The Anti-Affirmation

Written by Tabby Biddle, Founder of Lotus Blossom Style

I have heard it said over and over in the personal growth world that in order to reach your potential, you must “embrace your dark side,” or “shadow.” What the heck does this mean? I thought for years. What dark side?

Little by little I would step a toe into what I thought was my “dark side,” but I was navigating through uncharted territory and I would inevitably turn back.

Instead, I found my way to positive affirmations through the wise women teachers Louise Hay, Anodea Judith and Caroline Myss. This seemed like a gentler approach to waking my potential. I liked the idea of overriding old programming that said, “You can’t do it,” “You’re not good enough,” and “You’re just a girl,” with “I can do it!” “I am good enough,” and “I am proud to be a girl!” This all seemed liked a worthy pursuit and revealed hints of working, but I have to admit never felt like I was getting down to the root of things.

Then more recently I heard someone say, “If you want to manifest your full potential you have to reclaim the parts of yourself that you’ve denied, hidden or given away to others.” Could they be referring to our “shadow” I wondered?

The person who said this was Debbie Ford, author, teacher and faculty at the Chopra Center in La Jolla, California. “We might not like all of our disowned parts, but acknowledging them to ourselves (and maybe even others) is a huge step toward owning our potential,” she says.

But how do we figure out what are the disowned parts of ourselves?

One method, according to Debbie, is to first look at all the qualities that upset you in other people. The idea here is that what we dislike in others is actually a projection of the parts of ourselves that we have disowned.

I thought to myself…how many times have I called someone (in my mind) – lame, boring, phony, annoying, overbearing, stingy, greedy, manipulative, mean – and a whole host of other “undesirable” adjectives? Was I actually pointing a finger at myself?

Yikes!

“If we embrace it internally, we no longer have to create it externally.”
– Debbie Ford

Although skeptical at first about owning things for myself that I did not like about other people, I decided to consider Ms. Ford’s idea.

Here’s a method she uses in her seminars:

She asks participants to write down five words that they wouldn’t want used to describe them in the newspaper. Once they’ve got these words, she has them partner up for a mirroring exercise that looks like this: Say one of your charged words was “shameful,” you would look your partner in the eyes and say, “I am shameful.” Your partner would mirror back to you, “You are shameful.” Then you would repeat, “I am shameful,” and your partner would repeat, “You are shameful.” This continues until it no longer matters to you if you are shameful or if you are called shameful. You work with your partner until each one of you no longer has any emotional charge on any of your five “disowned” words. Wow, could this really work?

Having been a part of the affirmation generation, I wondered if by going around saying, “I am shameful,” — would actually be a wiring recipe for negative self-imaging and quite the opposite of helping someone expand into their potential.

Apparently not, according to Debbie, “Just saying the word out loud, over and over, breaks down our resistance to being called that word and to having that quality.” In other words, it loses its energy and grip on our life.

I haven’t taken one of her seminars yet, but I went ahead and tried another method she suggested. You can do it on your own. The old stand-by…go to the mirror and say the words to yourself out loud. I did just that and while unsure at the start, I was surprised to feel the words lose their charge and felt a sense of liberation!

What are five things you wouldn’t want to see written about you in the newspaper? Are you willing to own them? (Or at least look in the mirror and say them over and over?)

Pleasure or Pain: take your pick

As a Buddhist practitioner you learn that lust, greed and desire are negative qualities – hindrances on the path to enlightenment and in some texts, even evil. You learn that sensual pleasures are better left renounced and the body just a vehicle to be trained and overcome.

It was 12 years ago when I embarked on my Buddhist journey — sitting for 10-day silent meditation retreats at Wat Suan Mokkh in Thailand, sleeping on cement slabs and reciting a Buddhist prayer before my scant meals to remind me that I was not eating the food in front of me for pleasure. It was on these retreats that I learned that lust, greed and desire were qualities to be abandoned. Being the experiential learner that I am, I decided to have a go at releasing these “evils” from my life. And with that, unknowingly, I also released some integral parts of myself.

