Criticism

This. This can be tricky but the results are remarkable. It’s an approach that is different but I think it’s so important to remember.

Try it.

With a lover,
With a friend,
A co-worker,
and your boss.

With a client,
a new idea or concept,
your kids,
your neighbors,
and most especially these days — your politics.

Be FOR peace instead of against war.
Be FOR a Democrat instead of against a Republican.
Be FOR the F-word instead of…well, you get the gist.

Carry on,
xox

*Below is a recent essay by Anne Lamont. I love her writing. A lot.  And I think this piece is one of her best, or at least it pierced the hard candy shell that sometimes surrounds my heart and got into the chewy, caramel center.

I love that she reminds us that words can be dangerous, they can gut someone faster and more efficiently than the sharpest Ginsu knife. Let’s all be careful with that.

And Horrible Bonnie.  God I love that!

Can I be your Horrible Janet you guys?  Reminding us ALL that everybody gets to be free?

Anyway…I though this would be a great piece to start your week.  ‘Cause I love ya!

Carry On,

xoxJ

“Nearly twenty years ago, I arrived at a fancy writer’s conference, in what were some of America’s most majestic mountains, where I was looking forward to meeting a great (and sexy) American director, who’d given a lecture the day before. But he had already left.

There was, however, a letter from him, to me: to not-all-that-well-known me. It began well enough, with praise for Bird by Bird, and gratitude for how many times it had inspired him when he got stuck while writing screenplays. He singled out my insistence on trying to seek and tell the truth, whether in memoir or fiction, and my belief that experiencing grief and fear were the way home. The way to an awakening. That God is the Really Real, as the ancient Greeks believed. And God is Love. That tears were not to be suppressed, but would, if expressed, heal us, cleanse up, baptize us, help us water the seeds of new life that were in the ground at our feet.
Coming from a world-famous director, it felt like the New York Glitterati was stamping its FDA seal of approval on me, and my work.

Unfortunately, the letter continued.

He wrote that while he had looked forward to meeting me, he’d gathered from reading my work that many of my closest friends and family members seemed to have met with traumatic life situations, and sometimes early deaths. So basically, he was getting out of Dodge before I got my tragedy juju all over him, too.

I felt mortified, exposed. He made it seem like I was a sorrow-mongerer, that instead of being present for family and friends who had cancer or sick kids or great losses, I was chasing them down.
And I flushed in that full body Niacin-flush way of toxic shame, at being put down by a man of power, that had been both the earliest, and now most recent, experiences of soul-death throughout my life.
My clingy child was drawing beside me, What did I do? You can’t use your child as a fix, like a junkie. That’s abuse; plus it won’t work.

Well, duh–I fell apart, on the inside, like a two dollar watch.

I had stopped drinking nearly 15 years before, stopped the bulimia 14 years earlier, and so did not have many reliable ways to stuff feelings back down. Also, horribly, my young child, two thousand miles from home, upon noticing my pain, clung even more tightly. I wanted to shout at him, “Don’t you have any other friends?”

What I did was the only thing that has ever worked. After finding a safe and stable person to draw with my son, I called someone and told her all my terrible fears and feelings and projections and secrets.
It was my mentor, Horrible Bonnie.

She listens.

She believes that we are here to become profoundly real, and therefore, free. But horribly–hence her name–she insists that if we want to be free, we have to let every body be free. I hate and resent this so much. It means we have to let the people in our families and galaxies be free to be asshats, if that is how they choose to live.

This however, does not mean we have to have lunch with them. Or go on vacation with them again. But we do have to let them be free.
She also knows, and said that day, that Real can be a nightmare in this world that is so false. The pain and exhaustion of becoming real can land you in the an abyss. And abysses are definitely abysmal; dark nights of the soul; the bottom an addict hits.
And this, she said, was just a new bottom, around people-pleasing, and the craving for powerful fancy people to approve of me. It was a bottom around my psycho doing-ness, my achieving-ness.
She said that because I felt traumatized, and that there had been so much trauma in my childhood, and so many losses in the ensuing years, that the future looked like trauma to me.

But it wasn’t the truth!

There was a long silence. (Again: she listens.)
Finally, I said in this tiny child’s voice, “It isn’t?”
Oh, no, she said. The future, as with every bottom I have landed at, and been walked through, would bring great spiritual increase.
She said I had as much joy and laughter and presence as anyone she knew and some of this had to do with the bottoms I’d experienced, the dark nights of the soul that god and my pit crew had accompanied me through. The alcoholism, scary men, etc.
She said that what I thought the director had revealed was that I am kind of pathetic, but actually what I was getting to see, with her, and later, when I picked up my luscious clingy child, in the most gorgeous mountains on earth, was that I was a real person of huge heart, laughter, feelings and truth. And his was the greatest gift of all.

