Articles
I know you mean well, but please don't tell me to relax
Using “Calm down” and “Relax” as an imperative command has about a 100% failure rate. I know, I know…you TOTALLY mean well. You really believe that if that person who is majorly stressed could calm down then they’d see the fullness of the situation. That breathing would allow fresh perspective. That by slowing their heart rate, they are taking care of their overtaxed selves. And so on.
Got it. And so do they.
But it doesn’t quite work like that, does it? In fact, it typically has the OPPOSITE effect, right? That’s because you are dismissing the gravity of what they are experiencing. You are condescending them by telling them how they should feel. Attempting to alter their experience in a moment is suggesting that they are not to be trusted with their emotions. Ugh. Unhelpful and frankly, annoying (but seriously, bless you for caring).
So stop doing it.
Part of the charge is that some people don’t know HOW to relax, exacerbating the tension and compounding their feelings of inadequacy, which were probably the source of stress to begin with (most stress is related to a sense of inadequacy). But unfortunately for you, you well-intentioned Zen Master, telling them HOW to relax isn’t going to make anything much better.
In Gretchen Rubin’s Happier At Home (LOVE), she bristles at the woman who tries to ram meditation down her throat, saying pointedly:
“I often remind myself that just because something makes me happy doesn’t mean it makes other people happy, and vice versa”.
We each need to find our own way into this.
For many, the very idea of relaxation is synonymous with boredom. They feel that it’s a waste of time, a dreaded “should”, foreign and uncomfortable. For most of my life, that was my truth.
“Relaxing” takes effort. Willpower. Force. Kinda like barreling through yellow lights to get to yoga class so you can get your zen on. Exceptionally counterintuitive.
Here’s what I’m finding works much, MUCH better.
Find out what the endpoint of relaxation is to you. Or another way in: how do you want to feel when you are relaxed? Refreshed? Recharged? Clearer? Prepared?
Now think about what engenders that feeling for you. Is it your yoga practice? Is it the way you feel when you are in a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine and some James Taylor? Is it wandering aimlessly in a museum? Is it surfing? Is it creating a new soup? Or is it how you feel in lotus position on your meditation pillow?
And now, notice what’s going on when you’re in that space, when you’re in flow and all is right with the world. Like, say you picked creating a new soup…notice what’s here: sensuality, creativity, delight, focus, wonder. Can you feel that? How much more yummy is that than sitting quietly trying to beat your monkey brain into submission?
Uh huh.
So, next time you are trying to relax, or, heaven forbid, someone TELLS you to relax, pause, take a breath and conjure your scenario, inviting in those attributes of sensuality, creativity, delight, focus or wonder (or whatever they are). You can do it. Ease into it, relishing and savouring what’s here…in THIS moment. That’s YOUR brand of relaxation. Wholly unique and utterly sacred.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Thing Finding Thursday with Ophira Edut
A couple of months ago, I treated myself to an astrological reading with Ophira Edut, one half of the powerhouse combo: The Astro Twins. I had been receiving their weekly newsletter for quite a while (it’s one of the few things I read the moment it pops into my inbox) and have known that working with them has been a not-so-secret weapon in my friend Danielle’s wickedly packed arsenal.
So, it was my time. Oh. My. Word. I was blown away. Now, let me be clear…I don’t exactly have a super solid in with, you know, stars. Any of them. I knew that I was a Libra, but that was about it (really). Now I know that I’m a Libra, Gemini moon, Sagittarius rising. I know about my nodes, my houses. (Boy, do I know about my nodes ‘n houses).
The intensity of the 90 minutes is hard to describe…it’s like I was struck by a lightning bolt of recognition about where I’ve been, where I’m going, why oh why that place is so painful and WHAT OH WHAT that hunger is really all about. Me. But mapped out.
I honestly reflect on that session daily. In fact, several times daily. I've moved products and projects around...my office too. I've refined strategies, made hires and decisions (good ones) based on that hour and a half. I've made peace with aspects of my personal life and started fires in dead spaces.
So when Ophira told me about the new course that she and Tali, her sister, had created called “Become Your Own Astrologer” I knew it was time to introduce her to you crazy cats.
In this video, we talk about Ophi's path, the tele-class, and how astrology may be a boffo tool for you, the Thing-Finding crowd.
