Honey Help YourSelf

Have you heard about the latest menace on the streets, popcorn brain? No, I'm not hurling an insult at you, so calm down. I'm telling you about a very real threat to our overall mental health and wellness: popcorn brain. A group Chinese researchers did...

I've been away from posting lately, on account of work, study and other bandits of time and intention, but I finally decided I couldn't let another day go by without making an appearance, honey! This piece is a re-tread of "Come On Out, Honey!" which I wrote back in October. But because I'm on a working vacation of sorts, I thought it was well-suited to record and present again here. Here's why: the original piece was written in celebration of National Coming Out Day and, in the spirit of living out loud, I took the opportunity to let everybody know—those who weren't already familiar with my 'closet' metaphysical practices—that I was indeed a, shhh, spiritual person.  In that original piece (posted in October 2010), I addressed the insecurities that came up when a friend asked if she could 'out' me on Facebook. Yesterday, I felt that familiar chill of cold spiritual feet just before I decided to let everyone I knew know that I was going to start offering free card readings as a means to sharpen the skills I'd been cultivating recently. Gulp. I thought: What if they think I'm really crazy  or super devilish and wicked now? What if they won't like me anymore? What if I get shunned or unfriended on Facebook—horror of horrors! Before I got too deep into the tailspin this time, I realized my pattern (as well as my answer) and went for it. I checked my intentions for wanting to make this move, confirmed that it was okay and let it rip. By day's end I had an encouraging rush of support that dissolved any fear that rushed through me just a few hours before. Because I had the benefit of reflecting on the events surrounding my original coming out piece just a few months ago, I was able to short-circuit those doubts and stand happily, fully, in my integrity. Which enabled me to share myself in a way that might have taken longer to get to otherwise. Which makes me happy. Which means, in the end, I posted the free reading invitation on Facebook and feel pretty damn good about it to boot. And while I'm at it, I'd like to extend the offer to you, too! Want me to read cards for you? I've just completed a fresh round of training, and in order to properly synthesize and apply what I know and think I know, I need a few kind and willing volunteers to help me get there. If that's you, just go to https://tungle.me/honeyhelpyourself and put yourself on my calendar. Be sure to include a means to contact you. Or you can always email me honeyhelpyourself @ gmail.com, or you can  wait for me to intuit how to reach you. If you've ever worked with me before, you know my readings are all about affirming your own awesomeness and power to choose. Please know that if you choose to help me out in this way, I can guarantee two things: 1. I won't slide into a fake accent to distract you; and 2. you will definitely get your money's worth! - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - - For the extended audio version of this entry, click on my honeycast above. Or get it in iTunes. If you’d like to post a comment to this or any of my posts, just click on the entry title and type away, honey! To add my posts to your feed reader, subscribe by pasting this link into your browser: feeds.feedburner.com/ honeyhelpyourself.com

