Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

An ode to small towns, to the places we once belonged — to homecoming, rediscovery and living in communion with land

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I would be remiss in telling you how two suburbanites found home at our farm, ‘Oakhaven’, without first sharing our motives. There were a few. We had been watching the steady decline of the small towns we love for some years now, especially since the late 90’s.

One of my favorite childhood memories is riding with my parents across the back roads of Georgia to visit my grandparents for Christmas. The dark country roads would suddenly brighten with strings of twinkly lights against the cold night sky. Fuzzy tinsel outlines of candy canes, Santas, and gold and silver bells hung from lampposts along the street. I know it sounds idealistic, but that’s how the world is supposed to be when you’re a child – full of magic, wonder and stardust.

But now, during the day, the sun outshines the strung lights and the truth is laid bare: small towns are drying up.

Historic main street buildings sit vacant, slowly crumbling, waiting on investors. They are like their elderly, forgotten in local nursing homes, quietly living out their last days staring out the window at the parking lot.

Tides turned on small town America and somebody, somewhere, somehow decided that they were no longer fashionable — and left them to dwindle and starve. Swarms of people and industry packed their bags and moved away. It’s a harsh reality, but there is still time to turn things around.

There are a growing number of us who have seen through the trappings of easy city living. Our memories from childhood are calling us back to these small towns we once escaped from. We are rediscovering our true values, understanding that a successful life is one of simplicity, humility, and close relationships — of belonging. We recognize small towns as the jewels that they are, for it’s in community that human beings thrive, not isolated and anonymous in a city.

It was my grandmother who called me to come back here. She’s been gone for 17 years, but I feel her with me every day.

My grandparents are the ones who knitted my spirit into the land during summer visits to their farm. Memories of standing barefoot with her in the garden, eating tomatoes off the vine and lazy afternoon pond fishing have had a boomerang effect on me in my empty-nesting years.

I found Oakhaven while daydreaming and perusing a real estate website. It consisted of an 1870’s farmhouse on 100 acres with a stocked 2-acre lake, a chicken house, and a few old barns. My soul was aflutter. It was the perfect setup to lead a more self-sufficient lifestyle and to be in better relationship with the land as the provider of our food. After following the listing for over a year, we decided to visit it in person.

Stepping onto the land for the first time in May of 2020, we knew Oakhaven was special. So many places in the world have their history covered up under layers of concrete and ambition, but out here in rural Alabama, the stories of the people are alive in the soil. We felt it. The towering oaks, magnolias, and pecan trees were heavy with thick, leafy branches as it was almost June. The pear and lemon trees were beginning to bear fruit, and in the distance, we could just see the pond at the base of several sloping hills.

The house had stood unoccupied for years but remarkably hadn’t yet fallen into disrepair. It was stately but not ornate, a balance of 1870’s Italianate style and farmhouse function. Entering the front door, my husband, Neil, and I both felt we had been transported back to our grandparents’ generation, when time was marked by seasons, and families lived in harmony with the land. Our connection to this place was instantaneous, and we knew by the end of the day it would be our home.

The house had waited for us.

Neil and I were both born in Alabama — Birmingham and Dothan respectively — but our lives had taken very indirect routes around the globe to bring us back to this part of the world. His interest in martial arts led him to study with a grandmaster in the mountains of Japan. Later, a career in the military opened a door to even more adventures in South America and the Middle East. I, on the other hand, had lived abroad in Europe and Africa, studying art and raising children. We met later in life and found our way back home together. They say that life eventually comes full circle, and for us that is happening on a farm in Eufaula, Alabama.

As we would come to discover, Oakhaven was rich in history and had been home to three families over the past 150 years. Colonel Hiram Hawkins and his wife Louisiana headed south after his regiment in Kentucky surrendered at the end of the Civil War. They relocated to Eufaula with his mother and built the house, living there until Colonel Hawkins was the last to pass in 1914. For some time after his death, the house was vacant and fell into disrepair.

An historical article reports that in the early 1930’s, much of the rare wrought iron had been scattered across the yard. The prominent Comer family purchased and completely restored the home, caring for it for the next 60 years. When we found it, Oakhaven was being used as a hunter’s weekend getaway, and it hadn’t been fully occupied by a family in decades. In August of 2020, it was love at first sight, and we became the fourth owners. Once again, the home was in need of a major restoration and love.

We were excited to spend our first weekend in the empty house before restorations began. During the day, we would take walks and sit in different parts of the property. The views in every direction were intoxicating to us. On more than one occasion, I’ve been moved to tears by something I can’t quite put into words. The feeling hits me at the spirit level. My attention skips from pine groves to sweeping skies to tiny wild daffodils.

Reorienting to the land and to open spaces is like traveling to a foreign country.

The senses are alive and awake to everything that feels unfamiliar. Over the course of two days, I spotted a black widow spider, the remains of a timber rattler, and caught sight of a family of wild boar in the front yard. At sunset, the coyotes performed their chaotic evening serenade just over the ridge. For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to live among the untamed. It was both thrilling and unsettling at the same time — writhing in aliveness.

Out in the country, the absence of people is heard in the silence and seen in the darkness. When the moon and stars disappear behind clouds, the black night becomes one thing and takes up all the negative space. It’s surprising to learn how living remotely brings life back to simple truths that are millennia old.

Living on the land makes me understand how traditional roles make sense. In the city, a woman feels confident in the order of things, but in reality, she is heavily dependent on systems to organize life and play the role of the protector. Out here on the farm, my illusions of control were shattered in one weekend. Not only did I experience the need to feel safe, but also the sheer workload ahead of us made me realize my reliance on my husband’s physical strength. Add to that the fury caused by rousing a long-dormant septic system from its sleep, and I had to surrender my feminist card.

Dependence is a difficult thing for the modern woman to admit, but there is something profound in this kind of partnership with each other and with the land.

If Oakhaven is our Eden, then paradise will sooner or later reveal a snake. That first night in the house, I decided to take a shower and wash our two little dogs at the same time. The three of us piled into the tub. I was shocked at how dirty the dogs were. The water turned a filthy brown and made its way toward my knees. Next, I heard a guttural belch from the toilet. The sink chimed in. I yelled for Neil, who appeared with a plunger, and heroically began pumping, first the shower, then the toilet, and then the sink.

After several minutes, the swampy water receded back down the drain and we were saved. I buried the thought that anything more than dirt had come out of the pipes. It had probably been years since anyone had taken a shower in that house. My mind flashed to the bathtub scene from the movie, “The Money Pit”, and I felt sick to my stomach. The three of us emerged from behind the shower curtain, dirtier than when we entered. Tired, we dried off and headed for the blow-up mattress. What had I gotten us into?

Fall was approaching, so the nights began to offer some reprieve from the heat. Little did I know that the slight change in temperature would have such a dramatic effect on the house. At night, when we settled onto the air mattress with the dogs at our feet, the house came alive.

Loud bangs and groans of what sounded like metal ships hitting icebergs pierced the contrasting silence.

As I lie awake, I heard the scratching of an animal under the floor. By morning, the air had leaked out of the mattress and the four of us woke up in a life-size taco. Groggy and irritable, we sat in our beach chairs in the kitchen. Just as I was about to take my first sip of life-giving coffee, Neil turned to me and said, “I think we have a poltergeist.”

Of course, he was only kidding, right? Ghosts don’t actually exist. Everyone jokes that an old house has a ghost or two, that’s just part of the charm. But on the off-chance ghosts are real, I rationalized, has anyone ever been murdered by a ghost?

Neil proceeded to tell me that at some point in the middle of the night, he heard not only what sounded like footsteps, but also the crashing of dishes in the kitchen. He had jumped up, pistol drawn, and searched the house, including the dirt floor crawlspace underneath, but found nothing. When he shared this story, I got angry. It’s hard to sell a haunted house. We were stuck with it. I yelled out to no one, “Get used to us, we’re not going anywhere!” Then I looked at Neil seething with anger and told him to never say that again.

If this line of thinking sounds irrational, please know it happened pre-coffee. I did come back to my senses, and after a little research online, I read about the settling noises old houses make during the change of seasons. A new friend and fellow historic homeowner assured me that this was normal. As a matter of fact, she told me old homes that had been vacant for a while had the most to say when new owners moved in. She reassured me that the house would settle down once it got to know us and learned our habits and patterns.

Once she explained this to me, the way I saw our house shifted. We were less homeowners and more caretakers now. Oakhaven had its own personality, formed by a history full of families with stories that had accumulated into the walls and floors.

Everyone says that old houses are special because of their character and the quality of their materials. I think they are special because they are archives of memory, silent witnesses to the passage of time.

Over the course of this first weekend, Oakhaven initiated us as stewards. Now it was our turn to add a chapter to its story. For all my concerns about safety and being out in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t wait to come back again. The unknowns of country life were beginning to take the shape of adventure in my mind. With these realizations, I began to settle into a kind of peace that only comes from a deep knowing.

We had finally found a home to belong to.

I have always tried to live by the old adage, ‘To whom much is given, much is expected’. We have always known that Oakhaven was not meant to be our private escape from reality. It is a place of peace to be honored and shared with others. We intend to share its beauty and historical significance by offering art and writing workshops, homestead learning experiences, as well as advanced martial arts and wilderness survival courses. It is bursting with inspiration for creative endeavors.

More than anything, we hope to reach back and help the younger generation to reconnect with the spirit of local community and traditional ways of being with the land. This knowledge is their spiritual birthright as human beings no matter how far and wide they may travel. We are betting on a bright future for our children, and that starts with a foundation of wellbeing, harmony and connection with nature.

To see more of Christie’s artwork, you may also enjoy reading In The Service of Art.

The post There’s No Place Like Home: An Artist Reconnects to the Whispers of Her Past appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

A brave woman steps from beneath the shadows of shame, abuse, unworthiness and pain to heal from deep trauma — and help others do the same

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The Break

At the age of 39, I had a psychotic break.

It happened during a time when I was under a significant level of work and relationship-related stress. The tipping point came when I recovered a memory of being molested at the age of three.

The break itself was terrifying, because I couldn’t distinguish between hallucinations and reality; people I knew were suddenly different to me. I couldn’t figure out what was really happening versus the paranoia-driven creations in my brain.

As I slowly returned to reality, I had a fresh perspective on previous years of mental illness and treatments I had undertaken. I finally understood why, years after the molestation, I was taking dangerous risks — physical and emotional risks — that led to further traumatic episodes.

In college, I was drinking and behaving in promiscuous ways. One night on a girl’s trip to Mexico, I was gang-raped. Although I now understand that I wasn’t to blame, I do take responsibility for putting myself in situations where I could get hurt. Later I would become entangled in two relationships in which I was abused — one of them my first marriage.

The psychotic break in 2007 helped me understand why I was placing no value on myself and my body.

Molested at three, I felt completely alone and unprotected from life’s dangers. I believed I wasn’t worthy of unconditional love. I believed I got what I deserved.

Even the job I was doing at the time of my break was dangerous for me. My married boss lured me into a relationship using classic predatory grooming tactics. Not having remembered my childhood molestation, I was unprepared to deal with his antics.

In fact, I believe that his behavior is what led to my memory recovery. I had already gone through a similar experience — I just hadn’t remembered it yet.

But I had undertaken years of therapy and treatment for mental illness, even before the break. Besides taking medication for depression and anxiety, I went to a psychologist who treated me with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

These treatments helped me immensely with healing from the domestic violence and rape. But I wasn’t prepared for the memory that came flooding back to me. I believe my brain went into survival mode, creating an alternate reality for me, and putting me into fight-or-flight mode.

With rest, therapy and medication, I survived the psychotic break and I began to heal.

As time passed, I found my way into a healthier relationship and had a baby girl. I started working for someone who appreciated my talents but did not try to take advantage of me. I learned how to stand up for myself in a healthy way.

Gradually I built a better life. It was a restart.

Reprocessing the Trauma

Fast forward to 2019. I was 52, and my daughter was 10. Two years earlier I had married the love of my life, a good man who treats me well.

I was struggling with my career — the burnout was severe — and wanting to make a change. I downshifted from taking on another leadership role in technology marketing (the field I worked in for 25+ years) so that I could spend more time focused on other activities that would help me feel motivated and fulfilled.

And I finally decided to write a book: a prescriptive memoir. My goal? Helping other complex trauma survivors get through their own healing journeys.

I felt strong, alive, ready.

Starting in January 2021, I began writing. I went deep into my experiences — good and bad — and worked consistently to get the first, second and third drafts completed by the end of the year. Of course, other things happened that year. The pandemic raged on. I continued to work from home while my husband returned to the office. Luckily my daughter was able to return to school. I kept writing.

Writing about my experiences gave me the opportunity to look at them from a different, more mature, clear-headed perspective.

Realizations were a routine occurrence. For example, I finally put together that at the time of the molestation, I wouldn’t have been able to see. That was the same year that my four-year-old brother’s preschool teacher discovered that he wasn’t seeing well. My mother took us both to the eye doctor. We each had severely limited vision and needed strong glasses.

I realized that the molestation would have been that much more terrifying because of this impairment. And although it is rare for someone to remember experiences from that age, it would make it even more difficult for me because of my lack of vision.

And there’s a parallel that goes with this. In 2021, I finally had eye surgery — refractive lens exchange along with laser — and could see without glasses or contact lenses for the first time in my life. Remarkably, I was also able to see other aspects of my life more clearly.

I put together a timeline of my life interwoven with major events in my family. I realized it was Spring of 2012 when my mother was sharing more details about the extended family with me, just a few months before she would die after a 25-year battle with Lupus.

She had always been more open with me than others were about what had happened in the family. Because of her, I learned of my grandmother’s rape at 13. She told me about her father abusing my grandmother when she and her siblings were little. And she told me that her cousin had recently gone to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl.

But it wasn’t until I was writing the book that I gave it all a hard look.

There was an interconnectedness of family trauma and secrets and abuse; it all became clearer to me through the writing of the book and underscored my decision to share my story.

Although it was clear to me that others in the family wanted me to keep quiet, I declared to myself that there would be no more sweeping under the rug. I planned to stop the cycle, at least in my own family lineage. I resolved to help others do the same.

Hitting an Unexpected Wall

Then in May, having completed the writing of my book and working on the marketing for it while looking for a publisher, I considered a new writing project.

I decided to write a limited series television screenplay inspired by my life story. But it would be different from the book. This time the lead role would be a fictional character, and the story would be more extreme than my own. I’d weave in some drama and humor to make sure it would be entertaining enough for television.

Before I started to write the first draft, I knew I should do some research, this time about more than the psychological aspects that I dug into so much for my book. I thought about where it would take place and began to look into the setting so I could create something realistic.

I also decided to do more research into my family — and my mom’s cousin — to be able to write a story initially based on reality but expanded into a broader storyline. As I was researching, I read the court records for my mom’s cousin, the one who went to prison for raping a 13-year-old.

This is how I discovered it was his own daughter that he raped. Learning this left me utterly heart broken. I felt such shock, unable to fathom how his daughter could survive that horror and be in a better place now. I knew from my own experience that she was probably broken.

And for me, learning the details of what actually happened brought back all my own feelings from past traumas. It was like the wounds were freshly opened.

I was suddenly that three-year-old, sickened and afraid, not understanding what was happening, and not knowing where to go for help. And then I was 39 again, going through the nightmare of unreality that terrified me during the psychotic break. And finally, I was a mother, looking at my 13-year-old daughter, fearful of what could happen to her and wondering how I’ll ever be able to fully protect her from life’s tragedies.

I felt derailed. Prior to my discovery, I had big plans for my summer. I would be promoting my author platform, building my followers through social media, speaking, and writing. And I had big plans for the screenplay.

But I completely stalled; my motivation swept away. Even so, I knew I could not give up. At least, not completely.

Living with mental illness can be a real slog. For months (or years in my case), you’re doing just fine, and then there’s that blasted trigger, stopping you cold.

What did I do, you may ask?

I decided to simply go through it. I let the stall-out happen, giving myself grace so that I could heal again (and heal as many times as I needed). Having the past experiences I did, I was able to see clearly that I would survive, and life would get better.

And that’s just what happened.

Why am I sharing this? Because you are not alone in the depths and darkness of your despair. There is a way out… and I’m living proof. I want that for you.

You may also enjoy reading Recovering from Emotional Abuse and Learned Toxic Behaviors, by Dr. Lisa Cooney

The post Breaking the Cycle: Healing from Complex Trauma appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

How we can let go, leave, break up, cut cords, erect boundaries, dissolve attachments and heal without aggression and anger — and instead do so with love

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Best Selfers! To let go? To dissolve attachments? To cut cords or pray for healing? These are all the right questions in terms of how we heal and move on.

[Excerpted from How to Be Loving: As Your Heart Is Breaking Open and Our World Is Waking Up, by Danielle LaPorte]

If you’ve done some metaphysical homework (of course you have—you’re here), you’ve probably come across the idea of “cutting energy cords” with people and places. We “send all that energy back to its source and cut-cut-cut those cords!” That practice can be a powerful remedy to imbalances and protecting ourselves. But . . . sometimes . . .

If you’re in an emotionally volatile space, it can be difficult to dissolve energetic ties with people you’re angry at or a situation that felt wounding or hurtful. The “cutting ties” gesture itself can have an underlying aggression. And that will just generate more angst—which is just another energy hook, more of the same story.

You can’t let go of something that you’re aggressively trying to let go of.

We want to gently and thoroughly let go of all of the residual scars of a painful connection or event. Your part in the pain, their part in it, the pain in the middle. The pain over the pain. And then we offer it all up to be transformed into a higher vibration—which is how we create Wisdom.

We don’t want to approach this as a “cutting away” or separating from our sorrow. It’s about turning to the Divine with our pain and being healed through that connection.

Ultimately this is about identifying with our expansive nature––our Loving Nature, instead of feeling constricted. Constriction grips. Expansion lets things flow. And when we’re expanded, we open ourselves to receive more healing and blessings.

Nothing leaves us until we thoroughly Love it.

We can’t curse it to release it. We can’t attack it to release it. That only creates more clinging and pushback.

Bless it: Thank you for what you taught me. May you be free. Then whatever it is—a relationship or a painful thoughtform—gets what it’s always wanted: some Love. And then it will go on its way. Finally.

About How To Be Loving

When you turn to the heart, you uncondition your mind of all kinds of social programming. The intelligence of Love dissolves eons of dogma that tells us to prove our “worth” and sort who’s superior or inferior. Being Loving doesn’t necessarily mean feeling more. It means feeling everything with more Love. It’s the ultimate inclusiveness. Because in your heart, it’s ALL IN—your light and your shadows—and everyone else’s. This is the non-dual place where complete Self acceptance has room to grow.

How To Be Loving is a nuanced perspective on the life changing power of Self Compassion, shadow work, and being more receptive to Higher Guidance. This is a guide on how to use the genius of your heart to create conditions for healing.

You may also enjoy reading Choose Love: A Vital Strategy for More Success, by Kate Beeders.

The post How to Be Loving: Letting Go vs. “Cutting Cords” appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

A mother’s account of letting go of who she was in an old story and allowing herself to evolve into a new one

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My chest feels achy. It’s felt like this for weeks now. I keep catching myself holding my breath, losing focus, reaching for something to soothe me, staring into space. This isn’t me — who is this person, I wonder. And yet, I recognize her.

I met this version of myself once before, years ago, when I was learning how to travel from girlhood into motherhood. And now, here she is again, getting her sons ready for their first days of school without her, learning how to be their cheerleader instead of their coach, figuring out how to let go while still holding on. This is me after 13 years of homeschooling.

Homeschooling was never the plan. It started when my almost-four-year-old leaned over and whispered, “I want to know everything, Mama,” lighting a fire inside me.

The year was 2009, and I was a 27-year-old mother of two intensely active, curious, wildly creative little boys (read: “not ready for Pre-K but bored to tears at home”) living in rural Georgia with very limited resources. A co-worker of mine at the public school had met my son and told me he wasn’t ready for the classroom. She told me he’d need to learn to sit still first, that he should wait a year and then start. But I didn’t want him to wait. So, I decided to teach him myself.

The next day, with fear screaming into every cell of my body, I took $50 I couldn’t really spare to the bookstore and found my way into becoming a homeschooling mother.

I was only going to homeschool for one year at first. But seeing his face light up at every new discovery, every library trip, every arts & crafts experiment changed me. Then one year turned into two and his little brother turned four and wanted to know everything too. Two years turned into three and we found ourselves loving our little homeschooling life and everything it afforded us both inside and out of the classroom.

It wasn’t that anything was wrong with traditional schools — or that something was wrong with our kids. The more I taught them and researched curriculum options for each grade level, it was more of trusting this feeling I had that a home education was the best place for them to thrive. At the same time I sensed that we’d created monsters (wink). The good kind of monsters with voracious appetites — the ones who want to know everything, want to put their fingers on everything and experience the world right up close, want to build and invent new things and explore every single crevice the world has in its depths, and want to ask why a million times every day without ever raising their hands. And I didn’t want to tame them. I wanted to plug into their curiosity and wonder — to foster more of the same.

I blame it on the way my husband and I grew up as big dreamers, became parents at 23 and 24, and started using every penny we could find to pack up our kids and move again and again in search of wild adventures. I also blame it on how we committed to a nontraditional family value early on: one of us was always going to make a way to stay home full-time and the other would work from home as much as possible. As crazy as that seemed at the time, and even though we had no idea how exactly that was going to roll out — as a result, I’ve been able to spend most days with my whole family at home while building a consulting business that pays our bills. Our lifestyle of packing up and adventuring took on a life of its own and became our children’s incredible education.

It began with selling everything. We sold our home, cars, and furniture, and made travel our life. Outdoor adventure became our textbook. National parks became our playground. And we lived full-time in our 30-foot Airstream while traveling the US for seven years before finding our home in a small community on the coast of Maine.

It was a dream I never could have planned for. We found nature healing and teaching us in unexpected ways.

I found wisdom and inspiration from researchers and authors like John Holt, Ken Robinson, Blake Boles, and in books like The Teenage Liberation Handbook. I built community in unexpected new ways and connected with other homeschooling moms and found resources to help with every roadblock I encountered. We hit our groove, met a bump in the road, cobbled through, made it work, and hit our groove again a million times over. We loved our homeschooling life.

And then, quite suddenly at the end of last school year, when my youngest gently, kindly said, “Mama, I don’t want to homeschool anymore,” it was over.

In truth, he was only giving voice to something I’d known was coming for a while.

Homeschooling wasn’t serving us anymore; the longer we traveled and the older my kids got, the more difficult it was to find new resources, make lasting friendships, and expand our circles. It was time for something new, and we all knew it. The winds of change were upon us.

Skip ahead. As the school year starts this year, I’m turning in my homeschool badge to watch one son spend his senior year in online dual enrollment classes (senior year high school and freshman year college) and the other get on the bus each morning to attend the public high school down the street.

I could pretend I’m not struggling, but I don’t. My achy chest won’t let me. Instead, I’m embracing how I’m changing, who I’m becoming.

I realize this transition isn’t just about me, and yet, I also realize this version of me might become something permanent, so I feel a call to get to know her. She’s someone who knows how to wade through critical transitions, someone who’s getting comfortable in her new skin, emerging, stepping up, becoming. Who she is exactly, I can’t know yet. But I have a sneaking suspicion I might even start to like her if I give her a chance. I’m making room for her to emerge.

I keep reminding myself this is what it’s like to have kids who aren’t kids anymore. This is also what it’s like to have homeschooled for so long and suddenly stopped. This is what it’s like to let go of everything we’ve always had together and start holding on to something new.

And yet, like the butterfly who’s just become something unrecognizable to its former self, there’s pain in the remaking, a bit of struggle in the redefining. I may not have this figured out for a while. I may have to find my way like I have so many times before. I’m going to have to be okay with that. For now, I’m redefining what motherhood means to me — motherhood without homeschooling.

Deep down I realize I always hoped our long homeschool days would lead here. I always knew which son would want to try public high school just as surely as I knew which one would want to enter college early. But the truth is, I wasn’t always exactly sure we’d arrive — or that I’d be ready.

For the past 13 years, we’ve been trying untraditional approaches to education, testing out new things, following curiosities, discovering learning as a pleasurable activity — something I missed in my own achievement-focused summa cum laude-focused academic life. For the past 13 years, I had hoped their education could be different, hoped it would work out extremely well, but no one could guarantee me it would.

Even now, big questions remain. I don’t know whether my sons will have learning gaps I couldn’t fill as their sole teacher for so long. I don’t know if they’ll receive scholarships that will allow them to go where they want to go and do what they want to do. I don’t know if they’ll love art school or college or whatever path they choose. I don’t even know if public high school will welcome us.

I don’t know anything, really.

Except this — I know I’ve taught them how to pivot when something isn’t working. They know they have options. They know how to follow their intuitions. They know there’s more than one way. They know anything is possible.

All in all, I feel good about that. It’s true that only parts of our homeschool story have been the rainbow kind, but there’s more than golden memories lying here at the end. There’s respect, relationships, and more adventures taken and happy days spent together than any mother could dream of.

Despite its challenges, our little homeschooling life has been the life of my dreams.

Except now, sitting here alone at my quiet kitchen table where we usually share audiobooks, loud breakfast discussions, and heated homeschool debates — I have a decision to make.

I have to decide if the life of my dreams is over or if I still have the energy to create something new.

I’m letting go of being the center of their worlds to watch all our worlds get bigger, letting go of my little boys and getting to know the young men they’re becoming.

But I’m still holding on, too. Holding onto being their mother no matter what season we’re entering together, holding onto the memories and embracing their next season with heart, mind, and arms wide open.

I’ll think about our long, slow homeschool mornings full of books read aloud, homemade muffins, and pots of Earl Grey tea for as long as I live. But if I’m lucky, I’ll get to think about the adventures we’re still having and are yet to have, too.

So, with the homeschooling door closing and so many feelings still swirling inside me, my conclusion is this — there is no end to the life of our dreams, only new seasons adding depth, new waves bringing new realities.

There is no failure — only pivots and discoveries.

Wherever we find ourselves, we always get to choose how to approach what’s next, and I’m choosing to try my best to love whatever comes next for us.

One day at a time. . . .

The morning of his first day of school finally arrives. He wakes early to the alarm he set for himself, showers, dresses in the clothes and shoes he set out the night before. I cook him a special breakfast and he makes a cup of tea. With his back turned, packing his own lunchbox, his dad asks, “Are you nervous?” He replies simply, “Yeah,” and keeps nodding his head to the music in his earbuds. He doesn’t look nervous at all.

Watching him get on the bus for the first time, I feel tears sting my eyes, but I feel something new, too.

My chest isn’t achy anymore. Instead, I’m feeling something else — something expansive.

Yes, I’m swallowing a lump in my throat as I sit on the porch and peek through the trees to see him step onto the bus and roll to the school without me, but I have things that need my attention, too. I take a few minutes to breathe, process my feelings, and send him all my love and all kinds of distant hugs. Then I fire off emails to the women in my email group, polish a new piece for potential homeschool families, send a magazine pitch, and head inside to dig into projects for my clients and help his brother get settled into his dual enrollment agenda for the day.

And I smile, thinking about the cookies and milk we’ll have this afternoon when he gets home from school and all the stories he’ll have to share. One of my life’s biggest and best seasons is over, but my life is not over. Another one is beginning. I think this one might be big and beautiful, too. At the very least I can stay open for it.

You may also enjoy reading Redefining Togetherness: One Mother’s Quest for an Adventurous Family Life, by Celeste Orr

The post An Epilogue to Homeschooling: A Mother Hangs Up Her Homeschooling Hat…Now What? appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

A roadmap for claiming control of your divorce (and life) even in the throes of upheaval and chaos

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Divorcing differently…is it really possible?

“Look, the last thing I could imagine doing when my life was spiraling out of control during my divorce — was get ZEN and centered and make grounded decisions. That sounds like pie-in-the-sky, woo-woo nonsense. Come on, is that really possible?” she asked.

I hear you…in fact, I was you. But of course, it is possible! I responded.

I guess the real question for anyone begins with asking themselves what they think is possible with their own life…who is in charge calling the shots? Who is making the decisions? Is your life happening TO you or FOR you? And if so, why? (and btw, you’ll want to answer those questions before moving ahead with your divorce).

There are life moments when we are called to task…here are the circumstances…now what are you going to do with them? It’s hard to see choice within any upheaval, particularly divorce where oftentimes little if anything is spared — not your heart, your home, your finances, your wellbeing or that of your children.

Divorce is an ending, but it is also an opportunity for a new beginning…and that’s not a platitude lightly tossed around.

Imagine approaching this from a different angle. We can’t control all life events, but we can control how we experience them…and that is NOT ‘woo.’

The times we feel most out of control are the times we most need to show up for our Best Selves — to step back and consciously declare how we want to navigate, how we want it all to go and what condition we want to be in when we land on the other side of things. Do you want to arrive screeching in on two wheels, a broken, depleted, frazzled mess trailing a string of debris behind you — or not?

Anyone who has ever experienced divorce knows exactly what’s at stake — and many don’t see choice in the matter. I get that completely. As a matter of fact, I’ve swam in all of those same waters, drowning in the gamut of emotions that can wash over you like a tidal wave: fear, shame, anger, despair, anxiety, overwhelm, etc. While in the midst of it, it can feel like you are the only person experiencing this — its isolation deafening.

Then stuck in the middle are your kids, witnessing it all, feeling it all, experiencing it all. There is no hiding the pain of divorce from our children, no matter the age, no matter how well you play act. They are energetic sponges who can read and feel you and the energy of the house — even if they don’t understand it. So many critical mistakes are made by parents in the early stages of divorce that leave lasting imprints upon their children that can be avoided.

There’s no denying that divorce can feel like a series of wildfires that need to be extinguished.

Yes, the stakes are high — your health, your finances, the emotional security of your kids. Yes, there are many tentacles that have the potential to be far-reaching and long-lasting, which is precisely why you want to be in the driver’s seat making proactive, tactical, practical, heart-centered and intuitive decisions that resonate with you to the core. And yes, it is possible. Besides, you are the one who will live with these decisions and choices for a long time after the ink dries on the divorce decree and all the other players advising you have long disappeared.

This is your life. Take charge of it now. And it starts with giving yourself a break. No one expects you to have a law degree or a PhD in child psychology, but you can become your biggest advocate and ally by remaining connected to yourself.

Back to the “how” — how we are going to do this differently?

How many times in your life have you said something you wished you hadn’t…or made a kneejerk reaction you wished you had given more thought to? Many times, right? We’ve all been there. The same holds true with divorce. Impulsive decisions that are not well-thought out or made for the wrong reasons (like anger, revenge or the need to be right) leave us scrambling to clean up unnecessary messes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can actually design how you want your divorce — and life — to look.

And even if you’ve never approached your life quite like this before, it’s never too late to start. It’s never too late to step into the version of yourself that you can stand behind, one who makes decisions from grounded footing. I’d even go out on a limb and say that these skills are “life skills” that you can keep in your toolbox to call upon and apply to any life adversity or bump in the road.

The most critical time to lay the groundwork and set the tone of your divorce is during the first hundred days.

It is within this emotionally charged window that you’ll be asked to make some of the most important decisions of your life. This is where you can put the brakes on this becoming a long and expensive runaway train, or not.

The problem is that most people are ill-equipped to confidently make these kinds of decisions in that moment. But we can choose to act instead of react.

Here are 5 Shifts that can help you gain control over your divorce and save you time, money and a tremendous amount of emotional suffering for you and your children.

1. Believe Your Divorce Is The Opportunity Of A Lifetime

Let’s face it…divorce is a gut punch. And when you’re in the throes of it, all you see are broken dreams and families — chaos, heartbreak, financial devastation and fear for the future…not opportunity.

Yet, herein lies your opportunity, perhaps the greatest opportunity of your life…the chance to get it right — to clean up the mess behind you, to tame the divorce train wreck, and to design what comes next. 

You see, divorce is an opportunity to write a different narrative for you and your children — and avoid the classic pitfalls that trip people up. 

It’s also a chance to reevaluate where you’ve been and more importantly, where you want to go. To look at all the events, beliefs, patterns and missteps that led to here. To break cycles. To develop new, healthy behaviors. To embrace your worth. To rescript the person you want to be and the life you want to live. This is about a new perspective, not an old story.  

Divorce is also an opportunity to model and instill the values that will set up your children well for navigating their own relationships and life hiccups.

2. Become The CEO Of Your Divorce

It’s not only possible to step into your power when feeling powerless…it’s absolutely necessary. 

Divorce can take months or years to resolve and rack up staggering costs. Factor in alimony or child support and you’re looking at financial ramifications of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of several years. That’s precisely why you need to take a leadership seat at this table.  

As CEO of your divorce, you will:

• Set the Vision: That’s establishing a clear goal for the outcomes you want for yourself and your kids, both short and long-term…and a plan for getting there

• Demonstrate Leadership: That means managing your team of lawyers, therapists, mediators and so on so that they are serving your agenda, not theirs…and save a LOT of money in the process

• Take Action: That’s making decisions mindfully and confidently, and communicating clearly with all involved

• Get Results: And when you do the above you’ll steer your divorce across the finish line, achieving the goals you set forth

In the end, divorce is like a business. It is not a time to sit back and let someone else take the lead in your ultimate decision-making. It is a time to step into your inner CEO and manage what is before you with clarity, resolve, thoughtfulness and heart. 

3. Harness The Power Of Your Intuition

Do you want to know the single most common mistake with divorce? It’s not harnessing the power of your intuition and understanding the critical role it plays. 

For most, divorce is new territory leaving one feeling desperate for answers, guidance, and advice. So, we seek counsel from others: lawyers, therapists, friends, family members, co-workers and just about anyone who will listen.

We heed their advice, follow their agendas and forget to check in with ourselves, asking “What do I really want? How do I feel about this? How do I want this process to go?”

We waste tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, hurt our kids, embroil them in custody battles and remain stuck and dragged down by years of ongoing legal entanglements.

Why? Because we didn’t listen to ourselves — our intuition. Maybe we didn’t know how, maybe we felt it wasn’t important, or just bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo. But nothing could be further from the truth. 

Intuition often doesn’t get the credit it deserves. We’re often taught to keep our heart out of our negotiations — but that’s not the path that serves you best. Intuition is a power player and learning how to harness it is a gamechanger.

You may not have used your intuition getting into your marriage, but you can certainly use it getting out of it.

4. Choose You First

The emergency instructions on an airplane always advise you to put your oxygen mask on first, then assist others. And for good reason. You can’t help anyone if you don’t first help yourself — this pertains to divorce too. 

This is not to suggest that you dismiss the needs of your kids — far from it. But too often, during the dissolution of a marriage, people put the needs of others above their own. When you do that, everyone loses. If you can’t be your best self, you can’t be the best for your children…you can’t build a solid house on a wobbly foundation.

This is a call to prioritize YOU.

Don’t make self-care an afterthought, something to catch up on once the dust settles. The key is to take care of yourself WHILE going through the divorce process. Divorce will rock you to the core, and you need to support yourself through it. And you know what? You can create a plan to thrive…right from the start.

5. Invest In Coaching

Most people dive in blindly, throwing money at the legal system, making concessions that don’t improve anything, and making massive decisions without a plan. Because it’s all new and terrifying and they don’t know any better.

But this is where coaching comes in. An expert who’s been through it all and can guide you through the process, saving you money and months of heartache — while fortifying you to face what feels like the battle of your life.

In working with a coach you will gain new perspectives and ideas, develop an action plan and have an accountability partner. A coach is like a Sherpa holding your hand — walking beside you, holding your hand and empowering you to make decisions for your life that you won’t regret — and design a new chapter to thrive within.

You don’t have to do this alone.

Why doesn’t everyone do it this way? Because we get in our own way. We roll our eyes, we assume that it is too simple. Besides, who has time and money for self-care or a coach when in the throes of chaos? Ironically (or not), the price of not doing this is far steeper.

We must remember that our lives are interconnected. When one aspect is out of whack, it has trickle-down impact upon the rest. So, the sooner you take a holistic approach to your lives (and your divorce), the sooner you can cross the bridge from untethered to empowered.

If you’re a mother facing off with divorce and want to get off the emotional rollercoaster and save time money and heartache for your family, learn more at IntuitiveDivorce.com.

The post Divorcing Differently: An Intuitive Path from Untethered to Empowered appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

One woman’s reclamation of grief as a solitary journey

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Sitting on the sturdy plastic church chair on the end of one of several rectangular tables, I watched — or, rather, allowed my eyeballs to take in — a slideshow of pictures, most of which were from his childhood. Small Danny, often wearing a tie and frequently photographed with his viola — its neck in his right hand by his side or the instrument positioned under his chin; bow ready in either case to play something magical…to play something most people wouldn’t expect from the limbs of a sturdy-but-skinny young Swedish-German boy from Minnesota.

After ten minutes or so, I noticed none of the photos in the slideshow included me, until…ahh — but there’s one. We were standing in front of his house, I think (or was it the kitchen — stationed in front of a casserole?) when I visited during summer break. I remember the heat and the mosquitos and the leeches in the lake (“There are WAY more than 10,000 lakes in Minnesota”, he explained). I had a brightly colored striped shirt which somehow highlighted my nose ring. I looked uncomfortable as I usually do when I didn’t plan on having my photo taken; as I also usually do when photos are planned.

I’ll always remember (which isn’t quite the same as saying “I’ll never forget”) this day: my late husband Dan’s second memorial service, held on this predictably freezing day in February.

I don’t remember it because of the people who attended, the things that were said, or even that it was the second event — the second memorial held to recognize the thing it took an entire year for me to truly take in: he’s gone. No, not for those things. I don’t recall those clearly — everything was blurry and surreal that year. Twelve years later, many things still are. I recall the impression it made, the tone of the day, the confusion of it all. I’d previously regarded myself as the center of his and our collective universe. And now, here, in his place of birth, I was confronted with the possibility I might be wrong.

Who are they talking about? Who is Danny?

I’d only known (and loved—oh, how I loved) Dan, sans the eeeee sound of “nny”. A stranger for only a split-second as I walked up the steps of our mutual college dorm in Philadelphia, PA, he was only ever Dan to me. We were two kids from the other side of the States who couldn’t have known our choice of university would seal a fate both beautiful and brutal. He was the formal-sounding Daniel only when I was attempting to sound serious. “Daniel Larry Fritz, pick your pants up off the flooooor!” I serious/joked while cleaning our subsequent tiny NYC apartment. “Daniel, I’m so coooold…!” when I needed him to use his radiator-like body to defrost my feet.

I suspect we knew it in an instant on those dorm stairs, too, but after seven years together, we “officially” decided we knew each other sufficiently to make it official. The officiant used both of our full names to marry us in a ceremony our friends and family had waited for — the most inevitable of inevitabilities. Four years later, the cycle of “Until Death Us Do Part” was complete — a reality even the author of that timeless script hadn’t anticipated.

I knew Dan, but who was Danny?

I was angry. I felt betrayed-by-proxy. Who are they talking about? My grief prevented me from seeing anything clearly. Until it was pointed out to me — gently, subtly, and when I was finally able to hear it — that a person’s personal experience with someone is exactly that: personal, I felt like it was a betrayal. I didn’t think the people at the second memorial, his own family, knew Dan.

But they knew Danny.

And I didn’t. I’d missed out on those formative years; the years before the dorm steps; the years before we knew each other — those 18 years when he was, at least sometimes, Danny. Danny belonged to his family and friends from before. Dan, however, was mine.

It was a rocky road from the bitterness I felt at this second memorial to the illogical comfort I now take in this thought (sing it with me): Grief is the loneliest feeling that you’ll ever do….

If you’ve ever lost someone dear — your dad, husband, child, wife, cat; if you’ve ever lost an idea, lost direction, lost your identity…the thought may cross your mind: “No one understands me. No one knows how this feels.”

The popular wisdom is to disagree. “Of course we understand. Of course you’re not alone.” I’m here to tell you I agree — with you, not “them.” No one understands. You’re alone. Alone in your exact experience, alone in your precise feeling of alone.

“They” are only trying to be nice and encouraging — but in my experience, this dismissal of your truth only prolongs the hurt.

Grief feels personal because it is personal.

When I finally both realized and acceptedthis, I felt less alone. And this is another reason why grief is so hard; so isolating: because even if you spoke with your grief twin — one who seemingly walked through the exact same steps on your grief path, she wouldn’t understand. Grief is the loneliest experience, but it also belongs to you. It’s the gift you have left; the peace which surpasses all understanding…

***

I didn’t join the requisite support group when Dan/Danny died. As many times as the social worker on the 12th floor insisted I give it a try, I rejected the suggestion in the same way I’d scoff at a decaf Americano: “Oof! Why bother?!” It wasn’t that decaf (or support groups) or aren’t okay or useful, it’s just that both concepts don’t appeal to me and, I didn’t think would work for me.  

Grief may be Universal in that it touches us all, but that universality concept doesn’t address the deeply personal side of grief. There’s nothing about the cadence of the way he said, “Rise and shine, Susie Q! Get in that shaaa-wah!” anyone else can understand. The tilt of his head when he was trying not to contradict me, the squint when it was waaaay past time to leave the party, or the sound of the exhale when he took his last breath and I inhaled my new life.

There is nothing, nothing a group could understand about that.

I hear you arguing — “But people who are grieving get the gist, lady! People understand what you’re going through — at least in general.” I agree. In ‘general’, they do. But grief is specific; grief is all the atoms of a person broken down into fine details and you — only you — have the microscope to see them. Grief is an invisible wave you’re riding that no one else can see. “Look! She’s gliding through the air” they say, when in reality you’re seconds from crashing, mere inches from sinking to the ocean’s floor.

Grief is a bundle of experiences and, yes, things — actual, physical things you don’t wish to share.

In my box of Dan’s physical things is his white undershirt — the one with stains which now smells musty, but used to smell like him. I kept his tiny BlackBerry with the green rubber case — the one I used to look up TV sitcom scripts and read from when he was half awake/half asleep on the 12th floor of Sloan Kettering’s hospital floor. There’s the urn — the big one I once carried onto a plane, whispering to the TSA man, “My husband’s ashes are in there,” while holding my breath he wouldn’t take it out of the bag for inspection. I might have melted into the floor and joined him in the great beyond. There’s his computer case — way too big for my 13-inch laptop — my “MacIntrash” as he first called it back in that dorm room, attempting to impress me with his PC-preferred wit. There are the scraps of paper he wrote on. I’ve scanned and saved and laminated every last bit of physical him.

My grief bundle also contains every word he ever spoke while we slept in late, blankets over our heads to keep warm (and the heating bill low). It includes all our inside jokes from DVD extras and episode 3 of the British Office. My grief is how it felt for him to place his hand on the small of my back when I was mid-panic-attack; his eyes as he pretended to love the mixed-berry fruit crumble I made fresh from the oven, Dan! Just like mom never made! Or the way he didn’t pretend at all when I manufactured a vegan version of his beloved childhood meal of Minnesota Wild Rice soup. It was, objectively, terrible…

My grief is knowing what I knew beyond anything else: he would never leave me (even though he did). It’s walking down aisle 9 of the grocery store and dancing with him to Huey Lewis and the News — spotting the specials in the frozen section while feeling like the luckiest girl in the world. In the frozen section… “It’s hip to eat square!”

My grief is telling him it was okay to let go — so late in the game was I to this thing he needed to hear, but I did it (it was the hardest thing…).

Of course, it was a lie — it would never be okay. But even lies were appropriate when it came to my love for him.

And the truth as you see it, as you experienced it, is also enough. If I’ve realized anything, it’s that the only thing I really have — an object invisible to others — is my experience of him. Of Dan. Of my husband. No one else can claim this. Not his mother, father, sister, brother, best male friend — and certainly no support group. No circle of people grieving for their own Dans, perhaps their Danny. No one else.

***

Let me step back for a paragraph so we can catch our Universal breaths. The truth is grief isn’t always about loss in the death sense. To make it nice and current, this pandemic has caused layer-upon-layer of loss and reasons to grieve, and it also feels personal. One person’s homeschooling conundrum is another person’s decision to let their hair go grey is another person’s aunt who is on a ventilator. “It’s all relative” takes on a topical twist. We gather stories but still don’t/can’t quite understand each other. To break a broken record further, that’s because it’s personal.

***

If you’re still with me, I can feel you waiting for me to change my mind about groups. Maybe you’ve had an incredibly helpful experience in a group. I’m truly happy for you! This is good news!! Maybe you’ve felt held and supported AND understood in your community. It’s oh so good to be in community and share.

But still — your grief, my grief, our Universal, personal grief — it belongs to us together, individually.

These ideas can exist simultaneously.

When I close my eyes and remember him, it’s just the two of us, his hand in mine, using words intended only for me. No one understands what that was like. I cherish that. It belongs to me. It’s personal.

You may also enjoy reading Life After Death: Healing Grief, Redefined, by Sarah Nannen

The post It’s Personal: A Reflection on Grief appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

One man’s journey to finding connection in loss

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We never really know when it will be the last time we talk to someone, the last time we see them, the last hug.

The time was 2:23pm. Or there about. It’s hard to pinpoint the precise time when you’re in that deep sleep state where time seems not to exist. That’s when Sara passed on…ascending to a new dimension, free from the paralyzed body that imprisoned her for thirty years.

I felt her passage…a swirl of orange light that rose from the lake in my dream and disappeared into the sky above.

Moments later, I was awoken by the vibration of my phone—a text had just come in from my sister, Janet: She’s gone…it was easy for her, but difficult for us.

Sara was the oldest of my two sisters, the ‘Flower Power’ child, the tail end of the peace-and-Aquarius generation which defined the 60’s and 70’s civil rights and anti-establishment movement. She was pretty, funny, creative, smart…and knew how to work a system, including our family system. Leveraging these skills, if there was a way to get out of household chores, she found it, Janet and I covering in an effort to simply “keep the peace”. She wore the bellbottom jeans, tie-died halter tops, sought refuge with a Guru or two in California, and disrupted more than a few family dinners with her indignant antics. Yet she loved and she cared, and taught me the ‘ways of the world’ that would give this young boy a leg up as I approached adolescence.

Memories flooded through my mind during that brief sleep. Actually, it was more of short nap, a dream state alone in my car. I knew she was gravely ill and I was trying desperately to get to Michigan from my home in Woodstock, NY (ironically, the home of the 60’s hippie culture and origin of the famous concert in 1969) in order to be with her. Her smile that could light up a room always told me that she loved that I wound up here. I tried desperately to get to her that day, wrangling airlines and flights like trying to herd a pack of wild cats, but it was futile. I wasn’t meant to be there in that moment and needed to surrender to that. I had been out in California when I received the news of her hospitalization and health condition.

Hour after hour staring up at the airport monitor at my gate, with multiple flight delays and cancellations beyond my control…it was evident that it was not meant to be—at least in my timing or my way. I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In a moment of defeat, I felt called to retreat from the airport, to be somewhere alone. So, with hours to spare, I left the terminal and headed for my car in the parking lot. Exhausted from having battled my way back from California just the night before, seemingly repeating it again this day, and frustratingly deflated from not being able to get where I so desperately wanted to be…I opened the passenger seat door of my car and got in. Reclining the seat, I even amused myself, hmmm, who know how comfortable this seat in recline could be? I glanced at the clock…2:15, set an alarm on my phone to awaken me for the flight and fell asleep instantly.

I went back to Lake Michigan, the touchstone and the location of virtually all of my childhood memories…at least the happiest ones.

While we grew up in the now-rusty town of Saginaw, we had a gorgeous summer cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan—the result of my parents’ desire to forge a kind of utopian retreat, away from the small thinking of the community we lived in and imbued with their curiosity of life. At that time, no one wanted to be on the Big Lake. Summer dwellers flocked to the myriad small lakes of inland Michigan, with boating activities and warmer waters for swimming. My parents’ vision was different. They wanted expansive, raw, quiet open space.

Just after I was born, they bought an inexpensive 40-acre parcel with a quarter-mile of beachfront, nestled in a saddle between two 200-foot high, wooded sand dunes. They named it Paraggi, after the intimate, stunningly beautiful fishing village on the Italian coast that they fell in love with during their travels. Sara painted the sign that greeted visitors at the entrance to our sandy driveway (more of a long, bumpy beach road). It simply read “Paraggi,” painted in pink and orange with flowers in a swirly, 60’s groovy font. It makes my heart beam just thinking of that sign.

Paraggi was a world without tv, without social constraints, without the ‘shoulds’ of normal living. It began as a sandy swath. Then came a modest single room cabin with an out-house. And then a separate cabin with two bedrooms and…wait for it…a bathroom. And years later, a masterfully designed main cabin. All of the structures were built upon deeply buried telephone poles, and ‘floated’ several feet above the ever-shifting dunes that confounded most architects. The structures were connected by a series of decks—named ‘the aft deck’, ‘the poop deck’ and ‘the main deck’—nautical terms inspired by my father’s love of sailing (though we never had a boat). My parents were visionaries in their own right.

It was on those decks that the countless conversations of life unfolded as we watched the summer sun set over the lake, or dramatic storms approach from the west. It’s where I tinkered with my minibike, sipped my first beer and learned about girls. In the screened-in porch, we read comic books in the rain, played cards ‘til 2am and slept in sleeping bags ‘til noon. It’s where I connected to nature, explored woods for hours on end, and everyone freed their mind. My father was reading Deepak Chopra before he had become, well, ‘Deepak Chopra’.

With all this family connectedness, you’d think we siblings would become close-knit in our adulthood. We didn’t.

We loved each other deeply…and still do…but that tight, know-every-life-detail kind of closeness was not what my parents sowed. Quite the opposite—they actually eschewed those uber-close tightknit families…they thought they robbed children of their innate rugged individualism. They would hold our cousins as examples. Maybe they were right, maybe not…I was a bit of a celebrity among the cousins for leaving Michigan and branching out to California, New York and beyond…but as we matured, it sure seemed like those cousins were enjoying life surrounded by family and traditions, while we were all dotted across the map, connected by infrequent phone calls and even less frequent visits.

For Sara, that distance felt more like isolation during the many years following a car accident that left her paralyzed and wheelchair-bound—although amazingly alive—three decades after as she swerved off a rural road to avoid hitting a deer in the dark of night. The car rolled down a ravine and landed in a tree. Sara, with no seatbelt on (mercifully), landed in the brush and was identified by a hunter in the early light of dawn the next morning. She survived and beat many odds along the journey, including getting to meet and have a relationship with two beautiful grandchildren. Fortunately, in recent years, her daughter Heather, a lovely and caring only child, moved close by and was able to help her during her the later years of her life journey.

So here I found myself, resigned to my car with my inability to get to Michigan—trying to get to Sara…to hold her hand one last time, to tell her I love her, to say goodbye to her lifeless body that lay there unconscious before they turned off the machines sustaining her. When it became abundantly clear that that wasn’t happening and that she would likely be gone before I arrived, I still yearned to get there to hold Janet who had made it there in time and my niece as she said goodbye to her Mother. But I was grounded. Even driving there at this point would have been futile, an 11-hour journey.

Hope springs eternal. I held out. Waited. Was determined to get there. God, the Universe, my angels, maybe my sister had other plans for me.

I never made it to Michigan that day, but something more miraculous had unfolded. Sara met me on the deck overlooking the lake in my dream. She came to me as if to say, it’s okay little brother. I’m free. I love you so much. Live your beautiful life. I sobbed and grieved and laughed. It was one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life.

I could’ve easily missed this. In fact, the old version of myself would’ve. I received this sacred gift of connection from my sister because I was open to receive…because I listened to myself when I felt called to leave the hustle and bustle of the airport, and to retreat. For whatever reason(s) I wasn’t meant to travel that day. And those details don’t really even matter. I could’ve chosen to get all worked up and upset, resisting. Or to be curious about why events were unfolding as they were…and go with the flow. I’m grateful I chose the latter.

In hindsight, as I reflected upon this, I knew that it was a slice of grace that could’ve easily slipped through my fingers.

Had I been on the plane at 30,000 feet, I would’ve likely missed it. Had I stayed in the noisy terminal, I would’ve likely missed it. Had I gone home, I would’ve likely been busying myself at my desk and would’ve missed it. But I didn’t.

I wasn’t distracted and instead sat in the presence of my pain there in my car, divinely connected with my family and my sister as she left her body.

We are surrounded by the mysteries of life and if you are anything like me, you’ve likely taken for granted the interconnectedness we possess. But not anymore for me.

I share this deeply personal experience because it reminded me how to live. It reconnected me to the people and places I value and love—and it demonstrated how to follow my intuitive hits and show up for myself. Don’t miss yours.  

I made it to Michigan the next day, this time on a flight only slightly delayed—and for whatever reason, that was divine timing. I spent a short, yet deeply moving and fully present time with my small family as we remembered and celebrated Sara’s life in our own way. Through tears and laughter and togetherness, we began our healing.

Sometimes (probably all the times) we don’t get to define the terms of our ‘goodbyes’, but it is my belief that when we can release the need to control what that outcome should be—we avail ourselves of something far greater. Connecting to Sara in that way, in that moment, in that car, was the greatest gift I could’ve received.

Life. It is meant to me tasted, experienced, felt. Not to be rushed through.

Thank you for meeting me on the deck, Sara. I love you too. Rest in peace sister, you are free.

You may also enjoy reading Life After Death: Healing Grief, Redefined, by Sarah Nannen

The post Saying Goodbye to Sara appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

A treasure trove of letters from the early 1900’s becomes fodder for an author’s book that will inspire today’s women and activists

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In 1892, when my great-grandmother Mary Davies was 20 years old, she took a trip from Topeka, Kansas, to Pontardulais, the village in Wales where her immigrant father had grown up. In 1976, when I was 21, I traveled from Poughkeepsie, New York, to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, to teach English and study meditation.

After four months in Britain, Mary returned to the U.S. and found a job in New York City with the publisher Dodd, Mead and Company. After a year and a half in Asia, I moved to Manhattan and worked for Springer Publishing.

You can see why, in my fifties, when I started digging into her travel diary and discovered the many letters she saved, I felt a kinship with Mary.

I often get the spooky feeling she saved these items for me, so I could write about her. Not that she knew her great-granddaughter would be a writer, but I feel her words have been entrusted to me. 

That’s why I am anxious about having used her as the model for a character in To March or to Marry, a historical novel about suffrage and women’s clubs. I believe I have accurately depicted her pluckiness and practicality in the face of such challenges as dealing with her dreamy, romantic husband, who barely made a living as a violin teacher. But in my quest to write about the crises in women’s lives that inspired the early feminist movement, I have introduced events that I am pretty sure did not happen to her.

For instance, it’s unlikely that she met Margaret Sanger, who took on the mission of making birth control available to all women. I shifted the birthdates of Mary’s daughter and twin sons by eight years so Abbie, the character Mary is based on, would be investigating birth control during the period of Sanger’s early activism (1911-1918). I felt justified by a 1932 letter Mary wrote to her daughter, Helen, at the time Helen learned she was unexpectedly pregnant with her second child (my mother). Mary’s comment suggests that her own second pregnancy came a bit earlier than hoped: “You did your best. Only don’t have twins!”

From that brief but feelingful remark, I constructed a plot device revolving around the Comstock Act, which made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious” publications through the mail—including information on birth control. The law was extended to prohibit possession of a condom or a pessary (a device similar to the modern-day diaphragm).

In later years, Sanger took an interest in eugenics, espousing racist attitudes that have made her persona non grata nowadays, but in the nineteen-teens, she was courageous in challenging the Comstock law. Although Mary came from a background so conventional that I don’t believe she was a keen supporter of suffrage, I do think she would have been in favor of birth control. In 1905, when her husband was making enough money to hire an Irish washwoman to help with the arduous task of doing laundry, Mary wrote to her mother, “This will be her tenth child, and so unwelcome! Isn’t it awful? Then I look at our own little baby and think of the care and love we bestow on her, and how other little babies get just enough attention to enable them to live, it seems awful.”

Both for herself and for lower-income women, surely she saw the value of what was then called “family limitation.”

I have no evidence that Mary ever made friends with someone like Louise, the book’s other protagonist, whose attraction to the suffrage movement disrupts her friendship with Abbie. After her parents’ divorce, at the age of fourteen, Mary taught herself typewriting and shorthand and found a satisfying job despite being unable to vote. I’m guessing she didn’t see what the fuss was all about, and Abbie adopts the same attitude. That is, until she realizes men are unlikely to change a law that’s inimical to women’s wellbeing—unless women can vote. 

Louise, who is completely fictional, springs out of my extensive research on the suffrage movement. Many suffragists were educated and articulate, and several of them wrote memoirs about the period leading up to the passage of the 19^th Amendment. I found detailed first-hand accounts of women marching, picketing, getting arrested, and going on hunger strike, so I am confident in my characterization of the bold, quick-tempered Louise and her immersion in suffrage activities. But then I don’t have to worry about her opinion of me.

With Mary, I am on firm ground in regard to her women’s club. In 1904 and 1905, she wrote to her mother almost daily, filling her letters with baby Helen’s antics, household duties, sewing projects, and details of Athenaeum Club meetings. I had never heard of the women’s club movement, although I soon learned it numbered 1.5 million members by 1916. The letters show that Mary’s weekly club meetings were integral to her sense of wellbeing. I believe she would be happy to know I have brought her club back to life, while showing how women’s clubs were a critical, if undervalued, strand of early feminism.

Radical suffragists derided the conservative, largely middle-class clubs, and clubwomen did indeed idealize marriage and motherhood.

It’s understandable that suffs who were out lobbying legislators, speaking on street corners, or serving prison terms, would dismiss the sedate activities of the clubs as unimportant, even pathetic. But a study published during the Second Wave of feminism pointed out the vital role of the clubs. In The Clubwoman as Feminist (Holmes & Meier, 1980), Dr. Karen J. Blair showed how clubs not only changed men’s views of what women were capable of but also trained women in skills that later fitted them for jobs in business and government.

The clubs took the position that a housewife’s values and talents were just what the world needed in the period when the Industrial Revolution was creating professional jobs for middle-class men even as the immigrants who worked in factories and sweatshops were living in poverty. Men were too busy earning a living to devote attention to culture, so one popular type of club engaged women in the appreciation of literature and art by selecting a yearly theme (French culture, for example) and assigning topics to members, who researched and wrote papers to be read aloud at meetings. Other clubs focused on social reform and community service, instigating such projects as citywide trash collection, free kindergarten, the creation of public parks, the establishment of local libraries.

It’s clear from Mary’s letters that the Athenaeum was a literary club. (“Mrs. Flint had a paper on [William Cullen] Bryant, the poet, and then she wanted to discuss a certain poem of his, so she asked someone to read it. No one volunteered, of course, so she asked me. I think I have a reputation for being a good reader in the club.”) The novel’s version of the Athenaeum is similar. However, Mary had been out in the world as a working woman until her marriage to August Wingebach, and documents show she served as club president and as Bronx Borough Director of the New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs. I have portrayed Abbie as the leading edge of her club, nudging the members towards addressing social issues as they become problematic in her own life.

I don’t have Mary’s letters from the period after the birth of the twins, which is perhaps fortunate, since I was free to send Abbie on adventures that advance the action of the novel while revealing the brutal realities of women’s lives. I pray Mary’s forgiveness for stretching her character farther than she went in real life.

I have always admired my great-grandmother. It was such a pleasure to live with her for a year while writing To March or to Marry. Now we continue to keep company as I reach out to share our book with the world.

You may also enjoy reading Soul-Voice, by Meggan Watterson

The post Feminism for the Ages: How My Great Grandmother Became a Character in My Novel appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Saved by her own mother’s intuition when she was only 3 years old, one woman goes on to be a fierce activator of the intuition of others

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When I think about intuition, I instantly think about my mother.

She never talked too openly about ‘trusting your gut’ or ‘following your instinct’. In fact, she often told me she didn’t really believe in that sort of thing. However, she was a woman of strong faith who did believe in miracles. A schoolteacher by profession, she loved sharing stories about her life’s challenging moments that instilled in me a deep knowing that life conspires to help us, if we are brave enough to listen.

Her ‘orange truck’ story was the one that really made me a believer.

It went something like this:

One day at the park, my older brother Billy (then 5 years old) got it into his mischief-loving head to ‘tease mommy’ by running off with me (3 years old) towards the busy road nearby as fast as our little legs would carry us. 

Eight months pregnant in sweltering summer heat, my mother knew she had zero chance of catching up with us in time to stop my brother from dragging us both out into the trafficked street. She yelled to get him to stop. His response was to tug at me to run even faster. She thought he would have enough sense to slow down once we got closer to the road, but in fact, it was the opposite. A few yards away from real danger and with no way to stop us, she was overwrought by a vision in her mind. 

“It was like everything was in slow motion. I saw your brother step out into the street and pull you out with him. Out of nowhere, an orange truck comes. It is moving so fast…it hit you both… my babies lying on the pavement…my soul died right then and there!”

Upon seeing this play out in cinematic fashion in her head, she let out the most gut-wrenching and blood-curdling scream imaginable. My brother and I were at the edge of the road now, when he heard her. 

Her scream startled him enough to make him stop and turn back to her. “Mommy what’s wrong?” He yelled.

In that instant, in that split second between when she screamed and my brother turned around to face her in the distance, an orange truck going 65 miles an hour in a 30 mph zone, flew by us. The wind from its velocity blowing my dress and my hair across my face. Had my mother not screamed, had she not been in tune enough with her intuition and instinct, my brother and I would be dead.

You cannot make this stuff up.

I owe my life to my mother twice. Once for bringing me into this world and again for her willingness to follow her intuition in moments we needed miracles the most, that kept me here.

Fast forward to today, and I can clearly see how my mother’s influence set the stage for me to embrace my life’s purpose as an intuitive life coach trainer and intuition teacher. Her brave example of following the wisdom within and trusting what it tells and shows us have made all the difference in my life.

In her words, “The answers are already inside you, just trust them when they show up.”

You may also enjoy reading I Am a Warrior Goddess: Empowering Girls to Be Both Fierce and Feeling, by Jennifer Adams

The post You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide…From Your Intuition, That Is appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

After navigating the loss of her terminally ill child, Joyal Mulheron sets out to change the landscape for bereaved families

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Grief has been an integral part of my life and identity ever since the sudden death of my father, when I was fifteen. After losing my mother this past summer, I learned about Joyal Mulheron from a mutual friend. Joyal’s story and the work she and her non-profit are doing around grief and bereavement care moved me profoundly—enough to write this article. In the midst of our nation’s current grief epidemic, I felt compelled to share this extraordinary journey and one  woman’s determination to change a broken system.

Joyal Mulheron has a warm smile, a hint of sadness behind her eyes, and a steely determination to bring about a seismic change in bereavement care. 

Her passionate dedication to helping make grief and bereavement more manageable for those who have lost loved ones is rooted in her own family’s experience. After becoming parents to two healthy daughters, one adopted from Ethiopia, Joyal and her husband had a third daughter.

Eleanora’s birth — and death — changed her family’s life forever.

Eleanora was born with a chromosomal abnormality that affected her entire body. It was so severe she wasn’t expected to survive for more than a few hours. She ended up living for almost five months, thanks in no small part to Joyal, who had a background in science and took on the monumental task of orchestrating and administering her care. “Honestly, she would have near-death episodes frequently, sometimes multiple times a day — it was very intense and so incredibly complicated. I was doing her drug compounding. I was figuring out her caloric intake. When she died, we had 23 medical and home providers. I was the care center. I knew everything she needed and how much she could manage.”

The physical trauma was only one part, though. As Joyal was carefully managing her daughter’s health care, she also was preparing for the inevitable. “I can remember holding her on one side and the phone on the other, negotiating the rate for her cremation. And I’m thinking how wrong it is that I cannot be fully present for my baby when she needs me most.“

That was the beginning of Joyal’s conviction that something was terribly wrong with the bereavement system. 

She talks about appalling phone calls she got from her insurance caseworker, asking, “Do you think she’s going to live for ten days? Or do you think she’s going to live for more than ten days? Because I have to fill out different paperwork.” 

The broken systems and trauma that Joyal experienced — before and after Eleanora’s death, fueled her drive to bring about change in bereavement care.

After Eleanora died, Joyal experienced the dysphoria that affects many bereaved family members. She couldn’t remember if she’d showered or eaten.According to a 2015 New England Journal of Medicine review, newly bereaved individuals experience: “dysphoria, anxiety, depression, and anger…physiological changes such as an increased heart rate or blood pressure, increased cortisol levels, sleep disturbance, and changes in the immune system.” Neighbors found her wandering outside in the cold with no coat. She lost her ability to focus on self-care and had no idea how to look for a therapist or a support system to help her through the intense fog. 

In time, the pressure to get back to “normal” was mounting. When a health policy advisor position at the Partnership for a Healthier America came Joyal’s way, she initially rejected it. Eventually, she accepted the opportunity to further healthy eating and end childhood obesity. Despite the familiar pull of work’s intensity, she was still struggling with her grief and achieving some semblance of normalcy after losing Eleanora.

Ultimately, following a flood of traumatic national events that stunned the nation, Joyal decided to leave her job.

“Trayvon Martin… and the Sandy Hook massacre and the Chicago homicides. I just remember thinking something has to exist to support people. It’s too much. So many families need help.”

After she stopped working, Joyal got very ill for about six months — which is not uncommon for bereaved parents. In retrospect, she knows it was essentially a delayed reaction. Scientific evidence indicates that bereaved parents are more likely to suffer more depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, less purpose in life, more health complications, marital disruption, psychiatric hospitalization, and even premature death.

When she came out on the other side of her illness, her husband and family encouraged her to focus on researching and transforming bereavement care. “When I started exploring the idea,  I put on my sneakers and walked around different communities, and people invited me into their lives. At the police station, at the church, at all these places, people were sharing their stories. Very quickly, the scope of this problem became abundantly clear to me.”

In 2014, Joyal founded Evermore, a nonprofit dedicated to making America more livable for bereaved families. “At first, I was only going to focus on the implications of child death on American families — it was what I knew best. But it was impossible to ignore all the concerning data around sibling death, around the long-lasting effects of premature death of any kind.”

Research shows that bereavement causes significant health declines, even early death among some survivors, including bereaved parents, siblings, and spouses. Yet, our nation spends little to no funding to support the health of family members in the aftermath of the loss of a loved one.

As Joyal learned more about death and its fallout on surviving family members and America’s failure to support them, she began compiling data on grief statistics and resources. She established a platform for the bereaved to connect and share their stories.

The staggering statistics and personal stories on Evermore’s website powerfully detail the emotional, physical, and sometimes economic toll of losing a loved one and myriad ways in which the nation’s systems fail to help the bereaved cope. An estimated 18 million Americans have experienced the death of a child, 10 million American children have lost a biological parent or sibling, and black Americans are at least twice as likely to lose a child or sibling. And this was before the Covid pandemic. As Joyal explains, “A significant bereavement event for an individual threatens their health, their well-being, their economic solvency, and the family stability.” Evermore began to highlight the need for revolutionizing the way our society handles death and bereavement — from supports for the bereaved to training for law enforcement, medical staff, first responders, teachers, insurance caseworkers, death investigators, friends, and neighbors.

Compartmentalization was and is sometimes a brutal challenge for Joyal — still grieving the loss of Eleanora while dealing with the facts, and figures, and faces of bereavement — along with the challenges of getting a nonprofit up and running.”The first three years were so challenging.  I had to be careful — I’ve gotten much better at it — there are times when I must put up the guard rails because I know — I’m going to have this conversation — and I can’t jump into an accounting meeting afterward. There have been a couple of times I’ve almost walked away because the pain is just too great.”

Eventually, besides supporting grieving family members and consolidating data around death and bereavement, Joyal put her policy background to work. Evermore began examining American society’s systemic shortcomings surrounding bereavement — and imagining the possibilities of policy reform to enact meaningful change. 

“One of the things that I’ve learned in doing this is people don’t even realize that they have rights when it comes to losing a loved one. Shifting the public conversation, getting to that realization, ‘Oh, I had a right not to lose my job’ or ‘I had a right not to be treated in a certain way’ is paramount.”

When it comes to death and grief, the impacts disproportionately affect communities of color, exacerbating the health and healthcare disparities that marginalize our nation’s most vulnerable children and communities. “I often say we’ve made strides in palliative care and hospice because that’s where white people die. Families share astonishing stories, and the status quo is unacceptable,” she says. When she meets with Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, she walks them through a series of alarming statistics. 

Grieving kids have more school failures, lower attainment, increased challenges academically. They have drug abuse issues, violent crime involvement, youth delinquency, suicide attempts, suicide completions, premature death to any cause, and sometimes psychiatric episodes. Black children are three times more likely to lose a mother and twice as likely to lose a father by age 10 when compared to white children. More than half of bereaved and orphaned children in the US are not receiving their social security benefits. And only a tiny percentage of bereaved children receive food assistance. Those are substantial social failings with long-lasting ramifications.

One study reported that 90 percent of juvenile justice detainees report a loved one’s death before being incarcerated. Policymakers are beginning to realize that suicide, juvenile justice, substance abuse — may be outcomes of an event that no one is even examining.

Addressing the racial inequities surrounding bereavement care is one of the most important things that could come out of Evermore’s advocacy. Calling, writing, and meeting with Members of Congress and other leaders on both sides of the aisle, Joyal and Evermore’s robust advocacy efforts resulted in considerable success — the addition of bereavement care language to the FY21 Appropriations budget. 

“We got on the House side last March, and then the Senate released their companion bill later in the fall. Then those two bills were woven into an Omnibus. We were very fortunate — our language got in — it’s the first language that directs Health and Human Service agencies to report what they’re doing about bereavement care. There’s no price tag attached to it right now, but in the future, we hope the federal government recognizes bereavement care as important as other pressing social issues. This year, we’re beginning to work on setting a national benchmark around what Bereavement Leave should look like and following up on the language from last year.”

Joyal Mulheron speaks out on the case for Bereavement Leave

The case for Bereavement Leave made by Evermore is both compelling and timely. As they report, the unexpected death of a loved one is the most common traumatic experience for Americans. Many say their loss is their worst life experience. Employees who need time off work to grieve and cope with a loved one’s death have no legal right to take leave, with narrow exceptions in two states and two localities. Bereavement is not acceptable grounds for taking unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, despite recent efforts to add bereavement to this law. While many employers offer bereavement leave, it is often only a few days, which is insufficient time for most employees to return to work and productivity after a family member’s death. As our nation faces the coronavirus pandemic, drug overdoses, suicide, and mass gun violence events, employers are having to acknowledge grief and its implications for families while staying solvent and productive. It is a difficult balance for employers to strike. To address these needs and set national standards, Evermore recommends employers institute a bereavement leave benefit.

Joyal says that most employers do what they can to help, but a few have only extended leave under the threat of public opinion.

As she works to enact Bereavement Leave legislation, Joyal has a more immediate goal. “My hope is that we can establish a White House Office of Bereavement. To me, that is one of the most urgent public policy calls. The White House office is an executive action, which doesn’t require Congress to act. It’s a fiscally wise move since, with a few staff members, you can begin marshaling the full power and authority of the US government, and it provides a coordinated and centralized response immediately for the American public.”

President Biden’s personal experiences with grief and bereavement could heighten the opportunity to advance bereavement care during his administration. At the end of April, Biden’s American Families Plan included a three day Bereavement Leave. A heartened Joyal says, “the measure still needs Congressional approval, but this is a HUGE step forward for America’s families.” But as she points out, “Grief and bereavement know no party — and shouldn’t. No one is immune. Yes, there is leadership experience, and I also think about the sheer time we’re in — the concurrent epidemics of Covid, suicide, homicide, mass casualty events, and overdose. It certainly helps to have that lived experience because once it’s personal, you understand it differently — just like anything else.”

Evermore’s mission is rooted in emotion. But Joyal must still face the logistical challenges that come with running a nonprofit.

“It’s largely a volunteer effort, so we’re starting to do fundraising. I’m out there and talking to key people in a targeted way, but now I must bring the funding. I’ve got to build the organization in a way that allows for Bereavement Leave and law enforcement response, and data systems, among other things. And we don’t want to lose sight of how to help people with grief — a whole other set of necessary supports.”

The issues surrounding bereavement have never been more universal.

Amid this year of unimaginable loss, society has focused on collective experiences of grief in unprecedented ways. Model, actress, and social media sensation Chrissy Teigen started a national conversation about society’s aversion to publicly acknowledging death and bereavement when she posted hospital photographs taken of her, her husband John Legend, and their son Jack, who died as a baby prematurely. While some reacted negatively to her incredible transparency throughout the process, Teigen beautifully defended her position — and her decision to share her experience gave grieving moms throughout the world the chance to connect and commiserate.

Kaye Steinsapir recently tweeted the experience of losing her 12-year-old daughter, Molly, following a traumatic brain injury. The outpouring of support helped sustain her. “When I’m sitting here in this sterile room hour after hour, your messages of hope make me feel less alone,” she told her followers. Her story cut through the noise and negativity of Twitter, bringing grieving parents together as they sought to support Steinsapir.

The recent Netflix film, Pieces of A Woman, is a raw portrait of a mother navigating grief after her daughter dies minutes after being born. Writer Kata Weber based her wrenching screenplay on her tragedy. Vanessa Kirby’s vulnerable portrayal of the bereaved mom earned her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Much like 2016’s Manchester By the Sea, Pieces of A Woman ruthlessly depicts the emotional upheaval that comes with loss. The film’s stars, Kirby and Ellen Burstyn, recently spoke with Joyal. In an incredibly moving conversation, the three discussed the importance of movies like this — their potential to educate the public while allowing those grieving to feel they are not alone.

Most importantly, Joyal wants bereaved individuals and their families to understand that they are not at fault. “There’s validation that this tragedy has many tentacles that influence their life. We don’t have the right responses as a nation. Compounding traumas can send individuals and families into tailspins that today they believe is their own doing or fault. It’s so overwhelming. All of them need to know — this isn’t your fault — our society needs a social paradigm shift.” She takes a deep breath. “It means so much to me to get this right for families.” 

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You can learn more about Evermore and their initiatives here — and find out how to donate here:  https://live-evermore.org and can follow them on Instagram or Facebook

You may also enjoy reading Life After Death: Healing Grief, Redefined, by Sarah Nannen

The post Space to Grieve: One Woman’s Courage to Take On a Broken System appeared first on BEST SELF.

