There’s Not Enough Time (& Other Crackpot Illusions)

/10 Comments/by

negativespace1-14

I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately. Specifically:

  • Where has it all gone?
  • How can I get more of it?
  • Why’s it moving so damn fast?
  • I have none.
  • Is it really possible to bend it? (Keep reading.)

Last week I had a short coaching session with one of Martha Beck’s Master Coaches – the slathered in Awesome Sauce, Jen Trulson. I won’t get into the boring details of the whining which led up to my takeaway, but essentially I have a deeply ingrained thinking error that says, “There’s not enough time.”

There’s. Not. Enough. Time:

… for me to take in sustenance.

… for me to pant on the treadmill for a measly 10 minutes.

… for me to shave my legs (and most definitely not for the subsequent braiding of the leg hair from lack of said shaving.)

… for me to take time off (ponder that one, folks.)

… blah, blah, blah.

But the thing is, I know, at the deepest level of my core, that time is a man-made construct. Who’s the asshat who came up with Leap Year, people? I have long believed somewhere inside of me that time is an illusion. Maybe part of a 42nd dimension that we just can’t comprehend yet. I started to get an inkling of the proof of this (from what my tiny brain could understand) when I first read Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – essentially that “the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers.”

Say what?

At first, I thought the trouble boiled down to my vacuum which is like 12 years old, the belt constantly smells like burning rubber regardless of how often I change it, and the rotors are so mired down by hair and bundles of dust that it doesn’t pick up. Jack. Shit.

My brain was really stretched thin, however, when I read what it now my favorite explanation of “time” from The Complete Conversations with God:

A true understanding of time allows you to live much more peacefully within your reality of relativity, where time is experienced as movement, a flow, rather than a constant.  It is you who are moving, not time. Time has no movement. There is only One Moment… Your science has already proven this mathematically. Formulas have been written showing that if you get into a spaceship and fly far enough fast enough, you could swing back around toward Earth and watch yourself take off. This demonstrates that Time is not a movement but a field through which you move…

Ding, ding, ding… “what have we got for Him, Johnny?”

Add to all of the above thoughts the Buddhists’ wisdom of living in the present moment. Samiddhi, a disciple of the Buddha, says, ““I, friend, do not reject the present moment to pursue what time will bring. I reject what time will bring to pursue the present moment.”

I’ve often had moments wherein I’ve thought those Buddhist people were smart as hell. But what really lit my brain fire was when I started thinking about this Buddhist way of living as opposed to our American way of living (my way of living) – multitasking. For the longest time I thought I was an adept multi-tasker. But the more I tried to do it, the more I realized that multitasking is just one more big, fat illusion. We think we’re multitasking when, in reality, we’re dissipating our energy so that one task does not receive our full attention which causes us to feel scattered (and a bit crazy, really) and the task itself is done sort of half-assed. But, the real zinger, came when I realized that by focusing my attention, fully, to the one task at hand actually expanded time for me.

Bending Time?

Here’s how it works for me. If, in the morning, I wake up and immediately repeat this mantra a few times, “I have plenty of time” and “I have all the time I need,” and then go about my task of answering my four gazillion emails in a focused way, doing only that task, time does seem to pass more slowly. In fact, if I just focus on my email (without moving on to a website I need to make changes to, or a call that needs to be made) I can look at the clock feeling like it should be way later than it is for the amount of work I’ve gotten done. Read: Holy crap, it’s only 10:45 a.m.? I’m totally awesome. I ROCK. Nope, I BOULDER.

Alternatively, if I wake up in the morning and think of my gatrillion emails, the website I need to build, the calls I need to make, the fact that I need to register my car, the payroll I need to cut, blah, blah, blah and I go about my day weaving in and out of all of these tasks, moving from one to another without ever really completing any one thing, I look at the clock and it’s 4:30 p.m. and I’ve accomplished notta. Nothing. Zip. Read: Holy crap, it’s 4:30 p.m. and I’m a totally worthless pile of dingo dung.

This is physics, people, I don’t fully understand it. My brain hurts from trying to write this post and actually convey any semblance of rational thought.

The Leftover Bits

Just like in any task I take on, putting together my own IKEA bookshelf, for example, there are always a few bolts and baubles left sitting on my floor. Here are the questions I’m left to ponder:

If movement were to stop, would “time” stop altogether? Are clocks only measures of relative motion? Am I bending time when I focus, fully, on the NOW? It sure feels like it.  Think about it: If it’s you moving through time… Are you running? Are you frantic? Are you calm and centered? Are you fully present in that moment or are your thoughts dwelling in a future time while your body is where it is? Maybe it’s our thoughts that do the time traveling and we all know we can’t be in three places at once… Or can we? I dunno, but I’ve definitely felt the magic of tinkering with time and stretching it out and I’ve also felt the effects of letting it run all over me – harried and chaotic.

Before he died, Einstein said “Now Besso [an old friend] has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us … know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Exactly.

The Arctic Tundra of My Soul

/8 Comments/by

photo-1

I haven’t had much to say. Maybe you’ve noticed. More likely you were busy fighting with family over the turkey neck , making popcorn garland interspersed with bright red cranberries and hiding your kid’s frightening Furby on the back shelf at the top of your closet.  Perhaps you’ve been hanging out in said closet, below your fancy party dresses, eating your Valentine’s chocolates.  Maybe you’re mapping out your spring garden.

For a writer, having nothing to say feels like mammoth emptiness. It feels like the Grand Canyon, only bigger.  It feels like Russia. In the depths of winter. After a blizzard. At minus 40 degrees. Wearing only a white wife beater and a pair of tattered yoga pants.

