intuition

Loves,

I came across this post today while searching for…don’t ask…and it’s become more relevant than ever as I traverse aging and what that even means for women over fifty in a program I co-lead with the intrepid Geraldine called Croneology. http://croneology.net

Middle age is a crossroads y’all.
You’ve either laid the track for where you’re headed in advance, or you’re about to——and there’s no alternative, because, as Brene Brown so eloquently puts it, “Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has to go.”

So, what tracks are you laying right this minute for that thing you know will show up one day?

xox

“Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. … They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew someday, the train would come.”

When you read that story, about the train and the Alps, how does it make you feel?

Are you thinking, Why do I care about a train in Europe? I have three job interviews this week!

Or, are you more practical, like, How fiscally irresponsible is that to build something that no one can use?

Or… are you more like me?

As you’ve probably already guessed, that little anecdote gives ME goosebumps the size of Montana hail, a lump in my throat, and every time I read it my boobies tingle a little—because that’s just the kind of inspiring, real-life, stranger-than-fiction, magical nonsense that makes me excited to get up in the morning.

That passage is from a favorite movie of mine, Under the Tuscan Sun, which if you haven’t seen it or have read the book (which is marvelous) is about a woman going through a profound life change whose purpose, timeframe, and final destination are completely unknown to her. And yet, day after day, terrified and miserable as fuck, she just keeps putting one foot in front of the other.

Like we all do.
Even people who aren’t steeped in faith find a way to carry on.
Maybe they get it from stories about trains? Dunno.

Anyway, if you think about it from my very Pollyanna Perspective, every great work of art, creative endeavor, and scientific accomplishment started with some track building. I’ll take it a step further and insist that we all lay down tracks we can’t use until we flesh out our ideas from start to finish.

I do it every freaking day and so do you!

A dear friend of mine has gone back to school to get her degree. There’s no job lined up yet, no clientele or guarantee of employment waiting for her at the finish line. Nevertheless, I see her working her tail off—laying the tracks.

From the age of thirteen, Misty Copeland would practice up to eight hours a day, barely listening to the naysayers who insisted that her skin was too dark, her body too curvy, and she’d started dancing too late to have a real career in ballet. But Misty wasn’t screwing around, she was too busy laying tracks for a position that did not exist before her—the first African-American principal ballerina for the American Ballet Theatre.

She gave us something we never knew we needed—that now we can never imagine living without.

Like a train across the Alps.

What tracks are you laying right this minute for that thing you know will show up one day?

Carry on,
xox JB

Hello friends,

Pardon the interruption, but I couldn’t help but share this. If you’re one of my tens of Instagram followers you can go make yourself a sandwich because this is a repost from today, but if you don’t social media (good for you by-the-way) and you want to feel lucky take a look at this!

In the midst of this pandemic, I realize it’s easy to be infected with fear & fuckery.

But one thing I know for sure is that it’s just as easy to catch the good stuff and I truly believe magic is contagious. I believe that sharing it, talking and writing about it transmits it like a goddamn super-spreader!

So consider yourselves infected! Happy Friday you beautiful humans.

Sent with an embarrassing amount of giddy love,
Carry on,
xox

“0h look, a dollar!”

I shrieked inside my head so as not to scare the dog. 

I’d gotten the “hit” to walk an hour earlier than normal. And since it had been drizzling all night I also received the idea to take the road less traveled. 

A paved path with only a slight chance of mud, it was a bit more out of our way, but I listened just the same. 

Let me admit this right upfront—I’m someone who LOVES to find money. In coat pockets, crumpled up inside the car, but most especially—out in the wild. 

That’s why I’ve maintained the practice of leaving wads of dollar bills on neighborhood sidewalks, next to the trash can at my local car wash, and on the floor of the produce department at Trader Joe’s. 

I do it when I’m feeling “broke”. 

It may not make sense to you but it shifts my perspective. 

A lot. 

I mean, you must have an unending supply of money if you can just throw it away like that! Right?

Besides that, I love how it feels to find money. It makes me feel lucky, like someone’s looking out for me. 

Like I’m a magnet for blessings. 

So you can imagine my glee when, after I took this picture, I realized it wasn’t a dollar bill after all, but a FIFTY!!

Y’all, all I can say is Follow your “hits”.

No matter how counterintuitive. 

No matter how out of the way they seem to be taking you. 

And feel lucky as often as you can. I swear this shit is magic. 💫✨💫✨💫

Carry on,
xox Janet

What in the hell was going on? I had unwittingly been given a front-row seat to a disaster that I’d known was going to happen—for a year!

Why in the hell was I in Hawaii again? What was my part in this tragedy?

I never wanted to be someone who predicts disasters. Seriously Universe? Give me another talent.
Glass eater.
Fart lighter.
Anything.
Something else. Something not so fucking scary.

Be careful what you wish for. Now I talk to dead people. But not the scary ones. Funny ones. The bossy but kind ones.
Thank God for small favors.

Anyway…the local anchor came back onscreen to inform us that one of the deep ocean buoys had registered a tsunami fifteen feet high and getting larger, with a velocity of over five hundred miles per hour, headed directly towards the Hawaiian Islands.

It would get to us in five hours.
3 a.m.
Fucking three a.m! Of course, it was coming in the middle of the night!
The witching hour. The time when nothing good ever happens. Oh, and by-the-way, dark water is one of my biggest fears.
I was petrified.

