DISQUS

Well the bad news is I've got an awful lot of stress in my life right now. The good news is I'm in really great shape!! Run, swim, dance, yoga all serve to get me out of my head and into my body.

When I can't do that, or it's not enough, then I have to question my stressful thoughts. "The Work" is what works for me. Byron Katie's work is so incredibly valuable it has taken me to a whole new place of acceptance and softness with regard to what life doles out.

I want my old life back as domestic Goddess extraordinaire! I already live by the sea and have the body I want and the people I want. All I'm asking for is a opportunity to take care of my children, my people and some lucky guy. Maybe that super hot redheaded fire fighter!

It feels strange to ask for some other forces(or person) to come in and take care of my financial world but seriously I am so happy doing my thing at home it feels like a waste of talent.

There. I've said it. Now it's no secret.

Don't own one so not my issue. I bother to write only because I was so overdosed on TV as a child it put me off it for good. Went the same way with cigarettes. My own Children are incredibly bright and always able to entertain themselves, something to be really grateful for.

Eeoooow!! I can own that!!! Books make me look brainy. There is some aspect of me that IS brainy but I think I like to hear it confirmed.

And I am free to assess my intelligence as is any one else who is so inclined. Thanks for that Jennifersage.

I too try to live by this quote and have been mostly successful and I so love the clean uncluttered spaces I live in. The two things I collect that continually challenge me are books and fabric. Books I feel I can get away with although "beautiful" has everything to do with how they are displayed. Fabric how ever is only potentially useful as sometimes it is "too beautiful to use". I am trying to get over this and the next move promises to be the ultimate faceoff.

Hey !!! This is my ideal job but I suffer from lack of a brilliant marketing strategy. Really any marketing strategy at all.

I would also throw in my talents as a personal chef. A full service personal trainer/ life coach specializing in parenting who can feed you really really yummy healthy food.

The expert I am needing is someone to help me put my plan into action. I have done this kind of thing for so long but never needed to get paid for it. Having a very challenging time with the transition from volunteer to professional.

There's so much to love about men; their sense of humor , their bodies!(especially their arms), their sense of how useful it can be to just be silent.
One of things that tips me over the edge is men's writing, especially what's written for other men. I love Philip Roth, John Updike, David Sedaris, William Faulkner. The Poets: Pablo Neruda, William Merwin, Rumi, Bono. I love their magazines: Esquire, Details, GQ, I have even been known to read Playboy. I love to know what makes them tick, who they admire, what's funny. Why they love women so much. The ways in which they are willing to make light of their own vulnerabilities by allowing us to laugh at them.

I'm sold on this one. Love the title! Always open to an intelligent, leading edge perspective, and good writing is essential. I am something of a book snob and find that I often appreciate the advice but not the writing style. I will look that one up as I find myself in the midst of a very passionate relationship I would like to keep that way.
My own best read has to be Byron Katie's "I Need Your Love -Is that True?" How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval,and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead. It's not new information but what is are the very simple tools that she gives us to find them for ourselves. These tools consist of four questions and a turn around and are known as "the Work" by Byron Katie. This has been by far the most effective body of work that I have encountered. It has helped me find peace even in the most tulmoltuous places in life. I do "the work" regularly when I have a stressful thought and I find I want to share it with every one.

As

I now know how to take real responsibility for how I feel. It's no longer me waiting for someone else to change so that I can that I feel better. It's helped me step out of the blaming Paradigm altogether. No one, not even George Bush needs to be different so that I can be happy.

So funny that I now love and appreciate all the things I used to hate about my body: My full lips, my smallish breasts and (I can hardly believe I'm typing this) my very round bottom. My lips became fashionable thanks to JLo and Angelina, My breasts never fell even after six years of nursing babies and maybe were not so small as I thought, And the booty thing...oh how I struggled with that one as a girl. In retrospect I think it was more attention than I could handle as a young woman, the brand of attention I got being more sexual than anything. I have been almost always on the thin side and so it just didn't seem fair that my bottom didn't fit into those Calvin Klein Jeans, didn't fit into much at all.
At 46 though I am so much more comfortable with myself as a sexual being and so am so much more comfortable in this body. I love occupying this vessel we call a body. I would have to say it my very favorite thing about being human. I could write a book on this subject; how much our bodies respond to self love.

Three of my favorite books right off the bat. I love Faulkner! Had to beg my way into a 400 level class on him as I wasn't a Lit major. I would Have to add something by Ursula Le Guin, Perhaps one of her collections of short stories. And of course my favorite writer of all time, Annie Dillard. Who, by the way, I would gladly dote on for the rest of her life or mine whichever comes first. (I'm a really good cook by the way Annie, if you ever get wind of this).She doesn't actually write much fiction but I love it when she does because the richness of her characters is somehow understated and so spot on. I'm continually wowed and then falling in love with fictional people. I loved the "Maytrees" which just came out this year(?). Such a refreshing break from the romance novel as we know it.

I've always thought firefighters had it goin on, and now that I have a new Firefighter boyfriend, Whoooaaa!! There is something about this tribe of men that is extra hot. Maybe the fact that they are not so removed from the traditional masculine. The adventurer who is also rock solid. Seems to produce a happy and secure sort that I find very sexy. Have yet to visit him at the station. Will pay extra attention to what I wear.

I love that Dr. Seuss was even more wise than he was silly!
I am beginning to see a pattern with all of us style statement/designer types: neurotic need for approval leads to perfectionism and fear of rejection, how I relate to those two!
For my own part a sudden split from my children's father 3 and a half years ago allowed me to let go with unprecedented speed and I would have to say grace. Once I stepped out of knowing exactly how my life should be I was able to let go of my identity as someone's wife, consummate hostess, homeschooling mother, political activist, all of it. Relationships that didn't serve, my perfect Martha Stewart-esque image, the beautiful house I designed and help build...So what!! Not that I recommend we all have to burn the house down in order to let go but sometimes a good conflagration really helps.

I love Abraham/Hicks and I practice my yes with blind enthusiasm and great frequency. Another of my very favorite teachers, Byron Katie always says a No to someone else is a Yes to me. So there you have it, a No is often really a yes in disguise.

This question makes me think of James Hillman's book, a Souls Code. Some of us learn by contrast some by example and immersion. Being one of the former means my past has served me extremely well. I had the perfect dis-empowered, alcoholic family life to bring me to where I am today: a strong, happy woman with enough of a reference point to have real compassion. How can I be less than thankful for that? But for most of the rest of my family it seems a strong case of amnesia could be a blessing. So yes, I think it goes both ways. Our past can work for us or our past can bring us down. My question is at what point do we decide which is true for us? If the past is truly that, behind us, then can't we only question our thoughts about whether it served us or not? It seems we always have creative in the moment, even with regard to our past.