You do not require "fixing"

You are not a machine. You are not a toaster with a faulty heating element. There is no final, steady-state of perfection, transcendence, or even plain old goodness to keep reaching for. You are brilliant, wise, and you shine so bright when I see you -- I wish you believed what you really, deep down, know is true: this brilliance, your brilliance, is the real deal. 

No matter how much I say this, no matter how much I repeat this, I know that it's hard to hear in the swirl and roar of airbrushed images, affirmations that attempt to elevate you above your flaws, and the subsequent hangover cures peddled to everyone who is trying to distance themselves from their lack of perfection. 

Vulnerable, imperfect humanity is luminous

And, I know firsthand how much work it takes to live into this truth, which can seem like you are trying to fix something in you that is fundamentally flawed. That's not it -- it's more like chipping away at old paint...

Fear is often about a deep sense of scarcity

Somehow, we've gotten the message that fear must be avoided at all costs. However, I would say the point isn't to be fearless, but to heal and to learn from fear. SO many of the women I work with arrive with tremendous fear and a sense of scarcity in different forms and variations. So the time felt ripe to write a post about fear and how to work with it in a way that actually works.

This is not a "F!&k Fear" post

Nope, it's actually going to be a lot more empowering than that. Because frankly, I think it's ridiculous to believe that we shouldn't feel fear or that we should try and be fear-free. Why? Well, fear is hard-wired into your limbic system. So working with your fear, not pretending you don't experience it, is far more transformative than trying to escape it.

Fear isn't the enemy we make it out to be

I don't believe that we live in a world (or a body) where we can stop experiencing fear. The most powerful practice...

Practice gets a bad rap.

I've heard the gamut of responses to the idea of "practice"  -- from spiritual transcendence to athletic performance to dreadful, dull, and boring repetitive action. 

In actuality, you are practicing every moment of every day. Consciously or unconsciously, you are practicing your responses, your actions, and your reactions. You are practicing your best and your worst qualities by simply doing what you do, over and over. This ultimately defines the quality of your life.

However, done intentionally, practice can be a potent and reliable ally in real and reliable transformation. 

Intentional practice is the key.

Intentional practice is about making a different choice -- disruption of the status quo in your actions. Intentional practice has a vision. Intentional practice is also fluid and deeply connected to the present moment and what is working. 

Intentional practice means you are practicing something that is incredibly important to you be...

You are the heroine of your own story.

No matter what circumstances, no matter what has happened to you — the way that you or I work with what we’ve been handed in life is what matters.

One of my clients, struggling at the moment, wondered aloud if focusing on the wounding she experienced around worthiness was just keeping her stuck, unable to move forward. Her wondering really struck me — I’ve certainly felt that way over the years and wanted desperately to just. be. over. it. I’ve taken the road of, “If I ignore the pain, the anger, and the anxiety and just focus on the positive and my strengths — it will just go away.”

The avoidance strategy doesn’t work.

It is so very human to want to avoid pain, to avoid feeling, to avoid facing the demons that lurk in the unexplored darkness of our body psyche. We fear that we will be swallowed whole, that pain will consume us, that we will never emerge from what might feel like a...

Depths & Hard Edges

The depths and edges of our discontent, the tension we feel between how things ARE and how we want them to be, urge us toward transformation, toward change. Our pain shapes us into the people we are, and, if we choose to say yes, our pain will shape us into the people we are meant to be.

The Path We Walk

Saying yes to accepting suffering as a teacher and guide clears the path, moving us toward possibility, toward wholeness, and yes, toward joy - toward deep and abiding joy. This is a tremendous gift as well as a great paradox — no one asks for the trauma, the wounding, or the circumstances that create such profound suffering (yeah, no thanks). We wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, would we?

However, the pain and suffering we experience because we are alive and we are human is an invitation to a co-creative dance of becoming who we truly are and who we are meant to be.

I don’t believe that life is suffering, as the Buddha said.

But I do believe...

Have you noticed? 

Lots of shitty things happen in the world. Our African American citizens are under attack, women are still paid less and treated like objects in our culture, the big predator animals of our planet are being hunted for sport and killed at unprecedented rates, etc, etc. - there is plenty of bad news to choose from. Take your pick.

In the past, when I would read these news stories, I would feel outraged, and then that would quickly turn to despair and helplessness. For a while I categorically ignored the onslaught of bad news in the name of 'staying positive', but I would still feel slightly sick when I would see a headline about the latest abuse and degradation of women, freedom, non-human nature, or our own citizens. 

You are not helpless. 

I recently decided (in the face of all the injustice and suffering our African American communities are subjected to) that just getting angry (and then feeling helpless) or ignoring the harsher...

If you are in business, you are in the business of risk. 

• There is the risk of not making enough money to pay the rent.

• The risk of leaving the corporate paycheck behind.

• There is the risk of concept failure. 

• There is the risk that life will intervene and you will have to scale back your business.

And then there are all the risks that go along with saying yes and taking bold action.

• There is the risk that you will be criticized, called out, judged, and disliked by some. 

• There is the risk that you will work so much that the rest of your life will fall apart.

• There is the risk of reinvention and evolution.  

The risks you will take to be in business (hell, to live a full life) are endless, and though that may take your breath away, imagine me telling you that while looking you straight in the eye, knowing you are fully up to the task. 

It's vital to become a woman who will take risks.

Most good things in life are on the other side of...

Too many of you have been held down

In large and small ways, in direct and indirect ways, too many women are dismissed, diminished, and held back from their own greatness when, in an ideal world, we would all be lifted and supported by those around us, those who came before us.

Recently, I was talking to my daughter about ancestors. I was explaining to her how we stand on the shoulders of those who go before us in the best of circumstances. We are held up, we are lifted high. Our ancestors offer us a springboard by which we fly. 

To see and live into the possibility horizon

I told my daughter that my deepest desire, my most fervent prayer is that her father and I lift her high above our own shoulders so she reaches greater heights than we have. Tears stung my eyes and I realized once again, that is also my deepest desire for the women who seek inspiration through my writing and for the women who choose to work with me. I want to lift you up so you can see to the horizon of...

I've been thinking a lot about addiction and recovery as I've been winding down my work in preparation for our move and feeling all the feels about all of it. Because I'm recognizing the clear signs of withdrawal from work. From WORK for crying out loud. It's been like falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland -- I keep thinking I'm going to get to the bottom but I keep falling, my past rushing by, offering me greater wisdom and healing around the gift of addiction and the call to recovery. 

I know this place. 

If you've been here for a while, you know that I freely identify myself as a woman with a body that is addiction-prone. I've not drunk alcohol for nineteen years and so many other addictions have shown up for me to circle this particular pattern within myself over and over: money/over-spending, sugar, information mining, Facebook, my silly iPhone... and here we are, with work. 

I'm grateful that I recognize addiction as one of my life...

Beautiful you. It's your time. 

The world needs you in all of your glorious, authentic, and unique power. What that means is you, fully present, full capacity, connected to the truth: you are powerful, you are loved, and you are a divine expression of all that is good and beautiful in the world. You, your business, your family, your community, and the world needs you to embody this truth. 

The whole of creation dances in your body. 

You are a creatrix. You hold the power of intuition, of knowing, of connection to the divine soul of the earth as a woman. Rivers, streams, and tributaries of nourishing blood pulse through you, expansive oceans of breath ebb and flow, the hot core of life bubbles up in the center of your chest, your luminous heart. The flesh of your body an ecosystem of mountain ranges, lush jungles, deserts, and pasture lands. Your bones, the rocky, solid terrain giving rise to form and shape. The womb of you, the seat of expression and receiving....