Ginger was feeling sick and went bed. The guys opened another bottle of wine and started playing cards, remaining lighthearted, partying while waiting for the inevitable. It felt like gallows humor, like the deck of the Titanic.

I went back to our room, shivering under the blankets with anxiety, glued to the TV while the disaster siren wailed in the background.

Right around midnight, they announced the second buoy reading. The wave was larger and picking up speed as it headed our way.

Suddenly the intercom came on inside the condo. Nobody even knew there was an intercom connected to the main resort which was run by Marriott. (You can hear it on my 3/11 Instagram)

A voice cleared its throat.

A young man’s voice, extremely nervous, shaky, cracking and squeaking, blared loudly throughout the condo. Haltingly, he instructing everyone in units below the fifth floor to evacuate to the roof. “Bring blankets…pillows…water and, um, your shoes, it’s going to be a long night”. His anxiety was palpable.

Uh, okay Voice of Authority.
Didn’t they have anyone available with a more mature tone? Something deep and fatherly? A voice that could console us and instill calm. I was thinking Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones.
This kid’s voice and delivery were comical to me. In my imagination, he was the pimply faced nephew of the lady who fed the stray cats behind the parking garage. One minute he was doing his calculus homework, the next, he was behind a microphone, advising hundreds of tourists during an impending disaster. He was the only one that was expendable in an emergency. Everyone important had a task.
Holy crap, he was the best they had!

Thank God something was funny.

One of trembly, squeaky, scared guy’s announcements advised us all to fill our bathtubs in order to have plenty of drinking water in case the sanitation plant was wiped out.

Intermittently he’d come back on with further instructions, Anyone with a vehicle in the lower garages, please move them to higher ground behind the main hotel, he advised, sounding as if he were on the verge of tears.

Not long afterwards I heard voices, car keys, and the front door slam as the guys went to move our cars.

In the dark from our balcony, I watched the groundskeepers running around like headless chickens, rushing to clear the sand and pool surround of hundreds of chairs. Then they emptied the rental hut with its kayaks, snorkels and fins, inner tubes and dozens of surf and boogie boards.

If you watch the Thailand tsunami videos it is those seemingly innocuous beach toys that become deadly projectiles in fast-moving water. You may not immediately drown, but a surf board or a beach chair coming at you at hundreds of miles an hour will kill you for sure.

It was too much. The destruction in Japan was too much for me to handle.
I watched multi-story buildings get washed away like they were kids toys. We were so close to the water. Could our building withstand the rush of the initial wave? How high would the water come?
The third floor, the fourth—or higher? Was the sixth floor high enough? What was going to happen?

I turned off the TV. The dark room fell silent and instantly I felt a drop in my anxiety level. You can get sucked into the endless loop of death and destruction—it’s addictive, like a drug.

I unhooked the CNN IV, grabbed my phone, inserted my ear buds, pulled up a meditation, and started to calm my nervous system down. Slow…deep…breathing. In…and out… after a few minutes, I could feel my shoulders drop and my face relax. My jaw throbbed. I’d been unconsciously clenching it for hours.

My mind started to unwind. The siren went way, fading into the distance, the boy’s terrified voice becoming a muffled form of white noise.
I actually slipped into a half sleep state. Aware of my surroundings, but extremely relaxed.

The meditations came to an end. Silence. I was still okay.
No longer spinning in fear I decided to calmly ask a question.
“What’s going to happen, how bad will this be?” I asked no one in particular.

Here’s where the magic happened.

A very loving, clear and calm voice answered back:
What do you want to happen? How bad do you want it to be?

What? You mean I get a vote?  This answer left me flabbergasted. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this felt extraordinary.

Somehow, instinctively I knew that I couldn’t say make the tsunami go away—there are some things we are powerless to change.
What I could change was MY experience of it. What did I want to happen to me—to us?

Script it the voice said, and that has changed my life.

Okay…I said in my head, remembering the videos from Thailand, you can come up to the palm trees that line our pool area and define the boundary between the beach and our resort. That’s it. To the palm trees only, NOT into the pool and NOT into our resort.

No further conversation was needed. No idle chit-chat, no more Q & A.

I fell asleep. A deep sleep rich with meaningful dreams that I no longer remember.
Inside one, a muffled voice that felt like it was underwater warned: Stay away from the ocean…Do NOT get near the water…We are on lockdown…stay inside your rooms…

It must be happening crossed my mind, but I was too deep to care.

Only as far as the palm trees…up to the palm trees…echoed in my mind.

When I finally opened my eyes I could see daylight. Raphael was asleep next to me and I could smell coffee.
Obviously, the tsunami had come and gone—and everything seemed…normal.

These are pictures of the waterline the tsunami left behind. It is still waaaaay up the beach at this point, about three hours after it came ashore. It surged forty feet UP the beach, over dry sand, and stopped right at the palm trees that line the pool, and our resort.

Script it. Imagine it. Feel it. Ask for it. Relax.

That proved to me, without a doubt, that we can script our circumstances. There are things we can’t control, but there are so many that we can.

Get calm, and set boundaries. How bad/good do you want it to be? What do you want to happen?

We have control over our immediate circumstances.
Script it.

This changed my life–I hope it changes yours.

