What if you don’t have to believe that any more?

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What if you don’t have to believe those stories you tell yourself any more?

Think of the stuff that you believe about yourself. Most of it’s not really friendly or useful, right?

Some of the stories I have believed about myself (and these are just my examples — your mileage may certainly vary):

  • Of course it’s hard for me to let someone in, to be intimate and vulnerable — because I’m a rape survivor.
  • I can’t really connect in community; I have to hold myself back — because I was in a cult for over 20 years and I have to be careful about masters looking for disciples.
  • I don’t have what it takes to feel healthy and vital again — because some physical conditions have hung on long enough that I believe they’re permanent.

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Life as it is. What are you waiting for?

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Part of my habitual programming has me judging my circumstances as wanting.

Most of the time it’s an unending chorus of “Not enough. Never enough.”

In case this isn’t clear, here’s one of the ugly voices that pipes up in my head on the reg: “Please give me what I don’t have. Preferably a lot. Preferably yours. And keep it coming. Forever.”

Yes, I have thinking like this. You do too, right?

Waiting for things to change before you can [fill in the blank] takes up a lot of your time and energy. Who has time to even consider taking action now, when there’s so much to do first? [Read more…]

Enough. Basta. Dayenu.

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I have become numb to the violence.

The everyday, ho-hum “So what else is new?” violence.

Or so I thought.

Numb to the mass shootings. They’ve become commonplace. I can’t believe I’m writing those words — mass shootings are commonplace.

Which has caused these words — Enough. Basta. Dayenu. — to come out of my mouth in agonized grief and frustration many times since Charlottesville. Since — Oh wait, maybe it was Orlando. I can’t keep the massacres straight any more.

How much do I love this!?! Not.At.All. I’ve become numb to it. Or so I thought. [Read more…]

Downsizing, right-sizing, letting go

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I may not have much in the way of my own words for you today, my love.

Let’s start with some words of Mary Oliver’s, words that have held me up during this move, and then we’ll see where we go from there.

(You can read the full text of “In Blackwater Woods” here, I’ve excerpted the second half of the poem — the half that speaks to me as I move through this change — in the image.)

The downsizing just doesn’t seem to have an end. Not yet anyway.

I’m still unpacking, and today is the first day I’ve actually done some work that’s not move-related in a couple of weeks. I’ve been in my new for-now home for the last four days. And while there was a ton of culling and releasing during the pack-and-prepare weeks, I didn’t get the full wallop, the full extent of letting go, until move day arrived last Monday.

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In the stillness: winter’s whispers and new year bring changes

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What do you hear in winter’s whispers?

What do you learn in the stillness?

The Wheel has turned, and we have passed through the Solstice. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the light is beginning to return. I am beginning to see/feel the angle of the light rising and the day incrementally lengthening, which for me is always a relief, a loosening, an opening. [Read more…]

Entering the third trimester of birthing my heart-centered business…

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Yes, it’s being a long pregnancy.

Conception:

I began this journey of rethinking, redoing, revamping, repurposing, my business in October of last year. The doldrums (clients completing their work, lack of new clients to take their place) had set in and my efforts of marketing and sales in the same way I always had were falling flat. I had been hearing and reading about Mark Silver and his work in Heart of Business for a couple of years.

What I read about his offerings like Opening the Moneyflow resonated in me; I started subscribing to his newsletters in 2009. In my usual slow-to-move way, it took me a lot of months to go from lurking into action. Once I decided to get some help, I thought, at the time, that it would take maybe a few months to transform my business from the doldrums into a successful heart-centered, niche-marketed operation. Three months, maybe. (Every time I reread this an involuntary and slightly painful snorting noise escapes my nose.)

I hadn’t worked with a coach in a couple of years. I had been soldiering on on my own. When I made the decision to get some support, I felt immediate relief, mixed with some fear. But then, every action I had been taking was tinged with fear. The relief, though, was delicious. Deciding to invest in myself and my business development in a way I had never done before was huge for me!

