emotions

“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”

My hike-nazi friend and I talk about this ALL. THE. TIME.

Taking responsibility for your own shit.

It is a fucking Jedi-Yoda-Mother Theresa-Dalai Lama type of acquired skill that makes finger pointing, blame and victimhood obsolete.

Sound hard?
As hard as you think it is—it’s harder.

Sometimes the problem is YOU. Ouch.

Imagine how our legal system would shift, not to mention our politics!

When you begin to practice looking at yourself through this unfiltered lens, I can’t tell you how incredibly good you get at apologising—I can’t even! And mostly to yourself—in the mirror.

“I’m sorry you’re a dick today” I’ll say. Then the reflection answers back “You’re human, it’s okay. Try to do better.

Then I open some Nutella and spread it all over anything I can find and lament how my mom made me this way.  Bahahaha! Snort-laugh! Just kidding mom!

Carry on,
xox

Carry on,
xox

A reader sent me this video thinking I would be able to relate. I’m sorry it took me so long to view it! I love it—and the message.

Say what you will about Lady Gaga, you have to admit she’s an original—and I think an amazing talent.

But even SHE fell into the trap that fame sets for the sensitive creatives out there.
Forget fame.
Society.
Society can seduce you with its trappings. Wealth. Recognition. Social media “likes”.

It wants to define us. Tell us Who We Are.

It builds us up to tear us down.

Someone wise asked me recently, “How far are you willing to go to make a name for yourself? Who will you hurt? Your husband? Your friends? Yourself?”

Something to think about.

Stay centered. Stay unique. Stay honest.

I believe in you.

Carry on,
xox

“You can’t imagine not being able to find joy. Hating yourself. No matter how much success you have, no matter how many opportunities, fame, fortune, no matter how many accept you to your face, the person that really needs to accept you is you.”

“I realized that part of my identity is saying no to things I don’t wanna do. … It is your right to choose what you do and don’t do. It is your right to choose what you believe in and don’t believe in. It is your right to curate your life and your own perspective.”

“I started to say no. Nope, no, I’m not doing that. Then slowly but surely, I started to remember who I am. That person doesn’t just say yes, they have integrity.”

“No one can define who you are. I’ll be myself until they fucking close the coffin.”

~Lady Gaga

Amen, sister.

As I wove around the corner, snaking slowly through the canyon on my way to the hike this morning—I spotted it.

Something wounded or dead right smack dab in the middle of the road.

Immediately my heart sank a little and my body tensed as I straightened in my seat and turned down the radio in order to get a better look. That is essential. My eyes see better in complete silence and the days of multi-tasking are over for me. I can barely drive and apply mascara anymore. I used to be a pro. Now I suck.

Besides, the music was too cheery, too hip-hoppy, for such a morbid scene.

From a distance, it appeared to be an animal. With black fur. In a pool of blood. Something larger than a cat and smaller than a dingo. Perhaps it was a skunk or a possum? They never seem to get the memo explaining how streets with cars lead to death.

It was often out of view, hidden by the cars as we wound our way, bumper to bumper, to our respective destinations.

That’s when my mind took over. This was a living creature. Cut down in its prime. Maybe it was a mother scavenging food for her babies in the dry brush of the drought-ravaged hillsides. Singles mothers can never catch a break.

It was someone’s baby. Another animal’s friend. They had frolicked and played and in all of the excitement it had forgotten to look both ways. It was then that it’s luck had run out. Splat!

There it is. I can see it again. Is it moving? Oh, dear lord, no!
Why aren’t people stopping?! Someone needs to take it for help, or drag it to the side of the road at the very least!

I’ll do it!

I was working myself into one hell of a lather.

When I get close, I’ll stop my car and block traffic in order to access the animal’s well-being. Someone must! I decided.

If you hear of the murder of a woman in yoga pants in the Hollywood Hills by a mob of angry commuters in Friday morning gridlock—it’s me.

When the poor creature came back into view it looked to be lying still. “Oh thank God it’s dead”, I muttered aloud. That is not a sentence that feels good coming out. It is something you never want to hear yourself say. But I meant it. It looked like its suffering was over.

“Why the fuck is everybody running over it?” was the next thing I heard my mouth say. But it was true. No one was swerving to miss it. In their rush to get wherever they were going, they were running directly over the poor thing. I don’t care if it’s a dead possum. Swerve a little!

