change

ELEGANT
el·e·gant
ˈeləgənt/
adjective: elegant
1.pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance or manner.
“she will look elegant in black” (a reason why I always wear black, ha!)
synonyms: stylish, graceful, tasteful, sophisticated, classic, chic, smart.
antonyms: messy, unwieldy (hot mess)!

Oh yeah, I’ve talked about this. I cautioned you in the previous post.
We can aspire to it, aim for it, even pray for it, but enlightenment, spiritual awakening, whatever you want to name it, is rarely elegant.

And by rarely…I mean never.

There is a mine field of inelegance that surrounds becoming conscious.
You can side step the big stuff, like disaster and dis-ease, but you’ll still get your shoes dirty.
It’s kinda the name of the game.
If it was pretty; clean and easy, everyone would do it.

Take meditation for instance.
I can’t tell you how many friends have said this to me: When I started meditation, all hell broke loose.
It starts out all zen and blissful, with the breath and the inner peace. You will have that in your back pocket for life; but ask anyone who’s seriously meditated for a while.
Shit can hit the fan!
If you meditate every day, you literally change your brain…and your body.
You put the monkey mind in its place, and make your connection with source.

But source likes a clean link. It doesn’t like an old plugged up infrastructure, so it cleans and clears things out. When that happens, all your bad habits, your sabotaging self talk, your anger, hate, rage, lack of forgiveness, selfishness, greed, and jealousy, to name a few, are chased out of the shadows and into the light.

Get the fan.

This will set you free, but these guys won’t be graceful, chic or elegant.
They will give you the middle finger on their way out.
Meditation shook their cage, and they’re pissed.

Yoga is right up there too. A great practice, amazing for the mind and body, but it’s not just exercise, there is a spiritual aspect to Yoga that you can’t get around.
Yoga in Sanskrit means “the Divine Union”. Using the physical postures to bring the mind under control and join with the Higher Self or Source.

Uh oh.
Get the fan.

A regular Yoga practice will unleash all the usual suspects.
Anger will be released from your hip joints, sadness from your shoulders.
There will be heart openings, epic realizations, even tears.
It will free YOU as well…it just won’t be elegant.

Choosing the path less traveled.
Operating outside your comfort zone.
Mindful living.
Being of Service.
All call for making the tough choices, lots of “no’s” = Fast track to a more enlightened life.
Elegance…not so much.

Enlightenment is the loftier, more desirable pursuit of the two, but it has been my experience that you can’t have both.
Choose wisely.

XoxJanet

“All great changes are preceded by chaos.”

My friend loves that saying. She laughs every time we remember together the first time I said that to her when her well-oiled life suddenly hit the skids.

But it is!! Change is messy. I wish it were tidy, but…it’s not.

Change takes its big muddy feet and leaves its tracks on your life’s clean floors.

“Every positive change–every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness–involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception.”
~Dan Millman

It can feel like a ten car pile up or an out of tune piano concerto.
Your choice.
But it ain’t gonna be pretty…at least not at first.

You wanna know the Ah HA I had around change recently?

You can never be good at it— in…the…beginning.
How could you be?
By its very definition change is uncharted territory.
It’s different and it’s new and I don’t know about you, but I have a pretty steep learning curve with different and new!

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept is as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”
– Eckhart Tolle

All you CAN be is compliant.
You can act like you ordered change because you know what?
You probably did, you just can’t remember.
It was on that list somewhere, on the back of a napkin, or a crumpled piece of paper in some jacket pocket.

Maybe it was disguised under the title: Finding the perfect man.

Except, he lives in Chicago and you live in San Diego.

Or, I need a better job. 3 months later, at the worst possible time, you get laid off.

Expand my business. That means thinking bigger, learning new skills, hiring and maybe even firing people.

Get to my ideal weight. That can look like getting up at 5 am to meet a friend or a trainer at the gym before work, which also means early to bed, which probably means no wine. I told you. Messy!

All of this is very do-able.
But in the beginning, it can shake up your life like a 7.0 earthquake. It feels so groundlessly uncomfortable. I literally get shaky when I’m in the midst of a big change. It’s like my body is wrestling with the new information coming in. Part of it is processing it, and the other parts want to literally break loose and run in opposite directions.

