Category Archives: Oprah

Wild Impulses

Mt. Crystal

Right now I am on vacation with my two children, husband, my parents and in-laws. The eight of us rented a house for seven days near Mt. Rainier National Park which is roughly two hours from my house, door-to-door. Mt. Rainier is the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States rising 14,409 feet above sea level. On clear days, it stands like a sentinel ghost in the distant Seattle skyline. It is massive and magnificent.

When we got here we quickly found that our sleeping quarters weren’t as advertised. The room my children, husband and I are staying in looked more substantial in the pictures. As an added benefit to our cramped cozy bedroom, the baby isn’t sleeping well. He is crying in the night waking up our toddler who then also cries. Last night we had a rousing, hour-long, cry-fest, party of two! in our sardine can of a  small-ish bedroom. So far, we are all tired, but still trying to enjoy ourselves.

I’m not going to lie, it feels more like work than vacation.  I’d much rather sit on the deck and take in the view while enjoying a quiet, reflective glass of wine, but instead I am feeding, bathing, playing with, or soothing someone to sleep just like every other day accept I’m even more tired. I am the mommy; this is my choice, my life, and I love it, but there is never a shortage of sacrifices being made.

My consolation prize is waking up to see something breathtaking out my window. The natural beauty here is stunning, ethereal, ENERGIZING! (Thank goodness). Every detail from the worn, rock-laden trails to the violet Lupine in bloom is reminding me of the book I just finished, Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

If you’ve read my blog, you know I have a bit of a crush on Ms. Strayed. You will also know that I have a bit of a life-long love for Oprah Winfrey. Several weeks ago Oprah picked Cheryl Strayed’s book to revive her book club and it felt like a natural, cosmic, menage et trois that I willed into existence. Naturally, I was on board.

Wild is about a 26 year-old Ms. Strayed and her three-month, 1100 mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail starting in the Mohave Desert in California, to the top of Oregon State. Strayed’s decision to embark on this journey came because her life was heading in a dark direction. Three years prior, her mother died suddenly from cancer. This shattered her small family sending the people of her life spinning in different directions, away from, and without her. She ended her marriage to a man she still loved partly because she became a prolific, impulsive philanderer, and partly because she no longer knew what she wanted. She also became a heroin user and got pregnant by a heroin addict. She had no money, no plan, no prospects so walking for miles, alone, in the wilderness, seemed like a grande idea.

The book follows her journey switching back and forth between the struggles of the trail and the struggles in her life. It is filled with deep insights and profound realizations about the correlations between wilderness and life; their harsh realities, relentlessness, and inherent beauties. While there are a myriad of lessons to glean from these pages, there is one that resonates with me deeply. It is a truth we all must face in the name of maturity; the value of learning impulse control.

Every day (my life, really) is a teeter totter of choices. At its fulcrum lies the question at the heart of every choice; is this what I want? Or is this what I need? Each side of the teeter totter holds the consequences of that choice. According to many philosophers and schools of psychology it is the ultimate division of the brain’s functionality, left vs. right, feeling vs. reason, want vs. need.

When I was younger, my wanting won the teeter totter battle most of the time. I wanted that boyfriend. I wanted to eat that bad thing. I wanted to smoke, get drunk, stay up all night and do whatever the hell I pleased. Over the years I became a master at masquerading my wants around as needs. Even now I say, “I need to write! I need time to myself! I need a new outfit for this occasion!”

But there comes a point in everyone’s life when you are given no choices. The only option, is the one that needs to be done. The decision is made for you and it stands like a boulder on the need side of the teeter totter; unmoved and unmovable. Everything is tipped, sometimes irreparably, in a direction you would never choose if you had a choice. These are the moments that offer our greatest lessons.  They teach us how to hold on, persevere, have courage and strength of character. They make us grow up.

This is what Strayed discovered while out in the wilderness, alone, hungry, in pain; her only option, to move forward.

“…the thing that was so profound to me that summer–yet also, like most things, so very simple–was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do. How there was no escape or denial. No numbing it down with a martini or covering it up with a roll in the hay.”

The most profound, harsh and enduring moments of being forced to do things I have no desire to do, have come into my life as a result of being a wife and a mother. When both of these things happened, my teeter totter tipped wildly, unexpectedly, radically into a position that I chose and simultaneously didn’t want. I was 27 when I married and 30 when I became a mother and admittedly, holding on to many selfish, impulsive, childish ways before entering both arrangements.

I want sleep. I want to dedicate a good portion of my time to physical maintenance. I want it my way, always, and I want my children and husband to just leave me alone for a little while. I want to travel unencumbered. Like right now.

And yet none of these things are part of my reality. They sit like the mountain out my window in patient defiance, irreverent of my wants. As much as I may want, there is no escape, no denial, no numbing down my children and spouse and their needs with bad food or wine or any number of unhealthy options that call from the other side of the teeter totter.

And yet…

In the reality that has become my life, in spite of, because of, in both fear and love of this mountain, I developed a determination, a perseverance, an internal knowing, a solid bedrock of confidence born of realizing that I am capable of doing what I need to do, when it needs to get done. They call me mommy with love and devotion because I have done this. I do this everyday–the things I least want to do.

This is the message that resonated with me most in Cheryl Strayed’s memoir. That life isn’t always about what you want or feel. It’s about building an internal strength, proving to yourself that you can do what you need to do, when it needs to be done.

When you keep putting one foot in front of the other, like Cheryl did–in spite of your impulse to numb yourself, to bend to your emotions, no matter how sad and miserable and tired and self-pitying you may feel–when you summit that mountain, which you will, you will find a greater, deeper, more grounded part of yourself that you didn’t know existed; a part that you truly need, a part born of needs, in spite of wants. And it is that part that will carry you the rest of way, over every mountain, through your entire life.