The blessing was that again and again, over the years, we got to completely change the script. Thank God. We got to re-invent ourselves, again.

But where do we even start with such terrible days and revelations? She said I’d started when I picked up the 300-pound phone, told someone the truth, felt my terrible feelings. Now, time for radical self-care. A shower, some food, the blouse I felt prettiest in. Then I could go get my boy and we could explore the mountain streams.

Wow. We think when we finally get our ducks in a row, we’ve arrived. Now we’ll be happy! That’s what they taught us, and what we’ve sought. But the ducks are bad ducks, and do not agree to stay in a row, and they waddle off quacking, and one keels over, two males get in a fight, and babies are born. Where does that leave your nice row?

I got about five books out of the insights I gleaned from our talk. I still have a sort-of heart-shaped rock my son fished out of a stream later. Sadly, this director’s movies have not done well in the last twenty years. Not a one. And all of his hair has since fallen out. Now, as a Christian, my first response to this is, “Hah hah hah.”

But Horrible Bonnie would say, Now you get to tell it, because then it will become medicine. Tell it, girl– that we evolve; that life is stunning, wild, gorgeous, weird, brutal, hilarious and full of grace. That our parents were a bit insane, and that healing from this is taking a little bit longer than we had hoped. Tell it. Well…okay. Yes.”
-Anne Lamott

Hi Loves,
A few of you asked me to re-post the Thanksgiving essay from last year. I hope it helps ya’ll to keep it together!

I also wanted to add how extremely thankful I am for all of YOU and your big, open, hearts.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
xoxJ

Thanksgiving in the U.S. can be brutal because of all the Norman Rockwellian expectations. Unfortunately, what we imagine as warm and fuzzy, can quickly turn cold and prickly.

Even though everyone at the table is somehow related, dinner etiquette can morph
into a kind of blood sport. Back handed compliments and thinly veiled sarcasm abound, and it’s just not Thanksgiving unless someone ends up in tears.

Add a tons of carbohydrates, lots of judgement, a dash of shame, with a pumpkin pie chaser and voila – Hilarity ensues!
NOT.

When you put together people that only find themselves sitting in the same room once a year, there isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to keep you in “that loving place”.

It can turn into a real numb-fest.
The carbs numb you down,
The booze,
The sugar,
The football,
The sour cream onion dip,
Yes, you heard me. It all numbs you down, so you can smile and remain polite, making sure that everyone lives to see another holiday.

But let’s all try to remember, shall we, that everyone has the highest of intentions when they pull up the driveway.
And each year can be a fresh start.

When you make forgiveness the first course, it helps you remember that everyone is just doing the best they can and it makes the rest of the day play out differently.

My family is loving, relatively sane, and really quite civil – now.
I think that’s because we’re all so damn old.

The last time we served crazy for Thanksgiving was during the Reagan
Administration.

Gone are the comments lobbed across the table by uncle Bob, that are meant to be funny – but aren’t – followed by that uncomfortable silence.

So…let’s all practice forgiveness, humor, acceptance and gratitude; choosing to operate from the heart, remembering the true intention of this day.

Take a deep breath, put on your best holiday smile, and listen with love, as your well intentioned aunt gives you her unsolicited opinion on how much she dislikes your new haircut.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Xox

“Well, what will you do for money?” The fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Her eyes were huge, and the fear inside them was palpable.

“Nooooo, honey, you’re a jeweler, that’s what you do.” It was not a statement, it was a directive.

“What? Why? Now? You’re in your fifties.” Said by someone whose recent anthem had been: Fifty is the new Thirty.

Turncoat.

Those are just a few of the reactions I’ve gotten when I’ve been asked ‘So, what are you up to?’ And I reply “I’m a writer.”

I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating. A lot, no, make that most – most people who ask you how you are and what you’re up to – they don’t really want to know.

It’s the amuse bouche of conversation – obligatory and unnecessary.

Which leads me to two important revelations ( bigger than insights, more important to remember than observations) that I’ve had about who I told about the writing in the very beginning; and I think they can apply to anything precious that you’re considering doing in your life.

NUMBER ONE:
Don’t tell just anyone everything. THAT can be considered an act of self sabotage.
That was a hard one for me because I’m about as opaque as Saran Wrap, but you’ve really got to be careful here.
How well do you know the person in front of you?
Are they safe? Meaning, do they have your best interests at heart – or an agenda?
I’ve had more amazing responses and feedback from strangers – on airplanes – than I have from the people close to me.
Probably because they aren’t invested in my old identity.
One guy recently responded “oh wow, that’s great; you look like a writer.” Whatever that meant. It felt like a compliment, but I’m thinking he got a look at my writer’s flat ass.

Advise in a nutshell – take a minute, and size up the asker.

