guidance

Who out there is experiencing a high level of stress these days? Show of hands? Yeah, I thought so.

Well, you’re not alone. I had three—count ‘um—three Level-Five (Level Five being, there aren’t enough mantras, pharmaceuticals or fucks-to-give that can remedy this shitstorm)—stressful situations to handle before noon today.

That was AFTER I talked my husband down off the ledge.

So I feel you. I know what you’re going through, and I have one piece of advice. (Which I had to remind myself of every ten minutes).

Me: Mother of god, my mind is racing and it’s driving me nuts!

Better Part of Me: Stop and listen to it. That dialogue, diatribe, or sorry-ass monologue that the devil wrote and is repeating on an endless loop in your head right now? Ask yourself this:
Is it helping you—or hurting you?

Me: Shit. Thanks. I almost forgot.

Better Part of Me: Is it calling you names and telling you how much you fucked up?

Is it kicking you while you’re down?

Is it making shit up? Terrible; awful; life-or-death shit?

Is it making this problem seem like it’s the worst thing that’s happened in the history of the world; or since Donald Trump decided to run for President?

Then it’s NOT helping you and you need to tell it to “SHUT THE HELL UP!”

That voice is the voice of your childish, fear-filled mind. And it has NO IDEA what it’s talking about!

Would you take advice from a scared child? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Take a walk.
Take a nap.
Take a drive.
Play some music.
Pet your cat.
Read a book.
Meditate.

Do anything you can to change the station. You will never find the solution inside the energy of the problem.

After a while the little brat will get tired; and then I’ll take out my earplugs and finally be able to get a word in edgewise.

That’s when the good ideas will come.

That’s when you find the missing piece to the puzzle.

That’s when you’ll be able to take a deep breath (I know this, and I still walked around blue, holding my breath for an hour).

That’s when you see the light.

That’s when you find forgiveness.

That is when you realize that you’re on a tiny blue planet, spinning in an insignificant part of the galaxy—and none of this shit really matters anyway.

Me: Whew! What a relief!

Carry on,
xox

Hey you guys,
This is new territory for me.

I’m a mover, I’m a doer. A striver. I strive to MAKE things happen.

I will ignore a closed-door, swim a moat, or hunt you down, to get to where I think I need to go.

At least that’s been my M/O in the past.
These days?… I get still.

Mostly when I’m stuck—ESPECIALLY when I’m stuck.

I wait to be inspired.
What?
You heard me.
Inspired action. I wait to take inspired action.

I check in with my gut. What is it saying? Is there excitement? Is there enthusiasm? Am I meeting the right people? Seeing the signs? Am I observing things moving into place?

Then there’s my answer. Hell YES!

Otherwise it’s a Hell No.
Too fucking easy, right? I’ve got to say, I’m tired of swimming moats, I’m really beginning to embrace easy.

Have a lovely, easy, Labor—free week,
Carry on,
xox

“People call these things imperfections but they’re not; oh, they’re the good stuff.”

Idiosyncracies. Imperfections. Being Perfectly Imperfect. “I’ll save ya the suspense Sport, nobodies perfect.”

The bit about farting was improvised, and the laughter so hard and genuine that you can see the camera, held by the camera man, shaking with laughter.

goddamnit Robin Williams was a good actor.

Love you guys, enjoy your weekend,

Carry on,
xox

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

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/

I’ve never been much of a joiner. From grade school right up until today, I have, whenever humanly possible, avoided joining any groups.

I’ve never been much for rules and bylaws, so if a group emits even the slightest whiff of organizational groupiness—I’m outa there!

I Blame Peggy

In sixth grade a whole gaggle of us girls spent months of our recess and lunch hours engaged in wickedly epic games of hopscotch.

That is until Peggy pulled on her bossy pants and decided to organize us.

Her first order of business was to regulate the size of the hopscotch squares so every grid was symmetrically the same. You know—to be fair. (I’m certain Peggy has continued her love affair with the slide-rule; or, she’s dead—killed by someone who can’t stand symmetry.)

Anyhow, once she started systematically checking the bean bag place markers we tossed for their weight, size, and color…I jumped ship.

I knew I’d loose my mind in that group of hopscotch nazis. I decided to while away my free time reading or flirting with boys. It was time well spent.