It's been a week—a rickety emotional ride for every frigging minute of the 168 hours that comprised the last seven days. More or less. Well, if you want to break it down, I suppose you could take away the 56 hours I slept and the 40 I frittered away at work, which account for a different realm of headache than the issues I'm addressing here. Then we've got the time with friends, perhaps some of which was allotted to discussing the issues I'm about to lay out for you, but, for the most part, the time I took enjoying my friends isn't the focus of this post, so yeah, let's subtract 15 more from our running total. By now, my 168 hours of angst and upset is looking more like 57, but since I'm on a kick, I've got to go one better and tell you I burned lots of hours on the basics, too—maintaining my general upkeep and securing food, clothing and shelter type stuff—in addition to meditation and true minutia like texting, cyber jiving and thumb twiddling that I won't bother to detail here. So the final tally for time in hours spent pissed off and emotionally locked in the jaws of this week's beast was more like 6. I'm happy to report that I've got some perspective now, so I can see more objectively into these events, which couldn't have been any more divinely timed—or absurd. And I assure you, it didn't feel so "divine" being on the receiving end at the time. Still, upset is upset—whether it's 6 seconds or 6 hours. Granted, we all have those moments that challenge our good natures and make us want to call it all off, go fetal, pull the blankie up around our ears and not come out of our darkened rooms in the victim 'hood until further notice. Believe me, I get it. Let's take my week of outrage as an example—okay, my 360 minutes of anger. On Sunday I had a phone reading with a lovely client who was referred to me by a dear friend we had in common. At the end of our session, the client and I had begun to chat about our wonderful mutual friend and during our exchange it turned out that this client and I had been to several of the same social events without ever having met officially at the time. The client and I went on to talk about how much fun we'd had at one particular party when the client added how funny it was to see that one van full of black people driving around in the dirt parking lot. Hmm, I thought. What do we have here? I asked myself. Nothing, I decided. Very shortly thereafter we said our polite goodbyes and ended the call. As I considered the client's comment, almost immediately my mind raced back to earlier that morning in the hardware store when, after finally having found the perfect terra cotta pot for the new plant I'd just bought, I rounded the corner of the aisle in the direction of the register when I noticed a woman who, not a moment before had been engaged in a lively chat with a man across the aisle roughly 4 feet away. Her eyes meeting mine, she scrambled back over to her shopping cart to secure the zippers and straps on the purse sitting unattended in the top compartment of the shopping cart near the end of the aisle from whence I had emerged. Okay, I thought. Here we are again. I say again because a similar incident happened in the Safeway a few days prior when a woman reaching for a can of beans down the aisle from me noticed my approach and quickly abandoned what she'd been doing to close the 2-foot chasm between herself, her cart and her precious purse. Skip to the Saturday night concert I attended with my Kenyan friend Adimu as the two of us are laughing and chatting when a handsome white guy named Steve approached us and spoke of how he'd noticed us earlier at the bar, but he'd been too afraid to talk to us because, well, he said, he just didn't know. Didn't know what? Adimu and I smiled, inquiring in unison. Well, he flushed, you were just standing there talking and you're so exotic and beautiful. I just had to say hi.

You know that feeling of slowly waking up from a fog of days – weeks, months or more – of time spent navel gazing or gaping in the direction of a horizon you know is your own but doesn't feel the least bit familiar? The Horizon: that metaphorica...

It's Mother's Day, and because it is, I couldn't let it pass without saying a little something – or a lot of something – about the enduring gift of a mother's unconditional love. There's nothing like it and I'm so glad I got it. I used to be terrified I might one day wind up like my mother. More to the point, I was afraid of becoming a collection of the bad habits and beliefs I either associated or projected on to her. But, as I’m fond of saying, we have a choice in deciding who we want to be and become and, truer still, is the fact that I couldn’t become my mother even if I’d wanted to. With lots of forgiveness for us both, with grieving and releasing the past, and ongoing therapy – whether it was retail, culinary, or psychological. All of which were all invaluable in helping me release the resistance that held me in impossible opposition to all things mom for so long. Eventually, I happened into a newfound respect for all the great many gifts I couldn’t lay claim to had it not been for having her as my mother. Self-reliance, creativity, resilience, humor and a love of thrift stores are but a few of these traits that come to mind. Not too long ago, I remember telling a friend during a particularly challenging time in my relationship with my mother, that “I don’t have the mother I want; I have the mother I have.” It was an unguarded confession that stunned us both and succinctly captured the unarticulated pain and frustration that quite often comes with the territory of mother-daughter relationships. What really surprised me in that moment of revelation was not that I’d shown my friend a less-than-perfect picture of my relationship with my mother; rather, it was my unconscious acceptance of who we were to each other – my mom and I – without my having to nurse yet again the insatiable ache of hoping she’d understand me, get me, see me in a way she never could. In the way I wanted her to. In all fairness, I also wasn’t always the daughter I could have been either. Because I couldn’t be. And just like I felt my mom didn’t see me, I had plenty of blind spots where she was concerned, too. I have no doubt that between my mom’s mom and the long line of mothers before her, there is a great field littered with far too many lost treasures, stolen moments, and broken hearts to sift through in search of a place to lay blame for the who’s and why’s of how we relate to each other in the end. To say the least, the mother-daughter relationship is a predicated on a series of choices so extensive and intricate, well, where to begin, you know? And by the way, starting in with blame is absolutely useless. And yet it’s a cycle, which, if we stay with the work, it can be an amazing grace-filled vehicle for delivering us back to an enormous sense of compassion for our mothers. I’ll speak for myself on this point, anyway. I found new room to appreciate my mother and all the richness she has brought and continues to bring to my life. Because I’ve learned how to pull out of self-pity and grief at what I perceived to be the missed opportunities for us both to bond more deeply, I can count myself fortunate to be mothered by a hardwearing woman who raised four kids as a young divorcee in the shadow of segregation in the post Jim Crow south with little more to fall back on for support than prayer and the fact that everything would look different in the morning. Sure, I didn’t have the mother I wanted — the fairytale mom with who’d feed me treats instead of greens, keep me stocked with designer jeans, and fight anybody who didn’t let me have exactly what I wanted on my very own timeline. Yeah, that mom who’d let me party and run my life the way I wanted as a teenager with no questions asked was so not the mom I got. I got the mom whose tough love wound up pressing me into a belief in myself that has served me well in the world. My mother’s love stretched me to open my heart in directions that, while foreign to her,

