guidance

<p>“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
~Teddy Roosevelt~

It would be very easy to catch right now.
I haven’t been vaccinated, I’m not big on needles.
All I can say is; It feels VERY contagious right now.
I hope I don’t come down with a case of Comparison-itis.

Here in LA it’s easy to get caught up in “keeping up with the Kardashians” so to speak.
You can find yourself wanting a better car or a bigger home. The clothes, the shoes, the handbags…oh my!
Even youth. This is the land of young and beautiful people.
Here in La-La Land that over 40 crowd that succumbs to Comparison-itis help keep the plastic surgeons in their alligator loafers.

The truth is; comparing WILL steal your joy.
Because there will always be someone smarter, taller, thinner, richer, whatever! And when you chase them, you lose sight of your own blessings.
Believe me, there are people who want what you take for granted.

I’ve started my business course this week and it comes with a private Facebook page.
There are fellow students posting the amazing progress they’ve made and the epic insights they’ve had. They’ve completed all the assignments, attained magnificent clarity, increased their customer base by 60% and their income by 200%, and they are enthusiastically sharing it with our community, to great fanfare.
Let me be clear, school started Monday…it’s Wednesday. 

I keep reminding myself that when you re-enter the school system, even on the internet, you avail yourself to every “itis” imaginable.
I see Comparison-itis and his buddy Competetive-itis hanging out in our virtual Facebook hallways.
I remember them from High School and College. Funny, they look the same, they haven’t changed a bit…but I have.

Maybe it’s my age. I’d like to think its the wisdom I’ve accrued. Ha! 

Nevertheless, I’m an observer rather than a participant this time around. My latent competitiveness has woken up, but it knows how that story ends, so it’s behaving more like a sling-shot than an anchor.

These people are brilliant!
With their enthusiasm, they are gifting us with all the answers, and that’s the difference. They have the best sources and ideas, so their posts are becoming gold mines and I’m mining them every day to help in my endeavors.

I do see others in the comments though, that have come down with a horrible case of Comparison-itis.
I suppose a short bout is inevitable.
When you up your game, when you enter the arena, you can’t help but notice where you are in the standings.
There are the true Gladiators, and there are the newbies.
You can feel inferior or inspired. 
I pick the inspired.

Inspiration seems to be the Holistic cure for Comparison-itis.
That virus can’t stand up to all the fresh ideas.
Creative juices flowing and all the new ways of being and thinking are the anecdote.
Try not to look around and feel like you’re not enough, like you’re not doing it right, or “getting it” fast enough!
Become inspired!
If “they” can do it, you can too!
XoxJanet

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
~Will Rodgers~

I had this post all queued up in my head and then I saw this quote on Sir Richard Branson’s blog…Go figure.
I believe the Universe seeds the air with messages so we can pick them up when we’re open enough to receive. For me that happens driving the car, in the shower, walking the dogs, or at the gym. Those are the times when my guard goes down and my antenna goes up. Consistent yes, convenient no!

Anyway, gossip…gossip…ohhhhh it can sound so delicious, yet be so malicious.
Sadly, it doesn’t stop at middle school. It’s an even snarkier beast as an adult.

The two key components with gossip that make it so hurtful are these:
1) It is often, and by often I mean almost always, NOT TRUE.
2) You would NEVER want it to get back to the subject, most especially not with YOUR name attached.
So right there, you have your filter.
Should you pass it along?
Not unless Barbie herself told you she had a boob job.
Even then, I’m guessing they can speak for themselves.

Think about it, the juiciest gossip is impossible to verify.
Did So and So’s husband really sleep with the nanny? Not unless you saw it with your own eyes. THAT is the only way to know for sure. And if you did, it’s more sad than salacious. It does not need a publicist.

Have you ever been caught on the wrong end of gossip?
Either as the subject or the spreader?
Both of those are entries into the humiliation and shame Hall Of Fame.
I’ve been both. I’m pretty sure if you’re honest and you’ve lived long enough, you have too.
Neither was my proudest moment, but MAN they taught me a lot.
I started to write them here, but then I realized in the telling of their stories, I was gossiping!
So I’ll just have to leave it to your imagination.

