Life

Oh, Billy Bush.

I recently saw an interview with you on one of the morning shows.

You looked remorseful and you sounded truly humbled. And while my inner feminist still wants to punch you in the face for giggling like a hormonal adolescent at Trump and goading him into hugging that soap star, I have to admit that you took the brunt of this debacle.

You got fired while the other guy, the guy who uttered all the misogynist crap, he became the leader of the free world and that’s not fair. You have a conscience. You had to face your own teenage daughter asked you why you laughed because “It wasn’t funny, dad.”

I bet walking across hot coals was probably easier than living thru that moment.

Speaking of hot coals, I heard that you used this seven months off to self-reflect, do yoga and attend a Tony Robbins seminar. You told the interviewer how Tony had pointed you out in front of 9000 attendees and said, “One moment in your life does not define who you are.”

Wow. How incredibly profound is that? One shitty moment does not define a person.

Oh, Lord have mercy because I’ve had my share of “those moments.” But then again, who hasn’t?

I cringe when I think of all the times I laughed at inappropriate innuendo.
Or the times my big mouth said something thoughtless.
The judgmental, snarky remarks.
The clumsy responses; wanting to be funny or sound smart or be liked.

Uh oh, that’s more than one moment, isn’t it?
But wait, this is about you, Billy.

As outraged as I was last October I realize now that you were just trying to stay in someone’s good graces.
Someone who at the time was at the height of their fame, who was powerful and well-connected and lived to be a provocateur.

It takes guts to speak truth to power. We are witness to that every day with the same man and the high-powered people who surround him in Washington. What did we expect from a celebrity reporter?

I try to be a better person every damn day and I have to assume you do too, Billy.

My wish for you is that the public has a short memory and that they practice compassion where your next career move is concerned.

Listen, I don’t know if you’re taking suggestions but I think covering politics might be your next step. I’m not saying that you might have a score to settle, I’m just suggesting that after everything you’ve learned you could be the perfect person to speak some truth to this kind of abuse of power.

Carry on,
xox

Tony Robbins Quotes

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”
~ Mick Jagger

Okay. So, you HAVE to watch the video to the end first before you continue reading. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

So…a darling friend of mine showed a group of us this video to help explain being an introvert. We were on our way to a Bacchanalian weekend of music, food and anything else you can think of that is worth overdoing.

As I watched the two birds listen to the guitar music I was struck by how clearly the one bird represented me (the puffed up guy with the big hair and his arms in the air—duh), and how much the other, more demure bird was a dead ringer for my friend.

“Look at how the shy bird puts up its foot like, stay away from me”, she said laughing hysterically.
It really was funny. But I heard the message behind the video loud and clear, “When things get rockin’ later—go and get big somewhere as far away from me as possible.”

There are a lot of introverts in this tribe so I had to show this to you. I knew you could relate to this shy bird’s obvious anxiety.

Not everyone likes to get big. Most people don’t like to draw attention to themselves.

While watching the video of the two birds, I caught my other friend M’s eye and we made a silent pact right then and there.

She gets me. We are fellow extroverts and although we would do our damnedest NOT to embarrass our friend over the course of the weekend, I knew I had a partner in crime, someone who could out-overdo me in every way possible. Our glee would be as uncontainable as that birds and we might even wear big hats and that realization alone caused a huge smile to cross my lips. I’m pretty sure a diabolical laugh leaked out.

We were gonna dance like that freak-flag flying bird—right up next to the stage—somewhere our friend would NEVER go.
And we did.

As the weekend progressed I kept my promise to my introverted friend. She only had to push me away once when I started bear-hugging her for no good reason during a particularly rowdy song. Other than that she danced in and out of our orbit on her own terms, at moments of her own choosing.

I have a new philosophy: It looks to me be so much easier to be an introverted human than a bird. You can show a video that explains your anxiety. You can go stand in a dark corner. And you can request something other than Elvis on the guitar.

Just sayin’.

Carry on,
xox

I found this tucked into an old journal the other day.
At the time these questions intrigued me and I remember cutting this out and doing what you do when you are lost and completely directionless—I journaled the shit out of it.

It’s from a magazine dated way back in 2010.

2010 was the year I started asking questions of life. Big ones. I had the universe on speed dial.

On the surface mine sucked.

I had lost my business just the year before, I was 52,  and I had no idea what the hell I was going to do next.
I don’t know about you but when the chips are down I’m not very nice to myself. All of that “buck up” and “stiff upper lip” shit kicks in and I’m not even British!

I really could not risk making any more “mistakes” so I went right back into the profession I had left in 2007.

