seeking

Friends,

I was talking about joy with an acquaintance the other day—or the “J” word as I like to whisper—since talking about finding joy in life is about as triggery of a trigger as chatting about politics, God, or pumpkin spice anything.

Tempers flare. So do nostrils. It can get ugly.

Unfortunately, our conversation went downhill kinda like this one because some people have a hard time reaching for more joy in life. They will argue against it with the tenacity of a dog with a rope. Like there’s a lifetime joy quota and their’s has not only been reached, it’s been exceeded.

Their best days are behind them, they say. Right. Yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, I was reminded of this video from 2014 otherwise known as a helluva long time ago. It makes me laugh at the absurdity of this argument every damn time I watch it (which is bordering on an obscene number of times)!

Seek joy you guys! Trust me, there’s always more lurking around the corner!

Here’s a good minute and a half minute to start you off!

Carry on.
xox

Hello everybody,
This was posted by my dear friend Leslie, on her Facebook page.
Everyone has a dear friend Leslie; someone you haven’t seen in years but manage to feel connected to through the miracle of social media. I met her over a decade ago, and even in those first few moments, as she helped me pick out only the coolest coffee table books to sell in my store—I knew we’d be friends for life.

I’d like to think we have the same taste. We don’t. She’s wayyyy hipper than I could ever dream of being, but that’s beside the point. One day, she told me that I had to have an exhibition of her husband’s art in my store, I did, and it kind of ended up defining the place.
So, now I cyber-stalk her on Instagram.  
When I see her post a particular swatch of fabric she loves, or a throw pillow, charcoal sketch, headboard, or couch she’s just purchased—I think to myself, Yes! Well done Leslie, I love that too!

When I grow up I want to be more like Leslie.
More diverse in my musical tastes (although I’m pretty sure we love all the same artists), more committed to finding small batch, off-the beaten-path, artsy-fartsy-folksy things to prop on a shelf in that very purposely, not-on-purpose way she has. Maybe I’ll even spring for a used-brick, New York lofty, so-good-it-makes-you-want-to-die, office getaway just blocks from Venice beach—only to be near hers.

Leslie is an adult. She’s good at it! But only in the best sense of the word—not in that stilted, 401K watching, void of any fun, kind of way. She’s a mother, a reader, a life-reinventor, a deep thinker, and an even deeper feeler (is that even a thing?). Leslie will know.
And besides all of that, we share the same sense of humor—self-deprecating and a little twisted, which often makes me snort-laugh coffee from my nose.

Anyway, Leslie posted this beautiful piece by Rania Niam the other day and of course, it touched my heart, I LOVED it, and wish I’d written it.  I think you’ll love it too, and Leslie. But you can’t have her. She’s mine. 

Carry on,
xox

You’re allowed to leave any story you don’t find yourself in. You’re allowed to leave any story you don’t love yourself in.

You’re allowed to leave a city that has dimmed your light instead of making you shine brighter, you’re allowed to pack all your bags and start over somewhere else and you’re allowed to redefine the meaning of your life.

You’re allowed to quit the job you hate even if the world tells you not to and you’re allowed to search for something that makes you look forward to tomorrow and to the rest of your life.

You’re allowed to leave someone you love if they’re treating you poorly, you’re allowed to put yourself first if you’re settling and you’re allowed to walk away when you’ve tried over and over again but nothing has changed.

You’re allowed to let toxic friends go, you’re allowed to surround yourself with love, and people who encourage and nurture you. You’re allowed to pick the kind of energy you need in your life.

You’re allowed to forgive yourself for your biggest and smallest mistakes and you’re allowed to be kind to yourself, you’re allowed to look in the mirror and actually like the person you see.

You’re allowed to set yourself free from your own expectations.

We sometimes look at leaving as a bad thing or associate it with giving up or quitting, but sometimes leaving is the best thing you can do for yourself.

Leaving allows you to change directions, to start over, to rediscover yourself and the world. Leaving sometimes saves you from staying stuck in the wrong place with the wrong people.

Leaving opens a new door for change, growth, opportunities and redemption.

