guidance

This is a badass essay by Liz Gilbert about her favorite badass friends and her idea of what makes a badass (which of course I agree with wholeheartedly because she did all of the emotional research and thinking and I just nodded the entire time in complete agreement).

And when I did feel up to it (after a Triscuit or five with cheese—and a nap), I made a sloppy, unorganized and I’m certain incomplete list of my favorite badasses. BTW– if you’re not mentioned here and it pisses you off, KNOW that very reaction makes you a badass. And know that it was just an oversight on my part due to age and a brain made of Swiss cheese and try not to hate me too much.

My FAVORITE BADASSES (in no particular order):

Mom & Lee for being tanks and overcoming health obstacles (and for being regular readers of this blog which makes you an automatic badass, and if you laugh–an honorary badass).

My husband for obvious reasons and because HAVE YOU MET HIM? His picture is in the dictionary under badass. No lie.

My sister and brother for sharing our crazy fucking gene pool and still managing to gather together cool people to love and create a couple of great lives that entertain and delight me.
And for being there.

My friend Eva, for kicking cancer’s ass like a ninja-rock-star. And reinventing herself afterward.

My friend Kim, for her courage, grace and for maintaining her sense of humor in the face of her epic reinvention.

My friend Step, for being more fully realized at 35 than I’ll ever be, for accruing the most vertical miles skied, for believing in herself and her story so much she scored an unheard of bangin’ book deal as a first-time author AND for walking with me on imaginary hot magma.

Linda, Danielle and our beautiful writers group. Just that we all found each other and can keep up with all of the talent—makes us badasses.

Little Pants for just maintaining her equilibrium as a teenage girl in Los Angeles in 2016. I could NEVER!

To Nora for teaching me trust, courage and receptivity from beyond the grave. Talk about a badass!

This list could go on and on because pretty much everyone around me is covered in badass sauce. So…what about you? Who is your favorite badass? Do you have the courage to put in  the comments? (gauntlet thrown).

Carry on,
Xox

***

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE BADASS? By Liz Gilbert

Dear Ones –

Our sweet friend Ruth Sze at www.doodlebubbledesigns.com posted this lovely drawing on Instagram yesterday and I love it so. She invited us to ponder who our favorite badass is right now, and i invite you to do the same, and to tag that person in your response.

My favorite badass this week is my friend Glennon Doyle Melton (Momastery) because she always uses her broken heart to heal a broken world. She is a tireless and generous love ninja, who is not afraid to be vulnerable, not afraid to risk connection, not afraid to share her scars and fears so that others do not feel so alone in their confusion.

Also, this week, somebody was mean to Glennon (which makes me become a crazy she-wolf of protection for my friend!) but Glennon refused to let it stop her from her ongoing mission of love.

My favorite badasses are all people who are not afraid to feel their feelings.

A real badass is not afraid to forgive.

A true badass is not afraid to sit in her sadness and anger and pain until she works her way through it — rather than lashing out in retaliation at the world, or making other people suffer for her pain.

A beautiful badass — in my eyes — is someone who has learned that before she can make friends with anyone else, she must make friends with the crazy shit-tornado who is herself. Because until we love our own crazy shit-tornado, we can’t love anyone else’s crazy shit-tornado.

A creative badass is anyone who is not afraid to share her imagination with the public — regardless of the criticism that may arise.

A generous badass is anyone who says, “I have more than enough for myself and I ALWAYS WILL — therefore, I will share whatever I have with you.”

A resilient badass is anyone who stands in the wreckage of failure and error and says, “Oops. Guess we better start cleaning this up…anybody got a broom?”

A brave badass is anyone who has ever asked for help.

An optimistic badass is anyone who believes that this broken world is still worth fighting for.

A smart badass is anyone who can set boundaries without being punishing or vindictive.

And a holy badass is anyone who knows that — beyond this whole wild and messy world — there is power at work greater than anything we can imagine…and that we are part of that story.