My initial strategy: start with the Spiritual Marketing Quest and get support around having a niche. Then take the Heart of Business Momentum course, and learn about heart-centered marketing. I had operated my business as an intentional generalist for years. I refused to declare a niche; I like variety, I’d say. What I was realizing is that my determination to work for every possible client (remember Anybodys in West Side Story?) came from fear, the fear that there would never be enough, that I had to be a Yes to all clients and projects.

These two courses helped me let go of that old structure and envision and define and declare my niche. Then I gave myself the gift of a True Spirit of My Business session with Isabel Parlett, the Soundbite Shaman. I ended up with my top-secret, powerful, foundational mission statement, which doesn’t — and won’t — appear in my marketing materials in this form, but which I’ll share with you now just because it’s so juicy and audacious.

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Embracing change, with chutzpah. Gratitudes March 6

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I am so grateful today.

There’s so much healing going on. Healing and growth.

I am so grateful for my tribe, my community, of passionately spiritual and witchy priestesses.

When big changes are going on, as they are now, I am so grateful for the women and men who have gone before me who inspire me with their words and teachings.

I love this: The verse, attributed to Buddha, helps us keep moving forward even when we have loving attachment to what no longer serves us. This helps me/us see when it’s time to move on. It’s always important to examine and re-examine structures, to make sure there’s still alignment.

Do not accept any of my words on faith,
Believing them just because I said them.
Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns,
And critically examines his product for authenticity.
Only accept what passes the test
By proving useful and beneficial in your life.

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Standing still to leap ahead…

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This Wednesday, is February 29th, a leap year.

They say the Gregorians created the leap year to catch up to the shortfall (every calendar year being about six hours shy of a solar year). And that they put the extra day here in February to allow Ostara/the Spring Equinox to fall on or about March 21st. This shift allows Easter Sunday to keep its assigned relationship to the equinox. Tricky, that.

There is much, of course, about how before the Leap Year was codified into law, it in fact was an ignored day and “leapt over.” Which gave rise, they say, to women making proposals of marriage with no legal repercussions (yup, in those days it was illegal for a woman to propose marriage to a man).

Instead of marking the day as one created by government as a calendar-maintenance day, or as a day when women are freer to initiate romantic connection than on other days (seriously? eewwww, let that one go! That’s open to us women every day, isn’t it?), let’s celebrate this day as one where we are invited to take some time to stand quietly in our intentions, to deepen them, to connect with our deepest selves.

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Intentions, goals, and doubts, oh my! (and an offer…)

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The year has turned,
you’ve got your goals and intentions lists done,
and you begin to wonder,
Can I do it?

You set off in the new year dancing into your most brilliant and audacious visions for yourself and your business. Good for you!

However, in moments of quiet, you might find yourself beginning to hear the whisperings of self-doubt… Can I really do it? Will I fail again? Can I ever make it happen?… When we set bold and audacious goals for ourselves, it can be a field day for all the un-self-loving thoughts and feelings that are hiding beneath the surface.

Where do you get support for your sacred intentions, enough support to hold you and encourage you to keep taking actions, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, every day, to live into your highest good?

Goddess receivingThese are critical questions for women, aren’t they? Women who walk tall, heads up and tits out, and take their place in the world, despite internal and external doubts and obstacles are creating so much important change. Seriously. For yourself, for your family (just think about what you’re modeling for your children when you show up in the world as your most magnificent self!), for your communities, for the world. In our culture now, especially for Americans, where women are too often portrayed and perceived in a less than empowering light, every single action you take as a queenly woman who knows what she’s about is doing a big mitzvah of healing what’s broken. Audacious for sure!

How do you get support and encouragement?

We need a big toolbox, I’m convinced, to create an atmosphere of love and support for our dreams and visions. This toolbox can and should include a variety of things. Here’s a short (and incomplete) list of the things I use for myself and in my practice with my clients:

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