I remember that upon returning from my Asian expedition friends commented on how peaceful I seemed. I felt peaceful. I felt relaxed. I felt like something inside me had shifted for the better. One close friend however said to me, “I miss your drive.” I didn’t know what to make of that statement at the time, but more recently I have found some meaning in those words.

There is a woman in New York City named Regena Thomasaeur who runs something called “Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts.” Regena, otherwise known as ‘Mama Gena,’ is all about women naming and claiming their desires to live their fullest potential. She gives women permission to feel greedy, lustful and desirous. She believes that women are taught how to study hard, work hard and deprive themselves – but who is teaching them about pleasure? She is! To her, pleasure is the key to a woman recognizing her own power and her full-throttle life force.

Recently I read a statement by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung: “I would rather be whole than good.” His premise was that the “dark side” of human nature needed to be integrated with the “lighter sides” into an overarching wholeness for full self-realization. Unfortunately I didn’t have this to reflect on at the time I was pursuing my Buddhist studies.

The Buddhist teachings initiated me on the spiritual path years ago, but it hasn’t been until recently that I have taken a closer look at the depth of how those teachings affected me. In Buddhism one is advised to release desirous attachments to eliminate pain and suffering in one’s life, however could it be that denying aspects of your very human self causes its own kind of pain?

I cannot discount the wonderful things that Buddhist meditation has brought me – like sitting quietly, watching my thoughts, breathing deeply and finding the space and peace between the thoughts. I cannot deny the growth I have experienced in terms of developing gratitude and compassion at a much greater level than before my days with Buddhism. And I don’t know of any other experience that has given me the depth and eternity of spaciousness that I experienced in my meditations in those days of silence. However I wonder today if I walked away from those retreats abandoning a key element of myself – my desire.

“In order to take a rightful seat at the head of the banquet table of our lives, we have to accept the rightness of our feelings and desires and act on them strongly, always,” says Mama Gena.

For someone who has followed (for the most part) a Buddhist philosophy for over a decade, and has trained herself to give up indulgence to live the Buddhist ‘Middle Way,’ this kind of suggestion could seem grossly out of the question. However for someone who is also committed to discovering one’s power and potential as a woman — Mama Gena’s philosophy seems like a worthy subject to investigate and definitely a fun one!

So I wonder — as a woman, could the power of pleasure be the key that unlocks the way to our potential? And could a healthy dose of greed, lust and desire actually be beneficial to our personal fulfillment and path toward wholeness?

Maybe pleasure is one alternate path to enlightenment?

Women Bullies

Many of us are familiar with teen bullying. If you didn’t see Mean Girls with Lindsay Lohan, you probably heard about it. Girls being mean to girls – backstabbing, back-talking and sabotaging. Pretty depressing, but pretty true. Where does this come from and does it go away as we get older or actually get worse?

I had my own experience of girl bullying in the 6th grade. I had recently broken up with a boy in my class who I had “gone out with” for a few weeks. One day an 8th grade girl who wore lots of dark eye-make up and was a lot bigger, older, and tougher than I came up to me in the school hallway with a very nasty look and said, “I call you out.” For those unfamiliar with the term it means, “Let’s fight.” I was stunned. Why me? She snarled, “You broke up with my best friend’s little brother. He’s like a little brother to me. You just don’t do that.”

Since then I’ve encountered off and on the wrath of other female bullies. Most recently, in a place I would have never imagined…on the phone with a wedding dress designer! I envisioned that looking for a wedding dress was going to be an experience of delight and feminine ooohhing and ahhhing. Instead, when I told the designer what I wanted, I got a surprisingly hostile response: “Strapless dresses are for girls. Why don’t you grow up and be a woman! Do you want to be pulling up your dress the whole night? Do you want to be all cinched up like a girl?!” While she may have had a couple of valid points, her delivery was aggressive and extremely unprofessional. I felt totally bullied!