You always have the choice to leave until you find where you belong and what makes you happy.

You’re even allowed to leave the old you behind and reinvent yourself.

Author: Rania Niam

https://thoughtcatalog.com/rania-naim/

I was married at twenty and divorced by twenty-six.

It was the eighties, the decade of Princess Diana and Madonna, and it seemed everyone was doing it—getting married young and divorcing.

Even my best friend at the time shocked me when she suddenly filed for divorce. When someone close to you calls it quits you take a magnifying glass to your relationship, searching for the cracks. No need to look very close, ours was shattered to bits; held together with spit and glue.

I have to admit; in the beginning her divorce left me appalled! But after a while, I saw how happy they both became and that’s when it finally dawned on me that deep down my husband was probably as miserable as I was, and so I decided that for the sake of the continued happiness of us both—we could not stay married for one. more. minute.

NOBODY LIKES A QUITTER

It was impossible to paint a picture of my ex as an insufferable troll.

People understand when you divorce a man who is a cheater, an addict, or someone who can’t hold a job. It wasn’t him it was me. That line is cliché I know, but some sayings become clichés because they’re so damn true!

My ex-husband was/is one of the nicest men on the planet and that sucks even more. I left an all around great guy because I yearned for something more.

“More than what?” my dad asked upon hearing that I wanted a divorce. “What more could you possibly want? It doesn’t seem like anyone can make you happy!” He was right about that. That was my job, only I didn’t know it at the time.

I only knew that something profoundly wonderful was missing. Something…untenable, indescribable and indefinable—and I wasn’t able or willing to settle.

That made me feel greedy. And wrong.

Other people settle. Why can’t I? It would be so much easier!

God, I had so much to learn! I had gone from living under my father’s roof to living under my husband’s. I identified as someone’s wife. Until I wasn’t.

HIDDEN BENEFITS

I would say the biggest benefit was becoming comfortable with my independence. I had been half of a couple, a team, and now every decision, every mistake, was mine alone. I needed to figure out who I was and what I wanted from life, and in the process I was forced to become comfortable living without a man.

When there was a creepy sound in the middle of the night who checked it out? Me and my trusty baseball bat.

I started taking some risks, teaching myself how to invest money. I bought stocks and bonds, which scared the shit out of my dad, but ended up rewarding my courage with great returns.

I also became skilled at all manner of apartment maintenance and eventually acquired a power drill and a small, red toolbox. Woof!

DATING

I had a hard time with the label divorcee. Every form I filled out asked me my marital status and checking the DIVORCED box reminded that I had failed at one of life’s most cherished milestones.
In my twenties.

Guys aren’t sure what to make of a twenty-six year old divorcee.

No wild-eyed desperation or ticking time clock here. Some of them acted relieved. Many seemed a bit bewildered. Truth be told, it scared the bejesus out of most of them.

I don’t know where all the other twenty-something divorcees went to date—but in my circle, I was as rare as a Unicorn.

A twenty-six year old divorced Unicorn.

TRANSITION IN MY THIRTIES

Once I realized, much to the amazement of my single girlfriends, this controversial fact: that most of the men out there really did want to get married and have babies; and that a divorcee was way too much of a wild card for them at that stage of the game—I was able to formulate a game plan.

I dyed my blonde hair red, which narrowed the field even further. Only serious, artsy guys need apply.

I decided that unless I met someone extraordinary, marriage and children would probably not be a reality for me; and except for about a month when I was thirty-three and everyone around me was having babies—I was more than okay with that.

I made a great life for myself. I had a career I loved; great friends, wonderful family and I made foreign travel my passion.

That all felt amazing. Until it didn’t.

EVEN UNICORNS GET A SECOND CHANCE

After I turned forty, stability became my middle name. I settled down, bought a house in the burbs, let my hair grow longer and went back to being a blonde.

I started dating. A lot. I told anyone who had a friend with a pulse that I was looking to settle down. I was finally ready to share my life.

Eighteen unmarried years had gone by and men my age and older couldn’t have cared less that I got divorced in my twenties. Seriously. Most of them were on their second or even third divorce.

