emotions

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good and go for the great.” ~ Steve Prefontaine

“Oh, fuck. That’s BRAVE.” ~ Me

I wrote this almost exactly three years ago and found it today when I put the word murder in my search.

Don’t ask.

It just so happened that I’d only minutes before been discussing this very thing with my BFF. It was the main catalyst for the life altering change she made, which coincidentally is the subject of her memoir, Unbound. (By Steph Jagger, go order it now. I’ll wait.)

Is dissatisfaction enough of a trigger?

For some of us good—just isn’t good enough. We want more.

Is boredom enough of a reason to shake your Etch-A-Sketch?  Some say no. Some say the catalyst must be pain or suffering, or better yet, both of those together served with a side of depression.

I call bullshit. 

She emailed me later in response to this essay #boredomisenough —because we communicate in hashtag speak.

I agree. Boredom is enough!

Why wait for things to get worse? Why wait for the house to burn down, or the marriage to fail, or, or, or, before you make a change?

I’m curious. What do you think?
Carry on,
xox

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 skies?

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 of our decisions.

Like Abraham says, “When you know what you Don’t want. You know what you DO want”.

I’ve come to this conclusion :
All the great gifts, people and circumstances 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…pure unadulterated boredom.

Either I went willingly, although with little to no support. Or I was drop-kicked against my will by the Universe in the direction of a new life change.

Both ways felt like shit but that’s okay.

Here’s my NEW conclusion:
Big change feels scary. It feels a bit awkward, uncomfortable and uncertain, so we drag our heels.

And…change is rude! It shows up unannounced, often at the most inopportune times and tracks it’s dirty feet through our lives.

So what does this all mean?

We can either hide under the bed.
Keep living each day exactly like the day before.
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.

“The past is never where you think you left it.” – Katherine Anne Porter

Time.

Time as a fluid nonlinear happening-all-at-the-same-time slippery little bugger that I’ve been attempting to wrap my brain around lately.

Does your future inform your past?

Can we change our past?

Can we? Can I go back and make better choices in clothing and in men?

Mind…blown.

What does Jason think? What do you think?

Carry on,
xox

This is reprise from last year that my friends still quote back to me. Ha!
Carry on,
xox

Hey guys,
Here’s a holiday favorite that this year I’ve been able to put on the Huffington Post.
Take a look. If you know him you’re going to smile and if you don’t, well, I think you’ll want to.

The big French guy who stole my heart — and then hijacked my favorite meal!
Cheers!
PS. REAL men use pink rubber oven mitts! Bam!
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/how-my-french-husband-hij_b_8547286.html

 I have readers who request some of these holiday posts throughout the year. Even in July. From as far away as Brunei.
Seems we are all united by the one simple fact that family is family wherever you live.
And Americans have not cornered the market on dysfunction.

And neurosis speaks every language and crosses every border.

Oh, and by-the-way, that obnoxious cousin in the last sentence? Seems he may have had the gift of clairvoyance.
Carry on,
xox

Thanksgiving in the U.S. can be brutal. I blame it on social media and the unrealistic Norman Rockwellian expectations we place on each other. Unfortunately, what in our imagination looks 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 leaves the table in tears.

Add tons of carbohydrates, loads of judgment, a dash of shame, with a pumpkin pie chaser and voila – Hilarity ensues!

NO. No it doesn’t.

When you put together people who 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.
So do the booze,
The sugar,
The football,
Even the ridged potato chips smothered with delicious sour cream onion dip. THAT is my numbing agent of choice.

Yes, you heard me. It all numbs us down, making us compliant enough to smile and remain civil so that everyone lives to see another holiday.

But let’s all try to remember, shall we, that almost everyone had the highest of intentions when they pulled up in the driveway.

And each year can be a fresh start. We talk all about gratitude that day, but I think it’s a good idea to start with acceptance.

When we can make acceptance the first course, it helps us all to 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 caustic comments lobbed across the table by a perpetually inebriated uncle that were meant to be funny—but weren’t. And the long, squirmy, uncomfortable silences that followed.

Everyone, even Aunt Barb, who’s worn a wig for the past twenty-five years has stopped criticizing my hair. I’m fifty freakin’ seven Barb! It’s gray with some purple fringe—let it go!