I’ve been on a pretty intense spiritual journey over the past few months and my flip-flops are so worn out that the balls of my feet are pushing through the soles onto the pavement.

I’m exhausted.

I haven’t slept since October 2002.

I’m too tired to sleep.

The overarching theme of my recent spiritual road trip has been rest.

Whispering to horses

I recently traveled to California with Lissa Rankin to meet up with Martha Beck and her team for a “Heal the Healer” curriculum planning meeting. Our plan is to train fifteen doctors in a new way to practice medicine and the purpose of our trip was to experience what the healers will experience on the opening week of this program. Martha brought in a brilliant team: an amazeballs energy body worker, an astounding horse whisperer, a gifted coach and empath, and a number of others. I’m not wholly ready to share the entire experience with the world, but I will share one part of the weekend.

It was our first day working with the horses and Koelle Simpson, the horse whisperer, asked me before I went into the corral with my horse what intention I wanted to set. I told her that I wanted to reconnect; that I’d felt very disconnected for the past ten years. I also told her that, in the past, most of my relationships have ended because I’ve burnt myself out with my giving so that, once I’ve given all I could give without being filled in return, I bolt. Gone. No warning. No previous indication. Notta.  I eluded to this phenomenon here. Essentially I told Koelle that I wanted to end this pattern in myself and to reconnect to the magic.

Before I even entered the space with the horse I was crying. Not the sobbing-snot-running-down-your-face-guttural-cry that makes some folks uncomfortable, but rather the streaming-tears-rolling-down-your-face-crying that makes some folks uncomfortable; that kind that you can’t control no matter how hard you try to suck it up and make the tears stop.

When I finally went into the ring I stood maybe twelve feet from the horse. I didn’t approach it right away I just stood there looking at it, trying to feel what it needed. I did this for quite some time. Eventually I approached the horse and put my hand on its nose, still trying to gauge its needs. Koelle definitely had my number. She knew exactly what I was doing. And in the most loving way possible she chided me.

“What are you doing?” Koelle asked from the wooden platform above.

I don’t remember exactly how I replied, but it doesn’t matter. Koelle knew the answer already.

“The horse doesn’t need anything from you,” she said, “the horse is perfectly content. He’s curious. What are you trying to do?”

While I don’t remember my response, I too knew what I was doing. I was trying to see how I could help the horse. I wanted to sense how he was feeling. I wanted to be there for him. Was he scared? Nervous? Pissed off? Did he need to take a dump, but felt bashful because I was staring at him?

(Are you catching on to how utterly ridiculous that is? Yeah, I thought so.)

The thing is, Koelle was right. That horse didn’t need anything from me. And, just like that, my time in that corral became about me. Koelle asked me to do whatever I felt comfortable doing. And I walked right over to the center of that ring, ignoring the horse, and sat down in the soggy shit and mud and I cried that same cry that can’t be controlled.

IMG_0757

When Koelle asked what was coming up for me all I could say was “REST.”

My memory is so fuzzy, but I believe this is the time when Martha chimed in from the stands and told me to drop down into that feeling of rest. Apparently I dropped down so far into rest that all of the people in the stands could feel it. They closed their eyes and for some distance out and away from the corral there was a very heavy silence. It was as if my energy of rest were a storm rolling across the valley, blanketing everyone and everything in its path.

Suffice it to say I definitely reconnected to the magic that weekend and as Lissa and I were driving across California back home I told her I wasn’t ready for re-entry. She said she wished that she could show me Big Sur. I told her perhaps we should just go stay in Big Sur and so we did. It truly was a restful and peaceful time and the weekend was full of hot springs, calling in dolphins and bending forks with my mind (a blog for another time.)

The thing is, now that I’m home and back to the grind, I’m not sure I know how to rest. Take a nap? I have shit to do, I’ve got this blog to write, I’ve got buttloads of work waiting for me, I need to buy toilet paper.

Soul Truthing

Still ruminating on the idea of resting when my plate is as full as the Bellagio buffet, I used the gift of a Soul Truthing given to me for Christmas from Monica. I wrote down three questions and sent them to the slathered in Awesome Sauce Soul Truther Tracie Nichols. They were “action” questions like “Yo, what’s up with my novel” and “Tell me more about my business” and “Why am I so disconnected.”  Apparently, Tracie wasn’t moved by those she communicates with to tell me how to work harder or apply ass to chair to work on my novel (though we did get to those questions). No, rather she said she was being told that I needed to know that my flame has nearly died out; that I’m in a life raft, but I have the canvas pulled over my head and I am crouched in the fetal position.

She went on to say that in past incarnations my soul has been a brilliant, fierce and fiery blue-violet flame akin to Athena and Hera. When she told me my flame had nearly died out I could only picture a little, sputtery flame like those cheap-ass candles you buy at Walmart with the whacked out wicks that never burn properly and the build-up of wax almost puts the flame out altogether when you burn it.

It scared me. Does that mean I’m almost dead? It terrified me more because I felt the truth in her words. Not that I’m dying, but that my soul flame is a akin to a cinnamon apple candle from the Walmart that was made in China by folks who trim the wick too short and place it, not in the center, but to one side of the candle so that the blackened soot always rises to one side and stains my fingers. That’s my soul right now. Tired, exhausted, blackened – an itty bitty flame like an old man with erectile dysfunction.

Not only do I feel the truth in her words, I feel that truth in my body. I remember times in this life where I’ve been that fierce and fiery blue-violet flame. And I can also see that I snuffed it down with guilt, shame, copious amounts of vodka and distance from Source.

Tracie said there are resources hovering all around my life raft like fireworks. My anal detailed action mind wonders if they’re specific books, if they’re yoga, if they’re meditation, if I’m going to meet someone with one of those fireplace bellows doo-hickies that you pump together that blows air at my flame and fans it up.

