awakening

You know how when we present our dilemma to a friend and they launch one solution, one brilliant idea after another our way and we barely even listen? And even if we do, we can find something wrong with every solution offered and argue for our dilemma.

Why do we do that?

You know what I’m talkin’ about. We argue FOR that thing that is driving us bat-shit nuts with the skill and tenacity of a fucking Supreme Court Judge.

“Well, yeah, but that takes money and I can’t afford it.”

“Well, yeah, but I can’t just leave.”

“Well, yeah, but when I walk on it, it hurts.”

Overruled! You are all overruled! I want to stay stuck and miserable; mired in my miasma of muck. (Holy alliteration!)

I think I’ll call it MY YEAH BUT HABIT.

Listen, we even use this tactic when things are going well—WTF?!

You got a promotion! “Yeah, but I didn’t get more vacation days.”

You got a raise! “Yeah, but, not as much as I wanted.”

A baby boy! Congratulations! “Yeah, but, I really thought we were having girl, and everybody says boys are tough, and he doesn’t let us sleep for a minute.”

What’s with that you guys?

Do we like to complain? (I know someone who thinks that complaining is the force that keeps us all alive. Seriously.)

Do we like to hear ourselves speak? (yes, yes I do)

Is unhappiness and dissatisfaction a habit? (yeah, but, I REALLY don’t know why).

Do our dilemmas get us attention? (Similar to publicly—there is no bad attention)

Here’s a thought.
What if we used that skill all the time? Like an equal opportunity Yeah but. Like this:

Oh, that’s a nasty dent is your fender; “Yeah, but, I’m lucky that’s all that happened.”

There are a lot of people applying for that position. “Yeah, but, my resume is stellar, I have tons of experience, and they’d be lucky to have me.”

Wow, he left you? “Yeah, but, if I’m honest with myself things have been lousy between us for a while, and now that the ball is rolling we can figure things out and move on with our lives.”

I know. That ones a streeeeeeeech. (but we could do it)

Then how about this one? Let’s all try to be more aware when we’re arguing FOR the muck we’re mired in.
It is BEYOND limiting!

Once and for all, lets all get off our Yeah butts.

Carry on,
xox

At Abraham on Saturday, a woman was relating to all of us how wonderful her life has become.
“Except for this one thing,” she said as the smile faded from her lips. “I feel like I’m blocked, like there’s something in my way.”

Well, shit, (we all let out a collective sigh), who hasn’t felt like that?

Sometimes I feel so blocked, so constipated with worry over an implied detour or an actual closed-door in my face, that I pray for a cosmic laxative.

“What if there’s nothing in your way? Really. Because there isn’t.” Was their answer. (Cue collective gasp).

I’m not sure why you guys, but I got this on so. many. levels. I really heard it. It’s the only note I took during the entire seminar.

So of course I took my own life situations and immediately ran them though that familiar filter. I’m going to call it THE FAILURE FILTER.

Desire: Write a book. Easy right? Sit down, gather inspiration, type your ass off and viola! Book!

Enter—The Failure Filter: (The failure filter is always a diatribe, a monologue, a compilation of all the worst case scenarios, and it goes something like this)—

Ughhhhhhhh…yeah, sure. You wrote a book. Big whoop. Join the crowd. Now you have to find an agent. A good agent. A successful agent. An agent who loves your book as much or more than you do. Then said agent has to get you a publishing deal. A real deal. Not some bullshit deal, no, something lucrative and prestigious. Then they’re going to edit the book. You have to pray for a good editor who is also a decent person, because they’re going to change…every word. You won’t even recognize the finished product. They’re going to change your book to their book. The book they’ve aways wanted to write. Then you have to get testimonials. From other successful authors in your genre. Oh yeah, that should be a breeze! Then the book cover, you’re going to hate your book cover—everybody does. Publicity. don’t even get me started on publicity! Do you have a platform? Ten thousand followers you say? Why don’t you have one hundred thousand? Or Five Hundred thousand? Kim Kardashian has over forty million and she co-authored a N.Y. Times best seller. You better get on that.
Then it has to sell. People have to actually pay money and read it. FUCK! I feel blocked—like there’s something in my way!

