How are you today? Are you feeling everything at its height as I am? Don’t things continue to get more and more intense?

After Mia and I’s nearly 6-week Asia trip this summer, I returned to Ojai to find my life story didn’t work for me anymore. Gerard and I needed to transform our marriage, my son had a major—final—operation leading to the successful closure of what had been a lifelong health-challenge story for him. My mom had a heart attack, which is a story of not caring for one self because she’s too busy caring for others. Magic Hour wasn’t entirely working and I had to rewrite it too while still running it. I had gone through a big cleanse in Thailand and went vegan again, which once back in the states put lots of weight on my body (maybe my superhero name should be “opposite girl?”) and I had to make some big decisions about everything, all at once. Weight gain is my “go-to” when I’m stressed. I wish it was running, oh dear, I wish it were hiking, but no, it’s simply weight gain-as-coping-method–another lifelong story I will rewrite now. 

I’ve been looking deeply and taking clear action on everything and have realized that writing projects, including the conception, first draft, umpteenth drafts, editing, cutting, and “proofreading” are all the same process no matter if you are writing a marriage, a body, a business, or a book…The process is the same!        

In writing and marriage, 1,000% Transparency is Intimacy.  Gerard & I have now been together since 2004. Neither of us have ever been with another person for this long, and although that is normal for married couples, the intensity of dealing with issues in a confined space can be breathtaking. We got stuck in a “rinse & repeat” mode that was boring to both of us. Every day was starting to feel like the movie Groundhog’s Day. We were saying the same words, going through the same motions, and having the same conflicts. It seemed we had given our magic up to logistics and the mundane aspects of chores, obligation, and not being entirely honest about how we were feeling.

Transparency gets messy. Intimacy takes falling apart and having the secrets we don’t even know we’re keeping shatter the old version of ourselves so we can be renewed. I had this old version of me wanting to break through, but breakthrough can only happen where we fall apart, crack open, shatter, then collect the pieces of ourselves that we choose now to bring to our new form of relationship—leaving the old pieces on the cutting room floor.

It takes a 1,000% commitment to being transparent on both sides of relationships for us to form a new relationship while being in an “old” one. Renewal can only occur once you allow the old draft of a book, a marriage, or a business to be edited, cut apart, then rewritten. We had to delete some of our old stories in order to write a new one, but that took discovering, admitting, and owning those old stories of shame, hiding, and fear. You can’t edit a book if you don’t have what Hemingway called, a “shit detector” and that’s the same with any creative project, relationships being the highest form of creative project.

Looking honestly at yourself is HARD. I am here to tell you, it’s worth it. While we had a few months of REAL messiness, we are now feeling more committed than ever to each other and to our family. We are working together on Magic Hour—before, I could never work with him without feeling claustrophobic, but now it’s harmonious, fun, and dare I say sexy. Because we gave space to the relationship, letting it break, open, and not hurting each other with anything other than our desire to make it work, we finally feel like we’re writing partners, writing a Great American Novel called marriage.

The other side of our breakdowns lead to breakthroughs if we are transparent about them. Not only can breakdowns save our relationships, but grow them into a new form, a new means of joy, wonder, and discovery—as long as we are committed to the breakthrough inevitably on the other side of COMMITMENT. But, it takes the courage to tell the truth, even if your script sold well in the past and is super comfortable, it may just be old. This makes me think of my friend Peter Farrelly. He wrote Dumb and Dumber, Something about Mary, and other comedies. He had a breakthrough with The Greenbook last year—going into another genre altogether, and guess what? He won the Academy Award. Bam.

When editing a book for a client or editing my own work, it takes a commitment to the art to allow the breakthrough to occur. In business, same same. With Magic Hour, we had to realize that not all people drink as much tea as we do, and next year, we are rewriting how the subscription works. It takes transparency to create intimacy, with a reader, a client, a customer, child, lover or friend. No matter what you will need to cut, rewrite, edit, cut more, fall apart, rewrite, rebuild, all before you publish, launch, or renew your marriage.

So, if your relationships or creative projects are feeling stale, go to the editing room and fall apart. Give it the transparency, the admission, that it’s not optimal, not fun, not easeful, and from that honest editing process, cut the chapters that no longer fit your story arc.

What I am editing now, in all transparency are these stories:

My Motherhood Story. Sage is well. We are healing. We are no longer struggling. We have rewritten an epic, 19 year story and put the final touches on perfect health and vitality. This was a big novel and our final chapter here is a HAPPY ENDING!!!