So what was going on here? Why would one woman treat another woman like this?

My husband once did a documentary on girl bullies called “Mean Girls: mind games.” Working on this project he learned that there are certain patterns of behavior adopted by girl bullies. They learn what works to hold power over other girls and they typically stick with that behavior throughout their lives.

Some believe that the root cause is that women are taught to fight one another for attention at an early age. “We are competing with our sisters for dad’s attention, or for our brother’s attention,” says Michelle Cirocco, of Televerde, a company based in Phoenix that employs female prison inmates. In her position, she has seen a lot of bullies! “And then we go on in school and we’re competing for our teachers’ attention. We’re competing to be on the sports team or the cheer squad,” she says.

And then what happens after high school?

Let’s look at the workplace…

“Women feel they have to be aggressive to be promoted,” says Laura Steck, president of the Growth and Leadership Center in Sunnyvale, CA. That makes sense when you look at stats that show women make up 51% of our nation’s population, but only 3% of corporate CEOs are women.

Couple this with the recent research that shows women must work twice as hard as men in the workplace to achieve the same level of recognition and prove that they can lead. It’s no wonder that instead of showcasing each other’s work and abilities, women are competing in a do-or-die way.

So how can we can we break this seemingly endless bully cycle?

I know that whenever I find myself bad-mouthing another woman (or even just thinking it), I realize that in some way I am also bad-mouthing myself. I am stepping into the vicious cycle of sabotaging not only this other woman, but ALL women.

This is not to say that when a woman is hostile toward me I still don’t have my knee-jerk reaction of, “What a bitch.” However, I find that if I step back and take a moment to get some clarity on why that woman might be acting in that particular way, this usually helps me muster up some compassion and instead of biting back, I step outside of the game. Instead of meeting hostility with hostility, I actually open my heart to them. I start to see that their pain is some of my own pain.

This isn’t exactly what happened in the 6th grade, but had that older girl and I both understood our connection with one another, perhaps it could have.

India, What the Heck?

As countries like India and China rise in their global status and economic power, I wonder if the increased visibility will force them to clean up their act and see that their children are protected.

This headline last week was a harsh reminder of what goes on…

“The father of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali, 9, is accused of trying to sell his daughter for $300,000 to a sheik.”

Although I read this in a Hollywood gossip magazine — and many might question the accuracy of the reporting — I did appreciate that a pop magazine brought attention to the fact that the selling of daughters is not an uncommon practice in India.

Girls are trafficked in India for sexual exploitation, domestic labor, drug peddling, begging, adoption and marriage. Some say the price of the girl depends on the color of her eyes and her skin, and a virgin girl goes for a lot higher price. It can seem like a world away, but for some, it is quite close.

Last weekend in the New York Times Magazine column The Ethicist a reader submitted a query about whether he should give money, food or neither to the beggar children in India on his upcoming trip. The reader was concerned that exploitative adults might take the money.

If you saw the film Slumdog Millionaire then you probably remember the child trafficker who tricked the children into thinking they were going to get a promotion. When they arrived for their good news, the surprise turned out to be a cupful of acid poured into the child’s eyes to purposefully blind him or her to make their begging more poignant and profitable.

Records show that maiming a child is just another scam put on by these child overlords to get more money into their pockets.

I have seen these children. They have come up to me with their white milky eyes on the streets of Delhi and have knocked their stumps on my taxi window as I sat devastated staring back at them. It is all quite tragic to think about.

So why am I writing and telling about all of these horrifying things?

I write about this because I feel that the more it is reported and the more we talk about it, the more accountable the countries responsible for it become.

I am by no means saying that our own country, the US, is a grand model for human rights. I’m not wagging my finger. But in my opinion there is a level of global inhumanity that has been going on for far too long and perhaps we have reached a tipping point.

Admittedly, I may just be naïve to think that talking about issues can solve them. But in my heart of hearts I do believe this. With transparency, comes accountability, comes responsibility, comes change.

