Radical Dander

When Men & Women Talk: Finding Common Ground

2012-01-25T09:59:00.000-08:00

What interests you about communication between men and women? This subject has held my fascination for almost 20 years. I can honestly say, I am more curious today about the male/female dynamics than I was when I began my unwitting exploration.

You see, I took a seminar about Entrepreneurship. It turned out to be about so much more, including ways men and women prevent each other from succeeding, financially and professionally (and how to stop these damaging behaviors in favor of creating powerful, life-changing partnerships). What I learned about healing deep unconscious grudges in that seminar has guided my life and my work. So every day, while gathering more on-the-job lessons (I’m married with an 8-year old son), I have grown to appreciate and honor both masculine gifts and those of my female gender.

What’s really important when you are building a team in business is to recognize that each person has his/her strengths and weaknesses. The quality called “drive” is a masculine quality, yet many females possess it. Similarly, the quality known as “listening” is a feminine quality, which many men have innately and have developed in themselves, recognizing its usefulness in fostering good relationships.
When we talk about team, we are talking about three things:

• the players themselves as individuals
• the ways the players relate with one another (the quality of the relationships they build)
• the functioning of your team as a whole.

I find that looking at the individuals doesn’t give quality data. Often it leads to judgments about right and wrong…not productive. So let’s skip a level up, to the ways the players relate with one another. That is where the masculine/feminine differences can make or break the quality of the relationships the team builds and their overall synergy.

Imagine a male sales manager who is focused on the bottom line (Picture Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am.”) and his saleswoman in the field who embellishes her verbal reports with details about what her prospect has hanging on his office walls. What do you suppose will happen? Likely an impatience or irritation will develop. Similarly, a wife at day’s end wants to “ talk about her day”, while hubby immediately synthesizes her storytelling into a problem that has to be solved, and gets to work doing just that--much to the irritation and frustration of his wife.

This is not to say that men and women cannot get along, and splendidly. We each must be intent on understanding and respecting one another’s reasons for, and methods of, communicating.

Men communicate to solve a problem, to assess status, to move the action forward and to get data that will move the action forward...in other words, men communicate to get results. Masculine communication is goal-oriented and expects an outcome.

Women, to contrast, engage in communication in order to nurture and be nurtured, to bond with others, to get attention and to decompress. Feminine communication is process-oriented, communication for its own sake. Communicating IS the outcome!
How can we use this simple understanding of masculine and feminine natures to improve our quality of life at work and peace of mind at home?

Ladies, understand that you must get to the point with men. Keep the girlfriend conversation for your girlfriends. Find ways to bond that you both enjoy: activities, shared interests or professional matters. Tell brief (I mean 2 or 3 sentences) stories that have a point. For example, “…and then my daughter scored the winning goal that took the team to the championship!” Get to the point and show them the result. They will appreciate it!

Men, understand that bonding is important to women. If you don’t ask about her children, she may perceive you as cold or uncaring. Make an effort to ask appropriately personal questions that show her you are interested in her as a person, not only a means of production. Remember, women appreciate the communication process itself!

We find that when men and women do communicate in a way that satisfies the feminine requirements for bonding, the tone of cooperation in the organization is raised. Then results can go through the roof.

This is simple, but not easy. After all, most of us are most comfortable doing things the way WE do them most naturally. But keep this in mind, if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting. So I challenge you: Use these simple methods of relating to one another, applying awareness of gender differences to your communications. Try it for a week.

Results may be subtle and probably will be. After all, the winning horse in the Kentucky Derby wins by only a “nose” (even if a horse’s nose is long, that’s still a small measurement for a BIG difference in prize money). Let me know how the quality of your relationships improves in the workplace and at home. Over time you may see they foster a professional synergy in which results happen effortlessly. That’s high performance teamwork!

Karen Baker Blum trains and speaks in the corporate world and in private seminars. Her focus is developing women leaders for the home front and the global stage. As she travels and teaches, sowing seeds of harmony and prosperity between men and women, she gathers many allies along her way. Her signature seminar is “How to Talk to Men: A New Paradigm for Relating with Humor and Light-Heartedness.” For a media kit, contact: aMuse@BusinessAsPleasure.com or 516.209.7827.