My soul realizes that this is an inside job. Damned, though, if I don’t feel like I’m floating around in that life raft; no shore in sight. Perhaps, as with my overwhelming desire to rest, I’ve just been burning my candle at both ends. Regardless, my session with Tracie has had me reflecting for months with its depths and layers and I’m infinitely grateful for both my trip to California and my trip with this gifted soul truther.

So that’s where I am, my friends. I don’t have a closing for this blog. I haven’t figured it all out. I have no wisdom to impart; no neat wrap up with a recurring theme, a bright red bow and a card with a picture of a fluffy kitten. But I hope your spring garden reaps a beautiful harvest.

A New Way to Set “Resolutions”

/10 Comments/by

UJVJGGIY24

Maybe it’s the Virgo in me, but I actually like New Year’s “Resolutions.”

I also enjoy taking the hundreds of books off of my book shelf each year, caressing them gently with a dust cloth, making out with them, and adding them to the book app on my phone, so that I don’t buy the exact same book when I go into Barnes & Noble and think “Ooooh, this looks great.” (Yeah, it was. The first time I read it ten years ago.) I adore how the process of rearranging them is all mine and has nothing to do with alphabetization, but more to do with how much I loved them (if I remember reading them at all.) I’m an anal Virgo Warrior Librarian, for sure.

Yeah, I hear all of you… “Resolutions are bullshit, what makes January so special, it’s just another month. You’ll only last till February…” And on it goes.

But, to me, there’s something powerful about a fresh start; a brand new year; the first day of a string of 365 days. It makes me want to clean shit with Q-tips. I find myself saying “put some Windex on it.” It makes me want to try again. It makes me want to get rid of the Jagermeister stained clothes from my bartending days that are still, in truth, staining my psyche. It makes me want to think about the potential that the new year holds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know, I hear you – any day can be a fresh start. You can choose to begin anytime. You can pick March – “his shoes are purple.” It’s true, but in this month I just feel it a little more potently. It’s not yet been mired down by a random Tuesday in June when I feel hopeless and go back to bed for two weeks with watered down cans of Cream of Celery soup and stale Zesta crackers.

I set some powerful intentions this year on January 1st. Big intentions. Intentions I have no idea about how they’re going to come to pass. And in these past 20 days some of them are already like little green seeds curling and popping out of rich icy soil. The potential and mystery of them are magic – like psychedelic-fairies-popping-out-of-black-top-hats-shitting-rainbow-colored-piles kind of magic.

A Different Way to Set “Resolutions”

I learned this intention setting process from my friend Mike Robbins. Essentially you write out an intention – almost like an affirmation. Something like this, for example, in the area of Spirituality:

I have a deep and abiding relationship with Source, feel reconnected and in tune with the magic all around me.

Then you write out your goals in regards to spirituality. Here are a few of mine:

  1. I am a clear channel for the spiritual/religious aspects of my novel.
  2. I go on a spiritual vacation full of magic.
  3. I read spiritual books that deepen my awareness and that resonate with me.
  4. I bend re-bar. (Another post for another time.)

Lastly, you list out actions you can take to meet your goals around spirituality. Like these of mine:

  • Write each day
  • Read books that resonate with me full of aha moments and which deepen my connection.
  • Say what I’m grateful for each night before bed.
  • Workshops & or Spiritual Retreat.
  • 2 Sessions with someone to work on the spiritual this year

And around and around it goes. I do this for Spirituality, Health, Family/Relationships/Friendships, Work/Life Purpose, Money, Home/Environment, Fun, & Charity. Not unlike assessing the stones in Lissa Rankin’s Whole Health Cairn.

There is something so profound about this process of getting very clear and actually doing something about it. In fact, it reminds me of the saying “The Universe isn’t going to give you whack, if you don’t know what you want.” (Or something like that.) It also reminds me of what’s so lacking in books like The Secret. You can’t just sit there and wish for the Ferrari, you need to feel it, you need to get off your arse and “actionably” move in that direction in some way, then you need to release the attachments to whether or not you’ll be tooling around in that car. (And there’s more… this isn’t a lesson on what’s lacking in The Secret.)

But one thing I know for sure. Truly. The Universe can’t give you what it is you think you want if you haven’t even given thought to what you want.

When I first read The Secret and watched the movie I remember thinking about my novel incessantly. I would sit there and picture my novel published with the words “International Bestseller” embossed at the top. I would see my novel at the top of the NYT Bestseller List – for years. I could feel it deep down in my bones and thus I would squeal, despite myself, whenever I would feel that feeling. I even made the book cover complete with the artwork I wanted to grace it, the blurbs on the back, the review by the New York Times, even the publisher on the spine and I pinned it, with love and hope, on my vision board. But I hadn’t been sitting my ass in that chair and actually been putting words to blank pages. What did I think would happen? The fairies would fly over to my computer and shit fibrous fairy dust on my keyboard and write it for me? That I would wake up one morn after slurping two pots of Red Ginger tea and look over at my desk to see a bound, edited masterpiece that was all packed up and ready to be shipped to agents?  Yeah, I sort of think I did think that somehow, but now that I’ve returned from la-la land, I realize that you do need to set very clear intentions, very clear goals, and have some action steps to put them into place.

That’s when the magic happens.  Not before that, not while you’re sleeping and fairies are crapping fairy dust on your inaction – that comes later.

Case in point

(I’m not sure why I put this under my “Money” section and not my “Work/Life Purpose” section, but I did and I’m not questioning it.)

