heart

It’s uncanny. The way certain people in your life, even celebrities, can say or do or post just the right thing at the right time. Like they’re living a life parallel to your own. Liz Gilbert does that a lot. We have some kind of cosmic bond that was anchored by a hug way back in San Jose at an Oprah event.

Anyway, I too woke up this morning in a tangle. I’ve been tangled for a while now. Nothing as devastating as losing a partner like Liz, mine has to do with family and dysfunction, obligation, boundaries, and playing the role of the heartless turd, which is a nickname I gave myself last week before they all could.

When my mind is in distress it makes meditation a Herculean task. Like jumping rope without a bra, all my negative thoughts slap me around. I forget about my heart. I don’t know how I can because it hurts so much, but I do. And I know better.

The world seems very raw to me these days. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. Perhaps these words from Liz will remind you, as they did with me—to rest in the heart. Doesn’t that sound better than a boob slap?
I Love you, Liz.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones:
I woke up this morning with my mind in a tangle, and my emotions in a storm.

I lay there in bed for a long time, wrestling with my thoughts and fighting hard against my feelings. But I was losing ground. No matter how hard I used my powerful THOUGHTS to try to extract myself from my other powerful THOUGHTS, it didn’t work. My THOUGHTS just got darker, and then my THOUGHTS about my THOUGHTS got more panicked and distressed until new and worse THOUGHTS arose, and now we have a tornado, folks.
(This has happened to me before. But only once or twice.)

My mind thought: I NEED MORE THOUGHTS, TO FIX THESE THOUGHTS! THINK HARDER! FIND A SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING! STOP THIS! GET CONTROL! DIFFERENT THOUGHTS! BETTER THOUGHTS!

Then I remembered: I cannot use my mind to help my mind when my mind is in distress.
At these moments, only the heart can help.

So.
My heart stepped in quietly and said to my tired mind: “Come and rest your tangle here with me. I’ll take care of you, just the way you are.”

My mind said, “But, but, BUT —“

My heart said, “Shhh. I’ve got you.”

Then we all rested together — me, mind, heart.

No solving happened this morning.
Solving doesn’t always have to happen. Sometimes it can’t. Sometimes all you need is a safe place to rest.

HEART.

Then I got up and drew this picture, for the next time I forget.
Onward.
LG

“They say that anger is just love disappointed.” ~ Lyrics from “A Hole In the World” by The Eagles

You know its funny; and not in the haha way, more the ironic variety, that the times when I’m in emotional pain, when I should be writing—I can’t.

My friend the Book Mama says: write when you’re bleeding.
I find myself too busy at triage, what with the tourniquets and numbing agents to have anything at all coherent, let alone pithy to say and I know you all expect yourselves some pith from me.

How do these other folks do it?

Some people are great at it. Brilliant really.

Liz phucking Gilbert got rich off of it for chrissakes.
Glennon Doyle Melton, hello?
Hemingway was in constant emotional turmoil while he crafted his gorgeous prose.
Nora Ephron cried the entire time she wrote the hysterically funny book about her cheating husband who fell in love with her friend—while she was pregnant.

My trials and tribulations are not nearly as epic as any of theirs — yet I find myself uncharacteristically silent.

December was the cruelest of bitches as months go and like any good bitch she pulled at my hair and held my face underwater during our wet t-shirt catfight.

All bets were off. Nothing was fair. I was caught off guard—blindsided. And just to make matters worse the timing sucked because, well, you know, Christmas…

I hate feeling bad at Christmas and will do almost anything to fa la la my way out of it. This year there weren’t enough fa la la’s on the planet to keep my head above water.

I know many of you guys felt the same.

I’ve talked to a few of my friends, the ones who have a high tolerance for uncontrolled sobbing, and they’ve shared their stories of various friends and family members who seem to have been possessed by an intolerant, angry, asshole who blamed them for all of their angst. Lots and lots of disappointed love.

Did any of you experience this phenomenon?

This December I lost my shine. Someone I love held me solely responsible for everything that went wrong for them in 2016.—and in a fit of rage they became my judge, jury and executioner.

Oh yeah, and Happy Holidays!

My friend Kim suffered the same fate. Her best friend stopped speaking to her for no apparent reason and then that friend’s husband publicly shamed Kim on social media where, at the end of a Facebook diatribe, he actually said Happy Holidays. Can you even believe that? “We are morbidly disgusted and disappointed in you and we can no longer bring ourselves to speak to you. Happy Holidays!”

WTF people?

I don’t know about you all but I have my own fallen expectations and disappointments I don’t need anybody to pile theirs on top—thank you very much. Besides that, I think there should be ground rules for raging. Stick with the “I feels” and stay away from the “You ares” because later on, when the dust has settled, no matter how much you try to walk back the things you said—they cannot be unheard or unfelt.