Without the enemy: the enemy within

2011-10-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Did you ever get close to your enemy? Feel his warmth coming from his body? Feeling the same skin, flesh and blood that you live in, on him?

Would you let yourself experience this same human structure you inhabit, which he is carrying around, as you carry yours?

No. Because if you did allow yourself to breathe in his living odor, to sit beside him until your breaths entrain, until your hearts beat as one, as lovers’ hearts do; then you would must drop your external wars, your eternal warfare with the other.
Then you would have no provocation to leave your home, your fields; no one goading you to rid the land of the enemy, no incitement to extinguish his flame of life which seeks oxygen as does your flame. Then no extortion would come: to fight, to kill, to plunder or rob.

Then would you be free to tend to your pleasure; your geraniums, your writing or your goats.

Then when a demon appears to you, it can be recognized as yourself, as a fragment of you not yet sat with, listened to, sniffed, nuzzled and finally, befriended.

Do not seek outside for your enemy. He is in you, waiting to be met, breathed, and embraced.

Life is the Mirror of You and it is a Gift

2010-11-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

(I suggest reading aloud, alone or with a friend.)

If we are lucky; if we are intentional; if we are growing; if we are searching; if we are relentless; we may, in our lives be offered a gift. That gift will not necessarily be wrapped with shiny paper, ribbons and a big satin bow. That gift may look like anything but a gift. But indeed it is a gift. The gift I am talking about is the gift of self-reflection.

It may come in the form of a loved one who reacts to you, or who attacks you. It may come in the form of a friend who embraces you, or rejects you. The gift may arrive as a business deal that you close, or that you lose. It may come with the loss of a loved one that is close to you, or with the success of a stranger on American Idol. But if you are fortunate, or intentional; if you are relentlessly searching, and heaven-bent on growing, it will come to you. And this gift will be the realization that your response is all about you.

For the uninitiated, the prayerless, those victimized by life and those who are simply not ready, the gift will be offered. It has been offered to each of us a hundred times a day.

How is this possible? That we would be offered a gift but say “no”? This is part of the gift. A gift can be offered, but until I am ready to receive it, the gift will be sent back: no such number. Moved, left no forwarding address.

The beginnings of receiving are those moments where we notice: boy, I really got hooked there. Or, I wonder why that upset me so much? These are the beginnings of the gift that keeps on giving: the gift of noticing, of awareness. Of taking responsibility for our own experience of life and seeking to expand our ability to receive more and more, so that we can become more and more. Being responsible for more and more is the game. One cannot receive without being simultaneously able to hold more, and less.

The alternatives to receiving the gift? A blameless life full of blame for others. Judging others and remaining separate from them. Pitying yourself or others and becoming pitiful. Criticizing others and becoming unacceptable to yourself. Playing alone in the sandbox for fear of exposing your weakness to yourself.

Here we are, on our journey. If you find yourself in tears, in the flow, in the arms of another man, know that you have found yourself, with your million and one reactions, predictions, declarations and early dismissals. Know that these are not the gifts.

Your receiving of these happenings with your awareness is the gift. To be able to receive the ripple effects of every action and reaction is the gift and it is offered to you in every moment. This is a treasure. You are the mine.

Your journey will allow you to receive this and so many more blessings along the way. It happens for those persistent enough to look into the next dimension, where life is the mirror of you.

May you continue to expand your tenderness, your ability to feel, your asking for and receiving, and all the ins and outs of a life lived fully. This is my prayer for us all. Amen. Awomen. Aho.

Life is But A Dream

2010-11-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Our dear son has been in school now for a 2 months. I have taken this opportunity to amuse myself. What would you do if you could do anything you want, all day long? I am asking myself that question, then acting on it.

