Let’s be kind, and humble

Do you want to know what makes me swoon?

Beautiful, insightful, profound writing.

I recently discovered this essay on Facebook, written by Taylor Rose Godfrey and have gotten her permission to share it with all of you. She really dives deep into the heart of true spirituality.

“I don’t care how spiritual you are. How long you can melt in the sweat lodge. How many peyote journeys that have blown your mind, or how well you can hold crow pose. Honestly. I don’t. I don’t care what planets fall in what houses on your birth chart, how many crystals you have or how vegan your diet is.

How do you best enjoy the ride?

We are now a full six months into living with the Corona pandemic.

For me, and most everyone I know, it’s been a very bumpy ride.

It’s kind of like white-water river rafting. Periods of smooth tranquil waters followed by occasional terrifying rapids where I’m holding on tight, hoping not to capsize.

There’s no map. We don’t know when or where the river ends.

Nobody does.

No one.

Sitting Shiva for America

I woke up this morning feeling a sense of great loss, loss for so many things…the loss of civility in our country, the loss of life from Covid, and cancer, and guns, and innocent black men and women being killed, innocent protesters being gunned down, the violence in our streets.

The seemingly impossible divide between left and right.

The loss of stability and security.

The loss of freedom to hug our friends, and so much more.

Later, when I looked at my Facebook feed I found more loss.

Friends mourning the loss of loved ones, beloved pets, careers that were once promising that have disappeared.

Grief. Mourning. Fear. Uncertainty.

Relationship Role Modeling from the Obamas

Sixteen years ago Barack and Michelle Obama’s marriage was about to crumble.

Michelle told her mother she wasn’t sure their marriage would survive.

Barack told his grandmother that Michelle’s constant nagging was driving him crazy.

They were drowning in debt from the Ivy League law school loans.

Michelle was the major breadwinner with her high profile, corporate job and two young girls to care for and she felt fat, unseen and unheard.

With Barack’s busy travel schedule, they barely had any family time. And she was tired of picking up after him.

One morning Michelle woke up at 5am. Barack was gently snoring next to her. All she could think about was getting out of bed and going to the gym….it had been months! Part of her resisted going….the girls would soon be up and would need to fed….but the other part of her thought, Barack’s a smart guy, he’ll figure out how to feed them.

Once she arrived at the gym she got on the stairmaster and quickly had a Wabi Sabi epiphany.

The Alchemy of Tragedy

I wasn’t born an optimist.

In fact… quite the opposite.

I was a moody, sullen, often seriously depressed child and young adult.

One night, at age 26, I decided that I was going to find the secret of happiness.

I was at a party in Coconut Grove, Florida, at the waterfront home of a millionaire, surrounded by people seemingly having a great time. I felt like such an outsider amidst the laughing, smiling party-goers. I had never felt so alone.

I wanted to have a great time, I just didn’t know how.

I thought it was something that just “happened” to lucky people.

In that moment, as I stood on the dock overlooking beautiful Biscayne Bay, I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to discover the secret to happiness.

During the next several years I went to therapy, read a lot of books, attended workshops and discovered that most of the time happiness is a choice. Even when really bad stuff is happening!

I found out that I am an HSP – a highly sensitive person and essentially very shy. I had to break through my fear of people and really make an effort to learn how to connect, make small talk, and allow myself to “be seen.”

26 pounds, a muffin top, and true happiness…

Thirty-six years ago I was obsessed with the ambition to attain physical perfection.

I had this idea that if I could weigh a certain amount, have my measurements be an exact number, have my hair the best length and all ten of fingernails “long” at the same time, I would be perfect and with that perfectly happy.

I spent a year working out two hours a day lifting weights, running, doing sit-ups and squats. I carefully measured and tracked everything I ate, and I weighed myself daily (ok, multiple times a day).

And, then one day it happened. I got up, stood on the scale, took out my measuring tape and voila – perfection had been reached. For a few moments I was in bliss. 