My Body Story. I have decided to become a certified yoga instructor and to apply that to my business. Tea ceremony will now be laced with asanas (yoga poses). Because I am obsessed with Magic Hour, I haven’t been exercising, so have concluded I have to rewrite my work ethic to have body-care into the next draft. I have to take care of myself WHILE working if I am going to stick to a new draft of my body. So, here we are, I start the program in January, and I’ll share with you what I learn J.

My Business Story. Magic Hour is now a retail location, not just an online subscription or online tea shop. I wanted to share in a new way, this is the edit. I love it. I am happy every day. Scared too, but happy, every, damn, day…it’s risky, it’s “small” but I do know now that the world needs less mass-success stories that use up resources and more intimate connection stories of love and sharing, one cup at a time. One workshop at a time. One book signing at a time. One connection at a time. I am rewriting the idea we have to “GO BIG OR GO HOME” I’m saying, GO SMALL TO EXPAND INFINITELY. Yes, it’s a new story, we are writing it here together J.

My Writing Story. After being a publisher at a top 5 publishing house in NYC for 4.5 years, I am choosing to “self” publish my next book, Love in Detail. I have been asked why on earth I would do this, with all of my connections. My answer is this: I have faith in my own ability to share my work with the world NOT ON AMAZON. I want to change how publishing works, and I am not selling it on Amazon. Will it work? I don’t know (but many of you have pre-ordered, THANK-YOU). This is an experiment in writing a new story that supports small business, independent booksellers (who are the core of communities), and in accepting the mantle that I want to rewrite the book business. Will I fail? Maybe. Will I succeed? Maybe. Will you benefit from what I learn? HELL YES!!!

We are all writing the book of our lives. From our marriages to our diets, to the way we get the kids to school, to how we answer an email. Each thought, moment and action is a draft of the life we want to live—or the life we need to break open and through. Transparency creates intimacy with your readers, clients, kids, mate and with your soul. Keeping yourself honest takes a big dose of courage, but I know you have that, or you wouldn’t be with me here.

What will you write today? What will your character say or do? How will you rewrite it if you don’t like how it “reads?”

Please SHARE your ideas, stories and rewrites with me here. Or better yet, come to Ojai and have a cup of tea with me, I’ll put the kettle on.

With You in Mind & Heart,

Zhena

If you’re like me, you love to be useful, yet that usefulness doesn’t always lead to living in your “Zone of Genius” 

The physical detox I underwent in Thailand this summer helped to reset my body, but when I returned home, I had to carry out a task and to-do list detox in the same fashion. Regular detoxes for our bodies are key to remaining healthy, but what about our ongoing lists of to do’s? How do we know which to eliminate and which are just bad habits we love to habituate?

It’s easy to add things to our lists, but looking at what we can remove from our lists is more important as it frees us up for the key tasks that will move us toward our destinies. Here are the three key questions to ask yourself as you decide what should stay in your day and what should go the way of last week’s leftovers!

1.     Does it light me up?

2.     Is it relevant to my soul?

3.     Does it add love to my life and the world?

Does it light me up? We all want to feel alive in our daily lives, right? YES. But sometimes there is a gnawing feeling that we are wasting our precious time when we’re doing something better suited for another human. Lately, I have been finding myself sourcing little tea strainers and blending small batches of tea leaves again. These are not things that will bring in hordes of money or “maximize my social impact” and perhaps I’m “playing small” but I will tell you—I am lit from within. I am happy to tinker with a rose petal and ounce of Tulsi with a drop of mandarin oil until it’s simply perfect…and someday that blend might soothe the nervous system of a million women…so remember, what lights you up might not be to launch a seven figure online program today, it might be to bake a cake and that “task” should remain on your list, no matter how “small” it might look in the moment as long as you feel lit by it.

Is it relevant to my soul? Your soul has a whole different set of principles and measurements for success than the outer world’s ideas and judgments would. I find my soul asks me for different things than I think I need, but that always create more beauty in my life. The soul will make you an original. When you look at your list of pending action items ask yourself: Is this relevant to my soul? Your soul will tell you where to go and what to do which might completely surprise you. My soul wanted me to get back into tea. My ego was like, “NO WAY LADY, YOU ARE NOT GOING BACKWARD! YOU ARE TOO BIG NOW TO START FROM SCRATCH” but my soul was like, “Listen, there’s a song in the air, follow me…” The soul changes your trajectory, it won’t take you down a linear path, it will give you unexpected doorways to walk through—walk through those, explore and report back, we need the soul to lead us the way our bodies need water.

