surrender

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/i-was-a-twentysix-year-ol_b_8086040.html

So I finally did it. I reached a milestone, the bloggers Holy Grail. I got a piece published in the Huffington Post!

But it was the journey there that made an even, dare I say, larger impression on me!

After receiving the nicest email a year ago from Arianna herself (on a Sunday for chrissakes), hooking me up with a blog editor, I have spent the past year submitting posts like a fucking headless chicken, with no luck.

Finally, around June-ish, my poor harried Muse suggested I give it a rest—just for the summer.

But, but, how will I know when to start again? I whined in protest.

You’ll just know, she replied in an exhausted tone; drink in hand, the nub of a cigarette dangling from her lips.

goddamnit! I hate when she does that.

Anyhow, I did as I was told. I immediately stopped submitting.
But I kept a keen eye open, looking for a signal; a sign; a flare;  SOMETHING; ANYTHING; to let me know when it was time to start submitting again. And… I never stopped writing.

About two weeks ago I sat down and out poured an essay about my divorce (Yawn*. I have covered that topic from head to toe, turning over every rock, so much so that I’M even bored with it).

However, this time was different. It was written from the perspective of my twenty-six year old self and how it all felt to her.  Hmmmm… I still wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I filed it away with the ten gazillion other unfinished drafts.

A week later as I was browsing the Huffington Post Facebook page, an essay on divorce caught my eye. It said at the top that they were running a series This is Divorce at… Stories about what divorce meant at all different ages. If you had one, they were asking for submissions.

Whoa, What?
Shut Up!
Are you kidding me? I just wrote that piece.

Then it dawned on me, because it takes me a while and I have swiss cheese for a brain. (You’re all way ahead of me aren’t you?)

OMG! That was my sign to submit!

So I finished the essay, sent it in, (I had to shorten it), and the rest, as they say is history.
It was THAT easy.

What’s that word we’ve been throwing around all freaking summer?

Oh yeah, surrender.

This is my best surrender story EVER! (Well, except for the time I surrendered my poor struggling store to the Powers That Be, and it flooded and died that very night) —yeah, besides that one.

Today I’m filled with SO MUCH gratitude! That is some powerful Unicorn ju-ju!

Love you, Carry on,
xox

Hey you guys,
I would appreciate it SO MUCH if you would leave a comment on the HuffPo article and up at the top there is a tiny little heart that if you click on it makes you a fan. Would you do that for me?
Thank you so much!

xox

So—Wowza and Holy Cowza you guys! The response to my video (my vlog, see I know the lingo), was so overwhelmingly positive! Honestly! You guys sent me the nicest texts and emails and left kind words on Facebook and the blog. I think I may have, hands down, the best readers EVER!

Thank you! I love and appreciate you more than I can say!

That being said, the one thing a lot of you mentioned, including my husband, was the fact that through most of the video my bangs went rogue and covered my right eye.
I have no idea why my hair decided to do that. It has a mind of its own and I’m lucky if it behaves itself and stays anywhere near my head at all! I have helicopter hair, remember? And I need a haircut.

Anyhow, I was thinking about my one-eyed talk on surrender and also about some feedback I received a while back about the way I dress for Yoga. No pastels, no flowers, no sheer floaty ethereal garb for moi. Nope. It’s all black for this girl. Hoods and jackets that hook on your thumbs; with zippers and vesty-crossover things.

I was told I came to Yoga dressed as a ninja.

So…I’m a one-eyed Ninja. You guys, I’m a Ninja Pirate!

I fucking love that! I’m owning that. Ha! I’m surrendering to that!

Which got me to thinking about being an individual, not following the crowd, wearing a grey-hair eye-patch; and being a pirate. I recently wrote a post about just that sort of thing: Be A Pirate.

Wanna be a Pirate with me? Too late. I already picture you all as my own special, rowdy, band of Ninja Pirates.

