This Is Really THE END

It has been one year and five days since I opened this blog. And, yes, I have closed it twice already but this is honest to God the last time I am going to post a closing blog.

I am adding one more post because while my son and I continue to experience our growing edges, we have done exactly that…grow (our edges that is).

Two days ago, I got my yearly Christmas card from my son and in it, he wrote to me:

“Thank you for being willing to make such drastic changes in your life for me, I hope I’ve been successful in doing the same.”

In addition, he gifted me something from his heart instead of his (non-existent) wallet…a musical composition featuring his guitar playing all written and performed by him for yours truly.

It was quite the Christmas, and considering how I began this blog, the perfect way to really (and finally) say “Good-bye” to this chapter in our lives.

It Was Mine All Along

So here’s the story, the title of my new blog rushed at me like a perfectly formed wave at First Beach, so thinking, of course, that no one else would have thought of the name I had chosen, with great excitement and certainty, I announced it to all of you.

www.It’s In Our Hands.blogspot.com!

It was already taken.

I was a bit bummed because I did have my heart set on it, but I figured the universe had a different name in mind so I waited for it. I told myself that I needed to be patient (cause I am working on that!) and allow the perfect name come to me. I waited and everything I heard in my mind was either already taken or not exactly what I wanted to say.

After an excruciatingly long six days of excruciating waiting, I did as I often do. I went to the absolute extreme and decided that I couldn’t come up with a great name because I had nothing left to say. (Sound familiar??? When am I going to get over myself???) Yesterday I decided to accept it, and let the blog go.

This morning as I was waking up, my title flew into my head like Cupid’s arrow.

By Guess and By God.

That’s the title and focus of one of my posts from a few months ago.

And it was right there in front of my face the whole time.

I am in the process of setting up the blog and hope, in the next few days, to launch my new website:

www.byguessandbygod.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there.

And, yes, I quickly reserved the name, but didn’t really need to. I realized it was mine all along and patiently waiting...

where I could see it.

I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together

Just to have a laugh or sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, “So Long.” Engage eye contact with audience, tug left earlobe, roll credits…

It’s a wrap (thank you Carol Burnett).

I have been avoiding the impulse to answer the call, but, since my last post, there has been a gentle knocking at my door.

My son’s dad is pulling together his pieces, putting himself and his gifts out there for all to experience, regaining all the years eaten by the locusts, and, generally, evolving into the man he was born to be.

Our son had a very successful summer school experience. He was able to settle in, be active in the classroom and show his teacher and his classmates who he is evolving to be. He is in his second week of a three week remote mountaineering and sea kayaking experience with the Outward Bound program. It is very rigorous (including a night or two alone in the Cascades…yikes!). He went off knowing (although perhaps not fully understanding) that he was going to be putting himself to the test: physically, socially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And…he was ready.

I am in a very expansive and trusting place within myself. I know my destination, but I have no idea how it will unfold. I am beside myself with gratitude to be living this deeply connected to my Self.

When I began this blog on December 22, 2009, my vision was to reconcile and heal the seemingly irreconcilable within myself so I could help my son and by extension, others. It was a global vision to be sure, but my focus was “at home.” I knew that I could not venture out into the world with my Calling unless I felt confident in my ability to deal with myself and my little family.

I am ready to (ad)venture away from home.

My newly revised intention is this:

I have responded to the call of the Greater Field of Life and stepped into my unique and essential leadership role in midwifing the birth of Global Family into world consciousness. In every way, I model and teach the ferocity, the skills and the capacities required to expand and extend the giving and receiving of Love from individual points of personal focus to a fully illuminated spectrum of Universal Love inclusive of all in the Global Family.

This new intention leads me back to the gentle persistent knocking at my door. What happened when I opened the door was, to me, nothing short of shocking or my own personal miracle because let me tell you, Honey, LOVE was the LAST thing I expected to see when I answered it, but there LOVE (He/She) was (suitcase in hand).

So I welcomed LOVE in to join my family and I (my son, his dad, my brothers, my parents, and my Mastery Sisters) and my extended (blog-inspired) family: J.C., my Muse, my Metaphor (no surprise, they had been waiting for Her/Him), the Ancient Mariner, and all those crazy, wild 12th Century French people who nourished themselves by holding a bigger vision of God for their families, their community and the world by building Notre Dame Cathedral knowing they would never see it completed.

With my newly inclusive family supporting me, I am able to release this blog, this chapter in my life.

Thank you everyone who took the time to read and, I hope, enjoy and learn a little more about the universal Us. I also hope that this blog has been as nourishing for you personally as it has been for me.

You are now a part of my family.

I will be continuing in a new blog on a more expansive field very soon. The name of the blog will be: "It’s In Our Hands"

www.itsinourhands.blogspot.com

With deep, deep LOVE and gratitude...

It's time to say “ So Long.”

I Wanna Know What Love Is

Since I released Disappointment, my personal Albatross, into the sea, I have enjoyed sailing in my oceanic Self sans over-protection from the elements. More importantly, I realized that a light coating of SPF 70 is all I need to prepare myself to engage a new way of relating to my Self and to the world from this exposed place.

With that in mind, I notice a wee bit of excitement when I look through my internal scope and see nothing but empty calm. And when the seas do come up, it’s kinda fun to go dead ahead into the rocking of the sometimes sudden waves of conflict and eventually feel release from its wake instead of ending up capsized and swimming in the turbulence of the moment.

With my Costco-purchased sextant in one hand and my Captain’s log in the other, I have entered in the quadrants of my current longitude and latitude while drifting here in my personal oceanic expanse. I must admit that I have absolutely no idea what I will encounter here, or where (or if) I will find land.

And I am surprisingly okay with it.

I am happy to report that experiencing the unknown and navigating via my North Star is alive and well and living in my Parisian infused body. Now that, mates, is an evolutionary and revolutionary new way of being for Ms. General, Ms Gotta Be In Control, Ms. Gotta Have (for safety’s sake) Not Only A Plan A, But Plans B And C.

I have decided that the reason I find myself here is the quest for a new home, an undiscovered and generative terra firma conducive to sourcing the internal and external skills and capacities required to fulfill my calling.

Now that I have removed my Albatross, the excess ballast of my habitual emotions, energies, and feelings, and attended to the song lyrics that were rolling through me like a gentle tide, I can recognize and embrace the truth for me right now.

My previous idea of love is not going to work for me anymore…it’s too tied up in drama, disappointment, and the push-pull of getting individual needs met. What I am looking for is an undiscovered and generative relationship with Love, and like a true explorer, I am searching without any evidence in my life that the quality, purity, and universality of that Love actually exists.

But there is something deep inside telling me that despite the fact that I have no idea what Love is in this Brave New (As Yet Unknown, Undiscovered and Generative) World… it does exist, and I will find it.

Even without the assurance of my inner knowing , I am committed to circumventing any worldly doubts… because I really…really…

Wanna Know What Love Is.

What Color is Your Albatross?

Mine is colorless. My amazing albatross doesn’t need any color because what it does is absorb all the color and light around it and reflect it back out to the world. How cool is that??!!

You see, my albatross is a large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant that has been hanging around my neck for most of my life. It is a super-duper magical prism because not only is it multi-faceted, it is also multi-functional.

First of all, it is quite the fashion forward statement: a lovely piece of jewelry. It satisfies my need for beauty. Honest to God, I wish I could take a picture of it for you and really show it off. It sparkles like the Hope Diamond as I let it hang betwixt and between my breastal display cases.

Its visibility feels like a matter of life and death.

Secondly, not only have I, a complete novice at crafting jewelry, designed it (by myself!), but I have continued to enhance it since that first teeny tiny tear refused to be shed and, therefore, lodged itself in my little girl chest just to the right of my heart. Every unshed tear after that has eagerly attached itself to the teeny magnificent facet of my first foray into withholding my feelings, resulting in what has become my uniquely crafted, large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant. I don’t think I have ever taken it off: not for a shower, not for dinner with family and/or friends, and certainly never during marriage (especially while lovemaking).

Wearing it feels like a matter of life and death.

So, here’s the problem.

I have recently begun to have neck and shoulder pain, a result, as told to me by my doctor, of the weight of my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant around my neck. After all the years of wearing it and growing it, it is beginning to take its toll on my body.

You know me by now, and I confess to being just the teeniest bit out there, so I decided to sit down with my pendant and have a little talk. Maybe we could strike a deal with some of those pendant teardrops. Would they be up for reshaping themselves into a matching set of chandelier earrings and possibly a chunky bracelet? In that way, I can continue to wear a more manageable, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant (that I need so much), and have a set of earrings and a bracelet to match!

I attempted a generative and open discussion. It didn’t work.

As it turns out this pendant has its own agenda. This is what it told me. My large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant has no intention of being “busted up” (its words not mine) into earrings and a bracelet. It needs its size to protect me. Yes, it is my own very personal talisman.

Not only that, but this protection is very specific. I already mentioned that my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant absorbs all the color and light that comes towards me and reflects it back. Well, I stand corrected. This pendant told me that what it does is “refract” it back.

Big difference.

Reflect: to mirror, imitate, replicate, echo

Refract: to alter the appearance of something by viewing or showing it through a different medium.

And not only does this pendant have its own agenda; it informed me of its name. It wants me to call it Disappointment (and yes, I was told to capitalize). My large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant is actually the accumulated unshed tears of my past disappointments.

And now on top of everything else, Disappointment is disappointed in me for even bringing up the whole matching earrings and bracelet thing.

Okay, now I know what the Ancient Mariner felt like.