{Three things I want you to know: 1) I AM an affiliate for this course, absolutely. 2)Early bird pricing ends Sept 15th. 3) Not sure if Mercury was being his saucy self and being in retrograde and all (I’ll have to ask Ophi) but for reasons known only to my Call Recorder and the stars, I was cut out of this video. Alas.}
Interview with Ophira Edut for Thing Finding Thursday
Tweetworthy Ophira-isms (for your sharing pleasure)
Astrology is like an instruction manual to understanding yourself. (TWEET IT)
When something isn’t easy it carves out a new dimension of your soul. (TWEET IT)
When u know that s.t. may not be easy, u can adjust your expect'ns. (TWEET IT)
Astrology is a tool to give u peace + help u AND people u love make great choices. (TWEET IT)
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AND...
On the topic of things I'd love for you to know, Jennifer Louden + Michele Christensen, two gorgeous beings of heart and light and mad, mad wisdom are offering TeachNow (aff link). 'Cause, Love? You may be a seeker, but you're also a Teacher. They want you to Teach from where you are. They want you to Teach from here. They want you to Teach the lessons that you've learned and are learning. And so do I. Info call is on September 19th.
ANNNND...
Tara Sophia Mohr's Playing Big is just about to open (aff link). This is a heart-opening, game-growing, calling-forth kind of experience that invites you to go deep, held with love and care. Precisely how Tara rolls.
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Transcript of edited interview (for your reading pleasure)
Tanya: So you know what we’re here to talk about today. We’re here to talk about your thing.
Ophira: Yes, my thing which is astrology, but it’s actually empowering people through the lens of astrology.
Tanya: Yeah. How did you find it?
Ophira: Well, my college boyfriend actually did a chart for me as a gift about 20 years ago. I didn’t even really know what it was, but it was this map based on the time, date, and place I was born that showed where all the planets were when I was born.
It was like this instruction manual to understanding myself, it turned out. It made so much sense that I was like, “Okay, there must be something to this.” I started doing them for people and learning how to do them myself.
Tanya: I love that, an instruction manual for understanding yourself which is so clearly where the empowerment piece comes in. Say more about that, please.
Ophira: There are a lot of different types of astrology. Some is more of the doomsday type that’s like scary predictions that you don’t want to know. I don’t like that type of astrology.
Tanya: Not so much.
Ophira: No, but when it’s done right it’s like all the planets were in a specific place at the moment you were born and they each represent a different energy. Some represent the challenges you’ll have, some represent how you are in love, what you were in a past life and what your destiny is, how you communicate, where you’re lucky and where things come easily.
It’s like putting together the puzzle of yourself and having this guide. Of course, there’s free will in there and you get to color in between these lines however you want, but I found it to be very validating and very empowering and enlightening to understand, “Okay, I have four planets in Scorpio, but I’m a Sagittarius so I have this intense Scorpio way about me as well as a fun, happy go lucky side.”
You understand all the sometimes contradictory parts of your personality and there’s some freedom from that.
Tanya: I love that, and that was my experience, too. We had a reading a couple of months back that still just sits right here because it was like you said. There’s a way in which you have this ability – you know what the lines are, but you get to color within.
You mentioned ease and one of the many, many, many parts of our conversation that I keep coming back to is where things are super easy, I’m always all about, “How can this be easier? Let there be ease. Invite in the ease.” It was fascinating for me to hear from you why certain things were just really easy for me. I found that very fascinating and where the places of challenge are truly areas of growth and what I’m here to do.
Ophira: Absolutely. Even when something isn’t designed to be easy because it carves out a new dimension of your soul and your personality by how you face those challenges – it builds character, I guess you could say. When you know that something may not be easy, you can adjust your expectations and then you’re not always swimming upstream. You can be like, “Alright, this is going to take me five years to learn instead of five seconds. If I apply myself,” blah, blah, blah.
Or, “Maybe this isn’t even something I need to be spending my energy on in this lifetime. Maybe I’ll put my best energies elsewhere.” It’s very freeing to understand your chart, as well as understanding other people’s.
