fear

“What is with all those people who are shouting their shitty statistics at us? Stop it! Stop trying to convince me that the world is a horribly dangerous and massively disappointing and unfulfilling shit-show!”
~Me

The doctor stands there with his hands together, fingers interlaced, the corners of his mouth downturned into a solemn expression.
“I’m afraid your prognosis is grim”, he delivers the news in an equally grim monotone.

Then it starts.

“The odds are against you. Only sixteen percent of people with this thing you have live past a year. Eighty-five percent survive the chemo and radiation only to expire after ninety days.”

Blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

I know you’re just doing your job but I can assure you, nobody heard a thing after the word grim.

I know some really amazing doctors who have saved a ton of lives but why do they insist on immediately covering us with a sauce that smells like death?

Because they don’t want to give anyone FALSE HOPE.

False Hope
To look forward to something that has a strong chance of not happening—that you may or may not know.

Yeah, that would be awful. By all means don’t look forward to anything that might not happen.

Wait. Most things in life have a strong chance of going down the drain. We have no idea how they will play out. That’s why it’s called hope. We hope for the best. Otherwise, it would be called certainty, or ForSuresville.

I remember being a single forty-year-old when I was told that I was more likely to die at the hands of a terrorist than to get married.

What?

A very successful and famous writer, who an entire room of us not so famous and successful writers had gathered in order to hang on her every word, ended a really sweet and uplifting day with this nugget.
“You can’t call yourself a writer unless you’ve been rejected many, many times.”
That was the “let’s get real” portion of her talk. It was supposed to be motivating but for me, it was mildly nauseating because if you know her story that was not necessarily the case for her and I think, like the gloomy-Gus guy in the white coat—she doesn’t want to prescribe any FALSE HOPE.

If you beat the odds you’re lucky. I suppose I agree. Or tenacious, delusional, persistent and optimist.

Here’s the thing, this is not a one size fits all world. If it were we would all be the same color, height, and weight. We would all look like Cindy Crawford or Bradley Cooper. Then and only then could anyone tell you EXACTLY how something was going to go down.

There are as many different possible scenarios as there are individual souls in this world. So, at last count just over seven billion.

I don’t care how many people survived six months. If you tell me that, I just may believe you because you’re a doctor—and then I’m fucked. I can’t have my own journey. I won’t make my own miracles.

I don’t care how hard it is to get a movie made in Hollywood. Four or five come out every week, so I know some bozo beat the odds.

I don’t care if ninety percent of writers fail at the premise. Ninety percent of screenplays and eighty percent of novels are rejected because of poor structure.

Dan Brown’s three novels before The Da Vinci Code all had printings of less than 10,000 copies.
Other rejection counts: Gone With the Wind, 38 times; Dune, 20 times; A Wrinkle in Time, 29 times; Lord of the Flies, 20 times; Kon-Tiki, 20 times; Watership Down, 17 times; Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, 18 times; Chicken Soup for the Soul, 33 times; James Joyce’s The Dubliners, 22 times; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, more than 100 times; MASH, 21 times.

I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!

I believe in FALSE HOPE. I love FALSE HOPE. I spread FALSE HOPE on crackers and eat it.

All of those people had hope, false or not, that they would succeed—or they would have given up. The same goes for those who survive past their expiration date. They didn’t listen to the statistics and I can guarantee you they mainlined FALSE HOPE.

I for one, think we all should all believe in FALSE HOPE. About everything. All of the time.

I shudder at the alternative.

Carry on,
xox

Hi All,
This is for several people I love. Their bones are broken. Their ribs are cracked. And even though it’s over for a few of them— it still gets hard to breathe sometimes. I love you.
Carry on,
xox

ARE YOU READY TO FORGIVE? The complicated, gritty path to grace.

It’s complex. It’s confusing. It’s deeply particular. It’s the through-line of most mystical teachings:

Forgiveness.

I’m a “Forgiveness Aspirant.” I’m just as good at holding a grudge as I am at letting it go, but for the most part, I want to be as gracious as possible, and I really do believe that forgiveness is the primary Light source of an illumined existence.

That said, choosing—at a critical moment—not to forgive was one of the most spiritual, Soul-affirming acts of my life.