A mother of a full-time traveling family gives herself permission to do things differently, to seek deeper connection…and to redefine it all

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Isn’t it interesting how an image can evoke so many emotions? Of course, that’s why they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Visual art moves us humans. Yes, some of us seem to be moved more easily than others, but the potential is there for us all. I happen to be one of those easily moved and motivated by photography. I think it’s because I begin to see the story within it.

This was something I didn’t fully realize, however, until I was an adult. Growing up, my sister was the ‘artsy’ one and I was the ‘sporty’ one. In dutifully fulfilling that label, it took me quite a while to find this love and appreciation.

Recently, while searching for some inspiring family camping photos, I came across this provocative image of a family living in the 1930’s California wilderness (featured above). It moved me deeply, and I had to do some further digging to figure out why. What was their why? What is this family’s story? Their reason for adventure?

I’m a camp-loving lady, and after seven years of full-time travel, camping around the US with my family in our Airstream travel trailer — we’re making a lifestyle change, a big one. I was hoping to find a collection of photographs to help me celebrate the beautiful, wild places camp-loving families are enjoying today, and while I found plenty of appropriate images, this one stopped me in my tracks.

As you may have guessed, this photograph does not depict a happy family having a wild and wonderful camping adventure. Sadly, it depicts a darker tale. It was taken around 1936-37 when photographer Dorothea Lange was traveling in California working for the Resettlement Administration, finding families in need, desperate for food, work, and a way to take care of their children; families willing to sacrifice everything for a chance at a better life.

The photographer’s note tells us that so many families just like this one were supposed to be shipped back to Oklahoma that year, but thought staying in California would give them a better life. So instead, they set up camp and made a home in wild places. Many of these families were starving and barely had enough shelter to survive the cold months, but they stayed on, camping in the wilderness long before it was a trendy thing to do.

It reminds me of my own family’s story. 

In 2006, while out for some ‘nature therapy’ with my brand-new baby, I heard a whisper deep in my soul say, “What if there’s more? What if you could move to that place you’ve been dreaming of and have an adventurous family life? What if there’s more than you know?”

My response was immediate: “You bet I’ll go. Who doesn’t want an adventurous family life?” And although some part of me wanted to respond with, “That would be nice, but what about the money and our family and…” I couldn’t stop my heart from soaring.

Six months later, I had sold everything I owned and was on a plane with my husband, our baby, and five suitcases moving from a small town in rural Georgia to the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

Thankfully, we were not facing desperate financial circumstances like the family in that photograph, but we were certainly facing the unknown, trading everything we knew for a better life — taking a chance on a life full of family adventure.

Then, in 2013, we did it again. We sold everything we owned, packed ourselves into a camper, and set out for a life of full-time travel in search of another better life for our family. People tried to convince us to make a different choice. The government didn’t know what to do with us without a permanent address. And we even experienced a few dire straits along the way, too. But nothing could stop us.

Suburban life felt like a trap to us — an impetus for change for our increasingly disconnected-and-distracted-and-starting-to-sleepwalk-through-life young family. It felt like the opposite of the adventurous life we had imagined. We didn’t know what to do to remedy the situation, so we packed up our little boys (at the ripe old ages of 5 and 8 years old) and chose full-time family travel instead.

All these years later, I can look back and say it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.

We woke up to more adventure.

We woke up to bigger dreams.

We woke up to deeper relationships with each other.

And yes, we also sacrificed our careers, our friendships, and our extended family relationships. We spent every dime we had and then some. But we also knew there had to be a way for our family to find the kind of togetherness we’d dreamed about — the adventurous family life I’d been hoping for. And we found it.  

We redefined the way our family approaches life. We redefined togetherness on our terms.

Did you know someone could just do that? Make up a new definition of what it means to be a family and then try it? 

How audacious.

How presumptuous.

And yet, we did it. We moved to places we’d never heard of before. We camped in deserts and on ocean shores. We lived in places our parents had never even dreamed of. Our home was so tiny it was almost too uncomfortable for our family of four at times, but we camped in every state in the continental United States and found the kind of togetherness we were hoping to find along the way.

And here’s the really cool thing about it:

We aren’t extremely special people — at least not any more special than every person reading these words.

We had significant financial obstacles (although, I will wholeheartedly admit, not as significant as some).

We had a tremendous lack of experience.

And we had loads of fear.

But when the choice came between disconnect, depression, and disillusionment versus deep relationship, adventure, and a great big family life — we chose to take the leap. And it was amazing. Another remarkable thing is that we’re not alone. There are thousands of families doing the same thing, many way more adventurous than us. (A quick search on Instagram for #travelingfamily or #fulltimefamily will show you just how many.)

Seven years later, we’re better because of it. We are different people.

Our lives have expanded, our minds have expanded, and our hearts have expanded, too. We wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.

But as I write this, we find ourselves needing to redefine togetherness…again.

Yep, we bought a house (one that isn’t on wheels)! Our kids are now older, and we’ve all been dreaming of putting down roots and pulling back our travels for a season — hoping we can gather strength for international adventures in the years to come.

That means we’re coming back to a more ‘traditional’ life for now. But I’m not leaving behind my quest for adventure by any means. Instead, I find myself redefining that, too.

As you read these words, you may be a lover of travel, or you may not be. You may be struggling with travel restrictions or a change to your work or financial situation. You may be facing all sorts of obstacles right now keeping you from living the adventurous life you imagined.But what if you could see that all through a different lens?

And if you’re finding yourself in a place where you feel the need to redefine your life or your family right now, I want you to know this:

I believe every person can rewrite, shift, and find an adventurous family life if they look for it, no matter their circumstances and/or perceived limitations.

I believe we can all redefine togetherness when we need to — whether that involves the travel kind of adventure or not, or whether we have to wait a little while longer for it.

Redefining one’s own life means daring to imagine that life could be different, realizing that whatever you’ve been created for is always within reach, trusting that when you step out (and sometimes fall down), someone will be there to support you, guide you, and help you on your path.

It means you get to make the rules and run the show.

It means that at the end of your life when you realize your last moments are near, you can breathe easily and enter the rest you deserve, knowing you gave life your best shot, relishing in the fact that you left it all on the field — you didn’t save or waste or lose a thing.

This year I published my first book, Togetherness Redefined: Finding a Different Kind of Family Togetherness, to speak words of encouragement to all parents who want that kind of life because I know it’s something I’m not alone in desiring. Heaps of mothers and grandmothers (and even a few dads and granddads) all over the world have told me as much themselves.

We want deeper relationships. We want more adventure, happier days, something better to do together than watch Netflix and run from place to place every day of the week.

We want a different kind of family togetherness.

One like this (from the book):

“I believe in the power of parenthood, the potential that lives inside of every single parent who loves a child and wants what’s best for him or her. I believe that parents are the key to family togetherness and so many good outcomes for our kids — not government intervention or fancy programs, not mentors or teachers, not even schools or churches — parents. Not just the organic lunch type of parents, the extremely talented craft-making mamas, or the highly educated homeschooling experts either — plain old parents like you and me starting small, doing our best with the moments we have, and starting over every time we get it wrong. We’re the ones leading the way to family togetherness.”

Sometimes, that might mean embarking on a big, audacious adventure – moving to a new place, buying a home, starting a new career, going back to school, getting into something new, meeting new people, seeing new places. Other times, it might mean settling down and reevaluating, leaning into family and friends, getting the rest and rejuvenation we need, and gathering strength for adventures ahead.

Whatever it is, I bet we can do it, even if it means redefining a thing or two. Give yourself permission and see where it leads you.

You may also enjoy reading Travel Tall | Heeding a Passion for Travel, by Eric Giuliani.

The post Redefining Togetherness: One Mother’s Quest for an Adventurous Family Life appeared first on BEST SELF.

One woman’s primal and poetic reclaiming of her feminine self in all of its glorious connection to Mother Earth and her own animal nature

—

Last week, I reached for Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese — you know the line, “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Something in me just needed to read it again.

For the last six weeks, since the disappearance of my beloved cat Mila upon moving in with my partner, I’ve been contemplating what I am calling ‘animal nature’. And it’s not just that my mind is trying to grok this concept as it did in the beginning, rather the contemplation is more an experiential exploration. An embodied remembering of my own animal nature. One long overdue.

I just moved to an alive and wild piece of land to live with a man.

A piece of land that is presumably just fine without humans, but since we’re here, I get the sense that She would prefer we engage with Her. (Yes, the choice to use and capitalize feminine pronouns here is purposeful. I like to remember that the Earth is associated with the feminine archetype. How we — each of us — engage with Her, therefore, is telling on many levels.)

My first intuition when Mila left sounded like, “cultivate Life here.” So, trying to show I was listening, I planted some local tomato starts in pots on the deck, made sure all the indoor plants had fresh soil and plenty of light, and I worked on creating a freshness in and around the house. Then, I also became obsessed with trying to ‘listen’ to what the next intuition would instruct me to do. What did the land want? What did this new life want of me? What did my cat need in order to want to come back and make this home with us?

Honestly, I was no longer in the flow with life, I was trying to perform. Trying to be a good little woman, as we sometimes do, in order to please — what? My cat? The land? Nature? God?

See what I did there? I began to treat what were sacred invitations to return to my animal nature like it was something I could earn.

We do this so often as women. We think, “If I am good, maybe I will be deemed worthy.” So we stay quiet, and tidy until something jolts us awake. Like a missing animal. Or a man’s body. Or a welcome change of scenery reveals to us the tightness of how we’ve been living in our own body.

Animals are not quiet and tidy. This ‘good girl’ way of thinking is an old trap — the oldest — and we know it deep within us. Something in each of us wants to revolt.  It’s why women everywhere are leaning in close to one another and announcing, “I am a goddamned cheetah.” (To quote Glennon Doyle’s recent book Untamed.)

We are brainwashed from the beginning that our animal nature is dirty. That a woman is to be obedient. That if she is too wild, too sexual, too in her body, too alluring, she will actually repel God and her worthiness from her.

We are taught that in order to be worthy, we must tame our animal nature. Which is horse shit. Actually, horse shit is holier than whatever that is.

The Sacred, however, is not outside of us, judging us, waiting for us to clean up our act before we can be worthy. Of our cat, our pleasure, of the ability to take a full and deep breath inside our free and undulating bodies. The Sacred, and you can call it God or Nature or Universe or whatever, actually exists inside of all of the places of embodied pleasure. Embodied animal nature.

When I say that I’ve been contemplating animal nature, what I really should say is that I’ve been invited in the last few weeks into an even-deeper remembering.

Invited to let, as Mary Oliver says, “the soft animal of my body love what it loves.”

Invited to recognize the layers of healing available to me now. (And to you — this is your invitation too.)

Invited to remember the ways my body wants to move, in big movements. It wants to sweat and heave and breathe bigger than I’ve been allowing myself to breathe. It wants to remember all of the sounds it knows to make — the sounds I always look around, even on this mountain top, to see who would hear me if I made them. So I generally don’t. Taming my animal nature from erupting from my own throat.

And it’s not my partner’s fault that upon moving in, I had subconsciously decided to quiet myself around certain issues, to temper my vocals, to stop my breath somewhere around my diaphragm. This man will talk to me about anything.

I know that unfortunately, I am not the only woman to have ever quieted herself.

Indeed, I help women to liberate their own silences and there I was, doing it again, calling it a ‘feminine’ consideration, calling it patience, waiting for things to work out over time. But leaving things unspoken. Which is really just a recipe for an eventual eruption. Because animal nature, even in the throat, is not to be tamed. 

Then last weekend, we were standing in the morning sun, dripping sweat for the second day, clearing a garden plot at my animal-nature-reclaiming request, each doing more physical labor than we were used to doing, and the wheelbarrow handle snapped when we still had plenty of sod to move.

Looking back, that snap was divine.

I made a suggestive request (instead of saying outright what I desired), he did another thing entirely, and then the energy snapped too. I realized that sometimes he can’t hear me because I am not in my true voice when I say them. And we had to shovel these heavy piles of sod and throw — in fact heave — them over the edge of the yard, and as we did, I let my animal body take over. To make sounds. I let my stomach take in the full breaths. I let myself yell in frustration. I let myself say another layer of my own, previously-quieted truth.

All that was deep and transformative medicine for my animal nature.

This man will go to all of the natural, sweaty, embodied, dark, real places with me. It is not his job to understand what a woman’s original taming feels like, because I don’t really think a man can. He tries to understand as I explain parts of it to him. And I can’t help but to think that it is also his invitation. If I, as a woman, allow my deep, erotic, animal passion to fully emerge, it is good for him.

I am letting my animal body get used to stretching out again in full permission.

To be me.

This nature is not separate from me, though to some extent, it has been. In ways, my separation from these wild parts has caused closures in places I did not ever want to see close — it just happened over time. It has caused, over time, years of performance and holding myself up in society’s confines. I break plenty of rules, and I’ll be damned if it still doesn’t have me somewhat tied.

Over these last six weeks, lost parts have been returning — all somehow connected to this theme. After Mila left, my body stopped eating meat and I was more attuned to what it actually needed. My son and I are digging in the garden and I’m teaching him the structure of it all as I remember it. My first college degree was in sustainable agriculture, but I let that go as I had climbed a career ladder. I just started to compost again, collecting scraps to recycle into nutrients that feel too precious to waste now. I’m digging dirt in the mornings and evenings, when my breath has habitually been tightest, and now I’m standing on that mountain as the sun goes up and down, attuning to rhythms that I had tuned out.

I bought a box of clay and my son and I have been engaged in the tactile nature of molding it, unattached to outcome, while music plays in the background and our brains create. He paints quietly on the porch in the air and the shade. I take time to read fiction while my body sways in a hammock. I have taken hours to simply sit with the other cat on my lap, her animal body, nuzzling in, making contact.

I’ve made love to my partner many times, many ways, finding my breath and my heart in richer and richer ways. Calling parts of my woman-self back in this primal space.

I’m writing in the mornings. I have decided that I will put the foods in my mouth that feed my pleasure. Nothing else. I’m listening to the land, not with an anxious pressure that I hear everything She’s trying to tell me, but with a new sense of gratitude. She has a lot to say.

She, Mother Earth, is sending us a very clear invitation, to come home to our own bodies and activate our remembering of what we know.

I’m breathing it in as I’m able and sharing wisdom with other women. I’m watching as women are gathering together, sharing inquiry, intuitions, and knowledge, tapping into something both old and new. I’m picking wild berries and listening to bird calls I can’t yet decipher, but maybe one day we will get to know one another better.

I’m breathing.

My muscles, today, are aching from all the heaving.

I’m remembering something ancient and new. Without rush. Coming through me as a remembering, coming through this life transition.

When I read Wild Geese this last time, it was actually the last line that stood out to me as the true medicine of these wild times. It reads, “…over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

I’m reminded that animals know their place in the family of things.

Animals wouldn’t position themselves, like humans have, like I have, to being ‘outside’ or ‘other than’ the natural world. They wouldn’t imagine otherwise with a brain that says, “Do I belong? May I live as myself? May I take a nap now?” They don’t ask if they are worthy of their place in nature. They don’t try, as we do, to control. They don’t grieve like humans grieve, because we judge that something should not be happening. They wouldn’t ever consider that they are separate from the Sacred nature of all that is, that God is outside of them, these lies of separation that we’re spending lifetimes mending. They don’t try to be good. They don’t try to please. They are integral to life, to the whole. Of course they are.

How naturally beautiful.

How inviting.

To be an animal in the family of things.

And as I pick the berries, as I ponder how to make a peppermint tincture, as I shovel dirt, as my breath deepens in a certain restoration, and as I allow my soft animal body to love the soft animal body of this man, I think — this is what we are creating and remembering, both: our place in the family of things.

—

Note from the author:

Written in gratitude to Mary Oliver for her articulation of her close observation, to Glennon Doyle for helping modern women to awaken, to the indigenous people of this land that my hands are now touching, and to the animals, our teachers.

And to Mila. Thank you, you sweet and ancient soul, for this deep activation of Sacred Remembering. 

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

You may also enjoy reading Soul Voice, by Meggan Watterson

The post Animal Nature: An Invitation for Reclaiming, Untaming & Being appeared first on BEST SELF.

Once locked away in a prison cell for 25 years — one extraordinary man discovers how to heal his own pain through the service of others

—

Usually, people think that I’m a strong, happy person…but behind my smiles they just don’t know how much I’m in pain and almost broken…”

—CoolNSmart.com

Pain. How can a person understand life when life was crushed before living it? And what about the crude impact on the development of such a person? To answer this, I have to go back to ask my 7-year-old self this very question. He remembers.

I’m a curious life observer. I have learned to witness and read others. I have tried many times to study and understand the mind of others — in an effort to understand my own. I have tried many times to visualize this feeling of happiness or elation that others may feel; yet in the end, I still come up with the same conclusion: The grass is not greener on the other side.

And this coming from a man who has spent 25 years in prison, means something.

I wonder if there is such a thing as everlasting pain or sorrow. I truly want to believe that the answer is No. That it can go, fade, become something else. Yet, I can attest firsthand that there is such a thing, that there is such a space where pain is felt. It resides, thrives and creates indelible scars.

At the age of seven, I was taken from my parents and placed in a foster home. Before this, I lived in countless environments that were not beneficial to any child. I lived in a shelter with my parents and my brothers, I lived in a hotel, I lived in a tiny apartment — and I also lived on the streets.

So, at the mere age of seven, when police and social workers told me that they were taking me from all of this and placing me in an environment that was deemed productive for my growth and development, one that would be safe — I was confused and unsure of what any of that really meant.

Some part of me felt grateful to be taken somewhere safe; a home with a warm bed to sleep upon, hot meals to eat and a notion of comfort I was unfamiliar with. However, the very ‘comfort’ that I was given also quickly revealed the price I would pay for that. Survival became crucial. And this same home where I was intended to be ‘safe’ and cared for was the same place where innocence was removed and molestation wore a face that smiled.

Now I know what pain is.

I learned that pain exists both physically and mentally. My young mind was left to navigate the pain and the choices before me. This small boy must decide; Do I stay and face the pains of molestation in the name of ‘comfort’ or do I leave and go back into the abyss of the unknown? And between the ages of 8-10 I would be confronted with that very choice over and over again. That young, vulnerable self concluded that the unknown was worse than what I was enduring. Besides, who could possibly understand the unspeakable dilemma — a choice between abuse or discomfort?

From the age of seven to sixteen, I remained in foster care. 9 years. During this time, I lost my grandmother and my uncle — the only two people in my family who had helped ease the pain of my young life. My grandmother was able to pull me from the system and adopt me — though that didn’t last long. When she died, my uncle did the same…and then he died.

This was an unimaginable series of losses for me. I didn’t question their love. That love made me feel that there was light at the end of the tunnel. It gave me connection and a sense of belonging to something, someone. It was someplace I could bury my pains and find my smile. But losing the only two people in my life that I loved more than anything or anybody only added to the pains that I thought I once buried.

I thought of my pain almost as the ‘Internal City’ described by Plato in The Republic where men build cities on top of cities.

Those cities were my wounds — new levels were being reconstructed upon them, compartmentalized. I couldn’t fathom just how deep pain could go. Yet, I wasn’t quite done adding layers.

At the age of sixteen, I was headed to prison for a crime that my misguided mind helped commit and I was being sent away for a very long time — longer than I had been alive. What do you mean that you are charging me for the murder of a man? This cannot be right because I know to my core that my actions did not cause the death of anyone.

When you are locked away in the cell, all of your days begin to look the same; the dreams you once had begin to fade quickly.

The memories that you try to hold onto begin to crawl away, and the only thing that remains is the pain — a constant companion. My cell wasn’t big enough to contain it all.

In the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, the protagonist was locked away in a dungeon. He had no friends. He had no visitors. He heard no words. He saw no faces. He dreamed no more — all the protagonist knew and had was pain. It was the solitude that made him decide that life within these circumstances was simply not worth living.

When the day came to finalize his plan and end his life because it had all become unbearable — he heard a sound. The sound told him that he was not alone, and it was this belief that gave him the will to want to live again. He needed to know where that sound was coming from and by whom. That sound is the recognition needed for a person to understand that humanity still exists, that humanity is still alive even amidst the darkest hopelessness.

The prison cell resembles that solitude; resembles that space where thoughts of humanity have faded. It was in these prison cells that all I had was my pain, and my pain became the noise; became the thing or the element that made me want to live; the pain became the force that guided my body; the pain transformed into something totally life-saving. I lived and slept with pain.

Pain became my best friend because it stayed with me every day; each day I cried on the inside, but no one would ever know because on the outside I smiled — something I learned to do a long time before.

But what do we do with it? How do we contain it and carry it? More importantly, how do we transform it? I wasn’t sure it was even possible…but I knew it was worth a try. Like the Count, I heard a whisper; my soul.

As the years passed in prison, I began to observe the younger generation of inmates coming in and listened to their complaining about how hard life was or how they just wanted to give up because they were not able to do so much time — I knew what it was. I knew what they were experiencing like a familiar ghost. They were filled with anger and rage they didn’t know what to do with. They wanted to fight the system because they were mad. I knew that it was their pain that they wanted to let out; they wanted to remove it, but they couldn’t — they couldn’t identify it and didn’t know how to release it.

I understood the signs because I saw them as clear as day. I lived them. I was them. I understood these young men so well that every time I saw them show up I would try to tell them, “I know the road that you’re traveling and it’s not a good one. This path has a fatal ending and sucks your humanity, leaves you numb and unwilling to love, unwilling to trust ever again. It will close you down. Harden you and make you forget your heart. And for this reason, I ask you to leave your pains with me. Give them over to me because I can bear them. I know what it’s like at the end of this road, and I’m willing to take your pains as long as you are willing to make changes — and are willing to witness happiness.”

You should’ve seen some of their faces when I muttered these words. It wasn’t your typical prison chatter. But I know them to be true to the core of my being. We all need a place to lay our pain down.

Do I tell people who complain or think that life is unfair, that they really don’t understand what’s unfair? Of course not. Life can be hard and I’ve certainly learned that the hard way. I promise you, few would want to walk a mile in my shoes. So, when you think that life is killing you, is so unfair, or unfavorable — I want you to understand that there is a man who saw and lived more traumas and witnessed more pains than I hope you ever see in a lifetime. But it is possible to allow yourself to heal from it all — to lay it down.

Healing is a choice, a hard choice.

I don’t want people to be driven by sorrow or by an ocean of anger — or all the things that have happened to them along the way. I want them to understand that pain exists in this human experience. However, we can do something with it. We can use it instead of being used by it. And mark my words, it can crush and crumble us.

We are not weak because we can’t handle the pain. We become weak because we relinquish our power and allow the pain to destroy us.

And this is what I try to help people see — we can remove ourselves from the equation of everlasting pain. I know this. I stare pain down every day, so give yours to me and be and live free. And perhaps one day, you too will shoulder the pain of another and help set them free. When we see each other’s pain, we see a reflection of our own. Imagine the world if we could just shift our relationship to pain and each other. Imagine how nice that would be.

Never underestimate the pain of a person because the truth is everyone is struggling.It’s just some people hide it better than others.

—CoolNSmart.com

—

Author’s Note:

In March 2020 I was released from prison after 25 years and have begun the healing journey of releasing my own pain. My broad shoulders have held the pain of my life and that of others — it has been a part of my calling, but I am allowing myself to receive right now. I like to believe that in learning to heal my pain, I am a part of healing that of the collective. I also had my very first birthday party. Pain still whispers to me, but you know what? Life is good and I am free in more ways than one.

You may also enjoy reading Life After Death Row: How Magick Saved my Life, by Damien Echols

The post Give Me Your Pain: One Man’s Quest to Bear the Pain of Others’ and Heal His Own appeared first on BEST SELF.

Personal musings and an excerpt from Mark Nepo’s latest book guide us through darkness and life’s messiness — to emerge with meaning and connection

—

Since books arrive like children, after months of labor, the timing of their arrival is well beyond us. And so, in the midst of this profound, painful, and transformative time, my new book, The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters is arriving this May. As with all my books, they are thresholds of inquiry and so, are my teachers. I’m still learning from this one. And I am grateful that it offers pathways to living what matters, because we need that now more than ever, to reveal and strengthen our kinship of being. That web of relationship will help us heal and emerge from this pandemic in new and ancient ways. For love must move as quickly as disease, light must move as quickly as darkness, and give must move as quickly as take. I hope it feeds your soul during this trying time.  ~ Mark Nepo

An excerpt from The Book of Soul:

The Agents of Kindness

The fundamental challenge of the twenty-first century is to help each other stay awake, by being who we are and staying in relationship. To do this, we need every single tradition. For as the sun causes every plant to grow, the one unnamable Spirit causes all forms of belief to enter the world. And just as we need all plants to have a vital incarnation of nature, we need all forms of belief to have a vital incarnation of humanity. 

This acceptance of the many ways we can journey toward meaning and grace is essential to our survival as a species. The turmoil or peace of the world depends on whether we repel what is unfamiliar or treat it as our teacher. So the nature of belief is not limited to what we choose to believe in, but is more about being students of the diversity of life as manifest through relationship.

By living our life and playing our part, we hold the Universe together. To climb with a loved one to the summit of their suffering will soften our judgments and introduce us to joy. In climbing together through our pain and joy, we come to a timeless place where truth in all its forms comes to rest. It is kindness and suffering that bring us to that timeless place that everyone knows as home, once what is unnecessary is loved out of the way.

It’s the silken threads of care woven through the brutal storms of time that hold everything together.

A loved one’s picture carried through a war and delivered to a grandchild thirty years later. The seed that isn’t washed away that takes root, arriving in the world as an orchid whose beauty makes a young girl become a painter. The memory of the moment we met twenty-five years ago overwhelming me as I watch you sleep this morning. The laughter of my father while planing a piece of mahogany, which kept me believing in the love of work and the work of love while going through cancer. These silken threads are everywhere — a web of barely visible connections that infuse us with resilience when we’re forced or loved to find our way through what we’re given. 

In the midst of great turmoil, in the cascade of human catastrophes, these threads of care seem obsolete — artifacts of a gentler time. But they wait under all the breakage that overcomes us. These fine threads of care can be lost but never broken. They wait for the devotion of a single soul, daring to stand up for life in the midst of cruelty, daring to love everyone in the face of prejudice, daring to step out of the drama that says we’re strangers or enemies, daring to help those in hiding come out into the open.

One silken thread of care held onto and followed, sometimes for years, can repair the world.

It was my grandmother who taught me to be kind, who, with the weary faith of a sturdy immigrant, taught me that life opens for those who dare to give. Once living in the open, there is no career but being kind.

So let’s keep each other company, which means let’s be companions, which goes back to the French, meaning “one who breaks bread with another.” It always comes down this…

Our willingness to walk together through the storm and share what we have, so we can create a path to all that matters. 

—

This excerpt is from Mark Nepo’s new book, The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters, which is being published this month by St. Martin’s Essentials. Mark is offering online webinars and retreats. Please visit www.MarkNepo.com for details.

During these trying times, Mark is offering a 3-session online webinar in June 2020, as a way for us to deepen and strengthen our roots as we endure this storm. 

You may also enjoy Podcast: Mark Nepo | Entrainments of Heart by Best Self Media

The post Living What Matters: Reflections, Prose and 52 Prompts for Self-Inquiry appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

A refreshingly profound, yet simple and relatable new take on forgiveness

—

“At its heart, forgiveness is a radical acceptance of ‘what was’ married to a prayer that the future needn’t recreate the past.“

 ~ Josh Radnor

Yeah, yeah, yeah! We’ve all heard about the importance of forgiveness. But what does forgiveness really mean and why in the heck should I let that demented so-and-so off the hook?

Forgiveness, like most meaningful concepts, has more baggage than a Samsonite store. Most of us believe it’s an act we’re forced to perform when horrific jerks do us wrong. But true forgiveness, according to A Course in Miracles is realizing no one has the power to do me wrong.

To believe someone or something outside myself can hurt me negates the Truth of who I am.

Being pissed off unplugs me from the field of infinite potentiality, this wild and crazy force that’s constantly trying to bless and guide me. It erects a big wall between me and my highest good.

Believing outside forces can hurt me stunts my growth. Blinds me to miracles. Creates an illusory world that makes me want to hide, feel guilty, close down.

Here are the top three reasons (and there are many more) I practice forgiveness like a mofo:

1. Forgiveness restores the natural order of love. 

If you’re a human being on this planet, you’ve probably heard Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” It won Record of the Year at the 1994 Grammy Awards and, last I checked, holds the all-time record as best-selling single by a woman. You might even know that the song was originally written by Dolly Parton. 

But did you know that the back story behind this iconic song is a grand testament to forgiveness? Dolly originally wrote it for Porter Wagoner who, in 1967, gave the 21-year-old songwriter her big break. A spot on his weekly TV program, The Porter Wagoner Show, led to the duo recording dozens of songs and albums and bestselling hits. They won the Country Music Award for Vocal Duo of the Year three times.

But by 1973, Dolly was ready for more. She had big dreams, was tired of being ‘my pretty little girl’, as Wagoner often called her.  “I wanted my own band. I wanted a solo career,” she said. “God was telling me to go.” Porter wouldn’t hear of it.  “I made you,” he’d threaten.

So, she did what she knew best — she wrote him a song, marched into his office and sang it.

Although the song, I Will Always Love You, brought tears to his eyes, he wouldn’t let it go. He sued for breach of contract, demanded a share of her royalties, even bad-mouthed her all over Nashville. The once-loved country duo became estranged for many years. Even though she was blameless, Dolly agreed to a settlement, offering to pay her former partner a million dollars.

“I didn’t have a million dollars,” she says. “But over time, I was able to pay him back.”

And in 1981, when he was dropped from his label and fell on hard times, Dolly bought his label and gave it back to him, ensuring a future for his kids. In 1988, they performed together at a taping of Parton’s TV show Dolly! And in October 2007 when he died, she was at his bedside holding his hand. 

Dolly had every reason NOT to forgive Porter who wanted to keep her under his thumb. No one would blame her if she was still mad today. But look at all the love she’d have missed out on. 

As she said in a recent interview, “Forgiveness: It’s the only thing.”

2. Forgiveness opens new possibilities. 

I often say the biggest secret in the world is we all really love each other. We often don’t realize this truth because we refuse to forgive. We hold grudges. We actually believe the lie that other people can hurt us. 

If anyone had the right to hold a grudge, it was Nelson Mandela. He was imprisoned for 27 years, three of his children died during this time and his government treated him worse than an animal. But instead of letting those injustices take away his dignity, he used them to solidify a vision for a better world. He refused to BE imprisoned.

That is what forgiveness really is. Refusing to be imprisoned.

3.  Forgiveness solicits abundance.

Had Dolly held onto her anger at her former mentor, she’d never be where she is today. By letting go, by believing love is the only reality, the only thing that really matters she freed up her connection with her Divine Source. And as for that million dollars? Royalties for the song she wrote for Porter Wagoner pulled down three times that much in the first year alone. 

So we can believe others have the power to hurt us, we can believe in injustices out there or we can be like Dolly and know…

“Forgiveness, it’s the only thing.”

You may also enjoy watching Interview: Marianne Williamson | A Return To Love And Consciousness by Kristen Noel

The post The Grand Cosmic Blessing: Why Dolly Parton Practices The ‘F Word’ Every Chance She Gets appeared first on BEST SELF.

Owning our ability to create healthy boundaries is a radical act of self-care that allows us to reclaim our power and protects us from those who drain us

—

When it comes to Energy Vampires, BOUNDARIES are the key!!

One of the most powerful steps anyone can take to evade the dangers of energy vampires is to set up healthy and consistent boundaries. Establishing boundaries is not a skill that most empaths possess. We tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and often set ourselves up to be used by others.

But once we see the pattern, we can change it. And the result is far better health and relationships on all levels.

Here’s an example: 

One of my friends, we’ll call her Carol, recently met the man of her dreams, we’ll call him Jeff. Both Jeff and Carol are divorced and have adult children. And as is commonly the case, Jeff’s former spouse Joyce has all the characteristics of an energy vampire. Despite the fact that she and Jeff divorced 29 years ago, Joyce still blames Jeff for all her problems and continually complains about him to their adult children. She has never remarried or even had a long-term relationship. Jeff’s adult children have trouble dealing with her, but still feel as though they must divide their time equally between she and Jeff when they are in the area (Jeff’s children live out of state). 

This past summer, Jeff’s daughter Sibyl planned to visit her father at Carol’s home. Now this is where things got interesting. Carol had not only read Dodging Energy Vampires, she herself had also been on the front lines of this kind of relationship, having divorced a very narcissistic man 20 years before meeting Jeff. She had also been through some other energy vampire/empath type relationships with business associates and colleagues (yes, they come in all forms). 

Needless to say, she knew a thing or two about her own tendency to be people-pleasing and empathetic. She also felt badly for Sibyl and her struggles with her mother. Carol wanted to be a healing figure in Sibyl’s life and knew that this was important to Jeff. After all, Jeff had spent decades trying to be the parent who made up for the difficulty that his former wife kept creating in the life of his children.   

When the time came for the visit, Sibyl wanted her mother Joyce to drive her to Carol’s home after her visit with her mother. Sibyl shared this plan with her father — and Jeff mentioned this to Carol. And this turned out to be a  major turning point for Carol and Jeff. She wanted to make things easy and comfortable for Sibyl and her visit. But at the same time, she found herself feeling very uncomfortable with the prospect of having Joyce come to her home. She realized that having Joyce anywhere near her or her home was a significant boundary violation. And she had to stand up for herself on this — even at the risk of the inconvenience for Sibyl or Jeff’s discomfort.   

She also knew that, in the past, Jeff would have very likely asked her to bend a bit on this to make things more convenient for his daughter. Not only that, but she herself would have talked herself out of her own discomfort with the usual thoughts like…

What could it hurt? I can suck it up and tolerate meeting Joyce at least once. It would make it so much easier for Sibyl. 

But this time, Carol’s tendency to just ‘go along to get along’ was gone. Or —  in the words of the country song, ‘Her Give a Damn Was Busted’. 

And so she told Jeff that Joyce was not welcome anywhere near her home — now, or in the future. Carol had heard far too many stories of Jeff’s life with Joyce. And she was no longer willing to risk bringing that kind of negative energy into her home — or her relationship with Jeff. She knew she was taking a risk by standing up for herself and her boundaries. Growth of any kind almost always feels uncomfortable at first. And many people — especially empaths — tend to feel guilty when we stand up for ourselves. 

But Carol stood up for herself this time — even at the risk of disappointing Jeff and his daughter. She had come too far in her own healing and self-care to allow herself to go back to being a doormat — no matter how subtle. And here’s the good news. Carol’s taking a stand for healthy boundaries between Jeff’s ex-wife and his adult children and her, actually improved their relationship and brought in more intimacy and love than before. It was a significant turning point for both of them — given that both of them had had very significant relationships with energy vampires.

Yes — healing is possible. But first you have to know what you’re dealing with, understand your own empathetic nature — and then take action to protect your own energy and personal space. 

This makes all the difference!! And can change the lives of everyone involved.

No is a complete sentence.

~ Anne Lamott

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The post Boundaries, Boundaries, and More Boundaries: The Key To Managing Energy Vampires appeared first on BEST SELF.

One woman’s journey to an extraordinary life — from addiction and disconnection to seizing life in all of its sacredness, opportunity and exquisite beauty 

—

There is tremendous sacredness in the seemingly mundane. Ordinary life avails us ample opportunities to connect with a deeper appreciation and grounded sense of gratitude. From this place, ordinary life, I fully recognize that Source sources me. 

Living in Hawaiʻi has granted me the opportunity to find the peaceful paradise within myself. Sure, the outside conditions are exquisite here in this tropical and abundant beauty. 

Yet there is truth in the notion of no escape; wherever we go, there we are. 

When we moved here we brought some things that remind me that we can manufacture our own suffering, wherever we happen to be (epic sunsets and all). Though I left my under-wire bras, nail polish and hair dye on the mainland, some pesky bad habits came along with me. The heavy baggage of impatience, lack of financial freedom and speediness have been unwelcome and fodder for further personal transformation. 

We also brought my husband’s parents and the baggage of that reality. 

We choose love and Aloha over drama and trouble and I committed to not having a typical mother-in-law relationship fraught with uneasiness. So we did this incredible jump across the ocean to an island in the middle of the mighty Pacifc, and along with our young boys, we all set the mighty Moonshot declaration of the “Grand ʻOhana” experiment. 

We share our resources, we multiply our joys and divide our sorrows and we generate as much laughter in this challenging cohabitation as possible. 

The benefits outweigh the costs. A few examples follow to illustrate this. We, as a family, are passionate about being good stewards of the earth. We don’t have to travel to visit each other. We collaborate as a team to eliminate single-use plastic at local events. We plant trees and learn Hawaiʻi lifeways with a local kumu, teacher. We each care for ourselves and we also tend to the space between us. 

The level of self-sovereignty married with the undeniable reality of our interdependence is part of what makes living a journey of transformation so extraordinary. 

If we see the world as messed up, guess what? Life feels pretty messed up. If we feel overly responsible or utterly apathetic, we are not right-sized and we feel overwhelmed. If we see the power of personal transformation, live with a tender heart of caring from a grounded grace of gratitude, we can ask ourselves, Are we showing up as the change we wish to see in the world? We can engage in self-inquiry on a regular basis. 

Then, knowing if we are instrumental, detrimental or inconsequential to any interaction, and courageously willing to change in here to ignite out there, guess what? Life is extraordinary. 

Life is extraordinary…

1. When we operate from flexibility and forgiveness, two essentials of resilience — life is extraordinary.
2. When we cultivate grace and kindness, two aspects of compassion — life is extraordinary.
3. When we live a life of abundance and gratitude, two rewards of service — life is extraordinary.

Healing and transformation are possible. We shall explore these through the lens of Three Realms: Resilience, Compassion and Service and the 12 distinctions of an extraordinary life: trust, focus, repair, faith, clarity, openness, reactivation, energy, interdependence, responsibility, generosity and consciousness.

Numerous opportunities remind me that true peace stems from a deeper inner knowing of unconditional love and compassion, Aloha, in the sacred meaning of the word. 

The quality of my life is not contingent upon external circumstances, and as my inner life transforms, so does my experience of reality.

I’ve had the great good fortune to pause and take the time to digest my life, write my transformational memoir and see the unconscious dictates of my mind give way to the power of conscious breath. I’ve stepped into command central of my nervous system through daily practice of both committed, intentional, high-performance activities as well as the sweet surrender to a higher grace through yoga, meditation and conscious breathwork. My experience of my higher Self is both driven and tender. From this foundation, I’m powerful, generous and magnify an extraordinary life. 

If I could only share 3 things with the world:

1. Recover from addictions that rob your soul of the beauty of the present moment. This includes substances such as alcohol and sugar, as well as technology and distraction. 
2. Heal your relationship with Self, Other, & Spirit, this is the SOS of our time. Heal one, heal them all. Our interconnectedness is staggering. 
3. Contemplate grace daily through yoga and meditation outside. Connect with a higher power daily, Natural Great Beauty is the ultimate Source.

My original Moonshot was to get sober from my decade of debauchery and inherited alcoholism. Next came relational healing with SOS. The foundation for these extraordinary experiences has been thirty plus years of contemplative practice, namely yoga, meditation and more recently, conscious breathwork.

Addictions Recovery, Relational Health, & Contemplative Practice, the ARC of connection

Addiction / ordinary definition: consumption of substance that brings temporary relief, short-term benefit, and then long-term pain, long-term consequences.
Addiction / extraordinary definition: activity resulting in avoidance of direct experience. Anything that robs your soul of the present moment.

Recovery / ordinary definition: a return to a normal state of health, mind or strength. The act of regaining something that is lost.
Recovery / extraordinary definition: a sense of integration and thriving that comes from spiritual awakening and resulting health-promoting activities.

After I got sober, I declared a Masters Degree in Psychology as a Moonshot, then the connection with my beloved (and I proposed marriage to him), then we declared to be responsible adults and create a loving atmosphere for two thriving young boys. There were lots of other extraordinary declarations over the last fifty years; those are just some highlights. 

Examples of other Moonshots from my clients:

• Buy a mango farm on Kauai to get out of the Pacific Northwest in the winter
• Marry your beloved and end a succession of divorce and failed relations
• Write a graphic novel for kids about compassion and magic
• Get out of debt and enjoy financial freedom
• Put your needs at the top of your list, fill your reservoirs of energy so that you can give freely to family and friends and community
• Turn community fundraising events into Plastic-Free Events (end single-use plastic) and promote the health of our ocean ecosystem
• Skillfully express successes and sorrows with a supportive network

You might notice, as we scratch the surface of these desires, that each one of them has to do with some aspect of the health of relationships. In essence, we are choosing to declare optimal relational health, and this is a tall order. In general, we want better relations with Self, Others, and Spirit (SOS).

You matter. Your relationships matter.

Let’s take a look, with curiosity and tenderness, at what relationships in your life are working, and which aren’t.  Again, this is the S.O.S. of our times. Let’s not be alarmed as if we are drowning, let’s do something about it. Let’s answer this signal of distress that our relationships are suffering. We live in a relational reality; everything in your life is a relationship, a connection that benefits from a clear energetic exchange… or not.

Let’s start with what matters most in terms of your relationship with yourself, your connection with your own breath.

This is a powerful technology from Kundalini Yoga tradition. Use this incredible breath tool regularly.

It gives you greater command of the central nervous system. From this place of empowerment comes greater compassion of self. From this arises more skillful means with others. In other words, it works to transform your relationship with yourself to one that is more tender, more compassionate. From this foundation of love, you enjoy better exchanges with others. This is guaranteed.

The Buddha told us this, too. If you are truly loving and kind with yourself, you can never harm another human being. We start by breathing like we love ourselves.

Alternate Nostril Breathing Exercise

• Exhale completely. Release what is no longer needed.
• Place right thumb over right nostril.
• Inhale through your left nostril. This is the body’s calming channel. 
• Pause at the peak of the inhale.
• Close left nostril with right ring finger while releasing the right thumb.
• Exhale out the right nostril.
• Pause at the bottom of the exhale.
• Inhale the right nostril only. This is the energizing channel in your body.
• Pause at peak of inhalation.
• Close right nostril with right thumb while releasing the ring finger.
• Exhale out the left nostril.
• Pause at the bottom of exhalation.
• Inhale the left nostril only.
• Pause at the top of your inhale.
• And repeat for five minutes.
• Release both sides and inhale deeply, exhale slowly.

Now notice the balanced energy in your being. You may perhaps feel more awake if you were tired. You may feel calm if you were anxious. This is the state of balanced pulsation, relaxed joyfulness, calm abiding. You have energy when you need it and calm in your pocket. It is transformational. Do this while you wait for your hot water for tea to boil in the morning. Or before bed.

Be Still, Do Breathing Exercise, Have Ease.

Next, after connection with breathing, I invite you to sit down and connect with your heart through a weekly writing practice. Perhaps you can choose Sunday, which is a perfect day for your media-free day, and to give yourself a chance to connect with your inner landscape. Handwriting connects your heart and mind and helps integrate the wisdom of your inner guidance system. To fully enjoy your experience, start with alternate nostril breathing exercises, enjoy a cup of tea, and do the writing prompts that follow.

Writing Exercise:

These sentence stems have been specifically selected to generate familiarity with the story you tell yourself about your life. Once we fully recognize that we are the author of our lives, we open up new possibilities of enlightenment.

These exercises are to (1) identify the present moment, (2) acknowledge the past, (3) declare your moonshot, (4) focus on one actionable step, (5) ensure you are operating out of your passionate purpose on this planet and (6) cultivate a culture of appreciation. Ready?

1. As I’m sitting here, I’m experiencing…
2. Where I’m from…
3. Where I’d like to be…
4. One thing I can do to get me there…
5. What matters most…
6. One thing I appreciate is…

Perhaps you might find it helpful to read a personal example:

1. As I’m sitting here, I’m experiencing a fullness in my belly after a delicious lunch, a sense of focus and steadiness in completion of my project, and gratitude for a cool breeze on my neck.
2. Where I’m from historically was a sense of indigestion; a combination of feeling too full from food or drink, and simultaneously empty from lack of fulfillment with my efforts.
3. Where I’d like to be is experiencing satiation without consuming or striving more than necessary and feeling a rich fullness from my career efforts.
4. One thing I can do to get me there is to eat until 80% full and work until 80% complete for the day and leave some appetite for life in general for the next day.
5. What matters most is the trust I have in myself; I aspire to do what I say I’m going to do and give that 100% easeful effort and conscious commitment.
6. One thing I appreciate is my recollection of the times I have given 100% without burnout or overextending myself. Examples include my trifecta of bliss: my continuous sobriety, my loving marriage, my deep connection with Natural Great Beauty. Next week I celebrate 25 years being alcohol-free. This is foundational for my spiritual growth. My marriage heals and nudges me to grow beyond my own selfish desires and invites great bliss. The cloud beings that glide across the sky, the ocean waves that grace the shore, the trees that give life-sustaining oxygen; these are a few of the marvels that comprise Natural Great Beauty. 

And so… I rest my case… and this ends as it begins… There is tremendous sacredness in the seemingly mundane. Ordinary life avails us ample opportunities to connect with a deeper appreciation and grounded sense of gratitude. From this place, ordinary life, I fully recognize that Source sources me. 

Moonshot: Aim High, Dive Deep And Live An Extraordinary Life is an invitation to approach the present moment with greater awareness, invite a moment of acceptance, and then act accordingly, from a place of tender, powerful generosity rooted in resilience.  This transformational memoir is for you if you have severed contact with your inner guidance system, felt blamed and shamed, and then criticized others and compromised your morals.

Invitation to Moonshot Movement

Perhaps you suffer from the epidemic in our dominant culture of distraction and busyness. You are addicted to things that rob your soul of the beauty of the present moment. You avoid the direct experience of the moment by chronic ‘doing’ vs. ‘being’. And you rise, like a mighty wave, with other like-minded peeps. You are poised to transform. You recognize what you’ve been doing isn’t getting you where you want to be. You are empowered to change in here to ignite out there.

Let’s start with the end in mind. We are in the midst of a cultural revolution. My purpose-driven passion as a social pioneer is the Moonshot Movement; to transform the world one relationship at a time. Let’s embrace the mind-blowing capacity of love to heal heart dis-ease and end addiction, as we contemplate a new reality. We declare something extraordinary, take committed action and we surrender to a higher grace, as we find ease and enjoyment in the process of transformation.

Perhaps you are now willing to trust yourself to no longer abandon yourself. You are willing to own your super-sensitivity as a superpower. Assertive strength coupled with calm abiding makes for a potent divine feminine and sacred masculine. The world needs this energetic exchange. Join me and declare your Moonshot, that something extraordinary that wouldn’t otherwise happen. And let the Magic unfold. I’m launching a new guidebook and coaching program based upon this.

Moonshot: commitment to something extraordinary; declaring what, by when.

Magic: surrender to something greater than yourself; inviting ease, flow, and grace.

Moonshot Magic is for you if:

1. You’re no longer willing to numb out. Period. You want to be awake, you have that desire and you are now, at this moment, ready to wake-up and basically get over yourself.
2. You’re willing to abandon the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. You operate from a higher consciousness, and as a social pioneer you desire even higher levels of awareness.
3. You’ve had episodes of rage or have carried internalized shame of being a person of privilege. You are now willing to drop the stones of resentment from your heart. You see anger as a teacher and are ready to listen and step into your power; you won’t give up and you won’t back down. You truly understand that hate begets hate.
4. You’ve severed contact with your inner guidance system, felt blamed and shamed, and then criticized others and compromised your morals. You are primed for realignment with your inner guides.
5. You’re willing to be right-sized while simultaneously blowing the lid off mediocrity. Full stop. 
6. You’re willing to own your super-sensitive superpowers. You feel things deeply in your bones and your intuition responds fully to life. You are ready to hone this as a strength versus your Achille’s Heel.
7. You’re willing to see there’s nothing to fix out there. There is no ‘out there’, out there. Change in here, to ignite out there.
8. You recognize that we are in the midst of a cultural revolution and the power of the human heart can guide us. You love nature and recognize relational health is the way to heal the planet.
9. You suffer from the epidemic in our dominant culture of addiction to distraction and busyness. ‘Exhausted’ and ‘overwhelmed’ are frequent complaints, up until now.
10. You avoid direct experience of the moment by chronic ‘doing’ versus ‘being’. You crave more time in your life for what matters most and you are ready to see that time is the great equalizer, we all have the same amount of it in any given day.

If you’re still reading this, you are ready to quit manufacturing your own suffering, stop terrorizing yourself and start tenderizing your heart.

You are now willing and ready to trust yourself to no longer abandon yourself. Join the Moonshot Movement and declare your Moonshot; that something extraordinary that wouldn’t otherwise happen. And become fully empowered on this journey. Be. Do. Have.

Be empowered and prepared for miracles. Do the next right thing. Have the courage to surrender to success. The magic is around us to support us as we declare our Moonshot.

You may also enjoy reading Amazing Grace: Experiencing the extraordinary within the ordinary by Adyashanti

The post Moonshot Magic: Declaring & Committing to Something Extraordinary appeared first on BEST SELF.

A reformed people pleaser not only learns the profound benefits of healthy boundaries in her own life, she deconstructs and reframes them for you

—

A boundary is, in essence, where you end and another person begins. I define it as a limit that you set to define what you will and will not do, or what you will or will not accept or tolerate from others.

Our boundaries are all about who we are and what we want and need. Boundaries help us feel our best and make it possible for us to live the life we most desire. If you want to experience more joy and excitement in your life, it all begins with boundaries.

If you want a life of your own choice, if you want your own needs to be met more often than not, if you want the freedom to be your true self, and if you want better relationships, then you must learn to set them.

Wait a minute. Did I just say that better relationships come from better boundaries? 

This is often the first objection I hear. Turns out, most of us neglect to set boundaries in large part due to our fear that others won’t love or accept us if we do. Won’t the people in your life be angry at you for not acquiescing to their desires, and asserting your own instead? 

Well, some might — at least at first. But over time, if you’re relating with people who truly love you and want you to be happy, your authentic needs will eventually be welcomed. If there’s anything I’ve learned since my divorce, it’s that relationships are much more genuine and intimate when we are completely honest with each other. There’s less emotional discord when both parties are open about their needs. 

Staying in self-sacrifice mode is what blew up my marriage; it’s simply not sustainable. Falsehood and masks are the enemies of intimacy.

We often presuppose that our needs and desires will be in competition with those of others. But what if every party in a relationship could have his or her needs met at the same time? In truth, our own desires aren’t necessarily in opposition to what others want. Voicing them may even help others access their own true wants by example.

What I’ve learned is that if I’m suffering, my relationships suffer. 

My relationships have improved immeasurably since I’ve done my boundary work. I now prioritize self-love in a wholehearted way. I take at least as good care of myself as I take of the other people in my life. In fact, I’ve found that the more I love myself and take care of my own needs, the more love I have available for others. If I continually empty my cup trying to help others, I am left thirsty. It’s like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. But when I fill up — by offering myself self-love and self-respect, in large part by honoring my own boundaries — my cup overflows. I have much more to give to those I love. 

When I set healthy boundaries, I get my own needs and desires met more often than not. I then let everyone else in my life be a grown-up and take responsibility for getting one’s own needs and desires met. 

Bottom line? My needs are my job, and your needs are yours. Setting and keeping our own boundaries is an inside job.

How Do You Know If You Need to Set Boundaries?

Here are several “Boundary Needed!” scenarios I hear frequently from clients. Do any of these sound familiar?

• Your mother calls you five times a day and tells you everything you’re doing wrong in your life.
• Your significant other leaves dirty clothes on the floor knowing you’ll always pick them up.
• Your neighbor plays music very loud, disrupting your sleep.
• Your boss expects you to work overtime without prior notice or extra pay.
• Whenever you go out to eat with your friend, she tells you what you should and shouldn’t eat.
• Your partner makes plans for the two of you without ever asking for your input.
• Your extended family members assume you will tell them every detail about your life.
• You’re freezing in a restaurant, but you don’t want to ask that the heat be turned up.
• Your aunt drops by your house anytime she wants, expecting you to stop what you’re doing and spend time with her.
• Your teenager takes money from your wallet without asking, thinking you won’t mind.
• Your partner consistently puts you down and acts as though you’re overly sensitive if you feel hurt.

How many people’s needs do you shoulder on a regular basis because you haven’t set appropriate boundaries?

For example, it’s time to set some boundaries if…

• You frequently feel like a victim as a result of the behavior of others.
• You feel you have little privacy in your life.
• You usually let others make the plans when you spend time together, allowing them to choose the movie, the restaurant, or the vacation destination.
• You feel like you’re a pushover when others express their desires
• You prefer not to say anything when someone hurts you or cheats you (on purpose or accidentally).
• You feel it’s virtuous when you put others ahead of yourself, and you feel mean and selfish when you try to assert your own desires.
• You often feel resentful toward others because they don’t seem to take your needs into consideration.
• You’re sure you could never set boundaries with certain people in your life.
• You’ve been able to set some clear boundaries in your life but want to graduate to true ‘badassery’ in this area.

If you identify with any of the above, you probably believe some of the following common myths about boundaries:

• Love requires that we set no boundaries.
• Setting boundaries will make me a selfish person.
• Setting boundaries will make everyone hate me.
• I can have the life I want without setting uncomfortable boundaries.
• I can’t set a boundary because I don’t know what to say without causing an argument.
• If I take care of my own needs all the time, no one else will get their needs met.
• If I spend my life setting boundaries, I’ll no longer be a giving, generous person, and no one will want to be around me.
• Boundaries are restrictive, rather than freeing and expansive.
• Once I’ve set a boundary, I’m done and won’t need to set it again.

Do you hold to any of those myths? I’m going to bust every single one of them and reframe the whole conversation around setting limits. You’ll learn practical strategies for locating and managing your boundaries with the care and attention they deserve. Only then will you be able to fully live the life that was meant for you.

Introducing Boundary Badassery

The way of living I’ve just described is what I’ve come to call ‘boundary badassery’. It has taken a lot of work for me to become a ‘boundary badass’, and it never ceases to be a learning process. But ‘boundary ‘badassery’ has completely changed my life for the better. It has brought me greater peace, ease, contentment, and wellbeing in every area of my life. When I ask for what I want and honor my own needs, I no longer feel guilt or a pull of obligation to take care of the other person at my own expense.

It’s funny. The more I honor myself, the less I find myself engaged in conflicts about my boundaries. I have become more sensitive, so I feel pretty far in advance when I’m approaching a boundary! It’s become second nature to name my limits — immediately — when I notice they’re on the horizon. Plus, I do it without worrying others won’t like me anymore. Sound impossible? It’s not, I promise.

Everything I do begins with self-love. That’s because in my opinion, loving ourselves is the foundation of life — including loving others.

When it comes to boundaries, loving ourselves means that we know we have a right to our boundaries, no matter what they are and no matter what anyone else wants. We’ll collaborate and negotiate when and where it makes sense to us, but we don’t abandon the boundaries that are most important to us.

For those of us who have been the people pleasers, the rescuers, the fixers, and the savers — it feels radical to put ourselves in the position of priority, to check in with our own desires first, and to seek our own comfort first. I know it’s frightening, and some of you may be shaking in your shoes at the thought of setting certain boundaries. Trust me — I understand. I’ve been there. But if a do-it-all doormat like me can become a boundary badass, so can you!

Tips for Setting Boundaries That Stick

Most of us would agree that setting effective boundaries is important. Boundaries can protect us, make us feel safe and establish our self-esteem. I’d even go so far as to say that boundaries are essential for helping you make yourself a priority and find greater freedom. Yet, most people still struggle to set and maintain the boundaries needed to live a happy life! 

Becoming a ‘boundary badass’ begins when you understand what boundaries are and what they are not. This check-list can serve as a reminder that YOU have the power in each situation to choose how you will react and what to do next! 

Freedom is yours to claim! 

• A boundary is a limit that you set to define what you will and will not do, or what you will or will not accept or tolerate from others.
• By not setting boundaries, you abandon your true self. The consequences include squandering this life you’ve been given by not living it to the fullest.
• You are the one crossing your own boundaries. It’s no one else’s responsibility to see that your boundaries are not crossed.
• You can’t change others or force them to uphold your boundaries.
• You have a choice: the long-term pain of letting your boundaries be crossed versus the short-term discomfort of setting limits and keeping them.
• Healthy selfishness will be a game-changer in your life.
• Conflict can simply be the illumination of differences, and you can maintain relationships even if you agree to disagree.
• Becoming a ‘boundary badass’ means that you care at least as much about your own wants and needs as you do about anyone else’s.

My Invitation for You

I invite you to allow our exploration of boundaries to feel expansive and hopeful instead of constricting and fearful. While much will be said in my new book, Setting Boundaries Will Set Your Free about initiating boundaries to protect, preserve, or keep something out — your boundaries are also the way you can carefully choose and consciously curate what you want to bring in. 

Your willingness to feel the short-term discomfort of setting boundaries is the gateway to having everything you’re longing for in your life. Truth, connection, and freedom become available to you when you make your preferences your priority, with courage and grace.

Remember, each time you set a healthy boundary, you’re saying YES to YOU.

 
 the boundary is 
 the marker where 
 i can no longer be myself 
 no longer congruent with 
 or authentic to who i am
 
 when i am about to lose myself
 that’s the boundary point
 
 and yet 
 time and time again 
 we miss it
  
 the disconnection from self 
 that amplifies
 the way my attention pulls 
 toward you 
 as if my nervous system 
 is being dragged
 by a magnet 
  
 i have been lost 
 and we are bound 
 i need to find 
 the rhythm 
 of who i am 
 without you 
 while with you still 
  
 the vital recalibration 
 back to me
 knowing where i end
 and you begin 
 
 my body and mind rest
 restore and regulate best 
 when i am alone and 
 not satisfying 
 someone else’s needs
  
 slowing down now 
 i allow myself 
 the rest i have been 
 depriving myself of
 by over-giving 
 and being on high alert
  
 time to liberate me 
 instead of rescuing 
 everyone else
 only i can restore
 my resources
  
 no longer willing to do 
 whatever it takes
 when whatever it takes comes 
 at such a high cost to me
  
 no longer allowing 
 an old commitment to people-pleasing
 external validation and approval 
 to override my commitment 
 to my own truth and authenticity
  
 the patterns we’re running 
 won’t dissolve by 
 someone else making a change
  
 my boundary is mine to honor
  
 we think our withholds 
 will keep us safe 
 but revealing 
 is what allows connection 
 and healing  

You may also enjoy Podcast: Nancy Levin | Dancing into Connection and Trust by Best Self Media

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A renegade health journalist breaks from holiday convention to nurture a creative calling — a permission slip to do things differently

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For the past five years, I’ve been hard at work writing and illustrating a book about what I call ‘Healthy Deviance’ — the art of being a healthy person in an unhealthy world. I’ve been so busy researching, drawing, and writing about this norm-defying art, in fact, that for a while there, I became something of a hermit. I copped out of countless social obligations and events. I essentially let a few holiday seasons pass me right by. And you know what? That worked out kind of great!

For several years running, I didn’t get a holiday tree or decorate the house. I didn’t go to parties. I didn’t send out cards. I didn’t go gift shopping. I sure as heck did not bake. I did not give a thought to holiday makeup or festive fashion, or to ‘right-now resolution-setting strategies’, or to ‘New Year, New You!’ workouts. I didn’t konmari my house. I just hunkered down and did my thing, and hoped people would understand.

Please know, I wasn’t abstaining from all this holiday merriment out of any inherent Grinch-iness. I just knew that if I wanted to get the book done, I needed to make discerning (and in some cases difficult) choices about which holiday traditions I would embrace, and which I would forego.

Having a hot buttered rum with my mom while listening to chamber music in her kitchen? Yes. Lighting Christmas Eve luminarias and singing carols with extended family around the apple tree where my father’s and grandmother’s ashes are buried? Yes. Cocktail parties, work functions, media appearances, mall runs, and cinnamon-scented beauty treatments? No. Thank you, really, but no.

It’s not that some of those opportunities I declined wouldn’t have been fun. At the time, I just found that being home and finishing my book seemed, well, funner.

Daring to Do the Season Differently

It is both a lovely and terrible thing that the holidays are steeped in so much tradition. Because from traditions, we harvest rich meaning, memories, and a heartwarming sense of continuity. But traditions can also come bundled with all sorts of painful and annoying constraints, including social expectations, financial burdens, and cultural pressures to conform.

Fulfilling other people’s ideals for holiday gift-giving observances, family celebrations, religious ceremonies, sugar-stuffed buffets, and liquor-drenched bashes can compel us to abandon our own priorities — or leave us feeling like we never had a chance to consider what we wanted from our holidays in the first place.

Here’s what I’ve discovered during my own recent holiday-disrupting experience: It takes courage and energy to depart from the status quo, particularly if you feel the need to explain your thoughts and feelings to others, or to have them support your decisions. But there is a kind, honest, loving way to announce that you are doing the holidays a little (or a lot) differently this year, if you choose. And the people who really love and care about you — with the possible exception of your closest relatives — will always want you to act on your highest choices. Right? Um, right.

In Oddness We Trust

Let us keep in mind that the term ‘holiday’ quite literally means ‘holy day’ — a day that is separated from other days by a sacred quality or meaning. You make things sacred by separating them from the ordinary, the typical, the status-quo.

You can do that however you like. Spend time playing and partying with people you love, or retreat into the rare, quiet bliss of your own solitary company. Intentionally immerse yourself in fun and frivolity, or invest yourself in exceptional quiet and contemplation. Behold the magical wonder that is holiday retail, or decide you’re going to have nothing to do with that consumerist insanity.

If you give yourself one gift this year, make it the repeated affirmation of this simple truth: Your holidays, like the rest of your life, are up to you.

Make some part of your holiday weird, different, exceptional by choice, imbue it with the power of your own focused choosing, and in the process, you can make it sacred.

Try this: Complete the sentence, “This year, I’ve decided to celebrate the holidays by …” Say the words aloud, and repeat the sentence until you come up with something that sounds true and right to you. Notice how that feels. Notice what comes up. Sit with that for a little while. Then decide what, if anything, you’ll do next.

Prepare for Resistance

When you decide to do your holidays differently than others, or just differently than you’ve always done them, you can count on somebody putting up some kind of fight. In many cases, that somebody might be you. Or some part of you, anyway.

It might be the part that fears missing out, that hates disappointing anyone, that dreads the guilt, gossip, judgment, nagging, or full-blown retribution you just know will come from refusing to go along with the ‘normal’ holiday program. It might be the part of you that doubts your own decisions, or that doesn’t exactly know what you want and figures it might be easier to just comply with what others already have planned.

Nobody can make you do what you don’t want to do (at least not in the context of holiday observances), but the amount of pressure that you might feel to accommodate others, and the amount of bone-rattling turbulence you might encounter in steering your way out of well-established ruts could be substantial.

Just know that things might get a little weird, and that some people might get a little peevish, as you experiment with new ways forward.

Unexpected responses may follow as you articulate decisions it never occurred to anyone (including you) that you might make.

What?! You’re skipping the cookie party? You’re not participating in the all-company gift exchange? You’re not coming to the evening church service, showing up at the family cabin, or singing in the traditional singalong this year? You’re not doing the customary New Year’s Bloody Mary brunch or silent wheat-grass detox or even that wonderful charity event you’ve done every year since 1986?

Okay. That’s fine. Even if somebody throws a fit, or you stay home feeling anxious and sorry for yourself. It’s fine, really. Give and share what you feel inspired to give and share, in the moment, with a free and open heart. Allow others to have their fun, and take responsibility for creating the fun (or beauty, or meaning, or space, or whatever good you are craving) that is fun for you.

It’s also fine, by the way, if you experiment with abandoning an old tradition and find that it sucks. That’s great! It turns out you LOVE that cookie party, and missing it was a total disaster that ruined your whole holiday season? Terrific. Now you know. That cookie party is going back on your list, dammit. Or you are going to create a new cookie party you like even better.

This is all good fodder for the holiday experiences you choose to have next. And the ones after that.

Try this: Envision a holiday experience you are craving, traditional or not. Write it down in as much detail as you can, describing when and where it will occur, and including all the sensual details you can regarding how you want this experience to be. How will it look, smell, sound, and taste? What will you personally be doing or enjoying as it unfolds? What attitude or feeling will you be radiating? If you have a supportive friend or partner you’d like to share this lush description with, do that. Then consider how you can make this aspect of your holiday happen. Take steps to cordon off some time and resources to honor this desire, even if you can’t make it happen at 100 percent. See how it feels to imagine creating and embodying the experience you choose.

Beware of Monsters and Machines

As the holidays approach, you will encounter two forces with almost unimaginable power: the multi-headed monster of the media, and the always-grinding gears of the retail-industry machine.

Both would very much like you to buy something, everything, anything, all at once, right now, for as much as they can possibly get you to pay. They would like you to hand over your time, your money, your credit, your attention, your appetites, your synaptic responses, and your cell tissue.

Both would like you to believe that they (and they alone) hold the keys to your holidays being wonderful and joyous, to your home being festive, to your body and your life being as good as they can possibly (read: should) be.

In many cases, these monsters and machines really will have something of value to offer. They will dangle a great many shiny objects and ideas that look good, taste good, feel good, that promise to make your life easier, and to make you look like an even greater success than you already are. But in a great many more cases, these beasts will take more than they give. They will extract more than you agreed to exchange. They will leave you feeling at a loss, confused, bereft of the things you most wanted, which was…what, again?

Oh, yes. To feel present, free, and at peace in your life. To feel connected with the people you love. To feel inspired by a sense of purpose. To feel radiant, resilient, and at ease in your own skin.

Yeah, sorry, there is no app for that. There is no program, no product, no listicle, no 10-step ‘New Year, New You!’ plan that can deliver these things, even though some of them may nudge bits and pieces into closer view. Or seem to.

The only way to have these things, really, is to claim them for yourself. And often, the only way to claim them is to shut off the noise, the promises, the come-ons and money-back guarantees that are forever being hurtled at you from screens, speakers, and display ads.

The only way to really possess and enjoy what you most desire (during the holidays and during your life) is to reclaim the awareness that you, and only you, can cultivate within your own body-mind, moment to moment. It’s that all-too-easy-to-lose awareness about what already feels good, about what already makes your eyes light up and your heart go Mmmm.

Basking in Enough

Here’s the Healthy Deviant truth I learned while writing my book, and that I now tell myself almost daily: You don’t need more things, or more knowledge, to be happy.

You need more space to feel the power of your own life force, and to decide for yourself where you will put it.

Try this: Look up from this article for a moment. Look around. Find something of beauty or pleasure or magic in your midst. Maybe it’s the quality of light out the window. Maybe it’s the feeling of your dog’s muzzle against your foot. Maybe it’s the bass line of the music you have on. Maybe it’s the smell of coffee. Maybe it’s the feeling of that big, deep breath you keep meaning to take in, and then let out, but too often don’t. Put your attention on what’s there and available to be enjoyed. Ask yourself: If I put this much attention on all the good I currently have in my life, would I really need to have more, be more, or know more, to be in a pretty sweet place?

There’s no right answer to that question. There’s just noticing the good in your midst. There’s just the value of embracing what is there and always available when you pull yourself free of the monsters and machines long enough to settle into the space of your own attention.

This is where we will find the real prize and gift we are all after in this lifetime. Not in the tinsel and the trappings and new-and-improved wonder products. Not in the warmed-over, amazing two-for-one offers and ‘BEST BODY EVER!’ promises. But in the moments and choices that allow us to show up with our own lights on and our true shine intact.

My book is done now (yes, it is a thing you can buy!), but I’m still not sending out holiday cards this year. So I’ll put my holiday wishes right here instead: This season, may we all take pleasure in the decisions that help us find and reflect the real source of sparkle at the center of our daily lives, where true joy is generated all year long.

Want More Healthy Deviant Wisdom?

Get a free sneak peek at the introduction to Pilar’s book, The Healthy Deviant, at www.healthydeviant.com. While you are there, check out some of her programs.

Are You a Healthy Deviant? Take the three-minute “Are You a Healthy Deviant?” quiz and find out where you fall on the Healthy Deviant spectrum.

Suggested Listening from The Living Experiment Podcast

• Holidays
• New Year
• Healthy Deviance 2
• Creativity vs. Consumption
• Satisfaction vs. Success

GO TO THE PODCAST

You may also enjoy reading The Making of a Health Deviant: Choosing a Healthy Life in an Unhealthy World, by Pilar Gerasimo

The post Daring To Disrupt: The Healthy Deviant’s Holiday Survival Guide appeared first on BEST SELF.

How an unlikely love story with a feral cat left one woman questioning, who is actually protecting whom? 

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INTRO

*Diana Ventimiglia, Editor of The Karma of Cats, steps from behind her editing desk and shares some of her own feline friend musings as an introduction to Kelly McGonigal’s article, below.  

As the owner of a 17lb. tuxedo cat, I knew I’d love working on The Karma of Cats: Spiritual Wisdom from Our Feline Friends, but editing this book has turned out to be one of the most fun and insightful experiences I’ve had in a while. As any cat owner, I’ve learned to cultivate patience (I’m looking at that coffee mug you knocked over, Phillip), as well as acceptance that I won’t always get the cuddles I want. The love I have for my cat runs deep, and I’ve always cherished the ways he’s enhanced my life. Editing this collection of essays, though, has helped me realize just how profound my connection to my cat is and has given me a newfound respect for all that Phillip teaches me. 

In many ways, Phillip exemplifies much of how I’d like to live my life… he doesn’t care what others think of him, he expresses himself fully unafraid of judgment, he’s focused, determined and resilient. All of these essays crack open such lessons and celebrate the very unique bonds we have with our feline friends. They’re honest, sometimes funny, and extremely heartfelt. I encourage anyone who has a cat, or just has a love of pets, to read The Karma of Cats. You’ll be sure to laugh, cry, and walk away eager to hug your furry friend. 

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Adopted: An Unlikely Love Story With A Feral Cat

By Kelly McGonigal 

[Excerpted from The Karma of Cats (Sounds True, 2019)]

In 2005, I was twenty-eight years old, living alone in San Francisco, and looking for a new apartment. I had finished graduate school the year before, and was working as a freelance writer and editor while teaching yoga at studios around the Bay Area. During my hunt, I read a book by the artist SARK, in which she describes stumbling upon a sign in San Francisco in 1989 advertising a magic cottage for rent. As I visited one dismal apartment after another, each more depressing than the last, I lamented, Where was my magic cottage? One day, desperate, I wandered the streets of San Francisco, looking at flyers stapled to telephone poles, hoping for a SARK-like miracle. That very evening, when I got home, I found a new post on Craigslist advertising “Magical Cottage for Rent!” I made an appointment and met the landlady the next day, bringing with me my checkbook and credit report.

Behind the cottage was a private garden, complete with a three-foot-tall Laughing Buddha statue. The statue was a bigger version of the very same buddha I had kept in the small garden plot I had tended when I was a graduate student. The landlady assured me that the buddha came with the apartment, despite not knowing which tenant had left it or how long it had been there. It was a sign, I thought. This was my magic cottage. As I signed the lease and wrote a check for the first and last month’s rent, a small, short-haired black cat appeared outside the sliding-glass door to the garden. The cat sat at the door and stared at us with yellow-green, slightly crossed eyes. “Who’s that?” I asked, surprised and charmed. “Oh, don’t worry about that stray cat,” the landlady said. “I’m sure if you ignore it, it will go away.”

It didn’t go away. As I discovered, my garden was the epicenter of a feral cat colony. The person who had lived in the cottage before me had fed the cats on a semiregular basis. A neighbor who had indoor cats would also occasionally leave out a can of food for the feral cats. Although I had moved in with my own indoor rescue cat, I gladly stepped into the role of colony caregiver. I named the regular cats Shadow, Tinkerbell, Mouse Patrol, and Princess.

But it was that very first cat I met at the cottage — the one who stared at me through the glass door with crossed eyes — who I fell in love with.

I named him Itsy-Bitsy. He was smaller than the other cats. Skinny, but not starved. He was all black except for a tuft of white fur over his heart. He was the spitting image of the cat in a framed photograph I had bought at IKEA a few months earlier. (Later on, I think there was something magical about that timing — that I had bought the photo so I would recognize Itsy-Bitsy when he appeared.)

Itsy-Bitsy’s left ear was clipped, evidence he had been trapped by a rescue organization, neutered, and returned outdoors because he was deemed too wild to be adopted. I should have taken that clipped ear as a sign that Itsy-Bitsy would break my heart. But I fell hard.

Within weeks of my moving in, Itsy-Bitsy would knock at my kitchen window every morning and evening to be petted and fed. He liked to lie outside whatever window I was closest to, moving around the perimeter of the cottage as I moved about. When I went outside, he would run up to have his chin scratched or lie down to have his belly rubbed. He loved to play, and I could make him jump and dance by dragging a stick across the ground. He learned his new name quickly. All I had to do was step outside and call, “Itsy-Bitsy!” and he would come running from whatever hill or nearby yard he had been in. Soon he was waiting for me on the fence outside my front door when I came home after dark.

My neighbor would sometimes feed him, thinking he was hungry. But Itsy-Bitsy would stay on the fence until I got home, even if he was fed.

Of course, I wanted to turn this feral cat into a pet, but Itsy-Bitsy was terrified of being in a closed space. Anytime I tried to bring him inside, he ran out. If I closed the door, he howled until he was free again — it was as if I were torturing him. Maybe some traumatic experience being trapped had imprinted this wild response in him. Even outdoors, he had his limits. Although he eagerly presented himself to be petted and rolled on the ground like he was in nirvana as I rubbed his belly, if I tried to pick him up, he became like a fish on a hook. He squirmed and flailed in that way that cats who refuse to be picked up do, until he exploded out of my arms and landed on his feet.

Six months into my stay at the cottage, rainy season came to San Francisco. That year, the jet stream carried storm after storm across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. When it rained, Itsy-Bitsy refused to take shelter. Instead, he sat outside my kitchen window, getting drenched and looking in. I researched online how to build a weather shelter for outdoor cats. My boyfriend, a graduate student living in Seattle, helped me construct a tent out of a blue tarp. We put it outside the kitchen window, under a wooden staircase to the roof of the main house. I hoped Itsy-Bitsy would take refuge in the tent. He wasn’t interested. Whenever it rained, Itsy-Bitsy appeared outside my kitchen window, where there was no shelter whatsoever.

