Tuesday, June 26, 2012

(+)

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends, and I am beyond grateful for each and every one of you who have een there with me through triumphs, tears, laughs, meltdowns, break throughs, wine bottles and more. You all have been the light in my darkest hours and the canned laughter to my corny jokes. Love each and every one of you.


 

Monday, June 25, 2012

More Blog Love!



I have to send a HUGE thank you and a lot of love to Sharode of Love & Lumiere, for showing me love by nominating my little blog for both the "Very Inspiring Blogger" and "One Lovely Blog" awards. I am honored and humbled that she finds my blog both lovely and inspiring and I raise a glass of Pinot Grigio in her general direction. Since I was bestowed with this super sweet honor I have to follow the rules and:

  • thank the person who nominated me and link back to them in my post (check)
  • share 7 things about myself
  • nominate 15 bloggers that I admire (I got lazy and stopped at 10, it's about quality not quantity with me which is why I'd rather buy 2 pairs of designer shoes than 5 pairs from Nine West)
  • leave a comment on their blogs to let them in on the great news
Since I have am both a narcissist and an exhibitionist, aren't all writers, here are 7 things all about moi. 
  1. I like chocolate and I like cake but I'm not super keen on chocolate cake, and chocolate ice cream...fuggedabouit.
  2. I have a scar above my navel where I got my bellybutton pierced at 19. 
  3. Meditation is my medication...along with a great glass of wine.
  4. I bring my yoga mat with me on work trips and do more yoga in hotels than in studios.
  5. I've been addicted to vampires since before I needed a training bra thanks to watching Fright Night with my dad as a tot. (BTW I'm Team Eric all the way)
  6. I may work in fashion but I never wear heels, or make up. 
  7. My friendships are more valuable to me than anything I own, including Phineas who I rescued from a junk yard after totaling my car because I promised him that the second I upgraded from the Mirage he would come with me. 
Without further ado, here are the blogs I love that you should love too:


Conversations with Trice

My friend Patrice, aka Trice, is one of my all time fave spiritual running buddies that I can always turn to when I need to out my ego, celebrate a synchronicity or just for an lol. During our powerful pow-wows, or just when we're exchanging texts and what not, little nuggets of wisdom pop up and I'm going to start sharing them here.

While talking about my newest tattoo, an ode to love on my left wrist:

Trice: "Love it! Love conquers all."
Me: "Honestly, after losing the love of my life and having to start all over again (with dating), knowing that I can get this and believe in the healing power of love proves that it conquers all."
Trice: "It does."




Friday, June 22, 2012

Blog Love!



I'm a bit late on this but my blog post, And A Door Swung Open (you can alos find it here on DATC) was featured as a Blog We Dig on HerFuture.com for the last week of May. Glass raised, cupcake eaten, heart humbled.

FYI the image is from last year when one of my biggest teachers, Gabrielle Bernstein, tweeted a quote from my blog post, What Spiritual Looks Like, that made it to the Blogs We Dig list as my first (or maybe second) blog post to hit the list ever. So grateful for my Her Future fam for reading and supporting my blogs. BTW, that tweet made my year! 

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Quoted...

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

-Rumi 
 

Monday, June 18, 2012

What Makes You Happy?



Driving from dinner to a strip club last weekend, I got into one of those conversations that only happens when two girls meet and marry the right amount of alcohol. And by right amount, I mean I had two drinks and perhaps she had too many. Either way, we were on our way to our third stop of the night when the conversation turned from boyfriend drama to convient theories on life. Navigating the freeway with my iPhone I told my passenger that nothing on the outside can make you happy, not your boyfriend, not your job, not the vacations you take, nothing because everything you see is temporary and you shouldn't put your happiness in things that can change with little to no notice. With a bit of a drawl she confronted me dead on, like only a girl born and raised in New York would, and said, "What makes you happy?" Without hesitation I said, "I do. I decide to be happy no matter what and that's that."

Great answer right? In that moment I went from preaching it to knowing that I was totally practicing it. I mean, how else could something so sweet have rolled off my tongue with little thought? It had to have been firmly embedded in my cells or firmly memorized. I remained fully calm and collected while this girl went on and on with questions designed to throw a wrench in my view, "What about if your friend had cancer and you knew they were going to die?" "I'd be hurt, angry and upset, but in the end if there is nothing I can do about it I have to accept it and keep it moving." To me, this proved I was one step closer to enlightenment, or something like it, but only a few short days after our conversation I was slumped on the foyer in my apartment bawling my eyes out to my dad about having had my heart broken by the one man that I'm sure could ever love poor, wretched me. WTF!!!! Where did the happy go? Like any good Virgo, I decided to retrace my steps to see where I left it.

