3 simple tips for living as your most brilliant self:

1. Forgive yourself. Forgive everyone else. We are all the walking wounded.

2. Begin to trust that you are exactly where you need to be to learn what you need to learn for your highest good.

3. When faced with a difficult decision, ask yourself, “What would Love do?” Listen as your inner wisdom answers.

Now go out and be yourself, imperfect and gorgeous.

Tomorrow, Thursday May 31st, I’ll be speaking and on the panel at Her Story 2012, in Pasadena, California. If you’re local, I would love to see you there! I’m speaking early but I’ll be there until after dinner. More info and tickets here. Note that there will be no meals available for purchase at the door – today is the last day to order – but you can bring your own food.

It’s been two months – two months – since my last post. The weeks have been full. A delicate juggling act that looked something akin to me standing at the edge of a cliff in pointe shoes balancing spinning plates on my nose and twirling a fire hoop in each  hand.

The tele-retreat was amazing. (Thank you to the beautiful souls who participated). I listen more than I talk in my work so hearing my voice fill more than an hour each week pushed me way outside my comfort zone. I can’t wait to do it again. I facilitated a retreat for mamas and their teen daughters. My heart opened wide watching the magic of connection and re-connection, and imagining myself and Ada 10 years down the road.

I fell into tailspins, got sucker-punched by grief on Mother’s Day and enjoyed visits with the Not-Good-Enough Fairy. Life has been kind enough to show me exactly where I have room to grow. It’s also handed me beautiful opportunities to step out of the muck, lean into trust and watch miracles happen. I’ve spent time wishing things were different and loving them exactly as they are (often in the same breath).

There is an energy on the planet that is shaking things up for a lot of us – bringing old demons to the surface so we can let them go, and reminding us our hearts and souls need daily care. We are being challenged and we are being called to step forward, to play big, to shine.

I’m feeling the pull – the desire to serve, to create, to play on a deeper level. Sometimes it comes from so many angles I am paralyzed. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep for the sheer joy of being alive. And so I open my heart, turn to my practices, listen to my intuition and make room for growth.

And you? What’s happening for you right now? I’d love to know.

Yesterday I ran into a woman I know who sees energy. She asked me if I was pregnant. I laughed and said no. (The thought of being pregnant and possibly seeing a drop of blood is still enough to make my knees buckle). She added, It could be that a child is coming into your life without your giving birth, or it could be spiritual.

The recent shifting and sliding of my life suddenly made sense. I feel like I’m growing something big and unknown and beautiful. It’s taking an inordinate amount of energy. I’m not clear on what it is, and I don’t know how long it will take, but sooner or later I’ll give birth again. I’m preparing for it – a challenge without knowing what’s coming. I can feel life giving me exactly what I need. Opportunities, questions, choices. The right people. I’m following a trail of breadcrumbs deeper into my own forest, trusting that after the birds eat them, they’ll show me how to get out.

Life is messy. Birth. Death. Creativity. All messy. Though I know this I want it to be neat, now, today. I want it to fit into a box labeled Perfect. A part of me wants to bypass the journey and see the end result even though I know the journey is where joy lives. I see other people’s boxes and they look solid, polished, well-crafted. Much better than the mess in front of me. I get jealous. That old voice in my head whispers that I’ll never get anywhere, be anyone, unless I can look like that, do things the right way. My mind has stories to tell. Stories about measuring up and failing and being un-loveable.

Deep inside there’s another voice and it’s gotten louder over the years so that I hear it more quickly. I hear it just behind the first one now, when it used to take days for me to recognize the sound. It’s the voice of my heart. The voice that knows everyone has a mess somewhere. The one that trusts I’m exactly where I need to be. When I pause, breathe and listen to that voice, I am able to celebrate others’ successes without worrying about my own. I am able to see what I admire in them without feeling that their strengths make mine invisible. I am able to honor our individual paths without fearing that I’m trailing behind.

I am making friends with the stories that have held me captive for years, keeping me safe and small when I wanted to take a leap into big and brilliant. I thank them for watching over me and inform them (firmly, as they don’t like to listen) that I don’t need them anymore. I’m writing new stories now but even so, I’m working to not get attached. The mind is powerful and wants something to hold on to. But when holding on makes us miserable, it’s time to learn to let go. Birthing a dream. Being human. Messy. The mind can make it more, or less, so.

We’ll be examining our thoughts and our stories in the second week of the Picking Up the Pieces Tele-Retreat, moving toward both accepting them and letting them go. If you’re feeling ready, consider joining us.

I had coffee Monday morning with pleasure catalyst and fabulous new friend Kerrie Blazek. As she told me about a weekend retreat that had put her deeply in touch with her body, one thought circled my brain, demanding to be heard:

The body is the foundation.

If we’re not in our bodies, we’re not in the moment. If we’re not in our bodies, we’re cut off from one of the biggest information centers and conduits of sensation and Love in the capital “L” sense of the word.

We are born knowing this, knowing that our bodies ground us in our lives. As infants we don’t need to think to know if we’re hot, cold, hungry, or needing to be held. Our bodies tell us. As a dancer, my body was my vehicle for expression. As I began working in physical theater I needed to know my body even more intimately as there was no choreographer to move me across the floor – every note that was hit, every word uttered, my body responded to from impulses deep within. My body was my tool and my craft.

Then I quit. I cut it off. Shut it down. Left it behind in favor of my mind. And I was miserable. It’s taken years to recover, finding my way back into myself slowly, searchingly.

The body is the foundation. If we are not present in our bodies, we are not fully alive.

It doesn’t matter what your body can do, what matters is that you live INSIDE of it. Embody your life. Embody your love. Feel life – taste it, touch it, experience it all through your body.

It can be terrifying. Our bodies hold memories we’d prefer to forget. They are scarred and wounded, vulnerable and strong. They are powerful beyond measure. As is our mind. But a mind disconnected from its body tells half-truths.

So many of us ache to escape what we see in the mirror. We judge it, berate it, cut ourselves off from it. We over-feed and under-adore. We struggle to make peace. Many religions and spiritual practices tell us to distance ourselves from our flesh, tell us that heaven is only reached when our body dies, tell us that to connect with the spirit realm we have to go up and out. I say the way to heaven is both in and through the physical. I say in order to be truly awake, we have to be able to live inside ourselves, deeply connected to our own inner wisdom. Our bodies are miracle babies, a union of Nature and the Divine. They speak powerfully. It’s time for us to listen.

What is your body telling you right now?

The body is the first week’s topic in the Picking Up the Pieces Tele-Retreat. If diving deeper into the how of this is something you’re drawn to, consider joining us.