in our development? This death of the Earth suit is a transition, not an ending. In my mind’s eye I see us all standing in line outside the amusement park. Some of us get through the gate, while those left in line mourn, making up all kinds of stories as to what’s on the other side of the gate. Doctrines and dogmas emerge to be fought over. Some who are in line devote all of their focus, study, and time to ensuring we stay in line even longer, as if this is all there ever is or will be. We fight hard to hold our place in line and slow down the inevitable “death march” into the amusement park.

(It’s all a story anyway, so why not this one?)

In closing, if you’re young, enjoy your armpit skin while it’s barely noticeable. If you’re moving up in the line, fuck it, wear a tank top anyway, or don’t. If it feels weird and uncomfortable to watch your body change in ways you never expected, you’re not alone. You are one of the beautiful messy imperfect humans, like the rest of us. I have no 5 step magic method to offer you, no pills, smoothies, meditations, miracle suit, or seminar. Trust me none of know what the heck we're doing, so put your seatbelt on sister, here we go. 

What if you didn't know that you are already happy?

Sand Art and photography by Benny Olvera

It's one of those questions that makes the brain grunt and back up a few paces, asking, "Is this a trick question?"

Seriously think about it. It's a bit like when you're sick as hell, barfing your guts up and you realize that months, even years have passed and your health was there in tact the entire time while you were busy complaining about other things. 

Or when some miserable SOB dies, and suddenly his wife who bitched night and day about him, has nothing but nice things to say about him?

The perpetual pursuit of happiness seems like a symptomatic plague of privilege. The easier our lives become the more we suffer from invisible plight. The more money we throw at self help, escapism, and "Fix me" snake oil remedies, and the more frustrated we become.

Is it only in hindsight, looking back on photos, recounting the good ole days that we realize how happy we were?

Yesterday I was driving in a rain storm. My 19 yr old son in the front seat shouts, "Mom I don't think this guy is gonna stop!" 

I hit my brakes just in time to avoid being broadsided by the black blazer speeding through the stop sign. We came literally inches from smashing into it. With my hands tingling and my heart pounding, I pulled over to devote all of my attention to just breathing.

The litany of petty customary complaints that sully my first world perspective fell away instantly in the stark reality of life's fragility. Flashes of what it would be like to be paraplegic, brain injured, or childless, shocked me awake. Problems? What problems?

Suddenly working limbs, eye contact with my boy, a family and partner that love me, and the blank canvas of life ahead was all I ever needed in the world. 

Happiness has been there all the time, like my heart beating whether I notice or not. It's a baseline condition when all my essential needs are met: shelter, food, water, and love. Yes I cover happiness up with concerns about business, parental expectations, political stress, and other drama. But when something like almost dying clears the bullshit away, all that remains is gratitude and the simplicity of happiness.

Last night my husband read me a beautiful reminder from Eckhart Tolle. Success isn't something that we attain by sacrificing and working hard. Success is simply being awake to the one and only moment in front of me. Making this moment the best one. Then whatever I am "doing" is infused and amplified with how I am "being". That conscious moment is success. These moments strung together like pearls make for a continuous life of success. Never forfeiting present life for some accomplishment down the road. (Ask any old or dying person, they will agree.)

I bring this up for two reasons. First this gives me a chance to thank my husband, Benny, for inspiring me to write this post when he asked the question, "What if you didn't know that you were already happy?"

The second reason is that happiness and success are often linked. Therefore it is imperative that we understand the true meaning of success. When we see it as possible in this very moment unburdened by effort, deed, or triumph, then we can slow down. We must slow down, let go of the all the ways we're shoulding on ourselves, all the ways were making this moment wrong.

Stop now. Breathe. Success and happiness are yours right now. See you've been happy all along and you didn't even know it. 

Can you feel it? 

What we give our attention to grows. I think I'll leave mine here for awhile.

Surrender to the Suckiness

“Would you rather slowly reverse your outer aging process, so that each day you look younger, but you continue to feel older and experience the aches and pains associated with normal body entropy? Or would you rather continue to age outwardly but inwardly you are growing younger each day, feeling more energy, strength and flexibility?”

That question is a test of wisdom and vanity isn’t it? Someone asked me that the other day. Glad it wasn’t today.

I’ve been in this Earth Suit for nearly 44 years now. I’ve been scrutinizing it for about 34 years, learning to love it for 20 years. I’ve been in true and utter awe of it every once in awhile, maybe 2 years if I combine all those moments over my entire lifetime. (That’s being generous.)

I work with women a lot, so I hear about body issues A LOT. I can sniff em out from a distance. Takes one to know one. I’ve been to eating disorder land and back, worshipped at the porcelain bowl, mastered the silent gag and double flush techniques. I know the holy high of starving myself. I’ve made exercise a religion.

I’ve been clean a long time, yet still there it is, those occasional days when my Earth Suit doesn’t fit. No matter how I sit, stand, dress, eat, or work out, my skin is suddenly an ill fitting irregular garment. I want to trade it in. Instead I move about in the world doing all my normal functions, smiling when it’s time to smile, and I robot my way through what could be, on any other day, meaningful interactions.

My old inclination was to forcefully overcome my shit, to get frantic and really intense about fixing it. Go for a run, do some yoga, or green tea should do the trick. In the back of my mind the voice of my inner critic ramping up, so that not only do I feel like shit, now I feel like shit for feeling like shit in the first place. “You’re a fake, an imposter. All this progress you thought you were making, HA what a joke.”

