Thoughts On Life, and How To Change It

2011-11-28T20:45:00.001-06:00

Blogging has taken a brilliant turn for me and I'm now publishing most of my work on a groovy, not so little site called Care2. I hope that you'll visit me over there by clicking here to check out the archives which are growing every week. If you're looking for more information about life coaching visit my website www.SeedsAndWeedsCoaching.com. Thank you!

You and Me

2011-05-17T09:41:00.001-05:00

Subject: Play
Related: Beauty, Home, and Commit

Play (You and Me)
Let us play together
You and Me
For one hundred more years

Let the laughter commit us
You and Me
Every night to sharing tomorrow

Let the music play
You and Me
Will dance like one through the darkness

Let the home remind us
You and Me
That in this love is where we want to be

Let the world be our playground
You and Me
And we'll discover, run, and imagine

Let the beauty inspire us
You and Me
To be in this love with wild creativity

Let us play together
You and me
As if it were only fifteen minutes

Read more about the Sojourn Journaling Challenge here...

Sojourn Journaling: Day One

2011-05-16T12:43:00.000-05:00

Subject: Soul
Related: People, Fix, Beliefs

These three words came up when I rolled the dice today. I played with their order to find the message they held for me, as this is supposed to be about how the three words relate to the subject (Soul today) and my life.

People, Fix, Beliefs - "People, you need to fix your beliefs." No, that's not a message for me. It's not my place to tell people what they need to do. It's none of my business what they believe.

Belief, People, Fix - Yes, I believe people can "fix". That's why I do the work that I do. But, where is the action in that for me?

Fix, People, Beliefs - Again, this is still are not resonating for me. I read it again, waiting for a reaction from my soul. My soul fancies itself a teacher, and my work undeniably creates shifts in people's beliefs about themselves and the world... but, there's something gross here. Reading it again, I find some frustration around the fixing. So, I read them once more... and then again, "Fix, People, Beliefs."

What is that sensation? Oh, yes... resentment. I feel it surging defensively throughout my body, but why? Why am I pissed about the idea of fixing people's beliefs?

I can't fix people if they don't want to be fixed? "Go deeper," I hear.

I can't fix people if they don't believe that they can be fixed? Nothing. I can't fix people if they won't hire me? I am so damn sick of worrying about people hiring me. This can't be where the dice are trying to lead me. What is the freaking problem here? Again, I ask the dice, "Why can't I 'Fix, People, Beliefs'?"

Finally, I see. I can't fix people... because they are not broken. "Remember, this is supposed to be about your soul," the voice inside me whispers.

I can't fix me... because I am not broken.

Relief washes over me. I am not broken. "They" are not broken. We are not broken. This journey is about healing, about returning to the soul, not fixing.

I rotate the dice once more: Fix, Belief, People - Yes, I can fix my beliefs about people. In fact, I just did.

Read more about this Sojourn Journaling Challenge here...

A Message To My Children

2011-05-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

My Children, I have overstepped my bounds.

I have taken responsibility for who you are, when what you needed was for me to take responsibility for who I am.

I thought that if you were a success, that it meant I had succeeded. What I need is to succeed… at being me. I am a woman – a whole person with dreams and passions and a life to live – a woman who is lucky enough to have you for a child, but I am not only a mother.

My life is mine. Your life is yours. I understand that now. Please, forgive me for the confusion the old way has created for all of us. I was mistaken when I convinced us both that your life – your education and ambition and dreams, or at least the desire that must fuel them – were mine to craft.

It is neither my job, nor within my power to make you BE… anything. I am not an artist with clay, molding you to suit my desires. The clay is in your hands. My job as your mother is to enable you, to support you, to guide you, to encourage you. While I take that piece of who I am very, very seriously… your life is not ultimately mine to live.

You, and I, need you to be in charge of you. It is your job to craft you into the person you want to be. You are the artist. Your power, your potential, your life… is in your hands. You must find that fire within, that desire to thrive as the perfectly imperfect person that you were created to be.

Do what must be done to feed your spirit, to keep the fire burning… and I will do the same for me.

2011: The Year of the Weirdly Phenomenal Birthday Wish

2011-05-05T14:09:00.168-05:00

Speaking of Weirdly Phenomenal

On Sunday, May 1, my 36th birthday, The Squidbag wished me a "weirdly phenomenal birthday." In addition to writing "mockery, heady madness, and silver-tongued blasphemies since 2004," he is also clearly the Master of Birthday Wishery.

Weirdly phenomenal.

I couldn't imagine what it meant, or how the relatively calm day that I'd planned for myself would morph into it. Nonetheless, I excitedly accepted his wish, offered a little bring-it-on nod to the sky... and then, I crept around for the next 10 or so hours waiting for something weirdly phenomenal to pop up.

In case you missed it, last year on my birthday, the skies opened up and washed away much of the state of Tennessee. Nobody came to my birthday party because so many roads had become impassable. My kids were trapped at their father's house, 45-minutes away. We had tickets to the Nashville Symphony that night and this happened (massive flooding ruined almost everything) to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. All day I waited, and nothing.

By 9:40 pm, the children were in bed. The wife was in the library on campus (across town) preparing for finals, and I was watching Brothers & Sisters. I sighed a subtly disappointed sigh; it looked for all the world as if my birthday wish was a dud. And then... BOOM! Osama bin Laden was dead.

The most wanted man on the planet, for most of the span of my children's lives, is found and killed on my birthday? Weirdly phenomenal. I felt shocked, ten years of... all that has happened in the last ten years. I sat there, on my couch, paralyzed by the phenomenal news, and then even more so by the weirdly celebratory nature of the posts that began to fill my Facebook newsfeed. I was quite simply overcome by it all and so, I wrote about it.

Now, there is nothing weirdly phenomenal about that at all. That is what I do: first I feel, and then I write. Sometimes I make a mess or two (or 73) in the middle, but feeling and writing are almost always where my experiences begin and end. So, I wrote a piece and posted it on my blog and went to bed.

Sometime during the night, the universe turned its weird and phenomenal gaze on that blog.

By breakfast, that post had more views than almost anything I'd ever written. By the time President and Mrs. Obama were on Oprah Monday afternoon, the post had twice as many views as my previously most read post.

Later that night... I was offered a gig as a once-a-week blogger at Care2.com. (Insert OMG! here.)

My first post, Osama Dead: This Isn't The Way, went live around lunchtime on Tuesday. I have no idea how many of their users are active in the Care2 community, but they have 15.7+ million registered users.

Phenomenal = Something I wrote was published on a website with 15.7+ million registered users.
Phenomenal = They want me to do it again next week, and again the week after that.
Phenomenal = Within 24 hours, that one post had more hits, more shares, and more comments than the collective history of my entire blogging experience. No, I'm not kidding.
Phenomenal = The people liked it (not all of the people - oh my goodness, the commenters... well, that's another post).

So, what about the "weirdly" part of my Weirdly Phenomenal Birthday Wish?

Well, I called my mom to tell her about it - my "big break" as a writer - and spent 20 minutes trying to teach her how to find my fancy article on her three-hour old iPad, and then she said, "That's a good article, Chris... So, do you think that I should have gotten any apps for this thing before I left the Apple store?"

Also, there were middle school track meets and orthodontist appointments to attend, and dinner to cook, as if things were normal! The cats continue to release their winter coat at a freakishly rapid rate. The toilet upstairs won't flush worth a damn. My wife's air conditioning conditions the air beautifully but fails to actually cool down her trusty Volvo. The openings in my coaching calendar were weirdly still there when I woke up this morning. And, much to my surprise... when I checked just now, the balances of our checking accounts are completely unmoved by Care2.com's and their 15.7+ million registered users' exposure to me.

Weirdly phenomenal is perhaps just the fact that all of this is my life... and I love it completely.

This Isn't the Way: Osama bin Laden is Dead

2011-05-01T23:54:00.006-05:00

I love hockey. I hate the fighting.

Okay, that's not completely true. I don't actually mind the fighting all that much. I understand why they do it, my brother taught me about it at the first Nashville Predators game I attended. It's about keeping people in check. If you cross the line with one of my teammates, I'm going to kick your ass. If the energy of the game shifts to the other side, a little physical aggression can allow a team to take it back. I certainly prefer that they don't fight, but I don't lose sleep over it when they do.

What turns my stomach is the people in the stands cheering them on.

I feel the same about the celebration over the murder of Osama bin Laden.

All of this just makes me cry. I understand why we did it. I can even see that he had it coming, in a there-are-always-consequences-for-our actions sort of way. He did some things that caused tremendous amounts of pain here in the United States of America and the same multiplied endlessly in other parts of the world. He needed to be stopped. I'm even grateful he can't hurt people any more.

I love this country. I love this country. I love this country. I do. I deeply love this country.

We just can't celebrate.

When you celebrate murder, some part of your humanity is being oppressed by your fear.

You might as well hold your machine guns high up in the air and praise God, which is what horrified me the most in the post 9/11 news coverage. Same. Same. Same. This entire situation - the war, the oil, the whole response to terrorism - caused far too much damage to relationships, property, and life for us to celebrate.

I am grateful he's dead. We just can't celebrate.

We are not champions. We are murderers of murderers... and many other innocent people, including American soldiers. We've stopped a man who did many awful things but we are not winners.

I will leave you with this:

There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, "This isn’t the way." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Yes, rub your eyes and read it again. I just pulled some Jesus on you, via Martin Luther King, Jr. Yes, I did.

Peace, people. We have to choose it... for ourselves, within ourselves, with ourselves. It is only then that we will be able to bring peace forward into the world.

I AM... Searching For Answers.

2011-04-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

Soon after I met Kristin, she explained that she always knew when something was "for her" because it had a spiral on it. She has a spiral tattoo on her forearm and her home, now our home, was full (tastefully) of spirals - the legs on the tables next to the couch, the silverware, the enormous black spiral on the wall above her/our bed that holds more than a dozen votive candles. I'd been trying to own that exact piece for years.

Leaving no room for confusion, I grabbed a thick purple Sharpie from the sacred Sharpie collection and drew a spiral on the inside of my left wrist. I was for her. Done.

The beginning of us was a strange story - something like single mom of two ever present young children meets and falls immediately in love with her temporary postal worker. I fell in love with her immediately... yes, in the actual post office. Our first two conversations took place over a chest high counter and a surreal volume of packages (I was in charge of shipping for an online auction.), which Kristin lovingly offered to run again when she got to the bottom of the stack to get us another hour or so together.

Emails were exchanged. Another visit to the post office. And still having not spoken a single word to one another outside of the post office, I invited (begged in my head) her to come over after work on Friday. We talked, without eating or drinking or touching, throughout the night and then she left at 8:00 am to go back to work. The children and I took her coffee a few hours later. I was not the hostess with the mostest but she was for me.

On our first proper date, two weeks later, I had that spiral tattooed on my wrist. She got a butterfly with a cross in the middle where a watch face would go to remind her that with patience beautiful things would come.

I told her, "At this moment, we look absolutely insane - our friends and family will be terrified - but in 10 years this will be the most romantic story ever."

At the end of July, it will be four years and frankly, it's already our story is pretty damn charming.

This morning, one of my colleagues posted a great picture on Facebook. It's just a picture of the words "I believe..." written on the palm of somebody's hand. It reminded me of the story of my spiral tattoo. I've been ready for another piece of body art - and my nose pierced - for some time but I'm unsure of what and I'm not really the impulse tattoo kind of girl.

I know that I don't want "I believe..." because I don't need to be reminded of that which I believe in. TI's not something I struggle with. This year, and the couple that came before it, are all about... something else. Something deeper. Something.

All of the searching, discovering, accepting... the empowering of me by me (with support, of course). The coaching. The writing. The learning. The careful making and keeping of commitments to myself, and others. The determined pushing of lines I never even used to have the courage to look at. This has been about finding out what I'm made of and how I can use it to change the world around me.

This is about finding out who... I am.

On Sunday (yes, in my Kundalini Yoga class), we did more "I am..." work. What came up for me was abundant. Each thing that floated up into my mind came with abundant - abundantly loved, abundantly creative, abundantly passionate, abundantly awake, abundantly joyful.

Abundant is certainly an I Am that I can dig and still, I crave more. There are so many parts of myself that are out of alignment. What about abundantly energetic? , abundant confidence? And, have you seen my abundantly abundant?

In truly Christy form, I will use what I've discovered and accepted about who I am. Meanwhile, the search within, the search for who in the heck "I am" continues.

Now... about that tattoo?

Sometimes It Gets Ugly

2011-04-26T10:32:00.000-05:00

WILDFLOWER CONFESSION:

Sometimes I hold back because I'm afraid to fail, until I've exhausted every single other option.

Then, stripped bare and with nothing left to lose... I go for it. I go for the thing that was in my heart all along.

It is then, and only then, that a whole new world opens to me.

No, it doesn't have to be this way. I know that.

But, I love that no matter how ugly it gets, how fearful and paralyzed and closed I become, what lives in my heart - the dreams that the Divine perfectly crafted me to live - never give up on me.

That's where I am on this book. The idea came five years ago, like a bolt of lightening. Since that day, I've studied and processed and shared and welcomed all I could about the concept that I call "The Cups Thing." Perhaps a hundred times, I've tried to write it and still nothing exists that can be put between two covers and called my first book.

Until now.

The time has finally come. The entire foundation for "The Cups Thing" is that all of our answers are within us... and I finally understand what that means. I learned it, as I do most things, the hard way. After years of struggling and fighting and suffering, I threw an epic fit at my Higher Power. I cried. I sobbed. I ranted and raved. And then, I begged for answers about how to do what needs desperately to be done.

I heard, "The Cups Thing says that the answers are within."

I screamed, "Fine... SHOW ME! Show me what's inside of me that I haven't already done. If it's in here, I can't see it. Please... allow me to see what I have within me to offer the world that I haven't already, in order to meet our needs."

I heard, "The Cups Thing."

Again, I cried, "I know what The Cups Things says... I know all about it. It haunts me every single day. I already know that it says that the answers are in here. But, I AM SAYING... I. DON'T. KNOW. THE. ANSWERS!"

"The Cups Thing. The Cups Thing. The Cups Thing. It doesn't tell you where to find your answer. It IS your answer. Share it. It's time."

I can finally see that everything else I've been dreaming of is waiting for this to be delivered and finally, after all of these years, the book is oozing out of me and onto the pages of a leather bound journal. Our passions. Our dreams. That which was written on our bones and lives in our hearts... never gives up on us.

_____
I occasionally post these WILDFLOWER CONFESSIONS on the Wildflower Evolution on Facebook. Visit and click "like" to stay connected... And as always, thank you for sharing the posts that move you. When you do, it spreads my message of self-discovery and self-acceptance and I am grateful.

Do you have a WILDFLOWER CONFESSION? Share it here, anonymously if you prefer...

Walls Fall Down: I Love Being Wrong

2011-04-12T07:29:00.002-05:00

The Gift of Day 15: I was wrong about my body.

My mind is a powerful tool. I've learned a great many things and my student energy is as strong as ever. I love to learn, to research and to reason, to challenge what I believe to be true.

My spirit is strong. I came late to the spirituality game but I'm here now, playing hard, exploring my relationship with The Force and searching for the Divine in me. The mystery of it all holds me and inspires me. Every day, it seems, something new bubbles up into my consciousness and I am in awe of the entire experience of exploring myself and others as the spiritual beings.

My body, until recently, not so much of a champion. I dreamed last night about the literally thousands of physical challenges that I have failed to complete - the workouts that I stopped because I simply COULD NOT DO IT haunt me the most. The extra weight. The physical weakness. In terms of exercise, I have slammed into many a wall and... and walked away.

I always stopped. Always. Every single fucking time I reached a point of breathlessness, I stopped. Every time my muscles would tremble, I stopped. Every time it burned, I stopped. For years, when I hit that wall, I believed I'd done all I had it in me to do. I was fat. I was lazy. I was weak. I couldn't keep going. It didn't feel like giving up. I (seriously and sincerely) thought that it was impossible to continue.

I became afraid of the wall, afraid of that feeling of being trapped over and over again by the reality of my inability to do what was necessary to change my life, to change my body. As I hit the wall, defeated and forced to retreat, my self-loathing and hopelessness where an unbearable weight. Each time, I begged myself to continue but my mind said, no... it's not possible.

I believed it.

I hated the defeat, and eventually, I hated myself for being defeatable. In a move that was both primally protective and completely self-sacrificing, I began to avoid paths there I might happen upon the walls. That's how I got here, plus 60 pounds, and finally sick of it enough of myself to do whatever it took to make a change.

It turns out... I was wrong about my body.

Kundalini yoga, in just a couple of months, has completely transformed my relationship with my body. I started taking class once a week in February and two weeks ago, I started a daily practice at home. I'm doing a 40-Day Sadhana (if you miss a day, begin counting again... period) of the Nabhi Kriya which, if you a moment to glance at it, is a core workout that falls somewhere in between "Unlikely" and "No Way In Hell" on the scale of Christy Can Do This Work Outs.

Note that the times listed are advanced, which my teacher made me promise I would honor before she gave it to me. It seems she's met my quick to self-destruct type before. I started with 1/3 times, except posture #2 which I couldn't do at all on Day 1. By Day 4, I did it for two minutes. On Day 15, I did this:

#1 - 8 minutes

#2 - full time

#3 - full time

#4 - 12 minutes

#5 - full time

#6 - full time

I repeat: Day 15. I can't explain this amount of change in my strength in 15 days. Frankly, I don't believe it's possible to change this much muscle so quickly.

What did change... is my relationship with walls.

Yesterday, even as I was doing this kriya, it felt impossible to my mind. It said that I couldn't do it. I actually heard that I wasn't strong enough inside my head. My mind was trying to convince my body to stop, it was too hard.

I stopped listening to my mind.

I stepped out of myself and watched, like a curious witness, as my body moved with each breath in and out of the postures. One after the next, her... my body did what was asked of it. In class on Sunday, my teacher said that breath is the voice of our soul and that is the voice of a part of me that knows I am far more powerful than I ever understood until now.

I love being wrong about how powerful I am.

I Am Pleased With Myself... Are YOU?

2011-04-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

I was like those young babies who sleep during the day and want to party with their parents all night.

Nine days ago I (finally) started a daily yoga practice. I fell in love with yoga in 1998 when I heard about it for the first time because Oprah was interviewing Madonna. When she spoke of yoga, I knew that was for me. It was years before I actually did yoga, more than a decade before I took my first class, and it wasn't until two months ago when I got serious about it... finally, indeed.

In January, something shifted in me. I was suddenly ready to deal with myself - the extra weight, the habits, and the use of food to numb my fears and anxieties. I was truly sedentary. My body was hijacked by my ego so many years ago that I can't even tell you when it happened. I put the reality of the situation on the virtual table and admitted that it is time to do The Work, just like I do every day with my coaching clients.

I started with my relationship with food, which seemed like a no brainer really... I mean, I love cake (or most any sugary good, which can serve as a cake substitute in its absence). The old dialogue about good and bad foods started right back up, my adult self trying to be all rigid and hysterical with the Little Christys who love the "forbidden" foods. I whipped myself into madness within a few short days, which (in all fairness) was relatively easy because I've spent so much time in that mode in my adult life.

Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to just launch into physical activity. It was like I was trapped in quicksand. Instead, I obsessed about the food until I had a little emotional break down. In that chaos, I realized what a terrible ass I'd been to myself all of these years. You see, I don't eat terribly. Yes, I have some ill-placed romantic thing going on with sugar but it's not like I was eating it all day, every day. And, I am a freaking vegetarian... only a few servings of cheese a week away from being vegan. I haven't had a soda in over six years. I almost never drink alcohol.

The truth is: I am not out of control!

I am lazy.

I don't move my body... honestly, I haven't in years. I want to. Seriously, I want to. Every single day, I wake up thinking that I want to. I long to. I plan to. I dress to... and then I don't. At least that is what I realized when I accepted the invitation to be honest with myself.

More truth: I am not actually lazy. I was stuck... massively stuck in this old pattern and it was going to take some major changes in my mind, body, and spirit to release this weight. So, I got help from a number of people - my life coach, wife, offspring, and even some friends, - and I found a yoga teacher.

Two months ago, I promised that I would get to Kundalini Rising Yoga in Nashville every Sunday for this magical recovery-themed class. If I did nothing else for exercise, that class was going to happen... no matter what. No. Matter. What. For the first couple of weeks, that class was ALL that happened. Then, I went for a hike in the woods across the street once, then again. The next week, I didn't hike but I kept going to yoga. The week after I hiked once. Still, I went to that class.

I began to crave more, so I asked my yoga teacher how to begin to bring some of what I was gaining in that Sunday class to my daily life. She offered me the 11-minute Meditation Into Being. I wanted more. After inquiring about my goals and intentions with the next phase of my journey, she taught me about the Sadhana and invited me to commit to 40 days of Nabhi Kryiya with Breath of Fire and the Meditation Into Being. I was to start with beginner lengths of time, working my way up to the advanced student times.

Today is Day 9. DAY NINE (9) of kicking my own ass... right into the deeply empowered state I've been dreaming of. My body is already changing. The second position, I couldn't even do on Day 1, so I modified it until I could get strong enough. On Day 4, I did it properly for 2 minutes and yes, I thought I might die... but I didn't. On Day 8, I raised the times from 1/3 to 1/2 of the advanced student times (and also learned from my teacher about slight modifications for the first three days of my moon cycle).

