October 2011
32 posts
8 tags
Why Stress is Important
So much has been written about stress in that past few years that’s it’s practically become a buzzword. If someone stubs a toe, they’re “stressed,” or if they have a bad day, their adrenals are about to give out. In short, media messages about this phenomenon have replaced our collective ability to think for ourselves, or measure what’s actually going on inside...
7 tags
Tired, So Tired
Super short post tonight because I’m exhausted from traveling all day, and several days’ of very little sleep. Great reframing opportunities on the plane(s):
1. If there’s a guy sitting behind you who thinks that the wing has a problem with it mid-flight, informs the flight attendant to “tell the mechanics” to look at it” and then proceeds to get everyone with...
7 tags
New York, I Love You
It’s freakin’ snowing in New York, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Normally, it wouldn’t start up until early December, and then just start out as flurries that melt before sticking on the ground. Today, I came out of a meeting, looked up, and there were the fattest, most beautiful flakes I’d ever seen. Magic, if you ask me.
Luckily, I had an umbrella, since it...
8 tags
On Returning Home
Someone a lot smarter than I am once said that you can never go home, and perhaps that’s true. You can’t go back to the home you remember because either it’s grown and changed, you’ve grown and changed, or it never existed in the first place, outside the realms of your mind.
I love the way this speaks to the Buddhist concept of impermanence — that shit won’t...
13 tags
Some Lessons On Traveling
1. Never sit next to a trio of smart ass guys speaking Spanish, whom your rudimentary high school language classes tell you that are capping on everyone, perhaps even you.
2. Bring more than a few almonds for a snack. Airport food sucks majorly.
3. Get more than three hours’ sleep the night before you leave. Doing the head-nodding, falling asleep thing on a plane is so not cute.
4. Try...
8 tags
Are You Kidding?
Trying to get the images of street violence in Oakland out of my mind today, with little success. As a practicing Buddhist for more than 15 years now, I see why people need to take to the streets to express their frustrations, and why police may feel threatened by their actions. But brutal shows of force have little place in practice, or in the world at large. Most of the time they just come off...
8 tags
With a Little Bit of Luck
Been thinking about the stuff we leave behind today. As I sorted through my clothing and shoes, which I do twice a year, giving away several bags’ worth of stuff each time to local thrift stores, I began to get a little sad, thinking about wearing a certain top to an event, or how I’d been hoping something would happen if I wore a particular size.
Melancholy soon turned to whimsy,...
5 tags
Frustrated
Annoying day, filled with frustration. Book marketing has me frustrated, I don’t feel much like writing anything new (which is strange for me) and I’m marshaling my energy for my clients and a trip to New York later this week. Some days it just feels like you’re swimming through molasses to get any small thing done.
Publishing has me annoyed. I love books, and hate to see the...
10 tags
The Precious
Slow and lazy day, during which I had a little chat with the divine. We talked about how I might take new goals on board over the next few months without burning myself out, and discussed how some people I know may not be on board for all of it, for various reasons. I wanted tea, but the divine wanted hot chocolate. It couldn’t be considered cold yet in L.A., but it’s working its way...
11 tags
Under the Apple Tree
Finally got a chance to watch Five, which premiered on Lifetime a few weeks ago. It’s comprised of five short films about women, men and children dealing with breast cancer, each directed by a famous woman. I haven’t finished all of the films, so I can’t comment on the last two. But so far, Jennifer Aniston’s film “Mia,” featuring Patricia Clarkson, stands out...
7 tags
Down the Rabbit Hole
Whew! It’s been a day. Just found out that my publishing company may want to push the release date for my new book up by a few months, cutting the time I have to prepare and do marketing & publicity down to just a few weeks. Argh and double argh.
Every time a book of mine is published, I learn a little more about how to do things easier and more effectively. Last time, in 2008, I...
12 tags
Rock It Out, Little Lady
Like most people, I get a lot of forwarded stuff each day in my email inbox. I get lame jokes, scary stuff, calls to sign political petitions, and videos. Lot and lots of videos. Very few of these contain things that are meaningful to me. I don’t want to stop the flow of information — who knows, there could be something interesting in there, right?
I have been thinking a lot about...
6 tags
Hear This: We Have Everything
Short post tonight because I’m tired and have to sleep it off. Not some sort of alcohol binge, but the heaviness of complainers. Some days it seems like everyone I talk to , or observe on Facebook, or even my clients are complaining about their lives not being the way they want them to be. But there’s a big difference between discovering that you’re not satisfied with some part...
8 tags
Miss Representation
I’ve been thinking a lot about women and how their roles have changed ever since I went to a wedding last weekend. For me, getting married was the last thing on my mind when I was a teenager, or in my twenties. Of course, that meant that five different guys asked me on seven different occasions to get engaged, and were eventually sent packing. That scared my husband so much that he was a...
6 tags
The Scene That Kills
Every writer lives for that moment when they’re typing away, kind of feeling their way into the darkness, and then BAM! Out of nowhere comes an idea that doesn’t even seem like it came from inside them. It types itself out onto the screen and all of a sudden they’re seeing it from outside, as if they’re an audience member sitting in that theater or in front of that...
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On the Road Again
Just back from an almost all-day drive back from San Francisco. The trip was a quick one, which felt a lot longer, and made my heart want to linger behind in this amazing city. But since time is at a premium in my life these days, the drive down the 5 would have to suffice.
Most people say that there are only three cities in California — San Diego to the south, Los Angeles a little further...