I find that probably the people who read or work with both of us aren’t only interested in themselves, but they’re really interested in the people around them having a great life. While I was sold on doing my own chart, what really made me fall in love with astrology was how easily I was able to help my friends and loved ones - if they were hung up on a guy or unsure about a job opportunity or what to do next or how to figure out a child.
I just got into a random conversation with a woman at a café today. She asked me what I was doing. I was working on my book and she started opening up about her difficult Gemini daughter and she’s an Aquarius. I was able to give her some peace just in a five minute conversation. She was like, “I want to cry,” and she started by saying she didn’t believe in astrology, really. It’s this tool to give you peace in your heart and help you make choices and help the people you love make great choices in their own best interests.
Tanya: I love that. I have that conversation, too. It usually starts out with a, “I don’t believe all that self development shit you’re talking about."
It’s usually like, “Well, here’s why this is going on in your life.” I love that. It gives them some peace, and again there’s that quality of empowerment.
I know a little bit about your back story. This isn’t where you started. It started with that chart, you were in university. What was going on for you as you decided to zig when maybe you were thinking you probably should have zagged? What was that process like for you when you decided this is it?
Ophira: I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I studied graphic design. I worked as a web designer and a graphic and print designer for a long time, as well as published my own magazine. All very Sagittarian things as it turns out, I learned in hindsight.
I even worked at Ms. Magazine and with women’s empowerment issues, and I still do work on that sort of stuff now – humanitarian things. I found that astrology was the best and fastest way to empower people. It’s really important that we obviously know about the politics and sociology and all the things that are going on in the –isms and all of that.
When you start to talk about those issues, people don’t always want to talk about it. Politics and religion are not always favorite party topics, and I’m the daughter of a very political father and a rabbi mother, so we have two of the taboos in one household. With astrology, it’s a way of giving people advice or even addressing things that they don’t necessarily want to talk about normally in a way that they can still dismiss it as bullshit, so they’re open to it because they might hear something useful but they can still be, “Oh, I don’t believe it.”
Tanya: Awesome, great stuff. I wanted to ask you because I know you have a really exciting teleclass coming up. That sounds very cool. Five weeks. Say more, say more.
Ophira: Five weeks – every Monday in October for an hour and a half we are going to be teaching people how to read their own birth charts, my twin sister and I. We write as The AstroTwins and we’ll be giving that course. It’s called “Become Your Own Astrologer: How to Use Your Chart to Create a Life You Love”.
We’re going to go week by week in looking at what’s your life destiny, how are you wired, compatibility, and we’re going to spend a couple of weeks in all of your relationships. What’s the best career path – really answering those questions that keep you up at night, but not just answering them for you, but teaching you in a very practical, simple way.
No math, no pencils and papers or anything like that. In a simple way you can keep forever how to interpret your and other people’s astrological charts to really understand what’s happening there.
Tanya: Again, I’m just holding that vision of, “Here it is, and you get to color it in however you’d like. Here are the lines that have been drawn by forces beyond you.”
Ophira: Why not have another tool from the toolbox that can come in handy for the rest of your life?
Tanya: Absolutely. Love it, love it, love it. Just hearing your story about how you have this underlying, deep desire for empowerment for others, and then you have this delivery mechanism that totally rocks and you’re so incredibly brilliant at it. I can say that absolutely, it’s just one of the most powerful hours and a half of my life. I’ve been married and had a kid and all that stuff, so it was really an awesome hour and a half.
People who are watching this are in the process of looking for their thing or things and I always invite people to say what is one thing that you would love for people to know who are in the process of looking for their thing? What’s something that you can leave with them?
Ophira: I think that if you’re in a process, you don’t want to get stuck in analysis paralysis. There’s a time to be in the process and a time when you’re spinning your wheels in the mud. You have to know the difference.
I think gaining tools like astrology if that’s the one that speaks to you or coaching helps you get unstuck and make clear choices with peace around those choices and really moving forward. The more you know yourself too, the more you have something to go back to when things get a little confusing.
Tanya: Holla!
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Go find Ophira at her site and on Twitter. Sign up for the AstroTwins newsletter (it comes on Sunday and you really want it to help plan your week...honestly)
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
It's all relative
It’s easy for him, he has a trust fund.
It’s easy for her, she doesn’t have a newborn.
It’s easy for her, she has a massive Twitter following.
