Cheeseball shame.

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By the third time I had talked about it I decided I would write it out. 

The cheeseballs. The shame. 

When my love Mara mentioned perfect imperfection texting a couple days ago, it finally had a name, the cheeseball moment. And named, it feels different.

Perfect imperfection. It's a thing. And we all know it's a thing. If you are on social media, you know it's a thing. It is a curated self protective blend of vulnerability and the perfect photo to tell you all about the vulnerability.

Go to my feed, you'll see plenty.

There I am taking a quick video of Eli's birthday spread complete with things he loves, cucumbers, celery, goldfish crackers, cheese, strawberries, cheeseballs.

Well I post the video and bam. Shame.

I am a health coach and my kids get cheeseballs on their birthdays.

My perfect imperfection that I didn't realize I was attaching to my identity. I'll let you see the goldfish crackers after 5 years of therapy but the cheeseballs, hell no. I've known health coaches ready to leave relationships because their partner bought boxed cereal. Judgement reigns deep in this world. 

After I post the video I spend the next 24 hours thinking about how I need to talk about the cheeseballs, explain the cheeseballs. How they are a family birthday thing. How they started with our youngest hacking our grocery list and adding cheeseballs to it all the time.

Honestly, by the third time I've talked about the cheeseballs with someone those damn things lost their power. Judge me. I can't do this shame dance on social media any longer.

A couple months ago I hit my rock bottom of social media shame. Pretty sure it eventually landed me in the ER with diverticulitis. Because a public airing of anger directed at you will eat up your intestines fast while you are working your way through it.

And. It was one of the moments that changed my life, I am ironically steeped in gratitude. A freedom.

Because.

It is so OK. Here was this thing happening and I didn't have to control it or be part of it or give it power. It just was. Messy. Real. So OK.

Eventually this tenderness for all of it, for other's pain and anger and stories, replaced the terror. The deep vulnerability of being imperfectly imperfect and the potential of social media to be wildly toxic or deeply healing all rushing together.

Shame. Cheeseballs.

My kids eat them on birthdays.

Shame. If I could go back and make decisions differently and undo pain caused, yes, yes.

And also, the one who was, the one who had to control the imperfections, she didn't know how to walk through that time. My heart now cannot believe how scared she was.

Shame. How scared she was. How control and fear became silence. How breaking the silence brought more shame. How cheeseballs could just be cheeseballs and hurts and pains and angers can be OK and real and needed, even when they are coming right at us.

Because it is real and true and tender. 

That's the way through shame. To find the truth inside of it.

I didn't want to show you those bright orange fake ass puff balls that were part of my kid's celebration.

Because shouldn't I be better than cheeseballs when you are viewing my perfectly imperfect life?

(Insert perfectly imperfect photo to represent cheeseball vulnerability.)

What I had to tell my partner about me.

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The other night Dave and I got in an argument, which would not have been an argument in another dimension of time and space.

One where Dave understood part of who I was.

One where I had given Dave the information to understand who I was.

The argument centered around a piece of cake. Strawberry. Gluten free. Vegan. Possibly the happiest I have ever felt about a piece of cake.

He was telling me that my face lit up when I talked about the cake. I cut him off because I was incredibly embarrassed. 

One of the things I've been working on in our relationship is not interrupting. I struggle with it and am making more of an effort.

This interrupting wasn't me being impatient or not listening, I didn't want him to keep talking. I felt my face wanting to flush and I just needed to talk my way out of his calling attention to my happiness over this cake.

I was OK being happy, just not talking about it.

After that we got tangled up. I wanted him to understand that when you are a disordered eater, allowing yourself to truly find pleasure in cake, not deny yourself the cake or overeat the cake because you feel shame for wanting the cake or for just feeling in general, is a big fucking deal.

I didn't want him to repeat himself and tell me again that my face lit up when I got the cake. I felt shame at this point.

We tangled some more. His needs colliding with my needs. The day went from crazy joyful wild tiny moments of life changing proportions to feeling like I was going to throw up.

We left the restaurant. I was almost in tears. 

I left the cake on the table.

It took us almost 24 hours to finally talk. We haven't had a fight in so long, we both were mush inside the discomfort of it. I was so confused as to why he wasn't understanding me.

It took me almost 24 hours and a tantrum to find words that led him to understand why this was such a thing for me.

He has no past with disordered eating with anyone he knows.

I had never talked to him, other than casually, about it. He had no idea a piece of cake could hold so much feeling. He had no idea that I was finally feeling free from the disordered eating I've been inside of.

Because I haven't talked about it. I want him to see me. But not that part of me. 

I want to be seen by him, but within strict boundaries of what I allow.

When he does this with me, it makes me crazy.

As he softened and realized that this cake argument that seemed like the stupidest of arguments was actually a deep wound, a deep story, I started to cry. In that way you cry when something that has been hiding, and now has light cast upon it, rises up.

I cried. For a while. It took us a few tries. I did Ok even though I was fighting against wanting him to know this part of me.

Up until a few months ago, and I've been doing this work of trying to be free from body shame, I have lived with the intention of being smaller.

I'll call it a cleanse, I'll go raw or paleo or fast or create enough drama that I can't eat. All in the name of being smaller.

One of my favorite things to hear people say used to be, "You look like you've lost weight."

I liked to be smaller.

I liked to control my feelings through hunger. The less I would eat the less I would feel out of control.

I don't do that anymore. I don't have rules (which I loved to break) anymore. 

I eat noodles if choosing noodles feels like kindness. I eat bananas if choosing bananas feels like kindness.

Telling Dave about my desire to be 'small' sucked. Like, I hated it. I did it. I made it through. I had a vulnerability hangover. 

Because that isn't how I wanted to be seen.

Maybe because I am terrified that he secretly wishes I was smaller. That he will wish that he didn't get the time of my life when I started healing all my shit and put on 20 ish pounds. That he will think it is an excuse for gaining weight. That he will judge me somehow every time I take a bite of food now.

So, I let him see me. With all of those stories crashing through my body.

I let him know me. I explained to him the first time I realized that I could become smaller by eating less and how it controlled my pain.

That night at dinner I was wearing an outfit that was being guided by my free spirited get in the car and go find an adventure part of self. She spent the day thrifting in a different state. She was wearing all black, all thrifted finds.

I didn't know when I chose that outfit and that part of self for the day that she would be leaving the gluten free vegan strawberry cake behind so that she could lead me to a new layer of being seen. (Pun not intended but cute.)

Looking back, I see that her entire vibration was calling forth being seen. Being brave. Being new.

It never looks like how we think it will. Arguing with Dave hurts my heart, I can feel it beat differently. His stomach was a mess. We were so sad that we were in this place again. 

And. It wasn't that at all. We weren't back at anything. We were being called to go further forward.

He wants to see me. He loves to see me. I was controlling what he knows about me like I was controlling that food.

Because maybe if he knew, he would leave.

Or maybe, if he knew, he would see me.

I would be loved. More.

I would feel. More.

Because I let myself be seen.

(Are we all craving strawberry cake now?)

Phones in a bowl.

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Tonight at midnight I am putting my phone in one of my altar bowls. Maybe I'll throw a crystal in there with it.

Sacred Stillness.

I invite all of you to join me in disconnecting, allowing the quietness of space as it becomes along with us.

This may feel like an edge. It does to me. This will only be my second time doing this.

My family and I did this last Saturday and the kids declared it an amazing day.

I am in love with the idea, a bit fearful of the reality of the stillness.

Saturday Stillness. Or Sunday. Or Friday. Whatever works for you.

.......

My phone is going in the bowl. I invite you to find places where stillness is calling you to lay the phone down and see life not through the glass but all that is when you look up.

For one day.

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I have this zit.

Right under my eye, next to my nose.

One of the times I tried to squeeze it it decided to explode with blood while I was driving the van home. The only thing I had was a panty liner to wipe up the blood and looking for it I swerved on the road a little and then had a cop car follow me.

I'm looking in the rear view mirror, holding a panty liner to my gushing face and rehearsing my speech, "Sorry officer, I had to reach for a panty liner to mop up the blood and..."

It showed up easily half a year ago. It was fierce, intense. Angry.

Its little red mark has been on my face so long now it is part of my landscape. Because of my dry skin I've had few breakouts over my life so I wasn't even sure how to take care of it.

I've only just started to connect the dots to this pimple's arrival and stubbornness in constant filling up of infection and release to who I am now.

Right around that time this crazy life changing moment big thing happened and I made a decision. (That's another story.) I started to listen closely to my body which wasn't hard because it was screaming at me.

My messages on change didn't come from my wildly impulsive normal way of making changes. The jump into extremeness of all or nothingness wasn't there. I just would hear someone say something, a podcast story, casual reference on a Instagram story, a line from a movie or book, and I would get this, like, this opening in my body that would say, that feels kind. Yes, that. I'm ready for that now.

Intuitively as though the messages were running through a guide I was not acquainted with, I would slowly ease into the change.

First it was dairy, I released it. Wine had started to give me these crazy reactions all over my face which felt like a clear signal, so I released alcohol other than an occasional gluten free beer. I found myself unable to eat meat and craving grains which I had been living without for so long. I started making huge pots of beans along with chicken bone broth, the kids would eat the chicken, I used the broth for the beans.

I made celery juice. I would stumble upon a supplement and then my healing would go one level deeper. I was open to the messages.

I wasn't adhering to any eating plan, just following this guide which was gentle and patient with me.

Kindness.

The pimple on my face that won't stop holding infections no matter how much I squeeze or release seems to be the valve that my physical body is using to process. Each time I hit a new level of release boom, that little thing fills up again. A couple of times it has spread into two or three infections. Same spot on my face. 

I was in awe of the changes happening inside of me and around me so I kept going. I found more guides. I held them and communed with them. I walked in shadows with them. I wondered if I was supposed to share this practice I was inside of which I didn't even understand yet.

Starting in June, seventy-three women are going to step into kindness as a practice, as a guide. I have no idea what they will receive, what they will hear. Their story won't be mine. Their needs won't be what mine were. I do know that no matter who we are, how deeply we've been hurt, how fresh our anger or wounds, no matter any of it, we all crave kindness. From somewhere basic and simple, like bare feet in soft grass.

So that is where we will begin. Together. Because being held and seen is kindness.

Six months into these guides my cells have rearranged. I am more new than I imagined possible at forty-three years. Six months ago I wasn't sure my relationship was going to make it. Now I write this waiting for my man to wake up and I can't believe who we are becoming together. I look at my body draped in a silk pink robe that I thrifted and my naked belly is hanging out and I adore it. I have beans and rice in the fridge that I will devour later with cilantro and lemon juice on top. 