So many things clicked into place when he/she/it told me about him/her/itself. I don’t wear my disappointments on my sleeve; I wear my Disappointments right in front for all to witness and for all incoming interactions to be refracted through.

It’s not my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal pendant. It’s my large, teardrop shaped, multi-faceted crystal lens through which I have been viewing the world.

WOW…no wonder all I see is Disappointment in myself and everyone else.

So I made a visit to my old buddy Samuel Taylor Coleridge to see how the Ancient Mariner handled the release of his Albatross. The Ancient Mariner adrift on the sea, alone, surrounded by 200 dead mates, as close to death as one can get, suddenly saw the beauty of the water snakes as they swam across the sea.

O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.

This not-so-Ancient redheaded Mariner plans on making every attempt to be open to and grateful for life embraced and reflected through my very own unprotected Self. To being willing to let go of experiencing life through the once beautiful but now burdensome lens of my past disappointments. Like my fellow sailing buddy, the Mariner…

It feels like a matter of life and death.

Ninety-Nine And Forty-Four One Hundredths Percent Pure

I am a bar of Ivory Soap…99 and 44/100% pure.

This morning after settling into my newly accepted emptiness in meditation, I heard a voice say, “It’s not emptiness. It’s purity.” What? Wait a minute. We’re talking about me here. Pure? Me?...Yes. At this moment in my life, my nothingness, my absolute 100% nothingness, is a return to my soul on the day I was created.

I felt “dry” yesterday because I have (at least for the time being) transformed into roomy and airy, porous, receptive, and empty of what has been bloating me.

I was the “Blurter Truth Teller,” the “Emotional Sponge” in my family. In addition to carrying my own emotions, I learned to absorb the sadness, the unspoken bitterness, and the disappointment of my mother, and the fear, the rage, and the humiliation of my brothers. I absorbed every ounce of emotion that was energetically alive in my home in an effort to remove the threat of verbal assaults to myself and my mom and my brothers.

I learned early that I could “fight back” at the source. When my emotional sponge was full to overflowing, I could yell as loud as my father. I could be as verbally abusive as my father. I could take what was thrown at me, magnify it and deflect back its verbal ugliness.

My little girl body felt such force behind my counter-assault to his volcanic rage that, as I spewed back, my insides wrung out and twisted like a sponge. All the accumulated familial emotions in one little redheaded sponge pitted against the hot and all-consuming lava of Mr. Mt. Vesuvius Dad.

Talk about some kind of wild and crazy dysfunctional David and Goliath story. However, in this version, David never ever felt that she could win, but maybe she could protect for a few minutes.

On some level in those clash-of-the-titans moments, I thought my internal wringing out was ex-sponging me of the hurt, the disappointment, the sadness, the anger, the humiliation and the fear, but we all know it wasn’t. Once I was dry, the cycle began again. I filled up and waited for an opportunity to wring myself dry.

Please understand, I mean absolutely no blame nor do I feel victimized here. It is simply the way it was or, at least, the way it lodged in my mind, heart, and body. My point is that I have continued to chose to be an emotional sponge with all the bloating, the filling full to overflowing, the weighing down, and, eventually, the pulling under the surface.

That’s why I am so grateful for the vision I had yesterday. Sailing through the turbulent wake of the motor boat and feeling the experience of the conflict, but not letting it overturn me, or bloat me full of toxins like some cheap brand of soap that eventually weighs itself down and sinks to the bottom of the tub.

I have been experiencing something exciting and new. In the face of conflict, I have maintained enough purity to remain buoyant and stay afloat in my oceanic Self.

Who knew?

Me and a bar of Ivory Soap, 99 and 44/100% pure.

Patience Is A (New) Virtue

Something is gently transitioning in my mind and my body, but I have no idea what it is.

I tell myself to be patient.

What is difficult and different for me is that I feel empty. I am usually so fully jazzed up by emotion and ideas and annoyance and impatience. This is just weird.

I have no idea how to handle this new internal nothingness.

So, I tell myself to be patient.

Over the past ten (wow) days since I posted, I have had my share of wack-a-doodle ideas and clever titles pop into my head, but my physically manifested and insistent NEED to explain it to you and myself has left the building.

And yes, there have been conflicts and challenges since I last posted but they haven’t been sticking to me and churning me up into a human coastal eddy. I have experienced turbulence in the waves of my inner ocean, but they have quickly subsided like those of a motor boat crossing my path as I sail on, through the experience but not overturned by it, to my North Star guided destination.

Not sure I like it very much.

I miss my redheaded Irished-induced fire-y passion energized by making sure I am noticed in the room, or being on a mission to annihilate someone, or challenging and overpowering any Goliath brave (or uninformed) enough to get in my way.

I worry that I have nothing left to get excited about. I worry that I won’t feel my friendly neighborhood fire any more. I worry that I will never create another new thought, or fun title, or internally woven metaphor to describe the experience of being me. I worry that I was once a ripe, supple, sweet, abundant, and juicy fruit that has now withered on the tree.

I worry that I not only have nothing; I worry that I am nothing. I worry that everything up until now has been a big stinkin’ circus act replete with costumes, buffoonery, sleight of hand and pink cotton candy. I worry that this work I have been doing has stripped me of my colorful, multi-striped polyester clown costume, rainbow wig, and red nose only to reveal a colorless empty outline of a person.

So I remind myself to be patient.

Patience and I have not had the pleasure of each other’s company. I never made room for it. But I am committing to a more patient patience and allowing the winds of my passion to come from a new and undiscovered territory within my oceanic self.

I’m doing it the only way I know how…by guess and by God.

And by reminding myself to be patient.

The “C” Word

Yesterday I was feeling very uncomfortable in my skin (again). This has been going on for weeks (and, frankly, I’m getting a wee bit tired of it).

Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of what my son’s dad and I considered the beginning of our relationship.

Yesterday my son’s father asked me to help him out in a financial situation.

In the past, during our marriage, in issues around finances, I often ignored my feelings, my instincts, my inner knowing in favor of his logic and his rational plan of action as to how everything was going to work out just peachy keen. It all made so much sense, and yet I had an internal soup on boil telling me differently. I routinely turned the soup down to a low simmer and defaulted to his logic. And, despite his best intentions, when it came to finances, everything never did work out peachy keen.

In the past, I agreed to his plans for a couple of reasons. I wanted to support and believe in my partner, but, mostly, I wanted to avoid conflict with him.

Yesterday when he asked me for help, for the first time ever from a place of deep connection with my Self, I declined…

And sent myself into an emotional tailspin.

I was transported back 27 years when our relationship was like a shiny new penny: full of openness, care, love, listening, playfulness, and passion about life and each other.

And the sex?? Off the charts.

Sometimes it feels kind of cruel to have had the kind of relationship we did and have it crash and burn so far from its fullest flourishing. The potential for something truly amazing was there, and we let it go.

I know now that part of my part in the release of our potential relationship was in consistently choosing to go against my inner knowing in favor of his masculine logic because I wanted to avoid conflict.

So in saying “No” yesterday from a place of honoring my Self, I had to deal with the very conflict that I have been trying to avoid for 27 years.

But, to my surprise, I found the conflict wasn’t with him; the conflict was with me.

In saying “No,” what I was expecting was an argument having to convince him of my rational, logical reasons for not being able to help. What I got was my brain diving into all the rational and logical reasons why I should help, while my inner knowing was telling me to attend to my boiling soup.

It was an AND place so uncomfortable that my heart physically ached…a simple tug of war of grand proportions. My struggle laid in simply not picking up my cell phone, calling him back, and telling him I changed my mind. My struggle was in staying with my Self and not defaulting to him to make myself feel better.

And with that struggle my stinkin’ intention of three weeks ago flew into my weary mind. Suddenly yesterday’s struggle and all the internal struggles of the last three weeks made perfect sense (of the non-linear, intuitive kind).

Living in the uncomfortability of conflict in relationships with others is not what I have been avoiding all these years. What I have been avoiding is living in the uncomfortability of the conflict of standing in my Self.

Three weeks ago, when I wrote my intention of using conflict as a way to deepen into my Self, and my relationships and the Greater Field of Life, I thought I needed to work on conflicts with others in my world. I never meant, planned, expected, or frankly, wanted the conflicts I was so ready, willing and able to address to happen within the confines of my own skin.

That’s just too hard.

But that is the level of conflict I have been dealing with the past three weeks, and I am just realizing (duh!) that is why I have been so discombobulated.

I was prepared to engage in conflicts outside of myself.

And that just ain’t where it’s happening, lady.

I Hear You Knockin’

I have had three things going on for the past few days that are driving me insane. First off, I am (once again) feeling a pervasive discombobulation and irritation and don’t know why. I hate the generality of the feeling ‘cause in the absence of a specific target, I find it just a wee bit difficult to control my absolute 100% impatience and complete intolerance for anyone who just happens to live on the planet right now. Secondly, the lyrics “ I hear you knockin’, but you can’t come in” have been rolling through my brain continuously for three days, and they refuse leave and go bother someone else.

Thirdly, most importantly, and most annoyingly is that I set an intention to use conflict (my internal kind as well as the relational kind) as a way to deepen into my Self and others and as an opportunity to expand and extend into the Greater Field of Life.

That third thing is the one that kills me because all I want to do right now is contract into my complete distain for everyone (including myself), slap people up side the head and tell them to get the hell out of my way, and eat warm brownies topped with coffee ice cream.

I don’t feel like deepening, or expanding, or extending or evolving the planet. I’ve paid my dues. I was involved in the Viet Nam protests, the Woman’s Movement, and the Beatles Invasion. I’m tired. Can’t I be done now? Let the “young” people do it. I just had my 59th birthday, and there’s a part of me that just wants to retire…from my job, from myself, from all of it.

