Awakening

“We have perfected the attitude of worry. If we don’t have something to worry about, that worries us.”—Michele Longo O’Donnell

Stress is a thug and a thief.
It’s a thug because it has such little regard for our well being, and a thief because it absconds with BIG chunks of our time.
They add up.

Stress, that jerk, has looted years of accumulated hours from my life.

So I have no problem giving stress the finger, whenever I can.

I take great glee in pissing it off.

Here are the top ten things that piss-off stress.
Practice them wisely…..and often.

1) Rest.
Stress HATES when we’re well rested. We make better decisions, we’re on our game and less likely to muck things up.
Naps, long weekends and vacations are its Kryptonite.

2) A Sense of Humor/Laughing.
Have you ever tried to laugh while completely stressed out? A real, deep belly laugh? It’s almost impossible. It’s akin to keeping your eyes open when you sneeze. The two CANNOT co-exist.

3) Asking for help.
Stress can’t stand it when we realize our limitations, delegate and ask for help. It needs a frazzled, over extended, perfectionist, control freak as a host. Calling in the Calvary BEFORE you’ve reached your wit’s end, sends stress the silent Jedi signal: This is not the droid you’re looking for.

4) Believing you have enough.
If you believe you have enough time, money, resources, help and happiness, you will be invisible to stress. It will pass your house and go torment your neighbors.

5) Exercise.
Yes, it is possible to outrun stress. You can outrun it on the treadmill, or with the dogs at the park. Once that heart rate goes up and those endorphins kick in, stress will NOT be able to keep up. Stress carb loads; it always goes for seconds, eats peanut butter out of the jar with a serving spoon, and parks illegally in the handicapped space, so it never has to walk far. Stress hates a fit body and a clear head.

6) Organization.
When you’re well organized, meaning, you know where everything is, and can easily find it, stress has a shit fit.
How can it fuck with you and mess with your head, if you can immediately come up with your passport, keys, glasses, insurance papers, rent check, stamps, cat nail clipper and both of the same black sandals?

7) Behaving like a grown up.
Stress despises adult behavior. Stress is counting on us to NEVER grow up. It adores a good temper tantrum and will do everything in its power to keep us from getting our ducks in a row. As a matter of fact, it is heavily invested in the prospect of us not saving for retirement, avoiding responsibility, making uninformed decisions and never planning for the future.

8) Self care.
This pisses-off stress almost more than anything. Getting a massage, doing yoga and meditating. Those are three of its mortal enemies. It throws its hands up, shakes its head and walks away in defeat. It can’t take hold of a peaceful mind.

9) Not caring what other people think.
Once you drop that bad habit, stress will have to go find another victim. Don’t feel bad for a second. There are millions.

10) Awareness.
Stress has a fit when you call it out. It can’t stand that you know its name and what it looks like.
It would rather stay anonymous, in one of its many disguises. As a headache, an ulcer, colitis, hives, over eating, over spending, depression and anxiety.
I told you, it’s a thug.
It knows, that once you know why it’s there, it’s days are numbered.

Can you think of more ways to piss off stress? Tell me what you do, I’d LOVE to hear some comments!

Xox

FIXATE

2) technical, direct one’s eyes toward.
“subjects fixated on a central point”

When riding our motorcycle, it is very important that Raphael look up the road, just ahead of us. One reason seems obvious, so that he can gauge the road, it’s bumps, cracks and any debris; to see the banking of a curve, in order to slow down – in other words, he looks ahead to keep us safe.

What he absolutely cannot do is fixate on one particular object, you know why?

Because wherever you look – is where you will go.

Fixation can send you into the bushes on its best day, and off a cliff on its worst.

I’ve seen many a biker go down on the side of a road because he fixated on a blinking sign, a parked CHP car, or a dog running on the median.

It’s inevitable.
It’s law.

Ask yourself right now, Where or what am I fixated on? Are you headed for a fall?

An acquaintance of mine is in the middle of a remodel.
All she can focus on are the things that haven’t been done, or the tiny things that need to be fixed. She cannot, for the life of her, see all the beautiful tile and finishes of her amazing masterpiece.

