one day ---
she walked into herself
and asked for sanctuary

Public Service Announcement…

Fear or love
Life basically boils down to one or the other state. When you have fear of love? You're screwed.

Yesterday is gone. Make experiences that are joyful now, today, this minute. Love yourself and the people around you. Love nature, love experiencing the smallest thing. Be happy. Life is too short to be miserable. Misery loves company yes, but the company you attract by being miserable is well….miserable company.

No matter how brief...
The pain of a heart broken

is worth the experience
of a heart filled to bursting

The company you attract by being joyful is the best company you can imagine. It's company that is light and lighted and sometimes so bright you just gotta wear shades.

This has been a public service announcement.

*steps off soapbox*

Now I'm gonna go hug some trees. You're all welcome to join me.

*skips happily off*

Forgiveness

Hating is like swallowing a spoonful of poison each day and hoping that it will kill your enemy

This quote isn’t mine, and I can’t remember where I read it, but it makes so much sense when you really think about it. We all carry hurts inside of us. Some are big, some are small. But they all add up over time. They just sit there, in our bodies, festering, waiting a chance to morph into something else.

All they need is more food.

More bitterness, more resentment, more negative thinking. When you forgive someone, even if you only do it in your own mind, you aren’t doing it for them. You are doing it for you. For your own peace of mind. For your own health. For your own spiritual growth. You don’t even have to tell them that you’ve done it. Especially when you have already extracted yourself from a situation that was soul numbing in the first place.

In our society there are some misconceptions about closure. Closure is not something that you have to share. You can have closure for anything in your life, no matter how big, how small.

By gathering all of the bits of yourself together into one cohesive package and talking to them, really talking to them, and then listening to what they need to hear from you to be at peace, you can become peaceful.

You can get quiet in your own mind. You can get off the hamster wheel that keeps you from focusing in the daytime and keeps you up at night and rest.

It may be as simple as starting each day by looking yourself in the eye in the mirror and saying it wasn’t your fault. Followed up by I love you. I’m proud of you. You survived that. Yes, that happened to you, but it’s not happening now.

And finally, saying to yourself ……..I will live my life for today.

I will live in the now. I will be the best friend that I can be to myself. I will love and approve of myself first.

You can get to that peaceful point in an amazingly short time.

The next step is to begin anew building stronger, healthier relationships. You will be blown away by the kind of people you draw into your life when you love yourself first. People who add to your life, add to your spirit, add to your enjoyment of everything you do. People to trust, who don’t drain, who don’t take.

If you are in a situation that drains you, where you are feeling less than you know yourself to be……I urge you to walk away.

If you can’t walk away, I urge you to protect your spirit. We only get one life. There is no reason why we can’t be happy and fulfilled while living it.

Sometimes all it takes is the first small step.

That first no.

Or, conversely, that first yes that we give to ourselves.

Yes, I will love me. Yes, I’m worth loving. Forgive yourself all the small and big hurts. Love yourself. Others will love you for it. Stop taking the poison.

There are plenty of other folks out there to take it, the manufacturers won’t go out of business, so no worries about wrecking the economy.

Expectations

When you create something are you your own worst critic? I think a lot of us are. I think most writers are. I wonder if that is why a lot of writers are often riddled with performance anxiety. Heck, let's throw all of the performing arts, actors, artists, comics and musicians into that mix as well.

In my life I have had the privilege to meet and get to know a lot of different artistic folk from a variety of different industries. Lumped together, the first thing that strikes me about all of them is that they each pushed themselves to become better at what they do.

Some of them fanatically so, some in just a healthy I know I can do better kind of way. And it doesn't seem to matter how high the success rung is that they're currently standing on. They want to drive themselves to do more.

But what is really startling to me when they are viewed as a group like this is that a lot of them just plain lacked confidence in their own obvious talent.

Thinking about that this morning, it made me start to wonder about people, expectations and the place that rock solid human connection has in the artistic life.

As far as expectations go, when do you know that good enough is good enough? How long do you stay on the treadmill churning the same idea round and round until it goes way past the hey this is good ice cream stage and sours into something that you have to put down the garbage disposal?

Well, one way is to have some kind of mirror to hold up to yourself so that you can actually see what is going on with you. The BEST mirror is one that only has you looking back at yourself giving yourself love and approval and honest critiquing of your work. That's the A mirror. The one that it takes a lot of soul searching to acquire. The one that everybody aspires to. The one that you have when you can have peace and quiet in your mind any time you take a still point in your day for yourself and your sanity. The one where you say, hell yes, that's good. Let's go with that. And release what you've created out into the world and let it take wing to become whatever it is destined to become.

Successful people have this mirror and use it to their advantage to live and create in a healthy manner in a sometimes not so healthy work or life environment.

Another way is to surround yourself with friends or trusted others who hold up a mirror that not only reflects you but your work in a kind, honest straightforward helpful way. That's the B mirror. Still a great mirror and certainly one to aspire to having. Getting more than one person in your life to believe in your talent is nothing to sneeze at, let alone having more than one person walking behind you cheering you on. Believing in your talent because other people believe in it is human nature, but you're still limiting yourself if you only believe in yourself only if others believe in you.