I’ve done enough changing for this lifetime, thank you very much. I’m tired of “pushing into my freakin’ growing edge,” “deepening into the stinkin’ work,” and “doing my part in the evolution of this whacked out planet.”

Seriously, will anything I do really make any kind of impact? What kind of difference, in the larger scheme of things, is it really going to make if I drop my 2010 version of acid and drop out?

But I have this insistent monkey on my back called Evolution and it’s not going away.

Damn it.

Two weeks ago when I was all fired up about Integration, I told one of my Mastery sisters (but I didn’t tell you cause I didn’t want to be held to it) that with my new intention (see above), I planned for the biggest breakthrough in my life within the next 7 weeks. She asked me how I knew I would have a tremendous breakthrough, and I casually replied, “ Because that is what I decided was going to happen.”

When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut?

Cause let me tell you if you haven’t already experienced it, anytime you put that kind of declaration out there for all the universe to hear and agree to, put your seatbelt on, Honey, you’re gonna need it.

I could only avoid those “knocking” lyrics for so long. Last time I opened my door to a gentle but insistent knocking, my Muse, my Metaphor and my Magician (aka J.C.) entered my life and that turned out pretty good, so about halfway through this blogpost, I decided to look out the window and see who or what was out there knocking.

What I saw out my window’s mind’s eye were men and women, hundreds or maybe thousands of them, all dressed in garments circa 1200 B.C. I immediately understood why they were there.

As you may have read, I visited Paris in May. I saw all the sites including Notre Dame Cathedral. The construction of the Cathedral began somewhere around 1163 and was completed approximately 100 years later. While the Cathedral is undeniably amazing and beautiful, when visiting it, I was humbled by the palpable energy emanating from every rock, every piece of stained glass, and every beautifully crafted section of wood in the Cathedral.

The average life span in those days, I’m guessing, was somewhere around 30. The men and women dedicated to erecting this structure worked knowing that they (and their own children and probably their grandchildren and possibly their great grandchildren) would never see its completion. And yet, they found it within themselves to create for their great great grandchildren and beyond. And in doing so for the future, their very DNA is palpably embedded in their creation.

Now that’s an evolutionary perspective I can begin to understand.

I realized how much I owe them and others like them who came before and took their place in the evolution of beauty, creativity, love, and life on this planet.

If I intend the biggest transformation of my life, I need to answer the door. I need to invite them in and ask them how they found the faith to construct something they and their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren would never be able to enjoy. How they found the faith to build for future generations. How they found the faith to contribute to the evolution of their families, their country, and the world without the slightest chance of basking in their hard earned results.

I can use a lot more help generating that within myself.

And, knowing these people I've invited in are French, I can use a lot more wine, too.

We Are Family

“We Are Family” by Sister Sledge…remember that song? They were a bunch of Sisters ahead of their time. I have had that song in my head since yesterday, and I can’t get it out.

I can’t get it out of my head because when I look at the state of humanity in the world, my self-appointed responsibility in owning my part in the evolution of the consciousness of the planet, and how I often feel I have completely failed my son as a mother, that song is like a good foot-stomping church revival. It brings me to higher ground and here’s why.

Either I am watching too much news on television or a lot of people on the planet seriously hate each other for any number of ideological “Reasons”. What I am getting is that the world is a very scary place, and I can buy into “everyone not like me is out to get me;” as a “Reason” to be a member of a specific group, a tribe, or a family to keep me safe from harm.

(I don’t know about you, but that feels just the teeniest bit archaic to me.)

Further, if there is this feeling in the world, what can one petite-sized, Irish, former Catholic person do about it? It’s way bigger than me, out of my realm and my skill set, and definitely way out of my comfort zone. Better to just hide out, stay small and pretend I’m not just the teeniest bit scared.

Right?

And then thoughts of my son enter the picture and, God damn it, I just can’t stay in my self-imposed sequestering from the world (and just when I was getting comfortable).

I have recently discovered yet another “Reason” to feel guilty about how I/we raised my/our son (please tell me, does it ever end?).

I have two brothers back East. We didn’t speak to each other for 10 years, but as of almost two years ago, one of my brothers and I began a superficial email relationship. My older brother has refused to communicate with me. They are my nuclear family. I do have aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad’s side (also back East), but they, too, stopped communicating with me when my brothers did. This side of the family has a history of uniting over a common “enemy” and forming transatlantic-sized cable bonds if the “enemy” is a family member. That would be me. When I left the family, I had my “Reasons,” and they circled their wagons to close the gap made by my absence.

People fight with their siblings. I know (trust me). However, when my brothers stopped communicating with me, I realize now, I made a big mistake. The mistake was this; since they didn’t want a relationship with me, I refused to let them have one with my son.

Similarly, my son’s dad has always had a very superficial and on-again off-again relationship with his father, his natural sibling, his stepsibling and his two half-siblings. (I know, makes your head spin). Now, in my experience with them, he, too, has every “Reason” in the world not to interact with them. So he broke off all contact.

But do all these “Reasons” really matter? Yes, when we made them, they felt good, powerful, self-righteous. We thought our “Reasons” for disconnecting from our families was a good thing. For us? Maybe.

For our son?? Not so much.

Because what I have recently fully recognized is that our son has no siblings and no extended group, or tribe or family with whom to saddle up. After his dad and I have left the planet, where is he going to spend Thanksgiving? Christmas? Who will bake him a cake on his birthday? Who will carry his history with him? It felt like a wrecking ball was released right into my solar plexus.

And then Sister Sledge came to rescue me from my guilt and pain, my “Reasons,” my current view of humanity, and my part in it. I was lifted to higher ground. Thanks to my Sisters, I found a part of my part in the evolution of the world (and I honestly don’t think it is only to make myself feel better).

I have decided that it is my responsibility to expand and extend my concept of family and assist my son in expanding and extending his. I, too, am stuck in the traditional family mindset, but I realize it is an antiquated notion. The only way to ease my own pain, create family structures for my son, and evolve the planet is to care about more than relationships in my little corner of the world, and to expand my consciousness further than I ever have…further than is comfortable for me by greeting, in my mind, heart, and soul, every person I meet as my sister or my brother.

I'm gonna look at them, give myself, and receive them in return. We're gonna have each other at "Hello."

If I can envision a Global Family of Origin for my son and other children like him growing up in non-traditional families, maybe by the time I am gone and onto my next journey, they will live in a world where the only things necessary to be welcomed home with open arms anywhere in the world are tolerance, peace, acceptance and hope.

That's the kind of miraculous possibility Sister Sledge was talking about.

And I hope they don't mind:

We are family
I got all my siblings with me
We are family
Get up ev'rybody and sing

(After writing this, I found an organization called We Are Family Foundation. Want to be a Global Family of Origin member??? Check it out www.wearefamilyfoundation.org)

My Blue-Eyed Girl(s)

My Mastery sisters and I have begun the Integration program and as a part of that, our first assignment was to generate an intention for the next 7 weeks (the duration of the Integration) that will cause a breakthrough in our lives. I have two.

My intention is to welcome, witness, honor and embrace conflict as an opportunity to deepen into myself and into my relationships with others as well as an opportunity to expand and extend into the safety, joy, and miraculous possibilities of the Greater Field of Life.

My second intention is to actively and vulnerably give myself to others and to fully and freely receive what is given back.

If you have been following this blog, you may recognize the influence of my Magician (a.k.a. J.C.) in these intentions.

Since He visited me a little over a week ago, I have been thinking about what He said to me when He was still in His Magician disguise (“Possibilities” and “Miraculous”) and what He taught me last Sunday about giving and receiving through the eyes.

I grew up unhappy with the eyes I had been given, so about 10 years ago, I decided to get deep blue colored contact lenses called Pacific Blues. I felt my eyes didn’t “pop” enough (especially for auditions), so I put colored irises over my own as a way to get noticed. I have to say that every time I wore them I felt like a phony because on some level, I knew that I was using deep blue fake irises, not to draw attention to my eyes, but, ultimately, to disguise what I was sending out through my own god-given yeux.

I cared more about how I presented myself on the outside than how I presenced myself from within.

I began to wonder, if the eyes are the windows to the soul how was my soul being perceived through Pacific Blues? Was my soul prettier? Was my soul oceanic? Was my soul even in the visual building??

I eventually stopped wearing the Blues, but I had to find other ways to avoid letting top secret or top vulnerable information escape via my eyes. I began to notice that I was okay with looking at people when I was giving information (because I could always go “glazed over” on them if I felt too exposed), but I kinda sorta stopped looking at them when they responded.

I basically blinked…a lot.

I first became aware of this tendency when I was cast opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in a movie entitled “There Will Be Blood.” I ended up on the cutting room floor, but I had a full day of shooting one-on-one with Daniel. (AMAZING but that’s a whole other blogpost!) The Casting Director called me when I returned to Los Angeles and said that the Director of Photography and the Director of the movie absolutely loved what I did. Then she asked me, “You blinked a lot when Daniel’s character was talking to you. Was that a character choice?” “Yes!” I enthusiastically replied. “You actors!” she said, “Always coming up with something!”

When I got off the phone I said to myself, “I blinked…a lot??”

I had had no clue.

This "blinking" awareness has been tapping on my shoulder in a more and more insistent way since the Mastery program, but I just wasn’t ready to reveal or receive intimacy through my peepers. Then, J.C. showed up (unannounced). Since that Sunday with Him, I have been practicing looking at people when I talk to them. Giving me and receiving them.