Intention: I am wholly financially abundant, aware, and healthy.  Money flows and expands with ease and I no longer have to “work hard” to obtain money.  I lovingly release any and all limiting beliefs around money and am wealthy in my relationships, friendships, and financial life.

Goal: I begin doing more coaching/space holding and explore the possibility of working more in that capacity than day to day routine tasks. I fill myself and learn to work with my empath energy in a way that is fulfilling and magical for myself and others. This work fills me up, but doesn’t deplete me. I learn to hold this space in a healthy way, so as to do this work even more.

Actions/Practices:  Talk to another empath about ways to increase my space holding business and work on ways to increase and work with my empathic nature.

As I said, I wrote all these on January 1, 2013. I took that action. I called another empath and asked for her advice. I got a list of resources from her to work on. She shared with me the foundation of a coaching program that, while unexplainable, lights my fire like nothing has for quite some time. I started reading books on the subjects of empaths and wayfinders. And… voila, three days later I got a call from someone who wants me to be the spaceholder for their business. Just like that.

Here’s the beauty. I didn’t have to have all the answers before the fairies started defecating all over my visions. My intention is pretty damn clear, right? But I wrote that goal and I honestly had no unearthly idea what that would look like. And I was very okay with that. In fact, I remember saying to myself, “I don’t need to know the cursed ‘hows.’” I trusted that the answers would reveal themselves to me.

When I made that “action” call to a fellow empath, I said to her, “I have no idea what this looks like, but this… is how I’m feeling.” And it’s like that damned fairy, through this empath, shat the answer right into my lap and then, relieved of her burden, smiled at me.

And let me tell you… the joy around that feeling of connection, trust, and giving in to whatever will be without attachment, is unsurpassed. It’s better than steamy sex, ice-cold Jägermeister, and the lapping of puppy tongues on your cheek.

I still don’t have the answers to all of this. I’m fumbling around, blind-folded, I definitely can’t see it all. I don’t need to. But I can smell the fairy poo pervading every nook and cranny of my life right now. I’m stepping in it and smearing it everywhere. I’d daresay I’m ready to wipe it on the walls. And I’m remaining open to what comes.

10 Things I’d Rather Do Than to Shop on Black Friday – 2012 Edition

/6 Comments/by

YN5H0VTR6O

In the tradition of top ten lists everywhere, I’m instituting the beginnings of my own tradition – a list of top things I’d rather do than shop on Black Friday. Enjoy.

  1. Insert a moist parasite into the depths of my bowels with a pair of tongs.
  2. Shave my armpits with a lice infested cheese grater.
  3. Alphabetically file all the names of the children in China. Twice.
  4. Drink a warm mixture of acid, cat urine and Redbull.
  5. Lose my right pinkie finger in an unfortunate “smelting accident.”
  6. Scalp myself with a crude and rusty implement while singing Surrey with a Fringe on Top.
  7. Eat a heaping bowl of toe jam with ladyfingers.
  8. Squeegee all the windows of the Empire State building with the corner of a soiled napkin.
  9.  Dance to Weird Al Yankovic with real zombies during the apocalypse.
  10. Swallow three lit tiki torches while wearing nothing but a sparse grass skirt.

The Power in Perimenopause – Part 2

/5 Comments/by

C3E9310EE1

This isn’t over. Me and this… menopause… perimenopause… just o’ pause.

I just went to the grocery store and, while standing over the pre-baked lemon-herbed chickens, I had this overwhelming urge to rip my Rock & Republic jeans off. Like right in the front of the chubby-cheeked children still in their church clothes begging their mom’s for peanut M&Ms. I didn’t care who would see my junk. My knees were sweating. My moles were sweating. My right toenail was sweating.

Before I got naked, I quickly traversed to the Ben n Jerry’s section and stuck my head in the cooler pretending to search for a tub of Chunky Monkey. Not sure I fooled anyone, no one takes sixteen minutes to search for ice cream do they?

And… just like that… it was over. I went about my shopping, loaded the groceries into my car, strapped the Kr8z into his puppy car seat, and hit the road. At the second stoplight I felt the flames fanning again. I pulled over and stripped down to my tank top and turned on the A/C despite the 30 degree temps outside.

I haven’t slept straight through the night for almost three weeks.

How many years does this last? For the love of God…

I want to thank everyone, beyond oodles, for all the amazing advice and sage wisdom they gave me on my last post.

I have to say though that I feel as if there’s something bigger going on here with this spontaneous combustion; something deeper.

Last week on Facebook someone told me that they consider their hot flashes to be “power surges.” I thought it was an interesting take, but didn’t delve further into it at the time. The next day I was talking with my dear friend Lissa about my work and how I feel as if I’m coming into my power.

And then it hit me.

While I am indeed feeling as if I’m coming into a power I’ve never really known, I’m not fully stepping into it yet. Rather I’m skirting around the edges of it. It’s sort of like cleaning the toilet right after you get out of the shower. I don’t know about you, but I clean the toilet with a lot less abandon when I’m freshly clean. Perhaps therein lies the problem – comparing my power to a dirty shitter. I dunno.

But that got me to thinking. Do I really need medication at all? Maybe Suzanne Somers can keep her yams. Maybe the flaxseed can sit on the shelf like all the other health food I’ve purchased over the years and never consumed. Maybe I don’t have to undress at the grocery store, or in my car, or at the fancy restaurant over homemade Blue Cheese chips. Maybe, just maybe, the key lies in owning the power that’s trying to surge through me.

But what does that mean, really? Owning your power? I’m definitely saying “no” more. I’m saying “no” to utter asshattery that I used to say yes to just to be congenial. I’m saying “no” to not trusting. I’m definitely saying “no” to Jersey Shore.