Whenever I talk to my writing students about their work, I often introduce the topic of threads, or themes and recurring images that run throughout their stories, hold them together, and propel their narratives forward. We also talk about how well or poorly they flow as a result. And that's when the discussion really heats up. Threads are a perfect metaphor for our own life stories, too. I was the weird one growing up. Most people I knew might have described me as creative – which more often than not suggested an offputting predilection toward all things fantastic, dreamy, and inaccessible to anyone living outside my head. I was also deemed too sensitive, which didn't help matters when facing unsolicited criticism for sharing the stories of my, well, anything. All of which can test the limits of even the most patient albeit, unprepared parent. I had an extremely rich inner life, full of stories and color and ideas just waiting for me to reel them in from the ether and share with anyone in within earshot. In so doing, it happened that I often knew things I wasn't supposed to. My dreams were vivid; inspiration and imagination were my constant companions and I was, as you might expect, a tremendously high-spirited and, some would say, annoying child. Like lots of imaginative kids, I sometimes heard people talking to me and around me, without ever necessarily seeing anybody. Somehow, I knew I had support beyond what I saw and consciously understood. Some were people I knew or knew of, others not. I remember recurring dreams in which I was told that I could see despite the fact that I knew my eyes were closed. From an early age, I'd been aware that there were different levels of consciousness available to us yet untapped. In school, I was always had among the most colorful ideas in class. Without fail, my mouth was the first to fly open with intricate explanations of story lines, artistic interpretations, and meanings behind metaphors; my penchant for unwrapping tricky symbolism like Christmas gifts to share with the group was unparalleled – and usually under-appreciated. I've also always had a cast of colorful friends that spanned the gamut of interests, orientation and ethnicity. In retrospect, it's easy to see how those threads ran seamlessly through every area of my life. These days I see them as the integral, if not defining elements of my life's purpose, present by varying degrees, in everything I do. One of the things I wanted most in life – aside from the proverbial pony and private island all my own – was to be truly seen and understood as the magical, deeply dreaming child that I was. And although this validation was a long way off – decades away – I would first have to learn to dismantle the parts of me that drew all the criticism. Fortunately for me it didn't work. Those threads of my early story kept running through my life like they'd been forever fastened to a silent loom spinning in the backdrop, all the while working up an amazing tapestry that I delight in displaying with pride today. Like I've said before, disentangling other people's agendas and opinions from our own in order to get to the truth of who we are and what we came here to do can sometimes feel like an uphill slog through driving rain, funky headwinds and low visibility. And that's because once we begin the excavation of feelings that have been stuffed and denied over the years, we come face to face with it all. But, the truth is, to get to the heart of who we are, there's no way around it. You can't Tivo, text or phone in this kind of work. When you stick with it, you enter into a true sense of a Self that looks nothing like the person you thought you knew or paraded around as in the past. In a word, becoming yourself – which, in my opinion, is our life's work, passion and mission – takes bravery. And it's worth every step. The 19th century British writer George Holbrook Jackson once said,