I discovered that if I opened the window and sat on the kitchen floor, Itsy-Bitsy would hop onto the ledge and let me dry him off with a warm towel. He would stay there as long as I did, but if I tried to close the window to keep out the rain, he would panic and bolt. If I left the kitchen floor to do anything else, he would go back into the pouring rain. I spent a lot of time that rainy season on my kitchen floor with the window open. Sometimes I would read a book and drink chai tea while Itsy-Bitsy rested. Sometimes we just sat, and I would pet him, listening to the rain.

One morning Itsy-Bitsy showed up at my kitchen window with a huge, bleeding gash on the side of his head. I cleaned the wound as best I could. He didn’t resist. The wound looked too large to have come from another cat’s claws. Had Itsy-Bitsy gotten into a scrap with a raccoon or a dog? Had he escaped a hawk or coyote? According to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the average life span of a feral cat in San Francisco is only five years. I tried again and again to get Itsy-Bitsy to come inside.

I wanted to protect him from the rain, the predators, and all the other dangers of being a feral cat. I wanted to rescue him, but I never was able to make Itsy-Bitsy an indoor cat.

When my lease expired, I moved back to Palo Alto. I had accepted a full-time teaching position in the psychology department at Stanford University, and the commute to campus from my magical cottage involved three trains and a twenty-minute walk on either end. Sometimes, with train delays, it took three hours each way. I couldn’t stay in the cottage, and I couldn’t take Itsy-Bitsy with me. Of course I wanted to. But I knew the outdoors was his home.

I arranged to have the woman who lived next door take over feeding Itsy-Bitsy. We practiced before I moved. I made sure Itsy-Bitsy knew where his food would be from now on. I left a bag of dry food with my neighbor and said a tearful goodbye.

A year after I moved out, the woman who took over feeding Itsy-Bitsy emailed me to let me know he was okay. I was so relieved. But she also wrote, “For quite a while, Itsy-Bitsy sat out on the fence by your door waiting for you to come home at night.” When I read those words, I cried. I was heartbroken. I took it as proof that I had abandoned Itsy-Bitsy. The image of him waiting for me on the fence felt like evidence that I was the kind of person who let others down.

For a long time, I grieved over my failure to rescue Itsy-Bitsy.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit how much shame I felt over not being able to turn him into an indoor cat. I carried it with me for years.

As I was writing this essay, I talked with my husband about my guilt over not being able to protect Itsy-Bitsy. He listened patiently, then said, “You know, I never really thought Itsy-Bitsy needed protecting.” He reminded me of the time a raccoon had snuck up behind Itsy-Bitsy while he was eating from his bowl outside my kitchen window. Itsy-Bitsy turned around, hissed once, and returned to his kibble. The raccoon retreated. By all outward appearances, Itsy-Bitsy was the least vulnerable cat in the colony. Not skittish and hypervigilant like Tinkerbell. Not wary and always hiding in the bushes like Shadow. Not slinking around corners, belly close to the ground, like Princess. Itsy-Bitsy was fearless, confident, healthy, and happy. 

“Maybe Itsy-Bitsy was protecting you,” my husband mused.

I scoffed at this suggestion when he made it. But later, as I thought more about that year in the cottage, his comment rattled around my brain. My whole life, I’ve found it easier to offer compassion than to receive it. To be the one helping, not the one who needs help. It is hard for me to recognize when someone cares about me. 

In many aspects of my life, I have been like a feral cat wriggling out of an embrace.

I remembered something Itsy-Bitsy did after I’d been feeding him for a few weeks. In between meals, I left his food bowl outside the kitchen window alongside a bowl of fresh water. One morning I woke up to find a dead mouse in the otherwise empty food bowl. At the time, I thought Itsy-Bitsy was telling me I wasn’t feeding him enough. I assumed the mouse was a friendly nudge to keep the bowl full. Later, when I got more involved in animal rescue, I learned that leaving dead rodents can be a form of caregiving. It’s unlikely Itsy-Bitsy was scolding me for not providing for him. He might have been worried I wasn’t a strong enough hunter to feed myself. It’s possible he was sharing his bounty to make sure I didn’t go hungry. In researching this essay, I read an interview with a cat behaviorist who said that a fresh corpse is how a cat lets you know that you are family. In leaving me the mouse, Itsy-Bitsy might have been saying, “I’m adopting you.”

If the dead mouse was an act of caregiving, not a complaint, what other behaviors might I have misunderstood? When Itsy-Bitsy waited up for me, sitting on the fence in the dark, was he waiting for dinner — or did he want to make sure I got home safely? When he appeared, on command, anytime I called “Itsy-Bitsy,” was he responding to the possibility of food or play? Or did he think I needed him? Why did Itsy-Bitsy show up at my window every time it rained? I thought I was protecting Itsy-Bitsy. But maybe Itsy-Bitsy was checking on me. Maybe he didn’t want to leave until the rain stopped because he was keeping me company.

I know, it’s ridiculous to try to read the mind of a feral cat.

I don’t take any of these interpretations too seriously. But just considering them has broken open something inside of me.

My mind reels thinking that I might have been the recipient of a cat’s caregiving instinct — that the universe sent me the cottage not because the colony needed a caregiver, but because I needed a cat colony.

Now I look back at that year with wonder. How my “magical” cottage appeared, like magic, on Craigslist the very day I wished for it. How the tiny black cat from my framed IKEA photo appeared, like destiny, at the cottage door. How at a time I was living alone and struggling to find my place in the world, the universe gave me cats who needed to be fed every day. It was a purpose that filled some deep need in my soul. Never in my entire life have I felt as absolutely necessary as when I sat on the kitchen floor, in the rain, with Itsy-Bitsy purring. In those moments, I could not doubt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I always thought Itsy-Bitsy needed me, but the truth is I needed Itsy-Bitsy. Sixteen years ago, I could only see the year with Itsy-Bitsy one way: I had failed. I was an unworthy guardian. Now I wonder who was guarding whom.

You may also enjoy reading Soul Dog: A Journey into the Spiritual Life of Animals by Elena Mannes

The post The Karma of Cats: The Soul Prints of Our Feline Friends appeared first on BEST SELF.

One woman’s story of how non-sexual physical touch helped her discover a path to healing and a deeper connection with her partner after their miscarriage.

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It’s a plus! We’re pregnant!

I ecstatically shared the proof from three tests with my sweetheart at the beginning of this year. I even took snapshots of three pink pluses, my evidence. Yet, truth be told, even within that happiness, I had this awful, gnawing knowing that I tried to push down — the pregnancy wouldn’t last. Perhaps it was just nerves so, I did all the things I was supposed to do anyway: took the prenatal vitamins, made the doctor’s appointments, ate healthy food choices and exercised. All the things.

Then the day came, and the blood started to flow — just a little at first. Maybe everything would still be OK. Keep it together, Marla, I tried to tell myself, as if I had some control over the process. As if I could stop the bleeding and hold this baby safely in my womb. Two days later at my OBGYN’s office it was official, I was in the process of a miscarriage.

Even the word ‘miscarriage’ implies I did something wrong — I hadn’t properly carried this precious package. 

As a former doula supporting women through labor, delivery and postpartum, a former bodyworker, and now a relationship expert for couples, I thought I knew how to ask for what I needed in order to heal and have some sense of closure with my partner. But I didn’t and I didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of grief and the waves of emotional, physical, and spiritual fragments that needed to find a place to rearticulate inside of me in order to heal. I had to discover how to fully let go and bond with my partner through the experience of miscarriage.

Current advice for physical recovery after a miscarriage cautions women about infections, and encourages rest and self-care. Emotional recovery advises women to feel the cycles of grief and move through any thoughts that it might somehow be your fault, If only I had done… I’d still be pregnant. However, that kind of emotional torture only further eats away at our heart and leaves us feeling even more broken, empty, and wounded.

What you won’t find online is how to garner the power of Non-Sexual Physical Touch (NSPT) as a healing modality to recover from the trauma of miscarriage, to love yourself and reconnect with your partner without the pressure of sexual vibes flowing between you two. In fact, sexual activity is prohibited for 2-6 weeks following a miscarriage due to the possibility of infection. Most women just want to crawl into bed and fall asleep until we awaken free from the emotional pain of losing a pregnancy and all the hopes and visions that accompany the loss.

Celebrity Spiritual Advisor, Shellie Nelson, reminds us that “Physical touch is an opportunity to once again reconnect us to the Primal Pulse of life. It can help to soothe and heal us from the trauma of grief, pain, and loss.” Nelson goes on to say that, “If we don’t intentionally reconnect we can begin a pattern of going through the motions and begin a disconnect that continues long after the miscarriage.

Non-Sexual Physical Touch can connect us with our own worthiness, to be alive, to love, to live in awe.”

Receiving NSPT from a family member or friend can be equally healing, especially if your partner is not available to be physically or emotionally present. The human connection is what is most important.

One woman, now a mother of four, shared her experience of NSPT after a miscarriage with me:

I felt alone. I didn’t want to pull on my husband, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to even know how, plus he had his attention on the kids who were also experiencing grief. My younger brother, whom I never turned toward for comfort, reached out and asked if I wanted him to support me, knowing how much we had going on at home. I said yes. When he arrived, he just got into bed with me with no words at all…and held me. The little girl inside of me relaxed and was allowed to make sense of the experience through physical touch. Having my brother lying next to me — something I would never have known to ask for — was one of the most loving, connected experiences of my life.

After a miscarriage, the tendency is to want to acknowledge it happened, deal with the sadness and emotions, and move forward as quickly as possible because we want to get back to our normal, busy lives. But grief and loss are not so neat and orderly — and have their own healing timetable.

Coltrane Lord, Ayurvedic Educator understands NSPT deeply, “In an Ayurveda (the science of life) lifestyle, we practice ‘Abyanga’ on a daily basis. It is non-sexual intentional touch meant to bring the body’s energy and hormones back to homeostasis.” Lord goes on to say that, “After a miscarriage, non-sexual, intentional touch from a partner offers the traumatized feminine body a coherent field she can reference to self-heal. The experience is similar to a child needing a hug or soothing touch from a parent after she skinned her knee. When the physical body experiences trauma, it is a natural reflex to reach for comfort. Non-sexual, intentional touch allows the energetic body to ‘drink’ from the coherent field her partner or loved one is holding.”

Many couples will talk it out and attempt to mend their hearts through words. When talking is not enough to calm and heal, there is another path.

Loving, Non-Sexual Physical Touch is the healing balm to help couples move beyond the sadness into deep intimacy that does not include any sexual energy.

Just to be held is the wish of so many women. And their partners, male or female, also need that physical touch. Words are so limited in these situations, they seem to cause more trauma sometimes when they are meant to be loving.

According to Relationship Expert, Alexandra Stockwell, M.D., “One of the keys to healing together is for both to understand and accept that each person is having their own experience.” She goes on to say, “Men look to their partners for clues for what they are expected to do and how they can be helpful. After a miscarriage, women are not in a position to give that kind of information to allow men to be supportive, so that can be very destabilizing.”

A woman needs to know that she is loved, not a failure in any way, and that her emotions are valid and worthy of expression.

Her partner needs guidance on what to do with their own emotions and how to best support her. Miscarriage is a loss for both partners, thick with emotional charge — and within this source of deep personal pain, they must find their way back to each other.

Dr. Stockwell reminds us that NSPT will, “Bring communion into an otherwise internally isolating experience.”

And Isa Herrera, Women’s Pelvic Health Expert recommends, “After a miscarriage, sexual intimacy can be hard to resume. Everyone feels so hurt and is looking for the ‘why.’ I recommend all women start with ‘Outercourse’ and connect by touching, hugging, slow dancing and being intimate without the sex. Outercourse helps women connect deeply with her partner and to express love in a way that allows her to feel safe.”

Discomfort is more than just physical after a miscarriage. The emotional pain of miscarriage can make both partners feel as if they are going through it alone — especially as they attempt to muscle their way back to ‘normal’, life as it was, and to all the other responsibilities that demand their attention. Isolation post-miscarriage can be deafening.

“Try a firm hand on her shoulder, a gentle embrace and a moment to breathe together. With this touch, the pain of the unspoken, and the loss is able to unfurl more readily, and give way to the seed of healing,” says Postpartum Doula, Devon Tracy.

Here are just a few of the physical benefits of NSPT:

• Lowered blood pressure
• Decreased cortisol, the stress hormone in your system
• Increased oxytocin and other chemicals in the brain that lead to a feeling of wellbeing.

When you practice NSPT with intention, you co-create experiences with your partner where you are bonding during chemical release which means your memory will include the experience of being held, being together, and bonding through a challenging time.

Even months or years later, the practice of NSPT has the power to bond and heal those places that can’t be touched by talk therapy.

While writing this article, my partner and I revisited the practices we utilized earlier this year, and even more emotion was released. For more on the actual practices of NSPT I invite you to download our complimentary guide which includes:

• The 6 Hugging Positions
• Massage After Miscarriage Practice
• The Ultimate Spoon
• The Love Blanket

During the process of composing this article, I was revisited by my own loss and rode waves of emotion as I interviewed women and couples who experienced miscarriage, as well as the experts who contributed here. My partner and I practiced all of these NSPT techniques ten months after our miscarriage — and the unspoken, unhealed, unloved parts of myself were able to quietly step forward and feel the comfort, space, and permission to receive a new level of healing and integration from the experience. I was able to have closure on the miscarriage in a whole new way.

So please consider this an invitation if you have experienced a miscarriage at any time in your life (or any other emotional trauma), to ask for your partner to practice NSPT together for mutual healing.

Experiencing loss is a part of the human condition and how we choose to respond can be the difference between suffering and healing.

There is no true closure without healing, and Non-Sexual Physical Touch (NSPT) is an opportunity to reconnect with the essence and truth of who we are, what we care about, and to love ourselves while allowing our partner to love us through loss.

You may also enjoy reading The Virtue of Vulnerability: How Miscarriage Reconnected Me to my Intuition, by Cindy Kirkliss-Kramer.

The post Life After Miscarriage: The Healing Power of Non-Sexual Physical Touch appeared first on BEST SELF.

A raw account of healing and revealing — one mother recovers from people-pleasing and unworthiness through her son’s journey to sobriety

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With reminders of every fault, limiting belief and mess-up we’ve ever made on the tip of their tongues, our teenage children seem to almost effortlessly touch our core wounds. For years I lived in the painful shadow of this reality until I was able to shift my vantage point. Is it possible that our children can be our greatest teachers? What I discovered when fear and heartbreak forced me to be vulnerable and reflective is that yes, beautiful lessons are there for us.

At Home in His Home

Tears come at the most inconvenient time as I sit in the comfortable, but basic seat I strategically selected. Not in the front row, that would be too intense for him. But not at the back because I really want a front row seat to witness this. I feel a welling up as he walks on stage with the worship team and he takes his place on the left. He doesn’t make eye contact with me, but that’s nothing personal. He’s just in his zone, preparing to serve.

I am in His house today, and my son Cam’s house. It’s not mine but that’s a big part of why strong emotion has pushed its way up from my belly and turned into tears of healing this morning. I feel like this is a private concert just for me as I allow the salty tears to trickle. I’d hold them back but they feel so damn good; happy tears; cleansing tears; washing my soul of yet another layer of shame and hurt.

It was 4 years prior that the best friend of my oldest son Cam, sent me a text. I found it strange as I wondered how he got my number. I opened and read and felt instant overwhelm. It was short and to the point,

“I think you should know that it’s not water in Cam’s water bottle when he leaves for school. Check your liquor cabinet.”

What?! I didn’t even need to check the cabinet; I knew that it was true. But I did check and my heart sank.

We have a decent stash of bottles for when company comes over and I rarely, if ever, check them as I’m not really a drinker. Like my dad, alcohol doesn’t agree with me. An occasional glass of red wine with a nice meal is the extent of my consumption. On this day I discover nearly empty bottles, a few of them including the water look-a-like, vodka.

“Are these emptier? Maybe they aren’t?” I knowingly try to convince myself for a couple minutes. I even grab a marker and make discrete marks on the bottles so maybe I can be wrong if I come back again in a few days and the levels haven’t changed.

I feel so alone. Ashamed. “How has it come to this? How have I failed so badly as a parent?” I desperately begin, in my mind, to go back in time to see when it happened, when I messed up and Cam turned to alcohol to numb his feelings and cope. “When did he stop coming to me? How had I made him feel that he couldn’t come to me?”

Shame. Shame. Shame. I’d been so wrapped up in the busy of my own life I had a hard time pinpointing when it happened. And then I realized it had been happening gradually and I just didn’t want to admit it; didn’t want to face the pain and the mess. Cam had been dropping breadcrumbs behind himself for most of high school.

An eternal optimist, I see now that I convinced myself it would sort its self out. Clearly that hadn’t happened. I congratulate myself, sarcastically, for being ‘Parent-of-the Year’ and begin to assess my options.

I could ignore it and keep pretending. As a people-pleaser I was a master at pretending. I could go, in a reactive rage, bust his bedroom door open and tell him what an idiot he was and that he must stop immediately. I could try to reach him in conversation, just like we used to, although this seemed unlikely based on how much he’d withdrawn lately.

The truth is I did a mix of things; I watched him closely, I ached when he would be destructive with his behavior, I tip-toed sharing suggestions, I didn’t replenish our liquor cabinet and I started to worry and feel guilty, a lot.

Kevin Nealon, a comedian said “I’m a people-pleaser with a knack of letting people down.” That was me. And this was maybe the first time I realized that my years of people-pleasing had deep-seeded scars. A painful lack of worthiness stemming back to my feelings of not being loved, as child.

My being nice and saying yes all the time meant I failed to teach my kids how to create healthy boundaries for themselves.

There was no malice. I was doing the best I could raising two boys by myself. But that didn’t soothe what was now a constant flow of negative self-talk and shaming in my head.

For several years after this, we continued with one step forward and two steps back. I tried to be calm when my son struggled even though I was terrified of what might happen. I became a best-selling fiction writer with all the stories I wrote in my head when he didn’t come home from a party or when he’d stay in his bedroom for days. Counselling, days of detoxing, little wins — but more steps back than forward.

At work I kept up quite the charade. I was VP of Corporate Communications for a growing company, a team to manage, travel, bills to pay at home and aging parents to tend to on weekends. But the people-pleaser knows no boundaries when it comes to shoving down feelings and moving forward. In a warped way, I actually wore it like a badge of honor.

In fact, one day I recall my team was organizing an event. We had a big-name band playing a huge celebration party. VIP passes were issued for those who would require access to the celebrity green room. I had been running around all day and got back to my desk only an hour before the event started. One of my team had left my VIP badge at my desk. Get Shit Done Weber. That was the name on the badge. Not Amanda Weber.

While my oldest son was struggling with borderline depression and using alcohol to cope, I was recognized at work as the person who made sure everything happened as it should. If only they knew.

It deeply saddens me to see how I dishonored myself day after day, but at that time I recall so clearly seeing the VIP badge and thinking, You’re damn right, you can always rely on me!

Have you ever lay in bed, in the dark, as night falls and the veil between worlds seems thinner and prayer invites you in? I have. It was around this time in my life where I would often fall asleep praying for divine intervention — for a hand that could reach my struggling son and support him in a way that I didn’t seem to be able to. I was exhausted doing all the wrong things to help.

If I’m being honest, I was more of an enabler than a strong parent because it soothed my own pain.

Divine Intervention Arrives

Cam had been distant for several days on this sunny August morning, nothing new. I was heading out to the grocery store and invited him to come along. He agreed and I thought, Great, we can load up on healthy food and maybe this will be the day it all starts to turn around. I was right about one thing; change was coming but by this day, it was already in motion.

Unbeknownst to me, my son’s girlfriend of 4 years had broken up with him a few days prior. I didn’t know for sure but I imagined it had a lot to do with his drinking, moods and overall unhappiness.

As we sat in the car, in the grocery store parking lot, I felt a deep mama-bear intuition wash over me. With tingling in my head and pounding in my heart, I looked over at Cam and gently said, “Honey, you seem really low today. Can we talk?”

That was all it took. He hung his broken head and began to weep. This was something I had never seen from him before. To this day I recall exactly how I felt; I was so deeply sad for him but along with sadness I felt hope that for the first time something had cracked him open, just a sliver, and he was allowing emotions other than anger and self-hatred to flow.

I would find out that day, as we sat and talked, that he was on the third day of sobriety. He was struggling but he carried a determination that I had never witnessed before. He was deeply sad that his girlfriend had finally given up on him — and yet more sad that he had been such an unkind person to her. He had remorse, he had disappointment in himself, he had a lot of emotions tumbling out. I wouldn’t say he was hopeful, it was more despair, but he began to talk about being tired of letting God down. And how he just needed to do better. God, I thought. What about the rest of us?

And then I felt a wave of gratitude. God wasn’t available to me, but if he was available to Cam — I welcomed that opportunity.

An Abrupt Education

I was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A city which was, and still is, fiercely divided by religion. For generations Catholics and Protestants fought. Vicious fighting, terrorist fighting before the world used the term ‘terrorist’ in daily headlines. Car bombings, politically motivated violent rallies, not a safe place to raise family. Or so my Dad decided.

At the age of 3 (with my bothers 6 and 12) we immigrated to Canada. I was young and didn’t take in any of the reasons for our move but at 10 I got an abrupt education.

I had always wondered why we didn’t go to church, but as a kid you don’t often ask what seems like such logical questions. I had been playing with my best friend one Sunday morning. Her mom said it was time for her to go to church, which was a across the street at her Catholic school. We were besties, didn’t want to separate, so I went with her. I apprehensively walked in beside her, a people-pleaser who didn’t want to disrespect, into the school gymnasium they had converted for a church service. I would learn soon that they did this every Sunday morning as they raised money to build a dedicated church.

I sat, observed, pretended to mouth words of prayer when people, who clearly knew the script, were responding to the words of the Priest with conviction. I pretended to fit in. I wanted to fit in.

I’d never experienced so many people coming together in unity. It felt like a club of belonging. Do they notice that I don’t belong?

When my best friend walked up for what I would later discover was called ‘Communion’, there was no way I was getting left behind, so I went. I observed what everyone was doing. I copied, I took communion. Seemed like no big deal. Afterwards I asked my friend what that was and she told me. I felt shame. I felt like an impostor. I hoped that the Priest wouldn’t find out and be mad at me.

When I went home, I casually mentioned at the dinner table what I had done and my Dad, who literally NEVER raised his voice instructed me never to go back again. “The bloody Catholics forced me out my country, there is no damn way any child of mine is going to church!”

The truth is that he was equally as angry at both sides thus explaining our no-church-on-Sundays upbringing.

This was the time in my life when I began to feel very alone and scared when I thought about anything to do with God or life, for that matter. I felt that to pursue any kind of more expansive inquiries around “where do we go when we die” or “what is life about,” I was being disloyal to my parents. Missing this dimension of my being in the way that it happened, always left me with a sense of being less than and not worthy.

Around the age of 35 when my life was a mess with stress and busy and being reactive with my two sons, I remember making a list of things I wanted in my life. One of them was the freedom to explore types of spirituality that would fill this void of unworthiness.

The seed was planted.

Although God, in the traditional sense, has never really connected for me, being part of a divine Universe, the idea that we are all connected and were created in the essence of love — this did and continues to guide me every moment.

His Home

Cam continued to fight with all he had to be the person he knew he could be, for himself and for his God. And me, right along-side, with my Universal Divine, we have learned to accept each other’s beliefs and often muse about how similar they actually are. I never wish he would come to my side, but I often wonder if he prays for me to join him.

So here we are. I sit, mid-pack, in Cam’s house of worship and watch him walk out on stage preparing to serve as guitarist in the worship team. I release soft, healing tears.

I am comfortable with having no ultimate control, while over and over again Cam teaches me how to love him for who he is, by loving myself for who I am.

He strums his guitar strings, I take in a deep nourishing breath and together we celebrate Cam’s 952nd day sober.

You may also enjoy reading From Motherless to Motherhood: A Journey of Addiction, Relationship & Love, by Jan Hiner

The post At Home In His Home: Meeting My Sober Son Where He Is appeared first on BEST SELF.

One mother’s ode to parenting in all of its complexities — how in loosening the hold on her children she found space to be a better parent

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I didn’t want to write my second book. The book I pitched to my publisher couldn’t have been more different than the one that’s landing “wherever books are sold” this month. But it’s the book they asked for (after they politely rejected my pitch), so it’s the one I was called to create.

I didn’t want to write it because I didn’t feel qualified to deliver what was requested — a book about parenting, filled with the wisdom that sprang from all of my many years of mothering five children. Nope, I couldn’t even pretend to feel like I was the right one for the job. Because the truth is that I was struggling. This offer to write my second book — a dream for so many people — was coming at one of the lowest points of my life.

My oldest son, the second of my five, and I had been estranged for nearly a year at that point — a separation that began with a set of explosive arguments followed by his decision to move out of the family home. I’ve heard it said that “you can only be as happy as your saddest child,” and those words proved true for me. There could be no joy in my life while he was hurting, only a gloomy haze clouding every moment. I felt frustrated and hopeless, like there was nothing I could do to repair our relationship or to help him through this challenging phase of his life.

The harder I tried, the further I pushed him away.

But I’m a writer. So I wrote.

I wrote about what I thought I knew to be true — what had worked (so far) and what didn’t (which was already painfully obvious). I shared lessons; some rooted in everyday rites of passage that a lot of women experience, others born from trauma and loss. Not long after making my way through the first pages, it became clear to me that what I was writing was not at all a parenting book, but rather a book about my experience of motherhood.

So there would be no advice on how to get a kid to go to bed peacefully or eat their vegetables without protest. What emerged instead was a message…

From my heart to the hearts of mothers everywhere, on how to navigate all the chaos, heartbreak, joy, and beautiful messiness of parenting while still maintaining a sense of self.

And even go after some big dreams in the process, because that’s exactly what I had been doing during those 21 years of parenting my little humans.

I filled more than 200 pages with stories, lessons, and tips for any mother to take care of her mind, body, and spirit. I dug deep into my past to uncover how the way my mother and father parented me as a child influences how I show up as a parent today. Through that process, I discovered a lesson so sweet that it became one of the main themes of the book and the “secret to successful mothering” I want to share with you right now.

Like I said in my book, I can only call myself the expert of five children, and on most days I’m not even confident in my expertise in parenting them. 

You see, I’m less of an expert and more of a diligent and dedicated student, standing in witness and awe of their “becoming.”

And every once in a while, I have to remind them to look both ways before crossing the street, put a bandage on a scrape, and get after them to do their homework on time. But beyond the joyful acts of loving and dutiful acts of protecting, there’s all the stuff out of my control that I have to leave to the Universe, faith, and trust. I’m forced to practice surrender.

It’s in surrender, letting go, that we find even more joy, growth, and success in motherhood.

Surrender in parenting is merely embracing the idea that our children — as the legendary poet, Khalil Gibran, said — come through us, not from us. When you understand and embrace that concept, you can begin to surrender some control and release a little bit of the pressure you might be putting on yourself to be the perfect mother or to raise the perfect child.

Our children do not belong to us. We are merely given the task of watching over them for a little while. 

And they are certainly not made only of our DNA. They have their own soul, born from another place. I have a specific set of responsibilities in parenting my children, and one of them is letting go enough to allow them to become who they were sent here to become, separate from my plans and ideas about how their paths should look.

Let me put it another way for you. Motherhood is not unlike gardening when it comes to the concept of control and surrender. In gardening, we prepare the soil, plant the seed, nurture it with fertilizer, food, and water, and then step back and watch it grow. The sun and rain have their part in it, too, and that part is out of our control. Once in a while, we have to step in and remove some weeds so growth can happen unobstructed, but there’s also so much of the process that we can’t dictate.

Parenting is a lot like that. The growth and success of a child depends on so much more than what is in our control.

I often say that I was a mother before I was a woman. When I had my first baby, my daughter Winona, at the tender age of 19, I had no idea of who I was or what I truly wanted to be, but I was determined to defy every stereotype of the teenage mother. At the same time that I was raising her, I was raising myself as a young woman and teaching myself how to parent. I read every book, attended every class, and took in every bit of advice I could. It was so important to me to be perfect, so I micromanaged every part of motherhood, leaving nothing to chance. Winona grew up to be a brilliant and responsible young woman, but parenting her in such a restrictive way created so much unnecessary stress and little room for her to express herself. Thank goodness she’s a willful and independent spirit who rebelled against my tight grasp. She’s so different from me, and I love it.

What I’ve learned since is that the more willing I am to release control, the easier it is for my children to find a path perfectly suited for their individual learning and growth.

So this was my intentional practice during the time I was writing. I had to know that what I felt to be true and what I had seen in glimpses throughout my years of parenting, was actually true.

I decided to let go of my son so he could find his own way.

I told him that I loved him, that I will always be his mother, and that our home will always be a soft and supportive place to land. I apologized for holding on too tightly and for thinking my way was the only way. I told him that I trusted him and that I believed that he has the wisdom to create a path to all his heart desires and all that the world has to offer him.

I let go, I surrendered, and I set us both free.

So while that had been my practice in fits and starts over the years, I had never been so intentional in living the practice of surrender every day. I resolved to continue to tend to my little garden, full of tiny seeds that were growing into the most beautiful buds and blossoms, and let the sun, wind, and rain take care of the rest.

The good news is that my son and I are on a (slow, steady, careful, compassionate) road to healing. I’m committed to keeping my promises, we’re learning to trust each other again, and the gloomy haze has lifted. This was hard work — surrender is no easy task for a mother. But it’s one that allows for both mother and child to bloom so magnificently.

You may also enjoy reading Getting Unhooked: Learning to Detach From Reactivity in Parenting by Mark Bertin

The post The Secret to Successful Mothering (That Took Me 21 Years to Learn) appeared first on BEST SELF.

After experiencing tragedy and shutting down, a mother finds her way back to reclaiming the bond with a daughter she always yearned for

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Given that being a parent can be such a challenging and unglamorous enterprise, why do people bother to begin with? Because sentient beings are made to. Most of us are, anyway. We’re biologically and socially programmed to connect with one another and create new humans. And we are perfectly designed to care for them. 

The mistakes we make are part of the package. Our fears for their wellbeing are impossible to circumvent.

We are bound to stumble through the experience of being someone’s mom — just as our mothers fumbled through their own motherly missions. Maybe with more awareness than they did, but not with any more certainty.

My own ‘kid karma’ has been endlessly bewildering to me. I adopted two children of mixed race, who had been abused in their families of origin. I fell so deeply in love with them, I couldn’t imagine adoring a child conceived and ripened in my own uterus any more fully. One of these daughters has moved far away, both geographically and emotionally — though she will always be my first child and holds a singular seat on a lotus in my heart. 

But the most shattering loss of all was when my other daughter, Jenny, died at age fourteen in a car accident.

Jenny’s death was a tsunami that rearranged the entire landscape of my life.

My two older stepdaughters have always been kind, but a bit reserved. They don’t climb into bed with me and cry when they’re sad. And I’m not the first (or even the fifth) person they text with good news. I have wistfully commented to their dad that I think they see me as a secretary from Iowa — harmless, but a little boring (with no offense to actual secretaries from Iowa). 

My youngest stepdaughter, Kali, is different. She is as much my child as my own children have ever been. Jenny and I moved in with Jeff and Kali when our girls were both nine, and we became the family I had longed to give birth to. Those were the sweetest years of my life. I gave myself over to mothering Jenny and Kali. Science projects and first periods, birthday parties and unrequited crushes. The two girls were inseparable, and the relationship between them brought me great joy. 

After Jenny’s sudden death at fourteen, Kali went to stay with her mom and never came back. I lost my family overnight.

At first, I could not understand why Kali would withdraw from me at a time when I felt we urgently needed the refuge of each other. We were the two people who loved Jenny most and whom she had most deeply loved. But Jenny’s death plunged Kali into turmoil and confusion, and it took years for her to integrate the trauma of losing her beloved sister and best friend — and to sort out who I was to her now that Jenny was gone. 

Little by little, as she entered young adulthood, Kali made her way back into my life and began to rest again in the safety of my love.

There was something in me, though, that held myself back.

Not wanting to squash the fragile flower of our reconnection with smothering mothering, nor trespass on her loyalty to her own mom, I maintained a tender yet spacious footing with my stepdaughter. That is until one day about ten years after Jenny’s death when Jeff and I were traveling in France. 

Our friend Andrew had offered his tiny studio in Chartres to us for a few days so that we could explore the cathedral, famous for its iconic labyrinth, its elaborate rose windows, and most of all for its Black Madonna — a statue of the Blessed Mother that exudes a quality of the primordial feminine, a being who both encompasses and transcends the Virgin Mary. 

That day, as Jeff and I walked around the cathedral in the rain, talking about our children, I felt a rush of pain about the distance between Kali and me — and I started to cry. I admitted that I was tired of holding myself back for fear of violating her boundaries. I was ready to let go. I wanted to help Kali with her graduate school applications and listen to her concerns about current events, buy her things I saw that I knew she would love and take her with me to some of the amazing places where I was invited to teach, without fear of transgression. 

Well, then go ahead and mother her, a voice resounded in my mind. What have you been waiting for?

In that moment, a stone (perhaps a boulder) lifted from my heart. I realized that I didn’t need to wait for Kali’s approval of my plan. Nor did I require that she reciprocate my dedication to her. I could simply unlock the gates and get on with loving her as my daughter. This did not negate her relationship with her mother. It simply affirmed what was true for me. 

I did not rush home and tell Kali about my epiphany. I just quietly acted upon it. I reclaimed our bond and treated her as my own child, an adult child now — but still young and vulnerable. Kali was strong and passionate about human rights and climate change and spiritual awakening — the very same issues I was passionate about! Without my saying a word, Kali began to respond to my maternal devotion. She started coming by for tea. We’d talk about her plans for founding a nonprofit to make art with underserved children, or she’d fill me in on her love life. We’d reminisce about Jenny, sometimes with tears, but more often laughing over Jenny’s adorable idiosyncrasies, which the two of us can recall more vividly than anyone else ever could. 

Kali and I have grown closer since the Holy Mother came to me outside her home in Chartres, woke me up, and reopened my own Mother Heart.

You may also enjoy reading Emotional Pain and Grieving: How to Mindfully Support Others by Barbara Larrivee

The post Reopening My Mother Heart: A Journey From Tragic Heartbreak to Hope appeared first on BEST SELF.

An End of Life Doula imparts the beauty, grace, and impact of participating in your dying plan and legacy

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As we think about life, we must think about death. As we think about death, we must think about life.

Life and death go hand in hand. At the end of life, we hear the question, “How do you want to be remembered?” Often, the answer is: I wish I had done _________, taken that trip, should have done _________, should have called or spoken to __________. It’s often about our regrets versus our accomplishments. Does this sound familiar?

We all have choices to live life fully now as if we are experiencing our last breath this moment. Ugh. Who wants to think of that — and why would I want to think about death?

The funny thing is — we are all going to die. Ok, maybe not funny, yet true. Our bodies come with an expiration date even though we are not aware of it. We are not designed to live forever. This is fact, yet so few of us admit this and prepare or even know we have choices and can make a plan. This PLAN is similar to vacation plans or retirement plans as it takes some thought. 

Every living thing dies, or does it? Perhaps it dies in its existing body to transform and nourish something else, so it may thrive.

Think of leaves falling off the tree and providing nourishment for the plants below them.

Think of the beautiful butterfly. It goes through many stages; egg, larvae (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), and finally emerges transformed into a free and beautiful butterfly. Imagine, being that butterfly. We begin as a seed, have our resting state of 9 months and emerge transformed into a little person capable of breathing on our own. 

Suppose for a moment, we continue to do the same as the butterfly. We traverse through life much the same although we make many more choices and create many possibilities. We live our lives nourishing ourselves with food, learning and loving and moving along to then enter into a resting state before transforming into a new way of being — leaving the old behind. 

I experienced this when I decided to leave my home I knew so well, to embark on a new adventure all the way across country from Boston to central coast California. I knew no one here, yet the possibility of living in a carefree, warm, sunny environment called to me — beckoning me away from the fear of the unknown. It was in this new place that I discovered I wanted to write some sort of book, though I had no idea what type. 

It was also at this time that I answered a 3-sentence newspaper ad about training to become a hospice volunteer. Something stirred inside me, so I heeded the call. Go where you are being called. It is the place where the unexpected gifts await.

Many of those hospice clients would teach me much about life, patience, the importance of being present and caring for another person — and of death.

It was because of those experiences and interactions that I commenced my End of Life Doula training. 

A birth Doula is a non-medical person who assists the mother before, during and after childbirth providing emotional support. An End of Life Doula is an advocate for the dying person, making sure their wishes are followed and provides support to their family during this time of transition and often emotional upheaval. An End of Life Doula also assists with the creation of Legacy Projects, transition rooms and end of life plans.

Designing Legacy Projects celebrating a person’s life can bring a family together in the most momentous way. Especially when organizing scrapbooks of favorite vacations spent together, reminding everyone of happy times where there may be have been dissention before. Other ideas of projects may be a video sharing memories of your life, writing letters to family members and friends, also to those unborn to share your dreams of life for them. Perhaps it’s a scroll or book with your favorite poems or recipes you loved to make. Meaningful conversations can be shared with music and dancing surrounding the dying person. Hearing is the last sense to leave the body, therefore, although the person is lying unresponsive — they can hear. 

Another decision to be made is where you want to be: hospital, care facility, or home — and what you want your room to look like, feel like, smell like.

Yes, you have choices. You can have your favorite flowers, your favorite scent, perhaps lavender, a special pillow or blanket. Lights can be dimmed, machines can be muted or turned off. Since hearing is our last sense to leave, having your favorite music playing can be quite soothing not just for you, but for your visitors as well. Create some visualizations that can be recorded and played for you or ones that someone can read/share with you of your favorite places. 

The body knows how to die

Sometimes, the mind interrupts the process as it believes it has to keep us alive. I have witnessed the difference providing a visualization has on the body’s breathing and peacefulness because the mind has something else to do. Rapid breathing, twitching, gasping all have been relieved once visualizations and music are introduced. The mind focuses on the visualization and music and not on the body. This allows the breathing to be slower, twitching to subside and even gurgling to lessen all without medication. Sometimes the use of some, low dose medication is necessary, however, medication can disrupt the dying process and transition because it interrupts the flow of life into death into whatever is next. I imagine the spirit/soul leaves the body before any discomfort may come from the dying process, therefore, there is no pain.

Each person who dies in our life is our teacher and provides us with many lessons. Sometimes it’s how to live life differently, more fully, or to replicate their dying experience or make sure we have a much more peaceful transition. Or perhaps we are being called to make amends with people while we are able, to bring more meaning and love into our life, to take that special vacation now instead of waiting, or skydive or write that book, or become healthy.

Maybe even plan for your death.

There are choices to be made at our end of life. Where do we die? What do we want our room to look like? What music, poems, books, visualizations do you want to hear? Who do you want/not want to visit you?  What memories do you want shared? And then the decisions about what happens once you die — will there be a funeral, will you be buried or cremated, what will be done with your ashes? What type of celebration do you want? 

I recommend having your celebration while you are alive, so you can attend.

James Burrows was given a tribute having aired his 1,000 shows (James writes comedy, Friends for example) and stated during his thank you speech, he was pleased his tribute had taken place while he was still alive so he could enjoy it and thank everyone who contributed in person. Great idea!

The more preparation and choices you make, the less your family members and friends will have to. The guess work and possible dissention among family members can be alleviated. 

I feel one of the greatest gifts we can give to our loved ones are conversations regarding dying and death. Death is one thing other than taxes we are guaranteed of while we are living, yet so many people don’t discuss it. The subject of death is as taboo as religion and politics.

What are we afraid of? I agree, the unknown can be scary, so by having a plan, the unknown becomes a little more known and instead of doom, maybe, just maybe we become curious about the mystery of what may lie beyond this dimension. Honestly, not having these types of conversations terrifies me more than having them.  

The Conversation Catch 22

Often times, the person who is dying wants to discuss death and what may be beyond, yet refrains from doing so as to not upset their family members. Often the family members want to discuss death and are afraid of upsetting the dying person. All this angst can be eliminated by looking at death yourself and defining what it means to you. Then by discussing your feelings, you open the door for the person who is dying to share their thoughts. Be respectful of what they say as there is no right/wrong, good/ bad way to think about dying and death. 

Many doctors are in the business of keeping us alive at all costs, so they are not comfortable discussing death either.

I recommend you find someone you can have these conversations with as I believe they are important and a necessary part of life.

Another great gift you can give to the person who is dying besides music and visualizations is your PRESENCE! By Presence, not just being there physically, I mean being PRESENT, leaving all drama, bad day experiences, at the door and being totally with that person. Share your vacation plans, new job, new home, stories with them. This provides them with peace of mind knowing you are moving on and taking care of yourself.

Your Legacy

Preparing and executing a death plan allows people to reflect on their lives, their accomplishments, their highlights which in turn can be shared with friends and family. This is called your legacy, something I highly recommend — a life in review. If there are things you want to do, do them now. Make that phone call, give that forgiveness! What are you waiting for? There may never be a better time. Creating this legacy now also provides information, pictures for your celebration before or after your end of life and no one has to scramble to put things together. I also encourage people to write their own obituary. Who knows you better than you know yourself? What do you want people to know about you?

Creating a plan stating your choices and contemplating a different perspective about dying and death can alter the experience from one of morbidity, to one of ease and grace.

Death, like birth, is a beautiful experience to behold. I believe we die in this body only to be reborn again.

You may also enjoy reading Doing Death Differently: Embracing the Home Funeral by Kelly Notaras

The post End Game: How To Do It Your Way (Yes, Even Dying) appeared first on BEST SELF.

One woman’s ode to the creative spirit of her Mother — a legacy beyond her prolific literary and artistic creations — one of lasting impact upon the heart

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I have always wanted to be a writer. For as long as I can remember, I have loved writing and reading books and telling stories.

I have very distinct memories from my childhood of experiences that have shaped this in me, many of which involve my mother, a writer and an artist herself. Amongst them:

• My mother coming into my bedroom each morning with a notebook and a pen to write down my dreams from the night before.
• Sitting beside my mother at the typewriter, dictating stories to her as she typed them diligently, careful not to miss a word. 
• Spending hours at the library each week, sprawled out on the floor surrounded by stacks of books that I loved. 
• Discovering small, used bookstores with my mother and searching through dusty shelves for treasures to bring home with us.
• Curling up under the covers between my parents as they read to me from our favorite books and made up elaborate adventure stories that almost always involved either me or my brother. 

My love of writing continued into adulthood: into college (I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature), into my career (I have spent the past 14 years working in the world of publishing as the editor and creative director at www.tut.com), and into my life as I now know it (I am putting the finishing touches on my first solo book, The Gifts of Writing, that will be released into the world later this year). 

I think it is fair to say that I have devoted my life to writing and to becoming a writer.

Yet, my understanding of what it means to be a writer, to be an artist, is constantly shifting, evolving, and changing form. 

The most seismic of these shifts happened 6 years ago, when my mother passed away. My mother, who had spent each morning writing down my dreams in her notebook. My mother, who had spent hours writing stories with me at the typewriter. My mother, who had read to me each night from our favorite books. My mother, who had written thousands of poems and painted hundreds of pictures over the course of her life. 

In the beginning, after she passed, I kept boxes of her poetry by my bedside and hung her paintings on the wall above my bed. I thought that these were the gifts she had left behind, and I wanted to preserve them. I wanted to make her poems into books, because they deserved to be read. I wanted to frame her paintings, because they belonged in a gallery.

Then it dawned on me one day that her writing and her art were not the gifts she’d left behind… what she left behind was so much greater.

My mother lived a life of love. She allowed every poem she wrote and every picture she painted to make her more.

Through her creative process she became more loving, more centered, more intuitive, more honest, more aware of who she was as a woman, an artist, a friend, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a mother — my mother. 

She brought that love and centeredness and intuition and honesty and awareness back with her into the world. She passed it on to me, my brother, my father, and everyone whose life she touched.  

My mother’s love was the greatest gift she left behind (far greater than anything she ever created with a paintbrush or a pen — and yet in large part made possible by these very creations). Her love will continue to live on through everyone she ever loved, and through everyone they ever love, and through everyone they ever love, and so on… forevermore.  

This is what it means to be an artist. 

It is not measured by the number of books that we write or paintings that we sell or articles that we publish. It is not measured by publishers or agents or royalties or fans or followers. 

All of that is wonderful, but it is not what we create that matters… it is who we become through the act of creating it that counts.  

The real work begins the moment we step away from the art, because that is when we are challenged to take all that we have learned and carry it back with us into the world. That is when we must apply what we know on a much larger scale, to a much larger canvas — the canvas of life. 

That is when we become true artists.

You may also enjoy reading Entrainments of Heart: The Stitch Work of Community by Mark Nepo

The post An Artist’s Legacy: It’s Not What We Create, But Rather Who We Become appeared first on BEST SELF.

Every moment is a slice of the extraordinary phenomena that is life — find grace in each and every moment, the beautiful and painful alike.

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This moment is so amazing. You cannot believe how extraordinary this moment is.

The ways grace can reveal itself are wide and vast. Think of the moment when Moses saw God in the burning bush. This was a moment of tremendous grace. When Moses climbed that mountain, I do not imagine he had any real idea of what he was going to find. Suddenly a great vision of a burning bush appeared, and from that moment on, his life was irrevocably altered. He came down from the mountain bearing a gift — a new vision of life, of reality, and of God. It is the same with the Buddha’s awakening beneath the bodhi tree. I do not suppose he sat down and thought, ‘Today’s the day!’ Grace has an element of surprise. Because it is unearned, it feels as though something’s been bestowed upon us; easy or difficult, we can be available to it, but we cannot directly bring it about. 

There are other forms of grace. A friend who has two children talks about how the birth of his first child changed him forever. He had never imagined in his wildest dreams that he could experience the depth and quality of love that he did when that baby was born. It reoriented his life. It was so powerful that before his wife gave birth to their second child, he wondered if he could have the same extraordinary vividness of love. It seemed incomprehensible that it could happen again.

That is real, life-changing grace.

There is the grace that happens when things are not going well at all, when we lean into the unknown and receive something profound. I have found when something does not go the way you imagined it would or wanted it to, if you are truly available to what is happening and to the way something is going, you can open and respond to grace. The trajectory will begin to improve, and you will turn a corner and find something you had never dreamed of.

Then there are the seldom-acknowledged moments of grace — things like the gift of waking up in the morning (even if some mornings it may not feel like a gift) and taking a breath, stretching your arms, feeling your heart beat. It is an unprovoked grace. It is not happening because of anything you have done, as you have not necessarily merited that your heart is beating and your lungs are breathing and you can feel the palms of your hands. 

This extraordinary, overwhelming mystery called life is a gift, and all we need to do is receive it. 

There is another part of the experience of grace that is not talked about often: what it means to return what has been given. Grace is a two-way street; it is a gift that is received, and it is a gift that seeks to be given. We receive grace only to give grace, and the more we give grace, the more open we are to receiving it. It is like a circle that can complete itself only when we find some way of embodying or expressing our moments of grace. If we do not do this, if we are only consumers of grace, we may spend a lot of time waiting for it, not seeing that to be able to offer grace — our time and attention, a moment of consciousness, of true availability, of heartful and affectionate awareness — is to embody grace. 

A gift of grace I’ll never forget was given to me by my fourth-grade teacher, Dr. Vogel. He was a wonderful man, and he may have been the first Buddha I ever met. He was truly an enlightened being. That year, we had to give speeches in front of the class. It was supposed to be a one-page speech, no longer and no shorter. When my turn came, I was nervous. I had never done something like this before. I walked to the front of the classroom, put my piece of paper on the lectern, and looked out at the other students. Their eyes were riveted on me. I panicked to such an extent that when I looked down at my speech, I could not make out the words. My mind was so flustered and so shocked by fear that I could not read. This made my panic worse.

I looked up and saw Dr. Vogel at the back of the classroom. He was a roly-poly guy and had his hands folded on his big tummy. He wore the widest, most beatific grin. He smiled with such joy and love that it was a transmission — his consciousness into mine. His sense of ‘okayness’ reached me, as if he were saying…

He smiled with such joy and love that it was a transmission — his consciousness into mine. His sense of ‘okayness’ reached me, as if he were saying…

“Kid, this moment is so amazing. You cannot believe how extraordinary this moment is.” 

There I was in a total panic, yet his expression was telling me that this moment was perfect. I looked at his face and could feel what he was feeling. I could feel the energy of his confidence come into my body and fill me up like a balloon with air, and when I looked at my piece of paper again, I could read the words. But I did not read that speech. Instead, I looked directly into the eyes of my classmates, and I began to speak spontaneously. I talked for about ten minutes, and it was so easy and delightful that I was over the moon with happiness and well-being. 

Ever since that moment, I have been able to speak in front of people, no matter how large the group, with ease and a certain degree of confidence. It is the reason I can do what I do as a spiritual teacher, even though I am a shy person by nature. I owe it to Dr. Vogel in fourth grade. He transmitted grace to me. I can imagine a lot of other adults would feel uncomfortable if they looked up and saw a kid panicking. They would panic for you. Dr. Vogel did not do that. He grinned at me, not because he was trying to help me, but because he knew that everything was okay.

He knew in the depth of his being that this was a glorious and fantastic moment, and he beamed that truth from the back of the room — a wordless transmission of grace. 

I have reflected upon this many times, not only because it was a moment of grace for me, but because he was offering grace — the grace of his certainty of the goodness of that moment and the goodness of me. He had total and absolute confidence in me, even as I panicked. We could all use somebody like that in our lives, couldn’t we? Whether we have someone like that or not, we can all find grace within ourselves and become conscious of the way we can be emissaries of grace: humble, not overbearing, and not insisting. We each have our own moments of grace; it is not a spiritual thing, and it is not restricted to moments of revelation, although it includes those. 

There are many times in life when we may feel graced, and there are endless opportunities to bring forth that grace and offer it to the world around us. In that way, bit by bit, we all become more sane, free, and happy.

You may also enjoy reading Psychic Ability: Claiming and Applying a Gift of Psychic Awareness by Jane Sandwood

The post Amazing Grace: Experiencing the extraordinary within the ordinary appeared first on BEST SELF.

An exploration of community and the connections that nurtures our souls across beliefs, cultures, borders and religions.

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There is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

Tertullian, c. 217

In creating any kind of community, it’s important to recognize that we at heart are the same and connected under all our differences. This fundamental view of life as interconnected and interdependent affects how we educate and govern. In every age, seeking truth and meeting trouble bring us together and make our underlying connections visible. In 1838, James Fenimore Cooper argued that a free community is based on “the necessity of speaking truth, when speaking at all; [and] a contempt for all designing evasions of our real opinions.” 

Yet there’s a difference between telling the truth and experiencing the truth. 

When we open our heart to concerns beyond our own, we start to experience the truth we’re all a part of.This opening to concerns other than our own is the stitch work of community. I saw this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. painted on a newspaper vending machine:

“An individual has not started living until [they] can rise above the narrow confines of [their] individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

Under all the ways we can study and learn, it’s an open, truthful heart that lets us live in rhythm with others. This impulse to share the journey is a fundamental force of nature. In physics, rhythm entrainment is a phenomenon where if two objects vibrate in a similar way long enough, they entrain each other to a third, common amplified wave, which, in turn, is louder, stronger, deeper, and more far-reaching than their singular rhythms. Strange as it seems, this is how TV remotes work. 

In a social sense, the vibration of the heart makes the fabric of community visible, through its capacity to entrain with the rhythms of others.

Tending to the life around us can invoke an entrainment of hearts. Such ways of tending to life include caring, truth-telling, listening, entering silence, being vulnerable, and telling stories. Embodying these aspects of being invoke the common rhythm between living things, which we then feel as a bond of relationship — louder, stronger, deeper, and more far-reaching than our singular feelings. 

The Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, have a custom of sharing their breath. They touch noses and take in each other’s breathing and, in this nonverbal way, affirm that their lives are connected. They do this every time they meet and leave each other. In sharing their breath, the Maori entrain their hearts and find their common rhythm.

Our heartfelt attention to life as a whole yields a knowing that gathers throughout time, which can be understood as Collective Wisdom. Jung termed this storehouse of knowing across generations as the Collective Unconscious. 

This web of knowing across all time may be the largest community of all, a community of souls.

The latest thinking in neurobiology affirms our common web of knowing. This micro-science is exploring the kinetic energy that exists between cells and how the information passed there enables each cell to do its part in a concerted way that none could do alone. It’s compelling to view the energy fields that exist between cells as a collective neuro-conversation that enables life to happen at its most elemental level. In this way, the common rhythms of neurology can be seen as a biological form of collective wisdom. In essence, each person is a dynamic biological community.

In our everyday encounters, we stumble into the question:

How do we understand and access the magic of what we know together which no one can know alone?

Because of the subtlety of this knowledge across time, every tradition has its mystical way of inquiring about our place in the community of life. Many traditions offer mystical schools of inquiry devoted to embodying our direct connection with life as a whole.

Within the Jewish tradition, listening for the indwelling presence of God helps us know the truth of life. The story of Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol  speaks to this. The rabbi taught in the 1700s in the town of Tarnow in southeastern Poland. A Hasidic leader, he spent long hours studying the Talmud. One day, he left his students to read a certain passage. A day later, his students found him still dwelling on the first page. They assumed he had encountered a difficult notion and was trying to solve it. But when a number of days passed and he was still immersed in the first page, they were troubled. Finally, one of them gathered courage and asked the master why he didn’t move to the next page. And Rabbi Zusya answered: “I feel so good here, why should I go elsewhere?”

This story points to the reason for all learning. Under all our struggles, what we learn as a human family is that all paths and choices are vehicles for love to do its work wherever we are. 

When we can devote ourselves to what we find in each other, we welcome life wherever it may show itself.

In a stranger or a bird or an old familiar lighthouse. Or in the animated conversations that flit from park bench to park bench in the city where we live. Each moment, if entered, can connect us to the whole of life.

Within the Buddhist tradition, Vajrayana holds the spiritual aim of embodying ultimate truth with the vow to help others in their path to liberation. Vedanta, which literally means “the end of knowledge,” is a mystical path within the Hindu tradition that seeks to uncover the relationship between the unknown and unseeable aspects of life and the knowable and seeable aspects of existence.

Within the Islamic tradition, Sufism aims to release the experience of joy that comes from overcoming our lesser self, while trying to experience the Divine in everything. Mystics within the Sikh tradition believe that the Oneness of God is manifest in the practical life of truthfulness and service.

Within the tradition of Jainism, Moksha is a mystical path that works toward our unification with all life, in the belief that this unification will liberate us from our rebirth into the cycle of suffering. 

Within Judaism, the Kabbalah is a course of study meant to surface the relationship between the unchanging, eternal mystery of life and the finite experience of human beings. 

At the same time, Christian mysticism explores experiences of the soul that have no physical or earthly cause, trying to know and honor the unseeable Divinity that holds everything together.

And the mystical qualities of Taoism hold that we are born to live in accord with the larger, intangible current of life, the way a fish finds and swims with the current of the sea.

Each of these traditions offers an entrainment of heart by which we can experience the common rhythm of life, as it beats now and throughout the community across time we call Eternity.

These are not abstract paths. Some people use the mystical path as a way to retreat from living in the world, but the true value of entraining our heart to the rhythms of life is that it enables us to live more fully in the world, with greater resolve and compassion.

Regardless of where you’re drawn to look, the practice of staying connected to life reveals the larger frame of all that joins us. If we can’t stay open to all that is larger than us, we will live from a self-centered frame of reference that will narrow our range of experience. The larger our frame of reference, the richer our understanding of how we can live together. 

Imagine you’re driving alone along a road. If you limit your view of life to the one road you’re on, everything that comes along can seem an intrusion. But if you view life as a network of infinite roads, of which your road is one, the influx of other life seems inevitable, even desired. 

When we can view the road we’re on as one path within a geography of paths, then the rich, all-encompassing community of life seems ever-present and healing.

Our path then includes the migration of antelope, flamingoes, and salmon, and the currents that clouds follow as they blanket the globe, as well as the migration of stories between generations, and the evolution of insight passed among the wisdom traditions throughout the centuries.

Being part of such a diverse geography of possibility informs our choices, even if we never stray from our personal road.

The larger our perspective, the more rhythms of life we encounter. The more rhythms of life we encounter, the deeper and broader our experience.

The deeper our experience, the more fellow travelers we admit. And the more fellow travelers we admit, the deeper our compassion and strength of heart. This is how community grows.

The abalone farmers in the East China Sea were compelled by the vast forces of life to find their common rhythms and work together. In generations past, lone fishermen would bob and drag their nets for abalone in the open sea, drifting near each other, but keeping their distance. Until a typhoon made it impossible to survive alone. And so, the lone fishermen tied up together in order to outlast the swell and pound of the storm. Once the storm passed, they discovered it was easier and more efficient to fish together. 

Today, floating villages exist in the China Sea with platforms tied together for miles, to protect each other from typhoons and to share resources and tools. A similar interdependence is found in the floating fishing villages that string across Tonle Sap, a lake in Cambodia that swells to more than five times its normal size in the rainy season when the Mekong River floods the nearby forests and plains. 

These are not just instances of survival, but times when life shows us that, if we can follow the common rhythms that bind us, we can come alive in the web of connections that holds the world together. 

So, when the waves you can’t see get choppy and hard to withstand — in love, in suffering, in our search for life’s meaning — tie up with whoever is near, so you can withstand the storm together. And once you’re comfortable with the bonds between you, let others tie up when necessary. It will only make you stronger. Whether we realize it or not, or like it or not, we’re all part of a floating village, trying to bring up enough from the deep to make it to tomorrow.

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The web of knowing across all time may be the largest community of all, a community of souls.

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Footnotes:

“There is one soul and many tongues…” Tertullian, from the chart, “Reform Movements,” in Lapham’s Quarterly: Means of Communication, Volume V, Number 2: Spring 2012, p. 70.

 “The necessity of speaking truth…” James Fenimore Cooper, in Lapham’s Quarterly, Volume V, Number 4: Politics, Fall 2012, p. 19.

 “Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol…” From The Earth is the Lord’s: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe, Abraham Joshua Heschel. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001, p. 50.

You may also enjoy reading Community Co-Listening: Can We Listen Without Judgment? by Indira Abby Heijnen

The post Entrainments of Heart: The Stitch Work of Community appeared first on BEST SELF.

The simultaneous passing of her grandmothers offered a pregnant woman a deeper understanding of life, love, and the divine path of our maternal DNA

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My maternal grandmother died a month before my first child was born. A week later, our family’s former babysitter, a surrogate grandmother who helped raise me, passed away. I attended their funerals that summer, my belly swollen with new life. Fellow mourners looked at me with eyes wet with sadness — and then smiled as they gazed at my belly. 

Two months earlier both of these women attended my baby shower. They sat next to one another, catching up on family news, talking old lady stuff, and asking each other, “Can you believe Lizzy is having a baby?” None of us knew that in two months they would have both passed — one from a massive stroke, the other from a fast-raging cancer. 

Yes, they were both in their eighties. Yes, they lived beautiful, full lives. But no matter how a person’s story ends — it’s always shocking.

It’s always so deeply sad. It’s always so… final. 

I was able to say goodbye to both of them as they lay dying in their respective hospital beds. Balanced there on the edge — between the imminent new life in my belly and the imminent deaths of these two powerful female forces — I took it all in. 

I breathed in their legacies. I breathed in my dreams for my baby. I breathed in my emerging role as a mother, and the powerful breath filled the air, connecting the generations. I wished they didn’t have to go. But I was profoundly grateful that a part of them would live on in my children — and that they were able to celebrate the next generation even in their final days. 

One meaningful experience made it all so clear. At my grandmother’s hospital, a sweet baby lullaby played over the loudspeaker every time a mother in the labor and delivery ward gave birth. Several times a day, as our family gathered to say our goodbyes, the sound of new life chimed. 

At the end, there was a whole world of new beginnings. At the beginning, a reminder of the end. 

I wasn’t able to let myself wallow in my grief at that time because I was about to experience my own, profound life passage. And I knew, watching my grandmothers’ descendants gather to mourn these amazing women, that a child — miraculous, unique, unyielding, and wild — was the greatest gift we could leave behind. I knew that this child would carry my legacy — and my mother’s and my grandmothers’ — into the future. 

In the midst of setting up the nursery and registering for the right stroller and taking a birth class and timing my contractions came the most poignant of all reminders. This was it. This was what life was all about. It’s not about what you can take with you when you go or what you leave behind.

Life is about the real, vibrant love that creates and nurtures and pours itself onward into the future. 

It’s a love that we and our mothers and our grandmothers quite literally carried within our bodies. It’s a powerful love — cellular and cosmic — that forever carries on.

You may also enjoy reading Life After Death: Healing Grief, Redefined by Sarah Nannen

The post Love Carries On: Making Sense of Loss, Love and Our Maternal DNA appeared first on BEST SELF.

There is an undeniable selfishness to self-love… but nonetheless it is good, right and necessary to love yourself passionately.

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I write and talk about love all the time. Love this, love that, love everyone, love love love. It can get annoying. I believe love is the base note for all good things in our lives and world, and self-love is the natural, and most transformative, place to start. It’s not that we can’t love others if we don’t love ourselves. That’s a myth. Of course we can, and do, every day. It’s just that we become better at loving in general when we give love to ourselves first — generously and often. 

What is self-love? Simply, it is the act of loving ourselves, through our thoughts, words and actions. Easier said than done, right? At least it is for me. Worth the effort, though. I promise.

One of the questions I get asked the most at my workshops and on my social media Q&As is this: 

How do I learn to love myself?

Now that’s an important question. It’s easy to talk about self-love and tell people “just love yourself,” but the reality of that intention can be difficult for most of us, especially those of us with critical, abrasive, abusive human minds. Like me. Like you, too, I’m guessing. Like everyone. Our minds are imaginative and resilient and clever, sure. They’re also giant assholes a lot of the time. 

I don’t know why our minds are dead set on making our lives miserable, but I’ve learned that I can often choose whether or not I want to participate in the misery.

I’ve learned that I don’t have to believe my thoughts, particularly when they’re hellbent on suggesting I’m an unlovable monster. My mind lies all the time. I bet yours does too. It’s one of the mind’s favorite things to do, especially where self-worth is concerned. So, I’ve stopped believing it, and I recommend it. Highly. There’s no rule that says we have to take all of the mind’s abuse as truth.

Maybe your mind sounds like mine sometimes: Nobody likes you. You are broken beyond repair. You’re a total disappointment. You will always fail. You’re one ugly mo-fo.

Any of that familiar? Well I call bullshit. You can too. It’s okay to call a liar a liar, and then get on with being an undeniably lovable rock-star. The mind will catch up to that truth. To some extent. Eventually.

Self-love doesn’t just invite me to refute the lies of my mind, but also replace them with affirmative thoughts that speak to my inherent worth (and beauty and general awesomeness) as a human being. 

Example: When my mind tells me I’m a disgusting troll, I remind myself that I am beautiful, exactly as I am. When my mind insists I am worthless and unlovable, I affirm myself as worthy and loved — again, exactly as I am. 

I used to resist the idea of self-loving affirmations. I found them corny and artificial. Why would I tell myself something I don’t believe? Because, love doesn’t emanate from the mind, so the mind is irrelevant where love is concerned. I know that when I tell myself I am beautiful and enough, I am connecting to my heart, to love’s home, to the part in me that recognizes my worth and divinity without question. 

It doesn’t matter whether or not I believe the love I’m offering myself; it matters that I keep offering it. 

It matters that I continuously open a line of connection to my heart, to love, to the fact that I am a child of God and as such am as worthy as every other human being on the planet. The belief will come. In time. If you don’t believe in God, by the way, no problem. You are a child of Nature, and as such are as worthy as every other human being on the planet. There’s really no way around our worth. It’s inherent.

The more we pay attention to our thoughts, the more in line with love we can direct them to be, and the kinder and more compassionate they will become, to others and to ourselves. It takes awareness, commitment, and practice. It takes a dogged willingness to acknowledge our self-abusive thoughts and replace them with self-loving ones. Bottom line:

It’s work — I’d argue the most important work we can do. And it feels a helluva lot better than criticizing and hating ourselves all day long.

We can’t stop with our thoughts; we’ve got to consider our actions, as well. I’m talking about self-care, but not just lavender baths and dark chocolate binges (two perfectly respectable self-care habits, of course). What choices are we making, in all areas of our lives, that add more peace, meaning or joy to our reality? Reflect on those and make more of them. This is how we take care of ourselves. This is how we love ourselves. 

Now, what choices are we making that add more anxiety, discomfort and misery to our lives? This is an equally important question to consider. Think about it, and try to make fewer of those choices. If it sounds easy, that’s because it can be. More of the good, less of the yuck. And repeat. If we did no other thing but consider the way our choices affect us, and choose accordingly, we’d see marked changes in our lives. Consider your choices. Consider your well-being. Consider yourself.

Are you feeling some resistance to the idea of self-love? Nice people, like most of us who read Best Self Magazine, can tend to feel guilty about putting ourselves first and terrified to be judged by others as the dreaded S-word. Yes, I’m talking about selfish. After one of my many self-love diatribes in a recent workshop, a woman raised her hand then shouted out:

“Isn’t self-love selfish, and isn’t selfishness a bad thing?” Yes and no, and no and yes, respectively.

Self-love is definitely selfish in that we’re talking about loving ourselves. All acts with our own interests in mind are selfish to some degree, though, and we’re almost always considering our own interests to some extent. Life is generous, though. 

Every single time we’re selfishly offering ourselves our own love, we’re serving every single human being with whom we come into contact. 

I for one am a much kinder person when I love myself, and much more inclined to be a jackass when I don’t. Can you relate? In that way, self-love is the most selfish and generous action we can take. 

Selfishness takes an ugly turn when we intentionally hurt others in order to get what we want. Whenever I’m intentionally trying to cause another human being emotional pain, I can trust I’m not operating from love — of the other person or of myself. In those moments, I know that I will serve the circumstance well by asking the question, “What does love invite me to do right now?” Whenever we consider love, we add something positive to the situation. Sometimes my love recognizes that I feel too deprived or angry to offer anything healthy, and the best choice I can make in the moment is to disengage. In my experience, love always knows the right thing to do. We just need to open a dialogue and get better at listening to it.

The Buddha said, “If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.”

I love that quote so much; it’s the essence of self-love. When I move through the world connected to the ocean of love that lives within me, connected to the truth that I am worthy and divine exactly as I am, all I have to offer the world is this deep love in return. That’s the magnificent gift of love: it always transcends itself. Any act of love we show for others benefits our own lives, and any act of love we show for ourselves benefits the entire world. 

Make no mistake: to focus on love of yourself, first and foremost, is the greatest gift you can give to yourself, your loved ones, and our planet. 

And there’s no better time to start than today. Right now, in fact. 

Here’s a pledge I wrote for myself and like to read at my workshops. I recommend making this commitment to yourself — in your thoughts, words and actions — and then pay attention to the new possibilities and connections you create in your life from doing so. 

I commit to loving myself with everything I’ve got, even when I’m inclined not to, even when my mind directs me otherwise, even when others treat me poorly, even when I’m exhausted and overwhelmed and feel like I have nothing more to give. Even then, I will give my love to myself, because I am important, and worthy, and divine. I will love myself wholly, wildly and without inhibition, because I understand that by doing so I open my entire world to choices, connections and realities rooted in this love I give to myself. By loving myself, I invite love into every aspect of my life, as well as the lives of everyone I encounter. I commit to loving myself, because I am a being of love and function at my beautiful best when I live in, from and with this astounding wealth of love I have to share. For these reasons, and for every other life-affirming reason that exists in this world, I hereby commit to loving myself with absolutely everything I’ve got.

You are worth this pledge to yourself.

You deserve the deepest and truest love you have to give. Your love — to you. It will change your everything. So, grab your journals — here’s to your best loving self!

You may also enjoy reading Giving and Receiving Love: Releasing Negative Thoughts and Beliefs by Bridgitte Jackson-Buckley.

The post Is Self Love Selfish? Maybe, But Don’t Let That Stop You appeared first on BEST SELF.

Divorce is not for the faint of heart, it is for the strong of spirit. If done consciously, it can be a potent catalyst for transformation and healing.

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We held hands as we approached the courthouse. Not quite sure what to expect, we were nervous and full of emotion. I wore a special dress I’d purchased just for the occasion. He wore his most dapper sport jacket. We’d thoughtfully crafted vows to reflect our intentions and commitment to one another as we embraced this next chapter of our lives. As we neared the building entrance, I spotted a pristine white feather resting on the pathway ahead. I took this as a wink from the Universe that we were on the right track.

Once inside, a notary public graciously agreed to take our photo to commemorate the event. In it, our embrace looks comfortable and familiar. We made our way to the correct courtroom. After a short wait, the judge called our names. With my arm in his, we approached the bench. We stood hand in hand as she asked us the requisite questions. We responded through tears. By the end, even the court reporter was crying. It was a profoundly meaningful ceremony. And with it, we were… divorced.

The journey to such a graceful ending was anything but easy, and we were just about the worst bet ever for a peaceful divorce.

Two strong-willed attorneys, our personalities meshed like kerosene and fire from our first date – a date that ironically ended in a fight. That initial disagreement foreshadowed what was to later become an incredibly high-conflict marriage. It was a marriage where fights were explosive and frequent. They happened in public, in private, and everywhere in between.

Despite the discord, however, there also was a deep connection. We shared values and a passion for social justice. We debated philosophy and spirituality for hours on end. He challenged and grew me in ways no one else ever had. An Erin Brockovich-style attorney who regularly took on some of the largest chemical and pharmaceutical corporations in the world, I was in awe of this self-made man who came from little to co-found a successful multi-city law firm.

As the relationship progressed, I chose to focus on our points of connection while I simultaneously ignored the red flags, like the constant fighting, as well as my gut sense that we may not have been an ideal romantic match. I chose to ignore the still, small voice of my wisest, most authentic self, which was no match for my ‘social’ self — the part of me that was more concerned with impressing and not disappointing others. 

It was my ‘social’ self that ultimately convinced me to override my gut in pursuit of a perfect life on paper.

Back then, I believed a perfect-looking life and marriage would solve all of my problems, the largest of which was a cripplingly-low self-worth. I’d spent years in search of every possible crutch I could find to prop it up. And I looked just about everywhere – outside myself, that is: unnecessary plastic surgery for the parts of my body I loathed; copious amounts of alcohol to feel more comfortable in social settings; a law degree to prove the intelligence I doubted; and the coup’ de grace, marriage to a powerful man in order to avoid the terrifying work of standing on my own.

It was far easier and safer to ride his coattails and support his success than to create something of my own. 

Although my husband never asked me to, I essentially put all my eggs — my time, my toil, my talents – in his basket. But I soon discovered you cannot hand over all your eggs without consequence. Adding to the already high level of conflict in our home, I became resentful and angry with him for holding all the power — power I had ever so willingly entrusted solely unto him.

What I have since learned is that anger, much like all of our human emotions, is simply a messenger. 

Social science researcher, Karla McLaren, actually calls anger ‘the honorable sentry’ who signals the violation of an interpersonal boundary. But it wasn’t my husband who was doing the boundary violating in this case. It was I. By attaching my self-worth to something outside of myself (e.g., my husband), I had violated one of my own sacred boundaries.

Over time, the river of resentments became a tidal wave, despite much counseling and some of the best marital resources we could find. From the outside, our life had never looked so shiny and Instagram perfect. On the inside, however, our marriage was at the height of its dysfunction, and my worth and relationship with myself was in shambles.

Ten years into the relationship and seeing little potential for improvement, I made the difficult decision to leave. I would love to say that from there, we effortlessly glided through the proceedings into the graceful divorce ceremony described above. Instead, that victory was harder won, involving a progression of steps over the course of several years.

I first had to reclaim the self-worth I’d been so quick to attach to externals like my education, my work, or my husband.

I then had to take radical responsibility for my part in helping create such a difficult marriage. I had to show up wholeheartedly for hard conversations. And I had to make amends and express gratitude where it was due. Only then were we able to come together for true healing and the blessing of a beautiful post-divorce friendship.

That initial step of reclaiming myself was incredibly uncomfortable, but my divorce was the perfect setup. On my own and with plenty of space for self-reflection, I began actively listening for the voice of my wise, authentic self over that of my social self. I also was no longer able to hide behind the armor of a successful husband or flashy lifestyle. I felt exposed and vulnerable, like a turtle without a shell.

That place of absolute vulnerability was quite synchronistic, however, as it allowed me to look for my worth where I’d never looked before: inside, to the spiritual being having the human experience. 

And in the boldest move of surrender in my life to that point, I asked the Universe to take the reins. 

In response, breadcrumb after serendipitous breadcrumb appeared on my path to lead the way. These breadcrumbs took me to incredible mentors like Dr. Martha Beck, as well as wisdom traditions and spiritual teachings that told me something the religious dogma of my youth never had: Born magnificent and worthy I was. Worthy not because of my religion; not because my body was the right size; not because of the degrees I held; and not because I was married to a successful man. I was worthy just by virtue of being me, a cherished droplet from the sea of the Divine.

My self-worth was born anew from a solid foundation.

It was only from this place of worth grounded in divine love and connection that I felt safe and courageous enough to take the terrifying step of looking at my part in creating such a dysfunctional, conflict-ridden marriage.

To end our marriage, we had opted to use the Collaborative Law process, which meant we agreed to resolve the matter outside of a courtroom with the help of a team of trained professionals. But while the collaborative model offers a gentler approach than traditional family law, even the best of legal circumstances do little to address the emotional and spiritual needs of the parties during the proceedings.

As I began to heal myself, I felt an intense urge to turn the healing energy toward my rocky relationship with my ex. We’d been civil during the process, but merely civil was no longer enough for me. 

Much like a desire to spring clean and declutter, I wanted to clean my side of the marital street. 

It was a street littered with the debris of resentments, unexpressed feelings, and loose ends, like my continued insistence that my husband had been the instigator and root cause of all our conflict.

A fierce and fearless litigator, he was an easy scapegoat for my ‘poor, poor, pitiful me’ stories. After years of pointing a stern index finger at my husband as the source of all our marital misery, however, a few key teachers, most importantly Byron Katie, helped me see instead the three fingers that had been pointing back at me all along.

