“When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest. I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before. I am not alone, crazy, or having a nervous breakdown…. My heart is at work; my soul is awake.” ~Mary Margaret Funk

It seems like transition is in the air… lots of people are feeling unsettled, out of sorts, “betwixt and between.” There’s a sense that the ground beneath their feet is no longer solid; it’s a little bit like being Bambi on mental/spiritual ice…

I wrote back in December about the process of metamorphosis in which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly (Holistic Life: Butterflies Are Free). When a caterpillar enters the cocoon, its body actually breaks down into its basic chemical building blocks from which the butterfly is then formed… kinda like taking apart your Lego ferris wheel in order to use the pieces to build the Eiffel Tower.

During a lifetime of work, Polish psychiatrist and psychologist, Kazimierz Dąbrowski* developed a theory of personality development he called Positive Disintegration. (This sounds like a non sequitor – bear with me)

The Theory of Positive Disintegration states that “psychological tension and anxiety as necessary for growth.” Each time we are about to shift or move into our next stage of consciousness, our current beliefs “disintegrate” – just like the caterpillar’s physical body. “Truths” that have been the bedrock of our present state are no longer certain. We experience a breakdown of all that we have “known” as the energy and knowledge used to maintain them is essentially cannibalized to build our new self.

No wonder transition is so uncomfortable! And interestingly enough, the discomfort itself serves a purpose.

Human beings, in many ways, are essentially complacent. We would much rather stay in the place we know – even if its painful and unhappy – than move into the unknown – no matter that the unfamiliar space holds the possibility of joy and fulfillment. Positive Disintegration holds that the distress we feel in the process of change actually propels us onward into our new reality. Things grow so uncomfortable where we are that we are compelled to move forward and complete our transformation. It’s essentially the equivalent of forcing a baby to walk on its own by heating the wall up to red hot… it can be painful and abrupt, but it gets the job done.

Just like childbirth comes with work, pain, discomfort, and, ultimately, a lack of control over the process, so too, the birthing of our Selves can be distressing. Plus, unlike childbirth, we have no idea what we will have when the birth pains end. When disintegration starts, we are on an express train going I-don’t-know-where.

At these times, what we do have control over is our thoughts about the process. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the discomfort, we can choose instead to have faith that our pain has a purpose for our ultimate good, that, with work and care, with gentleness for ourselves, we too can grow wings… We just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, through the pain, through the anxiety, trusting that there is an end within our grasp…

and don’t forget to breathe… and remember that there are people who will walk beside you through the process – all you have to do is ask.

“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.” ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

* For more on Dąbrowski, Wikipedia has a great intro… click here!

“So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old[er] women?” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Have you watched Meryl Streep lately?  If you’re lucky, you’ve seen It’s Complicated or her amazing performance as Julia Child in Julie and Julia, or, better still, both…

Because she’s gorgeous.

In both these roles, she is so comfortable in her own skin that she’s able to fully let go.  She embodies such joy and love of life that I couldn’t help but be swept off my feet by her grace and beauty.  Whoever decided that women don’t get better with age?

I know some phenomenal older women who give me hope for what I might become someday, women who’ve taught me what it means to be true to who you are…

After her first session, on her way from my room to our chiropractor, one of my clients, a grandmother of three, swept past me wrapped in a sheet, her bra swinging from one finger.  “I just couldn’t stand to get dressed,” she said to me with a wink, “I feel too marvelous!” We giggled madly, and off she went.

My mom, after a lifetime of feeling unathletic, has taken up hiking and kayaking in the last decade and now she revels in her strength and capability.  She also went back to school to become a teacher, graduating with her Masters 2 years after I graduated with my undergrad, and has been known to go swimming in her nightgown… ☺

And then there’s Sara, our Executive Director and Life Coach Extraordinaire, who is the epitome of poise and eloquence, and is one of the kindest, most generous people I know… and this spring she’s finishing a degree and is easily the best, most committed student I’ve ever seen.

Somewhere along the line, someone convinced us that “letting it all hang out” means being… sloppy… as if owning and making no excuses for who and what we are is akin to having spent the night drinking vodka and Redbull till we’re blind.