I am so lucky to be surrounded by SO MANY badasses. It would take forever to list them all. But today, I especially honor Glennon, who had a rough week and who keeps going…and for whom I will ride or die.

Now…over to you guys.

Who is your favorite badass today?

ONWARD,
LG

I’m just going to say it. The end of 2015 was a clusterfuck of mixed-up energies of epic proportions. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but you get what I mean. Besides, many of YOU were the ones that were calling it to my attention.

When I wrote about how conflicted I felt about how sad I felt in paradise, the genie was out of the bottle! SO many of you were sad too–for no apparent reason–which just makes it all the more confusing. At least if someone fell and broke a hip or your cat got run over–you know why you want to crawl under the bed.

We all like reasons for our emotions. I know I do.

Even my teenage niece just wasn’t feelin’ it in December and she was raised by elves in Santa’s Village, North Pole, USA. We count on her to buoy the rest of us with her unlimited teenage-girl holiday enthusiasm, decorating her room with white twinkle lights and making sure every square inch of my sister’s house looks like a reindeer barfed Christmas (and presents), everywhere.

Not this year. She was…melancholy. We’re just chalking it up to the weird energy and he fact that a certain amount of melancholy is synonymous with being sixteen.

Okay so everybody felt sad. I get that. But here’s where it got interesting.
Suddenly, the week after Christmas, I was overtaken by an overwhelming sense of…optimism.

Like 2016 was going to be the best year ever!

Again, I had nothing, whatsoever, besides my usual delusional thinking on which to base that upbeat prognosis.

When I spoke up at the New Years Eve party, expecting to get pummeled with dinner rolls, instead, everyone, get that? EVERYONE agreed!

2016 is going to be awesome. And we have no idea why.

A couple of people, Danielle La Porte being one of them, wrote about the numerology behind the year 2016.

2016 2+0+1+6 = 9 the year of answered prayers.
What? Are you kidding? Prayers? Answered? Well, no wonder we’re all collectively peeing our pants. Who doesn’t love answered prayers?! Don’t you fucking LOVE knowing that?

The Year of Answered Prayers.

That unclenches my jaw AND my butt. A real double-whammy.

I can hear you. You’re all asking yourselves right now: Hey, (our tribe starts everything with “hey”), hey, does Janet pray? Hell yeah! And meditate and chant and write shit down and ask nicely in my most polite voice. I cover all of my request-line bases.

So, the other night, In answer to prayer 4,567,389, is this really going to be such a great year? I had a dream where I watched as the night sky was carpeted with falling stars. There were thousands a minute. It was the meteor shower of all meteor showers and because it was so extraordinary I knew it was a dream. Still, I squealed and clapped with delight like I do when I watch fireworks. When I woke up I felt elated. (which was the polar opposite of sad and that made me worry for a sec that maybe I was losing my shit).

Of course I looked it up:
“To see a meteor in your dream suggests that you will experience success in a project. You are on your way toward realizing your goals and desires. Alternatively, the meteor refers to wishful thinking and idealistic thoughts.
To see a meteor shower in your dream signifies romantic thoughts and idealistic notions.”

…and answered prayers you guys. The year of answered prayers.

Breath in…breathe out…and carry on

xox

How many of you are blamers? Or married to a blame? Or were raised by a major blamer?
Show of hands, please. Uh-huh, I thought so.

I had a boss for almost twenty years who was a blamer and it drove. me. nuts. He was a shamer too. I’m convinced blame and shame are siamese twins, but that’s just me. Let’s see what the expert, Brene Brown has to say about blame in this short, funny and insightful video.

As for me? I’m not a blamer, I’m an “I told you so-er”.
I have to bite my tongue not to say in some way, shape or form, “I told you so” to my husband like, forty-five thousand times a day.
Seriously.
Like today. He saved all of his outdoor tasks for this morning. The morning we were ALL warned that El Nino was going to hit us like well, like a big, fat, super soggy storm full of really wet rain.

And like the shining example of good wifery that I am, I reminded said husband of his shitty decision making,choices, —timing, before I left for the gym and it was only drizzling.