My dad used to insist that we get dressed up. You know, jacket and tie, skirt and (gulp) pantyhose were mandatory. But since he’s been gone for a decade, elastic reigns supreme. These days style is sacrificed for comfort. Think sweatpants thinly disguised as dress pants.

To add insult to injury, this year, I intend to give up the fight—the Spanx stay at home.

Hey you! You picky eaters! Stop your complaining. If somethings not Non-GMO, gluten-free, free-range, antibiotic and hormone free, vegetarian or vegan—just be polite and eat what won’t kill you—or feed it to the dog and stick with the crudités.

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

Now take a deep breath, put on your best holiday smile, and listen with loving acceptance as your well-intentioned cousin explains to you all the reasons why Hillary will never be President.

Happy Thanksgiving,
xox

Happy Saturday you guys!

I had to share this with you. It is short, succinct and says exactly what I would say if I were as smart as Seth. Except I would have inserted a knock-knock joke, so there’s that. This is a pesky problem we all share, our running internal narratives. I am forever trying to re-write mine. To the point where I’m out of erasers and white-out.

Let’s see what Seth has to add to the discussion.

Love you Seth Godin!
Carry on,
xox

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” – Jonathan Borroughs

The memories we rehearse are the ones we live with.

A million things happened to you today. The second bite of your lunch. The red light on the third block of your commute…

Tomorrow, you’ll remember almost none of them.

And the concept that you’d remember something that happened to you when you were twelve is ludicrous.

What actually happened was this: After it (whatever that thing you remember) happened, you started telling yourself a story about that event. You began to develop a narrative about this turning point, about the relationship with your dad or with school or with cars.

Lots of people have had similar experiences, but none of them are telling themselves quite the same story about it as you are.

Over time, the story is rehearsed. Over time, the story becomes completely different from what a videotape would show us, but it doesn’t matter, because the rehearsed story is far more vivid than the video ever could be.

And so the story becomes our memory, the story gets rehearsed ever more, and the story becomes the thing we tell ourselves the next time we need to make a choice.

If your story isn’t helping you, work to rehearse a new story instead. Because it’s our narrative that determines who we will become.

~ by Seth Godin

http://feedblitz.com/f/?fblike=http%3a%2f%2fsethgodin.typepad.com%2fseths_blog%2f2016%2f11%2fthe-memories-we-rehearse-are-the-ones-we-live-with.html

This is from earlier this year and feels even more apropos. I am as stubbornly stupid as ever! How about you?
xox

Well then, according to that I am a genius because I am seriously dumb about the learning to be smart part.

“Learning something new is frustrating. It involves being dumb on the way to being smart.”
~ Seth Godin

This has always been a challenge for me. I LOVE knowledge, but I hate feeling dumb. There is nothing I hate more—except maybe old fat guys playing volleyball on a nudie beach. GOD! I HATE THAT!

I remember getting hives the day our new jewelry program arrived at work. I knew the old inventory system so well I never even looked at the keys. It took eight key strokes to enter an item. Not four and not eleven. Eight. The tech guy who was drowning in too much cheap cologne and smug gave us all a crash course and a number to call in case we faltered. After he left I tried a couple of things he had just shown us and had to be restrained from throwing the entire fucking computer into traffic—before the nerd even made it to the parking lot.

MY frustration turns to rage. Who’s with me?

Frustration as a contact sport? Uh, yeah. Especially with technology. Don’t get me started!

I try my damnedest to understand. I do!
I Google it. I email my smart friends, peppering them with questions. I watch endless tutorials on YouTube and I STILL can’t get Suri to work for me the way I want. The way I was promised. She is arrogant and cold and I really don’t care for her attitude.

As for technology, I’ve been shamed by a pimply faced genius at the Genius Bar and Billy who works for my brother on his way to world domination.

THEY were never dumb. Ever. They were smart on the way to brilliant. I want that. I’ll have what they’re having.

I’ll admit it. I was/am the poster child for “I want to be an expert on my way to being an expert.”

Here is how that plays out in my brain: Don’t fucking talk to me about “a learning curve”. I cannot be bothered with that nonsense. “Learning curve”. Ha! That’s just a nice way of saying: ”You’re the little train that couldn’t—on the fastrack to stupid.”