Carry on,
xox

I wrote about this a long time ago, but I’m going to post it again.
Partly because there are so many new readers, and also because yesterday (and this morning) mark the five-year six-year anniversary—AND it’s a fuckin’ great story.

If you’ve heard it before, go make yourself a sandwich. And don’t give away the ending.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

In the spring of 2010, I went to Hawaii with my dear friend Wes to get some clarity about which direction I should take my life after the death of my store, Atik. Loss can make a person lose their trust in life—and themselves, and I was not lucky enough to escape that unspoken step of the grieving process. Besides, misery loves company.

Oh, who am I kidding? We went to drink Mai Tai’s, eat like escaped death row convicts, sit on the white sands of Waikiki Beach all day gossiping and people watching—and get massages.

All we did was laugh. Well, he laughed and I cried—then he laughed at my crying. Then I cry-laughed. It was wet and sloppy. Lots of running mascara and snot-bubbles.
You get the picture.

About mid-way through our seven-day trip, I got the sense there was going to be a tsunami.
You know—like you do…
That evening when Wes met me at the bar for happy hour I voiced my concern. “I want to move to a higher room in our hotel. I said, stirring my drink with a hot pink plastic monkey. “I think there’s going to be a tsunami and I’m not going to be safe on the second floor.”

“Did you start without me? How many drinks have you had?” he guffawed as he flagged down a waiter in order to catch a buzz and grab a seat on the crazy clown car I was obviously driving.

“I’m serious. You’re on the third floor, but I’m not even sure that’s high enough. Let’s look into moving”, I argued back with conviction.

“I can’t take you seriously with that pink money in your hand.”

All I could see in my mind’s eye were those horrible videos from the tsunami in Thailand.

His eyes said: Have you lost your mind? But in order to calm my fears, he immediately whipped out his phone and started to look up Hawaiian tsunami.

“The earliest on record was reported in 1813 or 1814 — and the worst occurred in Hilo in 1946, killing 173 people.” he was reading a Wikipedia page.
“So it happens kind-of-never, and I’m okay with those odds.” He raised his drink to toast “To surviving that rarest of all disasters—the Hawaiian tsunami” We clinked glasses as he shook his head laughing at my continued squirminess.

Still laughing he mumbled under his breath, “But if it does happen, which it could, ‘cause you’re pretty spooky that way— it will be one hell of a story…”

The first week of March the following year, 2011, our great friends, the ones who ride the world with us on motorcycles, asked if we wanted to join them at their condo in Maui. I was printing our boarding passes before I hung up the phone; you don’t have to ask me twice to drop everything and go to Hawaii.

On the beautiful drive from the airport to Lahaina, the air was warm and thick, filled with the fragrance of jasmin and rain as we wove our way in and out of the clouds that play peek-a-boo with the sun all day on the Hawaiian Islands. With a view of the lush green mountains formed from the ever-present volcanos to the right, and the deep blue Pacific churning wildly to our left, it really felt like Paradise Lost.

That’s when it hit me like a bolt of lightning.

I turned down the radio of the rental car that was blaring some five-year-old, Top Forty song.
“We’re going to have a tsunami”, I announced.
It didn’t feel like if — it felt like when. A certainty.
“I think we’re more likely to have a volcanic eruption than a tsunami.” my hubby replied nonchalantly, turning the radio volume back up.

Damn! I love my husband. He cohabitates with all the voices in my head without batting an eye. Most men would run for the hills.
He just stays rational. A volcanic eruption in the Hawaiian Islands is…the rational supposition.
God love him.

I had never mentioned my premonition from the trip the previous year—too odd; but I let loose for the remainder of the drive, wondering aloud about what floor their condo was on and worrying if it would it be high enough. Neither of us had any idea and I’ve gotta tell ya, I breathed a sigh of relief when the answer came via text. The sixth floor. Their condo was on the sixth floor, overlooking the pool, facing the ocean.

We spent the next week eating and drinking amazing food and wine, snorkeling, swimming, driving around, and whale watching. As a matter of fact, the ocean outside of our resort was a veritable whale soup.

There is a passage between Maui, Lanai, and Molokai (both which we could see in the distance), that the whales like to use as a detour from the open ocean, and we could see them breaching from our balcony. They were present in high numbers and especially active.

It was extraordinary! Everyone said so. Even the guys on the whale watching boats agreed with our friends—they’d never seen a year like this one.

Two days before our departure, on the eleventh, it all seemed to come to a screeching halt.

The ocean was as passive as a lake that day. I hiked alone down the beach to a little cove that was billed by the locals as “swimming in a tropical fish tank,” There was nothing. Literally not one fish. People kept remarking how odd it seemed. The guys on the whale watching catamarans were perplexed because suddenly, there were no whales.

We made dinner in that night and by 9 pm I was just the right amount of sun-kissed, buzzed, full and sleepy. After my shower, I turned on the TV in our room for the first time the entire trip to catch the results of American Idol. As I got dressed and dried my hair I casually flipped around the channels. American Idol, Baywatch re-runs, CNN. Then I saw it.

The bright red BREAKING NEWS banner at the bottom of the screen: Huge Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami.

I screamed something incoherent as I ran out into the family room, half-dressed, my bare feet sliding on the polished floors, knocking things over, becoming hysterical.
“You guys! Turn on the TV! Oh my God! Turn on the TV!” I yelled, grabbing the remote; but it looked like something that powers the International Space Station, so I threw it toward my husband.