So instead of enjoying my reflective glass of wine, I will be playing Lincoln Logs with my toddler and trying to get my son to sleep until the wee hours of this night when I, too, will I fall into bed. Because there are more mountains to climb tomorrow and I need my strength.

I participated in a Twitter chat with Cheryl Strayed on July 17th and I asked if impulse control was a major lesson she learned while hiking the PCT. I told her that becoming a mother has taught me that. She said:

Isn’t it though?

The Health Care Crisis is Like an Episode of Hoarders

peter-walsh-organizing-imag

Photo: Peter Walsh Design

I worked in the medical industry for six years as a sales rep for a medical company. This ”insider knowledge” has given me a unique understanding of the issues surrounding the cost structure of health care and why having government dictate our healthcare can be both bad and beneficial.

There is no denying that health care is one of the most important and convoluted issues of our time. It’s important because it is 1/6 of our nation’s economy; convoluted, because anything that is 1/6 of a multi-trillion-dollar economy is going to have a lot of moving parts. Just thinking about it feels like walking into a house on Hoarders. It reeks, it’s cluttered and way too overwhelming.

But if you’re one of the millions of uninsured American’s suffering under the weight of all this crap, you know it’s mandatory that we pick up our shovels and organize our piles on the lawn Peter Walsh style before this toxic, biohazardous waste gets one more piece of useless trash added to the top and by “trash” I mean legislation. The situation is gettin’ real stank up in here and those Glade Plug-ins aren’t doing a thing to mask the stench of rotting cat carcass.

Over the years we’ve simply added one piece of ineffective legislation on top of another and it’s time we attempt to understand what’s under all this shit because Mr. & Mrs. Voting American, our names are on this deed. Stay tuned, crude illustrations to follow.

What got me all fired up to write this post was not Obamacare and the pending Supreme Court ruling, but Xeni Jardin’s Twitter stream. Xeni Jardin, founder and editor at Boing Boing (@xeni) is currently receiving treatment for breast cancer. I don’t know her whole story but I’m assuming it includes a struggle with insurance and paying for her treatment. Her Twitter page went crazy with tragic stories of people who have also struggled. Here are some of the tweets:

I have been to the hospital exactly three times. Baby #1, Baby #2 and a stress-induced case of viral meningitis. The meningitis was due to a nasty legal battle I was having with my employer. That employer happened to be a Medical Company (MC). I worked in the medical industry for six years selling pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, surgical devices and equipment to doctors and hospitals. I am versed in the various issues surrounding the overall problem, in particular, when it comes to the rising costs and affordability.

I used to believe that I sold innovative and medically necessary treatments to patients who needed them. If it weren’t for me, who would educate the doctors on these awesome, fancy-schmancy products?  At least that’s the feel-good flavor of koolaid the MC fed me. At every Fiscal Quarter’s end, the real motivations of my MC came bubbling to the surface like the frothy head on a glass of champagne.

I had a yearly territory quota of over $2 million dollars. The more you exceeded it, the more money and praise you received. The more you fell short, the more you were avoided like day-old trash behind a fish market in a desert town. As you can see, we were highly valued employees.

Most companies who manage a sales force use material rewards to ensure performance and allegiance. Every meeting is an orgy of competition and excess; bellies are filled with booze and steak and egos are stroked and manipulated. We have private Vegas-style parties, city-wide scavenger hunts and chauffeured trips through wine country. One year for a National Sales Meeting in Orlando, all 200+ employees stayed at the Ritz Carlton and the company rented out the Islands of Adventure Theme Park after hours. I rode the Incredible Hulk Rollercoaster like 7 times in a row, kind of drunk. It was awesome.

Meanwhile, the price of our products increased every year far beyond the increased “costs of doing business and inflation” which is the koolaid we were given. In four years the market-dominating device I sold went up 30% and the champagne kept flowing. The rumor was that the markup was six times the cost to manufacture. (Which, by the way, was moved to Costa Rica in order to save hundreds of thousands of dollars it was costing to manufacture it in California.)

So here’s some basic math on one surgical procedure:

1) The surgical device cost an estimated $250.

2) The Medical Company charges hospitals $1300.

3) Hospital’s then bill the Insurance Company (IC) up to $12,000, and the IC actually only pays a fraction of that. ($4000)

In the end, a procedure could end up costing 50 times the cost of the primary device used to perform it. Sure, there are incremental costs along the way, doctor’s fees, nurses, anesthesia, supplies, etc. But it could never add up to $12,000. Trust me, I know.

This whole hospital mark-up scenario is why we began pushing doctors to perform procedures in their office. They would make more money and the procedure would cost less overall.

Let’s look at why the hospital charges so much for a simple procedure anyway? And who pays the portion the insurance company doesn’t pay? And why do IC’s only pay a fraction of the cost? The answers to all those questions is part of the yellowed, decade-old newspapers stacked up to the ceiling.

The American Medical Association (AMA) assigns codes to procedures and those codes are ultimately assigned a dollar value. Let’s say you need your appendix out. We’ll give an appendectomy the code of APPY=OUCHIE. To understand how procedures are assigned a dollar value, we have to usher in the Government (and all their crap) through the front door.

Medicare is the Government’s name for health care for people over the age of 62.5. MediCAID is the Government health care program for everyone else.  MediCARE sets the standard for the cost of most of the procedure codes the AMA comes up with. In our example, Medicare determines that it will pay a hospital $3,000 for anyone insured by them who has an everyday, ordinary APPY=OUCHIE.

Government says it will pay $3000 for a Medicare patient who needs an APPY=OUCHIE (Appendectomy).

Then ICs say, “Well, if it’s good enough for the government, then it’s good enough for me.” And they base their reimbursements off of what the government pays. But IC’s will pay “a leeettle bit” higher because you know, they’re supposed to be private and fancy. Therefore, IC’s may pay $4,000 for an everyday, ordinary APPY=OUCHIE.

