permission

Lather, rinse, repeat. Who does that? Whose got the time?

Yet, those are the directions on the bottle of shampoo. If your hair won’t come clean after one lather, you’ve got bigger problems baby.

Tags on a mattress: It is forbidden, under penalty of law to remove the tags.
Who leaves them on?
I rip tags off of everything…immediately.
I once worked my way around a friend’s apartment discreetly removing the tags that were still on her futon, chair cushions, couch, and pillows. I couldn’t help myself.

Was she just lazy or following directions, hoping to avoid the tag police?

What about waiting a half hour after eating, before going back into the ocean or pool.
“You’ll get a cramp and drown”. That rule never made any sense to me. Even if it did happen to Marge’s sister’s cousin, kid brother. Never mind that he didn’t know how to tread water, it was the bologna sandwich that did him in. So, our moms enforced that rule to-the-minute. As a kid, I could inhale my lunch in 2.5 seconds, so a half an hour was an eternity.
But to all of the neighborhood moms which included my mom, that rule was law. It was non-negotiable. Believe me, I tried.

Some folks follow directions to the letter.
Not me. Directions, tags, rules for games, most rules in general, are always just…a suggestion.
The ones I can’t get around, like flossing and taxes, I adhere to begrudgingly.

Maybe it’s America. So much fear of liability. You can be sued by anyone, for anything, anytime. It’s not that way in other countries.That’s why I love the Italians. In Italy, there is a kind of “live in the moment” attitude that renders laws and rules…obsolete.

To the Italians, they truly are only suggestions. Weak ones. Ones that should be ignored. Which makes them my people.

I was in Rome for a couple of weeks when every day it was steamy, well over 100 degrees. They call that August. There are many, many gorgeous fountains in Rome. Each one has a sign that basically says: Stay Out of the Fountain. But by the number of men, women, little kids, grandmas, dogs, even nuns; standing and splashing around, you would have thought the sign said: Come on in, the water’s fine!
Even the politzia turned a blind eye.

Several years later I went back and the signs were down. Apparently, after hundreds of years they had figured out, why waste good wall space? Godere!

My husband is also European, so maybe it’s in the water. His motto is one that I’ve grown to love, and have adopted as my own: It is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. Meaning, if you know the answer most likely will be no, if you know a rule is about to be broken, and no one’s getting hurt, just do it.

Gasp… I know, I know. But there are so many joyful, playful, beautiful things in life that somewhere along the line became “not okay.” Some killjoy decided it was a bad idea to swim too soon after eating or rip a tag off a mattress or shampoo only once or splash in a fountain on a hot summer day, and they ruined it for everyone.

I’m not advocating hurting anyone, defiling public property, or acts of debauchery.

I’m just saying, it’s okay to color outside the lines, to find joy whenever and wherever you can.
Rules are made to be broken. Tear some tags. Laugh in a library. If there are no cars, cross the street just before the light turns green. Oh, you rebel! And if you’re caught in the fountain, don’t be embarrassed, just smile and say: I’m sorry, it’ll never happen again.

Until next time.
Xox
.

Hello brave ones,

This is a post from ages ago. Three years to be exact but it has been a topic of constant conversation these days.

When do you take the leap to change?

I like the idea of permission, and I LOVE the concept of Grace.

So today, if you’re contemplating listening to your gut. Or you’ve already taken the leap and you feel like you’re in free-fall—maybe this will help.
That’s always my wish.

Carry on,
xox

Both feet have to leave the ground to leap.
Ohhhhhh Shiiiiiiit!

…and therein lies the rub.

When am I ready to leap you ask? Uh, just this side of NEVER!

We seldom feel like we’re ready….it just isn’t the right time…not yet.

But what the hell are we waiting for?
An illness?
Divorce?
The empty nest?
More diplomas?
Losing a job?
More zeros in our bank account (Ahhh, now I’m getting warmer) but how many are enough?