Writing about it feels like an invitation for it to prove untrue. My head is screaming, erase this story fast woman.

I'm about to spend a year with these women in circle in kindness and I can already see them becoming. They already are living this.

So I just wanted to throw out this game to you.

Of living one full day inside of kindness as your only guide for the words you choose, to the food you choose, to the decisions you make. 

A filter of your reality. For just one day's time. What could happen in one day? Who could you become in one day?

I'm here, on the other side of these words if you need someone to hold your experience, to see you.

One day in kindness.

Slicing pizza while your whole world changes. Again.

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Chaos was a former iteration of mine. I was seriously rock star good at it. Confrontation was my kryptonite. Something bothered me, blow shit up, create a cloud of chaos, let your heart beat too fast, have another sip of tequila, blame, get angry, pretend it isn't happening, control it all through whatever means necessary. 

Trying to control chaos is actually breeding chaos. 

I have this thing I love to do in quiet moments when I'm doing my chill out via Instagram. I might find someone I know or someone I've just found who inspires me and I scroll as far back to the beginning as I can, I love to find that first post. I'll start from that beginning place, from that iteration that they were and I'll watch as they become. 

There is that moment when the color story changes, the photo quality gets better, things start to look more curated, purposeful. I love watching the moments when they let themselves be seen more or come up with an idea or begin again.

When I am figuring something out inside of myself or making peace at that next level of becoming in my own journey I'll go back to my Instagram and I'll commune with the she who was. 

The one who loved her black eyeliner. The one who threw a lot of parties. The one who seemed almost extroverted for a time. The one who lived in three homes in one year. The one who tried like hell not to eat rice even though she loves it. The one who gathered women. The one who drove 2 hours with her partner to get a $20 couch that is now her kid's bed. The one who travelled to India and learned how to find quiet and stillness and walking prayer inside of chaos. The one who left her home three times in three years. The one who drove a boat. The one who clearly uses beauty as her place of reset when things are out of control. The one who was preparing for her first date in 20 years. The one who made really stupid decisions instead of just being in her truth. The one who wishes she could go back in time and do it differently, be strong enough to do it differently. The one who said sorry the wrong way. The one who makes soup to heal. The one who didn't have language or understanding or calmness inside of her rebel tendency. The one who said fuck going slow, I'm all in, come with me. The one who liked to be really skinny while eating lots of bacon. The one addicted to tattoos. The one who now knows that being told what to do is her trigger. The one who waited for her best friend's babies to be born, knowing she would never be there again. The one who lay on the beach naked for the camera. The one who decided to create a wall of hooks then decided she hated it and took them all down. The one who would give her clothes and jewelry away to her friends if they liked them. The one who ran. The one who first put on a two piece and took a picture and posted it. The one who felt bangs were a good idea. The one who prayed for her marriage. The one who blew bubbles for joy. The one who put on a green dress. The one who found vintage cowboy boots in Oregon, on her first trip away from her kids. The one who got to spend her entire days with her baby. The one whose first Instagram post was of roasted cauliflower with tomatoes, capers, chick peas and onions for breakfast. April 2nd, 2012.

I scroll and I remember. I flood through all the painpoints and the joys. The places where something is still lingering and my now self has so much to tell the one who was. 

Last month I went through this wild Spirit journey of time back into all my regrets and shame and guilt. It felt like a piece of me was dying as I let myself feel the pain and truth of it. I wasn't sure I would come out of it. I cried more than I had tissues for. 

I looked at every fuck up I've created inside of chaos. This iteration of kindness sucks I remember thinking.

This isn't what I wanted! 

I cannot find a way to detached kindness from shame or even guilt. Especially not with truth or trust. You want kindness, you better get cozy with painpoints. That want you to feel them. 

The work of kindness is incredibly active, it asks of you over and over. It asks for peace and sometimes the peace is only found in looking back and getting right with any false beliefs that still want to be part of your today. 

Kindness is not pretending. 

So I felt it deep. I made soup and a huge pot of beans. I ate as much rice as I wanted to. I found the lingering truths that were haunting me. I watched Dave do all the dishes for days as just getting dressed was hard enough. 

Here is what I learned from that time inside, contracted in kindness which hurt like hell. 

In chaos, it was so noisy. And I needed the noise. There were so many other voices. I needed the voices. And I hurt people. And I made bad choices. And I had voice after voice replace the last voice. And it was all so loud. And I shapeshifted constantly trying to prove or calm the chaos or feed the noise. I pretended. A lot. The pretending shoved me into chaos. Bad choices. Repeat. 

This period of chaos had to be. This iteration of boring kindness, of being seen again, of aligned peace, of observing and feeling, of being OK, of trust, of committing to truth rather than running...all born from the chaos. Iterating doesn't take time off from driving the kids to school, paying bills, watering the plants, throwing another load of laundry in, taking a shower. It happens while the every day simple moments are playing out on repeat while inside we are no longer the same while doing them. 

The tears when you drop her off at school and you are finally alone to break down. The red lipstick you put on to stay at home and be seen by no one. The thrifted strapless dress you put on to go back into the world after the tissues run out. The moment you realize you've got to let the attachment to what isn't yours go because that is chaos, holding onto another's truth about you.

That is the noise. That is the pretending the proving the powerlessness. 

In the contraction of kindness, the iteration of boringly wonderful peace, the unfurling into trust; you see that you don't need it anymore. 

It isn't coming back. The worst scenario of your wound has played out enough that you can trust, finally, that on the other side of the fear coming true, you are actually better. Better. Meaning, no attachment to the noise. 

I was hoping for a more poignant first Instagram post than roasted cauliflower. Something that I could loop into my story somehow. Like pulling a card for the day and having it be the perfect reading. I wasn't finding any medicine in the cauliflower. 

Then I looked at the date of my first post. April 2nd, 2012. Three years to the day later I would sit in my Loft with a man I invited over for coffee, who hates coffee it turns out. 

Last night he asked me a question that triggered me. About pizza, like seriously nothing. I was in my head about something else and really hot and making 4 different kinds of pizzas and the question just pissed me off. 

When he and I lived in the chaos, the noise, this moment of me snapping would have meant a 2 day fight. It would have turned into an epic battle of you are wrong I am right and someone would have wanted to move out. He would have not talked to me and started to slam things around and act out and I would have built a festering inside my gut of anger that was nothing at all about PIZZA. 

Last night it was just about pizza and me not liking the question and him seeing me, seeing that I was stressed and I was having this major download about my story of not being smart or believed all while bleeding and it was the night before we say good-bye to the kids which still leaves me raw. 

I took my fizzy water and sat down next to him on the sunporch where he was doing a beautiful job at not being mad. He said something about my reaction. I said, sorry, that question really annoyed me and I am sorry. He said something else that calmed by nervous system and reminded me that I was safe. And loved. Even in my little moodiness.

I realized we weren't in the noise. The chaos of past stories, the overwhelm of our worst fears coming true because of one moment in time that had nothing to do with anything other than crabbiness. No one was slamming things around. He let me be crabby and not make it about him. I let him see me. 

For real. 

In the messiness of living the everyday moments while standing in the kitchen with red lipstick and kimono flying everywhere, sweating by the heat of the stove, iterating.

While everyone was watching, and no one could see that I was standing inside of this huge moment of understanding my need to be right was connected to this story of not being smart enough.

Silently, unfurling, again.

While roasting cauliflower for breakfast or hugging him good-bye for the first time and feeling like he is still with you or making every kind of pizza in the sweltering heat.

Being seen while it is all happening inside, again. Just slicing the pizza while your whole world changes, again.

I want to get stuck in your words.

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The first time I wore bright red lipstick to the school yard I was beyond nervous. I was filled with anxiety around being seen and worried that my kids would feel embarrassed and have feelings that I would take on as my own.

That was 8 years ago.

Today the practice of red lips causes me zero anxiety. It feels like kindness.

Inside of another round of transitions I found myself yesterday spending time with my clothes.

Hanging up my kimonos on the wooden rack. Next to them a few bathing suits.

Having chosen a few dresses and necklaces and skirts to spend the summer in I am aware of the change in my color story.

There is the yellow cropped lace shirt that feels more like me than anything I've ever put on. The one that lays over my tattoos while still allowing them to be seen. 

I layer the yellow lace over a tight gray tank top and step into a worn purple skirt, a skirt I only have because I found little holes on the bottom hem so I couldn't sell it. A skirt I accidentally fell in love with. A softness that feels how I want my breath to feel. 

My purple lipstick combined with red lipliner creating a new color. Mascara. No other make up. A new iteration without my eyeliner.

Choosing my Spiritstyle to walk with me inside of my transitions of becoming, with me as I feel into social anxieties, is about creating an intimacy with myself which then translates to an intimacy between myself and others.

This is how I connect most deeply to the soft space I hold inside for myself.

Being seen is the result of vulnerability and after 8 years of practicing what I thought was extreme vulnerability in the online world I now rest in the truth that those years were only the warm up to truly being seen.

They were the years that would grow me into someone who is so aware of everything she could have done better and didn't. The years that hold the shame that I travel through and heal and feel.

When I started my little pop up Instagram shop, AGAIN, @respiritingstyle I saw it as this possibility for the future, something my daughter and maybe more of the kids could be inside of together. I saw it as something I could potentially align with other women who wanted to share physical space which has continued to be a dream for so long.

I didn't see it as this next step into the terror of vulnerability. Sometimes iterating feels like a death inside. A part of you, a way of being or believing, no longer can be because you have learned and become beyond it, and because of it.

I have no idea why this little shop feels deeply vulnerable to me. I told someone for the first time yesterday that I was not only a Holistic Coach, I told them I also sold gently used treasures. It felt like all of me merged. Fused. And it feels new and raw.

One of the beautiful cherished women in An Uncurated Circle was giving me some reflection around the shop and said that it was all the things in one unbelievably intimate and loving connection as you select the pieces and share them and send them as meditations on beauty and being and bliss - it's like seeing ourselves through your adoration. (Thank you Sheila.)

I can get stuck in the chaos of criticism and self doubt. I want to instead get stuck in her words. In her offering of what can become a prayer for me.

Intimate and loving connection. When I get stuck in the words that tear me down I am no longer seen, vulnerable.

When I put on my yellow lace and commit to this deeper intimacy with myself I walk through my shame, purple skirt dragging itself through the murkiness of the places that are ready to be traveled through.

I imagine the woman who owned it before me must have done this walk too, evidenced by the little holes along the bottom hem.

I wonder what she wears now that brings her intimate and loving connections. What colors has she chosen for her next iteration? What has she released along with the skirt to become again?