My neighbor's kid is brilliant. He's nine and because he's all-knowing and misses no opportunity to remind us of it, he tells his mom one day as she's taking a swig from her water bottle, Hey mom, did you know you're drinking dinosaur pee? When my neighbor relayed that story to me, I laughed, thinking her son was being cute and wanted to hold her attention by making her laugh – and maybe, think. I had a boyfriend once who professed during a moonlit stroll as he pointed toward the night sky: I come from the moon and the stars, you know. I should add here that he was five kinds of yummy and back then he could have told me he was Mork from Ork and I'd have grinned and pressed my hand deeper into his just to let him know how well I and only I understood him. Then I heard an interview with a respected researcher who echoed these previous sentiments of my friends: in many ways, we really are out of this world. The researcher went on to say that our water has come to us through the outer reaches of space and time – and is constantly being recycled throughout the universe. And when you throw in the fact that our bodies are composed mostly of water, it casts new light on the phrase heavenly creatures, doesn't it? When I considered these events coupled with my experience of having worked with hundreds of clients, it only underscores the irrefutable truth that we each carry within us the mystery and grandeur of the universe itself. Now that's deep. And I'm here to tell you, So are we. Every time I read for a client I'm filled with awe at the connections fostered and forged by spirit that allow me to relay information so rich and intimate that I ordinarily wouldn't know about a person I may never physically meet. And whenever they ask me how I'm able to do what I do, I tell them among other things that far from being a cool party trick or special gift bestowed upon a select few, what I’m doing constitutes an acknowledgment and evidence of a greater matrix that connects us all within its design and, outside of which, possibly nothing exists. So, I add, if ever you feel forgotten, unseen or misremembered by the world, rest assured that you come from something far greater, ancient, even, and that you're part of a magnificence that defies our very notion of space and time. And if that's not enough, you’re part dinosaur pee, so how about that? You see? Just look how awesome you are. And yet...this isn't the reality most folks live in, let alone believe. Trust me, I don't kid myself about that bleak detail, as a recent exchange with a well-intentioned friend illustrates. Mind you, the moment has long since passed and I've forgotten the context in which it was said, but what I do recall clearly is that it was a reprimand that went something like don't forget where you come from. Now let me interrupt this story here to tell you that wordsmithing and storytelling are among my many loves and, consequently, language is huge for me, despite my occasional inability get it right sometimes. Which accounts for my need to sit with what my friend said for awhile before I could articulate a response. When I put all my talk of spirits, moonbeams and prehistoric divinity aside, the matter of where I come from seems thin and pointless except that I can't resist pointing out that the phrase itself, ironically, contains within it the very seeds of change given its implication that I'm no longer where or who I once was. And if you’ve followed any of my previous posts, you already know that I know that change can be a real sonofagun to people around you – especially when you’re in the thick of it. Generally speaking, when someone tells me not to forget where I'm from, I take it as a statement that, on a good day, is drenched in low expectation and insecurity that goes way back and, usually has nothing to do with me. Now to my friend's thinking, I was perceived as uppity because I chose to live well,

One of the first items I created for this site was the About Me page. By the time I finally sat down to write it, I had already spent weeks in my head—months, really, if you include time spent as a deer in headlights—composing the entry that would project a reasonably accurate image of who I was and clearly explain what I hoped to accomplish with Honey Help YourSelf. Nevermind the fact that I still don’t really know what I want this venture to ultimately do, but, since when is indecision a reason not to go for it? Setting up that first page was tough because I realized it would have to somehow set the tone for everything that followed. No pressure, I just needed to explain who I was in a few hundred well chosen words so that it made sense to those who knew me and to the many visitors I would never meet in person. The gist of that introduction was to be well-reasoned, welcoming, and intelligent despite the fact that I sometimes find myself running low on those sparkling traits. Inevitably, I thought, those visitors would be forming judgments about me based on what I wrote. And while it’s not that I mind those judgments so much, what concerns me is the challenge of presenting as clear a picture of myself–and my ideas–as I could. So, in an attempt to break that task down into a bite-sized, doable assignment rather than an impossibly large and unpindownable one, I started in with the most basic question of all: Who am I anyway? I liken the consideration of this question to pulling that loose strand of yarn at the tail end of a homemade scarf. Once you start tugging at it, the initial urge to keep going wears off. Still, you persist and the whole thing unravels, leaving you wondering what it is exactly that you’re left with. Do you salvage it? Do you toss it altogether in favor of a warmer, fuzzier scarf while pretending not to have trashed the original? Or do you poke at that pile, marveling at the relative ease of pulling apart something that took so long to create? Such is the case with identity. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we spend lots of time creating the pictures we present to the world. Don’t get me wrong–families, friends, society, education, and all of the cultural isms play their part in shaping our identities too, but because this site is dedicated to the individual, I’ll try to leave the group dynamics alone. Here’s how it went: When I started pulling at the loose ends of my own metaphorical identity scarf, I was surprised to find that all of my seemingly conflicting parts could co-exist and even compliment each other every now and again without leaving me strung out in a heap on the floor. Usually. This little exercise left me with lots more appreciation for the complexity and quirkiness I embody and even tweaked my take on how I fit in the bigger picture. I drew up a list of identifiers, a few of which I’ll share with you here. I’ve used and may still use these at various points in my life, and, man, I’m thinking Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston were on to something when they sang, I’m Every Woman (with emphasis on every). Which leads me back to an earlier question, which I’d like to present to you as well: Who do you think you are? BLACK: Actually, it’s more like fifty years ago I would have been ‘black,’ and a few years before that, I’d have been ‘colored.’ Track back to the turn of the last century and I would have been identified as ‘Negro.’ These days, it’s been decided I’m African-American. By whom? Sharpton? Jackson? (I’m so not talking about our dearly departed King of Pop.) Add to that the contingent that deems me ‘not black enough’ and those who’d define me as ‘too black,’—on top of the folks offering sideways compliments that I’ve transcended race altogether and that, gee, they didn’t even notice I was/am black—and damn if I know how black I’m supposed to be after all that! AMERICAN: Whenever I travel abroad and people hear me speak,