Driving over in the car she was fixating on all the sucky things she’d find.
It was all she could talk about. She was in full obsession mode.

So what were her eyes only capable of seeing? The fuck ups.

She was so off in the bushes, it was impossible for her to get any enjoyment from the beautiful fireplace that had just been installed. The stone work was gorgeous, the mantle, incredible. Instead, she was stuck in the foyer, freaking out over a scratch in the drywall.

It’s all she could see.
Crying and yelling and blaming – oh my.
She’s likely to go off the cliff soon.

Several of my friends are already knotting up their stomachs in anticipation of the Holidays. They’re fixated on the shenanigans they’ve come to expect throughout the years. They’re preoccupied with the dysfunction of every jolly participant.

You know where they’re going to end up?
Off road, in the dirt, sadly stuck on the road of dysfunctional shenanigans.

Where you’re fixated is where you will go.
What you’re obsessed with is what you’ll see.
Every time.
Swear to God.
Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Be careful. Mindfully fixate on good things for a change.

This is also the cousin of: Would you rather be right? Or happy?
Ouch.

This has been a Public Service Announcement – from me.

Xox

“A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that’s unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.”
~Ludwig Wittgenstein

From yesterday’s Ted Talk by Michael Neill.
That quote still gets to me. When I think of all the tears and energy I’ve wasted all those MANY times I’ve pushed instead of pulled.
How about you?

Happy Sunday my loves!

Xox

Morning Loves,
I love Ted Talks and I LOVE when I see someone have such a good time delivering one.
This is a Ted Talk and subsequent article from my new hero, Michael Neill. There are so many people out there talking about this new way of thinking, I just like his delivery SO MUCH.
So of course, I HAD to share it with you!
Great information with lots of fun and humor. Please take the time to watch or read. It’s the weekend for chrissakes.

Big mid-summer love,
xox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr6VawX2nr4

Michael Neill is an internationally renowned success coach and the best-selling author of The Inside Out Revolution, You Can Have What You Want, Feel Happy Now!, the Effortless Success audio program and Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life. He has spent the past 22 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEOs, royalty, and people who want to get more out of their lives. His books have been translated into 13 languages, and his public talks and seminars have been well received at the United Nations and around the world

http://www.bornhappy.co/michael-neills-formula-for-happiness/

“Miracles can happen, even to those who are small, flammable, and dressed all in black.”
― Lemony Snicket

This being a Flash Back Friday, it gives me the opportunity to recall events, places, people and bad hair styles from my past. So, when I sat down to write, this story of a mystical experience I had back in the day came to mind.
It is just one of many I experienced back then.

If you recall, I was having a hard time of it back in the early nineties.
I had a good life. Great job, money, travel, the whole shebang, but I had opened myself up to a very life altering spiritual experience – awakening is a better word, and it had knocked me on my ass – spiritually speaking.
(I wrote a few posts about it. You can find them under We Have An Agreement in the search section of the sidebar)

I was having a hell of a time staying grounded which has its own set of problems, the worst ones being, I HATED how I felt and I could find NO joy in life.

“If this is enlightenment? It sucks and you can have it!” I’d yell to no one in particular.

It is my understanding, garnered from the very extensive and exhaustive study of ME and my experience; that the Universe in order to keep you in the game, lays a carpet studded with mystical miracles at your feet. In a blatant display of showoffery, they are so IN YOUR FACE that as whacked out and pissed off as you’ve become – you still see them.

So, I’m a wackjob on my way to work a jewelry show, and I stop at a drugstore on my route to get my favorite gum at the time, Carefree peppermint. It came in a hurt your eyes, bright yellow package, with twenty four delicious sticks of yumminess that you’d pull out from the top. It was one of the few things that made me happy, so of course the drugstore was out of it. Nothing else appealed to me, so I left – gum less and grumpy.

As I pulled onto LaCienega and waited at the light across from the Beverly Center, I could hear the radio in the car to the left of me, even with my windows up, blaring the Rod Stewart song “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You.”
As I shot the two young men with the questionable musical taste, my best exasperated, too cool for school, are you f-ing kidding me, stink eye; the one closest, motioned for me to roll down my window.
Did I mention that they looked like angels? GQ model angels, with big white toothed smiles? But since it was West Hollywood I just assumed they were gay and going to ask for directions.