Seriously though, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what it really means to own your power, to step into it. What if hot flashes are just that – denial of the power trying to surge through us? It’s interesting to ponder, no? We’re traipsing into an unknown world as we reach this stage of life, there’s an erupting volcano within us, literally. How do we navigate, and what are the underlying emotions that come with this new journey? There’s fear there too, I know, I’ve even had to stop watching Backdraft.

The Pause in Perimenopause – Part 1

/18 Comments/by

133DBE99C9

Oh. Dear. God. Above…

I think I’m having hot flashes.

Is it menopause? Perimenopause? Just-o’-pause?

Come on baby, light my fire?

I’ve never worried about the “change of life” before. Ever. I mean I’ve actually looked forward to it after years of Stage IV Endometriosis and cramps that have left me crying, cuddled in the corner like Baby on crack. But, that was before I knew I was going to be pushed up to the razor’s edge of a stream of internal molten lava.

It was definitely before I knew I was going to burst into flames at any possible second.

It was most assuredly before I knew that the blazing inferno inside of my body was going to reach the surface temperature of the sun about eight times a day with no warning.

Picture it…

I’m sitting there watching reruns of Frasier, cuddling with the Kr8z, eating Big Hunks, and suddenly I feel this warmth in my torso that quickly turns hotter and hotter and spreads throughout my whole body until I’m gasping from panic and lack of oxygen. I’m afraid to open my mouth to let in any cool air because I’ve watched Backdraft about a million times so I know better.

I’m not sweating profusely or anything so there is that. But I am waking up a couple times a night and my yellow Dr. Seuss “One Fish, Two Fish” pajamas have melded to my body like molten gold. I lay there panting with So-Kr8z trying to lick the sweat from inside my mouth. It’s all very Animal Farm meets Suzanne Summers without her yams in the Mojave Desert in August.

I always thought that when you went into menopause you’d then graduate to Crone status; you’d be all wise and sage and have this crazy depth. I’m certainly not feeling very wise. Just yesterday I had Cap’n Crunch for dinner.

Picket Signs?

I visited Dr. Google looking for alternatives to hormone replacement. I’m only 42 and my guess is that, due to my endo, I only have one lone ovary up in there and she was probably struggling to keep up with my estrogen demands and went on strike. I can see her brandishing a picket sign painted with neon pink letters that read “Overworked and underpaid.” Or perhaps she jumped off my uterus due to loneliness and splatted to her death. Who knows? But, there is no way I’m going to swallow a single drop of horse pee. Plus, my dearest friend lost her mom due to a blood clot from those drugs and it was heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, my research didn’t uncover much. Some studies have shown flaxseed to be helpful and another study showed that it doesn’t do shit, though apparently it makes you need to shit. Then we have Suzanne’s yams which, apparently, don’t do a damn thing either, plus yams are meant for bathing in brown sugar and butter during Thanksgiving time.

I’m not wholly sure what it all means. Perhaps it’s time to take a pause. Perhaps it’s time to buy a fire extinguisher. I dunno. But… I’d love some tips for unfanning these flames. What works for you, aside from Equus ferus caballus urine? Have you experienced this inner pyromaniac phenom in your body? I’d so love some sage words of advice.

The Helper

/8 Comments/by

hamster-wheel

All signs point to the fact that I’m a helper.

A giver.

The right-hand.

Over the past twenty-five years I’ve taken test after test and read book after book: Myers Briggs, Enneagram, Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, astrology, the color code, you name it, and continually found that I’m the helper. Hell, I was even born on the same day as Mother “Fucking” Teresa.  Oh, and Mother Teresa is also an INFJ. (Just hammering it home, people.)

Type 2 on the Enneagram: The Helper

According to this site, “Twos are warm, emotional people who care a great deal about their personal relationships, devote an enormous amount of energy to them, and who expect to be appreciated for their efforts. They… thrive in the helping professions… Helping others makes Twos feel good about themselves; being needed makes them feel important; being selfless, makes Twos feel virtuous… Because Twos are generally helping others meet their needs, they can forget to take care of their own. This can lead to physical burnout, emotional exhaustion and emotional volatility.”

Ya think?

Here is how most of the relationships in my lifetime have played out, with friends, families, boyfriends, the post man, the clerk at the gas station, the teenager bagging my groceries, my dog…

My Refrain:

What do you need?

I’m here.

Let me get it for you.

I can jump that high. Count on me.

I can cross those level 10 rapids wearing my tattered pea coat and purple galoshes, you just relax. I’ve got this.

Hmmm… that doesn’t feel so good to me but here it is anyway. Take it, I’m yours.

Refrain.

Refrain.

Refrain.

Refrain ad infinitum.

Ah, you’ve hurt my feelings but I don’t want to inconvenience you or make you feel bad by telling you. Besides, I’m probably just being ridiculous. I want to be sure your feelings aren’t hurt. I can handle anything so it’s better if I hurt than if you hurt.

Refrain.

Refrain.

I need something. Someone to talk to. I’m suffering. I’m not happy. I’m burnt out. My feelings are crushed. Oh, but Dear God, I can’t ask. I would never ask. You need to be a mind reader and know that I’m not doing well. Just like I sense, intuitively, when you’re not doing well. Your intuition should be as developed as mine.

I get nothing. (And yet I’ve asked for nothing.)

I’m hurt.

I withdraw.

I’m done. I sever ties with an x-acto knife and deathly precision.

Myers-Briggs Type INFJ

According to this site, “While instinctively courting the personal and organizational demands continually made upon them by others, at intervals INFJs will suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even their intimates. This apparent paradox is a necessary escape valve for them, providing both time to rebuild their depleted resources and a filter to prevent the emotional overload to which they are so susceptible as inherent “givers.” As a pattern of behavior, it is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the enigmatic INFJ character to outsiders, and hence the most often misunderstood — particularly by those who have little experience with this rare type.”

