Life is an AND not an OR

So todays "lemon" to sweeten was inspired by an experience on Thanksgiving, which typically can be wrought with family disfunction but in this case it was a sweet spontaneous experience.  My sister has her housekeeper come and help with the clean up.  She has worked in many of our homes so we know her well and when she first came in, without a lapse in time, she said, in her Peruvian accent, "You look sexy."  Funny because it's not like I went to the event particularly dressed up or with that in mind. My thought is I guess this seductress is really glowing.

It was funny because I wasn't the sexy one in the family either.  Growing up I was the "smart" one.  Which to me meant not sexy.  And their were two items that happened around puberty which sealed this for me.  Around 14ish I went from being normal height to growing about 6 inches to 5' 8".  Many people said you should be a model.  On one incident my mother said "You know how skinny you need to be a model."  I heard it as your too fat.  That isn't what she meant, she meant you need to be like Twiggy.  Another time she said, "You're too smart for that."  This time it meant I was nerdy and ugly.  Also not what she meant, but you can't control how someone interprets something.  In fact, now I realize that my mother, who has lots of street sense, doesn't have much book smarts and relied on her looks a lot.  So she really respected brains.  Unfortunately that wasn't how it came across.

Funny because this was not the lemon I thought I was going to sweeten.  Then today on Facebook I saw this,

And then I remembered a poem a high school friend had written me.  It was called I Wish She Saw the Beauty in Herself.  I don't have it anymore, but when I first got it, I don't think I really read it.  I read it years later and was touched.  I don't think I let myself really get it because the boy who had written it was not the image I had for myself for a "boyfriend".   I was wound a bit up tight.

So I'm going to be brave - I attacked that one in the last blow.  I'm letting go of all the baggage right now and pulling off the bandaid so I can move on.  I originally thought I would write a cleaver blog about each an every negative label I've been hanging onto.  And I don't want to give them any more fuel.  So here is a quick summary so I do address but don't have to turn every assignment into a monumental task.  You don't need to hear all of my experiences and how I've integrated them in a blow by blow.  This is my humble yet confident side.

√ Flaky - This came from the person that hired me at my job several years later.  She is conservative and she doesn't even know half of my extra-curricular activities but it stung.  And I even told her recently that she said it, and she felt horrible as now she thinks I'm brave.   The reason it stung is because my integrity and commitment to tasks is something that is important to me.  So anyone calling me flaky was like ripping off that dagger in that badge of honor. But what I would say is I'm diverse.  I can be committed and spontaneous too.  I get to pick and choose.  And now my commitment is something I can hold a little looser, which gives me a lot of freedom.  I've never been a fan of labels because as soon as you deviate from it, people like to point out how you've fallen off the saddle.  I like to call myself a flexitarian.

√ Self Indulgent - Well I'm fortunate not to have lots of responsibilities other than myself being single with no children.  I do spend my money freely and that is how I've had some amazing life experiences.  I've also in the back of my mind wondered if I lead a selfish life.  I'm also very generous with my friends and family.  At times I've volunteered for non-profits and heck I even donated my bone marrow to an 11 year old girl I never met.  So all my actions are out of love and self-love.

√ Manic - It goes back to feeling deeply.  I can cry from sadness, rage or utter joy.  I'm also very passionate and I'm easily inspired and I like to share.  And sometimes, I like to crawl into my apartment and be a couch potato too.  I swing a very wide pendulum and I haven't fallen off yet.   

√ Clown - Well I guess I can own this since I have been clowning with Patch Adams in Costa Rica.  That was one of the most loving and liberating experiences for me.  And when I embraced my playfulness and brought it into my shamanic work.  I had lots of fear that people would see me as a clown and not respect me.  And that was not the case.  Besides I'm very serious and intentional with my playfulness and use of playful metaphors.  

As a teenager, I wasn't ready to listen to the poem and see the beauty in myself.  And now, with a lot more life experience,  I know as an adult how sexy smart can be.  And I can also be be Brave and Diverse and Passionate and Playful and even tired and sad at times.  Life is journey and not an end stop.  As someone who is easily jacked up by an inspiration, I like to follow the bread crumbs.  I used to say they haven't lead my to the witches oven yet.  Although now I like to use Kitty's phrase of following the Golden Thread of my soul on my journey of creative authenticity.  And as I like to do is end with a song and This is My Now and now no more packing away of my dreams...