It was disrespectful, to say the least.

The time had come. Ten minutes had passed and I was almost upon it.

Do I look and ruin my morning?
Or do I look away?
Do steal a quick glance and say a little prayer?
Or do I stare and gross myself out?

I looked. Right at it. And I tried to swerve to miss it but I couldn’t without dying in a head-on collision—so I did my best.

Thump, thump. I cringed.

The right side of my car ran over it at the exact moment that I saw what it was. This roadkill that had sabotaged ten minutes of my morning.

It was a pile of black socks on top of a red sweater.

I know what you’re thinking and you’re right.

Carry on,
xox

I was talking to a friend the other day and all I’ll say is THIS post from a year and a half ago came to mind. Does it sound familiar? Yeah, I know. Me too.
xox

As I write this, I can feel the soft, cool underbelly of the big, older dog snoozing on my feet.
The puppy appears to be asleep except her eyebrows give her away. They signal that she is following my every move. She is plotting another caper and is patiently waiting for me to quit writing, get up, and leave.

“Everything that falls on the floor is MINE!”

That is their credo, their theme song, and the canine unspoken agreement.
If I’d let them get tattoos, that’s what they’d say.
But that statement gives ME a pit in my stomach. It sparks a crusty, old, unkind memory that hits me like a sucker punch.

“Everything that falls on the floor is MINE!”, is a quote is from the cover of a book about dogs.
It’s kinda funny, but it got me to feeling and thinking, which makes me run to start writing. Isn’t it weird how something as innocuous as the title of a dog book can trigger an emotion?

“Everything that falls on the floor is MINE!”
That is a declaration of ownership of…the scraps.
The stuff that is tainted enough that it isn’t fit for public consumption.
It can’t even pass the five-second rule.
Most likely the crap on the floor came off the bottom of someone’s shoe — literally.

“I call it! It’s mine!” That’s fine for Fido, but not for us.

“Everything that falls on the floor is MINE!”
It is the cover page and the first rule in the Dog’s Life Handbook.
Not ours. Our first rule is “Call Your Mother.”

But what about us? How many times have you and I settled for the scraps in life?
From the blouse at Target that is marked down to 99 cents but is missing a button, (which as much as we say we’re going to—we never replace), to accepting pity sex from your ex-boyfriend?

That shitty “bridge” job that was just supposed to get you through the summer?
What happened? It’s five years later, why are you still there?

I’ve been so broke I have lived off scraps. Specifically, days of leftovers salvaged from one meal or my sister’s “doggie bag” from El Toritos. The irony of the name does not escape me.

I drove a piece of shit car that wanted nothing more in its life than to shimmy sideways.

I’ve also settled for the scraps of affection thrown to me in a dying relationship.
I’ve been seated at the table. I’ve enjoyed the love feast. But when I sensed the end, I did not push away and say my goodbyes with dignity. I dove for the scraps.
Ouch. Oh, hi Fido, funny to see you down here.

I have pretty healthy self-esteem, but there have been some glaring lapses.
I wasn’t alone. Gwen Stefani of the band No Doubt had a hit song “Bath Water” during that time.
Part of the chorus being: ‘Cause I still love to wash in your old bath water, Love to think that you couldn’t love another, Share a toothbrush….you’re my kind of man.’  UGH.

At a certain point, I’m gonna say around my mid thirties, I said: no more scraps.
And I meant it.

No more second-hand clothes, no more beat up chairs-full-of-promise fished out of dumpsters. Enough of the stuff left on the curb because it didn’t make the cut at the neighborhood yard sale. Enough of the sloppy seconds from lovers. I was finished being broke, I was done with settling.
I deserved better than that. I deserved the best.
The best love.
The best life.
The best-made plans.

“Everything that falls on the floor is MINE!”
That is my dog’s credo, I’m clear about that now and they can have it.

Tell me, have you ever settled for the scraps?

Carry on,
Xox

Man! That’s a hard lesson for me.
And lately, revisiting a situation in the same old manner I’ve done in the past just. Isn’t. working.
It’s insanity. Truly. Or in plain speak, it’s crazy making.