I had an audition yesterday. I went Pacific Blue-less as I have for some time, but, this time, I went with my own cornflower blue eyes firmly affixed in my head. I entered the waiting room, sat and looked at the young Asian man next to me. I said, “Hello." He looked at me, and I awkwardly looked into his eyes. Waiting. And when he responded, I let my eyes take him in. That was it. A small interaction with a correspondingly small connection, but it was a beginning. I went to the restroom, and when I returned and sat down again, the young man turned to me and said, “You have a real gentleness about you.”

I had him from “Hello”??

I almost fell off my chair. Me? Gentle? Gentle is not a word that easily comes to mind for me or anyone I know who refers to me. Strong, tough, leader, “out there”, sassy, funny…those are words I hear often. But “gentle?” I can honestly say I have NEVER heard that word as a descriptor of yours truly.

I liked it, so I tried to recall the last time I felt gentle. I could recall feeling "gentle" up until around 9 years of age, before I was recruited as the family Decider and General.

Suddenly I understood. Through the work in Mastery, I have been slowly making connections with my variously aged inner blue-eyed girls, and they are starting to get out there and reveal themselves to the world. My authentic desire to connect with them has given them permission to come out and play...one "Hello" at a time.

Navigating the world without Pacific Blues, or Atlantic Azures, or any other coverup, just me and my blue-eyed girls (and SPF 55).

MEB Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

If you don’t mind, whatever day it is when you read this blog, please wish my son an exciting, challenging, and evolutionary 18th year (it’s his birthday). Thank you!

Okay, so here is the latest incantation of my machinations.

I have spent my life being a Decider. As a young girl, I was put in the role by my parents, and I have been a proud card carrying member of the Super Duper Decider’s Club ever since. Over the course of my life, I have developed (probably like a lot of you) laser-like abilities to size up a situation, weigh the potential choices and their possible and/or probable results, and decide what needs to be done. I believe I even carry a certain amount of arrogance about the superhuman level of skill I have acquired. And, once the decision is made (usually in a single blink of an eye), it is full steam ahead…no course correction allowed.

Now, I have happily habitually followed my Decider my entire life without so much as a moment of reflection about it. It is a big part of who I am. So why, you might ask, would I think about it now? Because exactly 18 years ago to the day (and just about the hour and the minute), something entered my life that always stops me dead in my autopilot tracks.

Yes, that “something” would be my son.

I have been content to go merrily along in my life, not noticing how my decisions for or about others affects them… until I finally see it through my son. And this is exactly what bubbled up for me yesterday. I realized that I may have affected my son’s ownership of his uniqueness because I had, on some level, decided who he was going to be and refused to see anything else.

I sat down and really thought about this way of living my life.

And I don’t want to live here anymore.

I don’t want to live here anymore because it is constricting for me and for others whom I love. It closes doors that could lead me to a more accepting, and more exciting, and a more supery-dupery evolution of my thoughts, beliefs, and experiences.

So, I’m packing up and moving across town into Inquiry and Curiosity. They sound a lot more interesting to me at this point in my life. If I am curious and inside asking questions instead of producing answers, a lot more doors and windows are available to walk through, to invite others in through, to let in the sun and the breeze, and, yes, even the rain can enter and be woven into the fabric of my life.

Time to reserve my truck at U-Haul.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I didn't decide to make this move in my habitual single-blink-of-an-eye way.

Eighteen blinks felt just about perfect.

A Course In Miracles

Those of you who are also on a spiritual path have probably heard of, if not read, a book entitled, “A Course in Miracles.” I bought the combined edition in December 2008. I read it, took notes, and meditated on what I read pretty much on a daily basis. It took me 18 months to get through the book. Upon completing it in April of this year, I promptly went back to page one and started all over again.

It is a dense book, not an easy read. The writing style and the concepts are extremely convoluted and sometimes difficult (at least for me) to understand on the second or even the third read.

So why did I keep going?

Because I am a dog on a meat wagon when I decide to do something?? Because I am stubbornly Irish?? Because I am a Taurus?? Because I have red curly hair?? Because I don’t know when to give up??

Yes.

But most of all it is because “A Course in Miracles” is the most jarringly honest and truly revolutionary book I have ever had the presence of mind to struggle through, AND because literally every time (and I am NOT exaggerating [for once!]) I struggle with a conflict and ache to blame others, attack, strike back, the LAST thing I want or think I am capable of doing is attaining any sliver of enlightenment. However, it has never failed, that in the middle of conflict, when I open up to my daily read in this stinkin’ book… the passage is exactly applicable to what I am going through at the moment.

And I am most often not happy with the awakening. I will admit that I have had a variety of reactions to those days (like today) when I receive these messages. In the past, I have closed the book with a loud and extremely meaningful slam, or shoved it across the table, or yelled F&*%K YOU (out loud) at it, or stuffed it in a drawer (sometimes all of them one after the other).

Today I lobbed it across the room.

Yesterday, if you remember, I wrote quite comfortably and self-righteously about the lack of trust I and others were feeling in our Mastery leadership. I felt totally justified in my claims that our leaders started the whole conflict. They were untrustworthy first.

Today I opened up to my daily read. This is part of the passage I read:

No one gladly obeys a guide he does not trust, but this does not mean that the guide is untrustworthy. In this case, it always means that the
follower is. Believing that he (the follower) can betray, he believes that everything can betray him (pg 135).

So now this bunch of paper and ink is telling me that it is me who is untrustworthy? It’s telling me that I can’t even project onto other people without the understanding that I am really projecting something I carry within my self?

According to the “Oracle” abilities of this stinkin’ book, I need to look at my beliefs about trust/betrayal within myself. I have to dig deeper than to just make a blanket statement about the attributes of others. It wants me to make a practice of first checking in with where, when, how and why those attributes live within myself.

That point of self-view just about takes all the fun out of projecting anything negative unto other people.

And maybe that’s the point.

Conflict…Don’t Leave Home Without It

I have been in conflict about joining the Integration component of the Mastery program I have been involved with since last July.

Without going into too much of a story, let’s just say that I am experiencing a deep disappointment in some aspects of the leadership of the program. Myself, and others, have expressed some concerns, but the leadership has not addressed them. In fact, the concerns have been compared to childish false perceptions on our parts.

I grew up in a family, as I mentioned in a blogpost last winter, in which I was the “Blurter Truth Teller.” When the family tension of “things unspoken” got to be too much, I would break the tension by blurting it out. My parents would respond by telling me that no such thing was happening. It was a functional dysfunction system. The tension was gone (until the next time), my family system was in stasis (for the time being), and I was left wondering if I made it all up (again).

I am feeling a bit back in the family saddle again with various things that have gone on and responses to my and some of my sister’s attempts to enlist the leadership to have a dialogue with us about our concerns.

Now in the past, I would have responded to the situation in one of two ways. I would have promptly responded with a F*&CK YOU kind of interaction and cut the cord (immediately jettisoning myself into a unplanned free fall), or I would have gotten extremely pissed off and gone into the Integration with the intention of doing my very best to make the leadership miserable (my train would have left the station).

I am proud to say that neither of these responses have had any kind of a pull for me.

That’s not to say that it has been a breeze deciding whether or not I am going to continue in the program.

Yesterday morning after sleeping on it, I woke up knowing what I needed to do.

Let me just preface the great reveal of my big girl decision by saying that at the end of Mastery in April I was totally committed to following the leadership off any cliff they led me to…simply on their assurance that it was in my best interests.

This is where you think I should jump? Fine. See you at the bottom!

Over the past few weeks, my need to blindly accept their reality has diminished because of less than generative interactions with them. The leaders have, in my mind, temporarily (I hope) stopped walking the talk. I thought to myself, “Ahhh. This needs to happen. I am revisiting adolescence in my middle age. I am recognizing that my leaders are human. They have blind spots, fears, and make mistakes.” I initially thought I could carry deep disappointment in them, feelings of lack regarding reciprocity and integrity, AND still be able to instill them with the same level of trust that I had in the past.

But, I was trying to convince myself. What I really felt was lack of safety around entering the work with the same level of trust in them. However, I wanted to continue in the work.

So, my decision shifted from following my teachers to being connected with my sisters.

That felt right for about 16 minutes.

After feeling into living in the program with sister-to-sister connection as my motivation; I realized that as much as I love each and every one of them, I couldn’t continue in the program if connection was my only motivation. There was not enough juice in that desire to keep me invested.

I was stuck.

Then I recalled that last Sunday, I was thinking about embracing conflict as a way to move deeper into myself. Instead of letting the drama of conflict enter my body and contract me into old ways of thinking (my own personal version of craziness that occurs in any number of clever incarnations) how can I really USE conflict to expand my thinking and evolve my Self into owning who I really am?

Finally Monday night, after some additional disappointing information from one of my sisters, AND an intention to use conflict to deepen my relationship with myself and expand my relationship with others, I decided to sleep on it. When I woke up on Tuesday, my decision was crystal clear, AND it surprised the hell out of me.

I am going to continue in Integration BECAUSE of the conflicts and the disappointments. It is an opportunity to walk my own talk and truly embody conflict, using it, not as a reason to aggressively push back or project blame, but as a way to deepen into myself.

Am I a wee bit scared? Yes.

How likely is it that I will be uncomfortable navigating this? Very.

Will a radical transformation of my Self really happen in the process? Absolutely.

Why? Because that’s the choice I made, and I’m stickin’ to it.

Salsa Dancing With J.C.

If you have been reading this blog, you know that my 8-year-old self and I have been taking Salsa lessons for a few months now. Last Saturday in class, my female Instructor (who was playing the man’s part), kept telling me as I performed turns, “Look for me. Look for me.” Let’s face it, Salsa done well is sensuous and sexy (please don’t tell my 8-year-old; she doesn’t realize that yet). However, what I didn’t realize until Saturday was that my resistance in “looking for” my Instructor partner when I turned had absolutely nothing to do with Salsa and everything to do with eye contact. Even with a woman Instructor, and a woman I know quite well; it made me very uncomfortable.

