The Beautiful Answer

F*ck Perfect

I’ve found a new motto. In working with suffering people every day, and having done a fair amount of suffering myself, I’ve come to understand a few things: 

1. That life sometimes has suffering. Probably no way around that. 

2. That we add to our own suffering, often without realizing it, by believing on a very deep level that we have to be perfect. 

3. Perfect doesn’t exist. 

4. Therefore, f*uck perfect. 

More to come. But I’d consider this a pretty big breakthrough. I’m sick of telling my friends, family members and clients to try harder. To keep striving for something they may never attain. Not that you shouldn’t try in life, but hell, finding yourself even one step closer to your goals is a success, in my book. 

So perfect, watch your back. I’m comin’ for you. 

Leaving Some Behind

One of the things that happens when you approach a goal — losing weight, say, or even publishing a book — is that you find you’re doing stuff other people aren’t. It doesn’t mean you’re better or really all that much different in terms of the stuff that makes us all human. We all want love, for example. We all need water, food and shelter. We all push away what we don’t like, and pull toward us whatever has caught our fancy. 

What this stuff does do, however, is illustrate how you’re different, highlighting precisely the things you don’t want to look at, at least if you’re like me. Not a lot of people will write book during this lifetime, the same way most will not know what it’s like to lose a lot of weight and literally become a new person. While the person doing those things is trying to catch up to the new “them” they have become, they also realize, sometimes as they look back where they’ve come from, that they’ve inadvertently opened up a pretty big distance between them and other people. 

It’s not intentional, and it’s not why I do what I do. But sometimes, even when you’re not trying to, what you do opens this distance. Other people are doing what they do. You’re doing what you do. It’s just what happens over time. 

Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot more OK with the fact that this happens. I used to fight it really hard, wanting to bring everyone along on my journey. But then I got really tired, and realized this really wasn’t possible. 

It has to be OK to leave some behind as you take big leaps in your life. Though it’s sad, and you miss them a little (or a lot, as the case may be), it’s necessary to keep you on your path toward your highest development. For me, this is beginning to move pretty fast, and is only likely to get faster after Saturn goes direct (more on that soon). Getting more and more and more into allowing as this begins to manifest. Whatever is left behind worked for a time and then needed to move into the past. I’m OK with that. 

So Incredibly Close

You know when you get so close to something you’ve been working for for so long that, well, people say you can taste it? Strangely enough, it’s not my sense of taste that’s most engaged when this happens, but you for you, maybe that’s what happens. Instead, it’s my sense of touch and smell that get most affected. 

First, I can feel with my hands how the energy begins to change when I’m very close to breaking through. It opens up in a way that feels like nothing else. You know how it feels when you move your hand through an open window, when it just moves easily through space? This is how it feels to me. 

Second, I begin to smell it, almost like I’m running a race, and beginning to catch up to the lead runner. I can see the sweat on the back of this person’s neck, hear the air moving through his lungs, and witness his chest moving up and down as he races for the finish line. But it’s the smell that brings it into three dimensions for me. I can smell his feet, hot in his sneakers, straining to bring him there faster. I can smell his fear coming out of his pores, that after so much work, he may end up finishing behind me. And I can smell everything going on around the race — the air like a cross between fresh paper and jasmine, the water chck-chck-chking from the sprinkler on the lawn, the smell of the shampoo in my hair, as it streams into the air behind me. 

This is a race that plays out in my mind a lot these days. I am gaining on this runner every day. And with the energy this open, who knows where it will all end up? 

A Breakthrough

In the eleven months I’ve been keeping this blog, I’ve begun to notice a few things about the way the mind works. How it strives to keep things looking bleak, perhaps so that when joy occurs, it will stand out by comparison. 

Then there are those days when you’re able to break through a pattern that has been so much a part of your life that it’s become like a second skin. Over the years I have raged at it, coaxed and cajoled it, even tried to reason with it as I attempted to move toward some sort of final releasing point, where I could finally be rid of it for good. Today, I stood up for myself in a way I have never done before. And it wasn’t really like anything I expected. 

Most people picture fighting of some sort when you say you’re standing up for yourself. They imagine swords drawn, defensive battle postures, grimacing faces. Not that I didn’t get irritated — I suppose sone of that is required before we all reach our limits and set an impermeable boundary. I did, a little. And then I got tough. 