“Oh, I don’t want to watch TV…” I heard someone say, but Raphael could tell something was wrong. He said later it felt like 911 when everyone was calling and the only thing they could manage to say was: Turn on the TV!

“CNN. Find CNN!” I was so freaked out I could barely speak.

When the images came up on that big screen HD TV they were even more terrifying.
It was a helicopter shot, high above the coastline of a small city. There was a wave with a white cap as far as the eye could see. it looked like it spanned almost the entire coastline and it was headed straight for cars, boats, houses…and people.

Now we were all transfixed. Silently glued to the screen with the frantic sounding Japanese commentary running in the background. This was all happening LIVE.

The CNN anchor sounded reassuring, telling us that Japan had one of the most advanced tsunami warning systems on the planet. Sirens had started sounding a few minutes after the large off-shore earthquake, warning the population to make their way to their pre-determined evacuation points up on higher ground.

We watched in horror as churning brown water began rushing onshore with a ferocity that was nauseatingly familiar.
It just kept coming and coming. Undeterred by the breakwater…and the thirty-foot wall they had built to withstand a tsunami.

“God, I hope they had enough time” I whispered.

Suddenly the CNN picture was minimized as the face of a local anchor at the Maui station took up the entire rest of the screen.
“Good evening”, he read off the cue card, “The entire Hawaiian Islands have been placed on tsunami watch due to the large earthquake off the coast of northern Japan. We will keep you posted as scientists get the readings off of the tsunami buoys that dot the span of the Pacific Ocean from the coast of Japan to the west coast of North America. If it looks like a tsunami is coming our way, the watch will turn into a warning.” He swallowed awkwardly, I saw his Adams apple quiver.
“Stay with us for further instructions.”

The screen was filled again with the escalating destruction in Japan.

I started to shake uncontrollably, my eyes filling with tears.

Then I saw him out of the corner of my eye. My husband flinched. It got my attention and when I looked his way our eyes met and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Remote in hand, he turned toward me slowly and deliberately. His mouth dropped open, his eyes were full of…questions.

Then with no sound, eyes locked on mine, he mouthed my prophecy from earlier that week: We’re going to have a tsunami.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Really, the hair on my entire body. Even my chin hairs stood at attention.

The shrill wail of a Disaster Alert Siren brought us both back to reality.
It was official—a tsunami was imminent.

To Be Continued…

You guys,
I have a confession to make.
I hear voices.  Pretty much all the time.

I have all of my life.

When I was in my twenties I was urged to leave my first marriage.
Like Liz, I too was guided away from motherhood.
A voice told me to start a blog four years ago when I’d never even read one before that moment.

Eighteen months ago one particularly pushy voice insisted I write a screenplay (something I had neither the skill nor desire to do.) But… with her help I did it.

When  I think about it they help me with every decision I make IF I take the time to listen. And trust.

Except for confiding in a few of my friends and family, I’ve tip-toed around this subject for years because I didn’t know how to write about it without sounding, well, batshit crazy. But yesterday, Liz did an amazing job explaining a particularly woo-woo occurence—so I’ll just let her tell you about something that I once viewed as a curse but have come to realize is a gift.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones-

START KNOWING.
This is something I wrote in my journal a few months ago.
These words came to me through a powerful internal voice.

Allow me to explain.

I hear voices sometimes.

It’s cool. Don’t be alarmed. It’s all good. I’m willing to bet you hear voices sometimes, too.
AT LEAST I HOPE YOU DO.

Every powerful woman I know is guided by voices.

Here’s a story:
I have a brilliant friend who used to work in academia. She told me once that she’d been conducting a series of interviews of accomplished women, for a research project about women’s success in the workplace. On the outside, all these women appeared to have nothing in common. They came from all different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and all worked in different fields — corporate and non-profit, secular and religious. But each woman carried herself with confidence and ease, and all of them had become quite powerful in their own corners of the world. When my friend asked these women how they had gotten so far, they all began by dutifully reporting the same sorts of standard statements about the importance of hard work, and cultivating discipline, and fostering good professional contacts, and staying positive, and uplifting other women, and seeking out mentors, and blah, blah, blah..

Sounds perfectly logical, right?

But then there would come a moment in each interview where EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE WOMEN would seem to get bored with the questions, or maybe she was just feeling mischievous. Then each woman (EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!) would ask my friend to turn off the recording device. Then the woman would lean in really close to my friend, and say in a conspiratorial whisper, “But do you want to hear what REALLY happened?” And then EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE WOMEN would report how — at some point in her life — she had heard a voice.
A mystical voice.
An otherworldly voice.
A powerful and certain voice.
A commanding voice.
A voice that could not be explained away rationally.

And each of these women reported that this voice had told her exactly what she needed to do next. And she had done it.

“I know it sounds crazy…” they would say. But it was true.
They had heard a voice, and they had followed the voice.
It hadn’t been easy for any of them, they reported. The voices often told them to do really, really hard things — things that often felt like total disruptions of their lives.
Maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to move to Los Angeles now” — even though the woman had just signed a lease on an apartment in Houston.
Or maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to go to medical school” — even though she’d just had a baby.
Or maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to leave that boyfriend” — even though her parents really liked him.
Or maybe the voice had said, “This religious path is no longer authentic or meaningful for you” — even though she had been raised by fundamentalists.
Or maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to learn Mandarin” — even though she’d never been to China.

