Category — real life

Each day between Dec 26, 2011 and Jan 1, 2012, one of seven wonderful teachers will offer us a question to contemplate as we head into a new year. Yesteday’s question was from the lovely Patti Digh and it lives here on my blog and here on Facebook. Chime in if you like!

Today’s question is from the equally lovely Ken Robert of mildlycreative.com:

In what way have I been living in the shadows in 2011? How might my life change if I came out into the light in 2012? What strengths could I discover and share if I gave up hiding my weaknesses?

Sometimes we stay hidden, fearful that others might see our wounds and blemishes. We think we’re the only ones who bear them. But I find that when I expose my weaknesses, I give others permission to expose theirs, too. There, beneath the light and in between the blemishes, we find we have strengths we never noticed before. Hiding becomes far less appealing and we’re drawn to living instead. In 2011, what were you hiding all year? What could you do to stop hiding in 2012? What treasures will you find when you step out into the light? –Ken Robert [Read more →]

As we move into a new year, I want to offer you a few personal reflections, some suggestions for your own process of reflecting, and opportunities to practice together into 2012.

For me, this week provides the perfect circumstances for turning within and asking myself honestly, how did I do in 2011? What do I hope for in 2012? How might I get there?

I’ve found that it doesn’t do to make lists of things I hope to accomplish but feel are lacking currently. This just makes me sad. Instead, I’ve found it more useful to begin training myself into the feeling state I know is most beneficial, which is to have an open heart and a sense of possibility. No matter how things are going in my life, if I know how to return to this state of receptivity and curiosity, then I have found the key to joy. And after all, this, a joyful life, is my objective, not making a gajillion dollars, weighing less pounds, or possessing a particular title. Not that there is anything wrong with those things but if my happiness is dependent on them, they are traps. Instead of requiring certain things to feel joyful, I could just feel joyful, on the spot. When I turn my attention to the truth of my experience rather than what I wish my experience was, this wakeful state is always what I find. And my favorite definition of joyful? Awake. [Read more →]

OK, you know from my book review of We Are All Weird that I love Seth. I even got to share the stage with him briefly last week when he invited me to say a few words at The Medicine Ball Session about meditation and getting to know how your mind works. (Which is very important when you’re trying to navigate the tremendous ups and downs of starting/growing your business–I can say with all honesty that for me the biggest obstacle is,well, me. The tremendous ups and downs of emotion, self-confidence, and creative energy…) Here is a picture of this super cool occurrence.

WORD!!! [Read more →]

Please try to watch this everyday. It has all the truth and all the sorrow and all the joy we could ever hope for. These things are inseparable: Truth. Sorrow. Joy. There is no need to choose.

This is a wonderful project featuring women helping women to love their bodies, heal their relationship with food, and sidestep the cultural urgings to find ourselves inadequate in the looks department. The important message of this project is that we can always choose to love ourselves.

30+ women writers (including me, Julie Daley, Marianne Elliot, Anna Guest-Jelley, Angela Kelsey, my beloved Jen Louden, Amy Pearson, Kate Svoboda, and others) wrote and, in some cases, recorded readings of letters to our younger selves. My video is below and please check out all the other moving, sweet, and fierce communications on this very important and mysterious topic.

Remember: When you choose love, you have nothing to lose.

About the project:

My video:

I was emailing with a friend today who worried that she couldn’t meditate, perhaps because she worried she was supposed to be able to empty her mind of thought or feel some sort of calmness through her practice. As you know by now, neither ceasing thought nor feeling peaceful are required before deeming your meditation practice an expression of wisdom.

Rather than changing anything about yourself, meditation begins with the opportunity to sit with yourself exactly as you are within that maelstrom of craziness we call everyday life, and relax with all your insane brilliance and ridiculous confusion. Rather than trying to slam shut the wild flow of thought or *poof* yourself into some kind of Dalai Lama – Martha Stewart hybrid, you could just let go of trying to change anything at all and allow, allow, allow everything to be completely OK just the way it is. Including yourself. Especially yourself.

Confession: Allowing shmallowing. Secretly, I used to believe that no matter what anyone said, if I just tried hard enough, meditation would indeed make me into an impassively perfect being. The first video above is a story about how I learned that would never happen.

The second video is our daily meditation practice.

Enjoy!

Love, Susan

Here is the audio version of the first video.

Here is the audio version of the second video.

Questions? Comments? Bring. Them. On. It make take me a little bit, but I answer all emails.

Me. Albert King. Another planet.

About 25 years ago, I was driving cross country for the reasons you might expect of a 20-year old who was utterly lost. Where the hell was my life? It had to be somewhere. It was not in the big city suburb I grew up in. Not in the rows of desks at that sheep factory called High School from which I barely graduated and not in any of the sheep factories of higher learning, none of which I bothered to apply to in favor of a succession of waitress and waitress-like jobs and hanging out in bars, and not in the telenovelas of the lives of those I met but had no way to connect with because no one spoke my language. Where was my life? Where were my people? Some hints could be found in books, yes. In music, certainly.

But what did art and music have to do with me? How could I find a life to relate to when I didn’t even know my own location? I could find no discernible roads, no apparent steps to climb, no conceivable destination to maneuver toward. Lost. So I figured, what the hell, I might as well drive around. At least that way my body would be doing what my mind already was, and there’s something oddly satisfying about matching those two up. I got behind the wheel and headed in the only viable direction for a music lover in Boston (or anywhere, really): South. And West. [Read more →]

Thank you so much for all who have sent me their good wishes, post-surgery. I’m healing very well. Still mostly sleeping, but I think that by next week I’ll be back to a partially normal schedule. I’m going to try to write about my strange health issues that led to the surgery (an open cholecystectomy, if you will) and if you love surgery stories (yes, some people actually do), this one is a humdinger. xxoo

Now back to our regularly scheduled performance.

The other day, I was talking to my friend Bridget about her new guy. He was everything she said she wanted: smart, handsome, funny, gainfully employed in a creative profession, and committed to the same social causes she was. Most awesome of all, sex was h.o.t. You know, the kind where your lips touch and all hell breaks loose. Who knows why this happens with some and not others, it just does.

They’d been together for almost six months and she was really, really happy. And also really, really anxious. [Read more →]

8a EST. Having my gallbladder removed for reasons I can explain later. In fact, getting to the point of having this prosaic medical procedure (the most common surgical procedure in the US, I’m told) has been anything but prosaic and might actually make a decent story. (Which I suppose is true for everyone who has it.)

For reasons relating to this story but that will go unmentioned for now, the surgery has to be open, i.e. not laparascopic. Meaning incisions and the like. General anesthesia. Several hours (or more, I’ve been warned terrifyingly) on the table.

A complex procedure.

I look forward to awakening with further  tales from the bardo.

Well, hell, at this point I’m just looking forward to awakening. Like, completely. Hey! That might not be so bad.

Much love to you who partake of this blog and The Open Heart Project and wishing you all the joys of awakenment.

On Monday, I wrote a little about my response to Osama bin Laden’s killing. Upon hearing of his death, most people expressed heartfelt and understandable relief that our hunt for one who wished to destroy us was over. Others participated in “celebrations” that seemed tinged with what could be described kindly as poor sportsmanship. The question I was trying to raise was this: if we must kill (as in this case), is there a way to do so that will increase chances for peace (which is why we did it in the first place) rather than violence?

[Read more →]