Does it add love to my life and the world? Our world is in need of people focused on love. If you can see, hear, taste, express, and share more love through something on your list then you should absolutely do it. When I look at my list, I can honestly say I love everything on it these days. I’ve been able to take risks and cut tasks from it that didn’t add love to the world. Launching Magic Hour was to create pleasure and connection for others, to increase the moments of love through sustainable luxuries people can love. It’s even in our tagline: Ceremonial Teas Made with Love. Because love is worth your time. Love is worth your energy and love is worth all the attention you have.  Do I love dealing with the accounting? No. If I am doing the accounting does it add more love to my life? No. So, that’s easy to delegate. Do I love spreadsheets? No. Do spreadsheets add more beauty to the world? No. Done, we changed from using spreadsheets to using automation for inventory—easy. Does that thing you think you need to launch or do add more love to your life and the world? If so, go for it. If not, set that loveless item free.

I hope this list helps you, it was my soul’s request to write it for you, it wasn’t on my list of to-do’s today but there it is, in black and white, here for you. The next Magic Hour Tea Circle is September 11th, if you’d like to attend in person please reply to this email. We had a hard time with the Zoom in my teepee last week and so I apologize to those who tried to login.

For those who DO want to be with me via Zoom, please sign up for the New Moon Mastermind. The new moon is Friday August 30th, but we’ll host our Mastermind on Thursday the 29th at 6:30PM PST. The link to sign up is here.

Sending each of you a task list filled with love and soul-quenching to-do’s. Our world needs you lit up and sharing your soul’s love.

Magically,

Zhena

The Power of Pause (and the unpopular notion that not working is unproductive)

The cause of your need to pause may be the lingering call to return to your Original Dream, that which you were born to pursue, that which you were destined to fulfill. You cannot run forever, even with all the external high fives and attention you get for succeeding in various other dreams. Your dream will return as itself with a thousand faces until you reach for it and hold it close to your thankfully-beating heart.

For the past 19 years, I have had the undeniable job of a mammoth. It started with my son needing a lifesaving operation at 4 weeks old, and me, not having any funds, insurance or a person to help foot the bill or with the emotional fire that made me who I am today. This spurred me to “never need anything” from “anyone” and to start the bullish journey of building a tea company that was worth $12M when I left it.

I leapt from that into NYC publishing and spent 4 ½ years acquiring, editing, publishing and marketing almost 40 books in an industry where I knew very few people and left knowing the most amazing people. I didn’t just do this though, I continued to teach 4-6 workshops a year, consulting with large CPG companies, and I wrote a book called Love in Detail.

The pace was incredible and I loved every crazed minute of it.

My agent sent Love in Detail to 10 or so publishers and it was rejected by all of them. That sent me into a tailspin I cannot easily explain, but knew there was a solid reason for it. I had this lingering shame and a fear of embarrassment that literally paralyzed me often.

You might have a variation on this, but for me, it made me work twice as hard and make impulsive decisions my whole life. If I was moving fast enough, the shame and embarrassment wouldn’t be able to catch up with me.  When we pause, we can experience what wants to be healed; we may not even know what wants to be healed.

I wasn’t embarrassed by the rejections, to be honest. From a publisher’s standpoint, I didn’t have a spirituality book platform, but a business woman’s platform. So it wasn’t in my “range” to support a spirituality-based book. Yeah, I got it. The responses were warm and cordial, the encouragement was all there, but I then went into a space of thinking everything I wrote was simply wrong. I now know I was channeling my “She who buries her tracks” persona…

For like two years.

As I wrapped up my contract at Simon & Schuster, I jumped into consulting with more companies, teaching more workshops, and keeping my pace pretty high, but then I got the tumor in my throat and my mentor Gay Hendricks said to me, “What this might be telling you is that you are speaking from a place that is not your essence.”

Essence? Tumor?

I needed time to reflect on this, I needed time to pause, but when does the world stop for us to take a real, deep pause?

It took a whole year to give myself (and my 9-year-old) daughter that time, and I had to fight for it! I had to book myself a 6-week trip across the world to get this time for myself, in the midst of my son needing another operation and in the midst of starting a new company.

I spent a week at the beginning of the journey at a detox center on the island of Phuket, where I was on a strict protocol of raw juice, psyllium smoothies, daily spiritual counseling, massage, nervous system healing, astrology/destiny readings, and twice-daily colonics (which is like giving birth twice a day). What I discovered there was not what I had hoped for—it was about a cellular memory of abuse (not by my parents) and attached to it was shame so deep I had no consciousness of it.

