The Beautiful Answer

Searching for Sassy’s First Award!

Super excited to report that my book Searching for Sassy: An L.A. Phone Psychic’s Tales of LIfe, Lust & Love has just won its first award, as a finalist in the Indie Excellence Book Awards! 

Yay and double yay! 

The response has really been great, and I am so grateful for all the reviews I’ve already received. 

Onward and upward, to see what’s next. :) 

Searching for Sassy on Sale!

Just found out that my book Searching for Sassy: An L.A. Phone Psychic’s Tales of Life, Lust & Love is on sale at Amazon for just $13.96! 

Not bad. Not bad at all, considering it’s about $5 off the cover price. 

Also, I’m offering a small gift for anyone willing to read the book and offer an honest review on Amazon. In case you’re in the marketing for a reading, some healing energy work, or another service I offer at SassyPsychic.com. 

For most authors, reviews can make or break the book, so if you’re interested in that, please message me and let me know you’ve bought the book, are reading it or have read it and plan to review. 

Much thanks from your humble Sassy Psychic. :) 

Me 2.0 

It’s starting to sink in that I’ll soon be finished with this blog, 365 days of almost daily posting, reframing my experience to find the beauty in my daily life if necessary, and finding ways got work with the challenging and the rest. Before I’ve even finished the 365th post, though, I’m noticing that a profound change has already come over me. 

I started this blog because I was noticing a lot of negative people around me. It started to really build up for me — all the bitching and griping, spending previous moments complaining about the same things over and over instead of ever doing anything about them. I got the feeling that these people somehow expected others to build their lives for them, to take the responsibility that was rightfully theirs to make them happy. 

Beauty is always the antidote to complaining, I have found. Try spending a day in nature when you’re in a bad mood if you don’t believe me. 

The Me 2.0 that’s emerging is less afraid, less burdened by other people and their issues. Not that I don’t care about people. I just find their intentions to stay stuck a lot less interesting, and a lot less of a drag on my own energy fields. I feel freer, lighter and happier overall. I enjoy doing my work, and so many new avenues to work have opened up for me of late that I enjoy a great deal of gratitude as well. I’ve met some great friends during the past year and, if we’re continuing the software metaphor, believe there are fewer and fewer sucky people in the world. 

In an era of few morals and even fewer reasons to believe, that’s a pretty big deal.

The Bubbles of Eagle Rock

Sometimes, life takes you by surprise. You’re driving along a sunny Los Angeles street one afternoon, kind of spacing out, just enjoying the light bleeding over the horizon as the sun makes its way southward again. The radio may be on or off, it doesn’t really matter. Your fingers may be tapping the wheel a little, as you coast to a stop at the light. 

And then you see the bubbles, luminescent in the afternoon sun, a multitude of colors undulating back and forth as they make their way across the street. You see the kids then, doubled over with laughter, blowing as fast as they can until the entire street is filled with bubbles. You see them drifting across one lane then two and three until they’ve covered the cars in both directions. 

And the kids keep laughing, and people are actually making eye contact now, smiling at each other in their cars, at the kids giggling and blowing bubbles for their lives on their way home from school. There are so many of them, you can’t quite believe it. All those fragile bubbles, managing to stay together at once, almost like a squadron of little colored balloons. 

The kids have no idea what they’ve just done. They’re just trying to have a little fun between the boringness of here and the relief of there. Maybe you imagine that it’s the last day of school, and they’re looking forward to a summer of not much at all. 

But they crack our hearts open a little, and widen our surprise at the way life has a way of making us laugh and wonder and know there’s some force up there pointing out our innate connection, just so we don’t miss it. 

Calling a Bully’s Bluff

What do you get when you call a bully’s bluff, or do the equivalent of pushing him or her down without all that messy violence? 

Most of the time, you get your way. 

During some of yesterday and the early part of today, I stood up big to a bully. He’ll remain nameless for the moment (no need to bring even more attention to someone who doesn’t deserve it). But suffice it to say that I, uh, got my way. 

I didn’t start a fight, throw punches or go all Krav Maga on his ass. That’s not my style, anyway. 

Instead, I just stood there, demanding to be seen and heard, quietly claiming my ground. This will change everything going ahead. 

We’ll work together knowing that we are equals, and that we must communicate clearly and openly if what we’re doing is to succeed. He may still have his issues, and I may still have to look the other way when his, um, tendency to want to  senselessly dominate rears its ugly head. Not my job, man, to fix that guy. I’m here to get shit done. 

On Power & Failures to Communicate

Part of me loves it when people try to push me around. Maybe you feel this way, too. After all, most bullies count on two things: 

1. That you don’t know who you are and what you want, and 

2. That you’re dumb enough to hand over your power at their command. 

Maybe that’s why we gravitate toward fantasy shows and things like Game of Thrones. We know on some level that every aspect of our lives is determined by these things, by posturing, trying to convince others that we hold the keys to a better life and a peaceful kingdom. We don’t have to be wearing armor. We feel it, at the supermarket when someone tries to cut in front of us, at work when people try to cheat us out of our rightful bonuses, or at home, when someone tries to gain the upper hand in the emotional realm through manipulation and intrigue.

Argh, exhausting. 