The list, it turns out, runs on. I read, I walk. I sit in a hot tub and loosen my muscles. I take yoga classes and loosen them somemore. I write a book. I muse on my one woman show. I talk with friends, clients, prospects, family. I took up therapy, and Latin dancing. I write meditations and share them with friends. I invite friends to grow with me. I practice conscious language. I partner with friends for fun and profit. i consider art lessons. I buy new music and lavish in it. I paint the walls of my apartment and get a friend to help me. She also shops for me at IKEA and I pay her back. I get bodywork. I get invitations. I invite others to go trick or treating and have playdates. I write sweet emails. I sing and buy my son a guitar. I don't get upset, much. I ask people to help me, and some do. I ask people for money, and some give it to me. I'm taking a seminar at Landmark Education and inviting friends to come learn about their programs. I am reading Leela Francis. I'm reclaiming my body with dance, yoga, network spinal analysis, walking, bellydancing, soaking, napping.
i receive invitations to Spa Party with my young and handsome dance instructors. I plan my birthday party, 2 months down the road. I admire the autumn leaves, still flaming on the trees and in piles curbside. I conjure my son a new bed. I organize winter clothes and closets. I plan for Thanksgiving. I tell the truth. I get my way. I tell those I love that I love them. I plan trips. I accept it all as wonderful.

The week that was

2010-09-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

My 7 year old son started school last week. I'm now in Parenting Graduate School!

THis week I have: started a new business venture, the website is SuccessSeminarsForWomen. Begun a 6 month program to write and publish a book. Attended session 1 of An invented Life, a seminar at Landmark Education. WRitten a radical meditation for my Circle sisters, #1 installment to my book. Had a creative conversation with my husband about moving forward as a family. Booked a babysitter to go out 2 nights in a row!

Yes, I am ready for my next, even as my son is ready for his. Life is a beautiful path, a joyous and energetic journey.

To the Women

2010-09-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

To the memory of between 3-5,000,000 women who were killed during the 300 years of the Spanish Inquisition for walking in nature alone, collecting medicinal plants for healing, or showing a love for animals, all of which were grounds for accusation of witchcraft and summary execution. May their wisdom permeate our beings.

But you can suppress it, and like water, like the feminine, like emotion, it will rise up again, appear, make itself known, seep through, humanifest, womanifest, find its level, and suddenly what was only hinted at, longed for , deeply hidden, becomes splendid and on display, in the midst of a streaming white light dripping with blood of menses, of murder, of childbirth, of ripped hymens, of bleeding hearts, of ecstasy lost and wisdom comes pouring forth again as women reuse and refind their voices, their byways and scarcely trodden highways, their footpaths, their natures, their longings, their strongings, their weakness, their meekness, their pouring forth into abundance, gratitude and heat, their surrender of pain and rebirth into the privilege of speaking, laughing, storytelling, moaning, giggling. Celebrating, ululating, until the secret pathways and shrotas and incense trails and lacy fingers on the backs and behind and gaping pussyholes become mouths and voices, all of them ululating in the ancient cries of woman’s voice.

Woman’s voice. Women’s voices raised in singing, crying, lullabying, joking, laughing, bubbling, giggling, whispering, praising, raising, phrasing, all good, all loving, all flowing in the ceremonial space that is woman. She is crafted for ceremony, naturally spiritual, connected, needing no form. We are the form. Built for loving, being loved; cradling, being cradled: there is no life without woman. We are life. We are drive. We are power. We are desire.

Celebrate yourself. Wake up to the music that is you.
Lift your head to whiff the smouldering incense that you are.
Shield your eyes as your gaze is brightened by the radiant white light of your being.
Feel the textures of silk and saliva, velvet and blood, satin and hair that drapes and adorns the fiber you are made of.
Taste the salty you, the sweet you, now the pungent and acrid you; the smoky burning paradise of you, the pickled you, the honeyed you, the candied you, the peppermint and rose hips of you.
You are the embodiment of all of life.
You are a celebration.
Your are the feast and the feasting, the dinner and the diner, the sup and the superb, the breakfast and the break slow, the snack and the morsel, the taste and the treat, a neverending changing and delicious banquet of woman.
Celebrate! Allow the bells to ring, the drums to beat. Entice the hips to move and the pubic bone to find its own rhythm. Allow the lovers to emerge into the light. Hide yourself no more. Be free. Warm your wings in the sunlight. You are nascent. You are alive Your many voices poised to shout as one, in birth:

A Miracle Moment in Parenting

2010-05-26T05:39:00.001-07:00

Two nights ago, I had a dream. My son was walking down the hall to his kindergarten class, alone. Standing alone watching him at the head of the hall, I raised my right hand in the universal sign language sign for "I love you" and aimed it, like a benediction, at his being.