But here you go if you need the juju to get you started:

BE A PIRATE

An original doesn’t conform to expectations — they change them forever.

“It is better to be a pirate, than to be in the navy.”
~Steve Jobs

Being an original is not easy.
As Abraham says: “There is never a crowd on the leading edge.”

So for those of you starting a new, well…anything — listen up.

Unless you have a huge budget for sky writing, a Foo Fighters concert at your book signing, free Sprinkles cupcakes, and car giveaway; there may be crickets a first.

Seriously annoying nothing will happen. Day after day.

“I want the most unusual, badass store in the Valley, someplace with one-of-a-kind stuff that I would buy. Hey listen if I don’t do it two guys from West Hollywood will and I’ll go in there and feel bad as I hand over my American Express card again and again knowing that I had the idea first.”
~Famous Last Words

I remember days at my store where the phone never rang and no one came in. When I got home I had to clear my throat to speak like you do in the morning when you wake up because I hadn’t used my voice in over nine hours.

Your blog; book; store; talk; product or whatever, will need some back story to be understood, but don’t go overboard with that.
Keep it simple and come from the heart. Heart-Full people will eventually find you and the others, well, they can start their own tribe thank you very much.

Don’t spend too much time explaining yourself
Not to your friends, your wife or potential investors. As you attempt to get validation from the peanut gallery your brilliant creative ideas will get watered down by popular opinion.

If it was easy, made perfect sense, was a sure thing or a slam dunk — there’d be a line at your door and believe me — someone would have already thought of it.

You’re an original.
Original means new, never before attempted.
Uncharted, pirate infested waters. No map, and oftentimes not all the answers.
Jesus others, what part of original are you not getting?

New Mantra: 

People will not be able to pigeonhole you and they will hate that about you. They will also despise you for not conforming.
Happy, creative people doing what they love are annoying to others.

Others also get uncomfortable with square pegs in round holes and if the world is made of round holes and you decide you are a square peg — Grow a thick skin — and don’t say I didn’t warn you…it’s gonna get awkward.

The urge to conform will be seductive.
It will drunk-text you late at night and fill your head with lies.
At one point (or seven) in your endeavor it will convince you that you fucked up, it will beg you to come back to the fold for an easy ride — and it will be right. It would be easier to conform.
But you will die the very slow death of a thousand paper cuts. And we all know how much those fuckers hurt.

You can’t make everyone like you or that thing you’re doing.
Unless you’re Beyonce or Mother Theresa. It’s an impossible goal so give it up right now Goddamnit.

People will attempt to copy you. Don’t worry about it.
They aren’t you so it will be a lousy karaoke version of your concept. And since it wasn’t their passion, their up in the middle of the night writing new ideas burning desire — they’ll get bored during the crickets phase and drop it.

Imitation has absolutely NO stamina.

Go ahead and exceed what people expect from you — but not to make a point.
Just give your creativity an outlet. Let it flow. Like blood. All over the place.

I post everyday. That smokes most bloggers. I do it because I love it. And I didn’t know any better when i started.
Listen, if it was expected of me I know I’d say, “fuck it”.
Many others have given me permission to cut back and some days I do, but I have already exceeded what was expected and as a result that created consistency, trust, and then relationships followed.

You’ve gotta show up. Day in and day out.
When I’m walking around and I stumble upon some cool new shop or cafe that is beckoning me to enter, I can never understand why in God’s name, in the middle of the day, they are CLOSED.
No sign, no hours posted, no nothing.
I don’t care how cutting edge and original you are — show the fuck up. Be open, be accessible, so I can share in you’re awesomeness.

You may fail. Like big time, skid marks on you face fail.
Think Steve Jobs being fired from his own company. You may taste public humiliation. It’s a bitter pill but you will survive, and most likely flourish.

In closing:
Try not to be an arrogant dick.
Again think Steve Jobs. He was revered — but not well liked — and I know I said people may not like you but when they fire you from your own company…

Often nonconformists have absolutely zero social skills. Mark Zuckerberg for example.
Listen, develop some, break that mold too.
Be kind to others, crack a smile, have some fun.