Once I discovered it, all the pieces of my soul and being started to sync into place—from a placeless place. I held myself, cherishing myself for the first time, and then went and held my little girl. I pulled up Love in Detail and began re-reading all of the various drafts and each one felt so lovely, so pure and so right. I searched for the shame of not getting it published and the shame was simply gone.

I could no longer locate shame in my being. It had been trapped in my first chakra, wreaking havoc on my sense of safety my entire life. I remember exactly what happened, and who it was, but that didn’t strike me as something that even mattered. There was no anger, just curiosity and a commitment to heal.

What proceeded to occur over the course of the next five weeks was an unraveling of the knots of embarrassment. I wore a bathing suit in front of people for the first time in years and wrote, swam, played with Mia and was fully in my body as if for the first time in my life. And in my body was pleasure, wonder, sensory delight and power.

I felt a deeper joy than I have ever felt in this lifetime. It wasn’t that joy wasn’t there before, but it was locked deep in a box of shame that had been silently holding me—and my writing—hostage.

Now, I am preparing Love in Detail to publish under my very own imprint, the way Louise Hay published her book You Can Heal Your Life at 60, this was the book that started Hay House.

Why do I feel I can do all of this now? I’ve been talking about it…wanting it, dreaming of it…

Because the shame was removed from my body and my nervous system. I reintegrated my child self after the experience of remembering something that happened when I was a very little girl. And whether or not it happened doesn’t even matter to me, because the result is I have a freedom that was never there for me before now. I have my essence and the truth it brings centered in my heart and mind.

This is the power of the pause.

I was telling my friends the other day that I had never stopped and done “nothing” long enough to know what was running my show. I knew I wasn’t whole but couldn’t find the missing piece between conference calls or product launches.

What are we missing by not pausing long enough to re-member our psyches and souls and re-integrate them into our lives now?

What has occurred for me can occur in each one of us, so long we are committed to our own healing, however long that healing takes. For me it’s been years and years of therapy and personal growth retreats, certifications, you name it. But now a light seems to be shining from the infinite being I am inside—I had no idea it was blocked by something I couldn’t remember—until I took a pause and a deep self-care journey into the eye of my inner storm.

And that is what it is isn’t it—we all have an inner storm that isn’t allowing us to pursue the calling of our deepest longings. We are all doing this in some way—with lovers or books that want to be completed, there is something deeply held in our belief system that doesn’t allow us to experience the depths of our being in human form.

We are made to live—why else would we have a soul and eyes, a heart and voice? We are made to express, why else would we desire it so?

What we aren’t made for is to hold a shame or a subconscious block deeply in our cells for the entirety of our lifetimes—we are meant at some point to discover and release them so we may know what it was to not have what we wanted, to know what it was to be separated from the dream we desired more than anything in the world.

I have stopped running. I didn’t know what I was running from, but now I know that I can sit on the couch and sip my tea and write and publish and dream and do from the very deepest core of my soul’s seed formed from the sparkle in God’s eye. Shame was my block, and it took a pause to uncover it and physically release it. 

As the memories of those in my youth saying, “Shame on you!” I am now free. I can say and speak and sing and cry out my truth, there is no shame in that.

There is no shame in taking your very own pause. As long as that pause wants to be taken, take it my loves.

With Love,

Zhena

Initiations-Transitions-Rituals

While I thought this five-week Mom-Daughter trip was about me showing Mia the world, it has revealed itself as an initiation of my own. This journey has shown me that I am now stepping into the role of wise woman.

My child is only 9-years-old, and a beauty. In each country we’ve traveled, she’s been revered for her long blonde hair, her golden green eyes and perfect as a button features. Strangers have stopped us on the streets to have their picture taken with her. I had to tear her away from a group of Chinese tourists who wanted her to take photos with each of them in Singapore. As I watch her young beauty come into form, I have reflected on my own younger beauty that has now faded into a different form—one of wise woman, not quite elder, but no longer of the youthful promise. Now, it is more a burnished knowing.

It’s taken four weeks of travel to realize that this is what in fact has been occurring—that I have officially transitioned into another, new to me, phase of womanhood. I didn’t have a name for it quite yet, as I have been preoccupied with teaching Mia the ways of culture, manners and the world, ignoring my own emotions and awakenings in order to pour them into her. But now, as I sit on the porch of a glorious beachfront room, with a pot of tea steaming in the Sri Lankan sunrise light, I am clear and feeling joyful to have a name for where I am now. Wise Woman.