Brutal. I know. Can you believe the shit my smack-talking brain says to me? Jeez. It’s a wonder I ever learned to feed myself.

Back in the day, I longed to be fluent in a beginning French class. (What? Don’t turn on me now).
When it was evident that French was a hopeless cause for me due to the fact that I am seriously “language challenged”, (it’s genetic. My tongue is not made to do some of those things. You should feel sorry for me instead of judging), I hijacked the class with my crazy antics. It turned it into I Love Lucy Takes French. At least that way they were laughing with me, not at me—the densest person to ever attempt to learn a foreign language.

I finally discovered over time and many hours of navel lint contemplation, that it’s the feeling dumb part that I hate.

The part that I LOVE is acquiring knowledge. I love to grow and change and know new stuff. It was then that I decided to reframe it. You know, to offset the frustration rage.

What if I was…curious? Not stupid.
Wow.
That feels better already. Curious is a much better thing to be than dumb. At least is was for me.

What if I was trying to “figure something out” as a part of learning? Kind of like a math problem. Except nothing like math because I sucked at math on a count of  it made me feel dumb. Well, THAT was a full circle moment. Anyhow, “figuring out” sounds smart. I like that.

What if I could remember that everyone has an awkward first day at everything. No one comes in as an infant knowing how electricity works or exactly what the iPhone 6 can do—except Tesla and maybe my little brother.

What if I could simply lighten the fuck up and make learning fun? Huh?
Well, these days I’m learning to do that (see what I did there?).

How about you?
Are you okay with feeling dumb on the way to smart? Really? What’s in your coffee?
Help me out here. Share some of your insights, Please.

and then…Carry on,
xox

You guys!

What if there is no beginning and no end?

What if by naming something you give it life?

What if conciousness exists outside the body? Then would death still be the end of us?

What if time was not a straight line but rather, a circle?

What if the dead aren’t really “gone”, they’re just operating “outside of time?”

What if in moments of great conflict our future was able to inform our present?

What if you knew in advance that heartache lay ahead—would you go down that path?

What if the devastating loss of a major election caused just the right person to run for office? Someone who in a million years never thought she would run?

What if socks really DO disappear in the dryer? (Thought you might need to laugh.)

What if things are more than they appear?

What if there is more available to us than we could ever know?

What if there is more to life than meets the eye?

Maybe, just maybe you guys—we need to wake up—and ask more questions…

Carry on,
xox

This felt apropos, don’tcha think? It may take a while. Maybe even four years, but this situation is only temporary. Let’s choose happiness in the meantime. We have the power to make that choice.
Love ya!
xox

What do you do when you get depressed?

I’ve learned through the years that the best way to talk myself down from the ledge is to remind myself This too shall pass by repeating the mantra This_________ is only temporary.

It seems my endurance of all things sucky is fueled by the fact that I’m certain that nothing lasts forever.
Even my acne finally decided to hit the road.

This weekend during Rob Bell’s inspiring talk, he reiterated that philosophy with this quote: Depression comes when you believe that tomorrow will look just like today.

Doesn’t that make sense? And lighten your load?

My shoulders come down off my ears when I say that out loud.

Depression comes when you believe that tomorrow will look just like today. I can change that, I can turn my ship around.

To me, if I want to hitch myself to any emotion, it would be hope; because inside hope is change, and if I don’t like how things are panning out right now I can have the certainty that they will change.

The best thing about this belief is that WE don’t have to figure out HOWit’s going to change, we just have to KNOW that it will.

Haven’t you ever been low on cash and then someone who owed you money paid you back unexpectedly?

When that relationship with your soul mate, love of your life crashed and burned ten years ago someone else came along, right? And they were even better for you.

When you were so sick last fall, you recovered. You may have had that hacking cough for a month, but even that eventually went away. You probably didn’t even notice when it left.

See, that’s the thing, change is sneaky – and it’s humble. It doesn’t call attention to itself. It. just. happens.

I had a job at a grocery store after my divorce when I was in my twenties. I’d actually had it since I was fifteen in one capacity or another. At the time of my divorce I was a checker. Then I worked the night crew, stocking the shelves while you all slept, for extra money and to allow me to pursue acting, running to auditions during the day. I could work as much or as little as I wanted depending on my level of greed at any given moment.