I could run my screenplay, musical, latest great idea; basically every creative endeavor AND my relationships through that Failure Filter and you know what?

I wouldn’t start them.

I would be tempted not to finish them.

My energy and enthusiasm would stall and any creative juices I had left would dry up. Can you say constipated?

Besides you guys, all that stuff we think is blocking us—it’s made up shit. Let’s just file this under the giant heading: LIES WE TELL OURSELVES.

Yeah, you could say all of that is real, that you do have to chase a book deal…or do you? I know people who have been approached by publishers! Seriously! EVERY deal is different. Anything can happen!

Believing the bullshit and staying blocked separates the weak minded from the…not so…weak minded. You can quote me on that.

And this applies to not only writing, butanything in life.

There is NO THING/NOTHING is the way.

WE are the only one’s in our way. Its OUR thoughts, beliefs and general bullshit thinking that blocks us!

Let this post act as a cosmic laxative to unblock you and get out of your own way.
I did and I feel better already!

Love you, Carry on,
xox

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/about_abraham.php

Let that sink in you guys.
Enjoy your Sunday!
xox

So—Wowza and Holy Cowza you guys! The response to my video (my vlog, see I know the lingo), was so overwhelmingly positive! Honestly! You guys sent me the nicest texts and emails and left kind words on Facebook and the blog. I think I may have, hands down, the best readers EVER!

Thank you! I love and appreciate you more than I can say!

That being said, the one thing a lot of you mentioned, including my husband, was the fact that through most of the video my bangs went rogue and covered my right eye.
I have no idea why my hair decided to do that. It has a mind of its own and I’m lucky if it behaves itself and stays anywhere near my head at all! I have helicopter hair, remember? And I need a haircut.

Anyhow, I was thinking about my one-eyed talk on surrender and also about some feedback I received a while back about the way I dress for Yoga. No pastels, no flowers, no sheer floaty ethereal garb for moi. Nope. It’s all black for this girl. Hoods and jackets that hook on your thumbs; with zippers and vesty-crossover things.

I was told I came to Yoga dressed as a ninja.

So…I’m a one-eyed Ninja. You guys, I’m a Ninja Pirate!

I fucking love that! I’m owning that. Ha! I’m surrendering to that!

Which got me to thinking about being an individual, not following the crowd, wearing a grey-hair eye-patch; and being a pirate. I recently wrote a post about just that sort of thing: Be A Pirate.

Wanna be a Pirate with me? Too late. I already picture you all as my own special, rowdy, band of Ninja Pirates.

But here you go if you need the juju to get you started:

BE A PIRATE

An original doesn’t conform to expectations — they change them forever.

“It is better to be a pirate, than to be in the navy.”
~Steve Jobs

Being an original is not easy.
As Abraham says: “There is never a crowd on the leading edge.”

So for those of you starting a new, well…anything — listen up.

Unless you have a huge budget for sky writing, a Foo Fighters concert at your book signing, free Sprinkles cupcakes, and car giveaway; there may be crickets a first.

Seriously annoying nothing will happen. Day after day.

“I want the most unusual, badass store in the Valley, someplace with one-of-a-kind stuff that I would buy. Hey listen if I don’t do it two guys from West Hollywood will and I’ll go in there and feel bad as I hand over my American Express card again and again knowing that I had the idea first.”
~Famous Last Words

I remember days at my store where the phone never rang and no one came in. When I got home I had to clear my throat to speak like you do in the morning when you wake up because I hadn’t used my voice in over nine hours.

Your blog; book; store; talk; product or whatever, will need some back story to be understood, but don’t go overboard with that.
Keep it simple and come from the heart. Heart-Full people will eventually find you and the others, well, they can start their own tribe thank you very much.

Don’t spend too much time explaining yourself
Not to your friends, your wife or potential investors. As you attempt to get validation from the peanut gallery your brilliant creative ideas will get watered down by popular opinion.

If it was easy, made perfect sense, was a sure thing or a slam dunk — there’d be a line at your door and believe me — someone would have already thought of it.