Here’s what I want all of us to do.
Just give it a second thought the next time a tasty tidbit is whispered in your ear.
Is it true? Even if it might be, is it for public consumption?
Would we want our name attached to it?
Would we want the parrot to blab?
Who would get hurt in the telling of this?
If it doesn’t stand up to these questions, no matter how sensational…we will walk away.
It’s none of our business.

XoxJanet 

“As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect. Not every action will produce the desired result. Not every action will work. Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.”
– Jack Canfield

Oh God, here I go again…experimenting, making mistakes, almost getting it right…Crap!

As Monday approaches, which is the day my online business class starts,
I’m getting a stomach ache. Maybe a headache too. Yeah, definitely head ache.

Why you ask? Because of my expectations!
They started off strong, which is par for the course for me.
I devoured all the pre-class curriculum, watched the videos…twice; then I got to the parts I just didn’t understand, and I got frustrated. 
” Go big, or go home!” has often been my battle cry. But that was in the ventures where I knew my shit.
Now, I’m WAYYYYYYYYY out of my league, and I want to go to bed.

That all got me to thinking about expectations. 
I’m expecting everything to be over my head.
I’m expecting that I will not understand analytics, web design, content blah blah, and all that jazz.

I’m expecting to be asked to build a rocket ship from popsicle sticks, some gum and a flashlight.
I don’t understand how televisions work and planes fly. I know it’s something about capturing pixels and aerodynamics, but it’s all just a miracle to me.
So is the internet.
And I’m about to go behind the curtain and see how it all functions.
Then, I’m going to learn how to finagle and manipulate it.
Then I’m going to rule the world! Mwaaaahaaahaa!
Expectations too high?

See? My expectations have run amok. I vacillate between knowing I’m gonna suck, to thinking I’m the next Mark Zuckerberg.
Damn you expectations!
Do you do that too?

I have until Monday to stop being so expectation-ally schizophrenic and get a more realistic grip on them.
Then I need to just be okay being a student.
I can’t be good at all this stuff, because it’s all NEW to me. Some things I’m going to grasp right away, and love them because they make me feel smart.
I expect a great majority of the material will read like Greek to me, and I’m gonna suck.
I’m expecting a lot of tears…Because that’s what I do when I get frustrated.

So stay tuned. This should get interesting, funny and soggy.

This blog will soon become part of a website. I expect it to be…great.
You will all get to witness this transformation in the coming months, and I know you’ll weigh in 🙂
There will be two, maybe three books available. They’ll be compiled from the over 400 blog posts I’ve written so far.
Hey! Email me your preference for the first book, will ya? Atikhome@me.com
1) The poignant posts with a message and the poems.
Or…
2) The more humorous posts.

I know you’ll be honest with me, because…
I expect nothing less.

XoxJanet

in·tu·i·tion
noun
1.
the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
“we shall allow our intuition to guide us”
synonyms: gut feeling (I added that) instinct, intuitiveness

“Can you use that word in a sentence please?”

Isn’t that one of the questions spelling bee participants ask?
I love the sentence Dictionary.com came up with: We shall allow our intuition to guide us.”
Wouldn’t it be great if we all REALLY did that?
I’d like to live in THAT world!

When’s the last time you said: I shouldn’t have trusted my intuition? 
Probably never.
Here’s why: Intuition is your internal GPS. She hold the maps, she has all the directions.
Your intuition has access to all your wisdom, all your talents, all your hopes and dreams.
Even the ones that are buried so deep you don’t acknowledge them or show them to the world.
Then, she has access to wisdom and talents that YOU didn’t even know you possessed.

The thing with intuition is: she’s got your back.
You have to really know that in order to trust her guidance, 
because when you can quiet the bullshit, she will be your North Star.
She will guide you to exactly where you should be.
Where you need to be.
You just need to listen.