Words are powerful things. They are the first weapons drawn in a battle. And if they’re aimed just right (and they always are by the people who know us the best), they find all of the tender spots and in the process—they kill love.

I felt sliced and diced in December which left me at a loss for words. Maybe they seeped out of all the little holes left behind. Maybe I’ll still be sweeping up consonants and vowels from the cracks of my floor in July. I don’t know. What I DO know is that I will do what I always do—what WE always do—right ladies?

I’ll lick my wounds, pull up my big-girl panties, find my words, and eventually look for the miracle in the mess. A big juicy one lives there I’m sure.

Until then you can find me scarfing down anything chocolate that isn’t nailed down and plotting my revenge (kidding. Maybe…).

Here’s hoping this finds you all happily eating salad.

Carry on,
xox

I don’t know about you guys but I love “unknown”. “Unknown” is so wise and says the greatest shit. Which leads me to believe “unknown” knew I needed to remember this now more than ever.

Carry on,
xox

“Oh, the heartbreakingly beautiful tender weight of being human.” ~ Unknown

I’m tender-hearted.

Truly.

I know I may seem pretty cold-hearted sometimes, but I can be brought to tears by a beer commercial with big horses and dogs. And carols. Oh Holy Night or that incredible duet by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli —that one slays me.

So, yeah. I cry easy. Especially at Christmas.

A “friend” sent me a story with the video of a Santa who was granting a terminally ill little boy’s wish to talk to him only to have the boy whisper at the end of their visit, “Santa, can you help me?” and then die right there in the bearded mans arms.  The man is undone as he weeps through the telling of the story.

Well! That was the cruelest of Yuletide acts so of course I was forced to rip up her Christmas card and eat the fudge I made her.

I will not post it here because it really is THAT sad, but if you need to see it with your own eyes it is currently doing the rounds on Facebook where I have had to do the equivalent of running past it for the past week lest I cry my eyelashes off.

But you’re not getting off that easy. I saw this video and just had to share it with you guys. It is the epitome of the Christmas spirit and that’s all I’m going to say. Except…

I was shocked.

I was touched.

I cried and then I wondered what Oprah,  I would have done in the same situation at the same age.

https://www.facebook.com/unbelievable.wow/videos/289671704767444/

What do YOU think?

Carry on my people,
xox

I don’t fail often but when I do, its alway been BIG. I don’t mess around.
One early marriage,
One ‘all our eggs in one basket’ business,
One interim jewelry job.

Wham, bam, failed.
But it looks like I’m in pretty good company. And if things aren’t looking like they’re going your way right about now — then so are you.

Carry on!
xox

I thought you might like this book on those nights when you can’t sleep because it seems as if the world is spinning backwards and your life doesn’t resemble anything remotely familiar, comforting, or worthy of continuing, and you’re asking yourself “what the fuck?” over and over until it sounds like whatthefuck, whatthefuck, whatthefuck, which sounds like a tiny town in Uzbekistan or one of the other ‘stans’ and that makes you want kebob, but it’s too late to get kebob at this hour, and then that’s all you can think about, and you’re wondering why you didn’t just order kebab before midnight…and you feel like a failure… and the cycle starts all over again. Or maybe that’s just me.

Pema Chodron Fail Again, Fail Better

http://www.amazon.com/Fail-Again-Better-Advice-Leaning/dp/1622035313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457227800&sr=8-1&keywords=fail+again+fail+better

It’s always about the sparkles, isn’t it?

Love you, Carry on,
xox

Happy Sunday you guys, this is my New Moon wish for you!

There was a New Moon in Capricorn at 8:30 PM EST, January 9 (so, last night). It signifies new beginnings, as do all new moons.

According to astrologer Leo Knighton Tallarico:

“This one is in Capricorn and as such it prompts us to get back out into the world, to organize and plan, to be more disciplined, to do what one needs to do, to make firmer boundaries, to be in one’s integrity, to demand more from yourself and others, to concentrate more on work and accomplishment, to have greater self-respect, to be more logical and realistic.”

Amen to that! I could use some more organized discipline and I’m always working on setting those boundaries!

If you want to read the rest of his take on the new moon (and he also does some astrological predictions for some of the Presidential candidates which I found interesting, here’s his website:

https://spiritualtherapy.wordpress.com

Carry on,

xox

I Love this.
I love the idea of wild hearts.
They say the heart’s energy cannot be contained.
Not by flesh & bone…
not even by ribs.
LOVE IS WILD

Be wild today. xox

*One necessary component. Sugar. It fuels my musical creativity. Don’t judge me!

Transgression has two Masters,
called cowardice and greed,
there is no backbone to a man,
Who’s soul has not been freed.

These are lyrics to a song from the musical I’m collaborating on. (Since they’re a bit of a tongue-twister they may not make the cut).