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Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut
Are you ever in one of those crowds that so mixed, you have to be a freakin’ wizard in order to have all these different conversations? When some people are heavily into X Factor (which I don’t watch) or can only address soccer scores, while still others have references you’re too young to remember, or obsessions you don’t understand (Dirty Dancing, anyone)? Sometimes, you...
7 tags
In Praise of Defensiveness
Not the stupid kind, mind you, but the kind where you stand up, or stand for something, or come to the defense of someone or something you feel could use a bit of help in that department. For me, it’s a lot of things. But if you fuck with my husband, oh hell no, you’re fucking with the wrong person.
I’ve been in exactly one fight in my life, which was not of my own choosing. I...
6 tags
Engagement Not Optional
Getting ready to leave town for a few days to go to my stepdaughter’s wedding in Oakland and thinking about how even the things we’d rather not take part in somehow demand our presence, our engagement. For me, weddings aren’t a big deal. I wasn’t one of those girls who drew her wedding dress all over her biology notebook and swooned over the football captain. OK, once, but...
9 tags
Drama the Ralph Steadman Way
Maybe it’s because I’ve been seeing lots of commercials for Johnny Depp in The Rum Diaries, or the memory of reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in high school study hall, wrapped inside my social studies textbook. But lately I can’t stop thinking about how revolution in the sixties was inexorably tied to art. Their movements had not only counter-culture music, but art like...
4 tags
Why is a Three-Letter Word
I remember being younger, how all I wanted was to ask why. Why does it work that way? Why does the sky look blue to our eyes? Why does the lady down the street refuse to come to the door when a black guy knocks? As you might imagine, it was’t the most popular behavior of mine.
Of course why was also followed by how come and who says and why not? Also not very popular for a young woman to...
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Once More, With Feeling
Reframing can be a strange beast, particularly when the energy around you is going haywire. Things have been a bit stressful (OK, at times pretty effin stressful) over the past 48 hours or so. Part of it is just annoying stuff I paid someone to go, and then it didn’t get done, while they claimed it had been done. I guess I was supposed to have been deaf, dumb and blind, or maybe crazy to...
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And Now For Something Completely the Same
You know that feeling you get when you’re right in the middle of some kind of reactivity — anger, fear, frustration or whatever — and you realize it, so you’re inside your body having that experience and then outside it as well, seeing yourself with some clarity and perspective? I had that today, when my new shopping cart, designed to make my life easier, as well as that of...
6 tags
It's Not That Way At All
Been thinking a lot about sides today, and how we’re trained to be on one or the other. As if taking time to weigh the plusses and minuses of each side isn’t a good idea, or being somewhat neutral makes you a wimp. A flip-flopper. Indecisive.
Part of this has sprung from things that have been arising in my own practice for some time now. The older I get, the less I care about what...
4 tags
Tired Beyond Belief
Super short post tonight and then it’s off to bed with my tired ass. Reframed a crapload of stuff today, including the fact that I was extremely tired, and don’t drink caffeine. That can give rise to some interesting sessions, I tend to get really out there when I’m in this state, kind of between the world, so whoever gets a reading or energy work session in the next 24 hours or...
8 tags
So Much and Yet Absolutely, Perfectly Enough
I don’t know if other people have this happen to them. Sometimes, it’s hard to know if such a thing is discussed in polite society. But I have days when my heart is so full it feels like it’s going to overflow — not in a bad way, but in the “holy crap, I can’t believe I’m here, and this is my life, and all this other great stuff is happening for me as...
7 tags
I Love the Rain
If you live in Los Angeles long enough, you get familiar enough with our micro seasons to be able to sense when they begin and end. Today was our first rain since a bizarre humid few days during the summer when it kind of drizzled. It’s chilly and I couldn’t love it any more than I do right now. For me, it’s officially fall.
I love walking in the rain; I love raincoats. I love...
7 tags
What a Beautiful Day
Weather is one thing, but beauty isn’t always found in the events of sun, wind or rain. I found that out in a big way today. In Los Angeles, the weather is beginning to turn gray and a bit cold in the mornings, which I love. Mostly, it’s because it reminds me of San Francisco. But that’s another story, for another day.
Some people get sad when the weather gets gray. I want...
4 tags
Every Generation Needs One
As a long-time activist and meditator, I’ve been a bit let down by the lack of pissed off energy coming out of the younger generation. I’m a Gen-Xer, and though we didn’t invent pouring into the streets and shouting your lungs out, we certainly perfected the technique during the Reagan administration. All I’ve seen out of the Millennials so far is the desire for more money,...
8 tags
A Work in Progress
For me, one of the things in the world that most needs reframing is the Yankees. I grew up on Long Island. OK it’s technically New York, though it felt very far away at a certain part of my life. Then, after college I lived in Manhattan for just shy of eight years before fucking off and moving to California.
I’ve never been able to stand the Yankees, not even as a kid. I rooted for...
8 tags
Unbelievable
A few month ago, reframing was a new concept to me. I’d heard about it a lot, and thought it was some sort of mind programing, where you pretended that your dark or negative thoughts didn’t exist and instead pasted a happy face over them. By now, I’ve figured out that that was pretty ignorant.
Now, almost a third of the way through this blogging project of posting daily for...
6 tags
The Big Finish
Sometimes life stops you in you tracks. Right there, and you just can’t go any further, no matter how hard you try. And in those times, those mini shocking episodes of time, there is greatness. I’m convinced of it.
Today I did two energy work sessions back to back. Normally, I don’t do this, because I spend some time tracking the energy of the next reading, preparing and...
