indecision

“You’ve arrived
It’s easy to fall in love with the GPS version of the universe.

There, just ahead, after that curve. Drive a little further, your destination is almost here.
Done. You’ve arrived.

Of course, that’s not how it works. Not our careers, not our relationships, not our lives.

You’ve always arrived. You’ve never arrived.

Wherever you go, there you are. You’re never going to arrive because you’re already there.

There’s no division between the painful going and the joyous arriving. If we let it, the going can be the joyful part.

It turns out that arrival isn’t the point, it can’t be—because we spend all our time on the journey.”
~ Seth Godin

Oh, brother Seth, where do I begin?

Did you write this just for me? Did a little birdy whisper to you how much I suck at the journey part of life?
Or was it the screaming, hair pulling, and the skywriting that said YOU SUCK JOURNEY! GIMME THE FUCKING DESTINATION ALREADY! —that gave me away?

It’s not that I haven’t improved—I have.
And it’s not that I haven’t reached some amazing destinations in my life—I’ve done that too.

But oh, mah, gawd, does it have to be such a slog?

Listen, it’s just that as zen as I try to be, as chill and non-attached as my facade makes me out to be, there is always an epic interior battle raging. A churning. A yearning. It’s the fucking Game of Thrones inside of me. And as hard as I try to quell it (and just to be clear, trying hard doesn’t stop a raging battle, trying hard are the foot soldiers, the ground troops) it looms ever larger in my brain.

And that’s the rub I think you guys. All of that striving and “are we there yet?” is in. My. Head. Not my heart. Not my kishkes, and definitely nowhere near where my intuition hangs out. It all goes off the rails when my head grabs the map away from my intuition and starts to second-guess everything.

“Do you think you should have turned left there?”

“Make a u-turn! NOW! I don’t care of it’s legal or not!”

“Oh, what a dumb move! Fine. Let me try and recalculate the route—but I have a feeling you’re wicked screwed.”

All of the second-guessing. Don’t you guys hate the second-guessing? God! I have been known to yell out loud to that wise guy second-guesser “Oh, yeah? Easy for you to say! Where were you when I was deciding what to do?”

Can you even have buyers remorse with regard to your ex? No? Then shut up!

And I have to report that THIS was a bit of a turning point for me. I set boundaries with the all of the mean voices inside my head who were making the journey a living hell. I told them that unless they had anything helpful, encouraging, or constructive to say—I didn’t want to hear it. Currently, my interior dialogue goes something like this:

“That was dumb…”
DON”T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!

“Are you sure you want to do that…?”
STICK A SOCK IN IT!

“They don’t seem interested in your…
SHUT THE FUCK UP!

“Huh, I would have done it differently…”
STOP TALKING. NOW!

See how that works? It’s self-care Tourettes.

Maybe you’re better at this than I am. Maybe you peacefully traverse your life like a passenger—holding a glass of champagne in first-class on British Airways. But I’m guessing you’re not because you’re here—you live on Earth so… I can’t guarantee it will work 100% of the time, and I have to admit that it gets exhausting, but it does help keep the clown car quiet. And that my friends is a definite improvement!

Carry on,
xox

If it looks good, you’ll see it. If it sounds good, you’ll hear it. If it’s marketed right, you’ll buy it. If it’s real….you’ll feel it.
~Kid Rock

It used to make me furious when I was a young girl (under thirty) when someone; a guru, the lady at the cosmetics counter at Bullocks, even my mother, would end a piece of advise with the phrase: You just know when you know.

“How will I know when I’ve reached enlightenment?”

“There are soooooo many different shades of red lipstick, which one looks the best?”

“There are thousands of great men in the world (saying thousands instead of millions was me being discerning) how will I be able to pick just one?”

I was looking to these experts of the human experience for answers, and the one I got most often was: You just know when you know.

Ugh. I don’t want a Zen koan, I want some real life, practical wisdom. Little did I know, that’s EXACTLY what they were dispensing.

The more often I heard this pearl, the more it sunk in and I began to take it under advisement.

One Saturday afternoon at the West Hollywood MAC store, as I lined both hands and up one arm with samples of their thirty shades of red, while waiting for a gorgeous tranny to finish up a false eyelash tutorial and give a girl some help; it hit me.

Just like that, it was suddenly clear. The clouds parted, and I just KNEW.
Out of all the choices supplied by MAC that day, two shades were just okay, the rest were shit, too pink, too blue, too dark. Then, there was THE ONE (cue the children’s choir) – it looked spectacular on my yellowish skin tone.
I ran to the window for natural light – still good.
All indecision left my body as I grabbed a wipe, cleaned myself up and ran to the counter to make my purchase.
You just know when you know.

My pocket Guru that helped me out during all my spiritual troubles in the nineties, doled out that phrase to me like mints after Mexican food.
At the time I had an annoying habit of questioning EVERYTHING
.
“How will I know if the voice in my head is my intuition or that little devil that lives on my shoulder?”

“When do you know if you’ve reached that place in meditation?”

“How do you know when you’re done praying?”

“How can I tell if I’m living my life’s purpose?”

Some of my queries were existential masterpieces and some, even if I do say so myself, were mind numbingly dumb; still, his answer was always the same:
You just know when you know.

He was right. Damn him.

Where men were concerned, this phrase proved most infuriating of all.
I’ll just know…….shit.

I had married at twenty, thinking I knew, but if I’m being completely honest (which is always my goal here) I had my doubts at the time, just no courage to go along with them, so I went through with it.
Like I’ve written before, it should be against the law to get married that young. You shouldn’t be allowed to make that big of a life decision when you’re not old enough to buy beer.

Some people DO know at a young age, but it’s as rare as being struck by lightning – and that’s how I imagined it would feel to just know.

As each year went by after my divorce, I felt a lot of things about a lot of men, but certainty wasn’t one of them.
As I entered my forties, life experience came in handy as a kind of roadmap of what I DIDNT want.

You know what I mean.

When you know what you DON’T want, you are clearer on what you DO want. No mullets, no long, yellow toenails, no mommy issues – you know, like that.

I was waiting for lightening.
But when it showed up it was more like goosebumps.
That’s my signal when I just know – my whole body becomes covered with big, giant, goosebumps…oh, and I shake.

Good job Universe, that’s some pretty undeniable physical evidence to let me know – when I’m living my purpose, I’ve found the perfect shade of red lipstick and that this time I married the exact right guy for me.

My advise to you? Pay attention; to your body, to your gut, to your heart, because they DO help you out.

Life gives us all sorts of signs about when to leave, what to say, when to forgive and which black shoes to wear.

Be on the lookout for shivers and goosebumps and lightening.
And take it from me, The Former Queen of the Jaded Skeptics.

You WILL just know when you know.

Do you get physical signs that let you know that you know? What are they if ya don’t mind me askin’? Tell me about YOUR experience with this phrase, I’d SO love to hear about it!

In case you’d rather listen than read, here you go:
https://soundcloud.com/jbertolus/how-to-find-the-perfect-red

You KNOW I’m sending some love,
Xox