Instead of having a gentle mother-daughter conversation about the birds and the bees, I got a fire and brimstone sermon: You think this feeling is love, but it ain’t. Love comes through Jesus. Those knuckle-headed boys don’t want nothing but to ruin yo...

Objects in your rearview mirror may appear closer than they seem. As far as today's entry goes, truer words were never spoken-or in this case, poorly paraphrased. Looking at this image always takes me back to a reading I did once. As usual, the client ...

Ahh, the holidays. A time for selfless giving and sharing ourselves with loved ones and the occasional strange ones near and far. A time to present our favorite people, pets and neighbors, colleagues and cohorts with presents they’ll love us forever for. It's a time to loosen our purse strings to charity, tax write-offs and special causes. You get my point: it’s time to give until it hurts. This year, though, I’d like to introduce a new way to engage the holidays, and every day, for that matter. Instead of giving until it hurts, how about we open to receiving until it heals? Years ago, my friend Alice presented me with a gift for ‘no good reason.’ Actually, she wanted to present me with a gift. But I wouldn’t let her. Why? Because it made me feel weird that I was empty handed and hadn’t bought anything for her. It wasn’t Christmas, her birthday or a graduation of any kind, so I had no occasion to get her a gift, not to mention the fact that I didn’t think I ‘deserved’ one from her. In retrospect, I realize that I didn’t feel worthy of receiving on lots of levels. Still, my well-intentioned friend insisted I take it. I insisted that I not. I won. Yet we both lost. Once upon a time, a very nice man took an interest in me. We dated; things threatened to get serious; I bailed. Why? Because it made me feel weird that I was emotionally empty handed and felt I hadn’t really brought anything of value to our budding relationship. I was young, he was stable, not to mention the fact that on some level I didn’t think I ‘deserved’ real happiness or a sincerely nice guy. In retrospect, I realize I didn’t feel worthy of receiving on lots of levels. Still, he tried to convince me to give him a chance. I insisted that I not. I won. Yet we both lost. Sound familiar? I've got lots of reasons why I wasn't ready for an emotional close up at various points throughout my past. I cover points like these in previous posts, too. For starters, I can point you to my Birds, Bees, Fire and Brimstone post, or my Victims post, or The List, and even the PS I love You post, too. All of these entries talk about how important – and hard sometimes – it is to acknowledge the wreckage and wounding of our past in order to clear it, to let go of old loves, lusts and losses in order to make room for the real deal, the new deal. And I assure you, it won't be the last time I tread on that turf. So here’s why receiving is at least as important as giving: when we’re open to receiving goodness in our lives, we emit an energy of gratitude for and faith in the unseen goodies that have yet to appear on the scene for us. Being in this kind of energy is what's magnetic in the best kind of ways and, consequently, healing. It has the power to warm and unlock what you thought was a cold closed heart and it can melt the barnacles of busted relationships like butter while you're at it, too. The American psychologist and lecturer, David Seabury said, Enthusiasm is the best protection in any situation. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give yourself, if you wish to get others. I'm all for that. When we give ourselves permission to receive all things in a spirit of openness and appreciation — without being driven by small-minded agendas or fear-based limitations predicated on the past (along with fear of the future based on the past!) — we get to participate in a cycle of good that all but invites others to give to us. And let’s not forget that in the act of giving, someone must also receive. Otherwise, nobody wins, remember? Think about it. How open are you really to inviting your your good past the front door? Put another way, when’s the last time you denied your gifts — which include random acts of kindness, offers of friendship and support, sincere compliments, no-strings-attached tokens of love and affection, rampant joy, belly laughs just because, and all those myriad opportunities that tried like the dickens to land in your lap.