But alas, he waited until the REAL rain hit to empty the dog poop can into the main garbage bin, get the dead Christmas tree out to the curb for pick-up, and fiddle (fix in man-speak), with the sump-pump (all of which we talked about just yesterday), and then sent me a text and left evidence (wet pants in the shower), of how soaked he got. (Who is surprised here? What woman is the least bit surprised by this?)

See how I did that? Never once did you hear me say I told you so. I wanted to. So very, very, badly.
My tongue has permanent grooves.

Listen, I don’t want to tell Brene how to run her social media, but I think that needs to be her next video.

The seemingly repressed but clearly expressed I told you so.

What do you guys think? (That’s for you, Jim)

Love, soggy in Studio City
Carry on,
xox

Here it is, my first Huffington Post of 2016!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/its-a-new-yearbe-audaciou_b_8905344.html

This is a re-worked essay from back when Moses was a kid (some of you old farts may remember it because you lived it with me), that talks about that moment when I finally realized, with every fiber of my being, that I couldn’t stand to be “left” by a man one-more-time.

So, I searched and searched for what I wanted to feel.

Loved? They all said they loved me but love wears a different hat with each guy so…I was thinkin’ no, not loved, apparently love wasn’t enough for them to stay.

How about respected? Oh sure, I wanted to feel respected by a man and I’m not saying I wasn’t. It’s just that respect doesn’t give you ooglies (that indescribably warm feeling that starts in your kishkes and eventually makes its way to your lady parts). I know it should—but it doesn’t and if it does for you—then you’re a better woman than I.

There was something else. Some key ingredient that was missing.

Finally, after an exhaustive search of my emotional inventory I found the word for how I wanted to feel but that word embarrassed me. It had alluded me because it felt like too much.
It felt audacious and a little dangerous to ask for it—but at that point what did I have to lose?

I wanted to be adored by a man. I wanted him to look at me the way I look at the waiter when he sets down a warm, gooey dessert in front of me with only ONE spoon.

With pure, unadulterated adoration.

And it worked!

It’s a New Year you guys! I say Go for it. Make this your most audacious year EVER!
xox

*This is a favorite from several years ago. I’m actually proud of this one. It has depth and each word has hidden meaning. I love it.
Understanding mastery. An Oxymoron I suppose.
This one’s for all the new people here at the blog.
xox

A Master is the one who walks through the chaos and knows the answer.
A Master is the only one awake in the dream.

He is the silent sentinel.
He is solid as stone,
and flexible as willow.
He carries the key to every door.

A Master holds the secret, like the ace in a winning hand of cards,
but shows no expression.

A Master yells his message into the raging winds.
A Master stays cool in the heat of battle,
and warm under the iciest gaze.

A Master is the one who shall forevermore be called friend by his enemies.

A Master cries like a child at the death of innocence.
A Master is the one who walks thru fire to show the way.
A Master only sighs at night when the earth is still and it feels like rain.

I don’t know about you guys but I neeeeeeed this right now and what better way to be reminded than by a hedgehog driving a car.
I can relate…because I probably look like a hedgehog honking at everything that moves these days.
AND I’ve decided I want all of my reminders animated and delivered by hedgehogs.
Okay? Are we clear?

Carry on
xox

trans·for·ma·tion
ˌtran(t)sfərˈmāSH(ə)n/
noun
a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.

synonyms: change, alteration, mutation, conversion, metamorphosis, transfiguration, transmutation, sea change
a metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal.
PHYSICS
the induced or spontaneous change of one element into another by a nuclear process.

Pick one…

Love to ALL of you!

xox

*PS: I got SO MANY requests for a picture of me in my miracle tux (from yesterday’s post) I’m putting a tacky closet-shot over on The Observer’s Voice Facebook page. Hee hee.

Nobody likes a bragger.
Or a holier-than-thou-cow.
Or a mime, or a scary clown. Nobody.
Am I Right?

How do we feel about magic?
We LOVE magic!