It’s easy for him, he’s backed by the industry’s SUPERSTAR.
It’s easy for him, he has the Midas touch.
It’s easy for her, she has a perfect body.
It’s easy for him, he has the perfect marriage.
No. It’s not.
That trust fund may come with strings that feel like shackles. That childlessness may come with deep sadness. That marriage may be shrouded in mistrust. That backing may come with a sense of unworthiness. That Twitter following may come with years of hard work and untold costs. That perfect body may come with self-loathing. That “charmed life” may come with alcohol or drugs or insomnia.
Or not. You just don’t know.
Many years ago, I was sitting at the dining room table with my parents, unsuccessfully sniffing back the tears precipitated by an unrequited crush on a boy whose name I’ve long forgotten. They invited me to clear every last injustice bruising my teenaged heart. I remember their eyes brimming with compassion and understanding. When my tears resolved to sobs, I turned my thoughts to them. These two holding my sadness lightly and lovingly. And within an instant, every last trial that they’ve endured in their lives, too many and personal to share here, flooded into my heart.
How can I be so selfish? How can I be so insensitive? The boy will be meaningless in a matter of days. THEY are the ones who have endured real pain. Real loss. Real sadness. Mine is hormonally-derived horseshit.
Which is what I said. To which, my father reached across the table and took my hand in his large and calloused fingers and said: “Kid? It’s all relative.”
Impossible to wrap my head around at the time, but it was his enduring truth.
It’s all relative.
Yes.
Pain is relative. Ease is relative.
When next you meet someone and find yourself reciting the “it’s easy for them” story, take pause.
You don’t know what their fight has been. What demons they’ve wrestled to show up. Which parts have been shut down so that others may thrive.
No. You don’t know. No one really does.
Try this:
With your big beautiful brain and massive capacity for creativity, imagine that another’s apparent ease has come at a price. Will you dare to hold them with your infinite supply of kindness, empathy and compassion, diffusing the stifling toxicity that makes you feel so small?
And then will you trek down to your heart and listen from there? What is it that you are coveting in their story? That desire, right there, is your destination. Set your course for it. Make it happen, in gratitude for the clarity.
Remembering that everything is relative can keep smallness in check and give you a big liberating perspective. It can help you create a new story. A better story. YOUR story.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Relishing in the Known
It has been a gorgeous summer so far. One that’s been a sublime dance of work and junkets, art, popsicles, fresh basil, laughter, friends, and plans for more of the same in August. I hope that this has been your experience too.
On this sun-dappled water morning in cottage country, as the coffee brews and the kids across the lake lobby for an early morning tube ride, I’m relishing in what I know to be true.
When a toddler hands you a ringing toy phone, you answer it even though nine times out of ten the call’s for them.
No matter how much money you have in the bank, when you are about to pay with your debit card and you are waiting for authorization, you have a moment of worry.
Your very presence is making this world a better place.
A stubbed toe makes you want to punch someone…and curse in the most profane way. Paper cuts too.
No matter how clean you are, border guards make you nervous.
Generosity is the path to wealth.
Squirrels will always find their way to the birdseed.
“Don't take this the wrong way" will always backfire.
An airport pickup is a devotional act of love. So is having a sandwich made for you.
Saying “yes” to magic yields more magic.
We need each other. To share prayers. To show up. To help hold each other’s dreams and bolster one another’s hearts.
When you do something you’ve never done before, it is scary as hell. To wit: my first published poem is featured over at Bentlily this morning.
Hold me.
Above all, what I’m learning is that if it’s new and not at all scary, then maybe it doesn’t matter that much.
Here’s to hot days and cool nights, my friends. And to relishing in the known.
Yours in lemonade loving,
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
TGtv Episode 2 - Making the Ask
Okee dokee. Here's ONE THING I know about you: You don't like to ask for anything. You're the giver, right? Never the taker. And asking is so, well, gauche. Annnnnnnnd you know you need to start asking: for the business, for the support, for the meeting, for the chance, for the advice.
I've got you.
I'm not entirely sure why we do this, but we want to have it be a lot harder than it needs to be. We imagine the ridicule, we dress rehearse for disaster, and have the escape route mapped even before we know what we want. So we don't ask, and we don't get and we don't move forward. Rock solid, yes?