You’re an original.
Original means new, never before attempted.
Uncharted, pirate infested waters. No map, and oftentimes not all the answers.
Jesus others, what part of original are you not getting?

New Mantra: 

People will not be able to pigeonhole you and they will hate that about you. They will also despise you for not conforming.
Happy, creative people doing what they love are annoying to others.

Others also get uncomfortable with square pegs in round holes and if the world is made of round holes and you decide you are a square peg — Grow a thick skin — and don’t say I didn’t warn you…it’s gonna get awkward.

The urge to conform will be seductive.
It will drunk-text you late at night and fill your head with lies.
At one point (or seven) in your endeavor it will convince you that you fucked up, it will beg you to come back to the fold for an easy ride — and it will be right. It would be easier to conform.
But you will die the very slow death of a thousand paper cuts. And we all know how much those fuckers hurt.

You can’t make everyone like you or that thing you’re doing.
Unless you’re Beyonce or Mother Theresa. It’s an impossible goal so give it up right now Goddamnit.

People will attempt to copy you. Don’t worry about it.
They aren’t you so it will be a lousy karaoke version of your concept. And since it wasn’t their passion, their up in the middle of the night writing new ideas burning desire — they’ll get bored during the crickets phase and drop it.

Imitation has absolutely NO stamina.

Go ahead and exceed what people expect from you — but not to make a point.
Just give your creativity an outlet. Let it flow. Like blood. All over the place.

I post everyday. That smokes most bloggers. I do it because I love it. And I didn’t know any better when i started.
Listen, if it was expected of me I know I’d say, “fuck it”.
Many others have given me permission to cut back and some days I do, but I have already exceeded what was expected and as a result that created consistency, trust, and then relationships followed.

You’ve gotta show up. Day in and day out.
When I’m walking around and I stumble upon some cool new shop or cafe that is beckoning me to enter, I can never understand why in God’s name, in the middle of the day, they are CLOSED.
No sign, no hours posted, no nothing.
I don’t care how cutting edge and original you are — show the fuck up. Be open, be accessible, so I can share in you’re awesomeness.

You may fail. Like big time, skid marks on you face fail.
Think Steve Jobs being fired from his own company. You may taste public humiliation. It’s a bitter pill but you will survive, and most likely flourish.

In closing:
Try not to be an arrogant dick.
Again think Steve Jobs. He was revered — but not well liked — and I know I said people may not like you but when they fire you from your own company…

Often nonconformists have absolutely zero social skills. Mark Zuckerberg for example.
Listen, develop some, break that mold too.
Be kind to others, crack a smile, have some fun.

Be a kind, fun-loving pirate. Think Captain Jack Sparrow — or Sir Richard Branson.

Carry on my square peg pirates,
xox

A law practice.
A medical practice.
A dental practice (ugh).
All of those make me shudder.
Still practicing? Really? Or continued mastery? Getting better at it all the time?
Often it’s not clear. I think I’ll come back when you get good.

Is it me or should they should change that?
Spiritual Practice.
Nobody suffers when you haven’t mastered tolerance; forgiveness; or downward dog. Or do they?

When you talk to anyone that’s mastered…anything, all they can tell you regarding their success is that “they put in the time.”
Nothing happens overnight.

I can be a lazy slug, and I love instant gratification—so I’m pretty much screwed.

According to the excerpt from this groovy article below, even talent won’t skip you to the front of the line; which if you think about it makes sense. If you’re good at something chances are you have no resistance to a shit-ton of practice. You’ll rack up your ten thousand hours in no time!

So here it comes: I’m newly committed to this anomaly; this control freak Kryptonite—this thing called…SURRENDER.

And just like in the old days, when I used to suck at meditation; I’m willing to put in the time. But unlike meditation where you commit to sit twenty to forty minutes a couple of times a day; you guys! it is literally a minute by minute commitment!

I know that it will most likely take me the rest of my life to feel as if I have the hang of this, but I’m willing to put in the practice.

That is until I see something shiny—then all bets are off!

Ten thousand hours is a rule of thumb that gets thrown around a lot. If you practiced every hour of every day it would take you over four hundred days to reach mastery according to this theory. Which is why “an hour here, an hour there” WOULD actually take a lifetime.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Falling in love with Practice. I think THAT’S the key. Repetition over repulsion (I just made that up!).