For ages, I’d worn like a badge of victim honor, the belief that I had a hot-tempered husband who was hell-bent on controlling me. Katie’s system of inquiry, The Work, allowed me to examine the painful story I’d been carrying and explore whether the opposite of this rage-inducing thought might be true.

In other words, could it possibly be just as true that my husband had a hot-tempered wife who was hell-bent on controlling him? Yes, it could. Although my trigger points and hot button issues were different than my husband’s, I begrudgingly had to admit that I, too, had a fiery disposition and a strong desire to get my way. I soon realized I was so obsessed with collecting evidence of my husband’s bad temper and controlling tendencies, I’d glazed right over my own.

With further examination, other painful thoughts like:

‘My husband should have cared more’ became their opposite: ‘I should have cared more.’ 

I found so many places where that could be true, not the least of which was my tendency to prioritize a perfect marriage façade over the true emotional intimacy my husband desired.

This exercise of questioning all the negative, resentful thoughts I carried about my husband snowballed. I soon realized I was no longer a victim, but a co-creator in our marital woes, and I was deeply sorry for my actions.

For so long, I had resisted taking responsibility for any part of the unhappiness of our marriage, fearing it would leave me feeling vulnerable and diminished — that by admitting any wrongdoing, the playing field would no longer be level and I would be left in a power deficit. Instead, however, this exercise had the opposite effect. Owning my part became incredibly empowering. Emboldened, I took the final, most transformative step of my healing journey: sharing my newfound discoveries and revelations with my husband.

From Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, I was inspired to make amends by reporting on my role in our conflict. For so long, I had desperately wanted validation that my husband was the bad guy. But I now had a choice:

Do I want to be right, or do I want to be free?

So I wrote a long letter to him conveying all of my regrets without any justifications. There would be no more, But you started it! protestations.

I also shared everything I appreciated about him as a spouse, as well as the things about our marriage for which I was grateful. When I sent that letter, there was no guarantee he would respond, or even read it. No matter. The exercise of simply writing it, regardless of the outcome, was incredibly healing. 

Two years after I left my marriage, my side of the street finally felt clean.

When my soon-to-be-ex-husband did actually read it and respond in a gracious and loving way, it was icing on the cake. And what sweet icing it was. Taking responsibility and making amends paved the way for us to finalize our divorce with the meaningful ceremony described above.

Much like the thought and careful preparation that went into planning our wedding all those years before, we were able to honor the ending of our marriage in a similar way.

The responsibility and amends process we shared also paved the way for four years of the most incredible post-divorce friendship I could have imagined, one in which we finally communicated with kindness, tearfully shared our regrets, and reminisced with laughter over a decade of shared experiences.

When my ex-husband passed away unexpectedly in 2018, I feel both proud and blessed to say there were no words left unsaid and no apologies left unoffered. The resentment and anger that fueled my departure feel like a distant memory. In its place, I now feel an abiding love and appreciation for the man that he was.

Divorce is not for the faint of heart, it is for the strong of spirit. If done consciously, it can provide one of the most potent catalysts for transformation available. Only through my own path from high-conflict marriage to a loving post-divorce relationship with my ex-husband was I finally able to discover my own strength of spirit and the self-worth I’d been seeking all along.

You may also enjoy reading 6 Steps to Move from Divorce to Happily Ever After by Sage Cohen

The post A Divorce Made in Heaven: The Gift of Conscious Un-Coupling appeared first on BEST SELF.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Caregiving and grief connects a young woman to her rich ancestry and an unexpected soul calling

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Through the noise, purpose was born.

Priya Soni

SACRED BEGINNINGS

The moments that define our perspectives about life are not always discernible. In fact they can be as soft as a whisper, a waft of a childhood memory. Nonetheless, they leave their imprint. There is one defining moment for me that has remained throughout some of my most challenging times. It was the first time I felt like I was being held by a force larger than me.

Temple on Sundays was a sanctuary for my family. As I entered what I considered, in my 7-year-old eyes, ‘a gigantic room’, I immediately felt at home. The room was full of men, women and children focusing their energy on several kirtans — spiritual stories voiced or sung, that convey a collective feeling and connection that we receive from a higher power. Music accompanied the kirtans. The drumbeat of the tabla attracted my attention.

A man with long jet-black hair, tied in a loose bun veraciously played his tabla, eyes closed, swinging his head left to right, harmonizing to its rhythm and sound.

His adoration to his faith was palpable. I was enamored by him and his effortless comfort with expressing his devotion. I wondered what it felt like to feel even a sliver of the joy that emanated from him.

Being a shy child, my mother escorted me to the front of the room at the end of each visit. She softly voiced, “Put this dollar in this pile here. That helps the temple with their services. Drop to your knees. That shows respect to the holy among us. Place your palms together and say “num-us-tay.” That means: “The sacred in me bows to the sacred in you.” Smiling, she continued, “We are one.”

As I grew older, the meaning of sacred exploration was impacted by my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather. Nani, my grandmother, was very vocal about her beliefs and admiration of a higher power. They were her Gods, emitting an infinite wisdom.

One of my favorite memories was observing her delight as she talked about her lifelong dedication to spirituality. She became a schoolgirl, giggling at the wonder of it all and said excitedly, “I’m telling you, I saw honey come out of the Gods. Sweet and pure. My soul was alive!” And right then and there, I knew any summoning of her most authentic self surpassed the space and time in which she existed. She epitomized true love, far reaching and rippling for years to come.

Papaji, my grandfather, was a simple, honorable and harmonious man. He was invigorated by his commitment to value all humanity.

He educated people with his smile. In the time that he lived with us, which was less than a year, I observed his allegiance to spiritual scriptures. Through him, I learned to treasure stillness as a companion, having the power to embrace any magnitude of crisis. He believed in order to repair the divisiveness within our collective human condition, we must be willing to see the goodness situated within others and ourselves. Only then can we live with a peaceful heart.

Listening to my heart would become my most valued compass as it guided me down paths I could have never imagined I would walk.

SACRED LESSONS

In the fall of 2003, my mother called me in New York. “Your father’s gait is having problems. We have gone to see some specialists, but they don’t know what it is.” “His gait?” I asked. She continued, “Priya, he’s been walking funny and complaining of stiff legs.” I put the phone down convinced that this was a fleeting issue. My father was unquestionably strong-willed. He was born to conquer any challenges that stood in his way.

It was not until I came home to Maryland for Christmas in the winter of 2003, a month before I moved to Los Angeles, that I realized the decline of his health. He seemed older and frail, but still determined to take on his daily activities. He was not able bend his legs so when he walked, he wobbled side to side, carefully rationing off the energy it took to get from point A to point B.

My father was a man who prided himself in expedience and his effortless ability to mold “no” into a complete sentence. It is perhaps what many first generation immigrants feel as they make a home in a new country, the nudge of possibility and the urgency to grasp hold of the accomplishments already created — an uncomfortable steadiness that sustains. His quick-paced nature was no longer his most prized quality.

After continued and repeated visits to doctors and specialists, we would forever learn the true meaning of living in questions.

Medical professionals were unable to ascertain a diagnosis as every test run was negative, normal or inconclusive. What they could determine was that he had a neurological condition that would gradually show its degenerative presence over the course of an unknown number of years. He was only 63 years old. My heart was broken. I dreaded staring into the abyss. But what was more chilling was the unfathomable staring back at me.

Caring for my father over the course of 12 years gradually increased in its intensity, given the arc of time. Moreover, my role as caregiver, or as I would say, ‘dedicated daughter’, looked different as time progressed. At first, it was a supportive role, being encouraging from afar. Then it was regular touchpoints and being more practical in nature as I recognized significant signs of the illness. His challenges in speaking became more apparent. He started to have slurred speech and his voice had a coarse undertone. My father refused to see a speech therapist. I imagine visiting another specialist was a reality too harsh to digest at the time.

Given my training as an actor, I was familiar with the techniques of voice training. So most days, I sat on the phone with him rigorously practicing pronunciation, breathing, pacing and articulation. Witnessing him struggle to pronounce each word made me grieve the days where he robustly exercised his loud voice, most often boisterous call outs of our names from the bottom of the stairs, “Priyaaaa!” I wondered daily how he would operate in a world that often correlates one’s communication with success and leadership. He was an Indian man with a thick accent so the road to prosperity had more consistently been strewn with many bumps and bruises.

Nevertheless, that could not compare to what was ahead. I was determined never to let any of us surrender to the intimidating nature of this illness. As the years progressed, so did my visits from Los Angeles to Maryland. I often felt I was living two lives, faithfully pounding the pavement with auditions and a cherished community of friends — and anxiously settling into uncharted territory, alone as a long distance caregiver.

According to statistics, the average age of a family caregiver in the United States is a woman in her late 40’s, who works and provides unpaid care for at least 20 hours a week.

I was in my late 20’s, an actor running from one job to another in a car that broke down more often than I can remember. This was not an average situation, if there ever could be one with caregiving.

In the fall of 2007, my parents moved to Oregon, where my sister lived. This way they were closer to my sister and me. Visits home became easier and more frequent. My silence about our ‘family situation’ grew more profound. I was fiercely protective of our experience and I had come to accept that no one outside of our family could relate to the depth of anguish we moved through every day.

My heart skipped a beat every time the phone rang. I had gone from being a dedicated daughter to caregiver to manager of crises. We were always in crisis. One day my mother called me to share my father had fallen again and this time ‘he was lucky’. She was frantic with concern and understandably emotionally drained. At this point, it had been years of me juggling a double life and I was depleted of energy with caregiving from a distance. It was time to come home, so I left Los Angeles and moved back in with my parents.

I have perpetually felt a huge responsibility and found purpose in caring for my family from as early as I can remember. Perhaps it was the cultural norm of being the eldest Indian daughter. But most definitely, it was from witnessing my father do the same from afar with his family in India.

It was not until the moment I arrived at my parent’s house with two large suitcases that I realized my life would drastically change. I stood at the curb outside my parent’s home, paralyzed with fear. As I opened the front door, my father took my hand and softly said, “I’m sorry.” He was overcome with guilt.

For months, I engrossed myself in a life of care. It was a practice of patience and stamina. I often felt I was shedding skin, trying to grasp on to a sense of identity, tirelessly aching to give birth to a new self that I recognized emerging. Days were complex and demanded creative thinking. My to-do list was filled with a multitude of tasks that included monitoring his breathing and developing handmade communication tools so he felt heard. It moved to blending foods as he had difficulty in swallowing, which is common with nervous system disorders.

What I had not accounted for in his last several years was speech aphasia — a communication disorder, which ceased any ability to communicate his needs. He moved from walker to power chair. As soon as we could find some course of comfort in how to continually manage his daily needs, I moved back to New York, but traveled back to Oregon 4-7 times a year to oversee his care. In his last few years, he lost all mobility and required care 24 hours/7 days a week. We were fortunate to find two caregivers from Tibet who understood our culture and what we valued with care for my father.

Making sure he had a voice was of utmost importance to us.

My father spent many years as a forensics chemist and was as scientist at heart, full to the brim with curiosity and a keen observer. After much searching, my sister found a speech augmentation tool for his iPad that allowed my father to type his transformed beliefs. I sat with him for hours and occasionally I saw the glimmer in his eyes again as his new hypotheses for life were proven through the insights of his writing.

On a monthly basis, my mother had friends and family over, calling it a spiritual discussion group. With one single button, his new interpretations of subjects such as acceptance, happiness, serenity and even death were revealed. All he had to do was press, ‘play’. As I listened to my father’s words shared out, I was once again a novice discovering the world around me, listening to his kirtan, remembering that we are one.

For 12 years, my father was dying an excruciatingly slow death and yet, in the experiencing of that is where I learned to live. Caregiving is extraordinary because it asks you to live in contrasts every day.I felt reduced by the treacherous and unpredictable effects of my father’s illness. And it taught me that the self-resilience I had been seeking for years was nestled within me. It educated me on the depths of suffering, an uncomfortable place to inhabit and a residence drowning in compassion. Compassion has become a way of life. It has allowed me to become more indulgent in the present and has been my host to forgiveness. It has asked me to thrive in a land of simplicities so that every day I am inspired by the soft whispers of life.

I am in awe of the humanity that was exhibited by the hospice workers, caregivers and our community. As the years have moved on beyond my father’s passing, they continue to encapsulate us with their warmth during harrowing and uplifting times. Most importantly, I will forever be in partnership with my father as I walk through this ‘gigantic world’. He was my greatest teacher, repeatedly leaning on the wisdom of hope and fury, and unapologetic in his vulnerability. Caregiving has created a revolution in my soul, one that that will forever cultivate a sacred resting place for my heart.

SACRED ASSIGNMENT

An open heart has encouraged me to have more lightness in my steps and greater agency in how I live. It also enlivened my voice. Witnessing my father transition out of this world galvanized me to live more purposefully. I had grieved for years, much before my father’s passing, devoid of any journey along the five stages of grief. I have always felt I lost my father twice — once when he started to have some of the intense symptoms of this illness, and again when he died three years ago. Reintroducing myself to a world without him was daunting but I felt guided to show up more transparently. I now had time to breath in life from a different lens. I had spent many years nurturing every facet related to caregiving. I was primed to uncover what this destined in the larger scheme of life.

So, I transitioned from manager of crises to researcher of care. I felt called to connect with others who had been through loss and caregiving.

I felt compelled to hear their story, their voices, heartaches and heartwarming experiences. In those moments, I too shared my expedition with care and the mysteries our family became accustomed to over the years with an illness that had no name. We discussed how we moved through the pain, what we learned, the advice we would give others and how grief, loss and care was shaping our lives today. It was both humbling and healing. We became mentors in those instances, entrusting each other with some of our most sacred secrets. In some way, we belonged to each other through our communal discoveries.

I was not alone anymore.

I wondered what it would look like to create a movement where we started to hear the voices of family caregivers, a hidden and bountiful population.I ruminated on the possibilities of how the wisdom and knowledge from our care experiences could be a source of comfort for so many walking the path of caregiving, while also honoring the despair that often accompanies one’s journey.

It became clear to me that I wanted to make a dent in how we as a country were providing support for family caregivers.

The first step was to reach out to caregivers to share their stories and surprisingly, many were willing to do so. Perhaps they were just waiting to be asked. Within the care experience, the focal point tends to be the caree, understandably so, but the caregiver perspective is also a pertinent part of the story.

Inspired by my new diverse community, I dedicated my Instagram feed to their stories. I asked caregivers to share a 6-word story, one challenge and how that challenge shaped them. This was mine: Through the noise, purpose was born. I was driven to understand how I could gently shift a conversation that was so rooted in hardship to one that also encompassed our changing perceptions. I continually received feedback from caregivers that the process of sharing was cathartic and those visiting my page were grateful to read the variety of stories posted.

Soon after, I created a program that focused on helping those who have been caregivers become mentors, calling them ‘caregiver visionaries’, by reviewing their life’s turning points, caregiving story and the powerful streams of insight accumulated over the years. I ultimately aid adults in turning the unexpected role of being a caregiver into a role of a lifetime. I call this The Caregiving Effect: a platform and service I created two years ago.

I believe we all have the capacity to transform our most challenging life terrains into meaningful contributions.

Since my launch of The Caregiving Effect, I have also become a Certified Caregiving Consultant to help those currently in the throes of caring for a family member. To say that my cup is overflowing with gratitude is an understatement. I am indebted to the myriad family caregivers and caregiver advocates that have spoken up over the years. Through them and their contribution, I have learned that life’s sacred journey is to endlessly dedicate to beginning again. We are one among a powerful collective of millions with stories of care.

And this is my kirtan.

You may also enjoy reading 7 Ways to Release Grief from Your Body, by Joni Sensel.

The post The Accidental Caregiver: A Sacred Journey of Caregiving appeared first on BEST SELF.

A woman faces off with dramatic life adversities — and finds healing through storytelling

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Are you at peace with your backstory? Can sharing a traumatic memory publicly help you to heal? How can you revisit a pivotal moment from your past without reopening an old wound or reigniting an old pain?

On July 2^nd, as I sat in a podcast studio, listening to the host introduce her next guest — an author who had faced more than her fair share of adversity – I suddenly realized the significance of the date on the calendar, and the magnitude of what Ihad endured sunk in.

Eleven years earlier, almost to the hour, I had watched my first husband take his last breath as he had a stroke whilst in bed besides me. Three years after that, on this date, I’d married my second husband — a kind and gentle man who, sadly, became an accessory to my grief until our marriage quickly ended.

Now, here I was sharing my story on a date that became a milestone: the day I went from a caregiver to a widow when, three weeks after our wedding, my husband died of malignant melanoma which had spread to his liver, lungs, pancreas and brain.

I was 23-years-old at the time with the life experiences and battle scars of someone much older. I’d already experienced anorexia and co-cared for my father who was paralyzed from cancer when I was a teenager.

Several weeks before he died, my husband insisted I made a promise. He wanted me to tell our story. “But tell it honestly,” he said, “Don’t worry about what our friends think or what our families think. You need to tell our truth – for people to learn from it.”

And, that is the moment I became an adversity storyteller.

Over the next decade, as a journalist and ghost-writer, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people across the world who’d overcome incredible challenges, from 9/11 rescue workers to tsunami survivors and people who faced heartbreak, breakdowns, bereavement and the smaller disappointments that can bring us to our knees.

I wanted to discover the secret to overcoming the worse experiences of your lives whilst still hoping for the best afterwards.

I also hoped that, within the words of these survivors, I could find the right way to share my own backstory — and begin to feel less desolate and alone.If you’ve faced trauma of any kind, it can distort how you communicate — with friends, with lovers, with your family and with strangers. At different periods of my life I have been described as shy, quiet, reclusive, loud, noisy, and an attention seeker. I have spilled all to strangers and conversely shut off my loved ones.

I worked with my life coach for almost a year before I casually mentioned my late husband and witnessed the subsequent shock on her face. It might sound like a contradiction — and it is — but I have danced between oversharing and crippling shyness.

And, I’m not the only one.

We are living in an age where we have hundreds of people in our virtual social circle. Yet it feels like an increasing number of people are struggling to talk to each other on a genuine level.

We are virtually connected, but increasingly alone.

We can also be prone to exaggeration, filtering our lives so they catch the attention of others. Or, we downplay our dark days because we fear that people will judge us, think we are weak, a complainer or somehow flawed.

There are certain struggles that are seen as ‘trendy’ and, therefore, okay to Tweet about: new motherhood, Monday blues, trying to ‘have it all’ as a woman, and workplace burnout.

But what if you don’t fit into these adversity categories?

At the age of 23, I published my first book, Wife Interrupted, about the unorthodox way I dealt with young widowhood — by becoming promiscuous. This year, at the age of 33, I released a follow-up, The World is a Nice Place: How to Overcome Adversity Joyfully.

For over ten years, I’ve been interviewing ‘empowered survivors’ about the coping mechanisms that allowed them to overcome the worst experiences of their lives, whilst still hoping for the best.

My greatest lesson? Despite the divisiveness produced by the candor of my first book — I was dubbed the ‘scarlet widow’ by a newspaper and my first husband’s family disowned me — I believe, more than ever, that storytelling is key to healing, both for the teller and the person who absorbs their memory.

And you don’t need to be an author to join the movement.

We are all storytellers to some degree. Every social media caption, every biography, every blog post and every conversation we have in a coffee shop is an opportunity to share our story, in a way that heals us or triggers us.

We live in an age where everybody has a ‘brand’ — but how does a past tragedy, misfortune or difficult patch fit into that public image?

If there’s a rough patch in your past, should you share it, and if so, to whom, how and when? These are the questions we need to constantly ask ourselves as survivors.

How people tell their own stories is an intimate experience and something as small as a replaced word or misplaced question mark can change the entire feeling of a story — and how that person feels about themselves.

Years ago, I interviewed Maggie Cino, senior producer of the storytelling platform The Moth. “Our goal is to help people find that memory,” said Maggie. “The memory that is so true and so heartfelt, that it really burns them to speak. We want to create a place where it feels scary, but also safe to share it.”

I once interviewed a 28-year-old woman who told her parents she had HIV by text message. I wrote about the rise of #divorceselfies — women who take photos of themselves holding their divorce papers outside their divorce hearing. I’ve interviewed women who blogged about their miscarriages, breakups and suicide attempts.

All of these women chose to share their stories in different ways, and you may or may not agree with their choice of medium, but none of them regretted their decision to be open. In fact, many of them found courage, peace and acceptance.

When you find a way to tell your story authentically it doesn’t just help you, but also the people around you.

When you give a little bit of yourself, it gives them permission to give a little bit of themselves back to you.

But there are rules that I follow when I share my story, and other peoples’. With every sentence, ask yourself: Is this 100% true and is it 100% necessary? Are you exaggerating or downplaying a memory and do you really believe that sharing it can benefit you or another person?

Also, is the timing right? At the start of the year, I dissuaded a friend from live-blogging about her IVF (In vitro fertilization)journey. Instead, I told her to journal about her experience and allow herself time and space before she shared. Six months later, she published an article titled, Why I chose not to fix my infertility — a very different outcome than she expected at the onset.

These days, our lives have never had more options — how we work, how we live, who we love, how we react and how we recover. Decades ago, as a 23-year-old widow, I would have been relegated to a life of mourning. Today, I am happily married (for the third time!) with a growing family.

After my first child was born, a video of our ‘joyful birth’ went viral with over 80,000 hits on Facebook in 48 hours. The footage showed my husband and I laughing, dancing and having fun — during labor.

Why did I share such an intimate moment? More than ever, it’s not enough to only inherit your mother’s life experiences. A study of birth stories found that women who were pregnant in the 1970s-1980s framed their births in the ‘language of safety’. However, women who were pregnant in 2012 framed their expectations in the ‘language of choice.’

To me, this is what storytelling is all about — giving people a choice about how they react to the most challenges situations of their lives. With fear and pain or hope and joy.

I’m not saying you should greet every new person with your name, age, number of sexual partners and a timeline of your past traumas. However, to form lasting relationships, platonic or otherwise, it’s important to be open to sharing your story, when the time feels right.

My dad has taught me the most about how to own your story, without letting it own you. Now that he’s in remission from Hodgkins Lymphoma he doesn’t often talk about his cancer; but when he does it’s with a purpose, usually to help someone else in a similar situation.

Whenever he talks about being paralyzed, he discusses it in the third person (‘the legs wouldn’t work’ rather than ‘my legs wouldn’t work’). I think that allows him to share his worst memories while keeping them at a distance, so he can feel in control of them.

Since my first book was released, I have learnt to listen to my instincts. If your stomach twists in knots as you write a social media caption, then delete it. Wait a day — or even an hour — before sharing a story you typed through tears. With practice, you will find the sweet spot between radical honesty and self-censorship, where storytelling no longer takes courage.

In fact, every word you share will feel like a release — and a gift.

When I was writing The World is a Nice Place, there was one chapter I added at the last minute titled, ‘What’s the Soul-ution?’ I knew this chapter — about the past life regression which helped me to overcome my anorexia — would be controversial and could invite skepticism.

However, the month before I sent my book to the publisher, I met a couple at a barbecue whose daughter had died of an eating disorder. They wanted to know what ‘saved’ me. For them, for every grief-stricken parent like them, and for the wounded girl I once was — I couldn’t erase such an important part of my backstory.

And you know what? It was 100% true. It was 100% necessary. And, that’s why it’s in a bookstore near you.

You may also enjoy reading My Lovely Wife In the Psych Ward: A Love Story by Kristen Noel

The post Healing Through Storytelling: A Journey From Despair to Happily Ever After (Again) appeared first on BEST SELF.

A 4^th generation physician living a nature-starved lifestyle saved herself by taking a walk on the wild side — connecting to the powerful guidance of spirit animals

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We can benefit from the natural world in many ways simply by beginning to open to it. And one of the easiest — and most fun — ways to begin to open to nature is to connect with animal spirits, or beasties. It can begin with a simple encounter like I had with Walrus.

The summer I decided to take a sabbatical from my medical practice, I didn’t know if or how I was going to figure out a way to feel good again at work. In the previous couple years, I had completely lost my mojo for the diagnosis of disease, which was the main task of my job as a board certified pathologist. Instead, I had become more curious about what makes people well. I wanted to focus my energies there, but I had no idea how. With four kids we hoped to send to college and a mortgage to pay, we were depending on my income.

During that summer, I stumbled into a walrus, albeit one that was lifeless, taxidermied, and hanging on the wall at a shop in our downtown. Nonetheless, I was mesmerized. His enormous tusks and whiskered face beckoned to me. I got curious.

Could this unusual beastie be trying to tell me something? As I learned more about walruses, I discovered a few things. I watched some footage of them hanging out on a beach and I noticed that, unlike me, they didn’t seem to be caught up in their heads worrying about the future. Instead, they were extremely relaxed. I also learned that, essentially, they have no competition. They are ‘apex predators’. Putting these two ideas together, I wondered if the walrus was trying to show me that if I could just manage to relax and be myself, that whatever I chose to do next with my career, I would have no competition.This message gave me a lot of hope.

With Walrus’s assistance, I eventually walked away from medicine to discover work that I love again.

I wasn’t aware of the deeper world of nature until the beasties found me and I started connecting with them. I believe the reason so many of us are drawn to animals and hold them in such high regard is that they are vibrational role models; working with their spirits is an invitation to join in their high state of alignment.

A beastie is a spirit that bears a special significance for an individual. It is a source of strength and insight. This creature’s spirit is aligned with the spirit of the person who works with it. I believe working with beasties in this way is embedded in our DNA or our collective experience. Though our Western culture currently lacks a strong connection to the practice of working with spirit animals, many beloved creative works point to this possibility again and again.

Two kinds of Beasties: Guest Beasties and Core Beasties

There are two basic categories of beasties. The first I like to think of as guest beasties. They’re around for a limited time. They come to stay with you for a moment or a month, or even a year, to bring a message or share some wisdom. Guest beasties arrive to guide you through something important that’s going on in your life. They’re basically saying, “Hey! Over here! Notice me, because I’m trying to tell you something that’s important for you to know right now.”

The other kind of beastie is what I like to think of as core beasties. They are often referred to as guardians, familiars, protectors, or power animals. The word power is often thought of only in terms of intimidation and strength. While it’s true that a core beastie does offer strength, it’s not the strength of being more powerful than others, but the strength that comes from being connected to your true self. The core in core beastie is the core of you.

Guest Beasties

Guest beasties are beasties that appear for a limited time to bring you a specific message. It’s kind of like a guest coming to visit who won’t be around forever. The good news: unlike houseguests, you won’t have to change the sheets or get up early to make coffee for them. Instead, the visit of a guest beastie can lighten your load.

They show up in your life to point you in a new direction, offer a solution, or teach you something.

Even our biggest fears, like not having enough money, a place to live, or good health, can be calmed by connecting with a simple message from a guest beastie.

The first step to working with guest beasties is to notice which beastie is showing up. Although they sometimes make a dramatic entrance, beasties often simply appear as you go about your day — as you read the newspaper, pick up the mail, or walk down the street. You don’t need to see the actual, three-dimensional version of the beastie for it to be a guest beastie with a message for you. Beasties you see on a digital screen, that you read about in a book, that appear in a dream, or that present themselves on a gift someone gives you — they all count. You may even hear a beastie rather than see it. Or, even more mysteriously, you might see just a tail, a tooth, a glistening trail on the sidewalk, a web, scat, or other evidence. All of them count. All you need to do is pay attention.

For example, if Tiger wants to get your attention, the man making your latte may have a tiger tattoo that catches your eye, and you ask him about it. Or you visit the zoo, and you can’t get enough of watching the tiger lounging majestically in its habitat. Maybe a friend gives you a birthday card with “Hey, Tiger!” as part of the message. Or a PBS documentary on tigers is playing at the dentist’s office while you get your teeth cleaned, and later your child offers you their stuffed tiger toy to snuggle with. You might even have all of these things happen within the short space of a few days. Play with life’s wonder; nothing is insignificant or without meaning.

Guest beasties typically exit once we have received the support and guidance we need.

During the period they are in our lives, we may feel extremely close to them and work deeply together. In some circumstances, a guest beastie like this may, over time, join your core beastie as a lifetime guide and helper.

Core Beasties

A connection with a core beastie — what some people call a ‘power animal’ — can be one of the most magical relationships, mentorships, and friendships you’ll ever have.

A core beastie is a spirit, in animal form, that you have a relationship with over a very long period of time. Many shamanic teachers say that a core beastie is with you for life.

Some people call core beasties power animals, but the word power is often confusing. The core beastie you connect with will empower you, yet it doesn’t bring you power, as our culture tends to popularly define it: an ability to dominate others or control the world. The power I’m talking about here is the peaceful strength that arises from expressing your unique essence in all areas of your life. I use the term core beastie because it more clearly communicates what this relationship is about: fortifying and enlivening the center or core of you.

The amazing and special thing about a core beastie is that when you discover one and get to know it, it’s like coming home to yourself. When you connect with the energy of an animal — or for that matter, anything in nature (an ocean, a tree, a rock) — you’re connecting with its vibration or inherent spirit. You feel that energy, for example, when you see an oak tree or a wildflower and recognize its beauty. When you discover your core beastie, it will feel uniquely uplifting. He or she will make you feel stronger when you think of them. It’s kind of like being in the company of someone who’s very positive, in tune with you, and supports you. A core beastie plays an empowering and protective role.

As a general rule, just as with guest beasties, core beasties are the spirits of wild animals. A wild animal lives in surrender to its own self and is able to fully express its heart’s desires without limits. Your core beastie will choose you — not the other way around. Regardless of how it appears, the beastie that chooses you does so because it has perfect, unique messages, strengths, and teachings for you. But be aware that your ego could get in the way. You may want your core beastie to be a soaring condor because your ego wants a condor, even though another precious beastie is trying to get your attention. If your ego gets in the way, you’ll find connecting with a core beastie more difficult and challenging.

Let go of the attachment to the beastie you want to appear and welcome the one that does appear bearing the gift of its messages.

Recall that a guest beastie is typically temporary (visiting for a moment, a week, or other limited time), whereas a core beastie is an animal spirit that has been with you your whole life, whether you’ve been conscious of it or not. Does one pop into your head instantly? Another easy way to tune in to your core beasties is to ask yourself these questions:

• Did you have a well-loved stuffed animal or book about a particular animal as a kid?
• What was the first animal you’d run to at the museum or zoo when you were a child?
• Have you ever had an incredible encounter with a wild animal? It could be an attack, an intense and powerful dream, a very unusual sighting, or an experience with a wild animal that felt significant.
• Have you had recurring dreams where a certain animal shows up over and over again? Even if — and especially if — it’s a scary dream?

Having a core beastie is like having a mentor who encourages you and really sees what’s possible for you. And like a relationship with a mentor (or a friend or a lover), your relationship with a core beastie is a two-way street: you get out of it what you put in. When you honor a relationship with a core beastie, it thrives — and so do you. Forging a wonderful, strong relationship with a core beastie is like cracking open a doorway into a vast world of nature and other beasties. By entering, you open yourself to receiving many more messages and making further discoveries.

Here are a few portraits of some beasties:

Bear

Solitude, Motherhood, Creativity, Dreaming

There’s a strange smell in the air. I quickly rise and encourage my cub to climb the tree. We climb together, up into the green branches. With my cub secured, I continue to sniff and observe the ground below. There, I spot her. It’s another young female bear, near my age. I huff at my cub, admonishing her to stay put, and quickly scale back down the tree to confront this stranger. I need this area to myself for my family to thrive. I storm toward her, raising a ruckus. She quickly retreats without a fight. Relieved, I sigh and collapse in a heap on the soft pine-needle floor and call to my cub. Lightning fast, she slips down the trunk and runs to greet me.

Bears are masterful at enjoying their own good company. These introverted creatures spend much of their life in solitude; it’s what bears do best. Bear lumbers in to remind you that perhaps you, too, could benefit from a respite from the constant buzzing.

A mother bear is an also an expert at teaching her little ones the skills they’ll need to be wholly independent. Once they’ve been raised, she chases those prepared cubs up a tree and leaves them there, fully expecting that they will take responsibility for themselves now. Is it time for you to take full responsibility for yourself? Conversely, is it time for you to let go of something (or someone) you helped create, trusting that you have prepared it well? Bear’s presence can also help you dream a new dream. Bear reminds you that what you really want isn’t that far off (even if it feels that way now). Don’t forget to stop for honey on your way there.

Aligning Affirmations:

GO YOUR OWN WAY

Find strength in solitude. Discover alone.

SAVOR THE AMBLE

Find delight in the journey. Stop often for honey.

EXPECT YOUR CREATIONS TO THRIVE

You did your part. Now let go. Be fierce. Believe.

CHAKRA:  Womb/sacral. Bear can help you strike a balance between giving and receiving. Are you shattered from giving too much and need to practice the art of receiving at this time? Or does your cup runneth over, making it the right time to share your bounty? Notice and make adjustments as needed.

BEASTLY PRACTICE:  Practice balancing in a modified Yogic Bear Pose to activate Bear energy. While seated on a mat or cushion, grab each foot with each hand. Inhale and lean back to lift both heels off of the floor a few inches. Find your balance. Then inhale and push your feet outward and upward, straightening the legs. (To modify for ease, keep knees bent.) Lift your feet up and out toward the corners of the room. Breathe and hold for two to four breaths. Repeat a few times. Notice new insights from your body.

VOCATION:  With bears, body language is everything. If you want to take charge, stand tall. To understand a situation more deeply, notice the subtle sign others give with their bodies. Become adept at reading these postures, and you’ll become better at what you do.

WELLNESS:  Drop all the ‘shoulds’ and let your omnivore self eat what it’s hungry for. If it feels good, explore medicinal herbs and teas.

CREATIVITY: A fertilized bear egg will develop into a viable pregnancy only if conditions become ideal. This is called delayed implantation. If you are in a creative process and are experiencing a delay, trust (and breathe). When conditions are ripe, your creation will begin to manifest and, with your collaboration, become fully fleshed out.

RELATING:  In Hindu mythology, Jambavan, the king of bears, an immortal being and son of the creator of the Universe, reincarnated as a bear in order to serve Lord Rama. Jambavan helped Hanuman, the monkey king, realize his immense capabilities. Like this mythological bear, you are being empowered to serve the greater good and to help others realize their own power and unique skills. Reflect people’s light back to them.

LOVE:  Play some Barry White and snuggle a loved one under some cozy covers in your own bear cave to improve your love quotient. If you are seeking love, do the same, but embrace a pillow and imagine your perfect snuggle partner. Ask Bear to help deliver them to you at the perfect time.

*If Bear is your core beastie, you get a tiny bit ornery if forced to go too many days without alone time.

Peacock

Art of Ceremony, Self-Expression, Compassion, Pride

In the early morning I fly up to a ridge, where I can survey my territory. I spot a female and quickly fly down to extend my invitation. I shimmy my feathers first and then — snap! — bring my tail up and fan it out in its full glory. Then I turn to face her directly and vibrate the feathers in order to more fully attract her attention. Today, she turns away and seems uninterested. I continue in earnest until the sun becomes too hot, and then I reluctantly retreat to the shade. Tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity.

Peacock struts in ceremonially and with absolute grace to remind you that the eyes of compassion are always on you. Quan Yin, the goddess of mercy, love, and kindness, recognized by many all over the planet, is often depicted riding on a sacred peacock with the hundreds of eyes in his feathers representing the all-seeing eyes of this divine expression of the Creator’s love. Peacock wants you to know just how beloved you are. When you can go out into the world with trust, knowing you are loved, life can become a daring adventure. It’s time to step out with the trust and innocence of a child who has nothing to fear. This is a time to be bold. You may wander, but you are never lost. Saying yes to what’s calling you will keep the all-seeing eyes of compassion upon you. Train yourself to recognize the loving eyes that are seeing you always.

Aligning Affirmations:

ACCEPT YOUR DISTINCTIVENESS

You’re magnificent. Own it. Show it off. Strut your stuff.

LEVERAGE LOVELINESS

Entice with beauty. Reward with delight.

EMBODY POISE

Move graciously. Carefully. With great concentration and awareness.

CHAKRA:  Throat. The color of the throat chakra is sapphire blue. Riffle through your closet and don something with this color, or find another creative way to bring this rich blue into your experience to bring balance to self-expression.

BEASTLY PRACTICE:  Peacocks are leaf-litter hunters and love dusk and dawn for foraging. Take yourself on a peacock strut either early at dawn or as the sun is setting, and walk mindfully, drinking in all the beauty of nature.

VOCATION:  Peacocks make loud and plaintive calls. They are far from shy. If you’ve been suppressing yourself, it’s time to speak up and share your own thoughts at work.

WELLNESS:  Peacocks are not picky eaters and will eat just about anything they can find on the forest floor, including fruits, seeds, insects, and reptiles. It’s a great time to try new foods. Expand your culinary horizons. Choose something you’ve never tried before when you dine out or make a brand-new recipe. Favor natural, unprocessed foods from the earth.

CREATIVITY: The plumage of the male peacock has no equal. It dazzles. Don’t be afraid to be loud and proud about your creative work. It’s time to put it on display, share it, and let others see the glory of what you have made.

RELATING:  Peacocks tend to roost together in trees in ‘parties’ for protection. If you are feeling disempowered or anxious, a party is the cure. Call a last-minute potluck or toss some popcorn in a bowl and invite a few of your favorite friends over.

LOVE:  Peacocks take their courtship very seriously, and males will stop at nothing — singing and dancing their hearts out — for a chance to be with the female of their choice. This is no time to be lax. If you’re in a committed partnership, it’s time to dance like you mean it and pull out all the stops. If you are seeking love, just like the peahen, you are in the driver’s seat (whether you are male or female). Look for the one whose dance has the most heart.

*If Peacock is your core beastie, you surprise people with the incredible ways you express yourself.

Sloth

Gentleness, Trust, Conservation of Personal Energy, Cooperation

Moving slowly up the tree, I pause to nibble a few leaves. The jungle symphony provides the soothing soundtrack for our morning. We cruise gently and imperceptibly among the trees. Our dreamy pace is our protection. My baby is beginning to grow up and has begun grabbing a vine or two of his own, to test his strength. It won’t be long before we part ways.

Sloth arrives very slowly to gently make you aware that there’s no sin in conserving your energy for what is most important to you. Have you been exceedingly busy, responding to all of the needs of others and ignoring your own most basic needs? Sloth offers you her Mona Lisa smile and wordlessly reminds you to periodically withdraw yourself from the caretaking of the world and lovingly attend to your own sweet center and/or family. Sloth was named, by some terribly misinformed explorer, for one of the seven deadly sins. But Sloth is not indifferent to the world and its suffering, nor is she lazy. Sloth is simply a skillful model of energy conservation and healthy self-care. She reminds you to attend first and foremost to your own needs. To rest sufficiently. To eat nourishing foods. When you take care of yourself, as Sloth does, you can become a helpful guide for others.

Aligning Affirmations:

PROCEED SLOWLY

There’s no need to do it faster. Pokey is perfect.

TAKE TIME TO PROCESS

Break it down. Allow lengthy digestion. Days, not minutes.

ENJOY OBSCURITY.

Move quietly among all you adore.

CHAKRA:  Heart. Sloths quietly live in harmony with all that is. Take a few minutes today to be outdoors, set an intention to come into harmony with all of nature, and notice what happens—notice what you sense, smell, see, taste, or simply know.

BEASTLY PRACTICE:  Sloths, like owls, have the incredible ability to turn their heads nearly 360 degrees. Take an issue that has been bothering you the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours and examine it carefully from all perspectives. Then, if you like, stay the course or feel free to make a 180-degree turn.

VOCATION:  It can take a sloth up to one month to digest a meal. Give yourself at least thirty days to consider carefully all of your ideas, information, and input before launching a new product/program/initiative or making a big decision.

WELLNESS:  Once a week, sloths will descend from their tree to defecate and urinate. Each time you go to the bathroom and close the door today, do a one-minute sloth blessing and release: take this opportunity to thank God, the Universe, the Earth, or whomever you pray to for all the nourishment you’ve received. Then release everything (including this waste) that is not serving you. Amen.

CREATIVITY: Sloth mothers are extremely tender and gentle with their babies. Give yourself a very tender and peaceful atmosphere in which to create. Clear out any old energy by spraying flower essences, sage, or simply burning a candle with intention, and invite Sloth to watch over you as you work at your chosen craft.

RELATING:  Sloths are a wandering, welcoming habitat for many other beasties, including algae, moths, beetles, and more. Offer yourself as a soft place for others to be nourished.

LOVE:  Sloths have a very slow rate of metabolism and need to sunbathe often to maintain their body temperature. To strengthen your relationship or to increase the chances of finding love, spend a few minutes soaking up the sun. Notice how the sun never asks anything of you: it simply shines.

*If Sloth is your core beastie, you naturally broadcast the creative talents of others.

You may also enjoy reading How Good Are You Willing To Let Life Get? Daily Messages From A Spirit Animal by Sarah Bamford Seidelmann

The post Embracing Your Beastie: Connecting To The Wisdom of Your Spirit Animal appeared first on BEST SELF.

When a young mother comes face-to-face with unimaginable loss, she uncovers the ‘in-between of grief’ — a powerful space where not-yet-OK breeds hope and healing

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In 2014, Marines dressed in their best uniforms arrived on my doorstep with news that my worst nightmare had come true. My beloved husband was dead in the aftermath of a fatal aviation accident on the other side of the world. Minutes before, I was someone’s wife, dreamily preparing to introduce him to our newborn daughter. Now, I was a widowed, solo mother of four living on a military base in Japan with a funeral to plan. Six days later, our family of five boarded a trans-Atlantic flight with thirteen suitcases and four kids too young to understand, to bury their dad.

The surreal enormity of grief is the most exhausting and heavy experience we humans will know.

In the days and months that followed his death, I felt myself wane to a sense of barely there. Time didn’t make sense. The future certainly didn’t make sense. The days were about logistics and keeping my children fed. I finally understood why they call us survivors. Living with grief requires Herculean strength especially in the beginning. And yet, after the funeral and the busyness of buying a house and the first day of school that came and went — things began to shift in a fascinating way. That’s when I first encountered what I now call the in-between of grief.

Mine felt like the wild outback of emotions and fears. I was terrified that the rest of my story was going to be a scraped together, second-best kind of life. I wasn’t sure who I was now and I was certain there would be no happy ending. Daily life felt equal parts heavy and empty most of the time and the brief moments of joy were disorienting. My life was humming along, but it didn’t quite feel like mine for the living.

They say time heals all and I, like so many others, treated grief like a holding pattern as I tried to outlast the pain.

I was working desperately to get my grief ‘right’, but nothing changed and for awhile, I just kept waiting. The waiting for things to feel easier can quickly shift into the dangerous territory of settling for the way things are. It’s so subtle we hardly know it’s happening. Slowly, we let go of the one thing that can sustain us in life’s darkest hour: hope.

I almost fell into this trap myself until I heard a question rumbling around in my head: Is this really all there is now? Is this really all my life as a widow will be now? The answer that came echoing back was the voice of limiting beliefs, a waning sense of worth, and the hurt of my heart: You’re a widow and solo mom. Your job is to survive, keep your kids alive, and try not to be too sad. Your life will be about longing, loneliness and exhaustion. There’s no way around it. Widows don’t get to be happy. This is it.

Or is it?

That empty answer woke me up to see I had given up on dreaming because it was too painful to believe in something I thought I couldn’t have. There were rules etched into my subconscious dictating what was possible (or more accurately, impossible) for people with hearts and lives that felt broken like mine. I didn’t know what I wanted from life after loss, but I believed enough in the resilience of the human spirit to go in search of something more than the whispered impossibilities of my fear.

I committed myself to seeking out support that created space for empowerment, inspiration, accountability and hope. It was a journey that required vulnerability and a willingness to turn toward everything I thought and felt with tender curiosity and total honesty. It was a journey that asked me to willingly examine my grief, fears and beliefs. It was a journey that invited me to take responsibility for what came next in life after he died.

This journey is rooted in the simple practice of noticing what you notice without pushing it away or making it mean anything.

You notice what you feel, need, want, secretly hope for and don’t want — and practice bringing awareness to it all. My yoga teacher calls it “cultivating the witnessing mind.” I call it noticing what you notice with curiosity. This awareness brings us back home to a life of possibility and moves us daily toward the sweetness on other side of grief that’s hard to believe in until you find yourself there. This mindful way of showing up beyond the ‘in-between of grief’ put me back in the seat of actively co-creating my life, one tiny step forward at a time. Instead of life after loss happening to me, I was learning to live again.

In truth, we need this gnarly, surreal, uncomfortable piece of the journey in life’s transitions to move us in the direction of what comes next.If we can resist the urge to out-hustle our pain and be where we are, clarity begins to seep in. If we can stay away from the numbing enticement of settling for suffering, we’re capable of looking up from the rubble of our grief to see life with new eyes of possibility. Sometimes we need the solidarity of others who understand our journey in order to feel safe there. Sometimes we need the gentle guidance of others who have been there as we find our footing. This journey was not meant to be walked alone and we find ourselves in this most impressive digitally connected society doing so much of it on our own.

Nature shows us the unwavering pattern that we humans so powerfully resist in our darkest days. After every cycle of death, decay and destruction, new life emerges. When a tree falls in the woods, new life begins to form on the microscopic level almost immediately, yet the untrained eye simply sees it as a dead tree. With time and the nourishment of spring rains, rich soil, sunlight and the help of some many-legged creatures, we eventually see the intricate moss forming right alongside the impossibly ornate fungi and the new green shoots of seedlings coming up all around what once appeared to be lifeless.

The ‘in-between of grief’ is not meant to be experienced forever, it’s simply the transitional time between no longer and not yet.

While the human experience of rebirth and regeneration is more complex than that of the forest floor, perhaps we can learn something from it. Even in our darkest of days, if we’re willing to surround ourselves with the right support and the nourishment to sustain us, new life will always prevail.

Like the fallen tree and the regeneration of life from what was once alive and mighty, I too began to reclaim my life after loss one small step forward at a time. I allowed myself the permission to honor and remember the love story that was cut short while also opening my life and heart to the way ahead. As I healed, I was also unlearning the fears of impossibility and replacing them with the belief that anything is truly possible. Instead of forcing, I learned to soften and trust my intuition above all else. Instead of striving to prove myself worthy, I doubled down on radical self-care and surrounded myself with an unconditionally loving tribe and allowed inspiration to flow in. Instead of surviving, I began choosing the way forward in the direction of the life of my new dreams that bit by bit came into new focus.

One day, a few years later I looked up and found myself in a life of sweetness — one I never could’ve imagined, the day I became a widow, could ever be mine again.

That’s the lie grief spreads upon you. But there is a way out of it — it’s through it — one foot in front of the other, however you can. Life’s nectar is too sweet to abandon, I promise.

It led to the beautiful unfolding of my new chapter: my life coaching practice, taking ownership of my voice, being an advocate for others, even writing a best-selling book. I dedicated myself to shouting solidarity, hope, empowerment and possibility from the widow-sister mountaintops — pulsating with life yet again and determined to walk others through the darkness.

And through it all love found me again. The most delicious love story arrived while writing my book. My heart had once again opened to receive. Absolutely everything in my life after loss is different, yet I feel more myself, more inspired and more alive than I ever knew how to before death taught me to live. Grief leaves you forever changed, but it doesn’t have to mean forever suffering. There is life after loss — and it can be glorious. Allow yourself to accept its invitation.

You may also enjoy reading Doing Death Differently: Embracing the Home Funeral by Kelly Notaras

The post Life After Death: Healing Grief, Redefined appeared first on BEST SELF.

If we want to truly heal our emotional wounds, we must first learn to access, embrace, and nurture our vulnerability

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While on a walk with a dear friend recently, I was taken by surprise when some deep wounded feelings began to come up. Fortunately, I let myself share and have a big ol’ cry right where we stood. As it turns out, those particular feelings were connected to challenges I went through with my father when I was a child. Once I was done sharing, it occurred to me that I had been carrying those specific feelings around inside me for decades.

By the end of our walk on that sunny, clear morning, I was grateful for two things: (1) that I have friends who are willing to offer loving support when I have an emotional need, and (2) that I have already spent a great deal of quality time teaching myself how to feel safe with vulnerable experiences.

I think these perspectives are important to share because I don’t believe most people truly feel safe with vulnerable feelings. We live in a world that has been operating with a primitive emotional education in many ways, and it seems to me that neither men nor women tend to trust the beautiful process of acknowledging, sharing and releasing their feelings — particularly when it comes to wounded feelings.

To understand why this is so, let’s look back to our early lives.

If we didn’t receive a nurturing education that championed our feelings when we were young, we learned some version of fear, shame and self-doubt.

What may not be so clear is that once we learn to associate fear with feelings, we tend to shut them down going forward, burying them with the hope that they will somehow magically disappear.

How often, when referring to some challenging event from their past, have we heard people say, “Oh, that occurred such a long time ago. Thank God that is over and done.” Important to understand is that emotional energy doesn’t just ‘go away’. When we suppress and bury our feelings, that energy literally becomes trapped and stored in the cells of our bodies — hoping for a time when we will finally feel safe to acknowledge, express, and release.

I am quite clear how many years I spent suppressing feelings. That is what I learned to do in a family dealing with divorce, alcoholism, and a lack of understanding about how to communicate. Like most family dynamics, even though each of us had wonderful potential, we spent many years surviving as five wounded people on five separate islands.

One of the core challenges I had to negotiate growing up was having a father who never said anything to me, other than occasionally barking orders like, “Go mow the grass.”

Even though we lived in the same house for thirteen years, I don’t remember a single time he asked me how I was doing or took the time to share anything of himself. I only remember feeling desperate to get his attention. And none ever came.

With no real guidance or modeling about what it would mean to become a healthy man in the world, I began searching for all the ways I could achieve and impress. Certainly big accomplishments would get my father’s attention. I was hoping that having him proud of me would become the answer to the pain and self-doubt that I carried.

I quickly became a super-achiever. By the time I finished high school, some of my accomplishments included being the senior class president, the valedictorian, the drum major, the lead in the school play, and being named the ‘Outstanding Student of North Carolina’. I then moved on to a career performing over 60 leading roles in Broadway shows and on opera stages around the world. Despite all of those efforts, I still felt like the same wounded little boy, doing my best to keep people distracted with my talents while I hid the wounds and fears that plagued me on the inside.

The fact that this approach was never going to work was never clearer than when I was in Monte Carlo doing a world premiere. Surrounded by some of the world’s greatest glamour, blessed with opportunities like dining with royalty, yet all I wanted to do was throw myself off the balcony of my hotel into the ocean.

Soon I will share an extremely helpful process for resolving wounded feelings, but for now I will just say that I know I’m not alone in having early experiences that left me with wounds of self-doubt. That is because most of us grew up without a clear emotional education. As a confirmation that this has been true all over the world, let’s look at some of the wounded symptoms that have been coming up over the last decade.

When the energy of wounded feelings and self-doubt build up inside us, they become toxic to our bodies and quite often become triggered and are then acted out.

This is what I believe has led to such a surprising number of school shootings, an alarming rise in serious diseases, an unprecedented number of individuals becoming dependent on anti-depressants, and disturbing new levels of suicide — from troubled teens to well-known celebrities, like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.

We have governments who seem more interested in winning and opposing than they seem determined to find solutions that serve the good of the whole. There has been a constant stream of leaders caught in wounded, self-serving choices that prioritize the almighty dollar, rather than standing up for principles and values that are simply fair and humane.

We have become a world more immersed in our gadgets and technologies than we have typically been investing in one another’s lives. In the name of convenience and progress, perhaps we need to admit that we’ve been getting lost in distractions while we have simultaneously been losing the art of connection and value.

I believe that each of these wounded manifestations is a ‘cry for help’, coming from a wounded world that has never learned to trust the kind of nurturing guidance that provides clear solutions to our inner challenges.

 At the same time, once we identify the nurturing guidance that has been missing, we create a distinct opportunity to make adjustments that can slow down this runaway train.

What I have discovered in my search for solutions is that we all have nine levels of nurturing that needed to be introduced in the first eight years of our lives. When our caregivers didn’t provide those specific levels of nurturing — because no one taught them about nurturing when they were young — we didn’t learn to trust that we matter or that our individual needs can actually be fulfilled.

With such gaps in our inner trust, we have been a world trapped in distinct limitations. This is why most of us have felt unsure how to respond to the accelerated cries for help that have been taking place in the world around us.

What we now need to realize is that until we invest in a nurturing education and learn how to resolve the wounds that we have carried around inside our bodies, we risk becoming numbed out to these accelerated crises.

And if that is what we choose, these rising numbers will simply become our ‘new normal’.

Having brought focus to the wounded challenges that we all face with our inner self, I’ll now share the empowering process I’ve formulated for healing the fear and shame that most of us hold.

I’ve had the chance to share this unique process with thousands of people around the world over the last 22 years. In that time, people have created consistent, powerful transformations by investing in a clear emotional education that is centered around nine nurturing needs: safety, connection, affection, acknowledgment, acceptance, compassion, clear guidance, support and encouragement.

You learn most powerfully from what you experience, and it is never too late to introduce new experiences into your life.

When you learn how to give yourself these nine nurturing experiences, now as an adult, you are still capable of building a deep sense of trust in the fact that you are an individual who matters.

More good news is that as you begin to integrate these nine nurturing investments, you will become a clearer part of the solutions that are so desperately needed in our world. By simply becoming an individual who models nurturing and self-value, you will inspire others to make similar choices.

There is also comfort in the fact that we are all in this learning curve together. We all have challenges and we all need to learn how to treat ourselves well.

We cannot resolve the issues in our physical world by only addressing the outer challenges. We must learn how to connect and nurture ourselves on the inside.

That is because It is what we hold inside that determines our actions and choices more than any other thing.

To find out where you are at present in the process of self-awareness and self-nurturing, I encourage you to ask yourself a few questions:

• How comfortable do you feel to open and receive?
• How aware do you feel of your own feelings?
• How often do you allow yourself to share your feelings with others?

Quite often, our inner challenges are not even a part of our most intimate conversations. However, I am grateful to be able to stand in the midst of all of the wounding and fear to offer a solid option for healing. I know that solutions are entirely possible and accessible. I have now dedicated my life to passing on a clear map of self, including the specific potentials that we all hold, supported by set of nurturing tools that make a real difference.

While we are here exploring together, let me share one with you now. This exercise will also give you another way to discover how connected you have typically been to your own body at this point in your learning curve.

In a moment, I’m going to share a specific word with you. When I do, I don’t want you to shift a single thing about what you are already doing. Merely bring your focus to the word that I share and pay attention to what you discover.

The word is ‘breath’.

Without changing a thing, bring your focus to how you were already breathing for about 15 seconds.

If you are like most of the people I have taken through this exercise, you will likely discover that you were breathing in a very shallow way, stuck in what I call ‘survival breathing’. What I suggest you consider is a return to the natural breathing that you did when you were just an infant.

If you look at a sleeping baby lying on its back in a crib, the only thing that moves is the infant’s belly. That is the starting place I would like to suggest for you. The reason that most of us stopped breathing in this natural way is that the belly is where we hold our wounded feelings. And in an attempt to avoid shaking up those feelings, most of us unconsciously shifted to a much shallower survival breath over time.

Even more powerful than the natural breath of an infant is what I call a ‘proactive breath’. This breath will allow you to not only nurture yourself with more oxygen and energy, it will also send a clear message to your nervous system that you are safe to receive and that you are safe to assert and share yourself more authentically as well.

The breath determines many more things than most of us have ever been taught.

So, let me encourage you to place one hand on your belly and then to breathe IN as fully as you can through the nose, filling up the lower belly like a full balloon.

Now proactively send your air out through an open mouth, imagining that you are sending it to the far side of the room. Then pause for a couple of seconds and repeat this pattern for two or three breaths.

Don’t do more than that to begin, as you will be moving much more energy and can become dizzy otherwise. I suggest that you begin practicing this exercise for up to one minute, several times a day, so that your body can get used to the new connection and flow of energy that this will begin to inspire.

I will now leave you with these few things to ponder and practice. We all carry a great deal of wounded emotional energy that needs to be acknowledged, expressed, and released. When you prepare that process with the breath, you will take your place as a proactive part of the healing that is so needed in our world.

Learning to nurture yourself couldn’t be more essential to finally healing the wounding you have endured for so long. There is an endless world of possibility awaiting your arrival. Are you ready to lay these burdens down once and for all?

—

You may also enjoy reading Dancing with Life in a Time of Global Challenge by Ron Baker

The post Nurturing and Vulnerability: The Power of Healing Our Wounded Child appeared first on BEST SELF.

Through breath and meditation we can reconnect to the voice within, the holy fire of our truth — and return to ‘human love’

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I wish I had a magical mantra you could repeat when needed and poof– suddenly – you don’t just know, but FEEL the love that you are. The hard part about loving ourselves is that it takes hard work. It takes daily, inner doses of raw honey — of letting love reach within us where it has never been before.

I don’t know why so many of us were wired this way — to love others with ease even through their massive failings and faults, but then judge the slightest little thing wesay or do. And then use our human mistakes as reasons to withdraw or withhold our own love for ourselves. Or worse, allow those mistakes (which are the whole point of being here) to convince us that we aren’t worthy of love.

The grace, the silver lining, the miracle in all this, is that so many of us are in this together — this calling to become the love we seek to give others.

The greatest spiritual tool I can offer you is something we all possess. I call it the ‘Soul-Voice Meditation’ — the capacity to turn our focus and attention inward, to the heart.

Whether you take a minute in the shower, five on the commute to work, or twenty minutes before bed at night, that intention of going within and meeting the presence that exists within you (that is you) will melt those obstacles that can block you from feeling the love that is yours.

I call it the Soul-Voice Meditation because that’s what I meet with when I go within, the presence and uncompromising reality of the soul. It’s like stepping into a vat of honey that I keep forgetting is right here. It’s this endless supply of love that I never have to earn access to or prove I’m worthy of; I just have to remember that it’s right here in my own imperfect and terrifically flawed heart.

This, I think, is the whole point: that something as divine as love (which never ends) lives and breathes within this shifting, temporary space of the human heart — and that it’s ours to experience and share and to ultimately become. I don’t think the point is to be that love all of the time. I think the point is to be both this eternal love, and also this fumbling, lost-in-the-dark type human. That’s the work, the paradox, and the opportunity we’re handed in coming here. To be human love. And to get better and better at returning to the source of love whenever we think we’ve been separated from it, or when we mistake its origin in someone or something else. With less and less time, and with more and more forgiveness.

So, what I suggest is to just start. Just do what you can to love yourself right now.

Take one breath, close your eyes and intend to enter your heart. Take a second breath and know that you are meeting with the truth of who you are, a soul of love. Take a third breath and surface from behind your eyes to see out now with the eyes of love.

Then just let that love guide you. Start with those three breaths at some point in your day. No one needs to know you’re doing it. You don’t need a meditation cushion or a candle, or incense — all you need is this desire to encounter the love that you are. You and your soul will take it from there, knowing that with love you’ll find all your own answers within you.

I often hear the adage, or some version of it, that “we must become who we needed most when we were young.” When I was a little girl, I needed to be led, again and again, back to the truth that I contained the love I seek. I needed to be reminded that as a female, I am not an object, or a commodity. Love is my birthright, and I am entirely worthy of it. I am beloved here on earth, and that no matter what happens, my body is sacred.

I needed to know that this quiet, unassuming voice inside me is actually a holy fire; it’s the most powerful force in this world.

It’s the force of unfaltering love. I can trust it to guide me. I can trust this voice, if I dare to follow it, to become not what someone else needs me to be, or wants me to become, but simply the truth of who I am.

I can choose to be nothing less or more than exactly who I am; and this is enough.

I needed to be taught that there have always been divine ladies of an uncompromising love that have existed throughout history and in all the world religions. There have been Goddesses and female Buddhas and human women who embodied a love that allowed them to transform into warrior-saints, and mystics, and poetesses, in order to rise above the limits of what their cultures and religions allowed for them as females; so they could demonstrate to the world what happens when a woman sets her own soul free.

When I was little I needed The Divine Feminine Oracle.

I needed the Soul-Voice Meditation.

I needed to be the love that I already am.

And so, this is what I have created.

You may also enjoy reading Stories in Motion: Oracles for the Modern Seeker by Colette Baron-Reid

The post Three Breaths: Connecting to The Holy Fire of Truth Within appeared first on BEST SELF.

Fear comes in many forms… even dancing

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My ex-husband used to tell me I looked like Elaine onSeinfeldwhen I danced. If you’ve seen the show, you’ll know what I mean (it wasn’t a compliment). If you haven’t, suffice it to say that she was probably the most embarrassing dancer in history. No wonder I have a lot of resistance about dancing.

Over the years, friends have tried to help me get over this resistance by taking me to dance classes. Each time I’ve ended up leaving before the end, crying in the parking lot while I waited.

Fast-forward to my current beau, Aaron. We were at a party that included a live band, and he asked me to dance. “Absolutely not,” I said. But he asked again… and again… and again.

So, finally I gave in. We ‘sort of’ danced, but it was traumatic for me as usual.

Aaron could tell how uncomfortable I was so, in his loving way, he suggested we take six weeks of dance classes together at the local community college. Reluctantly, I agreed and even bought special shoes — channeling my sister who always says, “I can do anything as long as I have the right outfit!” Unfortunately, I still couldn’t get past the trauma and ended up bawling my eyes out during the first two classes. The instructor barely knew what to do with me, let alone the rest of the roomful of adults. “I’m not going back there again,” I told Aaron.

This trauma was clearly locked inside my psyche. Aaron and I decided to work with a dance therapist he and friends of mine knew. “This is my biggest nightmare,” I told her. “I have a lot of resistance and fear about this, and I don’t want to feel scrutinized or humiliated.” I immediately felt safe with her.

She took us through a very slow process that began with swapping out the word dance for movement. She started by simply having us move separately with our eyes closed. I could be in my own world without being watched. With my eyes closed, I found that I could feel the music and let my body move the way it wanted.

Then she had us move together to do what she called ‘The Seaweed Exercise’. With our feet firmly planted on the ground, we took turns slowly and gently pushing each other’s shoulders, causing our bodies to move like seaweed. It was so profound for me to be touched in this way and to move as if I was underwater. I discovered that Aaron would fully support my movement physically as I leaned into him, and he found the same with me.

Of course, it’s a brilliant metaphor. Allowing Aaron to support me in this way also allowed me to ‘lean into’ connection.

Since my long-running story had been that no one would support me, it was beautiful to trust that he would indeed support me, through this movement and so much more. Not to mention that it began to release some of my trauma around dancing.

Earlier this year at my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah, one of my sister’s friends basically begged me to dance and then practically pushed me and Aaron out onto the dance floor. Something strange happened. The habit of feeling fear, humiliation and embarrassment was a distant memory. My body allowed itself to move and, dare I say it, I had fun! And, I’ve got a picture to prove it!

—

For more on healing the patterns of your past so you can lean into love, check out Nancy’s new book, The New Relationship Blueprint

You may also enjoy reading My own jump… inch by inch by Nancy Levin

The post Dancing into Connection and Trust appeared first on BEST SELF.

Philip Goldberg writes the human story of the spiritual guru Paramahansa Yogananda

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As an idealistic, inquisitive student in the 1960s, I made what seemed like a radical shift from Marxist, atheist, anti-religious, political activist to questing seeker, enchanted by the philosophical and spiritual insights of the East. Neglecting my assigned course work, I read everything I could about Yoga, Vedanta, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and world mysticism, including Western commentators such as Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley, the fiction of Herman Hesse and J. D. Salinger, and the poetry and song lyrics of artists whose lives and work were influenced by those Eastern spiritual traditions. What I learned was not only revelatory, it was practical, empirical, and transformative. I was hardly alone in making that transition; the counterculture was awash in Indian music, fabrics, and ideas, not to mention the music and cultural influence of The Beatles, whose journey to India in 1968 seemed to tilt the planet so the East’s treasures could easily pour into the West. All of which inspired a move away from the drugs that had, for many, opened the doors of perception toward safer and more reliable paths to spiritual experience.

Into my mixed bag of resources came Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. It was one of the most eagerly borrowed and blatantly ripped-off books in the low-rent districts of strongholds like Berkeley, Cambridge, Madison, Ann Arbor, and the East Village.

I still have the copy I read back then. It’s a hard cover, and the price on the jacket is $5. Since it was unlikely I had five bucks to spare in those hand-to-mouth days, I probably borrowed the book and failed either to return it or pass it along. It was too precious to part with, and it has remained with me through about fifteen moves spanning the continent. The iconic memoir that launched millions of spiritual paths accelerated mine. I was already practicing meditation and yoga postures daily when it landed in my lap like a key piece of evidence for a detective working a case; the self-portrait of a bona fide yogi, the enticing depictions of sacred India, the descriptions of saints, sages, and miracle workers — all convincing proof that what I’d learned, intuited, and contemplated could in fact be true.

I never became a disciple or a formal student of Yogananda’s, but as my spiritual path deepened and broadened I continued to learn from his writings. When I took up serious research for my book, American Veda: From Emerson and The Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West, Yogananda was one of many prominent gurus whose lives I explored. He stood out for several reasons: 1) he was the first major guru to make America his home and the headquarters of his international organization, 2) he was the best-known and most influential Indian teacher from 1920 to the late 1960s (the Los Angeles Times called him “the 20th century’s first superstar guru”), 3) his immense contribution to the transmission of India’s wisdom to the West has endured long after his death, 4) Autobiography of a Yogi was, by far, the most often-mentioned book in the 300 plus interviews I conducted for American Veda,and 5) his life story was so moving, complex, and compelling I felt frustrated having only one chapter to devote to it.

Out of that experience came the idea to write a bona fide biography. The first response by those in whom I confided was: Why bother when Yogananda’s seminal memoir still sold thousands of copies a year? The answer was: the autobiography is as much about other people as it is about Yogananda, and the story contains huge gaps. Less than 10 percent of the book is about Yogananda’s years in America, where he spent almost all of his adult life, and where he made his impact. Periods of several years are virtually dismissed in one-sentence summaries. Books by direct disciples fill some gaps, but far from all, and they read more like tributes than actual biographies.

My goal was to paint a more complete picture of Yogananda than was available elsewhere, and to place his personal narrative in a historical context.

After all, his life spanned nearly six decades of massive social change, lived out in two hemispheres and two vastly different cultures. His teaching years in the West traversed the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the dawn of the Atomic Age, and the postwar boom.

I chose to emphasize Yogananda’s human story rather than his teachings, which can readily be accessed firsthand. Even if you believe he was a saint or a divine incarnation, as many of his disciples do, he was nevertheless human — exceptional in numerous ways, extraordinary in many, driven by a unique mission, but still human, with all the paradoxes and complexities that term implies.  He had quirks, idiosyncrasies, and peculiarities shaped by a specific family in a specific culture at a specific time in history. He was traditional in many ways and independent and unconventional in others.

He shouldered tremendous burdens as the head of a spiritual organization. He endured managerial distress and continuous financial pressure. On many occasions, he expressed a yearning to renounce it all and return to India and the simple life of a Himalayan ascetic. But he stuck it out, wrestling with tough decisions, beset by strong emotions, celebrating victories and suffering defeats, enjoying worldly pleasures and struggling with sorrow. He was party to controversial lawsuits played out in lurid headlines and salacious allegations.  He learned important lessons; he grew as a man; he evolved as a soul — always fulfilling his worldly duties with his eyes fixed on the prize of Self-Realization.

People on the spiritual path tend to romanticize, idealize, and glorify revered teachers, sometimes to the point of deifying them as perfect incarnations of God.

Many labor under the impression that awakened masters are immune from disappointment, anger, and interpersonal conflicts. Not only is this a misconception, it is a disservice to the humanness of those exceptional individuals. On one level, their consciousness may indeed be stationed in the Transcendent, beyond the slings and arrows of what we call the human condition. But on the level of individuality, where a distinct personality inhabits a specific body, they are subject to the karmic laws of cause and effect and they encounter the ups and downs of the material realm. The Big Self is eternal and absolute; the small self gets sick, enjoys pleasure, endures pain, and dies. I knew going in that the status of a great soul was beyond my capacity to describe, but I could narrate the tale of the human being who was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in 1893 and died Paramahansa Yogananda in 1952.

After I completed the biography, I realized how much wisdom and inspiration I had gleaned in the process of writing it. Yogananda’s story offers useful takeaways for everyone. Even though he was a renunciate monk, he was so deeply committed to his earthly mission that his discipline and perseverance would be the envy of most entrepreneurs. As productive as he was, however, he never lost sight of his number one priority: achieving and maintaining union with the Divine. He taught his students to balance the spiritual and the material, but urged them to place the spiritual first and perform their spiritual practices daily, without fail. He modeled that ideal, and he also modeled spiritual engagement over detachment. He spoke out on behalf of Mahatma Gandhi and India’s freedom struggle, denounced the greed and materialism that led to the Great Depression, raged against militarism and war, bigotry and racism. He was a monk in the world, offering the insights of ancient sages to people with jobs and families, and he walked his talk with dignity, integrity, and courage. Anyone who reads his life story carefully will find him a spiritual role model for the ages.

Learn more about Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.

You may also enjoy reading Jazz & Spirituality | The Mindful Music of Jack DeJohnette by Peter Occhiogrosso

The post Yogananda & Me: The Human Story of a Spiritual Guru appeared first on BEST SELF.

Getting ‘hooked’ by reactivity in parenting and old habits is inevitable; what we do with those emotions is optional

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We all know what it feels like to get hooked by something in life. It happens every day. Little things and big things — a look, a thought, an experience — grab us viscerally. A tear in our jacket, a tone of voice, a failing grade, an unexpected rainstorm. The hook is a burning, restless urge that craves relief because we feel attacked, disappointed, uncertain, or confused.

Getting hooked, we easily lose track of our best intentions. A meticulous sleep plan collapses as a visceral sensation takes hold, and we leap into reaction. We finally go downstairs to spend a moment with our spouse and then hear a child tiptoe down the stairwell, for the third night in a row. Without reflection, we yell, “Get up those stairs! I told you no more of this!” Or instead, we’re having a calm morning, but it’s time for the bus. We ask our daughter to get her backpack, and she responds in that exact tone, “Why don’t you get it?” It digs to the root of our brain, it seems, and then… Let the battle commence!

Parenting can seem like one long experience of feeling hooked.

Your worry and uncertainty are real. Without them you’d be numb. You’re a parent: Oh no, he wasn’t invited to the party. It feels miserable for you and for him and then you’re on the phone nagging that other parent in a way you know you’ll regret in an hour. Unmanaged, the hook pulls you to your verge — off balance and tugged by an aching desire for relief.

When we get hooked, what happens next? Most often, an immediate, impulsive reaction.

Then regretting that choice, quite often we’re hooked all over again — I can’t believe I did that— and then we buy an excessive gift or over-explain or break into the cookie jar.

An entirely new way of living starts when we practice dropping the hook, acknowledging when we feel off, and then aiming as best as we’re able to let things be: He’s got to eat better, but there’s nothing to be done about it tonight. We may even notice in someone else, Wow, he’s totally hooked.No point in saying anything more now; let’s come back to this later. It’s not a call to ignore anything about our lives or force ourselves to feel okay. It’s quite the opposite — an opportunity to realize that sometimes we’re feeling jittery and lacking a better option, but we’re okay with that uncomfortable fact.

Often it feels as if the hook and its reaction are the same thing: When I’m hungry I get irritable and must eat right now (even if that means grabbing whatever crap is nearby instead of waiting a few minutes). When I’m scared about the future, I ruminate until I come up with a solid plan (even if I already have one and am running myself in circles). Yet that visceral feeling of being hooked and what we do about it are more nuanced — there is a sensation and then an urge for relief. And then there is that urge and what we choose to do with it.

This type of intentional pause doesn’t mean becoming passive. It’s creating a space to act wisely. For example, say you’re embroiled in yet another argument over bedtime and, exhausted yourself, feel the urge to capitulate: Fine, go read in my bed (again). Dropping the hook, settling, you may find the space to pause and stick to the plan: I hate the fact that we’re still wrestling over bedtime, and I want my own rest, but you’ve got to go back to your own room.Noticing yourself hooked lets you act decisively as often as electing not to act at all.

Working with the hook is immensely challenging and does not mean we’re suddenly okay with suffering.

Getting hooked is inevitable; what we do about it is not.

Without awareness, we snap at a child, so they snap back, and we end up in a ritualized sparring match. We feel a desperate need to escape, so we shut down. We fall back on more troublesome habits, like drinking or fighting. These habitual reactions quite often grant, at best, a moment of respite while whatever triggers us remains. We find temporary relief but complicate our lives instead of finding any true resolution.

Sometimes there is nothing more useful than allowing a situation to run its course without adding anything: I’m hooked, and what makes most sense is to be patient with my distress while I get on with my day instead of having that same conversation once again.Instead of reflexively trying to fix how we feel, when we recognize that we’ve been hooked, we can practice pausing. Relax as best as we can. Refrain, even if for a moment, from falling back on habitual reactions. And then start over when we get caught up in it again.

Parenting will often lead us to feel unsettled, since so much is out of our control. For example, if a child has a learning disability, you may be getting him tutoring, and he’s in a good school, and at the same time, there’s no way of knowing for sure what’s going to happen. So you feel somewhat concerned indefinitely, which is natural. If you continually give in to the urge for certainty, you may continually fall back on over-planning, ruminating, or numbing yourself in some avoidant way, none of which brings anything productive to your family life.

If you have an actual itch, it’s usually okay to scratch, and when there’s something useful to be done for your children or yourself, go for it. With other itches — like being annoyed that bedtime has gotten off track or uncertain what to say next during a disagreement — your best option may be to acknowledge the hook and then firmly pause. Make a joke, let it slide, or flat out acknowledge aloud exactly what’s going on: “I’m taking a breather, because I’m seriously rattled.” Settle yourself and even for a brief moment, let go.

There’s some discomfort in life that cannot be touched. It’s just there.

It makes utter sense that we feel triggered by anxiety around our children or plenty of other aspects of life that don’t feel comfortable. In any situation, whatever we do (or choose not to do) next could make it better, but could also drive the hook deeper. Acknowledging our discomfort, we may find it best to live with how we feel until a better option becomes clear.