Intuition is that voice that keeps repeating.
It is calm but insistent.
You’ll try to talk yourself out of it, there doesn’t seem to be reason to its request.
Sometimes it doesn’t make sense.
OFTEN it doesn’t seem rational.
That’s the thing, it isn’t reasonable, it isn’t rational, it’s intuition.

Mothers have it IN SPADES!
“Check the baby”.
Calm, but insistent.
“Check the baby”.
There is no mother on earth that ignores that voice.
They go check the baby, damn it!

Intuition has conviction, it has that knowing.
I’m going to add that to the definition: having a knowing…just KNOWING something.
There’s never a question mark at the end of the request.
If the thought starts with “should I “? Or “What if”. That’s not intuition.
It says without a shadow of a doubt “Don’t marry that man”.
End of discussion.
Shit! We know that voice is telling the truth, we just don’t want to hear it the night before the wedding.

There are some people that risk looking foolish to obey their intuition.
People get off planes that then crash.
There are the stories of people that didn’t go to work, didn’t go back in the building or were “late” on 911.

“Get that mole checked”
That’s intuition. It’s not asking you, it’s telling you.
Whether it’s telling you to get off a plane, see a doctor or leave the ass hole at the altar. It’s trying to guide you and possibly save your life.

My husband and I follow intuition’s instructions every time we get on the motorcycle. We’ve gotten really good at it; because we want to live to see another day.
On our long distance trips we schedule a stretch break every two hours so our butts don’t permanently fall asleep.
Several times, just because one of us has gotten that “hit”, we have pulled off a road to check a map or get a coffee way ahead of time, and it has saved us.

I can remember two times in France. Once we missed a ten car pile up by about a minute. Another morning we left early, just before a sniper opened fire from a bell tower, on the plaza where we were staying in Tours. If we had stuck to our original time, we would have been having coffee…in that plaza…at that time. Guaranteed.
I’m not kidding, we are probably alive because we deviated from our plan, we both had a gut feeling to leave early.

In March of 2010 on Oahu, my friend was teasing me because I was convinced there was going to be a tsunami. I was drinking umbrella drinks and obsessing, so he Googled the frequency of tsunamis in the Hawaiian islands.
Rare.
Didn’t matter.
I heard the voice that kept saying very calmly, but insistently: there’s going to be a tsunami. If Oahu had been an airplane, I would have grabbed my carry-on and gotten off.
Well, it never occurred, we left the next day and I forgot about it.

The next year my husband and I were invited to Maui to stay with friends.
On the drive from the airport to the condo, there’s that voice again.
“There’s going to be a tsunami”.
So I blurt it out over the bad music on the radio.
We then had a spirited debate on which was more likely to happen, a tsunami or a giant volcanic eruption? We both end up on Team Volcano, because THAT makes sense.
It’s reasonable and rational, unlike a tsunami…and we forget about it. 
I do have to say, I did pay attention to the fact that we were six floors up. I know I wouldn’t have stayed beachfront. No way.
So you can imagine my husband’s face when 10 days later CNN breaks in with coverage of the huge Tsunami in Japan, and a few minutes later all the Islands are put on Tsunami Watch! 
Intuition had my back. She had OUR back.
She just had her dates wrong the first time, she was ahead of herself by one year.
Or was she?
XoxJanet

When I forget this, I get scared.
Another one I like is from Esther Hicks/Abraham: Things are always working out for me.
Doesn’t that just make your shoulders come down off your ears?! Deep breath…
Things are working out, everything will be ok.
Carry on.
XoxJanet

“As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect. Not every action will produce the desired result. Not every action will work. Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.”
– Jack Canfield

Nevertheless, I am willing; has become my mantra these days.
I’m going to have it embroidered on a pillow, get it tattoo’d and have a t-shirt made.
All to remind me that no matter what happens…I signed up for this.

Eventually a girl’s gotta hunker down, keep calm and carry on.

Eager=willing
Free=willing
Eyes wide open=willing
Open heart=willing
Vulnerable=willing
Trust=willing
Ready to succeed or fail=willing
Belief=willing
Writing every day=willing
Putting yourself out there=willing
Telling the truth= willing
Being accountable=willing
Love=willing
Surrender=willing

There are obstacles that can and will surface and that’s where Nevertheless comes in.