Just some Friday-Food-For-Thought. It’s where I’m at right now.
Practicing acceptance.(Wait. What? Why can’t I have what I want, when I want it?) Practicing ease and flow. (Wait. I always thought that was a legend—yet there are some that say it exists) Practicing surrender. (Wait. Did that guy just cut in front of me?)

Carry on,
xox

10,000 Hours of Practice

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How does Gladwell arrive at this conclusion? And, if the conclusion is true, how can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in our professions?

Gladwell studied the lives of extremely successful people to find out how they achieved success. This article will review a few examples from Gladwell’s research, and conclude with some thoughts for moving forward.

Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers.

Natural Talent: Not Important

One fascinating point of the study: No “naturally gifted” performers emerged. If natural talent had played a role, we would expect some of the “naturals” to float to the top of the elite level with fewer practice hours than everyone else. But the data showed otherwise. The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.

Sneaking Out to Write Code

You already know how Microsoft was founded. Bill Gates and Paul Allen dropped out of college to form the company in 1975. It’s that simple: Drop out of college, start a company, and become a billionaire, right? Wrong.

Further study reveals that Gates and Allen had thousands of hours of programming practice prior to founding Microsoft. First, the two co-founders met at Lakeside, an elite private school in the Seattle area. The school raised three thousand dollars to purchase a computer terminal for the school’s computer club in 1968.

A computer terminal at a university was rare in 1968. Gates had access to a terminal in eighth grade. Gates and Allen quickly became addicted to programming.

The Gates family lived near the University of Washington. As a teenager, Gates fed his programming addiction by sneaking out of his parents’ home after bedtime to use the University’s computer. Gates and Allen acquired their 10,000 hours through this and other clever teenage schemes. When the time came to launch Microsoft in 1975, the two were ready.

Practice Makes Improvement

In 1960, while they were still an unknown high school rock band, the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany to play in the local clubs.

The group was underpaid. The acoustics were terrible. The audiences were unappreciative. So what did the Beatles get out of the Hamburg experience? Hours of playing time. Non-stop hours of playing time that forced them to get better.

As the Beatles grew in skill, audiences demanded more performances – more playing time. By 1962 they were playing eight hours per night, seven nights per week. By 1964, the year they burst on the international scene, the Beatles had played over 1,200 concerts together. By way of comparison, most bands today don’t play 1,200 times in their entire career.

Falling in Love With Practice

The elite don’t just work harder than everybody else. At some point the elites fall in love with practice to the point where they want to do little else.

The elite software developer is the programmer who spends all day pounding code at work, and after leaving work she writes open source software on her own time.

The elite football player is the guy who spends all day on the practice field with his teammates, and after practice he goes home to watch game films.

The elite physician listens to medical podcasts in the car during a long commute.

The elites are in love with what they do, and at some point it no longer feels like work.

Here’s the rest of the article and their website.
http://www.wisdomgroup.com/blog/10000-hours-of-practice/

My hair’s a little cray; I have major glasses glare; I’m not sure exactly where to look; I hold the book up like a spaz, and I’m even giving you an “outtake” below!
All that to say… here I am on video you guys! Warts, wrinkly neck and all!

I did this as my act of surrender—something I’ve struggled with; had fist-fights with; but have finally decided to give-it-a-go.

My latest obsession: The Surrender Experiment— My journey into life’s perfection by Michael Singer.

I’m trying to surrender to the hand of life… so stay tuned, I’ll let you know how that’s going… Fuck you guys, I figured out how to do a video!

I gotta say—it’s kinda magic (wink)

That’s all.
Love you.
Carry on,
xox

http://untetheredsoul.com

I just spent the day writing an article about getting divorced at twenty-six for a series on divorce at all ages.

I called it I Was A Twenty-Six Year Old Divorced Unicorn because that was how…um,…unusual I felt at the time.

You see, my ex wasn’t a troll. He wasn’t a bad guy in any way. We just weren’t a good match. But you need more than that as grounds for divorce. How did I know we weren’t a match that could pass the test of time at the tender age of twenty-six?