Since it’s natural to get hooked, we should not blame ourselves  or expect to move beyond ever feeling rattled. There’s a problem, there’s getting hooked by the problem, and there’s how we react next. There’s fear, the visceral response to fear, and how we respond to fear. There’s the uncertainty of parenting, and how it twists inside us, and most practically there is what we do when uncertain.

We can choose to work on letting go of the habitual ways we react when hooked because, in the end, being reactive is kind of a silly way for the mind to behave. We know better, and cannot always help ourselves anyway. Sometimes we can find peace, and often more happiness, noticing the inevitable discomfort while letting it be.

Learning to pause when we get hooked may break the reaction and get us — and our child — off the hook.

—

PRACTICE: Getting Unhooked

When you notice the hook and an urge to react, try this 4 Rs practice (from Pema Chodron’s Practicing Peace in Times of War). Whatever sets you off, choose not to grab onto the hook. Recognize what you feel, and let things be for a moment.

1. Recognize the feeling of being hooked.
2. Refrain, for a moment, from doing whatever you typically do. Pause, take a few breaths, and let things alone before taking a next step.
3. Relax, letting go as best as you’re able of any sense of constriction or tension. If you see something useful to be done — go for it. If not, practice letting things be instead of falling back on reactive, less productive habits.
4. Resolve to keep working on it. Old habits change slowly, not all at once.

You may also enjoy reading The Complex Rules for Raising Adult Children: From Protector to Guide by Judy Marano

The post Getting Unhooked: Learning to Detach From Reactivity in Parenting appeared first on BEST SELF.

When a doctor cannot logically explain the communication he receives from his son after his tragic death, he relearns how to live life

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The death of my son, Christopher, at the age of 22, changed everything I thought I knew, in ways I never expected. Beyond my grief, came a glimpse of immortality that shattered my scientific, analytic view of the world.

Chris was a brain damaged, developmentally disabled child who challenged everyone he knew with his unpredictable behavior and uncanny insights. He drowned in a shallow stream bed while walking with friends along a trail in the Berkshire Mountains. As Chris underwent resuscitation in a local E.R., my wife, Christina, and I sat silently by the phone in Manhattan, waiting for news, immobilized by fear and the feeling of being powerless.

Suddenly, the room felt supercharged with electricity, as if lightning were about to strike. Christina andI had exactly the same experience: a pure white light flooded our vision. A glowing shape, powerful and majestic, with Christopher’s face, emerged from the light. The sublime joy, limitless strength and total freedom radiating from this being exceeded anything I’ve ever known or imagined.

He was with us for a few seconds. Then he was gone and the phone was ringing to bring us news of the failed resuscitation. The flood of emotion was overwhelming and confusing. The happiness of Christopher’s spirit was exhilarating. But somehow it had no impact on our grief at losing the flesh-and-blood child. It felt as if two rivers rushing in opposite directions were sweeping over us.

We buried Chris in the Berkshires and at his graveside released twenty-two bright yellow balloons to celebrate his life.

Each balloon was attached to a short, frayed yellow ribbon, because I’d had to cut them free from a sandbag to which they were all tied. The next day we returned to New York City. We stopped at a red light near Columbus Circle, a place with some significance to Chris, because it was named after another Christopher. We were stunned when a yellow balloon with a short frayed yellow ribbon descended from the sky, hovered directly in front of our car, and then drifted away. There were five people in the car. We all saw it.  To my wife and me, the balloon’s visit was even more extraordinary than the visit of Christopher’s majestic spirit four days earlier. To the children in the back seat, it was all pretty routine. Of course, this was one of the balloons we‘d released at Christopher’s grave. Of course, Chris had sent it. What could be more natural?

I could almost feel Christopher laughing. “I know you, Leo,” he seemed to be saying. “You’re such a skeptic and you’re always trying to be so logical. Given time, you’d doubt the vision of my spirit and dismiss it as a shared hallucination. Try to explain away this balloon.” I couldn’t explain away the balloon. I obsessed about it. During the months that followed, I would relive these two visits — the appearance of Christopher’s spirit and the flight of the balloon — over and over again, as if they were drugs that could help me make sense of Christopher’s tragic life and early death.

Three weeks after his funeral, I had a third visit. It took the form of a mysterious illness that lasted for six hours. I was suddenly overcome with a flu-like feeling and lay in bed, incapacitated. I felt as if Christopher was taking over my mind. I began to experience all the frustrations and disappointments he had known and I began to feel the strength and generosity of his character more deeply than ever, how he turned pain and disability into love and joy.

It was five years before my next contact with Chris. We talked about him often in the family, but there were no surprise visits and I began to wonder whether he was with us or had moved on.

Then one night I was awakened with his voice urging me, “You have to tell my story. People need to know.”

So I began working on a book about him, recently published under the name Already Here, a Doctor Discovers the Truth about Heaven. As I prepared to write, I asked Chris for guidance. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I threw out questions almost casually and waited for a response. Replies always came, usually right away, if I was alone. I would hear a voice speak directly to my mind. It was gentle but commanding and it always said much more than I expected. Writing Already Here brought me on a spiritual journey in which I came to know Christopher as my teacher.

At first Chris brought me concepts with which I could feel quite comfortable, ideas like embracing adversity and “Life is a constant overcoming of who we are, to become who we can be.” He then moved on to ideas that challenged my concept of reality at its roots: the illusory nature of space and time and the role of human consciousness in the universe. I recognized that Christopher’s revelations contained ancient wisdom that was designed to deepen my understanding.

As I attempted to transcribe these dialogues, I discovered three themes in his teaching. I call them The Gift of the Opposite, the Gift of Presence and the Gift of Timelessness. The Gift of the Opposite actually describes Christopher’s M.O. while he was still alive. He was always looking for the counterpoints or contrasting views, in ways that could be maddening or funny or full of insight. It also describes the fundamental organizing principle of our Universe: All things contain their opposite at all times, a profoundly meaningful concept that underlies ancient Chinese philosophy. The Gift of Presence describes a Zen-like way of being attentive that’s essential for recognizing the Opposite. The Gift of Timelessness is a way of entering into what mystics call The Eternal Present. Chris’s spirit called it ‘God’s Moment’.

My most important discovery was that Christopher’s teachings were not just esoteric precepts from beyond the grave.

In his short and difficult life, he had actually embodied these gifts and used them in paradoxical ways to teach others. I began to realize that the angelic being we’d seen at the moment of Christopher’s death had always been within him, shining through his awkward body and damaged brain, transforming pain into love and disappointment into joy. He showed me that each of us is so much more than we appear to be. Who we are is not limited by our physical bodies. We exist even when our bodies do not. We can be robust and full of grace even when our bodies are broken. Those of us who seem to be the least, may actually offer the most.

I gave Christopher’s book the title, Already Here, because of the last conversation I had with his spirit. I had asked Chris what it was like in Heaven. I’m not sure why it took me a year to ask that question. He answered joyfully: “It’s what I always wanted. Everyone is here. Everyone. Even you… You’re already here, you know.” I felt a chill run down my spine and I was able to grasp, in a visceral way, the true meaning of ‘God’s Moment’. An irresistible smile spread across my face and I began laughing.

We had no more dialogues after that. Chris’s last words to me were, “Now I’ve told you everything you need to know.” His visits ended, but not my homework. He never explained why he wanted me to tell his story, but in writingAlready Here,I developed my own motivation. There are many Christophers in the world, people who are challenged or challenging, who confound our assumptions and expectations. They may suffer from disabilities or illness or pain, or they may simply be outliers. Although to me Christopher seems exceptional, he told me in no uncertain terms that he was “just like everyone else.” I want people to find the Christophers in their own lives, the hidden teachers of the spirit, and I hope that Christopher’s story can help guide their journey.

You may also enjoy reading Doing Death Differently: Embracing the Home Funeral by Kelly Notaras

The post Lessons from Beyond: How the Death of My Son Taught Me To Live appeared first on BEST SELF.

A self-professed ‘New Age Junkie’ who works in the wellness field is forced to confront his own mortality as he witnesses his kidneys fail

—

Imagine looking down in a bottomless cenote, an underground lake. You can’t see the edges, you can’t see the bottom, you only see a deep blue/black extending in all directions.

My brother died young. 31. He had a type of heart attack where, basically, his heart just stopped for a moment and then couldn’t restart. He was in the middle of a sentence when it happened, a lightning bolt that forever changed me and my family. No one saw it coming.

My father died at 69, an unexpected, rare cancer. The week before he passed, I knew. I woke up sobbing at least once that week. I was with him for his last breath. My fiancée was pregnant at the time. My father didn’t get to meet my daughter. His last words, “It’s disappointing.”

My step-father died at 68, from a second bout of leukemia, acquired after (what we all thought) was a successful bone marrow transplant. He was a gem of a person, cracking jokes from his hospital bed, even while his body failed. I was with him, too, when his last breath left his body.

My experiences have certainly given me reasons to fear life’s uncertainty. And yet, I also have a powerful ability to live in a different world.

A world of possibility. I am and pretty much always have been, a New Age junkie, eating up axioms and aphorisms and affirmations as if their wisdom would save me from the chaotic and unsafe world that I actually live in.

The question that haunts me: Did the trauma of these losses, my fears of my own mortality, seep into my consciousness and ultimately make my kidneys fail? Or do people sometimes just get sick and I just happened to be one of them?

In Chinese Medicine, the Kidneys are the seat of Fear. The Kidneys are coupled with the Bladder to form the Water Element. This is Chinese medicine’s archetypal image of pure fear.

Katy called on a Friday to tell me that she was ‘signed off.’ The hospital had given her the green light and she had called me early, before they made it official.

It had been a week of growing excitement: first within my tightest circle of family and loved ones and then expanding, the Facebook announcement making it ‘official’ to our wider universe. The word was out and strangers were coming up to me daily to congratulate me. Needing a new kidney in a small town is a public affair, and now, the search was over and we could celebrate.

Katy stepped up to be evaluated for kidney donation after she read my story on social media.

We have been friends for the past 5 years, give or take. We had been neighbors in Greenpoint before my fiancée and I had moved upstate and our lives veered in different directions. We stayed in touch after we both moved on, visiting one another with our growing families. We felt a kinship and a camaraderie, but certainly didn’t foresee this: trading body parts. Now we’re connected for life.

On the phone with Katy and her father, he told me why it made perfect sense to him. “When my daughter was in that car accident ten years ago, and that stranger found her on the side of the road and saved her life, I knew there was a reason. I knew that someday, she would save someone else’s life.”

When I first suspected that there was something wrong with my kidneys, I was on vacation. I had arrived in Tulum, Mexico after a horrendous flight, my body feeling fluey and achy as I soared from New York to Cancun.

We arrived late and had a drive down to Tulum. In the morning, when I woke up, it burned when I peed. That had never happened to me. It was only once, maybe twice, but it just didn’t seem right. When I got back to the states, I knew I should check it out.

I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I recalled a Urology and Dialysis center on Flatbush Avenue. I went in and asked to speak to a doctor. I waited until he could see me.

I had never been in a dialysis center. All of the people hooked up to the machines seemed to me like lumps of unconscious flesh, sleeping the day away. The vibe was frighteningly low, as if I had trespassed in a stranger’s tomb. Depressing, life-sucking, just plain bad.

The doctor took my blood and this eventually lead to my diagnosis: IgA Nephropathy (also known as Berger’s Disease). No one really knew much about it. It could progress and be crippling. It might never progress. Come back every three months and we’ll see.

Almost ten years later, it progressed. That was about two years ago. Eight months ago, I started dialysis.

Jim is my next-door neighbor in Dialysis. We’ve been spending about 14 hours a week sitting three feet away from each other, nodding in and out of sleep, chatting in a kind and light-hearted way. About once a week, we go out for breakfast or lunch, shifting our relationship from mandatory to chosen.

Frank I met this past fall. For some reason, seats in dialysis were shuffled and our chairs were awkwardly close, so we spoke. From his Brooklyn accent I learned that he had been in advertising, Mad Men-style. He had kids and grandkids and great-grandkids that he saw pretty often. His sense of humor was great, his glasses reminded me of Martin Scorsese and I laughed while we spoke. I happen to see him again recently and he had big congratulations for me (he’d heard about my upcoming transplant) and his words felt true and warm and encouraging. Fatherly.

Jon and I only met once in dialysis, with our times switched up for some reason and our chairs serendipitously next to one another. Jon is a retired local sheriff. He made me laugh and relate and expound for most of those four hours. We traded cards at the end of the shift, thinking that one day, we’d get coffee.

Jim, Frank, Jon. Everyone has a story in dialysis. No one planned on being there.

My donor, Katy, came up to visit yesterday with her husband and their son. We live in Woodstock, NY and she lives in Brooklyn. Our kids played, we gave them the tour of the town. Her husband and I had time to talk and bond. Katy and I talked about our families’ varied reactions. We ate fresh ice cream and visited our favorite lake. We took selfies and captured precious moments. They went home around sundown with big hugs and a promise to have an early morning dance party before the surgery.

This morning as I write this, just after dropping my kids at school, I was driving alone and burst into tears, suddenly letting in the relief that a kidney transplant was only a week away. I cried with gratitude for my community of support. I cried for all the years I am going to have with my kids, being that much more of the man I want to be for them. I cried because I suddenly acknowledged that this transplant is actually happening.

Tears, salt, the unknown future. A touch of certainty in an uncertain world. A gift from a woman I barely know, but whose commitment is giving me my life.

In the last six months, I have come to see those relationships with my brother, father, and stepfather, each in a new light. A level of compassion for my brother, who didn’t have the chance to fight for his life, who was yanked away from it all too quickly. A level of understanding with my father, who I resented for so many years, only to ultimately come to love him for what I have now come to see him as: a deeply conflicted man. And a level of appreciation for my stepfather, who I knew as being extroverted, garrulous, and often self-sabotaging, now transformed in my heart into the deeply caring, light-hearted, community-minded soul that he was. Feelings change when you consider your own demise. The dimensionality of each soul cannot be ignored.

I can’t say I have an answer to that question of how this all began, but I will say this: mind or body, whoever is in charge, mortality is a great teacher.

Today, they estimate that there are 80,000 people waiting for kidney transplants. The success rate of kidney transplants (from living donors) is estimated to be about 97%, with the ‘failures’ being a rejection by the recipient’s body, in which case they most often have to return to dialysis. Though there are risks to donors as well, nearly all recover and lead completely healthy lives.

My plea to you: consider it. You may be walking around with the keys to someone else’s life. Keys you didn’t realize you can spare.

—

*Editor’s Note:

Ben Fleisher successfully received a kidney transplant since the publication of this article. He is joyfully recovering in his home in Woodstock. He feels better than he has in years.

For more information about living donors visit www.donatelife.net/ To sign up to be listed as an organ donor on your driver’s license visit dmv.ny.gov/

Ben Fleisher is an Acupuncturist and Zero Balancer, and the Co-Founder of integrative wellness center Woodstock Healing Arts. He lives in Woodstock, NY with his partner and their two young daughters.

You may also enjoy Interview: Marianne Williamson | A Return To Love And Consciousness with Kristen Noel

The post Spare Keys: Reflections on a Kidney Transplant appeared first on BEST SELF.

How a lifelong lover of trees found a new connection with his autistic son amidst the sensations and the secret language of the forest

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I grew up at the edge of a forest with oak trees, beeches, and pine trees. I spent my whole childhood and youth there. But it was an urban forest at the edge of the city of Graz in Austria. We lived on the fourth floor of a modern multi-story building. At the front of our house we could see the skyline of Graz. At the backside the forest extended to the countryside and up onto the nearest mountain.

I was born an urban “biophiliac” — a person with a love of nature.

The ecosystem of our home forest was me and my friends’ playground when we were young. We climbed trees and played hide-and-seek. We built cottages and tree houses with wood.  We played in the mud. Sometimes we stayed in the woods so long that we would lose track of time and have to navigate our way home through the ominous pitch black forest night.

Later, when I was a teenager, the forest helped me cope with social conflicts. It was my secure space, surrounded and guarded by trees and animals. The creatures of the forest didn´t judge or pressure me. In nature I could simply be me. The forest gave me an opportunity to retreat from social conflicts and everyday life. When I was sad or suffered lovesickness, I sat down at my secret place in the woods and it always helped me feel better.

Today I am the father of a three year old boy named Jonas, and the therapeutic aspects of the forest already play an important role in his life. Jonas is autistic and has always been satisfied with his inner world, where he disappears. It’s challenging to communicate with him or motivate him to learn new things and explore life outside the inner workings of his mind.

Of all the doctors Jonas’s mother and I have consulted, the forest has been the best therapeutic source of them all.

The diverse natural attractions of the forest are able to permeate Jonas´s world and perception. It’s clear the biophilia effect has made his spirit come alive in the forest. He loves the birdsong, but he especially loves the trees. He is in awe of their overhanging crowns and wants to touch every leaf that he can reach. The healing effects of the forest help to train his connection to the world and activate his sense of exploration.

For a long time Jonas didn´t want to touch anything new and was afraid of unfamiliar sensations. But he allowed himself to come closer to trees. Step by step I motivated him to touch and explore the surfaces of different species of tree trunks. Some are rough, others are smooth. Some are deeply crenated, others are overgrown by soft moss or dry plats.

By the time he learned to accept those new and unfamiliar sensations his sensory disorder had disappeared.

In the forest Jonas has also learned to look into other people´s eyes. Wordlessly, as autists do, he often points to a plant or another organic object and wants to know what it is. But I only provide him with an answer when he looks into my eyes, inducing a social and communicative process between us. Just as plants and trees communicate with each other using molecules and biological signals, Jonas and I are finally able to communicate, by accessing the therapeutic properties of the natural world.  Sometimes, amidst his forest wanderings, he will even stop and look up at me, as if he knows that we share a secret language only the trees can understand.

The trees are teaching us both lessons. To Jonas, they are wise and accepting figures, quietly encouraging him to come alive and learn; to me, they are like stalwart friends, who bear witness and provide the medicine that helps me plants the seeds for a relationship with my son.

View the trailer for The Biophilia Effect:

You may also enjoy reading Forest Bathing: How Immersing in Nature Can Help You Reconnect by Tess DiNapoli

The post Rooted in Nature: Planting the Seeds for a Relationship with My Autistic Son Through Our Love of Trees appeared first on BEST SELF.

The new relationship blueprint isn’t about losing yourself, it’s about finding your best self!

—

“You complete me.”

Tom Cruise was on my TV screen saying that line to Renee Zellweger in the movie Jerry Maguire, causing women the world over to swoon.

But not me. “It’s more like you deplete me,” I mumbled to myself.

Given my marriage — and divorce — depleting would actually be a very generous way to describe it, so it’s no wonder I reacted this way to such romantic schmaltz on TV.

It took me years to stop thinking I needed a permission slip to be myself and do what I wanted.

Years to discover that my life is my own and that I don’t owe anything to anyone else. Years to get free from believing that the only way to get love is to buy it, by bending over backwards with people-pleasing. Years to live life from my own inspiration, motivation, and agency — rather than in response or reaction to anyone or anything else.

Is it any wonder, then, that I even found myself feeling nauseated sitting at a dear friend’s wedding? It was a wedding like at the end of every romantic movie, times about a billion. The gorgeous, joyous, and madly-in-love couple exchanged tender vows, pledging their hearts and souls to one another against a sunlit, waterfront backdrop. It was magnificent, and I’m sure most of the other women (and many of the men) were thinking, “If only this could be me.”

Yet, as I sat there watching the ceremony, all I could think was, “I don’t want what they’re having!” I just couldn’t see anything positive or realistic in that kind of marital union.

A few weeks later, I told my sister as much. “I feel like I’m never going to say ‘I love you’ or hear those words from anyone else again. At least not in the way they said it at that wedding.”

Truth be told, I believed I was 100% finished with romantic relationships.

All I wanted was to be alone. Gloriously alone.

I didn’t want to live with anyone ever, ever again. Living with someone meant taking another person’s needs into account, and that was something I was simply not up for.

In the months and years that followed the end of my marriage, I dove into all kinds of personal growth work. I learned that I wasn’t very good at taking care of my own needs first, so I focused a lot of my attention there. I learned how to love and accept myself, and how to follow my own desires. I investigated my shadow selves, learned who I was without a husband, and discovered that I don’t have to mold myself into something I’m not in order to be loved and appreciated by others.

Singlehood suited me. It was truly wonderful to have no one to answer to. I could make my own decisions, free from the obligations of relationship. And best of all, I could work as much as I wanted to! For this workaholic, it was heaven. I had finally reached the place where I could say, “I’m free! Nothing triggers me anymore. I am woman — hear me roar!” I was officially D.O.N.E. with romance.

 Or so I thought.

As it turned out, it didn’t take long for a surprise to enter my life. His name was Aaron.

We were introduced by friends, although they weren’t trying to fix us up. In fact, they didn’t expect us to be a match at all. They knew a relationship with a new man was the last thing I was looking for, and we were such different people they never imagined us hitting it off. But there he was, and the attraction was undeniable. Before I could even fully process what was happening, we were together.

Suddenly, I discovered that rubbing up against another human being — literally or figuratively — causes all of that “I’m free! I am woman!” stuff to go flying right out the window. All of my old emotional issues had just been lying in wait, and I realized I’d been isolating myself in part to avoid them.

Here’s one of the big lessons I learned: Each of us is the common denominator in all of our relationships, and we’ll always draw others to us who will activate our deepest emotional issues.

This is true in work, friendship, and family life, and it goes doubly if we’re talking about intimate relationship. There’s simply no way to prevent “our stuff” from following us around until we’re ready to deal with it.

While my ex-husband and Aaron are very different, there are ways in which they’re incredibly similar. And it’s in those ways they’re similar that activate my “core wounds,” which are my deepest hurts from childhood. For example, Aaron has abandonment issues, while I have suffocation issues. When it gets hard, I want space, and he wants more closeness… which triggers my need for even more alone time, which triggers his need for even more interaction. See how our wounds fit together in perfect… um… “harmony”?

Crazy enough, that’s the nature of any healthy relationship. Which goes completely against everything we learn in the Disney-style fairytale version of relationship, where everything is supposed to be sunshine, butterflies, and sweet little songs all day long.

Consistent harmony usually means there’s a lot of churning going on under the surface. Why? Because our core wounds — and the limiting beliefs they have installed in our unconscious — want to be healed. That movement toward healing is a drive within us that can’t be denied, and relationship is a perfect opportunity for that healing. After all, who holds up a mirror, reflecting our own wounds back to us, more fully than a primary partner? The qualities in ourselves that we’ve deemed bad or wrong — the “shadow selves” that we’ve disowned — usually show up as qualities in our intimate partners.

In other words, what we refuse to see in ourselves is guaranteed to be called forth in those to whom we are closest.

(You heard me: you can stop blaming your partner because he or she is simply showing you the parts of yourself you don’t want to see.)

Before you reach for the barf bag, let me assure you that there is good news here. Because it stirs the pot so effectively, intimate relationship can become a key teacher in our lives. It can actually become a spiritual practice, guiding us toward more awareness and freedom.

My relationship with Aaron is about love, joy, sex, and all of the good stuff everyone wants. But it’s also a way for each of us to learn more about our inner landscape and heal the hurt places within. Our relationship confronts us and challenges us to evolve — every single day. Sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s graceful, sometimes it’s unskilled, and sometimes it’s glorious. But the most important difference between my marriage and my relationship with Aaron is that there’s an ongoing, conscious, collaborative conversation underway about our triggers and issues, as well as our hopes and dreams.

When I say “triggers,” I’m talking about those reactive emotional responses that happen when we project our own shadow onto someone else. For example, I pride myself on being the least lazy person on the planet. In fact, for most of my life, I’ve judged laziness as a deadly sin. I can come up with a court-approved list of arguments to condemn anyone I believe is being lazy. So you can imagine that I’m easily triggered when I think someone else — especially my partner in life and love — is being lazy.

Aaron knows this trigger of mine…very well. He and I operate very differently in the world. I tend to be a “leap before I look” person, assuming I can figure out any obstacle in my path. Aaron, on the other hand, is a much more thoughtful decision-maker. He weighs all the options, contemplates possible outcomes, and then takes small steps rather than trying to make the whole thing happen in a single day. The result of this difference is that I can run circles around him productivity-wise. For longer than I’d like to admit, I’ve been triggered by what I saw as an overemphasis on enjoying his life. That trigger would send me reacting with overwork, as I labeled his thoughtfulness “lazy.”

It has taken years for me to recognize that his thoughtful approach has as much value as my impulsive one, for very different reasons.

I’ve also learned that I’ve long projected my own natural laziness onto other people, making them wrong for operating in the world differently than I do. But guess what? When I can show compassion toward the naturally lazy part of me, the trigger is diminished. When I can’t show that compassion, I get angry or reject the person I’ve projected my laziness on.

Lucky for me, Aaron has been a willing participant in my own self-discovery — and I in his. What’s different about this relationship from relationships I’ve had in the past is that we’re both genuinely excited and interested in exploring who we are in relationship, why we behave the way we do, and what our emotional triggers can teach us about ourselves and one another. We’re committed to staying as aware as we can of what’s happening inside of us and between us, and we’re committed to having open, loving communication about it with each other. We’re always all in.

I can’t begin to tell you how huge that’s been for me. It’s the first relationship in which I’ve had that kind of openness and willingness to be present with each other, no matter what.

One of our goals is to find the meeting place between us — a place where neither of us has to abandon our true selves for the sake of the relationship. We’ve worked to build a relationship “container” that can hold the truth of each of us, that can hold our differences, and that can hold us where we need to be held the most. As a result, we’ve learned how to stay emotionally connected, even when we’re embroiled in conflict.

So perhaps there’s something else available between “you complete me” and “you deplete me.” Perhaps it could best be stated as, “you complement me.”

The new relationship blueprint calls for two whole people to be in partnership with each other in a way that honors the totality of each individual.

I’ll readily admit that I’m still a work in progress and “Nancy + Aaron” is my current course of study. The goal is to reframe the way I love, so that who I am doesn’t get lost in the process.

It actually comes down to one thing. It’s all about self-love.

In my humble opinion, this whole life is a lesson in self-love.

But it’s really easy to forget that, especially when it comes to relationship issues. Instead, we blame others or beat ourselves up when we perceive our relationships as not working. When our emotional “stuff” arises, it’s easier to believe we “just haven’t found the right mate” than to face the prospect that our own deeper personal growth work may be calling us.

The secret to a powerful, loving relationship isn’t about fixing or enduring problems. It isn’t about improving ourselves in order to “overcome.” Nope. It all boils down to this: Once we truly love ourselves, everything becomes easier.

I had a choice and I chose to do love differently this time. I chose to have a relationship that’s loving and healing after the one that fell apart and broke my heart. I choose to make loving another without losing myself a priority. Truth-telling, knowing my non-negotiables, and cozying up to conflict have guided me to find my “no” so that I could free my “yes.” I choose to trust that intimate relationship can be a “container” that holds the truth of each of us, while being strong enough to hold our differences, too.

Contrary to popular belief, learning how to love others is not the top priority. I couldn’t possibly have the relationship I have now if I hadn’t awakened to myself first. Instead, relationship is first and foremost where we learn how to love ourselves.

You may also enjoy My own jump… inch by inch by Nancy Levin

The post The New Relationship Blueprint: It’s About Finding Yourself appeared first on BEST SELF.

Redefining true masculine power opens the floodgates to healing men and society as a whole

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When the floodgate of sexual harassment and rape allegations against powerful men in media and politics opened this past Fall 2017, it sparked a long overdue national conversation about male sexual misconduct. With the #MeToo movement now maturing, it’s also time to discuss how men can move beyond cultural notions of manliness, and heal and awaken to true masculine power.

Being truly a man is not such a simple matter. It is not so much a successful meeting of cultural standards and expectations as it is an integrity-generating, compassion-deepening outgrowing of them, an open-eyed, fully embodied passage through the very patterns and expectations that underlie and generate each culture’s — and subculture’s — notions of manliness. Far too often, manhood gets reduced to obedience to a group ethic, in order to be “one of the boys” (an unwittingly telling phrase). Such initiations, whatever their defining rituals, can dumb men so far down that it looks like up to them, especially when their behavior snares the rest of the group’s approval. When sex is reduced to a display of power or a sign that one is indeed a man, all involved are impoverished, and whatever underlies such “prowess” is left unexamined.

All the pressure and shame of trying to be a certain kind of man, all the anxiety and tension that can go with that, often can be briefly but potently eased very quickly through sex. And so too can the sense of not having much power, or of not being very important. So whatever feeds men’s sexual appetite, whatever amplifies it, whatever keeps it front and central, can easily take on an exaggerated emphasis, as is so lavishly illustrated by our culture’s sexual obsession. How easy it is to burden sex with the obligation to make us feel better or more secure or more manly!

Historical View of Rape

One of the biggest problems with rape is that throughout human history it has been sanctioned and tolerated in a variety of contexts, with such an okaying influencing contemporary takes on rape, numbing many to the bare reality of it. The echo of this okaying, this legitimizing of or noninterference with sexual violence, may be faint but it persists.

Consider, for starters, the reputed practice of jus primae noctis (Latin for “right of the first night”) by which a member of the nobility could take a woman on her wedding night and bed her, no matter how opposed she was to this, while the groom could do nothing to stop this. (The earliest mention of this practice is found in the epic of Gilgamesh.) Though there is some debate about whether this practice (also known as droit du seigneur, meaning “right of the lord”) was actually exercised, kings and feudal nobles certainly had the power to enforce it, and not just on wedding nights, given that the men beneath them were little more than indentured servants, whose property — including their wives — could be taken from them at almost any time.

Also consider that, up until not so long ago, a married man had the right to have sex when he wanted it from his wife, no matter how opposed she was to this; marital rape was not called rape for a very long time, regardless of its severity. And consider wartime rape, which has a history as long as that of war itself, and still happens to this day, getting headlines but little countering action. In war, the raping of enemy women has been viewed — and often still is — as a male right.

It’s estimated that almost one in five women (and just under 2 percent of men) in the US have been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted.

Fewer than half the victims report this, and only 3 percent of the perpetrators are convicted. In more than half of the US states, rapists who have impregnated their victims can sue for custody and visitation rights. In the US, 15 percent of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age twelve. These are appalling numbers, and need more than just a skimming over.

Rape as a man’s right: this sentiment still finds some degree of legitimacy not only in the context of spoils of war, but also in those men for whom the sexualized overpowering of another is a turn-on, especially when they’re able to dehumanize that other, reducing her — or him — to little more than a prop (or mere property) in their sexual fantasies and actions. The not uncommon hesitation of many men in positions of considerable power to take really strong stands regarding rape only contributes to the viewing of rape as something bad, but not that bad.

When a man feels overpowered by a woman (in the sense that her mere presence strongly arouses him), he may not feel good about this if she shows no sexual interest in him, perhaps not even noticing him. If he’s (1) sufficiently bothered by her “ability” to so easily turn him on, and (2) makes her responsible for his arousal, “bringing out the beast in him” as she has done (however unknowingly), he may fantasize about “pouncing on her” (after all, what else is a beast to do?), thereby entering, however passively, into the retributive logic and eroticized violence that’s central to rape. He may never act this out with a flesh-and-blood woman, perhaps limiting himself to using pornography in which women are “punished” or “put in their place” — hurt and debased — for their sexual allure. But in this he is, unwittingly or not, contextually aligned with rape, tending to relate to a woman’s body as a site of conquest, a place to “prove” himself.

The Issue of Consent

The lack of consent central to rape doesn’t have to be overtly expressed to be real. The absence of any apparent opposition does not necessarily mean consent. That is, being unable to say no doesn’t necessarily mean saying yes. And even saying yes doesn’t always mean yes; many only say yes because they fear the consequences of saying no, a fear that may date back to their early years, when any sign of noncompliance was met with aggression, censure, crippling shame, or a withdrawal of love.

Part of the problem here is that the whole notion of consent usually gets only a superficial look, featuring an unquestioning acceptance of another’s yes, as if that yes were undoubtedly an adult yes uninfluenced by one’s past, a yes that, of course, should be taken literally. The myth of consenting adults is prevalent in contemporary culture, all too often taken at face value, as if those engaged in such a “contract” were doing so as real adults. However, the very consent given may be coming not from a grown-up place in us, but from a place of unresolved woundedness so that we may be speaking more as adulterated children than as actual adults.

This means that we need to know not only where we’re coming from when we agree to something but also where the other is coming from when he or she makes such an agreement. Implicit in this is some degree of self-knowledge in both parties, along with an obvious transparency. Furthermore, being clear about where we’re coming from includes being out-front about our motivations, including that of wanting the other to say yes — and perhaps wanting to go ahead even if that yes feels partial, reluctant, or artificial to us. If we’re being run by our sexual appetite, our caring about possibly disrespecting the other’s actual boundaries will matter little to us; after all, they’ve said yes, so why not proceed?

Rape is a crossing of another’s sexual boundaries without their permission — or with their coerced permission. It is an eroticized trespassing and violation of their being. Its tools are various combinations of physical force, threat, coercion, abuse of authority, manipulation, and a capacity to shut off empathy and override conscience. Rape features aggression and lust in a darkly compelling embrace, being allowed to possess and run one, in contexts ranging from the mundane to the evil.

The Journey to Healing

To begin to heal is to see what’s fragmented in you, compartmentalized, pushed away, or kept in the shadows — and to approach it not with missionary zeal or quick-fix ambitions, but with patience and compassion.

Healing doesn’t necessarily mean curing. It’s not a matter of getting rid of your endarkened or less-than-healthy qualities — as if excising a tumor — but of openly facing, exploring, and making as wise as possible use of them. This is the essence of self-acceptance. Nothing gets left out. Everything has its place. The deeper your healing, the more you become whole, and the more capable of relating skillfully to everything that you are.

True masculine power happens when courage, integrity, vulnerability, compassion, awareness, and the capacity to take strong action are all functioning together. Such power is potent but not aggressive, challenging but not shaming, grounded but not rigid, forceful but not pushy. It requires head, heart, and guts in full-blooded alignment.

You may also enjoy Interview: Lewis Howes | Redefining Masculinity with Kristen Noel

The post To Be a Man: Fully Facing Rape and Awakening to True Masculine Power appeared first on BEST SELF.

Death in modern society is often done one way — but it doesn’t have to be that way

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On home funerals, and doing death differently

Not quite a year ago, I did the hardest thing in the world: I watched my beloved partner and best friend die. Benjamin had been struggling with illness for 18 months at that point. It had been 9 months since we’d received word that the problem was cancer, and six months since we’d heard there was nothing more the doctors could do.

On the morning of May 2, 2017, I lay next to him in bed and told him I was starting to worry he was leaving us. He nodded his head slowly and said he agreed. Laboriously, drifting in and out of consciousness, he was able to express his final thoughts.

“As I see it,” he said, “there is nothing left to be done.” Less than two hours later, he was gone.

Looking back, the story I most want to tell about this time is not the story of his dying. It’s the story of what happened after he died. For in the moments, hours and days after he took his last breath, we—his family, friends and I—took an unconventional path. Unconventional, but in no way new. We took a path that is ancient and rich and deeply felt, that is simple and real and human. We did everything ourselves, at home.

A Return to the Old Ways

The story starts a few years ago, on Facebook of all places. I was scrolling through my feed when I saw an acquaintance had posted about her mother’s death—including pictures of her body, wrapped in a gauzy shroud. I was transfixed.

This friend and her sister had been with her mother while she died at home, and had cared for her body themselves—washing and anointing her, and then dressing her in her favorite clothes. She said they had been instructed in the process by someone called a “death midwife.”

“That,” I thought. “That is what I want to do for my loved ones, when the time comes.” I filed away the words “death midwife” and “home funeral” and mostly forgot about it.

Until the day Benjamin went in for his liver transplant, and instead was told the cancer had spread. That it was inoperable and terminal. The first thing I did after we left the hospital was Google death midwives near Malibu, which was where we were living at the time. Up came an organization called Sacred Crossings. Its founder, Olivia Bareham, quickly became an invaluable guide.

Among the things she taught me:

• It is legal in almost every state to keep your loved one’s body at home after they die.
• In most traditional cultures, a body is kept at rest and is not moved for three days before burial or cremation.
• It is simple to keep a body at home, and in most cases requires nothing but a little dry ice that can be acquired from a grocery or drug store.
• It’s not gross and the body doesn’t smell, and you’d be surprised how natural it all feels.

After going through it myself, I can also say that it is a profound gift to be able to lie next to your loved one’s body, to hold their hand, or to simply look at them, for hours or days after they die. It signals to the subconscious parts of you that the death has really happened. It is healing and whole-making, and to me has come to feel like an essential part of the grieving process. 

The Three-Day Vigil

We relocated from Malibu to Napa three months before Benjamin died. Olivia helped us find a local death doula who helped us make preparations with the cemetery where Benjamin would be cremated.

I never spoke to the funeral director; everything was arranged for us by the doula. As a result, I could focus all of my attention on being with Benjamin in his last days and hours.

The day he died, I didn’t have to talk to a single stranger. I didn’t have to leave his side until I, myself, was ready. Undertaking a ritual as old as the world, his closest women friends and I washed his body. We anointed it with frankincense and lavender oils. We dressed him in his favorite clothes.

I slept in the room with his body all three nights we kept him at home. I spent a lot of time lying next to him, crying. So did his family members and dear friends. Even his twin 9-year-old boys came and sat by his bedside, starting what will no doubt be a lifelong process of integrating the impossible fact that Papa is really gone.

The Home Funeral

We had a gathering at our home the third night, where 60 people came to say goodbye. Benjamin’s body was in a candle-lit bedroom, and friends could choose to visit it or not. (Most did, including many children.) The doula provided us with a cardboard cremation box, which our friends and family members decorated with beautiful wishes for Benjamin. We told stories and ate food and cried together. His friends sang songs and read poems. We shared his death in community, in our home.

One friend told me that night, “My relationship to death has completely changed, just being here tonight.” Several others have approached me since, to express similar sentiments.

The decision to do death in one’s home is huge, and so obvious once you remember how humans have been doing it since the dawn of time.

Caring for our loved ones’ bodies in death is our birthright. It is not a job we need to outsource. Unless we want to—and that’s fine, too. There is no right or wrong here. What I didn’t know before this experience is that each of us has a choice, and I want everyone else to know that, too.

The Cremation

After three days, my heart was quietly ready for his body to move on. This peace could not have crept in, had he been taken from me moments after he died. I could see, as a dear friend put it, that he was beginning to “melt back into the earth.” The rhythm of life was telling us the time had come.

The next morning, family and close friends gathered early and prayed over Benjamin’s body. We lifted him up and laid him gently in the decorated box, covering his body with a soft blanket and fresh flowers. His brothers carried him down the stairs, and slid the box into the back of his beloved truck.

We drove to the funeral home, where our death doula was waiting with the funeral director. When I popped open the back window of the camper shell and revealed not only Benjamin’s casket, but also his twin boys, their mom and myself riding in the truck bed, the funeral director shook his head.

“This is highly unusual,” he said. We all laughed.

“We are a highly unusual bunch,” I agreed. (I will be forever grateful to that funeral director for keeping such an open mind.)

We had what’s called a “viewing cremation,” which is available but not advertised at many mortuaries. This means the family members get to roll the body into the cremation oven, close the door and press the buttons that begin the incineration process. (A deep bow to author Mirabai Starr, and her gorgeous memoir Caravan of No Despair, for teaching me that viewing cremations are possible.) There were a dozen family members standing around as Benjamin’s Grammy, his boys and I all pressed the button together.

We never left him. From the moment he died until the moment his body returned to ashes, his loved ones were by his side.

A Better Goodbye

All of this does not “make everything better.” I still mourn for Benjamin every single day. I still cry and feel angry and even hopeless sometimes. But I feel entirely peaceful about the way we celebrated his exit. We did it in a way that was deeply true. True to myself, true to Benjamin, true to his clan of family and friends.

Our midwife Olivia says that people die how they lived. What if the converse is also true—that we can only embrace life to the degree that we embrace death? If that’s the case, what does it mean if we push death away, ask someone else to take care of it for us, and categorize it as ugly, vulgar and terrifying?

It’s my belief that the time has come to do death a different way. It’s time to learn how to be with it—and, as a result, to love it.

And we do this by embracing death, by changing how we celebrate it, by relinquishing the taboos, and by bringing dying out into the open. We do it, I believe, by returning to the old ways. By keeping the celebration of death close to our hearts, and—if it feels right—in our very homes.

When we do, we are not only embracing death. We are embracing life. We are becoming more fully human by learning to say goodbye differently. By loving each other in death, we are loving life—all the way to the very end.

You may also enjoy reading The Courageous Art of Supporting Someone in Grief (At Any Age) by Angie Lucas

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Conscious parenting includes bridging modern science with Eastern philosophy — and cultivating lovingkindness in our children and ourselves

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Two things can happen when we start a family. We can feel the deep connection and compassion for other parents across the world, or we can become tribal, fearful, and protective. Usually, it’s a combination of both.

I still remember the incredible love I felt not just toward my son, Leo, after he was born, but also toward everyone we encountered those first few weeks. Maybe it was the oxytocin flowing, but colors seemed brighter and birds sang more beautifully as I wandered about the world, grinning dopily at strangers. But then, one afternoon, when a car didn’t stop at a crosswalk to let us pass, I experienced a blast of self-righteous indignation toward the driver that I’d never before experienced.

The same summer Leo was born, a new war ravaged yet another distant part of the world. The anguish on the faces of the parents as they searched rubble for their missing children was more immediate and acute to me than ever before. It occurred to me that those who were dropping bombs on cities surely felt that they were doing what they had to do to keep their own children safe.

Becoming a parent helped me realize that underneath all of our differences, all creatures want more than anything to keep their families safe from harm. But how quickly the warmth and compassion we have for our children switches to fear and hatred of the other. That’s what oxytocin is all about — at the same time that it’s associated with feelings of love and connection, it also relates to our experiences of jealousy, protection, and possessiveness — that ‘mama bear’ or ‘papa bear’ response.

If there are, indeed, two sides of love, this is about fostering the bright, hopeful, positive side through deliberate practices of lovingkindness (as opposed to lovingfear or lovinganger), knowing that fear, anger, and hatred will never be defeated with more of the same.

When we meet suffering, we’re hardwired for a fight-or-flight response (which includes freezing and forget it reactions). Over time, these can lead to anger, avoidance, anxiety, or depression. Although these strong emotions can energize us into action, they just as often lead to us turning away from the suffering we meet in the world.

When our greatest spiritual leaders first encountered suffering, however, it sparked a compassionate drive in them to free themselves and all others. No matter our conditioning, rather than turning away, we can all turn toward suffering through the practices of mindfulness and compassion in a process that psychologist Shelley Taylor calls ‘tending and befriending’.

According to some Buddhist teachings, lovingkindness refers to the wish for all sentient beings—including our children’s other caregivers — and the natural world around them to experience happiness. Compassion, on the other hand, refers to the desire that all other creatures be free from suffering. Like every tradition’s variation on the Golden Rule, compassion essentially means treating others — strangers and friends — how we want them to treat us.

The important point I want to convey is that, whether we call it lovingkindness or compassion, these are qualities that Eastern philosophy and Western science agree we can cultivate in ourselves and our children with practice. They also agree that compassion training makes us happier, healthier, more productive, and — not surprisingly — more popular. Compassion-trained toddlers are more apt to share their stickers, be more flexible, delay gratification, and exhibit stronger scores on measures of executive functions.

Some Eastern traditions teach that this change begins with ourselves. Putting ourselves first may feel a little strange to many of us. However, caring for yourself is caring for your child, because it all starts with us. This is where self-compassion enters the picture, especially for parents.

We all make mistakes. We all fall short of being the parent we thought we would or should be.

There are moments when I hate myself after losing my cool, and I regularly reserve my most creative insults for myself when I forget to pack Leo’s snack or monkey. Unfortunately, self-hatred isn’t known for its ability to overcome self-hatred, which is why self-compassion is so powerful.

Forgiveness begins with ourselves. Self-forgiveness and self-compassion do not make us weak or selfish, nor do they indicate that we have lowered our standards. In fact, research repeatedly indicates that they make us more resilient in the face of challenges, more willing to compromise and apologize, and more compassionate toward others. Even when we hold dark secrets and nearly unbearable regrets, we can still learn to practice lovingkindness, compassion, and forgiveness for ourselves.

Personally, practicing self-compassion has helped me develop more compassion not just for myself, but for others as well — including my own kids and parents. (As one particularly wise teen I see in my practice recently remarked, “My parents get the angriest with me when I make the same mistakes they did at my age.”) Having compassion for my own mistakes as a parent has helped me have more compassion for my own parents. As the old joke goes, “I used to be the best parent in the world until I had my own kids.” Becoming more compassionate for ourselves also builds resilience, equanimity, and determination — all qualities we want to foster in our children. How better to do this than to embody them ourselves?

Here is a practice adapted from ideas by Chris Germer, Kristen Neff, and Susan Bögels that addresses some of these points:

Self-Compassion

Take a moment to sit comfortably and allow your eyes to close. Bring to mind a difficult situation in your parenting over the past few weeks — not too big, just something relatively small. What is the scene? Who was there? What were they saying or doing? Take a moment for the image to become clear. Then bring your awareness to all the sensations, emotions, thoughts, and judgments that come to you right now in the moment.

Take a few breaths. Then place a hand on your heart, cheek, or arm. Using your own name, say to yourself, “This is hard. This is a moment of suffering. I work to be a good parent, and I may not be perfect, but I am a good-enough parent.” Use whatever words work for you. Take a few more moments to breathe and feel the sensations, noticing any shift in your physical or emotional experience.

Finally, remind yourself in some way that all parents struggle. We all fall short of who we wish to be. We all make mistakes. That’s what makes us human, and that’s what connects us as parents. We all struggle and suffer in similar ways. Take a few more breaths as you reflect on this. Then allow your eyes to open.

Practice this act of self-compassion whenever you feel the need for forgiveness and kindness — it works!

Your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now

— Author George Saunders

You may also enjoy reading The Complex Rules for Raising Adult Children: From Protector to Guide by Judy Marano

The post The Kindness Contagion: Cultivating Lovingkindness in Our Children appeared first on BEST SELF.

A rabbi’s story of the redemptive power of pain — how suffering can provide a window of transformation

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There is a crack in everything.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every one of us sooner or later walks through hell. The hell of being hurt or the hell of hurting another. The hell of cancer, the hell of a reluctant shovelful of earth upon the casket of someone we deeply loved. The hell of divorce, of a kid in trouble, of Alzheimer’s, of addiction, of stress, of aging — of knowing that this year, like any year, may be our last. We all walk through hell.

The point is to not come out empty-handed; the point is to make your life worthy of your suffering. To be human is to suffer, and there is profound power in the suffering we endure if we transform it into a more authentic, meaningful life. Pain is a great teacher, but the lessons do not come easily.

Whenever I’m tempted to dismiss pain as merely a step toward enlightenment, I think about a friend of mine who had cancer three times and said to me from his hospital bed before he died, “This much character I don’t need!” I do not intend to glorify suffering or suggest that the lessons we learn from pain are somehow worth the cost. But the truth is that most often, for most people, real change is the result of real pain.

As the senior rabbi of one of the world’s largest synagogues, I have witnessed a lot of pain.

It’s my phone that rings when people’s bodies or lives fall apart. The couch in my office is often drenched with tears, and there are days when an entire box of tissues is gone by late afternoon. I have tried to help thousands of people face their emotional and physical pain, and after 27 years of listening, comforting, showing up, and holding them, I thought I knew a great deal about suffering. The truth is that it wasn’t until my own pain brought me to my knees that I could really understand the suffering of those who came to me wounded and afraid.

A few months after a frightening car accident from which I thought I had emerged physically unharmed, I was pulling into the garage at home when a herniated disc touched and burned a nerve in my spine. The pain was paralyzing; I could not step out of the car. The doctor said to call the paramedics. Instead of dialing 911, I used my upper body to drag my lower body inch-by-inch, writhing and screaming, across the oil-stained garage into my house, where I curled up and wept on the floor, fetal and begging for morphine. Through the seductive opioids, the surgery, more and more and more drugs, the exhaustion, the withdrawal, the depression, the fear, the bitterness of Why me? Why now? and the healing that followed, I learned a good deal more about pain, both physical and emotional, than a lifetime of witnessing others’ pain had taught me.

At first, I did not take my pain seriously. I took painkillers, tried to hide the fact that I wasn’t sleeping much, kept up my brutal pace at work, and grimaced whenever I stood up. After the surgery, a woman who was a Temple trustee at the time called me and said, “You broke your back for the synagogue.” Her words shot through me. She was wrong from a medical standpoint, but she was right spiritually. I was ground down by years of carrying the suffering of others, as well as the begging, pleasing, encouraging, and cheerleading that fundraising required when others refused to believe.

So what did I do just 10 days after spinal surgery? I allowed a doctor to shoot me up so that I could walk back out onto the stage and play my part.

It was the High Holy Days — the 10 holiest days of the entire year for Jews — the Super Bowl for rabbis, especially in my case and especially that year.

We had just finished a two-year renovation of our historic 1,800-seat sanctuary, a magnificent place of prayer created in 1929 by movie moguls Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Carl Laemmle, and other famous Hollywood luminaries. The congregation had spent the two years of the 200 million dollar renovation in temporary worship space, but this year we were coming home to a stunning, inspiring place of prayer: Its 140-foot golden, green and tan dome speckled with colors diffused through enormous blue and crimson stained-glass windows and bathed in soft light from above by 30-foot brass chandeliers, dangling from the dome like earrings on a queen.

I didn’t really want to acknowledge it, but all that fundraising, along with running such a large congregation with a staff of hundreds and 7,000 members left me depleted. I was spent and confused. “You’ve got six hours,” the head of the hospital’s spinal team told me as he jabbed the needle in. “After that, you won’t be able to stand.”

My wife was the only person to tell me I was wrong to be on the pulpit that night as the project I had worked so hard to make real was finally unveiled. She was the only one worried more about me than about the congregation’s expectations of me. Even I was not worried about me. If the pain was a relentless teacher, the student was a relentless denier.

I made it through the evening, but afterward I continued to suffer terribly for months, trapped in my old ways — always there for everyone, always punching above my weight, the hardest, the longest, and the fastest. I knew no other way.  And then there were the drugs. I spiraled, like millions of others, into the lethargy and depression of steroids and opioids. The pain was dulled, but the pain was still in charge.

The Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan often repeated the aphorism: “We don’t know who discovered water, but it wasn’t the fish.”

What he meant was that we are so close to our own lives, so immersed in our own reality, that we actually have the least perspective on it. Only when it’s hooked, thrashing in a net, gills gasping, and flailing for breath, only then does a fish discover water. So it is with humans. Only when pain suddenly jerks us out of our otherwise ordinary life do we discover something powerful and true about ourselves.

I have seen this up close thousands of times in hospital rooms, cemeteries, criminal courts, homes, and my office as others sat upon what I call my couch of tears, weeping from deep within. Through sickness we discover the blessing of health, through loss we discover the true depths of love, through foolishness we know maturity and wisdom. Pain shocks us and propels us from where we thought we were — who we thought we were — to something far more real and true.

When pain visited me, I knew intellectually that I was not making history. I was not the first middle-aged man to herniate a disc. But pain is not a matter of intellect — it is a matter of the spirit and a matter of the soul.  It took years for me to appreciate pain’s victory.  Now I am grateful for my defeat. It forced me to change my stubborn ways. It forced me to make peace with age, flesh, bone, decline, limitation, and the simple fact that we are all merely human. We can only do so much, then we have to let go.

My pain forced me to stop many things. One of the first and most seemingly insignificant, but symbolically powerful things I had to stop was my war with weeds. Yes . . . weeds.  Ever since buying our current home 11 years earlier, I’d been obsessed with getting rid of the weeds on the large, very steep hill behind it. I wanted nothing but a blanket of perfect, dark-green ivy when I looked out my back windows. I tried sprays, potions, axes, shovels, a chainsaw, machetes, pitchforks, trimmers, loppers — you name it. For a decade, every few days I was up on that hill slipping, falling, cursing bent over and at war with those weeds while my wife, Betsy, shook her head and futilely uttered a simple truth repeated by wives to their husbands for 5,000 years: “You know we could hire someone to do that.”

About a month after my spinal surgery, I emerged from the narcotic and steroidal haze just enough to walk the few steps to the back patio and lie on a lounge chair. That’s when I saw  hundreds of tall, gangly weeds sprouting on the back hill. It was an insult to my infirmity, but I could do nothing to combat this aggressive new crop of nature’s unceasing will. Then I noticed something else: a group of tiny yellow birds perched atop those once-hated weeds. For weeks their singing kept me company each afternoon as I tried to heal in the warm sun. The weeds I had beaten back for years now attracted those delicate, little yellow birds.

Pain cracks us open. It breaks us. But in the breaking, there is a new kind of wholeness that emerges.

From my brokenness, a new, beautiful mantra emerged: weeds bring yellow birds.

My book, More Beautiful Than Before; How Suffering Transforms Us, is a book about real pain in its many forms and the lessons it comes to teach us. It describes a journey through pain in three stages: surviving, healing, and growing. It is an exploration of pain’s fierce, liberating, sorrowful, comforting, ugly, beautiful deep truths. The truths I learned are that when we must endure, we can endure; that we can be good even when we cannot be happy; and that the sun rises no matter how dark the night. The ancient parables and scientific insights I share from my journeys walking hand-in-hand with so many others, will, I hope, help move people from pain to wisdom.

They say every preacher has one sermon, one truth that he delivers 100 different ways. Mine is to inspire in us all a life worthy of our suffering: a life gentler, wiser, and more beautiful than before.

You may also enjoy reading Gratitude: The Gateway To Transformation by Bobbie C. Thompson

The post More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us appeared first on BEST SELF.

A 37-year old mother’s raw account of her battle with stage 4 breast cancer — squeezing the joy from amidst her struggle

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What is it like to have cancer? Hmm, the best way to describe it is your life gets flash-forwarded, flipped, turned upside down and then in the quiet and stillness of a moment a third eye is opened — to see what is important. You’ve joined the club you never wanted to join. Your world is literally rocked, halted and life swirls around you. Certain moments stop and stand still, some come and go in a flash, thankfully, then there are others that leave you wondering, Why me?

I’ve been on this cancer journey since December of 2015. I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer at the fresh age of 36.

How could I be sick? How could I be stage 4? I grew up organic, I never smoked, I exercised often, it doesn’t run in my family. Is it the environment? Is it from a virus? Was it from the processed food I did eat? They say everyone has the gene and that it has been found in cavemen. The first instinct is to ask, Why? We all know if we find the why we find the cure. Once I accepted the fact that I’ll never know why or how I got sick, then I was on the road to healing.

There were many stages of healing that I had to go through. This is my story and experience; I have realized from talking with many cancer patients that each journey is unique. No two cancers are the same, just like no two lives are the same. I share my journey with you in light that you may understand the challenges, heartache and yes, the beauty that does come with this.

I am a wife of 17 years, mother of four. One boy, 16, and 3 girls, 13, 12, and 7. I honestly feel like this journey is the toughest on the ‘co-survivors’, as they call them — the spouses. My husband. He has picked up the pieces, roles of both parents, and watched the love of his life suffer as well as deal with the drama that’s thrown at us. He has done a great job doing the best he can to make it work. Has he wanted to throw in the towel, and have we had heated arguments? Of course. We are married aren’t we?!

We both strive to not let cancer rob us of our love for each other or our children of their childhood.

Our biggest fear is not only that they will get cancer, but that they will not be able to enjoy their childhood by being overcome with worry. As you can tell, I love and worry about them all. My heart is broken with this diagnosis. I can choose to be a victim of cancer or to rise up and live with cancer. I choose Hope. I choose to make it great. Do I have my hard moments? Of course, I’m human. I cry, let it out, then I look forward at what I can do right now.

Now is what I have — it is all any of us have, really.

I have been on 5 different cocktails of chemo. Been close to remission, only to have the cancer mutate and then to switch to another Chemo Cocktail. The difficult part is hearing that I ran out of options for targeted chemo, and learning that I’m running out of treatment options altogether.

Currently I am on a clinical trial, with hope that this immunoconjugate will work. I had to temporarily move away from my family for 10 weeks to do this. A different city, a different state, I had to let go of parenting for a short bit to heal, with hope that I’ll be around for a long time.  Many people say, “you’re the strongest person I know.”

Truth is, you never know how strong you are until being strong is all you have.

I refuse to give up. There is so much life to fight for. I am sad, but if I let that consume me, cancer wins. I am angry that a mother, wife, sister, friend has to go through this, but if I let that consume me, cancer wins. I can easily curl up into a ball and give up, but as much as you all love living your life, I do too.  And I won’t go down without a fight. I’m not letting cancer win if I have anything so say in all of this.

I have dreams of getting my life back. Through this journey I have learned to master making lemonade out of lemons. Adversity is never ending even when in the eye of the storm. We’ve had to deal with our own family causing heartache due to selfish intentions. Being told it’s too hard to look at so they don’t come around. Hearing that I’m not the same — the fact is that I am not the same person that I was; I’ve had to seek out options for treatment, alternative forms of diet, medicine, learn while being ill…all this while in the biggest storm life has dealt us. In the end you trust that they didn’t realize how much they have hurt you or they wouldn’t have done what they did. You learn to let a lot go and appreciate the little things.

It is the little things that have become the big things. Taking 10 minutes to tuck each child into bed turns into 20, or until they tell you they’re tired and ready to go to bed. It’s listening more and talking less. It’s giving extra hugs and kisses, it’s embracing family dinners. It’s taking the extra time to tell someone you care and how much they mean to you. It’s writing letters to each child for all of their milestones in case you are gone — so they have something to hold onto to remind them of your love.

You see, I may know my fate, how my story will end. I have been given my death sentence, and I have chosen to make what life I have left — great. Through this emotional rollercoaster, heartache, disappointments, you realize so many different things. Surprisingly, there is beauty through it all. Don’t get me wrong, there is NO beauty in cancer. It’s an ugly beast. The beauty is the way God comforts us. God knows our hearts and our needs. He has never left my side. He may be shaking his head at me when I’ve gone on a tizzy about how people should treat people. Then I acknowledge that they just don’t understand how hard this is. They are misunderstanding my words and intentions, as well as theirs…which can easily be done. You have to take yourself out of the equation, be still, hold a cancer patient’s hand to truly feel what they are feeling.

Don’t ask them how they are, it diminishes us as a person.

I refuse to let my life be solely about cancer. I am a person, I am strong, I am a wife, mother of 4, I am a friend. I am a volunteer, missionary, I love life, I miss my job as a physical therapist. I am still me, I am just sick and trying to get out of this storm. What I would rather hear is “What are you up to today?’ Don’t just read my blog and be a ghost. Stay active in my life and be my friend. I may not be able to dine out like I used to, so let’s dine in. My answer will let you know how I’m feeling. If I am out and about, it’s a good day. If I am laying around, then you know it’s rough. If you are curious about treatment and feelings, be honest and ask. Especially if you don’t understand. Honestly that is why I blog. To help people understand. Before I was diagnosed, I had no clue of everything that went into being a patient. I was naïve to the process.

Pretty much for me, a stage 4 diagnosis meant that my treatment has never stopped. I am currently on my clinical trial — my 6th cocktail. I waited out a hurricane, literally — Hurricane Harvey in Houston — to get my last hope of a rainbow, a cure, that I will come out on the other side. A trial drug called DS8201a has currently been working hard and fast. The side effects have been the same. This trial drug is called an immunoconjugate. It is chemo mixed with immuno-therapy. The chemo kills the cancer, the ‘immuno’ part trains my immune system to attack any abnormal cancer cell. It’s like a trojan horse.

While waiting out the storm the cancer has spread the worst it has ever been, my counts were the highest they’ve ever been. I’m happy to say that after one dose they have dropped all the way down to almost ‘normal’ range. This truly is a miracle. Almost 2 years later, after countless hours of reading, searching, studying, talking to other cancer patients, and now going on my 4th opinion — I refuse to give up. My best advice is if someone tells you no, keep searching, advocating for yourself.

This life is worth fighting for.

[Editor’s Note: Valynda passed away a few months after writing this story and is survived by her loving family.]

You may also enjoy reading Doing Death Differently: Embracing the Home Funeral by Kelly Notaras

The post From The Eye of The Storm: A Personal Account of Stage 4 Cancer appeared first on BEST SELF.

Exploring the dark corner of grief and suffering: blame

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There’s such a pervasive weirdness in our culture around grief and death.

We judge, and then we blame, dissect, and minimize. People look for the flaws in what someone did to get to this place: She didn’t exercise enough. Didn’t take enough vitamins. Took too many. He shouldn’t have been walking on that side of the road. They shouldn’t have gone to that country if it has a history of monsoons. If he’s that upset, he must not have been very stable before this happened. I bet they had unresolved childhood issues—see what unhealed issues do to you?

I have a theory (as yet scientifically unproven) that the more random or out-of-order the loss, the more judgment and correction the grieving person hears.

It’s like we just can’t reconcile the fact that someone could be alive and well at breakfast and dead by lunch. We can’t understand how someone who ate well, exercised, and was a generally good human being can get cancer and die at the age of thirty-four. We can’t understand how a perfectly healthy child can drop dead of what started as a simple cough. How someone biking to work, using a dedicated bike lane, wearing reflective clothing, their bike adorned with flashing lights, can be struck and killed in an instant.

Or, how on a beautiful, ordinary summer day in 2009, I could watch my partner, Matt, drown. Matt was strong, fit, and healthy. He was just three months away from his fortieth birthday. With his abilities and experience, there was no reason he should have drowned.

Losses like this highlight the tenuous nature of life. How easily, how quickly life can change. It’s terrifying to think that someone who seemingly did everything right could still die. It’s also terrifying to look at a person torn apart by their grief, knowing that could be us someday.

When Matt died, the one (and only) news story I read blamed him for his death because he wasn’t wearing a life jacket — to go swimming. The more polite comments underneath the article made Matt into an angel, looking over everyone, even those who didn’t know him; his work on earth was done. Far more of the comments blamed me for ‘making’ him go in the water, or castigated both of us for being too stupid to know better.

In the days after Matt died, I overheard more than one conversation in which people judged my response to Matt’s death quite unfavorably. Keep in mind that I wasn’t publicly screaming, didn’t hit anyone, and wasn’t causing big ‘scenes’ anywhere. I was simply—openly—very, very sad.

Victim Shaming and the Culture of Blame

My experience of blame and judgment, both for my grief, and of Matt in regards to his own death, is not unique. Most grieving people have felt judged and shamed inside their pain.

Especially when the loss is unusual or accidental, the backlash of blame is intense. We immediately point out what someone else did wrong. That person did something ridiculous or stupid; we would never do that. It soothes our brains, in some ways, to believe that through our own good sense, we, and all those we love, can be kept safe. And if something bad did happen (through no fault of our own), we’d be strong enough to handle it. Grief wouldn’t take us down like that; we’d deal with it so much better than that other person. Everything will be OK.

Brené Brown’s research states that blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort. Intense grief is a reminder that our lives here are tenuous at best. Evidence of someone else’s nightmare is proof that we could be next. That’s seriously uncomfortable evidence. We have to do some fancy footwork (or rather, fancy brain-work) to minimize our discomfort and maintain our sense of safety.

When someone comes to you in your pain and says, “I can’t even imagine,” the truth is: They can imagine. Their brains automatically began to imagine. As mammals, neuro-biologically, we’re connected to each other. Empathy is actually a limbic system connection with the other person’s pain (or their joy). Being close to someone else’s pain makes us feel pain. Our brains know we’re connected.

Seeing someone in pain touches off a reaction in us, and that reaction makes us very uncomfortable. Faced with this visceral knowledge that we, too, could be in a similar situation, we shut down our empathy centers. We deny our connection. We shift into judgment and blame. It’s an emotionally protective instinct. In many different ways, in many different forms, our response to others’ pain is to lobby blame: If something terrible happens, you brought it on yourself.

Blaming someone for their pain — whether that’s grief or some kind of interpersonal violence — is our go-to mechanism. How quick we are to demonize rather than empathize. How quick we are to move into debate, rather than hang out in the actual pain of the situation.

At the root of our fears around grief, and in our approaches to grief and loss, is a fear of connection, and a fear of acknowledging — really feeling — our relatedness. What happens to one person can happen to anyone. We see ourselves reflected in another person’s pain, and we don’t like to see ourselves there.

Disasters and deaths bring out a level of emotional empathy that asks you to go there, to acknowledge that this could happen to you or someone you love, no matter how safe you try to be. We hate to see evidence of the fact that there is very little in this life over which we have control. We’ll do almost anything to avoid letting that in.

What starts as limbic system-based connection reverts to a brainstem survival instinct. It’s an us-or-them response, one that puts those in pain on the wrong side of the line, and us, always on the right. We distance ourselves from pain rather than feel annihilated by it. The culture of blame keeps us safe. Or rather, it lets us believe we’re safe.

Down the Rabbit Hole of Pain Avoidance

We want so desperately to see evidence that everyone we love is safe, and will always be safe. We want so desperately to believe we’ll survive, no matter what happens. We want to believe we have control.

To maintain this belief, we’ve created — and sustained — an entire culture based on a magical thinking continuum: think the right thoughts, do the right things, be evolved/non-attached/optimistic/faithful enough and everything will be OK.

Pain and grief are never seen as healthy responses to loss. They’re far too threatening for that. We resist them in equal measure to our fear of being consumed by them.

The problem with this (among many problems) is that it creates a societally acceptable blame structure in which any kind of hardship or pain is met with shame, judgment, and an admonishment to quickly get back to ‘normal’. If you can’t rise above it, you are, once again, doing something wrong.

Attachment Is Survival

Pain has to be welcomed and understood and given actual true space at the table. Otherwise, we cannot do the work we do, whether that is the personal work of showing up and staying alive, or the wider global work of making the world safe, equitable, and beautiful for all beings. We have to be able to say what’s true without fear of being seen as weak, damaged, or somehow failing the cultural storyline. We need to make it just as normal to talk about our pain as it is to talk about our joy.

There is no need to rush redemption.

Hard, painful, terrible things happen. That is the nature of being alive, here in this world. Not everything works out; not everything happens for a reason. The real path here, the real way forward, is not in denying that irredeemable pain exists, but by acknowledging that it does. By becoming a culture strong enough to bear witness to pain. By sticking together inside what hurts. By opening ourselves to each other’s pain, knowing that this could be us the next time around.

When we’re afraid of loss, we cling to a system of right and wrong, of well and unwell, in order to safeguard our connections to those we love. We think barricading ourselves against pain and suffering will help us survive.

Our deeply embedded aversion to acknowledging pain and hardship keeps us from what we most want: Safety in the form of love, connection, and kinship. We defend ourselves against losing it, but in doing so we keep ourselves from living it.

The tricky thing is, true survival never exists in a world where we have to lie about our own hearts, or pretend we’re more in control than we are. It just makes us desperately more anxious, and more rabid in our attempts to make everything work out in the end.

The most efficient and effective way to be ‘safe’ in this world is to stop denying that hard and impossible things happen. Telling the truth allows us to connect, to fully enter the experience of another and feel with them.

Real safety is in entering each other’s pain, recognizing ourselves inside it. As one of my oldest teachers used to say, Poignancy is kinship. It’s evidence of connection. That we hurt for each other shows our relatedness. Our limbic systems, our hearts, and our bodies are made for this; we long for that connection. That you see your own potential for grief and loss in someone else’s grief? That’s beautiful.

When emotion comes up, we can let that poignancy run through us. It hurts, but it hurts because we’re related, because we’re connected. It should hurt. There’s nothing wrong with that. When we recognize pain and grief as a healthy response to loss, we can respond with skill and grace, rather than blame and bypass. We can respond by loving each other, no matter what happens.

Finding safety means to come together, with open hearts and a willing curiosity about everything we experience: love, joy, optimism, fear, loss, and heartbreak. When there is nothing we can’t answer with love and connection, we have a safety that can’t be taken away by the external forces of the world. It won’t keep us from loss, but it will let us feel held and supported inside what cannot be made right.

The real cutting edge of growth and development is in hurting with each other. It’s in companionship, not correction. Acknowledgment — being seen and heard and witnessed inside the truth about one’s own life — is the only real medicine of grief.

You may also enjoy reading Doing Death Differently: Embracing the Home Funeral by Kelly Notaras

The post The Secret Side of Grief: The Culture of Blame appeared first on BEST SELF.

A fairy tale marriage faces dramatic challenges as a psychotic breakdown interrupts a beautiful love story

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An interview with Mark Lukach

by Kristen Noel

Listen to the audio interview

Kristen:           Once upon a time, a beautiful fairytale romance was born. It was love at first sight for Mark and Giulia Lukach who met on the campus of Georgetown University when they were only 18 years old. Madly in love, they graduated, married, secured dream jobs, and rode off into the sunset, moving across the country to live in San Francisco, one of the most desirable cities in the world. Life was full of promise and they dreamed, plotted, planned, and saved for the bright future ahead. They had it all mapped out until the ‘in sickness and in health, through good times and in bad’ part of their vows was put to the test… and put to the test and put to the test.

In 2009, when Giulia plummeted into the abyss of mental illness after a psychotic break, the map of their life rerouted and nothing would ever be the same. In his recently released memoir, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward, Mark Lukach, a teacher and freelance writer, depicts the side of mental illness often overlooked from the partners, the family, and the bystanders — a journey to healing in all of its guts and glory. This inspiring memoir is a brave account of what really happens when a family is ravaged by mental illness. Candid and gut wrenching at times, there is no glossing over what it really took to find their way back to each other.

I’m Kristen Noel, Editor-In-Chief of Best Self Magazine, and I’m honored to sit down today with Mark Lukach to delve further into this amazing story. It is a book I couldn’t put down. While I was rooting for their love story, I didn’t know how it would end. It made me question myself, it made me think about our capacity to love one another, and it made me revere the power of love because at the end of the day, we all want love to win. Welcome, Mark.

Mark:  Kristen, that was the most beautiful introduction, thank you. What a way to get things started. It’s great to be talking to you.

Kristen:           I want to commend both you and Giulia for sharing this story. Why share this  very personal and at times, excruciatingly painful journey?

Mark:  I think the answer to that is two-fold. The first answer is actually personal. I’m not a trained writer; I’m a high school history teacher and I never really envisioned writing a book. But after Giulia had been hospitalized a few times we had a really hard time reconnecting as a couple because our experiences of her psychosis and then depression were different. And if we tried to talk about it, it got tense and brought up a lot of tough feelings and resentment and difficult memories — even though we went to couple’s therapy and everything.

On a whim, I tried writing about it for Giulia like it was an audience of one. I thought if I can sit here and sort through my thoughts in a way where I’m not just blurting them out or not wrapped up with emotion, but rather I’m trying to take the time to groom and make them accessible for her — maybe she’ll be able to hear them and we can process and move forward together. That began the journey of writing about this so that Giulia and I could simply reconnect as a couple. And I have to say, on that front, it felt like this book has been a really big success. There’s no question that the writing and Giulia reading and us talking about it subsequently helped us to process as a couple what it all means for us.

And then for the public answer — when Giulia was hospitalized, I remember sitting in the waiting room and being on my phone and trying to Google my way to understanding what was happening. I was trying to comprehend some of the terms the doctors were using, but I found pretty much nothing that helped me understand what I was about to go through. What was the journey going to look like for me? What were some of the choices that I was going to have to face?

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more alone than I did that day in the waiting room with Giulia locked away on one side and this gigantic unknown, and no one that I could find on the internet or anywhere that had gone through something similar. Thus the motivation for writing was that Giulia and I together could be a voice, and hopefully other families could find our book and feel less alone as they go through their own journeys.

Kristen:           That’s a beautiful reason. It’s really hard to believe that in this day and age, you would have such a hard time finding other stories.

Mark:  I know. I was shocked by it, too. Now granted, this was 2009. IPhones are only a few years old. Social media is still just catching on, but I’m a reader and a historian so I go looking for answers. I was looking for the book that could tell me what was going to happen to me. I found a lot of books about what Giulia was going through — and I read every single one of them — but I just couldn’t believe that no one was telling this story.

Subsequently, I’ve come across a few more communities and a great support group for families called the National Alliance on Mental Illness, also known as NAMI. But the logistics of actually getting to that support group turned out to be difficult for me and so I never really was able to take advantage of that.

I wrote an article back in 2015 in Pacific Standard magazine and it became the template and the basis of the book. It’s what got me a book deal in the first place. That article talked about the caregiving side of mental illness and the struggle and difficult choices I had to make, and some of the internal struggle around guilt and responsibility. That article blew up on the Internet. I think that really demonstrated to me just how many people out there are desperate to have their experience validated and feel like there’s someone else out there who’s gone through it.

I’ve had a lot of really amazing interactions with the readers and it brings me to tears when I hear from people who say, “Thank you. I’m in something similar and it’s just so nice to know that I’m not alone.”

Kristen:           This is the human story. This is the story of all that unfolds around it. It’s complicated and it’s messy and it’s painful and it’s glorious and it’s beautiful and it’s all those things. That’s not what you’re going to find on Google.

Mark:  I agree with you. The book, too, is obviously about mental illness, but I think it’s also about how every relationship is tested at some point by crisis — so how do you try to work together to get through that crisis. You’re right. You’re not going to find that answer on Wikipedia or the web.

Kristen:           Let’s go back to 2009 and paint us a picture of this love story and what happened.

Mark:  It was like a charmed fairy tale romance. As you said, we met super young. We moved out to California and felt like we were living our dreams. We were so happy and made a nice friend group. Giulia was thriving in her career. She’s always been really ambitious and successful and so it was no surprise that she was doing well in work. I was teaching high school and loving that. I remember my dad came out and visited us in the fall and we were on a walk. He put his arm around me and said, “You done good,” like, “You found a pretty good life for yourself,” and I couldn’t have agreed more.

Then when we were 27, Giulia transitioned to a new job at a new company and almost immediately, things took on a different tone. This confident, successful woman that I had known for nine years was all of a sudden really uncertain at work. She didn’t know what to do. She was getting emails and not sure how to respond to them so she’d send the draft that she was working on to me. And these were like one or two-sentence replies that Giulia was apparently working on for hours. I was wondering, “What’s going on here? You’re so good at your job. You’ve always been so good, even back when I knew you in college.” She had an almost perfect GPA and great internships over the summer, so I just couldn’t understand what was happening. To be honest, I was impatient and frustrated. “Don’t you see how great things are? What are you so worried about? Why are you so preoccupied and concerned about not doing well? You’ve always done well.”