The soft space I hold inside for myself isn't free of anxieties or fears or shames. It is filled with them. I need it because those things are true, as true as the lace of yellow falling over my tattoos. I need it so the thoughts I can't feel as true yet have a place to live while the rest of me catches up.

Do we stop enough to pause and say, "I'm not that anymore."

No one else gets to hold us in an iteration that we are no longer.

That isn't our story, that isn't our business.

Bless it. Set it free. Pause. Find the intimacy with yourself and put on whatever it is that creates that connection with YOU.

Then bless her.

Set her in motion to become, again.

The Pause. For Mindy.

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(I will be reading all our weekly prompts in an uncurated circle, so I thought I'd read to you here too. Huge bundles of love and thanks to Mara for teaching me how to record and share them.)

.......

"Can you talk more about the pause you mention here?"
.......

Many months ago when the pain was so intense I could no longer numb it or fight it, I paused. Literally, I paused everything and just sat in it. I felt really boring not trying to fix or figure out or question. Really boring.

Just paused.

I was confronting my painpoints. Being in them. Feeling them.
.......

I'd like to tell you it was a sacred time carved out to heal.

It wasn't. It was this place where desperation and fighting against met acceptance in a way I had never experienced before. 

I believe that surrender is the intersection between acceptance and change.

The pause was the space between pushing the pain away and the next iteration.

The pause was my discovery that I could sit inside of huge amounts of discomfort and not try to change it.

The pause is where I discovered the practices that would become an uncurated circle.

It was an accident. And incredibly on purpose in some woo-woo-Universal-divine timing-you gotta feel it woman-kind of way.

I had spent the last five/six years (OK, the last part of my life) trying to fix everything that could be seen as broken. Myself. My marriage. My choices. My flaws. My body. My heart. My addictions. My lover. My diet. My mistakes. My wardrobe. My hair. 

Because I am good at it. Figuring it out. Finding a plan. Putting that plan into action. I hit a painpoint and boom, I am off into the land of discovery. I research. Gather my tools. Get crazy ideas. Rearrange my everything in a manic attempt for change. 

I will find the problem, explain the problem, find data to support solutions to the problem. 

And it is a wild beautiful ride of figuring shit out. The downloads. The higher voices. All there.

One step was missing. Because the things that were broken didn't go away, they recirculated. Then I'd be off on the ride of figuring them out again, explaining, finding data, mixing logic with emotion, the high of seeing something so clearly.

The pause. What was different in the pause?

No figuring out. No fixing. No solutions. It was the most pure amount of truth in feeling I have been inside of. It sucked.

It was more uncomfortable than I have words for. It was acceptance on a cosmic level. Acceptance for shit I had been pushing so hard against and trying to change like it was my life purpose to change them. 

The high of the fix. The data. The creative solution. The high of change. The living inside of the what comes next fix. The talking and talking and talking. Fighting and fighting and fighting.

Paused.

In the pause I let myself feel exhausted. Sad. Bored. 

I felt a truth that wasn't only mine, it was the sensuality of a truth I wasn't trying to fight against. It was beautiful there. 

The rest just happened.

I'm still integrating it.

I created a year long circle of women around it.

I am pretty sure if Spirit and I were chatting over mushroom coffee she would say this is what it has all been spinning towards.

It started with kindness. Could there be a more amazing way to begin?

Wanting it. Feeling it. Making choices because of it. It was about understanding myself and others in new ways that lifted me up without the high of the fix. The solution. 

It became about discovery, which is what my work had been teaching me for years. The small surprises that sweep in and create your next iteration and you can't believe it was that thing that brought you to this place. The simple choices. The guiding words. 

Feeling it before the desire for fixing it came on. Lingering in small discomforts that added up to magic. I had an intuitive tap in. A template of my own self. A ritual of becoming that was ridiculously kind. Within a month of the practices that came from the pause I was witnessing my relationship transforming. My body was physically changing. 

I was eating more. I was speaking my truth more. I was choosing clothes that were more me inside of this kindness iteration. I was taking space in my own life with a gentleness of choice.

I was becoming again. I was being seen. 

.......

Thank you Mindy for asking this question of me, for wanting to know more. Thank you for asking so that I can continue the practice of being seen especially when I am feeling fear, again, around creation.

Thank you for reminding me that stories matter. Matter so much. Heal so much. Bond us so much.

Thank you for the prompt of a question that brings me back to the truth that healing happens in community. Healing is community. A cry for the love of a circle, the ones who say, I feel that too. A longing for story to fill in the spaces that feel alone. 

None of this on purpose. And all perfect. Becoming again. In circle. For a year. Together.

Meet Shirley.

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Meet Shirley. She is 59, on the other side of her bleed time, hair the most beautiful of grays.

Shirley has been married since she was 23. Her pain lies inside of this marriage. There is no intimacy, she feels as though she must behave in certain ways. She questions everything and can't find answers for how to fix what is broken.

She has started to learn the talk of magic, manifesting, spaces between, living in the gray, iterating. Her curiosity leads her to wanting more.

The language soon became her second language. She has started playing with new ways to dress a body that feels brand new and deeply missing touch.

Things start to unravel in her home inside her changes. Her husband tells her to stop these crazy ideas. 

Every part of her feels afraid. The change is bringing her alive and the pain of feeling trapped in someone else's idea of her is paralyzing. She says that she will never leave her marriage. She is just waiting. The waiting is her biggest secret and shame.

.......

Meet Shirley. She is 36, two young kids, wondering if another baby is what she desires.

Shirley is inside of her second marriage, her youngest was born in this marriage. She feels disconnected from the part of her before kids. She has ideas popping in and out of her head all day long. The ideas and dreams make her sad because she feels so far from them.

She has learned that she is highly sensitive, the sounds of her little ones can set alarms off in her body. She has a partner who adores her and wants to help all her dreams manifest.

She watches other women who are inside of work she envies and wonders what part of her is broken because she is stuck and afraid. Her insides feel numb every night and her anxiety is rising. She pours a glass of wine and remembers what it used to feel like before, wanting that feeling of herself back.

.......

Meet Shirley. She is a self proclaimed hot shit, 42, dating with joy, starting to experience the hormonal shifts of peri-menopause.

Shirley has been in the same job for 20 years, grown with the business, loved and adored by her co-workers and clients. She has a full social life and thrives in routine and expectations. She has spent her life moving from diet to diet. She has joined all the diet programs promising her the body she has always wanted. They all worked, keeping her the size she desires.

Her body has started to shift with time. She craves feeling free inside herself and wonders why these programs aren't working anymore. She has started to feel her hunger and doesn't want to run from it. As she confronts this hunger she feels an unraveling beginning to grab hold of her.

.......

I have spent the last 9 years working with Shirley in hundreds of iterations. I adore her. When I write about her, I am overwhelmed with feeling. I have become so close to her, I want for her, I celebrate her.

I can see parts of where she is going before she can, not because I am psychic, because when she is trapped in the pain the stuck the shame the grief the loss, I (we) can hold space for the limitless possibilities of iterations waiting for her.

  • Wanting for you is wanting for me. Took me years to fall into this truth, once I got the download, my vibration in the world was aligned with the abundance of compassion. 
  • A wish/dream shared is one more person closer to the collective energy of it manifesting. My kids want to keep their birthday candle wishes a secret and I will whisper that if they ever share with us, we will be part of the team helping them get there.
  • Choosing kindness for each part of who we are is the first moment of change. A few months ago I needed to start manifesting kindness as though it was water and air. I started to play little games with myself around bringing it forth. I started to uncover who I was, layer after layer of downloads and discoveries. Each day I am confronted with choice again, and some days lead to incredible discomfort choosing kindness.
  • Every one of us has our painpoints that create change. Painpoints I have been inside of are immense. Feeling like I was too big, too much, beyond being loved, unhappy, unfulfilled, disconnected, anxious, alone, hurt, not smart, not safe, etc. Each one the way into change, the start of the next segment of me, the ugly beauty of iterative living. Being in the pain as an amazing truth, not something to run from.

.......

When I started this work nine years ago I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I had to do it. I made mistakes. I got overwhelmed. I could make a list of regrets. I was scared so much of the time, I carry pains from the beginning of my time inside of my business.

My pain is my drive. My pain is my place of iterations.

The last few years have left me little choice than to go in deeper. Working with a healer, exploring my chakras one by one, healing my interstitial cystitis, letting myself be inside of grief, finding my way to the love of food, understanding love addiction, becoming the mother I longed to be, finding peace and sensuality in my skin. 

I still suck at things. I still screw up. I still hurt. I still keep going. When I pull away past iterations of my work and myself I am met with a raw stillness. In this stillness I found something. 

.......

Meet Shirley. She is 43, a divorced mama of three kids who is partnered with a divorced father of two kids. This new relationship has brought her to confronting painpoints and him to his own. They are becoming together. It is crazy hard.

She has been running her own business for 9 years, working with hundreds of women who have shaped her and grown her. She is ready to burn it all down. Again. 

Her feminine energy is in constant iterative cycles.

She has a rebel tendency, rarely finishes a book, loves an Irish good-bye, swoons over I-love-yous and appreciation. She is highly sensitive and cycles in and out of hermit phases. 

She is constantly questioning her value. She thrives in intimacy. Circling is her superpower, so is nurturing, so is creating sacred space.

Recently she has been aching for more kindness and to understand her shame (which she thought she had none of). Her guiding word last year was devotional and it has quietly become inside of her, asking her to be inside of stillness. In this stillness she is feeling all of it. She is understanding, feeling compassion for her past iterations, challenging her patterns of hurt.

In the stillness, she has been creating, for herself, for every Shirley iteration that is and longs to be.

And so it is.

.......

An Uncurated Circle, A year of unorganized iterations and being seen...

Something driving me crazy.

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I am in the midst of wrangling a new idea into life. I have a wall filled with sticky notes. I have text messages to myself with quick ideas I am afraid will go forgotten. I have a stack of books and a yellow highlighter to capture sparks of inspiration. I have that feeling in my stomach that is excitement of something about to be mixed with the dread that I won't be able to capture it.

It is close. I am in the stage now of un-attaching myself from it so that it may start to form its own shape.

It is terrifying. Truly. It is exhilarating. For sure. 

.......

I came home today after a breakfast meeting with my friend who has created her own business and lives much like I do. I rarely break from my flow of days. My hermit like self mixes with a ritualized self that mixes with an entrepreneur self. My output is mingled with this flow.

And. I need to remember that part of why I've created this work, this life, is to have this freedom to live in this flow that is driven by my own desires and choice of output.

I wake up between 5:30 and 6:00am on school days. My day starts self directed and lovingly sponsored by that first cup of coffee.