Your thoughts?

Nature-Deficit Disorder

Yesterday was Earth Day. My email Inbox was packed with announcements, newsletters and events all in honor of this day. I didn’t attend any particular event, but I did go out for my daily walk in my Santa Monica neighborhood and soaked in the beauty of the flowers, the warm breeze and the revitalizing sunshine. Nature, big or small, has always been an elixir for me.

Last weekend in the New York Times Magazine I read an article that said even a limited dose of nature, such as looking to the outside world from your window is good for your health. It’s reported that hospital patients heal more quickly and prisoners get sick less often. Mama Nature = healthier, happier people. Could be common sense, right?

I have to admit that after seven years of living in New York City I was beginning to feel like one of those prisoners or hospital patients aching for sunlight and earth connection. I sought out every possibility the city had to offer a nature junkie…walks, runs and lazy days in Central Park, biking and blading along the Hudson River, sitting on park benches listening to the birds, stopping in flower shops just to stare at their miracle beauty – but many times, it wasn’t enough. Too much concrete and not enough green.

The alternative to starving my soul of Mother Earth magic was to take the train from Grand Central up to Cold Spring and spend the day in the woods. It was incredible how just one afternoon on a hiking trail could bring back my physical and mental health for weeks at a time. I read recently that a growing body of scientific research suggests children who are given early and ongoing positive exposure to nature thrive in intellectual, spiritual and physical ways that their “shut-in” peers do not. My experience would second that.

So now here we are at a time in our history where our technological advancements have taught us how to exploit our earth’s resources at a rate higher than she can sustain. It is no secret that we are in peril of soon exhausting our natural resources. It should seem obvious, but I think we sometimes forget…our earth is fundamental to our existence. How long can we go on without a real, honest return to a diligent respect of Mother Nature?

The events, activities and enthusiasm from yesterday are encouraging. Take for example Omega Institute’s Center for Sustainable Living. They are working toward being a leader in sustainability education and a model for the Living Building Challenge. Yesterday, volunteers were busy planting 8000 plants to create what Omega called the “Eco-Machine.” This is a constructive wetland that will reclaim and purify the wastewater that is generated at the Institute campus which sees 20,000 people come through its doors annually. “It’s not just about compact fluorescent lightbulbs…,but looking at what are the systems and the ways of engineering that are available to us now so that we can move to a higher level of sustainability, one that is truly balanced with the natural environment,” says Skip Backus, Executive Director at Omega.

Instead of inventing new man-made technology, sounds like it’s time to invent new ways to use our earth’s au natural technology.

Omega and many other individuals and groups did incredible and commendable work across our nation yesterday. In addition to that great value, I think the most potent lesson is a reminder of our interconnectedness. Already we see this everyday through the Internet, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – but now it feels like it’s time to translate this to a wider scale.

I like what the Buddhists say, “There is no environment that is ‘out there’ separate than us; we are the environment.”

I think this statement is key. I wonder if we took on this perspective we would not only heal our split with nature, but heal our split with a number of other things.

Your thoughts?

Reinterpreting Eve

Not too far in the past, if a woman was assertive, demanding and purposeful, she was considered a controlling bitch. On the other hand, if a woman complained about her lack of opportunity and played victim, she was considered an annoying whiner. Today, many women are looking to each other for clues as to what it truly means to be a woman.

One of the great perks of being a woman is sharing intimately with other women. I have found over and over, no matter if I am talking with a CEO, an accomplished writer, a five star mom, a longtime healer, a talented artist, … that no matter what their successes, women feel a peculiar sense of self-doubt and inferiority. I have for a long time wondered what this is about.

As someone who studies spirituality and religion, I decided to reflect on our spiritual culture to seek some answers. When focusing on this, I saw that part of the issue could be the many thousands of years we’ve been living in a patriarchal spiritual, social and cultural system. This isn’t a criticism of men by any means, but a pointing out and curiosity about how that system has affected us, both as women and men, from the inside out.