At a certain point, around my thirtieth birthday to be exact; I decided, probably over alcohol, that I’d had enough of acting – AND the grocery business. I had NO idea what would come next for me, all I knew was that if tomorrow looked the same for much longer, I was going to be forced to join the circus to shake things up.

One afternoon while I was lying around moping, eating an entire pumpkin pie; my mom (who was well acquainted with my dissatisfaction with life) called to say she’d read about an antique mall that was opening on Melrose and was looking for part-time help. I loved antiques, so I immediately called, got an interview, and was hired on the spot.

I worked at the Melrose Antique Mall (which closed in the early nineties) by day, and at the market at night for about a year, until one day as a fluke, one of the girls that worked with me at the mall happened to mention a job she’d turned down working with real jewelry, at Antiquarius. It wasn’t the direction she wanted to take her life, but it sounded amazing to me, so I called, interviewed, and the rest is history.

I managed that store for just under twenty years and it was one of the unexpected joys of my life.

If you had asked me any day along that two-year transition what was next for me, I couldn’t have told you. All I knew was that even though I’d been working at the market for fifteen years, tomorrow could look different for me, it HAD to, and it kept me from falling into a deep pit of despair.

Not that deep pits of despair are unfamiliar to me, I just know by this stage of the game that there is a bottom—a ladder—and sunshine that can shine on our faces—if we’ll just look up.

Believe a change is on the way—because it is—THAT I can guarantee.

Love you,
xox

* If you feel you are, or have been diagnosed as clinically depressed, please seek psychological treatment.

This is an essay by my bad-ass, snort-laugh inducing friend Mel Maure. She can be funny right now because well, she’s Canadian.

I figured it would be perfect for today because maybe, if you’re like me, you’ve just emerged from your own twenty-four hour tantrum, you’re suffering from a terrible case of post-election tight-assery and you need to lighten up and just fucking say “thank you.”

Thank you Mel! Just like chocolate lava cake—you are deliciously gooey on the inside and always hit the spot.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be:
1) Searching for my sense of humor.
2) Taking back all of the power I gave away to this election.

Carry on,
xox

I throw spiritual tantrums. There. I said it.

What does said tantrum look like? Think of the ugly cry steeped in performance enhancing drugs. There is gnashing of teeth, snot runners and long bouts of standing in the corner of my stylish bedroom banging my forehead against the wall. And let’s not forget the weird keening sound that rises from my clogged throat.

When I throw down like this it’s not that I have been diagnosed with some raging incurable case of gout or have suddenly been forced to live in a cardboard box.

These beatific blowouts arise when I have not received exactly what I have prayed, asked, pleaded, lamented for, forgetting that my squirrelesque brain may not be the most reliable source of knowing what I need when I need it. I have a history of embarrassing romantic relationships to prove that.

In this unnerving place of wait and trust, I convince myself that my disconnection from the divine engine is terminal and there isn’t even a Kenny G tune to lull me while I sit on hold. I’ve been known to patiently wait at least three hours and fifteen minutes in this interminable holding pattern. But who’s counting?

In an attempt to ease this unsightly spoiled behaviour, I made a pact with the Cosmic Smoothie — what I think of as Universal Superfood, or God if you prefer. My somewhat anemic pact went something like this:
“I will refrain from pitching fits when the rate of jaw-dropping blessings coming into my granular existence is slow,” I vowed.

“When I meditate and don’t feel the rash of exhilarated connection to the Universe I jones for like a kismet junkie, I will be patient,” I promised.

“When the beasts of the forest are not swooping, roaming or stepping gingerly onto my path as unabashed signs that the Universe is there to soothe my drama du jour, I will be a quiet little angel of contentment,” I assured.
This sacred accord lasted three hours and twenty-seven minutes.

So why am I so quick to stop, drop and bang my head on the ground like a spoiled kid in Walmart’s toy section?
Simple. My memory sucks.

I am a dementiated, addled, lucky-if-I’m-wearing-pants kind of spiritual adventurer. And I don’t believe I am alone in this tendency of being lackadaisical. I refuse to believe I am the only one whose heart is akin to a sieve on good days, unable to retain the fullness. And on bad days is more like a defunct smelly well — the Stephen King kind with a creepy clown hunched and waiting at the bottom.