Giulia lost her appetite and would just pick at her food rather than eat it, so of course she lost a lot of weight. She began to have trouble sleeping because she was so preoccupied with what she wasn’t doing in work and what was happening; she just couldn’t let those thoughts go at the end of the day. It would take hours to fall asleep and then, unfortunately, that transitioned to not sleeping at all.

All those combinations led to her starting to experience delusions where she was basically hearing things that weren’t real and believing things that weren’t real. And then the delusions became really dark. To give you a sense of the timeline, she started her job in mid-July and I took her to the ER over Labor Day weekend. This is only about six weeks for her to go from no previous signs of mental illness, no mental illness in her family history, and then six weeks later, I’m sitting there in the emergency room with the doctor saying, “Your wife’s having a psychotic break and we need to take her to the psych ward for inpatient treatment.”

There’s that Talking Head song lyric, “And you may ask yourself — well… How did I get here? “ I think I had that deer in the headlights look. How was it that it was all so good and suddenly 6 weeks later, I simply couldn’t understand what was happening?

Kristen:           Describe the decision to take Guilia to the emergency room, because that also opened up a whole other can of worms.

Mark:  Her father had flown in. Giulia’s from Europe and so her dad had come out because we thought this was connected to work and Giulia and her dad really connected on work. I woke up one morning and Giulia was pacing around the house and she said, “The devil’s here and he says I’m never going to get better. There’s no point in trying, so we should just give up.” I woke up my father-in-law and said, “Look, Giulia had seen a therapist once or twice, but we are in over our heads. We don’t know what to do. We can’t help. We need to take her to the doctor.” He totally agreed.

We basically ended up having to corner her. We told her we needed to go to the hospital, but she wouldn’t have any part of it. She was physically resisting and calling out and literally grabbing onto doorknobs and doorways to try to stop us. My father-in-law and I were literally carrying her to the car when I realized that he was crying, and I was crying uncontrollably.

We took her down into our garage and got in the car and drove her to the hospital and on the way there, as we were driving through Golden Gate Park, Giulia tried to open the door and jump out of the car. She opened the door and was taking off her seatbelt so I pulled over and slammed the door. We then got her into the back of the car to sit with my father-in-law. It’s the stuff out of nightmares to have to do that to someone you love and care for and suddenly don’t recognize anymore.

Kristen:           And once you bring someone to the hospital, don’t they commit them to stay for a certain period of time?

Mark:  Yes, and they tell you, “Okay, so this is an involuntary hold. It’s a minimum 72-hour hold and we’re going to basically observe and see what’s going on and offer her medication.” But Giulia was legally allowed to refuse the medication. This is the way it is in California; I don’t know how it is in other states. After the 72 hours, the doctor who had been observing Giulia made a recommendation to a judge about whether they can now legally require that she be there for longer and also if she can be forced to take medication — even if she doesn’t want to take it by choice — which is the equivalent of people pinning her down and giving her injections.

When I took Giulia to the ER, I knew she needed help, but I didn’t know what that help was going to look like. When we actually got to the psych ward, it looked right out of the movies with bars on the windows and fluorescent lighting and not a lot of fresh natural light or fresh air or anything. I remember thinking, “She’s not supposed to be here. This is a terrible place. What did I just sign us up for?”

Kristen:           And how is she going to get better here?

Mark:  Yes. So I panicked when we got there, but she was already in. We had crossed the point of no return.

One of the points of this book is to demystify the psych ward. The authentic experience of our first hospitalization was horrifying, really jarring and unsettling. But with prolonged exposure — which unfortunately we’ve had since she’s been in different hospitals three times — each time it becomes less scary. We are more accepting of it and I’m less terrified and less distrusting.

I’ve grown to put the psych ward in its proper place. It’s not like the horror film-setting so often depicted in movies. It’s a place where people actually do get better, so it’s important to at least acknowledge that.

Kristen:           At that point in 2009, Giulia was ultimately given a diagnosis, which was schizophrenia. You wrote in your book, “With one word, I had lost my wife and gained a lifelong patient.” You also said, “I was learning that psychiatry and the prescribing of medications is more art and guessing game than science because in fact, Giulia wasn’t schizophrenic.”

Mark:  Exactly. What I learned about psychiatry is that a diagnosis is like, “If you’ve got 7 of these 10 symptoms, then you might have this.” But there’s also another diagnosis that has many of those same symptoms on its list. What if you have 7 of one list but 6 of another? What does that mean?

It’s basically a lot of experimentation. I didn’t know that about this field of medicine when I was first introduced to it. If you break your arm, you know exactly what to do and you know how long it’s going to take to heal and you just move on. The irony of these medications is that the symptoms that they’re trying to address can actually get significantly worse if it’s the wrong pill. That’s why they keep them in the hospital, because they need to be able to immediately observe the impacts of these pills.

When Giulia was out of the hospital, she entered an outpatient program three days a week.

Kristen:           Which I assume helps patients assimilate back into their lives.

Mark:  That was critical to have some time rather than just jumping right from being in the hospital to trying to resume a full-time working mode. Their outpatient program was intended as a stepping stone back to normal life.

Kristen:           Also, you said that it afforded you some time to get back to your life as well and to take care of yourself. Here you were, running around frenetically, trying to manage all of this, and you have either your running shoes or your surf equipment in the back of the car so that you could drop her off and then run to the beach and try to squeeze in some self-care.

Mark:  I’ve been a very happy-go-lucky guy for my life. Until Giulia got sick, I didn’t realize how much work it takes to be happy and how much you have to make deliberate choices and schedule times to nurture yourself, because it’s just in my DNA and it had just previously come easily. But when Giulia was not doing well, those three hours that she was in that outpatient program were literally my only 9 hours in the entire week when I wasn’t the primary person responsible for Giulia, who at that point was actively suicidal.

Basically, she had been in the hospital, psychotic for 23 days. They pumped her with a lot of antipsychotic drugs. With psychosis, your thinking is going so fast; the primary purpose of the antipsychotics is to slow down your thinking, to mute the psychosis. They were effective in that regard. The psychosis faded, which is great. But on those meds, Giulia was really slow, physically and mentally. It was hard to engage in conversations. She was also in the wake of the trauma of being hospitalized.

Giulia was deeply suicidal and hopelessly depressed. It was an effort to get her out of bed in the morning. I basically felt like I had to plan our days so that she wouldn’t just sit around and think about killing herself.

Kristen:           Tell us about hiding the medicine.

Mark:  She hated the medicine prescribed, because she was gaining weight on it and it made her slow, but she also saw the medication as a way to overdose and commit suicide. I basically hid her pills throughout the house and would change up the hiding place every two days. Each night, when it was medicine time, I’d lead Giulia into our bedroom, sit her on the bed, close the door and pretend to search through the house so that she couldn’t get auditory clues of what room I was in. I’d look through every closet and look through every drawer and eventually, of course, find the pills because I knew where they were, and then take out the dose and then come back in the room and watch her as she took them, opening her mouth to make sure she took them.

You can imagine how after she got better, it was really hard for us to reconnect.

Kristen:           This became a 24-hour job for you, so you had to take a leave from work.

Mark:  I was off work for almost an entire semester and I never let her out of my sight. On Day 2, I literally stepped into the bathroom and in those 2 minutes, Giulia had left the house. She had opened the front door and was just walking away with no sense of where she was going. So I was full-on in caregiving mode.

Again, to get back to where we all started with this, three hours a day on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I dropped her off in an outpatient program and that was my narrow window of time to take care of myself.

Kristen:           Well, thank God you had the presence of mind to do that because someone else might just crawl up on the sofa and start eating bonbons.

Mark:  The medications she took knocked her out early and deeply, so she’d be asleep by 7 or 8pm. I began running at night on the beach at 10 or 11pm. After I was certain she was down and not going to wake back up, I’d go out on these runs by myself in the dark as my way to give myself a breather.

I’m a physical person. I process my world through my physicality, so to be moving through life at this slower pace with Giulia was really hard. I needed to have those moments of release where I could just go and get it all out, whether it was in the water, surfing, or running on the beach or whatever it was.

Kristen:           My grandmother used to tell me that God never gives you more than you can handle and I certainly have questioned that notion many times. How do you feel about that? Where was God in all of this for you? Did you pray or meditate or scream? What was your spiritual grounding and foundation that got you through this and did it morph?

Mark:  That’s a great question. Giulia and I were both raised Catholic. Of the two of us, I historically have been more connected to spirituality than she has. In fact, there was a time in high school where I considered the priesthood. But I recognized that my truest vocation was actually to have a family and to be a dad. I didn’t spend too much time dwelling on that, but definitely, religion has always been big for me.

But the problem was that Giulia’s delusions were religious. They were all about purgatory and heaven and hell, and that left a bitter after taste for me around religion. I would say that during this time, my spirituality really morphed to more like a polytheistic animist kind of thing where I would feel the presence of a higher being in a lot of different places — in the ocean, in particular.

I share this moment in the book where I literally had two dolphins swim underneath me while I was sitting in the water contemplating if I had the strength to carry through with this. Here come these two dolphins that I interpreted as Giulia and me on our journey together. I thought, “All right, there’s my sign. As long as we can do this together, we can make it.”

To be honest with you, I got groovy around spirituality during this time because I definitely needed something to feel connected to.

Kristen:           I was amazed at how much family support you had given that Giulia’s parents were in Italy at the time. Both of your families just hopped on planes. They were so supportive that you had to eventually start scheduling them — you can come for this week, you can come for that week. But thank God, you had this beautiful family support around you.

Mark:  It was really fortunate to have family who were so willing and also had the resources to be able to help. My mom could just drop everything and come and live with us and my mother-in-law could do the same. But that abundance of family help did come with some anxiety for me.

It’s just how I’m wired, but I felt responsible for managing their experience of Giulia, so at times it actually felt like work. Even though my mother-in-law was cooking and cleaning and doing all the grocery shopping, I also felt like I wanted to try and see how she was doing emotionally and manage her experience of it a little bit and then the same for my mom. But it felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen at times and I actually just needed to say no to the offers of help.

That’s actually a part of the story that I’m still learning more about. A major thing that happened through this illness is that my worldview, which had been so big, became so narrow. It was so focused on one person for so long; now it is interesting to hear stories from our families about what it was like for them. These are stories that they’ve been sitting on for years because I hadn’t really asked them that much at the time. I just made assumptions on their behalf around how they might be feeling it and made decisions based on those assumptions, without actually letting them have the fullness of their experience. I’ve been learning more about the full picture.

Kristen:           Giulia went on to have two additional psychotic episodes, so you were really living in this crisis management mode. All else had to be put on hold, and that included your own feelings and your own resentments.

You wrote, “I ran through all the amazing things that my friends had done over the last year. Our siblings all took big steps forward in their careers. It seemed that the last 11 months had been good to everyone but us.”

Mark:  Absolutely. I had to sit there and grin through it and pretend I wasn’t frustrated and feeling stuck, because the last thing I wanted to do was be a burden on Giulia. This illness she was encountering was already such a burden that I didn’t feel like I could further weigh her down with my experience. That was tough. In that year, 4 or 5 friends started companies. It seemed like they were all thriving and here I am thinking, “God, what happened? We’re just stuck. We are stuck in quicksand.”

When Giulia got better, what should’ve been a time for celebration actually became a time where I felt like I could finally let my guard down and let my real feelings come out. That was at the heart of why it was so hard for Giulia and me to relate because she was wondering, “Why are you so cranky? I’m better. Isn’t that awesome? This has been such a hard year,” and I’m like, “Yeah, it is awesome that you’re better, but it was such a hard year and I had to pretend that it wasn’t, and now I can’t pretend anymore.”

I think I was seeking validation. I was seeking acknowledgement. This feels like a selfish thing to say, but I was trying to give as much as I could and I needed to know that Giulia saw it. The way she came out of her illness, I just didn’t think she actually appreciated the real scope of what the caregiving was like for me.

Kristen:           Let’s not forget that at one time, you were getting those needs met, so when you lost Giulia to this, you lost that as well.

Mark:  Exactly.

Kristen:           Luckily, you said you had a great therapist who finally gave you validation by declaring, “Mark, you’ve been through a tsunami. Of course, you feel like shit.”

Let’s talk about how you two found each other. When you made your way to couple’s therapy, you were looking for your ‘Thank you’ and instead, Giulia’s rage was coming out. She called you the ‘medicine Nazi’.

Mark:  All of this caregiving was very well intentioned, but I had taken some missteps. Giulia felt micromanaged and suffocated at times. I’m like, “What? That’s not the thank you I was hoping for.” It felt so tragic because we had gotten through this prolonged crisis and now here we are and the marriage feels the most fragile and the most uncertain. Rationally, I couldn’t make sense of it. Looking back, it makes a lot of sense, but at the time, I was thinking, “How are we not at the best point ever?”

Kristen:           You had to catch up on feeling your feelings.

Mark:  As I said earlier, the amazing medium to bridge that gap turned out to be my writing. It was incredibly helpful for me to sort out my feelings and then for Giulia to be able to read about it. She definitely had a very limited sense of my experience before I wrote about it. I also acknowledge that I had a limited sense of what it was like for her. We were both so consumed with our own experience of things.

So that was huge; equally huge for us was going on a trip around the world. We needed to just get out of our scene and get out of our physical space to try to find our new rhythms, so we took a four-month trip around the world. We volunteered in Indonesia for a while and in Kenya, which was similar to when we were newly married and had just moved out to California. We had to depend on each other and not assume the roles of caregiver and sick person.

That was actually a great healing process for us. Our final day was in Dublin, Ireland. We walked out to this lighthouse that I had found on the map. It was this beautiful, foggy, cold day. It felt beautiful to us because that’s what our neighborhood in San Francisco was like. It just felt like home. On the walk back, Giulia started playing around with her phone and I was fuming thinking, “How is she ruining this moment?” It turns out that she was writing me a letter. It was what I needed to hear: Thank you for staying with me and helping me and even keeping me alive. It was the most beautiful and perfect end to that trip that you could ask for.

Kristen:           I was not going to let you gloss over that because that is the most beautiful blog post I have ever read. That truly was the moment of your homecoming.

You said in the book that this was never meant to be just a fun trip to get away and explore the world. This was a healing journey for the two of you.

Mark:  I have to give Giulia the credit for writing that amazing letter. And it was a healing journey because when we returned to the US, we got back on path with life. Giulia got back into work. In fact, towards the end of the trip, she was applying for jobs. She already had interviews lined up by the time we returned.

Kristen:           Because that’s what Giulia does.

Mark:  Exactly. She’s an amazing career woman and best of all, what we were able to do is re-approach the prospect of becoming parents. Giulia had gone off birth control in July of 2009 and started that job two weeks later and then was in the hospital six weeks after that. We worried initially that maybe the door to parenthood had been closed. But after this trip and getting home, we talked to our doctors and said, “Hey, we really want to be parents. Is it a good idea to go for it?” They were totally onboard. At this point, her diagnosis was major depression with psychotic features, so the hope was it was a ‘one and done’ kind of deal. The truest homecoming was thinking we were getting to go and embark on this new journey together of having a child.

To fast forward, pregnancy for Giulia was awesome! Some of the happiest times I’ve ever seen her. We were smitten and totally in love immediately with Jonas, our son. The plan was that I was going to be the stay-at-home dad, and Giulia was going to get back to work after an extended maternity leave. When he was 5-months-old, she went back to work and 3 weeks later, she had a 2nd relapse — or a 2nd psychotic episode — and was back in the hospital.

Kristen:           You said, “When I was with Jonas, I was worried about Giulia. When I was in the hospital, I worried about Jonas. I didn’t know who I was anymore, a husband or a father. The two roles pulled me in separate directions and I didn’t know how to go in both places without being torn in half.”

Mark:  I still get emotional about this part of it because, as I said earlier, I really think that my biggest calling in life is to be a father. It’s just the most instinctive, natural thing I do and I was so excited for it and wanted to be so immersed in it. I know for a 5-month-old, you want to be upbeat and cheery and use your baby voice and all this fun stuff — and then on the other hand, my spouse was back in the psych ward, psychotic and needing to be convinced to get back on her medication. And then afterwards, of course, she was once again deeply depressed.

The two roles demanded such different things of me. How can I do both when those two people I love are literally in the same room? I defaulted to Jonas’s energy.

I think it was during the second episode, and certainly during the third episode, that I stepped back from Giulia’s recovery. Like you said earlier, God only gives you what you can handle. I had to realize that I couldn’t be the captain of the ship of Giulia’s recovery like I had tried to be the first time. Instead, I needed to be a father first and foremost.

The interesting thing is that I did that out of necessity, but I actually think that was a good thing in the long run because Giulia felt less micromanaged and less suffocated.

Kristen:           You describe having to make peace with the reality that there could be relapses. You said, “I had already grieved a life’s worth of mourning for her. I wanted her to just survive her bipolar, but I knew that something some day was going to take her away, but that didn’t unhinge me anymore.”

Mark:  To be honest, I do feel like I learned to accept the finality of life through Giulia’s constant obsession with wanting to kill herself.

That’s actually one of the notes the book ends on — that it’s been two and a half years since Giulia’s latest episode and things feel like they’re going amazing. But we can’t have that naiveté that this is no longer a part of our lives. There’s still the possibility that Giulia can have another relapse, so we need to develop the tools to prioritize her health and ensure that we do the best we can to keep a relapse at bay.

Despite what we do, it still might happen. It still might be something we have to confront, so we have to figure out how can we go about that without being so scared and having our lives be so permanently disrupted by it.

Kristen:           For the family and the partners and the bystanders of someone that’s suffering with mental illness, it’s really important to put the tools in place to take care of yourself because if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anybody else.

Mark:  I felt guilty at the beginning, but now I realize I don’t feel guilty about it anymore. I know how crucial it is and how without it, I really can’t be the best father or husband or teacher or writer if I’m not making sure that I get that time in each day to just be alone and process in the way that I need to process.

Kristen:           That’s the whole societal conversation that has to be rescripted, because we’ve got that all backwards.

Mark:  I agree with you, Kristen. There is a ton of pressure on parents to literally sacrifice themselves at the altar of martyrdom on behalf of their children. I think that’s so wrong because we have a bunch of burned out, anxiety-plagued parents who are so worried about everything. And you know what? If you just give yourself an hour and let someone else watch your kid, you’re going to be a better parent as a result, not a worse parent.

Kristen:           If you could reach back to yourself, that 2009 version of you who had no idea what lay ahead of him and probably would never have been able to handle someone saying there are going to be multiple episodes ahead of you, what advice would you give him?

Mark:  That’s a tough question. Before I answer it, I have to say Giulia and I have both definitively concluded that while we would not wish our experience on anyone, we also would not take it away from ourselves because we learned so much and grew so much as individuals and as a couple through this process.

I think what I would tell myself in retrospect is that I’d try to give myself permission to take care of myself sooner. That was a lesson that took a little bit of time to get to. I think I would have probably resented things less and been less burned out by the time Giulia eventually did get better if I was able to prioritize self-care earlier. That was 7 years ago, so it obviously took me a while to figure some of these lessons out.

I’d also say that love is the greatest force that there is. I would remind myself, “Hey, if you love someone and they love you, you guys can make it through whatever might lie ahead. Don’t lose sight of that foundation — everything’s going to be manageable together.” I think that’s something that I believed in the abstract, but if I could have heard it definitively, then that would have really taken away some of that uncertainty.

Kristen:           How old is Jonas now and how aware of Giulia’s condition is he?

Mark:  He’s five, so it’s been two and a half years since her hospitalizations. He was two and half at the last one. I’m almost certain he doesn’t remember anything from when he was five months old. I’m not so certain about the second one. We haven’t really asked that much because I don’t necessarily want to implant memories for him. I think it’s fortunate if he doesn’t remember too much of it.

That being said, we’re really open about Giulia and that she can get sick. He knows that I wrote this book. He knows it’s about our family and about how mommy can get sick sometimes and needs to take care of herself, and that we love each other and that’s what the book is really about. We plan absolutely as he grows to let him know more. But since his current understanding is that he doesn’t really remember or hasn’t had to confront this in his consciousness, we’re not going to say, “Yup, mom’s got bipolar and she gets these hallucinations and it’s pretty scary.” If we do have a fourth episode — which we’re hoping doesn’t happen — he’ll already know that mom gets sick. It’ll just be about trying to help him process what that sickness looks like.

That’s something that I think about a lot, and I hope we’ll never have to cross that bridge. I hope he’ll never actually have to see his mom have another psychotic break, but if he does, depending on how old he is, I’m certainly going to want to protect his sense of security and comfort. I would remind you of just how scary it was the first time for me. I’m not scared of it anymore, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be really scary for a little kid to see it happen to his mom.

Kristen:           Do you have a sense that you’re waiting for the shoe to drop?

Mark:  Currently, no, because it’s June. When we get to September, October, November, those months tend to be a little more anxiety-producing for us, because all three of her hospitalizations have happened during these months.

Kristen:           What is the correlation between the months and the time of the year and Giulia’s breakdowns?

Mark:  Giulia works in online marketing in the fashion and retail world, so those are the months when they’re planning for the big holiday extravaganzas. Maybe that’s connected, but we’re not sure. All I know is that there’s no question about it that during those times of the year, we tend to be a little more nervous. We don’t really want to talk about it because that can make the nerves bigger and more real. We want to just give it some space.

This fall will be 3 years since her last episode. The pattern has been Fall 2009, Fall 2012 — so that’s 3 years later. Then Fall 2014 — so that’s 2 years later. Last fall we were definitely nervous because it was 2 years, and we were wondering if that is her pattern. If we get through this fall, which we’re super hopeful about, then I think we might put our guard down a little more than it already is because we’ll feel like we’ve broken the pattern.

But again, we can’t take it for granted. This could come in May, for all we know, 15 years from now. So now in the fall we are a little bit gentler with each other because we know we’ve both got this in the back of our mind, but don’t want to talk about it because if we do talk about it, we get each other worked up.

Kristen:           So maybe you just ramp up the self-care with a double dose of love during the fall.

Mark:  Giulia is more pro-active; she usually takes more of her lithium during that time of year. She increases her dosage and then tapers back off once we get through the holidays. We are both more in tune to taking care of ourselves and realize that having more self-awareness is super important.

Kristen:           There’s a lot of controversy these days about pharmacology and the use of antidepressants and antipsychotics, and how big pharma turns patients into lifetime customers, and how the medical practice often uses a ‘one size fits all’ approach. I would feel remiss if I didn’t ask you if you’ve ever considered alternatives to Giulia’s treatments?

Mark:  That’s a great question. At first, I was 100% taking the marching orders from the doctors, no questions asked. I’d do my research, but then give the medicine as prescribed. Since then, my feelings about the medications have evolved. Now I think that the anti-psychotics are important for her when she’s psychotic, but I think when she’s out of the psychosis, the muting effect that they have on her can actually make her feel more depressed. In fact, I feel like sometimes what looks like depression might actually just be the side effect of anti-psychotics.

What I’ve really grown to appreciate is that I can’t speak for everybody. I can only say that each person has to find their own relationship to these types of medications. For Giulia, she’s found a pill that works for her and it helps her stay stable. That means she can be thriving in her career the way she is, she can be a present mom and a present wife, and all those really wonderful things. But it’s not just about medication. She needs to also put that in the context of therapy and self-care. I’ll make sure she gets to bed, stays active, and eats healthily. For her, it’s really that the medicine is a piece of the puzzle, but it’s certainly not the only puzzle.

I think there are many people who have found pathways where the medicine is not part of the puzzle. Just the fact that she’s had these relapses makes us more accepting that she’s probably going to take these pills for the rest of her life. Even though we both would prefer in an ideal world that she not, but the bummer of taking pills is much more manageable than the huge concerns around relapses and having another psychotic episode.

I get tons of emails from readers who recommend alternative methods. I always research them and look into them, but because we feel we found the path that is working for us right now, I’m not that keen to go experimenting — because if it doesn’t go well, it could bring on another episode and we certainly want to avoid that if we can.

Kristen:           Well Mark, thank you for sharing your story with Best Self Magazine. Despite it all and because of it all, yours is truly a love story, a journey of traveling to the depths of fear and darkness, yet holding steadfastly.

One thing it really made me think about was that in a world of quick fixes, where things are often disposable and marriages regularly disintegrate, the story of your journey and holding on to each other, is really a testament to what is possible when we don’t give up, when we don’t let go of our love and of our best selves. We are certainly rooting for your love story.

Mark:  Oh Kristen, thank you so much. I cannot tell you how much this means to hear these beautiful and validating words. Thank you for wanting to share our story with your readers and your interest in the book.

Kristen:           My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is a fabulous book about a beautiful human love story. It’s my belief that we hear most through the sharing of authentic story and that is what you have done. I thank you, but I also thank Giulia for giving her permission to open this journey of her life and her healing. I really wish you all the best.

You may also enjoy reading Finding My Way to We | How To Retain Your Identity In a Relationship, by Nancy Levin

The post My Lovely Wife In the Psych Ward: A Love Story appeared first on BEST SELF.

A love story about a woman and her dog, who taught her to open her heart to loving mightily and losing — and then wanting to love mightily again

—

As a young person, I often felt like an alien who was somehow deposited onto planet Earth. From the outside, people couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl (or so they said). On the inside, I wasn’t even sure I was human. Humans seemed so coarse to me, and the world so barbaric. I took refuge in ideas and literature and kept my sensitivity and heart locked away in a very secret place.

Many years later — after dropping out of college, traveling to Asia to study meditation, and starting a publishing company called Sounds True — I met Jasmine, a tall, blonde, floppy-eared cocker spaniel. I was thirty-nine years old. By that time, I had found meaningful work and a certain expansive quietness in the practice of meditation. I had also been in several intimate relationships that didn’t quite take root. What I knew was how to meditate, work long hours, and talk about ideas. What I didn’t yet know was how to feel connected and at home on Earth.

Jasmine became a heart teacher and healer for me, hence one of her nicknames: Dr. J.

She wiggled her way right into the center of my heart, breaking through my outer protective shell in a way that forever changed me.

Jasmine came into my life along with Julie Kramer, who has been my partner in love for the past fifteen years and is now my wife. In many ways, my love with Jas (pronounced Jazz) paralleled and was deeply connected to my love with Julie. When they both moved from British Columbia to Boulder to live with me just a few weeks after Julie and I met, their arrival heralded a turning point in my life.

Jas was three-years-old at the time, and not particularly well-behaved. However, she quickly sensed the new love configuration and seemed determined to win me over. And win me over she did. How did this “piglet with a halo” (another one of Jas’s many nicknames) do it? How did she crack a shell nearly four decades strong?

It was the constancy of her love.

Jas followed me everywhere. Her heart-light was always switched to ‘on’ as she maintained a connection with me, even when we weren’t together. To say she was devoted is an understatement. She followed me into every room. It always amazed me that even when she seemed fast asleep, and even in her old age with total deafness and partial blindness, if I tiptoed out of the room, trying to not disturb her, she would immediately wake up and follow me. Jas had extrasensory sensors that informed her how to fulfill what appeared to be her life mandate: Stay close and connected.

Although Jas came into my life as Julie’s dog, she soon became our dog. I started bringing her to work with me every day at Sounds True where we have a pet-friendly policy such that all well-behaved dogs (and cats and birds, for that matter) are allowed to join their human companions at work. On any given day, there might be one hundred employees at Sounds True along with fifteen to twenty canines, a feline, and occasionally a parakeet or two. From the time Jas was three to the time she was seventeen, she was by my side at work. At one point, I commented that she started to feel like ‘a third leg’ because I always felt her there beside me.

Jas was a continual source of inner brightness for me. She didn’t have to do anything or even not do anything to be such a source. All I had to do was look at her. How did this blonde, floppy-eared cocker spaniel have such an effect on me, even if she was just sleeping or looking out the window?

I believe it was, quite simply, the power of her heart. The power of Jas’s heart activated mine. Her constancy was a sun that melted my guard. Coming into relationship with her devoted dogginess made it safe for me to feel the fullness of my humanness.

Jas lived to seventeen years of age. Toward the end of her life, she was on a host of Chinese herbs and received acupuncture once a week. I would have done anything to keep her alive longer, but at a certain point she developed a brain tumor and it was (more than) obvious that it was her time to leave. When we gave her the injection that would soon stop her heart, Julie, who is a shamanic practitioner, played her frame drum and whistled and sang with the most beatific look on her face, like she was accompanying Jas on some type of ecstatic journey. I, on the other hand, was crumpled over Jas’s body wailing and sobbing. I was not spiritually detached; I was earthly attached to this beautiful body that had warmed the parts of me that were cold. She had befriended me in a way that no one else ever had.

Historically, detachment has been easy for me, as I lean back and observe and know that everything is a flow of impermanence. But this was something different and new, and I gave myself totally to the experience. What I found was that the utter heartbreak that I felt around the loss of Jas opened a gateway in me—a red-hot, aching gateway—that showed me the kind of courage it takes to love with all my might, and to experience profound loss.

Fueling my spiritual search from a young age was a very simple human desire to feel connected, to feel like I belong to this earthly existence.

Jas, with her pure dog heart, was an emissary of the earth. You could say also that she was an emissary of the dharma — the universal teachings about love and generosity and goodness. Through her devotion and friendship, she offered me a way home, a way to be here, instead of defending myself against the pain of being here. She gave me the gift of breaking my heart so I could land on my feet and offer and receive a full embrace.

A mentor of mine said, “The human heart is the only organ that grows stronger through being broken.” Jas’s death broke my heart in the best kind of way. It opened my heart to loving mightily and losing and then wanting to love mightily again.

For some of us — for people like me — dogs carry a certain ‘medicine’, a certain set of healing powers and properties that are unique to them and to their species. Loving and losing Jas and working in close proximity to a menagerie of dogs each day, it became apparent to me that ‘dog medicine’ has certain particular qualities that certain humans need and cherish. What is that medicine and how can we know it and describe it?

Another way to ask this question is, “What is the dharma of dogs?” In Indian philosophy, each one of us is said to possess a particular dharma, a particular purpose and work in the world that is unique to us and of benefit to others. Might there be a dharma for dogs — a particular way that dogs express their innate gifts and fulfill a certain purpose in relationship with human beings?

I have a new dog in my life. Her name is Raspberry, although she most often goes by one of her nicknames: Raz (sounds a lot like Jas, huh?), Razzle Dazzle, the Dazzler, or most commonly Razcal. She is a one-year-old, black, curly-haired, mischievous, twenty-two-pound ‘spoodle’ — half cocker spaniel, half poodle. I am still getting to know her and her particular dharma. For one thing, she is an extrovert (Julie and I both are not), and she seems to revel in getting us off the couch to chase her (because she has a shoe or my reading glasses or a pen in her mouth) and take her to the dog park to play with other dogs (where I am asked to interact with other humans and make small talk). Maybe she will teach me how to connect with others in a relaxed and easy way? That would be quite a teaching.

Here for You

(adapted excerpt from The Dharma of Dogs)

By Bonnie Myotai Treace Sensei

I’d spent a week writing in the high woods. A friend of a friend’s North Carolina cabin came complete with “loaner” dog, complete with, shall we say, a “plenitude” of rooster, chicken, and bear decorations and enough personal items in every otherwise-immaculate room that the creepy feeling of having borrowed someone’s shoes was constant. Even the poor dog struck me as one of those too-long-in-boarding vacant souls: anyone will do, throw my ball, food please. I had the mild headache I’d had for six months, and it was time to drive on toward Asheville.

Something had to happen, I knew that. After my second bout with Lyme disease and my supposed recovery the year prior, I’d been a different sort of person. I knew that it was even odd that I thought the lack of connection with the “loaner” dog was an issue with the dog: never in my life had I been unable to sense the heart of an animal. That my impulse was not to take responsibility  — to examine what was going on with me and what was possible — was very out of character and had begun with this headache, then continued evolving. I knew the mystery of what was ‘out of order’ physically had to get a better quality of intelligent attention medically, but along the way I had to find the way to re-energize my spiritual life. This was the challenge I gave myself each day and was what I was walking with the next morning in Black Mountain.

It was on that walk that I saw the sign “English Springers Here for You.”

A woman named Heather had set up in someone’s front yard on Cherry Street with eight puppies and several older dogs. I went into the tea shop next door and bought a bag of cookies. “May I lie on the ground and let your puppies jump on me?” I asked. “I can’t buy a dog, but I did bring irresistible cookies.” She laughed, and after a few minutes of heavenly rolling about with the brood, I sat with Heather on the steps drinking glasses of iced tea. As what turned out to be a couple hours of conversation continued, one of her “mother dogs” took up residence by my side, eventually going to sleep on my feet.

I told Heather that ever since working as Zen clergy with the Red Cross at the Family Assistance Center after 9/11, I’d had a dream of someday having a dog to work with. I’d been involved with debriefing clergy at the end of very difficult days, and I would sometimes point to all we could learn from the therapy dogs. They would position themselves near someone in tremendous pain, with no illusion that they had some wise-enough word to say, and often I’d see a moment when the barrier would fall. A hand would reach out; comfort would be given and received. No barrier, no anxiety about sufficiency. Just love.

Heather said, “I’ve never seen her like this.” The mother dog was looking up at me. I looked back into her eyes. I had a fleeting, disorienting glimmer of feeling like my old, pre-headache self, which made me both want to steal the dog and run for my life. Too strange. Long story short: of course the girl gets the dog. I did explain that I could not possibly take one of the breeding dogs. Heather, it turns out, a good Southern lady, believed the Lord had a plan and this dog and I were part of it. I explained that I genuinely had no money for a dog. But then the friend who had arranged the cabin loan called to check on me, heard the story, loved it, and immediately wired the funds to buy said dog, with vet care for a year. By the end of the day, it was somehow natural as air to continue the drive toward my visit in Asheville — Lady and I sharing a chicken sandwich in the car.

Over the next several years, I would travel to the Mayo Clinic, have surgery to remove a tumor, get a chance to reshape my work, and go on many, many walks with the “English Springer Who is Here for Me.” In the beginning, because I was spending a good deal of time with bags of frozen peas on my quite sore head and trying to keep my nonprofit afloat while sometimes only managing to leave the bed for a few hours a day, Lady was my attendant of sorts. I noticed she had an uncommon sense of humor for a dog, which came in handy on days when drama and darkness knocked at the door. Suddenly there she’d be at the top of the staircase I had no interest in climbing, insisting with a woof that I play “Are You the Dog That Gives Me Pause?” At which point she would thrust her paws over the top stair and howl. Okay. I will cheer up. Okay.

As I got to feeling stronger, Lady indeed got certified as a therapy dog and has had a big life, sleeping on many people’s feet along the way, offering her belly for rubs, and being a gentle and generous friend to hundreds of kids, seniors, folks in hospitals, and every other person walking down the street.

Lady never fails, though, to let me know I’m her One.

If I get up in the morning and start the business of the day without first attending to a real “Hello, glad we’re together! Isn’t it grand?” she reminds me. The wider question stands: how to carry that into all relations, even the ones not as rewarding or softly furred. If she’s been with many people for several hours, I’ll get the look that says, “Let’s head home; I’m not a retriever, after all.” This is our private joke. When she got her therapy-dog certification, the official said to keep an eye out for when she tires of working; she is, after all, “not a retriever.” It is also my shorthand for acknowledging that with the pain pattern I still deal with, I’m not so much a retriever anymore either. (Is anyone?) Meeting that with dog eyes — no barrier, no anxiety about sufficiency, just love — might change everything.

Lady has been on what they call “the last stretch of trail” for a while: nasal cancer. The vets say she won’t see next year. Motto of the house these days is “Every day is a good day,” in the same spirit of teaching as Zen Master Yunmen’s of long ago. Dog eyes, enlightened eyes: what happens when we stop dividing things, ourselves — enough and not enough, life and death?

About the Author:

Bonnie Myotai Treace Sensei is a Zen Teacher and writer who lives with her family in Garrison, New York, and Asheville, North Carolina. She leads meditation and writing retreats. She was the first dharma successor of John Daido Loori, founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Myotai’s life as a Zen priest, feminist, poetry professor, and animal lover informs her writing. Myotai is the author of Empty Branches and Winter Moon, both in the Four Seasons of Zen Teachings series. She has contributed chapters to Lotus Moon: The Poetry of Rengetsu; Water: Its Spiritual Significance; The Art of Just Sitting; and The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. Visit 108bowls.org for more information.

You may also enjoy reading Saving Sadie: Loving A Dog With Special Needs… and Paying It Forward by Joal Derse

The post The Dharma of Dogs | Learning to Love, Lose and Love Again appeared first on BEST SELF.

Survival strategies for empaths to embrace their highly sensitive nature without absorbing other people’s negative energy

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Like many empathic children, I never fit in.Growing up, I felt like an alien on earth waiting to be transported back to my real home in the stars. I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time by myself. I had no one to relate to who could understand my sensitivities. No one seemed to be like me.

I remember sitting in my front yard looking up at the universe and hoping that a spaceship would take me home.

My parents, who were both physicians (I come from a family of twenty-five physicians) told me, “Sweetheart, toughen up; get a thicker skin,” which I didn’t want or even know how to do. I couldn’t go to crowded malls or parties; I’d walk in feeling fine and walk out exhausted, dizzy, anxious, or suffering from some ache or pain I didn’t have before.

What I didn’t know back then was that everyone has a subtle energy field surrounding their body, a subtle radiant light that penetrates and extends beyond it a distance of inches or even feet. These fields communicate information such as emotions and physical well-being or distress. When we are in crowded places, the energy fields of others overlap with ours. I picked up all of these intense sensations, but I had absolutely no idea what they were or how to interpret them. I just felt anxious and tired in crowds. And most of all, I wanted to escape.

What is an empath?

Research shows that high sensitivity affects approximately 20 percent of the population, though the degree of one’s sensitivity can vary. what is the difference between ordinary empathy and being an empath?

Ordinary empathy means our heart goes out to another person when they are going through a difficult period. It also means that we can be happy for others during their times of joy.

As an empath, however, we actually sense other people’s emotions, energy, and physical symptoms in our bodies, without the usual filters that most people have.

Empaths feel things first, then think — which is the opposite of how most people function in our over-intellectualized society. An empath can experience other people’s sorrow and also their joy. We are supersensitive to their tone of voice and body movements. We can hear what they don’t say in words but communicate nonverbally and through silence. There is no membrane that separates us from the world. This makes us very different from other people who have their defenses up almost from the time they were born.

Empaths share some or all the traits of what psychologist Elaine Aron calls ‘Highly Sensitive People’, or HSPs. These traits include a low threshold for stimulation, the need for alone time, sensitivity to light, sound, and smell, plus an aversion to large groups. It also takes highly sensitive people longer to wind down after a busy day because their system’s ability to transition from high stimulation to quiet and calm is slower. Empaths also share a highly sensitive person’s love of nature and quiet environments.

Being a highly sensitive person and an empath are not mutually exclusive: you can be both at the same time. Empaths, however, take the experience of the highly sensitive person further. We can sense subtle energy, which is called shakti or prana in Eastern healing traditions, and we absorb this energy into our own bodies. Highly sensitive people don’t typically do that. This capacity allows us to experience the energies around us in extremely deep ways.

Since everything is made of subtle energy, including emotions and physical sensations, we energetically internalize the feelings, pain, and other physical sensations of others. We often have trouble distinguishing someone else’s discomfort from our own. Also, some empaths have profound spiritual and intuitive experiences, which aren’t usually associated with highly sensitive people. Some empaths are even able to communicate with animals, nature, and their inner guides.

Survival tips for empaths

Below are nine basic strategies for empaths and all people battling low energy from my book, The Empath’s Survival Guide. I practice these strategies in my life and teach them to my patients and workshop participants. You can turn to these techniques if you’re absorbing the stress or symptoms of others and you need ways to release them. Experiment. See which ones work best for you. Use them in situations where you are feeling ill or upset and suspect you’re taking on someone else’s physical or emotional distress.

1. Ask yourself if this symptom or emotion is mine or someone else’s

A tip-off that you’re absorbing someone’s energy is to notice if you experience a sudden change of mood or physical state around that person. Most likely, if you didn’t feel anxious, depressed, exhausted, or sick before, the discomfort is at least partially coming from him or her. If you move away and the discomfort dissipates, it is definitely not yours!

Sometimes, though, the emotion or symptom may be both yours and another person’s. Feelings are catchy, especially if they relate to a hot button issue for you. You are more prone to take on the emotional or physical pain that you haven’t worked out in yourself. The more you heal issues that trigger you, the less likely you’ll be to absorb emotions from others.

2. Breathe and repeat this mantra to counter negative energy

When negativity strikes, immediately focus on your breath for a few minutes. Slowly and deeply, inhale and exhale to expel the uncomfortable energy. Breathing circulates negativity out of your body. Holding your breath or breathing shallowly keeps negativity stuck within you.

As you breathe, I suggest repeating aloud this mantra three times in a tone that conveys you mean what you’re saying: Return to sender, return to sender, return to sender. The power of your voice can command the discomfort out of your body. Your breath is the vehicle that transports it back to the universe.

Also, while saying this mantra, you can specifically breathe toxic energy out of your lumbar spine in your lower back. The spaces between the lumbar vertebrae are conducive to acting as channels for eliminating unhealthy energy. Visualize the discomfort exiting through these spaces in your spine. Declare, I release you as it leaves your body and blends with the giant energy matrix of life.

3. Step away from what’s disturbing you

Move at least twenty feet from the suspected source. See if you feel relief. In a doctor’s office, movie, or other public place, don’t hesitate to change seats. If you’re sitting next to a noisy group in a restaurant, you don’t have to stay there and feel uncomfortable. Feel free to move to a more peaceful table.

Giving yourself permission to move is an act of self-care. Don’t worry about offending strangers. It’s fine to lovingly say NO to certain energies. Empaths often find themselves in overwhelming social situations. If that happens to you, be sure to take breaks to replenish yourself. Then, if you want to return to the gathering you can be in a more serene place.

4. Limit physical contact. Hugs are a choice!

Energy transfers through the eyes and touch. If you’re uncomfortable with someone, limit eye contact and touch, including hugs and hand-holding. Though hugging a loved one in distress often benefits you both, if you are wary of taking on their stress, make the hug short. You can keep sending them love from a distance. You have a choice about the kind of physical contact you participate in.

5. Detox in water

Empaths love water! A quick way to dissolve stress and empathic pains is to immerse yourself in water. Epsom salt baths are divine and also provide magnesium, which is calming. You might want to add a little lavender essential oil to your bath — it is calming after a long day. The perfect empath getaway is soaking in natural mineral springs that purify all that ails you.

6. Set limits and boundaries

There’s no way around it: To survive and thrive, you need to set limits with people. If someone is draining, don’t be a doormat. Control how much time you spend listening to the person. “No,” is a complete sentence!

It’s okay to tell someone, “I’m sorry, I’m not up for going to a party tonight,” or “Let’s discuss this when you’re calmer. I can’t tolerate yelling,” or “I need to meditate and be quiet right now,” or “I can’t talk more than a few minutes unless you want to discuss solutions.” Sometimes changing communication patterns with friends is a retraining process, but being consistent with setting kind but firm limits will protect you from energy vampires.

7. Create alone time to recenter

Empaths need alone time to reconnect with their power. It’s sometimes important to just feel your own energy without anyone else around.

Decreasing external stimulation is a great way to clear negativity, so if you’ve picked up unwanted energy, be sure to take some alone time to center yourself. For a few minutes or more, quiet everything. No noise, bright lights, phone calls, texts, emails, internet, television, or conversations.

8. Spend time in nature and practice ‘Earthing’

Empaths love nature and feel at ease there. Being in a fresh, clean, green environment or around water clears negativity. The Earth emanates healing, so try lying in a meadow and soaking up its energy in your entire body. This feels sublime!

Also try ‘Earthing’ which means going barefoot and feeling the earth’s power through your feet. To shed other people’s energy, feel the grass between your bare toes, walk in the sand or the soil. Sense the nurturing medicine of the earth coming through your feet to ground you — a beautiful experience.

9. Take breaks from being online

Online media that triggers your emotions — such as Facebook groups, Instagram posts, or violent news feeds — can impair your ability to fall sleep. That’s why you need a complete technology-fast once in a while will do wonders for your sense of well-being.

Empaths are sensitive to energy in both the physical and virtual worlds, so make sure you spend time in nature, meditating, or participating in other off-line activities that nurture and restore you. These are proven ways for us empaths to be our own best friend.

You may also enjoy reading 3 Ways To Be Yourself and Live Your Truth, by Suzanne Chang

The post Survival Tips for Empaths and Sensitive People appeared first on BEST SELF.

One woman’s journey exploring the miraculous power of music and community to connect to her purpose and free her soul

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In 2009, I was living the dream.

Girl from Wisconsin makes big move to NYC, finds love and along with it an amazing apartment in an impressive, and historically notorious, East Village building. She hosts delightful culinary dinners and all-night dance parties, jet-sets to South America for epic adventures, and weekends in her cabin in the Catskills. I’d also given up my mundane and acrimonious job as a lawyer and was living the fast-paced and highly lucrative life of a sales director for an international software company.

Cherry on top: my fiancé and I were set to marry in July and shortly thereafter, I expected us to begin creating our family. I was 35 and my clock was ticking. In May, however, as if by divine intervention, my fiancé had a dream, which led to a conversation about postponing things, which led to confusion, lots of tears, and the immediate end of our cohabitation and relationship. Needless to say, the wedding never happened.

My carefully orchestrated dream had imploded. Amidst the shock and the tears, a light bulb went off inside my clouded mind: I was living a dream, but it wasn’t my dream.

I’d somehow been duped, kidnapped, hijacked by parental and societal ideals which told me that money was king; that if I had a lot of it, I could have the American dream of a husband and a family and that I would be happy and life would be full of adventure.

The real story was that while my fiancé was a good person and a good friend, the romance had long since faded. My longing to have a baby was pushing me into something that wasn’t right. My outright fear of not being wealthy was keeping me in a painfully unfulfilling job. To make matters worse, the entire time I’d been living this ‘dream’ of a lifestyle, I’d been consuming large quantities of alcohol on a very regular basis and slowly, despite running two marathons, putting on more and more weight.

I found myself numb and in tremendous pain — a suffocating pain that felt oppressive and overwhelming and seemed to gnaw at my soul. I was beginning to suspect that this pain had always been there. The alcohol had prevented me from feeling it. The sudden disruption to my perfectly plotted plans woke me from my slumber. None of this was supposed to be in my dream.

Divine intervention, if you believe in that sort of stuff, can take many forms.

I am one who believes there is something bigger than us, something that we are all a part of, and that it is through this interconnectedness that we experience the divine. Something out there in the vastness intervened to throw things off my course, something that would end up being a miracle. It wasn’t clear at first, as this miracle was not accompanied by the sights and sounds of angels. I wasn’t immediately lifted out of a place of darkness and into the light. No, my miracle took on a much different appearance, but in the end it was still divine.

I’d come into this world a very different person than the one I’d become. The words that make up songs like, “All You Need is Love,” “Let Love Rule,” and “Love is the Seventh Wave” had been my mantras growing up. I was voted most likely to join the Peace Corps; I went to law school to “make the world a better place” despite my father’s suggestion that business school would be a more lucrative option.

The person I’d become, who’d been lured into someone else’s dream, had been revealed to me as soon as that dream imploded.

Turns out I’d been suffocating my soul and needed this person to die if my soul were to survive. This was not going to be an easy task.

Instinctively I threw myself back into a world filled with music. It had always been my beacon, the thing that got me through every rough patch I’d ever faced. Music inspires and heals. I gravitated to musicians who were singing about the things that I was feeling, to songs that fueled me with hope for my future.

I am coming back
I’m coming back again.
I had lost everything and then I got it back again.
I dug myself so deep, deep into a hole
That getting out was so far beyond my control.

Hold Your Head High by Heartless Bastards.

In the year following my miracle, I traveled around the country and attended a truly ridiculous number of shows and festivals soaking up lyrics, rhythms, all the while searching for something that was still out of sight. What did my soul desire?

My spiritual journey had begun, and I yearned to dig deeper into ‘the meaning of it all’. I began to pore through Buddhist and other spiritual texts. I struggled daily, minute by minute, to stay present in a meaningless job that felt pushed upon me. The pain of an empty profession was starting to take its toll, on my soul.

I kept searching; I began practicing yoga regularly, reading self-improvement books, listening to podcasts, and attending retreats. I wanted to know the answer to what was next, afraid that it wouldn’t reveal itself.

It wasn’t until I began to communicate with my soul through my own creativity that the light finally began to shine through. I began work on a novel and had become friendly enough with my guitar and my voice to write some simple songs.

By creating, I was able to open up a dialogue with my soul and reconnect with myself.

I knew that I had to give up my unhealthy relationship to alcohol and money, my fear of not having enough, and to allow myself to be guided by my desire to help and uplift others. The question was: How?

While I was busy soul-searching, a small local art, music and wellness festival was beginning to blossom in the nearby upstate city of Kingston, NY. It was called the O+ Festival (pronounced O Positive) and its mission was centered on these words: “The Art of Medicine for the Medicine of Art.” Given my belief in the healing power of music, I was intrigued.

When a friend who knew about my quest for fulfillment suggested I get involved as a volunteer, I did. I was quickly immersed in a community of creative and like-minded souls who wanted to make the world a better, healthier and happier place by taking care of artists and musicians. This was accomplished through a pop-up wellness clinic filled with volunteer doctors, nurses, acupuncturists, massage therapists, chiropractors and more. In exchange for this free care, the artists and musicians donated their talent to the three-day festival for the entire community to enjoy.

I threw my whole self into my volunteer role. I offered to help as much as was needed and when it was done, I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to return again the following year. My soul thanked me. I dove deeper into my yoga practice, wanting to reveal more and be more, and I completed my teaching certification in mid-2013.

That same year when the O+ Festival organizers were in need of a Volunteer Coordinator, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew that it would be hard to balance my full-time job with a demanding volunteer role, but my soul said yes. Now I was listening.

As the Volunteer Coordinator, I saw the best in humanity as I worked with over 100 beautiful volunteers — hands down one of the hardest, yet most fulfilling roles I’d ever taken on. I was blown away by the generosity of people. Businesses donating items when we didn’t have the means to pay for them. Volunteers working extra shifts to cover gaps in the schedule. Strangers stumbling upon the festivities and wanting to lend a hand wherever it was needed.

I realized that I wasn’t alone in wanting to feel a part of something greater, of wanting to connect with others, of wanting meaning in my life.

When the Festival was done that year, I was exhausted, we were exhausted, but we felt lifted knowing that we had accomplished something special as a community.

My soul was a flame now, and my life was starting to take on a new shape. I was in a flow. I felt supported by that thing that is bigger than us all. It felt divine. When the Executive Director asked me to take on the role of Festival Director for the following year, it was as if my dreams had really come true. Of course, the tricky issue still existed of how to balance all of this with my full-time job and the new yoga studio I had opened with a dear friend, but there was no stopping this uncontrollable drive to work together with my community (and new friends) to make sure the Festival happened another year.

By 2014, the festival had expanded to California with dozens of other communities reaching out to learn how to bring O+ to their hometown. With an ever-expanding list of responsibilities, we were in a state of perpetual volunteer recruitment to support the organization’s growing activities.

Admittedly, there were times when we thought things might fall apart or at least start to crumble, but as if through divine intervention, things always had a way of working out.

Whether it was some creative new way to solve a problem, a last-minute offer of help or money from someone in the community, or just old-fashioned teamwork, we began to call these occurrences “O+ miracles.” Not quite the same kind of miracle that appeared in my life many years ago, but an example of the divine nonetheless.

Fast forward a few years and a lot of community building later, O+ is now 8 years old. In addition to its annual Kingston Festival, O+ has taken place in San Francisco, Petaluma, Chicago, and the Bronx. This year we’ll see the launch of festivals in Haverhill, MA, and Poughkeepsie, NY. Once a 100% volunteer-run organization, O+ is now proud to have hired its first full-time Operations Director, as well as several part-time staff members. We’ve come a long way, but we still rely on the support of a community that is seeking connection — and the occasional O+ miracle.

As for me, I finally quit that software job and am still working on that novel. Now the President of the O+ Board, I am involved with building the organization in new and exciting ways. I spend my time trying to heal our community through yoga and sound healing, as well as working to empower women and survivors of domestic violence.

I often reflect upon my time as Volunteer Coordinator. The images of people’s generosity will forever be imprinted in my heart. They give me hope at a time when it feels like we’re forgetting the importance of taking care of one another. I don’t think my soul’s journey is unique. I think we all want connection and a higher purpose. I am grateful to O+ for helping me to see and feel that.

Learn more at OPositiveFestival.org

You may also enjoy reading Maggie Wheeler: The Yoga of Song, by Peter Occhiogrosso

The post The Sacred Power of Connection: How the O+ Festival Freed My Soul appeared first on BEST SELF.

Giving yourself permission to be selfish is a vital act of self-love and self-care

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“But isn’t that selfish?!?!” a caller on my Hay House Radio show exclaimed in horror when I suggested that she make herself a priority. “Yes,” I said, “Exactly!”

It was a woah-moment. The mere mention of encouraging her to give herself permission to honor her wants, needs and desires to be met, let alone become non-negotiables, was nothing short of earth-shattering.

I experience this with my clients all the time. Here’s where we get tripped up: most of us relate to selfish and selfless as being mutually exclusive. But they’re not.

Selfish is simply another way we can relate to self-care and self-love.

It is strengthening the relationship you have with yourself so you really can choose to say yes to you, in service of being more available to those you love. I want to be clear that when I’m talking about selfish — or self-care or self-love — it’s not at the expense of others. It’s always a both/and.

So many of us have disowned selfish, deeming it as bad or wrong, determined to be anything but selfish. Since we reject it, we end up projecting it out onto others. Then we end up finding ourselves surrounded by people who exhibit selfish behavior and so we point a finger at them. All that is really doing is illuminating the lack of integration of this very quality within ourselves.

The truth is that we are all selfish and selfless.

When we’re feeling that we can’t embrace our selfishness, what we’re really saying is that we can’t even bring ourselves into the equation, or conversation, to actually have our needs met. And I want to flip this, especially for those of us who have been people pleasers. For all of us who have been living in reaction to others, codependent and allowing our moods and behavior and actions to be determined by people around us.

Redefining selfish begins with being willing to believe you are worthy of receiving. Anchoring in your own non-negotiables, and giving to yourself as much (or more!) than giving to others, calls upon you to get comfortable with naming your own needs, and then asking for what you need!

“It’s one thing to honor myself and my needs when I’m on my own…but how do I do it when I’m in a relationship?” I get this question all the time. It may seem easier to do when we’re on our own — but really, if this is you, can you tell me honestly that you’re taking great care of yourself on your own, that you’re mastering this? In this case, the key is getting your priorities set in place when you are on your own so that once you’re in relationship you’re already in the practice of honoring yourself, instead of abandoning yourself for the sake of another. We are less likely to lose ourselves in relationship if we truly honor ourselves, and from here we can allow the relationship itself to honor the truth of who we are.

This, to me, is the new relationship blueprint. This is the way that we can actually, each of us, have our needs met in relationship in a healthy way. Trusting that our intimate relationships are a container that can hold the truth of who we each are, and that this container is strong enough to hold our differences, too. It’s about getting in touch with and expressing, “Here’s what I’m doing for myself in order to be me.” Not asking permission, simply informing. We can be available for impact, but we don’t have to change our minds.

We have to create the foundation of our own self-care — no one will do that for us.

Not too long ago, I found myself in that old familiar double-bind: If I please myself, I disappoint you. I was feeling strung out and overwhelmed from craving quality alone time. My system doesn’t rest or recharge when it needs to be relational. First I uncovered my desire, and then I let my man know that three mornings a week I wouldn’t be available for coffee together (a big desire of his) and instead I’d be in my office, with the door closed, spending time with myself.

It wasn’t easy for me to say, and it wasn’t easy to do on that first day — in fact I spent nearly the whole time writing in my journal about my uneasiness with having set such a self-honoring and self-loving boundary — yet, on the very next morning I took for me, I could already feel my worthy muscle begin to strengthen. Even though he was reluctant at first, he has begun relishing that time for himself as well, which is a lovely by-product.
I used to keep myself on the back burner, making everything and everyone around me more important. Living on high alert for the ways I could serve from the place of not disappointing someone else, not getting in trouble, not getting punished, not rocking the boat.

But, here’s the deal: The boat needs to be rocked!

You’re never going to be able to live into the fullness of the life you’re longing to inhabit unless you rock that boat. Listen to those inner whispers that have likely become wails by now, because you’re not actually giving voice to your truth. Everything we’re seeking externally needs to be resolved internally first. Knowing and owning our worth has to come from within. And so does our permission slip to be selfish.

When we don’t take care of ourselves, we’re more likely to slip into resentment. But if we can come to another from the place of already feeling full and filled within, we’re going to have so much more available to give.

I believe we’re in one long relationship continuum and that there’s a revolving door. It’s parents, bosses, lovers, siblings, children, friends — all the different people who will activate us so that we can learn what we came here to learn. I really believe that we orchestrate exactly what’s happening for us to learn what we came here to learn.

I lost myself completely in my marriage. It was a very long time to be away from myself. Now I have learned how to stay home inside myself in relationship and this is the part of my journey I’m most grateful for.

Now that I’m no longer trying to be seen in a certain light, or abandoning myself to buy love—or even ‘like’—I find I’m really okay with disappointing someone or rubbing them the wrong way, as long as I’m being true to me and I’m doing it in an honoring and loving way with grace. The most important thing is that I’m being true to me.

So, if I’m experiencing that no one is here for me then that is really about how I’m not here for me.

What are you willing to do around the relationship where you don’t feel free to be selfish? Are you ready to get in the right relationship with what’s true for you? Let’s look at how to live in alignment with your truth, from that place of inhabiting your truth, instead of walking on eggshells and making sure that everything is okay for someone else.

I want you to begin here with this daily practice: Upon waking, before your eyes are even open or much movement happens, ask yourself these two questions:

• What’s the most self-loving action I can take today?
• What’s the most self-honoring choice I can make today?

And then listen. Listen for the answers. And do them.

It might be to take a walk, buy yourself flowers, or have a bath. It might be a few hours on your own, or an overnight at a nearby hotel — or a faraway hotel. It could be a conversation or a decision that needs your attention. Keep it to something doable in that day.

Remember, it’s never too late to live your truth.

You may also enjoy reading Reclaiming Self Worth by Nancy Levin

The post Redefining and Reclaiming Selfish | Exploring Selfishness as Self Love appeared first on BEST SELF.

A childhood of being bullied leads to a life based upon kindness, compassion and service

—

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky.

You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Gerry and the Pacemakers

On a cold day in London a child sat in the shadow of a school building wiping away tears before heading home. He had endured yet another day of torment and hiding his emotions had become normal. He didn’t dare stand-up to his tormentors, but the shame of having to tell his father he was being bullied was even more frightening. So for years he would wipe the tears away, along with any chance that someone would help him with his suffering.

The emotional tug-of-war that comes with being profoundly hurt, day in day out, takes its toll on the strongest of people. But on a child’s psyche, it creates damaging emotional rocks that can drag him back into a dark well of sadness, anger and fear. Many never fully recover. But what if they chose to redirect all of their traumatic energy toward making the world a better place?

As you may have guessed, I was the boy in the story.

I lived in fear most of my adolescent life, being relentlessly bullied by not only children, but by my teachers as well.

I have always wondered why I was picked out for such emotional mistreatment. Was it because I was sensitive and thus easier to intimidate? Maybe I will never know…

It all started with adults shaming me and that opened the floodgates for my peers to join in. Why would children think it is wrong when a person of authority is doing the exact same thing? A simple class question like, “What do you want to be when you grow-up?” would garner an emotional blow from my teacher: “We all know that Logothetis is a bit thick, and he’ll end up living off his father for the rest of his life.”

As the classroom filled with laughter, my inner world crumbled.

Disempowering people can be a powerful tool, but why would anyone ever want to use it? My young mind couldn’t comprehend why people would want to make others feel so meaningless, so unseen.

As I grew older I pushed forward, burying the emotional damage deep down. It began to manifest itself in self-harming ways; I knew it was only a matter of time before I couldn’t take it anymore. But then something happened — I watched a film that would change my life forever: The Motorcycle Diaries — a romanticized version of Che Guevara’s travels in South America, a journey noted by his willingness to rely on the kindness of strangers.

Suddenly I was hit with a sense of purpose that was clearer than it had ever been before. I wanted to travel and connect with others. I wanted to be Kerouac.

I wanted to meet people and share my experiences with the world.

So I made the decision to quit my job and do what any sane person would do… I decided to cross America surviving on only 5 dollars a day and the kindness of strangers.

But why? Why did I want to leave my successful job, my home, my comfortable life? The only answer that made sense was that I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard, and along the way I wanted others to feel the same way. For what is the point of life without the intense joy of human connection flowing between each and every one of us?

I wanted to prove (maybe to myself) that the humanity within us existed and thrived and that if a shy, emotionally-scarred man like myself could reach for the stars, then anyone could.

Including you.

I wanted to inspire an army of the ‘unseen’ to rise up and take back their hope and self-worth.

When you have to figure out what you’re going to eat or where you’re going to stay on a cold night, you tend to get talkative very quickly. I had found my niche; I wanted to hear others’ stories and create some of my own along the way.

After an arduous and equally inspiring month on the road I made it from Times Square to the Hollywood sign. As time went on and the accomplishment of my trip wore off, I could feel those old feelings creeping back, making me question every decision. I was becoming that boy hiding his tears behind the school building again. That’s the thing with emotional abuse: you never really get rid of it. You just work day in and day out to live above it. Trying to create positive energy in the world is one way I choose to battle back from my past.

So again, in an act of pure insanity, I decided to ride a motorcycle with a sidecar around the world relying on the kindness of strangers. This time the difference was that those who helped me by opening up their hearts would receive a life-changing gift in return. I would be the stranger offering them kindness like so many others had helped me.

When I look back at my trip it feels like a distant dream. I was able to help a homeless man in Pittsburgh get an apartment and go back to school. I helped an Indian man buy a rickshaw and pull his family out of poverty. I was able to build a house for a Cambodian woman with HIV.

Life had bullied these people for so long and I felt honored to be able to bring some hope back to them, to help them to feel seen. Seeing the empowerment that kindness brought to their lives empowered me in ways I could never repay. And still cannot.

There is power in bullying, but it’s a power that can be harnessed for good. I used that power to help others feel empowered and seen — to help offset those misguided among us who choose to emotionally abuse others. This passion has fueled my drive to spread kindness all over the world.

When people ask me, “Leon what if I don’t have the means to travel like you?” I tell them it all starts from within. The greatest journey is the one from our head to our heart. We can all make choices in our lives to start living a life based around kindness, compassion and empathy. It can be something small like smiling to strangers on your way to work.

You see, you never know what that smile means to someone who feels unseen.

Go be kind ­— people need you…

You may also enjoy reading Wake Up, Smarten Up, Rise UP: How a Genetic Disability Inspired a Life of Service, by Cara Yar Khan

The post An Empowered Life | Channeling Bullying Into Service to Others appeared first on BEST SELF.

One woman’s journey to help others who have had an abortion transform their grief, regrets and conflicting emotions into healing practices and principles

—

At 19, I sat in the waiting room of my college’s medical clinic, clasping my sweaty hands and trying to think of all the reasons why there was no way that the pregnancy test I just took could be positive.

The test was positive.

Two weeks earlier, I was sitting in a well-known reproductive health clinic, requesting an IUD (intrauterine device) to prevent pregnancy, but the nurse turned me down and assured me that condoms would suffice. A voice in my gut told me to demand the IUD, but I ignored that voice.

I grew up without sex education, raised by conventional parents who thought talking about sex would encourage me to have it.

I learned by getting pregnant that condoms (and nearly all forms of birth control) are less than 100 percent effective. I had a drinking problem, no job, and no money. I lived a thousand miles away from home. The father was a beautiful heroin addict and the world’s worst drug dealer. He had two clients, and one of them was his self.

As I came to learn, one in three women in the United States would have an abortion in her lifetime. I wished a circle of them would tell me how to heal, but only one woman had ever told me that she had terminated a pregnancy.

For weeks I wandered through an Internet labyrinth of misleading and conflicting information: “post-abortion syndrome,” a made-up term on Christian anti-abortion websites, described a host of unappealing symptoms, like self-hatred and baby phobia; I found sanitized descriptions of “mixed emotions lasting a brief period” and “relief” on websites for organizations I trusted to prepare me for the abortion I never wanted to have. This was my first clue that reproductive, mental, and spiritual healthcare was in disarray.

In my college library, I searched for a book-length account of abortion by a memoirist with the wisdom to help me integrate my garage band of clashing thoughts and emotions into a symphony of my own design, but there was a gap in the literature where a memoir of abortion should have been. All I found were two books of essays about abortion.

In one book, every woman felt relieved; in the other, every woman felt regretful. These two emotions never appeared together in one essay, let alone in one woman. It seemed like a conspiracy in which millions of women were bound to an implicit social contract to match their emotion to a political persuasion.

Conflicted, full of angst and yet resolute, I had an abortion. Thus began the real journey of my life — the undeniable and inescapable loss of everything I thought I knew, including who I thought I was.

I wasn’t prepared for the long tunnel of grit and grief — that dark tunnel that leads us to the light.

Over the next three years, I morphed into a full-blown feminist. I parroted the classic pro-choice abortion story: Best decision for me. Feel good. Dreams coming true. But I felt like a fraud. I had a Gloria Steinem book collection (she is still a heroine of mine) and a private battle with intrusive thoughts and panic attacks associated with my abortion that landed me in therapy. But I could hardly admit to myself that my depression had anything to do with deferring motherhood, let alone admit to my progressive friends who perceived suffering after an abortion as a myth constructed by the conservative religious right and believed only by women who didn’t have minds of their own.

Taking a cocktail of antidepressants, I took my next move toward enlightenment by enrolling in a Tibetan Buddhism course at Columbia University in New York City. One day, when I was visiting my professor in her office, she told me about Mizuko Kuyo, a Japanese Buddhist ritual for abortion, miscarriage, and dead children. Mizuko means water baby. Kuyo means respect.

Without any evidence, I decided that other religious and secular teachings about abortion existed. Inspired by rebellious women in history who attained emotional freedom through spiritual practices, I would participate in every single one of them. I traveled the country to forge a path of holistic healing. Pit stops included a Roman Catholic retreat for abortion staffed with picketers, a crash course in grief from a Planned Parenthood counselor, a night in a motel with a ‘Midwife for the Soul’, and a Jewish ‘wild woman’ celebration hosted by a wise and zany rabbi. For seven years, I researched and reported on the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of abortion, listening to and reading hundreds of abortion stories.

Part of my research involved digging into the deeply divided public information about abortion that had left me so confused when I sought guidance. I wanted to find out, for example, why some academic studies indicated that women regret their abortions and other studies said women fundamentally do not. When I read the fine print on one of these studies about regret, conducted by a progressive reproductive health think tank, I found that women who seemed too distraught (i.e., they were crying) were not recruited — about half of potential participants. So a study about regret was conducted by leaving out women who expressed the deepest emotions.

This was an astonishing discovery that made too much sense: mainstream media used such study results to educate the public. Reproductive health organizations used such study results to inform patients with web content. Women’s magazines write viral articles about such studies. It became clear that inside this web of half-truths, women do not receive comprehensive information about our health.

I am convinced that women must take one hundred percent responsibility for the outcomes of our health decisions, mental health, and spiritual conditions.

As a graduate student at Harvard University, I traced the lost history of women healers and priestesses and discovered that erasing women’s emotions, experiences, and healing powers is an ancient type of patriarchal oppression. Ironically, a prominent form of modern patriarchy masquerades as feminism: women telling women to stop talking about grief and psychic pain around abortions. Women pretending that certain stories about abortion are irrelevant.

I wrote May Cause Love, because it’s the book I had wanted to read during an era of my life that now seems like ages ago. My memoir was essentially blackballed from mainstream media outlets. Thirty-five publishers rejected my book until the bold and badass team at HarperOne said yes. Despite the book’s positive trade reviews and glowing blurbs from New York Times bestselling authors, you will not find a single word about my book printed in a mainstream women’s magazine.

One month before it hit bookshelves, it was clear that none of them would provide a standard review of the book. Seasoned journalists — all women who had experienced abortion — began pitching articles about May Cause Love, sometimes more than one journalist pitching the same magazine. Not a single pitch was accepted, even though articles about abortion ran daily on the websites.

Two weeks before the memoir was released, women across the country joined forces and started organizing to put copies of May Cause Love in the hands of the readers who needed it most: people who have experienced abortion. They called bookstores and emailed organizations, book clubs, and universities, sharing their own experiences with abortion and what the book meant to them. They sold out three bookstores in Denver on day one; it hit #4 in the Abortion category on Amazon, behind the #1 book on all of Amazon, which occupied the first three slots with its hardcover, digital, and audio versions. Next, the team set up a book drive page on my website where readers could donate copies of May Cause Love to prisons, women’s shelters, and addiction rehabs. Or, they could send them directly to our P.O. Box so I could bring the donated books to women in a transformational home for addiction recovery.

I had the opportunity to read a three-page handwritten letter from an inmate who had read a donated copy in a Maine women’s prison. She’d terminated her first pregnancy, some twenty-five years ago, when she was 15. What would have happened if ‘Team May Cause Love’ had been there for her after her abortion?

That’s when we launched Revolution After Abortion: The Seminar — a four-day event beyond the social and political context, designed specifically for people who have experienced abortion. The event is like May Cause Love University, based on thousands of hours of unreleased research about how to integrate an experience with abortion by unlearning cultural myths and practicing potent healing principles to live an extraordinary life.

In the midst of all this, exactly thirteen years and one day after my first pregnancy test, I found out that I was expecting my first child with my husband. We decided to break the rule about keeping it a secret until the second trimester. As of this writing, I’m seven weeks along.

I have heard nearly every pregnancy disaster story imaginable. Regardless of the outcome, there will be grief and there will be joy.

Whether I’m holding my baby in December or on a different date in the mysterious future, one thing is sure: I will teach my children to break any social rule that results in people feeling isolated and separate from one another. When we share our experiences from a place of honesty and connection, telling the truth about abortion doesn’t tear us apart; it can spark a revolution.

You may also enjoy reading Girls Mentorship: Potential and Vulnerability, by Jenni Luke

The post May Cause Love | A Journey of Enlightenment After Abortion appeared first on BEST SELF.

 A satirist learns to use the healing power of humor to uncover hidden pain, make authentic connections and share true love

—

I remember being in the middle of the living room as a little red-haired seven-year-old boy performing for a prestigious audience: my mom, dad, and sister. They are like laughing puppets — with me in control of the strings. The living room is filled with delight while I stand center stage delivering a joke while already crafting the next.

My freckled face is lit up with a smile, but on the inside, my heart is pierced with the feelings of numbness and disconnection. The emotional distance, marital issues between my parents, isolation over my dad’s workaholism, my mom’s anxiety, and family secrets all create an intensity of pain that I don’t know how to deal with. That’s why I use humor to keep my family laughing in an effort to keep everyone connected.

Through humor, I learned to compensate for my pain. If I could deal out laughs, I was valued by, and therefore significant, to my mom. I’d be intoxicated with a sense of connection to my dad. Did I still feel insignificant and disconnected from them? Yes, but the convenience of the laughing factor helped me become an expert at not knowing it.

Injecting laughter into the lives of others gave me the high of disassociating from all the disconnection — for about three minutes.

And a sweet three minutes they always were! The sense of significance and superficial connection that I derived from those few minutes completely masked my inner reality. While the thrill quickly evaporated, it wasn’t a problem because I could easily find someone else to inject with laughter. My relentless need to make my family laugh made me very good at making other people laugh. I learned to intuitively read people to interpret what I could say that would amuse them.

As I got older, rather than just relentlessly reinforcing my escapism through laughter, a hunger for inner satiety tripped me into the spiritual world. In my spiritual quest, the part of me that craved the sense of safety and familiarity of disconnection loved the spiritual bypassing (using spiritual beliefs to avoid our painful feelings) strategies that abound in the New Age. Becoming even more disconnected from all the legitimate challenges of my humanness while simultaneously looking, sounding, and believing that I’m more connected was pretty appealing.

Unfortunately for this part of me, I met some inspiring and powerful teachers along the way. They genuinely helped me discover the pain in my heart. Even though it was buried under many years worth of jokes, smiles, and laughs, it was somehow all still there.

Kicking, screaming, and terrified, I was finding that I could replace the escapism with vulnerability. Like a toddler learning to walk, only shockingly more clumsy, learning to be vulnerable allowed me to connect to my inner pain that was caused by disconnection. I learned that my childhood engrained modus operandi of treating the pain of disconnection with the escapism of comedy only made the pain worse in the long run. It seems like simple math, yet it took me a long time to add it up.

Humor has the ability to help transform energy.

When we carry experiences that are painful, when we begin to look at them through the lens of humor, how they feel, how we react to them, and how we interpret them can change.

Oddly enough, I’ve found that as I can continue practicing the uncomfortable fine art of vulnerability, the genesis and affect of my comedy has changed. I’ve discovered that vulnerability lets my comedy spring forth from a place of inner connection, and based on my perception, it facilitates more kinship inside and outside of myself.

At the personal level, my humor seems able to be a bit of an alchemist, bringing me closer to my family and friends at a heart level rather than the pretend level that seven-year old JP knew all about. Sharing a joke with my father used to be a need sourced from a place of fear. Now it is a choice to share love.

Watch JP Sear’s short satire on becoming spiritual:

You may also enjoy reading Evolving Guys: The Enlightened Male as Seen Through the Lens of Humor by Randy Spelling

The post The Alchemy of Humor | Using Comedy to Heal From a Wounded Past appeared first on BEST SELF.

Danielle Laporte’s White Hot Truth — Paradoxes, Passion & Pursuit

—

Thank the lies for showing you the truth.