I try to wake up before the alarm goes off so Dave can have those few extra minutes of sleep before getting into the shower. He will regardless, he is a wonderful sleeper, I just think it is nicer.

I typically pull the clothes on from the night before, piled next to the bed. I dress in the bathroom, freezing as I sit on the toilet while pulling my sweater and leggings on. Pee while you get dressed. Efficient. 

I walk downstairs hoping no one else is awake. Those few minutes alone are the ground for my day. I click on the electric kettle and take the sandwich containers out of the fridge. The lunch boxes are out on the counter from prepping them the night before. By the time the water is boiled they are zipped up and ready for the little people.

My twelve year old doesn't eat lunch at school any more. I am assuming it is his social time. I still put some pretzels or raisins or juice in. The thought of him without food feels unsettling.

By 6:15am I have my mug in my hand and eggs in a pan or potatoes in the oven. They love egg sandwiches, scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, omelettes, hash browns, baked potatoes and sausage. 

The night before I know what I'll make in the morning. Making them breakfast is honestly right now my favorite way of being mama to them.

At 6:27am I start to wake them up. My teenage daughter will already be up and joining me in the kitchen making her lunch. She started making her own a few years ago and her current lunch is a veggie burger on a gluten free bun with guacamole and lettuce.

I wake up three out of the four other kids by turning on their lights and saying, "Good morning. Can you believe it is morning?" Or some version of that which they seem to enjoy for whatever reason.

Sometimes I'll drop off a hot chocolate in the bathroom for Dave, blow him a kiss through the shower door. Helping them all start their day is my super power.

I'm back in the kitchen now, chasing my coffee around, grabbing little plates to put the breakfasts on and lining them up on the island. I wake up the final sleeping kiddo. Then if all has gone well, I grab my mug and go curl up in a chair where I can watch the madness unfold.

Where are your glasses?
Would you like me to sign your agenda?
Do you have your lunch box?
Teeth brushed?
I don't know where your sweatshirt is.
Please clear your plate.
You do not need your finger x-rayed. 
I love you.


The first one is out the door at 6:55am. Then Dave takes two of them at 7:00am. I take Chloe at 7:00am but we (me) never get out at 7:00am. I usually can't find my boots, need to pee or forget to do something. I need someone curled up in a chair micro-managing me. She is used to it. She just goes down to the van and waits.

I am a hot mess at this point. Braless. Yesterday's make up often smeared on my eyes if I was too tired to wash it the night before. (Night is not my super power.) I've spoken more words than I'd like to by 7:00am and I turn on the radio and we listen to 80's/90's music on the ride.

She is out of the van by 7:40am and I turn on a Podcast and drive home. I walk in to chaos. Breakfast dishes and crumbs and cups scattered. 

I click the electric kettle on for my second coffee. This one grounding me into the work I'll do that morning. 

I carry the mug upstairs and place it under the sticky notes that are in the wanting to become. I strip off last night's clothes, head into the bathroom and feel the space of silence that offers the opportunity for anxiety if I decide to choose it.

Today, I came home, after this breakfast meeting where we talked about the way we both hide parts of how amazing it is to live life in this way because of the work we have created, especially the part where we get to be the nurturers of our homes and the guides of our nows. We talked about what we try to keep hidden from others so we won't be judged. We talked about new hairstyles, love, communication, what is coming next.

The house was in chaos because I wasn't there to find its order. I clicked on the electric kettle to make a second cup of coffee to ground me into the ritual of cleaning.

After the dishwasher was starting to hum and the blankets were folded, I curled into the couch and clicked on an episode of a show I just started watching while I answered emails for an hour before Eli came home.

.......

I don't know what this new thing will look like in its completion, once it finds its way to a sales page. I do know that it will be built inside of this life of morning egg sandwiches and chaos and the space to be mama, to be lover, to be more open about how proud I am of all of this. 

I forget. Until I am back inside of the unknown. The fear. Then it all comes back.

Why I risked everything that was, to become this iteration of me now. And that is what is leading this new thing, this idea splattered onto sticky notes. My morning flow as mama just as important as all that I let go from my past to find this me. 

It is close. For sure.

Truth in my business.

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Almost two years ago an idea came to me when a woman I adore commented on one of my Instagram photos saying something to the effect of, "You should run a course on your soul-style. I would sign up!"

At the time I was running my business course and I had sent out an On The Eve prompt asking people to make a list of the different parts of themselves and then to find a feeling for each part. Once the feelings were found, the prompt was to try her on, find the part that we most wanted to feel and dress her up. Show up as her.

That prompt felt like it's own course. I realized that this was Spiritstyle. And so it became.

.......

I decided to use Spiritstyle as a list builder. This is what we call something that we can give away for free in exchange for the precious gift of someone's email on our newsletter list.

I had over 500 women sign up. List building with a free program on social media was a breeze back then. Algorithms hadn't changed to what they are now. We didn't have to pay to sponsor posts so that they would be seen. 

It was this beautiful, loving energy of people sharing the work and my posts being seen by about 4,000 plus people without paying for it.

My newsletter has always been my most precious and beloved part of my work. This is where the names of the people who trust me to hold space in their inboxes, the names of people who choose to have my words fall into the intimacy of emails, are kept in my sacred space.

In business I will tell people that every single social media we rely on could go away at any time, build your list. Nurture your list. Love up your list. Don't take your list for granted.

And.

I built my business on social media. No one knew who I was 9 years ago. I used social media to meet other amazing people doing gorgeous work. I connected. I gave. I shared. I found this little home in the safety of my social media living room.

It is no longer that simple. There are now sponsored posts, sponsored groups, Facebook lives, Instagram lives, sponsored posts on Pinterest, paid promotions, audience filters, algorithms, confusion.

And it is OK. Of course it changed. It will again.

So when things change I have to ask myself what do I feel aligned to? What still feels good. Am I willing to give up FB as part of building my business? Can I use Instagram to build true connection with others? Are we so overwhelmed with social media and email that there is a better way?

I'm not offering great answers, just using the questions to sit inside of as I am redesigning the way I work, create and hold space.

.......

This round of Spiritstlye I have under 300 women who have joined. I have worked harder for those 300 names than I did two years ago for 500.

This is data. Important data. 

This data sends me back to the questions.

.......

After about two years of a personal/business growth hibernation, it feels safe to be seen again. It feels safe to grow. To bring new women into circle.

As I prepare to bring life to something new that has been asking to be born into my work, I am ready to be seen. To grow. To invite new women in, to ask them if they will allow me to show them the magic of how we circle, how we work, how we thrive in our iterations of time.

I will tell you a truth, I've been scared.

Shitless.

I've maintained my business to support myself and my family and to feed my spirit.

But I have been scared.

Of getting back to the momentum I had when parts of my life blew up.

Of getting back to a place where I'm seen as a teacher of life when I felt I had done so much wrong.

.......

I'm not sure what changed. I imagine simply time.

Simply time. (And therapy and tears and love and traveling and exploring and leaving homes and healing wounds of child-self and leaning into blessings and hiding.)

I have been doing one-on-one coaching inside of my business group through Facebook Lives. For those who don't know what this is, I start a live video feed, and we coach live! Anyone who is in the business group can watch us live and leave comments as we coach and react by sending up hearts or smiles. 

The hearts. I can't explain to you how magical those hearts floating up are.

I was sure I was done with one-on-one coaching. A voice kept telling me I needed to do the coaching this way. I didn't want to.

I did it anyway. 11 women signed up. I only had 9 spots open.

Those last two, how could I say no to those last two?

These sessions have cracked me open. These women and how they show up and what we talk about and how the women watching send up hearts and words of encouragement or questions and how it all comes together into this crazy explosion of possibility and lifting up.

I'm hooked on the energy they give me, each other.

This is something I am able to do on social media. So we can all have a gathering place. So I say thank you to this platform, even if I can't list build like I used to, even if I am so torn about how to move forward with integrity.

I say thank you because a form of magic that I know I can bring to life in person is now possible for women who live anywhere. This week alone we had women in Norway and England and the West Coast.

We all sat together in my virtual living room and lifted up.

.......

Two years ago it was easier. To be seen. In all the ways.

Then it got more complicated. 

I study the changes. I ask the questions. I find me inside of it all.

I decided the other day to do something that I don't do. Ask.

Ask for support in spreading the word. Ask for the women who circle to share the work if that feels good to them.

It was an edge. I did it anyway. I asked for help spreading my offering.

More than a Facebook algorithm it is these women, it is you, it is those of you who send me back words of love and encouragement each time I send a letter, each time I run a circle.

It is you who lift me up, help me find my bravery in being seen, once more, after time has worn away the wounds that paralyzed.

.......

It is you who I send a thousand little red hearts floating up to the sky to, so you can feel how vital you are to a list built on an idea that turned into another idea that led to another idea that created the most magical groups of women I've ever witnessed.

xo

I can be spontaneous, just let me pack my tea.

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On the plane I ask for hot water and lime or hot water and cream. The first is for my tea, the second is for my mushroom coffee powder. I rub my wrists with patchouli, grapefruit, amber and lotus. (Here.) It isn't strong enough to bother others, it is enough to calm my nervous system. Patchouli and amber are part of me.

In my carry on bag I've tucked an extra pair of fingerless gloves which ground me, keep me warm and when I'm moving through new spaces they feel like this simple little boundary of protection. 

No matter where I'm going I have on my 1974 vintage (does this mean I am vintage, year I was born?) Frye cowboy boots on. I'll pack other shoes, flip flops or tennis shoes depending on where I'm going. Those boots are my center of gravity. I can go anywhere in the world with these guiding me.

I can't think of too many plane rides or road trips where I haven't made a sandwich. I may not even eat it that day, just knowing it is there comforts me.

This is my favorite bread (gluten doesn't work for my body) which I'll smother with mayonnaise and mustard and then add my favorite fillings. At home I put kimchi on my sandwiches, on a plane, not so much because the smell can offend. 

I've started using a little slaw I make with apple cider vinegar and honey and lemon. Helps my digestion and gives me the little hit of sour I love. 

To go with my sandwich a little bag of potato chips, kettle cooked, lots of salt. If you get low blood sugar or a headache and need to take some motrin, that small bag of chips is golden. 

I pack our little anytime meal in a lunch box that slips into a carry on. I'll also add some cashews, dark chocolate, cucumbers. That kind of thing.

Once I packed us broccoli and peanut butter to dip it in. I pulled it out on the plane and Dave didn't even blink, he just went with it! 