But the voice had come. And whatever the voice said, the woman in question had taken the enormous risk of deciding to follow it. Even when it was inconvenient. Even when it was challenging. Even when it seemed prohibitively expensive. Even when it meant cutting her losses and walking away from any sense of security whatsoever. Even when it cost her the approval of friends and family.

Even when everyone thought she was insane.

And THAT’S how she had gotten there, to her place of power in the world. It really had nothing to do with professional contacts, or mentors…it was just that she heard a voice, and she chose to listen.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
So.
I hear voices, too.

I heard voices when I was a teenager, saying, “You are meant to be a writer,” and when people said, “But how will you make a living at THAT?”, those voices were still like, “Yeah, whatever…you are meant to be a writer.” And when I got rejection letters for years and years, and nobody was interested in my work, those voices were STILL like, “Yup…you are definitely meant to be a writer.” And those voices STILL tell me I’m meant to be a writer. I’ll stop writing when the voices stop telling me to write.

I heard voices telling me to move to New York City when I was young. I heard voices telling me that it was imperative that I see the world, and that I learn how to travel alone as a woman — no matter what the cost or risk. I heard voices telling me not to settle for the security of getting a “real job” — but instead to just work odd jobs, and to keep traveling, and to keep writing, and to keep gambling everything for creativity and an exploratory life of the mind. (You guys, I can’t tell you how many times the voices tell me never to choose security over creativity. It’s exhausting and sometimes scary. But they seem to REALLY MEAN IT.)

When I was in my 20’s, I heard voices warning me not to get married, but I went ahead and got married anyway (side note: it’s REALLY HARD for young women to push back against the forces of culture and tradition sometimes) and then I SERIOUSLY started hearing voices when I was 30 years old, and firmly married, and living in a shiny new house in the suburbs, and my mind and body were absolutely falling to pieces, and I was supposed to be trying to have a baby that year, and the voices started screaming, “OH, NO YOU DON’T, MISSY!” And then I had to leave everything behind, in order to re-calibrate my path to my own truth. (This was awfully inconvenient and horrible and expensive and terrifying. And it’s REALLY HARD to decide not to have a child in a culture that still tells women that having children, ultimately, is the only thing that shall fulfill them. But the voices were like “NOPE”, so I had to leave it all behind. We call that “a course adjustment”. It’s never easy. But you don’t get to chart your own life without making some pretty hardcore course corrections along the way.)

I still hear voices.

I heard voices this spring telling me to leave everything behind yet again, and to gamble everything for love. (Very hard. Very scary. Very ACCURATE.)

Where do the voices come from? Beats me. You can call it “intuition”. You can call it “the still small voice within”. You can call it your “inner compass”. You can call it “God”. You can call it “Angels”. You can call it your “spirit guides”. You can call it your “gut instinct”. You can call it your “dead ancestors speaking though you.” You can call it “the flow”…but whatever it is, those voices exist. And you must train yourself to trust them, and to risk everything in order to follow them.

Notice that I didn’t say, “You must train yourself to hear them.”

I don’t think you have to practice hearing them. I think they are always talking to you. I just think you have to train yourself to TRUST THEM. That’s the hard part.
Learning to trust those voices is a practice that you can cultivate. Just like any other craft or skill, it is worth the effort to learn how to master it.
So…Today, I want to tell you what my voices have started telling me lately.
It’s just these two words:
START KNOWING.

Here’s the thing about my voices. They can be merciless. They are not always sweet and gentle. Sure, there are times when my voices say, “Poor baby! Poor little small one…we are so sorry that you are suffering, please take care of yourself, and lie down in a soft and safe place with a warm towel over your head”….but there are also times when my voices are like, “Oh for God’s sake, FIND YOUR STRENGTH. Grow a fucking spine, woman, and take the action you need to take right now, and stop wasting time…we didn’t send you here to let you pretend to be damn weak.” (Interesting side note: The difference between THAT voice and my dark internal voice of self-hatred is that the dark internal voice of self-hatred says, “You’re such a baby, you aren’t worthy, you are a scum person, just curl up on the floor in a pile of dirty towels and die,” but the mystical all-knowing voice says, “We love you too much to let you keep pretending that you are so powerless…COME ON! Let’s DO THIS! GROW A FUCKING SPINE! WE HAVE THINGS TO DO! WE HAVE A DESTINY TO CREATE! STAND UP OFF THE FLOOR!!!! LET’S GOOOOOOO!!!!!” See the difference? Good.)

There have been times in my life (this year, among them) where my voices have needed to get really firm with me. They have challenged me, and they have pushed back against my arguments. They will hold my face in the truth and make me look at it, even when the truth hurts. They will not baby me. They refuse to enable me. This is good. They will not say, “It’s OK, honey! Don’t worry! It’s all good! It doesn’t matter — you’re doing your best, and everyone’s human!”, but instead they say, “Actually, honey, it’s NOT ALL GOOD. This situation is NOT OK, and the way you are behaving is NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, and it’s time for you to grow a spine, and challenge yourself more, get creative, and change everything. Let’s GO!”

But mostly, this year, my voices have been saying to me just these two words: “START KNOWING.”

Anytime I am faced with a dilemma, and I start to feel very small and confused, and I hear myself saying, “I don’t know what to do!”, some voice from deep within me rises in full power and says, “START KNOWING.”
(I even wrote it down in my journal one day, for my entire entry that day. So that is what this picture is all about START KNOWING.)

