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Waiting For Bravery

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The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.

– Pema Chodron

Bravery isn’t always with us. Its variable existence is often why we do one hell of a job dancing between keeping our hearts open and closed to one another.

Sometimes we’re not ready to see what’s happening below the surface of our drive to call someone an asshole. Sometimes we’re not ready to hit up the “What’s alive in you is alive in me as well” sweet spot.

To not want to open our heart to someone is the path to opening it. We have to feel how much doing the same thing we’ve always done feels. We have to wait it out in that prickly spot of feeling confused and uncomfortable until bravery comes to guide us in the direction of, “She’s super impatient and rude and thinks everyone else has a problem but her, and I did the same thing yesterday to the hubby.”

Noticing that you’re keeping your heart closed is a great substitute for self-shaming in the absence of bravery to open it. Are you choked at someone? How very OK and human of you. Is it possible you might not be ready to dig into what’s going on below the surface of your anger towards someone? Heck yes. Is there a chance the behavior you witnessed is triggering you ’cause it might be emulating your own? Give me a hell yeah (when you’re ready to give one.)

To summarize: Go easy on yourself while you wait.

xo

A

The Power Of Not Taking Things Personally

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I was at an event recently when I came into contact with a self-admitted twitter troll.

The dude walked up to me, and followed up his hello by asking me what the name of my blog, Must Love COWS, was all about, and questioned why there was no theme to what I wrote about.

Being human, and having the life experiences I’ve had, I found his interrogation approach pretty gross. I mean, the reference to Cows instead of Crows was a dose of contempt that surprised me for sure – there are no cows in my logo. But I made a vow (Hah! We were at a wedding!) to let that shit go, and process it later.

But life didn’t like my plan to process it later. During a discussion with a cousin, I was interrupted by the dude again, with the question, “Why do you hire a copy editor?” I turned to him with a smile on my face and said, “Because sometimes I hire a copy editor.”

“Oh,” he said, his face softening ever so slightly. And then he began the descent into his admission of love for getting into arguments with people online.

That was the moment my frustration with his shitty behavior instantaneously melted away. His favorite pastime is picking fights with total strangers, I thought to myself. It all makes sense: His interrogation had nothing at all to do with me, it had to do with his own pain.

Thankfully dessert had just been served, so I left the table because I can do that, leave conversations I don’t want to be a part of, and swapped out the sadness in his words for a brownie. And while I ate the food I was already too full to eat I started up a mini internal self-therapy session that went like this:

I’ve experienced pain to the degree that I wanted other people to hurt, too. It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to take it to the point of trolling strangers online, but I know what it feels like, to boil over with contempt as a result of internalized pain I was too afraid to process.

I started to make guesses about why he felt the need to be so aggressive, too, to help release the need to keep being pissed off:

When it comes to his seemingly calculated interrogation of me, maybe he thinks I need to be taken down a peg for being female and having a platform, like so many people like to do in the Huffington Post comments section?

Maybe he’s jealous, and doesn’t think I deserve a platform? Maybe he thinks he’s smarter, and more talented than me — that his name should be in the byline, not mine?

Maybe he’s lonely? Maybe he’s desperate to connect with others, but no one wants to because he is so aggressive? Because of that, maybe he’s willing to go to any means necessary to get attention?

Maybe he was raised in the absence of important lessons, just like I was? And maybe  he doesn’t realize that true connection requires an open heart, not a latched-closed one, and that you can’t create connection when every word and action is led by fear? (’Cause dude is scared shitless of something.)

Whatever the reason might be, my experience, of feeling deeply offended and then quickly being unburdened by those feelings, provided a huge growth moment.

I realized — again — the power of not take things personally.

You can read books about it and know without a doubt in your logical mind that taking things personally is counterproductive. But it’s the stories we tell ourselves that have the power to help us move away from being habitually offended by everyone who is rude to us.

Being human, and living with the program I have running through my head means that I’m not done learning lessons in the Don’t Take Things Personally department. But the turnaround from being offended to knowing that there is always something deeper going on behind the scenes than our habitually hyper-defense tactics allow us to realize, is coming along quicker than it used to these days.

A mentor of mine recently told me something super non-spiritual that I loved, and that is that sometimes, people can be dicks. And there’s a reason they act like dicks, but it’s up to them to figure out why and do the work required to heal, not us.