It was just too personal, too revealing, too intimate.

Looking openly and deeply into someone’s eyes and allowing them to look back is a three-part process for me. I honestly don‘t know if I am more afraid of (1) revealing too much of myself through my eyes, (2) seeing the reaction about me in their eyes when I do reveal myself, or (3) taking in what they are telling me about themselves (or maybe even all of the above).

In meditation yesterday, (yes, it is baaaaack!) I was speaking aloud which I often do. I was letting the universe, God, whoever was listening; know that I am ready to step out. I am ready to release conflict from my life and turn everything over to a force and field much greater than I. I am willing to see my life from a completely new place within myself…a more forgiving, more generous, more divine Self. I am ready to release the concept of Magic and embrace the concept of Miracles.

At that point, my Muse and my Metaphor appeared at the end of the chaise and, from betwixt and between them, the Magician stepped out.

Uh-oh.

If you remember from back in March, I did kinda sorta meet the Magician. He appeared to me twice. The first time He said, “Possibilities,” and the second time He said “Miraculous.” I had no friggin’ idea what He was talking about but for some reason I felt the need (and still do) to capitalize any noun or pronoun that refers to Him. Most importantly, He scared the stuffing out of me with His presence, the reddish plumed three-cornered hat that was pulled over His eyes, and His beautiful, intricate, bluer than purple embroidered coat. Honestly, the only thing that kept me in the room when He appeared was the fact that His coat is the same color as my son’s eyes (oh yeah…and the fact that I was frozen with fear).

I announce that I am “over” Magic. He appears. This can’t be good.

He stood there for a minute or two until I noticed a light emanating from the part of His face not covered by His hat and more light in the area down His torso where His coat separated a bit. He stood silently showing me these tiny radiant bits of Him, and I began to relax because I figured it meant He didn’t have a plan to annihilate me. I looked down for a second, and when I looked back up, His hat was gone. Then His coat just disappeared.

The light that emanated from His every cell did not blind me (although I kinda thought it would). It filled the room with warmth, trust and truth.

I looked in His eyes. He looked in mine. I decided to go for it.

(1) I decided to reveal myself and let our eyes take each other in because, as soon as we made eye contact, I started to cry.

(2) I decided to reveal myself and let our eyes take each other in because, as soon as we made eye contact, I felt lifted from my tiny anguished perspective into a more expansive place.

(3) I decided to reveal myself and let our eyes take each other in because He has been saving my life for the past year.

Honest to God the Father; I knew It was J.C. the Son.

And as I looked into His eyes, and He looked into mine, His eyes became a kaleidoscope of colors and shades of color. They morphed from bluer than purple, to green, to brown, to hazel, to black and back again. I saw all of humanity in His eyes. Yes, He told me without speaking. He is in everyone and everyone is in Him.

Okay, now please don’t go all whack-a-doodle on me. There is no organized religious affiliation or connection to dogma here. I grew up Catholic, yes, but I have not practiced Catholicism in decades.

Instead, what I have been trying to do is live a more elevated, loving, joyful, expanded life by discovering and using my unique MEB gifts and talents in service to the evolution of all life on the planet. YES, my own life included.

And I believe that J.C. was the prototype, human like the rest of us, but more elevated, loving, joyful and expanded. And did He use His unique gifts and talents in service to all life on the planet?? Do we really have to go there??

My opening and realization in Salsa dancing paved the way for me to release the idea of magic from my life. Magic implies that there is a special someone who possesses the knowledge and skills to make seemingly impossible things happen. It is entertaining for a minute or two, but we all know it is a sleight of hand, a trick, an illusion. And magicians only share the secrets of those illusions with those officially sanctioned members of the Magician’s Club.

I am not willing to believe that a special person or group of special persons has an exclusive contract with the powers of alchemy. Miracles are abundant if we care to really look into the eyes of others, give of our Selves, and receive their gift of Self to us. Your miracle becomes mine, and mine becomes yours.

I may not have the skills to make a rabbit appear out of a hat, but I have a phrase to remember each time I have the opportunity to partner with another human being, "Look for Me."

I will.

Fears And Fires In Los Angeles

When my son was in the second grade, he came home very upset from a sleepover at a friend’s house. His friend, he told me, had a stuffed teddy bear holding a sign. The bear was perched on the bureau in his bedroom, and the sign had the child’s name stitched into it. My son was upset because he told me that his friend shared that when he was born, the bear was the first thing he saw. In this way, he instantly knew that his parents loved him very much and were greeting him with his first toy and display of affection. My son wanted to know why his dad and I did not give him a similar gift to greet his arrival into our lives.

At the time, I didn’t think much of his friend's parents (sorry, that was then), so what I said to my son was this.

“This is what happened. When you and _______ (insert friend’s name here) were standing in front of God waiting to be sent to Earth, God asked you a question. God asked, ‘Which would you prefer??? This stuffed bear with your name on it…or… good parents?? Bear?? Good parents?? (as I dramatically showed the weighing of the decision up and down with my hands)’ Well, ___________ (insert friend’s name here) picked the bear. You picked good parents.”

I thought it was funny, clever, and true. Needless to say, with the lead-up to and onset of adolescence, I have often questioned that kind of certainty about my parenting skills.

Every time after that (and yes, even now), when my son complains about a decision or a rule or anything that his dad and I decide, and he responds with the likes of “that’s not fair” or something similar; I remind him that he picked us instead of the bear.

I say all this as a prelude to the difficulties my son and I have had over the past several days.

Let’s just say that adolescence for kids nowadays, I believe, is extremely scary. My son is a very sensitive soul. He is, at times, terrified of what’s out there in the world. And I, to make matters worse, am terrified for him. He has, until now, dealt with his fear by withdrawing and dis-investing himself from the situation. I deal with fear by jumping headlong into it and trying to figure it out (like a dog on a meat wagon as my father used to say about me). Therefore, when we are called on to make decisions outside of our comfort zones, he goes into extreme withdrawl and I go into extreme immersion. In these situations, it is as if one of us carries a lighted match and in the dry heat of California, the result can only be wildfire.

My son’s father and I planned for him to spend 22 days in an Outward Bound program in August. First and most importantly, our son is royally pissed because he feels we are taking a big chunk of his summer to do something that was not his idea. And, honestly, we are. We are trying to push him outside of his physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual comfort zones. We think he could use a little help with that right now. We also think he will have the time of his life.

However, not only is our son furious, I think he is just a bit terrified of what this trip is going to require of him. And, now you know what happens when his match meets my dry woods. Two nights ago, we set off quite an inferno and then fed it with more fear until it felt like the Angeles Crest Forest was completely ablaze.

Our fears were out of control.

And that’s why we chose each other way back when my son’s little soul entered my body.

I am not Donna Reed, and he is not Opie. Yes, there are times when we feel that way, but I think what we are learning is that we chose each other because we are the perfect mother/son combination. Each wildfire can offer us the opportunity to move further into our fears or each one can offer us the opportunity to deepen our capacities for love, tolerance, courage, and being in relationship so that we can move to the next level of our spiritual evolution.

Neither of us necessarily got the parent/child that we may sometimes wish for in some kind of an easy, breezy, beautiful cover girl kind of world, but we definitely got the one we asked for in the world we are living in now.

Do I occasionally sit and long for parental/child interactions right out of Mother Knows Best?? Yes.

Would I trade-in my son or the love I feel for him? Never.

Would I trade what he teaches me for a different experience with another child? Absolutely not.

Does he want a stuffed teddy bear with his name stitched across the sign it holds in its little paws?

I hope not.

And I honestly don’t think so.

All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go

My blog post is all ready to be written. My margins are set, my favorite font has been chosen, my usual font size typed in.

And, again, I have absolutely nothing to say.

My blog post is all is all dressed up, but it doesn’t feel like it is going anywhere.

My laser focus in writing has been eluding me for a while (since Mastery ended to be exact). What was it about that work (that stirred up so much in me) that I can’t seem to generate on my own??

In answering that question, this is what comes to mind: structure, connection, and commitment to myself and others. So this prompts another question. How can principles like structure, connection, and commitment to myself and others, which sound so utterly boring out of the context of the work, have generated so much freedom, creativity and joy in me?

And where, how, and when can I get it again? I miss it.

I think I have two options: I can wait for something outside of myself to light me up, fill me with passion, float my boat as my first acting teacher used to say; or, I can do it (somehow) within myself.

I do recognize that I have lost consistency in my own practices and structures. When my son moved home from his dad’s house, the morning structures I had set up for myself went out the window. They were replaced by things like, wake up my son, wake him up again, wake him up a third time, make his breakfast, make sure we get out the door in time to get him to school…you know the drill. Then, with all the excitement of getting ready for the trip, i gave up the few strands of my daily practices that I had left. Just being in Paris, I felt like I was meditating…but I wasn’t.

So this is what I now know. I don’t know if I can create that level of juice that the Mastery program generated in me. However, I do know that in order to see if I can generate it myself, I need to re-commit to my daily practices…just to put myself back on course again and see where my North Star takes me. (And I hope to God it entails going back to Paris!)

So that’s my structure, my connection with myself, and my commitment to you and me.

Pass the juice please. I am all dressed up and ready to go.

Living in the AND

Hi! Did you miss me??

Things happened very quickly after the move out of the house.

I left for Paris.