What my voices are challenging me is to realize is that when I am feeling sad and scared and small, and I keep saying, “I don’t know what to do!” — the truth is that usually I DO know.

In fact, my voices are pretty certain that I always know. Somewhere, deep within me, I have always known what I need to do. I just don’t want to do it sometimes, because it’s too hard, or too scary, or seems to wild or too risky. Or I don’t want to hurt anyone. Or I don’t want to be judged. Or I don’t want to lose what I have already attained. But still — I do know. Secretly, I do know. And my voices get impatient with me, because they’re like, “Look, lady, we don’t have forever, OK? You have all the information you need. Nothing will change now unless you change it. Make a move right here. Stop pretending you don’t know what you need to do. START KNOWING.”

I’m sensing this in so many women whom I encounter these days, too. They seem stuck and frustrated and confused and insecure and afraid. They have grown too comfortable/uncomfortable in the realm of “not knowing” what to do. They come up to me at my speaking events, and they introduce themselves by telling me about their injuries and their wounds. Before they have even told me what they want to create in this world, or who they long to become, they tell me the worst thing that has ever happened to them. Then I hear them start spinning and spinning and spinning the same story they’ve been telling for years about what happened to them, and how it damaged them, and what they want, but what they aren’t getting, and why they can’t change it, and why this situation is impossible, and what they wish would happen, and why can’t it all be different, and why it’s too late…and then they say, “I just don’t know what to do!”

And I swear to God, this fearsome strong voice starts to rise out from the center of my spine, and all I want to do is take that woman by her shoulders, shake her, and shout at the top of my lungs: “START KNOWING!”
(But in a loving way. I love you all! Seriously, I love you guys! Smiley face! You go, girl!)

But seriously…this voice that rises within me is not a voice of judgment or contempt. It’s not a disgusted voice. This is just the voice of the Archangel of Womanhood — a divine force who cannot abide seeing any woman who has ANY power in her life pretending that she has no power in her life. Not you, not me, not your sisters, not your daughters, not your mothers. She just can’t take it anymore. So voice of the Archangel of Womanhood says (out of a sense of fierce but merciless compassion, and a desire to liberate us all), “START KNOWING!”

Yes, it’s hard. Of course it’s hard. What did you think — it would be easy?

Did you think they would just hand your destiny to you, cost-free? Yes, you might have to risk everything. Yes, you might have to cut your losses. Yes, some people will hate it. Yes, some people may never understand and never forgive you. Yes, you may walk away from the situation with a permanent scar, or a bad limp, or a battered heart. Yes, yes, yes, blah, blah, blah…
But come ON!

START KNOWING.

Stop saying, “I don’t know what to do!” Because I believe that — somewhere deep in your center — there is some powerful truth about your life which YOU ALREADY DO KNOW.

If you’re afraid of making a hasty decision, just remember that the alternative is to stay stuck in the same bullshit garbage death swamp you’ve been stuck in for years. (I say that lovingly! I love you! Smiley face!)

So start knowing. Start knowing what you already know. Start knowing what is so damn obvious about your life that a perfect stranger could see the problem, if you told her about your situation in a five-minute conversation. Start knowing that you will no longer degrade yourself with the illusion that are powerless, that you’re in a trap. (Here’s the evidence of that: Tell me your story of how powerless you are, and I will find you a story of a woman who was in EXACTLY the same situation, and she changed it. I know…that sounds harsh. But it’s true. Start knowing that it’s true.)

Start knowing that you have far more agency than you think. Start knowing that the story you’ve been telling yourself about your limitations, or your helplessness in this situation, is NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU. Start being honest with yourself about something that your body has been trying to tell you for years. (Listen to your body’s pain — IT KNOWS. The body always knows. The body knows exactly the thing that is causing you suffering, and holding you back. I had a boyfriend once who I was madly in love with, but every time I got in his bed, my body would explode into pain, because my body already knew, “This man is no good for you.” I didn’t want to know it, because I was blinded by love — but my body knew. Start knowing what your body already knows.)

Start knowing the kind of woman you need to become — so that your daughters can have a better chance of becoming that kind of woman, too. Start knowing that the universe didn’t send you here to this fearsome planet of change and danger so that you could practice being more afraid…but rather, the universe sent you here to this fearsome planet of change and danger so that you could practice being more BRAVE. (Stop waiting for the world to feel safe, before you live your life. The world never will never feel safe. This planet has a nickname in the universe, you know. It’s called: THE ADVANCED SCHOOL FOR UTMOST HUMAN BRAVERY. They do not call our planet: THE COMFY RESTING PLACE FOR PRACTICING EASE AND SECURITY.)

Start knowing how brave you are. Start knowing how resilient you are. Start knowing how resourceful you are. Start knowing that you are the descendent of thousands of years of survivors, and that have you inherited all their wiles. Start knowing that the Archangel of Womanhood loves you too much to let you keep acting meek and degraded. Start knowing how willing you are to walk away from all of it, if you must. Start knowing that there are no victims in this room. (I can’t tell you how many times my voices say to me, “THERE ARE NO VICTIMS IN THIS ROOM.” I hate it sometimes when they say that to me. But the Archangel of Womanhood is quite firm on the matter. There are no victims in this room, she says. Period.)