Thursday, I tried something different, something new, and I found my way out of crazy town. I know I’m not alone with my over-stamped passport and resident’s visa to crazy town so I thought I’d share what happened.

Things in my life have been going really well. Better than well. They’ve been magorific!
The writing is fun as hell, the possibilities on the horizon — endless. I have found myself happier than I can ever remember being.

I know that saying that out loud is deemed a subversive act, but it comes into play here—I just can’t help it—and besides, wtf’s with THAT?

Anyway…I’ve begun to realize inside this massive reinvention of my life, that my past comes into play pretty much…NEVER.
Nothing I’ve done in my life up to this point, besides learning to read and write, has made a rat’s ass of difference in what is transpiring these days.
That at once feels daunting — making me feel like a complete novice in my mid-fifties where you’re supposed to know shit — and liberating — like I want to take off my bra and run topless down the beach like I may have done as a girl.

The very day I was reveling in this realization, my past came to visit me. To test my resolve.

The City of Los Angeles wanted more tax money from my long since dissolved corporation. I’ve been sending e-mails and faxing paperwork to them for a couple of years. My corporation ceases to exist which means… I owe them nada.

This is the perfect time to say: I have little tolerance of bureaucracy, even less for bureaucracy when they bug you for money, and none at all when they aren’t entitled to the money they’re chasing.

Meanwhile, they’ve gotten creative with their estimations of my imagined sales and have compounded the penalty interest daily. I’m sure you know what that feels like.

It’s like arguing with an obstinant, deaf, assholish elderly uncle — who hates you.

When I saw the envelope my stomach sank. It sank so deep they were going to have to send James Cameron back into the inky blackness of the bottomless Marianas Trench in search of my poor stomach. Then the pit turned to venous victimhood, which is the thug cousin of regular, generic victimhood.

It takes me down the dark allies of shame and lack, places I am VERY familiar with.

My knee-jerk reaction was to rip it up or light it on fire, which is pretty much my knee-jerk reaction to everything
Instead, I called my accountant and basically said, “Make this go away.” She barked back “It’s tax season, I don’t have time for this”, I think I heard her take a sip of beer or a hit off a crack pipe. “You’re going to have to do this yourself. Go to their Van Nuys office in person and take care of it.”

She may as well have suggested I jump into a pen of wild tigers while wearing Lady Gaga’s meat suit.

I hung up, ready to have a cigarette with the thugs in the alley of “this is not fair”.

“Damn. I’ve been so happy”, I lamented. And that’s when it hit me.
I’d rather stay happy than go back into those OLD feelings of victimhood and shame.
My past has NOTHING to do with what my life looks like now. This is NOT going to take me down! I will gather up my own stomach out of the pit of despair, go deal with the bureaucrats myself, and take care of this thing once and for all.

Are you with me?! Can I get an AMEN?!

But first I’ll eat a chocolate chip cookie, look at the paperwork with fresh eyes, see a phone number I’ve never seen before hidden on the back — and make a call.

Due to extremely high caller volume, (from people who were obviously much smarter than I was with much fresher eyes), I was asked to leave my number and they would call me back. “Bullshit!” I sneered and started to hang up. But that was the old way I always dealt with The City of Los Angeles. This new me left my cell phone number cheerfully on the recording.

By dinner time, I realized they hadn’t called me back but instead of fuming I just went back to Plan A.
I will go to Van Nuys and speak face to face with a human being, something I probably should have done years ago. There was no stomach pit, no malice, just anticipation of releasing an energetic albatross that’s been around my neck for years.

I woke up this morning waiting for the sinking feeling I’m so used to. Even as I was reminded of my impending visit to the land of bureaucracy, I felt only relief. That was HUGE for me.

At 9 AM, on my way out the door to the gym, I glimpsed the pile of paperwork I would need for my visit to Van Nuys, and I remembered leaving my number for a callback. “You better take that with you, what if they call you while you’re at the gym?” Before I could start laughing at the absurdity of that thought, the phone in my pocket started ringing.

It was The City Of Los Angeles. I’m not kidding. I can’t make this shit up. No one would believe me.

Mrs. Garcia (I love how when I asked her for her name she told me, Mrs. Garcia. I was in middle school all over again), was all business. She asked me a couple of unanswerable questions before we found some middle ground, I stayed light and shameless, and in the space of ten minutes, a chain of pain that has been severely knotted up for several years — fell away.