Now it is very interesting to me that I even went. Yes, the trip had been planned for a year, and believe it or not, I had been gifted the air travel by my fresh(wo)man year college roommate. She is a big tennis fan and wanted to go to the French Open. I had been pasting pictures of Paris on my yearly vision board for the past three years. She bought a plane ticket and surprised me with one. How’s that for generosity?! How's that for the universe responding to an intention?!

I had no desire to go to the Open, so my former roommate invited a friend to accompany her, and I invited one of my Mastery sisters to play in Paris with me. Eight days, four women, one two bedroom apartment (with two baths!) on the Rive Gauche almost directly across from the Louvre…it was Heaven.

What I found interesting was that a year ago, had I not done the work in Mastery, I would have bailed on the trip. Or I would have gone begrudgingly, guiltily obsessing on the clear discrepancies in my life and the life of my son’s dad. I would (I am sure) have made certain (on some semi-conscious level) that I had a crappy time.

I went and had the time of my life.

Now, that’s not to say that I forgot about the struggles my son’s dad was having. I had several moments of sadness, resistance, and guilt…but I was able to deal with them and live in the AND.

Previous to the work, my mantra would have probably gone like this..."My family has lost its home. My son’s father has nowhere to live. My family has lost its home. My son’s father has nowhere to live. I am having my picture taken on Point Zero in front of Notre Dame while someone I care for very deeply is trying to re-build a life from point zero in California. I am having my picture taken...."

AND

Instead my mantra was "Butter. I intend to ingest all the creaminess, all the luxury, all the sweetness Paris has to offer with the grateful recognition that I am blessed to be in Paris and having the vacation of a lifetime. Butter. I intend..."

It is a new, unfamiliar place for me to try to navigate my life. From my guilt and sadness, I had moments of resistance and harshness with my traveling companions (for which I promptly apologized), AND I had moments of bliss, excitement, awe and reverence for the beauty and radiance of Paris and its inhabitants.

I cried on the way back to the airport because the world opened itself to me. AND I dove in.

WOW.

Foreclosure

Sorry, that was a long nap.

Today is the day I am helping my son’s dad get as much out of the house as possible. He has to be out by tomorrow. It has been taking an emotional toll on me since I heard the news. Him too. And our son.

This morning while driving back from getting boxes at Vons, the word “Foreclosure,” appeared in front of my eyes, and I had a thought…maybe the universe is trying to do us a favor.

I don’t believe in accidents. I don’t believe the words we humans use were chosen willy-nilly without regard for the emotional resonance they have in our bodies when we say them or hear them or think them. So I had to remind myself that the word for what is happening in our lives right now is not Forepunishment, or Forelosers, or Foremaliciousrevenge, or Forerippingyourheartout. The word is Foreclosure. For Closure.

Even though my son’s dad, my son and I don’t see it or recognize it or necessarily want it, I have decided that the universe knows (in It’s grand design for the earth, wind and stars of which we are all a part) that my family needs a little help to get the closure we need to move on with our lives.

Of course none of us knows what that means…what the future will or won’t bring our way.

I, honestly, have been taught a great lesson. Despite the fact that I have a job, and hot water and electricity, and gas to cook, I have learned that my son is profoundly better off with his dad. His father has been able to help him focus. He has given our son what I can’t or don’t know how to do. Once again all my overblown arrogance (that lives right in front of my eyes and, I have learned, completely skews real vision) about my skills and capacities in knowing what is best for my family has been deflated like a four-day-old kelly green and azure blue polka dotted birthday balloon.

In regards to my son, we watched him regress into some old behaviors this weekend. Thankfully not to the extent that he was engaging in those behaviors in the past, but he was definitely withdrawn, “tired,” and wanting to escape through social interactions with peers. His dad and I have been talking to him a lot about our fears, doubts and worries but, at the same time, trying to model for him that that emotional trio of lack and limitation is not going to prevent us from working through this…and coming out as better people on the other side.

As those very popular bumper stickers like to proclaim “Sh*&#t happens.” Once again, my family is learning that it’s not about what happens. It’s about who we choose to show up as in the midst of it.

I Need A Nap

Yesterday was my birthday…59. I got lots of emails and calls and balloons. My son and his father came over with cake and cards. It was really a wonderful day.

Then my son’s dad told me that he got the eviction notice and has to vacate our (my former) home in 5 days.

Now, this has been a long time coming, and we both knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

However, the news of it…

With the exception of our son, our home is one of two crucial physical components that are keeping us in relationship. It is a powerful symbol of our coming together in partnership… our names side by side on paper. Our official sanctioned relationship.

When I left two years, three months, and thirteen days ago, I told my son’s dad that I was not closing the door to having a relationship with him, but I was closing the door to the relationship that we had created. To be completely honest, we decided that even though I would be physically leaving the relationship, our intention was to get back together (after we had worked out our crap).

In my mind, it was simple:
1. Work out crap
2. Move back home
3. Get my family back

Now, there’s not going to be a home to move back into. Maybe there isn’t a relationship to move back into either.

And maybe that is the best thing that can happen at this point. Could I really move back into that house and not see the ghosts of our former selves all over the place? Could I really move back into relationship and not just pick up my former self where I left off?

I honest to God don’t know.

What I do know is that I have allowed this turn of events take the wind out of my sails and deflate me like one of my birthday balloons.

I can barely keep my eyes open. I am, all of a sudden, seriously exhausted, so I am going to go close my eyes. Just for a while.

I promise; I will look at reality after my nap.

Heavy Hearted Woman

This blogging thing…I highly recommend it.

I realized yesterday that I have blogged, on at least three occasions, about my experiences in the 6th grade (sharing my secrets with my best friend, the group weigh in, and discovering college). I began asking myself, “Is there something else especially significant about my life at 12 years of age?”

As I sat trying to contact this part of me, I recalled a memory of being in my bedroom at my parent’s home. I was 35, on vacation for a few weeks, and it was raining so I decided to go through my dresser drawers to see what was in them. I used to do that periodically because it seemed that I always found something about myself that I had forgotten, and I got a strange sense of comfort rediscovering and holding items from my childhood (I used to go through the attic periodically too, especially when it rained).

In this day of the omnipresent computer, does anyone else remember typing on a Royal Electric Typewriter with a replaceable ribbon where we actually had to listen for the “ding” and press a RETURN button or the text would go off the page? In any event, I found a letter/essay/journal page that I had written to myself on the thin onion skin paper with the pink margins that we used with those dinosaur Royals. Written on this paper, in great detail, was The Story of Me as a Successful Actress. The day I rediscovered that dream page (and still to this day), I had absolutely no recollection of writing it. I do remember looking at the date after I read it.

I was 12.

When I was growing up, the roles my brothers and I were given were very specific and well defined. No cross-pollination allowed. My older brother was the “Handsome Athlete,” a very gifted baseball player (among other sports). He constantly received well-deserved accolades for his athletic prowess and compliments for his rugged good looks. My younger brother was the “Cute Gifted Entertainer.” He was adorable, funny and social, a natural actor (he played Shakespeare’s Scottish King in the 5th grade) and comedian. I was the “Book Smart” one. I worked very hard in school and thrived on escape through books.

The day I found my actress letter, I had just completed a well respected and intensive 6 week summer actor’s training program for Deaf professional actors at the National Theatre of the Deaf. That spring, I had completed my Master’s work in psychology and a very intense 12 month Psychodrama training program in Washington, D.C. My intention when I started the acting program was to learn more about drama, so I could be a more skilled Psychodramatist and all around better therapist.

My intention when I left the program 6 weeks later was to become an actress.

So here I am at my family’s home after my first foray into acting, and I found this letter that has been sitting in my dresser drawer for 23 years. And yet, I never noticed it…until today.

WOO-WOO. Right?

At 12, I still had a conscious desire to express myself as a performer. That little girl dream didn’t really die when I left that ballet class at 8 years old. It was still there in my heart.

But my brain must have refused to listen. Maybe it didn’t feel that performance was my thing. After all, that was my younger brother’s territory. And, I was very much ensconced in accepting the role given to me: The Good Student, The High Academic Achiever, The Teacher. Also, I wanted out and maybe I saw this as the most sensible and achievable route. Maybe I still felt bad about myself for leaving that dance class. Who knows??

For whatever stinkin’ reason, at twelve years of age, I made the decision that the only way out was academically. I did not know (as I have talked about ad nauseum in this blog) I had other talents and gifts wanting to be released.

WOW.

My 12 year old was gracious enough to come to me this morning. It felt wonderful to connect our breath and our hearts. My heart, a bit older and hopefully wiser, and hers carrying a faint but persistent downward pull. It's the exact same feeling I get every time I watch GLEE and SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE.

And my 12 year feels just awful about it. She asked for my forgiveness this morning. Isn’t that just like a child to take on the blame? I reminded her that I did pick up acting at 35 and even went to school to get an MFA at 46. I have been lucky enough to do quite a bit of stage work in L.A., and I have done film and television. And I’m not done. I know I will do more.

I even re-introduced her to our 8 year old singer/dancer. They’re in a deep discussion right now trying to figure out a way to get us cast in one of the song and dance numbers on GLEE.

So You Think You Can…WHAT!?

I hate watching the television programs GLEE and SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, yet when they are on, I somehow find myself in front of the tv.

Exactly where I need to be.

I love the energy of GLEE. It’s like watching a piece of musical theatre every week (Did you see the take-off of Madonna’s song, Vogue? Hilarious! Youtube it).

I love the sheer beauty of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. The way those young dancers move their bodies in partnership with each other and the music moves me to tears on a weekly basis.

I hate those stinkin’ shows, and I love them. I laugh, and I cry with each viewing because the fun and beauty fill me with joy while the ache they generate inside makes me sad (because I am not a part of it).