Not to complicate things further, but it is the Government we are talking about, but it also depends on which state you lived in since Medicare is a state-run agency and different states, pay different prices. I think I just saw a rat scurry across the floor.

It also depends on WHERE you have your APPY=OUCHIE performed. Stand alone hospitals are the most expensive and charge the most money. Surgery Centers (if applicable to your procedure) are the second most expensive and the doctor’s office (also, if applicable) are the least expensive location to have your APPY=OUCHIE. (Although I’m not sure anyone would offer to take your appendix out in their office and yet, I would not underestimate some doctor’s desire to make a buck).

Here’s where the crude illustrations come in:

Meet Ms. Abby Appendix. She needs an APPY=OUCHIE real bad. Abby has private insurance, but it’s not great. Of course, she doesn’t know this because there’s no place to compare your IC to other ICs available. Also, it’s the only IC her company contracts with so she really has no choice in the matter.

This leads us to one of the biggest, reeking piles of steaming, hot trash in the whole house. All of these entities, the MCs, hospitals, ICs and doctors, (perhaps excluding the government) have ONE thing in common. Instead of being motivated by providing Abby with affordable, quality, life-saving treatments, at the end of a Fiscal Quarter’s end, they are all truly motivated by profit.

This is a LARGE reason why the house smells like feces and there’s black mold growing up the walls.

Let’s get something straight, this is not a story about greed and capitalism because I love me some free markets. MCs need to make profits in order to provide cutting edge medical treatments. I agree with that. But do we need to rent out Islands of Adventure Theme Park?

Most hospitals are also in the business of turning a profit which seems like a conflict of interest on account that their overall product is um, life? But, we live in America so hospitals are allowed to make a profit, too. So how do they do that? They do that by attracting patients and they do THAT by providing quality service, having the fanciest medical procedures available and the best doctors money can buy.

ICs are another player in the game looking to make a buck. Again, huge red flags going up. Their mission should be to help people get the best, most effective medicines and procedures and yet, what’s most important is their Quarterly report to Wall Street. But again, we live in the land of opportunity so why shouldn’t they be able to operate in a free market too?

After all, competition drives costs down right? Wait, what’s that? You can’t buy just any ol’ insurance you want because of the state you live in and/or the company you work for? Where’s the competition in that? 

I’ll tell ya…petrified pieces of dog poo.

That leaves the Government to play checks and balances over all these entities. And as we all know the Government is so efficient and does everything in a timely, economical manner, right?  I don’t blame them really because there are so many moving parts, the lobbyist, state regulations and all that red-surgical tape, it’s like opening a refrigerator with milk that expired in the 90′s. Obviously, the Government’s motivations should lie in the best interest of the people, but how can it when it’s up against three powerful entities with money to burn on Remy Martin, Cuban Cigars and campaign donations?

So, Abby got that medically necessary procedure at the hospital.

But then, Abby got a bill.

So Medicare deemed that an ordinary APPY=OUCHIE should cost $3000 and Abby’s IC paid $4000, but the hospital charged $12,000 for a fancy-schmancy robotic APPY=OUCHIE because the fancy doctor wanted to try out his new fancy toy. That decision, left Abby with an $8000 balance.

Why did this happen?

This happened because Medicare sometimes doesn’t pay for fancy-schmancy surgeries and therefore, many ICs don’t either. Plus, many doctors don’t have a clue what shit costs and why so they just do what they want and let the hospital, IC and patient figure it out when the bill comes due. 

Abby didn’t have very good insurance (not that she had a choice) but if she did, the remaining balance would either be “written off” in some crazy-ass hospital accounting process OR paid by her good Insurance Company company. Because she didn’t, the balance was charged back to her.

There’s your flee-infested couch.

So where do we, the people, the home owners come into the picture?

Five percent of Americans account over 50% of all health care costs. The vast majority of these people are the elderly and the uninsured. This 5%, and all their enormous expenses that go unpaid and are “written off,” are the reason why hospitals charge its patients 50 TIMES what a procedure should cost.

Admittedly, this is only one room of the Health Care Hoarder’s House and there are another three bedrooms full of Medicare fraud, rising insurance premiums and already too high taxes… all of which need sorting and cleaning.

Due to that nasty battle with my company, I no longer work there. Now you could say this is the tirade of a disgruntled employee. You could say that, but it wouldn’t negate the math I just laid out for you and it wouldn’t make this any less true. The truth is, I’m not disgruntled. I have nothing against my previous employer or any other medical company.

It’s not the MC’s fault, but they are part of this conversation as are the hospitals that charge $12,000, the ICs that will do anything not to pay a dime (and then increase your premiums), the doctors who are uninformed and Mr. & Mrs. Voting American who don’t give a rats ass what things cost because they rely on the Government and their IC to pay the bills… until they won’t… or can’t.

It is a broken, messy system where the motivations are all wobbling and misaligned like a giant stack of kitty litter in the hallway. The Government, the hospitals, MCs, ICs and even some doctors are the money-drunk hoarders and the ones paying the ultimate price are all the little people trying to find a place to rest their sick, weary bones as one careless hand after another adds another piece of useless trash to the heap. Again, and by “trash” I mean ineffecitve legislation.

So what’s the solution and where is Peter Walsh when you need him?

I’m not sure there is one comprehensive solution– at least not one that I’ve heard. But I can tell you some ideas that I could get behind.

1.) Transparency on procedure options and costs. We (and doctors) need to know what’s happening, how much it costs, and why. Maybe that entails having a 3rd party patient advocate? If you can afford it, you can get one of those right now. But the people who need the most education, can’t afford it. That means it’s up to US to pay attention to what things cost and why and to know all our options and educate each other. There’s an amazing website www.healthcareblueblook.com. It will give the fair pricing for many surgical procedures. Information is empowering.