I rolled down my window at the longest red light in history, and the beautiful model/angel reached out to hand me something. I know I made a WTF face as I pulled my whole body to the left to be able to reach my arm far enough to take what he was so intent on giving me.

It had a bright yellow wrapper. It was a stick of my Carefree Peppermint Gum!
I kid you not.

I sat there, holding the gum, with my bottom jaw hanging in my lap, while the drivers behind me began to honk, as the light had been green for a second already, and they were very important and I was making them late. 

The two smiley guys were up ahead, the Rod Stewart song still hanging in the hair like cheap perfume.

If you know that section of LaCienega heading south, you know there are several lights in quick secession that are synced up in such a way that they are perpetually red.
It’s a joke, but not the funny kind, and if I hadn’t been on my gum quest I would have avoided it at all costs.

So in less than a minute I am again stopped next to my new best friends, who are still smiling, Rod is still singing, and I’m composed enough to mouth Thank You while holding up the gum.
We did that for three lights until they finally turned left. Either the song had finished or they were embarrassed that they had given me their last piece of gum.

Okay, so I knew that was weird. I’m not even sure I told anyone. I had turned so dark and odd at that point, dressing all in black with pennies in my shoes, that I don’t think anyone was taking anything I said seriously anyway.

Here’s the kicker.
When I got back to the shop after doing the show in Santa Monica for three days, I went about my usual mindless tasks, one of them being to check the answer machine.
Yes, early ninties, remember? Cell phones were the size and weight of bricks. We all had answer machines, and the one that day at work told me it was full.

73 messages.
Jeez.
Okay.
Press Play.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
Fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles that’s what you do

Yep. Rod Stewart, THAT song, every message until the tape ran out.

Explain that away.

I guess I just needed minty fresh breath and to hear that I was loved, and BOY did I!
Xox

Tell me the story of your miracle!

Xox

Here’s the audio if that’s what you prefer.
https://soundcloud.com/jbertolus/rod-stewart-carefree

As you wake up and become more conscious, you start to clean up all your messes from the past, mend fences and take responsibility for all your decisions. It’s called accountability.
It’s ALL part of the process.

Have a great Saturday my loves,
xox

Keep it simple – Happy Sunday!
Love you

I remember riding on the motorcycle last summer along the continental divide, admiring the groves of beautiful Aspen trees that filled the landscape for mile after mile, as far as the eye could see. At that point in September, their leaves were just turning the color of butter.

They are one of my favorite trees.
I have often marveled at their physical beauty, their mottled white bark and the shimmer of their leaves. But when one of my teachers back in the day, told me their amazing story, and how it related to humanity – well, I developed an entirely different appreciation.

Somehow the roads conspired with the music in my ears (or I’d just gotten better at choosing the tracks) as we would wind in and out of the gently sweeping curves, the edges lined with groves of graceful Aspens.

I like big, full orchestra, large, sweeping instrumental pieces when we zig zag through forests.

It provides a perfect soundtrack.
You all have soundtracks that run through your lives – right?

The day I’m thinking of in particular, I was listening to Peter Gabriel’s New Blood Special Edition, which is his genius SO album mixed with full, and I mean a FULL orchestra.
Many of the instrumental tracks are over seven minutes long and IN YOUR EYES, playing at full volume in my headphones all throughout the mountains of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, just made me weep.
Perfect temperature, scenery, music, road and company often do that to me.
It really is magic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq9ZHVAOZDw

Here’s what’s so unusual and really quite mystical about the Aspens.
They are believed to originate from the root system of Pando, which at an estimated 80,000 years old, is thought to be among the oldest living organisms on the planet.

Aspens are very rarely solitary trees, their roots can lie dormant under the surface for years, for instance after a forest fire, or severe climate change, where they will wait for the optimum conditions for an entire grove, not just a few to flourish.

A tree is actually an above-ground stem that has emerged from a single underground root structure.

In other words, they are a collective, a community, all connected to each other with a strength and durability that remains unseen.

Don’t you love that?