Stripper.

Kidding.

Anyway, I went back to selling jewelry. I know, it’s not the gulag—but it was not the answer to my inquiries either.
The voice that was speaking, the one I was ignoring, it was telling me to write.

You guys, it may as well have yelled “strip” and waved fistfuls of dollar bills at me because I wasn’t gonna do it.

Then, slowly, methodically, and thankfully just in time, the universe, God, Bob or whoever you want to believe controls these things took the wheel.

Starting in 2012, through a series of coincidences and synchronicities, the most improbable people, writers, started showing up in my life.

These new women caused my life to change dramatically. Especially the one that died that very year.

She arrived on a white horse (or cloud) just when I was begging for a mentor.

Once she showed up crazy, mystical, weird-but-true experiences became a daily occurrence. So much so the I (we) wrote an entire screenplay about it.

And within three years my life changed forever. Bye, bye jewelry, hello writer.

All this to say, I believe that answering these questions is freaking magic, you guys. They unleash some kind of supernatural voodoo, woo-woo, vibe that unclogs the pipes and gets things moving in the right direction. I invite you to study them, answer them and then stand back, grab a cocktail, put your feet up, and let Bob steer the bus.

I promise you will love the results.

Carry on,
xox

Let me be clear.
I never wanted kids.

I knew my limitations and the list was long.

As an adult, I had a cat and at times, even that was a stretch.

Then I met my husband and he had a dog. Rather, he was a dog and not in the way you’re thinking (Those days were over.) He explained to me that he was part BMW (motorcycle) and part Boxer. He still is.

Suddenly, I was a mom. A dog mom.

Let me say right here that I approach this job with great commitment.
I pick-up poop (never had to do that with a cat), I load her in my car and take her with me when she’s not attached to her dad’s hip, and I’ve gotten used to finding these little dog hairs (boxers don’t have fur they are covered with the equivalent of eyebrow hair), EVERYWHERE.

My wood floors are scratched to hell, my white kitchen cabinets are perpetually covered with dried eye goobers, and most of the fabric in my home has the stench of dog fart baked right into it.

Let me also be clear about this: I love her. Truly, madly and deeply.

Well, except for this morning.

I hate being woken up by anything other than my own circadian rhythm. That was one of the reasons I sidestepped motherhood. I can’t be bothered by someone else’s needs. I even slept peacefully through the night my husband was suffering from appendicitis because he knew better than to wake me up—he snuck silently into the guest room to whimper pitifully until it was safe to complain.

Hey! I can hear you… Jeez… You guys are judgy AF!

Anyway, this morning was especially brutal because we had been away all weekend partying with friends.


See what I mean.

I needed sleep. Real sleep. Ten hours of sleep uninterrupted by alcohol and hotel sex if ya know what I mean.

Instead, this morning at 6 am while my husband was at the gym, I got skunked. Rather, she got skunked.

For the fourth time in six months.

I blame the skunk. He’s not stupid, he knows a dog lives here. There are “Beware of the Dog” signs posted all over the place to discourage this kind of bad behavior.

Besides, I’m sure he can smell her! But this guy doesn’t give a shit. He’s got his tail in the air like he just don’t care.

And for the fourth fucking time, my dog has been the face-first, one woman, early morning welcoming committee.

Since this debacle has happened more than once, we now keep the ingredients for the anti-skunking right there in the bathroom next to the shower.

1 Large pan of water.
Baking soda
liquid detergent (I use Dawn)
Hydrogen peroxide
Bloody Mary (optional)

I don’t measure any amounts because who can be bothered? I just make a paste and smear it all over the unfortunate victim’s face, rinse and repeat.

By the time her dad got home she was cleaned up but the house had the lingering, now familiar stench of skunk road kill.

“She must be a slow learner”, I said like I imagine a mother does when her kid bites into a lemon every time she hands it one. 

My husband wasn’t having any of it. You’re allowed to fuck up three times in our family while we good-naturedly just look the other way. Need a Silkwood shower first thing in the morning before we’ve had our coffee? No problem.

But four times? Fuck that. Four times—You are called out!

“What are you, a dumbass?” he asked her to her face.

She’s a teenager so she just shrugged and flipped her hair.

Different parenting style is also one of the reasons on that long list. Not that we would have ever had kids. My eggs had turned to capers by the time we met. But still.

So to make her feel better about herself I made her a sign. She likes signs. I told her it said “You is smart, you is kind, you is pretty” and she believed me.

In retrospect, I think I would have made one helluva mom.