Be a kind, fun-loving pirate. Think Captain Jack Sparrow — or Sir Richard Branson.

Carry on my square peg pirates,
xox

A law practice.
A medical practice.
A dental practice (ugh).
All of those make me shudder.
Still practicing? Really? Or continued mastery? Getting better at it all the time?
Often it’s not clear. I think I’ll come back when you get good.

Is it me or should they should change that?
Spiritual Practice.
Nobody suffers when you haven’t mastered tolerance; forgiveness; or downward dog. Or do they?

When you talk to anyone that’s mastered…anything, all they can tell you regarding their success is that “they put in the time.”
Nothing happens overnight.

I can be a lazy slug, and I love instant gratification—so I’m pretty much screwed.

According to the excerpt from this groovy article below, even talent won’t skip you to the front of the line; which if you think about it makes sense. If you’re good at something chances are you have no resistance to a shit-ton of practice. You’ll rack up your ten thousand hours in no time!

So here it comes: I’m newly committed to this anomaly; this control freak Kryptonite—this thing called…SURRENDER.

And just like in the old days, when I used to suck at meditation; I’m willing to put in the time. But unlike meditation where you commit to sit twenty to forty minutes a couple of times a day; you guys! it is literally a minute by minute commitment!

I know that it will most likely take me the rest of my life to feel as if I have the hang of this, but I’m willing to put in the practice.

That is until I see something shiny—then all bets are off!

Ten thousand hours is a rule of thumb that gets thrown around a lot. If you practiced every hour of every day it would take you over four hundred days to reach mastery according to this theory. Which is why “an hour here, an hour there” WOULD actually take a lifetime.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Falling in love with Practice. I think THAT’S the key. Repetition over repulsion (I just made that up!).

Just some Friday-Food-For-Thought. It’s where I’m at right now.
Practicing acceptance.(Wait. What? Why can’t I have what I want, when I want it?) Practicing ease and flow. (Wait. I always thought that was a legend—yet there are some that say it exists) Practicing surrender. (Wait. Did that guy just cut in front of me?)

Carry on,
xox

10,000 Hours of Practice

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How does Gladwell arrive at this conclusion? And, if the conclusion is true, how can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in our professions?

Gladwell studied the lives of extremely successful people to find out how they achieved success. This article will review a few examples from Gladwell’s research, and conclude with some thoughts for moving forward.

Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers.

Natural Talent: Not Important

One fascinating point of the study: No “naturally gifted” performers emerged. If natural talent had played a role, we would expect some of the “naturals” to float to the top of the elite level with fewer practice hours than everyone else. But the data showed otherwise. The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.

Sneaking Out to Write Code

You already know how Microsoft was founded. Bill Gates and Paul Allen dropped out of college to form the company in 1975. It’s that simple: Drop out of college, start a company, and become a billionaire, right? Wrong.

Further study reveals that Gates and Allen had thousands of hours of programming practice prior to founding Microsoft. First, the two co-founders met at Lakeside, an elite private school in the Seattle area. The school raised three thousand dollars to purchase a computer terminal for the school’s computer club in 1968.

A computer terminal at a university was rare in 1968. Gates had access to a terminal in eighth grade. Gates and Allen quickly became addicted to programming.

The Gates family lived near the University of Washington. As a teenager, Gates fed his programming addiction by sneaking out of his parents’ home after bedtime to use the University’s computer. Gates and Allen acquired their 10,000 hours through this and other clever teenage schemes. When the time came to launch Microsoft in 1975, the two were ready.

Practice Makes Improvement

In 1960, while they were still an unknown high school rock band, the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany to play in the local clubs.

The group was underpaid. The acoustics were terrible. The audiences were unappreciative. So what did the Beatles get out of the Hamburg experience? Hours of playing time. Non-stop hours of playing time that forced them to get better.