In our culture our greatest spiritual role model, God, is a “he” in imagery and language. “He” is the one we are to please, emulate and be judged by. He is the one we pray to, seek counsel from and look to for solutions. If God is male in imagery and language, wouldn’t it make sense that girls and women who are not “hes” would feel a sense of inferiority, self-doubt and perhaps never feel that they are good enough? If this is the case, I wonder if women and girls deep down inside can ever truly feel worthy.

Let’s look at another part of our spiritual and cultural heritage that may also be contributing to women’s inferiority complex: The story of Adam and Eve. For many of us, we heard this story at a very young age. In my case, I was five. Whether as a child (or adult) we regard the story as myth or truly the creation story, it permeates our culture and has made its way into our unconscious systems. A review…

Woman (Eve) was created out of man (Adam). She was then told by an Almighty man (God) not to pick a forbidden fruit (apple). She picked it (disobedience) – gave it to Adam (unsuspecting innocence) – and from then on was said to have committed the first sin. It was that simple picking (which perhaps was due to pioneering curiosity) that is said to have led to the fall of humanity from paradise and the introduction of evil into the world. Ha!

Assuming Eve as the archetype of woman, woman here is portrayed as undisciplined, disobedient, and a sinner. Looking at it this way, it’s no wonder that women have an underlying sense of blame, shame and in many cases, a fear of questioning male authority. With this story told to us at an early age, it seems like no mystery that as girls and boys we would internalize this.

When reflecting on all of this, my question became – what happened to the time when the Almighty, the Divine, our spiritual leader was in feminine form? What happened to the honoring of our Mother God, Gaia? What happened to the ancient goddess cultures?

According to Maria Gimbutas, world-renowned archeologist, matriarchal and goddess-worshipping cultures existed as far back as 6500 B.C. Aside from the questions of why and how the shift happened away from these cultures and toward our modern-day patriarchy, I think it’s important to look at how we would feel if our spiritual leader were depicted as a woman and referred to as a “she.” Would we feel any different? What is your reaction to even considering this?

I know there is a book called, “When God Was a Woman,” which I have not read yet – but have a feeling it might shed some light on the subject. I also know that some will argue that getting caught up in duality, the feminine and masculine, is not helpful. They will say that God is Absolute and holds no gender or form. My feeling is that all the talk in the world about this, before females ever get a chance to see themselves in the image of the Divine is like skipping from kindergarten to college. We’ve spent the more recent thousands of years seeing our spiritual leader in the image of a male and I think it is going to take more than saying God is Absolute to deconstruct our unconscious belief systems.

Just to make it clear I am not advocating for erasing a male God nor am I advocating for dethroning him with a female. What I am advocating for is a remembrance and honoring of a Mother God, the Divine Feminine, as his divine and uniquely different partner.

As our hierarchies of power are shaking down and interconnection and interrelatedness are shaking wide, perhaps we have an opportunity to redefine how we see ourselves in the world and how we, as women and men, can move forward together as partners creating a world in balance.

Rolling With It…Or Not

I was out rollerblading with my cousin today, like we do every Thursday morning. It is a time for us to catch up, talk about what’s going on in our lives, get some exercise, and drink in the beautiful beachside heaven that we have here in Santa Monica.

The blades I had been wearing up until a few months ago were a pair I had bought in the early 90s back when I lived in Washington, DC. Yes, you remember, when blading was the hot trend. When I mentioned to a friend in Seattle recently that I go blading every week, she responded, “Blading? Do people still do that?” Well, I have for 15 years. But then I also love disco music and Wheaties.

One day this winter I was blading with my cousin — rolling on our wheels, exhilarating in the good fortune of living in such a magnificent place – and my blades suddenly CRACKED. Yes, that’s right. My trusty pair of blades split ride down the sides. No more support. In grand ceremonial style, I released these blades that had been with me for 15 years into the dumpster feeling like I was releasing something much bigger, but not quite able to name it.

