The Beautiful Answer

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.