relationships

This is a sculpture I own which I call LETTING GO.
I had to show you the entire piece, but if you zoom in on her face –– it’s eerily peaceful…in her free-fall into the abyss. Hauntingly so.
I learn from her every day.

This poem by Safire Rose is the perfect reminder for this BIG energy of NEW BEGINNINGS that is currently pouring in. FIRST you have to Let Go. BTW –– it is in no way gender specific…men too!
Carry On,
xox

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

~ Rev. Safire Rose

“If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.”
-Emile Zola

Hi Guys,
I freakin’ love this!
Ask yourselves –– What would you do in this situation?
(I’d be super squeamish about cutting up an entire fish, blech!)
I think we should ALL push ourselves outside our comfort zones more often. Who’s with me?
Carry On,
xox

When you get married, you say the words For better or for worse, and you mean them.

I know I did. At least as much as you can grasp the true meaning of for worse –– as it seems so remote in that moment, just a phrase inside of a vow -– especially after a flute of champagne -–  or four.

I took it to mean someone who is legally obligated by the State of California to share with me the good times as well as the bad. I felt reassured by that.

But what if you discover that when a for worse happens, like a death, the two of you process and handle the situation COMPLETELY differently.
How could you have known that?
And now what?

Especially when the deceased was loved equally by the both of you, how do you cope?

When something bad happens you want me on your team.
You see, I have what I call Delayed Reaction Syndrome. I immediately go into a hyper focused state – cool, calm and collected. I’m the one that makes the calls, orders the food, hands out the Kleenex, writes the eulogy, and is clear-headed enough to make all the uncomfortable decisions. I’m the furthest thing from emotional.
I’m …robotically rational. That is, until it what I call Phase Two kicks in.

My husband on the other hand wears his emotions on his sleeve. Actually they cover the entire outside of his body -– most especially his face.

He is incapable of holding back tears or masking sadness, and his reaction to death is appropriate and immediate.
There is no ambiguity. He’s profoundly sad and you know it.
In that respect we are a perfectly balanced match.

He grieves in the moment, while I get shit done.

There are cultures in the Mid East and Africa where they wail when someone dies, loudly and with great emotion, their bodies and faces contorted by grief. They even have professional wailers, I guess to help the family (and us Delayed Reaction types) along their emotional path.

I envy that. I really do. It appears to be an amazing release.

Two to three hours later is when Phase Two starts.

That’s about the time the tidal wave of sadness and grief comes ashore, washing me out to sea. Now I’m the one who needs comfort, I become numb, my mind unable to focus, and I want to talk and hug…a lot.

But by that time my husband is finished with his outward displays of emotion. He’s all cried out. He has now retreated deep inside, into his cave, and had moved a huge boulder over the entrance.

There’s no reaching him now.

I need to be held and reassured. That is uncharacteristically physically uncomfortable for him.
I need to cry…with someone. My tears are too much for him to handle. He’s reached sadness saturation. He is not available to me in any way, shape or form.

Moving through grief is a very solitary process, and it looks different for everyone.
I get it, I do.
But I don’t like it.

Come to find out we are just as incompatible in Phase Three.

His looks like this: Stay busy. Busy is good. Plan as many meetings and work related things as you can. Book yourself solid for twelve hours straight – then come home and pass out. Try to forget. Want all signs of the deceased erased from the house (I couldn’t do it) and no talking or tears please, too raw.

Mine looks like this: Stay in pj’s on the couch. Cancel meetings, walk neighborhood aimlessly while crying, with Kleenex stuffed up both nostrils, and don’t eat. Isolate and wish for company all at the same time. Bore strangers with your stories. Wish alcohol made you feel better or even helped you to sleep for that matter. Wash all the blankets and beds and then suffer huge regret, searching for her smell. Curl up with favorite stuffed animal for waaaaayyy too long. Forget to wash hair for three days.

Like I said, grief is an extremely solitary emotion that no amount of hugs, or kind words can help. Only time.

And just when you need it the least, it drives a wedge between two people who deal with death differently.