START KNOWING, you guys.

Try saying those two words to yourself in a very calm, very wise, very ancient, very adamant voice — the next time you panic. Just say it (START KNOWING) and then breathe. Then get quiet and see what comes up.

I promise you that your very next thought will be the truth.
It might not be easy, but it will be true.
And you are ready for it.
Seriously, you are.

Start right there. That’s what every powerful woman I know has done.
Because the voices within you already know everything. But they can’t work with you until you are willing to START KNOWING, too.
OK?
I love you. Smiley face. Let’s do this.

ONWARD,
LG

How many of you are with me on this one? Come on, a show of hands!

How many of you guys thinks that’s an understatement? I know I do.

How many of you have a five-year plan? How about a ten-year plan? (Really? Wow.)
Now, let me ask you this and remember, don’t kill the messenger—how do you handle changes in those plans? Do you go with the flow, or hunt down and kill whoever fucked with your brilliant plan?

I’m getting better with the flowing thing (it’s about time!), although I’m still not great, and I can totally relate to the murderous thoughts at the slightest whiff of a plot twist.

Here’s the thing, we think we have life all figured out. We leave minimal if any room for improvement. That’s right, I said improvement.

Not every plan we make is foolproof—in retrospect, most plans of mine have been foolhardy.

I have actually come to not so much welcome, (I’m not that good—yet), but to be curious about why my plan was foiled and where in the hell LIFE thinks it’s taking me.

Yesterday, as I was talking with a friend, I was encouraging him to be more curious as to why all his plans had gone to shit and where he was be directed. When we brainstormed his shitstorm (whaaaaat? Best sentence EVER!), we both came to realize how many opportunities lay hidden (like little dolphins, or Nemo) just below the surface.

Was he really in the midst of a calamity—or was an unseen opportunity unfolding?

Next time you’re unleashing a long string of obscenities ( have I told you how much I love you?), while you shake your fist at the heavens, remember this blog, unclench your fist and blow me a kiss. (Is it too soon to say I told you so?)

You’re welcome,

Carry on,

xox

Hello loves,

I sat down to write about my journey lately on the short bus to trust.

Then I realized I had fifteen minutes before I had to leave. So I made a two-minute video instead—you know—like you do when you’re pressed for time!

The takeaway in case you don’t feel like watching is this: Your intuition will NEVER lead you astray.

It will never take you down the dark alley, or tell you to wear the white pantsuit.
It has NO intention whatsoever of humiliating you or leaving you standing in a steaming pile of disgrace.

So trust it you guys! I’m really trying to do it too.
And that is my nugget of advice for today.

Trust yourself.

Carry on,
xox

AND….The outtakes. First one is my standard duh moment with the video running. Have I learned nothing?

And the second one is a correction. I forgot what day it is.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
-Chinese Proverb

Darling peeps,

Your path lights up before you. It’s right under your feet, not out there somewhere.
I’m just getting this! Can you believe it?

You don’t have to go find it, so unpack those bags.

Just pay attention.
To the inspiration,
to the ideas,
to the song on the radio when you get into the car,
to the graffiti that inspired you,
the book that fell off the shelf as you walked by,
the rejection letter that sent you in a different direction entirely,
to your dreams,
to your intuition,
to your aspirations,
the call that never came,
and the one that did.

You guys, That’s your path calling you forward. It’s right under your feet. Would I lie to ya?

Carry on,
xox

My husband left yesterday for France, for a refined yet testosterone filled few days of car auctions, car parties, followed by a car show.
Can you say Gear Head?

Last night, after delivering the dead weight of both sleeping dogs to their beds, I looked up and was reminded of a mystical motorcycle message that was delivered to me on another night when he was far, far away.

It was a different kind of trip, raw and rugged.
He was pretty much incommunicado, racing in a desert over ten thousand miles away, but things had taken a turn and I sensed he was in danger.

So I asked for a sign, and the Universe, with her wicked sense of humor, delivered a doozy.

It was the second year he had decided to ride with his buddies at Rawhyde, down in South America to follow this crazy-ass off-road, Mad Max style race called the Dakar.

The year before they had the time of their lives, riding in that environment, among all the other idiots, I mean racers, and being worshipped by the locals, who line the route and gather in great numbers at every gas stop, handing them food, babies and cameras to capture the moment.
They are revered, like rock stars.

The riding is treacherously fabulous.
The dirt roads through the Atacama Desert are rocky and rutted and they’re racing next to Rally cars, other motorcycles, and behemoth Russian supply trucks that decided a few years back that they too wanted a piece of the action.
It’s consistently well over one hundred degrees, and they have to cross the Andes via Paseo De San Francisco, which at over 10,000 feet requires them to do what the locals do to offset the altitude – chew raw coca leaves.
While they ride a motorcycle. Yes, you read that right.

It’s an insane cluster fuck, an accident waiting to happen. People die.

But as he’s told me, it’s the most fun he’s ever had with his clothes on.

Here’s a taste in case you’re interested:
http://youtu.be/UYFt7hrMWOg

This trip Murphy’s Law prevailed.
Everything that could go wrong did – and then some. I heard about it in my one text per day. It was often terse and exhausted sounding, sent at the end of another grueling episode of Chasing Dakar.
Let’s just say, things were not flowing, and he was not a happy camper. I felt terrible for him.