I Love Books Just Not The Clubs

Over the years I tried book clubs but the expectation to finish a book by a certain date took all of the enjoyment out of reading for me.

First they want you to:
Read a book that has been assigned by the group.

Be expected to research the author, know and have read all of their other books, quote passages, and sound smart doing all of that.

Stay up until 2 a.m. the night before book club trying to finish the piece of shit book that rambles and makes absolutely no sense, knowing full well you can never get those lost hours of your life back.

No fucking way.

Never again!

You know what that’s called? College.

Jeweler Not Joiner

When I first started as a jeweler back in the late eighties, surprisingly, there weren’t that many women in the field.
Hence, there was a local chapter of The Women’s Jewelry Association that continually reached out to me. They held get-togethers after work at local hotel bars or better yet, a guest expert would give a lecture and there would be wine, cheese and limp crudités.

I tried, I really did, but in all honesty I would have rather gotten a bikini wax.

So that just reaffirmed my aversion to groups and I also learned:
Jewelry lectures, cheap wine, and limp crudités make me want to commit Sabuke with an olive fork. 

Groups and George Clooney

So you can imagine my shock and horror when a couple of months ago, I, me, of sound mind and body, and of my own volition, joined this amazing writing tribe. The BWG the Beautiful Writers Group. I don’t know what came over me! I actually cringed when I pressed JOIN. All of my book club bullshit and hopscotch hell experiences came circling back around.

Why did I think this would be different? What had I gotten myself into? What in the hell was I thinking?

I haven’t the faintest idea.

But unlike those situations from my past— I’m having the time of my life with these women! They are successful, smart and funny. Thoughtful and generous.
And you wanna know the best part? Most of them are self-confessed non-joiners too!

All of my protestations remind me of that eternal bachelor, George Clooney; who when confronted with a woman so right for him, could barely contain his giddiness as he RAN to join the club of which he swore he would never become a member—marriage. Lord have Mercy.

The moral of this story? I guess it would be: Ditch the attitude and dump the labels. Non-joiner Smoiner! Things change. People change. I changed.

It’s my guess I would still run screaming from a book club, but now I get it—when you find your tribe—you WANT to join.

Carry on,
xox

http://www.daniellelaporte.com/bwg-session-2/

Happy, Healthy, Dead.

That is the clarion cry of the spiritual community I belong to. The one that lost Wayne Dyer this weekend. By the way, he isn’t really lost…but that’s another story.

I can’t remember where and when I heard it first, but it made one hell of an impression: happy, healthy, dead.

Irreverent I know, but just irreverent enough for me to embrace it wholeheartedly. A new idea about the transition of death. How you want to leave this earth. The day you depart you want to be healthy, happy, dead. Lights out. Just like that. In a chair in front of the computer (right after you hit “send” on the best thing you’ve ever written), in your sleep (hopefully in clean pajamas), or sitting at a stoplight (at the end of an amazing road trip). Boom. Gone. Sayonara. That’s that!
And that’s exactly what he did.

Transition. Why is it so fucking hard, so goddamn always?

September is a big month full of transition. Fall begins, the days get shorter, the nights get cooler (in theory), my big, fat, flip-flop feet have to squeeze themselves into shoes; and as the summer begins to wind down we all get a little bit squirrelly.

School starts. The nest empties. The time changes back to whatever the hell it was in May, and fucking Christmas decorations show up in the stores.

I like to say I’m pretty good at transition. But I also like to say other things that I know deep down aren’t completely true. Like: I’ll only take a couple of bites of your dessert or female politicians don’t lie.

I’ve discovered I’m okay with transitions as long as they look, feel, and taste EXACTLY like what just ended.

When I move, the joke is that my new place will be unpacked, with pictures hung, and fully decorated within twenty-four hours of receiving the keys. Everything will be in its place and it’ll look as if I’ve lived there for a decade. I even break down the boxes and drive around until I find a back alley dumpster. Anything to keep the place from looking chaotic and temporary. THAT my dear friends is not an example of someone who has a facility for change.

It is the white-knuckled fingers of control around the neck of my anxiety.

Why can’t transition be easy? The next logical step? The next great adventure? And since it’s a necessary part of life—why can’t we just chill?