For me, divorce was like having my bones broken very, very slowly, one limb after the next, and then each rib—which made it difficult to breathe for a long time. It was brutal. It didn’t matter that I was the one walking away. I had to crawl my way back into the Light. The dismantling of the marriage agreement itself was very civilized and straightforward. But I had no idea that the real work had just begun. You can’t move on to a new life until you unpack the old one—or burn it down to the ground.

So, I unpacked. I also torched, and past-life-regressed, and journaled, and therapized, and danced, and raged, and grieved, and owned my way through every inch of the journey. I had to go back and do some of it over again, just to make sure it was out of my system. I was not going to take the past into my future. I held up each memory and emotion to surmise: is this a Truth or is this a lie? I was extremely thorough. And when my work was done, which took way longer than I would have preferred, I had become one of those rebirthed, empowered woman clichés. All I could say when asked was, “I’m better than ever. Like, better than ever.”

Toward the end of that long trip, I was working with an exquisite healer—she’s a total energy ninja. We were working on getting my adrenals back in shape. Cutting some energy cords, putting some astral protection into place…you know, the usual. I’d had a series of disturbing dreams that week, indicators of “intrusions,” you could say. I was ready to analyze them, up my frankincense oil intake, chant some Durga mantras, and keep on keeping on.

At the end of a text exchange we were having about the effects of Light meditation on the nervous system, this Lady Ninja of the Light wrote, “D, you have to forgive him.” My face flushed with heat and my stomach sank. It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. I’d come so far. My life was beginning to shimmer. My money was mine, I was back in my body, my heart was lush with Love and gratitude. So much of my reinvention had been about reckoning and validating my sanity for all the times that I’d thought I was crazy. I was finally seeing clearly. I had boundaries in place. I was over it.

I read that sentence over three times. “D, you have to forgive him.” Then I burst into hot, panicked tears. I’d been calm just moments before. Now I was frantic. Because here’s what I heard echoing inside of the words “forgive him”:

“Dismantle your boundaries, make yourself wrong, admit to things you never did so everyone thinks you’re nicer and saner than you may appear, let him back into your heart, and effectively dissolve your last few years of intense self-scrutiny and resurrection. And while you’re at it, let him into your house, be friendly, be a progressive family unit, and for God’s sake, smile more—because that is what it means to be a truly spiritual person, Danielle.”

At least that’s how I interpreted it.

My phone rang. (Lady Ninja of the Light is so tuned in that she could feel my panic across the country.) I didn’t bother to compose myself before I answered. I just received the call and wept into the phone.

Let me pause here and say that this ninja healer is one of the most cherished beings in my life. When I figure out one of the esoteric riddles she gives me, I feel accomplished. I want to continue learning from her as long as I can. Her respect matters to me—a lot.

She listened gently on the other end of the line as I cried and cried.

After a minute or so, she said, “D?”

I felt like I was in a movie version of an ancient Greek myth. I was the sweaty protagonist, sword in hand, tired as hell, trying to stay alive in a succession of tests. Do I go left down the maze, or right? Do I scale the wall, or do I accept defeat?

I took a stuttered but full inhale because, in that moment, I knew which way I was going to go. I also knew that my beloved mentor would see me as an unfit spiritual student, and our time together would come to an end.

“I’m sorry,” I broke the silence. “But I just can’t do it.” Long pause. “I can’t forgive if it means letting him back into my heart. I’ve come too far.” Silence. What I was thinking was, I know you think I’m a loser, but I really have no choice. Thank you for working with me; you can break up with me now.

I wanted to be spiritually respectable, but I just couldn’t care about “evolving” anymore. For once, I was only exactly where I was. No aspiration, all acceptance. My knowing was coursing through my body; it felt impossibly wrong to abandon it. So there I stood, with my inconvenient Truth. I don’t think I’ve ever been as human as I was in that moment.

And then Lady Light burst out laughing her oh, honey-child kind of laugh. “Oh, God no! You do not have to give him the time of day. Ever again. Noooo. Just forgive his SOUL!” She laughed some more. “It’s actually the hardest work to do—because that’s what’s real.”

“So don’t let down my guard?” I said, all snuffly and hopeful.

“Nope. Please don’t.”

“Forgive his Soul?” I confirmed.

“Yep. The biggest thing there is.”

“Oh! Well I can do THAT! I’m halfway there!”

“You’re way more than halfway there. This is the finish line,” she affirmed.