Last night, I came home at 9:30 to my young son still awake, and my husband giving him the lesson of falling asleep by himself. This weekend he spent with friends while Fred and I were attending an out-of-town seminar, and all three nights away he did, indeed, put himself to sleep. But this was the first time in our home that he has done this, because prior to last night, one of us has laid down with him intil he is out cold, every night since he was born.

This morning on the sun-dappled walk to our car, Avi told me that Daddy is the person that he loves most in the world. I responded appreciatively, validating that feeling. Then he told me that he loves me second best and the reason he loves Daddy more is because he is a boy, too. Listening to all this, and noticing that I was responding from love and acceptance, was such a sweet experience. When we got out of our car at school, I knelt to the ground and hugged my son close and expressed my love and appreciation for him. Then he told me: "I will go to my classroom by myself."

"What?" I exclaimed. "Now that you are going to bed by yourself, you're going to do it ALL by yourself?" "I can't drive myself", he explained. So I accompanied him to the hallway and, like in my dream, held the hand sign "I love you" towards his being as he entered the world of his classroom.

Last note: Avi did call me to join him halfway down the hall, and I entered into the sanctuary space of his class with him. On the way we passed a teacher tuning a harp outside of her classroom and I acknowledged to him, "Mrs. Helwig is an angel." "I know", he said.

That's All Folks...Drives and Urges

2010-04-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

Driving in my car, on the way to a business meeting, I had a rare and vivid few moments.

Suddenly I was living this perception: I am a consciousness, an awareness. This consciousness has drives. These drives define the nature of the specific consciousness: the drive towards solitude, the drive to build, the drive to sing.

These drives are beneficial for us, they define us, they fulfill us. The drive to explore new places then, when followed, leads to enhanced creativity at the mental level and probably every other level as well.

The consciousness also has urges. The urges are like electrical impulses, much more transient than the drives. It may be an urge for ice cream, to urinate, to stretch. These impulses do not define the beast or the nature of the consciousness: they are superficial to that.

Yes, for some few moments I was actually living that. I was aware that I am an awareness with drives and urges, instead of my usual, mundane reality, that I am Karen Baker Blum and have stuff to do.

It was sweet and clear, not like anything. No thoughts cluttered my mind, just the awareness of my consciousness observing itself, while "I" drove the car through the sunshiny spring morning.

Then the clarity began to fade as I attributed the source of the clarity to this, that or the other; thought about how I knew it would disappear, because it has in the past, and so on.

The next day I woke up to Arjuna Ardagh’s new book, The Translucent Revolution: How People Just Like You Are Waking Up and Changing the World. It was open on our home computer and I read through it hungrily. I recommend it.

The last time I read a book by Arjuna Ardagh, Waking to Oneness (or the Oneness Blessing), I was so mesmerized that I missed my train stop, had to borrow money from a stranger who, it turns out, had gone to chiropractic school with my brother-in-law, and went on a lively cab ride with a strange cast of characters.

Come to think of it, I gotta go so I can keep reading and find out what adventure is coming up next!

Loving Ourselves: Theory or Practice?

2010-03-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

I have been puzzling over my interactions with my son, who is 6. Noticing that I have begun to dislike my interactions with him, I began exploring the morning ritual of dressing, eating and getting out the door. It had become unpleasant, either my husband or me hounding Avi, rushing or pressuring him at every step. I have been noticing the unpleasant feelings associated with these daily interfaces and today asked out loud: “Is there a way to have this process be pleasant?”

It all has to do with love and self-love. If I do unto another that which is hateful to myself (rushing and pressuring), it is merely a reflection of what I am feeling (feeling for myself is redundant, if still clarifying.) It is coming from a lack of love in myself and is projected outward onto another.

So our real work is to fall in love with ourselves again. I say again because as children we already were in love with ourselves. We came in as love. Love of the self is love. No one taught my son to love himself, he just does. This is the ground of his being, his operating principal: His software program is love, and it came factory-installed. So what he does is a reflection, or a projection, of love.