Even two people who love each other to bits just can’t manage to show up to soothe the other person. It was the first time I couldn’t help him. And it just goes to show that even when someone is legally bound to be there for you, sometimes they just can’t…and that came as a complete surprise –– and a crushing disappointment.

Phase Four:

You’ve got to find your solace inside yourself and that’s excruciatingly hard.

Even though he was required by law, when he promised, “I do” –– to be there for worse –– for me –– he had to find his own way first, and while he did that, I searched for my own.

Then we met, after a week, somewhere in the middle –– with open wounds and tears and stories of our journey, and in the process of finding our way back; we’ve grown and changed.

We’re different, and I think in the end we’ll be the better for it.

Carry on,
Xox

*Below is a post from last year that got a lot of play. I like the story and I stick with my observation about people in LA. I should know, I was born here after all.
Watcha think?

I heard this story recently, about a woman who went home for the holidays.

Don’t twitch with anxiety, this isn’t about family hijinks – it’s about worthiness.

While she was in Ohio, Illinois or Iowa, you know – the cradle of civilization for transplanted Californians – she met with friends who were also there serving their sentence – I mean visiting family.

Inside one of those knotty pine kitchens with the avocado appliances, we all know the ones, they haven’t been touched since 1970; they all sat around the table catching up. Life it seems, had been good to this cross-section of her friends. They had kids in college, long-standing careers, minimal health issues, at least one living parent, and all their teeth; yet, the entire first hour was a bitch session.

It was as if the Complaining Olympics had come to town. She got so caught up in it, hoping to at least medal, (she could picture herself atop the podium, National Anthem playing) that she embellished her story about a car insurance claim gone south.
In actuality she had a pretty good life, would they judge her for it if she just said so?

Meanwhile, the host made a pot of coffee in a percolator, and cut up a Sara Lee pound cake to give them just the right amount of caffeine and sugar to maintain their energy – in order to keep the complaints coming.

It was the house he’d lived in since he was four, a two-story colonial, which since his mom had passed was occupied solely by his dad, who by all accounts continued to be robust and health -– but apparently clumsy as shit.

“Sorry guys, I can’t find any cups that match” he said sounding embarrassed as he laid out the cake with a selection of several random cups.

There was a mug from the local University, a flowered porcelain teacup with a tiny chip on the rim, a green Pottery Barn ceramic mug that looked as if it had once been part of a set, a plain, clear, glass cup, a tall, white, fancy looking cup that was fluted and flared at the top, and a large styrofoam cup from a stack on top of the fridge.

He, being the gracious host he was, poured his coffee into the styrofoam cup, everyone else jockeyed around, silently sizing up the remaining cups.

The one friend, a mom with five kids, took the plain glass one, handing the nice white one to her friend the attorney. “Oh, that’s too nice” her friend said, putting it back on the table, taking the dainty teacup even after she noticed the chip.

One of the guys took the college mug, after picking up the green cup from the set, and putting it back. After the other two got their cake, deferring the cup choice until everyone else had picked, one grabbed the Pottery Barn mug and the other reached up and got a styrofoam cup off the pile on the fridge.

No one chose the nice, white cup.

She was sure no one else noticed, but she did.

It was so interesting for her to observe what cups people chose.
It was like a small social experiment. Everyone left the fanciest cup for the other guy, until it stood alone, un chosen.

One of the men would rather drink from styrofoam than a fancy white cup. One of the women put it back and chose one with a chip.

What was all that about?

Worthiness. Apparently no one felt they deserved the nice cup.

Now, I’m gonna level a HUGE generalization here – that is SO Midwest.

If this little kitchen scene had taken place in LA – people would have pushed each other down to get the nicest cup; the chipped teacup would have been thrown in the trash, “That’s just dangerous” –– and NO ONE would have dared drink a hot beverage from styrofoam! “Studies have shown styrofoam to be carcinogenic and bad for the environment,” I can hear the attorney saying, citing a current class action suit that’s pending.

So, two questions: do you find yourself competing in a bitchfest when you reconnect with old friends, not being able to admit that you’re actually…happy? AND which cup would you have picked and why?

Don’t say you don’t drink coffee, this story works for you tea drinkers as well.

Xox

I saw this the other day.
Underneath Cheryl wrote: I need to tattoo this on the inside of my eyelids.