And surprises? Well…we tolerate surprises. Especially the ones we really don’t know about which are few and far between because of our control issues, but that’s another story.

Tuesday I was visited by some real life surprise tuxedo magic!
I know! Tuxedo magic.
Not to be confused with a magician in a tuxedo.
You guys—freaking tuxedo MAGIC.

Hubby and I were invited to a New Years Eve party which is as rare as a unicorn sighting but add to that the fact that it is BLACK TIE.
Ohhhhhh F.A.N.C.Y.
And completely out of our wheelhouse until they start making plaid flannel formal wear. Then we’re down for it.

Anyhow, we really like the people who invited us and we have met and actually approve of their friends (which is even rarer than a freaking unicorn—it is struck by lightning while wearing the Hope Diamond, rare), so we RSVP’d and then promptly forgot about the fact that we had to rustle up formal wear until…Tuesday.

It’s called denial. Deal with it.

Raphael’s tux was easy peasy. We rented it lock, stock, and shiny shoes in twenty minutes flat.
It was a no-brainer and he’s going to look stunning.

My outfit was going to be another story.
I fantasized about wearing the gown I was married in which isn’t a typical wedding dress, it’s a gorgeous gown that is begging for a second go-around, but that was fifteen years and ten, fifteen, twenty-ish pounds ago when my boobs resided in another zip code much farther north than they do now so I couldn’t even bring myself to try it on.

I like to avoid masochistic situations and when your Spanx tell you there’s no hope—well, you should listen.

In my imagination, (that vivid, lying scoundrel that lives inside my head), I toyed with the idea of wearing a tuxedo myself.
Not the Victor/Victoria woman in a boys tux sort of thing, no, I wanted the YSL straight from the runway, sexy-ass tuxedo Kourtney Kardashian rocked at her mother’s 60th birthday bash.
At a 90% discount. So something exactly like it but completely different.

I talked about it. I asked some people. I made some calls. There was snort-laughing and I wasn’t the one laughing so it wasn’t funny.  I decided to drop it.

As my dad used to say: “People want ice water in hell”.
Picture me standing naked and thirsty in hell begging for water, some ice, and a designer tuxedo.
Got it?
That was me the past couple of weeks—sadly misguided by an active asshole of an imagination.
We ALL know this is never going to happen.

In the midst of all this malarkey, I happened to glance across the street one day at a second-hand store. Something shiny was in the window. Something that would be perfect to wear New Years if I had the arms, legs, and body of a pipe cleaner.

Still, it stuck in my mind that a second-hand store could be my fancy wardrobe salvation.

So I waited until the last-minute, you know like you do.

Tuesday my trusty stylist and brutally honest friend Kim and I met at Wasteland.

The place smelled like hope and teen spirit and after ten minutes of pawing through dreck, Kim found the designer rack.
Little known fact: Heaven provides special, luminous spotlighting for designer racks at second-hand stores. I can’t explain it. It just does.
That spotlight led Kim directly to a black designer jacket. A tuxedo jacket. Then the matching pants. In my size you guys, I kid you NOT!

Listen. Can you hear the angels singing? (Sometimes a miracle comes with its own soundtrack.)

My heart was pounding as I raced to the dressing room fully aware of the truly miraculous nature of this find, and hoping that it wasn’t a two glass of wine and too much cheese-induced dream.

My boobs perked up. Even my Spanx were hopeful.

And it fit.
Like it was made for me. AND it was 90% cheaper than the original price. (So cheap it was FREE!) Surprise!
Even Kim, my wry, side-eye-wise-guy stylist/friend called it. Tuxedo perfection.

It was my end of the year, surprise, magical tuxedo miracle! In Studio City California for the love of God.

Note to self: If I can manifest a designer tuxedo for no money in Wasteland. Then I can manifest the “hard stuff”. I can make my own magic!

So I say dream big. Wish for a freaking designer tux to show up. Go ahead, do it! Then keep your eyes open because it’s likely to show up in the most unlikely place possible.