Don’t divulge your new passion/ plans/ career choice/ to anyone who wouldn’t understand, may laugh, or potentially invalidate you – and you may get burned by a friend.
Just don’t get burned twice by the same flame. 

NUMBER TWO:
We’ve talked about this in our Wednesday night group because I’ve found this to be true WITHOUT FAIL.
Whatever insecurities and doubts I’ve had about any new venture I’ve undertaken (and this includes relationships) I’ve always been able to count on them to be mirrored back to me by some assbite naysayer.

So those responses at the top of the page?
Of courses those were my trifecta – of – terror.
Fear of the loss of income, abandoning my long-standing career, and starting something new at my age; lobbed back across the lunch table for me to justify…to myself really.

Because here’s what happens: when you have the mirror held up and it pisses you off, and your hackles go up; all your College Debate Team skills kick in, and you’re able to come up with graphs and evidence and flow charts, to prove to them – AND YOURSELF – why this is the best idea ever!

So how can you be mad? They did you a favor. I’m aware that I’ve played the naysayer role in other peoples’s dramas many times.

Now, I hardly get any blowback, because I worked out all the confidence kinks early on and I’m better at owning it.

I’m kinda a writer like someone in their eighth month is kinda pregnant.

Just be advised; if it keeps happening, your doubts are bigger than you think – or you may need new friends.

Remember: Don’t get burned by the same flame twice.
(I swear, we should all embroider that on a pillow)

As always, I so appreciate you reading and your comments below.
When have you had your insecurities mirrored back at you? Have you gotten burned by revealing too much to the wrong person? Was it a friend? Or family?

Thanks loves,
Xox

On those days when you’re finding fault with EVERYTHING – the sky isn’t the right Tiffany Box shade of blue and the air conditioning is blowing too cold; how do you get yourself out of it?
Do you, at some point realize your ridiculousness and slap yourself across the face to snap out of it?
Or do you marinate in the fact that you’re so contrary that if George Clooney sat down beside you, you’d tell him he needed a haircut and an Altoid?

I know you know when you’re being an ass – because I know it when I am.

We wake up every day and there are two sides of the bed on which to get up.
The sunny side or the dark side; the right side or the wrong side.

The question I’m asking is this: if, by some cruel twist of circumstances and hormones, you put your feet on the floor when you wake up in the land of EVERYTHING’S WRONG, do you indulge and make those around you miserable, or do you do your damnedest to climb out?

I’ve done both. I DO both. Guilty as a charged in the court of Nit Pick.

These dark days do not come natural to me, but when I’m under their spell – watch out – and know that I DO know what an asshat I’m being, I just can’t help myself right. this. minute.
So sorry.

The kitchen looks the same as it did two days ago when I was feeling so grateful.
The bright summer sunshine lighting up the couple of places that have chipped white paint make it look charming and cozy. Our coffee maker broke, we replaced it, no harm no foul ( thank you Amazon). The wine stains on the wood countertops were just faded purple reminders of a really fun party last summer.
Today, (wrong side of the bed day) I’m seriously entertaining throwing a grenade behind me and shutting the door, giving us the opportunity for a fresh start.

You’re welcome Honey, what can I say, I’m a giver.

Don’t tell me I’m acting like an ass when I am, because that’s like taking a hose of lighter fluid and spraying it on a fire.

I KNOW I AM. IM WORKING IT OUT.

But I will deny it….with my dying breath I will tell you I’m “fine.”
I’m sorry if your feelings and our kitchen have become collateral damage. If you want to survive this:
Don’t make eye contact and DON’T try to hug me. I have a fork in my hand.

The best strategy in the past has been to isolate myself for awhile.  Take a lovely walk outside in nature (I can’t today, with the heat index and the humidity, it feels like Thailand.)

Meditation is a good way to snap back into a loving place along with exercise. Neither of those have worked, so I’m still marinating.

Hormones, I’m blaming hormones. 
I remember feeling this out of sorts during puberty, but the Good Lord had the common sense to deal me that hand when I wasn’t old enough to marry, operate heavy machinery or carry a firearm.
Whatever shall I do now?

The trick for me is listening to my own words as they spill uncensored from my lips.
If they make even me cringe, I need to make a correction.
I need to shut up and realize I’m acting like an ass.
Is that what you do?

Try it.
Just listen to yourself. Step up and out of your body as you berate the waiter or the lady at Ralph’s or your husband.
If every other word is a critique or fuck, chances are you’re having THAT kind of day.
Sometimes, what I hear ME say is so vile, it makes me laugh, which then breaks the spell.

If that doesn’t work?
Do everyone, including yourself a favor.
Be quiet, go to bed early, and before you go to sleep, say a little prayer for a better disposition tomorrow.

Love you anyway,
Xox