So, don’t let your body, especially your eyes deceive you.
It’s gonna look like a shit storm for a little while, especially at the start.

But you know what? You can do this! The bigger the request, the bigger the storm.
The bigger the storm, the bigger the changes.
The bigger the changes, the bigger and better the end results.

Just not right away. Sorry.

Just remember, you ordered it.
XoxJanet

What the hell!? I’ve gone and committed another act of treason on my sane and reasonable life. Seems that’s just the way I roll these days!
We picked up our 8 week old Boxer puppy on Sunday, and I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time since. What was I thinking?!?!

This blog is about to get very raw and real for the next few days, because my self editing faculties left me somewhere around Tuesday at 3am, and I have helicopter hair, meaning it looks like it was styled by a helicopter at full throttle up.

Good thing you don’t have SmellPad.
I think I showered this week…all I remember is our senior dog literally walking into the running shower with me to escape the madness. 
Desperate times, require desperate measures!

Puppy madness is different than your garden variety madness. It comes in the form of a small furry demon, with tiny needle teeth and nails that can slice a tomatoe. It leave your hands bloody stumps, your neck look like Freddy Kruger gave you a massage, and all the while your heart is breaking from cuteness overload.
Yet, it’s hard to believe, that madness has left my life in a shambles.

It’s all I can do to write a blog post, but I treat this commitment like a job I actually love.
That being said, I have fallen asleep at this table, twice.
My feet are now torn to shreds, I’ve drunk more coffee than an Italian model consumes in a month, and I have written more about sex and chocolate than one woman has any right to.
I’m finding out that’s just where my mind goes when the going gets tough. 
Good to know…not really.
Delete….delete…delete.

It’s been a seasonal 80 degrees this January here in LA. 
That’s seasonal if you live south of the equator, which makes it all the more horrifying that I’ve taken to wearing Uggs, a thick scarf and gardening gloves for protection from the boxer-shark.
I can hear you haters on the East coast…wanna trade lives?

All this to pose a question: Why do we have babies, raise puppies, get bad break-up haircuts?? Why do we f**k up our lives like that? I’ll tell you why!
Because we forget the pain AND they grow and change faster than you can say “Shit, I’ll never do THAT again”!
The Universe, in all it’s wisdom, or as a cruel joke, I haven’t decided yet, gives us amnesia to perpetuate the species and keep us from sending the piranha-puppy packing. Say that fast three times!
Plus they’re just so damn cute!

So I guess after the whisk of sleepless nights stops scrambling my days and everything settles, I’ll actually miss these times. 
But if you see me on the street in a few years and I talk about wanting another puppy…run me over with your car!
You have my permission!
XoxJanet

People suffer when they pursue a life or chase a dream that doesn’t belong to them.
~Caroline Myss~

I can’t remember which book of Caroline’s this quote is from, but the truth of it just hit me like a Mac truck!
That’s why our train’s jump the track!
I’m sure now that’s why mine did!
Doh!!! (V8 forehead slap!)

Whose dream are we living anyway, when things crash and burn?
Our mother’s dream of a singing career?
Our father’s of an Ivy League education?
Maybe we just wanted to go to Paris and become a mime!

I suppose when I opened my store I thought that was my dream.
I would tell you it was, I’ve said it in this blog!
I had run a store forever.
I bought, I sold, I merchandised it, I did the books,
I should own my own… Right?

So when my soul stirred and I wanted to leave,
I told myself that my having a store of my own was my dream.
Only today did I realize that it was my boss’s dream,
Not mine.

He ate, drank and slept the antique and jewelry business, he still does, and that’s how you know it’s your dream.
I did not.
Don’t get me wrong, I worked like a dog, but I never thought of the store when I wasn’t there…ever!

He does…His dream.
It was my job, Not my life.
Shit! It’s so clear to me now!

Why do we borrow other people’s lives/dreams?
Because we do something for so long, we call a habit, a life?

A friend lobbied me to put my store behind hers.
She was killin’ it!, making money hand over fist, and had been for 8 years at that point, and she assured me that the same would happen for me.
It did at first, but it was a hard location, and ultimately a terrible decision.
Ironically, the location actually lead to its demise.