It’s four months later and I have been through two new pair of rollerblades and neither of them have worked for me. The first pair dug into my ankles, gave me bruises and cuts. I tried band aids, moleskin, extra thick socks, you name it. I took them back. The store gave me a new pair that feel comfortable on my feet, but don’t have the proper ankle support and the wheels roll at a noticeably slower rate than my beloved 15-year snappy K2 pair. With arch supports slid inside, this latest pair were the ones I was wearing today.

I pulled over to a bench to see if tightening the laces, strap and buckle might help give me more support. As I was cinching down the buckle, I said out loud, “I wonder why my old blades were able to support me so well? I never had all of these problems!” As my cousin and I both speak the same language of Louise Hay and like to look at the deeper meaning underneath outer circumstances, she reminded me that feet represent moving forward. That reminder ignited me to announce, “How funny that my old blades, my old support system, cracked. And ever since then I have been experimenting with different brands of blades and fumbling around with trying to get support!”

It could have been a simple moment, but for me like with most everything else, it resonated with great meaning. I realized that there might be something more to this blade journey than going from A to B. But in thinking so deeply, was I just spinning my wheels?

It is true that I have indeed let go of old ways, old support systems and old beliefs and have been in a place of transition where I have not yet found my center or in blading terms, my stride. My collapsing ankles and slow rolling wheels were, in my mind, material evidence that transitions take time.

What about you — when you see a ladybug does it indicate luck on the way? How about a penny? Prosperity coming? In other words, do you find big meanings in small things?

The Call of the Calling

In this blog I’ve discussed public issues and also personal ones. Today’s blog is a personal one. I have touched on this topic before, but I am finding I need to discuss it again as I’m curious about other people’s experience with it. Here goes…

I have been thinking a lot lately about callings, intuition and where creative ideas come from. Is intuition to be trusted? Can we rely on our gut alone?

As Thomas Edison once observed, creativity is two percent illumination and the rest love and discipline. Although I am a huge believer and user of my own intuition, I am beginning to see Mr. Edison’s point.

Before I started my business, I was a teacher. I had been working in a teaching job that didn’t feel quite right for some time. There was a voice inside of me saying that I needed to leave. It got to a point where I no longer could fight the inner voice. In June 2007 I left the job.

As most of us know it is no easy thing to give up the security of a paycheck, health insurance and a supportive community. On the other hand, it can be even more difficult to suffer with the truth of what you know inside and not act on it.

I felt pretty confident that I was doing the right thing as life had shown me before that if I took a leap of faith by responding to my inner guide I would end up in a good place. However, I was finding it difficult to explain to other people what in the world I was doing with my life. As those who have gone through this know, there is usually a window of time where there is a ton of unknown. Even though I am someone who is dedicated to personal growth and have gone through a lot of transitions, this mystery stage doesn’t seem get any easier to explain. Especially when I had NO idea of what was next.

And then comes that one day or one moment when the spirit moves through you and you have that incredible “aha” moment that you never could have imagined because your brain would have never put that possibility together on its own. Usually, at least in my experience, these callings are not very rational, and in many cases, seem out of left field.

The one that came to me on that July day qualified as out of left field. Start a clothing line? What? I hadn’t worked in retail since I was 17, never designed a stitch and never wrote “run a clothing business” on my goal list! But when a calling calls, I have always been one to listen and get right on it. As Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, said recently, “Creativity does not always function rationally and can feel downright paranormal.” I think this applies to creating a business too.

For me one of the biggest lessons this time around has been about coupling intuition with good old-fashioned hard work, consistency and follow-through just like Edison suggested.

I am curious to know how does intuition play a part in your life? And how is it for you explaining an intuitive choice to someone who may not think that way?

Seeking Clarity

photo by Lee Schneider

Last week as I went to wash my face before bedtime, I noticed that my right eye was bloodshot. Tired? Maybe. Too much computer time? Probably. But, I looked a little more closely and saw that along with the red, I also had a little white dot on the white part (sclera) of my eye. It looked like a pimple! This is something I had never seen or experienced before. I tried not to freak out, and immediately thought that it must be from the stress I was experiencing lately. A bit disturbed by this hopefully harmless growth in my eye, I decided I would wait until morning to see if there were any changes and if I needed to do anything.