Maybe not…

Carry on,
xox

• I love the lengths that the dearly departed go to in order to communicate with us!

“Oh, I wanna dance with somebody
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me
Oh, I wanna dance with somebody
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me”

This week has been …interesting.

You see, I talk to a dead person, a woman who happens to be my muse, all the time. This week it turned from singular to plural.

I officially talk to dead people.

It started innocently enough at a lunch on Tuesday with my bad-ass, no-taker-of-shit friend, Kim. Since becoming friends we found out that at the same time I was managing a jewelry store in Beverly Hills she was at William Morris agenting a Diva who was at the height of her career.

I like to think it’s the same thing.
What?
Is it not even remotely the same?

Listen, it’s my blog and I can dream.

Anyway, we were getting caught up, sharing a Chinese chicken salad at Joan’s, and right in the middle of her recounting a story about the screenplay she is collaborating on about her life working for the Diva, I interrupted her.

Me: (Salad spilling out of my mouth) Oh, oh, remind me to tell you about my dream. Whitney was in it.

Kim: And you’re just getting around to telling me this now?

Me: I know! I forgot, but your story reminded me.

Kim: Go on. I yield the floor.

The dream went like this: I was in a theater at the invitation of my good friend Tom Hanks ;-).
It was some kind of talk he was giving and although we were likethis I was not special enough to be seated close enough to him to breathe his air. While I was busy trying unsuccessfully to convince people “I’m with Tom” from my seat in the nosebleed section, a woman in a white evening gown stood up about ten rows in front of me. Besides thinking she was a tad overdressed, I recognized her.

“That’s Whitney Houston”, I said to no one in particular.
“It can’t be…she’s dead” they responded.

At that moment our eyes met and she started her way up the aisle toward me. When she got to my row I stood up because, Yo! It was freaking Whitney Houston!

“I think it’s high time we met”, she said handing me an autographed 8 x 10 picture of herself.

“Oh shit. you too?” was all I could say.

Back at Joan’s, Kim sat across from me dumbfounded. “I can’t believe you’re just telling me this! I have felt Whitney around so much lately and now she’s getting in touch with you!”

She went back to her story about hearing the song I Wanna Dance With Somebody, one of Whitney’s greatest hits, playing in her head day and night. “She wants it at the end of the screenplay”,  she announced with conviction. “It took some convincing of my collaborator but just last night, at my (and Whitney’s) insistance—we wrote it in.”

Whitney had a few more things to say to Kim at lunch. It wasn’t creepy at all. It was cool. She was…cool.

The next day, this bright orange sweater (in the picture above) caught my attention as I was perusing the racks of a second-hand store I’m currently obsessed with. When I read the large white lettering I gasped! I mean, what are the odds? Then I texted Kim a picture as fast as my fingers could type. Excited, I walked in a twenty-foot circle waiting for her to respond. About five minutes later she did.

Kim: wtf?
Me: Right?
Kim: She’s stalking you.
Me: I think that was for you!

That gave me a genius idea. I walked back over to the rack to grab the sweater to buy it for Kim. She could wear it to the movie screening! (With a designer skirt and wildly expensive shoes, of course.) Except…

Me: Kim, the sweater isn’t there!
Kim: Where is it?
Me: I have no idea! I went back and it’s gone! I’ve looked everywhere and there are only three other people in here and they’re nowhere around me. Wtf?
Kim: Corkie, solve the mystery.
Me: I can’t! It’s gone.

You guys, did it really exist at all?

I have a picture…

Carry on,
xox

This fascinates me!
We all know how different the tears we cry when we step on a Lego feel from the ones we shed at the end of a relationship.

But who knew that they actually looked so dramatically different. Like little salt snowflakes.

Clearly, this is more proof of the mind/body connection. Obviously, the body rearranges the salts, antibodies, and lysozymes according to how we feel.

We live in amazing times. Don’t you love science?

PS. Can anyone explain “tears of change” to me? Are those the same as frustration, fear, a bad haircut?

Carry on,
xox

This photo series by Rose-Lynn Fisher captures tears of grief, joy, laughter and irritation under the microscope.

Tears aren’t just water. They’re primarily made up of water, salts, antibodies and lysozymes, but the composition depends on the type of tear. There are three main types – basal tears, reflex tears, and weeping tears.

As you can see, they can look incredibly different when evaporated and placed under a microscope.

More info: http://bit.ly/RJqvK7

Images by Rose-Lynn Fisher, via the Smithsonian Magazine and ScienceAlert.

If I can say one thing with conviction it is that ink cartridges for your printer ALWAYS run out when you need them the most.