2.) Access to free preventative healthcare. This means that everyone can have easy access to free pap smears, dental exams, colonoscopies, mammograms etc. If there could be a way to incentivize people to do these things, all the better.

3.) Shifting the motivations of Insurance Companies and providing transparency into their operations. Companies with so much sway over a person’s life should have more accountability.

4.) Allowing people to purchase Insurance from a larger pool of options, not just those in their state or from their employer. This would help to drive costs down making it more affordable.

5.) Reform of the Medicare program and a crackdown on the rampant fraud that lies within.

Clearly, I don’t have all the answers. Right now, there are things that scare me about the current planned legislation, dubbed “Obamacare.” The mandated purchase of insurance will only allow you to choose between a few companies in your state (because again, government health care, [Medicare] is a state-run entity). This limited pool of options creates a virtual monopoly and because ICs are motivated by money, well, that’s not a recipe for success.

However, I do like the slashing of expenditure to an already bloated, and fraud-filled Medicare system which is also a part of Obama’s plan, but I don’t like the increase taxes that will happen to pay for all of this. Essentially, Obamacare’s additional government bureaucracy that will oversee all these new changes will be like building another wing onto the house to pile up even more crap into.

The United States has the highest quality health care and innovation in the world. That is due, in large part, to our money-motivated system. I don’t want to lose the motivation to innovate and provide quality, but at the same time, I don’t think people need to mortgage their homes, declare bankruptcy and forfeit their life’s savings to have it.

The MCs, ICs, hospitals, doctors and state-run bureaucracies all have to be willing to give more, so that we, the people, can have more. Motivations are powerful. Money is powerful. I know, I was entranced by that eyeball staring at me from on top of the pyramid, too. But there are things in this world more important than money… as I have come to find out. For me, they are Baby #1 and Baby #2, and I don’t want them to find themselves trapped inside a house filled with my useless trash.

So what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts and any additions to my list. Leave a comment and I’ll pick someone at random to give absolutely nothing. :-)

A Letter to Myself

letter

I heard something that resonated with me. “We teach what we most need to learn ourselves.” ~Oprah

Then I came across a letter I wrote to a friend who was going through a difficult, transformative time in her life. I read it again today, and through this new prism, I realized that it could be (and should be) a letter to myself.

I’m posting it here and addressing it, instead, to myself to serve as a reminder of what I already know to be true. But it’s more than that. When I read it again addressed to myself, I realized that I don’t show myself the same depth of love and compassion that I showed my friend and there is definitely something wrong with that. When turning the object of the letter around, I felt that deep self-love that I should always feel, but sadly, don’t.  It was a transformative, eye-opening moment.

So this is also a reminder to show myself the same kind of love that I so willingly give to the other people in my life.

Dear Me,

I think about you everyday, more than once or twice, but many, many times. I know you’re hurting and because of that, I am hurting for you. What is happening to you right now is something that happens to us all. You are experiencing it through the prism of postpartum depression, I experienced through the prism of losing my job, income, stability and identity. All pain is the same it just looks different on different people. I came out the other side a stronger, better person and so will you. Please believe me when I say that.

It hurts, I know. It’s scary, I know that, too. These are growing pains because you are growing right now inside your Soul. God want you to grow and right now is your time. He’s not doing it out of anger, God is never angry. He’s doing it because he loves you and wants you to have the best that life can offer, but before that can happen, you have to grow deeper inside yourself. You have to shed some of the beliefs about yourself and life that aren’t working for you anymore. He wants you to do this and then blossom into the peaceful and contented life you’ve always dreamed of having. A life that is the truest, fullest expression of who you were always meant to be… and already are.

He also wants you to know who he really is.

God is light. He is the life force behind everything in this world and He is inside of you right now. You are not separate from Him, and He is not separate from you. You never have been and you never will be separate. God is Love and you happen to be one of the most loving and kind people I know so believe it or not, you are already intimate with the true nature of God. That love, that compassion you feel inside you for other people IS you, and it is also God. That is the one big truth and He wants you to know it. He wants you to know that the life force inside of you is also Him, and it is always Love.

You have been my teacher so many times in this life so let me be yours right now. You already have everything inside of you to start to feel better. You don’t need pills, you don’t need a change in hormones, you don’t need more time or energy. You just need to stop the thoughts and learn to control them instead of them controlling you. (Easier said than done, right?)

It takes practice. It takes diligent, thoughtful, mindful practice to stop the habits you have created in your mind. The first step is learning to quiet your mind. It is hard and takes tons and tons of practice because the mind is like a looping tape recorder. You’ve played the same tape so many times it’s a habit (one that you’re addicted to) and you need to press eject on the tape recorder to stop the habit and the addiction. You need to quiet the mind. Yoga can teach you how to do that. Because you are NOT your thoughts. You are not what you think. Fear is only a byproduct of your thoughts and it is NOT real.

What you are is light. What you are is Love, what you ARE is connected to everything else that is in this world. You are not separate from everything that is living and you are not separate from God. We are all connected through this life force, this energy. You need to open your mind and your heart into the possibility that it is the truth.

Right now, put your right hand on your heart. Feel it’s beat, it’s rhythm. Your heart is your guide in this world, not your head. Your heart is the organ that feels and has intuition and compassion and is connected to everything else, NOT your head. Your head just gets in the way and is a horrible interpreter. Listen, LITERALLY, listen to your heart. Your heart will tell you what is true. Your heartbeat will calm you, will bring you back to the present moment. If you can learn to quiet your mind, your heart will give you the instructions on what to do next. That is your innate intuition that guides you. When you don’t know what to do next or you are scared put your hand on your heart and listen for a couple of minutes. It quiets the mind and focuses you back on the present moment.