Lately, I’ve had some great things happen for me. I’m deeply appreciative, and looking forward to whatever’s next. Then the power struggles began. It’s too much to go into here, but people who look to bully me will find a few things to be true: 

1. You don’t know who I am and what I have been through in the past. Likewise, you don’t know what I’m capable of in the future. Do your homework. It might go better for you that way. 

2. You also don’t know who I know. They may even be people you know, or those who are more powerful than you are. Ditto. Do your homework. 

3. Lastly, you don’t know that I’m not impressed with your posturing. No one is. Getting the work done is what I’m here for. Not impressing you. Not doing your bidding. Get with the program. In the end, the work always wins, not your ego.

4. If you don’t have the smarts to do it yourself, the universe always has a way of, um, doing it for you. It can be very creative when it wants something done, and it moves with all the mercy of a bulldozer when it needs to. Just sayin’ is all. 

Desire is Full of Endless Distances

I didn’t make this up; the poet Robert Haas did.  And in so doing, he laid the foundations for most of my thinking today.

I’ve spent the past few days traveling to Baltimore, and giving a workshop on Intuitive Dating at breathe books there (great shop, you should go). I also saw my new play Punk Rock Mom performed there for the first time as a fully staged production. It was a short trip, yet felt long, since so much time was spent traveling, waiting in airports, eating substandard food and tossing around on beds that make what the Spanish Inquisitors offered look compassionate. 

It couldn’t really have gone better. The turnout was good at the workshop and they asked me to come back, perhaps more than once a year going forward. I like Baltimore, so this isn’t really a problem for me. I also liked the workshop participants. Each one of them seemed kind, compassionate and dedicated to healing and moving on from romantic pain. 

The play, likewise, was a great experience. The company worked really hard, and it showed. The performances were great, the staging as well, and I couldn’t have asked for  a better first experience with this one. Any artist will tell you how rare and wonderful it is when someone truly “gets” you — what you’re trying to do, where you’re going with all of it — and then how fearless they have to be to get behind it. True on all counts here, and very fun to boot. 

So why, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, was I sad at the end? I suppose it could be construed as fatigue (I have been working an awful lot lately) , or just wanting the wonderful stuff to keep going. After all, some people could get used to people telling them they were great all the time. 

I read this quote on the plane home — “Desire is full of endless distances” — and all of a sudden, something clicked. Of course it is, because the closer we get to anything we want — a job, promotion, lover, theatrical production, wonderful workshop or something else, the more we want. That desire, built of smaller needs, piles up on us until we’re forced to reach out more, to close that endless distance, until nothing more remains to be conquered. 

Getting started on that tomorrow. 

Indecision Sucks, and Then There’s Clarity

Sorry for the spotty posting of late, especially since I had made a vow to post every day for the past year. I’m pretty close, with only a few posts left to close out this 365 day period, and never expected a book, a play, a potential TV series and more in the works to be happening all at once. 

Pans to travel to Baltimore last Thursday were in place, until I woke up with a sore throat (I pretty much never get sick — maybe once a year at most) and started to worry that I shouldn’t go. I could call and cancel, I thought. Sure, I’d disappoint people and not get to meet all the hard-working folks who have worked to put my words on the stage. But I was feeling crappy as hell and had no real desire to get in a germ tube and fly across the country. Not in that moment. 

So I Dayquil’d up and got on the plane. As my husband was rounding the corner from our house, and heading for the freeway onramp to get to the airport, I kept thinking maybe I should turn back. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time. 

Then a woman with silvery-white bobbed hair, and black roots caught my attention. She was waiting at the light as we went around the corner, so she could cross the street. When I looked at her, I saw that she was wearing a t-shirt that said one word, in huge letters: GO.

There was no logo, and I’m pretty sure that there’s no band with that name. I should know by now that my guides aren’t subtle. They broadcast messages to me through the radio, billboards, people who randomly come up to me on the street, and many other ways. I have a question in mind, and even before I’ve voiced it, I’m getting information. But this one was pretty magical. 

I live in a magical world, I thought. Amazing things are happening all around me. I can either sit by the shore and miss out on the fun stuf, or jump into the moving current.

So far, I’m thrilled to be here. More tomorrow. I’ve got to get some sleep so I can teach a workshop at breathe books on Intuitive Dating, and attend the first-ever fully staged performance of my play Punk Rock Mom (for me, at least). 

How freakin’ lucky am I? 

Moving Ahead

I’m taking an important step tomorrow, and I suppose I’m still processing it. Part of me has looked forward to this, the stepping out from behind the keyboard, and then there’s part that’s comfortable there, amongst the letters and words. Maybe all writers are a little control-freaky. They create worlds; they animate the people in them. Now it’s time to see what people do from that point forward. 

It’s scary to let go of your work, to allow others to shape it according to their own whims and feelings.

It’s scarier to think about others not seeing it, or playing with it, or trying to find it’s truths. 

So there’ll be airplanes, and there will be shuttles, and rental cars and sleeplessness. There will be squishing in next to strangers who’ve hopefully showered, and bad airport food and probably caffeine, though I seldom have it anymore. There will be reading and sleeping and looking out the window, impossibly high, at clouds and sun and sky. 

Then there will be beauty, of one kind or another, if only that one person has seen fit to look inside something I have created, pull out its meaningful bits, and make vulnerability a thing to be admired. 

Fearlessness

“Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” 

        — Arianna Huffington