How about PERMISSION?
The WORD from God-on-high that all systems are go, and you’re ready for launch.
That’s what I want!
That’s what we all want. Right?

But you know what you guys? We’ve got that. We have our internal guidance, our intuition, our gut, to let us know when we’re getting close.

We’ve all been there. You get that restless feeling.

You start asking life WAY too many questions.

You feel as if you can’t continue to do that thing you’ve been doing for one. more. minute.

That to me, signals one foot off the ground.

Then I have to suck up every ounce of courage to trust those signals, and
Lift. The. Other. Foot.

Permission is Grace’s secret weapon.

If you give enough value to the signs; the synchronicity, that jumpy little feeling in your belly, and you turn away from the fear and doubt and really show up for yourself; you grant Permission.
Permission’s bodyguards, Faith and Courage, then clear the path for Grace to enter.

Then you know what Grace does?
She lends you her hand and helps you balance…
so you can lift your other foot to leap.

Xox

“It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission”

This quote is attributed to Grace Hopper, a crusty old broad who, if given the choice, I’d want to sit next to at most dinner parties. Except she’s dead.

It should be attributed to my husband since he swears by it, lives it and quotes it almost daily.

He’s also pretty crusty and he breaks the rules. Rules are just suggestions to him. Gentle recommendations that are made to be broken. I find that quality sexy in a person. In men in particular. Really sexy. (I’m going to see if he’s still at his desk and tell him so. I’ll be back in…thirty…)

So sorry about that. Please forgive me.
Anyhow…

When you see a No Trespassing sign do you turn around or do you keep going? I keep going. I can’t help it.

I trespassed the shit out of my hikes around the hills of Soquel this week and it unleashed my inspiration.

My pup and I explored all sorts of forbidden paths, trails and otherwise off-limits parts of this gorgeous backcountry. Several Ted Kaczynski’s unleashed their hounds on us (no biggie, my dog is a one-woman welcoming committee, like the head of the local PTA, and the hounds all loved her. They’ve organized a bake sale and are coming over for tea at three.)

We happened upon a babbling brook, found someone’s abandoned Airstream trailer, stopped, kept from making eye contact, and turned around when we came across a guy, in the middle of nowhere, sitting in his junk heap of a pick-up truck, staring at us while he listened to a banjo strum slowly on the radio.
I’m not kidding.

Undeterred, we kept on walking the road less traveled (in the other direction), and two things came to mind.

In LA I powerwalk. I try to notice my surroundings but most days I’m focused on completing my 10,000 steps and getting my day started. These hikes among the pines, oaks, and lush green hills are food for my soul. I walk slowly, inhaling the scent of the moist, dark earth, moss, wet grass and the occasional field of wildflowers.

One road we trespassed on became so steep in the middle that I had to practice my yoga breathing in order to keep my heart INSIDE of my chest where it belongs when I noticed all of the delicious smells I’d been enjoying were gone. That’s just one of the things I hate about cardio (there are at least 500 more. I have a list.), it robs you of your senses.

My mouth was open so wide, gasping for air like a naked astronaut on the surface of Mars—that I couldn’t smell a thing.

So, number one: You must walk at a leisurely pace in order to smell the roses, so to speak. A full sensory experience cannot be had at 135 beats per minute.

Number two: Nothing interesting or noteworthy happens on the beaten path. It’s the safe route. Well traveled. Crowded actually. Every rock has been turned, every idea hatched.

I am convinced that in order to reach inspiration you must NEVER ask permission because more than likely—the answer will be NO.

Nope. You must trespass in life—then beg for forgiveness…then bring pie.

Carry on
xox

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, Ralph. Or do you want me to call you Waldo?
How did you get so smart? So enlightened? After all, you lived during the nineteenth century, a time of immense intellectual and industrial expansion; yet it was also the time of corsets, slavery, the horse and buggy, The Civil War, and before the use of the electric light bulb.

You went around espousing and developing certain cutting-edge ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Holy cow R.W.!

