Self Love Epiphany

Here’s a game-changing epiphany I had in the shower a few days ago: 

Whenever things aren’t going well, I always ask myself:

How can I do better? 

How can I do more, work harder, push myself farther? 

While some people thrive under the push, I do not. I am a creature of naps and wood walks, I am a sprite in a world that values the nine to five. Pushing, while I can and have done it, makes my whole system collapse in a pile of harried Why Does It Have To Be This Way? 

I'm a bit of a princess, to be honest.

But asking that question has a subtle energetic implication that in order to be worthy, in order to be loved, I need to do more. I need to be better.

Feeling like you need to be better - whether in your own head, in a relationship, or at work - is a goddamn soul killer. 

NO MORE SOUL KILLING PLZ. 

Instead - and here’s the shampoo-inspired epiphany - I’m starting to ask myself:

“How can I love myself in this place?” 

How can I love myself when it looks like I won’t be able to pay rent? 

How can I love myself when I’m in the middle of a breakup? 

How can I love myself when I’m having trouble getting anything done? 

How can I love myself when it takes a buttered trowel to shovel me into my jeans? 

How can I love myself when my financial spreadsheets don’t look the way I think they should?

How can I love myself when it feels like everything is collapsing? 

For me, the way to love myself in this is to remember that I am worthy and lovable no matter the circumstance. 

We are all lovable and worthy, simply because we’re alive. But we’ve been so rigorously trained out of that idea that it requires some rewiring to remember it. 

I love myself by being gentle with myself. By loving my legs for how well they work, even when they strain denim. By loving the energy of money and how it’s always taken care of me. By loving the roller coaster ride because it’s always taking me somewhere better even when, in the moment, it feels like somewhere much worse.

By loving myself just goddamn because. 

Of course this “How can I love myself?” question has a different answer for everyone. 

Just follow what feels best for you in each moment. If an action feels good, take it. If thinking a thought feels good, think it. If something you want requires something you resist, feel into it and ask how you can make it easier on yourself. Ask how it could be fun. 

As we learn to be gentler with ourselves, we learn to be gentler and more open in the world. And when we're in the world radiating the love we already feel for ourselves, everything changes.

Hoo-fucking-ray! 

In the meantime, be good do you. Do it however you’re guided. You know what’s best for you, always. 

Phoenix Rises and Coughs Up Magic

Last week was a phoenix week, and, boy, the phoenix does not fuck around. 

It felt like everything was being torched into oblivion: my family, my business, my bank account, my relationship, my energy, even my car. 

Burn, baby, burn. 

What I’ve noticed about those deeply uncomfortable, everything-is-disintegrating times is that, once you give up the illusion that you have any say in your life whatsoever and breathe through every awful feeling - sometimes that's when you get the biggest breakthroughs. 

My week featured exhaustion, being ready to throw in the towel on this business I love, knowing a final breakup was imminent, bad-news-of-the-your-car-is-dead variety, shooters in my town, and my bank account yelling code red before gasping and dying a pitiful death.

All I could do was throw up my hands and surrender. By Tuesday, I was still clinging to my shreds of control. By Thursday afternoon, I had given up completely. 

By Saturday? It felt like everything had shifted. Even my car was revived. 

Sometimes when you let your life burn to the ground, you create space for rebirth. 

It’s not comfortable. In fact, it’s downright terrifying. It feels like everything I depended on for stability, for safety, was crashing down around my ears. 

In these moments, the world is asking you to trust, to let go of control. Mostly by wresting away the illusion that you ever had control. 

Trust becomes the only option if you don’t want to a) find yourself rocking in the fetal position or b) hitch a ride with the first spaceship off this planet. (Sometimes you rock in the fetal position anyway because that's the only option.) 

When you trust, when you truly surrender - maybe in a way you’ve never surrendered before - something opens up. 

My whole life shifted in a day. I even got my beloved car back.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is let it all burn, knowing that you are safe, you are supported, no matter what it looks or feels like in the moment. 

As humans, we have a limited perspective. We can't see the path ahead of us. The path behind us is littered with false beliefs and skewed memories and wounded stories. All we have is the present moment. 

When I remember to step out of my head and just breathe through whatever's happening, with curiosity and faith that everything will ultimately be okay, that gives life just enough room to cough up some magic.

Then you get to stand on a mountaintop, spread your arms in triumph, because you are a goddamn phoenix rising. 

Also, you still have a car.

"Fuck It, It's Showtime."

"Fuck it, it's showtime." 

... is my new life motto. Thanks, Deadpool. 

(P.S. Peter "I just saw the ad" is my new hero.) 

My usual brand of cinematic escapism tends toward cartoon animals, love stories, or inspirational odds-beating, but every so often I like a good (anti) superhero. I just cover my eyes whenever there's blood. 

It may be because a friend once called me a warrior. He was referring to me and dating, because I am all too willing to stride out into the arena to get the shit kicked out of me, but sometimes I think that the creator of Wonder Woman was really tapped into something. A lasso of light? Deflector arm bands? Pretty sure there are dimensions where such things are 100% real life and I'm pretty sure I've spent time there. 

Or I just have an extra good imagination. Does it even matter which? 

I feel like there are a lot of things I'm here to do, and I think I've been holding back more than I thought I was. So much is welling up in me daily and I don't write it down or put it on video or otherwise unleash it. 