I am no longer going to have children, and I am very deep into a nearly sixteen year marriage. I no longer have taut skin and perky breasts. My skin is soft and lax around my neck, and I am squarely placed in menopause. I’m no longer flirtatious nor am I ever the youngest in a room, when I used to always be the youngest in a room. I never have had an issue with age, my friends growing up and even now range from younger than me to thirty years older than me, none of the numbers have ever quite registered as pertinent.

And yet, I have been in a sort of internal crisis, a not knowing that I have never known before—that of middle-age, that of newness that is simply older. This change begets knowing nods from other women, and men who used to flirt with me now come to me for advice. While I used to have promising decades ahead of me, I am now thinking of my legacy. It’s not over the hill, it’s quite in the middle of the depths of the hill where I find myself.

And this morning, as I prayed for a way forward with my latest book, Love in Detail, one in which I’ve been laboring now for over four years, I heard my angel’s comforting voice say, “self-publish it, you know how.” And in fact now I do know how. I have not only built and lost a multi-million-dollar tea company, but I’ve been a publisher at a top five publishing house in New York for over 4 years—the equivalent of a college degree. I’ve also begun again, a new tea company where the learning has been delicious and the creativity has fueled much of my days. Yes, I do know how to do this.

But, I cannot know how to do it and still be lingering in my naivite, that not-knowing space of youth where a rescuer could arrive in the form of an investment banker or mentor, lover or hero. Now, I am aged, like a fine wine, into the less wild steppes of adulthood. There are less dragons to tame here, less slamming doors and mood swings, less drama and more fond reflecting. It all quite happened while I wasn’t looking, and I’m just now realizing this five-week journey through Asia was never solely about Mia, it was in fact about me. I have needed clarity and a title, I’ve needed instructions from beyond the circle of friends I love. I’ve needed more than a workshop could bring to me, I’ve needed it to come from deep within my soul, intrinsically bursting from the spirit that guides me.

And yes, I know a lot more now. I can watch these beautiful young women heading to yoga, their eager bounce and curious minds leading them to the next adventure and not feel sad or remorseful for my simple desire to write and not join the boxilates class or the surf camp. I have been remorseful that I simply don’t want to do it, yet also confused a bit as to why I don’t. Frankly, as a wise woman, I am no longer obligated to do anything I don’t want to do, and that’s simply it. I don’t like classes where I have to change my schedule to meet others’ schedules, and I don’t want to sweat with a bunch of Australian athletes in bikinis. I’ve been totally liberated!

And there’s Mia. Strangely, I am bridging the generations, straddling decades. My daughter who is so vulnerable and tough, her desire to play Minecraft and be left alone wants to be held and cuddled in the lightening storms. She has been pointing out the dimples on my legs, asking me why I made choices I made, like getting the boob job or why my hair falls out in the shower, and it’s been annoying and poignant, as well as the platform to educate her on the folly of my twenties and the tenderness of aging. Because at 44 I’m still the accumulated choices of those years when my insecurities and doubts pervaded every day of my life, and I’m now the softened woman who relies on self-compassion to get through the day.

How can I be “so old” while raising a little woman who is yet so young? I don’t feel a touch sad or jealous of her as I’m told many aging women feel of the beauty and promise of a young girl, but I do feel nearly an alien with a big job ahead of me both today and in the decades to come. I feel like the youth I had is a far continent to hers. She faces extinction, while I faced verbal abuse. She faces climate change and fighting for the rights of nature in order to survive while I faced very different, more personal cliffs to scale. She is being raised with emotional intelligence while I was raised memorizing Bible scriptures as if my life depended on it. Our experiences have nothing in common except that they are both mine.

Enter the Wise Woman. For those of us who are raising the next generation, or who chose not to have a child, there has to be a rite of passage. There needs to be a means for us to celebrate the end of one age and the start of another—which varies from woman to woman. Of course, there is the maiden-mother-queen-crone/wise woman but what are the ceremonies that bring us to each with awareness, joy and guidance? I am a student of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, but even her classes do not teach what to do, how to do, when to do these rituals and burials, rebirths and initiations. Where are the women of the tribal past who can hold our hands and bring us to the edge of one phase and into another?

We have lost these teachings in the flames of youth obsession. We have diminished the sacred ceremonies and hand-holding of women’s work as we’ve climbed the corporate ladder. We have become found in the board room and lost in the psyche. I have hungered a deep hunger for elder women to bring me this knowledge, that which is earned through blood and deep work, I am craving more. We are all craving more.