I bring my huge water bottle to fill up in the airport or if we are on a road trip with a few gallon water bottles. I get dehydrated (always pack chapstick) when I travel because I am so afraid to not be able to go to a bathroom. While I don't drink much I take little sips often enough to keep headaches away. 

In my carry on I'll also have a huge scarf that can act as a blanket, my reading glasses, a book, a black sharpie, little notecards for lists or notes, motrin, homeopathic tablets for yeast, panty liners, a couple of oils like lavender and frankincense, my phone, and my rings (hands puff up during travel so I keep them in the bag). 

The one thing I don't bring when I travel is a sheepskin and I want to I want to I want to. I need to find a sheepskin that is thin enough to roll right up in my bag! 

I have a highly sensitive nervous system and I love to adventure. The problem is that if I come undone during travel it can be hard to come back from that and find ease in the adventuring. These specific things are my grounding.

I can be spontaneous, I just need to pack my tea bags first. 

.......

Dave and I are heading to Mexico early Tuesday morning on a trip that his work hosts each year. 

It is part show up as Dave's partner and make a good impression and part feel the sun on my skin, eat amazing food, walk on the beach, collect coral, go with the flow.

All a huge blessing and I am so grateful to be his love and show up for him in this way.

I've been practicing wearing the dresses I might pack, practicing wearing less clothes, layers.

The shock of going from freezing cold to heat is a wild transition for my body. Being seen in less is triggering so a few minutes in a bathing suit with the heat turned up pays off.

The important outfit is the one I will climb into at 3am and start in cold and end up in the heat of Mexico sun and the craziness of the airport. I have settled on a long tank dress with a sweater and light jacket layered over it so I can pull off layers as we warm up.

If I don't do this preparation, I could spend the first couple of days feeling off, and we are only there for a short time.

This practice and planning is how I heal my future self when she is up against the nervous system attack. 

I have already started to make piles of what may end up going into the suitcase. If I take a few days (or so) to feel into making sure I have options and making sure what I have with me already feels good, my transition is smoother. 

Dave packs in 10 minutes. Would never think to make himself a sandwich or need one. Often the night before he figures out what time he is leaving in the morning.

If this is you, let this be a little PSA to help you understand the sensitive spirits in your world. 

We will need ::

4 days to pack.

2 weeks to think about packing. 

A schedule of all the times that we'll need to think about for about 3 days. 

To talk about what time we are setting the alarm for to the point of you wondering if we are crazy. 

Probably 2 scarves because the first one might not feel right or be too heavy or not be warm enough. Or we might loose it.

A sandwich. We will make you one too, it is the highly sensitive love language to keep your nervous system in proper function too.

Oils. Which you may not love the smell of at night when we want to rub them on your feet because your belly hurts and we can fix it.

A full bottle of conditioner, not the travel size. Which means we are checking our bags. We probably need to get up earlier.

And of course our tea. We really, really need our tea bags. And then we can be fully spontaneous right along side you.

Spiritstyle Winter

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When :: February 27th for 10 days

Cost :: A gift from me to you, simply enter your email below

i remember the feeling of school starting. i could smell it and there was that little pang in my belly. what i thought most about is how i would show up. who would i be.

every year after the summer break i would iterate into a new version of myself. the planning of the first day of school outfit would consume me. i remember the year of suspenders and a black hat for 10th grade. the following year my all black wardrobe. 

i've used the outside expression of self to guide the transformation of who i am on the inside since i was young. the guiding for how i chose to layer on clothes as my way of being in the world. 

being seen. being true. being the most amazing version of me.

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.......

this is my spiritstyle. a collection of time and feelings.

the things that if i layer on i become more me.

the colors of cream, mocha, black.

buttery soft. high waist. layered tanks. big sweaters. often no bra. simple mala to ground. fabric draped. sexy and comfort as one. 

this is my spiritstyle. the parts of who i am communicated on the outside.

after the dishes are done, rings find my fingers. a final layer.

boots, worn, loved. leg warmers bunched.

a color story that washes over.

this is my spiritstyle. a woman matching the parts of herself with how she shows up each day.

and this is my practice. again and again. finding who i am now. learning how to communicate that self so she can radiate through me.

.......

she said ::

"i feel like i cycle through so many parts of me. the young girl, the earth mama, the wild woman, the falling apart-do-nothing-right-scared one, the angry wife, the warrior princess. they become confused and mixed up and instead of feeling each one i'm trying to ignore each of them."

she said ::

"i feel that way all the time. and i have been thinking about it a lot lately actually... and how trying to allow space for all of it often leaves me feeling exhausted and depleted. we need all these parts of ourselves. they are vital. because how amazing is that we have these selves to call upon to guide us through what is in front of us in any given moment. and even the ones that appear to be wounds or gaping holes are guides too."

this is how my women talk. i collect the words of the women who circle with me. our work together is to honor each part of who we are. some we need to heal. some just need to be seen. some need to be unearthed from the past and integrated into our becomings. 

one of my wishes a few years ago was to be the most amazing mom i could be, meaning less anger and exhaustion and more fun and loving moments. i could see her. she used to be part of me. she is fun and spontaneous and she includes her kids in all the parts of her life.

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.......

becoming a mother changed my body. the shape and size were unfamiliar. my breasts went from an ab to a swelling c. nursing was my life for about 7 years, welcoming each baby with a mother who felt more confident each time.

i started wearing tank tops that i could pull down, instead of up, to nurse. skinny spaghetti straps with a shelf bra from target or old navy at first. now one of my easiest outfits is a long tank that goes over my bum so i can wear it over leggings with many more layers. 

going from college free spirit to mama challenged something in me. i didn't know how to show up. i tried to fit into a button down blouse with mom jeans look for a while. i put on a bra and bought some shirts that never felt like me. it looked so good on other women. i wanted to fit into someone else's spiritstyle.

i spent years uncomfortable and confused. when i went back to school in 2008 i found myself back inside of the free spirit world. every kind of women that ever existed. from 3 inch heels to dreadlocks, the women were gorgeous. alive. themselves. the freedom of style and expression sucked me back to the girl of 17 who had no doubt who she was.

she didn't look like everyone else. she followed not a single fashion rule. her hair was wild and she knew that she was alive wearing clogs and leg warmers and leggings that hugged her body. she adored showing up in her spiritstyle because it felt like freedom.

this is spiritstyle. the feeling and witness of who we are.

and it changes. all the time. each day we can be new.

allowing this change is the magic.

.......

For 10 days through simple prompts and story we will ::

  • look at the different parts of who we are. name them. make a list.
  • find the feelings inside each of these parts.
  • look back at who we were. remember times that we felt most alive and free.
  • go into our closets. unearth past. clear space for how we want to feel in our now.
  • play with the feelings inside of how we are showing up and being seen.
  • purge what is no longer part of our spiritstyle.
  • find the pieces and layers that communicate and iterate.
  • understand dressing and layering a highly sensitive body.
  • discover our color stories.
  • vision into our spiritstyle becomings.
  • allow change to align us with the feeling of freedom and beauty.
  • practice showing up for the different parts of who we are.
  • share photos on our private facebook group
  • be new.

.......

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I used to want to be famous.

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A really good day for me is when I get through without telling myself that something is wrong with me. 

In my business group I like to ask each person to define their definition of success. The old definition of more money, more status, more notoriety, more power, more more is making way for a softer, less intense, less 'more' based success.

A personal success for me is being kind to my skin, my belly, my people, my heart. It is only recently I have understood how difficult kindness is as a practice. And I desire it like crazy.

I used to want to be famous, now I want to lay my head on a pillow at night feeling loved and seen and challenged and filled with a prayer for tomorrow.

.......

I went to the thrift store. I brought myself over to the rack of dresses. The first thing I needed to move through was the size. The last time I bought a dress I was a good two sizes smaller. 

This is ok I told myself. Be where you are now.

I spent about 40 minutes going through long racks of dresses ranging from crazy orange and brown retro lace to bright flowers in styles I couldn't try to describe.

I had given myself a goal, sexy beach nights. 

I'll be accompanying Dave on his business trip to Mexico and I knew that last year I ended up feeling like I wanted to hide myself amidst all the string bikinis drinking blended drinks like their sugar and alcohol calories converted to magic. 

This year I was not playing that game. What I know, what I freaking teach about confidence, is that it has nothing to do with a string bikini and tight abs.

I plan to radiate.

Which means I have to start putting the pieces into place now.

I pulled about 14 dresses into my cart. 

My color story clear. Black. Gray. White. Mocha. I challenged myself to find patterns and there were so many patterns, this is why we love thrifting, the unexpected, the surprises. 

In the dressing room I did a fast and furious round of trying things on over my leggings and tank top. The rooms are so tiny I kept crashing into the sides and dropping hangers and then I started to sweat in my big winter boots and the creeping in feeling of claustrophobia.

The lighting however is so good it may have led to some false purchases. I kind of love that though, because I can think of people who I can give them to for the next round of their fabric lives. (Which then led to the idea of hosting a giveaway for a box of thrifted items that I send out based on a few questions about style and color and size and lifestyle.) 

I ended up with about 7 dresses knowing that I would need to wear each one for at least a day to see if it felt right, to see if I felt right inside of it. Seams. Pulling. Pinching. Rising up. Falling down. Softness. Does it need a bra. Can you see the panty line cause I gotta wear panties.

All that highly sensitive stuff that makes practicing clothing an essential skill.

.......

I am studying, watching, practicing, challenging.

I am deep inside of creation.

A newness about to be born.

I crave comfort inside this time and what I am creating is the opposite.

I put on the tight dress.

I practice inside the discomfort. All day. In my home. On the school yard. On Instagram.

I am in a becoming of the she who will walk the beaches in Mexico and radiate her joy and adoration of who she has iterated into, which may only find her the moment her feet touch the white sand.

The she who has an idea that is only sticky notes and trust. 

That all of it was always leading here.

.......

One dress I got actually scares me. And makes me laugh. I haven't practiced it yet. It has one sleeve and is tight.

It may be the one that the lighting in the store conned me into purchasing.

At $4.00 my edges were a tad more daring.

Even if this one doesn't get sorted out on my body there is something about having pulled it off the rack and into that dressing room that makes me giggle and remember how I want to feel and how I am willing to practice getting there.

Sexy beach nights. The feeling of the best dressing room lighting shining from inside of you. Your scent of confidence lingering and touching others you pass.

.......

The discomfort of the practice of radiating joy means she (we) will be 'more.' 

A more that is soft, kind, intensely loving. 

A more that will let others see her (us) because she has studied and taught alongside those who desire the same.

She (we) becomes brave because she is not alone in the challenge of pushing herself to actively practice the things that would be so much easier not to.