Danielle LaPorte

Paradoxes. Passion. Pursuit. The human experience rolled up in the prose of the one-and-only Danielle LaPorte. I still remember the first time I saw her on stage — poetic badass in motion. It’s kind of like what another Best-Selfer, Jonathan Fields said, “When Danielle LaPorte writes (or speaks), there is nowhere to hide.” I second the notion. And then she isn’t afraid to dole out hugs afterwards (she had me at bear hug embrace).

White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path from one seeker to another, is hot off the publishing presses and is something worth celebrating. It’s a refreshingly real plunge into the complexities of self-help fatigue and ambition overdrive — calling out where we go awry.

And in Danielle LaPorte style, she goes there — digs deep and dives into the complexities of seeking. This book cuts through the crap — the myriad stuff we think, feel and ultimately second guess ourselves on. And all of this is wrapped in a beautiful package, like everything she creates.

Check out her video, Feeling Helpless About the State of the World:

A Provocation from Danielle LaPorte

True wisdom usually holds and transcends opposing points of view. Wisdom knows that there is always an exception to the rule, that there is a time and place, and that a case-by-case approach is divine protocol.

If you can comfortably hold your paradoxes, you’re going to be just fine. Because I’m suggesting that you:

1. Love yourself first and foremost and… Include the world in your loving (and then get off your ass and be more selflessly engaged)
2. Raise your standards and… Be more flexible and accommodating
3. Forgive and… Don’t forget
4. Honour spiritual traditions and… Be your own guru
5. Be open-hearted and… Have clear, strong boundaries
6. Be understanding and… Don’t take any shit
7. Have a vision and… Go with the flow
8. Trust and… Do the work
9. Get real and… Be idealistic
10. Be steadfast in your Truth and… Make all kinds of exceptions
11. Have strong preferences and… Be easy to please
12. Lead with your heart and… Your head
13. Own your extraordinariness and… Your ordinariness

Because it’s up to you and… we’re all in this together.

And hey, we have all the time in the world, but… this is urgent.

This excerpt is from Danielle LaPorte’s new book, White Hot Truth, Chapter 3: TRUTHFULLY SEEKING: How wisdom happens (hint: paradoxically)

You can read or listen to the entire chapter free by clicking HERE.

Download a printable sheet of paradoxes HERE.

You may also enjoy Interview: Danielle LaPorte | The Desire Map with Kristen Noel

The post Danielle LaPorte: How to be truly wise? Rock your paradoxes appeared first on BEST SELF.

Tap into your emPowers to dissolve blocks, triggers and inner demons

—

“I don’t need to talk to you. I already know everything about you!” The woman hissed at me — her mouth curled in a sinister smirk, her eyes ablaze with rage. I gazed at her in bewilderment. “How can you say you know everything about me if you haven’t talked to me?” I asked sincerely. The longest we had ever spoken was over coffee 7 years before and only fleetingly in the years since. However, rather than supply my question with an answer, she turned on her heels and stormed off. Had we been standing on a dusty road, she would have kicked up clouds of dust. But, alas, no dust and no road; beneath our feet was just industrial carpet.

I stood there for a moment, baffled by what I had just witnessed. What began as a kind request to speak with her privately had backfired — badly. She launched into a full-blown, misinformed grandstand of accusations, shaming, and raging — the culmination of which was her declaration of omniscience about my life and me.

Her behavior in that moment was, quite frankly, crazy.

My threshold for crazy tends to be pretty high. In 2009, when everything in my life collapsed and my internal Pandora’s Box exploded, I was forced to face every terrifying demon lurking within. By facing them, I learned their truths: who they are, why they exist, and how to return them to a permanent state of peace.

From these revelations came the Drawing Out Process® — a technique I created for my coaching practice that permanently dissolves blocks, triggers, and inner demons in 2 hours or less. Through the Drawing Out Process, I was then guided to discover that at the core of all human struggle are 3 types of inner demons. Together I call these exPowers:

If you recognize one or more of these traits within you, fear not. Everyone has exPowers.

The more I’ve healed my exPowers, the easier it is for me to be calm in situations that used to trigger me. I can be present and observe with clarity and empathy. However, the aforementioned woman’s behavior triggered something in me that I hadn’t felt in years. I was shocked and incensed, baffled and enraged. My honesty and good intentions had been met with denunciations and demonizing. Why?

I knew from my work with the Drawing Out Process that fueling her outburst was probably an inner Defender trying to protect a scared Wounded inside. But, with my own emotional circuits ablaze, I didn’t care. I had zero bandwidth for compassion. I wanted to scream at her, “What the hell is wrong with you? How dare you yell at me when I came to you with kindness and concern!” (A slew of colorful epithets also came to mind, which I will leave to your imagination.)

The original title for this article was supposed to be “How to Be Unf#$%withable in the Midst of Crazy”. However, considering how ‘f#$%withable’ I’d been since the incident, who the hell was I to write about being ‘un’?

I tried writing about it but couldn’t.

Finally, after days of pacing around my office, sipping cups of tea, playing games of solitaire, doing the dishes, organizing the junk drawer, and engaging in countless other non-writing activities, I shouted at the Universe: “What the hell do you want me to say in this article?!”

No answer.

I shook my head, sighed, and shuffled back to my desk…with yet another cup of tea. A few moments later, a thought occurred to me — one that should have crossed my mind when I first sat down to write but had probably been buried under the weight of my emotions:

“Ask your emPowers.”

In 2011, after a year of working with clients and speaking publicly about exPowers and the Drawing Out Process, one of my own exPowers was suddenly raging inside me. I grabbed my pen, drew her out, and let her vent. For pages and pages, she ranted and raved — at me. She was calling me on the carpet.

“Stop focusing so much on exPowers as weaknesses, and start focusing more on people’s powers! Teach them about their wonderful parts and how to strengthen and clarify them!”

She was guiding me to discover the 3 emPowers:

Our emPowers empower us to be everything we are here to be. They hold the love we crave, the wisdom we need, and the strength we seek.

They fuel our productivity, purpose, and pleasure.

If you see a parallel between emPowers and exPowers, well done. exPowers are simply parts of our emPowers that have been distorted by stress, pain, or fear – usually during childhood. When healed by the Drawing Out Process, however, exPowers miraculously change back into loving, supportive emPowers.

Over the years as I’ve learned to honor my emPowers, the results in my business, relationships, and life have been extraordinary. I now travel the world, speaking and teaching others that, “When you honor your emPowers, magic happens”. The fact that it took me several days of chugging oolongs and shuffling around in slippers before I finally thought to ask for their help with this article is, frankly, ridiculous. (And I’m sure they thought so, too, but they’ve learned to be infinitely patient with me.)

Pen in hand, I sat at my desk and asked my emPowers, “What’s your wisdom on this issue with this woman?” I knew that writing the article wouldn’t flow until I’d cleared the emotion. My Free Spirit was the first to chime in. She said very sweetly:

“This woman is scared. She’s a hurt little girl who doesn’t know how to be un-hurt. She doesn’t mean to hurt you. She’s just hurting so much herself. Be very patient with her. Look upon her as you’d look upon a little girl who’s in a fearing place, spinning out of control. She acts proud of her behavior, but she’s actually very ashamed.”

As my Free-Spirit spoke, huge boulders of resistance began crumbling within me.

The tension in my shoulders gave way, rage dissolved into compassion, and I suddenly imagined myself standing before the woman, looking upon her with kindness and gratitude.

Next I asked the Impresario, “What’s your wisdom on this issue?” Her reply was surprisingly curt: “I defer to the Sovereign.” I asked her to elaborate, but she wouldn’t, adding:

“I have no answers for you. This is not my purview. I’m not designed for situations like the one with this woman. To me, she’s crazy, and that’s all there is to it.”

My Impresario doesn’t beat around the bush.

And she’s right. Emotions are not the purview of the analytical Impresario. She knew her own limitations and was wisely choosing not to impede my healing process. So I deferred to the Sovereign, who was gentle, but unequivocal:

“This woman is where she is — working on her issues through you because you’re strong enough to handle her. Her fear is what makes her reject you. Never for a second let her fear keep you from radiating your light. Let her issues be hers — they are not yours. Be who you are on full throttle. Look on her with gratitude for her behavior and the truths it has revealed within you.”

As my Sovereign shared her higher perspective on the situation, the calm within me deepened, and I could see more clearly how much power I’d surrendered to the woman’s rage.

I also became aware that I had been dimming my light in her presence for years, for fear of her feeling threatened.

This is not a new pattern in my life. In fact, it’s a very old one stemming from childhood when shining my light resulted in being criticized, ridiculed, and rejected. I spent decades ingratiating myself with women who would then spread rumors about me, stab me in the back, and have me fired for no apparent reason.

Years later, Marianne Williamson’s words, “There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others don’t feel insecure around you,” hit me like a bolt of lightning. I realized that, whenever I sensed women feeling threatened, I shrank. Rather than shine, I chose to dim.

Their rejection of me reflected my own rejection of myself.

Over the ensuing years, as I healed my exPowers and honored my emPowers, this pattern dissolved, and I no longer attracted those types of relationships. The women with whom I now connect embrace my light as I embrace theirs. No fear, no threat — just gratitude and support for one another.

Now, however, here was this woman suddenly spitting venom and sending me into a spin. Clearly my work was not done. Remnants of the old pattern remained, and my Sovereign was telling me that I needed to disregard her fear, own my own power, and radiate my light on full-throttle.

After asking my emPowers some additional questions, I finally addressed the matter at hand: “What truths need to come through in this article?” They named two things.

The first is empathy.

“When we have empathy, we cannot be in struggle. Empathy is the antidote to fear. Empathy is the currency for peace.”

My Free Spirit helped me not just know intellectually what was beneath the woman’s behavior, but also feel empathy for her Wounded fueling it. I know how it feels to be scared, and I know how it feels to lash out at others from my fear.

This is not to say that I condone her actions. Not at all. No matter what her personal grievances – real or imaginary – venting them the way she did was cruel and wrong, especially in response to my genuine overture. However, gaining a more compassionate perspective helped alleviate my emotional triggers so that, should it happen again, I can respond in the highest, most empowered way possible.

Empathy is the antidote to conflict.
Empathy is the pathway to peace.

The second truth my emPowers requested I convey is this:

“Whatever the issue is, ask your emPowers. Use your emPowers to bring clarity, transformation, and wisdom.”

As it turns out, the whole purpose of this article was to introduce them to you.

Some people know their truth but haven’t fully embraced their power. Some people know their power but haven’t fully embraced their truth. Your emPowers know your truth and your power. By honoring them, you honor your truth and embrace your power.

You have all of the power you need to be everything you are here to be.

The more you honor your emPowers and heal your exPowers, the more you unleash this power within you and become who you are here to be.

My truth is that I am here to heal humanity from the inside out. However, when I received the call two years ago that my mission is to work with world leaders, I scoffed at it. I questioned the judgment of anyone who would choose me for such a lofty purpose. Then one day, as the inner doubters were chattering away in my mind, a sudden peace sliced through the din and said, “You can doubt all you want, Emily. This is who you are.”

With that realization, I finally embraced my mission and began declaring it to others. Six months later, I spoke at the United Nations. A year later, I spoke at the United Nations again. Today, I work with young leaders and executives around the world – freeing them of their blocks and blindspots so they can embrace their truth and become the enlightened leaders they are here to be.

When you stand in your truth, you stand in your power — and miracles happen.

The truth is, you already are who you came here to be. You are simply being revealed. Our life experiences — both rewarding and painful — are designed for this purpose. The challenges we face, the personalities we encounter, the struggles we endure — all are opportunities for us to discover and witness our own power. Without them, we would neither know nor appreciate how powerful we truly are.

Though I desire authentic connection with the woman who raged at me, the reality is that she may never be capable of it. She may continue to bottle up her emotions and blast them at me unexpectedly. However, my emPowers reminded me that the point of our relationship is not for her to accept me. It is for me to accept me: to embrace my own truth, trust my own power, and shine my own light so that I can be who I am here to be.

Your emPowers’ purpose is to help you be who you are here to be. Listen to them, trust them, and honor them.

When you honor your emPowers, magic happens.

At the request of my emPowers, it’s time to make some magic with your emPowers. The point of the 3 approaches listed below is to tune into your emPowers. Don’t overthink these — have fun!

Honor Your emPowers

Honoring your emPowers is quick, easy, and best done every day, before you officially start your day. My Impresario wants to make sure you have the proper information and instructions for doing so.

Simply ask each emPower individually, “Free-Spirit/Impresario/Sovereign, what’s one small thing I can do today that would feel good for you?” Listen for their answers, write them down, and then do those things before the end of the day. That’s it!

To make it easier, download the How to Honor Your emPowers Guide and Official emPowers & exPowers Postcard HERE. You can also take the one-week, online course How to Honor Your emPowers.

Create emPower Moodboards

A Moodboard is an easy, free, online way to collect and collage images to use as inspiration. (It’s similar to Pinterest but without all of the text and links.) My Free-Spirit wants you to find pretty pictures that resonate with your emPowers and then create a Moodboard for each. Click here to create your first Moodboard!

Some sample Moodboards are here, here, and here. See if you can guess which emPower designed each one…

And Milanote is another great resource for creating online moodboards that retain links.

Discover who you are here to be

People often wonder why they are here and what their purpose is. These questions are answered by your Sovereign, and mine wants to help you gain clarity on yours. Knowing what kind of presence your emPowers are here to be can help clarify what kind of presence you are here to be — the unique radiance you are here to bring.

Close your eyes, and ask each of your emPowers individually, “Free-Spirit/Impresario/Sovereign, what kind of presence are you here to be in the world?” Write down their answers. Then ask yourself, “Who am I here to be? What kind of presence am I here to be in the world?” Trust what comes, and write it down.

You may also enjoy reading Millenneagram: A Badass Twist on an Ancient Tool of Self Discovery by Hannah Paasch

The post The New Self Empowerment: The Magic of emPowers appeared first on BEST SELF.

How to reconcile our ‘WE-ness’ or ‘I-ness’ within a love relationship

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On New Year’s Eve my man and I set aside some time, as so many of us do, to name our desires for the coming year. Not resolutions — which are often sabotaged by being laced with restriction and deprivation — rather a focused, conscious, intentional eye on what we wanted to cultivate and create.

Here’s the thing, though.

He’s a ‘we’ person.

I’m an ‘I’ person.

So, you can imagine how an exercise like this can go off the rails pretty quick.

And it did.

And, thankfully, we were able to bring it back on track before midnight.

Not because I’m still committed to reconnection at any cost, though.

We have learned how to stay in connection, even in conflict, and be more committed to our connection than resolving our differences.

See… his list was all about ‘we-ness’ and the adventures he longs for us to co-create and experience together. Whereas my list was about me… and what I want to do.

In the language of Stan Tatkin, founder of the PACT Method (Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy®), I’m an Island. Islands hold the core belief that if we depend on another our independence will be taken away, and we will feel robbed and trapped, thus causing us to isolate. And my man is a Wave. Waves tend to hold a core belief that they are going to be abandoned, and so they are less independent and often cling to others.

Seems ironic, right? But it’s not. This is essentially how it works.

We attract partners who have core wounds that plug right into ours so we can each be activated in service of healing.

This is the invitation. This is how evolution happens. I wish it weren’t. Believe me. I really wish it happened by being a self-reliant shut-in, reveling in workaholism and Netflix. But it doesn’t. I know I’m not going to progress past my habitual patterns until I rub up against someone, preferably said boyfriend, where the friction and trigger is actually the gateway to growth

I was born into a mourning family, a grieving family. My older brother had been born severely mentally retarded. Incapacitated really.

Because it was the early 1960’s, before they had the technology they do now, no one knew anything was wrong with him right away. It wasn’t until he didn’t do the things that a baby should do — he wasn’t rolling over, lifting his head or sitting up — that they started to understand that something was wrong.

And so, given what we know now, I was swimming around in my mother’s neuroses and fear in utero. Then, when I arrived, they were already immersed in the process of survival — his and theirs. The unconscious imprint on me was I cannot have any wants or needs because his wants and needs are far more important than mine. This became the fuel for my self-sufficiency and independence.

When I was two years old and he was five, he died. The unconscious imprint on me at that time was if I am imperfect and broken like he is, I will die. Thus began my quest for perfectionism.

When I was born, my mother was afraid to attach to me right away because she was waiting to see if something was wrong with me, too. I know this because we’ve had conversations about it in the past few years as we’ve grown quite close.

So, I entered the world in an arena of scrutiny, being watched to see what was wrong with me. The unconscious imprint was something must be wrong with me, I must be unlovable, if I’m under this level of inspection and evaluation.

The non-bonding with my mother also solidified the belief in me that it’s not safe to feel connected or dependent.

And this is how it happens. We begin forming our limiting beliefs, shadow beliefs, based on events and circumstances that occur when we’re likely under ten years old. Since we’re too young to process and digest what’s happening in a healthy way, we start interpreting them and making them mean something about us. Ultimately something negative about us. These are the conclusions that we draw about ourselves, the beliefs of I’m not good enough, I’m not enough, I’m not worthy, I’m unlovable, there’s something wrong with me.

Then, despite all our good intentions as we go out into the world looking for love, our beliefs drive the bus and draw toward us the people, relationships, circumstances, situations that will reinforce those beliefs.

Based on what I shared about my mom not attaching with me right away, it’s no wonder “we-ness” doesn’t come naturally to me. Yet my shadow beliefs around being unlovable and having something wrong with me caused me to overcompensate by abandoning myself, becoming a chameleon, people-pleasing, bending over backwards, buying love — literally and figuratively — seeking external validation, approval and acceptance in an effort to prove my worth and value.

The evolutionary journey to self-love — and to a healthy relationship with another — is a dance of dependence (relying on another), independence (self-reliance), co-dependence (enmeshed attachment enabling dysfunction), counter-dependence (refusal of attachment) and inter-dependence (mutual reliance.)

The truth I’ve learned is that love isn’t actually able to land within me from the outside until it’s already growing inside of me.

Everything we’re seeking externally needs to be resolved internally first.

It’s been hard won, but I’ve had to make a conscious choice to lean in when I want to get out, trust that love is not life-threatening and know that this relationship with my man has the resiliency to hold our differences and our truths, containing the fullness of us both. I’ve had to use my voice, make myself a priority and give myself permission to have needs. From there, self-love and self-worth is a natural progression.

The other thing we did on New Year’s Eve was listen to a composite astrology reading — in which the relationship itself is treated as a third entity and dynamics are revealed — that we had when we first got back together, nearly two and a half years ago… after an eight month hiatus… after nearly two years under our belts in the first go-round. So clearly, I wanted more ‘we-ness.’

Turns out that the major theme of our relationship is, in a single word, healing. No surprise we have come together for the purpose of reparation, restoration and integration. Comforting actually. And so we accept the invitation to ‘we-ness’.

You may also enjoy reading Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Finding My Way to We | How To Retain Your Identity In a Relationship appeared first on BEST SELF.

Talking heartbreak with strangers in a store window sheds light on the pain we feel and the traps we fall into

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Why talk heartbreak with a complete stranger?

In my own experience, one thing that helps me when I am suffering is simply to be heard, to be witnessed. When we sit one-on-one in the presence of each other we experience one another in a very human and honest way. Sometimes the best way to see ourselves through our heartbreak is to be with our heartbreak — and sometimes that even includes connecting with strangers. It is out of this inspiration that the notion of my ‘Heartbreak Appointments’ was born.

I wrote a previous book on relationships, How to Love Yourself (And Sometimes Other People), with my good friend Meggan Watterson. I’ll never forget when we sat down to discuss heartbreak. She said something that has always stuck with me — “The thing about romantic relationships is that it’s not the heart that breaks, it’s the ego.” When we have a storyline in our head about a perfect relationship and that person pivots and exits the scene, it’s not our heart that’s destroyed; it’s our whole collection of storylines created from who we think we are in relation to them.

When you let go of the storylines around why this person left or who is to blame for your tragedy or why a particular national tragedy occurred, you are left with a feeling of vulnerability. You are left with a raw tenderness. You are left with a powerful experience of your own heart. A broken heart is really just our natural heart stripped of its comfortable storyline armor. It’s not a good feeling, from a conventional point of view, but it is good for us. When we are able to stay with our openness and vulnerability we find that we possess tremendous strength. This is precisely what inspired me to meet with people to bear witness to their stories of heartbreak, with the intention and hope that our work together could move some of the seemingly stuck feelings around that emotion — to rescript the old storyline and to make space for the new.

Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice For The Heartbroken

During my heartbreak appointments I learned a good many ways that one’s heart can be shattered. However, whether someone told me a scenario revolving around the death of a loved one, a messy break-up, becoming estranged from someone they cared about, or feeling let down by society overall, there was one thing each story held in common:

The heartbreak was based in feeling that things should be one way, and becoming disappointed to learn that they were another.

Yes, that is the great discovery: things aren’t the way we like them to be and as a result our heart becomes broken. Another way to look at this is that we become really attached to our ideas and fixed expectations of how things should be, and when anything other than our specific notion of how things should work occurs, our elaborate fantasy explodes.

Each heartbreak appointment had a distinct arc:

• Things were normal or sometimes even really good
• Things were supposed to keep happening and/or only get better
• There was a moment of crisis/challenge/change
• One or more people acted in ways that the other person did not expect
• Heartbreak ensued

Some people, incidentally, ended their story by saying, “And now, after time and talking about it a lot, I’m okay. I am healing from that incredible heartbreak and disappointment.” Other issues for people, like long-standing racism in our society, were not expected to just stop tomorrow, but people still held out hope that the incidents that sparked their heartbreak might slow or stop over time.

Your heart breaks because life isn’t what you thought it would be. At least, that’s been the case with me. For example, I thought my father would meet the woman I would marry and my potential kids. That didn’t happen — he died when I was thirty — and that was one of the hardest things about his death for me.

That example showed me how we let our minds spin our storylines with ‘What if’ thinking and fixed expectations at all times. “What if I found someone to marry me right now…then my dad would have met her before he dies!” Or “This person claims they want to spend their life with me…so it’s definitely going to work out.” If we’re on a good first date our mind leaps to the second date, third date, maybe even to moving in together down the road or meeting this person’s family. If we’re in a serious relationship we think about marriage or having children together. If we have a good friend and they are young we make assumptions that we will grow old together. If we have a family member and they are in good health we plot the next big holiday we can spend together.

But things change. Relationships and people change and expire, sometimes with no real cause.

We become attached to our storylines, including an attachment to being a hopeless romantic, to the way things were, to the fact that you are in love with someone who is not in love with you, to the way things could have been or still could be. Our minds constantly leap to the past or the future, and rarely do we rest with the way things are right now. Instead we perpetuate any sort of thought that involves the way they could be. Because we spend most of our mental energy in the land of What If, we are startled and shocked when reality intervenes and shows us the land of The Way Things Are.

In this way, it’s not the heart that breaks, it’s the ego. Our respective egos are the conglomeration of set notions about who we are, how we respond to various aspects of our life, what we like, what we don’t like, and what we really couldn’t care less about. You may have started off pretty fluid when you were a kid, open to a world of possibility, but over time you likely have really solidified things.

For example, you may have had an aversion to Brussels sprouts as a kid, but give that set notion a few decades of reification and you now have a life where you are set in the belief that you absolutely hate Brussels sprouts. That’s your undeniable reality. But someday you may eat a Brussels sprout and discover you love it, and that you’ve wasted decades of not enjoying this one thing because of your fixed idea about it. We do this with most of the things in our lives.

It’s not just Brussels sprouts. We have set expectations and opinions about every aspect of our world from the types of movies we like, to the types of people we date, to the form of work we should do. A passing fancy becomes an idea which becomes a way we do things which becomes a part of who we are. We solidify our life in so many ways. That’s ego.

If that sounds yucky to you then I have good news: your set ego has an arch-enemy called Reality.

Reality has a master attack plan with its whole ‘The Way Things Are’ schtick, and constantly shakes our firmed up ego. Reality says, “Brussels sprouts are really tasty” or “Actually, this person would be really kind to you, despite your set notions of who you believe you should date” or “You thought this person would grow old with you? Too bad! He’s dead.” We feel discomfort and pain, and our response is to say that our heart is breaking, because our set notion of who we are and what our world is supposed to look like has been shattered.

Our heart is not physically altered, to the best of my knowledge. Sometimes when there is a particularly traumatic break up or sudden death, that emotional pain can feel physical, which is known as broken heart syndrome. But really what we’re talking about is the fixed expectations of what we thought was going to happen have been changed.

Our fantasies, our fairy tales, our stories that we tell ourselves that all seem so, so real — those are the things that break. And that is what causes us pain.

If I were you, I’d read this and think, “Well then maybe the best way to avoid my ego shattering is to just not let anyone into my heart.” Good luck to you! That’s not how our heart works. Our heart yearns to love. The head of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism is right around my age and is somehow a million years wiser than most anyone I know. He once said, “The point I want to make is that love can be true and lasting, under the right conditions…Yet often, instead of giving love room to expand, we box it in with our expectations. Expectations make our love conditional on what the other person does or says…For love to last, it is best not to have too many expectations. It is better just to offer love.”^[1]

We need to give our love room to grow. If we box it in with our set notions of how things should be, we’re dooming ourselves to a death by a thousand heartbreaks. If we can relax into the way things are, as opposed to how we wish things would be, then we can engage our life whole-heartedly.

One of the women who came to the heartbreak appointments, Sarah, shared with me a beautiful way that she thought of her pain. “It’s like moving,” she said. “One thing has to end, so you go through this whole process that’s strenuous and sad, and you get sweaty and emotional, and go through all of the things you just assumed you would continue to keep with you, and some you keep and some go in the trash. Then you walk out, with those things you need to keep, and say goodbye. Then, you get to move into this new space, where you can do so much with what you brought with you.”

Heartbreak isn’t just pain and suffering. There’s also an opportunity to take what you learned with you, and apply it so you grow in all sorts of ways.

You may end up learning that you are constantly changing, and your ego isn’t as tight as you think it is, and that you can actually relax some of that ‘What If’ thinking and become comfortable with ‘The Way Things Are’. Those sorts of lessons strike me as incredibly valuable.

From Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice For The Heartbroken, by Lodro Rinzler, © 2016 by Lodro Rinzler. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com

^[1] The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, The Heart is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out (Shambhala Publications, 2013), p. 27

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The post A Guy And Some Strangers: Understanding Heartbreak appeared first on BEST SELF.

Bringing awareness to the art of giving and receiving can enrich both our own souls and those of others

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I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage that it is more blessed to give than to receive, right? And while it certainly feels good to give, there is no joy in the giving unless there is a gracious receiver on the other end. Both giving and receiving, if done with love and joy and openness, can act as a salve to soothe a tired soul. So if you want your life to really flow and be easy, it’s best to learn how to do both graciously and happily.

Most of us have had our receiving wings clipped at an early age, especially women.

And we’ve been conditioned to go overboard in the giving department. We need balance here because without it, we are constantly stressed and drained.

Let’s just take the holiday season as an example. Holiday gift giving has become such a burden that we quite naturally associate the holidays with stress. This is ridiculous. The time from Thanksgiving through New Year’s should be characterized by taking stock of the past year and enjoying the real meaning of the holidays. Instead it has become an “Are you ready for Christmas?” frenzy. When I was working at the hospital, I used to have recurrent nightmares about having to go up to a store that’s open 24/7 to get my daughters their Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve. During those days I over-gave gifts at Christmas because I felt guilty about spending so much time at work. Not exactly a balance between giving and receiving.

Now that we’re all adults, we’ve consciously curtailed obligatory holiday gift giving to relieve stress. And the relief is palpable. We focus on getting together, preparing meals, enjoying each other’s company, and choosing one gift for a Yankee swap. Always fun. It’s all about giving in a way that doesn’t cause stress and receiving the love of others.

You can make your life easier and create your own heaven on earth right here, right now, by learning how to balance giving and receiving. You can give and receive in a whole new way — a way that honors and values Self and protects you from those who take more than they give.

The Power of Giving

Let’s start our discussion with the power of giving, because few things in life are more satisfying than being able to give freely and from a full heart. This type of giving truly brings heaven to earth for everyone around you. And I’m not just talking about giving materially. Giving the gift of your time and your attention can be invaluable — to children, to animals, to other people. When my daughter had her first baby this past year, she was absolutely astounded by the graciousness of her friends who set up a meal train for her. She and her husband enjoyed a steady stream of homemade food left on their doorstep every day for several months. And those of us who made meals loved doing so. Giving of your time and attention to those in need — or just to give — feels fantastic when you do it healthfully.

I love hosting a good party to celebrate a milestone achievement or a birthday. And I have a particular knack for doing this in a way that brings people together. It’s what Alexandra Stoddard, the author of Living a Beautiful Life, calls a “free space” — meaning some skill or gift you have that is effortless and comes naturally. When we give from our “free spaces” it costs us nothing. It energizes us. We are giving from a full cup.

Gifts of your time and attention that are obligations and duties, on the other hand, drain you. We are often made to feel guilty when we don’t have the time or energy to volunteer or give our time and attention to a “worthy” cause. But our giving needs to include us. We need to give ourselves the resources to feel whole and replenished. Otherwise the well will eventually run dry. And we’ll end up feeling resentment. And perhaps become bitter.

To give healthfully, you need to truly get in touch with yourself.

Often we say yes to a request when we should say no because we don’t want to face the consequences of saying no. We’re worried that saying no will let someone down when we want to please them. Or perhaps we undervalue our time and energy and put the needs of others ahead of our own. Or we’re worried that others will think we’re selfish if we don’t say yes. Or perhaps we just forget that our needs actually do matter — and they matter just as much as the needs of the other person.

But we all have to say no sometimes if we are going to keep ourselves healthy. To do this, we have to set benign boundaries in our giving and then stop when we reach those boundaries. You can do this graciously by saying, “Thank you so much for asking me, but I must say no to your request at this time.” You also don’t owe anyone a long explanation. Just say, “I simply can’t.” As Dr. Mario Martinez explains, “A benign boundary is reached when you can calibrate between resentment (you did too much) and guilt (you did not do enough). This embodied middle way allows you to take care of yourself without ignoring the needs of others. It’s an action of what the Tibetan Buddhists call inclusive compassion: you are included in the compassionate act.” What a brilliant solution!

Healthy Giving Process

When you’ve been asked to give something — whether a material gift, money, a service, or your time — go through this process to make sure that you are giving from a healthy place.

The first thing to do is notice your very first reaction when you were asked to give. If your gut gives a clear heck yes!, then, by all means, give! Similarly, if your gut gives you a clear heck no!, then steer clear. If the answer doesn’t come immediately, however, you have to ask yourself some additional questions. In that case, simply say, “I’ll get back to you. I have to think about it.”

With uncertainty come questions. How does giving the gift make you feel? Does it fill you up in some way? Does it feel like an obligation? Why are you tempted to say yes? Why are you tempted to say no? When you think of giving the gift, do you feel tired and drained?

The important thing about all these questions is to see how the giving of the gift will really affect you.

Are the negatives associated with giving it greater than the positives? And remember to think in the long term here. It’s not simply about giving in this one instance. Constantly choosing the good of someone else over yourself will lead to poor health, which will be worse for everyone in the end. Honestly, unless you get that heck yes! in the beginning, the chances are pretty good that you should say no. Not always, but most of the time. Your gut knows what you need, and often the uncertainty you feel comes from your intellect butting in too quickly.

The Dark Side of Giving

While giving can be an amazing experience, there is also a dark side to it. Giving, in Western culture, is often where we place power. We get a lot of credit for giving, and so when we give on a regular basis, we can begin to look at ourselves as more important than those we give to. We can see this in families with a great deal of money.

The patriarch or matriarch holds all the power, and their children — and often their children’s children — are at their mercy. The children give away their power in hopes of one day receiving an inheritance. There are too many stories of fully capable adults who have remained in limbo throughout their lives, never developing their gifts and talents because they are simply waiting for wealth. But even after their death, the person who had the means to give holds power. Through a will, they still decide who gets what and how much.

When I was doing some financial planning a few years back, I read the book Beyond the Grave by Gerald and Jeffrey Condon. The stories of what happens in families around inheritance were both eye-opening and downright tragic. Solid, well-educated families split apart when one sibling got more than the other, whether that meant the care of the family dog or Mother’s engagement ring. I knew a woman who was utterly devastated by the fact that her sister got more of her deceased mother’s jewelry than she did — despite the fact that they both inherited a fortune!

So remember, the giver tends to be in the power position. If you are on the receiving end, it’s important to keep your power intact.

Don’t give yourself away in order to receive. And if you are always the giver, it’s important to remember that giving should not be a way to control people. It should be done with an open heart in order to spread joy and prosperity to all parties.

You Were Born to Receive

As you can see, giving can lift you up energetically as long as you do it healthfully. Receiving is the same. Sadly, many of us don’t know how to receive, even though we were fully dependent on it from the time we were growing in our mother’s womb, receiving nourishing blood from the placenta through the umbilical cord. When we were born, that cord kept sending us oxygen as we made the massive changes necessary in our lungs and heart to breathe on our own. After that, we received nourishment and comfort from our mother’s body, which acted as an external placenta.

We could live only if we received. For many of us, this ability has been lost. Knowing how to receive fully and joyfully must be consciously remembered in adulthood.

But receiving graciously works in every area of your life, energetically speaking. Let’s look at a physical example of this: Tighten your left fist as hard as you can. Tighten it until you can see the whitening of your knuckles from lack of circulation. Hold for the count of 10. As hard as you can. Now open your hand — palm up — and feel the circulation returning. Feels good, right? Your hand is now in the receiving mode. It’s receiving oxygen, glucose, immune cells, electrolytes, and everything else that is carried in the blood. That is the power of receiving.

While this was a physical example, the same good feeling comes when you receive in any manner.

Do you remember being a kid and being so excited for Christmas morning or your birthday that you could barely sleep? That’s the joy of receiving. These experiences were so pure. You hadn’t yet been talked out of feeling this joy so passionately. Chances are you were so young that your joy wasn’t tamped down by past experiences of feeling the crushing disappointment of not getting what you really wanted. And you hadn’t learned that receiving has to somehow be earned. Our ability to receive openheartedly can be ruined by many different things.

Over the years many of us have been taught to “not get our hopes up” lest we be disappointed. This misguided guidance is intended to protect us from pain, but it really stems from the unresolved pain of those who have taught us this. And the pattern can be generations deep. The end result is living in a bandwidth of “not too happy and not too sad.” A kind of middle ground free of downright sadness and disappointment but also free of amazing exuberance. We learn not to expect too much, and that becomes our daily reality. Over time, we end up believing that we don’t deserve to receive — and therefore, we don’t receive. As Amanda Owen writes in her book The Power of Receiving, “The only possible match for someone who doesn’t know how to receive is someone who doesn’t know how to give. Non-Receivers are drawn to non-Givers. In other words, the problem is not that you have been drawn to non-giving people, but that you are an inexperienced Receiver.”

Worse yet, many of us were taught that we don’t deserve to receive without giving something in return. As in “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” This gives us the message that we are unworthy just as we are, which is completely untrue. Over my years of medical practice, I’ve seen countless instances in which the only way a woman can receive support, attention, and care from her husband and children is when she is sick. So guess what happens? She has to keep manifesting illnesses (albeit unconsciously) in order to keep receiving the attention and care that she should have been receiving anyway — in health, not just in sickness. I’ve also had numerous patients come to the realization that as children they had to get sick in order to receive their mother’s attention. No wonder receiving can be so challenging! We’ve been taught that we have to earn it somehow. Through performing tasks that make us more worthy. Or through health problems or accidents. That’s right. Studies show that even accidents are very often preceded by anger or sadness — emotions that let us know that we have a need that isn’t being met. And so, given that often deep and unconscious programming about receiving, how can we begin to receive?

Receiving 101

Thank goodness receiving is actually a learnable skill — and a very worthwhile one. Being able to receive leads to a much more fulfilling life with more delight and joy than you might imagine possible.

Getting started is super simple. All you have to do is accept all compliments. When someone says, “Oh, I love your dress,” your response should be “Thank you.” That’s it. Just thank you! Do not say, “I got it for five dollars at Goodwill.” That downgrades the compliment and devalues the gift you just received. Also, resist the urge to return the compliment by saying something like, “Oh! I like yours too.” You do not have to give something back when you are complimented.

By saying simply thank you, you have graciously received a compliment. You are slowly but surely getting on the path to being comfortable receiving.

An interesting thing will happen when you start to simply accept compliments. At first, you are apt to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. You are out of practice. So when you notice that you’re feeling uncomfortable, say to yourself, “I love you.” That uncomfortable part needs more love, not less.

Once you’re more comfortable receiving compliments — or even while you’re still working with compliments — you can move on to some more advanced receiving practices. For example, in her book Change Me Prayers, Tosha Silver notes that you can say a Change Me Prayer to help rewire your brain to be better at receiving. You can say: “Divine Beloved, please change me into one who is willing to receive. Please change me into someone who knows her own worth. Please change me into someone who gratefully receives all that you have to offer me. Please change me into someone who provides others with the delight of giving to me.”

In the box below, you’ll see one of my favorite receiving practices. And I’m sure you can come up with many of your own. Just remember, the more you practice receiving, the better you’ll get at it. And remember, the reason you have trouble receiving is because your inner child still believes he or she is not worthy of receiving. So just start by spending some time loving that part of you. Because that’s all he or she wants anyway.

Compliments from the Natural World

I did this exercise years ago while gazing out my hotel room at Mount Rainier near Seattle, Washington. I was trying to prepare myself to go downstairs into a group of strangers at a medical meeting. But you don’t have to have a mountain nearby to do it. Just think about a place in nature that you remember and love. All mountains, trees, and natural areas have big angelic presences associated with them.

Imagine that tree or mountain or flower speaking to you. It’s telling you how wonderful you are. Simply listen as it says:

You are beautiful.

You are intelligent.

You are delightful and charming.

You are worthy.

And you are irresistible.

You are healthy.

Now breathe in these statements. Receive them right into your heart. Into your essence. And when you feel full, go about your day. But notice what happens.

For me, I noticed that when I walked out of my hotel room into the medical meeting, I was treated differently. Better. I received far more positive attention than I had before.

While I don’t know that the circumstance I was in had changed a great deal, I do believe that because I flexed my receiving muscles (in the privacy of my own room) I was able to truly receive what had been there for me all along. I was astounded by this.

This excerpt is from Dr. Northrup’s book, Making Life Easy, A Simple Guide To A Divinely Inspired Life (Hay House, December 13, 2016).

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A poet explores ‘the way under the way’ — the place of true meaning and shared humanity

—

Over the years, I’ve learned that moments of deep living let us hear a deeper music and explore a deeper meaning to our lives. We can call this foundational geography — the way under the way — the place of true meeting that is always near, where we chance to discover our shared humanity and common thread of Spirit. Often, these moments are brought about by unexpected doses of love, suffering, beauty or truth. And behind every blessing that we can’t explain, an unseen element brings us together when we’re too exhausted to resist. Everything visible rises out of a greater, invisible force that brings it into being. Under every act of courage or love, there’s a momentum of braveries and care that has gathered and passed through everyone who ever lived.

It’s natural that we all try to distinguish ourselves in the first half of life, trying to find our unique gift and contribution, trying to discover how special, different, and extraordinary we are.

But eventually, we’re transformed by experience to seek what we have in common with all life, so we might discover our one true kinship.

This shift from trying to be special to seeking what is special in everything marks the way under the way.

As a poet, I have always felt that I retrieve the poems more than author them, by listening for the way under the way. For the poems are the teachers. They arrive with their wisdom and become my guides. What they surface becomes my inner curriculum and by staying in conversation with them, I grow. We’re all drawn to what we need to learn, which if engaged with honesty reveals insights common to us all. When young, I worked earnestly with the hope of creating a great poem or two. Then, during my cancer journey, I needed to discover true poems that would help me live. Now, blessed to still be here, I want to be the poem!

 I’ve learned through the years that, more than the manipulation of language on a page, poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul that comes at times to renew us when we least expect it. Poems show us how we belong to each other and life. Like all forms of art, poetry marries what is with what can be. Poems show us our possibility. There is a mystical assumption of Unity underneath all poems.

Every honest, heartfelt expression shows how being connected to life in all its forms allows each of us to be more fully ourselves.

Let me share a poem from the book that has particular meaning for me. Freefall is the final poem in a sequence comprised of six smaller poems. Each was written at the crest of a troubled time, just before I broke surface in yet another way. The six poems appeared over a period of eighteen years. Each felt complete unto itself at the time and each served as a guide for the phase of life I was moving through. It was only after living with them for all those years that I realized that they belong together. Like beads for a necklace I didn’t know they would form, I worked to polish each only to discover, beyond any conscious knowing or intent, that these expressions were a suite of poems. The insights of our lives are formed this way, appearing one by one. Yet over time, the beads of wisdom we earn reveal their power as we discover that they and we and everything living belong to each other. I often end readings and retreats with this final poem of the sequence. It’s like a spiritual handshake for me.

Freefall

If you have one hour of air

and many hours to go,

you must breathe slowly.

If you have one arm’s length

and many things to care for,

you must give freely.

If you have one chance to know God

and many doubts, you must

set your heart on fire.

We are blessed.

Each day is a chance.

We have two arms.

Fear wastes air.

Another poem that is fundamental to the book is Being Here. When I was young, I found it hard to be here and to move through the world. Like many romantics, I wanted to transcend out of here. Of course, experience only landed me deeper into life. After my cancer journey, it became clear that there is nowhere to go, nowhere to transcend to but here. The image of sweeping a path where there is always more to sweep became a great teacher for me. That image led to this poem, which helps me stay on the path of living the one life I have to live.

Being Here

Transcending down into

the ground of things is akin

to sweeping the leaves that

cover a path. There will always

be more leaves. And the heart

of the journey, the heart of our

own awakening, is to discover for

ourselves that the leaves are not

the ground, and that sweeping

them aside will reveal a path,

and finally, that to fully live,

we must take the path and

keep sweeping it.

And finally, let me share Breaking Surface, a poem I have written for all my students.

Breaking Surface

Let no one keep you from your journey,

no rabbi or priest, no mother

who wants you to dig for treasures

she misplaced, no father

who won’t let one life be enough,

no lover who measures their worth

by what you might give up,

no voice that tells you in the night

it can’t be done.

Let nothing dissuade you

from seeing what you see

or feeling the winds that make you

want to dance alone

or go where no one

has yet to go.

You are the only explorer.

Your heart, the unreadable compass.

Your soul, the shore of a promise

too great to be ignored.

My hope is that the arc of these poems, across all three books, will be aids in living, listening, and beholding each other, aids in finding and inhabiting your better self. I offer them as small wonders found and cared for through the years. I hope you might find one that, held close to your heart, will serve as a guide.

[Want to hear this piece read by the author? Click here for the audiocast]

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Self-Love is not a choice; it’s a million choices

—

True confession: I haven’t always been a self-love person. Up until my late 20s, neither the term nor the experience had registered much on my radar. An achievement-oriented, highly functioning type, my eye was on the prize of success — at just about any price. Even though I’ve always loved the great outdoors, I moved to New York City right out of college. There I jumped headfirst into a career in books, hustling my way through multiple positions to make it to Senior Editor by the age of 28.

And yet, I was pathologically unhappy. Not that I knew it; I had successfully hidden my discontent from almost everyone, including myself. Achievement being a sort of anesthetic, my career success numbed me. I could continue moving forward because I wasn’t feeling the ache of my own heart.

Lucky for me, success became a less-effective opiate as the years went on. At a certain point I started looking around my life wondering why things felt so off. I had a great apartment in a sought-after neighborhood. A great job, with a window office, working with authors I admired. My social calendar was overflowing all the time. All the boxes on my “life resume” were checked — and isn’t one’s resume the most important thing?

I thought so, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

And when something isn’t right in a woman’s life in 21^st century America, there’s only one place she turns: the self-help bookshelf.

I started devouring every personal growth book I could get my hands on. Eastern spirituality, tarot reading, creativity, abundance. It didn’t take long for me to see that they were all saying roughly the same thing, and that I didn’t like the thing they were saying.

They were telling me that I would have to choose self-love.

While it came in multiple packages — worthiness, self-esteem, self-acceptance — it boiled down to loving myself first and foremost and letting life handle the rest. Sounds easy enough, right?

Yeah — not for me. Self-love and I were not, at that point, acquaintances, much less friends. Self-aggression? Yes! I knew that one intimately. Self-discipline? I could hold my own with the best of them. Self-control? In all areas except ice cream. (One must have one’s exceptions.)

But self-love? I wouldn’t have recognized it if it had jumped up and bitten me.

Considering the concept for the first time in my life, I quickly assessed that it was too vague — not to mention a bit trite and even smarmy — to be taken seriously. Genuine self-love, after all, is not something one can put on one’s to-do list. And at this juncture in my life, it did not exist if it wasn’t on my to-do list.

Via the endless parade of books I was reading, there was one new item on my to-do list: meditation. I was a stress case — overwhelmed and freaked out most of the time — and this nice bald woman named Pema Chödrön was telling me Buddhist meditation could help with stress reduction. I decided to investigate.

The more I read about Buddhism, the more impressed I was. After my unfriendly parting with the Christian beliefs of my childhood, I was pleased to discover Buddhism boasted no dubious Gods to believe in, no rules or authority figures I had to obey. Buddhism was just me and the meditation cushion — my direct experience was the centerpiece. If I didn’t experience it myself, I didn’t have to believe it. And so I began to meditate. I didn’t see it as a spiritual path and I certainly didn’t see it as an act of self-love; I saw it as a matter of survival. And with the anesthetic properties of success wearing off, I needed to find another solution.

Little did I know that meditation is a Trojan horse of sorts. It sneaks in self-love through the back door.

As I continued meditating, I began to notice how often my thoughts ran to cruelty. Cruelty toward myself for my imperfect choices, for my imperfect body, for my imperfect life. Excoriation, shame and blame were on the menu of my monkey mind, 24/7.

Noticing my self-criticism did not, unfortunately, end its reign. (That would take several more years and a lifetime of upkeep.) But the willingness to feel the sadness it brought up did something interesting: it created a hairline fracture in the habit I had of kicking the crap out of myself.

It also started to soften up the hardness that had taken hold of my heart in my “adult” years. With the help of some really good personal growth books about creativity, I returned to some of the loves of my childhood. I dusted off my old guitar and began to play again. I went to art stores and bought colored markers and went for sketch crawls around my Brooklyn neighborhood.

On the cushion my self-chastisement gave way, more and more often, to dreaming.

I thought about what I wanted for my future, and rather quickly discovered it didn’t include my great apartment, or my great job, or my great friends. I wanted something else entirely.

Mysteriously, I was soon thereafter offered a job in the mountain town of Boulder, Colorado. The work I would be doing? Publishing self-help, spirituality and personal growth books.

My heart leapt up and said Yes! Yes! Yes! right away. “I want to live in the mountains!” she said. “I want to work on books I care about!” My head had a lot of other ideas. “You’re going to leave your high-status job at a New York publisher to go work at a dinky company in the middle of nowhere?” it asked. “What will people think?”

It took me a month to make my decision. Toward the end of the month I went on a six-day meditation retreat. That week I endured an excruciating death battle in my own being. In one corner we had the reigning champion, Self-Aggression. In the other, the underdog — Self-Love. Every moment on that cushion was spent refereeing the opposing forces of my judgmental mind and my longing heart.

The throw-down continued until I got on the bus for the long ride back to the city. Watching the green countryside fly by the window, I let my heart speak one more time. “I want to live where there is green,” she said. “I want to live in the mountains.” The minute I got home I picked up the phone and accepted the job.

Self-Love for the win.

It’s been ten years since I left New York, and the roots of self-love have grown only deeper. Like an investment that compounds over time, self-love grows exponentially every time we take a stand for what the heart desires. As a teacher of mine once said, self-love is “a million tiny good decisions.”

My only definition of “good” these days is “feels good in my heart.”

This is why I say self-love is not a choice. It’s a million choices, a million seeds planted, a million moments of returning to the heart when our attention has drifted away. But there are choices we can make to get there. For me, meditation has been, and continues to be, the training ground. It opened a door in my once-frozen heart, so self-love could walk right in.

How do we know if self-love is knocking on our door? We can pay attention to the signs. Here are four clues I’ve noticed in my own investigative journey — perhaps they sound familiar?

1. You no longer do things that don’t bring you joy.

My whole life had been spent bowing to an externally imposed idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. (A standard I held for both myself and others — my apologies to former colleagues and partners.) There were a lot of to-dos on my list that were generated from outside of myself. You must stay in New York City even though you aren’t happy and want to live in nature, because it looks better on your resume. That was a big one for me.

But there are an infinite number of everyday examples: You must go to that party even though you feel like staying home, because they’re expecting you. You must work with this client even though you sense red flags about him, because so-and-so recommended him. You must wear make-up when you leave the house, because you need to look ‘good’.

The more that self-love rewires me, the more what I want to do has begun to automatically supersede what I think I ‘should’ do. Joy trumps obligation. It’s not that I don’t still feel social pressures — I still have a paper-thin skin, and probably always will — it’s just that in the natural hierarchy, my own needs get priority.

2. You no longer say mean things to yourself.

This is super noticeable when, like me, your mind has previously been your worst oppressor. It didn’t matter what perceived wrong I’d committed — the internal self-ridicule was swift and fierce. You’re an idiot. You’re going to get in trouble for that one. You should have done better. You need to be perfect all the time and you failed.

After a dozen years of meditating, today I actually notice when I’m yelling at myself. And a sort of natural compassion has started coming to my rescue. “You’re doing the best you can,” it says when I experience disappointment or shame. “You’re doing a great job.” My own mind has gone from being a slave driver to a loving kindergarten teacher. I’m not complaining.

3. You start practicing self-care without thinking about it as ‘self-care’.

God bless Oprah and her favorite things — fuzzy pajamas, peppermint tea, and cozy naps on Sunday afternoon — but I think self-love is too often mistaken for drowning ourselves in little luxuries. It’s so much more fundamental, and so much simpler, than ‘self-care’.

And, caring for ourselves is one of its telltale signs. Recently a friend watched me make myself breakfast. “You take such good care of yourself,” she said. In that moment I realized that my dawning self-love was translating itself into external behaviors. I really do take good care of myself. I prioritize sleep, my meditation practice, and doing things I love. A switch has flipped, and now I care more about what I need than about what ‘they’ will think. I didn’t set out to take better care of myself — it’s a natural outcome of loving myself more.

4. You can say “I love myself,” and it resonates as true.

I’ve never been a big fan of affirmations. I tend to side with the late, great Debbie Ford who once referred to affirmations as “putting ice cream on poop and calling it a cake.” Repeating “I love myself, I love myself, I love myself” never seemed to make me feel loved or loveable — it felt prickly and dishonest and maybe a little bit painful.

Yet not too long ago, I picked up Louise Hay’s classic guide, You Can Heal Your Life, which ironically, in all my journeys through self-help literature, I had somehow never read.

Very quickly, I recognized why. The book is built on the practice of affirmations. The past version of myself would have scoffed at repeating those mantras — they just wouldn’t have felt true.

But this time, something was different. For one of the exercises, I decided to try I love myself as my mantra — and to my total surprise, the phrase felt right.

I do love myself. Every time I sit on the meditation cushion; every time I make space in my day for tea with a friend; every time I am in bed early and make nourishing food choices and go for a walk in the rain — and every time I soothe myself when facing a life hiccup or challenge — I am loving myself in real time.

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All relationships have a purpose in our lives; accessing that purpose requires understanding the voices, and forces, of love and ego

—

According to A Course in Miracles, relationships are spiritual assignments in which the Holy Spirit brings together those who have the maximal opportunity for soul growth. It should be no surprise to us, then, that relationships are not always easy. They’re magnifying glasses through which we can view what does and does not work in how we’re relating to other people. Every situation in life is a relationship in which we — and often those around us — can see exactly where we are free to love, and where we are bound by fear.

While the ego would argue that there’s a different kind of love for different kinds of relationship, the spiritual basics of relationship are the same no matter what form a relationship takes. Whether you’re my business acquaintance or a family member, the issue is this: Am I meeting you on the level of my personality, or am I extending to you the gift of my love? Am I here to judge you, or forgive you? The answers will determine what happens next.

The ego sees other people from a transactional perspective, looking for how others can serve our needs. The spirit sees other people from a relational perspective, seeking for ways that together we can serve love.

To the ego, relationships are fear-laden traps; to the spirit, they are holy encounters.

The last thing the ego wants us to believe is that relationships form the basis of the spiritual journey. But they do. Every encounter, large or small, is an opportunity to glorify love. When I surrender a relationship to serving God’s purpose, the relationship most probably will bring me peace. If I try to use it to serve my needs as I define them, then it most probably will bring me pain.

So how do we get our needs met if our only purpose is to love? How do we set standards, get work done, have reasonable expectations, and not get taken advantage of if we see ourselves in any situation only as a miracle-worker, a channel for love, a servant of God?

The answer is, “Far more easily.” The miracle does not occur on the bodily level; it has less to do with what happens on the outside than with what happens on the inside. People can feel when they’re being blessed, and they can feel when they’re being judged. Everyone subconsciously knows everything.

If I wake up in the morning and pray for your happiness, meditate on our spiritual oneness, set my intention on being a representative of love in your life today, surrender all temptation to control you or judge you, then you will feel that. Our relationship will have a chance at being a positive experience. Otherwise, it will be everything the ego wants it to be, and you will feel that too.

The primary issue in our relationships to anything is purpose.

The ego’s purpose in a relationship is to withhold love, while the spirit’s purpose is to extend it. The ego sees the world as something to serve it, while the spirit sees the world as something for us to serve.

How many times have you been asked, “What are you looking for in a relationship?” rather than, “What is the greatest gift you feel you can bring to a relationship?” How many times has something asked you in reference to a relationship, “Are you really getting what you need?” as opposed to, “Are you really giving all you have?” A Course in Miracles says that the only thing lacking in any situation is what we’re not giving. It’s amazing how often we’re counting up someone else’s demerits, while hardly giving any attention to our own. The wily, insidious ego calls this self-care.

The ego sees every relationship as a chance to monitor another person’s spiritual progress, but never our own. The ego is like a scavenger dog seeking any possible evidence of another’s guilt, that we might attack, judge, criticize, and blame him or her. Its ultimate purpose is not to hurt the other, however, as much as it is to hurt us.

The ego never sees a reason to be satisfied with someone. It slyly tempts us to the thoughts and behavior that would keep love at bay, even while protesting that we want it desperately. “The only reason I want you to be different is because I love you!” According to A Course in Miracles, the ego’s dictate is “seek but do not find.”

In a world where fear dominates the consciousness of the human race, it takes conscious practice to develop the emotional musculature of love.

But boy is this hard when someone pushes all our buttons and triggers all our wounds. We can be all lovely and enlightened in the morning, and crazed with anger by noon.

And then, unfortunately, we’re off to the races. Some of the biggest judgments we make, the most pernicious attacks are made before we can even have a chance to think. We send a reactive text or email. We say things we later regret having said. We make decisions that only in retrospect we see as having been self-sabotaging.

This is why spiritual practice is so important. The most powerful tool for success in life, in any area, including relationships, is that our minds be channels for right thinking. And for this, they must be trained.

We do weight-bearing exercises to train our physical muscles, and spiritual exercises to train our attitudinal muscles. The first give us the power to physically move, and the second give us the power to remain internally still. One empowers us externally, and one empowers us internally. And both take effort.

It’s extremely helpful to spend time each morning, even if only for five minutes, using whatever meditation or prayer technique you relate to, to train your attitudinal muscles to think with love. At the beginning of each day, before you meet or interact with anyone, consciously and proactively send your love before you. Then, say to yourself silently as you look at others throughout the day, “The love in me salutes the love in you.” To any situation, surrender to God whatever judgments you bring with you. This kind of practice will give you more than peace; it will work miracles in your life. There’s no room for darkness in a house that is filled with light and there’s no room for fear in a mind that is filled with love. The key to attracting, maintaining, and healing relationships is to fill our minds with light — surrendering ourselves to be used by God, that we might become a blessing on everyone we meet.

Consider affirming these truths each day:

1. I don’t need anyone else to make me whole; as a creation of God, I am whole already. I go into the world today to share with everyone I meet the abundant truth of who I really am.
2. My function on earth is to love, to forgive, and to bless. Every person I will meet today is an opportunity for me to act as love’s representative on earth.
3. What I give to others, I give to myself. What I withhold from others, I withhold from myself. Everyone I meet today provides me with an opportunity to increase my joy by bringing greater joy to others.

As it says in A Course in Miracles, “prayer is the medium of miracles.” Consider it one of the greatest powers in the miracle-worker’s tool kit.

Dear God,

Please make my life

A sacred place

Not only for me,

But for those I meet.

May everyone who enters my life

Be blessed,

And may I be blessed by them.

Send to me those

With whom I am meant to grow.

Show us how to love each other

In ways that serve You best.

Amen

[This is an excerpt from Marianne’s latest book, Tears To Triumph, published by HarperOne]

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Unconditional love creates space for spontaneous healing of a life-long affliction

—

I’ve never been one of those people.

I’m sure you’ve heard stories about people who are able to perceive the extra-ordinary; to ‘see and hear’ intelligences that are otherworldly and non-physical. They claim to communicate with a loved one passed, or hear messages from angelic realms, or see auras — to ‘just know’ things that are seemingly impossible for them to know. Things that defy logic and reason.

Though slightly envious of those people, prior to my own illness-induced foray into being an intuitive — I thought they were all totally nuts.

I envied them because they seemed to have the ability to believe with great conviction in something larger than themselves. It was as if they knew a secret the rest of the world had yet to discover, and knowing it was the key to their inner strength and serenity.

I compared that with the strict conservative religion I was taught I should believe in as a child, which made the gap inside me grow even wider. I longed to feel connected to a divine someone or something beyond myself. But try as I might, I never could. Religion felt punitive and the spiritual/esoteric realm seemed too ridiculous and sensational.

And then, I literally experienced a miracle — something so mind-blowingly powerful it couldn’t be dismissed as new-age nonsense or explained by traditional religion or debunked by rational thought.

I’ll defy my southern inclination to tell the long tale, and just give you the gist. In 2008, I was diagnosed with a debilitating, painful and chronic illness (stage 4 endometriosis that resulted in a full hysterectomy). My doctors said that surgery would make it better, so I tried it. It didn’t help. In fact, it got worse. So much worse, that over the next four years I went on to endure three more surgeries, each promising to ‘fix’ it. Nothing came close and I went from sick to — do you have a living will — kind of ill

My fourth surgery was hell on earth — it was the final straw that broke the camel’s back — and I snapped. I was failing to recover, fearing for my life, and filled with rage and resentment towards an aloof and uncaring God who abandoned me, despite a lifetime of trying to seek and please Him. “Well…” I thought, “Screw this!”

If I was going to die, I damn sure wanted to know why. Come hell or high water, every fiber of my being was committed to this end. I decided to pray and ask for… no, demand answers.

And that’s when things got weird.

The instant I made this declaration, as clear as a bell, I heard a voice from within me say, “Heather, you can accept what has happened to you with grace and dignity, or you can remain in your anger and bitterness for the rest of your days. Choose wisely.”

At the same time, I noticed a presence within me that I had never felt before — there watching, listening and waiting. It felt indescribably peaceful and full of love. In that moment, I knew no matter what happened to me, everything would be ok.

I also knew I had a serious choice to make. Anger or grace?

Overcome by a wave of relief, in releasing my unyielding resistance – I asked instead for unconditional love. I allowed myself to embrace the fullness of what this presence was offering me. I let go of everything, the questions of Why and Would I live another day. I even relinquished my insistence on being healed. And as I made peace with this Divine Presence, my body relaxed and I fell into a deep, restful and restorative sleep.

When I thought it couldn’t get any weirder, I woke up the next morning completely healed. No more pain or illness. ‘Spontaneous recovery’ is what they call it — when they have no other way of explaining it scientifically.

And not only that, I could still hear the voice! After months of devouring every esoteric and scientific book I could get my hands on, I discovered that this power and voice was actually my Higher Self; the Divine Presence (or call it God, whichever works for you) that resides within each and every human being, waiting to be realized. I also discovered I could hear this voice in and for other people, too. So, my life’s work as an intuitive guide and spiritual development coach unfolded organically from there.

As I reflect on my story, there are many things that could be said about it. But for me, the biggest epiphany is this:

I was wrong. I am one of those people. And so are you.

At any moment, each of us can tap into this power within ourselves. We are not terrestrial beings trying to find our way back to Divine Presence, but fully embodied and beautiful manifestations of it. We are not separate from this power — we are this power. You are your Higher Self here in physical form. And miracles happen the moment you have faith in and listen to the wisdom waiting within.

Ultimately, I believe true faith isn’t something that can be taught. Rather, it’s something you actively choose and experience. You find your own personal faith by making a commitment to enter into a relationship with your Higher Self and to seek it each and every day. No religion, dogma, creed or movement will ever be able tell you your truth or give you what you need. It’s not out there. It’s inside, and that’s where you’ve got to learn to look.

I know this seems to be a Herculean task in our stress-filled, fast-paced world. But it is much simpler than you might expect. Here are a few techniques to set you on your way:

• ACCEPT: Accept and love yourself without You don’t need to change yourself or be ‘perfect.’
• SLOW DOWN: Slow down, Turbo! Perpetual motion prevents you from being able to hear the messages. You’ve got to be able to breathe to take them in. Don’t miss them.
• OBSERVE STILLNESS: Learn how to listen to yourself. This is really what meditation is all about — cultivating the art of witnessing what’s going on within a framework of detachment. Out with the old and in with the new you.
• SEIZE JOY: Start having more fun! The natural by-product of fun is abundant joy and happiness. Alignment with your Higher Self is that gateway.

My hope is that my story moves you in some meaningful way to discover your truth and embrace your birthright to a fulfilling life that expresses the potential of your soul. Remember that within you lies all that you seek and an ever-present Higher Self. You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine — and never alone.

heatheraliceshea.com

You may also enjoy reading Interview: Kelly Brogan, MD | A Mind Of Your Own with Kristen Noel

The post From Illness to Healed | Self Healing Through Unconditional Love appeared first on BEST SELF.

Listening to your inner needs deepens your ability to be present and take joy in yourself and your relationships

—

I’m spending the night with myself for the first time in ages.

Contrary to what some might believe, I’m an introvert and recharge by being alone. I actually crave hours on end without anyone else around.

And I’m in a relationship with a man who has a strong need for connection, of course!

When I used to travel constantly for my work, I made a conscious effort to spend as much time with him as I could. And I got my alone-time on the road. But now that we’re with each other for long stretches of time, honoring my own desire to be alone can be tricky.

We’ve been having a lot of togetherness lately and that’s led to my longing for solo-time.

In the past (like, last week), when this arose, I would start to freak out and revert to my old belief that I’m not built for relationship and life is easier alone.

But I’ve recently (like, in the last few minutes) had a massive revelation.

I’m always going to sometimes want to be alone.

I’m always going to sometimes feel suffocated.

I’m always going to sometimes work my fight, flight or freeze muscle.

I’m always going to sometimes find it annoying to share life.

I’m always going to sometimes feel frustrated by the friction of rubbing up against another person.

I’m always going to sometimes feel triggered and project my shit all over him.

It’s not about him. It never is.

It’s about the big fat mirror he is holding up — thank you very much — for me to see myself more clearly, and evolve.

I get now that if I choose to accept that I’m always going to sometimes feel X, then I don’t need to be afraid when any of that stuff arises. I don’t need to resist it or wish it would go away or wish he would go away. I only need to listen to and honor the voice of my truth and desires within.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love him. I love us. But I love me too. And I now know that if I don’t take care of my own needs, no one wins.

And so tonight, I get me all to myself.

No one else to rub up against — the bad way or the good way.

Grateful to feel liberated in love.

The sun just set over the mountains.

The sky is an invitation… and I am listening…

NancyLevin.com

You may also enjoy Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Are You Listening…To You? | Self Care And Love appeared first on BEST SELF.

Untangling the Knot — a guide to conscious divorce and ‘happy ever after’

—

“What if your karma together is over?” she simply asked.

I had a life-changing moment on the side of a mountain in Boulder, Colorado, one windy September afternoon. I was in deep discussion about my troubled marriage with someone who had become my spiritual guide. She entered into my life the prior year, when I had found myself at rock bottom in a marriage that was slowly destroying me. I had been spinning my wheels for far too long trying to decide whether or not I should end it. If I did decide that leaving was the right answer, did I even have the courage or strength to go? With two small children, it’s a paralyzing choice. What if I destroyed their lives by ending this marriage? I walked her through my list of all of the reasons to stay, and to go, all of the fears, doubts, and what-ifs about what it would mean to divorce. Her simple response: “What if your karma together is over?”

At first, I had no idea what she meant. She elaborated further by posing the theory that my husband and I had come together for reasons I may not understand — to bring my children into this world, to heal each other’s wounds, or to learn other lessons that may not be obvious to me now. Our souls had come together for a special and important reason. However, perhaps now their journey together was over. The children are alive and well, the healing we could offer each other had been completed, and the lessons had been learned. The spiritual perspective on the ending of a relationship was a profound shift for me as well as being incredibly liberating.

A marriage isn’t a failure simply because it doesn’t last forever.

It took another year before I finally had the strength and courage to move forward with ending my 13-year marriage. My husband wasn’t any happier than I, but he hadn’t been ready to give up the picture- perfect family on the Christmas card. We finally acknowledged it was time to part ways. All I wanted was for us to part respectfully, amicably, and easily, as we each moved on with our lives and into a strong co-parenting partnership.

From the very beginning, I set my intention for our divorce to be different from others I had witnessed. I knew divorce didn’t have to be contentious and laced with spite, anger, and vengeful behavior. I stayed on the high road, approached the process with integrity, operated from a place of empowerment, and so we were able to achieve the peaceful parting I had believed was possible.

At the time, I had a management consulting practice with my business partner, Seth Wright. He had a front-row seat to the day-to-day activities surrounding my divorce because of our close working relationship and because he is a dear friend. He was my rock during that time and the years that followed. We both have an entrepreneurial spirit and a deep passion for helping others, and when the dust settled after my divorce, inspiration struck us both in such a powerful way that we had to pay attention. Believing I had moved through my divorce very positively through my mindset and approach, we saw an opportunity to meaningfully impact the lives of others going through this difficult life transition. With that, we poured ourselves into bringing Untangle the Knot to life.

Untangle the Knot is a comprehensive online resource designed to support you through the practicalities of divorce and every other area of life divorce touches. We provide information and tools to handle the legal and financial aspects of divorce, support your children through the transition and into their new lives, and to take care of your overall mental, spiritual, and physical wellness, since that is for the foundation of a peaceful divorce. In addition to the online resource, I offer personalized divorce consulting to guide you through your journey.

As inevitably painful as divorce is, you have the power to make choices that will determine just how difficult your divorce will be for you and everyone involved. You can choose to divorce in a way that honors your relationship, allows for a respectful parting, and creates a solid foundation to transition into your new lives.

I encourage you to take these empowered actions:

1. Set an intention for how you desire to move through your divorce.

This very well may be one of the most emotionally painful and stressful experiences of your life. As such, divorce can bring out the worst in even the most grounded person. Set a conscious intention for how you want to divorce and the behaviors you’ll need to exhibit to achieve that. Choose grace, integrity, empowerment, and staying on the high road, even when circumstances are trying to pull you down.

2. Practice unwavering self-care.

This is the time to prioritize taking care of yourself. Create a set routine to incorporate self-care into each day, doing whatever will serve you best. Prioritize nutrition and exercise, and add other helpful activities such as walks in the sunshine, meditation, journaling, and taking hot baths. Most important, treat yourself with the same level of compassion you would show to your best friend. 

3. Create your support system.

Identify the one or two people in your life that will pick up the phone when you call at 3:00 am and offer you positive support — the people who will be truly supportive by providing you comfort and compassion and encourage you to remain on the high road even when things get rough. Your support system may include friends, family, a divorce coach, a therapist, or all of the above.

With your new perspective in place, be sure to cover the basics.

1. Consult with an attorney. Divorce could be the largest financial transaction of your life, and you are now designing your children’s lives in two homes. The stakes are too high to not have expert legal advice. At a minimum, consult with an attorney as you begin the process and to review final documents.
2. Secure and copy important documents. Copy statements for all financial accounts, including checking, savings, mortgage, investments, and credit cards. You’ll also want three years of tax returns. Gather passports, birth certificates, marriage licenses, and any other important documents. Secure everything in a safe deposit box or with a trusted friend. 
3. Open a checking account and credit card in your name. Deposit paychecks into your new account and transfer half of the joint funds from your checking account. Be sure to have enough money in your name to pay the monthly bills.

With all of your highest-serving practices and intentions, it’s important to note that divorce still may not unfold as you hope — you can only control your half of the equation. Learning to accept how things play out and make peace, at least for yourself, in the process will be one of the greatest challenges. Divorce will break you open, offering many lessons. View these lessons as a gift, as they present you with the doors to a transformational journey into your next chapter, where you truly have the opportunity to become your best self and live the life you desire.

You may also enjoy Podcast: Sunny Joy McMillan | A Divorce Made In Heaven by Best Self Magazine

The post Rescripting Divorce | A Conscious Path To Separation appeared first on BEST SELF.

Shifting Your Body Identity Can Shift Your Entire Life

—

If you had told me five years ago that I would be on stage talking to Oprah about my lifelong struggle with my weight, I would have said you were nuts. This very private daily battle with my body was my most fiercely guarded secret of shame. And now here I was on stage talking to a crowd of 10,000 people about my cellulite.

My struggle with my body baffled me. I had worked hard and achieved success in many areas of my life — my relationships, career, academics, personal endeavors — but success in my relationship with food and my weight totally eluded me.

I knew that it didn’t have to do with knowledge; after 30 years of dieting, I was an expert on all things related to nutrition. It didn’t have to do with motivation; there was nothing I wanted more. Something was missing; something was deeply out of alignment. What I came to realize was that there were emotional and spiritual hungers that were driving me to eat when I wasn’t hungry. Perhaps the deepest of these cravings was my hunger to love and accept myself. No diet could ever teach me how to feed that. Something else was required.

It all broke open for me one day as I found myself incredibly self-conscious on a beach in my bathing suit, unwilling to play in the sand with my son for fear of how my rolls and dimples would look. Lamenting that I was missing out on the beauty and bounty of my life, I began to recount all the ways my self-imposed fear of judgment had limited me in attaining the fullness of life that I consider my birthright. This was my watershed moment when I realized that my thoughts and feelings about my body were far more painful and damaging to my quality of life than the actual size of my body.

This day marked the beginning of my journey of personal transformation.

I embarked on a path to understand my true hungers, find alignment with my true self, end the diet war, make peace with food, and learn to truly accept my body (including each and every pound and dimple).

My journey required vulnerability and getting real with myself — but mostly it required a decision that I was worth it, that this is my one and only beautiful life, and that I couldn’t waste another day immersed in self-loathing.

In 2012, inspired by my own transformation, I decided to write a blog to share my story with others. My hope was that by telling the world about the healing I had experienced through my struggle with food and my weight, I would spark someone else’s desire for personal transformation. I was terrified the first time I hit the “publish” button, wondering what would my friends and family would think of me now that I was publicly dismantling the false perfection I portrayed during my people-pleasing and approval-seeking days. My secret was out. It was time for truth and accountability.

Breaking free of my shame lit a fire in me. I began writing and connecting with hundreds of women through my blog, workshops, and coaching work. I felt more aligned and honest than ever before. I experienced presence and freedom. I saw dreams coming true.

Then in November of 2014, my ultimate dream came true. I had wanted to meet Oprah all my life.

I credit her for so much of my spiritual and personal development; it was through her that I encountered the life-changing wisdom of Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle, and Geneen Roth, to name a few. I have also looked to her as a role model because of her willingness to be vulnerable and honest about her own struggles with her body.

The series of events that led to my moment on stage with Oprah could only have been divinely inspired. While in the midst of grieving the sudden loss of my father, I received news that I had won tickets to see Oprah in Seattle at the Life You Want weekend. AMAZING! It felt like such a bright spot in an otherwise excruciatingly painful month.

A few days before the event I tweeted a photo about my journey to body acceptance in response to a feature Oprah was doing on inner beauty. Hours after posting the photo, one of Oprah’s staff members reached out to me for approval to use the photo I had posted. I was thrilled — but even more so when I got a call from one of Oprah’s producers the day before the event asking me if Oprah could interview me on stage about my journey. Dreams really do come true!

Not only did I have the opportunity to meet, hug, and speak to Oprah, but I was also gifted with the incredible opportunity to share my message on a much bigger platform. Countless women of all shapes and sizes approached me that day after I spoke, some with tears in their eyes. They responded to my message: By pushing beyond my fears, claiming my right to be free in my body, living my truth, and revealing my deeply held vulnerabilities, I was able to manifest my biggest dream into reality.

Since my time with Oprah, I continue to share my story and help others tell theirs. Far too many of us are hiding ourselves away and dimming the light of our lives because of some perceived flaw or feeling of not enoughness. Our fears and limiting beliefs hold us back and rob the world of the multitude of ways we are meant to shine. Imagine what could be possible if we let ourselves fully embrace our power and potential?

Life is always supporting us, but we do have to meet it half way.

Align your life with your authentic self. Courageously embrace the beauty that you are. Dare to desire knowing that you deserve it. Then watch and see what tiny (and not so tiny) miracles might show up to greet you.