Happy Magical New Year and Carry on,
xox

“Youth is wasted on the young” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I was just thinking about that today.
About youth and aging.
About perky tits and chicken neck waddle.
About going from looking in the mirror and worrying if you have enough concealer to hide the zits, to being completely helpless without the assistance of a supersonic magnifying mirror made by NASA to apply anything besides Chapstick.

By the way, what happened to my lips?

Every morning I send out a search party to find my upper lip.  It disappeared around five years ago, and I miss it.  If you see it out on the town, wearing a wildly undefined coat of Chanel red lipstick, please tell it I’m looking for it and to come home.

What I was really pondering, was my ability as a young woman, to fluctuate between being utterly fearless, to riddled with insecurity, indecision and doubt.

It was quite a swing, the speedball of emotional cocktails – and I know I’m not the only one.  You can’t hide.  I can sense you there.

Things that used to terrify me, sending me into a cold sweat, have now become second nature. And vice versa.

These days I have no problem letting someone know if they’re out of line. I have mastered the art of confrontation (which when done well, really is an art) to the point where it doesn’t even feel like a disagreement and often we all end up laughing, hugging, singing Kumbaya, and taking a selfie.

I also spontaneously hug people – in public.  Complete strangers. It can be triggered by the most random of things, a great haircut, a cool tattoo, an interesting laugh, what they’re eating, a cute dog or if I happen to see them crying.

As a younger woman I would have rather died, run over by a clown car full of disapproving authority figures.

Back then what I lacked in depth, I made up for in reckless abandon.
I was born with very little modesty.  I’d show my boobs to anyone who’d ask ( yes there were requests), pee without closing the door, and walk across a beach or crowded pool party in a bikini without a cover up.

I know! I was oblivious. There are pictures.

Now just recalling that makes me sick to my stomach.

I’d also sing at the drop of a hat.  At the top of my lungs.  That is until I turned thirty and developed crippling stage fright, which only released its grip on me after fifty when I no longer gave a fuck.

I care less and less about making a fool of myself, which is one of the HUGE benefits of getting older. I cannot overstate that.

 If only I’d felt that way back then. I’d be Lady Gaga by now.

As I established earlier this month, the older I get, the less fucks I give.  I have a limited amount left and I don’t want to waste one.
I’m a Nazi about only spending time with the people I want to see, doing the things I want to do.
I no longer give a fuck about chipped nail polish, carrying the “right bag”, who the latest, greatest anything/anyone is, how big your diamond is, how much grey hair I have, the ebb and flow of the stock market, keeping up with the Kardashians, or who wore it better.
I have bigger fish to fry.

All I give a fuck about is my health, my family, my husband and what my dogs think of me.

A friend complained to me recently, ” Oh God, I don’t need any more friends, I have forty years worth, and I don’t see enough of the ones I have!”

Not me! It seems I make new friends faster and more easily as I’ve gotten older.

Either people have become less discerning, or I’ve suddenly become much more interesting and engaging. (I’m not sure which one bodes better for me.)
Maybe it’s true that like a fine wine, I have improved with age. The jury’s still out, but what I DO know is that I’ve become infinitely more approachable.
And curious.   

I was so busy being self-involved when I was young, ( if it had been an Olympic sport, I would have medaled), that I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else.  I also thought I knew it all.  Now I’m certain of ONE thing only:  I don’t know shit about shit.

Here’s the thing,  other people seem SO frickin’ interesting to me. Everyone’s doing something fabulous that I need to hear about right now! Their lives are complex, multi-faceted nuggets of wonder and goodness. When did that happen?

In my opinion, youth is wasted on the young because of their lack of appreciation. Also, because in not knowing any better, too many fucks are wasted on frivolous shit that doesn’t matter a day, let alone a year or ten years later.

And by the fact that in the moment – being young seems like it will last forever.   Doesn’t it?

Curious to hear what you think.
Big love,
Xox

Goddamn, I love rituals. Beginnings and endings. Marking time. Rites of passage.