Here is the catch: This entire time I've been doing this at the end of the day when the children are tucked safely in their beds and Kristin is upstairs studying. I wanted to do it in the morning, but just couldn't make it happen. I made the promise to myself that I would do this Kriya every day and was going to keep it... NO MATTER WHAT, so I did it at night. Everything in me wanted to be doing it in the morning because:

I'm so much more focused, connected, creative, peaceful, calm, and on and on, after I do yoga and I want to ride that ride all day, not just into Sleepy Land.
Doing it at night is not easy, energy wise, so I worried about it off and on all day. I kept checking in to make sure that I was going to be ready, that I would leave enough time, that I didn't get lazy. I was riding my own ass all day just to make sure I didn't blow it. I'm in the business of eliminating energy drains and I knew I needed to find a way to move this practice into the morning.
Sleep. I can't possibly do yoga until midnight and get up at 6 am. I just can't... and get through the day with enough get up and go to do yoga again until midnight.

I knew I had it backward. Everything in me wanted it switched but I couldn't bring myself to do it in the morning, so I just kept doing the yoga at night. My promise to myself wasn't that I would do it perfectly (morning). My promise was that I would do it every day. So, at the end of day 6 and 7 and 8, when I hadn't done my yoga, it meant doing it at night or breaking the promise... bring on the bedtime yoga for me.

Until today, that is... Day 9! I wasn't doing it when the sun came up (my ultimate goal) but I was doing it by 8:00 am and I finished it before moving on with my day (even though it was incredibly tempting to start taking swings at my to-do list). I did it. I rocked Day 9 and now I can take on this day with the most solid foundation I've ever experienced. I am pleased with myself.

I am so pleased, in fact, that for just a moment, I wished that I could bottle this feeling inside of me and offer it with you... Oh wait! It's already done: www.SeedsAndWeedsCoaching.com. I love it when I use all my coaching magic on myself and it works. It's so good for business.

I Am Me... And I'm Terrified

2011-04-01T08:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote a piece called, "I am gay... and I am terrified."

A few hours after I published it, I talked to a friend who "came out" to me as a victim of domestic violence. She is not gay, but she is leaving and she is absolutely terrified about it. It turns out that her "real me" is all of these things that her husband finds intolerable - strong, creative, social, brave, beautiful, and on and on - and she, like me years ago, is leaving.

This is terrifying in so many familiar ways because... well, there are so many really fine reasons to feel terrified. For example:

Being a single mother, which may very well be the only thing on this planet harder than being a mother.
Being financially responsible for herself and her young children.
Being forced to eventually leave her children alone with a man that she knows doesn't have/isn't capable of having their best interest at heart.
Being alone.
Being rejected by at some part, if not a large part of their shared community - including friends, in-laws, and in some cases even her family.
Being all of the things that for years she said she couldn't be because he was holding her back.
Being all of the things that she will realize she still is, even in his absence.
Being crazy... because that what he's told everyone for years when she tried to leave and didn't, or left and returned, or sent him away and then let him come back. What if he is right?

I could go on and on but we all know how this works, right?

It is terrifying to free some previously imprisoned part of ourselves, to step into something that has always been true, even if we didn't know about it. The door is opened and it feels to good to be a whole person. You are creative. You are strong. You are gay or not. You talk to dead people or not. You are a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Witch, or a New Age Spiritual Woo Woo Master... or not. You are an artist. You are a singer, a vegetarian, or the kind of woman who gives birth in a bathtub at home... or not. You are a million beautiful and wonderful pieces of magic, woven together perfectly... making you exactly what the world needs you to be.

Once we've accepted a piece of our self puzzle and snapped it into place, it may mean that to live in our integrity, things that used to be true for us are simply no longer true. There can be lots of terror in that, in the letting go or at least being willing to let go, of the parts of your life that aren't real.

Terrified? Yes, perhaps... but it doesn't make it any less true.

Maternal Humility: A Breathtaking Blow

2011-04-01T06:12:00.002-05:00

Years ago, in the intensity of my disintegrating marriage, my son was suffering. We all were, but he was showing signs of distress that were... unsettling to me. I took my concerns to a friend who, as a therapist, was able to confirm the seriousness of what I was seeing. She was compassionate, loving, and supportive. She listened to my ideas and offered others that I hadn't considered. And then, she kicked me in the stomach:

Christy, you are a good mom. You can do the things you suggested. You can do the things I suggested. You will do everything you can and while you will make mistakes - we all do - you will do all that you can. And, at the end of the day, when you've done all that you can do, you have to remember that...

He has a Higher Power and it's not you.

My child has a Higher Power and it's not me? Oh fuck...

It took my breath away. I experienced a physical pain, as if she'd come through the phone and literally kicked me in the gut. The silence was as full as my screams has been on the day I gave birth to that child. I was not his Goddess, I was his mother. I wanted to fight her, to explain how it wasn't so, but there was no point. There was nothing in my logical mind that could explain the reality... I'd overstepped my bounds.

I was a control freak and I had overstepped my bounds in no less than a thousand other ways throughout my life, but this was different. This was my son's life. Wasn't I responsible for making sure he matures into a thriving, functioning, happy human being? In some ways, yes... but clearly, I was not alone in the care of this child. His soul came here to live and I'm in charge of some things... but not everything. This wake-up call shook me deeply, rocked the foundation that I'd built my identity upon.

Miraculously, on the other side of the seemingly unbearable pain, beyond this vicious dethronement, I found something even more surprising... an unmistakable sense of peace. The weight of the world, my beautiful son's world, had been lifted.

Motherhood is a job I feel (basically) equipped to do, not perfectly of course, but that's okay. I screw up and I make amends. I make mistakes and then learn from them. I miss the mark and then shoot again, with a more careful aim.

I was destined to fail at being his Higher Power... but I can be his mother. Thank you Holly Hamilton for that mom-bomb. You hit me with the truly priceless gift maternal humility, empowering me to be the best me I can be in that boy's life.

"I am gay... and I am terrified."

2011-03-31T16:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a friend messaged me to say that she'd given someone information about my services:

I gave your info... to one of my dearest friends. She is married and has two kids. She just this morning wrote the words for the first time...'I am gay...and I am terrified.'

And just like that I was naked again, folded up on the elegant tile floor of a walk-in shower that I had designed myself just months before. The remodel was needed, mostly, I think to save our marriage, the way some people have a baby because that will make them something that they suspect they are supposed to be.

Remodeling the outdated space also gave the downstairs a half-bath, evicting the four children and their slew of friends from the bathroom that led directly into our bedroom. It was a major renovation, which turned the biggest bedroom in the house into a true master suite... and when I left, the Master let the children use that bathroom anyway. He had a broken heart and filled it with whoever was around. First, that was me and in my absence, filling that damned shower with the children was a move necessary for his survival.

I understand him because that shower nearly killed me, too. At least, I begged it to on the night in question.

I'd been out with a friend and came home with the truth, MY TRUTH, pulsing through my veins. It wasn't about her, it was me... the real me. I kept the real me locked up in a secret room in my mind and I'd in time, I'd told the friend about my truth, showed her where the real me was being held. She wasn't the first person I showed. In fact, I'd revealed my truth to many and yes, even my husband. He thought it was novel, I believe, and containable because of that nice room I kept her in, but this friend...

She was something of a trouble-maker, a great deal like me, in fact. She clung to truth. She liked the real me better, as did I. As I spoke my truth, she understood. She held a space for the truth, even when I locked the truth back up and returned to suburbia. She knew the truth... even when I turned my back on it to go back to married life.

It was a survival technique. I had to go back to the soccer field, the car rider line... I had to go back to being that man's wife. More and more, I'd found that the door was ajar. My friend simply stood there in the door frame, very calmly, and held the door open. When I asked her to move, so I could close the door, she would gently ask, "Is that what you want me to do?" Every time it was harder to say yes, I grieved a little more, the longing to be me was strong, and lasted longer. When I said no, living my regular life was... unbearable. Abandon me, or abandon the blended paradise I'd built. I was in hell.

The water is hot, perhaps unbearably so... on any other day but my skin feels almost nothing. Every part of me is melting down and through my hysteria, I beg God to change me... or him. Truly desperately, I plead to be changed into the kind of woman who lives like I am trying to live or change him into the kind of man who can let me go. My husband knows me, my truth, and he is unchanged by it. There is no room for her, the real me, here in our marriage. There is also no room for me to leave. It is not an option. He is unwilling for me to go.

My prayers remained... unanswered. My tears fell on deaf ears. He even came in once and put his hand on my head and said, "It will be okay." I sobbed that it wasn't okay, and he left. He was unmoved by my suffering and in that moment I realized that the suffering was optional. My suffering hadn't changed the truth of who I was, and it certainly hadn't changed his willingness to accept it.

Long after the water turned cold, I crawled to our bed a whole woman again. On the cold, hard floor of that shower, I fell in love with my truth. I was a lesbian. And while I was wholly terrified of what would inevitably follow, nothing could take away the peace and love and strength I found in the willingness to live my truth.

A Handful of Glitter, A Gift for the World

2011-03-22T12:37:00.001-05:00

My Kunalini Yoga teacher taught us a guided meditation for inner child healing and I've had a cool experience... thought I'd share. I've asked her to record it to share and she agreed. I will post it when it's available, also I did a google search for "inner child meditation" and found many resources.

_____

I know a woman who journeys deep into the core of her world to commune with the littlegirl she used to be, a girl she left behind because it was too hard to be whole back then.

During this visit, the little girl is four years old and the womanfinds her alone in a room, dancing and painting, and incredibly peaceful. The woman plays for a while, enjoying the young girl's company, learning about endless possibility paint colors and the magic of spirals. The woman tells the girl that she likesit very much here in the room and that she believes the girl might like theplace where she lives, too.

The girldoesn't think so. She explains that she used to go there but it was hard andscary, so she prefers to stay in this room where she and her creativity can be left alone to just play.

This makesthe woman feel sort of sad. She knows how much more complete the other world would feel ifthe girl and her creativity would come along. She asks ifthey can talk about the other world, about why it was hard. The littlegirl tells her all the reasons that living there wasn't nice, why shewas afraid, and how she chose to come live here, in the room deep down inside, because it felt… safe.

"Life inthe other world is hard because I don’t know how to be me out there."

Many years ago, the girl and the woman were one and they lived together in the other world. They looked all around the other world for someone to show what to do with some of her favorite partsof herself and out there, nobody seemed to understand or even care about those parts. Nobody told her it wasokay to be just like that. Nobody seemed to know that the quirky parts of her - like seeing/knowing thingsa kid should not know, a deep love of people of all kinds,relentless optimism, a laugh that is both alarming and contagious, and a voicethat carries – were what made her absolutely perfect... but in the room, those parts of her made sense.

The woman was gentle, understanding, and patient. She taught girl about intuition andpromised her that these things weren't for her to figure out alone. She explainedabout “The Universe” and how it lines up to support people who follow theirheart. She told about angels and how sometimes people who aren't even relatedto you come into your life to help guide you through the things you don'tunderstand how to do alone. She told about how the little girl will always haveeverything she needs to move forward in the sacred journey that isher life. She told her that she was magical and that the world could really useher right now, if she decides she might like to give it a try again.

The little girl cried a little more, some with sadness but mostly with relief, and asked what to do with theheavy feeling on her chest. "I'd like to come visit you, but that pain comes back when I think about going to the other world." It's the thing that makes her stay hidden in thatroom, where she and her creativity can feel happy and secure. The woman said,"When you feel that weight, wrap it up in a big, deep breathe and thenpush that breath out with all your might... like you're blowing a handful ofglitter out to decorate the world."

The Truth Is Enough

2011-03-21T15:48:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we say one thing when the truth is, if we had the courage to say it, enough.

I hate that you treat me like a child.
The truth is... I hate that I sometimes act like a child.

I don't know what I want to do.
The truth is... I am afraid that what I want to do, it will mean that I am someone that I am afraid to be.

I want a divorce because he's an asshole.
The truth is... I want a divorce because I'm a lesbian and even if he were the nicest guy in the world, I can't be married to him.

Yes, we had sex but it didn't mean anything to me.
The truth is... We had sex and I don't respect either of you.

I just received a text message that there is a crisis at work. I've got to go.
The truth is... I just received a text message that a woman I plan to fuck is available. I'm going to go.

He would never do this if it wasn't for her. She changed him.
The truth is... He's the same guy I married and he grew weary of trying to be who I wanted him to be.

The truth is enough. It isn't always easy but it is ALWAYS enough. Doesn't everyone involved deserve to deal with the truth of a situation without the oppressive weight of the lies we tell to make ourselves feel better about the choices we are making?

The truth is enough.

The Invitation: Dig Deeper (Week Two)

2011-03-17T15:09:00.002-05:00

Lesson Two: Dig deeper.

When we are in conflict, either within ourselves or with another, it helps to return what I call our power position, which is to clarify for ourselves, "What I really need in this situation is..."

It is easy for a conversation to get out of hand, one person reacting to another, and then that person reacting in reaction. It's a predictable cycle with a toxic nature, which almost always declines in quality as it progresses. Around and around the exchange goes, the participants speaking more loudly, carelessly, and sometimes viciously with each new level. It's equally toxic when the battle takes place between different parts of one's self.

Our power position is to return to our own needs and desires in every situation. If I can step back, take a deep breath, and check in to see what I actually need or want, then I knew what is driving me. I can get back to what I am trying to get here. If the conflict is with someone else, then I am in a position to state clearly what I am asking of them. And, honestly... isn't that the greatest gift anyone could ever give us? Just tell me what you want from me! Give me a chance to say, "Yes, I can do that." or "No, that won't work for me." or if you're really lucky, "No, that won't work for me, but what about this...?" Everything is more clear, more straightforward, more manageable, if we know what we need.

If you know what you need... You have to know what you really need.

The stuff I wrote leading up to this may or may not be clear. In the spirit of full disclosure... I can't even tell. When I read Chapter Two: The Longing for this week's book study, something profoundly unexpected happened and frankly, it's boggled my mind. It left me in something of a tailspin and I am not really sure what will be required of me to pull back out. As promised (by me, ironically), "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer has rocked my world and I'm not sure what to do with that.

Part of me wants to burn the book in my back yard, delete all references to it on my blog... perhaps just the delete the entire blog. I don't know. It wants to cancel the conference call line where I host the book study for two and pretend none of this ever happened.

Another part wants to stay, keep reading, doing the meditations, talking about what's churning inside me. Part of me wants to see what happens if I accept the invitation and actually show up to the party. That part is decidedly more brave that the first, I believe we call them my True Self and my Ego, respectively.

Nine pages and a meditation... that's all there is to Chapter Two but it rocked my world. It begins with this:

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for,

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

She exposes The Longing with such transparency, such vulnerability, that my own longing roared up to meet her on the path... all of it far too familiar to ignore. She speaks of our longing for passion, companionship, peace, truth, respect, and even to be connected - to one another, to everything, to the thing some call Spirit or God or The Universe.

My longing for purpose, for my life to matter, bubbled up and ached with all of the rest of it in my chest. It haunts me, that one, the longing that people continue to remind me should be met many times over. I've coached many, written extensively, used my gifts to support many people in the last couple of years. Still, I'm haunted by the absence of "enough" success, haunted by the longing to do more... it is powerful and I am with this longing, I realized today, almost constantly.

I turned to the meditation, enjoying the feeling of all that I long for awake. I felt eager to explore, to find answers. I wanted to open the door to more... and that's where it fell apart. She doesn't want to know what we long for... she wants to know what lives below that, what we really long for. She prompts, "I want...," I need...," "I desire...," and with a amateurish sense of relief, I offered the thing I've believed was driving me for the entire two years that I've been struggling to grow this business.

I want to make a difference in the world.

I need to find a way that I can show up and use my gifts to help people change their lives.

I desire more clients, more visibility, more opportunities to do the thing I was created to do.

She then prompts us to, "Pause and come back to your breath... looking at what you have written, read the items out loud, one at a time, saying, 'It doesn't interest me if I ever have... What I really want is...'"

Security.

What I really want is security... Damn.

I'm still not sure what to do with that, although it was instantly clear that for the first time in a long, long time that I must at least consider looking for a job working for someone else. I was stunned. I am still stunned. And, also profoundly relieved to uncover the true source of the weight I've been wearing on my chest for the last two years. I'm not desperate to change the world, although I am certainly still eager and willing to do so if there is a place for me. I certainly hope that this thing I feel so compelled to do, to teach people how to live more peacefully and powerfully, can provide the financial security that is part of what I recognize my longing for. I'm desperate to feel secure and my job is to find a way to meet that need.

Sometimes you have to dig deeper to find the truth... and then you have to figure out what to do with it.

_____

Unlike last week, I didn't come with a list of questions for us to discuss, in part because the content was different than last week and in part because I was rattled. Instead I offered quotes that spoke to me and we discussed them, and she (the one who joined me two weeks in a row, bringing profound validation to my claim that this is a book study and not just me reading a book) did the same. It was marvelous. I will not post all of the quotes here but will post them one at a time on the WildflowerEvolution page on Facebook for those who are reading along and want to join the discussion.

Lastly, these experiences are more effective if you can find a way to live them daily as opposed to one call a week. We both agreed to visit the meditation for this chapter throughout the week. Because it is a different kind of meditation, we decided to go through the 9 Environments of our lives using the same technique offered in the book. Some days, obviously, will require more than one environment to get ready for Chapter Three on Monday.

If you'd like to join us the next conversation, here are the details:

Current Book:

"The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (Click here to order it from Amazon.com)

Weekly Live Conversation:

Monday, March 21st with Chapter Three at 6:00 PM Central (7:00 Eastern, 5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific)
Dial-in Number: 605-477-3000, access code 259603#
Back-up Number: 559-546-1400 (you will then be prompted to enter the info above)

Facebook Conversation:

Visit and "like" the Facebook Page for the Wildflower Evolution to participate. Topics will be posted there and your participation in that dialogue will be celebrated!

Other Information:

More People = More Change. Please share this invitation.
Participate in whatever way feels true for you (just the calls, or just Facebook).
If you can't make a call, no worries, read anyway and come back the next week.

The Invitation: It Takes Two (Week One)

2011-03-14T10:29:00.000-05:00

Lesson One: It takes two to make a book study.

I have this dream of being a major player in the peaceful transformation of the world. I want to alleviate massive amounts of suffering with my time here on Planet Earth. I truly do. I used to be coy about it, worrying that it was narcissistic to declare myself capable of something so important... so life-changing. I've come to understand that my insecurity was quite simply ego-driven, fear-filed, screwing around... and I don't have time for that anymore. Frankly, I'm not sure that any of us do.

I've been trying to write this update about last week's book study since last Monday night... yes, an entire week. I wrote and wrote and wrote, but still didn't get to the part where I tell about the call I hosted to discuss Chapter One of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's "The Invitation". Instead I wrote a rough draft of a series of blog posts called "Marketing Madness" that address what I've seen and learned about marketing a business like mine. It's good, but it is not about the book study.

All of that stuff is coming up because this virtual book study is the first thing that I've attempted to launch in the last year and a half, since I found myself on the brink of madness from trying (and failing) to market Seeds and Weeds Coaching. Here's the short version: Prior to the marketing freeze, I created and promoted several classes and programs - both in person and virtual - at a variety of price ranges. Not one person showed up... ever. My free meetup group, once with a dozen or so at each meeting, even crumbled.

So, I just stopped everything. I decided to focus all of my energy on my one on one coaching and let go of the rest until I felt compelled (as opposed to driven by the fear of financial devastation and homelessness) to add something else. Eventually, I started blogging again. Some time after that, I started sending my newsletter again. People kept saying that I should offer a class, I should offer a free call, I should... but I refused. I wasn't hearing from my community that they had a need for me to do that. I said, "I'm not coming out until someone else comes and asks me to teach. That is the only way I will know when it's time." It was a stubborn line, but I'd drawn in out of desperation. Staying sane was critical to my survival.

Then, a little yoga studio in Sparta, Tennessee, asked me to do a series of workshops on how to change your life and I agreed. It was a small group, but their enthusiasm and openness inspired me and touched my heart. This went on for some time, but eventually attendance started to dwindle. I didn't take it personally (which by itself is quite empowering, I've discovered). I simply assumed there was no longer a need and returned to an idle mode, again waiting for further instructions.

In January, I recognized a desire (an intuitive urging) to host a virtual book study. A few weeks later, during a coaching call, a client brought up Oriah's books and I knew that "the Invitation" was the right book to begin with. Books are a powerful way to change your life and I was thrilled to share some of them with the world. I started promoting the book study and the response was small, but solid... 22 people committed. I was so excited. That was a bit of a a false start, but I got myself back in alignment and launched again last Monday evening with a conversation about Chapter One.

One person showed up.

It turns out... one person is the difference between me reading a book and me hosting a book study. One person is all it takes to go from failure to success. One person! It helps that the one person was completely freaking awesome. She was totally awake and into personal evolution, and she loves the book. We had a wonderful conversation about Chapter One and I can't wait for tonight's conversation!

Here's what we discussed:

1.) What is going on in your life that compelled you to say yes to "The Invitation"?

2.) What did you find in Chapter One that resonated deeply for you?

3.) In Chapter One, Oriah offers us three promises that are also warnings. For each one, how do you feel about that? Which one alarms you the most?

4.) Oriah ends the first chapter by telling us about the experience that she had that prompted her to write "The Invitation"... Is that experience familiar to you?