I want you to know that I love you like I love my own children. Not because I think you’re a child, but because I can’t imagine loving anything more than I love them and that’s how much I love you. It will be better. Open your heart to the possibility that this is a growth spurt and when it’s over, you’ll be happier and more at peace with your life than ever before.

I Love You So Much,

Me

I Am the Fattest Bridesmaid

Yes, it’s true. I am.

While in the company of my besties (whom I’ve been friends with half my life) nothing sends shivers of anxiety up my spine faster than hearing the two words… “group picture!” Oh and they LOVE taking pictures of themselves. Who can blame them really? If I were that good-looking all the time, I’d probably upload every lovin’ minute of my day too. Here’s me blowing my nose…here’s me doing laundry… oh, and here’s me typing, “here’s me!”

I give you, Exhibit A: This is one of 3243256426 pictures taken on my friend’s wedding day last year wherein each of my best friends was either the bride, or a bridesmaid.

If you think I’m standing in the back row by sheer coincidence, you are sadly mistaken my friend. If you saw all 3243256426 pictures, you would see that unless explicitly instructed by a photographer, I am trying HARD to hide every square-inch of my body that isn’t my head. Pretty much the only thing I was thinking all day was that dressed like twinsies next to these girls, I might as well be holding a sign above my head that says, “hey look at me, I’m the obligatory fat friend!” Us big girls are hyper-sensitive of shit like that. Just like alcoholics know exactly where the booze is at a party, we know where all the cameras are located and at which moment one is about to be used on us. It’s an extra-sensory skill developed after one too many pictures sent you into the depths of a dark depression. Other skills are impromptu camouflage and running to the back row faster than a fat kid to an ice cream truck. I do those pretty well. Exhibit B:

That is because I have spent the better part of my life feeling shame over my shape. I am 33 years old and it has taken me this long to be able to talk about it without feeling embarrassed. In fact, just a year ago I couldn’t have even written this. So why the sudden change of heart and mind?

My change of heart is because of these two:

Over the last 10 years my husband has never ONCE said a disparaging word about my body even at its postpartum worst. Although I may never understand his enthusiasm, he loves my body and takes every opportunity to tell me so. Sadly, it has only taken me 10 years to believe him.

And my daughter. Oh my daughter. Every night when she’s done with her bath she runs around the house in oblivious, naked freedom. She’s downright giddy at her nudity and even dances in front of open windows smashing her cute, toddler tushy up against the glass. How I envy her… more importantly, how I love her. If I can spare her the meaningless years of self-loathing I have put myself through over the bulge in my butt, the curve of my hips and the girth of my thighs, it would bring me endless amounts of joy. I want her to grow up not just believing, but KNOWING that her inner beauty is far more valuable than a single digit number on the tag of her jeans. She deserves that and I know that I can’t give it to her unless I have it myself.

In my formative years I didn’t have the physique to garner much attention from the boys; especially when my core group of friends are as beautiful as they are AND could shop in the pre-teen section. I’ve been wearing double digits since the day after I started my period in the eighth grade. I have fluctuated in my life due to pregnancies, obsessive dieting and/or working out, but basically, my body sits comfortably and reliably into a size 12. Some of my friends are wearing a size zero… did you hear me? I said ZERO… at 33 years old… ZER-O. The biggest of them MIGHT (on a bloated day) wear a size 10.

My calling card, the thing that set me apart, was being “the smart one.” As you can imagine I had to wait several, painful, formative years before that characteristic moved its way up the desirability scale. Back then, I would have traded 30 college credits for one night as the prettiest, thinnest girl in the room. I spent years feeling like that and I don’t want my daughter to spend one second feeling that her worth is tied to something as superficial and fleeting, which ultimately, has nothing to do with who she really is. THAT is why I’ve had a change of heart, because she IS my heart.

As for my change of mind? Well, it is just that. I. Changed. My. Mind. I’ve made a conscious and concerted effort (because it takes a lot of BOTH) to stop looking in the mirror and subconsciously rattling off 15 different insults. I’ve stopped mentally holding myself up to an impossible standard and beating myself up every time I fell short of meeting it (which was always). I have stopped denying, degrading, disrespecting and devaluing my worth in my own fool head based off a meaningless number that has ZERO, ZER-O relation to my true value as a human being. So as for my change of mind, it was just that, a change of mind.

Recently, I have come across encouraging articles and images promoting a healthy body image for women. Major companies have launched extensive and well-funded campaigns to help change the public discourse and I want to be a part of that effort. I want to use my discourse to help change the world my daughter grows up in. I sense that the tides are turning for us women and I’m thrilled at that prospect. I feel that society is starting to understand that fat doesn’t equal worthless which is an equation I have believed my whole life. It’s a faulty math problem that ends with me.

Yes, I am the Melissa McCarthy of my friends and I am FINALLY learning to be okay with that. Because she is one funny-ass woman and I would TOTALLY be her best friend if she’d let me.

Come, help me change hearts and minds too.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” ~Gandhi

Leggo My Ego

I first learned the true definition of the Ego when I read Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth; Awakening to Your LIfe’s Purpose. This was, (shockingly), prompted by Oprah and an online class she conducted surrounding the content of the book in 2008. It was mind-blowing AND eye-opening to say the very least. One of the central themes of the book is to describe, understand, and ultimately, break free from our own ego. Before I read this book, I thought that only certain people had egos. That to have an ego and to be egotistical, meant that you were exceptionally arrogant and into yourself all the time. It wasn’t an adjective I would have willingly bestowed upon myself… until, I read this book. Fact is, we all have egos and they are all larger than life. Every second of everyday we go about thinking our way into bigger ones because our thoughts are the oxygen that fuel the ego’s flames.