I ache for that little girl who gave up her joy of dancing and singing because she felt fat, ugly, and untalented, like she didn’t belong there, and, worse, that she never would.

I gave up on a little girl dream that I did not even realize I had.

Growing up, I felt the same way I did in my typically too small clothes…constricted. I wanted to see and experience more. When I was in the 6th grade, I discovered this thing called “college.” It immediately became my ticket out, and I worked very hard for the next six years to board that train to a bigger more exciting life.

I lived with blinders on. I was purposeful and charged up by higher education to be sure. It “turned me on” as we used to say in the day, but I denied huge parts of myself to stay on that train.

My son’s father is an extremely gifted musician and composer. Honest to God, he sits at his piano and He (God that is) comes out of his hands. I left that relationship after 25 years because I refused to continue to carry the burden of providing for the family. I admit; my own insecurities fueled most of my over-responsibility, but I also did it because I believed (and still do) in my son’s dad’s off-the-charts talents.

I eventually started to resent that he was unable to make any kind of living and pretty much refused to “find a real job.” I, on the other hand, would have thrown my dreams away in a New York minute (because I had had such good practice) in order to put my own dreams on the back burner and go clean toilets if necessary.

He refused to do that.

It pissed me off big time because he was not contributing his share to the relationship and our little family (which was partially his responsibility after all).

And it pissed me off that I so easily assumed more than my share.

It further pissed me was that he actually had the integrity, the intention, and the sheer stubbornness to pursue his calling no matter what.

But what really pissed me off the most was that I had to admit that I admired the sheer ferocity of his commitment.

And I didn’t have the kind of ferocity, or couldn’t find it, or was afraid to look for it.

We made an interesting pair.

I was obsessed with sacrificing my own desires and needs for acknowledgment as pretty and talented and deserving enough to belong in this song and dance troop called life. I did it through 3 Master’s degrees, multiple jobs (at the same time), and taking care of everyone and everything. I, and I alone, held the family afloat. Applause please.

And he was obsessed with sacrificing his marriage and his son in service to his single minded determination to silence his demons. He did it through creating amazingly beautiful, rich, and soul-resonating music. Applause please.

On the surface we both thought that we were “doing the right thing” for ourselves and our family. After all, we were both fully engaging our God given talents, skills, capacities, and qualities.

But the thing is, it wasn’t necessarily about what choices we made, it was about why we made those choices. It wasn’t about what we did, it was about where we were centered in ourselves when we decided to do it.

We were living out of fear and I am convinced that is the reason that we, individually and as a couple, crashed and burned. Our full out embracing of who we were came from an effort to keep our worst fears about ourselves at bay.

Neither of us made heart/soul decisions to release, without agenda or result, a beautiful contribution to the evolution of the world.

So what does this mean for me now? I am going to be 59 in two days and, once in a while, I admit, I fall into that cultural idea of being too old to pursue my dreams.

However, when I am centered in my heart of hearts I have the courage to share with you that my 8 year old and I are currently WOWING them on the Salsa dance floor… and singing lessons are not far behind.

So I think I can…WHAT!?

So I know I can…well, do just about anything that calls to my heart and soul…that’s WHAT.

All Hell Breaking Loose

Do you think your ideas about the desires you have for your life are grandiose? If so, are you able to shut down that kind of thinking? I think my ideas are grandiose but, honestly, I can’t stop them (and don’t know if I want to).

I believe I am here for a bigger calling than I am currently pursuing. No, I don’t have a clear idea what that calling is. No, I don’t know what it will mean for my life. Yes, I know that if I step into it, it’s almost guaranteed that, for a while, it’s gonna feel like all hell breaking loose. I can accept that.

Because I realize that, maybe, just maybe, all hell breaking loose is exactly what has to happen to birth a life of Heaven on Earth.

It is the ferocity that will be required of me to fully commit to that first step into a bigger life that feels like hell.

Because of what it may mean.

Please hear me out on this one. I am processing as I go.

I am willing (I think) to let go of the small insulated idea I now call my life. I am willing to see where my calling takes me. What I am not willing to do is follow a calling that could potentially hurt, harm or endanger my son in any way.

But how can I be sure that my life isn’t causing him harm or hurt now?

If I really let go of my life to see what else is there for me, I won’t have control of what is going to come in to push me or lead me or cajole me into a bigger space, a larger life context, a potentially impactful place to cause the uplift of the consciousness of humanity.

But do I have control now? No. I just pretend I do by keeping my life small.

And isn’t living a bigger life why I started this blog? Just read the column over there to the right. I wrote that intention. I’m pretty sure I was awake when I did it.

I SAY I want to uplift the consciousness of humanity but am I really willing to let go of my life (which at the moment includes my son) and actually DO it?????

Or am I just a big fat blowhard?

Or maybe I should wait until he graduates from high school? (that gives me another year to put off making a decision)

I have made some big changes in my life in the past nine months as has each and every one of the women who are with me in this work. The results of clearing out my own obstacles to uplift my little life have been joyful. Yes. But I experienced great pain to get to the other side. It was all worth it, and I think, in the end, my work benefited the lives of those around me too.

However, if I am totally committed to accepting a larger (ok a HUGE) life mantel, what kind (and how much) of my own still lying-inside-waiting-to-attack dormant crap is left for me to deal with? How much more am I going to upset my own apple cart?

But, more importantly for me right now, how much of my son’s apple cart will I be upsetting?

Am I being grandiose again by thinking I have that much influence on my son’s life?

Or am I just using my son as an excuse to step away from a life that could really mean something…to me.

The only thing I know is that I can and I need to choose how I want to spend the rest of my life. And as Marianne Williamson said to her audience last week, “It’s nice to see some young people here who are curious about the idea of choosing a conscious life. However, most of us are older and, frankly, we don’t have another 5 years to screw up anymore. It’s now or never.”

Crapsticks.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

I’m kinda concerned.

I haven’t felt like writing, and I don’t know why. My heart has not been in it.

I have been going through all the possible reasons in my head, but nothing is resonating with me.

Honest to God…no lie…it just occurred to me while writing this…maybe that’ s the problem…I’m back in my head.

I have written three blogs since my last one, but I didn’t post them. They weren’t fun or exciting to write. They sounded robotic (like this one?). I couldn’t express what I was trying to say in a wavy, curvy, flow-y kind of way. I was pushing ideas that weren’t ready.

There! See what I'm doing? I’m in my head again. Trying to think up an answer instead of feel into one.

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure (and the challenge) of interpreting for Marianne Williamson. I don’t think I have mentioned this before, but I am fluent in American Sign Language. Anywho… it was a pleasure because MAW (as deaf people refer to her) is amazing. It was a challenge because the job was two hours long (7:30-9:30 pm) after a long day at my “real” job, and I was interpreting solo. In the interpreting world, interpreting anything over an hour, especially in a situation like this, requires a partner because it is extremely taxing mentally and physically. ASL and English, linguistically, are as different as Japanese and English, night and day, and peanut butter and jelly. It’s not the hands so much that fatigue; it’s the brain.

About an hour and forty minutes into the gig, my brain started to give out. MAW was in a question and answer mode with the audience, and although the questions were heartfelt and MAW’s responses were brilliant….let’s just say people love to tell their story, every single stinkin’ irrelevant detail (starting from the day they were born). I was doing the best I could at that point, but in my head, I was screaming “Shut up! Shut up!” over and over again.

I wasn’t trying to be mean. I just wanted them to stop so I could rest.

I bring this up because I realize my brain has been very active lately. It is as if it is making up for lost time. You see, being in the Mastery program, I started to be able to consistently listen to my inner voice and think with my body. The program is on a hiatus until June and my brainiac egoic voice has come back with a vengeance. It’ s screaming “Shut up! Shut up!” over and over again trying to quiet my body and still that small voice of my inner knowing that became quite prominent for me over the course of the last nine months.

No wonder I’m exhausted. No wonder I’m not digging deep. No wonder I feel out of the flow I found. My ego is trying to reinstate my running monologue, my to-do list, and the General who is more interested in getting things done than in being who I am while doing them.

This is who I used to be, and quite contentedly thank you very much.

It’s just not where I live anymore. However, this experience has shown me a crucial contrast that is as different as ASL and English, night and day, and peanut butter and jelly.

This experience is telling me to feel the difference between living in who I was and living in who I learned to be.

This experience is telling me that it's time, for once and for all, to make a choice.

The Redheaders

I don’t know how to interact with men anymore. I don’t know how to flirt anymore. I don’t even know when a man is coming on to me anymore.

Recently, I had an eye opening experience. I was bike riding through my town on a beautiful Sunday morning, as I often do, when a bright electric blue t-shirt sitting at an outdoor café caught my eye. The t-shirt had the name of an organization I had recently begun supporting written on it, so I was curious to find out more. This poor unsuspecting t-shirt almost choked on its Sunday brunch frittata as I came up behind it and startled it with a big “Hello!” We chatted for a few minutes about how we came to know and connect with the organization. Suddenly, mid-sentence I gazed up and away from my new t-shirt acquaintance and noticed there was a man in the t-shirt… handsome, nice blue eyes, athletic build, open energy, and my age. I didn’t think anymore about him other than a passing, “Oh he’s cute” (like we women tend to do). (Okay I admit it; I do believe my eyes took a quick peek at his left ring finger...nothing there.)