Malaise, depression, insecurity, and anxiety ensues. I'm pretty goddamn sure most of my downward spirals into such gloom can be traced back to the moment something wanted to bubble out and I stuffed it back down. Because I didn't have time. (Or it was scary.) Or I've already posted today. (Or what will people think?) Or I should put the effort into things that will pay the bills. (Homelessness is clearly the result of doing things you love.)

In other words, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And not just because - let's face it - I always have time. Because nobody cares how often I post or don't post. And I always have so much more energy for paid work when I've put out what wants to come through me on any particular day. 

I HAVE SO MANY WORDS IN ME AND MOST OF THEM HAVE BEEN STIFLED NO WONDER MY BRAIN IS BASICALLY MADE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY AND PASTA. Also otters. 

A lot of my attention has gone to where my feelings have been stifled - and I think that was time well-spent - but it's really time to start paying attention to the words too. So many thoughts, so many stories, so many projects. And I have all the time in the world. 

So.

Fuck it. It's showtime. 

Another tick in the "all my excuses are bullshit" column? I CAN DO BASICALLY EVERYTHING ON MY PHONE. Whether I have good hair that day or not. 

The Life-Changing Magic of Good Hair

Stop wanting, stop expecting, let it look entirely different ... and you end up eating free fried chicken in the fancy seats.

Since all that kicking and screaming I did earlier this week, I've managed a new level of surrender. Surrender is one of my big lessons in life - meaning, I'm absolutely terrible at it and despise the very thought.

Sure enough, the second I give up and offer up a big fat FUCK IT, life decides to reward me.

When Lan and I met up in San Francisco on Wednesday, it turned into one of those magical days that only ever happen in movie montages.

Cinematic hair! (Mainly because someone spent forty-five minutes aiming a blow-dryer at my head which, I can assure you, has never before happened in my life.) Stunning scenery! Amazing sushi! Random invitation to a ballgame in, get this, the fanciest seats they have!

You know what they have in the fancy seats? Free beer! And fried chicken and chocolate chip cookies! Our seats had cushions! No wait in the bathroom line! There simply aren’t enough exclamation points to properly convey the experience.

This, apparently, is the true power of surrender - and great hair.

Thanks, Lanny. Thanks, hair. Thanks, magical day. Two thumbs up, would surrender again.

Trading Dreams For Joy

Turns out, telling your truth in the moment clears out so much space.

Truth really does go moment by moment. Just because something feels like the truth today doesn’t mean it will feel like the truth tomorrow. This is really important for me to remember. 

While I was embarrassed about sharing all those Disenfranchised Dreams last night, I’m so glad I did - and not just because people are so dang kind. I feel so much more hopeful today.

Being an empath who’s still learning good boundaries is like having to vacuum up after the world, because half of it just tramped muddy footprints through your kitchen as it tossed used sandwich wrappers on the floor.

I spend a lot of my time clearing space.

(“Clearing space” is my vaguely obnoxious term for shuffling through all the emotions and feelings and thoughts that I pick up from other people and finding room in my head for me.)

Anyway, saying "HI I’M SO SAD THAT NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENED, ALSO A BIT HUMILIATED, LIKE IT SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT HOW UNWORTHY I AM (it doesn’t) AND LIKE PEOPLE WILL JUDGE ME (you won’t) FOR IT"… is actually a huge goddamn relief.

Because saying the sticky painful things without staying in the painful sticky things is so crucial for me. Me, the relentless queen of cantankerous melodrama. 

Here was my Blab All Over The Internet process for feeling better about disenchanted dreams, if you're curious:

• Think a thing about hopeless dreams, start writing the thing, keep writing the thing because it helps me understand my feelings about the thing.
• Feel vaguely queasy but share the thing anyway.
• Read kind things and let them soothe me to sleep, hand clutching the phone precisely the way you're not supposed to do.
• Get out of bed the next morning, pretend to exercise (hand up if this is a thing you do), and realize “Hey, that doesn’t feel so much like my truth anymore.”
• Sure, I’m almost forty and that baby thing feels a little pressing (which means the relationship and the money thing definitely feels pressing), but all that could shift tomorrow.
• Or not. It doesn't matter.
• Realize that stating my truth in the moment cleared space in my head, heart, and feels. Enough to realize that it was just that moment. I'm not even 40 yet. My life is not over.
• Maybe I just need to do my thing and enjoy all the many things there are to enjoy in the everyday.

Being careful to distinguish my own feelings and energy and thoughts from whatever I just picked up at the grocery store from random strangers or when on the phone with a friend is an ongoing process - and crucial to dreams.

More than that, clearing out my own space has the unintended but welcome effect of making some goddamn room for joy. I feel joy so much more powerfully than I did a few years ago.

Joy is a pretty good trade for dreams. So maybe I should just surrender to that and let my dreams do whatever the fuck they want to do. They can tag along, they can fall into the abyss, they can tap me on the shoulder. Whatever.

You do you, dreams. I’ll do me. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.

In the meantime, there are so many things that make me happy. Make my wizened little soul feel joy.

Giraffes. Cartwheels on beaches. Road trips with Sally. Toasted rice tea. Dance class. Wearing my unicorn horn. My little cottage. My hippie weird. Giraffes.

If you want to share some of the things that make you happy, I would love that.