When we realize it’s not our job to reprimand and correct, we don’t have to work so hard at coming up with sarcastic or equally dick-ish ways to clap-back; rather, it becomes about being kind to ourselves by noticing our feelings without creating more shame to process, and giving the truth some time to surface.

And trust me, the truth will surface. Sometimes it even shows up at the same time dessert does. 😬

Lessons From This Week, Volume 1

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I’m in the midst of writing a book and it’s proving to be quite the undertaking. Not that I thought it would be easy. Hell no. I just didn’t realize how overwhelmed I would feel when I started to write it. 😬

The process is providing a powerful lesson in staying present.

All the in-the-future tasks required to make this book a reality have been doing some serious loitering as I search for the right words to fill the pages. Suffice it to say, my mind has been wandering a lot.

What does this teach me? That I need to focus on staying in the moment.

Some days I’m better at it than others. At times my inability to focus feels like a curse. I experience moments, sometimes days, and even weeks when my brain is firing off so many thoughts I don’t even feel safe being behind the wheel of the car.

Meditation helps. It realigns me with my purpose. So does eating the right foods (Glucose from fruit = great for ADD type symptoms.)

And so does logic. I know the power in considering options for the future, like, “What’s the cover going to look like?” and “Who should I hire to edit this thing?” but logic affirms that busying myself with tasks beyond writing the actual book isn’t a top priority right now.

I also know what drives the barrage of thoughts that pull me from the task of writing: my sub-conscious, trying to keep me safe from making an ass of myself.

I do feel a bit freaked out about the whole writing a book process. But I also feel serenely secure in the realization that this is what I’m meant to do.

Of course, I’d like to live in the serenely secure zone more often. Fearing failure sucks the joy out of things, a process we all experience to a certain degree or another.

There’s a subconsciously driven aspect to all of us that makes a job of trying to convince us to not do what will catapult us into a realm of ourselves we’ve never known.

Here are the big questions that freak our freakin’ freak, whether we realize it or not:

Who would we be if we did the work we needed to do to accomplish our goals?

What would happen to us?

No one knows, and that scares the shit out of us. That fear entices us to busy ourselves with things that won’t help us do what we need to do to accomplish what we want to accomplish.

Mark Nepo is a poet and the author of a beautiful book, called The Book of Awakening (check out this post from my resource section to learn more about it.)

He speaks about pain in a way that resonates deeply with me, and it relates just as well to fear: Our life contains pain, not the other way around. That is, our pain does not contain us; our life contains pain.

I look at fear the same way: It’s something that comes about in our lives on occasion but it’s not meant to be the dictator of our everyday existence.

Fear has a proven talent for messing with our ability to be calm, generous, and connected to each other.

It takes from us; it depletes us. Therefore, it’s not qualified to be the director, star, or producer of our lives.

And besides, there are plenty of other feelings to feel other than fear. From what I know about myself, and from what I witness in the actions and words of the people close to me, we give fear way too fucking much of our time and energy.

Consider who we can be without it: In the absence of fear, I am calm, generous, and accepting of others. I am no longer at war with the world or myself.

Without fear I can say, “I can handle it,” and I do. I pick up my pen or laptop without difficulty and focus on writing a book, the contents of which might be able to help others.

So the lesson this week is to stop giving fear so much damn attention. To stop letting it contain us.

We do that by focusing on what we’re doing right now, in the moment. If thoughts about yesterday, tomorrow, or next month come up, we reroute our focus back to right now. And then we do it over, and over, and over again.

It’s not glamorous; It’s not profound or exciting. It’s not the easy way out, or the quick fix to happiness we relentlessly search for, yet never find.

It takes work and commitment but there’s nothing quite as lovely as being unburdened by the drain of relentless thinking by focusing on the present moment.

The peace of mind, body, and soul that comes when you focus on what you’re doing, even if it’s something you perceive to be simple, like making a plate of food for yourself or your loved ones, is undeniable.

You deserve to feel that, and so do I.

Which is why I’m making a commitment to stepping into now, with both 2 feet when it comes to writing this book and living my life moving forward.

I’m going to use the observation of the now to keep fear from directing my life. I know it won’t be easy, and that some days I might fail miserably.

But I’m going to keep working on being present, rerouting my wandering mind, and no longer letting fear contain me. And I hope you’ll consider doing the same. ❤

 

xo

A

Fun Fact: This post was originally one of my bi-weekly newsletters.