Because I was desperately unhappy. Like can’t eat, can’t sleep unhappy.

That was my first clue. My second clue was the fact that the stress I was under (pretending I was in love) kept my appetite nonexistent and my weight at barely one hundred pounds. I know. You’re thinking Oh, boo fucking hoo, you can’t gain weight. But at five foot five, it was a real problem.

True story: At the time of my divorce my weight dropped to 97-98 lbs. I wore a size zero and looked like a skeleton. Apparently my eyesight went too because I thought I looked amazing. My mom, never one to mince words, looked at me wearing my teeny-tiny Barbie clothes and lost her cool. “You think you look good, don’t you?” she hissed. “Well, you don’t! You look like shit! Eat something! NOW!”

Sadly, in recent years my metabolism has begun to listen to my mother— and it has turned on me. Now when I’m under intense stress I crave raw cookie dough, and frosting out of the can; and if I eat an olive, I gain five pounds. Hand to God.

Today I searched for the one word to describe how I felt at the time. At the time I was not able to articulate exactly what I wanted and what I felt was missing—all I knew was that in my heart of hearts—I wanted more. That’s when it suddenly came to me—greedy. I felt greedy. Not a positive word because my emotion at the time was so misunderstood.

“More than what?” my dad had asked me upon hearing that I wanted a divorce. “What more could you possibly want? It doesn’t seem like anyone can make you happy!”

Wow! He was right about that. That was my job, only I didn’t know it at the time.

I only knew that something profoundly wonderful was missing, and I wasn’t able or willing to settle.

So that made me feel greedy. And greedy felt wrong.

Other people settle. Why can’t I?
Believe me when I say, It would be so much easier to just stay married!

“I’m a freakin’ unicorn! An anomaly; and NO ONE understands or knows what to make of me!”

Once I was single, I found out guys didn’t want to date a twenty-six year old divorcee.

Typical First Date Conversation:

“So, you ever been married?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? He die?”

“Uh, no, we’re divorced.”

“He cheat on you?”

“Nope.”

“He left you?”

“Nope. I left him.”

(Beat) “Waiter, check please!”

Obviously I needed to set my bar higher.

What I eventually discovered, after a whole lot of sleepless nights, and years of pain, was that there were benefits to divorce; to asking more from life; to refusing to settle; to being greedy.

I also forgot that a Unicorn is a mystical, rare and beautiful creature.

So I’m curious…

This being what it is, more of a stream of consciousness, I want to turn the tables and ask you guys:

Q- What does it mean to you to settle? When have you done it and when could you not?

Q- Do you agree with the word greedy? What word would you choose when things look good but you want more?

Q- Are you a Unicorn? Why?

I love you all madly, carry on,
xox

The other day my sweet, seventeen year old daughter/friend was relaying yet another episode of the teen-angst drama that is her life.

“Nobody likes me when they first meet me” she said over a ridiculously expensive order of avocado toast (when did that become a thing?) and eggs. Before I could inquire as to why that was the case, she laid it all out for me; and you know what? The more things change the more they stay the same, only these days—they just have better names.

“They say I have an epic resting bitch face. I’m notorious for it.” I could sense her pride.

I stole a piece of her avocado deliciousness and feigned ignorance in order to maintain my highly coveted, second-mom status. “What? What are you talking about? Your face is stuck in a constant state of adorableness.”

But I knew what they were talking about. I’d seen it in candid photos of her. Her resting bitch face could stop a train.

She is a shy girl; extremely smart with a highly defined bullshit detector (which I’d like the credit for teaching her), but when she’s unaware you’re looking; her face says: Keep moving, there’s nothing here for you. You’re boring. Life is boring. Why are you still here?

It keeps away the riffraff.

It’s not just women, my husband has a resting bitch face that he has crafted and honed over many decades. It says: Don’t bother me you stupid person—unless you have a dog, then it can come sit next to me. He has a cleft between his eyebrows that could hold a quarter. He looks like an assassin—until he smiles—then his whole face lights up and gives him away.

Because I know those two as well as I do, I think the sensitive ones among us have the most murderous resting bitch faces.