Things may be tough, nevertheless.
People may not believe in me, nevertheless.
There will be haters, nevertheless.
I may stumble, nevertheless.
There will be mistakes, even failures, nevertheless.
There may be debilitating doubt, nevertheless. 
These obstacles are surmountable because
I. AM. WILLING.

It makes me feel like a warrior on the battlefield,
I AM WILLING my battle cry.
I’m invincible.
I’m freakin’ Braveheart, with half my face painted blue!

Nevertheless, I am willing.
I love it so much, I think I may sky write it as well.
Look for it!

XoxJanet

You all know the feeling. It starts in your stomach, maybe as butterflies.
Travels up to your heart, which then accelerates to Mach 1 pace.
Your face may start to get hot, your hands probably tremble, my lips buzz!
Is that excitement…or fear? 
You gotta be clear!

Almost plowing into the back of the car in front of you on the freeway, and waiting to find out what’s behind door number one, FEEL the same.
Speaking in front of a thousand people, and walking to the electric chair do too!
Your brains got to inform your body, because your body doesn’t know the difference on its own. 
Crazy, but true.
Since the beginning of time, all the same hormones flood your body, trying to get you to run back to the cave.

A good friend’s five year old used to tell her he felt “scared” on the way to Disneyland or a birthday party. He associated all his physical symptoms with the big, loudly barking dog next door. He was terrified of that dog, and so on the ride in the car, to the “happiest place on earth”, he was feeling anything but, labeling his excitement as fear.

Some of us still confuse the two as adults. We probably didn’t verbalize our fear when we were kids, I know I didn’t, it was the 60’s, children were “seen and not heard”….”Martini anyone?”

If your brain lets your body know: Hey, this is a good thing. I choose to be here.
You will save yourself a ton of grief.

I have another friend who hates any kind of surprise. She hates the way that rush of adrenalin feels at the reveal. She’d just as soon be shot out of a cannon, than to endure a surprise party. We had her first and last party at 21. When the lights went on, and we all yelled surprise, she peed her pants, cried hysterically for 15 minutes and then got absolutely shit faced drunk, just to stop the shaking.
Good times!
Excitement or fear?

Here’s the deal, both excitement and fear contain the element of anticipation. 
It is the adrenalin trifecta!
But, YOU have the choice of what label to put on a situation. 

So, you can anticipate the worst, a horrible death in a fiery crash or anticipate a wonderful tropical vacation.
Same plane flight.
You can tell yourself you’re the luckiest person in the world to be winging your way to Hawaii for ten days. You can be so appreciative of air travel and the fact that you can get across the ocean inside of a day, instead of two weeks at sea. You can start to anticipate your first Mai Thai instead of sizing up the people in the exit rows and trying to gauge who in the flight crew will deploy the rafts.

Give your feeling the appropriate name.
Use the anticipation to your benefit.
Let it help your body navigate the rush.

When you’re watching the movie Halloween Part 25, and your heart is ready to jump out of your chest; in order to live through it, you just tell yourself:
This situation isn’t real.
I’m in no danger.
I choose to be here.
That’s the agreement we all make when we walk into a theatre.

I’m embarking on several new things in my life this month.
At times I’m the five year old in the car, on my way to the party, feeling afraid. 
Then I remind myself; that feeling’s not fear, its called excitement.
There’s no danger here. 
I chose these adventures, this anticipation is a good thing.
This planes not going down, and I’m definitely NOT running back to the cave. 
Whew!

XoxJanet

This savage heart is wild and un bridled,
wanting things that can’t be named.

This savage heart behaves like a child,
running barefoot and untamed.

This savage heart won’t choose the road,
that the other hearts have tread.

This savage heart won’t make it easy,
it won’t let itself be lead.

This savage heart is filled with passion,
that drives it forward hard and fast.

This savage heart will daily command me,
inside this life which I’ve been cast.

This savage heart will go on beating,
until all desire is a thing of the past.