“Well, that’s all you needed to say!” Then we laughed that awesome post-sobbing, post-skill-testing-question, full-bodied woman laugh. Sweet relief! I was going to stay the course:

Keep it real, aim high, do the divine work.

Of course, it wasn’t quite that easy—the actual forgiveness practice of my Soul addressing his was profoundly painful at times. But it didn’t last long. At that stage, it was like removing slivers instead of cracking bones.

I sat in meditation, and over the course of many months, I streamed Light and Love to his Higher Self. I pictured him standing directly in front of me and I gazed at him with total kindness. If that felt too close for comfort on that day, then I’d just imagine him as a Light form of pure energy. I allowed his Soul to come near to mine again. I let myself adore who he truly is. And I thanked him, over and over again, for participating in our agreement to play out what we did in this lifetime. I took it a step further and extended the same gratitude to all of the people in his life. I prayed for their well-being. I cherished his very Soul. Completely.

By honoring my humanity, I got fuller access to my divine power. On Earth, in the day-to-day, my boundaries stayed very much intact. And I moved forward much more freely, navigating with a lighter heart.

PS: Most of us have a forgiveness story we’re in the midst of unraveling. Send this to someone who needs to give themselves a break, or give up their grudge. xo.

DANIELLELAPORTE.COM

“Dear God, please change this person/place/thing so that I can feel better.”

What kind of prayer is that? If you said disempowering, you get a pony!

We all know that change is an inside job, goddamnit! 

The patron saint of that prayer is the caterpillar, but can you blame her? She has eaten herself silly only to find herself inside of the equivalent of a deprivation tank. You can call it a chrysalis if it makes you feel better. That’s such a pretty word for a device of torture. Or a coffin. Or the box magicians use to cut ladies in half or turn rabbits into a Maserati’s.

Metamorphosis — A change in form or nature of a thing or person onto a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.

That sounds magical, right? Death…rebirth…

(Screech) Not so fast.

Let’s check back with the caterpillar.
The guy on the corner in the dark glasses and the trench coat, otherwise known as The Big Guy—or God—he promised her wings. To fly and shit.
But first she had to part with all of her worldly possessions; her BMW, her westside condo— her ravenous appetite—and her wallet.

It all sounded too good to be true to her. No more black back fuzz. No more Spanx. Just color and beauty and flight.
What could go wrong?

What she wasn’t aware of, what no one had told her, what wasn’t even listed in the small print—was the goo part.

In between caterpillar and butterfly, the poor thing is…simply put…well, she is goo. A gelatinous mixture of arms and legs, fuzz and butt cheeks, heart, soul, hopes and dreams. It’s ugly AF but this stage cannot be skipped. This is where the magic happens. The change.
And where the fervent prayers began.
The bargaining.
The begging.
The looking for every loophole.

The nearest exit. The thingy to break the glass on the fire alarm. The cord that stops this runaway train of pain.

If you had the ability (which, thank god you don’t) to hear her muffled cries for help and you, in all of your misguided frenzy to free her, cut the chrysalis open at this stage to hand her a lifeline or her cell phone—she would ooze all over the place like so much snot.

The goo stage. We’ve all been there and unfortunately, there is no short cut.
If there was I’d have found it and sold the patent to some twenty-two-year-old silicon valley wunderkind for a bazillion dollars. I would be sipping a Pina Colada, sucking the toes of the cabana boy on my own private island and I most certainly would NOT be writing to you about goo.

Anyway… back to metamorphosis.
If there was a handbook it would be titled “On Your Way to Better—Via Hell.”
Using alchemy. And magic. All of that eye of Knut and horn of toad kind of stuff.

Who said this was going to be fun? Oh, that’s right. no one!

Listen, nobody wants to be goo. We may want change but we sure as hell don’t want to go through the really messy part in the middle. The part where we’re not quite a butterfly but we can’t go back to being a caterpillar. The point of no return.
In other words the goo part.

I have written more goo related notes to myself and my friends these past few months than I have my entire life.

Everyone seems a little gelatinous lately. It appears we all prayed to feel better and now we’re stuck between a rock and a wet place.

If you can relate take solace in the fact that you are not hanging upside down from that branch alone. There are a whole bunch of us here and you know the old saying “Goo loves company”, well it’s true. We do.

Here’s my theory and I’m convinced it’s true. Only the bravest of caterpillars take the dare to metamorphose into butterflies. The others opt for the cash and free passes to the all-you-can-eat buffet and never look back.