A more that knows it isn't about the dresses (or the ____) and is so about those dresses.

.......

If I think about the bikini's sipping mudslides my body will have an energetic shift into chaos and chaos will be how I make my choices. How I will feel.

I send love to the magical sugar transforming goddesses of the poolside bars and pour some green powdery kombucha while thinking about which dress will be next.

43 year old magic potions being bottled over here. One unorganized discomfort of change at a time.

.......

Why I feel so boring.

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First. When your grandfather calls and leaves you a message checking your pulse because your Friday letters haven't been coming to his inbox, you better sit down and write. 

(Honestly, how much more loved can a person feel than that voicemail?) 

Second. I've been sitting with my computer for the last 3 hours - 3 days - 3 weeks - not writing. Writers must write to be writers. We also must listen. And experience. And sometimes be in the stillness of no words. 

Which can feel like an emotional torture.

.......

I was at the nail salon, Star Nails, and I had chosen a color I still have on and truly do not like. As I was watching this color I regretted picking the moment she opened the bottle, I was reminding myself that this was on purpose. 

I walked in planning on picking an outside of my box color. After far too long thinking about it, chose bright pink.

I challenge myself with little games often, to see if these choices, these experiences will bring me new information about who I am becoming. Or if it is as simple as painting the pink on and then you have become.

(This could also speak to my theory on how boring my life is right now as this was my greatest excitement for the week.)

Typically when I am uncomfortable I can feel it all over my body. My mind starting to tell me I just wasted my money, my body feeling itchy and twitchy. 

The woman painting my nails was listening to the woman talking beside her. And every so often she would make a small sound of acknowledgement, like a gentle mmm, but different, I may not have letters for it. 

I was certain the woman didn't like the color either and maybe even sensed that I was trying to pretend to like it. She carefully brushed it on and continued making her sweet little noises in regards to her friend's story. 

Her sounds were like a guided meditation for my anxious body. I could feel myself transporting to a state that wasn't twitchy at all. I felt calm under the presence of this bright bright bright pink.

Then she quietly held up my hand and said (she has done my nails before and I always choose grays and pale colors), "This is different. Bright. I can like this for you."

I remembered again, this was on purpose. She could like this for me even if I couldn't.

.......

Not writing. Being boring. Pausing in the stillness. 

This is not what you would consider sound business advise. To pause. To be still. To not write your newsletter. To be incredibly boring. 

The honest truth is. I've been a bit annoyed at all the things we are supposed to be doing in business and social media and networking. I am not driven to create a legacy of work. I am not driven to make more and more and more and more money than years before. I am not driven to be the best ever at something. 

I have been overwhelmed with wanting to walk away from everything I have created so that I can find what is underneath it all, or what can be because of it all. 

In this I was struck with craving finding a way to hear what I have sensed was calling me towards it. I have little notes with bits and pieces of thoughts and wonderings and ideas. 

I have been studying trends and research and remembering how things were 7 years ago when it was a love fest with other women creating businesses and how we were all like, holy shit, can you believe we can really do this! 

I have been letting myself sit and think about a shelf in my home for more hours than perhaps seems rational because it brings me pleasure to research ideas and look at pictures and then finally get that moment of YES!!! I figured it out. I know what I will do. 

I have iterated into so many becomings that it surprised me when I became rather boring. I ran out of things to say. I was communing with my plants and being mama and catching these random downloads of something intangible. 

The daily challenges and games written just for me were adding up. I was immersed in figuring out who I was in each one.

.......

Do something to your hair each day that makes you feel beautiful. 

I have discovered my formerly 80's poofs and Lagertha braids, reclaimed for my 43 year old self.

Each time you eat let it become the most sensual experience possible. 

The other day my smoothie came out too thick with almonds and banana transforming the pea protein milk and chocolate powder into a pudding. I ate it with a spoon. It was sensual bliss. And noodles are back in my life. With chopsticks.

Before bed spend time giving your face love with creams and potions and oils. 

I have been using little samples and finding what my face loves, like this one. One of my favorite people texted me the other night and she has been doing the same thing. We shared pictures of our little bottles of creams and potions.

Go to every Petco in the area and spend time with the hamsters until you find her. 

I am impulsive. I am challenging myself not to always be so. I spend a large amount of time alone, and I miss her. I am creating a little meditation/reading/plant nook upstairs in a hidden hallway and I think this would be the perfect home for a new friend.

Find a way to have open shelving in your curated kitchen filled with cabinets. 

My dream was always to find an old house and fix it up. My love's dream was to never do that again in his life! Our compromise was finding a newer home with so much space, that was void of much personality but had potential to become way more bohemian chic than it was intended.

I love this home in all its potential funk. I miss seeing my plates and mugs and glasses as every cabinet has a door. When we decided to ditch a formal dining room and turn it into an office space I realized I could turn a shelf that held our office supplies into open shelving for our kitchen. This is how much it matters to me, I started crying when I knew I could make this transformation. That my kitchen could start to feel more like me. 

Use up all the left-overs in your fridge. 

Fish stew came from this one. 

Mushy brown rice that had too much water. Roasted veggies from a pork chop night and all the sauce from the drippings. Some eggplant, celery, spinach, artichoke hearts that had gone over the mushy rice another night. Some white wine to deglaze after I cooked the veggies down even more. Chicken stock. A frozen bag of Trader Joe's green chickpeas and lentils and tomatoes. All cooked for hours on the stove and then before serving some Trader Joe's white fish Vera Cruz went it until cooked through.

I have been eating it non-stop. Sensually of course.

Let yourself be seen inside of your family, with your love, truly seen. 

This might be its own letter...

Walk with the mantra, my body is sexy and sensual, so when you show up to your vacation in Mexico without having dieted to get there, you will be so. 

Dave's work hosts a reward trip each Winter and this will be our third time going to Mexico.

Each year I am faced with being the 40-something among young 20-somethings in bikinis sitting poolside, drinking like they are fish and the calories transforming into more sexiness oozing off of them and it messes with my mind.

This year I am going to mess with my mind before I go. Because it is true that I am exactly as I am now and I love her. I adore her. I want to show up as her. I want to nurture her. 

.......

All of this on purpose. Listening to sounds from inside from Spirit from people I love from women I circle with that let my body relax after feeling itchy and twitchy and boring.

And maybe we need someone to like it for us as we try it all on.

Until we are ready to change it.

.......

Noodles. And all the questions.

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There is this place of hibernation that has held my mind.

A place where questions are gathering and asking of me to be in the stillness of the words.

Mornings wake with pondering of value of compassion of relevancy of beauty of new choices.

Arising out of a question was the knowing that I will never tell myself I can't eat a grain for purposes of keeping myself slim.

My pleasure comes from combining spices, boiling bone broths, discovering new teas, pairing a wine with a roast, chopping kale into tiny shreds. My pleasure comes from the stack of wooden cutting boards that sit on the counter next to the empty oil bottles waiting for the someday project of infusing oils. My pleasure comes from holding a wooden spoon soaked and stained from their time in the soup pot. 

The words begging us to believe we are not whole running through media, it is time to lose that weight once and for all so just buy Oprah's new soup. My inbox stuffed with more communication than I can receive. So much to buy to know to read. 

I find the place of hibernation and questions as my physical self continues the act of mothering and loving and teaching and providing.

In the mirror each night I am faced with the questions around my body and I refuse the answers that a part of me clings to. I refuse the answers and return to the hibernation of my mind.

Noodles. In college it was Ramen. Set the timer for three minutes, or was it two? We would make three packets at a time. Always chicken. That was our meal.

Then I discovered Pad Thai in New York City, steaming with basil and fish sauce and flavors entered my world that were like mysteries I would one day solve. They have been solved.

Pasta Puttanesca and its story of the ladies of the night simmering this spicy salty sauce and how the capers and anchovies and hot peppers must have become their perfume. I imagine these women piling into the kitchen for connection and escape and that something that beautiful spicy food gives us.

My mom making Fettuccine Alfredo and how I can taste it and smell it in my memory, the inspiration for a pizza I made with butternut squash and shrimp and roasted chickpeas on the Alfredo sauce. 

The meal I made over and over after I miscarried my first pregnancy, roasted eggplant mixed with more lemon than is sensible and the parmesan cheese and black pepper that attach to each strand of the spaghetti, somehow healing my insides through the comfort of the noodles. 

I will not take noodles away from myself again. And this act of kindness and pleasure will mean the questions continue to look at me through my skin as I stand in the mirror.

Earlier today I started to write this email. The first in weeks. The hibernation over and my mind unable to hold back words.

I was about half way through and realized I was typing it into a text block I don't normally use. I didn't know the text block was attached to the picture. The picture I deleted.

Looking at the screen, seeing there was no way to un-do this decision.

Tears. I thought it was good. Really good. I knew I would not get it back. 

The hibernation over and the first words lost.

My throat is aching and my glands sore. I got in the car to go pick up Chloe. I drove the 30 minutes with words dancing in my mind, mixed with the sadness of those lost.

I thought about the three packages of beans I have in the pantry. I imagined what each would become in time.

Winter Solstice making an enchilada pie after soaking the beans then cooking them in onions, garlic and broth until they fall apart. Like she made for me on one of the hardest nights I have lived through.

Pigeon peas for salads. Adzuki for bean burgers. 

The pleasure I feel when I put my hand in a bowl of beans softening. I used to not let myself eat bean either.

The softening in my body of forty-three years. A rooting in as I ache to get the words back and find comfort in knowing that everything we loose is always somehow inside of us. That energy we release or hold.

I decide to surrender. I send a note to my business group and rearrange a video call so I can rest my throat and neck.

Chicken meatballs with grated sweet potato, garlic, onion and kale. Shiitake mushrooms and kale with hot pepper sauce and teriyaki coconut aminos and rice wine vinegar. Rice because kids love rice. I am quiet and listening to them. 

"Mom, there is water all over the floor of the bathroom." I look over at the kitchen floor. The water is dripping down through the ceiling.

We run around for towels as he fixes the leak.

We are sitting at the dinner table. Dave and I have one kid in between us on the wooden bench I gave him for his birthday. All of a sudden he reaches over to me, rubs my shoulder, he is smiling at me with such truth and we hold hands behind our little one.

The kids have second helpings of the meatballs. 

Answers are finding their way in. The hibernation is over. The beans will be soaked. The noodles will be slurped. My pleasure my words my silence my compassion my relevancy my sadness my sore throat my questions.

And so it is. 

Part 3 :: Cold Egg Sandwiches Bring You Closer To Home.