One of the definitions Eckhart uses to describe the ego is on p. 27, “…a misperception of who you are, an illusory sense of identity.” Basically, every label you have ever used to describe yourself both publicly and privately; mother, father, conservative, liberal, fat, stupid, doctor, liar, martyr… each one of those words elicit an emotion, a perception, all of which activates a feeling inside of you that you choose to either identify with or reject. That is your ego trying to define and put limits on you. Have you ever noticed yourself get upset when someone puts forth an opposing political viewpoint? Don’t you sometimes get down right ENRAGED at people who can’t see what you clearly see so well? That is because the idea they are putting forth is a challenge to your ego or the misperception of who you think you are.

I like to use visual aids for clarity, so let’s use one here. An egg. An egg is a symbol used in many different cultures and religions as a representation of life. Why shouldn’t it be? It is where so much life begins. On a basic, structural level, it has a core surrounded by a gelatinous substance, encased in an elliptical, hard shell.

Think of the core, as your true self. The part of you that contains the energy of all life. It’s your truest, most sacred self; free of definition, restrictions and limitations. It is everything you were ever meant to be and already are. It is also the part of you that is connected to all other forms of life.

Think of the gelatinous egg-white,  (albumin), as your ego. It is larger than the core and has the important job of protecting the core, or your true self. It is constantly swirling, shifting and can even get cloudy depending on what it’s being fed. It prevents the core from getting too jostled or touching the sides of the shell where it might get bruised.

Then you have the shell. The house. And for that matter, the car, the boat, the Coach purse, the Mercedes-Benz and this season’s knee-high boots. This is what the world sees.  Unfortunately, this is what we all use to judge everything else that’s inside.

Even the proportions are poetic. An egg is 11% shell, 58% egg white and 31% yolk. The smallest part of ourselves is the shell and yet that is where many of us spend 90% of our focus. As far as our insides are concerned, the largest part of us is our ego and the smaller, more dense core is a mere 31%. And still, it is an elegant, perfect system for developing life as well as a tasty and nutritious breakfast. The healthiest chickens produce the brightest and richly flavored yolks and if you’ve ever had a good quality egg, you know that the yolk, ”tastes like buttah.”

This analogy could go on and on and on…

Since starting this blog something insane is happening in my life. No, Oprah has not called me…yet. What is happening is a metamorphosis of sorts. Layers of my ego are being stripped away and like an egg, I am being broken open. I am feeling exposed at my core; raw and tender, and strangely, stronger than ever.  The reason this is happening is because of the intention that I stated for this blog endeavor. That intention is to become more conscious and to use my life and experiences as a mirror to reflect a light into the world. I have drawn to my life the ability to pay attention more closely, more keenly… more.

It is ultimately, Matthew 7:7  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

When I pressed publish on this blog I called forth consciousness into my life. It’s like when you ask God for strength… you don’t get strength, you get the opportunity to be strong. That is what is happening with me right now. I am becoming more spiritually healthy, and my core is getting brighter and richer.

Now ready for your mind to be blown, AND your eyes, opened? Let’s start big, and then go small, shall we?

The Milky Way Galaxy

Our Solar System

Our Planet Earth

Ovum, or Human Egg Cell

An Atom

Starting to see a pattern? I am, and it’s all connected. All you have to do is…

open your eyes.

Quick! Read This! Hint: It’s Not about Patience.

This blog entry was originally titled just Patience. It was titled that because it started out being about that, or rather, about my significant lack of it. I’ve been writing and editing this post for a couple of weeks and every time I went to press publish, I couldn’t. Something felt wrong; it felt forced, like I was trying to be too funny for the sake of being funny and not entirely honest either. In addition, there was no real conclusion to it because I hadn’t really learned anything about myself in the process and isn’t that what this whole blog is about anyway?

Then I had one of those moments that I LIVE for, one of those Oprah A-HA! moments. I realized that what I had been writing about wasn’t my lack of patience because I already have patience, at least when I want to anyway. I mean seriously, someone who decides that their life’s passion is to write novels has at least a decent grasp of the benefits of delayed gratification. No, this wasn’t about patience.

You see, I’ve been going through a difficult time lately with our infant son. Every night, for the last two months he has refused to sleep between the hours of 11pm and 2am. At his worst, he has stayed awake until 4am. Last night, it was 3am. Because our bed is located one poorly-insulated wall away from his bassinet, my husband has resorted to sleeping in the guest bedroom. This has left me alone each night to brave the isolation of a pitch-black room while bouncing, singing, rocking, swaddling and reswaddling our suddenly and seemingly possessed infant son for hours. Every. Single. Night. It is depressing and I’m so over it. There hasn’t been a single night in the last two months that I have not gone to bed angry wanting to scream and/or cry out of frustration and exhaustion. In addition to my tears, and in my efforts to remain quiet, my poor pillow has been assaulted with the most vile curse words you can imagine. This clearly sucks and I may also be slightly disturbed, but it could all be better if only I had, you know, more patience.

Two and a half years ago, in the immediate hours post-delivery of our first-born child, my husband and I were trying to have that once-in-a-lifetime, tender moment. The one where you both tearfully gaze into the eyes of your minutes-0ld, first-born and marvel at the miracle of it all. You tell each other how much you love one another while looking at your cherubic, sleeping angel in awe and bliss. But we couldn’t have that moment because for several hours post-delivery our daughter cried that shrill, nerve-shredding newborn cry right in our terrified faces. They reassured us that everything was fine and it was just the shock of being born. Like the idiots new parent’s we were, we believed them. Hindsight having the miraculous ability to be 20/20, we should have known then what we were in for.

But they were right, the initial shock of squeezing through my birth canal did wear off and the next 7 days were filled with newborn baby bliss c/o hormone overload and lack of knowing any better. After those 7 days, just as my parent’s were leaving on a plane back to Kansas City and we were sufficiently tired of patting ourselves on the back for being exceptional parents ourselves, our precious baby’s head spun around ala the exorcist and I swear I saw little horn nubbins sprout out of her head. After a couple of days, when it became abundantly clear that we lacked the ability to exorcise whatever demon had possessed our little angel, we did what every new parent would do… set up camp outside our pediatricians office because it was just easier than going there everyday.