And that made me laugh –– Me too!

Because guys, honest to God that’s life’s greatest challenge, isn’t it?

To have the knowledge that you make your life happen, but that you do it together with Universal assistance?

It is such a fine line, a tight rope walk of knowing when to just quit asking, surrender, stop micro managing, stop yearning and pushing and striving, to get down off our high horses, thinking WE know best (because we do –– hey, its our life) and let something greater than ourselves…
Take. The. Wheel.

It takes a lifetime of practice.

I fuck up. A lot.
I zig when I should have zagged,
Talk when I should be quiet,
Make decisions based on fear,
Freeze when action is required,
And sit stewing in self-doubt-soup for much longer than is healthy.

It is always when I’m going it alone…

Then I read something like the saying that Cheryl posted –– and I’m once again reminded to give up the fight!

I do so much better when I listen for directions instead of making up my own.

Divine Intervention…ahhhhhh. What a relief, you can drive this weekend.

I’m gonna put my feet up y’all, how about you?

love you,
carry on,
xox

“You can’t ride two horses with one ass.”

While I was growing up I used to hear that phrase all the time from my dad.

What? What does that even mean?

This was his reaction to my teenage stress. After he’d watch me fumble and stumble, struggle and juggle; fitting in play rehearsal, singing practice, homework, and my part-time job, he’d admonish me, “Janet, you can’t ride two horses with one ass.”

My reaction was to roll my eyes, snap my gum, turn my head toward the heavens, and exhale the long, deep exhalation of the exasperated teenager. “Okaaaay, daAAAAaad, I get it, make a decision. Do one thing at a time. Gawd.”

I always knew the one thing he thought I should choose to focus on was my job at the supermarket. It could end up being my security, after all, my future, just like it had become his. But truth be told, that was NEVER gonna happen.

He had little patience for my “extracurricular” pursuits. He, as the father figure, the patriarch, the breadwinner, just couldn’t understand what he considered frivolous time wasting.

And I, cast as the dutiful daughter, continued to struggle with not enough asses.

Those extra things were far from superfluous to me, hardly! They were actually my life’s blood –– my passions.

He was unable to wrap his brain around multi-passionate people, and that never changed.
I can’t say that I blame him. Us multi-passionate sorts are hard to figure out.

He’s not alone, there are many out in this world that can’t stand those of us who won’t seem to commit to just one pursuit. “Jack of all trades, master of none” was another of his old school, paternal pontifications.

After a while (years), I understood. I didn’t like it and I was incapable of abiding by it –– but I understood his confusion.

He was from the school of one horse, one ass.

Pick one thing, focus on it, and do it — for the rest of your life.
Then, and only after you’ve collected your retirement, are you allowed to entertain frivolous pursuits. Hopefully, you still have your health, vitality, and a little sass to keep things interesting.

Many in our family died soon after they retired, without enjoying much of life’s extras.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize as I’ve gotten older and hopefully a little wiser.
The things that hold passion for us in life are hardly extras. To me, they are the makings of a life well lived.

Jobs can be had, money made, the focus narrowed, and direction figured out, but it’s the multiple horses that we have the audacity to ride with our one crazy, creative, freedom-seeking-ass, that make us who we are!

Singularly Focused Exemplary Employee is not what I’ve ever wanted written on my headstone.

Badass, multi-passionate, creative, who can’t stay in the saddle; sloppy rider of an entire herd of horses, who you may hear whooping and hollering and having one hell of a ride –– and the time of her life.  Now that’s more like it.

Ride all those horses with your one wild ass.

Own it.

Sorry dad.

Carry on,
Xox

*Below is a recent post from Seth Godin. Man, I can relate, can’t you? What’s your soft spot?

I’ve been in the process of realizing recently that I lived almost two decades avoiding that “uh oh” feeling, too scared to attempt my best work, to be my best self.
My triggers are security and stability, but those are myths, right? They can only be found on the INSIDE.
Anyhow…Have a beautiful Sunday, take it away Seth!
xox

Here comes ‘uh oh’

Working to avoid a feeling merely reminds us of the feeling. And undercuts our work as well.