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I left my utility belt at the security check at some airport months ago. For this trip I found a velvet silver fanny pack that delighted me in its silliness and perfection. That first morning we were up at 4:30am and I piled on layers of hand warmers, scarf, cowboy hat, sweater, skirt, leggings, leg warmers, boots.

I felt so crazy much like me.

I put two braids in my hair, the way I used to a couple years ago in my Vikings obsession days. My nails were painted a pale beige, I knew I'd be staring at them on the steering wheel and wanted something soft and calming.

I took my 'I'm getting on a plane' photo in the airport bathroom which I did not like, but I got nervous I'd be caught by other travelers taking pictures so I quickly put my phone away and settled.

Not long after I posted that photo we'd be sitting at the bar, realizing we wouldn't be in California. 

.......

One of the earliest things I started to notice on our drive was the absence of talking. Not my own so much, but that of Dave. I spend most days on my own until the kids get picked up. If I don't have a coaching call I go hours without speaking. 

Dave spends most of every day on the phone for his job and isn't a texting kind of guy, he talks to his family and friends on the phone. These days in the car he only spoke a couple times to family, a separation between him and his phone that I imagine felt like beautiful silence to his body. 

I noticed how hours could feel endless and fleeting all together as the earth would go from the rows of palm trees to red clay filled with rocks piled like a Jenga game and then mountains smoky and blue.

The peace and awe became companions as we would point out another rock, mountain, shape, tree, patch of dirt, as though we were the first to ever have seen those particular sights. Dave delights in the simplest of wonders as I do, we are quite matched in that area.

I loved holding space with Dave while he didn't have to talk. As he drove I would watch his face for long stretches, either he didn't notice or didn't mind. I had no desire to know what he was thinking which is unusual for me. I found myself enamored with simply being with him inside of not having to do anything other than drive. It wasn't that we didn't talk. It was that we didn't have to. 

.......

The final hotel breakfast morning I brought some gluten free rolls and toasted one until it was crispy on the edges and soft inside. I spread cream cheese on one side and put the eggs that don't taste like eggs inside with hot sauce and ketchup. Nothing healthy, this was simply a taste hack.

We brought our sandwiches in the car along with my two cups of mushroom coffee. Our final hotel stay was in Virginia and it was in the single digits cold. I started the drive that morning, sipping my coffee and knowing we would be home that night.

Neither of us were hungry so we drove for hours before unwrapping the cold egg sandwiches at 11:00am knowing this would mean we wouldn't have to stop for lunch.

We were closer to home because of those cold egg sandwiches. I could feel it in the way you don't want to. Home is my favorite thing in the world. All I wanted in that moment was my home inside of this van, next to this man I love. 

.......

We had been looking for a van for months after mine drove its last miles. The ones we found from a private sale would be gone in hours. During a trip to see Dave's brother in California he mentioned selling his van, which was the exact one we had been looking for.

No salt or snow ever on it. Gently driven. Perfect price. An adventure together driving across country.

It was the latter that made us say yes. 

.......

The morning we woke up in our own bed, my ex husband (I hate that term btw) texted me, "Glad to be home?" 

"Bittersweet. I really loved being on the road more than I thought I would. I think this is the first time in forever all I had to do was think about driving, eating and sleeping." 

"It's good for you ;)" 

And in that moment I could feel it. The tears in Rhode Island. The craving to turn around, keep driving.

The so much of nothing that I would never have known I could feel.

I was flooded with feelings from years in seconds, now laying on the bed that was so familiar, the hotel room now miles away.

The first miscarriage. The day we told the kids we were separating. The morning my dog broke my computer when Lucas was a baby and I was so lost. The ache of saying goodbye to a lover so long ago. The pain Patrick and I traveled through before we came to this place of friendship and forgiveness. The fights Dave and I had over things that had nothing to do with us. Unmet longings. Fears of not having vulnerability where I need it. Another loss of pregnancy. The hell we went through blending our families together when joy was what you sought. Standing by the side of Dave while he suffered inside of his divorce. Anger. Fear. Loss. So much. So, so much.

In that van I felt none of it. It was so much nothing that it takes my breath away thinking back to it, like a fantasy feeling. The lull of the miles, the views of desert and mountain, the absence of noise, the bonding together of one goal :: drive.

.......

The Blind Tiger restaurant got its name from Prohibition when they would place a small animal like a tiger on a table, indicating that there were back rooms where people would turn a blind eye on those who chose to drink. 

I imagine placing a small tiger on my dashboard, reminding me of the so much of nothing I never knew was there in my own 'back room', the feeling that has settled into my nervous system in what I can only describe as what I've spent the last 6 months focused on as my guiding words. 

The guides I have been asking for when I am curled over in pain of spirit. 

It feels like kindness and compassion. The words I have prayed over. The values I have prayed over. The feelings I have longed to give so I may receive them. 

I feel them. For myself. I feel kindness and compassion for my heart that has travelled through the most agonizing of pain and loss that I have known yet. I feel them. 

.......

As the voice reads aloud the words of the story we have fallen into as our companion I wonder how we will finish the story together once five kids pile back home and Dave picks up the phone and I cuddle up with my computer writing and preparing for hours of coaching. 

I wonder if when I hear the storyteller voice I will fall back into the nothing or if there will be a haze of life blocking my ears from fully taking it in. 

I love being home, as my kids are piled on the couch watching a movie together, all back together after longer than a week apart. 

Every something we have had to take on, go through, feel, to get us to this Home together, was worth each tear, fight, pain, loss. When I look over at them on the couch there is nowhere else I want to be. The nothing is back in time and I am in my happiest life.

Of so much.

.......

In the kitchen our first night home I make a Minestrone soup. I grab him in a hug and the tears that found me in Rhode Island come back. 

"That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. With me. Thank you." 

"I would do anything for you baby, don't you know that?" 

Through my tears I tell him I'm starting to know that.

I'm starting to know that.

.......
 

Part 2 :: The Road of Ice We Would Never See.

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I forgot what my hair does when the humidity is sucked from the air. The back of it starts to weave itself together and create a nest. Eventually it envelopes the hair on the side and if you lift up just one piece of hair the entire mass rises with it. 

I forgot to pack things for my hair, I was distracted by knowing my bleed would arrive on the drive, obsessed with packing little pouches with pads and tampons and Motrin and oils. 

Forgotten were my brush, shampoo and conditioner, my tools for untangling the nest. The hotels leave tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner, the nest would require 10 of those tiny bottles of conditioner. 

In somewhere Arizona, it began with a B,  the nest was so tight and uncomfortable I wrapped my hair in a scarf I had for my neck. I screamed as I tightened it and Dave carefully took his turn tying it as I tried not to yell that it hurt. 

My body was bloated from being in the early days before the bleed, my hair was distracting me and I needed my coffee. Our bodies had yet to yield to the soothing rhythm of the drive, I was feeling Dave's anxiety to make up for the lost day of driving as my own.

Hotel breakfasts are tough if you are health conscious, gluten-free or just like eggs that taste like eggs. It wasn't until our last morning that I figured out a breakfast hack.

On this morning the first thing I did was pour the hot water into the mushroom coffee powder that was traveling with me and then found the hot chocolate packets and fixed Dave a hot chocolate the way he likes it, extra powder, extra cream. He doesn't need the ritual the way I do, for me including him into the ritual of morning grounds me into him. Us.

.......

We talked about making a list of talking points for the drive, before beginning, jokingly worrying we would run out of things to talk about.

When you are driving speeds of 80 plus miles an hour words become scarce. When you are driving on sheets of ice in Texas words become scarce. When you spend 14 hours sitting next to one other person words become scarce.

When we drove from California to Massachusetts our words became scarce. In the way so much of something becomes so much of nothing. In the way I am only just understanding was the gift of the trip, the absence of something. Into a nothing I ache for when I remember.

.......

In the Texas ice storm driving past trucks spun off the road my tears spilled out as I clutched the steering wheel. Two people I love last year lost family on the road. Every car and truck we saw spun off became a prayer.

When we left the hotel that morning we didn't know the ice had formed its own road, a hidden one that eyes could not see. Once we had started, going back was scarier than moving forward, as there was an accident on every on and off ramp.

The fear and the coffee left my bladder full and pulsing. I told Dave I had to stop to pee so we pulled off to the side of the road when we found a huge space to our right, the safest spot we could find to shield us from a car sliding off the road. My cowboy boots slipped on the ice as Dave held my arm and guided me to the passenger door which he had opened for me to hold onto as I squatted to pee on the open road covered in ice on the road.

Modesty doesn't remind you of itself in fear or when a bladder is about to explode. Dave took over the drive and I sat there driving with him in my mind. It felt like together we could keep the van safe on this icy road you wouldn't believe existed. 

We knew it would end. We knew stopping held more danger than moving forward. The story of nothing transformed into fear for a few short hours in our silence. We traveled through internal journeys until the moment we saw cars driving towards us going West at speeds of 70 miles an hour. 

It took us more than a few beats to trust it. To allow the right foot to give a tiny bit more pressure down on the pedal. We found our way over a path of ice sitting side by side in the seats that had become seats of a table for meals, beds, offices, for the nothing of a drive that would take five days to complete.

.......

The brush manifested in a truck/RV stop that I wandered around in awe. Gadgets and tools and clothes and food. A little electric kettle for hot water that would shut itself off when it ran dry. Gray leg warmers making me feel less of a stand out as my own were tucked into my boots. It was an RVers dream store and I dream of an RV.

We almost bought a memory foam bum cushion for the driver's seat, days later regretting passing it by as our hips began to ache. With the brush I chose a pair of sunglasses that were bedazzled with rhinestones and green flowers, my rule being if you have to buy sunglasses at a rest stop, find the ones you normally wouldn't purchase. 

I washed my hair only once in those six days of travel, the truck stop brush pulling out more hair than I felt I wanted to part with as I stood under the hot water of a shower in a state I can't remember. Only two days since coming home the states and hotels and miles are like the same bead on a necklace strung over and over, each one beautiful when held alone then losing uniqueness when in line with the others.

.......

The day my hair was wrapped in the black scarf I stood in New Mexico; I couldn't believe I was in New Mexico. I made a video and took a photo in the front of the welcome sign. We saw little else of New Mexico other than that rest stop, and the scenery we drove by. I knew I would come back here, I felt the land calling me from a time in the future already imprinted with my visit.

The nothing was holding us as the miles gave me the comfort of sitting next to my man as he listened to football games and my eyes fell heavy into sleep under a seatbelt and our mocha colored blanket reminding us of home. 

As he drove I felt him as my protector, there was nothing that he wouldn't do for me. As I drove I wanted to wrap myself around him to guide him into sleep, my head glancing over in his direction every few minutes until I would hear his breath change over into sound that I could pick out from a hundred men sleeping, his sound the rooting of my nurturer lover partner self. 