The hamster wheel of hate and self-loathing is hard to jump off when it gets spinning. For all my talk of sovereignty, being of service, and self-help one truth is persistent and persuasive. What I resist only persists. The harder I fight it, the faster the spin, and greater the suffering.

Then what the hell is there to do? Nothing. Truly, I swear that is the secret oh so passive weapon.

You know how it goes, something like this: life is great, then you wake up and suddenly it isn’t. A stranger looks at you funny, you don’t get the job, your beloved forgets the plans you’ve made together, dog pees on the carpet, you lose an eye lash, a spider sneezes. Who knows why your entire reality can shift in the blink of eye, why one day the mirror is a benevolent benefactor, and the next day a pratty antagonist. Trust me I’ve tried to get to the root of this mystery. It’s a huge waste of time and energy.

I will share with you some of my tried and true survival strategies for a shit day.

1.)  Surrender to the suckiness, just allow it to be.

2.)  Take a shower, get dressed. Seriously this helps.

3.)  Permission to wallow for a day. Sleep a lot. (This is not a lifestyle choice.)

4.)  Chocolate, it helps.

5.)   Netflix. It can be your best friend in a pinch.

Yep that’s it. Let it ride. Be shallow. Let your “practice” go for a day. Remember what its like to just be a muggle.

Oh one more survival strategy: write a blog post about what it’s like to be uncomfortable in your beautiful body, ungrateful in your bounty, miserable in your health. Write about what it’s like to be a whiney a lil bitch once in awhile.

Tomorrow will be better, I promise.

PMS, Love, and rockets baby. No greater than a speck of dust, no lesser than a god. We’re only messy humans after all.

Is Your LOVE The Real Deal? (Or are you as full of shit as the rest of us?)

I keep reading about unconditional love, and I feel the need to share an ever-emerging uhoh.

There is no such thing as conditional love. Bummer #1 folks, here it is: When there are conditions all over your love, ahem it’s no longer love. That’s a real pisser, huh?!

While I’m on the topic, newsflash to all of us (especially me, always to me, hear that Self? Yeah I’m talking to you.) There is no love shortage!

Why do I withhold my love? Is there some love drought and I need to be conserving? Or maybe there is a test, and only the loveliest, kindest, most compassionate beings make the grade. (Bummer #2: Turns out the easiest people to love are usually those in the least need of it. They’re tanks are pretty full, hence the loveliness.)

Apparently I thought someone appointed me to be the hotshot decider, director, and dispenser of love. You have to work for my love, work hard for it.  You must toil all day in the hot dusty love fields. Did you get my updated rules and regulations of love? Go away I’m no longer accepting your counterfeit Love vouchers. They don’t bear the certification stamp of my  philosophy, income bracket, religion, politics, race, sexual orientation, etc., just get out!

Let’s up the ante and go with the old biblical saying, “God is Love”. What happens now when I block Love? Oops I’m blocking God. (She had to bring in God and make it all religious.) Well shit.

Stay with me, let’s examine it through the Christian religious lens (only because that is the one I’m most versed in.) Jesus threw down some pretty tough stuff in his day. Crazy notions like, (some might even go so far as to call them commandments) no really guys, this one is supremely important, listen up, this is where it gets tricky, where your actions speak louder than your words. This is where the rubber meet the road, where you walk your talk, where you better live it to give it…Ready?

“LOVE your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Doh. Don’t be mad at me. He said it, I didn’t. Kick in the self-righteous ass, huh?

Who are my enemies? At first I say no one. Then I stop lying, off the top of my head I’d say: racists, corporate money mongers, environmental destroyers, human rights oppressors, and sadly the list goes on. Okay I have my work cut out for me. Instead of ranting and screaming in their faces, instead of blowing them up and breaking their war toys, rather than posting my own anti-THEM memes all over FB, I’m supposed to L.O.V.E. them? Yeah, I agree that’s a tough pill to slide down my hypocritical throat.

Okay shake off the religion if I got any on ya. Let’s dial it down a notch and just talk about the less horrible people in our lives, the people we kind of already love: Our family, friends, children, spouses, those sorts. When I do a love check up to see if there are any leaks in my love hoses, if I need new filters, you know a general love lube and oil change, *wince* I’m frankly shocked and embarrassed. Without examination it’s easy for me to assume I am the greatest, most benevolent, love generator of all time. Underneath that is another reality, which repeatedly turns up incongruent with my ego’s self glorified version. Truth be told, a lot of the time I suck at loving. If you’re in my life and you didn’t call me back I might just make up a story in which you are the evil agent of all darkness and suffering here to snuff the light out of me, (especially if you are my husband not calling or texting me). Or the way my “love” suddenly jack knifes when my 19yr old son lights up a cigarette, wth? This one is a fave, brace yourself. I have certain members of my family who want to vote for Drumpf. Who can love that??? Help!

As far as I can tell, Love isn’t something in us. Love is everywhere all the time. Love creates us. It is us.  It is all the space between us. We can’t stop it or make it go away, we can only deny it. The moment we do, we are in suffering, separation, loneliness, greed, jealousy, hate, despair,… you fill in the blank.

I don’t have the answers, just some questions worth asking yourself, questions I am regularly asking myself. Here they are. You’re welcome to use them.

1.)  What does it mean to truly love?

2.)  How can I be even more loving right now?

3.)  What might happen if I chose love right now (instead of this other thing uncomfortable thing I’m doing?)

4.)  Where am I denying Love, (where am I denying God?)

I say I want peace. If I truly want peace, where do I start, if not within my own loving heart and home? Busted.