The end.

New relationship.

Refrain.

Repeat.

Hamster Wheels

I’m ready to get off the helper hamster wheel, folks. Don’t get me wrong. I love me; my personality; my nature. I own it. It’s what enables me to serve the chock-full-of-Amazeballs clients that I work with. It’s meant that I’ve been a great friend, a great girlfriend, a great human bean (much of the time.)  But it’s also meant that I often feel unfulfilled, empty, alone and miserable.

Why?

Because I expect people to be psychic. I assume people are as intuitive as I am, that they should feel  and sense what I’m feeling like I do for them. I don’t ever ask for what I need. Shit, often I don’t even think about what I need until it’s too late and I realize that my cup is dry as a bone even though I never asked for a drop to parch  my withered soul.

My dear friend, Lissa Rankin, first clued me in to my neurosis when she was talking with me about negotiating sacred contracts. When you’re in a sacred relationship with someone it’s important to ask for what you need, to have permission to say no when the other person asks something of you that doesn’t fill you up, and to practice acceptance when the person you’re asking something of says “no.”

Holy shit, how healthy is that? I hardly knew what to do with myself.  I could see that my relationships, up till then, had been full of my giving to others and their needs and my silence of my own needs.  I realized that, while I was happy to be there for friends who needed me, I had never actually said, “I need for you to listen to me on something I’m going through.” Or… even plainer.  “I need a fairer ratio. We can chat about your ‘issues’ for 45 minutes but I need at least 15 minutes to vent my own frustrations.” No, instead I would sit for hours on the phone, listening and holding sacred space and was lucky if there was a “how are you doing” at all. Even when I was going through big shit in my life. Like when I had just had organs removed and couldn’t sit upright and I didn’t ask to talk about it. Instead I spent three hours listening to the woes of a relationship with an asshole that wasn’t deserving of my friend in the first place.   But… the “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” is on me. Because I never asked. Because I never considered the fact that relationships are simply contracts.  Contracts that need to be negotiated and, over time, renegotiated if they’re to have any shelf life at all.  Wow, people. Big stuff, eh?

I don’t know about you but I’m pulling out my red felt-tip marker and going over my contracts posthaste. What sacred contracts do you need to revise?

The Icy Waters of Online Dating

/7 Comments/by

0B0D460111

I’m exhausted.

And I’ve only been dating online for about three months after taking a three and a half year hiatus from the opposite sex.

The rules have changed, ladies.

About six months ago I created a profile on one of those online dating sites drizzled with pink hearts and percentages of a match to your soul. To me it was the equivalent of placing my toe gingerly back in the icy water – a toe that had been dry, cracked and peeling for quite some time. Within a day I had a number of messages and pulled said toe out of said water so quickly I pulled a muscle in my groin. I wasn’t ready for this. I had no idea how to respond. Hell, I didn’t know if I wanted to respond.

I flitted in and around the site for a few months. Receiving messages, not responding, feeling lost, unsure, scared shitless.

Many of the messages contained little gems like these:

“When I saw your photo, I thought you must be from Pearl Harbor, because you are the bomb!”

Or this one that blew up my ego like a puff fish, “Hey, beautiful. There is no way your are 42, you look like 29” but, alas, deflated, as I couldn’t get over the grievous spelling error.

Or this golden nugget, “You look really cute in your pics. You have a beautiful smile. Tell me… Would you be open for a friend with passionate benefits?”

My favorite might have been this one, “Hi there! Sooooo would u be interested in a good lookin, married 53 yr old for friendship and maybe more???”

Don’t get me wrong there were some nice messages sparsed out among the shite.

Puppy Ebola

I took the leap and went on my first date after conversing back and forth for a month with a witty gentlemen who could spell. We met at a busy dog park and while I held a nugget o’ hope for our meeting there was just no spark. So-Kr8z wasn’t impressed either and ended up contracting a nasty dog virus equivalent to puppy ebola. I broke it off and ran from the icy water clutching So-Kr8z to my heaving bosom. Or not so heaving, as the case may be.

A few months later I peeked back in to see if the water had calmed and found I must have processed a bunch of shit in my dreams because I felt much more prepared. I went out with a sweet 28 year old who appeared to be cultured and just looking for sex over our Thai Basil Chicken.

Next I asked out a guy for the first time in my life. He said yes. My ego and I chuckled at my batting average and we preened, whispering to each other over our cleverness. The conversation, with the guy, not my ego, went something like this:

Me: “Was wondering if you might be interested in grabbing grub or a coffee or some such sometime?”

Cute Tattoo Dude: “Actually, I would really like that. I’m out of pocket but we should figure out a time soon.”

Me: “Sweet. Reach out when you’re able and we’ll figure out some deets.”

*Utter internet silence for six days.* His computer must be broken. Surely.

Cute Tattoo Dude: “Just thought I’d say hello and tell you that I’m really looking forward to finally meeting you next week.”

Me: *shakes head* Am I losing my mind? We didn’t say we were meeting next week did we? After triple checking the email string I wrote, “I’m fairly free next Saturday if that might work with your schedule…”

Cute Tattoo Dude deleted his entire profile.

Batting average not looking so hot after all. I have caused a guy to wholly delete his profile from a major dating site. Props, Melanie.

“Engage!” (uttered in my best Captain Picard imitation)

So… I’ve been trying to engage more in the messages I receive. For example, one bloke wrote me a very nice message that didn’t include the words “Hey gorgeous, how r u?”  After reading his profile and discovering that he’s racist and doesn’t believe in gay marriage I wrote him back, “I feel our values and political differences are too vast, but best of luck to you on here.”