But many many successful people have this second kind of mirror and it hasn't seemed to hurt their career, their souls or their sanity one bit.

Then there are the folks that don't believe in themselves at all, and are even more fragile for that non belief, but somehow become wildly successful anyway because of a mix of talent, timing, tenaciousness and trusting others to manage their careers.

What toll if any does that last kind of propped up success take on your soul?

Especially when it gets ripped out from under you because of human nature. Because you got older, or the type of art you make goes out of style, or because you no longer have that THING that allowed you to create in the first place.

Well, when that happens, if you're strong you reinvent yourself and move on. And with any luck you'll still have people in your life to help pick up the pieces and let you accept that just because your creative talent has run out, or your looks have left the building, your value as a human being hasn't.

Because a friend with a hug and some kind words in the deep dark lonely portion of the endless night when you think that you are no longer the wunderkind that you once were beats a valium followed by a revolver or a noose hands down any time, any day in the same situation.

As an artist, go out into the world and create, but remember to create healthy strong human bonds as well. These are the ties that bind. The ones that heal a broken spirit, a broken dream, a broken mind.

The ones that matter when all is said and done.

The ones that stay with you for life and then take you on to the grave……. and even more importantly keep you from an early one.

I have been lucky enough in the last two years to have time to make the journey to the place where I have acquired the type A mirror. And I am also extremely fortunate to have loving positive people surrounding me virtually and otherwise from all walks of life. Each of these people touches my life in different ways, but each is invaluable to my creativity, my sanity and my spiritual and physical health.

A lovely person recently asked me if Karen from mentor referred to an occupation or a place.

My reply?

Both.

So if you are ever in need of a kind word and a hug, virtual or otherwise, or just need to unburden yourself to someone who won't judge you for being human, believe me whatever you're dealing with I've been there/done that, bought the tee shirt and then made it into a sock puppet…. If you need a shoulder, give me a shout ..…your secrets will be safe with me…….and this internet thingy? It's always on….

Is it just about the music?

i believed in god when i was younger, but then he changed. it used to be about the music.

-brandon

Now this statement is funny, very funny. In fact, it was so funny that I had to get in touch with Brandon and ask him if I could quote him.

It alludes to the rock star that sold out. One who just doesn't put his heart and soul into his craft anymore.

But the funny thing is when I was a child church was all about the music.

When I was very young I often tagged along to a very straight laced very fundamentalist church with my best friend from elementary school. The church rules included a strict dress code and didn't allow dancing, but boy did this church have hymns that you could sing. I mean really belt it out, feel the spirit move through your body songs. Once a week or so l got to feel that glorious feeling.

I enjoyed the music of the church.

When I got older, I went less and less. One of the reasons was probably because I found music out in the world that affected me the very same way. Music that I could belt out and would move through me and make my spirit sing. All kinds of music. All kinds of people singing it. I could feel this feeling any time I wanted.

I enjoyed the music of the world even more.

Then I found other people who liked the same kind of music I liked. Who also felt passionately about music. I started to commune with those people.

I enjoyed a community of friends who loved music.

I went for a long long time without going to a church service.

And it's not because I don't believe in a higher power. I am very spiritual. I just don't necessarily have to commune with the universe inside a particular building at a particular time.

A recent move made me consider making new acquaintances by going to church.

I found a Unitarian Universalist Church that looked interesting.

I pulled into the parking lot and noticed that the car next to me had a bumper sticker. I read the bumper sticker, and agreed with it. I noticed that the car next to it, and next to it, and next to it each had bumper stickers as well. I walked the row reading bumper stickers and agreeing with them.

My car was the only car in four rows without a bumper sticker.

It's not that I don't feel passionately about things, it's just that I don't like the idea of someone rear ending me while trying to get a handle on my political agenda. I've also scraped a couple off of cars, and it's a pain.

All of these cars had owners who not only cared passionately about displaying their bumper stuck views to the world they didn't care if they got tennis elbow scraping them off or into an accident with a near sighted tailgater.

I remember thinking, my god, I've found my people.

I went inside and was greeted pleasantly. I sat in a pew and looked around. I was in a big airy room with a lot of light and many lush living plants.

The minister started speaking. He was interesting, thought provoking, funny, quoted Einstein and Buddha in the same paragraph and had a folksy way about him.

Then we were asked to join him in song.

I opened my hymnal to the required page and began to sing with the congregation.

Now I don't know a lot about this particular denomination. I do know that they aren't bible thumpers and that their teaching leans toward the liberal. So, no fire and brimstone, no holy trinity, no confession, no need for praying to the higher power through an intermediary. You could wear jeans to church and not lift an eyebrow. All things that I related to.

But their music sucked.

It was very careful music. Very unconfrontational music.

I read through a few more songs during the offering and although each song obviously had been written by someone with intelligence, they had no oomph. They were hard to sing and lacked passion.

I went a few more times to this church. I did meet a few nice people, some of whom became friends.

But ultimately I decided that if I was going to drive forty minutes on a Sunday morning to do something good for my soul, it would have to be something that made my spirit sing.

Like a great park, a beautiful museum, a live concert, a brunch with friends, an amazing movie, laying on the ground with a good book and looking around me and seeing god in the details.

Or I could just stay home and blast Aretha.

For me church is all about the music.