It’s not something I can talk about in detail because it’s still ongoing, but suffice it to say that I have been offered several great career opportunities since my book Searching for Sassy came out. I’ve had agents circling, publishing companies interested in putting it out on their own labels, and film and television producers vying for the rights. It’s all been pretty heady and confusing at times, even though I have a pretty good working knowledge of how these things work, since I’ve been employed in both the publishing and film industries in the past. 

The thing is, there are all kinds of people, in each of these businesses. There are your sharks, who want to dominate you (and the conversation, apparently), even if no money is actually yet changing hands. There are your artist wannabees, who will never get quite as close to writing a book as sitting across from you on an expensive couch, and those who crave power and influence, to somehow affect the culture at large. You meet enough of them, and they all start to look the same. 

But I’ve learned that breakthroughs seldom come when you’re trying to make them happen. They tend to creep up on you, waiting to strike when you’re not expecting it. So you have to be ready to walk away from something if need be, even if the very thing you’re being offered is the thing you want most. 

I did that today. I was ready to walk away, even though it was painful, and I ended up winning. It required absolute nerves of steel. And even though this may not happen all the time, or even most of the time, just the act of standing firm and saying no made my legs and little stronger underneath me, and my connection to the earth all the support I needed to move forward. 

Daring the Truth

I’ve been thinking a lot about lying lately, the tiny patterns of lying that go on in our daily lives all the time. Most of us have become so used to lying - to get a sick day, to not attend a friend or colleague’s event, or to not pay quite as much on your taxes this year (or get a bigger refund), that we think nothing of it. 

When I go to Facebook, for example, I’m astounded by all the lying I see, and I may spend five or six minutes max on Facebook each day. I don’t have time to use it as an excuse to socialize (without ever really having to do it), and definitely don’t have time to sit around watching peopie lie to my face. How do I know this? I know the people doing the lying. How do I know they’re lying? They’ve told me something completely different on the phone, or confided something sad or dark in passing. 

So why has the image of success become more interesting or important than actual success?  How have we gotten here, where we’d rather lie than strive for a goal or achievement? While I can’t do much about what other people do, or decide to say or leave out, I can reframe like a mofo.

So I decided to work with lying today, or hiding the truth, or leaving things out so the truth was somehow obscured. As I sat in meditation, I called forth all the lies that were just around me in that moment. I saw a friend who was trying to paint a picture of online success while struggling with addiction, a woman carrying a fake Louis Vuitton bag at the post office (What is it with those bags? Literally no one thinks they’re real, people), and a basketball player trying to convince a ref that he hadn’t committed a foul when the replay showed it, obvious and real. 

I let the feelings of the lies wash over me, and take form in my mind’s eye. Surprisingly, they felt much like fear — all closed down and blackly smoking. My chest closed when I felt them. I wanted them gone as soon as possible. I applied the “antidote” as soon as I could: a wide open sense of possibility, blue skies, natural scenes, purpose and a reopened chest to ease breathing. Whew. That’s a lot better. Successfully neutralized. 

But when I came out of the meditation, I realized that I didn’t necessarily need to reframe the lying all around me. I needed to dare the truth to come forward in my own life. And when the next moment arose, and I had to tell someone an uncomfortable truth, I did it gently and mindfully, without drama or undue hurt. 

One dare successfully down. A billion more to go. 

You Get What You Need

I’ve been thinking about direction today, and how what we set out to get often differs from what we get. I don’t say that in a pessimistic way, assuming that somehow our needs or goals will never be accomplished. I don’t say it out of bitterness or even a defeatist attitude. Not at all. There is wisdom inside that statement — You Get What You Need — and all we need to do is look inside it, without judgement, to truly understand it. 

Direction is something we start out moving toward. It’s what motivates us and keeps us moving along a path. But direction can, and often is, changed as we make our way toward those goals. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not about being punished for not being good enough or deserving enough. It’s not about being open to staying on the path, or not. Or starting out in one direction, then taking a detour before dovetailing back with your original direction. 

I started out wanting to be a filmmaker. I wrote a few things, directed a few things, and still love movies. But other than writing them, I have no desire to make them anymore. I was a professional writer and editor for many years, and though I still write books, plays and sometimes screenplays, another aspect of my life — healing — arose when I needed it most. 

A few people in my family went through some illnesses. I went through one, a big one, and used all that I had learned about healing to heal myself. And now I can’t imagine my life with this additional aspect. Some part of me believes that there will probably be still more directions or tangents, to my life. Maybe there will be television, or business partnerships that expand what I’m already doing. 

It’s true that we all get what we need. But according to Mick and the boys, we may also get what we want sometimes, and not just in song. 