I awoke to find the bloodshot and dot still there. My husband suggested that I call our doctor. In the past I have waited to call a doctor. I usually think that whatever I have will pass and that it’s best to let things run their natural course. Additionally, I would rather avoid the unplanned expenditure.

As I wrestled with what to do, it dawned on me that in my meditations over the past few days, I had been asking for clarity. Clarity with a capital C. I was asking for the ability to see my purpose clearly so that I could take my next steps forward. It occurred to me that with this eye development, my body might be trying to tell me something. But what?

As a yoga teacher and all-around kinesthetic/experiential learner, I have often found that my greatest lessons and insights have come through the wisdom of my body. When I was in my 20s, I had incredible back pain that made it impossible for me to sit for more than 10 minutes at a time. The pain grew so excruciating that I eventually had to leave a desk job (that I actually adored) and many loved ones behind and went on the road to travel. Movement. Ahhhhh…

That single trip completely changed my perspective and outlook on life. It allowed me to move from a fairly small lens where I saw mostly what was right in front of me, to viewing with a much grander perspective where I started to glimpse not only the global, but the interconnectivity of all life. A pretty big shift that my soul must have been calling for because as soon as I stepped foot on the airplane to head out on my journey, my back pain dissipated and I have not experienced anything like it ever since!

So I wonder with my eye condition… Am I being asked to reflect even more deeply than I already am about what I am not seeing? Must I somehow identify my blind spot? Is that possible? One friend thought I may be cleansing out things, metaphorically speaking, that are keeping me from seeing clearly. Like a purification.

Eventually I did go to the doctor and found out that there is a real name (which I can’t spell, pronounce or even remember right now) to what I have and there are special drops for me to take to get rid of it. With a couple days of drops in me, my eye is clearing and I have been breaking through incredible ground in areas that I have been avoiding for months. In some cases, years. While I still may have a little ways to go, my eyes are clearing physically and it feels to me, symbolically.

When you get symptoms of any kind, do you ever wonder if there is anything that may lie beneath the symptoms? Do you ever let them be a door to open you to something bigger?

Leap Before You Look

In our American culture it has been taught for a long time that the important things are outside of us…that we are meant to compete, achieve and bring home more goodies than our neighbor. This outlook on living has been going on for so long that it has actually become considered a bold and daring move to ask ourselves how we feel and what we truly need. With things unraveling as they are, it might be time to try something different.

Most of us waiver between the need for structure and the desire for our life to be exciting, unpredictable and exhilarating. In our culture it seems that most decisions are made from logic…I’m going to make more money at this job, so I will take it; I’m going to…, so I will… But what about decisions that are made based not on the head as director, but on hunches, feeling, and dare I say…intuition?

I have lived my adult life as an intuitive decision-maker. At age 26 I left the perfect job, boyfriend, friends, family and lifestyle to travel through Asia on a hunch. Coming from the background of being a super-planner, type A personality, competitive and Miss Calendar Girl who had her datebook filled to the gills with activities for the upcoming six months, I wanted to see what life would be like to live from my gut, live in the moment and make decisions based not on logic, but on intuition. Quite an experiment it was and continues to be!

It seems that as things are changing before us, the fiber of what we knew (or at least thought) American culture to be…there is a lot of questioning about our next steps. Should we try and rebuild what he had? Should we start fresh? Is there some hybrid of what was and what could be?

Battened down and frazzled with our To Do lists, pushed and pulled by the “shoulds” and obsessively trying to be all things to all people, it seems that many of us have abandoned one of our greatest powers and resources…our very own inner-wisdom.

So as we move forward onto this new stage, how will you make decisions? What will guide you? Will you look before you leap or leap before you look?