I Need A Her-oe

Yes I'm sticking to the theme of using a feminine play on words since I have resisted embracing goddess vs god for so long and what  we resist persists.  And the more a practice surrendering to resistance, perhaps I'll surrender  all of those "old" and "mean" negative self beliefs.  So this clever feminization is a going to help me turn another one around.  Since the Bonnie Tyler version of this song from Footloose comes to mind, I was wondering if there was a way to get it to play in the background as you read this.  Then I remembered that recently on the Voice, I heard a beautiful and, might I say, graceful remix of this song.  Reminding me that I can beautifully and gracefully turn around those voices in my head.  This one is about being Weak.

But in my commitment to honesty, before I pop the weakness bubble, I must share that there have been times in my life when I wish Prince Charming would come by on his white steed and swoop me away. .I'm not proud of this thought and would like to say it was from the past, but, recently, something happened that I wish someone could make go away while I take a nap.  Sounds nice but Prince Charming seems to have a poor sense of direction or the the streets of NYC are too harsh for his steeds hooves.  So, as I've been in the past, I will be my own hero or heroine.  Although we do have improvement her.  I finally remembered that rather than trying to do it all myself, that I can ask for help from others that may be more experiences.  Being strong doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself and excel at everything.  Besides, it feels good to have some friends and family consulting and being emotionally supportive.

If only I could just stay in the shallow end on this but there is more processing.  In my youth I would have defined myself as fearful and weepy.  I was quick too tears but then again the alpha in my house was my mother and she was a rager.  Key word in that sentence is WAS.  As by no means do I mean to berate my mother or anyone.  I don't believe in victims and everything that has occurred in my life the good, bad and the ugly has made me who I am.  Which, on the whole, is pretty damn happy.  In addition, she is someone who has transformed herself in her own way.  Sorry for that unsolicited diversion... Where was I?  Oh year,...  rager.  Her fire lead to my water works but not just that I was sensitive.  Lots of things brought me to tears.  And since the alpha would NEVER cry, I felt wrong.  In fact, I remember her even saying to me at my grandfather's funeral, now don't you cry.  So you can see where I got that message.  Well, guess what I cry.  I can keep it in check more as an adult but I cry when I'm sad, I cry when I'm pissed off (watch out when that happens as thy crying is trying to squelch my rage - rare but has happened) and what I really like is when I cry because I am so overcome with joy and love.  Those tears are not as frequent but, in truth, I cry because I feel things so deeply, after all I am a mermaid….right.?!?!  And as we were reminded on Gerri's Birthday by an amazing mother - daughter duo

And in my journey for creative authentic, it comes in handy that I enjoy going deep.  And yes, I am very afraid of shallow living and there is no shame in having that fear.  In fact what I also have realized is that I actually go pretty deep to address my fears for as an adult I have used them as motivators.  So as not to bore you, I won't go into too many but these are key.  I remember once in my study of the Pachakuti Mesa, a tradition based in both the Northern Hauchumero and South Andean traditions, I had gotten a gut feeling that I needed to go to Peru to work one on one with a local Ayahuascera in the Amazon, specifically Don Ignacio.  In fact, I got that I may needed to specialize in ayahuasca as a shamanic healing practices to serve others.  That was a while ago and as I type this, and realize where my life is now and even who I was before I even knew what shamanism was, I wonder where this thought came from.  In any case, I believed it and was ready to follow it.  For those of you that aren't familiar, Ayahuaca is a visionary plant spirit medicine.  Although not officially part of the  Pachakuti Mesa work we were doing, that was what my gut was telling me.  Although I had been to Peru, I hadn't even been on one of the trips where the group visits with Don Ignacio for one night.  And I my message wasn't just for one night, my message was to work with him for 5.  Since I had never met him, I did ask my teacher who was going to be with him the week before I arrived to at least tell him that I was coming and I was one of his students.  I did that to let Don Ignoacio know about the relationship, not that Don Ignacio cared but also to be safe as my spanish wasn't the best.  Well that being said, either is Don Ignacio's in that he speaks a cajun blend of Spanish in Quechua or that's what most of us believe even those fluent in spanish.  No one really can translate what he says but when on medicine he comes in crystal clear.  Oh and did I tell you I would be sleeping on the floor of a hut, using an outhouse bathroom with cracked planks and having to go down the slide of a muddy cliff to bath in the river, which really made it hard to come back clean.