5.) I find that it is helpful to set an intention at the beginning of a process like this. What would you like to find/get out of/cultivate through the experience of this book study? At the end of this, how would you like to be different? What would you like to have learned about yourself or changed or let go of?

Lastly, these experiences are more effective if you can find a way to live them daily as opposed to one call a week. I offered my intention to do the meditation at the end of the chapter every evening throughout the week. "One Who Makes It A Book Study" agreed to do the same. That would be 100% participation, which is remarkable, I think!

If you'd like to join the conversation tonight, here are the details:

Current Book:

"The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (Click here to order it from Amazon.com)

Weekly Live Conversation:

Monday, March 14th with Chapter Two at 6:00 PM Central (7:00 Eastern, 5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific)
Dial-in Number: 605-477-3000, access code 259603#
Back-up Number: 559-546-1400 (you will then be prompted to enter the info above)

Facebook Conversation:

Visit and "like" the Facebook Page for the Wildflower Evolution to participate. Topics will be posted there and your participation in that dialogue will be celebrated!

Other Information:

More People = More Change. Please share this invitation.
Participate in whatever way feels true for you (just the calls, or just Facebook).
If you can't make a call, no worries, read anyway and come back the next week.

The Power of Words

2011-03-11T08:47:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning with the word POWER rolling around in my mind. POWER. POWER. POWER...

www.SpiralWishingWells.com

Power and her friends - like empower, empowerment, powerful, girl power - were like quarters spinning into one of those fancy funnel wishing well things that elicit donations from my charming children every time we stumble upon one at a zoo, museum, or shopping mall.

There used to be this awesome billboard here in Nashville, I believe it was for a bank. It had a black background with white writing that said, "emPOWERment" and the word POWER was in red. I LOVED that sign. Seriously, my heart soared every single time I pulled through that curve into downtown. The word power and all that flows from it have always held for me...an almost magnetic attraction.

In the last couple of years, I've awakened to the magic of language... not just ours but all the words that people on this planet use to communicate. It's stunning really, something I took for granted for many years. Often, when I'm writing I stop to research if the word that I've chosen actually means the thing I'm trying to say. Dictionary.com offers dozens of definitions for the word power, here are a few of my favorites:

abilityto do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.
greator marked ability to do or act; strength; might; force.
a deity; divinity: the heavenly powers.
an order of angels.
workdone or energy transferred per unit of time.

Synonyms include capacity and energy, and it recommend that we "See strength"... indeed. Of course, antonyms help too: incapacity and weakness. Yes, I want to be the opposite of that. POWER is my, forgive me, power word. I was once a profoundly powerless woman and now...

I am power.

What about you? What's your word? I am...

Pause

2011-03-08T12:05:00.000-06:00

In the stillness I pause
To connect to the Divine
Love that pulses within me

In each breath I feel
My fearful old ways
Returning to the Source

In this moment I hear
The truth echo in the
Silence of the sunrise

In my soul I find
Seeds of all that I
Dream of being

In sacred tradition I offer
All that I am to the Earth to
Cleanse that which causes suffering

In the stillness I am
Completely loved and loving
Perfection is restored

In a new beginning I agree
To surrender to the magically
Wild woman I was created to be

_____
This is exactly the third poem I've written in my life, the other two came ten years ago. This one came during meditation today... and I thought I would put it here because I've been hearing about how creativity connects us to ourselves, one another, and the world.

What in the World is "Personal Evolution"? My Story (Part Two)

2011-03-08T07:11:00.004-06:00

If you missed Part One... it's here.

There are many, many closets people hide in. I don't think we get in them on purpose. These pieces of our identity - my sexual orientation for example - are like seeds buried deep below the surface of our awareness, parts that often go unrecognized in the early years of life.

It seems that at some point, many moons ago, my life came to a critical fork in the road called puberty. As I made the journey, with my parent's behind the wheel, I was to stop at the intersection to assess which direction felt right for me, gay or straight. Well, nobody gave me a freaking map and I certainly never saw any of the many, many signs indicating that a moment of personal exploration was necessary because I was all wrapped up in my Nancy Drew mystery in the backseat. My parents - either not wanting to bother me, or themselves, with the educational/self-discovery/awareness-raising opportunity - simply averted their eyes from the possibility that I might be called to take the less traveled route, and continued to our destination... Christy's Adult Life.

Once past the intersection, assumed to be a heterosexual young woman, I continued on the journey of my life and nothing fit. Nothing... seriously, nothing. Nothing made sense. Nothing went well. Nothing worked. From that moment forward, I can see with my 20/20 hindsight that the assumption about my sexual orientation had me exploring the world from a path that was not true for me. I didn't belong there. I did not recognize myself - in terms of security or peacefulness or sanity for that matter - in any of the experiences I encountered.

The road I was on, all winding and rough, would carry me within a block or two of my true path every once in a while. I can recall every single time that I looked up and saw something familiar across the way:

-When I met my first husband's two moms. He always just called them Mom and Judy, eventually I asked if they were "together," and he slowly explained that they were, always had been but never really talked about it. They were just Mom and Judy. It just was what it was. They seemed so normal to me. I loved that they were together. It made me sad that they weren't what I later learned was called being out of the closet. Mostly, they just acted like best friends. It looked like home. I didn't understand what that meant.

-When his sister came out. I was so interested about how she'd never realized she was gay, that I asked her at Thanksgiving, "So, tell me how one goes from dating men her whole life to being in love with a woman..." She told me the whole story. Again, I was deeply moved. I thought it was beautiful story, this girl falls in love with her best friend thing. Again, it looked like home and still, no recognition on my part what that meant.

I was too far down the straight road to conceive that what I was seeing in the distance was the path I was "supposed" to be on. Seriously, it never occurred to me. Many times I had experiences like this, where I saw what looked so familiar, so right, that it became a source of near obsession for me. I wondered how she knew, what being a lesbian felt like, all of it. I could feel the normalcy of it and over time I become a bit of an advocate, standing up for gay rights in conversations, trying to raise awareness about how normal it all was.

Still not questioning my journey on the straight road, I was truly thrilled for Ellen Degeneres when she and her character on tv came out of the closet. I was crushed by the way she was treated and that they canceled her show. Seriously crushed... still nothing, but I had begun to wish that I were a lesbian. I felt like an 17 year old hanging around outside the cool club, admiring all of the beautiful people, wishing I could be one of them.

Ironically, there were lots of people who already suspected I was gay. I finally figured it out when I was 26 years old. I'd recently been divorced from my first husband and was dating a man with twin boys who were about the same age as my kids. Our relationship was quite tumultuous, a condition we both assumed was a tragic but quite normal dating reality for two hot-headed people, who were struggling as single parents trying to recover from crushing divorces neither of us wanted.

Nothing about this relationship worked, except perhaps the "I'm a nurturer who needs a dad-like provider and he's a provider who needs a mom-like nurturer" part. Those two elements were powerful and took control of the pair of us. It was ugly... back and forth, break up and get together, go away and come back.

One other problem, I didn't want to have sex. I was having sex. It was fine sex, but doing it had become intolerable. I had also begun attending church for the first time in my life and I assumed that the my need to be abstinent was some sort of spiritual thing. My request for abstinence didn't go well. We broke up. I realized during the next couple of days that I was a lesbian. It was like a switch that was flipped decades ago, finally turned on the light. It was a crazy experience, but it made everything - every single thing in my life up to that day - make completely perfect sense.

I was a lesbian.

From that moment, I could look back on the journey and see clearly where I'd missed the gay/straight intersection. I understood the familiarity of those moments where the road I was on and my real road came near enough to one another for me to see. I understood so many things that didn't seem to fit. I, all of the sudden, began to make sense. I wasn't broken. I wasn't lost. I wasn't any of the awful things I'd seemed to be. I was just a lesbian living a straight woman's life.

I was a wildflower planted in the rose garden.
_____

Part Three: Coming soon...

What in the World is "Personal Evolution"? My Story (Part One)

2011-03-07T11:10:00.003-06:00

I am a lesbian.

It's not a secret, although it took a long time to get myself out of the closet. Hell, it took 26 years (including a couple children and a divorce that I didn't want) to figure out I was even in a closet. Then, it took me another 4 years (and a second marriage and subsequent divorce) to figure out what it actually means that I'm a lesbian... and that I couldn't, or rather wouldn't, stay in that closet.

It's a long, and at times painful story that I always intended to write down. Either way, I'm out. Seriously out... I'm talking even-my-Daddy-knows out of the closet. Yes, he was probably the hardest one to tell. That was one hell of a letter, I can promise you that. It took about three weeks to write and then I mailed it and waited, and waited, and waited. It took a week for him to call and I assumed he'd taken some time to gather his thoughts, which seemed fair.

I nearly wet my pants when the phone finally rang, identifying him as the caller. He opened with, "So, I got your letter..." I nearly blacked out, barely grunting an acknowledgement. Mostly, I just held my breath and waited. He continued, "I would have called sooner but my hearing aids were in the shop for repair and I can't hear at all without them. I thought I'd wait to call until I could actually talk to you." Hysterical, right?

Laughter forced a gust of wind into my chest. I didn't know what he was going to say, but I couldn't imagine a world where a girl gets disowned in a phone call that opened like that call opened. I'm sure it took a couple of days for my color to return to normal but his message was simple, I love you and I'm glad you're happy. He told me that my letter arrived on Saturday and late Sunday afternoon my step-mom said (or probably yelled because of the hearing aid situation), "So... what do you think about Christy's letter?" He reportedly told her, "Well, if that's what she's figured out and she's happy, then it's fine with me."

The relief was overwhelming. The relief did not come, as one might assume, from his "acceptance" of me. I found profound relief in my willingness to be ME, out there in the world where everyone (including MY DADDY!) could see. Don't get me wrong, I wanted him to accept me... I wanted everyone to accept me, but I found freedom in the willingness to them go if that was the choice they made. If that was the cost of being myself, losing the people who claimed to love me, then it was a price I was willing to pay to live in alignment with my truth.

Being loved has an extraordinary value. I get that. Seriously, I do... but it is now clear to me that if the people who love me rejected me for being for a lesbian, then they didn't love me... they loved their image of me. And, honestly, I am at peace with that. Both of those people are valid but only one of them has anything to do with me, the real one. Your image of me is for you. If you don't have any use for the real me, then I respect that and you are free to go. In my world, the real world of Christy, your Christy is faux. I can't do anything with or about your image of me.

From blog post about a recent "incident" that occurred nearly five years after I first came out...

Coming out is like cashing out of The Game of Life to go play in Real Life. Back then, I didn't know myself. I had no sense of self-worth. I didn't know me, so being 'me' wasn't something I could feel good about. Instead, I tried to be good enough. I tried to keep peace. I tried to be helpful. I tried to act right. I tried to be who I thought the people in my world wanted me to be. I thought that would make me successful. I had worked hard in that game world, accumulating lots of money and property (friends and love). The list of people I could count on was a mile long.

And then I came out of the closet... I wanted to live in the real world, my real world.
I was a millionaire in The Game of Life world... a big house, a big family, a big life, everything was big and looked perfect from the outside. To live in the Real World, I had to figure out how much of what I possessed in the game world could be used out here, in my real life. Coming out was like taking all of my game world possessions to the real world bank, dumping it all out in the teller's window, and asking them to show me what's real.

I cashed out, lost a great deal but found that even far less of what's real is better than a fortune in the game world. Every now that then, I come across another stash, some game world possession (family member or friend) that hasn't been tested. Luckily, I know how to test them for myself now:

Those who love me BECAUSE of who I am... that's real world goods. That's something I can play with here... in my REAL LIFE. And for those who love me IN SPITE of , trying to find a way to tolerate, who I am? That's game world winnings and they are of no use to me out here.

That, my friends, is the freedom that only personal evolution can provide... getting to know yourself and making peace with what you find.

_____

Part Two: Closets are just for gay people. How do we get in them? Click here...

Come Out, Cash Out: Welcome To My Real World (Or Not)

2011-03-05T09:34:00.001-06:00

‎"I don't believe in the choice you two are making... I don't, but I don't think that it's any of my business."

I didn't see it coming... wasn't ready, even remotely, to hear these words come from a woman who is like a mother to me. She helped raise me. In the four and a half years since I came out, I've gone to great lengths to not concern myself with what the people around me think about it, or me. As they say, what you think of me is none of my business. But, that sort of detachment is not my nature (particularly with "friends" and "family") and I have to turn it on, so to speak... like one must have to detach from the sensation of pain when they climb in a boxing ring. The conversation occurred so spontaneously, I didn't even have time to lift my arms up to block the shot. Boom, a massive blow straight to the gut. It still hurts like hell.

The adult in me wants to talk about the "I don't believe in the choice you two are making..." part. I don't know how else to say this... BEING GAY IS NOT A (F*CKING) CHOICE. Read a book (I hear that Ellen's Mom's books is priceless). Google it. Visit the Human Rights Campaign online to get informed about what's on the line here. Do something. There is research to back this up. I was born this way.

Even more importantly, LOOK BACK. Do you remember the times that we were together and people thought I was your son? There were a million moments like this, I was G.I. Jane for Halloween for Pete's sake! I was different and in this moment, I feel incredibly angry that you (and the rest of the people who raised me, and claimed to love me) stood by and watched me SUFFER, because I couldn't figure out who in the hell I was. I don't believe for an instant that it never occurred to anyone that I might be gay. All one person would have had to do to TURN MY ENTIRE LIFE AROUND was suggest that it might be possible, that some people are gay, that I might consider it. Nothing. You all did nothing. I'm horrified by people's willingness to sacrifice me, and people like me, because they don't believe in being gay.

This is THE TRUTH, my truth, whether you believe it or not. Your beliefs aren't for me.

The little girl in me can't get over the "I don't believe..." part. It even haunted me in my dreams. You don't believe in what? That this is my truth? If you're still wondering if being a lesbian is a real thing, or if being a lesbian is true for me, then YOU DON'T KNOW ME AT ALL and YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY LOVE SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW.

Is it that you don't believe in love? Because that's what this is. I love Kristin, the way that (I hope and pray) you love your husband. She loves me... completely, specifically, and in Our Nation's Capital, even legally. We actually got married last summer. I live in her home. She is raising my children with me. We have joint checking accounts and she's made it possible for me to live my dream by starting this business. She is my biggest fan, and I am hers. Would you have me go back to living a lie? You knew me before. You WATCHED ME SUFFER. You don't believe in what, exactly?

Another part of me is MAD AS HELL about the "I don't think it's any of my business" part. I'm not cooking crystal meth in my kitchen. I am a lesbian in an extraordinarily loving, committed relationship with the partner of my dreams. The reason that I'm not married to her in Tennessee is that people like YOU, who think it's somehow respectable for you to turn a blind eye to my "choice", continue to tolerate the violation of my basic civil rights as an AMERICAN CITIZEN. Read the damn US Constitution... separation of church and state. Your "beliefs" and my RIGHTS as the daughter of not one, but two Veterans of the United States Air Force, have NO BUSINESS being in the same conversation. You claim to love this country. You claim to care about equality. Yet, you turn your back on me - the beautiful, talented, powerful woman you claim to love - politically when you say it's none of your business. It is your business.

IT IS YOUR BUSINESS. If my parents and all the rest of you who do so much to make this country the best it can be, continue to hide behind your "beliefs" about my sexual orientation, then you fail me. You fail people like me. You fail the United States of America. You fail yourselves. You are, perhaps without even realizing it, going against everything you actually "believe" about America and her potential.

Wake up. This isn't about you. I don't vote on your marriage. You have no right to vote on mine. If you think your "belief" about gay people gives you the right to vote on mine... you are wrong.

As for my WIFE being welcome in your home, that's... well, insulting. I had two husbands and a slew of boyfriends in the thirty years it took me to figure out who I am. Each of them varying stations between spineless weasel and manipulative asshole, not one with even a fraction of the love and respect and beauty that lives between Kristin and me.You would never have said anything like that about anyone else I've ever loved. We are human beings, with feelings, and at least mine are incredibly hurt.

As for your reassurance that I'm still loved. Here's the thing I've learned through this coming out process: It's like cashing out of The Game of Life to go play in Real Life. Because I didn't know myself, I had no sense of self-worth. I didn't know me, so being me wasn't something I could feel good about. Instead, I tried to be good enough. I tried to keep peace. I tried to be helpful. I tried to act right. I tried to be who I thought the people in my world wanted me to be. I thought that would make me successful. I had worked hard in that game world, accumulating lots of money and property (friends and love). The list of people I could count on was a mile long.

And then I came out of the closet... I wanted to live in the real world, my real world.

This is us... love in the REAL WORLD.

I was a millionaire in The Game of Life world... a big house, a big family, a big life, everything was big and looked perfect from the outside. To live in the Real World, I had to figure out how much of what I possessed in the game world could be used out here, in my real life. Coming out was like taking all of my game world possessions to the real world bank, dumping it all out in the teller's window, and asking them to show me what's real.

I cashed out, lost a great deal but found that even far less of what's real is better than a fortune in the game world. Every now that then, I come across another stash, some game world possession (family member or friend) that hasn't been tested. Luckily, I know how to test them for myself now:

Those who love me BECAUSE of who I am... that's real world goods. That's something I can play with here... in my REAL LIFE. And for those who love me IN SPITE of , trying to find a way to tolerate, who I am? That's game world winnings and they are of no use to me out here.

Between Me and the Woman In the Mirror

2011-03-03T10:16:00.001-06:00

A clientis dating for the first time since the end of her marriage... a long, hard marriagewith lots of control and manipulation. We were coaching around somehealth issues, specifically her intention to get more exercise, and her new boyfriend popped up in our conversation. She said, "It's as if he truly doesn'tcare that I have a few extra pounds... like he loves me exactly the way that Iam." She sounded troubled by this display of unconditional love, somethingthat I assumed was good news. "No," she said, "It terrifiesme."

If hedoesn't expect me to look a certain way, then I have to do this for myself...and I'm not sure I can.

Myclient's former husband had been the motivation for her self care throughouther entire adult life. He had an expectation that she would look good, and soshe did. In his absence, she was struggling to find the drive. I experienced much ofthe same during my pregnancies, eating right and moving my body was shockinglyeasy when it was for my wee offspring. When I was breastfeeding my son, werealized my dairy intake was making him sick... so I stopped eating dairy, noquestions asked. When we hire a personal trainer to meet us at the gym or recruit awalking buddy, we do it.

Why can'tI just do it for me?

I'mhaunted by what appears to be a profound inability to make these changes forme. Yes, I could go back to the accountability of my 12-step program (and I may)... but insome strange way, that is also an external motivation. There is still something missing. I want to WANT this frominside. I want to desire to make healthy choices, with the same passion andintensity that I feel about the health of my wife and children. I have virtuallyNO problem finding the internal desire to get my kids to soccer or to make foodthat will nourish their bodies. It's driving me nuts.

In fact, that's the reason I wanted to do this book study of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's "The Invitation"... I want to be whole again. I'm sick of my codependent ways, living for others and through others. I've cleared out so much of that stuff, but I've hit a new wall, a new layer that I want to find a way to understand. I want to love myself enough to make these choices that mean so much to me. Iwant to find that disconnect between the thinking and feeling parts of myself,and heal it. I want to be me again. I’ve done enough of “The Work” to know it’sjust more of my baggage standing between me and the woman I want to be… so it’stime to quit screwing around. I want to be whole again.

Iattempted to launch this book study a few weeks ago and four people showed upfor the first call, one showed up for the second call (due to some technicaldifficulties, two others tried to join us and couldn't dial in). I knew thatI'd missed something in the offering of this invitation. I tried to write aboutall of the reasons that you might want to come and it fell flat... like apancake. While I was more than willing to host a book study for a small group, Ifelt sort of defeated because my intuition was screaming that this awakeningwould touch many lives. I could feel that the words I’d chosen weren’tresonating… because they didn’t come from a place of integrity.

I paused,that's what I do (or intend to do) when I feel that something is out ofalignment, and waited for clarity. I'd fallen into my old pattern of trying toguess what you needed to hear to be motivated enough to participate, and thatnever works for me. I had to dig deeper, to find out what was going on insideof me that inspired me to cultivate a community to journey through thispowerful book together. That is my power position… when I share what’s true forme, I attract those who are in the same place, longing for a similarexperience. So, there here it is:

This is between me and the woman in the mirror, and if the you have some stuff to work out with the person in your mirror... join me.

Thanksfor being patient while I figured this one out.

VirtualBook Study Details:

CurrentBook:

"The Invitation" by OriahMountain Dreamer (Click here to order it from Amazon.com)

WeeklyLive Conversation:

Beginning March 7th with Chapter One
Mondays at 6:00 PM Central (7:00Eastern, 5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific)
Dial-in Number: 605-477-3000, accesscode 259603#
Back-up Number: 559-546-1400 (youwill then be prompted to enter the info above)

FacebookConversation:

Visitand "like" the Facebook Page for the Wildflower Evolution toparticipate. Topics will be posted there and your participation in thatdialogue will be celebrated!

OtherInformation:

More People = More Change. Pleaseshare this invitation.
Participate in whatever way feelstrue for you (just the calls, or just Facebook).
If you can't make a call, noworries, read anyway and come back the next week.

Choking On Gratitude: Hello Ego

2011-03-01T12:44:00.000-06:00

Someone said something nice to me today and I responded in sarcasm because I'm not good at accepting compliments. Luckily, I spend enough time calling other people on their crap that I can usually count on someone to call me on mine when I start slinging it.