  As far as I'm concerned, there's never not a good time to express genuine thanks. And now that it's Thanksgiving—an official day for assuming the position of gratitude—and on account of I'm partial to listmaking, I find that I'm so full of it–gratitude, that is!—I simply can't resist sharing a partial inventory of items I'm happy about right now. Don't let the numbering fool you, this list isn't arranged in any particular order of preference; it's all good. 1. CREATIVITY. I come from a long line of creative types. First in this line, my mama. Though I didn't always want to own it, these days I can plainly say I've inherited my mom's inventive eye for making old things new—from back before 'green,' recycling, and niche boutiques came on the scene. I also have her knack for beating silk purses out of sows ears, for viewing the world through a quirky lens and for being able to find the juiciest of stories behind the obvious. She's an interesting brand of visionary in her own right. 2. TIME. Willie Nelson sings a tune called "Healing Hands of Time" and it's been on my short list for months. It's a song about rebuilding a life from the ashes of heartbreak and the seemingly impossible task of it. Willie reminds us that sometimes time's the only healer of 'gloom, despair and agony on me.' (Anybody remember that tune from Hee Haw back in the day?) By the third time around the refrain we finally begin to believe we can let the song end without worrying he's/I'm going to reach for kitchen knives or heavy artillery. Thanks, Willie! 3. HELP. Little did I know it at the time, but my decision to reach for Soul Coaching: 28 Days to Discovering Your Authentic Self three years ago would lead me to the seamless though protracted creation of this site, which in turn generated lots of inspiration, and I dare say, lots of material for my as yet unpublished book for which I have yet to write the manuscript. You can check out the blog that started it all here. During the course of our 4 weeks together, I found Denise's work was tailor made for me. Her penchant for dream interpretation, healing ritual, feng shui, all-around clutter clearing, intuition and intermittent butt-kicking has given more to my life than I can shake a ceremonial stick at and I love her for it. 4. DEBT. Don't get me wrong on this one. While I dislike writing out monthly checks to So and So Credit Card Company and Acme Student Loan, Inc., I have to pause and give props to the vehicles that enabled me to drive up my debt in the first place: education. See, some people like food while others prefer clothes and travel. Me, I appreciate all three. But what do I truly adore above all else? Education. Roll out a program of study or weekend workshop to titillate my otherworldly curiosity and I am so there—the more obscure the better. What's that you say? Someone's teaching a course in Mazatlan on connecting with the ancient blue dolphins of Atlantis to lead me to my past life council of elemental faeries in the Outer Realms of Inner Narnia?! And extra-curricular cocktail/mani-peddies thrown in as part of the all-inclusive fee? Plus a free T-shirt? Sign. Me. Up! At least, that was my philosophy a long time ago, before I began to clean up my overall act. 5. NUTS. I've addressed this topic in a previous entry, and it bears repeating here on my Thanksgiving list. Not to be mistaken for edible omega-rich treats, or treatable, legitimate illnesses of the mental sort, when I say nuts I'm talking about the occasional, willful abandonment of rationality, overrated logic and the status quo in the service of breaking through to a better you and me. Let's face it: since when did anyone get led gently by the hand into a deeper realization of their highest potential? And when's the last time conducting business as usual and running on auto pilot redirected anyone out of a life-stalling rut? Remember those wise words of Seal: You know,