More wisdom, more deep joy in aging, more permission to be the “Knowing One” and less seeking of the past. I want to set up a throne for myself and have those who need guidance come to me, I don’t want to have to write a ton of blogs and posts in order for them to find me—can’t that be something we put in the past? I’d like to move beyond the “tip jar” lifestyle where I send wisdom out hoping someone signs up for a workshop, and into the world of receiving. I can’t do that if I doubt my wisdom, but mainly I can’t do that if I don’t know I am now a Wise Woman.

Isn’t this all any of us want? To know where we are in the cycle of life, on the wheel of existence? To be told more than our “estrogen levels are low” and our “thyroid is off?” Don’t we want to be told that our souls are now ready to share their light and wisdom and hope and meaning with the world rather than our “metabolism has slowed” and that “after 40 we start losing our eyesight?” I mean, give us a fucking break!

Stop fixating on the effects of aging on the body and start celebrating the effects on our souls!

Sure, I want to “stay pretty.” I want to stave off the effects of wrinkles and thinning hair, cellulite and chubby middle regions, but I won’t be reduced to this being the rite of passage for my wisdom years! It seems the physicality of the aging process has become the entire conversation! As women, we talk about menopause, sex, anti-aging procedures, adrenal fatigue, hormone levels, anything and everything happening to and in our bodies has overtaken the gloriousness of what’s happening deep inside of our souls. And while we are celebrating our youth standing up to the patriarchy, we should continue to celebrate our wisdom years and lend a hand to those coming up in the ranks, as their success or failure in battling the bogeyman of greed and Earth’s destruction is really subject to our sharing—or lack of it.

While the world’s animal kingdom goes extinct, so many of us are struggling with the low self worth that comes from isolation. From a not-knowing that we are now Wise Women and the means of survival is reliant on us standing in our rightful places on this planet. A misogynistic bully who denies sexually assaulting dozens of women holds the highest office of the land while we battle depression and anxiety—but, if we see that our depression and anxiety can only be cured by picking up our mantles as WISE WOMEN who are rightfully angry, we will never be cured of this malaise. Instead of a prescription, we need a battle cry!

I want nothing more than to live a vital life to 100, I just never knew until this passage of my own into the heartlands of Asia, that I was craving guidance in this new phase of my own womanhood. I thought I would be guiding Mia, when in fact I am the guided, the seeking.
My sweet mom had an absentee alcoholic mom who never honored her own passages, so she never taught me to honor my own. There are very few offers to help guide women into and through these years, when there are many that guide us into motherhood. It seems the buck stops after we’ve secured the next generation. But here too, I am a child, not knowing where next to step, but by the aged way I look, it never occurs to people I might be feeling this way—it didn’t even occur to me!

I felt a lot of support as my belly produced children, I have felt less emotional and spiritual support as I have had my middle grow in older age instead of with child. I have been given advice on how to “get my sexy back” but I don’t need that, I need advice on how to not give a shit about “my sexy” as much as I give a shit about my soul.

We don’t need more sexy, we need more sacred rites to guide us away from wanting to relive and replay our maiden years, we don’t need older women trying to be hot—we need them being wise and relentless.

So, this trip wasn’t as much about my daughter’s rite of passage as a global citizen, but about my own rite of passage into the Wisdom Years, knowing what I have been missing and what I must now create for myself and others.

I don’t want to teach another platform-building course unless it helps women find their footing in the soul work that creates a better world. I don’t want solely to teach you how to publish your next book, as that’s easy, what’s not easy are the transitions we undergo that no one talks about.

Perhaps we are all lost in transition, finding our footing as our partners and bodies age. As our ideas mature and our hearts bear the burdens of a world getting destroyed by the greed of old men—our male contemporaries that have gone wild with power. What if we could end climate change by taking all the energy we use on the next diet fad and storm the fucking corporate headquarters that are killing off our bees and destroying the air we breathe? What if we stopped trying to get our sex lives to be hot again, and instead took the rage in our loins and aimed it at ending the patriarchy’s bullshit coverups and lies.

A real revolution needs to happen and it has nothing to do with Botox and Keto diets—it has everything to do with not allowing ourselves to be trapped by listicles and ridiculous beauty regimens, for if we let that shit go, we’d have time to offset every carbon particle in the air and upend the very systems that have kept us thinking we have to look a certain way in order to get shit done. It simply isn’t so.