Making Room For Surprises & Miracles

There once was a woman who saw on TV that her neighborhood was about to be flooded and the officials said everyone should evacuate.

She believed that God would save her, and she ignored the warning.

Then a city worker knocked on her door and told her to leave for higher ground and she said no, “God will save me.”

Then the floods came, and she had to run up to the second floor to stay dry.

A boat soon came to her second story window to rescue her and she said no, “God will save me.”

The water then filled the third floor and she ended up on the roof of her home.

A helicopter came and she said no, “God will save me.”

Finally, some good news….

According to the Vedic tradition, we are now in what is called Kali Yuga, the age of darkness and ignorance. A time when people further down the path of dishonesty, and virtue is of little value. Liars and hypocrites rise. The human diet is now ‘dirty’, and the environment is now polluted. Supposedly this will last 4,000 years.

However, according to my friend, spiritual leader Roger Gabriel there is another, brighter point of view.

My Favorite Lockdown Distractions

TV, Books, Beach walks and Travel Memories are all the top of my list of how I’ve been keeping myself amused this summer. FYI, none of these activities fall into the category of spiritual or personal growth.

TV – Brian and I have fallen into an early evening routine of watching a couple of hours of TV together. Since we can’t go out to the movies, we have a found some series that are just as exciting. Our favorites are on Netflix. We’ve watched all of the episodes of White Lines, a decadent, sophisticated mystery of drugs, sex, and murder on Ibiza.

Next we watched Money Heist (created by the same producer as White Lines, Alex Pena who’s storytelling chops are spectacular). It’s a thriller of crazy bank robberies in Spain with an eclectic, captivating cast of characters.

Catch A Wave (In Spite of the Wobble)

The first thing I see out my window each morning are the surfers. We live across the street from South Bird Rock, the best “break” in San Diego and only the most expert surfers dare to ride here.

Not only do you have to be an advanced surfer, you also have to hike down a cliff and then paddle out a quarter mile or more to get in position.

Some days, like today, there are as many as a dozen who are wildly riding the high surf.

Other mornings there are just a few wet-suit clad dudes sitting calmly on their boards scanning the horizon for the next wave.

John Lennon Got It All Wrong

Don’t get me wrong, I love John Lennon and I love the Beatles, but their song “All You Need is Love,” a lovely sentiment to be sure, is also far from the truth.

The wild and wonderful state of “being in love” is natures greatest trick to get us to keep the species going, but it’s no predictor of a long term, happy, satisfying relationship.

We need more than just love to make love work.

I like to call being in love “the socially acceptable form of insanity.”

Now more than ever, Be A Pleasure Puppy

I don’t know about you but lately it seems that everyone I know is totally stressed out – not just from their own lives but from the “frequency in the field.”

From the racial tensions and the horrific killing of African American men, women and children, to Covid-19 and the global pandemic, along with the economy and money worries, most of us are stressed to the max.

Even if you are safe, and your life is peachy right now, chances are you are picking up on the energies of those around you.

It’s almost unavoidable.

This is why I am such a big advocate for all of us to become daily “pleasure puppies” and find ways each day to consciously choose to reduce our stress levels and add more pleasure.

The NEW RULES of Dating

Covid 19 and the murder of George Floyd have changed our world forever.

Not just in North America but around the globe. Billions of people are experiencing these shared traumas. We literally are all in this together.

No one knows when (or if) it will be safe again to sit shoulder to shoulder at a Broadway play or a concert or attend sporting events that once had as many as 70,000 crazed fans cheering on their favorite football, baseball, hockey or soccer teams.

What we do know is that life goes on and we will find ways to adapt to a new normal.

For those of you who are single, and have been quarantined alone, wishing you had a soulmate, life partner, best friend, lover and safe place to land person to share it with, I have some good news: it’s never been easier to manifest your soulmate than right now.