Watch Peggy on stage with Oprah:

Learn more at: www.deepercravings.com

You may also enjoy reading Diet De-stricted by Kevin Gianni

The post Could You Love Your Body, Really? | Shifting your Body Identity appeared first on BEST SELF.

listening for the one who cares

this morning

running up flagstaff mountain

i actually thought

i saw the ocean

off to the left

a distant mirage of

unconsciousness and

uncertainty

in this land-locked state

after a double-take

i realized how this custom

of leaving myself

lands and lodges in my core

still learning not to

muscle my way through what works

just engaging out of habit

now knowing it’s the subtle adjustments

that make the most impact

on my descent

a baby deer was waiting for me

we locked eyes and

he let me get quite close

who are you i said

tears rolling down my cheeks

he can sense

everything i feel

i know his pain

yet cannot save him

in these moments

nature is the chime

sounding the end of

meditation practice

to wake me up

in the present

but i am not

a nature poet

so i don’t know which

metaphors to use

most mornings i wake

while everyone else is still sleeping

and allow myself to think of him

as the sky slowly brightens

the land is still dark

trees in silhouette

against the early morning sky

i send him love and light

it is really only

ever about

time of day

and the passage

of night

but i am not a nature poet

though as we cross country

the horizon

a portal

opening up

right in front of us

port of entry

transforms into

po         e   try

an adjustment period

coast to coast

this portrait of real personal markings

soft brushed color

deckled edges and draping

hide the cracking

i notice my past

pulling away from me

while i watch it in reverse

in the rearview mirror

cairns tracing the trail

from my ribcage

through my navel

to my pelvis

signaling where

the relationship

of one thing to another

ends

why is it

we only have language

for grief over the loss of the dead

but not for the loss

of those still living

some days

being

is all in service

of that one single breath

rising and falling

unconstricted

unrestrained

unencumbered

unattached

free

nancylevin.com

You may also enjoy Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Listening For The One Who Cares (A Poem) appeared first on BEST SELF.

Child empathy is a critical construct for parenting. Instilling empathy in our children requires intention and awareness, but can be fun for both parties, and can produce happy young citizens.

—

I spent the latter part of my 30s searching for my purpose and the answer to the question, “Why was I put on this earth?” At the time, I was recently divorced and trying to raise my two little kids as a single, working, divorced mother. I wasn’t feeling joy. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled. I was barely getting by. Something felt missing and something had to give. I started reading all the self-improvement books I could get my hands on, because feeling like I was feeling wasn’t serving me. I stumbled upon the Law of Attraction, and it intrigued me. If we could create or manifest joy and abundance in our lives, I wanted to know how! So I kept reading and learning about gratitude and how to change my thoughts from lack to abundance, from fear to allowing, and from negative to positive.

While I was consumed with trying to figure this out for myself, I started thinking how important it would be if I could raise my kids with this in mind. Raise them so as not to impose limiting beliefs or boundaries about what their lives should be like or what they should do with their lives. Raise them in a way so they would grow up knowing what their purpose was, so they could discover what they were put on this earth to do and feel fulfilled and aligned with their true selves. Imagine growing up knowing this (or discovering this as a kid), instead of searching for the answer in your 30s or 40s? As I seriously began to contemplate this, I realized the starting point for this could be summed up in one word: empathy.

The impetus for making this shift in my parenting that would awaken my kids’ authentic and true selves was… empathy.

Webster’s definition of empathy is “the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else’s feelings.” Empathy is the most important ingredient when it comes to raising kids to be true to themselves and their purpose. In order to grow up with an awareness of their true desires, kids need to have an innate sense of how others feel. They need to be able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Being able to do this will allow them to live out their truth and come from a place of gratitude.

In terms of instilling this in my kids, I have a slight advantage considering my day job. I am a school social worker. My kids almost didn’t have a choice in learning this character trait. I thought it extremely important for them to realize (at an early age) that the world didn’t revolve around them. Some people have a really tough go at it, and life isn’t always easy or kind. And if someone is going through hard times, we should help if we can. We had lots of conversations about empathy, and what it must feel like for some families who don’t have enough foodor heat or a home. While these conversations were a great start, we had to do something. My daughter wanted to have a hot- chocolate stand and donate the money we made to our local animal shelter. So we did that. The shelter was very appreciative and put the kids in their newsletter with a little blurb about their donation. At Christmas, we donated food to our local food pantry. We all went shopping together and brought the groceries directly to the church.

These experiences of doing helped to foster an understanding that helping others results in feeling good because they felt good doing it.

It wasn’t just a conversation about why they should help others and how it would make them feel. They experienced it. The result of experiencing rather than just talking about it was to watch empathy develop and grow in them. The hope, for me, was that it became automatic and innate, that it would be instinctive and not deliberate. The more you weave these themes into your conversations and make them a part of your family, the more they shape and become a part of who you are. You have to do what works for your family, whether it’s donating during the holidays or cleaning out clothes that don’t fit, or giving away toys the kids don’t play with anymore. You can find community organizations that are meaningful to you and your family and start there. They key is to make your children participants in the conversation and the experience.

Make empathy a practice in your life and your kids’ lives, and watch them awaken and unfold into the compassionate and authentic souls they were meant to be.

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver

Maya Angelou

You may also enjoy reading The Importance of Community Service in Shaping the Values of Our Children by Judy Marano

The post Empathy | Your Child’s Most Important Gift appeared first on BEST SELF.

When we practice conscious loving, we bring forth more rewarding relationships, and freedom from false obligations

—

Every day, we are surrounded by relationships. From the people at work to our romantic partners – even our fondness for chocolate-chip cookies, pizza, and beautiful art – we are surrounded with opportunities to give and receive love. Yes, we all love, but how many of us do it consciously?

Mastering the art of conscious loving is being mindful of your thoughts, words, and actions, and how they affect your environment. As we learn more and more about our role in the consciousness of the planet, we are given a great opportunity to learn about how we interact with others and how this impacts our life, our community, and the world around us. When we learn to love consciously, with clear intentions and awareness, we learn to harness our potential for growth and the positive expansion of humanity.

People that love unconsciously have been taught, through osmosis, all the habits and nuances that create the stories of their relationships. They may have had an overbearing father and a passive mother, so they mimic this learned behavior out of habit. These repeated patterns are what make up the majority of our interactions. But what can we do when these patterns are not creating a life that makes us feel empowered, enthusiastic, and inspired?

This is the opportunity for us to become aware of the behaviors and patterns that are not serving us in a positive and expansive way.

The actions and interactions that leave us feeling weakened, contractive, and stressed are the ones that we need to start paying special attention to. Those negative emotions are signals that are screaming out to us. Just like a baby needing to be fed, our emotions are begging for us to notice and nurture them.

When we feel that our relationships are draining instead of fulfilling, it is time to delve deep and explore what we are doing, saying, and thinking that is causing the dissension. By modifying the behaviors that keep us living in a recursive cycle of struggle, we set ourselves free and make room for the presence of unconditional love.

Starting with the things that we know intuitively is a great place to begin. If you find yourself dreading the visit from your mom that always ends up in a fight, then how can you create a healthy boundary? This might seem uncomfortable or even impossible, but it is necessary to feel uncomfortable when we are breaking old habits and familiar patterns that are no longer for our best for us. Setting boundaries might seem harsh, but it is the first step in conscious loving. Conscious loving is saying that you are aware of how you are dispersing your time, energy, and emotions. This new way of expressing love may feel foreign, but with daily practice, it will feel like a comfortable pair of fuzzy slippers.

Communication is paramount when creating a life of conscious loving.

Old learned habits in communication cause resentment, anger, and frustration. If we are expressing ourselves consciously in a relationship, we must learn to relay our needs and emotions in a healthy and honest way. This means not exerting fear when expressing emotions to those around us. When we speak in an honest way, we give the emotion a voice. Strong emotions of anger, sadness, and jealousy are often rooted in love, but they end up being expressed in a distorted way.

Learning to communicate in a honest and heartfelt way is the key to vulnerability — which should not be construed as weakness — and opens the door for others to express their needs, free of coercion and judgment. Unfortunately, our need for control often keeps us in a holding pattern of manipulation. We need a particular outcome, and we use bullying tactics to achieve it. This is an old story that doesn’t advance our highest potential or best self.

When we learn to function in a modality of expansiveness, we design a life which fosters abundance and growth.

When we learn to express our love in an honest and conscious way, we reclaim our power. Children who are raised in a household where they are allowed to express their needs in an accepting and understanding environment are more likely to feel validated and valued as individuals. The more positive they feel about themselves and their inherent self worth, the greater their positive impact in the world.

Learning to release things that have reached their maturation point is a sign of spiritual maturity. When we accept that the flow of life is all about trusting the process, we are empowered to move forward and leave the past behind us. We can release confusion and guilt, and all that other old, worn-out emotional baggage.

Letting go of old habits, destructive relationships, damaging behaviors, and stories of guilt and shame leaves room for new and exciting experiences to flow into your life. Do these experiences leave you feeling expansive (relaxed) or contractive (stressful)? Honoring the sensitivity of our emotions is a powerful practice passed down from the masters through the ages. Awareness is the key to understanding, and understanding is the gateway of forgiveness.

In my work with those who are hungry for growth and a life of abundance, I teach that we can only heal what we can see.

We don’t force healing on ourselves, but with the power of cognizance, coupled with the ability to modify behaviors, healing happens automatically. That is the true power of love.

This year, as we enter into a time of growth and challenge, take time to nurture yourself. You are your sole and principal responsibility. You deserve all the love, wealth, and perfect health that life can give. Your authentic beauty is needed in the world. We all benefit when you let your light shine the brightest. Finding a way to express your talents and unique abilities gives us all the permission to express ourselves. The process is reciprocal, because life is a mirror, and when we show up in a way that is free of embarrassment or trying to maintain an image, we set the people around us free.

Conscious loving is not something we learn in school. We learn it by being aware.

We often stay complacent in a life that keeps us comfortable, if unfulfilled. Challenge yourself to want more for yourself, to become the best self that you can be. The time is now to fulfill your purpose on planet Earth. You are loved and supported.

Learn more about the author at: loveaholic.org

You may also enjoy reading Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Conscious Loving | Bringing Awareness To Create Rewarding Relationships appeared first on BEST SELF.

Let go of these 5 patterns to allow your relationships to flourish

— 

I’m not great at relationships. This is something I used to say all the time, to others and myself.

I’d had quite a few unhealthy friendships that ended in dramatic showdowns when our combined issues proved toxic.

My romantic relationships weren’t any less volatile — largely because my deep-seated shame affected the type of men I attracted and compromised my ability to be there, with and for others.

But even after making significant progress with my insecurities, and working through some painful experiences from my past, I realized I still felt terrified of somehow messing up relationships.

As much as I wanted to believe the future could be different from the past — that I could be different — I couldn’t let go of that one sentence: I’m not great at relationships.

I had to challenge my beliefs about myself, and I also needed to recognize and unload my subconscious self-judgment. Because when I said, “I’m not great at relationships,” I wasn’t making an objective observation. The unspoken ending to that sentence reads, “…and it’s because I’m lacking as a person.”

I needed to believe I was worthy of healthy connections — and capable of forming and sustaining them — even if I’d struggled in the past. Otherwise, I’d never allow myself to let my guard down, let others in, and then, freed from the burden of my own defenses, show up fully for them.

Over the years, I’ve identified countless limiting beliefs like these, and I’ve seen tremendous improvements in my relationships by releasing their grip on me. (This was actually part of the inspiration behind my latest book, Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges.)

We all have beliefs like this, and they can compromise our ability to show up for the people we love if we don’t acknowledge them and proactively work to let them go. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of these tendencies and beliefs in yourself:

1. COMPARISONS

If someone appears to be doing better than me in some area of their life, that means I’m less than they are — and I have to catch up to prove that I’m worthy.

We all want to feel happy for the people we love, and we want them to feel happy for us when we’re doing well. This can be challenging, though, if we allow comparisons to convince us we’re somehow behind and therefore inferior or inadequate.

The solution? Work on nurturing a sense of self-worth that has nothing to do with what we achieve. Every last one of us will experience highs and lows on our journey. Sometimes we’ll thrive when friends struggle, and vice versa, and sometimes we’ll thrive at the same time.

If we can work at valuing our efforts and ourselves regardless of the outcome, we’ll be better prepared for the inevitable lows, less attached to the highs, and more supportive of our loved ones — regardless of where they are in their journey.

2. SCORE KEEPING

If I don’t get exactly what I give, someone is devaluing and disrespecting me, so things always need to be even.

Nothing suffocates a relationship like keeping score. It communicates to the other person, “I suspect you’ll cheat me if I don’t keep track and remind you when you’ve fallen short.”

I’m not suggesting we give and give without regard for receiving. The key is to create an atmosphere of caring and generosity by giving without always expecting reciprocation, and then trusting that you’ll receive that same courtesy.

It’s about creating a team mindset and recognizing that we all have different strengths, and we all give in different ways.

I may do more laundry than my fiancé, but he’s an excellent cook. We each contribute in our own way, in all aspects of our relationship. (Keep in mind this isn’t always the case. If you always give and never receive — despite communicating your wants and needs — you may want to rethink that relationship.)

3. ASSUMPTIONS

I know why people do the things they do, and they often have selfish or hurtful intentions.

Formerly, I assumed the worst of everyone. If someone hurt me, they meant to. If someone did something I didn’t understand, they were selfish and thoughtless. Primed as I was with these cynical beliefs, I frequently brought out the worst in people.

That’s often what happens when you guard yourself with these kinds of assumptions; people guard themselves in return, and seem to confirm your fears.

The truth is we can never know why other people do the things we do unless we ask — and then trust the answer. More often than not, people are doing their best, just like we are, and would never intentionally hurt us.

Stephen Covey wrote, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.” If we assumed that other people have positive intentions, we’d all judge each other a lot less, and feel better about each other, and ourselves, as a result.

4. EXPECTATIONS:

If someone doesn’t meet my expectations, that means they don’t care about or value me, or intended to hurt me.

It happens all the time: We expect a certain outcome, or response, and then we feel disappointed and disrespected when things don’t go according to plan.

Things rarely, if ever, go to plan. Even when we communicate our wants and needs, it’s entirely possible that someone else may fall short — because they’re imperfect, just like we are, and dealing with their own challenges.

I’m not suggesting we don’t expect anything of anyone, but rather that we try our best to recognize and appreciate what people do “right” instead of maintaining a list of all the things we think they’ve done “wrong.”

Think back to when you were young. What would have motivated and empowered you more: being praised for your efforts, or being chastised for your shortcomings? The same holds true in adult relationships.

5. BITTERNESS

I can’t let go of what hurt me because that would be letting that person off the hook.

For years when I was younger I tried to maintain a relationship with someone while holding on to anger and bitterness. As a result, I unknowingly made this person “pay” for their lack of compassion in the past by treating them without compassion in the present.

Not only was I not “being the change I wished to see,” as Gandhi recommended, I was losing self-respect by becoming the very thing I’d condemned.

Eventually, I realized I needed to make a choice: I could let go and recreate the relationship anew, or let go and move on — but it was no longer an option to hold on to both the person and my bitterness.

I chose the former, aided by the belief that hurt people in turn hurt other people — and conversely, healed people heal people.

Forgiveness may be “letting someone off the hook,” but that doesn’t mean we deserved whatever happened or that it was okay. It simply means we’ve accepted it and chosen to grow through it.

Nothing could be healthier for our relationships, with others and with ourselves.

Obviously, this is all a lot easier to neatly summarize in a list than it is to regularly apply. But we don’t need to tackle all of these beliefs all at once. We just need to try our best, each day, to recognize when we’re getting caught up in one of these limiting beliefs.

Even the tiniest bit of progress can make a huge difference, so give yourself credit for every small shift you make and then watch as they all add up.

TinyBuddha.com

You may also enjoy reading Living What Matters: Reflections, Prose and 52 Prompts for Self-Inquiry by Mark Nepo

The post Strengthen Your Relationships: 5 Beliefs to Release appeared first on BEST SELF.

A lifetime of questions answered in a single realization… a love story about gender recognition

—

In early spring of this past year, I found myself on a precipice. I was painfully aware of the inner turmoil that was gripping me with increasing force, and was at a complete loss as to any solutions. It had been years since the last time I’d felt so hopeless, but this time a few significant differences prevented me from allowing the same degree of self-destruction to ensue. Since discovering that I was HIV positive, I’d settled into an entirely new life and paradigm in New York City while rehabilitating from a dangerous drug addiction. I was immersed in a supportive community that revolved around holistic wellness, and among people who exalted me within it. I’d developed more or less of a persona, a brand even, wherein the Bearded Yogi could facilitate Karma Yoga, a philosophy and lifestyle that was becoming my life’s work.

The happier it seemed I ought to have been on the surface, the more potent my anguish would become.

All I knew for sure was that expressing my authentic feelings was a priority no matter what, and that whatever happened, I was committed to sharing the true journey with my friends and family through the words and images I began to publish on my personal website.

This commitment led me to take the first steps toward what I call the “Pilgrimage of Divine Love.” I had come too far in life to ignore the signs that were surfacing. It was once again time for a great shift in direction. I was caught up in the daily grind of surviving in New York City, while trying to access the means to continue down a more fulfilling path of synthesizing my passions for philanthropy, yoga, connection, and active service. Simultaneously, my own deep stuff was continually rising up, and as I participated in self-work and sought the guidance of various healers and teachers over the years, I dug deeper into the meat, the ugly stuff that we’d rather not look at or feel, and eventually the perfect storm had manifested itself to once again knock me off course. Or onto my true course, as it turns out.

My decision to go spend a few months in the Bahamas this spring and summer stemmed from my connection to the Sivananda Yoga Ashram, where several years prior I’d already spent two years and left with a certificate to teach yoga in hand. I needed a safe and quiet space to go inward. I sensed the great importance of finding such an environment, and this was the ideal place. I took my camera and my notebooks, my meditation cushion and my tent, and I knew that I would return a different person. I had no idea just how different…

While at the ashram, I examined my entire life. I turned toward the painful memories instead of away from them, and I shone a spotlight on the darkest, dimmest corners of my consciousness. Day by day, I wrote in my journal and made a great effort to care lovingly for myself amid a rigorous schedule of yoga and meditation. Slowly, layer after layer of the persona I’d created to wear as a protective shell shed itself to reveal a vulnerable but strong inner child who’d been clamoring to be heard and seen my whole life, and who I’d spent so much valuable energy ignoring, out of fear.

As I became acquainted with this inner being, the true me, I understood that she has always been a woman.

The magnitude of that moment of realization, that I am in fact a trans woman and have been all along, is impossible to describe. The difference between every moment leading up to it, and every moment afterward, is immense and undeniable. The vague sense of disconnection with myself I’d always felt but never quite identified was in glaring opposition to the sudden wholeness that replaced it, as if fissures had been filled in and sealed at last. All of the experiences I’d unearthed from my childhood memories while at the ashram no longer held the degree of power over me they had previously. Released from their grip, I had come full circle through my devotion to complete surrender throughout this process. At long last, I allowed my true self to blossom as I’d always sensed possible yet never quite grasped how to enact.

The most exciting thing about all this, is that it’s only the beginning. The wholeness I’d been seeking for so long, and the self-love and self-acceptance I’d spent years craving are now newly integrated into my being, and fill me with a fresh sense of awareness about everything. Seeing the world through the eyes of a trans woman informs each moment in an entirely different way. The hormones I’ve started taking have filled my body with a sense of fullness and ease that is both unfamiliar after a lifetime of running and hiding from myself, and more familiar than anything else I’ve ever experienced.

And my biggest feeling of gratitude is for being able to share this journey with you. The “Pilgrimage of Divine Love” is simply my own name for a model of living in which we listen to the signals life whispers to us as we go about our days and accept the challenges we are handed — to face fearlessly our deepest insecurities when we are given the opportunity to do so. In my opinion, it is only in this way that we merge with Divine Love, the divine love within that we can’t go without.

 JaseCannon.com

You may also enjoy reading Desire to Heal by Jase Cannon

The post Gender Transformation | A Pilgrimage of Divine Love appeared first on BEST SELF.

Trading Self-Doubt for Self-Worth

—

Wayne Dyer’s passing denotes the end of an era for me. I not only revered and respected Wayne as an author and teacher, I loved Wayne as man and as my friend. For the dozen years I worked closely with him, producing his events and traveling around the world with him, he was a significant landmark in my life.

If you’ve read my book Jump… And Your Life Will Appear, then you know my crazy story of flying from Detroit to Atlanta and back to retrieve his lost briefcase and how it illustrates the way I would have done nearly anything for that man ,and with complete delight. I also shared this during Hay House’s Tribute to Wayne Dyer held in Orlando last month.

I used to take great pride in my super-human people-pleasing skills, and the acts of service I performed for Wayne far outweighed what I did for anyone else. I was always up for a challenge, and he was so appreciative that I willingly put him in charge as my governing body, doling out the gold stars, accolades, and external validation I believed proved my worthiness.

Even after I left my Hay House Event Director position last year, he was still calling me with questions related to my previous duties. And, because it was Wayne, I’d give him the help he needed.

Old habits really do die hard.

On the Thursday following his death, his family held a “Celebration of Life” for him in South Florida. Maya, Wayne’s assistant and close friend for nearly 40 years who is like a second mother to me, really wanted me to come and I really wanted to be there to support her. However, I was feeling resistant to going. I knew that I’d be part of the Hay House tribute and that felt more resonant to me. And yet I didn’t want Maya to feel abandoned and alone.

I went back and forth in my mind, from “It’s going to be three flights each way and a lot of money and there aren’t any mileage tickets…” to “It’s Wayne and Maya for God’s sake, none of that matters, I have to go!” Ultimately, knowing that Reid would be there — Reid Tracy, Hay House President and very close friend of both Wayne and Maya — I made the difficult decision not to go since they’d have each other, and that felt right.

And then I woke up on Thursday morning, the day of the celebration, at 3:20am in a panic, regretting my decision. I immediately grabbed my phone to look for flights that could get me there in time but, short of a private plane, it was impossible.

A few hours later my dear friend, the intuitive medium Colette Baron-Reid, called me and the first thing she said was, “Don’t worry about not going to Florida.”

I burst into tears.

We’d had a bit of texting and a quick call since Wayne died but not about the family celebration. I told her I’d been up since before dawn agonizing over not going. She said she knew. She told me that while driving that morning she received a message to call me and tell me that Wayne loves me and knows I love him and that I don’t have to do things like that anymore. No more heroic efforts. No more proving myself. And that for me, a part of Wayne’s passing was to really integrate this knowing.

It’s as if Wayne said, “I still see you. This part of you doesn’t need to exist anymore. Make room for what’s coming.”

A friend was telling me how much she loved the tribute, how she felt Wayne’s presence in all of us, and how gracefully I spoke. I shared that I felt something shift in me on stage that night and the next day during my workshop as well. “I feel like I turned a corner in my speaking,” I told her. “Wayne pulled you around the corner,” she said. Chills ensued.

And now I’m over here, finding myself in familiar situations, and my initial instinct is to respond the way I used to out of habit, even though everything has changed. So it’s about making one different choice in the space between impact and reaction. Or as Viktor Frankl said much more eloquently, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

I am now my own governing body, doling out freedom. I believe the new Super Woman prioritizes herself while being true to her inner yes and no, without second guessing herself. She has traded self-doubt for self-worth and is in acceptance of right where she is, with clear knowledge that abandoning herself for the sake of another is no longer a badge of honor, or even an option.

Even in death, Wayne is still teaching, and I’m integrating those deeper lessons about life… and myself.

nancylevin.com

You may also enjoy Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Trading Self-Doubt for Self-Worth appeared first on BEST SELF.

[Editor’s note: Sometimes we need not look far to find an undiscovered gem. New to us, but clearly not new to the writing community, Desiree O’Clair wowed not only us, but a sold-out, standing-room-only crowd when she read her piece, When the Wind Blows, at this year’s Story Slam, a part of the annual Woodstock Writers Festival, of which Best Self was a proud sponsor. In under three and a half minutes, with a timer ticking, a panel of judges and a gong just waiting to be rung, Desiree O’Clair captivated the room with her dynamic reading, for which she took the coveted first-place prize. We celebrate her work here. Better yet, you can watch her reading at the end of her piece – enjoy! ~ Kristen Noel]

When the Wind Blows

On January 28, 2015, my high school boyfriend died. I’ve been walking around crying for weeks. He was the first boy I ever loved.

John was passionate about music. He was a Beatles freak. He named his son Dylan. John knew he was going to die. He left a playlist 12 pages long for his memorial service — over 400 songs.

A few nights ago, John’s wife messaged me. She asked me if I would spread John’s ashes at Big Pink, and some at Bethel Woods — the site of the original Woodstock Festival. She just can’t bring herself to do it. She is putting him in the mail to me. This summer when my best friend Kathleen gets here from Alaska, we will spread John’s ashes. Kathleen loved him, too.

I remember making out in the back seat of his car one night, and he took my shirt off. It was a tee shirt, the blue one with the Pegasus on it that I got at Spencer’s. I was pretty nervous, and while kissing my neck he exclaimed breathlessly into my ear, “God, I love skin!”

Then he started to unhook my bra, and I freaked out because my breasts were so small that I was embarrassed. I was only an A cup, and I didn’t want him to know I was wearing a padded bra, and that’s why we never went all the way.

Kathleen remembers that night, too. She wasn’t there, and I didn’t tell her about it, but we’ve been best friends our whole lives. Everything I remember, she remembers. So when Kathleen gets here, I am going to gather the women of my tribe, and we are going to spread John’s ashes. I don’t know the people who live at Big Pink, so we may just do a drive by and sprinkle a little bit of John out the window on our way to Bethel Woods. But when we get to Bethel Woods, I don’t want to simply spread John’s ashes.

Don’t tell anyone, but Kathleen and I are going to take off our shirts and rub some of his ashes into to our skin — because John loved skin — and the women of my tribe, my daughter and my Woodstock girlfriends, will bang on drums and shake tambourines and make a joyful noise, and Kathleen and I will whip off our skirts and run naked releasing what’s left of him, and when the wind blows, he’ll be blowing in the wind — and we will dive into the grass and roll our fat, naked middle-aged bodies down that hill, grinding his molecules into the earth, and when we reach the bottom of that hill, dizzy and drunk with emotion — the sky will open up and it will pour rain — because this is my story so I can control the weather.

It will rain, and we will cry, and laugh, and dance until the ashes and dirt and grass and everything on and in us washes straight into the cosmic hippie universe that is Woodstock.

That’s how we will celebrate him. That’s how we will tell him goodbye.

desireeoclair.com

Watch Desiree read her story at the Story Slam:

You may also enjoy reading Jazz & Spirituality | The Mindful Music of Jack DeJohnette by Peter Occhiogrosso

The post When the Wind Blows appeared first on BEST SELF.

It’s time. I’ve been resisting. But it’s time now for me to write about awakening to the wellspring of love.

—

I know that it never could have happened had I not awakened to myself first.

I often talk about honoring the space between no longer and not yet, for it’s in this liminal space that resiliency and resourcefulness are born.

I spent much of last year self-resourcing. And finding resiliency in self-love.

On February 25, 2014 — my 49th birthday — the man I had been seeing and I decided to part. We left each other, though still very much in love, because we wanted different things. Eight years younger than I and never married, he longed for a partner and playmate to share life with. And I, having left an enmeshed co-dependent marriage, was a workaholic, happily entrenched in my career and on the road for long stretches at a time. The truth is that I was either working or recovering. Love and play felt like items on my to-do list. Yet I believed I could juggle it all and give myself fully to everything. That belief ultimately stretched our relationship to its breaking point and sent me into eight months of solid certainty that it’s far easier to be alone.

And it was.

During those eight months I self-published my book Jump… And Your Life Will Appear which did so well during its initial release that Hay House offered me a deal to republish it. I traveled for speaking engagements and to be with family and friends. I often hiked for several hours a day. Woke up when I wanted to and went to bed when I wanted to. Ate what I wanted to. I watched what I wanted to when I wanted to. I firmly established my coaching business, allowing me to take the giant jump of leaving my day job.

Over that summer, friends of mine got married and their wedding was like the one at the end of every romantic movie, times a billion. The gorgeous, joyous and madly-in-love couple exchanged vows, pledging their hearts and souls to one another before friends and family against the backdrop of sunshine and waterfront. It was magnificent. Really and truly. And yet as I sat there watching, it was so crystal clear to me that I didn’t want what they were having.

Why on earth would I want that? I had no one to answer to and no one to take into account for decisions I was making. I was free from the obligation of relationship. And I could work as much as I wanted to! It was sheer bliss.

Until it wasn’t.

I started to long for fun and play: for full moons, camping, road trips, mountain biking, and the yummy love that my guy infused our relationship with.

These are things at one time I resisted for fear they would threaten my work. This wasn’t about being lonely or wanting a boyfriend. It was about wanting him. Wanting us.

When my guy and I split he helped me load up all the stuff that was at his place in Aspen so I could drive everything back to my place in Boulder. He even packed me a spare head for the electric toothbrushes we have.

Remember, we left each other in love.

Nearly eight months had passed without any communication. He made that request and I was determined to honor it.

Historically, I’ve been really good at restrictive, righteous self-control and less good at following my heart.

And then, one sunny Saturday in October, I took a risk.

Over the past few years along the journey to finding my own truth, my own voice, and my own power, I’ve learned that when we stay inside the lines too rigidly, we stop the flow of allowing. Sometimes we need to burst the dam and let the pent-up energy move so that new possibilities and options can emerge where before there was only stagnant, lifeless water.

It took me years to stop thinking I needed a permission slip. Years to know that my life was my own and that I didn’t owe it to anyone. Years to get free from believing the only way to be loved is by buying it, bending over backwards with people-pleasing. Years to know that everything we are seeking externally needs to be resolved internally first. Years to live life from my own inspiration, motivation, and agency rather than in response or reaction to anyone or anything else. Years to know that our present- moment choices can actually predict our future and that every choice we make today is either in service of the life we desire living, or sabotaging it. Years to know that the answer to freedom is self-love, self-acceptance, and self-forgiveness.

I took a risk and followed my heart. I was so worried about breaking a boundary that I almost didn’t.

Here’s some of what I emailed:

i want to relinquish
the rigid stronghold
that’s keeping us apart
and let you know
i miss you in my life
i love you always
i am in love with you still

Here’s some of what he wrote back:

thank you for reaching out. i appreciate the risk you took in doing so.
after writing and rewriting you for the past two hours, i don’t know what to say. it feels good to hear from you. i am crying.

Turns out, as fate would have it, he was in Boulder that weekend. Two days later we met for a walk and sat on a rock in the creek for four hours. It was as if everything and nothing had changed.

We have been together ever since.

We put closure on the past so that we can do it differently now.

It’s a tall order. Building on the good, facing fear, and allowing for expansion and possibility.

To be independent and entwined, each successful in whatever way that means. To be all in this loving relationship where we speak our truth and where we don’t get threatened or lose ourselves in love.

It’s a tall order, I know, but day by day we’re doing it.

Sometimes it’s glorious, sometimes it’s messy, sometimes unskilled, sometimes graceful. But we are always all in, and that makes all the difference.

I no longer have one foot out the door. I’ve shifted the belief that being in relationship and being successful in my career are mutually exclusive. We’re just wrapping up a six-week stint in Moab, Utah, where I’ve made mountain biking my priority while also devoting myself to my coaching business, and my relationship — everything is thriving.

I will always love my work but I have a reverence for play now too, appreciating the ebb and flow of how one feeds the other.

And still, the bud of self-love that awakened in me blooms big, reminding me that while life might indeed be easier when alone, it’s much more fun when shared.

love 2.0

for aaron

i used to
feel small
and sinking

so afraid of
being swallowed

today
i feel your heart
reeling me in
above waterline
to breathe again

now
when i am submerged
i remember that
air is always available
in love with you

Nancylevin.com

You may also enjoy Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Love 2.0 appeared first on BEST SELF.

—

I’m skeptical about the word “awakening.” I think it implies a transformative moment — a shaft of sunlight through the clouds.

In my experience, I’ve never had the romantic Hollywood version of awakening in my life. For me, it’s been incremental and often not immediately rewarding. In terms of character, my growth has entailed learning to do what I don’t want to do. For instance, I don’t want to walk up the stairs to my office and write today. I’d rather do anything else. But I committed to it, and I’m going to do it regardless of what I want or don’t want. That’s not sexy or glamorous, but it has been immensely gratifying. It has shown me that I’m strong and that I have worth and tenacity. I think that my process of awakening has stemmed from a realization that all this talk about the pursuit of happiness wasn’t really all that valuable to me, and that I’d much rather have a life infused with meaning than happiness.

That’s not to say I haven’t found a whole lot of happiness along the way, it’s just not my goal anymore.

And that has been my most profound awakening.

Nowhere am I more keenly aware of my being “awake,” or not, than I am in my writing. In my newest book, Everything You Ever Wanted, there were so many things that required me to be radically honest. Complex ideas of identity and reinvention came to the forefront as I tried to share the story of how my family came together and why, who we are as a family, and how strong my desire was to awake to a second act in my life.

Learn more at JillianLauren.com

You may also enjoy reading Interview: Giancarlo Esposito | Leap Of Faith with Kristen Noel

The post Awakening Isn’t a Fairytale appeared first on BEST SELF.

A painful divorce bring forth a journey to reclaiming self worth

—

All I ever wanted was to feel worthy. Deserving of having any wants or needs, let alone having my desires be met. Mine is not a solo story.

The majority of my coaching clients come to me with no idea of what they really want. They’re in some sort of transition, aware they need to make a change, yet they know that facing the prospect of living life on their own terms aligned with their own desires for the first time is daunting.

Simply naming desires — feeling worthy and deserving of them without worrying about the logistics and implementation — is the portal into the process of healing, truth-telling, and transformation.

For most of my life, I needed validation. I looked outward for permission. Permission to offer myself love and acceptance. I put everyone else’s dreams, needs, and desires before mine. I spent my days managing the perceptions of others, projecting an image of perfection. In the process, I forgot something.

I forgot to live my own life. Marriage was a long time to be away from myself.

I didn’t feel loved for who I was—especially not in my marriage—so I believed I never would be. I checked out. Went to sleep. And was awakened only by an explosion of epic proportions.

After the dust settled, I had a choice. I could either stay numb and go back to sleep. Or, I could face my fears. I could embrace change. I could stop living my life in reaction to others. Own up to desire.

And so the journey began.

The journey to knowing, deep in my essence, that I am loved. No matter what I do or don’t do. Even if I don’t do anything I will be loved.

But how? I needed courage. I found it in my body.

My body — flesh and bone — a treasure chest. Its cellular secrets under lock and key until the moment they were ready to be freed. The thaw came that way: an instant, a window, an opening. If I’d left sooner, I would not have been able to stay away. If I’d stayed a moment longer, it would have been radical self-betrayal.

I remember leaving for the last time. I bought a clean new mattress just days before, knowing it was a last offering to a lost time. I quietly told the truth to someone safe. There was the night I thought I heard him coming for me—first hope, then fear, then resignation. I remember finally asking for help. I remember when I didn’t think all the help was going to help. I remember when it finally did. I remember all the hours around the hours. Those hours building the skeleton of a leaving. Those hours of bone. 

I thought it was just about a marriage ending. But it was about so much more. Mourning the marriage, but also mourning the self I had been.

Making room for the one I was becoming. That one—the new me—who could not go back.

Who could not survive in such a dry climate.

Or could she? She who so much wanted to go back. How to hold on to that part of me? Simply hold on to it and not act?

Uncertainty. The tension of opposites. How, just when we think we have landed, we are actually further unearthed. Ground must be restored, but not through stillness. Stillness will not satisfy. I discovered life as breath: fluidity is the only ground we can seek.

I remember the instant my marriage was over. Feeling like a failure for not fixing him. For not making the marriage work. For staying too long or not long enough. Waiting for him to sign the divorce papers. And also secretly wishing he would break down the door. Come back for me. How the jingling of any dog tags on any dog collar took my breath away. No idea that the last time I saw them would be the last time I saw them. Fun and happiness and pleasure were on hold indefinitely.

But then, a break. An unexpected encounter, a moment of awe. Sensation returning to my body. And there, my breath still held, I felt hunger for the first time.

And I cut my hair.

Florence, Italy. In Michaelangelo’s gallery, bodies birthing themselves from rough and ragged chunks of marble. Unfinished Slaves, frozen in a state of self-excavation. I, too, was carving myself back into life.

Shame and guilt stripped away, revealing my raw flesh. I reclaimed time lost: my unlived life. Forgiveness arrived, tentatively at first. Then—now—in bursts of disbelief. Inhabiting my life completely– no hiding, truly living – is unparalleled.

Once there was a marriage and now there is me.

What do I know now? I know that happiness, fun, pleasure are necessities. I know that loss is loss and grief is grief. I know that forgiveness is the gateway; freedom and love lie beyond. I know that nothing is better than living my life as it is happening. Meeting the miraculous moments as me—just me.

Just being me is the only thing I ever have to do to be loved.

I know that living on the other side of my greatest fear, I can do anything.

Endings and beginnings are kickstarts and catalysts. An invitation to a life I never knew was possible: this extraordinary life I am living now.

And above all else I know that no matter what I do or don’t do, I am worthy.

I offer my heart to you with the hope that it serves as a compass to lead you back to yourself, with an invitation to find and trust your own voice as you dive deeply into your desire.

 being held and belonging (a poem)

it all changed

the mood

the pulse

the pace

the swelling

the room itself

was swollen

grounded in trust

as if my body was a napkin

being pulled through a ring from the pelvis

deep into the earth

or like a candle melting down from the inside

dripping and pooling at the base of my spine

if i was someone who would say

it’s my kundalini coiling and rising

then i would say that

now allowing my body

to feel the sensation of wanting

don’t have to try so hard

don’t have to try or think at all

to conjure anything to get myself anywhere

other than where i am

the point of contact

the point of entry

as friction gives way

purely physical response

riding the edge of the wave

unharnessed pleasure

blossoming and going over

the richness and

the yumminess of it

the heightened sense

of being held and belonging

upon return to this body and breath

let go of the ground that has held you

recognize that your only hope

is to be comfortable with uncertainty

so much strength and stamina

found in the ungrounding

sailing past safety

i can’t go back into the darkness

after finally emerging into the light

worthy

and deserving

of desire

finally

i am allowing

love

You may also enjoy Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

The post Reclaiming Self Worth appeared first on BEST SELF.

What a beautiful thing is to find clarity, especially coming out of darkness…

—

Today, I am happy. The promise of spring pierces through a long winter and warms me as I sit to write this in my favorite West Village cafe. It’s been one week since having produced the third annual Big Love Weekend, and for the first time, I feel like I’m landing safely on the other side.

What a great feeling, to find your purpose in life, your calling, and wham bam, you’re living your dream life! That has not always been my story…

It’s funny how the various manifestations of our individual stories through social media, the choices we make regarding how others are permitted to see our lives unfolding through pretty pictures and clever posts, can differ so vastly from the reality of a situation. Yes, I lived at an ashram where I learned to teach yoga and have since developed my devotion to practicing Karma Yoga — selfless service — and yes, being in community through love and service is my calling in life and a source of true happiness. But, throughout the story I was telling the world, one integral element had been missing all along, one key ingredient omitted: I’d neglected to develop a real sense of self-love, self-worth, and true self-care. That realization has only been the beginning of what I’m sure will be a lifelong challenge. The journey that has brought me to this delicate and hard-earned place of inner peace has been wrought with countless ups and downs. It has taken me to the peaks and recesses of both light and darkness. I’ve felt integrated and connected to myself, and as far away from my core as one can get.

But the more I learn to trust the process and allow myself to be vulnerable, to accept myself exactly as I am in this moment, to ask for help when I need it, and to fearlessly share the authentic version of my story, the human one complete with its blemishes — the closer I get to living my purpose and embodying my truth.

The latest chapter of my story starts in 2011, when I was diagnosed with HIV. I was in recovery from drug addiction at a rehabilitation facility when the diagnosis was pronounced, and I couldn’t have imagined feeling weaker or more compromised than I did in that moment. What that moment served to do, however, was to humble me beyond recognition, allowing me to occupy a place of genuine release and to dismantle my notions regarding my identity up until that point. I released my preconceptions about yoga. The practice of yoga as a series of asanas were slowly replaced with the deeper, more spiritual substance within it, the art of letting go and of accepting.

When I returned to New York City, I’d been irreversibly changed. Riding the train down from Canada was a pivotal experience, terrorized by the notion of facing off with my old life. I was “supposed” to have gone on to open a yoga studio in San Francisco, not fallen prey to something as crude and ugly as drug addiction, let alone become dirtied by such a disease. That wasn’t the blueprint.

I had trouble reconciling my version of my story with what I was faced with at that moment: my self-image as a penniless failure without a plan.

I reiterated what I’d heard myself say out loud days earlier upon receiving my diagnosis: ‘I have to learn how to love myself.’ In our moments of greatest need, it seems as if we are opened to receive and channel the greatest wisdom. How does one learn to love ones self, when he’s never really understood his worth or even felt lovable?

What I was unaware of at the time was that my healing would come in the form of answering those questions head on, and facing my biggest fears in the process. Instead of presenting as the yogi and the healer, I was the new, modified version, what my good friend, mentor, and supporter called the “Wounded Healer.” In revealing my darkness and my weakness to those who knew me, and in shining a light on my wounds, I allowed myself liberation through honesty and humility. Through the stages of addressing my addiction, an ever-present and ongoing process, I’d experienced the meaning of true vulnerability and dependence on others. I’d learned the power of connection to community, and witnessed the opening of my own heart through the opening of the hearts and homes of others to me during a time of great need. When I reached out without shame, I was received without hesitation and cared for. I began to heal.

That healing birthed desire, a fervent desire to give back and honor those who’d helped me without judgment and allowed me to preserve my dignity.

I teamed up with my favorite organization, God’s Love We Deliver, an entity that has become a cornerstone for over thirty years worth of delivering food to those too debilitated to shop of cook for themselves — people with MS, HIV/AIDS, Cancer. GLWD, nourishes the body, mind and soul through sheer connection — delivering love. Together we created a movement, small at first, which has continued to gather a momentum of its own and attract a growing community of beautiful souls who are willing to take their practice off the mat and into their daily lives. People who are willing to live their yoga.

For one weekend each year, over 200 folks come together to share our practice, our stories and our hearts. In the process, we’ve gone from generating $5K for God’s Love in the event’s first incarnation, to raising over $60K the last weekend of February 2015. Each year that Big Love Weekend unfolds in all its poignancy, I am reminded of the meaning of what it is to love. In order to show up for others, I need to show up for myself first. In order to teach Karma Yoga, I need to serve my own highest good, for we are all unavoidably interconnected. Whether I am teaching yoga in my studio or preparing meals in the God’s Love kitchen, I am sharing myself and my story, and the more real I can be, the more I can be of real benefit.

It’s a day at a time. It’s practice. It’s honesty. It’s showing up.

Learn more at Jase Cannon (formerly The Bearded Yogi)

You may also enjoy Pilgrimage of Divine Love by Jason Patrick

The post Desire to Heal | A Journey To Healing From the Inside Out appeared first on BEST SELF.

4 former supermodels reflect on how their experience has inspired their purpose-driven lives

—

Lights, camera, action! Despite the presumed glamour, the modeling experience wasn’t all paparazzi strobes flashing, champagne, and Project Runway episodes. It took a team of highly experienced professionals to bring our images to life and no, we didn’t look remotely close to that when we woke up in the morning. Fantasy versus reality, with some blurred lines in between. Yes, the world has changed in tremendous ways for me and my supermodel peers included in this piece, but on the deepest core level, the most basic tenets of what we all desired / desire remain a constant – we want to be happy and we want to feel good and comfortable in our own skin.

The world is fascinated by beauty, and perhaps it always will be. I had this idea to assemble some superheroes from my past modeling days to share a snapshot of their stories. Today, one of my favorite things to do is to speak to groups of young women. I lure them in with images pulled from fashion magazines, but leave them with the real sauce – the advice and guidance I wish I had received at their age. This piece was inspired by a provocative question often posed: What would you say now to your fifteen-year-old self, if you could go back in time? And I would dare to add: What would you desire for her?

I crossed paths with each of models in this piece (Lisa Kauffman, Nadine Hennelly, Eileen Cavanaugh Haber, and Kersti Bowser) at some point during my own modeling career, in some place in the world or somewhere within the pages of glossy magazines. I even lived with Lisa in Paris for a brief time. Gathering their stories was reminiscent of recollecting stories of my own. We shared a unique experience with many intersecting similarities, peppered with our own individual seasonings. Reconnecting with these lovelies after so many years has been profoundly inspiring to me. Celebrating their voices is empowering for the younger generations of women, whether or not they are pursuing a career in modeling.

There are threads of commonality weaving throughout the human experience, the journey from adolescence to adulthood, and the path to claiming our real purpose and power in the world.

Desire is a funny thing: powerful and simultaneously fleeting. As children we believe we have superpowers, that we can leap tall buildings with a single bound and manifest achieve anything we desire. Then along the way, we allow the outside forces of the world to dull down that magic as our soul is slowly eroded, one sparkle at a time. Reflecting upon your own path from stardust to here, what would you like to tell that younger version of yourself?

Superpower Soundbites:

LISA: Connect to your inner strength – what others think of you, especially in adolescence, should not affect your future endeavors. Be flexible. Soak it all up – learn languages, see the world, make friendships, save money.

NADINE: Pay attention to what you see and what you feel from the world around you. Don’t be in a rush. Enjoy the ride – ask questions – don’t take anything for granted. See yourself from within. Be happy; life is short and beautiful. Sock money away in the bank!

EILEEN: Everything you need is within. You are worthy of everything you desire. Stand up for yourself; don’t give your power away. You can be powerful and graceful at the same time.

KERSTI: Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. See your inner beauty – you are worthy and loved. You can do/be anything you want to be. Reach within and know that this is the source of true validation.

We were mere adolescents thrown into an adult world of high-stakes business and opportunity, with relatively little to no experience, guidance, or positive role models. That said, in an industry at the time predominantly run by men (some of them lecherous and abusive), Lisa credits the stewardship of her female New York City agent, Pauline Bernatchez, as a great mentor. This was a boy’s club in which female role models were few and far between. There was nothing glamorous about the on-the-job-training aspect of this path, and we had yet to discover or begin to understand our commoditization and/or the complicated relationships that would unfold with our inner selves, our bodies, and the industry folk around us. This was our job — we were a product and this was all we knew. Many of us had never had any other job. Thus this was our journey from there to here. Fasten your seatbelts, please.

We came from different places, different backgrounds, and different experiences, but we came together in the place of modeling, aka Hard Knocks 101. Flying on planes across the world by ourselves at a young age, in a world without the Internet, mobile phones, social media, and constant connectivity, we were thrown into the survival-of-the-fittest modeling pool. We had all been discovered in one way or another. The story wasn’t so unique, but I don’t think any of us truly understood the gravity of what was to come. Kersti and I both grew up on the outskirts of New York City, but anyone who knows New York will tell you that stepping foot into Manhattan was like entering a whole new stratosphere; the boroughs didn’t count. Commuting to school on the subway, Kersti was discovered by the editor of Seventeen magazine, and the rest was cover-girl history for her. As a side note, at that time of pre-electronic media, Seventeen magazine was the Holy Grail to a teenage girl, a hit of media morphine. I still remember waiting for it to arrive in the mailbox.

New York modeling agents deployed streams of girls to Paris and Milan during summer breaks from school, to see who would cut it, what cream would rise to the surface — we were expendable commodities. We all recall those first flights, feeling cautiously exhilarated, the smell of Gitane cigarettes in the air of Charles de Gaulle airport upon landing in Paris. We weren’t in Kansas anymore. Nadine arrived a naïve young girl from Montreal, only to be greeted by no one. As she stood alone (in more ways than one), a stewardess helped her make a call to her modeling agency, whereupon she was abruptly informed that the driver coming to get her was running about an hour late. At least she spoke French. Using my best high school language skills, I managed to navigate my way through customs and to a taxi to the 17th arrondisement of Paris, clenching a little slip of paper with an address written on it. Bonjour, Paris!

And while throughout the years of our lives, having soothed our regrets, our heartaches, and our experiences, we are all very clear about one thing: we were availed of an extraordinary opportunity that opened our eyes to the world at large and shaped the women we have become.

These are the pieces and parts that came together to inform the whole. “I believe modeling saved my life in many ways,” said Kersti. We would all agree that we were forced to grow up very quickly, and as Kersti continued, “It gave me a sense of power, a self-reliance” – an invaluable tool to acquire. In many ways it cracked us open to being more conscious of the world. Coming from all quadrants of the globe, as Lisa put it, “We became citizens of the world,” and for this we were blessed.

We each went on to become mothers (interestingly, predominantly giving birth to boys, aside from Eileen, who has two daughters, one of whom is currently following in her modeling footsteps — talk about full circle!). Lisa, the mother of two teenage boys, is now “mother” and mentor to young models as director of LK Model Management in Calgary – walking the walk and talking the talk. What better person to groom a next-generation model than one who walked in her shoes (and down runways around the world, I might add)?

The modeling world bred competitiveness and tried to negate one of the greatest potential opportunities – connection. It wasn’t as if those in charge could prevent friendships from being made (and many old ones still exist), but the pervasive theme, particularly among manipulative Parisian agents, was to incite a sense of competition among us. As Lisa points out, “It was probably to protect themselves from being outed for their emotional / physical abuses and manipulation.” From a very young age, we were pitted against one another to compete rather than to be mighty comrades. There certainly were some lost opportunities in which we could have learned the value of celebrating each other and creating deep connections.

We can’t change our experiences, we can’t change the choices we made, but we can forgive our younger selves for making choices we may not make today, and we can be the voices of wisdom going forward. Kersti admits that, while she doesn’t like standing in a place of “regret,” she was upset with herself at a point for not having been more in charge of her world back in the heyday, a sentiment with which I completely concur.

The Exterior / Body Complex

We came of age in a non-retouching era, aside from covers and campaigns, and thus we fell victim to a highly scrutinizing industry and were often taught to be intensely critical of ourselves. Today virtually EVERYTHING that appears in the media is retouched. Comparison, the thief of joy, was ever present for all of us. Eileen recounts an experience at the beginning of her career, where she was standing awkwardly with her long, lanky body in a bathing suit her mother bought her, next to glamazon Cindy Crawford — self-confidence buzzkill alert! In the words of Nadine, “I always felt I wasn’t that pretty. I spent most of my career picking apart my body. And though today my body doesn’t even come close to looking anything like it did then, I am so grateful to my body for being the vessel of my soul – for allowing me to give birth and experience the passion of life, love, art, motherhood, food, touch, perfume, hugs.”

The driver sent to retrieve Nadine and another model from the airport that first day she arrived in Paris stopped to get them something to eat on the way into the city. As they languished over buttered baguettes and hot chocolate, the bemused driver remarked how they should enjoy it while they could, as it would be the last time they would eat like this. Upon arrival at Nadine’s agency, they were placed on a scale and out came the measuring tapes to document that their measurements were “intact.” When I arrived at my agency, I learned of the infamous “thigh test.” We were told to stand before our agent with our legs together — if our thighs touched, we needed to lose weight and fast — no one was going to provide us with any healthy options on how to best go about achieving that. Lose weight – those were the marching orders! Needless to say, this became the breeding ground for a complex relationship with our bodies and our perceptions, often brutally dissected by others and ultimately by ourselves.

It was in Paris that I learned to pick apart my own youthful body. It would be many years before I could see the truth.

Kersti also brings up a good point – as models, we felt washed up and old by our early 20s. We became adept at being overly critical of ourselves, especially our external selves. Talk about missing the moment: “Today at age 50, I’d kill for that body and skin I had then.” As Eileen put it, “At 22 years old, I was lost and had no idea what to do next. I started my spiritual journey much younger than most people.”

The Game / Spiritual Complex

Eileen shared a snapshot of her LOL good old Midwestern naiveté. Upon her arrival in Paris she recalled being confronted by the revelation of the “game” of modeling, one she refused to play. She quickly got the memo that by dressing sexy and dating photographers and wealthy playboys, one could fast-track themselves to plum modeling gigs. She subsequently spent many nights at home — an unwilling and often lonely non-participant.

Nothing was for free, and fame came with a price tag. As Kersti described her experience, “I was exposed to a dark side where extremes were commonplace, such as between drugs and eschewed value systems, but I was also exposed to wonderful groundbreaking individuals who were out there making a difference in the world.” Such was the yin yang of the modeling experience.

We pieced it together as best we could, traipsing along without proper guidance or mentorship. Fame, fortune, and glamour aside, we craved stability and something “normal.” For us that often translated to a life no longer lived out of a suitcase in hotels; rather we craved the stability of family, and as Kersti recalls, a more “approachable, low-maintenance lifestyle.”

The Biz / Financial Complex

As Nadine has pointed out, today by virtue of how the world has changed, many models are in charge of their own destinies. Often bypassing their agents, they understand their own branding. Everyone, including every celebrity and every sports figure, is their own brand. Back in the day, before the proliferation of electronic media, we knew nothing of brands. We just represented them. We were the face of something, but not of ourselves. Today models possess much more business savvy. I think we can all agree that we could have been a bit more responsible with our finances. Luckily, the advice that Lisa‘s NYC agent gave her sunk in and positioned her to be able to retire early and provide for herself and her family, in particular, to care for her young son diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The harsh reality, however, is that she was in the minority in that department. Kersti recalled, “We were self-taught. We didn’t have the same access to information that is available today. Models were rarely considered businesswomen.”

Most of us arrived in Europe by virtue of agency “advances,” which in essence meant that the agency forwarded a plane ticket, provided an apartment, and then began collecting their money, plus some, once we started working. There was a lot of creative accounting going on, specifically with respect to agent commissions and taxes. We were paying taxes in countries we weren’t legally working in. Curious. But, in line with our inexperience, we went on about our merry ways, not rocking the financial boat. Ultimately, the models who fared the best in the financial arena were the ones who had parents holding the purse strings. I knew a girl whose vigilant mother controlled all of her money and invested it into real estate — she was set for life by the end of her career, at least financially.

The world will continue to evolve and hindsight will always be 20/20, but what can we do with our experiences to transform them into tools of empowerment?

It is our responsibility to ourselves and the world we live in, to use our powers for good, to tap into our inner superheroes and to follow our heart’s desire. Because when we live authentically and on purpose with our life’s mission, when we impart wisdom to our youth, and when we connect to one another, we shift the world.

Have you found your way back to those superpowers of your own?

Where They Are Now

Lisa Kauffman — The first model from Canada to grace the cover of British Vogue has not only gone from supermodel to super mentor as Director of LK Model Management, she also gets behind the camera with her models. “By being the first one to take their photos, I can pass along my knowledge to the new generation and make them more at ease in front of the camera.” A new brand of modeling is in town; the LK site refreshingly states, “Discovering beauty one role model at a time.” Lisa lives in Calgary with her family.

Nadine Hennelly — Inspiration in action, Nadine Hennelly has transformed the life experience of her travels and studies around the world into a manifestation of art. She is a successful portrait and fine art photographer with her own studio/gallery and has also recently returned to the stage, performing in local theater and film productions. Nadine and her wonderful 10-year-old son reside in Montreal. Her work can be seen by visiting her website at http://www.nadinehennelly.ca

Kersti Bowser — Producer, chef, owner of Gourmet Butterfly Media, a-food-in-media production company, CIA (the Culinary Institute of America)-trained, single mother, and woman-hear-me-roar extraordinaire, Kersti has come full circle connecting to her lifelong passion of expressing love through food. Its roots run deep into her childhood in the mountains of Sweden and intersect with a love of all things French cooking, transforming her into a model with a Julia Child palette. She has taken her experience in front of the camera and turned it into a career of behind-the-scenes food styling. She is the in-demand magic behind just about every household-name chef you know, among them Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, Rocco DiSpirito, Rachel Ray, and Bobby Flay, to name a few. Her work regularly appears on TV shows such as “The View,” and with celebrity cooks, most recently Gwyneth Paltrow. While building her media empire, she aspires to return to the CIA to teach food styling to others. She resides with her teenage son. To find out more about Kersti, you can connect with her on Facebook.

Eileen Cavanaugh Haber — Eileen can’t restrain herself from making all things around her more beautiful, both physically and spiritually. Her quest for deeper awakening has ignited monumental transformation in her journey. Currently residing with her family in Santa Barbara, California, she is transitioning from her roles as full-time mother and successful interior decorator to writer, her passion-filled purpose. It is her greatest desire to help others to connect to their deepest calling and purpose. Her inspirations can be found on her blog, goddessgrotto.wordpress.com

You may also enjoy reading Leap Of Faith | 10 Essential Tips For Shifting Your Life by Eileen Haber

The post Supermodels | Superpowers appeared first on BEST SELF.

Co-creating a Conscious Business taps into a primal desire for freedom

—

You never really know someone until you go into business with them. There’s something about having money on the line that makes things get real, quick. If there are unspoken, conflicting desires or intentions, they will bubble to the surface quickly. But even beyond that, going into business with a partner (romantic or otherwise) inevitably leads to a clash of values, ideals, and vision at one point or another, testing friendships, relationships, and even the business itself if things get too intense. I should know. I have gone into business with friends only to have both the business and friendship explode in fiery, impassioned theatrics shortly thereafter. Turns out we weren’t as like-minded as we thought. And as you might imagine, this can be especially precarious when doing so with a loved one or someone you are in a relationship with, so why jeopardize it over business?

For me, there was no other choice. When Meghan and I, romantically involved for nearly six years at the time, decided to launch Conscious Lifestyle magazine in early 2013, we came together under a shared vision of something great-something we believed would change the world. And for me, vision is everything. I am fiercely independent (although that’s softening a bit as I grow older and wiser), so to work closely with me, someone must share my vision. And Meghan did-and not in a patronizing, rah-rah cheerleader way as so often can be the case in a relationship, but in a mature, inspired way that could actually work not just in theory but in the muddy trenches of a self-funded startup project of passion. Anybody not totally committed-not fueled by a deep-seated desire to do something great and bigger than themselves-would get chewed up and spit out quickly-myself included-if they didn’t truly believe in the cause. Heart, soul, stamina, unavoidable growth, forays far outside our comfort zones, and a fair amount of risk and investment of personal funds would be required for this venture. Not for the faint-hearted.

To be honest, we jumped in and invested in the spur of the moment, riding a wave of excitement, passion, and desire, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into.

As always with a new business, it’s at least two to four times more work than anticipated, and everything looks very different now from what we had initially envisioned. There have been fights and emotional outbursts, disagreements, and divergence of vision, along with the feeling of not being heard, inherent in the ever-shifting dynamics of any relationship. But these things, so challenging and frustrating in the moment, can be our greatest teachers (in hindsight mostly, because in the moment things can get a bit, shall we say, visceral…). Although we have our moments, we are wise enough to understand that it is less about the specifics of who is right or wrong, but rather more about what we ultimately learn from the experience-what wisdom and growth ultimately bloom from the seeds of conflict.

Reading the above you might assume that it is indeed a rocky road going into business with a loved one, but in all honesty, the above scenarios make up less than 10 percent of our interactions. The vast majority of what we do is inspired, purpose-driven, and in total alignment… otherwise it could never work. In every sense we share a vision and that’s why it works, or at least that’s how it seems on the surface.

But what is a vision, really? First it is perhaps an image or a thought or an idea. But when developed and nurtured, it eventually becomes a desire to create something that does not yet exist in the world. And for us, Conscious Lifestyle magazine serves as an outlet for one of our highest desires-to have a positive impact in the world and to give people powerful, practical tools for rapidly transforming their lives. And in its most crystallized form, it stems from a desire to give people the tools to heal themselves, to expand and grow, because in order to change the world, we must first embody that change — as within, so without.

And it is that desire, I realize as I sit here writing this, that gives us the wherewithal, inspiration, and drive to transcend whatever challenges and quarrels might come up for us as we navigate the often often-shifting path of co-creating a business and a relationship simultaneously.

Because after all, desire is a primal energy — at least as I experience it.

It is fuel for the actualization of our dreams into physical reality. When fully expressed there is little that can get it in its way and not be transformed or transcended. And, and that includes our relationship.

On the surface, our magazine may seem like a way to have an impact and make a living doing something we love, but a a deeper look reveals that it is much more than that. As I reflect on what is really motivating us, I can’t escape the realization that it all comes back to desire. As entrepreneurs (and humans), we desire freedom. We desire meaning. We desire self-expression. We desire abundance. We desire connection. We desire community. The magazine gives us all of this in spades. And when viewed through that lens, it suddenly doesn’t seem like the naive, risky decision I’d initially made it out to be. It seems more like our intuition recognizing very clearly that this would be a way to more fully meet our desires. And when you dig a little deeper, what are desires but the cries of the soul for what we truly need to thrive? Through that lens, it suddenly seems like the best decision in the world, which is a gentle reminder that perhaps our desires are far wiser than we often realize.

[Editor’s note: As we were launching Best Self, I discovered Conscious Lifestyle. Noting its superb content and design in a similar space as our magazine, I set out to meet Justin, clear across the country, to learn what makes him tick. East meets West in the spirit of comrades, not competitors. ~Bill Miles]

consciouslifestylemag.com

You may also enjoy Interview: Reid Tracy | The Business of the Soul with Kristen Noel

The post Reflections On Birthing A Conscious Business appeared first on BEST SELF.

Mentorship of girls begins with the sharing of your own vulnerabilities

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The act of mentoring is to see the potential in someone and help them realize it. What does it take to see the potential in someone? An ability to see your own potential. Therein lies the challenge.

Underlying many of the excuses people give for not engaging in mentorship is the fear that they have not done enough to maximize their own potential and therefore believe they have limited advice or wisdom to share. Or if they are seeking a mentor, they are afraid of admitting what they don’t know and ultimately acknowledging that they need help understanding themselves and what they have to offer. Either way it can be a very vulnerable place.

This intersection of mutual vulnerability is where the magic happens. According to Dr. Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania and her research through the Duckworth Lab, resiliency is the number-one indicator of success.

Talking about perceived failures, shortcomings, mistakes, and fears and how to overcome them is one of the most important things you can offer in service to the mentoring relationship.

The level of vulnerability each party is willing to go to is directly proportional to how valuable that mentoring interaction will be.

I know this from experience as much as from the research. I had a former colleague from back in my days in the entertainment business reach out to me a few years ago. She was going back to school to get her MBA and was tasked with interviewing a CEO about their leadership experiences. She asked if I’d be up for being interviewed. Of course I was flattered and said yes. But as the time drew near I started to get nervous. What was I going to talk about? What did I really know? I just decided I was going to be honest and see what happened. I shared my realities of leadership: some successes but mostly inadequacies, like boardroom blunders or that time when one of my staff said to me on an executive team call, “I do not think you share a commitment to excellence that we need to run this organization.” Lots of good times. At some point during our meeting I woke up from my monologue and immediately regretted everything I said. To use Dr. Brene Brown’s term, I had a vulnerability hangover. But my friend, who was a bit stunned by just how forthcoming I was, thanked me for being honest. She shared that for her personally, it motivated her to keep going because the perceived ”failures” she was experiencing were really just par for the course. I came to find out that of the 20 different CEOs that the class had interviewed I was the only one who shared the challenges I’d faced. Apparently everyone else had wrapped up their leadership experiences in a bow and made it pretty. I can’t say I blame them.

It’s not easy to be vulnerable in life or while mentoring but it’s also not that hard. The great news is it gets easier every time you do it.

And regardless, it is worth it because you never know the impact your willingness to be vulnerable will have.

One of my favorite examples happened at a chapter board meeting of Step Up, the nonprofit I run. Daisy (not her real name), a new volunteer leader within Step Up, opened the meeting by asking a group of women, “What challenge have you faced and overcome? We ask the teens in our Step Up after-school and mentoring programs to overcome challenges all the time. What is yours?” She proceeded to share an incredibly personal story about an illness she had suffered from her entire life, how it has shaped her, how it continues to motivate her, and what it has brought to her life. Everyone was moved to tears. Inspired by Daisy, each woman shared one of her biggest challenges and most vulnerable moments. This group of women that only 20 minutes before had been colleagues became a deeply connected community.

The factor that changes this powerful scene of connection at a meeting of women into a game-changing moment of mentorship is when you add a teen girl as an observer. One of our Step Up teens attended the meeting.

When asked how she felt about hearing 15 women share so honestly, she replied through tears, “But you all look so happy! I would never have guessed you faced any challenges at all!”

She felt connected to these accomplished, successful, powerful women who did not share her background and did not come from her neighborhood, but who faced challenges of their own. By setting her sights on being the first in her family to graduate high school and go to college, this teen lives in the vulnerable place of having a vision for herself that her family does not share. Her already strong sense of self and perseverance was bolstered that day. She will take that sense of connection and confidence forward with her. It will impact her and also her family, siblings and community as she continues to move forward in the direction of her goals.

If you are a person who is willing to be vulnerable enough to pursue the fulfillment of your own potential, you are already mentoring. Mentorship happens all the time, intentionally and unintentionally, one on one and in groups, through a one-time connection or with someone you see all the time, through words and through actions. You help others realize their potential while you’re busy realizing your own.

You may also enjoy reading Is Everything Ok? A Call to Be Vulnerable, for Your Child & You by Katarina Wallentin

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Creating and maintaining a business and marriage together requires appreciating what each other likes (and doesn’t like), as well as embracing disparate skill sets

—

It is true that the spiritual journey is an individual process. It’s true that the masculine and feminine unite within you, and that the merging of the river and ocean happens internally. However, the most powerful instrument for realizing this internal union is relationships. The greatest challenge for the human being at this current stage of evolution is to learn how to relate in a peaceful and loving way. This should be your main spiritual practice.

~ Sri Prem Baba

When I spoke with Kevin Gianni about the humble beginnings of blending love and business with his wife Annmarie, he said it all really crystalized for them in the RV. They began working together within nine months of meeting 10 years ago, and shortly after that they created Renegade Health — www.RenegadeHealth.com — an online portal for natural health topics featuring daily inspiration, health tips, and multiple weekly articles and videos, including The Renegade Health Show. “We spent two and a half years driving around the United States and Canada in a big, old RV — appropriately named The Kale Whale. It was the American Dream with a healthy spin. Our mission was to get out into the community to find out what was really working for people and what wasn’t. We learned a lot and spoke to thousands of people in over 50 cities and towns in both countries.”

In those RV parks – filled to the brim with couples of older generations — they came to understand a few of the key foundations of conscious and mindful relating.

There’s an unspoken rule out there that the men drive the RVs – actually, they don’t even let the women behind the wheel.

And when it comes to parking, oh boy, all hell breaks loose. The woman who has never driven a rig this big and cumbersome is still somehow supposed to guide her man as he backs up into the spot. She’s doing what she thinks makes sense and he is yelling at her that she has no idea what she’s doing. Surely you’ve witnessed this phenomenon or maybe even played a part in it.

But after day one of that fiasco, Kevin and Annmarie decided to do it differently. Kevin taught Annmarie to drive the RV so she would have a visceral relationship to it, and since he already did, he could easily support her parking. When they pulled into the RV park that evening, a crowd formed around Kevin, floored to see the role reversals while telling him he was crazy and basically betting against Annmarie being able to back it up into the spot, even with his direction…and she nailed it!

Learning the importance of communication — truly the cornerstone of mindful relating — along with valuing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, set the stage for the lifestyle they consciously created. As they moved forward with Renegade Health and then the launch in 2009 of Annmarie Gianni Skin Care — www.AnnmarieGianni.com — her line of products emphasizing  a clean skin-care experience using natural, organic and wildcrafted ingredients, they realized they couldn’t push each other to do things that they don’t want to do.

In a revolutionary way, they began defining their roles by what they actually like to do. Weaving this simple and effective distinction into their team-building philosophy as well, they now employ 12 people who only do what they like to do, radically reducing reluctance and resentment.

Kevin and Annmarie’s collaborative efforts have expanded even further now that they have children, and all the business lessons they learned along the way — including negotiating and delegating — have prepared them for parenting.

“Nothing brings you into the immediacy of the present moment more than kids.”

So now — while balancing business, babies, and marriage — carving out space and time for self-resourcing when life is so enmeshed is more elusive than ever. Kevin says he’s learned to appreciate time where he can find it, most notably his 22-minute walk each way between home and the office, a plane flight, running, and cooking. He says he still has to remind Annmarie to take time for herself. She’s getting much better at flexing that muscle and leaving the mom gene at home for a while.

Time apart is a crucial ingredient in their recipe. Kevin heads out each day to the office where he can work within the confines of a specified space and time, while Annmarie stays home. Even in the RV they worked in “different rooms.”

What’s their biggest source of stress? Last-minute decisions. Kevin is spontaneous and can hop on a plane at a moment’s notice. Annmarie likes to see things scheduled on a calendar. Kevin’s recent embrace of planning — they just mapped out the whole year for the first time ever — has him experiencing it as a blessing instead of an annoyance. And, he still feels free.

When I asked Kevin how they handle conflict, he said that even since the RV days they employ a secret weapon about 70 percent of the time that has served them well over the years. If they’re in an argument, one of them says, “Hey, can we reset the day?” and then they instantly allow the argument to end. He said that afterward they’re often hard pressed to remember what they were fighting about to begin with. “Can you believe the power that a fake reset button has?!”

In the midst of pulling back from the daily operations of Renegade Health in order to fully support and continue growing Annmarie Gianni Skin Care – not to mention promotion of his next book Kale and Coffee: A Renegade’s Guide to Health, Happiness, and Longevity being released by Hay House this summer — I asked him to reflect on relationship as spiritual practice.

He says for him it’s all about humility. “The more humble I can be, the more forgiving, the more empathy I can bring to listening, this is my practice.”

And perhaps it’s the practice of us all. When we embody mindfulness from this place, we are free to relate to others in a peaceful and loving way.

In my own personal life experience, as well as in my work with my coaching clients, the emphasis is on conscious communication, which begins with self-awareness as the portal for compassionate connection. True intimacy with another is found only by immersion in self-love first. For so many of us this goes against everything we’ve been taught, thinking that love comes from the outside in. But I am here to tell you that love is an inside job. Self-love is the number-one key to unlocking your limitless possibilities. So before you invite another soul in, fall in love with yourself first.

mindfulness… is a request

a poem by nancy levin

mindfulness

is a request

to retire auto-pilot

to invite inquiry around

what’s truly alive

inside in each moment

allowing attention to

swell and land

igniting authentic movement

sometimes

i still find it

so confronting to listen

closely for my desire

as it rises

still so easy for it

to be blocked out by

what someone else needs

we who are used to

abandoning ourselves

for the sake of another

or avoiding feeling

by any sort of

sublimation

it takes longer to listen

to the voice reminding us

that it’s only when we finally

honor all parts of ourselves

with permission to attend to

our fullness

that we will be available

for mindful union

i know we all want

to be heard seen felt met

yet in conflict

may we remember

that staying in connection

is more important

than being right

sometimes

i believe

loving in disconnection

is truly the most sacred practice

and all the time

i am certain

that self-love

is at the root

nourishing my heart

to meet yours

You may also enjoy Interview: Nancy Levin | #Worthy with Kristen Noel

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A reluctant psychic conveys the omnipresence of the dead with endearing comfort

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When Suzan Saxman first went to kindergarten, she was surprised to discover that each child in the class was surrounded by helpers. Old men and women were leaning over the little ones protectively, cats and dogs were curling between their legs, and nuns in old-fashioned habits guided their hands to the right answers. “I didn’t realize there would be so many aides in the room,” she innocently told her mother, who marched off to the school the next day to find out if her daughter was also getting additional assistance, only to find out that no one was. Suzan was seeing things. Suzan was seeing the dead.

Suzan, with whom I cowrote The Reluctant Psychic (St. Martins 2015), has been communing with the dead her whole life and what she has encountered primarily are not malevolent spirits who want to frighten or haunt the living but souls still reaching out to those they love, eager to lend a hand, albeit an invisible one.

That’s what she told me when I first consulted her. My daughter had been sick for over a year with a mysterious illness that confounded even the best diagnosticians, and I found myself seeking out this woman I’d heard about from a friend at the gym.

I’d never been to a psychic before. I’d never even thought of going to one, but I was desperate.

“Your daughter is named for your mother, Patricia,” she said before I’d even sat down in the little screened-off room in her clothing store. “Your mother used to live in your daughter’s room, before she died. She’s there still, watching out for your daughter. She brings her dead cat with her, a big white cat, a Persian. The cat’s very fluffy and your mother is very beautiful, like a movie star, like Elizabeth Taylor. She’s here right now in the room with us. She wants you to know that.”

I felt the floor, the walls, and the ceiling of my reality disappear. It wasn’t that I hadn’t believed in an afterlife, but that belief was vague and insubstantial. To have this woman I’d never met before name my mother, describe her, and even identify her beloved cat, changed everything I understood about the world around me. Over the next few months as my daughter journeyed through a medical ordeal that Suzan had also predicted I found myself calling on my beloved dead for help. “Daddy, please tell me which test to get done next.” “Mom, help us find the money for the consultation with the specialist.” Somehow each of these things I asked for — from unexpected advice to mysterious bank refunds — miraculously materialized.

“The dead want to help out,” explained Malidoma Some, an African elder who taught a workshop on ancestor practice I attended soon after meeting Suzan. “It helps them feel useful, it helps them feel known, it helps them process their karma.

But unfortunately in America the unacknowledged dead are everywhere. Your cities are filled with souls waiting to be remembered and called upon.”

As I became mindful of the dead, the dead became mindful of me. Each night I recited the names of all the dead: grandparents, deceased aunts and uncles, long-gone pets, friends who went too soon, teachers I’d loved, really anyone I’d known or heard about or might be related to who had gone to the other side. If I didn’t know someone’s name, I’d say something like “and Grandpa Matthew’s mom who died in Ireland in childbirth.” I’d reach out to that woman I never knew whose very name had disappeared and speak my concerns about my daughter. How much unused mothering energy she must still have, I told myself. Out of the blue, a distant cousin sent me an envelope of old daguerreotypes, one of which was identified as a photo of Grandpa Matthew’s mother. Her name, Catherine, was written in elegant script on the back and in her hand was another photo of her mother.

I began to experience the great lengths of the dead behind me, mother before mother, father before father. Beneath me, too, the dirt was nothing but the dust of ancestors, of ancient sea creatures, of vanished trees, of species long since gone extinct. The world of the living was also the world of the dead.

“That’s right,” said Suzan when I talked about all of this with her one day over vegan quesadillas at lunch.

“It’s all just back and forth, comings and goings. It’s important to remember that. It makes all that dying business much less scary.”

Which it did. Late at night, lying in the dark, I often feel them close, my ancestors, my beloved dead. Once long ago I had said to my daughter on a plane that seemed to be crashing but thankfully didn’t, “No matter what happens, I will always be your mom. I will always be there for you.” I had meant it, and now I know that my mother is still there for me too. All the dead are. All the dead since the beginning of time.

You may also enjoy reading Where Did You Go? A Conversation on Connecting with the Dead by Bridgette Jackson-Buckley

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