Breaking this spell and guiding one another into the AGE OF WISE WOMEN is where we are being called. I for one am going to stop trying to look younger and instead embrace the power of my well-earned, burnished wisdom. No more clichés about “Fifty being the new Thirty” Because fifty is what it’s meant to be—not killing itself in the gym but empowering itself in the Capitol and in the circles of women we are meant to gather.

If you haven’t joined me at ZhenaTV or at ClubMagicHour please do, there is much more to come on this subject, for it is what has found me, stark naked, staring into a sea of you and me.

If you haven’t joined me at ZhenaTV or at ClubMagicHour please do, there is much more to come on this subject, for it is what has found me, stark naked, staring into a sea of you and me.

Club Magic Hour’s Super Sensory Tea Ceremony!

In 2013 I packed up my office at Zhena’s Gypsy Tea and drove back from LA to Ojai in tears. The verbal violence I’d been enduring finally broke me. While I was still the “face of the brand” I’d been yelled at, ignored, and cut from all meetings and even taken out of my role as formulator. No one on the outside could really understand the strange pain I was feeling, I didn’t know other founders who’d been fired yet, and the isolation was worse than the actual firing.

Flash forward to 2018 and I am working to raise money to buy the company back. Not the company itself, granted, but my name or should I say, my great-aunt’s name: Z(h)ena. She was the only family member of my grandmother to stay behind in the Ukraine and survive Stalin and the Cold War, she had fortitude and became a leader in her community—queen of the Gypsies—in her village because she had two cows and had the village place of worship—a small house with a huge altar for the Virgin Mary. What an honor to be the keeper of her name. What an unexpected tragedy to then lose it to a Wall Street bully who could give a F.

So, I negotiated for my name—the trademark that is—and we agreed on a price. We’d gone from $250K to $25K. I was thrilled—even though when they fired me they refused to even pay my last paycheck…I’d released all of that…and I had already written the check and was about to send it. But then frustrated big chain store buyers started calling and emailing me that they were out of stock, no one had told them they were closing Zhena’s Gypsy Tea, so they thought I’d still be shipping. I asked the Chairman to notify them, and he refused, then subsequently refused to sell me back my name.

At this point, I wasn’t all that surprised, there’s some bizarre karma with this man. I’d named him Rumplestiltskin in private, because a fairy tale-sized archetypal lesson would have to come from this strange relationship—because what else could? It made little sense, and since the mind is so wonderfully equipped to deal with big issues through symbolism that name summed up the situation. Perhaps I saw my name as my first child, and this man refusing to give it back could only make sense in a fairy tale land where nothing really makes sense. So, I did what I couldn’t do in the past, I let it go.

Then one evening, as a full moon was rising over the mountains on my left, and the sun was setting on my right I received a message.

I was at the top of a mountain range with my photographer Mariana and some others, we’d just wrapped a photo shoot, and the whole sky was pink-purple-orange and infinite. I pulled my car over and as we all piled out we gasped at the sheer beauty of the moment—nature and our planet was putting on the most spectacular show. I began to cry a little in awe, you know those moments right!? It was pure wonder to see the earth and her two main planets in such perfect, harmonious balance.

Life is too precious to hold onto anger.

It’s too lovely to grasp with our grievances in the way.

It’s too spectacular and fleeting to stay stuck in a past idea.

A gateway in my heart opened, and joy poured in. I realized my name couldn’t really be taken…if Stalin couldn’t squash my great aunt, no one could squash me.

So I said a little prayer in my head: Lesson learned, thank-you!! NOW, please show me what you want me to do now! I am open to anything!

I heard a response—you know the one—directly from the ethers, the sing-song of angels. The answer was simply: This.

This awe. This moment. This planet. This movement of time. This.

This is our assignment.

This life, lived in fullness.

This spinning planet, experienced in awe.

This exchange of life—the earth giving our spirits matter and bodies.

This magic that occurs each day—this shift from night to day and back again.

This is our assignment. This is the point. This feeling, body, story, set of challenges, this this this.

And so this is what I want to give you as encouragement to start something new—something you always wished to do.

To be present in your life is the point of your life.

This.

This moment—take it!

This breath—breathe it!

This chance to love—share it!

So, I decided from the message that sharing time and ways to be present was my real job now—an assignment from the Universe, and using my name wouldn’t make sense—but wrapping an idea ofTHIS into a new brand name would!

I realized that because I was fighting over THAT, I could never truly experience THIS.