My teacher relayed that story to me (which of course I immediately looked up, because it sounded like a bullshit fairytale) to make the point about the origins of our human souls.
He hated that description: human soul. It would get him all fired up, red in the face.

“The soul is immortal, being human for a brief moment of time,” he’d huff.

“It is ancient, and every soul is connected, like the root system of Pando, Pando representing God or Source or whatever you want to call it. We, humanity, are the like stems or Aspen trees, we think once we’re above ground that we are autonomous, (the trees would NEVER be that stupid) when quite the opposite is true.” He was on a roll now.

He continued, “We get all of our wisdom, strength, and beauty from our unseen connection to each other and God. When one part of the group of Aspens is suffering, it affects the whole, once a certain percentage dies, the whole grove is lost. When it thrives, the same is true.”

He was making the second point about a world community, and about the fact that we should care what goes on not only next door to us, but down the street, in the next county, state and every country of the world. We tend to not pay particular attention to wars and suffering in faraway lands, but if you subscribe to the Aspen analogy, any human suffering affects the whole.

That particular teacher was a citizen of the world and he had a soapbox and wasn’t afraid to use it.

As I rode through the groves of Aspens, beholding all the beauty in front of me for those three weeks at the end of last summer,  I remembered his lecture and I could feel how sacred this planet truly is.

If you EVER doubt that, walk or ride, through nature.
No pulpit necessary.
That my loves is Church.

Tell me, do you feel the Universal connection in nature? How can we practice more connection in our day-to-day lives? Any thoughts? I LOVE your feedback!

Sending Aspen Connected Love,
Xox

We talked in the Wednesday Group about clean living.
B O R I N G……..(insert loud snoring here)

Actually, we talked about it with genuine enthusiasm; healthy eating, minimizing alcohol and caffeine consumption, dialing down the gossip, amping up the exercise, trying some liver cleansing and becoming financially responsible.

It may not seem to make any sense but it all comes part and parcel with becoming self aware.

We must clean our house before the big guns, self esteem, self awareness and self reliance can come to stay.

Here’s where things start to get a bit dicey:
Your life REALLY makes an about face when you become self empowered and ramp up your yoga, meditation, prayer, green juice and self love consumption.

As you undertake this internal housekeeping, not only do you and your liver become furious knuckleheads (temporarily) but so do the people and circumstances around you.

I was told at about this point in my spiritual journey, twenty or so years ago, when I couldn’t believe how ridiculous everyone around me was behaving; this honey of a tongue twister:

You can’t unknow what you now know

Huh?

In other words, there was no going back.
No more Eyes Wide Shut.

Oh…..how I prayed at times to go back to being unconscious, and now so are my women.

All the Good Time Charlie’s that used to appear so charming, jovial, fun and engaging while they dispensed their alcohol fueled advise; now they seem like raging alcoholics, in horrible jobs, with relationships they can’t stand and their advise is just…….well, it’s justBAD.
Honestly.
When did THAT happen?

How did we never see that before?

You’re out there, transforming your little ass off, making all these brave, impressive changes in your life, and the peanut gallery is……. supportive…..except for the ones in the bleachers that want you to stay the same.
They are fearful and they are LOUD.
They call, they text, they email and talk to your family as they fight to remain relevant in your life.
One of the interesting things that happens as you awaken is that the Universe will supply to you, a living, breathing, “devil’s advocate” who embodies all your doubts and fears and becomes like gum on the bottom of your shoe – annoying and hard to get rid of.

It’s a good plan. It causes you to plead your case, gain clarity and steels your resolve to evolve.

As you survey the landscape of your previous life, you realize it was populated by a cast of rather reckless characters, of which YOU were the ringleader.

Your eyes were wide shut as you ran up your credit card debit, enabled a friend, and did your best impression of an ostrich, head in the sand, while bills, the shrapnel of your lousy choices and legal papers gathered around you and swallowed your butt.

It was a bit of a circus, and we all know, when you join the circus – you join for life….unless you open your eyes and clean things up, and that doesn’t make your circus family very happy when you decide to ditch your baggage and leave the Big Top.