It’s like the moat around the castle. It takes effort to get in. If you get scared away—so be it. You lose.

One night while sitting around gabbing, a couple of my friends were surprised when the conversation turned to their resting bitch faces. One was absolutely crest-fallen. She had no idea she even had one. But it explained why no one would come and talk to her at social gatherings which had bothered her for years. “I looked over and saw you driving once—honey, your resting bitch face is terrifying!” our other friend divulged with an appalling lack of tact, after too much Sangria.

“Fuck you, I’m a nice person, besides, nobody’s face looks happy all the time” she huffed, not wanting to hear it.

I attempted to smooth things over.

“It’s a form of social anxiety. I don’t think we’re aware of what our faces say when we’re not trying. Kinda like tone of voice. Some people just have a dismissive tone of voice (my husband’s second line of defense, the alligators in the moat). They don’t mean to. They can’t hear it. It’s the same for their face. They don’t mean to be a bitch face—they just can’t see what other people see. I’ve been told I have one that could freeze fire”

“Damn, I was scared of you until I got to know you”, people used to say to me when I was younger—only I was a bitch—and my face was like that all the time so…

Seriously though, I became aware of my own resting bitch face back in the nineties; the decade where I unwittingly scared ALL men and most animals and small children.
One day as I was rushing through the madness that is the DMV, (which is impossible, I just told myself that to maintain my sanity), as I was herded like the rest of the cattle to stand on the line to have my picture taken, the lovely, overworked and highly under appreciated woman snapped it while I was unaware; waiting for her to look up and say cheese or whatever. I heard a click and took that as my cue to smile my big red-lipstick smile.

A couple of weeks later when I received my license in the mail, there she was staring back at me, that holy terror—my resting bitch face—caught two seconds before the smile.

Yikes! Who was that girl?
She didn’t look warm or approachable.
She looked like she’d jump onto your shoulders and snap your neck with her thighs just for the fun of it.
Maaaaaaybe I could see what people meant when they called me intimidating;
Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t get a date to save my life?

I took notice. Now I paid attention to the feedback I received about my castle/moat energy and I tried to soften the fuck up. It took years. Resting bitch face still creeps in occasionally if I’m tired or around people I don’t know.

Work in progress you guys.

Listen, do you have a resting bitch face or is it your tone of voice? What is your moat?

Carry on bitches!
xox

Quit listening to the “experts”.
Stop tying to conform.
Finally realize how one-of-a-fucking-kind you are!
Make like a unicorn and believe in the unbelievable.
Believe in yourself and be the best you,you can be!
Happy Sunday you guys!
xox

*Perhaps the best thing I’ve read about the connection between the mind and the body. EVER.
Hands down!
I know Liz did the wise thing and cautioned everyone regarding this method—but I say DO IT!
DO TRY THIS AT HOME!
What have you got to lose?

I advise the people who ask me, to talk to their body. Make friends,with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s weight, a “bad” knee or cancer. Your body is NOT your enemy you guys, it’s your ally and it wants to partner with you to achieve balance and health so you can both lead the best life ever!
Carry on to health,
xox

“PERHAPS I AM STRONGER THAN I THINK” — Thomas Merton

Dear Friends-
I’ve spent the last eleven days hiking in the Italian Alps.

And that is a sentence that — 15 years ago — I would never have imagined myself ever writing.

I used to have a bad knee. It started during my divorce, when every part of me was falling apart — head to toe, inside and out. But my left knee was the worst of it. I twisted it one day, and it was never the same again. I couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs without pain. At the time I went to see a doctor about it, who said simply, “Well, that’s why they call it getting older, and not getting younger.” (Thanks, doc.)

For years, I babied my knee. I identified myself as someone whose knees were “bad”, the way certain dogs and neighborhoods are called “bad”. If I took a yoga class, and the teacher asked if anyone had any physical limitations, I dutifully raised my hand and explained that I had a bad knee. I was given special movements, and told to be extra careful. Every new doctor was told about my bad knee. My friends knew about my bad knee. I iced it and heated it and put braces on it and took tons of ibuprofen and kept my range of motion limited because of it. I visited all kinds of professionals — traditional and alternative, alike.
But my knee never stopped hurting.
Until 5 years ago.