But I digress,.  I told my teacher I was going and asked if would he tell Don Ignacio.  My teacher turned his head and look directly in my eyes while his eyes almost sparkled with trickery.  He said, "Lulu, do you know where your going Lulu.  Your going to Inferno." That happens to be the name of the village that Don Ignacio lived in and  since Mama Ayahusca is also known as the vine of death, of course, there is a metaphor here.  "Inferno means Hell, Lulu.  Your going to hell."  I'm not sure where this came from but my response was, "I know what your doing.  Your trying to scare me and I'm already scared.  But I'm doing it anyway."  He just smirked and said, "Of course, I'll tell him.  Next topic…."  Hell I just realized I spit back my definition to bravery to my teacher.  So you would have thought I figured that out then.  Without going into too much detail about the trip itself, it was wrought with lots of lessons from both the amazing teachings of the plant, the jungle, don Ignacio and the overall experience.  Oh but the answer I got from the plant was, yes I am your teacher but I wasn't supposed to use it as a healing tool on behalf of others.  Sometimes the answer is no and in retrospect, although that left me confused, I was also relieved.  Also over the years when I was providing shamanic services, although I do consider myself a lover and not a fighter,  I have had to go to battle against some energetic bullies that were shamanic and satanic and nature. Nothing gets my inner fighter going more than a bully.   I had associated fighting with greed and force.  However, in these cases, I fought them with, love and the confidence to tell those forces to fuck off because they could try all they wanted but I had the forces of love on my side.  And it worked…it worked quite well, in fact.  And now that I know I can do it, I don't have to.  Hey I guess that's a real hero…someone who will go to battle but only when truly necessary and with integrity.  So I guess I've been the hero for others and in my style of facing my fears, I have been for myself.

And most recently, many of my friends have told me how brave my Burlesque pursuits have been.  I approached that because I wanted to get past my fear of feeling naked and vulnerable in my career.  To be honest I never thought about brave or not and I found it funny when my friends have said it over and over to me.  I guess I am brave.  And I have to tell you in this case, being brave has been quite liberating and a hell of a lot of fun…talk about the journey of creative authenticity.

So I am now declaring myself a bit of a super-her-o.  If you can't read the picture below, it says - I am the Magdalena.  It comes from a super hero cartoon that is a spoof on Christianity.  Who doesn't like a good spoof, I hear Jesus had a great sense of humor.  Really no disrespect here.  I love merging the sacred and the profane.  This is a play on Mary Magdalene who has been an important inspiration to me on many levels.  A true Seductress.  And they may have called her a whore, but who was more of an apostle than she.

And because I believe in the power of paradox, playfulness and giggles I've included the youtube version of Holding Out for A Hero from Shrek as at's one big playful paradox on what the real Prince Charming may look like (yikes Shrek) and we have Fiona, a seductress and a fairy god mother, even if she is a little evil.  I may be pushing the metaphor here, but enjoy.

Pow-Her

So on November 12th,  I had my first gold session with Kitty Cavalier.  During the session, in her eloquence her choice of words reminded me of some sour limiting beliefs that I continue to hold.  I remember my meditation teacher saying once, that a person says something mean to you once and lets it go, yet we hold onto it. Why?  I guess it doesn't matter why as long as I change it now.  Kitty encouraged me to write about this and share it.  So here we go….