I figure that love seeped into my DNA after sitting in a smokey Catholic church inhaling Frankincense for pretty much my entire youth (it may also explain a ton of other crazy attributes I’d rather not go into).
What it DOES explain is my obsession with incense, focused prayer, incantations, and human sacrifice. Well, that and the fact that I’m certain I had a past life as some kind of mystical druid sorceress taken right out of the pages of Mists Of Avalon.
Or better yet, Merlin.
But more likely the medieval court jester who wore a silly hat, sported pointy shoes with bells and lived under a bridge with the trolls.

Anyhow, I decided to take everything that had to do with my failed business and burn it.
A perfectly legal Ritual Sacrifice. Of paperwork. Paperwork that held power over me.

2015 was the year of dealing with paperwork. I would have rather had a root canal without Novocaine.
I finally found it in me to throw what merchandise remained into an auction and dissolve the corporation which had been insolvent for several years but had retained a kind of sick sentimental place in my heart—like a shitty high-school boyfriend or a threadbare flannel nightgown.

I basically broke up with ATIK. It was time. Actually, it was way past time.

The relationship had become unbalanced. In a nutshell, it had become completely, horribly and totally dysfunctionally one-sided. I was doing all the emotional heavy lifting, holding the history of our love together while Atik went on an extended five-year vacation with a stripper named Trixie, forgetting my name and the fact that we once meant the world to each other.
Oh well, shit happens.

Once the litigation shitastrophy dust had settled I was left with a HUGE satchel that I’d been toting around for years filled with tons and tons of legal fuckery.
It was heavy in all the ways you can imagine and others you cannot. It lived in a shed in the backyard as physically far away from me as sadistic legal paperwork feels comfortable and even though it’s my office— I seldom went back there. I hated that thing.

So I decided to burn the contents as a ritual releasing of the old dragged-behind-a-car energy of 2009-2012 in order to move on.

2016—The Year of Unbearable Lightness. Burn that shit and get on with it!

So I did.

I had to let it go. Stop life-support. Kill it. Put us both out of our misery.

Time of death of Atik Inc. 12 p.m. December 26, 2015.

After quickly going through the toxic waste of debauchery to make sure I wasn’t, in my haste to dance naked in the flames, torching something important, I started the gas in my fireplace, set my intention “DO NOT EVER Darken My doorstep with your toxic bullshit AGAIN!” (I cleaned that up. It was much worse than that).

And then I said thank you to the worst thing that has EVER happened to me for all of the valuable insights and gifts it has delivered. I really did you guys but it’s taken me six years to get there.

Then I squealed with unabashed joy as I watched it go up in smoke. All of it.

My husband came in from outside and said the smoke smelled really bad. Oh, I bet it did.

That paperwork held so much sadness and failure and hopes dashed. It was filled with terse language and mean words. Horrible words. Words that cut me to the core. Words that human beings should never say to each other. Mad words. Words filled with rage wrapped in legalese.

I’m surprised the smoke didn’t get all Voldemort and come back inside the house and strangle me. I’m telling you, that was a satchel full of failure and it wanted to finish me.

But, I have already risen from the ashes—I am FREE.

I may have a had a little help with my pyro-ritual. There may have been a fellow recovering broken-hearted soul who was throwing his/her “annus horribilis” into the fire right beside me.

So now WE are free.

I cannot recommend this ritual highly enough.
Please, please consider doing this with anything toxic from your past. You don’t need a fireplace! I did it many years ago to free myself from a relationship whose grip I could not escape. I just put a large metal pot in the kitchen sink and lit a match burning all the old photos and letters. Many years later I did it again in my backyard on a rainy night (you may remember that post).
http://www.theobserversvoice.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1877&action=edit

Fire is healing.
Smoke is healing.
Endings are healing.
Rituals are healing.
Starting a new year feeling lighter is healing AND freeing.

And I’ve come to realize I’m a bit of a pyromaniac.

Love you all & Carry on,
xox

Ruby supervises the process about half-way through.