How come we can’t remember what it felt like to graduate? To get our first job? To fall in love that very first time? Those were all transitions. Big ones. Ones that formed us. And they were pivotal in the unfolding of our life’s narrative; they were uncharted territory; fresh, new, and exciting!

Have you got an empty nest? Fill it with all the things you’ve been putting off for…Oh, I don’t know, almost twenty years!
Listen, now you get to look forward to college graduations, foreign travel, potential new family members, and maybe, eventually, the patter of little feet that go home when you’re tired of them.

I love me some summer and dread its ending, but then I remember that I also love fires in fireplaces, the smell of burning leaves, cozy sweaters, hot mint tea and rainy days. So what’s the big deal?

Transition. Happy; healthy; dead. Easy, peasy, Parcheesi.

Excuse me while I go wedge my paddle foot into some sexy black boots.

Carry on,
xox

Jason! Where have you been man? I’ve missed you!
Your stream-of-consciousness, existential ramblings about creativity, life, consciousness and technology have been sadly missing from my weekends as of late.
Welcome back,
xox

“Slow down. Stay in one place for a while. Stop searching for what’s next. Give life a chance to show up for you.”
~Cheryl Richardson

I love this blog post of Cheryl’s. I’ve had the privilege of seeing her speak oh, I don’t know, half a million times over the years, and I love her message of self-care.
This is a little different for her, it feels mystical and magical, yet wrapped in an ordinary evening at home
In these waning days of summer—let’s all just slow down,listen, and let life show up. (There’s that surrender again!)
xox

~*~ If I hadn’t listened, I would have missed this.

It was 10:30 when the oppressive summer heat finally gave way to cool night air that kept the mosquitoes at bay. I plopped down on a zero gravity chair in the middle of our deck, pushed back on the arms, and came face-to-face with a stunning, cloudless sky.

I can’t remember when I’ve seen stars so bright.

My plan was to catch the end of the Perseid meteor shower that started a few days earlier. So I settled into the chair, adjusted the pillow underneath my head, and made myself comfortable.
As I gazed up at the stars, I shifted my eyes this way and that, doing my best to take in the full sky before me. I didn’t want to miss anything.
Ten minutes passed.

I focused more intently, widening my vision so I could see everything possible without having to move my head.
Five more minutes. Nada.
There’s nothing like waiting for a shooting star to remember what “attached to results” feels like smile emoticon.
Be patient, I told myself (about a hundred and fifty times). Just let go of any expectations and enjoy the beauty of the night.
I took a few deep breaths as my mind began to wander…

I wonder what’s happening out there in the wide-open spaces between the stars? Is there anyone looking back at me? Where did this all begin anyway?

Come back, I ordered my wandering mind, be present for this experience.
But my existential angst continued…
How small of a speck am I on this revolving ball? Why are we here, really? Are the souls of deceased loved ones out there somewhere looking back at us?

Ten more minutes passed and still no sign of a shooting star. Disappointed, I figured I missed the finale, so I thought about going back in the house.
But something told me to stay.
A little voice invited me to appreciate the solitude, to soak up the silence, and just be with the immense beauty of it all.
So I listened to that voice and I stayed.

Over the next ten minutes or so, I melted into the Oneness before me. No agenda. No expectation. No need to see anything.
Just me and Presence hanging out under the stars.

And that’s when astonishment arrived.

For the next hour I stared in amazement as the meteor shower above my head turned stardust into the most extraordinary entertainment. One shooting star after another filled the night sky, some with long streams of light trailing behind.

Mystery. Awe. Wonder. Magic. An experience to remember.

All because I surrendered to the wise little voice inside.

Later that night, as I crawled into bed feeling wrapped in the love of the Great Universe, I thought about that voice and how I need to pay more attention to her invitations.

Slow down, she tells me. Stay in one place for a while. Stop searching for what’s next. Give Life a chance to show up for you.

Wise indeed.
xo Cheryl

http://www.cherylrichardson.com/about/

Okay you guys, Ta da da da! Another video!
This time around it’s on a subject a few of us have been throwing around lately.
Getting out there.
Being seen.
Sharing all of your delicious gifts with the rest of us.
What’s your nugget?
What’s your Sphere. Of. Influence?
Interested? Take a look.
Love you!
Carry on,
xox

No Luck editing…THAT is a resting DUH face, accompanied by sign language!

You guessed it! Out takes:

86 the glasses!