I await your updates as bright spots on my page.

That was the compliment. I responded sarcastically because I was afraid. I was afraid that he didn't mean it. I was afraid that he was being sarcastic, a game we both play incredibly well, and that if I accepted it... I would look like an arrogant fool by assuming it could actually be true.

Here's the cold, hard, painfully vulnerable truth in this situation: His compliment is actually what I want more than anything else in the world. More than money, or fame, or probably even my sanity (clearly). I want the way I show up in the world to be be a bright spot in someone's life. On Facebook, I want people to laugh and be inspired and in the spirit of full disclosure, occasionally hire me. As a blogger, I want my words to touch people's hearts, open their minds, help them feel more peaceful, and again... when it makes sense, to hire me (no need to blow smoke here, right?). I want my family and friends to enjoy life more because I'm in it.

I want my life to make a freaking difference. I want to change the world.

And yes, the idea that I might actually be a bright spot on the facebook page of someone that I have a great deal of respect for, meant so much to me that I hid behind sarcasm so I wouldn't get hurt if it wasn't true. My sanity was eclipsed by my ego and I hid behind sarcasm. There... I said it.

What I meant to say was...

Thank you, Garrett Crowell. You are a wicked smart dude and a bad ass writer. The idea that I might actually be a bright spot on your page means the world to me.

Lastly, thank you to John S. Pollock for calling me on it. It's nice that you were there when the others (my wife, life coach, and friends who usually catch me when I fall) were otherwise occupied.

Screw Diamonds... Laughter is a Girl's Best Friend

2011-02-28T11:57:00.002-06:00

Diamonds are a girl's best friend. That's what they say about us, and I think it's crap. Put my money on laughter, over diamonds, any day of the week.

This morning on Facebook, Wings of Encouragement posted the prompt, "I smile when I...?". Ironically, it made me smile. So, I told them about it, which made me chuckle. Contemplating that chuckle reminded me how easy it is to shift my mood, to make my day what I want it to be, which made me giggle. The giggle startled the cat who was asleep nearby (not Fancy, she's deaf and cares not about my giggle), which made me laugh out loud. It seems that smiling is something of a slippery slope but there is good news. If you lose control, the result is... happiness. It creeps up on you and your misery, and before you know it... life sucks a little less.

A laugh is a smile that bursts.

~Mary H. Waldrip

I like to measure the quality of my days by how many times I make someone else laugh deep down in their belly. I get bonus points if that laugh makes you spew your morning tea. When I need a little pick me up, I've been known to actually calculate the day's laughs on a Belly Tally (formerly known as the Belly Laugh Tally, shortened by popular vote because Belly Tally is simply more fun to say). I absolutely adore making other people laugh, almost certainly because I love to laugh more than almost anything else. Laughter is like... light or space. It's everything. I don't really know how to explain it but it is important, so let me try...

Laughter is like a life jacket that's kept me from drowning as I crossed rivers of grief throughout my entire life. People died, hurling me into the violent rapids of sadness and longing. As I gathered with family or friends to remember the loved one, I would wrap myself in the stories of their treasured lives. Through tears, the laughter was strong enough to keep me afloat. I've noticed that pretty much, all of the heartbreaks work the same.

Many moons ago, a baby died in my belly. I was... devastated, to say the least, submerged completely by the loss of a pregnancy I'd only experienced for a few months.Certainly, I nearly drowned. I fell head first into the loss, too stunned resist the gravity that carried me below. I completely surrendered... preferring to not come up for air. Still, there it was. Laughter came for me, awkwardly at first, lifting me to the surface, forcing me to take a breath. At first, just one but then others came. One day, I looked up and noticed land... and eventually thought that it might be nice to climb onto it. Finally, one particularly dramatic wave of emotion came for me and when it had passed, I had washed up on the distant shore.Sometimes, I go back to dip my toes in the water, to remember, perhaps even compelled to wade around a little but the grief no longer consumes me.

Laughter is everything.

And it isn't just for grief. Laughter builds community, solves problems, disarms hostility, cultivates peace, spreads joy, and a million other beautiful things... like helping people fall and stay in love. I met Kristin, the woman who is now my wife, on one of the hardest, most gut-wrenching days of my entire life. She made me laugh. In fact, she made me laugh when I hadn't even had the emotional capacity to shower. She made me laugh and it was over, she was for me. I don't think that a day has passed since then that I haven't laughed, often so much that it hurts. Regularly, I beg her to stop because it hurts my stomach. I've lost countless hours of sleep and, on occasion, nearly driven my car off the road because of Kristin-induced laughter.

So... diamonds? Um, no thanks. It will be laughter for me.

The Choice Is Yours

2011-02-25T16:27:00.002-06:00

Imagine this: You inherit an old estate. It's winter when you move in and you know there are lots of little gardens all about the property but you can't see anything because of the snow. Spring arrives, snow melts, and one Saturday morning you head out to explore your property for the first time. The first garden is easy to find, it starts at the front door and spreads in both directions across the entire front of the house.

Immediately, you notice a phone book just next to the stairs and think, "Simple enough, I will just grab that." You head toward the phone book and something to the left catches your eye, a newspaper. Wait, there's another one... and another... and... oh my goodness, there are probably a dozen wet and muddy papers laying around this garden. You go back in the house to get a trash bag, "No worries, there is just a bit of litter out there to pick up. It's going to be so beautiful when whatever's in those beds starts to bloom."

Back outside, you find more litter - cans, old mail, and what feels like thousands of cigarette butts - and then, there's the situation with the vines. You don't even know what they are. Are those the good kind of vines or the kind that destroy everything in their path? You don't know how to tell the difference. Before long, you are completely overwhelmed and your spirit of adventure has fled the scene. Your body hurts. You're favorite coat is torn and filthy, and both of your hands are a swollen, muddy, scratched up mess. And this, you finally remember with tears filling your eyes, is only the first garden. You've been told there are nine on the property.

What are you going to do next?

This estate is your life. It looks to me that life occurs in these cycles that resemble the four seasons seen in the natural world (to read more about these four seasons, click here). The spring is a period of awakening, a time when something catches your attention. It might be triggered by a loss - either of life or of a significant relationship, like divorce, or a friend moving away, or even losing a job. The life-changing experience might be something you gain - like a new job, spouse, hobby, or friendship. It might also be triggered by something small, almost insignificant, like a movie, book, news report, or even a conversation. Whatever the cause, something shifts within you and suddenly you're awake, aware that reality in the garden of your life isn't as you'd like it to be.

These gardens are the areas of your life. The gardens represent each of the "9 Environments of You" - memetic, body, self, nature, spiritual, relationship, network, financial, and physical (read more about them here). Once the awakening has occurred, you've recognized that you want to live life fully, you look around to see what's up. As you explore, just like in the story, you might find... oh, how can I say this... a big freaking mess? Sometimes it is one garden that needs to be tended, let's say your physical environment is a cluttered and unproductive mess. Most of the time, there is a variety of conditions throughout the gardens - physical space is good, financial is good, network and relationships are good... but spiritual, creative, and body environments are all but on fire!

The plan is your plan. Once you wake up and realize that there are changes you'd like to make, you grab that trash bag and dig in. If you have the resources to make the change, go for it! Often, these awakenings call for changes that we simply can't make on our own. We may lack knowledge, time, energy, skills, and/ or strength to get it done. If you don't have those things, or even know what all is going to be required, then you need to get help.

The choice is your choice. The story stops with you feeling quite overwhelmed, exhausted from trying to make the changes with the resources you have... and deeply emotional. You have a choice to make. What are you going to do next?

Choice A - Give up and go back inside. If you do, nothing can change... and it is probably going to get worse. Summer is coming either way and the inevitable change that accompanies the passing of time will certainly make the next spring a bigger, even more dramatic mess. If you make this choice, of course, it's going to be this ugly for the next eight months while you wait for snow to fall again. You'll see the mess out your windows, but you could always keep the curtains closed. You'll see it when you come and go, but you could hurl all of your daylight hours into work and drive home under the cloak of darkness to protect yourself. Unfortunately, that leaves the weekends... perhaps you could find yourself some crazy dysfunctional romantic partner to occupy your them and you'll never have to be bothered to see the mess you left untended. Oh, what about the memory of it? That will probably haunt you... you might try drinking, or a little recreational drug use. I hear that those are great for... what do we call it? Oh yeah, denial.

Choice B- Beat yourself up and go at it alone. If you're not the giving up type, thenthis might be the best option for you. Tell yourself to stop being such ababy/loser/slacker/whatever, stop crying, and get back to work in the gardens. If you don't have time, don't worry. You can just steal time from another area of your life - blow off work, neglect your relationships with family and friends, or... sleep! Yes, that's it. Give up sleeping until everything gets done. Perhaps you don't have the knowledge necessary to accomplish this change, butjust do your best. And when the kudzu devours your entire estate, trapping youinside your home, call 911 and they will send someone to excavate you from your self-imposed crisis.

Choice C - Forgive yourself for not being perfect and get help.Once all of those tears stop flowing, you can take a deep breath and call out into your wreck of life, " I don't know how to do this. I want to love this place, really I do, but I don't even know where to begin. Now what?" Suddenly you'll notice the place down the street. It is early in the growing season, not much color to be enjoyed but obviously somebody loves those gardens... it is sort of charming, not exactly the way you'd like yours to be, but really nice. It must be perfect for the person who lives there, a thought which leaves a small, hopeful smile on your face.

Perfect for the person who lives there... a life that's perfect for the person it belongs to. That's all any of us actually want, a life that is perfectly ours.

I am the woman who lives up the street, the one who knows all about "gardens" and how to change them, who once turned her own disheveled estate into a place that she's proud to call home. As a Life Coach, I help people bloom into who they want to be. I am all about empowerment and freedom, and helping you find deep, deep peace and contentment in your life. Everything I do through Seeds and Weeds Coaching - the coaching, writing, speaking, and even the book studies - is about cultivating world peace... one remarkable human being at a time.

It Doesn't Help To Hate Myself

2011-02-24T20:56:00.000-06:00

Today is Day 24 of my self-imposed 28-Day Blog Challenge and I have just declared myself the big winner!

Yesterday was a crazy day. In order to leave space for my writing and the speaking I intend to do more of this year, I schedule most of my life coaching appointments on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I had clients all day, plus kid stuff, car trouble, dinner, and a few minutes of helping my wife with her homework. I kept coming back to it throughout the day, started three different topics but had nothing to say and not enough time to really push through the block before the next thing started... and then it was over. The clock rolled past midnight and the 23rd day was gone with no bloggage to speak of.

Certainly, I was a little disappointed but I woke up today feeling... not like my own worst enemy. No negative self talk. No beating myself up. Perhaps, most importantly... I didn't give up. I didn't fall into the "I can't" thinking that used to ruin every effort I made to change my life. I didn't have to stop writing because I'd failed to write one day of a challenge. It was refreshing, a dramatic shift from my old way of being. Everything used to be so black and white, winning or losing, good or bad. If I wasn't getting everything right, then I was all wrong.

What changed? Well, a while back I started telling my clients to knock in the hell off, this abusing themselves for being human. I realized it wasn't doing anybody any good. If it would help at all to beat myself up, I would be willing to at least consider it as a possible strategy. Why not, right? Whatever works at least deserves consideration. The thing is... IT DOESN'T EVER WORK! Ever. I could write a love letter just about that, how grateful I am to have figured out that nothing good ever came from kicking my own ass. Nothing.

So, here we are. I missed one day of the challenge and then I got right back to it. No need for loathing. No need for drama. Just shut up and write. Love that. Peace and self-love to you in your journey forward... enjoy your imperfect perfection!

Loneliness and Alone-ness: A Tribute To A Beautiful Woman

2011-02-21T23:35:00.010-06:00

Loneliness and alone-ness.

That's what she told me to write about tonight for the 28-Day Blog Challenge. I have some of the best, most remarkable women in my life and they yank on my heart strings if I don't keep a close eye on them. I am such a sucker for a girl-learns-to-thrive-after-prince-leaves-with-the-help kind of story and with all of this thriving she's done, I sort of let my guard down.

Nothing she throws at me now could ever beat the heartbreak I felt when Loneliness and Alone-ness's husband left, in part because I remember every single time I heard someone tell her that "they were perfect". She would smile that appreciative smile and remind them that nothing is perfect, but I could see that dark cloud roll through her eyes. It haunted her... as if compliments like that are numbered and even without knowing the magic number, she knew she was one well-meaning admiration closer to the end of... well, everything.

At least it feels like the end of everything when the one you love wants out of what you understood to be a lifetime commitment. It is crushing. It almost killed me when it happened to me... but then it didn't; and Loneliness and Alone-ness was a big part of the reason I survived. She listened while I cried, obsessed, and raged. She helped me, tolerated me, and loved me. She kept me company when I was desperately lonely. She celebrated with me (many years later) when I made peace with being alone. (Then, there was my second wedding she tried to keep me from having... but that is a blog for some other day.)

Then her world fell apart... and it was a dramatic unfolding, long and elaborate, one for the record books, complete with gems like "she's my soul mate" and "I just don't love you anymore, not sure I ever did." You know, the shit people say when their hormones/demons/unresolved childhood issues have them by the balls (or ovaries, whichever the case may be). I think it's tragic for anyone to go through that, but it was especially hard to watch because she did it... perfectly.

She went to therapy, alone and together (although that was like being alone because he was just banking away all of the therapist's ideas to help him in the relationship with his soul mate), cried and yelled and prayed and even laughed. She did "the work" in true rock star form, not because divorce perfection was what anyone expected of her, but because she realized she'd built an entire world around being his wife... and she was desperate to find herself in the rubble of all that had fallen down around her. It was like watching a woman go from black and white to color, and the paintbrush was in her hand. Through the devastation, somehow she came to life.

It seems impossible that she could possibly have gotten from me even a fraction of what I received from her during this same period much earlier in our friendship, although I bet she would say that wasn't so. She is a remarkable woman with many friends and had lots of support during this time, and sometimes I wondered if I was there for her enough... Loneliness and Alone-ness told me that it was me she always called when she was ready to hear the truth. She knows me so well.

For example, at my house we say: If you can have her, you can have her. It was adapted, of course, for my straight friend: If you can have him, you can have him. Yes it's funny, but it is also the truth. If my beloved can be taken, then you might as well have her/him because they are no use to me. Her husband was absolutely of no use to her, and while she went through the righteously courageous process of finding that out... I stood here and watched, and tried to resist hitting him with my car.

I don't know much about this loneliness and alone-ness that you speak of, dear sweet friend, but I know you. I know that you are beautiful and loving, generous and funny, courageous and strong. I know you can follow a recipe like nobody else. I know you are a good, good mama. I know you can make magic on that piano, and that you have the voice of an angel. I know you are an inspiration to me and to many other women. I know you are a gift from God (yes, I said God with a big G... as in Christmas tree, because this is for YOU).

And if being alone means being with you, I think you are... a very lucky woman to get to keep such great company! I love you. Thank you for being my friend for all these years and for giving me something so beautiful to write about tonight.
_____
If you have a special woman in your life whose journey through divorce left her more alive than she was before, shout about her to the world! Tell us about how brave she is. Share how watching her blossom into an independent, vibrant, beautiful wildflower, full of courage and life, has inspired you. Then, "share" that to let her know. And, if you are the woman in question, please let us celebrate with you. Tell us how this experience changed you, and how you learned to thrive. Let other women see how you found yourself in the rubble...

One Year Ago Today... Children Started Dying.

2011-02-18T01:27:00.002-06:00

It was the first day of practice for the middle school boys soccer team. An 8th grade boy who had been my son's teammate for about 20 minutes, collapsed and died. The impact on my son, while nightmarish in my world, couldn't/doesn't/can't ever be measured on the same scale as the bomb that the heavens dropped on the mother of that boy. I didn't know him or his family. It wasn't my loss, but her loss broke me wide open.

Three months later, a second boy died. His mother, another woman I've never met, wrote with excruciating detail and haunting transparency about the month-long journey from receiving a phone call that her son was in the hospital, suffering from injuries received in a brutal attack and... a severe drug overdose, to his death. Years ago, she wrote a book that helped me become a better mother. For months, I clung to every update, memory, and emotion that she published. I was shaken. Deeply.

Then, there was a series of very widely reported suicides by young people in a short period of time. I thought I might lose my mind. Heart attacks, drug addiction, violence, and suicide... what the hell is going on here? Children are dying. DYING. CHILDREN. There are guitars, just like my daughter's, without someone to play them. There are cleats, just like my son's, without someone to get them muddy. There are mothers with broken hearts that will last a lifetime... arms with emptiness that can never be filled.

My heart still bleeds for these women who buried their children in the last year. I am haunted by their losses. They changed me in ways that I don't totally understand. In a moment of maternal frustration, the words, "I'm going to kill him," catch in my throat. My heart pounds a little too loudly every single time my daughter walks out the front door, casting over her shoulder a casual, "Love you!" Every time my son laughs out loud, my heart stops... and I pray that sound is never out of reach. More often than is comfortable to me, I think about how I really need to get that video camera out and capture moments like this. I'm afraid I will need the videos and pictures to remember.

It's been a year since children started dying. Loving my wife and two children is like letting my heart walk around outside my body. And not in the way I used to say stupid cheesy shit like that. I am a different woman now. All of this, the truth of it... the fear, rising up in me like the high tide rolling in. I feel myself start to panic, hanging desperately each breath, until the intensity recedes and it becomes something I can handle again.

I want to do something, need to do something. But, of course, there's nothing to be done. I don't know you... at least beyond what every mother knows about loving those who make us mothers. I can't fix anything, or undo the world that's crashed down around you. I can't console you, or even just sit with you while you cry what I imagine must feel like an endless supply of tears. I can't turn back time. There's nothing to be done, but find the courage to treasure what you've already lost. I promise you that somehow... I will.

The Interview (She Supersized Me)

2011-02-17T12:42:00.007-06:00

"How one goes from being an uneducated, unemployed, pregnant, single mother to be a deliriously happy, married lesbian 12 years later? That is the most sordid story..."

Sometimes I crack myself up... like just now when I was listening to a recording of me telling "my story." Last night, I was interviewed by Chrissy Harmon for the Amazing Mothers Power Posse on HerFuture.com (which is a bad ass virtual place for women, if you're looking for that). We'd planned to talk for about 20-minutes on each of three subjects - my journey/life coaching, mothering, and my relationship with Kristin/equality - because it's been proven over and over again that people will press play to listen to a 20-minute recording far more frequently than they will press play on a 30-minute interview and good luck getting more than your best friend to listen to 60.

It went really well, might even go as far as to say that it went too well... it's more than two and a half hours of an interview that oozes into something more like a conversation between friends. I'm posting it here, in case you're interested in some surprising access to my soul, inspiration, information, and a truckload of laughs. Remember to get yourself a snack and then dig in! The topics you'll encounter on this journey include (brace yourself):

Growing up in the military, raging codependency, lost and later reclaimed dreams, radical integrity, miscarriage, awakenings, the true self vs. the ego self, profoundly twisted moments of the personal evolution, learning to trust yourself, conscious parenting, coming out of the spiritual closet, divorce recovery plans, being gay in a small town, self love, coaching, education reform, integrity, extra weight, gifts and bragging, the last couple of incredibly hard years, and on and on... like I said, it got crazy.

Her Future's Amazing Mothers Power Posse Interview with Chrissy Harmon... Part 1: Click here

And if you want more Christy/Chrissy Interview Madness... Part 2: Click here

A 365-Day Promise

2011-02-15T23:00:00.000-06:00

A week ago, I published this heartfelt wake-up call and it touched a nerve for some people... including me, although I might of called it more of a haunting than a nerve touching. I simmered and obsessed, eventually sitting down with my wife to explore why what I'd written was messing with my head. These days, I am taking the promises I make to myself seriously... and we're talking cancer or domestic violence levels of seriousness. A 365-Day Promise to myself is a big freaking deal, that's the radical integrity piece.

If I were working with one of my life coaching clients we'd start by figuring out what she wants. We'd identify her goal/dream/intention... the finish line, so to speak, for this race at least. Second, we'd get a clear understanding of her reality today... the starting line. That's a simple gap analysis, figuring out what ground needs to be covered. Then, we'd look for small, realistic, forward-moving action that she is willing to commit to taking every single day. For me, that could be yoga or meditation or eating better or business relationship building. For about 6 seconds I even toyed with knitting because it is (for me) deeply peaceful and creative, both things I want to be more of.

So, I'm back to that question... What do I want to be more of one year from now? I need to find the promise that is rooted deeply enough to stay in the race through the inevitable highs and lows of a 365-Day Promise. My indecision comes from the fact that there are about 3.4 million things that I want to be different - dramatic growth in my business, more me in some of my relationships, and there is that 60 pounds thing that I already put on the line, plus more. There are many actions I could take (and perhaps even should... whatever that means) for the next 365 days but it doesn't feel true for me to commit to a single thing. Clearly, making a dozen 365 Day Promises to myself would pave the road to self-destruction... not the kind of dramatic change I'm looking for here.

So, hot shot Life Coach, what is it you want more of? After a week of truly intense personal reflection, here it is: I want to be me, the woman I've worked so hard to discover and accept, without all of this f*cking around. Yes, this is me admitting that I got a big, fat reality check from my own damn blog post. Here's what I want:

~ I want my wife to know what she means to me, not just because I feel it or even because I say it, but because I show her with my actions. I want to play and travel, explore and listen, love and laugh with her like only the two of us can.