That’s when I learned all about “colic” or what some of the more kindly pediatricians refer to as, “high maintenance babies.” Those are the babies that refuse to sleep during the day, cry every night for no damn reason and resist every soothing technique known to man. In other words, good times ahead. They told us that only 10% of babies have colic and by “colic” what they really meant was, “we have no fucking idea what’s wrong with your baby and no, we can’t fix it so please stop coming here. Also, you owe us a $25 co-pay.”

They told us that colic typically lasts about 12 weeks because, “that’s when an infant’s neurological system matures and yadda, yadda, total bullshit, and also your co-pay is due at the time of service.”

Five months, and hundreds of dollars in co-pays later, my daughter’s colic FINALLY abated. That’s my little overachiever! My daughter was going to be fine, I, on the other hand, was ruined on babies forever. After 5 months, I had totally lost my shit.  I cried countless tears, I screamed, I blamed myself and anyone else who shared my genetics/ home/ life/ zip code. I’m not proud of it, but I hit things in my fits of desperation because I was so fucking tired, and I was sure I was the worst parent ever, and I’d do anything to make it stop, why me? God, WHY?!! It was utterly exhausting in every sense of the word.

That was it, I was done. One and done! was what I was thinking because why on Earth would I willingly put myself through that again? There’s nothing wrong with being an only child right? Naturally, we had another kid two years later. After all, only 10% of babies have colic right?

10% my ass. I’m batting 1000 on the colic baby front. On the bright side, my son does sleep during the day unlike his predecessor which has been a huge relief. However, he has picked the worst possible hours to start the whole demonic baby bit. I mean 2am dude? Seriously?

So here I am, three months into my second colic baby and I’m no better at handling this than I was the day my daughter screamed in my face post delivery. All I need is patience right? This won’t last forever right? Yes, but in the meantime, I’m miserable. I asked myself the question I have now trained myself to ask when there is something I don’t like happening in my life. What is this experience supposed to be teaching me? And that’s when the Universe (more specifically, Eckhart Tolle) spoke to me again because let’s face it, I spend a lot of time alone with my thoughts in a dark room these days.

“Whenever you notice irritation, resentment or stress arising, it means you don’t really want to be doing what you are doing (or you want to be finished before it’s finished). You are generating unhappiness. So stop, or let go of the resistance by recognizing that it’s harmful as well as futile. When you are total in whatever you do, Life assists and supports you in countless ways.” ~Eckhart Tolle on Facebook October 15, 2011

And also this: “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Oh. My. Universe. I haven’t been lacking patience at all! Saying that I need to have a little more patience is like saying that right now sucks, but if I can just hold on a little longer there is something better in the future. The only problem is… the future doesn’t exist. What I would waiting for is a mirage, a product of my imagination because right now is all I really have. It’s all anyone ever has.

No. It’s not patience I lack. What I am truly lacking is acceptance…acceptance of what is. Looking at it in the way Eckhart so elloquently puts it made it clear to me that my resistance to both my children’s beelzebub fussy nature’s has allowed it not only to persist, but to poison me/us/them with unhappiness. A-HA!

Today, I ran to my computer and rewrote nearly every word of this post. I also decided that tonight I was going to accept fully whatever my son was doing as if I’d chosen it myself… and I would too if he’d only wake up because right now it’s 11pm and he’s been sleeping since 7pm.

They may start out crazy, but they are my angels for sure.

The Space Between

I keep referring to this silly, (and maybe a little trite), phrase like I’m out to coin a term or something. I’m not. I just don’t know what else to call it without writing out, “the place consciousness lives” each time. I heard this phrase recently said by, wait for it……..wait for it…… OPRAH (imagine that). Before I heard Oprah say it, it was the title to one of my favorite Dave Matthews Band songs. Dave, a poet if there ever was one , sings:

The space between the tears we cry as the laughter keeps us coming back for more. The space between the wicked lies we tell and hope to keep safe from the pain.

The space between where you’re smiling high is where you’ll find me if I get to go. The space between the bullets and the fire fight is where I’ll be hiding waiting for you.

The space between what’s wrong and right is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you. The space between your heart and mine is a space we’ll fill with time.

The song itself is about the a relationship that has become tumultuous and damaged. They have started to play games with each other and fight like the wild-eyed beast you be. They even, go off like a devil in a church in the middle of the a crowded room. Dave sings about trying to find the place where the love still lives between them. The space between where they’re smiling high and the laughter keeps us coming back for more. Poor Dave just wants to live there… and so do I.

There are so many things in this world that are competing for our attention. I’m competing for your attention right now. Information abounds at our fingertips and it’s hard to know where to spend our time and energies and increasingly harder to know what’s real or not, more importantly, (as Dave sings), what’s wrong and right. These are, indeed, important questions to ask oneself.

Over the past year I have become convinced that the answers to most questions, at least my questions, lies in the silent space between all these things. The knowing part of ourselves that does not, and cannot speak in words but speaks none-the-less. Some people call this intuition, others call it consciousness. Whatever you call it, it’s the part of you that not only speaks, but hears and sees the world not with your ears or eyes, but with your heart and soul. It’s not always obvious or pleasant and it’s the wicked lies we tell about ourselves (our ego) that prevents us from hearing it because we hope to keep safe from pain.

The things I love to both read about, and write about, are the things that make us human. The things we all have in common because I believe we are all more alike than we are different.  Over time, and through writing, I’m learning to hear those things more clearly by listening to the space between, or my heart, to use another metaphor. Because I believe that, The space between your heart and mine is a space that we’ll fill with time.

What Would I Do If I Wasn’t Afraid?

