Besides you know, politicians, choosing people to populate your life is a heady endeavor.
It is my belief that this should apply to bosses, landlords, car repair men, lovers, and Uber drivers.
And if they appear to be a lying, cowardly, foolish thief—I give you permission to cut and run.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
~Maya Angelou
PS. And don’t forget to vote.
Carry on,
xox
“You belong in every room you enter.”
I don’t know where to attribute this quote. I’ve heard it more in the past three weeks than I’ve heard my own name.
That must mean something? Right?
Shonda Rhimes, the magnificent writer of all things twisty on Thursday nights, attributes it to Oprah.
I vaguely remember hearing Oprah give Maya Angelou the credit.
I read somewhere that Jesus said it to Maya when they walked into the wedding at Cana because Maya was feeling a little underdressed.
In any case, I love the reminder. Don’t you?
Who hasn’t felt out-of-their-depth at one time or another?
I can recall an embarrassing amount of situations (like walking into the Ritz in Paris for the first time) where I was convinced that the wallpaper and drapes were better qualified to be there than I was. (Which actually makes sense if you think about it because they were there first—and somebody picked them— but you know what I mean.)
Underqualified.
Underdressed.
Underinvited.
Undersmart.
Underrich.
Underpretty.
I’ve felt all of that, haven’t you? But wouldn’t it have helped so much to remember these words from Shonda/Oprah/Maya/Jesus as you stood outside the door, contemplating going in?
YOU BELONG IN ANY ROOM YOU ENTER.
It sure would have helped me! Maybe it would have kept me from inhaling all of the little smokie sausages at the last cocktail party I attended where I felt out-of-place.
Or maybe not.
Have a great week and carry on,
xox
Remember permission slips?
Those signed (or forged) whichever the case may be; pieces of paper that granted us access to off the grid childhood activities?
Weekend trips with Girl Scouts, grade school field trips to museums or the Observatory, Wednesday McDonald’s hamburger lunches in sixth grade?
Proudly, I had my dad’s signature down pat, the giant R of Roy with the straight tail of the Y, ending downward, no curling back up, no frills at all, very masculine, completely unlike my own girly sixth grade cursive; so occasionally, even though I had brought my delicious Spam with mustard on Wonder Bread sandwich in my Partridge Family lunch box for lunch that Wednesday, I’d permission slip myself a burger.
Forging (not to be confused with foraging) for food……hmmmmmm I’m sure there’s some deep hidden meaning in there.
Anyway…….
Brene Brown talks about writing HERSELF permission slips.
I LOVE that idea.
When she was on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, she had one tucked inside the pocket of her jean jacket.
It read: I give you permission to be excited, goofy and uncool.
Just show up and be seen.
From what I observed she didn’t get too giggly or over stare, she had her occasional “Holy Shit, I’m sitting with Oprah” moments and they felt completely authentic and actually a bit brave.
She didn’t pretend “Oh hey, no big deal, I’m fine, I’m cool.”
As the story goes, after the show she heard that Maya Angelou was in another part of the building recording some audio poems. So instead of nonchalantly replying: “Oh, that’s nice” she abandoned cool once again and told Oprah how much she admired Dr Angelou.
After all, she still had the permission slip in her pocket; and as is often the case, the Universe rewards genuineness.
Oprah asked if she’d like to meet Dr. Angelou.
Hell yeah! (My words – just guessing)
Here are her feelings about the encounter in her own words:
“So grateful that I got to meet Dr. Angelou, look her in the eye, and tell her what her work means to me. When I told her that I love playing her reading of “I shall not be moved” for my students and children, she grabbed my hand and sang, “Like a tree planted by the river, I shall not be moved.” It was a sacred moment.”
Just imagine if she’d brushed off the mention of Maya Angelou with a Too Cool For School attitude, she would have missed that once in a lifetime moment.
How many wonderful, sacred, ridiculously epic moments do we circumvent due to our habit of playing it cool?
How many beautiful creations do we talk ourselves out of?
How many people do we meet and feel a connection with……and do nothing?
How many books are unwritten, paintings un painted, businesses un started and plans unhatched because we lack the courage?
Maybe all we need is PERMISSION.
I for one, have started her practice of the permission slip.
Here are some I’ve written lately:
I give myself permission to not always know what I’m doing.
I give myself permission to play more.
I give myself permission to suck while writing the book.
I give myself permission to be happy even though I don’t have a “job”
I give myself permission to not like everyone
If you Google BRENE BROWN PERMISSION SLIPS and look at images, there are hundreds of ideas if you have trouble getting started.
I’d LOVE it if you’d write at least one thing in the comments. Tell me, share, you’ll give other people the courage to do it and maybe give them a few ideas too.
Go ahead –
I give myself permission to__________________.
I give myself permission to adore you guys,
Xox
This is one of the beautiful, heroic, woman from our Wednesday Women’s group, about to embark on a long awaited adventure.
She’s showing me her “Maya” heart stone.
One side says: “What would Maya do?” And the other side says: I Am enough, which is a favorite Maya Angelou quote.
I made sure she had that heart stone to take along with her on her trip, to remind her that she is loved.
She is a perfect representation of the power of women.
She is exactly why I started the group. She has gathered her strength and courage as we watched, and we held the place for her.
Now look, there’s no stopping her!!
Love that! Love her!
Who’s next?
Do you have a challenge you want to overcome?
Want a Maya stone? Let me know.
Xox
Sometimes, in this wonderfully bumpy journey called life; it isn’t enough to inhabit our own skin.