Making asks is actually really quite simple.
It starts, as ever, with clarity and preparation.
To recap:
In preparation for the ask, make sure you know:
Who: Who has what you need? Are they accessible to you? Are they amenable to you? And if you're not sure if they're amenable to you, do you reckon they'd be amenable to your REQUEST?
What: What's the scop of the request? Is it reasonable? What's the benefit to them?
Why: Why are you making this ask?
When: When do you need the request by? Make sure it's reasonable and PUH-LEEZE have the drop dead date actually matter. (I once - ONCE - sweated, moved mountains, paid for childcare and lost sleep over a deadline only to discover that my submission wasn't even glanced at until a month after delivery. Serious yuck.)
In making the ask, be sure it's:
reasonable
specific
brief
respectful
and that YOU are confident - if there is any wishy-washyness, you may need to revisit the who, what, when or why and retool.
And in the unlikely chance that they take a pass, please know that it likely has everything to do with what's going on for them and their schedule and precious little to do with their feelings or attitude towards you.
SAY THANK YOU!!!! YIKES. For someone with such a massive value of gratitude, it seems SHOCKING that I’d leave out saying THANK YOU in the video. Don't YOU leave it out though, please! Find the most appropriate way to thank the person for their time, energy and resources (though don’t be afraid to be extravagant).
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Breathe into your Heartsong
Probably like you, I am feeling a bit yeeeeeeeks lately. At times gorgeous, at times complicated and at times scary things are happening in my life and business right about now. Some of these things I have chosen, some things I have not. Such is life. Beautiful, confounding, thrilling, expansive life.
So, I’ve been hanging out in my head a fair bit, breathing shallowly and TENDING to the challenges. To wit: I have a new routine of heading out the door in my running shoes at 5:45 am with an issue in my mind that I want to sort out. I can only return once it’s resolved (which seems to happen, as if by magic, at the one-hour mark).
This morning, I took my current “issue” on my walk/run: a pickle in my business that has been causing knots in my shoulders. There’s a decision that needs to be made and it’s hot ‘n bothered.
And. I. Just. Couldn’t. Focus. My heart kept wanting some air time. So I slowed my pace to a walk…and listened.
And this was the refrain I heard:
“Do not breathe simply to exist.”
I knew these weren’t my words. And while I was curious about who had penned them, (Deepak? Danielle?), I allowed that to dissolve as I spent the rest of the walk integrating their meaning in every step. In every breath.
The moment I got home, I googled the words. The author was Mattie J.T. Stepanek, the 14-year old philosopher, poet and advocate for peace who left us 8 years ago…on June 22nd.
Huh.
I know OF Mattie, or, the headlines at least: friend of Oprah’s, inspiring wee soul whose depth and wisdom impacted millions through his books of poetry. I knew that he had spent his short life in acute pain (due to a rare form of muscular dystrophy) AND in the decision to live life fully and joyfully.
I didn’t know that he began creating and sharing “Heartsongs” at the young age of 3 to process the grief he felt from losing his older brother to the disease that afflicted him (and his two other siblings who died as well). Or that Heartsongs are “gifts that reflect each person’s unique reason for being.” Or that each of his five books were NYT bestsellers (plus the 2 published posthumously). Or that countless programs, parks and foundations have been dedicated to his crusade for peace.
I didn’t know that he wrote:
We all have life storms. Times in our lives that are extremely sad, scary, angry. And instead of just suffering through them, and then afterwards just sitting, crying and waiting to be wiped out by the next one, we should celebrate together that we got through. And when the next one comes along, work through and pull through and celebrate again.
Or
Sad things happen. They do. But we don't need to live sad forever.
Or
Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.
Or
Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.
Or
Peace is possible…it can begin simply over a game of chess and a cup of tea.
But I do now. And now you do too.
So now I’m thinking about my own Heartsong. And how it's rooted in joy. And I'm thinking about appreciating what I have. And I’m thinking about peace. And how much more I have to give. And what stands I need to take.
And from this place, guess what happened to that work decision that had my shoulder in knots? Part of it resolved and the other part dissolved. Turns out it wasn’t such a pickle after all.
Breathing deeper - the heart knows the way. It always does.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.