What makes any iota of “not-love” is some disapproving adult (usually that the child is identified with, meaning not separate from, nor individuated from), casting from his or her own “not-love” such a projection onto the child. The child then feels the adult feeling bad about himself and takes it personally, which is the only way a child can take it. The child now has a piece of software downloaded that is “not-love”, feels that “not-love” and then acts from it.

As we have seen before, each time we act from “not-love”, we feel badly about ourselves, which creates more “not-love”, both inside of ourselves and in the negative reactions we experience from others.

The only way out is to love ourselves, not a theory but as an operating principle. That means that our every action, no exception, has the possibility of increasing our feelings of love, or decreasing them. If we act from love, in our every minute interaction with ourselves, we build a love-infused system in ourselves, which then spills out onto people outside of us. Acting from loves means cleaning up every spot in our lives where we are feeling bad: places we procrastinate and feel bad about; inconsiderate thoughts of ourselves or others; neglectful behaviors such as overeating, overdrinking or any overindulgence; manipulative or angry actions or words toward others.

Anything at all that makes you feel bad is creating more feeling bad. Anything at all that makes you feel good is creating more feeling good. It is a moment-to-moment awareness; is it warming you and turning you on, or leaving you out in the cold?

More about this to come…

I like Daddy more than you.

2010-03-23T05:33:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful time.

There was a time when the world lay close around us, like a blanket over our pair of shoulders; his tiny, mine grown. Into that world, others could come, but the bond between us was clad with the solder of motherhood, and it held us firmly.

That bond of blood, milk, scent, helplessness and dependency, left my heart forever changed. And like change, forever coming, going, beating like our circulatory system, times have changed again.

I have seen it in so many ways. The young boys sides with his father. He swaggers, flexing his masculinity. He takes up martial arts and is happy to spend entire days with his father.

It’s them now, and I am the mother, outside of their boys’ club. My words may be heeded, but often I am considered to be a hindrance, with my opinions and my regulations, like the widow was to Huck Finn.

I experience this on two levels. One is a relief at being released into my next, that part of my life where I can explore and claim the riches of these years and the gifts I have developed over time. As my heart has been forged in the fires of unconditional loving that is motherhood, I have so much to offer beyond what my schooling is.

The second stage is the poignancy of leaving this time behind, this time of being loved, prized and cared for above all. It was so sweet. I felt so connected, in service to a deep current of humanity in the form of my young son. It is a time I have not wanted to let go of.

But it is over. As with so much in life, it is time to let go. He needs me now for different purposes and it is up to me to find my place for myself. This place includes the deep love and connectedness that I have felt as his mother. It also encompasses a larger audience than my one son.

Yesterday my young boy said, “I like Daddy more than I like you.” Not the first time he has said that to me and of course it is true for him right now. I appreciate the child’s honesty and complete candor.

The comment stimulates me like the loosening of a tether; I feel freedom pulling me. My heart will always be with my child: I discovered its true function with him. Now is a time to take that heart and give it new scope.

I am grateful for the lessons that life continues to offer me.

The Virtues of Selling

2010-03-19T06:58:00.000-07:00

After many years, and being asked hundreds of times by my coaches, “what do you want?”, yesterday I had an answer!

I want everybody around me to sell.

When a person is selling, they have a cause to promote. They are interfacing with another individual. They are putting attention on another person. They are in action, moving something forward. They are sharing a point of view, in order to help another person get something that that other person desires.

So I want everybody around me to sell.

Some sour alternatives to everybody selling: people in their heads, complaining about problems or people in their life. Being righteous, rather than persuasive, and getting their way by spoiling the party for everyone else. Making other people wrong, instead of finding out what they want and getting it for them.

Been there, done that.

A novel approach would be to adopt something that we love as our preferred topic of conversation. Let that be your preferred topic of conversation with other humanoids. Preferably something that has made a big impact on our lives: a person, place, object, book, piece of music, work of art, animal, restaurant. Karaoke. Belly dancing. Disneyland. Meditating. Your law professor in college. Your junior high English teacher. The dog next door. Find out what has moved you.