The day came to cross over the Andes and because of circumstances too complicated to get into, he and an instructor were leading the group up and over.

The idea is to do it as quickly as you can, spending as little time as possible up at that elevation. Get your paperwork stamped at the checkpoint and GO!
The previous year he’d told me stories of helping other riders back down the mountain, who were literally found laying in the road next to their bikes, sick and seriously delusional from the altitude.
Apparently they’d never received the coca leaf memo.

Knowing all that only made things worse for me when I didn’t hear from him at all that day. Nothing.
The window of time in which I’d usually receive my text had come – and gone. Man, how I would have welcomed one of his cantankerous texts.
I started to worry.

With the phone tucked under my pillow, I laid there – waiting. Once I realized it was asinine to try to sleep, I decided to text him.
Hope you made it safely. I Love you.
I knew he wouldn’t answer, But it made me feel better…for about a minute.

It’s amazing where your mind can go when you’re sick with worry about someone you love.
Mine writes horror movies that could never be shown because of the graphic nature of the gore. They involve motorcycles and danger, blood, guts, and death.
That night I had him lost in the Andes, with no food or water, crazy from the altitude, eyeing a fellow victim like a pork chop. Or dead, his body carried away by the Andes version of a Yeti, never to be found.

I felt completely powerless, and I was making myself sick.

By 3 a.m. I decided to pray. I prayed the tight-fisted prayer of the terrified wife.

Please let him be okay. I even forgive the fact he hasn’t checked in. Please let him be alive. Please give me a sign.

I took a Xanax and finally drifted into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares. In one, the bedroom was filled with an eerie, greenish light. I could see it through my closed eyelids.
No, really.
My eyes snapped open and the room was filled with an eerie green light I’d never seen before. I blinked, then blinked again.

WTF? Slowly I got up to see where the light was coming from, half expecting a ghostly visitation from my dearly departed in the arms of a Yeti. What I found was almost as weird.

We have a 1953 Peugeot motorcycle up on the short wall that separates our bathroom from our bedroom. Yes, you can say it. All his friends do. I’m the coolest wife EVER!
Anyway…
You’re required by law, to have a fluorescent light in a bathroom. I’ve always hated the greenish glare those bulbs give off, so we installed it behind the motorcycle to assuage the inspector – and then had it promptly disconnected.
If you flip the switch, nothing happens.

But not on this night. I came out of my worry coma to find that the motorcycle above my head was impossibly illuminated. By a light that should NOT be working.

I stood there frozen, a shiver ran around the room, looking for a spine to run up, then it found mine.

It was my sign. It had to be. Light…Motorcycle…

Now just to be clear, he’s okay, right? This means he’s alive, not dead.

The exasperated Universe told me to cut the chit-chat and go back to bed. I flipped the switch which was already in the off position, not knowing what to expect, and the light went out.

Later that day, I received a text. It was short, crabby and filled with expletives.  It was the best text of my life
They had become stuck at the top for hours, and things had gone downhill from there (pun intended). But at last they were back at sea level; sleepless, starving, but safe and sound and back in the race.
It ended with Love you, and that’s all that I could see. I burst into large, crocodile tears of relief.

PS. That light has never worked since.

Keep Calm & Carry on,
Xox

..or late at night.

I want to start a feature called What The Hell Wednesday, where we marvel at the extraordinary things that happen – on a daily basis – in our lives.
Are you in?
Great!
Okay. I’ll start.

Over Thanksgiving weekend our old doggie had another seizure (two in ten days).

Since the vet was closed for the Holiday, and Dita seemed to recover in under ten minutes (tail wagging, ball in her mouth), we decided to forgo an emergency visit, observe, and wait until the vet re-opened.

On the outside that’s what it looked like we were doing, but on the inside we were freaking out, consumed with worry, thinking this could be “goodbye”.

You see, our previous dog had a seizure, followed by another every day, until we had to put her down. All within a week. My husband and I both have post traumatic seizure syndrome.

That night, while acting cool, calm and collected (for Dita), I laid in bed and awfulized, working myself into a tizzy (albeit a quiet one).
My thoughts were racing. Don’t kid yourself, you know how this ends was what that practical bastard in my head kept repeating over and over.

Fears greatest hits – on an endless loop.

My husband had anesthetized with pie. I was not so lucky.

I meditated. I listened to my tapes. Finally it got so bad I asked for help.

Please, you’ve gotta help me with this, I write about gaining control over fear, but I’m spiraling over here.

I must have pleaded for a minute or two when a very calm voice came through: It’s not like the other dog, they’ll be able to control it with medication.

Uh, okay. They can do that? With dogs I mean? They have meds for seizures?

It’s not like the other dog, they’ll be able to control it with medication.

But what if…

It’s not like the other dog, they’ll be able to control it with medication.

That’s all they said, exactly those words, over and over, until I calmed down and went to sleep.

A couple of days later, at the vet, after numerous blood tests and X-rays; as he brought the old girl back into the room, I KNEW what the Vet was going to say; I’d even told my husband.

“It’s not cancer like your other dog, we can control it with medication.”

I swear. Verbatim.

Asking for help, then listening for the answer=good.

Spiraling out of control=not so good.

AND even if things look the same, they are not!

What The Hell! I LOVE when that happens!

Now it’s YOUR turn. Please share your best WTH story in the comments below. I know everyone would love to read them – especially ME!

Big Love,
xox