Being an impatient sort of soul does nothing to further the cause.

Once again, I am fairly certain I am not the only one who plugs her ears and hums a tune to drown out a greater knowing. A wisdom that says it’s not the best idea for us, in our limited fallible skin-suit, to drink from the cosmic fire hose.
So what is a petulant, forgetful, impatient spiritual sojourner to do?

First step: get up and stop thrashing about in the dirt. It’s contaminated with all kinds of bullshit. And by bullshit, I mean that potent noxious blend of fear and doubt. The only thing that brand of dirt grows is mould and poisonous fungi.

Second step: Record, write, make cave drawings if you have to, of all the times when you were doused with magic and thrumming with exhilaration. And if you are one of the more efficient spiritual travellers who keeps a log of every step and has a slide show to prove it, be nostalgic. Remember. Pour over every detail like an old high school football QB reliving the glory days. Caress every stitch across the pigskin of your divine moments.

Third step: Enjoy the reprieve and say thank you. It’s quite simple if we think of it like food. We cannot eat nonstop…God knows I’ve tried…at some point we all need to stop and digest what we’ve swallowed. Assimilate the sacred nutrients. When I skip this rest and digest place, I often mistake a wicked case of gas for the energy of the universe moving through me. It’s not a pleasant affair.

Fourth and final step: Have fun. For the love of God; quite literally, unclench.
Tight-assery is not a divine construct and no one wants to hang out with a downer or tight-ass, except for other tight-ass downers. Why would the Cosmic Smoothie be any different? There is no room for amazing things and mind-numbing blessings in the realm of the anal-retentive.

The final caveat to all of this: we are bound to find ourselves in the throws of petulance again and again. Our greatness cannot help but thrash inside the constraints of our humanness.

So if you see a fellow traveller rolling around in the dirt, producing bizarre mewling noises, please kneel down and whisper in her ear that she needs to stand up now. It would do her well to say thank you. It will restore her to remember all the jaw-dropping moments. For this invites more of the same.

For more flawed thoughts and very human fumblings from Melanie
https://medium.com/@melmaure/the-spiritual-tantrum-of-a-kismet-junkie-5f6cc779df07#.ugt3ruknx

I’m ashamed to say that I went into Friday’s AMG Driving Academy bellowing like a blustery fool. The second biggest one in the country.

I declared that I would “kill it!.” That I would “shred that racetrack, drive like a bat-of-of hell, and win!” If God has gifted me with any two things in this life it would be audacity—and conviction. Which, if you think about it is horrifying. There is no balance because sadly, I was getting a second helping of pie when common sense and humility were being passed out.

You see, I believe in the alchemy of osmosis. That the very act of living with, and sleeping next to my husband, the motorcycle and car, track-day speed demon, would make me fearless…and faaaaaaast. After fifteen years SOMETHING cool has to rub off, right? (I’m still waiting for the French accent.)

But I was missing the most important ingredient. SKILL.

Maybe you’re like me and you have no idea how this shit happens. Here’s how a track day works:
They vomit three day’s worth of facts, rules, statistics, and blah, blah, blah at you before you’ve had your coffee. It isn’t civil. After about thirty minutes, they see your eyes glaze over and they’ve bored themselves to the point where they announce, “fuck it, let’s go drive!”, and proceed to lead you to a fleet of very expensive, high-performance cars.

Then they start the day with an exercise. An ice breaker to get you acquainted with the power of the vehicle at your disposal.

Imagine this being yelled at you by an auctioneer.

“Getinyourcars! Adjust the seat and mirrors,go to the line,push the gas pedal TOTHEFLOOR! get the car up to 60 mph in like five seconds (not 58 mph, not 63 mph!), when you see the blue cones slam the brakes TOTHEFLOOR! You have an obstacle right in front of you,(an imaginary gas truck), control the skid while turning the vehicle to the left to avoid becoming a charcoal briquette, then steer immediately to your right to get back into your lane and come back! Go!Go!Go!Go!”

As Raphael and I  ran to our car I started to shake. Violently. “I have NO idea what he wants us to do!” I shrieked. The guttural sounds of four-hundred horses X6 being held back drown out our voices. It was deafening. FUCK! I needed more classroom time! I have questions! “Just watch what I do” he yelled as we hurriedly buckled in. Luckily, that was going to be unavoidable.