According to my dusty savings brochure—the one I picked up on a long ago visit to the bank—my hypothetical $10,000 investment should be approaching six figures by now. At the time, I was wide-eyed with possibility and eager to get a nest egg going and pad it with lots and lots of money. According to those idealized financial stats, I should also have 2.x worldly, well-mannered kids, a passably handsome pot-bellied husband (possibly my second), a 'green' house in the 'burbs, an insistent middle-age tummy and recurring daydreams from my corner office cube of priceless MasterCard- and Corona-themed getaways in the Keys. I should have it all by now. All this and more could have been mine, providing my ducks were in a row. They ain't. Then again, if I'm to believe the other prevailing voices of media, I should have about 5 unruly jail-bound kids by now, each with distinctly different though disorderly babydaddies cruising and bruising through the inner city streets, burgling helpless old folks' homes to feed their latest fixes, never to be heard from again. So says that twisted branch of the media, my chances at marriage, stability and a piece of the so-called pie are all but dwarfed by the likelihood I'll be jacked by terrorists first. Well. I'm here to tell you that not only is having ducks in a row overrated, it's also relative and unrealistic at best. Why? Because it depends on whose ducks we're talking about, and whose standards I agree to accept as my own. Version A of this duck business puts me sadly behind the Joneses with little hope of 'catching up' — my measly ducks stumbling blindfolded through traffic toward the nearest puddle. Version B, however, shows me impressively outpacing my peers with an embarrassment of riches of ducks in a row, crowding the pond, plump and healthy, carefree and overflowing in a queue on land anxious to jump in and join the fun. Either way, I'm screwed. If I'm to translate all of this into Energy language – and I am – it's a great way to lose oneself in a never ending hunt for status and approval based on an impossible shifting series of standards that I had no part in creating in the first place. It's also an insidious losing game I'd be playing either way because, whether I was aware of it or not, I'd always be buying into somebody else's value system, not to mention a collective one of an entire culture, which means I can never measure up. Or worse, it would mean that I've already measured up and exceeded what 'they' expected of me and, therefore, I should just sit down now and enjoy my relative successes. See how easy it becomes to 'leak' energy when we use other people's measuring sticks – and ducks – to gauge our own progress? On a recent hike around the lake, I stopped to watch a family of ducks on the water. They bathed, spread out and ate their bugs or whatever on their own and after a while, seemed to come back together as though on cue. But here's the thing: the ducks weren't all in a tidy little row as they made their way across. There was a shiny little one in the back still doing curly cues and pecking at stuff along the water's surface as she went. I couldn't tell what she was so enamored with, but she certainly had my attention; maybe she was kissing her reflection and validating her own beautiful self along the way. And even though she took her time spinning around, frolicking and bringing up the rear, she never lost sight of where she was going. She didn't fall far behind her group either. And all the while she simply knew she belonged. When I look at how my own proverbial ducks are lining up, I take comfort in the family I saw on the water not too long ago. Probably because I've got a few spinners and lame ducks of my own. Still, I know that rather than comparing them to the Jones ducks across the way, or subjecting them to anyone else's assessment, I know I'm doing just fine. And you are too, honey! But that's for you to decide, now ain't it?

There’s no mistaking when you’re on the receiving end of a good f-ing. It can hit you like a hot hammer between the eyes taking you completely unawares, tingling your extremities, leaving you breathless and wondering what you did to deserve such good loving. It can also unfold like a lotus in the spirit—cracking your heart open and connecting you to something far deeper, warmer and more expansive than you'd ever imagined. In another sense, a good f-ing is a lot like crossing against the light at rush hour only to find your pants are falling down once you've stepped into the road. It’s all you can do to make it to the other side without exposing your nakedness when you never intended to. Face it, when the F word comes for you, you’re rendered vulnerable like you wouldn't believe. Because getting f'ed carries with it the subtlety of a sucker punch. It empties you out, it fills you up, and most definitely rocks your world. And there’s nothing like it when you get it good. On the giving end, the F word tastes funny in the mouth at first, tart in its newness, requiring repeated attempts to build confidence over time. We're shy in the beginning, not knowing how we'll be received in addition to negotiating our own ambivalence in the situation. Will they embrace us with warmth and understanding, knowing all too well the shockingly tender position we put ourselves in when we're new at doing it? What if that person laughs in our face at our stammering attempt to engage in such intimacy? In the end we just can't know until we've stripped ourselves bare, thrown our hearts over the fence and ventured emotionally bare-assed behind the lines. And, frankly, it's my hope that we never become so seasoned and all-knowing at f-ing that it becomes a heartless mechanical act drained of all sincerity or anything resembling real feelings. With time the jitters fade and angst takes a back seat to the sweet, full-bodied satisfaction of doing it well. We learn to loosen up and throw our backs into it. I suspect there's a special place in heaven for those who give themselves freely to the act of f-ing. After all, they make the world a better place, don't they—one F at a time? I mean, think about it: When good f-ing comes from the heart, we can feel it. It's that intention that creates a bond of trust and intimacy all its own. Because of it, we delight in the tenderness of the moment and give ourselves permission to finally relax. So, how do we get good at doing it? No matter how much we’d prefer to sidestep this fact, none of us arrives on the scene fully adept at f-ing. So take heart. And get busy f-ing, people! Get hold of that person you've had a hard-on for who knows how long and let them know you've done some thinking. Tell them in all sincerity that you'd like to F them and that you're not looking for anything in return. You could also go one better by swallowing your pride and asking them to do it to you, too. This is the modern age, people. Go for it. But if that's still too much for starters, maybe you'd do well to start where charity begins—at home. In other words, perhaps you'd prefer a gentler intro to f-ing by starting with yourself. Further, I suggest you keep breathing while you're at it, as this kind of exercise is definitely not for the faint of heart. It takes real maturity to put yourself on the line like that. You risk rejection, alienation and worse. But once you've done it, once you've unburdened yourself of this pressing, primal urge and finally gotten it off of your chest by sharing it with that designated someone—or by giving yourself this rapturous gift—you gain a new appreciation for the act and come to respect the power you wield when it's firmly in your hands. And, seeing what a good f-ing can do will only make you want to do it more. Before you know it, you'll be encouraging others to start doing it, too. And who wouldn't want to get in on the action? Look how radiant it's made you!