As the Beatles grew in skill, audiences demanded more performances – more playing time. By 1962 they were playing eight hours per night, seven nights per week. By 1964, the year they burst on the international scene, the Beatles had played over 1,200 concerts together. By way of comparison, most bands today don’t play 1,200 times in their entire career.

Falling in Love With Practice

The elite don’t just work harder than everybody else. At some point the elites fall in love with practice to the point where they want to do little else.

The elite software developer is the programmer who spends all day pounding code at work, and after leaving work she writes open source software on her own time.

The elite football player is the guy who spends all day on the practice field with his teammates, and after practice he goes home to watch game films.

The elite physician listens to medical podcasts in the car during a long commute.

The elites are in love with what they do, and at some point it no longer feels like work.

Here’s the rest of the article and their website.
http://www.wisdomgroup.com/blog/10000-hours-of-practice/

My hair’s a little cray; I have major glasses glare; I’m not sure exactly where to look; I hold the book up like a spaz, and I’m even giving you an “outtake” below!
All that to say… here I am on video you guys! Warts, wrinkly neck and all!

I did this as my act of surrender—something I’ve struggled with; had fist-fights with; but have finally decided to give-it-a-go.

My latest obsession: The Surrender Experiment— My journey into life’s perfection by Michael Singer.

I’m trying to surrender to the hand of life… so stay tuned, I’ll let you know how that’s going… Fuck you guys, I figured out how to do a video!

I gotta say—it’s kinda magic (wink)

That’s all.
Love you.
Carry on,
xox

http://untetheredsoul.com

This post was a monster hit. People still email me for the title.
I know it really resonated with you guys, and even though it has only been a couple of months, I needed to read it again so I’m assuming you do too. Happy Saturday!

LET IT GO…

This is a sculpture I own which I call LETTING GO.
I had to show you the entire piece, but if you zoom in on her face –– it’s eerily peaceful…in her free-fall into the abyss. Hauntingly so.
I learn from her every day.

This poem by Safire Rose is the perfect reminder for this BIG energy of NEW BEGINNINGS that is currently pouring in. FIRST you have to Let Go. BTW –– it is in no way gender specific…men too!
Carry On,
xox

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

~ Rev. Safire Rose

A message straight from my childhood — It’s all about letting things happen, about getting out of our own way.

It’s about believing…in mystery and magic, and nannies that fly.

It’s about Allowing.

Thanks Mary Poppins, I needed this reminder today.

Carry on, spit spot,
xox

This is a sculpture I own which I call LETTING GO.
I had to show you the entire piece, but if you zoom in on her face –– it’s eerily peaceful…in her free-fall into the abyss. Hauntingly so.
I learn from her every day.

This poem by Safire Rose is the perfect reminder for this BIG energy of NEW BEGINNINGS that is currently pouring in. FIRST you have to Let Go. BTW –– it is in no way gender specific…men too!
Carry On,
xox

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

~ Rev. Safire Rose

I saw this the other day.
Underneath Cheryl wrote: I need to tattoo this on the inside of my eyelids.

And that made me laugh –– Me too!

Because guys, honest to God that’s life’s greatest challenge, isn’t it?

To have the knowledge that you make your life happen, but that you do it together with Universal assistance?

It is such a fine line, a tight rope walk of knowing when to just quit asking, surrender, stop micro managing, stop yearning and pushing and striving, to get down off our high horses, thinking WE know best (because we do –– hey, its our life) and let something greater than ourselves…
Take. The. Wheel.

It takes a lifetime of practice.

I fuck up. A lot.
I zig when I should have zagged,
Talk when I should be quiet,
Make decisions based on fear,
Freeze when action is required,
And sit stewing in self-doubt-soup for much longer than is healthy.

It is always when I’m going it alone…

Then I read something like the saying that Cheryl posted –– and I’m once again reminded to give up the fight!