Some of the labels, given by others and myself were self indulgent, flaky, weak, outcast, manic, not enough, clown and dreamer.  But these are only beliefs and really not what my legacy shows from my actual experiences, if I bothered to try to refute the voices in my head.  And another very wise teacher of mine says that would you rather trust someone that says, this is my experience or this is my belief.  After all a belief system is just B.S.  So I'm excited about my assignment to turn those lemons into lemonade to embrace my sacred legacy of creative authenticity.

Kitty also recommended a book called Sacred Success by Barbara Stanny.   I ordered it on my kindle before we even hung up.  I barely got past the introduction and realized that we may have struck gold with this.  For the record, most of the quotes in here will be from her book (and many of her quotes are from a Course in Miracles) unless I state otherwise.  

Although before I blog about how I turn those lemons into lemonade (funny my Burlesque name is Lulu Limoncella),  I realized that I needed to first embrace my relationship to power.  I debated about my title Pow-Her of this blog as I've been fortunate not to experience much misogyny in my life.  I was one of three girls. Even our dog was a girl.  And I was never told that my gender was a limit.  I participated in the typically girly dance classes and was a majorette, but also played softball, basketball and attended many a hockey game with my dad.  Even in my career, I mostly had supportive woman in my direct reporting structure and only once or twice in 27 years have I really encountered a misogynist,  Although I didn't experience much gender bias,  I did notice early on that the business woman and even some of our model feminists acted like men.  They even dressed in A-Line conservative suits, aggressive and hard.  I don't like to use gender bias as a crutch, yet I do know that in everything there is a male/female or yin/yang spectrum and for some reason our examples are at the extremes.  

In my career I was never driven by power or title as much as doing a good job and my reputation/relationships.  What I value most in myself and in others is authenticity and if you make that creative authenticity, you have a real winner.  As Einstein says, you can't solve a problem with the same way of thinking that created it.  And, as Barbara reminds us, "Our power comes from one of two sources- Love or Fear"  And unfortunately most of the examples we see is based out of fear. That is very clear in media by what they show in the news and especially in advertising by showing us we are not enough.  It's time to change that.  Even Jimmy Hendrix says, "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."  After all, I want to be the change I want to see in the world and not be like a zombie following the fear mongers. 

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."  I guess I was guilty because I had only associated power or successful power with examples that were sourced by fear.  Hence, I avoided power as I didn't see many examples of people embracing it from love.  I wasn't sure it was possible.  However I was reminded that, "Limitless Power is God's gift to you is because it is who you are…Do you not see that all your misery comes from the strange belief that you are not powerful"  So my answer now is how can I be so arrogant as to  refuse this gift from God.  And I certainly don't want to miserable, it has always been my goal to shift from surviving to thriving.  

I was really struck by the quote by Abraham Maslow, "We fear and crave becoming truly ourselves."  Perhaps that is related to not wanting to be an outcast, but "a powerful woman is someone who knows who she is, knows what she wants, and expresses that in the world, unapologetically"  And as long as I allow those beliefs to pollute me, I will not be able to do this.  

I have to confess that my other reason for not embracing power is that with power comes responsibility.  And as I take my commitments and responsibilities seriously, I felt a burden of responsibility for others and that my take some of the joy out of it.  But fortunately I was reminded that Sacred Success is about "pursuing your Sou's purpose for your own bliss and the benefit of others, while being richly rewarded."  What a relief we don't need martyrs, this is a win-win situation.  After all, I "want power 'with', not power 'over'."

And  as Angeles Arrien says, "When we demonstrate our power, no one can tell us what can't be done."  "Only your misperceptions stand in your way" so it's time to sweeten those misperceptions.

Although since I have a dab of perfectionism and wanting to make sure I do it right.  Yeah, yeah, I know what does that mean.  I was relieved to be reminded that, "this is not about being perfect, which is neither possible nor desirable. It's about being persistent."  Persistent I can be.

So this is about embracing a new way of embracing myself and really learning who I am more deeply "The true learning is really unlearning. Letting go of our mental baggage so the true you can shine". As Michelangelo said, the Pieta was in there all the time.  So I am going to chip away in future blogs as I address those limitations, and discover my version of the pieta.  Actually I resonate more with Bernini's status of Teresa in Ecstasy.  After all that is the goal.