Wings don’t come cheap y’all. There’s always some sacrifice involved.

“If you were born without wings do nothing to prevent them from growing” ~ Coco Chanel

Hang in there (pun intended) you courageous ones.
And
Carry on,
xox

You guys! I wanted to let you know that we did it! As per my post on Tuesday, my dear friend got her test results back and lo and behold, she’s fine! The cat was alive you guys! Thank you to everyone who helped us out with this thought experiment. We are SO fing powerful!  She is out of the goo and has her wings!

xox Love you!

“A bambiraptor is a savage baby deer.”
~ Alan Davies

I was randomly thinking about deer the other day. Don’t ask me why. I think it was prompted by a deer siting at the top of Beverly Glen a month or so ago but I can’t be sure.

Anyway, as we slowly wove our way up the canyon in a single file line (otherwise known as rush hour), I spied a deer casually teetering (if that’s even possible), on an impossibly vertical slope to my right.

Chewing lazily, she seemed to be sizing things up.

Should she stay and enjoy her snack until those things with wheels and bumpers and angry people inside that could kill her were gone? Or should she take her chances and make a run for it?

I could see her thinking about it and that made me mad.

Deer and cars don’t mix. Cars should be viewed with the same trepidation as any natural predator. Think wolf or coyote or Elmer Fudd. But they aren’t and you can just see it in their dark little Bambi eyes.

They are not the least bit afraid of cars.

They either have such an inflated sense of their own speed and agility that they’re convinced they can dash across a street without being hit OR they are in dire need of a Deer Newsletter that informs them of the dangers that living in the city can present.

Either way, evolution has failed them.

Cars are not a novelty. Cars have been around for tens of deer generations. They should run in the other direction the moment they smell traffic instead of eyeballing the wildflowers that grow on the other side of the street. When they see poor Bob laying there, yet another unfortunate victim of roadkill, they should have a family meeting where they yell and smoke too many Marlboro as they instill fear into the hearts of their baby does and sassy teenage bucks.

Maybe they do and nobody cares.

Every deer thinks that it won’t happen to them. Famous last words, right Bob?

I’m like a deer. We all are. You can tell me stuff is dangerous and I’ll just shrug and figure I’ll take my chances.
Sound familiar?

But maybe the deer have it right? Maybe we should ignore the stupid newsletter with page after page of what will kill us. Maybe we should just live our lives with curiosity about those flowers that grow on the other side of the street.

I don’t know. I can’t be sure any of it makes sense.

All I know is that some things aren’t worth dying for…and deer need to learn to read traffic better.

Carry on,
xox

I rest my case!

Dearest brave ones,
All I can say is that after the past six months—for almost everyone—including me—and tens of my friends—this could not feel more relevant.

Carry on,
xox

I found this a while ago…somewhere…I can’t remember.
I’m sure I was bleary eyed, in need of sleep, and I only had the presence of mind to copy/paste.

I wanted to show this to you guys. It’s by Katy Bourne and it’s so good I can’t even…there are no words.

This is for the ones going through hell right now. You know who you are. And for those of us that have been there and back. Katy obviously has, and her words are here to soothe all of our souls.
Enjoy your weekend,
xox

“You’re dangling precariously.
You’re frozen and trembling. You’re gripped with uncertainty and the ominous unknown. The wolf is at the door.

The bills are piling up, but no money is coming in. Or maybe your baby left you, walked right out. Perhaps you’ve made an epic mistake, with disastrous and irrevocable consequences. You can barely breathe, suffocated by the unwieldy weight of your own broken heart.

You frantically scan the landscape, looking for clues or any kind of lifeline. But the vista is barren. You’re shredded into a million bewildering pieces. You’re hanging on for sweet life. Or maybe you don’t know what you’re hanging on to anymore, or if you even can.

This is survival mode. And it will be okay.

Raw vulnerability is the midwife to grace.
Stripped of your old safety nets and certainties, you have nothing but openness and new eyes. There is a pouring in of all the things you never noticed before. Even a dew-soaked leaf takes on a fresh poignancy and buys you a nanosecond of peace and beauty.

The very light of day changes. It softens and clarifies. Your pain is not here to batter you. It’s just making passage for perspective, transcendence, and rebirth.