Drenched in Holiness

These times of chaos, turmoil, and massive uncertainty require faith and a deepening with our relationship with the Divine. Spending time in prayer, meditation, poetry, being in nature, having gratitude for all that is, cuddling with loved ones and pets…all will infuse the field with love and healing.

My beautiful late sister, Debbie Ford, wrote a prayer book, Your Holiness, and below is one of my favorites.

True, fascinating story of the origin of Love Letter From God

Before I tell you an extraordinary story, read this:

Love Letter from God

Love,

God

The Unbearable Lightness of Liminality

The phrase “the Unbearable Lightness of Being” was introduced as the title of a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera. (It also became a movie). It uses Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of the Eternal Return to illustrate Lightness.

The idea of “eternal return,” explains that our universe and our existence, has occurred an infinite number of times in the past, and is cyclical and will continue to occur forever.

This is a heady, intellectual concept, but I’ve been thinking about it lately in terms of how to make sense of the earth (and soul) shattering times we are currently in.

Last year I discovered a new word, liminal, which is also appropriate for these times.

Wabi Sabi Quarantine

Wabi Sabi is the ancient Japanese aesthetic of seeking to discover beauty and perfection in imperfection. It seeks to find the beauty in things that are old, worn, imperfect or impermanent.

When we are in a situation beyond our control, and are finding ourselves highly annoyed or frustrated with someone’s behavior, that is the time to practice Wabi Sabi Love: this is about having a shift in perception and making up a new and empowering story about whatever you are perceiving as broken, wrong, or just not right.

For those of us that are stressed out, frustrated or are experiencing extreme cabin fever from the quarantine, finding the beauty and perfection in the imperfection can be a challenge.

I could make a long list of all the things I don’t like about being quarantined, but now that we are in week seven, I think for me, the good things are beginning to outweigh the bad.

By digging deep into my spiritual toolkit I have been practicing things I’ve often talked about but never really had to deal with….like turning fear into love and transforming judgement into compassion. The latter being the most difficult.

As I have watched many people filling social media with wild conspiracy theories, I find myself pinging back and forth between outrage and wanting to fix them.

Fasten Your Seatbelt, It’s Going To Be A Bumpy Ride

Bette Davis spoke this classic line in the film All About Eve, and it’s certainly apropos for the world we are currently in.

Unless you are in deep denial, the fact is that the rug has been pulled out from under all of us and it’s going to be bumpy for quite some time.

As we adjust to being in a collective dark night of the soul, we are individually figuring out how wrap our heads around the fact that right now there are no real answers: no one can say when/if the virus will end; when/ if certainty and stability will return; or if life as we once knew it will return.

Whether you are suffering through this process or are doing great with it (or bouncing between happiness and misery), most of us are now learning to adapt to “being with not knowing.”

Become A Wabi Sabi Spiritual Warrior

One of my most effective “surviving and thriving” tools is the practice of Wabi Sabi. Known predominantly as an ancient Japanese aesthetic that honors all things old, worn, imperfect and impermanent, Wabi Sabi seeks to find the beauty and perfection in imperfection.

Between Covid-19 and the crashing economy coupled with epic levels of uncertainty and instability, it’s easy to notice everything that is wrong in the world.

I believe it is the job of the spiritual warrior to look for what’s right, to see the light, in spite of all of the painful and dark circumstances.

Was the Virus Predicted 5,000 years ago by an Indian Seer?

A few weeks ago I shared with you my personal experience having Nadi readings (Deepak Chopra first introduced me to them) and I was surprised to learn that there are Nadi leaves for the world as well as individuals, I am sharing with you today a link to a fascinating one hour video of a psychic/researcher/Nadi expert named Craig Hamilton Parker who reveals the predictions found on a variety of Nadi leaves as it relates to Corona Virus and the Kali Yuga (the period of time we are now in that has been predicted for millennia).

In this video he provides some “remedies” to prevent the virus and some to use if you get it and they include an Ayurvedic medicine, Hamas (rituals) to do, a chapter of the Ramayana to read for physical healings, as well as chants and prayers and more.