No matter how much we pout, scream, whine and barter with the powers that be, sometimes answers just don't come. Sometimes, all we get for our efforts is crickets. If you've ever lived in a place that goes quiet enough at night to experience the mysterious music of crickets, you'd likely understand why their nocturnal singing is synonymous with the 'out-there' feeling that shows up when you're waiting on laughs at weak jokes or answers—especially if they're spiritual in nature. For the past month or more I've been wondering at my own guidance. I've also been pouting, screaming, and whining at the void, if you must know. What should I write about? Where am I going with all this stuff, anyway? Where'd my inspiration run off to? How can I tone up my inner thighs? Nothing serious, really, just more existential pondering and navel gazing in hopes of finding my place in what it all means. Again. And I can tell you right now that, for all of my insistent pleas (please, oh please!) to the Higher Power, the answers that came surprised and confounded me in their simplicity and complexity. Without realizing it, I'd been bumbling around the gentle refrain that had been singing to me all along. All I had to do was slow down long enough to listen...to crickets. But the crickets. When I hear them at night—which usually means it's during that forced stillness just before sleep—I'm amazed at how many of them there are 'out there.' Just chirping away in the dark, their chorus can rage on to the point of distraction, rising and falling in waves like the movements of a symphony. And depending on the day, either I'm all about the majesty of their night music, or I'm annoyed at how completely their persistent humming works my very last nerve. That's the way my answers have—or seemingly have not—been showing up lately, too. I'm either awed by the grace that reveals itself in mundane places or I'm pissed that I can't make head nor tails of what might be guidance dangling like a juicy fruit just beyond my reach. And when I'm in that latter scenario—unable to grasp the guideposts all around me when I've asked for them—I get all drifty and sideswiped by that unproductive 'out there' feeling. That's when I throw my hands up to the heavens and ask, What gives? Still, crickets. Naturally, I've got a handful of theories/stories behind this recent cricket phenomena of mine. I'll spare you the whole list, but here are a few to chew on. 1. WE'RE THE CRICKETS. What if every time any one of us sent up a prayer, wish, or thought, it joined the throngs of other people's pleas to form a chaotic chorus of inscrutably beautiful noise offered up to the heavens? And what if that inscrutable noise was in and of itself a collective cry to the Higher Power? Which then might suggest how incredibly and intricately connected we are—right down to our private thoughts. So, if I ask the Higher Power for something, what if that means everybody else in the world is linked to that request too (not to mention their being impacted by the actions I take)? So, the admonition to be careful what we ask for takes on new meaning. 2. ANSWERS ARE CRICKETS. How about this one? What if the answers to our prayers, wishes, dreams and aspirations were as available to us as the constant thrumming of crickets? It's that kind of hidden-in-plain-sight principle that makes us smack at our foreheads and rend garments when we realize how hard we were making things for ourselves when answers and guidance are simply everywhere we turn. It also means we may need to pay closer attention to our general surroundings if we really want to hear what's coming through courtesy of the Higher Power. 3. CRICKETS ON A PLANE. In much the same way Sam Jackson alerted his unfortunate fellow travelers to news they simply couldn't avoid, I too have come to share the inevitable truth of snakes on the plane, honey! Only, I'm announcing crickets in the grass.