No matter the mayhem of the present moment, your heart is still steadily pounding. Your lungs are still expanding and contracting. Oxygen is still coursing through your body. And as you flail around in your anguish, your inner warrior is hard at work behind the scenes: rendering first-aid, holding your broken soul and keeping you alive.

He or she is fighting for you, more ferociously and diligently than you can imagine.

Your mind is your best weapon and your biggest obstacle.
It can spin you into infinite madness or ground you in brave resolve. Panic can make it chatter relentlessly, but you can bring it back to earth again.

Step outside. Turn your precious face upward. Breathe. The air and the sky and the sun will calm the clamor. You don’t have to figure it all out right now.

Grief is the natural and real response to loss and hardship.

Despair, however, is grief on steroids. Grief holds its own gentle resolution. Despair is resignation, a long-term forecast for gloom. Fear has an ugly snarl but limited power. Still, it rages like a lunatic, leaving you disoriented.

Courage moves through the chaos, one steady step at a time. Your heartache is like a free fall. You can scramble to fill the void, grabbing for whatever fix you can to numb the jagged edges. You can also persevere with quiet dignity. In every moment there are choices, even in survival mode.

The hardest part of survival mode is the ambiguity.

It will not budge. There is no clear pathway to relief or even a guarantee that you’ll find it. You are at the mercy of time and forces beyond your control. Such is the nature of ambiguity. Your present circumstances merely accentuate the point.

But even within the ambiguity there is possibility.

Although you’re shaking on the edge, there is a larger view available. This current difficulty, with all its sorrow, dread, and anger, is just a blip on a much greater narrative. There is spaciousness, wonder and the divine gift of impermanence.

All are there for you. There is elegant liberation in releasing your weary clutch. You have already traveled for eons. Grace is the tender seraph pulling you home, wherever that may be.
And you will be okay.”

Katy Bourne is a self-described ‘basic goober making her way in the world’. A child of the Southern plains, she spent her Oklahoma childhood throwing rocks, blowing saxophone in the school band and riding horses. The youngest of four, she was often left to her own devices and entertained herself by making faces in the bathroom mirror and dressing up the family pets. Having navigated numerous life challenges over the years — addiction & recovery, the death of a child, divorce, the ups & downs of parenthood, the music business — she is particularly interested in exploring themes of survival, grit and grace in the face of ambiguity. Katy makes her home in Seattle, WA. By day, she writes promotional copy for musicians and bands. By night, she sings jazz at nightspots, festivals and private events throughout the Northwest.
{You’ll Be Okay}

You could contact her via her website.http://katy-bourne.com

“Be a matador” he yelled as I whimpered pitifully in the middle of a six-lane highway, traffic whizzing by us on both sides.

Not waiting for a break in the traffic he had grabbed my hand and run us between cars out to a place I try REALLY hard to never find myself. The middle of a busy street.

I hate that shit.
I will NOT play chicken, I’ll wait, or walk to the corner crosswalk thank you very much.

But to my French husband jaywalking on a busy boulevard is in his blood, a skill learned as a youth on the impossibly dangerous streets of Paris.

It is not a chicken sport. It is a bullfight. And he/we were Matadors.

Gulp.

Me: (leaning in, yelling above the noise of the cars) Wha…what? Did you say a matador?

Husband: Yes! Stand still! Don’t let the cars smell your fear.

Me: (Squeezing his hand like a vice grip, hoping to illicit pain) Are you crazy? What are you talking about?

Husband: (Yelling back at me through a smirk) Listen to me! All the greatest Matadors are French!

Me: You’re kidding me right? They are NOT French, they’re Spanish!

Did you see what he did there? He took my mind off of my predicament, knowing I would argue with him. Well played husband, well played.

Husband: I’m telling you, they’re French! They’re called Coreadors.

I was laughing nervously. Mostly at the absurdity of the conversation. I’m sure I appeared squirmy, uncomfortable and maybe a little hysterical. That comes from knowing that you’re probably going to end up as a splat on the windshield of a Prius.

Me: Shut. Up! They are NOT!

Husband: (Leaning in, yelling above traffic) Or Toreadors. Those are the guys on horseback. 

Me: (Feeling queasy. close enough to death to relate to the bull) Uhhh! Stop! Bullfighting is barbaric! The French don’t have bullfighting! They’re WAY too civilized for that!