Case in point: The other morning while I was at the gym (trying to find my abs), my husband was in his office busily preparing invoices on his computer for the five or six different jobs he’s working on right now.

We like invoices. Invoices are check magnets. Checks allow us to eat. And we love to eat, so there you go.

Anyhow, when I returned he was circling the printer, cursing a blue streak. It seems his printer had run out of black ink and subsequently had refused to print the invoices. “I thought I had another black cartridge in here”, he grumbled through grit teeth while rummaging through a cabinet. He slammed the door shut and slumped in his chair. “Great. Now I can’t print these today.”

I could barely hear him over the growling of my stomach.

My husband is old school. He not only emails his invoices, he prints up hard copies for his files along with copies for his clients to hold in their hot little hands. He has found that these same hands are much more likely to write checks when they’ve just held one of his carefully prepared, itemized invoices. Nobody gives a shit when you email them a bill so basically, paper wins over technology every time.

This stopped me in my tracks. “What? I mean what about the color cartridge? You could print them in blue or purple?”

He shot me a look that straightened even my pubic hair.

“Listen”, I said, remaining calm. “You aren’t dressed yet, but I am, I’ll make a quick run to Staples and get you a black cartridge. I’ll be back before you’re out of the shower.”

After presenting a few lame protests, he agreed and off I went.

As I closed the door I heard him offer to give me some cash. “I’ve got it!” I replied, sprinting to the car. I remembered having about $50 in my wallet, I mean, how much could it be?

Not fifty dollars I can tell you that! Not sixty-dollars either. That fucker was SEVENTY-DOLLARS!
PLUS TAX!

“Whyyyyy?” I yelled waving the cartridge at the boy stocking the printer paper. He just shook his head and looked away.
“Why is this so expensive?” I hissed, interrogating the check out girl. “It’s a tablespoon of ink in three dollars of plastic!” She offered me a rebate without looking at me. A $2 rebate that takes eight weeks to take the two dollars off my SEVENTY DOLLAR printer ink purchase.

“People pay this? This is extortion!” I yelled as the manager walked up. He seemed hardened to this argument. He had talking points. “You save when you order in bulk”, he said, motioning to alert the three-hundred-pound security guard. I knew that guy would understand my plight. We needed to invoice! We needed to eat!

“Ha!” I guffawed loudly, a little bit of spit landing on my chin.

Embarrassed, I mumbled under my breath while handing the cashier my debit card “Bulk? You’ve gotta be kidding me. A bulk order of this ink is equal to a car payment.” I grabbed my cartridge made of gold—and the receipt with the fucking rebate to fill out and mail in. I wasn’t giving them that extra $2 godammit!

“What a racket.” Were my parting words as I passed the bemused security guard. He nodded in agreement even though I’m relatively sure he had no idea what I was talking about.

This whole thing really pissed me off. Our immediate need for an overpriced product stripped away all of my power leaving me with no options. He needed to print invoices. Today.

I opened all the cars windows on the way home, attempting to change my mood. It was a beautiful morning. I had already accrued my ten thousand steps. The invoices would be printed and we would live to eat another day.

“Let it go, Janet,” I said to myself. “This is how they can sell printers so cheap.” 

Then I started to think about the other NECESSITIES in our lives where they have us over a barrel.

Epipens came to mind. That’s just a crime. Plain and simple.

And Razor blades. Have you purchased a pack of razor blades lately? They’re so valuable people steal them. (Like saffron at the supermarket and Sudafed at the drug store.) You have to ask for them up at the register at Target.

Tell me why? They’re three one-inch blades of steel encased in fifty cents of plastic!

That got me thinking, maybe the razor blade price gouging started this beard phenomenon we’re experiencing. Men just threw up their hands and said: “Fuck it!” I can eat or I can shave. (Everything comes down to eating with me.)

BTW: I was wondering who to blame. Not every man looks good in a beard you know.

So the moral of this story is: It’s the principal of the thing. Even if I can afford it, I don’t like being taken advantage of for no good reason.

I know I’m not alone here. Tell me what gets your blood boiling.

Carry on,
xox

I sat in traffic on a crowded tree-lined boulevard today trying to figure out how I could get to the Starbucks drive-thru on the other side of the street without going to jail.

I don’t mean to sound mellow dramatic, but the city planners had placed this caffeine savior on a corner that is almost impossible to get to without repelling from an aircraft. Seeing that I was not in my helicopter, or driving Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang today (if you have no idea what that is–shame on you—and look it up), I had the bright idea to go down a block, get in the left-hand turn lane and swing an illegal u-turn.