Me and L L last summer with Candace Bushnell...random


Between the sinus infection I picked up early in the week, which left me in bed for most of Monday and Tuesday thanks to my meds, and the sinking feeling I get every time I'm at work for 8 hours alone and then at home for another 8 hours alone my happy checked out. I kept replaying the fact that if it were last year and I had a sinus infection I would not have had to drag myself out of bed to buy Advil, my boyfriend would have done that, and I would not have had to spend every moment after work on my own because there was someone else at home to talk to. If it were last year I wouldn't have to deal with people asking me how is it that I'm single because I wasn't single last June. And there it is. The moment my happy left and the sinus infection slipped in. (Actually the sinus infection has probably bee building for weeks since I live in random hotels when I'm on the road.)

While I know he meant well, telling a single girl "I don't believe that you're still single. You're gorgeous  and I see how guys look at you" is like asking her "When are you getting married?" The instant that statement was leveed at me I sank back to Earth and was reminded that I may have a nice job, a new car I got with my own credit score, a boat load of friends and family who love me, a sick closet in a cute apartment, I haven't gained a pound since high school and I have a million and one things to be grateful for, I am still missing the one thing I so desperately want...a soulmate. It also immediately drew my attention to the fact that I thought I'd found my soulmate three years ago in a dive bar on New Year's Eve--a story he was ashamed to tell--and that despite my best efforts he'd left me. This line of thinking also brought me to a place where I blamed myself for our breakup--it is not my fault he got scared, confused and emotionally cheated on me if not physically--and blamed myself for not having found someone new just yet. This spiral locked me into thoughts of not being good enough to land the appointments I need to book my trip to Tennessee and North Carolina next week, let alone to make my bonus. It made me want to abandon my job and live in a coffee shop working on my book--not a bad idea really since I feel most me when I write. The point is, the way that I took this one statement said without even the slightest air of malice and ran to crazy town with it just further illustrates my point that I decide whether or not I'm going to be happy.

Yes, I would be happier in a job in publishing but until one comes along or my book deal falls from heaven like manna I have to work to pay my bills. Oddly enough, the work that I do not only pays my bills and puts me in contact with some of the strangest and most awesome people in life but it also provides me with plenty of inspiration to write my book and help me reinvigorate my flailing fashion blog. I can also say I would be over the moon if I walked out my door and Alexander Skarsgard was there and wanted to marry me, but since I'm 99% sure that's not happening and that would leave me a bit unsettled in real reality if he did--in fantasy reality I would be all in--I kinda have to keep on trucking until some guy at a party or something is all like "Hey do you want to go see that new Wes Anderson flick? I mean you look like you like movies like that and Thai food." While I'm waiting for my time and divine time to synch up like the recent Venus transit, I have to focus on being happy with what I have because if I'm all pissed and cursing the moon not only is the guy whose supposed to ask me out going to be like "wow that chick is crazy, no movies and red curry for her", I won't have enough time or energy to write a single thing.

So, what makes me happy? Me....and cupcakes.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Quoted...

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkrgaard 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

(+)

If Zach Galifianakis doesn't make you crack a smile in this, you need to check your pulse sir or madam.

Monday, June 4, 2012

The Sound of Silence


*So, as usual I'm almost a week late with my answer to Danielle Laporte's Burning Question, but better late than not at all. 

There used to be a time that being alone in silence was quite unnerving for me. The minute the sound went off my thoughts went on overdrive convincing me of everything form my impending death by plane/car/intruder/being eaten alive by the million cats I'll have to fill the void of being single...and that was well under the age of 20. I used to be so terrified about what my mind would kick up the second silence settle on to a scene that I began sleeping with the radio on, which eventually morphed to sleeping with the TV on. The comfort of a sound to concentrate on allowed my mind to stay so busy listening that it forgot to think about all of the awful things that could happen to me on the daily. Inevitably,  the power would go out or I would be away from home and unable to sleep without the comfort of some outside sound and right on time like bangs at a Sleigh Bells concert, my thoughts would go on a mad dash that resulted in me laying awake for hours glued to my bed, praying for sleep. Eventually, sleep would come but not a restful one. Nights came and went, much like my anxiety issue,  and eventually I learned to deal with silence.

I don't know when or how it happend, somewhere between my breakup and learning a new normal I think, but one day I woke up and silence felt good. It felt calm and even necessary. All it took was for me to grasp one simple concept, "You are not your thoughts." I am not my thoughts, you not your thoughts and neither is ya mama. Of the 60,000 thoughts we have everyday, at least one of them is going to be less than amazing but that doesn't mean you should run with it. Picking up the one randomly bad thought you have every couple of hours and taking it for a ride on the merry-go-round until it has you dizzy and whipped up into a frenzy is so unproductive. I'm not saying you ignore your bad thoughts just say "thanks for sharing bitch" and keep it moving. No need to ruin your sleep worrying about what bills you have or haven't paid, what man you're going to meet or not meet, when you'll find a job and if you'll die a cat lady. All that time you spend worrying is a waste of time, point blank.

Back to silence. The minute I embraced the fact that my thoughts are just thoughts nothing more and that I control them not the other way around, silence became my greatest ally. I wake up and enjoy a cup of hot tea in silence after meditating, spend time in silence when I get to my hotel soaking up the scene and every night before I go to bed I chill the f*ck out in silence. Like my grandpa used to say....