He wrote back, “Oh, I’m so open minded you would be surprised.”

Hmm… yeah, about as open minded as Hitler.

I’m not giving up though, I’m tech savvy and confident I’ll figure it out. I’m not engaging with the asshats or the guys who want to hook up while they’re in town for the weekend.

I even gave one guy my phone number after we’d emailed back and forth and he didn’t appear to be a serial killer looking to shave my head and attach it to his sparse beard before killing me violently. I’ve developed carpal tunnel from the texting. Apparently voice to voice contact is out nowadays, just FYI. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of texting. With anyone.  The first few texts are okay if you’re asking quick questions or making plans, but once you reach about text #5 I think you should just pick up the fucking phone and call me. Plus, how do you really gauge a person’s tone or the subtlety of conversation. I know it might seem safer, but man up and dial the number, for the love of God. Texting about your life’s passion and big dreams is like learning to surf on YouTube on the bamboo floor in your living room.

I have a coffee date scheduled with another non-serial-killer type next week. I have one fervent hope for our time together – that he’s able to place his cell phone out of reach while we converse and not play Pop Song the whole time while intermittently texting his mom.

A girl can dream.

How ‘bout you? Are you dipping your toes into the icy waters of internet dating? How’s that working out for ya? Any tips?

Politics, Schmolitics

/5 Comments/by

8739115901_e356a27268_z

I’m about to admit something very un-American.

I hate politics.

I suck at politics.

I don’t understand politics.

I think this began when I was five and I stood in the hallway of our single wide trailer, clutching my Baby Alive with the wet bum (the Baby Alive, not me), and had severe angst as I looked from my father in his recliner to my mom on the sofa. Which one should I kiss goodnight first? It pained me greatly. If I kissed my mom first, I was positive my dad’s feelings would be hurt. If I kissed my dad first, my mom would surely be devastated. I would stand there, vacillating, until one of them would get upset with my stalling. Little did they know the utter discomfort I was feeling as I strangled my plastic doll.

Get Your Fresh, Hot Peanuts

My next experience in politics came when Jimmy Carter was elected. I was seven and I liked Jimmy Carter. Plus, he liked peanuts and so did I. My sister even had a poster of him picking his nose with a caption that said, “Pick a Winner” on her fake wood paneled wall. What I didn’t understand and, frankly, still can’t fathom to this day, was how his State of the Union was wholly picked apart. Talk about sore losers. Dude won, get behind him. He’s there for the next four years. No sense nitpicking every word he says or every thing he tries to do.  But that’s exactly what happened and still happens to this day.

I didn’t understand it then and I certainly don’t get it now. Every positive step a president tries to make is “vetoed” by partisan politics. How does a president get anything done? How is any positive change made at all? Then folks bitch about how awful a president is doing, how they didn’t do shit during their terms, but it feels to me as if their hands are tied to the “skin of dead elephants.” (George R.R. Martin)

Perhaps I’m naïve.

When I was the ripe age of 24 I had climbed quite high on the corporate ladder and traveled to an acquisition in NoWhere, Nevada. I wore tailored khakis, pale pink Izods and maroon loafers because that’s what my sixty year old counterparts wore.  I was a hell of a go-getter but no more well-versed in politics than when I was five.

“Lovely Room of Death”

We had purchased a large outfit in Nowhere, Nevada and my colleagues and I met up at the previous owner’s home for cocktail hour before we headed to a steakhouse to dine and swallow bullshit.  I walked into this man’s home and felt exactly like Jim Carrey of Ace Ventura fame when he strolled into that “lovely room of death”. There were dead, mounted animals. Every. Where. There were swans, and zebras, and cougars, and tigers, and bears, Oh, fucking, my. There were delicate white and brown cranes propped up on their spindly legs. There were tiny black squirrels sitting on their haunches, their tiny paws reaching mid-air for salvation. It didn’t help matters that, at the time, I was chin deep in the study of Native American spirituality and immersed in the qualities of different animals and what they might teach me given their characteristics. I couldn’t say a word. I stood there; disgusted; flabbergasted; wanting to hurl and curl up in a ball of crying mass.

When I got the call that I was fired a few days later I was told that I just didn’t know how to behave properly in situations such as that social hour. I argued that I hadn’t said a word. “Melanie, you didn’t have to say anything. Everyone knew exactly what you were thinking. It was offensive.”  Personally, I thought the taxidermied mammals, rodents, and birds with their black marbles for eyes were way more offensive. But, yeah, at age 24 I didn’t have the ovaries to say what I wanted to say. Something along the lines of, “You sick fuck” and “Get me the hell out of this ginormous room o’ death”, but today, as evidenced by my blog, I’ll pretty much say anything. (Ironic considering I only have one dilapidated ovary left.)

I don’t really know any politicians, though I was among those who saw President Obama at a political rally at Cleveland State. (Swoon.) And… I got to see the chock full of amazeballs Barney Frank, whom I promptly fell in love with as he shared his views on same sex marriage at the hand-in-script series 8.

So… yeah, I may be clueless when it comes to politics and our republic.

But here’s what I do know.

When asshats say things like this, “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” (Rep. Todd Akin) I could lose my ever-loving mind.

Or this… perhaps you missed it, as so many have: “Last week, Paul Ryan gave an interview in which, defending his position that there should be no excuses for abortion, he referred to rape as a ‘method of conception.’”  ‘Cause we women prefer rape over condoms.  What?!

Wait, there’s more.  Rep. Tom Smith compared “pregnancy caused by rape to ‘having a baby out of wedlock.’” Yeah, ‘cause that’s just what that’s like.