Turns out I owed them nada. (Here’s where I want to scream I told you so!!!)
Thank you, Mrs. Garcia!

And thank you happiness for the giant attitude adjustment.
And thank you past, for teaching me this valuable lesson.
And thank you chocolate chip cookie for just being delicious.
And thank You Guys for reading.

Carry on,
xox

These may look like the random ingredients of a food challenged schizophrenic’s lunch. Or they belong to a Russian peasant whose secret ingredient for her award-winning Borscht — is Fritos.
They are both.
They are mine.

These are the ingredients which will eventually make up my future.

What? I hear you asking. (Actually, I toned it down. It’s still early.)

It’ll make sense in a minute. Let me explain.

My Muse loves Fritos so I snarf them down while I write. They make her happy, so in turn, I suppose they make me happy. And they make me salty. And puffy. And maybe ten pounds over the twenty pounds over that last five pounds I just can’t seem to loose.

The beets were to replicate a ridiculously delicious beet soup I had with my writing tribe in Mexico last month. Yes, beets and delicious belong in the same sentence. Nettie gave us the recipe after observing six grown women reduced to a band of bowl licking freaks. I’m dead serious.

I even used my food processor. I NEVER use my food processor.
I chop, microwave or order out of menus.
My food processor is just for decoration.
It says to people, “Hey, this chick is the real deal, she follows a detailed recipe, processes stuff, and serves it to people who enjoy their food the consistency of baby food.”
Mostly my food processor sits quietly collecting dust. That is until my husband fires it up to process fancy baby food for us to eat.

And it turns everything pink. Like bright magenta pink.
Not the processor. The beets.
And by everything I mean pee and poop. Oh, sorry. Is it too early?

Anyhow, all this to say I have a shit ton of weird ingredients around me these days (because my life barely resembles itself anymore), that make me happy in some way or another. Some I’m aware of, like the beets and the Fritos, others I am not, like the…well, I’m not aware of them so…I’ll let you know as soon as I find out what they are.

When I’m happy I keep moving forward. My feet aren’t stuck in cement and I’m no longer wishing I was anywhere but exactly where I’m standing. It’s fucking liberating.

It’s so interesting to look around and see the actual things that are coalescing to become your future. Blogs, and musicals, screenplays and articles all facilitated by happiness. Simple Frito and beet happiness. And chocolate. Barges and boatloads of chocolate.

Look around right now. What are YOUR ingredients?

Fido. Fido makes you happy AND he gets you out walking which puts your lazy ass in nature and as we all know, walking in NATURE is when all the great ideas come. And it lifts your ass and puts pink in your cheeks.

That bicycle taunting you in the garage. You rode it last weekend, the nature thing happened, AND you met a nice guy when you were stopped looking at the view ( allowing your heart rate to come back to a level that was a little less lethal). When you look back you’ll remember THAT was the day you met HIM.

The invitation to that dinner party you keep forgetting, avoiding to RSVP to, where you will sit next to the guy who will eventually become a good friend and give you the loan to start that business you’ve always dreamed of.

The book on the nightstand that will say something to you that will resonate so strongly that your boobies will tingle and it will change the way you think about things for the rest of your life.

I can hear you. “Wait!”  you say, “Those aren’t ingredients that will combine and lead to my future. They’re just a dog, a book, my bike, and an annoying dinner invitation.”

Are you sure about that?

That feet in cement thing is something I wrote yesterday, as a note, potentially for the screenplay:

“It turns out that by denying the life that was calling me, I kept my OWN two feet stuck in cement. I wouldn’t allow MYSELF to fly.”

That makes me tear up.

Hey, if I cry do you think my tears will be pink?

Carry on.
xox

Have a great weekend and Carry on, 

xox

Let’s be serious here. I think this is a really important question to ponder since I know we all have one. You’ll get what I mean in a minute.

Who is that person that derails you? Your harshest critic personified. Not necessarily just that voice in your head, but an insecurity that has taken on real flesh and blood to become your saboteur.