I do so much better when I listen for directions instead of making up my own.

Divine Intervention…ahhhhhh. What a relief, you can drive this weekend.

I’m gonna put my feet up y’all, how about you?

love you,
carry on,
xox

Dedicated to anyone who’s ever lost a pet.

He was a rascal and a renegade. He was all of seven pounds, my gorgeous seal point Siamese companion.

I named him Fraidy Cat because I gravitate toward ironic names, I called our previous cat Doggie, because he was clearly a dog in a cat suit.

When I walked into the room to pick a kitten, they all scattered, except him; he ran up to me, meowing his face off. “Well, aren’t you brave, you’re a pipsqueak but you sure aren’t a Fraidy cat” I said as I scooped him up in one hand.
He looked at me with his cornflower blue eyes and that settled it, he’d sealed the deal and stolen my heart.

I’d always had indoor cats, it was better for their physical health and MY mental health; you see I’m a worrier; so if my cats were to go outside, Tom-cating around, not being there when I needed him, getting dirty, I’d knew I’d freak.

So he spent his days at the windows, howling to get out, jumping at the glass, shredding the screens.
I spent my days inside my very convenient denial, that is, until the guy I was dating at the time, a huge cat lover, took me by both shoulders, guiding me to the screen door, kicked it open and held me there while Fraidy bolted OUTSIDE and up a tree. He’d howled at the birds in that tree for two years, coveting their freedom, now he was up there, climbing among the leaves; I had to admit – he looked ecstatic.

That was the start of his outdoor life.
Being the rule setter that I am, I did instill some parameters – furry little rascals need boundaries.
When we shook the container of dried food – dinner time.
Once he was in for the night, that was it, he used the cat box and slept inside, on my pillow, or in my armpit.
I fed him and let him out when I got up. It became a routine that made us both happy. On the weekends, when I was around, he’d stick close to home, rolling on my little patio in the sun. Life was good.

The longest he ever stayed away was three days, and I lost. my. mind.
When he finally did show up, he was filthy and starving, with a far away look in his eyes – like he’d seen too much. He’d clearly lost one of his lives.
He didn’t have much to say for himself, and after twenty-four hours of my interrogation and his silent treatment – I made him promise that there would NEVER be a next time – and it was never spoken of again.

When I moved to my current house (which came with a cat door – it was a sign) he had a companion by then, Teddy, who was his polar opposite.
Teddy was a fat (I mean big-boned) Teddy bear of a cat, a grateful, gregarious, well-mannered rescue Siamese, who never went much further than the backyard or the front porch.

Fraidy, on the other hand, could barely contain his excitement every morning when I’d open the door to the pantry so he could get to the cat door and start his day. He loved all the mature trees in the neighborhood and brought me presents on a regular basis, (dead birds, mice and once a baby possum) to express his gratitude for the change of locale.
The fauna around the house submitted a petition and formed a coalition to ban Fraidy from certain sections of their territory – but he wasn’t having it. ALL of Studio City was his domain.

Seriously –– All of it.

I found that out in the most profound way, when in June of 2006, seven years after moving to this house and navigating coyotes, traffic and other cats, Fraidy broke our agreement and went missing – for a long time.

It was an unseasonably hot Memorial Weekend, and after shattering his previous three-day record, I started to really worry, putting up signs and calling his name around the neighborhood.
That’s when I got the calls, from far and wide, coming from miles around. “Your little Siamese, yeah, I see him all the time; but it’s been awhile” one caller five blocks over reported.
“That Siamese with the red collar, he was in my backyard as usual just last week, that’s the last time I saw him. I’ll call you if I see him, I hope he comes back.” That lady lived across Tujunga, a big street with fast-moving traffic, which made my stomach turn, I had NO IDEA he was wondering that far from home.

One evening as I was pulling out of the driveway, I saw a cat walking up the sidewalk toward the house.
A small, skinny Siamese.
Fraidy?
I had all but given up, it had been seventeen days.