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Sunday Thoughts on Blenders, Budgets and Options

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I make smoothies every day with a 6-year-old magic bullet from Costco.

OK, it’s my second one in 6 years. A year into buying the first one I overfilled the blender and the juice got into the motor and toasted it, so I returned it for a new one.

Unethical? Maybe a little. But an old drinking buddy of mine once returned a 6 pack of broken wine glasses for store credit so I feel OK about my choice. Costco’s return policy is pretty lax, though they really don’t like having to look up your purchase without a receipt. They will – you just end up with store credit AND attitude.

So I got a new magic bullet and have been blending up a storm pretty consistently for the past year or so. Lot’s of Hawaiian Spirulina, blueberries, and bananas get consumed in liquid form on my watch. It’s not the most graceful process as the device has its limitations.

For instance, I have to cup the spout with my hand to keep the juice from spewing out on occasion. The blender container is nothing close to the size you get with a $500 ninja (I think that’s what the fancy ones are called?) but it does the job for a writer who has passed up writing for clients to go all in on creating my own online self-care offerings (sign up for my newsletter here to stay in the loop on what’s rolling out.)

I have a nice little budget to adhere to these days because of my choice which means that unnecessary stuff, like pricey blenders, isn’t on the docket at present.

But I still make time to look after me because self-care is about doing what you can within time and financial budgets.

I have options. For example, I could go out and buy a new blender and juicer on my line of credit right now. Or, I could keep blending smoothies and straining my celery juice every morning via a $45 magic bullet from Costco because even though it’s not glamorous, it works.

I could say fuck it when I get that creeping desire to try to look like I’m rolling in dollar bills instead of being honest: quitting all your part-time gigs so you can go all in on your dreams comes with a budget. A tight one.

I could keep my eye on the prize via gratitude for the moments when I have to cup the spout of an overzealous blender that can only be pulsed for 6 seconds at a time or the motor will blow because it feels better that way.

Or if I’m really stuck in the “need bigger, better, blender – now” thought process, I can remind myself how silly it is to throw away something that works – that still serves a purpose – all because I don’t look as well off as the 10-year-old in me thinks I need to look right now.

I could stop trying to do things the way everyone else thinks I need to do things.

The idea of doing that sounds like freedom.

I might not have everything tied up in a neat little bow; I might not have things perfectly laid out and organized; I might not have all the things and stuff I’ve always wanted, or be living up to societal and familial standards of success.

But I’m doing what I love and I’m going after my dream.

And I’m helping other people and healing myself in the process.

I don’t need a $500 blender to do that. 😳

xo

A

Clarity on Freethinking

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There’s something revolutionary I’ve learned over the past couple years, and that is that an emotional reaction is not freethinking.

It’s insanely important for us to understand the need to separate our feelings from our actions. For example, I can say I’m freethinking, while ALSO being racist and void of empathy.

I can speak my mind, and attempt to house my inclination to do so under the umbrella of freethinking while ALSO ignoring the motivations for why I feel the need to speak my mind.

We get angry, annoyed, and frustrated with self-anointed freethinkers.

Case in point, a certain musical artist lighting up the digital sphere with words that appear to be so void of empathy, it’s mind-boggling.

A lot of people are pissed off, but I see his actions as a chance to access clarity. Not in regard to what he’s trying to say (Dude doesn’t need any more microphones right now) but in relation to figuring out what is underneath the disturbing, alt-right support he feels the need to lambaste the world with.

Clarity on freethinking is realizing that every action or word void of empathy is coming from a human being who is in pain.

This brand of self-sanctified freethinker doesn’t want you to think they are in pain. It’s not manly, powerful, popular, or societally accepted to show the vortex of fear that’s running his show. So out comes the justification responses:

“You just aren’t used to freethinkers like me.”

The wild and freeing thing is that People love Truth. They connect with it. It inspires them. So if a person in a public position like this dude is, dared to do the work to figure out where his drive to speak was coming from and then spoke to that, there would be many more open hearts than closed ones.

Hell, he might even be able to open up the seemingly permanently closed ones – that’s how powerful connection is. 

To be human is to accept that you are capable of being kind and lovely and compassionate, while also accepting that you are equally capable of being an ego-maniacal asshole in the midst of feelings that are difficult to process.

This means that none of us are immune to being assholes. We’ve ALL got it in us to be jerks. 

Now, we can look at the existence of a human being who feels the need to speak from that reactionary locale and call it freethinking as someone to fight against.