~ I want to rock my inner O-Mom, actually being there for and with my kids in a deeper, more inspired way than ever before. I want to be me, mothering them and loving them and celebrating them, in ways that prepare them for live out there in the world.

~ I want... One Million. That means publishing that book, and starting the next one. It means one on one coaching with extraordinary women. It means speaking, workshops, and my dream gig at least twice a month. It means showing up when I'm invited to cultivate peace in the lives of women who seek it. It means writing here regularly.

~ I want to feel great, inside and out, and I want to wear my pants. This means practicing yoga and meditation, and writing most of the next 365 days. It also means burning a bunch of calories and whether I hike, bike, garden, or sweat to the oldies (or whatever it is we dance to these days)... it is going to be fun for me (DAMN IT)! It means being in community. It means creating. It means communicating with those I love.

~ I want to be a warrior for peace, which means learning a great deal more than I know today about peace. I am a student, seeking my next teacher. I will read the texts produced by peacemakers before me. I will do my inner work, continue to cultivate my gifts and intuition, and be still. I will listen.

Photo from www.washingtontimes.com

My reality today is... I'm stumbling around, responding to what dings the loudest, and often not getting done that which mean the most to me. For me, it is going to be 365-Days of Intention... I'm committing to living the next year of my life "on purpose" and in alignment with my truth, striving to be the woman I've just described.

Shifts like this don't just happen by saying that they will. Change means taking different actions than what got me here. I asked my angels (back off, I already came out of this closet) for help understanding what small, realistic, forward-moving action I can take each day for a year that will put an end to the f*cking around. I'm to start each day with meditation, and at the end then take a few minutes to write a list of that day's "To BE Actions." Who will I connect with? How will I be that wife, that mother, that friend? What will I learn? What will I create? What will make today a masterful day for me? What steps are here today, waiting to move me one day closer to the woman I will cultivate with this admittedly unconventional 365.

_____

The Challenge... should you choose to accept it: This (quite long) post was about my wake-up call and the process that crafted my 365 Day Promise... What about you?

Play On, Boys... 1-2-3-Gibbs!

2011-02-14T16:52:00.006-06:00

Here is a piece I wrote and published as a video (below, if you prefer to see the pics or listen to the story) last year but someone just asked to see the text, so here it is...

_____

On February 17th, my son and twenty-two other boys, came together for this year's first team soccer practice at Fairview Middle School. Moments later, while running sprints with his teammates, eighth grader Jake Gibbs collapsed on the gymnasium floor. Let's be honest... that changes everything.

Mud, sweat, and tears - that's how you know when soccer season is officially open. Before too long, the passenger side floorboard of my little VW Jetta was coated with an impressive layer of mud (of the don't-you-just-love-Fairview's-red-clay variety); the sweet smell of soccer had settled over my laundry room; and we'd all shed many, many tears.

Our coach, Tom Daugherty, told me that there is a tradition of highlighting the soccer season - the wins, the losses - and profiling the players for the local paper. I asked him to let me give it a try... and then immediately began to wonder, what in the world I was thinking. I didn't even know where to begin, with a season that started like this one did. How could I report on a game that in which our boys score less points than the other team, when the word "loss" represents something far more profound? How could I report about the important details of this soccer season - competition and goals, all that transpires between the referees' whistles - without causing more pain?

1-2-3-Gibbs! That's what they yell in the huddle before the start of the game... 1-2-3-Gibbs? Every time, it broke my heart...and healed it a little bit. I suppose it does the same for the boys. My son, Seth, tells me, by the way, that they used to yell 1-2-3-Fairview! What about how the "starters" run out to the middle of the field, put their arms around each other's shoulders, and kneel in a perfect circle for a prayer led by Will King, one of Jake's best friends? Coach Daugherty suggested action shots for the paper, but I couldn't help it... I took a picture that moving scene every single time.

Uniforms? Perhaps I could report on the team's uniforms with emotional neutrality? Nope, sorry. I couldn't do it without remembering how proud Seth looked when he announced, after the team's second practice (nearly a week after the first) that Jake's number would be retired. I asked how he felt about that (because that's what I do when I'm too stunned by the realities that life offers my young children to come up with anything better). He said, "It feels like the only right thing to do... oh, and we’re all going to get black arm bands with his number 7 to wear with our uniforms."

Opponents? Yes, that seems like a safe subject... but it wasn't. Our second game was against Hickman County. Scrambling to get into photographer mode while the teams warmed up, I overheard one of the Hickman County moms explaining to one of our moms that their team had made cards for our team. She went on to point out that all of their kids were also wearing black armbands out of respect for our boys... and their loss.

Soccer is a raw sport - muscles, brains, and hearts all come together, and when it's done right, the athletes leave it all on the field. In more ways than I can comprehend, let alone describe here, the death of Jake Gibbs changed everything. Those he touched with his beautiful life will celebrate him and ache from the loss of him for a very long time, but for the last two months his team was here... using a game Jake loved to heal and remember. I, for one, treasured the opportunity to watch them play.

When this season started I thought it would be about death. The loss of Jake Gibbs was so tragic, so unexpected, I couldn't imagine that it would be any other way and then, I watched these boys play the game. I took pictures of them and held my breath, wondering what it all meant, wondering what would come of them. Then, in preparation for our end of season celebration, I went back through the approximately twenty-five hundred photographs that I'd taken... and I discovered something very, very different.

The pictures tell a story about this team, a group of boys who survived an unbelievably tragic experience. They were there when Jake Gibbs died and this season was about how they found the courage to come back to that school gymnasium, to that locker room, to be that team...

At the end of season banquet I had this message for the boys, “This season is about the fact that you had the courage to strap on your shin guards and cleats, pull on your jersey... that you had the courage, the dedication, the whatever it takes, to slip on that black arm band with the white number seven... and play soccer. This season was about life, Jake's life and your lives, and I want to thank you for teaching me, your friends and family, and this community, about how precious life is and what it takes to... play on.

1-2-3-Gibbs!

Codependency: Strong Enough To Kill Your Love

2011-02-14T10:11:00.001-06:00

Codependency sucks.

Happy Valentine's Day to you, too. It's the love day and I pop up with something warm and fuzzy like codependency to warm your hearts. I could write to you about Twin Souls because I found mine. I could put in two cents for equality by telling you how amazing it felt to marry my wife in Washington DC this summer. I could even spend this time telling you about how it's okay if your single, and how everyone should take time to learn to love yourself. But, that would all be painfully predictable and you know me better than that.

We're going to talk about the the relationship cancer, the bleach that eats away at the fabric of your most sacred relationships, the drama of the puppet master that eventually destroys even the best performer... codependency. Codependency sucks and talking about is about as easy as nailing jello to the wall. As soon as I get an example up there, it slips away.

The elusive nature of codependency is one of the many reasons I think it's so important to talk about it. It is coy and slick, a real shape-shifter, and people who are being driven over the edge by codependency often don't even know what's happening to them. It drives you stark raving mad and still, when you look at the wall, there is absolutely nothing there under that nail to blame for your misery.

Codependency is an addiction, much like one might have to crack or nicotine, to control. People come by it honestly, just like the other addicts, by trying to cope with the chaos of their pain. When there is a tornado inside, we seek stability outside. Where love is uncertain, we rotate between clinging to it and pushing it away.

When I was young, things weren't terribly stable and I tried hard to be a good girl, good enough to keep people from being angry, to keep things predictable, to keep my heart safe. I learned that if someone was unhappy and I could be cute or smart or helpful or quiet or funny enough (depending on the moment), their unhappiness would pass... and I would be safe. It worked, not perfectly, but it gave me enough of an illusion of control that I survived.

The problem is that codependent children grow up reacting to their environments, and therefore have NO SENSE OF SELF. After years of giving people answers I thought they wanted, I never took time to find what I wanted... from the inside. Like many of the women I've worked with as a Life Coach, in the beginning of this self-discovery process, I couldn't tell you what kind of music I loved, my favorite foods, or what I want to be when I grew up. Codependent women spent their entire adult lives measuring their personal "success" (aka self-worth) by how clean the house is, how smart and good the children are, how happy and successful her spouse is, and how much she produces at work (paid or volunteer, it doesn't matter).

Codependency is living in a state of reaction, instead of action. It's doing what you think others want you to do, being who you think the world expects you to be. It doesn't work because those are illusions. All we have is the truth, the truth of who we are, the truth of how we are able to show up in the world. Our natural gifts and challenges, plus what we've learned along the way. The rest of it is pretend and you can't build anything real on something that isn't... especially love.

The "cure" for this disease is to find out who the hell you are and learn to love and accept all that you discover along the way. It's about finding your own answers, and allowing the people you share your life with to have their own answers. Let me repeat that: It's about finding your own answers, and allowing the people you share your life with to have their own answers. That second part is important, too.

This is my Lady Bug, many years ago
with Valentine's Day box for school.

True love is finding a space in every relationship where both of the people can thrive at being who they are, independently and together. Anyone who truly loves you will support your personal evolution, in discovering your truth and living it powerfully.

That, of course, brings us back to you loving yourself enough to find your answers. So, for the love of all things heart-shaped that will be exchanged in the world today... get off everyone else's ass. This one is about you. Do your work. Find the sweet spot in every moment today that offers a lesson for you, some insight into who you are. Then, tomorrow do it again... and the next day too.

But What About Men?

2011-02-13T23:58:00.001-06:00

A new Facebook friend encouraged me to, "Write about your purpose and how it relates (or doesn't relate, if that's how you see it) to men." I liked it because he probably doesn't know that when asked about life purpose, my answer is: Empower Women.

When I was in college, studying Industrial/Organizational Psychology, I became obsessed with work/life programs. These are the things that employers do to help their employees balance work and life (you can read more here, if you care to). When I would go on and on about the possibilities of work-share and flex-time programs, people would ask me what I planned to do with that. I'd say something along the lines of, "I want to make the world a better place for women to work." Most would come back with, "What about men? You want to make it better for men, too... right?"

I will be honest... no, I've never been worried about the men. From where I've been standing, men always seemed to have enough of the power and money, and carried little enough of the responsibility for the young and old people in our society that I wasn't losing any sleep over them or their damn balance. Bitter, you ask? Perhaps, just a little... that was bound to happen with has two ex-husbands. But the truth is that when push comes to shove, even if I "should", I've never been able to piece together two consecutive moments of thought to men, men's issues, or helping men's lives get better.

It's not my call, at least for this round of Christy Does Planet Earth. I'm a woman's woman. It's been this way since I was a child... which certainly makes it more of a mystery why it took me 25 years to figure out I was a lesbian (but that's another blog post, right?). I love all things about being a woman - pregnancy, childbirth, the curve of the hips, breasts, the womanly woman-ness of women of all kinds, motherhood, nurturing, creativity, the whole thing ... I even love menstruation. Yes, I said it. I love being a woman. And I love all kinds of women and their things- old women, young women, powerful women, delicate women, dancing and singing women, women's history, and women who write about women. I love working women and women who stay home. I love being a woman and I love working with women.

I like children too, even the boy kind, but it's like a time bomb with the one I'm raising. Soon, he'll be a man and I'm not sure what I am going to do about him then. I'm just not that into men. It is my life purpose to empower women. I don't dislike men. They just aren't really a factor for me at all, sort of a non-issue.

But, here's the thing. Men are everywhere. They are my clients' partners and bosses, fathers and neighbors, pastors and doctors, far more than half of the time. Anything I do to empower women dramatically improves the lives of men everywhere. When a woman discovers and accepts herself, she's more peaceful within and is therefore more able to be peaceful with others. She is more productive. She is able to be more loving. She is able to show up differently, more powerfully, in the world.

There are a great many roles to be played in the effort to transform the world, and mine is to cultivate peace within the women. And while I don't care, hardly at all, about the man part of humankind... I can say with some certainty that they know when I've crossed paths with one of the woman in their life. Things change, always for the best, and whenever possible... they change is in his favor.

I Have a Cold Sore... I Am Not a Bad Person

2011-02-12T13:05:00.000-06:00

That last part is for me... the "I am not a bad person" part. Or, if I am, it's not because of the cold sore. But still, I feel so incredibly ashamed when I get one. Shame. It's such a powerful thing. I don't know why, but this virus that flares when my immune system is compromised has my ego on tap and ready to party.

Two weeks ago, I fell ill in truly dramatic form - aches, pains, nausea, migraine, sinus pain, and the 102.4 fever... HOLY CRAP! It's been a long time since I had that high of a fever and it kicked my butt. The cough came and took my breath away, and had at least semi-permanent intentions. The rest of the symptoms were gone after 5 or so days, but the cough is still trying to work its way out of my body today. I did the whole sick thing in record form. I surrendered, rested more than I had in years, and took all the advice I was offered to heart. I even drank hot tea. And I'm not a tea drinker.

Still, it was apparently too much for my immune system to deal with all that and still fight off the herpes simplex virus which resides somewhere in my body, waiting like a bottom-feeding scum sucker for the just right conditions to rear its ugly head. Or rear itself, making my head ugly... at least the right side of my lower lip. On day 8 of this mess, I woke up with a cold sore. Damn. I really hate it when that happens.

I've seen other people's cold sores, I've even looked at pictures online (although I don't recommend that, as that research takes an almost immediate turn off the main road and onto some freaky, stomach-turning, nasty twist of a God-forsaken, path of misery). I don't mind other people's. I don't think they should feel ashamed. I feel compassion for their discomfort, physical and emotional, but mine don't seem like the ones other people get. Yes, I already know that everybody feels that way but mine are so bad that people don't usually even realize that it's a cold sore.

My badge of shame is accompanied by such dramatic swelling of my lower lip and the lymph gland under my chin, combined with a surprising intensity that for the first week or so people say something like, "Oh my God... What happened?" I'm not joking. It looks like I've been assaulted with a baseball bat or in a car accident where the airbag deployed 1/8 of an inch from my face. And it turns out there is a lymph gland tucked right behind your chin bone that attempts to deal with lip drama and when I get a cold sore, it looks like I somehow tucked a golf ball under my skin.

The whole experience, while rare, is very traumatic for me... for my ego. People stare at first and then after catching themselves staring, won't look anywhere near my face again. My every humiliating move is burned into my mind. I can tell you that this week, I went to my mom's house once, the children's school once, the grocery store three times, to the recycling center once, my daughter's oral surgeon once, the pharmacy once, one department store once, and the emissions testing place. I spoke with one neighbor three times, two other neighbor's once each, and two neighborhood children have come and gone about a dozen times each. I haven't kissed my wife or children in over a week... and that part kills me. It's all very memorable, every detail, because of the ego.

Still today, I had to go into not one but two soccer complexes and talk to several people about my son's plans for the day. I'm going to a friend's house to spend time with her family and another couple that they thought we might enjoy knowing. There is a part of me that would like to stay home, in my bed, hiding my face from even the people who love me the most. But, I can't do that. Well, obviously I could... I just won't. I can't turn back the clock and un-kiss, un-share a drink, un-whatever the hell I did 20 some odd years ago to acquire this virus. Perhaps it's just time to let it go and accept that for all this self-acceptance stuff I go on and on about, sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find it.

I have a cold sore. It's awful to have, and awful to look at... but I'm going to live my life anyway.

There I said it. Ego squashed. My true self is back in the driver's seat... but no I'm not posting a picture of my little virus. This totally zen moment from last summer in DC will have to do, because that's what I feel like on the inside now.

Change Your Life Tip #1: Change Your Mind

2011-02-11T14:07:00.001-06:00

I love books. I love the paper, holding them in my hands. I love electronic books. I love audio books. I love books.

I love them because I was once a profoundly powerless woman whose life was completely out of control. Books were the stepping stones I used to get here from there... and here is a whole new world filled with love, peace, and more laughter than you can imagine. It's a world where I can accomplish things that I dreamed of as a little girl, a place where I am learning to love being the woman that I am.

I love books so much I make
treasures like this one to
make them feel special!

When I get a new client, I always ask if she's a reader because it matters... a great deal. What we can accomplish together, if she is willing to read books to supplement the life coaching, increases by volumes. Sharing the books that changed my life brings me so much joy, and I truly cherish those who share their sacred resources with me. Books change lives.

"The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer is one of those books (for me and many other people). In fact, it is so powerful that I'm hosting what may be the most flexible book study in history to encourage others to read it.

Go here and read the poem and if it speaks to you, join me.

Details:
My purpose is to get you to read the book. That's it... very simple. You don't have to do anything else. Just get it, and read it. Let it change your life.

If you want to talk about it, I'm going to host a phone call every Saturday morning at 9:00 am (Central). To participate, dial (605) 477-3000 and then enter access code 259603#. We are beginning tomorrow 2/12/11 with conversation about the poem "The Invitation" and then moving forward by reading a chapter a week of the book.

If you want to discuss it, I'm going to host a conversation on my Wildflower Evolution page on Facebook. To participate, click here and click "like". Once you've connected, click "Discussions" on the left hand side of the page to find the conversation.

Lastly, in order to promote this book study and accommodate the desire for community, I've also created an event on Facebook. To connect with others who are participating in the book study, click here and click "I'm Attending". As of this moment, there are 22 signed up.

I hope that you will join us... seriously, I do. Either way, I hope you'll tell every woman you know about "The Invitation" by sharing this blog post. This promises to be a transformative experience for everyone involved (that's what the voices in my head whispered when they told me to do this) and your generosity could change another woman's life.

*****Please note that there are NO STRINGS ATTACHED to this book study. You don't have to register. No surrendering your email address. You don't even have to tell me you're doing it. This is honestly about sharing a precious resource because it's my life purpose to empower women, not about growing my coaching business or my mailing list.

365 Days of Anything... Makes You More of That

2011-02-10T22:46:00.003-06:00

This month, I challenged myself to produce 28 blog posts in 28 days. So far, I will be honest... I am totally rocking it. The stats are good, and I'm pleased with what I've produced (it turns out, lots more reading takes place when I write more). Tonight, I went to my neighbor's place to check in on my daughter (she's been there since the snow arrived yesterday and being that she's only 2 days post oral surgery, it seemed proper to check in). I joked with them that I had to get home and find something to blog about, that my 28 blogs in 28 days challenge was forcing me to get sort of crafty. Husband-neighbor said, "Did you hear about the guy in Barcelona who finished 365 marathons in 365 days?"

What did you say? Marathons? But wait... that's 26.2 miles a... He did what?

Yes, I came straight home and googled it. Sure enough, I found the damn story on NPR:

This is the marathon dude... Stefaan Engels. Awesome.
"In total, Stefaan Engels of Belgium covered 9,569 miles. On Saturday, he completed the Barcelona Marathon and finished a feat in which he ran 365 marathons over the course of the year. That's 26.2 miles of running a day for the 365 days."

I can't understand. It sort of set me back a bit. I am such a freaking slacker. Period. This guy just smoked my joker ass for lunch. I haven't done anything (not counting the whole unmedicated, natural childbirth thing) like that EVER, let alone once a day for a freaking year. So, I googled more:

John Kralik wrote one thank you note a day for a year... and THEN he wrote a freaking book about the experience. Now, that's just showing off. Either way, it's called "365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life."

And he's not the only one. We have Charla Muller who gave her husband a supreme 40th birthday gift... sex every single day for a year. Her book is called, "365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy." I found these, too:

365daysoftrash.blogspot.com (Wow...)
365daysofastronomy.org (Geeks... in the good way.)
365 DaysofA.com (Misleading title, interesting idea.)
365daysofcoaching.com (Not my idea, I promise.)

365daysofgoodness.com (I'm digging that, of course.)

People have 365'd just about anything you can imagine, including Christmas, magic, print, outfits, exercise, startups, photography, comics... It went on and on. Of course, it got me thinking. How would doing something daily for a year change my life? Well, we know what sugar daily for a year will do to my life... or my rear end.

What exactly is it that I want to be more of a year from now? I've considered committing to reading a book a week. Yoga, of course. An hour of exercise a day... I can't imagine what the right thing is. I'd like to be way more abundant... what could I do each day that results in more cash flow? Gambling? Saving? Writing? Networking?

I suppose I will sleep on it and see if I have more clarity in the morning. What about you? What would you like to be more of in a year? It's a pretty serious commitment, but I know some women who are looking for some seriously different results than the ones they came away from the last 365 with.

What do you think? Anybody feeling crazy? Or is it just me?

Whatever It Takes To Love Your Life Again (Is "The Invitation" For You?)

2011-02-07T18:23:00.000-06:00

Read this poem and if it touches you, join me for the book study beginning this week. It's a flexible, meet-you-where-you-are kind of experience because even as a Life Coach... that's how I roll. I don't care if you make the calls, I'm going to record them. I don't care if you participate on the discussion board. I don't care if you don't start until week three. All I want is for you to wake up and do whatever it takes to love your life again. Click here to learn more...

The Invitation

By: Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me

what you do for a living.

I want to know

what you ache for

and if you dare to dream

of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me

how old you are.

I want to know

if you will risk

looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me

what planets are

squaring your moon...

I want to know

if you have touched

the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened

by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know

if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know

if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations

of being human.

It doesn’t interest me

if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear

the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

I want to know

if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after the night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me

who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me

where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know

what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know

if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like

the company you keep

in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,

from the book The Invitation

published by HarperONE, San Francisco,

www.oriahmountaindreamer.com

One New Sex Rule... and Defending Sensitivity

2011-02-07T11:29:00.002-06:00

First things, first. Here is a new sex rule: Before having sex, please take a moment to contemplate whether you can actually trust that person to make decisions regarding your future child's sanity... without your input. Once more, with emphasis... WITHOUT YOUR INPUT! That part is a real bitch.

