Telling The Secret

As I’m journeying, I am making wonderful friends, priceless in this world, and they give me books to read. We’re fellow Shamans, creating and believing as we go. So, actually two people gave me books to read last week, and the one I am reading, the one that makes me laugh and continue on is called “Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting.” My friend had told me about it in the past and I think she must have read my disbelief about it on my face. So last week at lunch, when she gave it to me, she said, “Here, I bought you your own copy.” Like, come on and read it.

My friend is wise and generous, and so I’m reading it. When I told Meg (my daughter) about it, excitedly, she says, “Mom, are you reading The Secret?”, with that look on her face. Well, it’s not the The Secret but on the cover and back of this book are little blurbs that say, “Living The Secret.” Meg is so smart, too. I am surrounded (and engulfed) by smart, amazing women.

This is sort of what the book is telling me, and it does fit in with quantum physics and my understanding of emotions. This books tells us that we should be going after thoughts and behaviors that make us feel good. That our feelings really will tell us what we like, what we don’t like, but we have to pay attention, and not be afraid to want what we want. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But when I got to this line, which I want to believe, it was tough: “I want to use my talents in a way that is fun, fulfilling, and really profitable. I know I can do that.” (This is what you might want to say to yourself instead of saying, “I want to get out of debt.”)

How do I move from wanting a different kind of life to believing it can happen? I guess I’ll have to work on the “I know I can do that” part of the line. Where is confidence for sale? Ironically, this is very much what Meg had been telling me as I moaned about ever making money, she’d say, “Mom, don’t concentrate on the money, just think about what you want to do and do what you love.” This concept, that I could do what I love and be okay, even profitable, is hard to swallow. Which is what this book also tells us, that we get so pulled away from this simple truth, that it is hard to believe.

I’m going to keep reading, because I do believe. I believe that we are made in the image of the Creator, and that we are creative and I do know that I am at my most happy when creating, especially co-creating; as when I’m working as a therapist, co-creating new ways of being with my clients. Our words do become manifest in our lives, and this takes us forward. I want to use my talents, my energy, and my life in such a way that people move forward into greater possibilities, and be profitable doing it.

when faith falls apart

yesterday

a friend lent me her cherished copy of

Marianne Williamson’s book

and today when I tried to read it

it hurt so bad

like Anne Lamott

like all good women

she finds faith

i lost mine

perhaps i didn’t lose it so much as it fell apart

a carefully crafted house

i hobbled together with the shaky glue of not knowing

much about life

i lived inside of

where there was a verse

for every adversity

for every joy

and minute of life

except when there was not

a place to go on sunday morning

sunday evening

or even wednesday night

a place where everyone knows your name

until your name or place changes

until you doubt

and you become suspect

an other

the ones they pray for

and lament about

and now I am out

out of faith

out of sync

out of luck

sitting duck

sit

meditate

create

compassion

for self

and others

Have You Talked to Your Brain Lately?

I’m serious, last night I totally told my amygdala that it was time to just calm down. I told them (we actually have two) that I know that life is stressful, and that a car honking can seem like a life threat, but really, just cool it with the pumping out of adrenaline every five minutes because, seriously, these chemical rushes with no running up trees to release them are causing me serious threat.

I’d never thought that I could talk to my body before, and I like the permission I’ve given myself. I’ve talked to ‘myself’ of course, many times, saying things like, “Geez, now you’ve done it.” You all know, it’s those mama and daddy voices in our heads, telling us we’re just not good enough. Even though, you know, all along, we’re only as good as we are. I’ve also learned to cheer myself on, telling myself things like, “Come on kiddo, you can do it!” I was never a participant in sports, so I had to learn to do this, also. Cheering yourself on is much nicer than beating yourself up.

Another thing I’ve learned, through the book The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles is that we humans cannot both protect ourselves and grow at the same time, simple, but true. When our bodies are in a protecting mode, the cellular energy goes into shutting down, when we’re in a safe mode, our energy propels us into growth. What shuts people down? Many times those unconscious beliefs we’re walking around with. The book is not just a ‘believe and receive’ or power of positive thinking book, it’s written by cellular biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton.

This book explains the placebo effect and the nocebo effect (the power of not believing), and how the brain can actually override the body. One of my favorite lines from the book is this, “Doctors should not dismiss the power of the mind as something inferior to the powers of chemicals and the scalpel. The should let go of their conviction that the body and its parts are essentially stupid and that we need outside intervention to maintain our health” (p. 107). I’m not advocating for a world without doctors and/or medication, my youngest daughter is dependent on her thyroid medication, and I’m grateful for it. I am saying that we can talk to ourselves, (seriously) and start to live a life understanding our unconscious beliefs and how they just might be working so hard to keep us safe, that we’re not growing and we’re not happy.

Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

or Now That You've Turned 17

Money don’t grow on trees
are you listening
to what I’m telling you girl
that money don’t grow on trees

So what you gonna do
while you’re eating up my food
tell me what you gonna do
little girl to survive in this big world

Cuz money don’t grow on trees
don’t you know
that’s a fact
and you little girl are costin me some cash

So what you gonna do now
who you gonna be
what you gonna do now
Darlin can’t you see

Money don’t grow
money don’t grow
money don’t grow on trees

You can get yourself to college
you can take out lots of loans
or you can make yourself a waitress
or a receptionist on the phone

Girl you’re not bad lookin
you can get yourself some heels
you can get yourself a college man
or a business man with wheels

Maybe they’ll be nice to you
maybe they’ll treat you right
maybe they’ll get you pregnant
and sneak out on you at night

But girl if you haven’t noticed
it’s a man’s world still
and your mama and I done raised you
we love you and always will

But girl you just gotta know
little girl can’t you see
look out into our backyard
money don’t grow on trees


I’ve been thinking about this whole idea of money, and especially, since watching the movie An Education last weekend on Netflix, about how girls were told back in the day, and maybe still today, that “Money doesn’t grow on trees you know.” It was usually said in a blaming way, a mean way that could easily translate into “I’m not going to pay to take care of you much longer.” Especially to a kid who’s vulnerable and not sure how money, or the world for that matter works, this sounds like a horrible threat.

The young woman in the movie is told by her dad, in this very way, that she needs to figure out what to do with her life because, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” This movie spoke to me and brought me perilously back to my own life at around age 17, when I had no clue what to do with my life, and/or how to do it. I was terrified. I only knew that my dad had the job, the full time job anyway, and almost all of the power in my family. I knew I wanted to go to college, but if money didn’t grow on trees, how would I pay for it? I received little to no education on money and finances, and had no idea that different jobs paid different amounts of money. I was nearly forty when I realized that my brother, the CPA, had much more earning potential than I did with my four year degree in English, who knew? I thought that if I had a four year degree and worked hard, I could earn a living. Silly me.

It’s true that money doesn’t grow on trees, but it’s also true that many of the things that we believe about money are not true, also. Sometimes going to college, getting An Education, means more opportunities, but not necessarily more money. Getting an education in a field in which you excel, and for which there is a need, may get you some money, but even now, some pay scales for some jobs are falling while others are rising. Traditionally, jobs that were mostly held by women earned less money than jobs that were held by men. Working mothers today earn less than working women who are childless, go figure.

We live in an era where girls and women are still given mixed messages about money and about their worth and value. If girls are given the message that they’re not worth it, (a burden, or not worth supporting until they can support themselves), then how can they convince themselves to take out student loans, against the collateral of themselves? It’s a conundrum. For many girls and women, marriage is still a way out of worrying about money. In the movie, the main character drops out of school once she gets engaged at age 17.

I just think, that if money, as my dad used to say, doesn’t grow on trees, then we need to let young people, boys and girls, know where money does grow. We also need to let our children know that they have an intrinsic value, outside of being able to support themselves financially. We need to move to what Riane Eisler calls an economy of caring. (Riane Eisler received the Distinguished Peace Leadership Award in 2009.) An economy that values power with instead of power over, especially in terms of money.

In my own family, while a single mom raising three daughters, my use of my economic power was tempered by a value of sharing. I wanted to share all the resources, and power also. I did my best to live out a more value based way of looking at money, and I’m still working on it. I have somehow figured out, that money doesn’t grow on trees. It also doesn’t pay to be married to someone who you think will support you and your children at the expense of your soul. I know that my parents, (and my dad who’d say this) weren’t trying to be mean, or mess up my head about money for as long as this has happened, but that’s what happened, and I’m only now wrestling with it in a way that I may have some peace.

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but money can be like the air I breathe, it can come and go, and as long as I’m alive there will be enough. Like in a panic attack, it sometimes seems like I can’t breathe, when money is tight, and I’m scared, but I can sit through it and wait, and here comes the breeze, with money floating on it, in it, through it. Somehow, of all the abundance in the universe, there is enough to buy groceries for the week, and maybe, just maybe, buy baby a new pair of shoes, too.