I was no longer an anomaly, an outsider.

I decided to go on a blind dating binge and that’s how I met the extraordinary man I married at forty-three—he was definitely worth the wait.

At last I found that indescribable, indefinable something I’d spent nearly two decades searching for—and he found me.

Isn’t timing everything? Ain’t love grand? Maybe it was greed. I don’t know; I think it was all just dumb luck.

We all know how lucky Unicorns can be.

photo credit: http://therealbenhopper.com/index.php?/projects/naked-girls-with-masks/

*This is a post from last spring but it still applies. Happy Sunday!
xox

“I had tended to view waiting as mere passivity. When I looked it up in my dictionary, however, I found that the words passive and passion come from the same Latin root, pati, which means “to endure.” Waiting is thus both passive and passionate. It’s a vibrant, contemplative work. It means descending into self, into God, into the deeper labyrinths of prayer. It involves listening to disinherited voices within, facing the wounded holes in the soul, the denied and undiscovered, the places one lives false. It means struggling with the vision of who we really are in God and molding the courage to live that vision.”
~Sue Monk Kidd~

Sue Monk Kidd was on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday a couple of weeks ago. I’ve loved her for almost 25 years.

Her most famous book is “The Secret Life of Bees”, but I became familiar with her after reading her spiritual memoir “When The Heart Waits” in 1990. That was a time when not too many people were brave enough to write about their spiritual journey of transformation. My copy is water stained from reading in the bath, highlighted with a yellow marker, has my insights written in the margins and is dog-eared almost beyond recognition. I ate it up with a spoon when she wrote that waiting for your purpose is a sacred endeavor.

Waiting is not always passive. It can be a passageway from one way of being to another. She gave me permission to wait for the reveal.

These days, even more so than 25 years ago, waiting, being still, has gotten a bad rap. Inactivity is THE cardinal sin of the 21st century.

She used the analogy of the caterpillar in the chrysalis. If you poke a hole to check on its progress, the butterfly’s wings will be underdeveloped, and it will be unable to fly. The same thing happens if you try to help it break through. Every second, every step of the process is critically important to the transformation…and the survival of the butterfly.

Just let that one sink in……All the way down to your toes.

This quote from “When The Heart Waits” is one of my favorites.
I need to add it to the list.

“When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the Spirit laughs for what it has found” 

That makes my heart stop every time.

When Sue had her chat with O, she relayed an insight she had around 50.
She realized she had been a seeker all of her 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. In that respect we are kindred souls. But recently she’d admonished herself.

Enough seeking, she needed to “find” something.

It was time to become A Finder.

That just about made my head explode. Now I get it.
That’s what happens in your 50’s. The energy you expended as a seeker is replaced with the energy of “finding” and sharing. You’ve sought, delved and explored. You’ve attend countless retreats, seminars, conferences and sweat lodges. You’ve discovered along the way you DID get some answers. You have found nuggets of truth. Things you KNOW FOR SURE. All your seeking has borne fruit. That fruit is deliciously ripe and ready to share.

It’s the reason I write this blog.
I used to spend hour upon hour, day after day reading everything spiritual I could get my hands on. At one time I had over three hundred spiritual and self-help books. I have given half of them away.
Now I spend hours writing what I’ve learned.

I will always be on a journey of asking WHY? I’m hard-wired for it. But I’m also hard-wired to share anything and everything I know.
THAT is the payoff, the pay-it-forward of the seeker. We get to say: Hey, you wanna know what helped me? Have you read this or seen that?

I feel like in our second acts we are now Finders.
Things start to make some sense. Not everything, I still can’t wrap my brain around vows of chastity and silence.
What I HAVE found is that I am much more willing to wait and see how things work out.
I’m not perfect, some days I still want to see the progress inside the chrysalis.
I am forever a work in progress. I will always be asking questions. But I’m embracing my inner Finder.

I feel like she has a lot to share.

Tell me what you know about waiting. How comfortable are you with being passively passionate or passionately passive? Lol.

Xox