I may be slow on the political uptake. I may be naïve. I may even be clueless, but I’m not gonna vote for asshats and I certainly don’t want Republicans up in or around my vagina.

While George R.R. Martin was speaking to a different issue there’s no better summation of how I’m feeling than his words, “The people behind these efforts at disenfranchising large groups of voters (the young, the old, the black, the brown) are not Republicans, since clearly they have scant regard for our republic or its values. They are oligarchs and racists clad in the skins of dead elephants.”  These recent ribald and offensive statements around rape fit Martin’s words to a tee. The only thing Martin left out of his statement was “the women.”

Protecting my vagina,

Melanie

What I Learned from Falling in Love…

/4 Comments/by

door

“Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.” Rumi

You can try to avoid love all you want. You can decide you’re not ready to date after an OkCupid meet-up gone horribly meh. You can hole yourself up in your house, working like a fiend, watching reruns of Frasier, reading Fifty Shades of Grey and Rumi, eating buttered noodles and asparagus, and love will come knocking on your mother-fucking door anyway. Literally.

“Knock-knock, Motherfucker.” Or… in my case: Ding. Dong, Motherfucker.

Once you’ve opened the door you have to just let it in. Grab that dusty toolbox from the garage and keep those pliers handy because you’ve got to keep your heart open. I don’t care how often and deeply your heart has been broken in the past. I don’t care if you’ve been married twelve times to raging, abusive meth addicts. Those exes are not this new guy. No projection. No clamming up. No shutting down. Take those pliers and pry your heart open. Clamp it with a cold metal speculum. Use duct tape if you have to. Keep your heart open when he doesn’t text. Keep it open when you’re getting mixed signals. Keep it open when he’s reminding you of your past dudes. Keep it open when it feels safer to lock ‘er back up.

All relationships will hurt. Even if you’re dating Mister Rogers of the neatly folded sweaters and soothing carmel-coated voice. You still might trip over his well-placed black dress shoes. He still might tell you he’s feeling conflicted and unsure about the depths of his love for his ex; the utter opposite of you on the human scale. He might decide that your lack of sheep’s clothing, abundance of tattoos, and devil may care attitude aren’t for him. The fact that you jump in rain puddles might freak him out. Your adventurous spirit in bed might send him running to a shower of holy water and bended knees at the altar.

Connections may not mean to him what they mean to you. You may see the magic and wonder in your meeting. You may be floored by the way you’re already finishing each other’s sentences and have the exact same favorite food and how you orgasm at the exact same nanosecond. You may feel the tingly bits of electricity when you touch, you may marvel at this soul that feels like a comfortable, worn-in pair of Converse that you’ve walked in for a thousand years. Honoring that connection and being fully present in the gifts of connection may be totally lost on the other person. Or, they make recognize it and give a voice to it but, let me tell you, it takes a certain size of balls and ovaries to give yourself over to that connection – to ride it out. Taking the comfortable road of known paths, free of briars and brambles, with a topological map may feel more safe for him. The fact that you’re wearing your purple galoshes and a blue peacoat, standing on the edge of a precipice so you can jump when you hear the call of the wind doesn’t mean he’s willing to do the same.

All relationships will end in hurt. Forget the connection, forget the love, forget the feelings. Let’s even say you reside in the relationship for fifty-plus years. Eventually one of you will die. It could happen tomorrow. There are no guarantees. There’s no “100% organic, certified safe” stamp on a relationship. Whether it lasts ten days or ten years or ten decades it’s going to end in hurt. If you’re trying to protect your gonads with a dixie cup you’re gonna fail. If you’re trying to play it safe in case it doesn’t end well, it’s still going to hurt. As Mirabelle Buttersfield says in “Shopgirl” it’s a simple choice, “Hurt now or hurt later.”

Once the connection is severed and the relationship has inevitably ended in hurt and pain there are a few things that are vastly helpful in getting over it.

  • Now that you’ve let go and are out of the haze o’ love think about all the reasons you’re not right for each other. Suddenly remember how utterly perfect the Universe is – how it brings people into your life as a mirror. Stare hard at the reflection. Note the water spots. Learn. Grow like a stink weed. Be grateful that this person who didn’t work out, didn’t work out. Sappy, yes, but everything happens for a reason.  As Lissa Rankin says, “You may be asking the Universe for a Pinto when the Universe is trying to give you a Rolls Royce.” Aren’t you glad the Universe didn’t let you keep that Pinto? That shit blows up when you hit the backend even slightly. You don’t want someone who can’t handle a bit o’ rear end action. You don’t want to end up with someone who crumbles at the slightest ping of life. Right? Of course, right.
  • Thank him for breaking you open. Thank him for ringing that mother-fucking doorbell because the fact that you opened it means you’re ready. It means you’re not dead, cold, and entering the beginning stages of rigor mortis. It means that love is still out there for you. It means that despite the reruns of Frasier, buttered noodles and asparagus you can still feel deeply.  You’ve been shaken loose. Be grateful. Be YOU at the expense of loss. Get clear on what you want and then embody that. Attract someone with the hugest set of balls you’ve ever seen. Find someone who honors connection.
  • Listen to music, particularly Sade. Cry over love songs. Revel in the feelings of heartache. Read Rumi. Watch sappy romances. Fantasize about Johnny Depp. Join a trapeze class. Wake up. Love YOU more than you loved that other person.  Hold yourself tight and drink in the gorgeous soul that is you with your unique traits and attributes that someone else will someday truly appreciate. But… you don’t need that. Appreciate you yourself. Fall in love again. With YOU.

Whatever you do, keep those tools handy, you never know when love’ll come ’round again.

With a crowbar,

Melanie