Or rather, it’s too much.
We need some help.
Help keeping our faith. Help pushing our worn out, sad, beat up butts back on the playing field. What we need is assistance from the greats that came before us, whose battle weary eyes have seen everything.
They know stuff. They be wise.
Maybe it was a favorite teacher that you admired or perhaps it was your grandfather, who took you under his wing. Firm but fair.
If they were in a jam- what would they do?
You could turn to them for guidance, perhaps, even for a brief moment, inhabit their skin, standing taller and looking at the situation with their accrued strength, wisdom and grace.
At the Wednesday women’s group, our conversation led to the passing, that day, of Maya Angelou. We were all deeply affected. More than we would have expected. It just felt to us, that Maya Angelou would always share the planet with us….breathe the same air.
It’s been a weepy kind of week, so with her loss, the tears that welled up felt justified in their appearance. Much more so than all the other mundane shit we’d all been crying about.
Some of us had read her books, others were just familiar with her poetry.
What we all agreed on, was her stature as she walked through this amazing life.
Not only the fact that she was six feet tall; but her grace and dignity, her sense of humor, her courage and most of all; her God-damn gravitas.
I’m sure her BS detector was especially fine tuned.
She didn’t suffer fools and I bet she didn’t take ANY shit….from ANYBODY.
I’m talkin’ to you, Oprah.
Sure, she made mistakes, but she learned, wrote about them, and was the better for it.
We all decided that when life threw us a curveball, or when we were in an emotional tornado, and needed to feel empowered; we’d ask ourselves:
What Would Maya Do?
It made us laugh-and then we got quiet.
I think it’s now our secret password.
Shhhhhhhhhh. Don’t tell anyone.
I have a small collection of rose quartz hearts from our winter solstice meditations, so this morning, I decided to write What Would Maya Do? on one side and her quote “I Am Enough” on the other.
I’m going to give them to my women to carry around as a reminder, you know, in case they forget the password. It looks like the marker is going to wear off immediately. Maybe reaching into a pocket and feeling that little heart shaped stone will be enough to remember.
Nope.
She wouldn’t fuck around.
I have to find a more permanent marker that stays on stone.
I know that’s what Maya would do.
Who do you have as your “go to” person? Who would you ask?
Xox
“When you learn, teach. When you get, give”
~Maya Angelou
I couldn’t let the day pass without paying homage to the Mother Earth, Goddess, poet, teacher, Maya Angelou.
They are paying tribute, as well they should, on all the media outlets today.
In the car on NPR this morning, I heard a hysterical story, told in her own deep, melodic voice, about waiting in an airport bar for her mother to arrive, and it made me tear up.
You could hear in her voice that the story tickled her.
Ah……that voice. Unmistakable. A real gift to her poetry, and the world.
I remember reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when I was about fifteen or sixteen. It resonated not because I was a young black girl growing up in the Deep South, because that could not have been further from the truth, but because it spoke of freedom and self expression, two things I was desperately seeking in those days.
I just went to look at my dog eared, water stained copy and alas, I must have leant it to a friend.
Damn me and my book lending!
I collect quotes, as demonstrated by the Quotes page on this
blog.
Every wise thing ever said, I tend to attribute to Maya Angelou.
I had a friend (who has since passed) who knew the source of
pretty much every quote. She would joke that if she did get stumped, she’d attribute them to either Mark Twain or Maya Angelou and people wouldn’t blink.
The quote at the top about teaching, is one that comes to mind often, and it gave me permission to start the women’s group. When you learn, teach.
Thank you Maya Angelou.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
This one gave me permission to write this blog, so you have Maya Angelou to thank….or blame.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
One of my spiritual teachers would remind me, that when we die, we watch a movie style life review. There is no sound, just feeling. We have to re-live how we made others feel in every interaction of our life.
That’s some sobering shit, huh?
“You are enough.”
This one’s like a haiku. Enough said.
“When someone tells you or shows you who they are; believe them the first time.”
OMG. This was my mantra in the dating world. I should have had that tattooed to my forehead. (Thank God I re-thought that.)
I was a serial benifitofthedoubt giver. But I eventually learned. When a cute guy, at a party, drink in hand, would ask me out and then quip “I’m not really the monogamous type, or I’m a bad boy, or you’re really not my type”, I learned, from this quote, to run for the hills.
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
This quote is why I’m married. At forty two, love was so freakin tired from the decathlon that my hope was putting it through, it walked through a wall, and delivered to me….my husband. Whew!
Here are some of my other favorite pearls of wisdom from that greatest of life’s teachers, Maya Angelou:
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love.”
“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”
“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”
”I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”
I’ll end with this one. So wise, so profound and so true.
“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”
God’s speed Maya (may I call you Maya?)
Xox
Maya Angelou asks, “How do you react when your child enters the
room? Do your eyes light up?
We feel that is not only an important question for children,
but for anyone in your life.
Your partner, spouse, co workers, boss, best friend.
Do your eyes light up when you see them?
What a difference it would make in people’s lives and the world in general,if when you greeted someone, they could see it in your face that you were genuinely happy to see them.
Everyone just wants to be seen, to be noticed.
Especially by those they love.
Start to try to do this.
It will take your time and attention, for you will have to consciously greet another.
You will have to meet their eyes and show that you see them,
and that they matter to you.
Believe us when we say ,
that you will get much out of this,
as it will start to be reflected back to you.
Your heart will melt and you will remember these words,
the next time you walk into a room, and someone turns around,
and when they see you…their whole face lights up with joy!