Anyhow, they are sung with a combination of great angst and gut-wrenching passion by the antagonist, the villain if you will, during a moment of long overdue self reflection—just before he either cuts and runs—or redeems himself. (You’ll have to see the play to find out what happens).

At this point in the plot he has repeatedly fucked up. Big time.

His intentions in the beginning were pure, make no mistake about that. But he has talked himself into believing that his transgressions were okay and that nobody was getting hurt.
Wait. Make that cowardice and greed.
Those two rapscallions are the ones that hold his attention now. They are the ones doing all the talking and through coercion and lies they have convinced him to do their bidding.

They have turned an otherwise good guy into a villain.

All that got me to thinking.

During the year and a half of character development, this guy has morphed from Voldemort (pure evil) to a heroic guy who’s lost his way (most of us).

He has strayed off his path, his moral compass spinning wildly, but he’s chosen not to look at it. And although he lost his backbone,(it is lying in a ditch somewhere, along with his integrity), a large part of him thinks he’s doing the right thing.
AND
Buried so deep it will take an archeological team years to uncover it—There is still love in his heart. Really.

It was important for us to have him reveal his struggle, otherwise no one would care about him, the audience would turn on him and by the second act he’d have to get extensive plastic surgery—or die.

You know what? The audience is just a microcosm of humanity.

We have to show that no person is made up of pure evil or pure good.

Writing this character is convincing me that we’re all just a delicious gumbo of both.

Listen, who hasn’t succumbed to the dark side once or three hundred times?
I know I’ve played the villain in some shitshow along the way; and at the time I either didn’t care or I wasn’t aware.
Both of those suck and I’m not proud.

It’s amazing to me how we come to realizations in our lives.
I’ve had more epiphanies writing this blog and developing this musical than any ethic’s class, spiritual lecture or monastery retreat.
And even inside my own resistance I can hear the words of my villain, the one I created on the page,
Reminding me:

The villains in our lives are not ALL bad.

They believe what they’re doing; their cause; is right.

And contrary to popular belief there is not an empty space inside their chest.
A heart beats there. And it loves.

A dose of understanding and compassion. I got all that from a fucking musical! 

The Universe has such sense of humor when it’s figuring out its wisdom delivery systems.
You won’t believe where it will come from.
Don’t you love that?

Carry on,
xox

“Love comes to those who still hope even though they’ve been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they’ve been betrayed, to those who still love even though they’ve been hurt before.”
– Anon

Who hasn’t wanted to throw in the towel, join a convent, become a loner, join the Foreign Legion, live on a deserted island with only a soccer ball to give them shit, and padlock their heart for safe keeping, throwing away the key, after a love affair has crashed and burned?
Show of hands?

I have mucho experience in this field. I have been epically dumped, numerous times, so I’m an expert. And that’s all the dirty details you get today.

Except…
Each time, even as the sheets were cooling off, I worked really hard to keep my heart open, cuts, bruises, skid marks and all. I could be laying in my bed, boo-hoo-hooing my head off, snot all over my pillow, and the mantra that would keep repeating in my head-full-of-sorrow would be this:
“Keep your heart open Janet, don’t close your heart.”
Well, maybe not at first – but it always did sooner rather than later.

And you wanna know why?

Because it gave me another chance to fall in love, and THAT is one of my top five, all time, stupid smile on my face, greatest things EVER, why we are here, wouldn’t give it up for the world, FAVORITE things to do.

I love feeling that chemistry when you first meet someone new. The giggly phone calls, dating, getting to know someone, and eventually feeling that little tingle that let’s you know – holy shit… I’m falling in love.

Again.

This wounded heart is on the mend. I recognize that feeling, its…love.

It amazing how resilient that muscle can be. Love is like a magic elixir that just washes away all the pain and hurt, all the betrayal, doubt and fear.

Until I met someone new, (and I know you think that will NEVER happen again, but I can assure you – it will), I’d marinate my heart in love by watching movies and reading books that reminded me that I could feel it again. I’d even hang around my lovey-dovey married friends.
Like an athlete keeping their muscles supple by stretching. Often it was an excruciatingly painful process.
I would have much rather stayed bitchy and bitter.
I’m sure you know what I mean.

But the alternative, an atrophied heart, hard and cold, unable to let in the love, was unacceptable to me.

Tweet: I’m a lover. It’s the dealer breaker between Me and life.

I’d rather love than be right.
I’d rather love than feel vindicated.
I’d rather love than be mad.
I’d rather love than get even.

Before you smack me, take a minute. You know I’m right.

Tweet: Because love really is the best revenge.

* This also works inside a relationship when you forget why you love them and you want to grab them by the throat and see them suffer…oh, maybe that’s just me.

Sending you big, big, love,
Xox