As the conversation about the organization came to a close, I started to roll away on my two wheels. He stood up, said that he loved to bike ride, and asked me if I rode my bike often. I responded affirmatively, got on my bike, and started off down the street. Then he asked (a bit louder) if I liked Frisbee golf. I tossed my affirmative reply over my shoulder as I began to put some distance between us. Finally, he asked (louder still) if I liked jazz, of course, followed by my second toss-back remark of an affirmative nature. Half way down the street, I stopped mid-pedal, turned my bike around, enthusiastically pedaled up to him and asked, “Hey, do you like horseback riding?” He jumped up and eagerly replied that he, in fact, loved horseback riding!

I hopped back on my pedals and sped away with a final shoulder toss, “Great! I love it too! Well, I bike ride around here quite a bit. Maybe I will see you again sometime!” And went on my merry way.

I had happily pedaled down the street for about 20 minutes when my brain kicked into 10th gear. I pulled to the curb, thought for a second and asked myself, “Was that guy hitting on me?” DUH. I had had absolutely no clue.

I haven’t seen him (or that great electric blue t-shirt) since.

I didn’t pay any attention to this attractive and, perhaps, available man, I have since realized, because I had automatically placed him in a certain group of men I call the “Redheaders.” For some reason about 5 years ago, I decided that men who give me any attention at all do so simply because they love women, any woman, with red hair. A man smiles, says hello, offers to help me somehow, and I think to myself, (with a certain condescending tone), “Redheader!”

Talk about deliberately taking myself completely out of any part of any equation that might equal relationship. What the hell?

And not only that, but why do I feel a certain distain for the Redheader instead of inwardly congratulating him on his excellent and sophisticated taste in women? Furthermore, why would I judge men (well, at all) but especially those who are attracted to one of the physical characteristics I absolutely love about myself? I mean, seriously, how many times have I mentioned my curly red hair in this blog alone?

Just because Patty Stanger on the Millionaire Matchmaker rejects women for her bachelor millionaires simply because they are redheads (which, by the way, really pisses me off) doesn’t mean I‘m not worthy of male attention and a whole lot more.

And finally, how come I get mad at Patty Stanger for rejecting redheads, but I don’t get upset with myself, basically, for rejecting my redheaded self through men?

Get intimate with my thoughts about this right now? Sorry, not tonight, I have a headache.

(Not So) Tiny Dancer

I am in powerful denial about my body.

Like a lot of women, I have issues. I am short (5’3” give or take ½ inch), “well endowed,” and hour glassy with smallish hips. I’m going to be 59 soon, and people tell me I have a “rockin” body. That’s fine. They can tell me that until they’re blue in the face, but I still look in the mirror and can’t figure out what the hell they’re talking about (even though I weigh less now than I did in the sixth grade).

I was an overweight child and still remember the humiliation of that fateful 6th grade year when my class was escorted to the auditorium where we lined up to be weighed in by the school nurse…in front of each other. I was horrified of course. My best friend, who was right in front of me, was first on the scale. When it was my turn, I closed my eyes, and I heard my “number” reverberate through the semi-empty auditorium. To my surprise, I jumped for joy. I was elated because I weighed the exact same as my best friend. I thought to myself , ”What was I so concerned about? I’m fine!!”

It didn’t occur to me until many months later that she was a good 4 inches taller than I was.

Denial…it was powerful then too.

The first time I remember feeling different because of my weight; I was 8 years old in my first ballet class. It was me, a rolly-polly redhead in a pink tutu, adrift in the middle of a sea of little teeny tiny blonde girls (at least that is how I remember it but there must have been a brunette in there somewhere). The other little girls were nice to me. They didn’t seem to notice or to care about my size, but I did. However, I did love dancing, so I stayed with it for about six months until the recital came around. I quit the class a week before the performance. I couldn’t bring myself to be on stage with beautiful little fairy girls.

By the time I reached my freshman year in high school, I weighed 160 pounds. I was miserable, had had enough of the teasing and the struggle with clothes fitting properly. I went on a diet and lost 45 pounds. That was in 1965.

How ridiculous is it that I still (often) see myself as a person with a weight problem?

I have recently come to understand that it is not the memory of garder belts snapping open in the middle 7th grade English, or blouse buttons being launched from my chest when I raised my hand too high, or being sung to with “fatty fatty 2 by 4 can’t fit through the bathroom door,” or a host of other embarrassing moments I endured because of my weight. What has its unrelenting grip on my self-image is the lack of acceptance I still carry for that little rolly-polly redhaired girl.

I never accepted her as a part of me, and she feels it. We have no relationship. And, clearly, her hold on my self-image is much more powerful than any I have been able to generate. She is insisting I see her, acknowledge her, fold her into my Self.

I decided to spend some time with my 8 year old me last weekend. I acknowledged her to both of us and let her know that I was sorry. I talked to her for a long time about all the wonderful things she has given me: my absolute abandon and joy when dancing, my redheaded sassiness and playfulness, and a whole pot of sunshine whenever she comes out to play.

No response from her. Her denial of me was powerfully palpable.

I have continued talking to her as I go through my days just to let her know that I am not a woman who asks for forgiveness without expecting to earn it. This morning out of nowhere, while in meditation, she emerged and sat on my lap…just sat there looking around my home. She eventually turned around to face me. In her eyes, I saw that pure forgiveness that I sometimes think only children are willing to radiate out. We looked at each other for a long time.

I told her that in looking at her I recognized there was so much to love about her (no pun intended). And we laughed at the ridiculousness of my sorry attempt at a joke and my denial of one of the absolute brightest parts of me.

She head hugged me, cautiously. And I head hugged her back.

Then I signed us up for a Salsa class this weekend. We can’t wait.

I Need A Hug

I need a hug. A head hug. I love them. Those hugs we parents give and receive when our little one is up in our arms. Child gently places head on shoulder. Parent gently rests head on child’s. To me, there is nothing more sweet and unique to our species as the act of cradling our child between the divine consciousness of the human mind and the love of an open heart.

I found that my son’s head, from the day he was born until that sad day when I received my last beloved head hug, always fit perfectly in the crook of my shoulder. One day old to maybe 7 years old…same shoulder, different child sized head…perfect fit. Amazing. How do we parents and caregivers do that?

I discovered that if you look closely enough when moms and dads hoist up their young children who are nearing the end of head hug days, you can see the parental shoulder instinctively morf itself into the exact right head hug size to perfectly cradle their child’s head. Yesterday, I actually witnessed a normal mom-sized shoulder transform into a beautifully grossly distorted child- sized pillow.

Intrigued, I began researching the subject. Pediatric psychiatrists have recently found that, from as early as infancy, children’s cravings for head hugs are nutritionally and psychologically based. Nutritionally, children require them to infuse the body with the minimum daily love immunization levels that are critical to maintaining an open heart while living amongst the mental chatter of the world.

Psychologically, these psychiatrists have painstakingly gathered data resulting in statistically significant findings confirming what we parents already instinctively know. As essential as head hugs are to the child’s emotional, physical and, perhaps, spiritual growing bodies, maintaining the developmentally appropriate nutritional and psychological levels as the child gets older becomes harder and harder to sustain.

Nutritional deficiencies typically begin to surface between the ages of 7 and 9 primarily because the latency-aged child’s newly found independence rejects the head hug. They announce that they are “big kids” now. They are too busy being in the world enjoying new freedoms from their parental units to realize the importance of maintaining the nutritional balance between the mileage they rack up in the world and those crucial, replenishing, parental head hug tune-ups.

Pre-teens substitute their peers for nutrient rich parental contact. It is similar to the dreaded pre-teen affliction "Sweet and Sour Syndrome" in which our pre-teens consider gummy worms a perfectly reasonable and nutritionally balanced substitute for a home cooked meal. Observational data collected in the wilds of the pre-teen world have documented two gender specific and stereotypical pre-teen head hug substitute behaviors: the pre-teen girl’s “hang onto friend’s shoulders while jumping and screaming hug” and the genetically pre-disposed pre-teen boy’s “casual drape of the arm over friend’s shoulder and lean on him for support hug.” They are shoulder-specific and age appropriate but ineffective substitutes for the real thing.

Interestingly, while teenagers desperately recognize the nutritional need for head hugs, they often don’t know how to return to the source once the head hug dynamic has been broken. Instead, they perpetuate the historically inherited teenage defense mechanism, “It’s just not cool.” Teenagers attempt to obtain their nutritional and psychological needs from their boyfriends and girlfriends. Just watch your teenager sitting on the couch with their date. Head hug much?

However, (and this will delight those of us in parental roles) extensive research has also documented that if parents stay open to these necessary developmental meanderings from the true source, and remain open to unexpected opportunities, the beloved head hug can intermittently return (especially in times of stress). I can attest from personal experience when, a few months ago, my 17 year old son’s father and I accompanied him to an oral surgeon's office to have all four of his wisdom teeth removed. He was nervously perched between his dad and me on a small couch when it happened. He found it within himself to defy the developmental norms of adolescence. He head hugged his dad. Right there in the waiting room. In front of everyone. As if he had been doing it all along. As if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

To us, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Lastly, the final maturationally-enhanced phase, the Reverse Head Hug, typically begins to manifest in the late teen years. Recent studies have shown that this final stage of development may include a new dynamic. The nutrient rich love continues to flow from parent to child, but current studies have noted that, in this stage, the child gives love nutrients back to the parent as well. The hypothesis being that this full circle of reciprocity is a significant marker for our young adult children in preparing to step into parenthood themselves.

I was the recipient of my first Reverse Head Hug last night. I had been visiting with my son at his father’s home and needed to leave. As I stood on my tiptoes to hug him goodbye, I gently rested my head on his shoulder. He responded by gently resting his head on mine. We stood there for a few minutes sandwiched, suspended, and expanded between a reciprocal flow of open hearted love and the embodiment of the human mind.

I burst into tears.

My head was a perfect fit.