Then talk about something that has moved you and really get into it. Tell a story. Entertain yourself and make it a contribution to the person you are speaking to. Go ahead, dare to move them. Invite them to try whatever it is you love. Invite them to find a passionate equivalent in their experience. The main thing is to get your energy across to them.

There is no energy shortage. All there is: either giving energy or being an energy vampire. Let’s voluntarily cut back on complaining, whining, gossiping and criticizing and instead, let’s sell. Surveys have shown that the happiest people in the world are salespeople, (above doctors and lawyers, even).

So stop comparing and get selling!

Take A Risk

2010-03-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

Take the time to take a risk and do something new more often than you think you can.

Why the heck would I risk: looking bad? Failing? The frustration of not knowing/having to learn? Being rejected?

Because of the high!!

Now I may be someone who goes to outrageous lengths for the highs. Admitted, my refreshingly juvenile life philosophy has been with me, somewhat moth-eaten, but largely intact, since my teenage years: Life is one high after the other.

My beloved mother, well-intending, tried to disabuse me of this naive perspective and yes, to some degree she succeeded. But I am getting my radical dander back, getting my groove on, reclaiming my moxie and shouting in the face of suburban boredom and complacency: Get high, everybody, get high.

This may seem like crazy talk. I am probably out of control. Maybe I should visit Pilgrim State.

Let’s just get back to the new.

Driving from the east end to my fabulous apartment this evening, I had the startling realization that for the past 10 years, the whole time that I have been married, I have treated my husband like he is inferior, with a degree of arrogance that I can’t even face, but did begin to glimpse.

As soon as we got to a place in the evening where I could admit it, I confessed. Just a simple sentence, an acknowledgment of what I had noticed, and a joke: “not that I’m gonna change.” We laughed, then, and hugged each other. Fact is, just by noticing, and ‘fessing up, I had changed. I can feel it deep inside my skin, in my heart, whose guidance I revere.

That was risk #1.

I felt so high after that, I could not go to sleep.

Risk #2. I created an event on Facebook. Now anyone who knows me, knows that my medium is people, not computers or technology. But I figured it out! So now you can go to Facebook and find the event “Love in the City” and consider yourself invited.

I am so happy to be learning, playing and living life. I love the feel of the energy as it lights up different parts of my body.

It all depends on where you focus, right? If you put your attention on the highs, life really can be one high after the other!

OFF Of The Battlefield. ON TO the Playing Field.

2010-03-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

Our current daytime drama, which passes for life, is literally littered with fatalities in the battle between men and women.

Check your numbers.

In the business world, women are earning 79 cents to the dollar on what men are earning. The costs of succeeding in the business realm have far too often outweighed the carrots being dangled and have women compromising what is most important to them: the quality of their close connections and the quantity of time they can spend with their loved ones.

The rate of successful first-time marriages in the United States is only about 59%, with the rates for second and third marriages dramatically lower. Divorce rates have increased, inverse to the numbers of women entering the workforce.
And a 2009 survey, The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, reports women in general have a lower sense of well-being and life satisfaction than they did 40 years ago.

These costs of doing battle between the sexes are staggering. We hope you agree, they are too high.

We propose a simple solution.

Let us, as a gender, agree to move our relationships, with men and with other women, off of the battlefield and onto the playing field. It is time for a new paradigm of relating between men and women and it is up to us, as the emotional and biological caretakers of relationship throughout time. Nowhere has it been truer: if it is to be, it’s up to me.

Such a new paradigm will require vision, discipline, commitment, connection, education and community, yet all these things will benefit women and society in both the short term and for generations of women and men to come. It is not only possible, but vitally imperative now as never before, to create the understanding, structures and practices that foster women’s success, contribution and ecstasy.

As we move in these directions, we will see a renaissance of life-giving institutions, businesses and innovations which will enrich us as individuals, couples, families and societies. Come on to the playing field.

Let me know how you would like to play.

Priming the Pump or Courting the Muse

2010-03-02T05:16:00.000-08:00

Today I write like Ernest Hemingway used to write. Legend has it that this giant of literature sat down each and every working day in front of his manual typewriter and wrote a certain number of pages. He wrote until that number of pages was complete, not stopping to edit or evaluate. Then from his production, he culled what he had written, sorting the value from the drivel.