Husband: (Amused by my argument) That’s what YOU think!

By the way, can you believe we were still standing in the middle of a busy street? Me either, but we were!

Me: (Wishing I’d ordered the french toast as my last meal) Egads. Bullfighting. Brutal. Whoever thought that was a good idea?

Husband: The Romans.

Me: Figures.

With that, the last car hurtled past us and he yanked my hand and ran me to the safety of the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. We were both laughing, not at bullfighting because it’s a horrible practice*—but at the absurdity of our conversation.

Husband: God, you can be such a baby!

Me: God, you’re weird! And damn, the Romans were assholes!

Some story on the radio in the car changed the subject, but I had to share this.

Words from a French wise guy I know—When you’re in the middle of chaos—stand still—be a matador.

Carry on,
xox

*Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I am in no way condoning bullfighting and no bulls were killed in the telling of this story.

“If you are going to tell people the truth be funny or they will kill you.” ~ Billy Wilder

I took the truth for granted and I’d bet my mothers Sees fudge recipe that you did too.

I love the truth. It’s solid even if it’s messy and it’s so much less complicated than lying.

We’re all grown-ups here, we know we can expect some lying in our daily lives.  Used car salesmen, the waiter who insists the coffee is decaf, and normal, run-of-the-mill politicians.

I miss the truth.

Heck, I’ve lied before and not just a little white lie. It wasn’t black, like saying the dingo ate my baby, it was more brownish-grey, like no, I’m not attracted to that other guy. Anyhow, all I can tell you is that I don’t possess the skill it takes to be a gifted liar. It tore me up. I couldn’t sleep, I lost weight.

Now I don’t have the bandwidth to lie. I could never remember the fabricated story I’d have to tell so even the simplest question could trip me up.

The truth is simple. It’s easy. I read a study once where they had figured out through years of studying vigorous lying that the longer and more complicated an explanation was —the more likely it was to be untrue.

Truth is quiet, lying is loud.

Truth feels like a deep breath after you realize you’ve been shallow breathing again.

Truth is like watching murky water clear up. Once it reveals the beautifully colored fish and the multi-colored rocky bottom, you discover you aren’t in deep water after all. Nope, it’s shallow as shit and you can stop furiously dog padding and just put your feet down.

Truth is the difference between squinting to read the small print, and going and getting your glasses.
Instant clarity.

Clarity is truth’s sidekick. Together they calm us down. We know where we stand. We can see the bottom, read the small print.

I never realized how much I counted on those two until recently. I took truth for granted. It never occurred to me how scary watching someone repeatedly lie could be.

But all is not lost. Here’s what I know for sure. From one really bad lying liar to you.

Liars get cocky. They make mistakes. They forget about all the past bragging, the hidden cameras, the blind ambition of the hyenas in the room—and this one simple fact:

Truth, like that stubborn splinter in your finger always works its way to the surface.

I take solace in knowing that.

Carry on,
xox

“What if your intuition was your future informing your present?”
~ Me

This was written waaaaay back in the fifteen minutes when I was eating healthy. But the questions are more useful than ever!
Carry on,
xox

The house is still. It’s the middle of the night, so that’s appropriate.

The only sound I can hear is the whrrrrr of the refrigerator motor, which spends its nights keeping my kale and green drink ingredients fresh.
Damn you stainless steel box of cold air (yelled dramatically while waving a fist).

Rant Alert:
Why can’t my protein, vegetable laden juices taste like a chocolate malt?
Is that too much to ask?
I’m submitting a formal complaint right here and now. This healthy shit has GOT to start tasting better…or else…

Anyway…
My refrigerator has undergone a recent renaissance.
It seems to follow my life’s trajectory. It’s all cleanses, and bitter greens and shit.
I’m home most days writing, so I give myself very few choices so I won’t cheat on fat infused deliciousness. As a matter of fact, there is nothing delicious within a three-mile radius. I’d have to get in my car and drive to get it, and my laziness overrules any craving for carbs, so I think technically, I’m not an addict, which gives me some solace.

What I am is a clear channel…with a bad attitude…in dire need of a cheeseburger.

Back in the day, for about two decades, the freezer in my apartment contained two things: vodka and cigarettes (if you’re just the casual smoker, keeping cigs in the freezer keeps them fresh) not even an ice cube dared show its face. Later ground coffee replaced the cigarettes.