Great minds think alike.
The left turn lane had sixteen cars in it blocking the flow of traffic. There, clearly posted, was a black arrow swinging back at itself inside of a bright red circle with a slash through the middle. In other words, the universal sign for no u-turn. Unfortunately, caffeine deprived human beings don’t give a shit about signs. Signs are just suggestions. We want our lattes and we want them NOW!

Besides, there’s safety in numbers, right? 

As I waited for my turn to break the law, out of the corner of my eye my attention was drawn to the bus stop at the corner. There stood a young woman dressed like she was catching the shuttle to Coachella. Let me explain why that matters. We had London weather today. Cool, gray and drizzly. I wore a sweater although most people in LA who are under thirty dress like it’s one-hundred degrees all year ‘round.

In her daisy dukes, crop top, muffin top, and flip-flops, she was flailing around like my aunt doing the chicken dance at a family wedding. At first, I thought she might be having a seizure, but I quickly realized she was being chased by a bee.

I recognized that level of apiphobia.
Once, at a bar-b-que, the cousin of a friend ran straight through a sliding glass door trying to escape a bee. We all assumed she was allergic, fleeing for her life. She was not. She did, however, knock herself unconscious, require seventeen stitches and a splint for a severely broken nose.

Everyone uses anaphylactic shock as an excuse to act like a headless chicken but it’s actually pretty rare to die from a bee sting. Trust me, I looked it up. 

I’ve been stung by a bee half a dozen times in my life and while it hurts like a MoFo, in my opinion what she suffered was way worse than a bee sting. I never saw her again but I always wondered if her overreaction that day cured her of her bee phobia.

Back at the bus stop, I could understand this girls panic given all the prime real estate she displayed.
The amount of skin to clothing ratio must have summoned the bee to come and check her out. Don’t they always show up when you’re in a bikini drinking an orange soda? I suppose it could be the soda that attracts the bees, but they never sting the soda can, aiming their sites strictly on a bikini exposed stomach or the back of a lily-white thigh.

Think about that.

Speaking of soda, my little brother was drinking a soda once when a bee landed on his mouth, deftly placing its front legs on his upper lip and its back legs on his lower lip. Of course, he froze. I think he mumbled “help me” but being the highly dysfunctional family we were, we showed little concern for his well-being. This was funny and we love funny, so instead, we laughed our asses off, my mom took a Polaroid, and someone eventually snicked it off his lips with their thumb and forefinger leaving him shaken, but un-stung.

 Bus stop bee hysteria prevailed. The girl was spinning around frantically, arms in the air, wildly shooing the invisible bee from her hair and swatting at her face. It was the best free street theatre no money could buy. I’m ashamed to say I was riveted. I couldn’t look away. When she narrowly missed running into one of the bus stop poles, I nearly lost it. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Tears were streaming down my face. I think I peed a little.

I felt like such an ass (for a minute) laughing at her that way until I saw her laughing too. Oh, thank god she could see the humor! I guarantee you couldn’t have kept a straight face. The whole thing was hilarious!

Finally, the not so friendly, aggresive, honking from the long line of cars behind shook me from my trance. It was my turn to break the law and I was holding things up. In case you were wondering, when I left the Starbucks, I checked to see how our bee slayer had fared but she was gone. I can only assume she made it safely onto the bus or knocked herself unconscious with her shoulder bag and was in an abulance headed to the hospital.

So, thank you, girl at the bus stop being chased by a bee. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Carry on,
xox

My dead friend at 9:18 am this morning: “How disappointed are you to find out that we came here to be happy?”

Me (With a mouth full of toothpaste): Whaaa…disappointed? What?

DF: Just be quiet and listen.

“LIFE.”

It’s not a business trip where all you do is work, work, work.

It’s not a prison for idiots and bad people.

It’s not a series of problems that need to be fixed.

It’s not a tourist destination where all you do is take pictures and leave.

It’s not a planet in peril that needs to be saved.

Contrary to some beliefs it’s not a schoolroom with a huge test at the end.

This beautiful blue planet was created for our enjoyment. Every animal, plant, rock and grain of sand is here to add to the fun.

Quit taking it all so damn seriously! Live life. Have fun. Be happy.

Me: That’s it?  Are you going without wishing me a happy weekend?

DF: Jeez. I think that goes without saying.

Carry on,
xox

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

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

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

Forgiveness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At least that’s how I interpreted it.

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

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

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

After a minute or so, she said, “D?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nope. Please don’t.”

“Forgive his Soul?” I confirmed.

“Yep. The biggest thing there is.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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