With this quote you give those of us in the twenty-first century, an era whose technological advances you could scarcely have imagined in your wildest dreams—permission.

Permission to make mistakes;
Permission to get over ourselves;
Permission to be high-spirited, unencumbered;
Permission to start the fuck over!

Thank you Ralph, Waldo, Wally? We really needed it, because in that respect—humanity hasn’t changed a bit since you walked the earth.

Nearly two centuries later we have yet to master the art of forgiving ourselves and employing The Start Over.

“Blunders and absurdities” not only creep in, they set up camp and ruin our sleep as they set fire to our lives; and after we clean up the mess and re-group, we have a hard time letting go of the past, the old nonsense—and an almost impossible time forgiving ourselves.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

I don’t know about you guys but you may as well be asking me to get into a shark cage in infested waters, or eat just one Lays Potato Chip—it’s simply not going to happen.

Then I remembered this, something I haven’t thought about in eons:

Years ago a friend posed this amazing question to me after too much wine and not enough cheese. (Remember the Sheryl Crowe song My favorite Mistake? It was playing in the back round),
What would you say is your favorite mistake?
I watched as her IQ rose several points just in the contemplation of such a thing.

Me: A Favorite Mistake? Really? I, I, uh, I don’t know. (tens of IQ points evaporating by the second.)

I suppose it was the word favorite that initially hung me up, but the more I thought about it, the more I LOVED the concept.

If we could deem a mistake our favorite, it would release the charge, the tug in our gut.
It would become the path on which we could meet up with “high-spirited and unencumbered”.
It could become old nonsense and jumpstart THE START OVER.

I was willing to give it a try.

“I suppose my favorite mistake was my marriage at twenty. We were way too young and not a good match, and after the divorce we both went on to live happy lives with other people—and we’re still friends” I admitted, feeling lighter by the minute.

Hers was an unplanned pregnancy, a son she had at nineteen. A favorite for obvious reasons.

Thinking about this again, all these years later, my heart started racing as I ran through twenty plus years of memories and they started to look less like a Tela Novela and more like a situation comedy.

Starting my business, my store, is quickly becoming my latest favorite mistake due to all of the internal growth it’s caused. I can finally be done with it. It has become old nonsense, and now I have this (the writing) and SO MUCH MORE. I can say that now.

As I lay in bed the other night it dawned on me that since the beginning of time, humans have tortured themselves over their mistakes to the point where perfectly lovely people lead lives of quiet disappointment trying to avoid another.

What is your favorite mistake? This needs to be a mandatory question on any employment or dating application.
The answer changes people.
It changed me.

Okay, you knew it was coming, Tell me, What’s your favorite mistake?

Then you can 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

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

Both feet have to leave the ground to leap.
Shit!

….and therein lies the rub.

We seldom feel like we’re ready….it just isn’t the right time…not yet.

What the hell are we waiting for?
An illness?
Divorce?
The empty nest?
More diplomas?
Losing a job?
More zeros in our bank account (Ahhh, now I’m getting warmer) but how many are enough?

How about PERMISSION?
Word from God-on-high that all systems are go, and you’re ready for launch.
That’s what I want.
That’s what we all want.

But you know what you guys? We’ve got that. We have our internal guidance, our intuition, our gut, to let us know when we’re getting close.

We’ve all been there. You get that restless feeling.

You start asking life WAY too many questions.

You feel as if you can’t do that thing you’ve been doing for one-more-minute.

That to me, signals one foot off the ground.

Then I have to suck up every ounce of courage to trust those signals, and
Lift. The. Other. Foot.

Permission is Grace’s secret weapon.

If you give enough value to the signs, the synchronicity, that jumpy little feeling in your belly, and you turn away from the fear and doubt and really show up for yourself; you grant Permission.
Permission’s bodyguards, Faith and Courage, then clear the path for Grace to enter.

Then you know what Grace does?
She lends you her hand and helps you balance…
so you can lift your other foot to leap.

Xox