Now listen — before I go on here, please don’t do anything stupid to your body because of what I’m about to say, OK? I’m not a medical professional, and you must be a wise steward of your own lovely physical being.

But here is what happened to me.

One day — and it did happen suddenly, one day — about five years ago, I asked my knee what it wanted from me.
I literally spoke to it. I got very quiet, and very sleepy, and I said, “Tell me what you need from me, dear knee. I’m listening. I’ll do whatever you say. Surgery? A replacement? More gentle care? More acupuncture? A change of diet? Reiki? Just give me the word.”

Then I got very quiet, and my knee told me what it wanted. I heard the answer in the depths of my mind, as clear as day. It said, “GO FASTER.”

Go faster, said my knee. Go running. Go climbing. Go dancing. Use me. Jump up and down on me. I am a KNEE. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I am wondrously designed, said my knee. I am not a weak point, but a strong one. I am part of your body, and I want to be used. I am not a symbol of your divorce. I am not a sign of aging. I am not a problem. Don’t baby me. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being treated like a Victorian invalid lady who has to take to her bed because of her fainting spells. I am not weak. Stop this. Please, please, please — said my “bad” knee to me — please stop using me as an expression of your weakness, fear, and emotional fragility. Please talk to your therapist about whatever troubles are ongoing in your mind, but don’t blame for everything. Please just trust me. Please just use me as I was designed. Use me as a freaking KNEE.

The next day — hand to God — I went running for three miles and I was fine. I’ve been fine ever since.
Again — PLEASE don’t go and do anything physically stupid to yourselves because of this story. I can barely explain it myself — how suddenly my “bad” knee was no longer bad. I have never been able to speak to a body part so clearly again, and I know it seems crazy that it happened at all.
But it happened.

There was pain (remember — that was my “divorce knee”) and then I was finally ready to put the pain away, and to stop using my knee as a pain-memorial.

All I know is this — that pain is a complicated and multi-layered force. Nobody experiences pain the same way, which is why it’s so difficult to treat. Some of our pain abides in the body, and some of it abides in the mind, and some of it abides in our histories. As pain moves through us, it passes through what scientists call “amplification centers” in our beings. Our emotions are amplification centers. our fear is an amplification center. Our imaginations are amplification centers. Our anger, too. All of these parts of ourselves amplify the pain in our mind, and sometimes commit to that pain fully — forever.

I had a friend once who injured her back during a hard time in her life, and it didn’t recover for years. One day, a doctor finally asked her, “What was the first thing you thought, when you felt your back go out?”
My friend said, “I thought, ‘This is going to hurt me for the rest of my life”.
The doctor, very kindly, said, “Maybe it’s time for you to stop thinking that.”
Her healing began there.

I believe that I did hurt my knee 15 years ago — but mildly, temporarily, and not in a way that it needed to cause me pain for a decade. I believe that my “bad” knee lived on inside my mind, not in my knee itself. When pain abides in the mind, it does not mean you are crazy, or that the pain is any less “real”. Trust me, my knee HURT. It just means that pain is living on within your body because — for some reason — it must. Because you are not done suffering. Because I was in heart-pain for ten years, and that pain needed a location. My poor knee took the pain for me. Until it didn’t want to any more.
Anyhow — what if you are stronger than you think?

I am all for people treating themselves with gentle loving care (and maybe part of my recovery from emotional pain was all about focusing on treating my knee like a poor, suffering baby — so that I could take care of myself with kindness at some level. Maybe that helped me to heal my heart.) But what if there are parts of your body that don’t want to be babied forever?

What if every single part of us longs to be USED?

What if our bodies long to be freed from the past, so that they can move as they were designed to move?

What if our hearts long to love?

What if our minds long to be creative?

What if our spirits just want everything to be forgiven?

What if your knee wants you to climb a mountain, to show you how powerful you actually are?

Wouldn’t that be crazy?

Wouldn’t that be freaking wild?

Wouldn’t that fill you with so much joy, you feel that your heart may burst from it?

ONWARD,
LG

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com