Pearls For Girls

One of my incredible Leadership tribemates, Mary Murphy, is the visionary founder of an organization that raises money for girls with HIV in Lesotho while cultivating community, fun, and leadership in girls and women in her area.  It is a simple premise and its success has been staggering.  Get your holiday gifts and read about the amazing story of Pearls for Girls here

I am hosting a Pearl Bee for some friends in early December and I am so looking forward to it.  Fun+an amazing cause=my idea of a perfect night.

Question of the Day

You wake up and realize that you have been in a deep sleep for 10 years.  When you begin to interact with the outside world again, you realize the world has changed; it is exactly how you always wished it could be!

What is different?  What is the same?  What are people like?  What is society like?  What does this bring up for you?

Another gorgeous day

I am posting this to remind myself in a few months when I am bemoaning my Boston winter that it is mid-November, sunny, and gorgeous and I don't even need a real coat today!

I have had a few really inspired and productive days and am excited to roll out some new projects and offerings in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned!

Soft Rain

I am sitting on my couch and gazing out my window and sipping my coffee this rainy Saturday morning in Boston.  The rain is steady but gentle, misty, whipped and swirled by the wind before coming into contact with buildings, windows, concrete, cars, the occasional human scurrying down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, head covered. 

The phrase "soft rain" entered my mind a few minutes ago and I googled for shits and giggles and got this from Wikipedia:

There Will Come Soft Rains is a 12-line poem by Sara Teasdale written in 1920. The subject of the poem imagines nature reclaiming the earth after humanity has been wiped out by a war (line 7). The voice of the poem speaks definitely, the way in which the poet imagines how little the human race will be missed is an absolute certainty and not just a possibility. The poem reads:

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Wow!  First of all, props to Sara for being green and eco-friendly and sounding an alarm a good 70 years before it became a multi-bazillion-dollar industry/movement.

This poem has stirred up my mind this morning, creating a thought train that has traveled from the futility and overblown self-importance of the current human way of life, to my growing desire to be meditating in a fragrant field somewhere smiling at the birds rather than at a computer on the 3rd floor of a brownstone in a city, to existential questions about humanity and meaning.

How wonderful to be thought-provoked in that way and how ridiculously ego-mind-human-doing-not-being all at the same time! Off to quiet my mind and be with what is for awhile!

Loving What Is

I have had Loving What Is by Byron Katie sitting in my "to-read" pile forever. I plucked it out a couple of days ago and am very glad I did.

The Work, as Katie calls it, centers around asking yourself four questions and then creating a "turnaround."

The four questions are as follows:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

The "turnaround" is turning the thought on its head; so if the belief is "Helga doesn't like me," you examine the truth in "I don't like Helga" or "Helga does like me."

It sounds very simple, but I have found it quite eye-opening, especially in thinking about a couple of relationships where I felt I was "right" and the other person "wrong." Check it out!

Veteran's Day

Thanks to all the women and men, including many in my family, who have served our country.

May we all unite to create a more peaceful world.

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

As soon as I let myself feel my feelings fully (see yesterday's post), they softened, shifted, and dissipated. Ah, the power of being fully present with WHAT IS.

Eckhart Tolle says "As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you." I say, when you are able to truly BE WITH what you are feeling rather than avoid it, the pain moves through cleanly, leaving no trace behind.

Today feels lighter. I have my bright-yellow Chuck Taylors on for inspiration and a bunch of checks on my giant to-do list already. Peace out.

Dark Days

Despite gorgeous weather and much to be grateful for, I have had a few bluer-than-blue days.

Being with the sadness, the hurt, the disappointments, the fear, the anger, the confusion, and not running away, hiding, avoiding, is not easy. At points in my life, I would do ANYTHING to avoid pain. As a teenager, I would cut myself or skip school. As a young adult, I would drink, smoke, overeat and worse. As a not-so-young adult, I avoid people, spend too much time on the internet, turn into a couch slug, do things to make myself feel better like exercise or yoga. Anything to dull the pain, numb the feelings, avoid the bad and the bleh.

When I let myself feel the pain, be with it, run toward it instead of away from it, truly experience it, it begins to loosen its grip a bit. It does pass; it does not sweep me away in a raging current as I fear it might.

When life is hard and hurts, STAY. Stay in the pain and let it wash over you and know that you will not die from sadness or rage or confusion. Know that by being with it, you will find peace. Namaste.

Saying "Yes" and Saying "No"

Every time you say "yes" to something in your life, you are also saying "no" to something else, and vice versa. Consciously choosing your "yesses" and "nos" is powerful!

Today, I say "yes" to Yoga as soon as I hit "submit", to working on my Leadership Quest through the perspective of "Success is Inevitable" and to scheduling workshops for January and February.

I say a big ol' resounding NO! to saying "I'll do it later" to yoga, to working on my Leadership Quest through the perspective of "This is too scary and too hard" and to putting off scheduling my next engagements.

Oh man, I needed this!

What this review points me to in this time of feeling like my whole life is a big ol' question mark? The clarity I have about the fact that I was born to help people uncover and love their authentic selves AND to create deep intimacy and connection between people.

Check this out. Thanks, Matthew P! xo

Inspiring Review of Dare to Be Free by an awesome writer

Here is an excerpt:

Dare To Be Free. That was the name of the workshop I attended in Boston this weekend and to say it was transformational is an understatement. The idea was to identify, declare, then bury your core limiting belief, that is, the one lie you believe about yourself that keeps you from freedom, happiness and being in love with your life. You then create a new belief based on what is true. There is no way this description can give you any sense of just how cathartic and intense and liberating this is. You really just have to experience it. But I'll say that 9 people who for the most part didn't know each other before Saturday, are now inexorably significant and accountable to each other...