Having started this blog gang-busters last week, I’m noticing that the muse of determination seems to have taken a break to warmer climes. She does not seem to be in attendance to me this week. So I have determined that I must go courting her.
Just as fortune eludes all but the most determined, apparently so does creativity. So I am setting this time aside, a few minutes before my 8 o’clock on the east coast, to write for 30 minutes, the results of which I will share with you on my blog.

But, my mind interjects, what about the writing that comes directly from the heart that flows and merges with the river of creativity, in an effortless manner. What about that writing that comes when you suddenly have something to say, not just as a result of an exercise in determination?

In some ways, my mind wants me to entertain the idea that the writing that spontaneously flows is better, more worthy, more valuable, than the writing that I am currently, doggedly, pursuing. But my heart smiles happily inside my chest. The heart knows that giving me over to a passion is, in and of itself, a valuable act, both self-affirming and validating: A reason for celebration.

Much as the body does not want to rise and shine in the morning, wants to extend the torpor of sleep rather than face the day and its tasks of service to others, so is the creative spirit apparently lazy at first. So this is a prime of the pump, a serious muscling of the will (and the won’t) into a form that fulfills my own promise.

I am surprised by what lies beneath the surface of my laziness, this wellspring of expression that causes tears to come to my own eyes. I am moved not only by my writing, but by my spirit, the universally human spirit that acts in service to a dream. IN this case my dream is to express myself and to touch a resonant place within the human spirit that inspires action. Right action in the service of a dream is my intention with whatever I am doing: action to stir the energetic body that has been so long neglected in our culture, to our short-term detriment.
Find out soon, on these pages, what this has to do with the economic downturn our nation is passing through.

I QUIT.

2010-02-23T20:13:00.000-08:00

I Quit.

Yes, I do. And tomorrow I can say, yes, I did.

Quit what? Quit my first job that I have held in over 6 years and I have held it all of 4 weeks.

Why of all things? Why in this time of vanishing jobs, the jobless economy, and record unemployment, would I leave this seemingly desirable institution of American culture, the “9 to 5”?

Not because I dislike my co-workers. The opposite. What a sweet bunch of women (and a man or two). No complaints with management, in fact I have found them caring, one and all, and sharp, as well. Not because I am unsuited to the work, because after all, if you love sales, and I do, then a sales job is a good job.

No, there is a different reason. That reason is, working this job leaves me out of my “integrity zone”.

For 15 years now, I have been preaching the gospel of “do what you love”, “create a project and create a cash flow”, promoting Enlightened Entrepreneurship to women and men alike. And there was nothing like getting a job to shove right back in my face, that I have a mission.

Every moment that I was dialing at my job, I was thinking, what about helping women start their own businesses? What about doing what I love, meeting people, leading seminars, inviting people to take the risks that set their hearts to pumping with joy? What about teaching classes for families with my son and husband? What about our family band? What about being my own outrageous self and sharing my passion with as many people as I can possibly touch?

It took me 4 weeks to realize, I gotta do what I gotta do. As genuine cosmic timing would provide, what was the topic in a meeting I went to tonight, but doing what you love. One woman asked the question, what do I do now that I am 60 and hate my job? And another man shared, he is 52 and finally doing everything that he loves. Another man mentioned he earned an MBA because his dad said to, but now is finally working in the arts, which is what he loved all along.

So tomorrow I go in, clean up, and say good-bye. Let them know how much I respect them and appreciate them. Tell them I hope we stay in touch. And then come back to my home, soon to be my launch pad, and get on the phone with my national team, which stretches from California to New York, and have a day of team calling.

This is my integrity, a life of boldness, daring, risk and appreciation. A life where each and every sale I make has the opportunity to impact someone’s life for the good, for the rest of their lives. A life where I share my joy and my experience in the service of others’ dreams coming true. A life where I am living my dreams, doing what I want, and declaring to the world that it is not only possible to design your life from pleasure, in fact, it is vital.