What I learned about myself:
1. You need to say “Pay attention to this, it’s going to be on the test, come in handy, save your life later” when you’re disseminating information to me. I like to be informed and clear on what exactly I’m supposed to do—before I’m expected to do it. Also, I like a little foreplay before the main event. I like training wheels and water wings before I venture into the deep end. Huh. Go figure.

2. I’m always the calm one in a crisis. Not here. Turns out I shake violently when in a high adrenaline situation. Or flooded with survival hormones. That does not bode well for deftly steering yourself around a pretend fiery hazard.

3. Eventually, I needed my own car. I wasn’t enjoying the passenger part. It was literally making me sick.

Next was the Skid Pad which is exactly like it sounds. They wet the pavement and you go in a circle, pushing the gas to the floor, causing the car to spin like a bad-ass ice-skater, (all the people who grew up driving on ice did extremely well). Then using some skill you were supposed to have picked up (I was busy getting a muffin), you steer yourself out of an “uncontrolled skid” which is just another way of saying a squealing hot-mess of spinning metal and smoking tires. Basically, you’re drifting (car term). To me, it felt like I spent an hour in a high-speed blender.

What I learned about myself:
3. Even though I took a pill for it, I get queasy when you spin me in circles at a high rate of speed.

4. Because it was so hard, it was a rush watching other people do it well.

5. Even though I grew up in So Cal—I didn’t suck.

This next exercise I LOVED. It is called Auto-Cross and basically, it’s a course of cones consisting of straightaways where you accelerate as fast as you can and then attempt corkscrew and hairpin turns all done at high speed—without knocking over any cones. It is unbelievably fast and furious. And it is timed. A best personal time…and a team time. The pro time was 22 seconds. Seconds! Gulp.

What I learned about myself:
6. Once I calm down and realize the stakes are…nonexistent, I have fun.

7. When I’m on a team— I am competitive as fuck.

8. I really DO like to go fast.

Then, when you’re as dizzy as a drunken sailor they feed you lunch. Lunch is where you confer with the others to figure out just how bad you’re actually doing as opposed to how bad you think you’re doing. I also was curious to see if Raph was off sitting with the cool kids. Had I brought shame to the family? Or had I done well enough to sit next to him—to make him proud. (I was happy to see that he had saved me the seat next to him.)

9. I learned that where racing is concerned (and probably a thousand other things I never think about), I want to make him proud. (Head slap).

After the food and all of our new-found knowledge had settled, they led us onto the world-famous Laguna Seca racetrack and that is where I have to say, I learned the most.

Follow the lines. There are cones placed at various places along the track that you are supposed to focus and aim for. It helps you to place your turns and to use the entire track. It hastens the sense of flow.

Speaking of flow, there is no chance in hell of over thinking while you race. None. Everything happens too fast to think about it. I found myself driving with some kind of weird supernatural, mindless-instinct. 

Use the whole track. In my newbie-ness, I was tempted to drive in a straight line or hug the edges. Using the entire track felt FAST. But after I got the hang of it—also really skillful and empowering.

Don’t forget to breathe. I had to be reminded. Constantly. By my husband. Who likes me to be conscious while I race expensive, fast cars.

Follow the instructor’s lines. VERY important to learn the track behind an expert. I suck at follow-the-leader. I hate it. Until I wanted to survive more than I wanted to blaze my own trail—then I learned to love it.

Focus. Focus. Focus. It is exhausting. But just like in life, a lazy, distracted mind can lead you into the weeds.

Look way ahead to where you want to go. Not to what is directly in front of you. If that’s where you focus—that’s where the car will go. Even if that means you’re looking out the side window—in the middle of a sharp turn—at high speed. Look where you’re headed. Not out in front. Counterintuitive, I know. But when you’re spinning on ice that’s what controls the skid. That’s what gets you around the fiery obstacle.

So now you’re thinking this is where she ties spirituality in with all of this racing stuff  and you’re right. I truly believe these exact same skills are the ones I’ve had to remember—and utilize—to get myself through this crazy life. How about you?

Carry on,
xox