Or, we can recognize the little kid within that’s trying to play manager via statements like “I’m a freethinker!” and ask from a place of empathy, (because we all have experience with pain driving us to say and do fucked up things,) “What kind of pain is this kid harboring that is fuelling his need to say these deeply disturbing and damaging things?”

This opens the door to an excellent space of time to put our habit of making assumptions to use.

We can hypothesize about how the circumstances of his life might have steered him to act without concern over consequence, and label it as freethinking. 

These assumptions could be used as fuel to establish generosity in the face of a perceived generosity drought. Because we all need a little help in that department when someone is being an asshole. Generosity is tough to access when hate is easily accessible. 

So then the question or dare becomes: when someone is being an asshole, are you willing to take the hard road? Are you willing to accept that we are all capable of being assholes, given the right emotional parameters?

And are you willing to see how connection and compassion, even for the ones we are driven to hate, provides the power to heal?

Letter To A New York Times Best Selling Wellness Writer

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This morning I saw a post on Instagram by a very well-known author – I’m talking New York Times bestselling wellness writer.

The post pissed me off (more deets on why below) and though I thought about working towards letting it go, I passed on that pretty quick, ’cause my frustration was 40 proof.

I’m not in the business of shunning my feelings. If they are coming up there is a legit reason for them.

I love myself, therefore I value the whole package, even the not-so-societally-celebrated strong feelings.

Most of the time. Wrinkles are hard to embrace at the moment.

I quickly realized my frustration did not warrant trolling, as nothing ever warrants that. But it was something I was willing to write about.

And write about it I did. I formulated a post, and was close to publishing it, when I realized, “Hmm, this isn’t helpful at all.” Writing a post she will never read doesn’t serve anyone, other than my fired up ego (it was blazin.)

If I want any chance of inciting change over an issue I feel strongly about, then I gotta lady-up and write this chick personally.

I have to constructively communicate what I see as being a red flag issue, ie, advice she’s offered that could be potentially detrimental to someone’s mental health.

Never mind that she may never read my message or respond to me or even give a shit about what I have to say. That’s not for me to decide.

I gotta try. And I need to get in the business of being courageous enough to speak on things that aren’t supportive of self-care and mental health advocacy in the wellness industry.

Even the stuff coming from the mouths of the most popular wellness writers in the world.

I need to live up to what my Instagram profile says and BE a mental health and self-care advocate. So I did just that: I wrote her a long form note via Instagram, and this is what it said

Hello <name redacted>. I just read your latest post re: the fan asking what to do about feeling like everyone hates her. I felt the strong pull to communicate my concern over your response, so here goes.

Someone who believes everyone hates them needs therapy. This is distorted thinking as a result of damaging beliefs. “Just be you” is a recipe for a person to feel ashamed of how they feel. “What’s wrong with me, if trying to just be me doesn’t work? I must be a loser. There must be something innately wrong with me…” Enter more shame, more pain, and more distorted thinking.

I appreciate your beautiful intentions to help others while affirming that “just be you” has the ability to minimize a person’s struggle. Healing is not that simple. It takes work. And I get that we are all attached to our pain and we could do with focusing on it less and being more grateful. But we still need to look at our pain. We need to process it.

People need to be validated. The complexity of their pain needs to be heard and understood, particularly for people with mental health disorders like PTSD. BTW, I wonder if this person has PTSD, particularly abandonment-related PTSD. (There is a great book by psychologist Susan Anderson about it.)

And finally, IMHO, “Just Be You” isn’t realistic. It’s the goal, yes, but a sense of self to house new beliefs that help he or she understand and process the feelings that are leading them to believe that everyone hates them is a required precursor to someone being able to follow through on “Just Be You” advice. 

That’s it, that’s all. I thank you for taking the time to read this. I appreciate you. And I hope you have a wonderful day. Andrea

Boom. Speaking up when I feel the need to, 1. Complaining via blog post, 0. 

It might have taken me a lot of therapy and many complaint pieces through my blog to get me here, but the air feels cleaner in Courage-To-Speak-To-Someone-Directly town. So I’m going to stay here. For good.

xo

A

PS: Guess what? I’m working on personal development material (ugh that sounds so dry – think workbooks that speak to rewriting beliefs that are hurting you) right now.

If you want first grab at them and a freebie in the next week or so, sign up for my weekly, curated with love and unfiltered truth, newsletter. ❤

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