But Meryl, my mom, Sara, my fabulous client, and all the other wonderful, wild women I know all prove that there is nothing more gorgeous than a woman who is holding back nothing of herself, who is giving her all, and taking life’s challenges and opportunities as they come, with style, and humor, and no apology.

Oh yeah, I know who I want to be when I grow up…

“A succulent wild woman is one of any age who feels free to fully express herself in every dimension of her life.” ~ Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

“The Depth of your Mythology is the Extent of your Effectiveness.” ~ John Maxwell

I love mythology. My mother’s love of stars awakened in me an insatiable hunger for the stories the constellations represented, which in turn led me to study the myths of any culture I encountered. I am always amazed at the similarity between stories told by peoples thousands of miles and milleniums apart.

I mentioned Pandora a few blogs ago… she is still part of our cultural consciousness, but for all the wrong reasons. Here is the myth as we know it:

• Zeus, infuriated by the theft of divine fire and subsequent gifting of it to man, chained Prometheus to a rock where he was doomed forever to have his liver eaten out by eagles. But Prometheus was immortal and could not die. His body repaired itself by night, only to be devoured again the next day

• But this was not punishment enough for Zeus. Mankind, too, had to pay – for not only had Prometheus gifted humans with fire in order to make tools, but he had also lit a spark within their minds that they might grow and learn. Zeus feared that the race of man might someday rival the gods

• So he gathered the Olympians together and between them they created… woman. Aphrodite made her beautiful; Athena gave her wit and charm, and Hermes… Hermes filled her heart with curiosity

• They named her Pandora – All-Gifted- because each of the gods had contributed something of themselves to her

• Zeus gave her to Epimetheus, who, upon seeing Pandora, forgot all the warnings he had ever received about accepting gifts from the King of the Gods. With her, Epimetheus accepted a box, which he was warned never, ever to open

• All went well… until Epimetheus left his bride at home alone. And then Hermes’ gift reared its head. Try as she might, Pandora could not stop thinking about the box… what could be in it that it must be forever sealed?

• The need to see for herself grew in Pandora until it was a physical pain. At last, unable to bear her curiosity any longer, she threw open the lid, and when she did dark, horrifying, demonic shapes leapt skyward, scattering to the wind… many more than could logically be held within the confines of so small a chest…. These were famine, fear, toil, prejudice, war, dischord, and disease; all the griefs and hardships that have plagued mankind ever since

• At the last moment, Pandora found the strength to slam the lid closed once more, locking within its walls the last of the god’s tortures… Hope

• Hope… which would forever be man’s one comfort against the sea of misery unleashed by Pandora.

This is the myth we know. A thousand year old story that is still relevant today because of the advent of writing. But it is also a conqueror’s myth…

One of the most insidious ways of undermining a conquered people is to corrupt their cultural stories and spiritual symbols. For example, the apple, serpent, and tree of knowledge were all symbols of the Goddess’s love before corrupted by the Father worshipping warriors who defeated her followers.

It was no different in ancient Greece. The gentle matrilineal, Goddess worshipping culture was defeated and their mythology turned against them.

This is their version of Pandora:

• The Great Mother loved all of her children; so much so that she sent to them her Kore, or earthly embodiment. The people called her Pandora, for she brought to them all the gifts that they would need to survive and thrive. She brought them abundance, vision, creativity, intuition, self-esteem, communication, and loving relationships. All these gifts, when combined, created such balance and hope within the people that they cried for joy.

The gifts of the original myth became the demons of the second; they are the shadow side of the Goddesses’ generosity. The promise that we, as human beings, have everything we need within us, became the admonition never to venture inside, to ignore the still small voice that drives us to seek more and obey the outside authority…

But what neither story denies is that, at the bottom of it all, when the demons are unmasked and the gifts recovered, when we clear out the box, what we are left with is Hope.

Maybe it’s time to come back to our roots?

“Hope…which is whispered from Pandora’s box only after all the other plagues and sorrows had escaped, is the best and last of all things. Without it, there is only time. And time pushes at our backs like a centrifuge, forcing us outward and away, until it nudges us into oblivion.” ~ Ian Caldwell

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”~ Joseph Campbell

“Nobody loves me.  Everybody hates me; I might as well go eat worms.” ~ Camp Song

It’s ten o’clock and, quite frankly, I’m glad this day is almost over.