Oprah said this in her Facebook interview with Sheryl Sandberg when she was discussing her decision to start OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network. After waking up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, she realized that what was stopping her was fear. When she realized this, she asked herself, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?  When she did, she immediately knew her answer.  Since hearing Oprah say this, I started asking myself that same question as it pertains to my writing and this blog. My answer was also immediately clear.

In my junior year of college I decided to add a second major of Communications Studies. I realized that upon my impending graduation my current major of psychology was enough to qualify me for precisely nothing. I thought a second major could only help. Communications Studies was both relevant to my goals and I had a fair amount of credits accumulated already. It was a no brainer. Shortly after making that decision I had a crisis of the existential kind. I found out that part of the prerequisites for a Com Major was Public Speaking 101. Now, it is a well-known fact that people’s #1 fear (above even death) is public speaking. For a weight conscious, fashion challenged, 21-year-old, it is one of the rings of hell. Every cell in my body was screaming OH HELL NO! RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! But I didn’t and I took the course.

My knees turned to jelly the first time I walked up to the front of the class. I had to lean on the podium to steady myself and hide my hands from shaking. Everything I said came out in one long run-on sentence because I kept forgetting to breathe.  I thought I was going to asphyxiate in front of the class and the next thing I’d remember would be the cute guy in the 3rd row giving me mouth to mouth. Much to my relief (and dismay) that didn’t happen.

The second time I got up, my knees were still jelly and my lungs still tight but this time I had irrefutable evidence that I, in fact, was not going to die. By the time I gave my last persuasive speech of the semester on the perils of male circumcision, I was being nominated by my peers to compete in a speech competition. By the end of the semester I not only had an A in the class but I had some much-needed confidence in  myself.

After that experience I adopted a personal policy on fear. It’s policy that I hold today– if the thought of doing something scares me then I should do it. I’m not talking about potentially dangerous acts like jumping off cliffs or lapsing on birth control. I’m talking about the more subtle, calculated, everyday risks. The ones with a high potential of paying off big, but whose means are hard to swallow. Things like asking for a promotion, confronting a friend or moving away from your hometown.

I can’t say that I have always adhered to this policy, I haven’t. There are plenty of times when fear got the best of me and I let it prevent me from doing things I know I should have done. I’m sure it still will because fear’s favorite hiding place, (at least my fear’s favorite hiding place), is in the excuse. And let me tell you something ladies and gents, I’m a natural-born sales person with a flair for the creative– put those two things together and suddenly the plausible, convincing excuse is catapulted into a realm of artistry.

My ol’ standby excuse, the one I use for just about everything is, “I dont’ have time.” It’s so easy because who the hell has enough time? I have two kids, I don’t have enough time for that! And that leads me to my personal favorite excuse, my children. ”I have kids, I can’t possibly to that.” It rolls right off the tongue better than the r’s in Spanish. I say, if you can’t use your children to get you out of doing shit you don’t want to do, then what’s the point of having them?

Then you’ve got the good ol’ blame game. I’m fond of shifting responsiblity onto things other than myself. It’s super easy and provides complete absolution without the ability to change anything. However, blame is expensive and the price for using it can run rather high. Take it from me, I’ve blamed my parent’s, my husband, my geography, terrorism and even the double helix of my genetic code for all the things I can’t do. I used to play this game a lot until I realized that there were no winners and the big loser was usually me. I’m much more judicious when doling out the blame these days.

Through the crafting of artful excuses and learning to play (and lose) the blame game I learned something else about my fear– its language. Fear may hide in the excuses but it exposes itself in the flesh. Whether it’s restlessness, weariness, sadness or actual extra flesh (as in fat), my fear will speak to me when I have chosen not to listen; which has turned out to be the greatest blessing of all. Since adopting this policy in my 20′s I have inadvertently become fluent in the language of my own fear. Every new dialect I’m able to recognize pulls back the curtain a little more on the small man controlling the big, scary wizard. I have learned, like Oprah, that recognizing your fear is the first step to diminishing it’s power. When Oprah did it, it led to her taking a risk and creating OWN. My ambition is considerably less dramatic but all the same it’s still taking a risk in my own life.

So what exactly what is my fear right now as it pertains to my writing and this blog? Let’s start with things I know for sure…

1. I know without a doubt that my life moving forward will include writing. I know this because it fills me up inside like no breath of air ever has.

2. I know that I want to connect with people and share stories and help people see themselves through those stories.

3. I want to write a book.

These things I know for sure and yet what is preventing me from moving forward is the same thing I was afraid of when I had to take Public Speaking 101. The judgement. When I hard-boiled down every excuse to its core and uncovered the fear hiding behind it, I always came to the same conclusion… I am afraid of being judged.

I’m afraid of exposing the tender underbelly of my thoughts and talent (or lack thereof) and having the various people in my life judging it harshly– or worse, not judging it at all.  I’m afraid that I’ll find out I have less to say than I thought and I’m afraid that no one will care either way. Over the past weeks as I have been contemplating my fear several inspirational quotes have appeared in my life without having sought them out. Two that have stuck with me are:

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.” ~Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech, June 12th, 2005.

and my personal favorite…

“Critics are eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done everyday, but they’re unable to do it themselves.” ~Brendan Behan, Irish Poet

Of all the things I know and of the things I am afraid of; if I am to stay true to myself and my policy on fear, there is only one answer. I must do this and today’s the day. When I wrote the first draft on this entry it was 3:20pm, October 12th, 2011. How long will did it take?

Today October 31st, 2011* I pressed the blue and white button to the right of my screen that says, “Publish.” It’s done and in spite of my fear and excuses and blame, I’m going to keep pressing that button because being “Published” is my ultimate goal right now and each time I can press that button, I’m one step closer to making that dream come true.

*It was merely a coincidence that I published this blog on Halloween and the topic is fear? But as I’ve come to believe, everything happens for a reason.