Quick story about how THAT happened.

Back in ’93 when I had my first “energy work” done, a friend came by the apartment to get the skinny. Remember, I had been violently ill for three days.
She was a regular, so she knew about the cigscicles and since she could tell my story was going be juicy, and warrant a smoke, she walked over to the kitchen, which was just to the left of where I was sitting, on the couch, and opened the freezer. Suddenly, she stepped back like she saw a ghost – and slammed the thing shut.
I watched it all happen, puzzled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her with my head tilted sideways like a dog hearing a high pitched whistle.

My friend still standing in front of the closed freezer door says, “A voice just told me: DONT SMOKE AROUND HER!”
“What?”
“I’d better go.”

Man, the disembodied voices in my apartment in those days were bossy! (PS. Nothing’s changed.)

“Sit your ass down, I’ve got a story to tell.” I barked from the other room.
And THAT was the end of my casual smoking. I tried one occasionally in the years that followed but they made me feel awful, and when something stops being fun, I quit doing it.

Think Jane Fonda Workouts and hot yoga.

So, back to the middle of the night as I tossed and turned and awfulized; mulling over this decision or that.
I finally made the first decision and that was to switch my brain from FU mode to productive mode, remembering all the recent things I’ve heard and read on making life altering choices and decisions.

So, to save you the obsessing, the time, and trouble, here is a list of the things you should ask yourself:

1) Will I regret not making this change? (Regrets are like walking around with a wet coat on. They are killjoys.)

2) Why exactly am I hesitant/ indecisive? Make a list. (The list that you make in light of day will always be shorter than the phone book sized one you make at three AM…just sayin’).

3) What doors will close if I make this change? Do I care? (That one makes my butt cheeks clench)

4) Which choice will make the better story? (Kinda like the movie viewing analogy from Saturday’s post.)

5) How does the choice or change FEEL? (That really should be number one. Check your kishke.)

6) What’s the worst thing that can happen? (Rewind your three AM worries, they’re ALL there).

7) What’s the BEST thing that can happen? (Tiny little list, usually written on a Post-It with a question mark at the end. )

8) What would I tell my best friend to do? (Sans all jealousy, competitiveness, and ego).

9) What’s the “next right thing” to do to stay free of ego? (In other words, check your motivation. Is it pure? Not really? THERE’S your answer.)

10) What choice or change would make me the proudest in five years? (That’s often the clincher for me. Can’t say I’m too proud of myself when I play it safe.)

There you have it. I hope this helps. Clarity is key to making the best choices. That and chocolate.

Love you all,
Xox

Hello brave ones,

This is a post from ages ago. Three years to be exact but it has been a topic of constant conversation these days.

When do you take the leap to change?

I like the idea of permission, and I LOVE the concept of Grace.

So today, if you’re contemplating listening to your gut. Or you’ve already taken the leap and you feel like you’re in free-fall—maybe this will help.
That’s always my wish.

Carry on,
xox

Both feet have to leave the ground to leap.
Ohhhhhh Shiiiiiiit!

…and therein lies the rub.

When am I ready to leap you ask? Uh, just this side of NEVER!

We seldom feel like we’re ready….it just isn’t the right time…not yet.

But what the hell are we waiting for?
An illness?
Divorce?
The empty nest?
More diplomas?
Losing a job?
More zeros in our bank account (Ahhh, now I’m getting warmer) but how many are enough?

How about PERMISSION?
The WORD from God-on-high that all systems are go, and you’re ready for launch.
That’s what I want!
That’s what we all want. Right?

But you know what you guys? We’ve got that. We have our internal guidance, our intuition, our gut, to let us know when we’re getting close.

We’ve all been there. You get that restless feeling.

You start asking life WAY too many questions.

You feel as if you can’t continue to do that thing you’ve been doing for one. more. minute.

That to me, signals one foot off the ground.

Then I have to suck up every ounce of courage to trust those signals, and
Lift. The. Other. Foot.

Permission is Grace’s secret weapon.

If you give enough value to the signs; the synchronicity, that jumpy little feeling in your belly, and you turn away from the fear and doubt and really show up for yourself; you grant Permission.
Permission’s bodyguards, Faith and Courage, then clear the path for Grace to enter.

Then you know what Grace does?
She lends you her hand and helps you balance…
so you can lift your other foot to leap.

Xox