As much as we all still like to pretend that love lasts forever, sometimes bad things happen to relationships (like your idiot husband meets his "soul mate" at work at leaves you because he just doesn't love you... actually, he doesn't think he ever loved you like that*) and then you have to trust that other person to make all manner of very important decisions without giving a rat's ass about your feelings or thoughts on the subject. A great many of the people walking around here in heat, both the sperm and egg bearing types, can't be trusted with the science experiment, I mean child, that you could create in this moment of passion. Think people... seriously!

While my family is decidedly unconventional in some ways (see lesbian soccer mom, entrepreneur, vegetarian, and fool for starters), there are a few things that are sacred at my house. The right of a child to be child-like is one of the biggies. I've not been anything that could remotely be put up as an example of stellar parenting, but I strive to be honest and make amends when I screw stuff up. I also fight, literally and figuratively, to protect them from things that I just don't think it is time for yet - alcohol abuse (particularly by young people), cigarettes, drugs, violence when possible, and the like. I don't let them have a tv in their bedroom. I'm not crazy restrictive on the television, but will turn off that damn Charlie Sheen for pandering to the low expectation having masses with sex and toilet humor. If they are going to watch tv geared at adults, at least let it be intelligent. They aren't on facebook yet and wouldn't have the iPod Touches with texting capabilities if not for their father's (see rule above) blatant disregard for my opinion.

When my wife and I went to the theater to see The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger's Joker is haunting, and not in the way that those characters were scary when I was a kid. He was violently crazy in the way that some people actually are violently crazy today, extreme in a real-life-on-steroids kind of way. We decided, understandably I think, that it wouldn't be okay for the children to watch it for a very long time. My son was disappointed but seemed respectful about our decision, understanding that it was intense in a way that you simply can't un-see. You can't ever un-know these things once you go there. You will either be troubled by it, or suffer a loss of the precious sensitivity that makes us good human beings. We told him we would watch it with him someday, just later after he'd lived many more days with a mind free of The Dark Knight.

This weekend, in preparation for Oscar night, Kristin and I saw Black Swan and 127 Hours. They were both incredibly violent to watch, meaning my body responded as if I were there. They were both very, very good movies but they were hard on me, and others from what I could tell looking around the theater, to watch. I said on the way home that I wished we (society at large, the people that these movies are crafted for) weren't so damn desensitized, that we could have movies that tell powerful stories without violating the audience in that way. If we were as sensitive as we are built to be, these movies would have us on a therapist's couch by Monday afternoon.

Last night, I found out that my son's father let him watch The Dark Knight this weekend. It seems 11 is too young, but 13 is okay to experience the shocking violence offered by that film. I feel frustrated... and alarmed. I'm frustrated because we "agreed" that neither of us would show them the movie when it came out and although it was on TNT, and likely very censored by the network, that CHILD still deserves to be protected. I was alarmed because he acted like it was no big deal. My 13 year old watched a movie that's been haunting me since 2008 and it was either not a big deal, or he's acting like it wasn't a big deal. I'm not sure which one alarms me more.

I watched National Geographic: Stress: Portrait of a Killer not long ago on Netflix. It's a fascinating little documentary and I highly recommend it. It reminded me that exposing ourselves to this emotional shock and awe, as is undoubtedly the case in the movie theaters, can't be without consequence, if nothing more than the reality that the movies continue to need to be more and more shocking to effect us. Again, we can't un-know this stuff. We can't get back to our pre-horrified state. I've certainly begun to protect myself more and more, watching Black Swan went against my better judgement, because I just don't want to spend all my fight or flight reflex at the freaking theater. I want to live a more peaceful life, have peace-making thoughts rolling around in my head, and to contribute to the world two peace-loving, cognitively intact offspring.

Am I crazy here? Do you protect yourself? Your children? Isn't there enough going on in the world that we can be horrified by? Wouldn't we be more appropriately horrified about the crisis going on here in real life, if we weren't exposed to this crap all the time? Are we being shocked into idleness by the movie industry while real victims, real issues, real needs go unmet?

____

* You know who you are... and you're an idiot. Your first wife is blessed by this indisputable fact and your second one straight up lost the lottery. She remains in our prayers.

Radical Integrity... No Matter What

2011-02-06T20:39:00.004-06:00

Last year was the year of freedom and in December when I meditated over a theme for this year, I learned that the journey toward true freedom is paved with radical integrity. I heard that changing our lives is about making small, realistic promises to ourselves and them keeping them... no matter what.

rad·i·cal –adjective

of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference.

in·teg·ri·ty –noun

the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.

I agreed to the mission, although I was completely unsure what it meant to commit to a year of radical integrity. It turns out, it starts with a humbling dose of honesty - with myself and with others. I'm still getting used to that part... or perhaps, I don't want to get used to it. I sort of like the discomfort of the honesty, it keeps me on my toes.

So, I got on the scale... I've got to know where I'm starting. Then, I contemplated where I want to be. The gap is significant, sixty pounds, but that simply is what it is. It is a consequence of the way I've been living, the choices I made up until today. It doesn't hurt me any more just because I know about it. It isn't harder to carry around, or more work on my heart, just because I know the number. The biggest thing about knowing the number is that if it goes up, there's no pretending. As I say to my clients, it's time to quit screwing around... okay, that's a little censored for public consumption but you get it, right?

Next, I had to make a plan. You know, this extra weight doesn't fall off just because I willed it so. I worked overtime to put it on this overworked little 5 foot, 2 inch frame of mine. It's going to take a little more than "cause I said so" to get it off. I've been eating way less sugar for starters, which may not make a big difference for some people but after the last year, I'd be selling some stock if I heard Christy Farr was going off sugar again. I'm just saying. So far, that alone was worth a three pound weight loss. I'm telling you... some people like meth. I like sugar.

I need a meal plan, or program-like thing. Not like Weight Watchers or whatever, I just need to make some sort of decision about how I'm going to eat so that when I go to the kitchen three times a day, I have some lines drawn to keep myself from wondering around for hours. I really like the Blood Type Diet and those Skinny Bitches are some of the most awesome girls on the planet. They both have similar recommendations for me and I know that if I ate that way, I'd feel like six million bucks. Damn... I guess that's my line.

I want to feel like six million bucks... in the morning, I guess I will bust out those books and see what it is that I eat again. This is about digging deep, and admitting what's best for me and then doing it... no matter what. It's what I strive to do for everyone else - my wife and my kids. I think radical integrity is about striving to do that for me.

Longing To Live Masterfully

2011-02-05T16:45:00.001-06:00

I ache to be masterful, not at everything but of the things that are... for me. Deep down, I think we all do. The problem seems to be that we are not very good at investing in ourselves, and that is what it takes to be masterful.

There are many things I enjoy but just a handful of them that are so true, resonate so deeply, that they feel like they must be part of who I am. When I am not actively engaged in those things, I feel incomplete. These things are sacred to me. I long, way deep down inside my soul, to be masterful at them... I long, I suddenly can see, to be masterful at being me. This simple clarity is brand new to me and it feels transformative.

Yoga is one of these things. I first learned about it watching Madonna on Oprah in 1998:

It was years a couple of years still before I did my first yoga pose, and many more until I did it outside the privacy of my own living room. Yoga, walking, dancing, and hiking are the few ways my body truly loves to move. I want to be masterful at yoga. I want to study, practice, learn, and even teach it someday (because sharing what empowers me is what I do). The problem is that for all those years that I lived putting everyone else first, I didn't honor my desire to practice yoga... I just obsessed and wanted and pined.

It's completely insane how codependency makes us neglect that which means the most to us. Well, that is the old way of being for me. Things are different now. A huge part of my new journey is to putting myself first, no matter how absolutely miserably uncomfortable it is, and at this point in my life that means doing way more yoga. It means investing the time, energy, and money to do what my mind, body, and spirit long to do.

What is it that you long to do? To be? What will it take for you to decide you're worth investing in? Seriously, I want to know...

Got Fools?

2011-02-04T11:04:00.001-06:00

I shared the first stanza of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's poem "The Invitation" a few days ago in the announcement about the book study that begins next week. She continues:

This is me being foolish with my best friend and soul mate.

It doesn’t interest me

how old you are.

I want to know

if you will risk

looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

The further I move into the truth of who I am, the more difficult (emotionally) it becomes for me to tell about it. My commitment to radical integrity seems to have reduced my old armor to almost nothing. The chaos that once forced safe distance between the world and my heart is now replaced by mostly stillness, drama by calm, and yesterday's fear has given way to hope in a way that I never understood was possible. Just like that, I am being honest with myself, and the world... and a new vulnerability exists.

I know about the old way of being and the suffering that it causes, and I know that many women are still living this way. It is my life purpose to empower women, to guide them back to peace within and then with others. This means sharing the lessons, teachers, experiences, tools, and techniques that have empowered me, healed me, helped me find myself in a storm of crap that wasn't me at all. It started with a reality check watching Oprah fifteen years ago. Then, I read books, saw therapists, went to treatment, and talked the ears right off some of the most loving, helpful people on this planet. But, in doing those things or even sharing about them... I don't risk looking like a fool. That's just self-help, everybody's doing it.

Soul mates. Angels. Life Coaching. Energy blocks. Philosophy. Intuition. Healers. Mantras. Meditation. Psychics. Chakras. Affirmations. Reiki. Emotional Freedom Techniques. Feng Shui. Kundalini yoga. Talking to dead people. Writing. TRUTH. Radical integrity. Starting a freaking coaching business in the middle of a recession when there hasn't been a paycheck at your house for seven months.

Got fools? Perhaps, but that is what's rocking my sandbox these days. These are some of the things my friends and I do for a living. This is where I found more of myself, went deeper than ever before into my healing, connected for the first time in my life with true contentment... and peace. For now, this is where I will be doing my work, getting better at being me. And if you hire me as your Life Coach because you want to get better at being you... this is the beautiful, powerful, life-affirming world you're walking into.

Am I willing to risk looking like a fool? Yeah, I guess I finally am.

_____
For the record, I acknowledge that I didn't meet the short part of the short, daily blog posts with this one. Thank goodness tomorrow's another day!

Drawing A Line In The... Pants?

2011-02-03T15:37:00.001-06:00

These are my pants. They are my favorite pants. They are my only pants... that fit. These are my pants.

When you're 5 feet, 2 inches tall and you pack on a couple dozen therapeutic pounds, your pants get relegated, one "nope, too tight" pair at a time, to the back corner of the closet. It keeps you from feeling suicidal every single day when you go there to get dressed and find many pairs of pants that you can't put on. I move them out so I can chose from a stack of pants that will say yes to me when called upon. It turns out that once the migration begins, if you don't make any changes to your lifestyle, you'll soon be down to one pair of pants. Who knew?

I, unlike many of my weight volatile friends, only keep clothing in one size... the size that fits me. I refuse keep a "range" of sizes because I've been paying enough attention to notice that humans tend to go just about as far as you let them. It doesn't matter if we're talking about spending money, flirting, talking back, speeding, or calories. It's our nature to stop pushing right about the time that we can't get away with it anymore. I guess what I'm saying is, I like boundaries.

As my size 12 pants and beloved collection of blue jeans made their way to the back of my closet last year, I purchased two pair of fabulous size 14 jeans at the consignment store down the street. I hated expanding to a two size girl, but had no other choice if I was to leave the house in anything but yoga pants until something... uh, shifted in relationship with food. Yesterday, when I was putting on one of my two pair of jeans, the zipper broke. I just stood there, staring at those broken pants, contemplating what life with one pair of pants feels like. It is... humbling, as one might imagine.

It's all kind of sad because my beautiful, carefully chosen favorite-in-the-whole-world, size 12 pants are still here, stacked neatly up in the "You Can't Touch This" corner. I've been on this new path for two weeks, and the precious three pounds I've lost are just the beginning of what stands between me and those pants.

My wonderful wife offered to buy me more pants, but the truth is I don't want more size 14 pants. I want my pants... my pants. I want my ass to fit in my pants, and perhaps it's sick but I find a strange comfort in knowing that I simply can't go any further in that direction. If I go back to living the old way, I'm going have to do it pants free. I grabbed my last pair of blue jeans off the shelf and said, "Well, I guess it's just you and me... and we've got some work to do."

"The Invitation" To Change Everything... Will You Say Yes?

2011-02-02T09:08:00.005-06:00

Have you read Oriah Mountain Dreamer's poem, The Invitation? It begins:

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.g.

Click here to read The Invitation in it's entirety on Oriah's website. If it touches you in that way (you know, the one that leaves you sleepless at night or packing your bags to run away from home or weeping at your desk while your children or co-workers try to decide if they should try to help or run away), then I'd like to invite you to read her book based on that poem.

I'm going to host what promises to be a transformative group study of Oriah Mountain Dreamer's "The Invitation" beginning the week of February 7, 2011. My intention is to bring Oriah's teachings to as many women as possible, in whatever way makes sense for each person individually. Here is what I am going to do:

~Get everyone to read the book - To start, we'll read one chapter per week. Yes, those are very small chunks but they are very powerful, and I want to make sure we give ourselves enough space to truly engage. We may increase to two per week if it makes sense later.

~Host a discussion online - via the Wildflower Evolution page on Facebook (visit and click "like" to stay connected). Participation is suggested, not "required"... my main intention here is for you to read it!

~Host a live weekly conversation - on Saturday mornings at 9:00 am (CST). I may add a second call on a different day, if there is enough interest (which means you'll have to tell me you're interested!). The calls are optional, please join us even if you aren't interested in or able to attend these calls.

Here are some things you can do: In addition to what I've described above, you can also find your own way to commune. Gather your friends, sisters, co-workers, fellow soccer moms, church members, etc., and encourage them to join us. Then, gather in person, by phone, or Skype, once a week to discuss the reading. Also, you can connect with other attendees by posting comments on the event page to hold a small group discussion around a certain common experience, like loss of a child or divorce or health challenges.

*****IMPORTANT! Regardless how you're going to participate, go ahead and click here and select the blue button at the top that says "I'm attending".

28 Day Shake Up: February 2011

2011-02-01T09:51:00.001-06:00

I don't write blogs. I write chapters. My posts are long, seriously I call them articles because it's just too painful to feel like a failure when you spend so much time doing something and by many a blogging standard my failure is epic. I do have a lovely group of deeply committed (and obviously very patient) people who read regularly, but I know that many others don't because I'm just too wordy.

I write long things primarily because it's the way this stuff comes through me. It's how I roll. But, I've resisted the pressure/temptation to fall in line because frankly, I'm not sure that this is the impression you (the reader) want to make. I think highly of humankind and it doesn't speak well of us that something as important as your personal evolution can only be effective if delivered in 200 word nuggets. Seth Godin is masterful at getting a whole message across in shockingly few words, most others are simply giving you a few words. Have you even noticed?

Having said that, this year is about changing my life too. I'm trying new things, challenging my beliefs about myself, and beating the ego out of my comfort zone. Why not spend the next 28 days shaking it up? It is my intention to produce a short blog post every single day for the month of February. The subject matter is... well, whatever comes up. I'm on a new journey and I know that the key to success is to keep moving forward. Today, I have this for you:

This was my most present, peaceful
moment in 2010... can I bring that
same magic to my meal time now?

Fast Food Free in February (Click here to join it on Facebook)

One of my wicked awesome clients signed up to do this and invited me. The event sat in the corner of my facebook home page taunting me for nearly three weeks. I was scared. Ironically, we don't actually eat a lot of "fast food" in the McDonald's, Taco Bell, Arby's way. We live on a pretty tight budget, plus three of the four of us are vegetarians... blah, blah, blah. The reason this scared me is almost all of our food... is fast. We make it fast. We eat it fast. For a million fine reasons that don't actually matter, I've gotten away from something that was once completely sacred to me, family meals.

For me, this is more about the mindset, the thing inside that makes me not slow down enough to honor meal time and therefore, my body. I think that if we wish to eat out, we can probably do that just about anywhere. But, it has to be in a not fast way. I want to sit down and be a family (or by myself, if that's the case) and pause and eat a meal. Not in the car, not standing over the sink, not fast food.

A Healthier CABLE (and World) Awaits Us: Thoughts on Diversity & Inclusion

2011-01-30T08:51:00.001-06:00

I belong to women's networking organization here in Nashville called CABLE, but the message is one for all of us. I'd love to your thoughts...
_____
I want to be more healthy. One strategy I've chosen is to add more foods from the produce department to my diet. Currently, I eat about seven things from that department on a regular basis and I'm certain that it isn't enough for me to eat more of those seven things. The key to true health is variety. Your plate should look like a rainbow, they say.

CABLE's mission, or reason for being, is to connect women and opportunity. Our leadership, both past and present, outlined very clear guidelines about how that is going to go down. You can read more about those, particularly the emphasis on all women, by clicking here.

I stumbled, in the way that members sometimes do here at CABLE, into a position that is so close to my heart that it scares me to talk about it. Honestly, it scares many of us to talk about it. I am talking about the work of CABLE's Diversity & Inclusion Committee, of which I am a member, as well as co-chair of the Circle of Friends program. I know that it can be scary because this is what I've heard from several of my powerful, successful, well-respected peers when I raise the issue:

"I understand and fully support the Inclusion part, but I honestly don't understand how it helps us focus on Diversity. It seems like talking about how we are different just causes more separation, and people get upset. It doesn't seem to be helping. Why can't we just focus on including?"

On the surface, this is an admirable position, the why-can't-we-all-just-get-along approach to connecting women and opportunity. I understand that. Honestly, I do... but it will not work. It won't work for the same reason that it didn't work for me to simply declare that I want all the fruits and veggies in my diet. You should've seen me in action: I felt moved, changed, and certain that life was going to be different for me now. I declared my commitment to produce inclusion, boldly in my journal and loudly to my family. I drove to the grocery store, walked confidently inside (Don't you love they way it feels to be a changed woman?), grabbed a cart, headed straight into the produce department, and filled up my cart with... the same seven damn things I always eat.

The problem is that what I know is all that I know. I only know how to select, purchase, prepare, and eat those seven things. In order to make myself stronger, I have to learn about what all exists in the produce department: What vitamins and minerals do they have to offer? What do they "need" to be ready to eat? What is a serving size? I need to know about these items, be in something of a relationship with them, before I can include them, before I can possibly understand how to include them.

I only know how to be a white woman because that's the card I was handed at the moment of conception. I only know what it's like to be a lesbian, extensively proven by the 30+ years I spent failing at being a straight woman. I only know about growing up with divorced parents, each with careers in the United States Air Force, whose custody battles and patriotism moved me over and over and over again. I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in college. I grew up without religion, and that impacted the woman I am today. All of these things, and many more, make me this person. Because of these things, I come to CABLE (and the world for that matter) with a unique set of talents to share, passions to exude, excitement to channel, needs to meet, sensitivities to be aware of, and on and on.

Sticking our heads in the sand -- pretending that our differences don't exist -- will not work. True inclusion is about knowing, and then embracing, our differences. Our willingness to look at the differences -- to talk about how our differences impact our reality as individuals, communities, organizations, a nation, and a world -- will allow us to be stronger. Say yes to diversity, so we can say yes to inclusion... a healthier CABLE awaits us.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in... Totalitarianism Class?

2011-01-19T08:47:00.001-06:00

My bride hurt her good knee while we installed the hardwood floors last week and was unable to drive herself to school yesterday. I offered to play chauffeur. During most of her classes, I worked in the surprising peace and quiet of my car (so if my journal and I go missing, check the driveway), but I went along for Totalitarianism because her teacher is amazing and well, it's Totalitarianism. Why would I pass on the opportunity to join my best friend in her intellectual sandbox for a play date?

The first few sentences the teacher uttered sounded like Latin to me, and I felt the panic rise in my chest. After I confirmed the location of the exit, I willed my fragile ego to let go and asked my angels to help me process what was being offered. It was a game-changing hour and a half. Here's why:

I remembered that my wife is truly remarkable.
While this fact is never lost on me (because she writes things like this and does things like this), the content of this one lecture reminded me how profoundly intellectually savvy she is. She's a thinker in the way that I am a teacher... this is who she is. I feel renewed in my awe of the way she works, what she brings to the world, and her potential (as she's making preparations for law school).

I remembered that there is ALWAYS something there for me in every situation.
It was day two of the course, so the professor worked to lay something of a foundation for their opening study of Lenin with a lecture on Marxism. I've never studied Marx or any other philosophy properly (my B.S. is in Industrial/Organizational Psychology with minors in Psychology and Women's Studies), beyond what I've picked up from Kristin, which is frankly quite tragic. It turns out... philosophers have the freaking answers. We should all be paying more attention to them. Every single thing he said, I was able to apply to what we are experiencing as a society that is suffering through its seemingly over-extended capitalism stage. Also, I learned a great deal about why the people in my industry are acting like damn fools... but we'll come back to that another time.

My son doesn't find his
studies quite as energizing...

I remembered that I love to learn.
It's been nearly six years since I graduated from college. I know that I will go again, for at least a Master's Degree in Women's Studies, but it is not yet time for that leg of the journey. In the mean time, I'm still a woman who aches to learn new things, to engage in powerful dialogue about fresh ideas, and to absorb the wisdom and knowledge of those who are more masterful than me.