It started badly – anger, anxiety, frustration, feeling disrespected, let down, and as if my time didn’t matter – all at an hour entirely too early for what was supposed to be my day off.

By the time the whole issue was resolved, I was 45 minutes late for a commitment that I’d made and I knew I was in trouble.  Anyone coming close as I bolted to my appointment would have been treated to a just-under-my-breath muttered tirade about my own worth.  Occasionally, words and phrases would burst forth.  A snarled, “It’s not FAIR,” being the most common.

Thank god I had a reprieve while hanging with my god kids.  I giggled, drew flowers, tickled, hugged… I really thought I was beyond my morning.  But after leaving and going home, I just… tanked.

All that anger and ire had resolved itself into this stagnant puddle of grief that just seeped into all my thoughts… oh yeah, the pity party had begun!

This doesn’t happen very often.  My usual demeanor tends towards being fairly upbeat and terminally positive.  (I actually had a boyfriend once who, in the midst of an argument, threw at me, “What do you think it’s like for ME living with someone who’s so CHEERFUL all the time??”)

So on the rare occasions when I find myself in this place, all I want to do is take a vacation WITHOUT MYSELF.  If I could find a way to unscrew my head and leave it’s whiny, crabby, self-pitying self behind and take the rest of me to the beach, I’d do it… ugh

I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies again, and, at the height of my pathetic-ness, I remembered something she said.  She was talking about forgiveness and about letting someone off the hook.  She actually pictured herself reaching up, and taking the offending party down from where she had hung him for punishment.  And that’s when I knew…

I needed to let myself off the hook.

I’m human; I’d had a really not fun morning that had flooded my body with all kinds of unnecessary chemicals and left me emotionally wrung out at the end.  If anyone had come to me in a similar situation, instead of being angry and disgusted with them, wanting to get as far away from them as possible, I would pet them and soothe them and help them to feel whole again.

So, I took myself to my favorite used bookstore and bought a fluffy novel by one of my favorite “beach read” authors.  I went to the gym and ran myself clean; then sat in the steam room till my body and heart went soft again.  I bought a beautiful salad, and came home to watch one of my favorite tv shows.

I forgave myself…

And, to quote one of my all time favorite cranky bitches, Scarlett O’Hara, “After all…. tomorrow is another day!”

Thank God

“Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” ~ Leo F. Buscaglia

“Learn to let your intuition—gut instinct—tell you when the food, the relationship, the job isn’t good for you (and conversely, when what you’re doing is just right).”~ Oprah Winfrey

Today, The Secret guru James Arthur Ray was arrested on charges of manslaughter for the deaths of three of his students during a vision quest sweat lodge last year. For those interested in the full story, please see the link below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100204/ap_en_ot/us_sweat_lodge_deaths

Three people died because someone they trusted told them that, in order to be a spiritual warrior, they needed to push through their limitations; he “chided” those in the group who wanted to leave the sweat lodge.

This isn’t an unusual tactic – my guess is that at one time or another, each and every one of us has been subjected to something similar, whether it was in a classroom, on the sports field, or part of some boundary pushing experience.

But this time, things went badly wrong.

How the legal case will come down is anyone’s guess, but this case shines light on a deeper, systemic problem.

For the past several thousand years, we have been telling people not to listen to their inner truth, but to the voice of authority instead. If we read the Greek myth of Pandora, the lesson we learn is that by following our own instincts instead of the will of the gods we invite disaster not only for ourselves but for everyone we hold near and dear.

“Big deal,” you might say, “it’s a story.” …. but listen to the news. The number of times “Pandora’s Box” is mentioned is shocking. What’s more astonishing is that we all know exactly what the newscasters mean when they say it. This millenniums old story is part of our social consciousness; it affects us culturally every day.

We have stopped teaching critical thinking in our schools; we have stopped questioning the information that is fed to us by the media in all its forms. We have stopped hearing our inner wisdom; we have lost faith in our discernment.

Is it really any surprise that we are willing to ignore the signals of our bodies, and put our trust in the words of an authority figure?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”~ Steve Jobs