Try Again

You know that quote that Yoda’s famous for, the one people have been emblazoning on tee-shirts and mugs for the better part of the last three decades?  For some reason, it won’t leave my damn mind: 

“There is no such thing as try. There is only do or do not.”

OK, it actually comes from Lao Tzu, and was kind of re-invented by George Lucas for the Star Wars trilogy. No matter. What’s important, beyond the obvious meaning, is that I keep getting pulled to talk about the idea of trying. After all, we’re supposed to be nice to ourselves, and each other, and not get too hard on ourselves when we can’t make things work at the outset. 

What’s the harm in trying, we ask ourselves. At least we tried, we say when things don’t go our way. But what if trying were merely a way to let ourselves off the hook, when we actually need to be choosing one way or the other and, well, doing something?

I’m launching a series of brief group healing calls soon, and I want to talk about the idea of trying. Maybe it’s because I just got home from seeing a production of Red Hot Patriot, a play about the journalist Molly Ivins, but some part of me feels galvanized to even greater action. I’m not exactly a sit at home on the couch kind of lady anyway, but I have a pretty strong feeling that that’s going to start being in even shorter supply in my life. 

So please don’t get mad at me if I suggest, ever so gently and politely, for you to get off your ass and do something about your pain, your goals and your dreams, instead of talking about them for another year, without tying your thoughts to action. It comes out of love, and the desire to help all of us get a little closer to what we want. I promise. 

Executioner of Dreams

We all know them, those people who seem to enjoy bitching and moaning so much that they’re not content to piss all over their own dreams. They need yours, your neighbor’s, and half the population’s as long as these fuel the fire inside them. These executioners of dreams are sly. They hide in plain sight, as friends, mentors, family members and ordinary people we all have to deal with all the time. And we may come to the conclusion that there’s nothing we can do about them. 

Thing is, we can, even if that person is our mother, our boss or our mate. We can talk to them, ignore them, avoid them or try to work with them. We can stay sovereign, not allowing ourselves to be drawn in by their methods. We can tell them to back the hell off so we can be truly and deeply ourselves. Which is pretty much what I do every single day of my life. 

There’s a nice way to say “fuck off” and still be heard. which is good because it bugs the crap out of me when I see other people trying to kill the dreams and talents of my friends, clients or even complete strangers in the grocery store. How dare they think they can fuel their own sad lives with the stuff of others’ spirits? 

So to reframe this ongoing battle in my life, I adopted a new refrain today. If I hear someone trying to make someone else feel bad about their goals, or less than for not achieving “enough,” I imagine them as flies. Common houseflies, needing to be swatted away. I see them as buzzing around, looking for something delicious left behind — the remnants of a person’s lunch, or even a bit of sloughed off skin cells — as long as it feeds their hunger. Flies may be bothersome, of course, but can always be silenced with a good whack of the newspaper, if need be. Not that I would ever do such a thing. ;) 

All I Ever Wanted

I’ve been thinking about lasting goals today, the kind that make us who we are. And in between the looking at myself in old pictures and trying to find the me that exists now in that little girl’s face, I realized that many of my dreams have remained the same since I was 6.

I wanted to be older (check), I wanted to help people (yup). I wanted to work with animals (well, a little, but not professionally) and loved the outdoors (that never goes away). Other things I successfully achieved: get married, have my own place, move to California, and travel around the world.

While I never became a veterinarian, I still love animals and would probably adopt lots more of them if I had the room. Maybe in time.

And what has getting all I ever wanted, at least as a child, achieved for me? I don’t know. It’s an ongoing question.

Most of us are so used to wanting more as soon as we accomplish anything, or not stopping to celebrate our smallest victories that I decided to reframe that in my own life. If I made this day one of small celebrations, what would happen?

The first thing I noticed was that I felt lighter, as if nothing really bothered me. And the image right after that, riding along the crest of the thought wave, was that a real life, fully flowered and truly engaged, involves these little triumphs over the things we feel could defeat us. I celebrated brushing my teeth, then putting on sneakers and doing some crunches. I ate some sesame and honey covered almonds and celebrated their existence, and the tree that nurtured them. Next came a new client, and a lovely thank you email I received from a person who had energy work last week.

Finally, though the day’s not over yet, I celebrated my new shopping cart over at my other site — http://www.sassypsychic.com — and the fact that it will make my life, and that of my assistant, a lot easier.

Who made this amazing life? And how can I get some more of it?