I started a new journey this week and my love of learning, I learned (again) yesterday, is a powerful tool for me to work with. A huge part of change is discovering how I want to show up in the world, which begins with learning. If not the old way of being me, then what are the other options?

I'm reading again - books about yoga and eating the foods that I know my body needs to thrive - and looking for my next teachers. Also, I made a promise to myself that I would get outside to walk daily, with intensity, at least four days a week, and find a way to do yoga at least once per week in a group setting. I want to learn more, dig deeper, and find out what I am really made of. That's the way that I will be able to make the most of my life, find out who I AM and put all of that to work for me.
I don't believe that I learned anything in class yesterday about Totalitarianism but I am filled with gratitude for the reminders to marvel at Kristin for being the amazing woman she is, wake up to the messages that come to me through every situation, and know that learning is a way of life for me. This morning I feel refreshed, like a new energy source was tapped... my inquisitive Little Christy has returned and I'm feeling more whole today.

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This is Me Plus 60 Pounds

2011-01-16T12:29:00.001-06:00

This is me exposing my soul. I hope that you'll be kind.

I use food, particularly sugar, to numb hard or scary feelings and also to energize myself when I'm exhausted. This was always my way of coping, jumbled with a boatload of codependency and a hint of rage, all the way back to childhood. Years ago, I went to a treatment facility for eating disorders for a one-week intensive and began a journey back to myself. I started at 202 pounds and lost about 65 pounds. I kept most of it off for several years, but the last two years have been stressful and I turned back to my coping mechanism of choice. I was exhausted. I started many days with something sweet, just to get going, and indulged in things I'd avoided in the "abstinent" years before. I honestly don't believe that I've lost any of the "me" I'd found, but I'm certainly not treating that woman very lovingly. I'm not standing up for her, advocating for her, doing what it takes to give her what she needs.

The consequence is that I'm 60 pounds overweight.

I'm a Life Coach, and I am 60 pounds overweight. This is incredibly hard for me to share because I've been living way outside my integrity in this environment of my life while prescribing the opposite to others. I worry because it seems like it can't possibly be good for business to be the kind of person who doesn't keep promises to herself, when I expect my clients to keep promises to themselves.

Or maybe it is. Perhaps the truth is still the way, honesty indeed the best policy. What if being a woman who is deeply committed to her path of personal evolution, even when it's scary, is what makes me good at what I do? What if taking my life to the next level is what it takes to support my clients in going to their next level, and at the same time, to take my business to the next level?

What other choice do I have? This is what I believe. This is what I teach: Transparency; integrity; being peaceful with myself. This is what I know it takes to change a life, even when it's my life we're talking about.

That's what this year of Radical Integrity is about for me... loving myself enough to live my real life, feeling my real feelings, and meeting my own needs IN A HEALTHY WAY. This is about making reasonable promises to myself and keeping them... NO MATTER WHAT.

This thing has been kicking my ass, and I'm sick of it. I tell my clients that it doesn't have to be this way, and it turns out... it's time for my life to bloom. I'm gathering my resources, exploring my needs and what my options are for meeting them, and going for it. I believe in my heart that when these old patterns no longer serve us, we can do the work to let them go. This is not me saying, "do as I say, not as I do." I'm ready to give myself what I tell you all the time you deserve. I'm worth it.

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Like it? Share it... and, as always, I welcome your thoughts below.

The Day God Lost Her Mind... And I Let Go

2011-01-07T13:41:00.008-06:00

During a recent hike in the woods, I had a business conversation with my Higher Power. I'd meditated on a particular subject for a couple of days and was ready for some dialogue about it. As "conversations" go, it turned out to be pretty one-sided, and I'm not talking about my side. There wasn't the solicitation of my input I'd expected, and I was cut off at every approach.

Do I have a number?

One million.

No, no, no... I was wondering if you might tell me the number of people whose lives I will touch...

One million.

Actually, what I'm looking for is a "goal"-type thing... the number of people I will reach in 2011...

One million.

One hundred thousand?

One million.

Two-fifty?

One million.

That's ridiculous.

One million.

There are some things that are so insane, we just surrender to the possibility. It's why we buy lottery tickets. Touching the lives of one million people with a business that just this quarter made enough money to pay my mortgage and all other regular (and very conservative), basic household expenses, obviously must be one of those things.

So, I lifted my arms and face to the sky, laughed out loud, and yelled, "Fine then… BRING IT ON!" I haven't done the math of how many people I'd have to reach a day - how many clients, classes, speaking engagements, and blog posts, and with that volume of participation - for me to get to that goal. One Million is so big, I can't plan for it. I just have to get over myself and go do what my intuition, passions, gifts, and serendipitous moments guide me to do… and let the damn thing (my life) play out!

Since that conversation, I've greeted each day without the weight of having to make this work myself. I get out of bed, and look around to see which door is open for me to walk through, and repeat as often as necessary until it's time for bed. Some doors are actual doors, like the one to the bathroom for my morning shower, which will soon be enjoyed in hot water again. Others are figurative, like a phone call that needs to be returned (whether I feel like it or not), or a host of changes being thrust upon me even when I don't feel "ready" to handle them.

I (finally) surrendered.

What strikes me most about this is that I honestly can't conceive of reaching even 100,000 people… seriously, CAN'T imagine it.

What if I am that wrong about my own potential?

What if I've been reaching for that much less than my Source designed me to do?

What if you have been, too?

Like it? Share it... and, as always, I'd adore your thoughts below.

Lessons From Mother Earth: Change Isn't Actually Hard

2011-01-03T07:42:00.001-06:00

People think change is hard... it isn't. The natural world tells us so:

Resistance is hard and it's kicking our collective ass. It's time to move on. Let go of the stuff that's cluttering your space. Right now, you don't need it and it's safe to trust the Universe to bring it back into your life when it changes again. It's time to accept that you're old strategies for weight loss are no longer serving you. It's time to release those toxic relationships, those historical roots are not enough to make them uplifting for you today. Your life has changed. You are continuing to evolve... honor that process.

Accept the new tools that are appearing in your life. Move on.

It's time for your life to bloom.

If you need support, consider life coaching. You can learn more by visiting www.SeedsAndWeedsCoaching.com.

Like it? Share it. And, as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts below! What change is it time for you to accept?

Making Change

2010-12-21T11:23:00.003-06:00

It seems to me that once we talk about making a change, it's practically done.

For most of my life I thought that speaking of a desire to make a change, or even perhaps the thought that barely precedes the speaking of it, marked the beginning of a desperately long and nearly hopeless process of trying to change that thing.

Naturally, it was. I know now that I get out of life exactly what I expect to. When I complain about how it's going to be hard to lose weight, The Universe smiles and blesses me with the opportunity to be correct... Yes, Christy, it is.

Around my thirtieth birthday, my relationship with change began to... um, change? When I started college as a 25-year-old, single mother of two, the idea of actually earning a Bachelor's Degree seemed so completely impossible that I just refused to think about it. I scaled my mind games way back to just the basics:

wake up

get all three of us ready

drop kids off at babysitter's

drive to school

go to first class (then second, third, fourth, fifth)

pick up kids

be a mom

put kids to bed

do math homework (write this paper, answer those questions, etc.)

I tried to remember to eat and mostly surrendered sleep. The back-to-basics planning kept me focused on that exact moment in time. It turns out, this moment is the only moment there is. Many, many of those days passed and when I graduated four and a half years later, changing my life was different.

For me, change is more of a sport... a true recreation. By the time I have the cognitive recognition that it's time to evolve, my capacity to be changed is already in place. The gift is already prepared, I just have to accept it. I am already the woman who's capable of starting a life coaching business, or writing a book, or becoming a vegetarian, or I wouldn't feel the desire. Yesterday, a very dear friend (who also happens to be a coaching client) spoke of the need to get herself together enough, to work hard enough, to make a change possible.

That's the old way. We know better now.

I reminded her that before she was ready for the change, she was asleep to the need for it. Once we become aware of the need, easily half of the transition is already complete. Waking up is the biggest part of the work, and once the need feels like a desire, we're probably 2/3 of the way there. Speaking a true intention to change is powerful, and that serves as some sort of tipping point. From here, it's easier to allow the change to occur than to continue resisting it. Sometimes we will take some time to gather tools, information and inspiration, and build a community to support us through the transition.

Then it's done. We are changed. Life is different.

As with grieving, change is a process. It helps to remember that once you desire a change, you are already almost there. Look around for the tools and support system you lack. They are already at your disposal; just look around.

Every single thing you need, within or around you, to take the next step in your journey is already here.

Sing Your Damn Heart Out

2010-12-06T07:53:00.001-06:00

Almost a year into my relationship with Kristin (the charming woman who is now my wife... thank you, Washington D.C.), we went to a concert that was part of the Nashville Pride celebration. Lindsey Hinkle opened and was amazing. Then, this fabulous lot of "Girls with Guitars" including Cheley Tackett, Tammy Fowler, and Annie Mosher (with Cathey Stamps on percussion) took the stage. They were righteously awesome. We are talking about rock-freaking-stars, and we were having a crazy great time. Then, that damn Cheley Tackett did this...

Hauntingly beautiful, right?

There I sat, next to Kristin, both of us sobered by the reminder of her Uncle Jim, whose death to cancer still hurt way too much. Suddenly, I was aware of a woman standing next to me who'd stopped to celebrate on her way back from somewhere, perhaps the restroom or the bar... I don't even know, but her sudden being there pulled me back into my body. She smiled a knowing smile, as if she could tell from the tears streaming down my cheeks where I'd gone off to, and said something like, "Beautiful, isn't it?" Both of my hands pressed firmly to my chest, I stammered, "I... I... I... It's... stunning." We'd heard it once before, at another venue, just after Jim died and on this day it was still every bit as powerful.

"Yeah... I just planned my funeral, and I'm having them play it."

Stunning.

I'm not sure I spoke again. I couldn't have said anything intelligent if I did, and just like that she moved on. I watched her glide back across the bar and sit down with her people. Two of her tablemates were a beautiful couple we'd met at a Hillary Clinton rally just a few months before, and there were many others I didn't recognize. I could see that everyone cared a little too much that she made it back to the table, protective of her in the way you might expect people to be once you've planned your own funeral. I continued to stare, certainly light years beyond anything that could remotely be considered socially acceptable, as one of the others slid a chair up next to the woman with the shaved head and funeral plans. She wove a protective arm across the back of the woman's chair and leaned in, wrapping her up like precious cargo. Obviously, they were together. She was... The One. She's The One who loves that woman who has just planned her own funeral. Damn.

In what can only be described as a moment of profound, but I hope understandable, narcissism, I realized that the 50 or so years that I'd only recently begun planning to spend with this incredible woman by my side, are just that, planned... they are not promised. Nothing is promised. Nothing can be taken for granted. Not my love for this woman. Not the love she feels for me. Not the lives of my son and my daughter. Not our peace, or our freedom. Nothing... ever again.

I've had way too many of these wake-up calls in the last year, beautiful people dying while others fight for their lives. I feel awake, not afraid but completely awake to the gifts of love, health, and happiness that are abundant in my life today. My invitation to you is this: let these life-changing experiences change you. When a child dies, let it rock your world and then do something with it. When a woman you love discovers a lump in her breast, let it take your breath away and then change your diet, give money to the pink mafia, and dedicate your life to something that makes a difference in the lives of others. When cancer of the thyroid silences your friend's beautiful singing voice... you'd better sing your damn heart out.

Cheley Tackett makes music that moves me, and this weekend Kristin and I had the pleasure of attending a release party for her new EP called "Whisper Me Slow" (click on the title to download yours for $5). We shared a table with the women from the Clinton rally, the friends of she who had decided that her funeral plans include Tackett's "From Up Here." I've kept tabs on that woman through these mutual friends' Facebook updates, certainly some of my best-intentioned virtual stalking. Although she continues to haunt me... I hear from them that she and The One are both doing well. Those funeral plans, it turns out, were just plans... they were also not promised, after all.

My Oprah's Favorite Things Scandal

2010-11-24T08:53:00.003-06:00

Its confession time, and it's an ugly one. I am not proud, can't possibly be on this one. Still, you know how I am... over-sharing, in the interest of personal evolution, is what I do. Deep breath... Here we go:

I used to loathe those screeching, hysterical bitches in the audience for Oprah's Favorite Things. There I said it. Shallow. Selfish. Shameful. I know. Oprah's Favorite Things used to break my heart. I wanted those things. BAD. I craved the luxury of DreamTime Foot Cozys, Ralph Lauren Black Label Cashmere Slim Fit Crewneck Sweaters, and Bourjois Lip Products. I longed for my spot at the leading edge of the digital mom movement with a Sony VAIO FJ Notebook, the Sony DCR-DVD200 Handycam, and that extraordinary LG HDTV Refrigerator. I wanted the beautiful hand-picked-by-Oprah music, life-changing books and gourmet foods.

I was green with envy. They were so incredibly excited, truly hysterical at times, and I couldn't stand it. They were women just like me, it seemed, with children and husbands (yes, even I had some husbands back in the day), doing their part to make the world a better place. Right before my eyes, their exhaustion and depression were extinguished by a shower of Oprah Love. They wept and hugged while I watched, growing more and more despondent every year. I envied the sisterhood. I envied the recognition. In 2004, the audience was filled with teachers... I envied that every woman in that audience was doing the job I'd dreamed of since I was a little girl, and the celebration of the teachers.

While the gifts were amazing, I realize now that my need was much, much deeper than that. You see, I've had a dream for oh, about 20 years now, that I would be on Oprah's show. Honestly, I didn't even want to be in the audience. Seriously... didn't care a thing about it. I wanted to be a guest. I wanted to have done something so meaningful with my life that Oprah would bring me on the show to talk about it. I wanted to change the world. Even deeper than that, I wanted to discover something inside me powerful enough to actually change the world. I ached for it... much the same way I ached to have children since I was a young teenager. There was this big, black hole where my soul was supposed to live and I thought motherhood and Oprah's recognition would fill it up.

I ached inside, for purpose and meaning, both concepts of which I knew nothing back then. I just ached. If I could do something awesome and Oprah could tell the world about me, then I'd certainly (finally) know what in the hell my life was about. The audience members for those particular shows were often chosen in recognition of something they'd accomplished or experienced. If only I could be in that audience, I might break free of the belief that I didn't matter.

I never made it to Oprah's Favorite Things. In fact, as her final season is winding down, it looks like it's going to take a miracle for me to even make it as a guest. Earlier this year, I did one of the boldest things I've ever done: I auditioned for my own show on the Oprah Winfrey Network. I didn't even get a callback, but I am absolutely certain that if she read my book I would be booked as a guest before the season wraps... but I can't seem to get it finished.

Still, in a truly surprising turn of events, as I watched Oprah's Favorite Things last Friday I realized that none of this mattered any more. You see, I finally found my life purpose (which is to cultivate peace by empowering women). I know who I am now. Every single day, I see evidence of the difference I'm making in the world with my life coaching business. Literally, one client at a time, one no-guts-no-glory blog at a time, one word at a time in that book I'm writing... I am making the world a better place than I found it.

The ache is gone. The "O" desperation is gone, although "O" recognition remains near the top of my bucket list. The envy is gone. As I watched that show, I squealed and wept with excitement for the Favorite Things audience. I experienced a flood of gratitude to them for their world-changing actions, followed by a flood of gratitude to Oprah for recognizing them. In an instant I understood how I'd changed; this was the true freedom that they have been talking about (they being Louise Hay, Debbie Ford, Wayne Dyer, and the rest of my inspirational teachers). This is what I've longed for. This was the reason I declared 2010 the Year of Freedom, both in my personal life and my coaching business.

As each item was revealed, I could actually feel their joy, and Oprah's, as if it were my own. I could imagine how wonderful it would be to give my wife that Nikon digital camera, the Sony Bravia 52-inch 3D television and blu-ray player. I laughed out loud at the fun and romance we would share over the five-year Netflix membership (we love to watch movies together). I'd take my children directly to wherever we need to go to pick out their new Nike running shoes, two each just because they've been such champs during the last couple of financially challenging years. I would give my mom the Tory Burch "Silver Anniversary" tote bag and shoes, and my bestest sister-in-law and friend, Allison, the Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater and blanket. I'd have my dear friend Laura and her three children over for lasagna and Ghirardelli brownies baked in Baker's Edge lasagna and brownie trays, for old time’s sake. I'd make a date with my son to prepare and enjoy that Beecher's "World's Best" macaroni and cheese because he is the mac and cheese connoisseur. I'd give my daughter The Black Eyed Peas' new album, "The Beginning." If he doesn't already have one, I'd give my brother the Breville Panini press from Williams-Sonoma, plus the 2-piece, Kyocera Advanced Ceramic Knife gift set because he loves to cook.

I know it would be exhilarating to receive all those great, fun gifts because I've been on the receiving end of some really amazing gifts as it is. And while I'd enjoy blessing my loved ones with these treasures, a dreamy opportunity to show the profound gratitude I feel, some of these gifts are all me! I'd clear my schedule to dive straight into "A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever" by Marianne Williamson. Then, I'd read "Decoded" by Jay-Z. I would do whatever Andre Walker's hair care products demanded of me and rock my closet with the Elfa Customizable Closet System from The Container Store, while burning my Lafco House and Home Collection Candle Set. I would dress up in my Lululemon relaxed fit pants and "25th Anniversary" Oprah shirt, with my Judith Ripka Eclipse Earrings and Limited edition "25th Anniversary" Oprah watch by Philip Stein. It would be admittedly contradictory to wear even such marvelous workout clothes with such fancy jewels, but I think it would be the perfect attire for my 7-day cruise on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas.

Lastly, I’d give that amazing $100 Kiva gift card to my daughter, and purchase an identical one for my son, so they could research and choose which way they want to make a difference in the world... because simply knowing that you can is what saved my soul.

The Proof is in Your Potential (I Freaking Told You So)

2010-10-30T17:36:00.000-05:00

Do you remember when I made that hysterical claim that your dream is the only proof necessary to believe that you are capable of making it come true?

I freaking told you so.

Quit screwing around... your dreams are waiting.

Ms. Thing: Meet My Crazy-Bold Rose Bush

2010-10-12T18:46:00.000-05:00

What would it be like if someone believed in your potential?

What about your potential?

I discovered this little treasure last week, on the rose bush by our front door. It seems she has one more bloom left in her. Frankly, I was surprised. You see, I'd pulled out my most cozy scarf two days earlier to go pick up the boy child after soccer practice. I was layering for the third day in a row. Of course, there was no snow on the ground, but it was a windows-open-only-with-a-down-comforter kind of chilly. The weatherman had issued "cover the basil" alerts. Seriously, I thought the rose party was over.

This year, that rose bush grew past waist high (on me, at least), survived the beetle situation, and humbly gifted us with an inspirational collection of full and intoxicatingly fragrant blooms. I assumed she was finished. When I found this tiny little bud, I said to her, "No way! Really? You've got one more in you, even with this chill? I'm down with your ambition... but do you really think you can get 'er done?"

Ms. Thing is the strong, silent type, so she just stood there - tall and proud... and certain - leaving me on my own to work through the doubt. It seems like there is always just a trace of it to conquer. Can I do it? Is this the right thing? Will there be enough? I wondered if she could go all the way.

I think that teeny tiny 1/2 inch rose bud is the proof that she is capable of producing a grand finale. It's like the super-secret dreams some women have of writing a book, starting a business, or running a marathon. In the end, it will be life-changing. It will be stunning. It will be beautiful. But, in the beginning... it's just a little bud of an idea. It sounds a little crazy to the woman wearing the long-sleeved, red layer under her favorite yoga t-shirt.

The thing about me is... I'm a big fan of crazy, the light side of it anyway. I thrive on the wild and exciting dreams that the world thinks can never come true. I look for people with a passion that keeps them up at night. My clients are women who go for it. As for the dark side of crazy (you know who you are), I steer clear of it....mostly because it just doesn't help for me to play with your dark-side-crazy until you're ready to let it go and use your power for good.

I love that the rose bush produced one more perfect little bud this late in the season. I know that she intends to bring it to bloom. The proof is right there. She said it was so. Your dream is all the proof you need that you're capable of making it come true, that you have what it takes to bring that dream to life.

What would life be like if someone believed in your potential like that?

What would your life be like... if you believed in your own potential?

You, Me, and the Snake: Everybody's Changing

2010-09-28T06:31:00.000-05:00

The great philosopher Meredith Grey once said...

Every cell in the human body regenerates, on average, every seven years. Like snakes, in our own way, we shed our skin. Biologically, we are brand new people. We may look the same. We probably do, the change isn't visible, at least not in most of us, but we're all changed. Completely. Forever.

Ellen Pompeo's character Meredith Grey isn't actually a philosopher (I'm no authority on this, but all of the philosophers my wife studies are dead... I'm assuming it is some sort of prerequisite). Her monologues are the mind-expanding sort of greatness that kept me from giving up on Grey's Anatomy last season, despite soap-opera-caliber drama that left many a committed follower shaking their head in disappointment.

(ABC/PETER "HOPPER" STONE) ELLEN POMPEO

In the spirit of full disclosure, it wasn't "once"... it was last week, during the season premier. Every episode begins and ends with Meredith telling us a little something, something about how life works. I've heard it before, this idea that we get a new body every seven years. I'm not sure what I think about it. I know that given a chance, I probably wouldn't pick this exact body again. I might go for something taller, or a little more narrow... perhaps not. We may never know - she says the change isn't visible.