I suffered because…I was living HER life, trying to capture HER dream, in HER perfect location.
Of course it would feel terrible!

The business was my boss’s dream, a dream I stole to raise as my own,
and my friend’s success was because SHE was living HER perfect life!

I had never even taken 5 minutes when I left jewelry, to consider that my next step might not be retail.
I left the business to follow my heart, only I was looking in the wrong direction, so I never got the memo.

My ego took charge then, it usurped my better judgement and convinced me to pursue a life and chase a dream that didn’t belong to me.
Then when that didn’t work out, it convinced me I should go back to jewelry, which was STILL not the correct path.

Note to self: the ego gives really shitty advise!

If things aren’t working, if your life is like pushing an elephant up the stairs.
If everything you try turns to shit….and you’re suffering.
I don’t care how many years you have invested, or how many diplomas you have on the wall.
Sit down a minute and ask yourself this:
“Whose life am I living”?
“Whose dream am I chasing”?

XoxJanet

“The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.” 
– George Bernard Shaw

People change.
Especially these days.
I’m certainly not the same person I was a year ago,
and I would hardly recognize myself from five years past.

So it would be the sensible thing to do when greeting someone who you haven’t seen in awhile, to whip out your energetic tape measure, and get their 
new, more recent measurements, because I guarantee you, they’ve changed!

If you’re operating under the assumption that everything about that person has
remained the same…there will be plenty of misunderstandings.
Just as you would not want to be made to fit the same mold you held years or even months ago, the same is true for every person.

Be careful, pay attention, really!
Just as you’re about to make the jokes about the many benefits of single life, like you always do with your friend, the confirmed bachelor, he reveals he was married to the love of this life a month ago!

How about your friend the staunch Republican, with whom you get into many 
a lively debate on social and political issues, telling you she’s volunteering for 
Marianne Williamson’s Congressional campaign!
Well, that was unexpected.

Or that loud obnoxious guy at work who has become thoughtful and introspective.

There is definitely change in the air, big time!
Don’t bring me Sees chocolates anymore.
I know! I used to love them, but I find they just don’t do it for me anymore.
(Thank god)

Don’t measure me by that old yardstick you carry around,
because I won’t measure up, you may be disappointed.

I’m not as serious,
I’m much more understanding,
I like Kale,
I may choose a lemon dessert,
I stay away from wearing prints these days,
I go to the gym, I don’t hike as much,
I’m leaning toward letting my hair go grey/white (shocking! I know)
I might choose the mountains over the beach,
Yet…it’s still me in here.

Ever evolving, changing my mind, open to new things,
and if next year, you’re looking for me in a crowd,
I could be the white haired woman, sipping a green drink,
whose standing right next to you!

How have you changed?

XoxJanet

“Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your way.”

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

– Steve Jobs

How can we ever come to new insights or conclusions about our lives if our existing reality is never challenged?

That would be like only eating at the salad bar because you’ve never walked the whole buffet and seen the dessert cart.

We are creatures of habit,
Scared of any turbulence or bumps in the road.
But can we learn to appreciate, even welcome, the rainy days when we only prefer clear skys?

A certain amount of failure is necessary for success, because it sends us back to the drawing board.
When something’s not working, there is clarity in that realization.
A certain amount of discomfort is good for our souls.
We know we don’t want to do that again!
so it colors all our decisions.
Like Abraham says, who comes through Esther Hicks, 
“When you know what you Don’t want. You know what you DO want”.

I’ve come to this conclusion : 
that all the great gifts that have come to me in my life,
were born out of soul searching that was either precipitated by dissatisfaction
with the status quo, or….
I was dropped kicked by the Universe in the direction of a new life change.

Either way, it felt like shit.

So, Here’s my NEW conclusion:
Big change feels scary,
It feels awkward, and uncomfortable and uncertain.
Change is rude! 
It shows up unannounced, often at the most inopportune times, and tracks it’s dirty feet through your life.
It also does a number on your diet by making you eat raw cookie dough and cereal right out of the box!

So what does this all mean?
We can either hide under the bed,
Or …we can put our arms up, 
throw our heads back,
And scream bloody murder
As we careen toward our brighter future,
On the roller coaster of life,
In full surrender mode,
Knowing the Universe has our back.