.......

Lunch at the Blind Tiger in Louisiana is where our nervous systems would relax from the road of ice we would never see and the so much of nothing inside the miles of a drive would bring an absence of a feeling that has been a companion to me for so long. 

The fear of that absence of feeling is why I wanted to turn around in Rhode Island.  The absence of that feeling is what I sit here now looking to find words for. The absence of the feeling is lingering inside the van that now sits in our garage hiding from the storm laying down feet of snow in New England.

It asks for a third part to be written during a snow day with little boys running around bored. One more part that I long to be on the other side of as I sip a sour lemon tea and hear pleas for grilled cheese and tuna sandwiches to fill aching bellies.

One more part of a truth found on a drive of over 3,000 miles, West to East, next to the partner of my heart. The part that brought the tears that wouldn't stop yesterday as I felt my way into a re-entry of home.

.......

Part 1 :: Manhattans at 8:30am in the Airport.

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.......

The words from the story The Name of the Wind were guiding me home in the last two hours. A story of magic and fantasy to linger inside of as the miles added up.

His voice came out of the silence underneath the sound of the storyteller, "Are we in Rhode Island?"

"I don't know." I didn't want to know.

"We are! Baby, we are in Rhode Island."

He sounded so happy I didn't want to show him the tears that were warming my face, they came so fast I didn't understand them, wasn't ready to share them. The darkness mixed with the distraction from the story became my focus.

Just drive. Even though you want to turn around. Drive home.

.......

We are on the plane, 7:00am on Thursday morning. The plan to get to CA by noon, have a quick lunch with Dave's brother who we are buying the van from, then get on the road so we can feel the sunshine and drive as far as we can that first day on the road.

We start for the runway and are called back. Fuel is leaking, quite rapidly from the plane. They run tests, try to fix it. 

At 8:30am I am at the bar with the other displaced passengers who are drinking Bloody Mary's and beers. This was a no alcohol trip as we would be driving every day for up to 600 miles at a time. When Dave assured me we would not be getting to CA that day, I thought about the time one of my best friend's and I ended up at the airport early together, going separate places and got to spend time at the bar.

I ordered a drink I know she loves. I don't think I've ever had a Manhattan. I called her about a possible ride home because we may not be leaving that day. One of her husband's friends who I met at their wedding is the bartender. This is how Rhode Island is, it rarely surprises me anymore.

I didn't want to go home. It felt like going backwards. Going home, getting to Boston the next day. I told Dave I would go anywhere else. He got us to Atlanta that night, with a flight to LA the following morning.

Adventure doesn't need a timeline, so long as it keeps moving forward; these moments of change of letting go of a plan of not knowing what to expect, they mine a place inside of us that isn't defined by words, only a feeling that is the foundation of an iteration of spirit we didn't see coming.

And so we would go to Atlanta. We would sit in an airport for 10 hours (many of them trying to find a new flight plan) that was only 1 hour from home. 

When the plane was stopped because of the leaking fuel I knew that we would be safe on our drive. It felt like a blessing from the Universe, a sign. My nerves relaxed.

We got to our hotel room in Atlanta at 9:30pm, ate the turkey, cheese and coleslaw sandwiches I had made for the car ride that day and watched tv from bed. Little bags of potato chips crunched as we let our skin relax onto the bed acting as our table with little crumbs scattered on the white comforter.

Typically we fall to sleep each night after we come together in a sex that has become as ritualized as brushing our teeth. The way we connect after the day has pushed and pulled us. An ease into sleep, a repair of nervous systems, touch and intimacy our glue.

Hotel sex is unique in its unfamiliarity and offers a chance to let any stress of home be washed away as you lay underneath crisp sheets and pillows your head tries to understand. You leave it behind as though it was a moment of fantasy.

We were exhausted from nothing and just being there felt special. We had begun our journey.

Atlanta. To California.

I fell asleep hoping I could find hot water in the morning for the powdered coffee I had packed. My morning coffee is how I root in. I think about it as I clean the kitchen after dinner. 

Sensitive souls need to know where they will ground, especially inside of adventure. All the unknowns can be anchored in the safety of a cup of coffee, the scent of an oil, a hand wrapped in your own.

The alarm was set for early, I can't remember now the exact number. 

Tomorrow we would be in California where the sun would guide the start of our drive. I didn't know in that bed in Atlanta that the story about almost nothing, so much nothing, was about to be written.

.......

Rooting In. Lifting Up. 20 day winter devotional circle

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A 20 day winter devotional circle :: grounding rituals, stories and practices to root into the season and receive winter's blessings.

When :: January 12th - 31st

Cost :: $37

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There was a wall in our home, the one we had dreamt of for so long, that was blue. It was a choice made by the family before us. Whenever I was in the living room sitting and gazing at the fire place where the blue wall was, I felt off. 

I wondered if the color held some story of angst that I could feel. It was more than the color, it was an energy coming through. One day I decided it was time to paint it.

In my basement I had a can of my favorite cloud white paint. While everyone was away I spent the day covering over the blue wall. It was magical. The dark room started to glow. Light was all around. As the room became cozier and brighter with each coat of the white I could feel my body releasing the angst and absorbing openess. 

I gathered some plants I had around the house that needed repotting and I spent time with my hands in the dirt, grounding the roots into new soil and terra-cotta pots. Their beauty felt like a prayer of thank you. 

They sit on the mantle with pine branches I picked in the woods, all of it against the soft white wall.

This small change gives me a sense of grounding. This is my rooting in. Making home. Shifting of energy. Honoring winter's arrival.

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Root vegetables and feet in the earth. 

Bowls of lemons sitting on the kitchen table.

Pine branches and red berries in vases.

Persimmons and candy canes for decorating the home.

Sheepskin making couches cozy and held.

Pad Thai ingredients spread out on the wooden cutting board.

Popcorn filling small bowls for little fingers.

Sweaters and leg warmers and scarves wrapping us up.

Curried stews with eggplant and chickpeas

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Watering the plants, touching the leaves, scavenging perfect spaces where the light would glow through the lace of the curtains onto them. 

Egg shells piled up in a bowl on a white countertop that holds the stories of the mamas before me, as each fried egg becomes a sandwich for little hands to hold for breakfast.

The pale green of the walls that hold their beds safe, the navy stars and gold hearts on sheets covered with gray fuzzy golden blankets topped with the furry giant bears and cheetahs and tigers they cuddle at night.

The way his body feels when we fall into bed each night, naked, lips promising a tomorrow filled with deepening safety inside of our love.

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We root in by making space in our life, through rituals that feel gorgeous and filling and by letting each feeling that comes through us have a place of safety.

We root in by putting our bare feet on earth even if just for a few seconds in the cold of the morning on hard wood floors.

We root in by letting go of stuff, of old stories, of chaos that breaks our connection with the ground.

We root in by letting each of the parts of us become honored and nurtured.

We root in through meditative trust and beauty as we honor the seasons.

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And then we lift. 

The connections of ritual. The sharing of stories, fears, photos. When another woman simply says...

...me too. 

...what if?

...how does that feel?

...I honor you.

...you are so beautiful.

...thank you.

In circle.

Each day becoming a walking prayer. 

A daily devotional to winter's spirit.

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20 days together ::

  • daily emails with story, photo and simple prompts; physical and spiritual
  • a circle of women; rooting and lifting
  • rituals of making home in the cozy of winter; beauty and space
  • the sacred, seasonal kitchen and table; service and feeding
  • safety in our hearts; reverence and adoration
  • shifting of space; release and opening
  • the parts of who we are; feeling and being seen
  • walking prayer; faith and repetition
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The gift of words from past circles ::

“What you do is take women who don’t even know how to believe in what they already are, don’t know that they should, and you give them hope, give them the tools, introduce them to a way of looking at themselves, the world, each other – that illuminates ILLUMINATES the path that we failed to notice was beneath our feet all along.”

“She has a magical balance of ferocity and gentleness that speak directly to your heart while not leaving your mind out of the equation. Oh, and she rocks.”

“There are moments in our lives when someone extraordinary comes into view, bringing with them great spirit and the power of transformation. Hannah Marcotti’s deeply rooted authenticity, gentle love and soft caress, creates beautiful spaces for knowing and a safe place for revealing our most authentic dreams and wishes, guiding you toward a realization and manifestation of your true hearts’ desire.”  

“Hannah is honest, real, a storyteller, authentic, magical, passionate, gentle and tough all at the same time…”

“This group, you all…this work, is the emotional scaffold I rebuild my spirit upon~”

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Any questions? Please send me a note at hello@hannahmarcotti.com

Death by Tarot

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We kept saying a time would come when we would meet in person. I found myself in her world (city) during the launch of the Biz Circle and after an emotional and lovely trip to see my 97 year old grandfather who is one of the most incredible humans. 

I had thought about doing a meet up and gathering women who lived in the area for a circle and then the reality of time zone changes and the launch and a time when Dave needed my energy to help hold him through some tough challenges in his work all swirled into my highly sensitive body and she said, "How about you come over for tea and tarot."

A sensitive extroverts perfect date.

When you get to meet the women you've worked with only online for years, it is truly a wild experience. You take all your data collected from words and photos and carry it with you until that first hug, that first moment.

Then all the data just washes away and there you are. Real. Touch. Flawed. Perfect.

And then there is tarot. Alix has done readings for many of the women in our circles and to be in person with her, holding the deck, asking the question, I could feel myself opening to the message in a way I'm not always present to.

I am a guide of iterations. I am a wildfire iterator. I am lining up and preparing for what is next.

The first card she put down was death. The spread was so powerful it took my breath away before we even talked about it.

I've felt inside that the work I've done is coming to a close to make way for a something special that has feeling without words, until the permission from this reading to let go. 

Not just that I could let go, but that I must. That it already was.

I've hinted at this being the last time I run my Magic Making Circles. There is no big announcement. It is a feeling. A feeling I am following.
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I can see myself 6 months from now and I am observing her. I am watching her inside of new adventures. She has burned down and ashes have always suited her.

I have 6 months to guide women who are inside of businesses and dreams of businesses to do exactly what I'm going to do. Figure it out. Become clear. See their future selves and use that vision as a way of working towards their becomings.

6 months of opening to the messages. I am a half year operator. I see time in 6 month iterations. 
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I watched as she placed the cards down and started guiding me through the reading. The lovers grounding me from pelvis to core. The emperor rooting my future self. The promise of not being alone as I move from Death into the boundaries of the she I watch quietly, sitting 6 months from now on her sheepskin, fully in her body and breath, fully in the rise from letting go.