Either way, here I am with this body, and this life, and this... well, everything. Everything around me, as I see it, is a result of what I chose before. If I want something different around me, I honestly believe that I possess the ability to change the way I spend my energy, adjust the actions I take every single day, and cultivate different results. I can change my life. In fact, I have changed my life, dramatically.

There is the kind of "believe" where you think that something like "transforming your life" is possible, quietly going about it in the privacy of your head. Then, there is the kind of "believe" where you make a wager, a big one, a poker player going all in.

I believe in a woman's ability to change her life - her relationships, career, finances, physical space, body, and spirit - in the full house, I mean aces-full-of-kings, kind of way. I drank the Self-Help Kool-Aid and I don't just want it for me. I've started a business that allows me to work with other women to help them bloom into who they want to be. I'm all in, in the mortgage-electricity-and-dinner-on-the-table way. It's what I do for a living. Life coaching is all I do for a living. I believe that you can change your life, that you deserve peace and contentment, that you can sense that something isn't quite right...that you understand that it doesn't have to be this way.

Grey closed season 7, episode 1 with this:

When we say things like, "People don't change," it drives scientists crazy because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy… matter… it's always changing, morphing, merging, growing, dying. It's the way people try not to change that's unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting them be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication, that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change… that's up to us. It can feel like death, or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment, we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

If you'd like to watch the really charming episode they sandwiched between these monologues visit ABC or Hulu or wherever you go to catch up.

If you'd like to change your life, look into hiring a Life Coach.

Widget World Rebellion: Professional Success for the Creative Spirit

2010-08-12T14:52:00.001-05:00

Seeds and Weeds Coaching and Sparta's Natural Answer

are thrilled to offer a brand new workshop series...

~ The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women ~

Widget World Rebellion:

Professional Success for the Creative Spirit

Tuesday, August 17th from 10:00 - 1:00

We grew up in a Widget World where you go to work, clock in, make widgets all day, clock out, and go home. In the Widget World, somebody else writes you a paycheck for the number of hours you work or widgets you make. This is not this way in the creative world and it's time for you to join the Widget World Rebellion. Join us to discover the Eight Powerful Principles for Doing Business the "Right" Way. You will see how your Creative Spirit can thrive in business, too!

Be there as Life Coach Christy Diane Farr guides participants through a process of personal transformation that touches all nine environments of a woman's life - mind, body, self, nature, spirit, personal relationships, professional network, finances, and physical space.

The Seeds and Weeds promise is that before it's over you will laugh, learn, and feel more powerful... you don't want to miss it!

The Natural Answer Wellness Center is located at 33 W. Bockman Way in Sparta, Tennessee.

Email Christy@SeedsandWeedsCoaching.com to reserve your spot. Cost is only $25.

The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women... July Registration!

2010-07-23T13:05:00.002-05:00

Seeds and Weeds Coaching and Sparta's Natural Answer
are thrilled to offer the next ...
~ The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women ~

Cravings, Chaos, and Codependency:

It Doesn't Have to be This Way
...Tuesday, July 27th from 10:00 - 1:00

In this workshop, we will dig into the old thoughts and behaviors that keep you stuck when what you really want is to move forward. It's time to find the FREEDOM from the addictions, overwhelm, and relationships that keep you from being your best... It's time for your life to bloom!

Be there as Life Coach Christy Farr guides participants through a process of personal transformation that touches all nine environments of a woman's life - mind, body, self, nature, spirit, personal relationships, professional network, finances, and physical space.

The Seeds and Weeds promise is that before it's over you will laugh, learn, and feel more powerful... you don't want to miss it!

The Natural Answer Wellness Center is located at 33 W. Bockman Way in Sparta, Tennessee.

Register now to reserve your spot. The cost is $25.

Widget World Rebellion: Survival of the Creative Spirit

2010-06-17T18:22:00.002-05:00

I just spent a fabulous 30 minutes with Doug Foresta on his show Breakfree to Success talking about the Widget World Rebellion I'm launching!

Listen to internet radio with Breakfree to Success on Blog Talk Radio

Enjoy it? Please help spread the message... click 'share this' below! Thank you.

The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women... June Registration!

2010-06-02T13:25:00.002-05:00

Seeds and Weeds Coaching and Sparta's Natural Answer
are thrilled to offer a brand new workshop series...
~ The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women ~

Purpose, Passions, and Plans:
Making Life Make Sense
Tuesday, June 15th from 10:00 - 12:30

Be there as Life Coach Christy Farr guides participants through a process of personal transformation that touches all nine environments of a woman's life - mind, body, self, nature, spirit, personal relationships, professional network, finances, and physical space.

In this workshop - Purpose, Passions, and Plans: Making Life Make Sense - you will explore the concept of life purpose, including discovery exercises to help you find yours! You will learn about passions and the importance of following your heart... to the health, sanity, and abundance you deserve. It's from 10:00 to 12:30 on Tuesday, June 15th at the Natural Answer in Sparta, Tennessee.

The Seeds and Weeds promise is that before it's over you will laugh, learn, and feel more powerful... you don't want to miss it!

Register now and enjoy the "take action" price of $25 for the first 10 women who register! After that the regular cost is $40.

May... Celebrating the Intensity of the Storm

2010-05-12T08:10:00.000-05:00

Mayhas always been a movin'-and-shakin' kind of month for me. Lots ofchanges take place this month every year...like in 1975, when I movedout of that nice, peaceful place where life really was good,and my needs were met before I even knew I had them... oh yeah, mymother's womb. I burst onto the scene... okay, that's not true at all.I was surgically evicted from my happy place, pulled into the wild andcrazy space that I now affectionately call "my life." That May of 1975certainly was a big one.

Naturally, there were parties every year in May to celebrate theaforementioned "transition," and also many end-of-school celebrations,dances, and don't forget the just-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth high schoolgraduation in 1993! That one was close.

It was May of 1997 when I first felt my unborn son move in mybelly; and it was such a relief! The previous May, I had been pregnantwith a different baby, and the memories of my miscarriage had leftme... afraid.

May of 1999: I'd moved past my pregnancy fears and intoI-am-as-big-as-a-house pregnancy discomfort with my daughter. Ofcourse, that was the same May that I realized my marriage was over.Lots of changes, I tell you, in my special month. I moved out of myhome... and back in with my mother, 1.75 babies and all.

It was in May of 2000 that I decided on a divorce recovery plan,which started with my relentless pursuit of a Bachelor's Degree. Thenin 2005, my friends and family held one righteous party in combinedhonor of my thirtieth birthday, my graduation (with honors) from MTSU,and Mother's Day, which all fell in the first week of May! Oh, what agrand time we had...

So, here we are. It is 2010, and I thought this May would be aboutsome exciting changes in my business - the beautiful makeover of mywebsite; the launch of a wicked-awesome, top-secret, informational andinspirational collection of treasures for women; exciting new workshops; etc. I thought this May would certainly be about change... my way -- in the form of all these wonderful things I've been preparing for months. It was all very exciting.

Sure enough, May came in with a bang... of thunder, that is, andlots of brilliant lightening, and enough rain to leave my hometownunderwater. As it rolled over midnight on my birthday, the rain startedcoming. It didn't stop until the streams and creeks were powerfulenough to hold entire communities hostage. The rivers expanded andraged with volume and speed that couldn't help but destroy everythingin their paths.

This isn't the first May that brought chaos into my life, and it'sreasonable to assume it won't be the last. Life on Planet Earth is achaotic experience, and I've come to understand that it is no longerreasonable for me to manipulate (or at least try to) these situationsinto being what I want them to be. Fighting to keep my ex-husband fromdivorcing me was a lot like fighting to keep water inside the banks ofthe Cumberland River during this historic flood. I could have diedtrying. If I were stubborn enough, I would have.

Loss is loss, plain and simple. I would never try to say that whatwas lost in Tennessee this week doesn't hurt because it does. It hurtslike hell... or like childbirth.

What I will say is that if wecan find a way to keep our eyes open, looking for what's possible,there is always something beautiful on the other side.

It is the storms with the most intensity that give birth to the most incredible versions of us.

The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women... Register Today!

2010-04-26T17:42:00.003-05:00

Seeds and Weeds Coaching and Sparta's Natural Answer

are thrilled to offer a brand new workshop series...

~ The Sacred Spaces Wellness Workshops for Women ~

Session One: The Daily Journal

20 Minutes a Day Keeps the Chaos Away

Tuesday, May 18th from 10:00 - 12:30

Be there as Life Coach Christy Farr guides participants through a process of personal transformation that touches all nine environments of a woman's life - mind, body, self, nature, spirit, personal relationships, professional network, finances, and physical space.

The first workshop - The Daily Journal: 20 Minutes a Day Keeps the Chaos Away - will introduce daily writing as tool for increasing creativity, exposing energy drains, and cultivating the change you wish to see in your life. It's from 10:00 to 12:30 on Tuesday, May 18th at the Natural Answer in Sparta, Tennessee.

The Seeds and Weeds promise is that before it's over you will laugh, learn, and feel more powerful... you don't want to miss it!

Register today for $25 and enjoy the "take action"discount

for the first 10 women who register!

Regular cost is $40, so click on the "buy now" button below to register and save your spot.

Your Challenges Are Mine

2010-02-25T08:26:00.001-06:00

It's tricky for me to separate the "biggest challenges I face as a woman in business" from the fact that I am certainly a woman and there are indeed challenges that I face while being in business.

When I was studying Industrial/Organizational Psychology at MTSU, one of my professors said that learning to golf was the single best thing I could do to level the estrogen/testosterone playing field in the business world but after almost six years, playing golf still hasn't made the leap from my bucket list to my more immediate to-do list. Luckily, Seeds and Weeds Coaching caters primarily to women, and my tee time complacency has done no harm... barring the burning humiliation of my 12-year-old son's laughter echoing across the driving range while that mocking, round token of gender equality sits, completely immune to my rookie swing.

I consider myself lucky to have escaped the more blatant types of sex-based professional challenges that I hear other women describe - sexual harassment, less pay for the same work, etc. I say "escaped," but it is more accurate to say that I crafted (or perhaps stumbled upon) a professional life for myself, at least since my son was born, which allows for the not always peaceful but always respectful co-existence of that which makes me money and that which makes me a woman.

There is, however, something more subtle that plagued me as a young woman in business and continues to occasionally rear its beastly head. I think it's essentially the emotional fall-out from the sexist conditioning girls in our culture receive, the baggage we carry into adulthood nagging us that our function is to please and accommodate others. It manifests in a million different ways -- fear of challenging others or speaking up to share ideas, an absence of clear boundaries -- and culminates at best in unexpressed potential, at worst in a perfect storm of professional misery. These behaviors, often grouped together and labeled codependency, cause us to live always in reaction to the people and things in our environment. In order to thrive in business (and life), we must find our way back to living in proaction. Action that is intentional, creative, and collaborative will cultivate professional success.

Can you appreciate the inherent juxtaposition* of a business created to empower women? Mine is a business that can only thrive if the women who need to be empowered are both willing and able to invest in themselves. A woman's self-doubt can inhibit the confidence, strength, and resources (time and money) necessary to invest in not just my business, but the many life-changing tools of personal evolution - self-help books, therapy, education, etc. Today, the challenge for me is not in being a woman in business... but that my business is these women.

*Thanks to Allison Christian for the word of the day.

The Freedom To Discover Self

2010-02-17T12:48:00.000-06:00

When the phone rings... we stop and pick it up.

When there is a knock at the door... we stop and open it.

When a child says, "Mom?"... we stop and listen to them.

That'ssimple, right? These things come for you. Once they've got yourattention, it only takes one step to accomplish it - pick it up, openit, listen to them. In fact, it often seems harder to not do them, oncethe request comes in, than it is to just stop and do it.

Why arewe busy doing a million one-step wonders, when our hopes and dreamswait on the back burner? Well, you're on a journey called life. Youstepped off the trail for a moment to check something out and gotdistracted by all the little things around you. "Oh, look at thatperfect leaf! Oooh, what a beautiful flower! Wow, check out this ladybug!"

Yes, the scenery here is lovely, but it's time to get back on the trail and... keep going!

The Nature of Freedom

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Grow. Change. Be "Google" Bold.

2010-01-21T09:07:00.000-06:00

Personal Evolution: Simply allowing our experiences to grow and change us.

Many moons ago, as a rather desperate, newly-single woman with two young children, I had the good fortune to have a nice brother who got me a wonderful sister-in-law. Allison was already a very dear friend, but I took refuge in the permanence of their union as it was a difficult decade and I leaned quite hard on a few good friends. I liked that she couldn’t really get away without compromising some long-held, sacred (in her family, at least) family values.

Struggling to devise a divorce-recovery plan, I contemplated the impossibility of getting a Bachelor’s Degree... me, a girl who just a couple of years earlier had barely graduated from high school, who had no job and no real skills and two incredibly beautiful babies. Allison reminded me that the four years would come and go either way, and then taunted me that when it was over I could have a degree or not... the choice was mine.

That was one of those moments in life, the kind where you choose to either evolve or surrender to utter self-destruction. The reality in that moment, and honestly in any moment, is that the time will pass, and life will change, and all you have to do is decide if you’re going to go with the flow and grow and change, or fight to stay precisely where your miserable self is standing. While I’ve had my fair share of stubborn self-destructive days, on that day I chose the promise of change. Choice is the focus of this particular blog, covering all of the it-doesn’t-have-to-be-this-way/you-can-change-your-life stuff. I also have my O-Mom blog, where I post when I do something remarkably unacceptable with or to my children, or when I’m feeling too bitter or too random for public consumption.

Today, I was compelled to start a third blog, Googolution: The Evolution of Google Voice, another wicked-cool product from the freaks at Google (that is the humble, respectful use of the word “freak”), designed to free us from the six-devices-and-four-phone-numbers-but-I-still-can’t-get-them-on-the-phone game. I can’t possibly out-do Google in terms of product description, but basically, Google Voice enables me to give out a single phone number that rings me whenever and wherever I prefer, based on... wait for it... the identity of the person calling me! It even transcribes my voice mail into text or e-mail, if I choose.

I think Google rocks for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they gave me freedom from my need/hate PayPal relationship with Google Checkout. Everything they’ve done to make my life easier flows directly from their rapid evolution business model, it’s all essentially an exercise in conception/creation/clarification. Someone on the staff thinks, “I wonder if...” and, as I understand it, often literally within moments, the concept comes to life. They operate from the land of Beta, where regular people use, abuse, and give feedback about products. The products are continually refined based on feedback from users and from the program itself (a.k.a. evolution) for what must be the technological equivalent of light years before they are released "for real” (Gmail was in beta for 5 years).

So, this Google Voice transcription service has the seemingly impossible task of learning how not just one user talks (like my new MacSpeech Dictate), but learning to accurately recognize the voices of ALL the people leaving voice mail - think about that for a moment... only last week on American Idol there was someone who I’m sure was speaking English but whom I couldn’t understand to save my life. Some of the transcripts are precise... but some of them are terribly inaccurate. These “failures,” as I’m sure many of my fellow Google Voice users label them, are a source of great amusement and are now being catalogued on my new blog.

I think the evolution of Google’s voice recognition software, out here in the world, with both its successes and failures on display for us to see and criticize (and enjoy), is a perfect model for the personal evolution that landed me in college ten years ago. Overwhelmed by grief, confusion, and fear, I thought, “I wonder what would happen if I went to college...”.

Just like Gmail, my educational evolution launched in a beta-testing phase, and it stayed that way for nearly five years. In the same, very public way, Middle Tennessee State University’s teachers used and abused the program... I mean, um, me and my brain. Just like Google, I relentlessly gathered the feedback - many beautiful successes and some truly colossal failures - and continued to refine my methods, practices, and sometimes even goals, accordingly. Finally on May 7, 2005, one week after my thirtieth birthday, I graduated... with honors.

I love the idea that this whole life thing just isn’t so serious. If we screw it up, we can just fix it! We can’t continue to live in the labs of our dreams, waiting for a perfect life to be ready before we release it. Remember that the reality in every moment is that time will pass and life will change and all you have to do is decide if you’re going to go with the flow, and grow and change, or fight to stay precisely where your miserable self is standing right now.

The Game of Real Life, 2009 Edition (3 of 3)

2009-11-26T09:12:00.001-06:00

The thing I love most about this chaotic and celebratory time is theawareness that 2009 has been the most righteous preparation for my lifein 2010. Today--this moment--is my training to thrive in whatever'sahead, and it's the same for you. So, let's decide what we're playingfor next year and since this is my fancy little don't-you-just-love-reality exercise, l will go first...

I am in it to win in 2010 and here is what I'm playing for:

1.) A full coaching practice (6 more one-on-one clients), plus awaiting list and monthly workshops, all filled with bold and incrediblewomen who inspire me while I empower them to bloom where they areplanted.

2.) Two paid opportunities per month for me to share my message as a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator.

3.) A new home with a higher square-foot to human being ratio, built onenough land to accommodate the peaceful co-existence of horses,motorized toys, and a great big rock named Paradise, where I will doyoga in the morning sun.

4.) The time, energy, focus, andvulnerability necessary to truly honor my next writing project, a bookabout the power of diversity that feels sacred to me.

5.)Support my children as they maneuver another year of their respectivejourney toward self-discovery, a deepening of their roots to help themstay strong in the teenage territory that lies ahead.

6.)Discover and prepare one new (and hopefully delicious) vegan meal eachweek in order to increase the variety and quality of food consumed bymy family and me.

7.) PLAY more, including more travel, and continue to wallow in the beautiful relationship I share with my partner.

There you have it; I bared my soul. Are you going to tell me that youdon't have time for this? Are you too busy saying “thanks” to reallycontemplate how to make 2010 your best year, yet?

In thespirit of full-disclosure, I want to say that while using game languageis an effective way to explore the sometimes elusive concept ofpersonal evolution, I really love it because... well, it works for me .It works for me because even those who don't follow sports know that ifyou want to improve the way you play the game, you get yourself acoach. Well, I'm a coach. I'm a Reality Coach. I can help you see thetell-it-like-it-is reality of your situation and once we uncover that, we will immediately go about changing reality to suit your desires.

I should further disclose that while it would be more profitable if I were the only coach who could help you win in your life, the truth is, I am not.Everybody deserves to find "their" coach. When I walk into a room, myideal clients and I feel a sense of connection, a feeling that we knowone another and that mutual choosing of coach and client ensures oursuccess as a team. Email me, and we'll talk about whether now is a goodtime for coaching, and if I'm the right coach for you. If I'm not, I'mokay with that... in fact, I celebrate that and I will be thrilled tohelp you find the coach who can best help you play to win in 2010.

This is the invitation I promised you: to give yourself a gift this week... the gift of Possibility in 2010, and if it feels right, hire a coach to support you.

www.christydianefarr.com
info(at)christydianefarr.com

The Game of Real Life, 2009 Edition (2 of 3)

2009-11-26T09:11:00.001-06:00

First you assessed how you've been playing the big games in your life this year. Now... what are you going to do about it?

There is one month left before we cross the finish line for 2009. Haveyou met your goal? Can you push beyond it to something even better?There is still time left, what are you going to do with it? It's easyto get swept up in the festivities: decorating, shopping, schedulechaos; cooking and then, of course, eating what you've cooked.Wherever you started, you have a certain amount of ground to cover; areyou closing in on it? Are you going to blow it? Is there just enoughtime to get there? What kind of supports do you need to win this game?

What if you've forgottenabout your game, and my little Reality Check just brought it back intosight? Well, for you, I have the best news of all: If one month is notenough time to go all the way, then just set a new goal!Remember, it only took a few hours for Hurricane Katrina to wipe outthe bulk of the Gulf Coast. Imagine what can be accomplished in yourlife with thirty-one magical days this December!

The thingthat keeps most people from playing their best game is nothing butfear, of loss, hurt, disappointment. When we show up and actually play,really throw ourselves into it, heart and soul, we do inevitably riskthe possibility of a heartbreaking loss. I understand that losingsucks. But, imagine what it might feel like to wake up five, ten, oreven twenty-five years from today to realize that you never even got inthe game. The change you resolved to cultivate nearly eleven months agotoday, simply never happened. What about one year from today? How wouldyou feel about your life... as a spectator sport?

One of mycoaching clients spent 2009 in the "Uncovering A Healthy Me Game" andafter a slow and somewhat rocky start, she is really taking it by storm- meditation, ideal food choices, lots of reading, personal reflection,and a profound commitment to transparency and digging deep withcoaching. As the holidays near, she's begun contemplating all of thoseholiday traditions, celebratory food, and the overwhelmingexpectations... the way things have always been, and feeling afraidthat she will lose this really critical game here in the final stretch.I told her that this more powerful version of herself that's finallybegun to bloom is simply her new way of being. Her successes, herthrilling wins, are not accidental, not simply gifted to her and at risk of being taken away. This woman, this changed woman, is who she actually is now,and she simply has to continue to choose this version of herself, thismore connected, more alive version, again and again. This is who she IS now.

Thesame goes for the game you're playing... December remains, so if youare winning, by all means keep doing what you're doing. If you are notwinning, think about it, what is it going to take to get you back inthe game? What do you need to change to get back in the game? Gameplan? New environment? New team? Change anything... remember, this is your game.

Again, not rhetorical. We will reconvene once more to wrap it up. Click here for 3 of 3.

Did you miss 1 of 3? Click here to catch up!