Danielle La Porte admitted on a recent podcast with Brene Brown, that in the past hers was the Silicon Valley dude who’s sitting in the front row of a talk she’s giving, wearing a $700 hoodie, not giving a rat’s ass about who she is or what she’s saying. “He thinks I’m too woo-woo, too flakey. I can see him and I can tell he can’t wait for me to shut up so he can get the hell outta there.”
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Danielle  0

Brene’s saboteur was any academic colleague.
With twenty-something years in academia, she can spot her nemesis in a hot second: Arms crossed with the prerequisite scowl. Academics want hard facts. They want words, no pictures. They don’t trust anything heartfelt as ‘fact’ and vulnerability, Brene’s wheelhouse, is well, it’s better left to Super Soul Sunday — don’t call it hard research.
Big shame happens in that space (another Brene Brown specialty).
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Brene      0

Stand-up comedians can tell you exactly where the ONE person who wasn’t laughing was sitting.

Actors on stage have literally stopped the show to confront the guy who’s on his cell phone.

When I’m in the middle of telling or reading a story I’ve written and the listener yawns or sees something shiny and changes the subject, that sabotages me — every time.
Clearly I’m a bore’ I lament to myself. I take it personally. It can be a stranger or my best friend. It is often my husband — It was ALWAYS my Dad.

We all feel like we’re being judged and not only that — their reaction confirms that somehow — we’re not enough.

Brene Brown had a great suggestion. She says to her critic, “Hey, you can look at me however you want. You can judge me all day long. I know you and I know your story. Everybody has a story that would break your heart,” she goes on, “Even the Silicon Valley dude. And then they armor it up. What I’ve learned is to never take on a job or a project JUST to win over this critic, this saboteur.”

Amen sister.

That, my tribe, is the takeaway. Well, one of them anyway.
Don’t waste one moment of your precious life trying to win over the saboteur.

You ARE good enough. Better than good enough, you’re the best YOU on the planet!

Don’t read your reviews, even on Yelp, especially on Yelp, and DO NOT listen to the haters.
Haters gonna hate.

I want to hear from YOU but I don’t want any comments unless they’re nice and by-the-way, I saw you yawning.
Carry on,
xox

If you like writers, and who doesn’t, Check out the Beautiful Writers Podcasts on iTunes, they’re awesome.

Listening and talking to the people around me recently and also, living my own damn life, it is evident we are ALL experiencing this to one degree or another. I love and agree with everything Tosha wrote and of course, I added a few words of my own in (parenthesis).
Carry on,
xox

THE PRE-ECLIPSE SENSE of UTTER SUSPENSION ~ by Tosha Silver

I wonder how many of you are feeling this?
It can be common as we go into the March month of eclipses (the first one on March 8 and the second one March 23). In the 30 days before big turning-point eclipses (i.e. NOW) an eerie ‘anticipatory stillness’ can arrive.

You sense something is around the bend, but it’s not Time yet.
The month before has much to do with shedding, releasing, saying No to those things you know in your heart are neither needed nor right. Letting go of what’s been outgrown, sometimes without ANY idea what will ‘replace’ it. (Deciding what from your past will come along with you into your future — Booyah!)

Decluttering your spaces and your psyche.
(Otherwise known in my house as ‘Hazeling’).
You’re literally making room for the next Divine plan to arrive. You may even feel like NOTHING (Zero, zilch, nada), is happening in your life at all and you’ve come to a total dead end. But it’s like that quote, don’t put a period where god only has a comma or maybe a semi-colon:)

If you’re feeling any of these things, don’t worry! It can very much be the clearing of the ‘container’ before the re-filling which often comes either with the eclipses themselves or in the month or two after. (Not to get too scatological on you but “clearing’ can also look like allergies, a bad cold or a stubborn cough, diarrhea, puking and in other breaking news: dumping the chump).

Even the I Ching has a similar line about the cauldron that must be turned over to be cleaned of ‘the old’ before used again for the new meal.(But leave a little bacon grease, just sayin’).

I am feeling all this so STRONGLY myself. (Ditto kiddo)
All I can say is I just feel so damn grateful to know to sit tight, clear out, get needed rest, keep releasing and allowing, and open to the what’s still unseen but arriving. Actually, often in the month before eclipses, you spend a lot more time saying No than Yes! (You’re actually saying YES to saying No! What?)

The Yes comes later :))

Anyone else relate?

‪#‎ToshaSilver‬ ‪#‎LivingOO‬
http://toshasilver.com