I stopped the car in the middle of the street, jumped out and called his name, and he came running over like nothing was out of the ordinary – but it was.
I swept him into my arms and ran inside calling Raphael the whole way. I couldn’t believe he was back. “It’s him right?” I kept asking.

It was weird, he hadn’t lost any weight, he still had his red collar with all his tags on, he was clean, un traumatized and purring away.
“Smell that” Raphael was now holding him, pushing his body into my face, “he still smells like your perfume” (I wasn’t wearing any that night) and he did, he reeked of my scent.

“Someone obviously had him” everyone said, happy that he’d reappeared.
“Yeah I guess; someone who wears my perfume which is discontinued and impossible to get.”

He seemed genuinely happy to be back.
Man I wish he could have told me where he’d been over a glass of wine and a can of tuna, I’m sure it was an incredible story.

A few days later we left for a week in Palm Springs with my whole extended family, a friend was staying at the house with the cats.

I felt uneasy, I didn’t want to leave Fraidy – his return to me after such a long time was so remarkable ; it was as if he’d returned from the dead. He was my Lazarus cat. 

(To be continued)

I’m writing this as a self reminder, although I’m sure you could use one too.
Let this salvage your week or at least your Saturday.

I cannot control the traffic or the way other people (idiots) drive.

I cannot control the cable guy, the electrician, the handyman, the trash picker-uppers, the tree trimmers, the guy who’s making my latte, or the air conditioning repair guy. I cannot control the time they will arrive (which is NEVER inside the promised window) how well they will perform their task, or what personality traits they posses, (too chatty, too pissy, too flirty, too…)

I cannot control anyone, or anything about the DMV. Period. End of story.

I cannot control the weather. I can have every app, and alert, but it will seldom cooperate when I hold an event outdoors; and I NEVER have an umbrella or sweater when I need one.

I cannot control my dogs or any animal for that matter. I can guide them and train them, and make suggestions, but they all have minds of their own and there will be slobber on my white walls, water and/or muddy footprints all over my wood floors, and fossilized vomit next to the bed. It’s inevitable despite my best intentions. This goes for children as well.

I cannot control my spouse, or my family. (See above).

I cannot control the government, the postal system, the medical system or the educational system. But I can vote.

I cannot control bad grammar. Their-there-they’re. Its-it’s. I could care less, It’s a mute point, ugh
Dear God, make it stop.

I cannot control the speed or dependability of my WiFi connection, although I still think if I yell obscenities loud enough, it will be shamed into complying.

I cannot control my hair. Where it grows, what color it wants to be, and it’s texture. It’s time to give up the good fight.
While I’m at it, I cannot control eye wrinkles, cellulite, lip lines or dark under eye circles, so I’m done letting Madison Avenue sell me the snake oil.

I cannot control how my garden grows. I can fertilize, weed and trim, but it has plans of its own to which I am not privy.

I cannot control aging. It has a superpower called gravity, and the combination are unbeatable. I surrender…you bitches.

I cannot control what others think of me. It is impossible.
I can carefully cultivate my image; but one false move, one bad outfit, snarky comment, or piece of spinach in my teeth and all that hard work is shot to hell.

I cannot control the manners of others. When a man lets a heavy door slam in my face, as I exit a building right behind him; instead of jumping on his back like a crazed spider monkey…I send him love.

I cannot control what’s happening on the planet. Too many moving parts. (Which is true for all of it – everything in life.)

What I’ve discovered is this: ALL of my suffering comes from thinking that I can control things. I (we) cannot.

But here’s the one thing I CAN control – my perception and attitude. That’s it.

I can control ONLY my own energy and what I bring to the day, to the table, to every situation I encounter – even to the mirror, and THAT can change it all.

As my mom used to say when we were fighting with each other, as kids, “You just pay attention to yourself – watch where YOU’RE going.

Enjoy your weekend!
Xox