Some people around you, old friends and co workers will seem crazy and even a bit frightening. 
Don’t be alarmed, you may just have to chill while the circus leaves town and circles back around.
Give them time.
They’ll get used to the new Eyes Wide Open you, and they’ll either embrace the new, improving you….or not.

In any case, just love them.
The key is kindness and the very thing we all desire – acceptance.
Send them light and love and the courage to open their eyes.

How are the people around you behaving? Are they accepting your “eyes wide open?” How do you avoid getting hurt and angry? I’d love to hear about it!

Sending circus love,
Xox

SURRENDER
sur·ren·der
səˈrendər/
(verb)
1. cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.
synonyms: capitulate, give in, give (oneself) up, give way, yield, concede
(defeat), submit, climb down, back down, cave in, relent, crumble

1. give up or hand over (a person, right, or possession), typically on compulsion or demand.

“Always seek less turbulent skies.
Hurt. Fly above it.
Betrayal. Fly above it.
Anger. Fly above it.
You are the one who is flying the plane.”
― Marianne Williamson

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been known to continue to fly straight into the most turbulent sky’s.
Seat backs upright, tray tables locked in their upright position, death grip on the wheel, bleary eyes staring straight ahead.
The freakin’ FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS sign mocking me with its continuous, blaring red gaze.

Bumpy………Choppy……..Shit…………………Shit!

There I’d remain, resolute; until exhaustion set in, or whiplash, or both, and I would be forced to surrender the wheel.

Then, a force greater than myself, would steer my plane toward smooth horizons.

I wrote the other day about letting go of the wheel, and that really resonated with many of you. Letting the Muse or the Universe take over the accomplishment of all our endeavors. People wept with relief. Just the thought of it brought tears to their eyes.

But you can’t just throw your hands up, and put the plane on auto pilot.

Auto pilot to me; is just more of the same.
Super safe. It doesn’t rise, it doesn’t dive, it goes full steam ahead.
No change of course.

So here’s the deal. You have to take it a step further and SURRENDER the wheel.

I always HATED the word surrender. To me, it meant giving up.

Running that white flag up the pole to signal to everyone that you’ve just conceded the fight…..cause…..relationship….job….whatever.

It signified weakness.

I could not have been more wrong. Did you hear me? That’s WRONG.

“When we surrender to God, the Universe, Source, we surrender to something bigger than ourselves – to a Universe that knows what it’s doing.
When we stop trying to control events, they fall into a natural order, an order that works. We’re at rest while a power much greater than our own takes over, and it does a much better job than we could have done. We learn to trust that the power that holds galaxies together can handle the circumstances of our relatively little lives.”
~Marianne Williamson

It takes a great deal of courage to surrender. It is the opposite of cowardice.

It does not mean you’re giving away your power, on the contrary, you are powerful enough to realize that you may not have ALL the answers.
All the most powerful, accomplished people in the world are surrounded by a TEAM. When they’ve exhausted all their options, they make a calculated decision. They are deeply invested, they pay attention, BUT, they let the experts drive.

The experts are sent by the Universe.

Here’s a little secret. You know how my store was a causality of a freak urban flood?
Earlier that day, completely worn out and emotionally exhausted from fighting the good fight of trying to keep my store afloat financially, I sat in meditation and literally said: “I surrender. You take it,” over and over, picturing my arms up in the air, above my head, like the robber emerging after the bank heist.

I gave in. I yelled “Uncle.”

The next day, when I woke up……..the store was just a soggy memory. Gone. Finished.
Um, thanks?

My courage had to catch up with my request, because it wasn’t at ALLLLLL what I was expecting. But that’s how the Universe rolls.

“Surrender means, by definition, giving up attachment to results. When we surrender to God, we let go of our attachment to how things happen on the outside and we become more concerned with what happens on the inside.”
~Marianne Williamson

They’ll be times when you can’t guide your own plane to clear sky’s.
You just can’t for life of you find any.

Pry your hands off the wheel, put your seat back, disengage the auto-pilot, relax and SURRENDER the entire situation to the Universe.

Then ring for the flight attendant to bring you a cocktail.

What needed surrendering in your life TODAY? Have you had success with surrender in the past? I’d LOVE to hear about it?

Xox