Practice Joy

2010-02-22T21:01:00.001-08:00

Practice Joy

One of the ways that my Aunt Harriet practices joy is by driving through the country with her husband of 50-something years, looking for mailboxes with funny names on them. When she finds those country names she writes them in a little notebook. She writes my dad (her brother) letters, sharing the funny names she found. We have literally roared out loud with laughter, reading some of the names she has noted.

Another way my Aunt Harriet practices joy is by purchasing whimsical picture frames on sale wherever she can find them, then filling them with photographs of all of her favorite family members and putting them up in every corner of her house. Not only does she have older, dated pictures, but also up-to-date snapshots of every loved one she has ever known.

So now my sisters on our women’s circle are on a mission: searching for ways to practice joy. Some of the ones that I have found: telling funny stories to an audience of sympathetic friends…the ones you know will laugh. Spending time around a young child, enough time to hear some of the funny things they say. This evening my son said, as we pulled out of his school parking lot, “Mom, you have to venture into my hair to search for mice.” This was his way of telling me that a child in his class had been found with lice.

Tonight my friend and circle sister Jenn told the story of the “happy basket” she created. Her children and she add daily to the basket: tickets to a movie they loved, comic strips, notes, anything that makes them feel happy. She said that it’s really working and that her family is sharing their happiness more freely, now that they have a ritual “basket”.

I will be searching for more ways to “practice” joy. I trust that some of you will send me your ways.

Through the years I have practiced self-pity, resentment and other darker moods. Now I am curious about practicing joy. Stay posted.

Determination

2010-02-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

Today the writing that wants to come forth, as I continue to heal myself with each and every action that I take, is about determination.

The word itself is solid and enduring. Look there, a noun sitting squarely at the end of the sentence. Very few tall letters and no low ones, just a solid block of letters announcing itself: Determination.

And endure it must. While each and every distraction can and will get in your way when you have a plan and a project, determination will wait them all out. Sometimes determination will plow through the obstacles in its way, sometimes it will just bide its time, knowing that its destiny is to triumph.

My special expertise is the distraction of a young son at home and the special pleasure of almost unequalled enjoyment spending time with him. His music, his games, his enthusiasm and frequent requests for play, all these can easily keep me from attending to my own goals and commitments. His very vociferousness keeps my own desires in check; therefore determination becomes vital because the force of his personality and youthful exuberance is compelling. So I have got to determine for myself, what is as important to me, as his needs and wants are to him, so that I can follow my own drive and my own desire to their destiny home. What are those things?

I am determined to share my wisdom, intelligence and passion with others. I am determined to get up, in front of audiences of women, and share the learning that I have done over the years. I am determined to be well paid for these workshops and speeches that I deliver. I am determined to have music and dance in my life. I am determined to have women actualize their own gifts, as well as to actualize my own. I am determined to promote the cause of happy women inhabiting and overrunning the planet. I am determined to give my gifts and share my vision, so that it clarifies and intensifies in its ability to compel. I am determined to be competent financially and wealthy in all ways. I am determined to have a good time through it all. I am determined to set a date for previews and then to follow up with partnership and requesting. I am determined to become mentor to thousands of women.

Currently I see that I do have determination and it is a long-range thing. It is a sometimes-underground movement, sometimes public policy declared from the steps of the capitol building here at home: I have my rights. The mother of the family has the most rights of anyone. She must be happy, fulfilled, self-actualized, self-satisfied, turned on, juicy, invigorated, partnered-with, supported. She must have her needs for becoming and contributing satisfied, or else her children will have no modeling for a happy and fulfilled woman.

Then again, sometimes I forget and get sucked into the routine of motherhood that the routine itself has prevented me from replacing myself in: laundry, meals, discipline, tidying. Forgetting to make myself important is a piece of the lack of determination. No one person can be expected to do everything. If the author is doing the laundry, she is not writing on her publication. It is not a luxury to work on the publication; it is a priority of the utmost importance. The laundry will wait…until when?

That is not a question for the writer to answer. That is a question for the laundry staff to answer, whoever it may be that day. Determination will cause the determined to learn new skills, be they delegating, requesting, postponing, prioritizing…

This writing is the product of said determination. Actions taken over time cause movement, movement over time creates duration and duration over time becomes momentum. And so determination manifests desire.