So, THIS is it. The joy of THIS is presence and awareness. It just happened to take me back to TEA! Because TEA puts me in the present moment—a magical grounding force for being in THIS!

Magic Hour would have never been born had I gotten THAT. Instead I received a transmission to share THIS—the present moment of awe we all have right now. If we’re not present to this, we can never truly be in our lives.

So, I encourage you to let go of your name.

Let go of the identity you think you are.

Let go of the “that” which you are still holding onto.

Let go of the grievances and the frustrations that are stopping you from the THIS.

What does the negative influence in your life want from you?

This.

What does grievance take from you?
This.

What does living in the past strip from you?
This.

What is possible for you when you let all of that go?
THIS.

I want this for you.

I want you to live for your “this!”

I want you to be present to THIS. The miracles, the eye contact, the touch, the precious NOW.

We all have a chance to live our full THIS.

We just have to let go of…THAT.

I love you all, please share your stories of release and the infinite now with me here in the comments.

AND, you just wait! A blog series is starting June 15th here that I think you’re going to LOVE.

Huge hugs to you all!

Zhena

Hello from beautiful Porto, Portugal!

It’s been a while, I miss you, thanks for being here on the ZhenaTV email list with me:). If you don’t remember why we’re here, it’s for this simple reason: To inspire you to live the mind-body-spirit of success…not success in mind and not body, and not success in body and not spirit…but success in the way that feeds your soul and heals our world, because YOU are a key to raising the vibe of our world through your joy, creativity and wonder.

I’ve been here in Portugal scouting locations for the next writers’ escape and have been bonding with my kids and sweet husband while eating and hiking my way through the sunny cities and sacred sites with a big smile on my face. Like the mountainsides here, there are twists and turns in a family vacation that doubles as a work trip—namely kids getting sick, negotiating everyone’s needs so all are happy, and even an ER trip that ended in my son taking full responsibility for his body in a way that I proudly can call: ADULTING. 

While I’ve been away, I’ve watched and marveled at the power of precision. How we intend is how we create. How we use precision in our intentions is how we proceed. 

This matters, as I had two intentions for this trip and both have manifested: 1. Family bonding and 2. Discovering the most inspiring places to put pen to paper for a retreat.

I haven’t though been as precise with my own needs, which is common for women who have families and/or who have businesses. We often find our joy in the joy of others and the success of our businesses, not in the quiet still moments of oneness we experience with our own souls. In a world where our psyches often create our reality and experiences, we can forget altogether how to put our creative processes and projects into the centerpiece of our own lives—because it’s sooooo good to serve others! 

For instance, when Mia and Sage are laughing, I don’t see my own novel writing as important. I want more of them laughing and enjoying—so, I create more opportunities for that and forget my own novel is waiting for me on my writing laptop (more on that in the next post). As this trip has proceeded, I’ve been more focused on them than me. This is how we are wired, and there is NOTHING WRONG at all with this. It’s actually VERY RIGHT. But, when you are looking at the clear path forward for your own creativity, your writing, your art, how can it compete with the love you have for creating beauty for others? How can the quiet yearning of your creative heart compete with the joy you have in helping others be happy?

It can’t. 

This is why so many of us struggle to create time for ourselves to create. Because the joy we bring to or facilitate for others is naturally more important than the quiet isolation we need to create art. 

So, how do we remedy that amazing loving part of ourselves, and also integrate our own seemingly less-pressing aspect of our creativity into our daily lives?

The secret is…

We have to schedule it. 

Same with business. Each time I’ve sat down to write (while the kids are sleeping, until noon if I let them, ha), I’ve had to check email and help my awesome team with Club Magic Hour. I LOVE BUSINESS and I LOVE MY TEAM—they have made it easy for me to get away, but there are still things to do in a new business—it never goes away entirely…so, I’ve chosen to work on that when my own novel pressed me less (and is speculative financially while business isn’t). 

Let’s rest on that here. Your creativity might not have a clear financial return but your business or job does. 

How can your creativity compete with a paycheck? How can you be both financially sound, in service to those you love, AND have time for creative endeavors that feed the depths of YOUR SOUL. 

The secret is….

You have to schedule it. 

So, here’s what’s up for us. We have to schedule our soul’s work as our soul is happy to yield to your body, mind, and others’ needs. 

Your soul needs creativity, but it’s not going to use muscle to demand it. It just slowly becomes more and more quiet as we ignore the call of our creative endeavors. Our soul is kind, generous and quiet, while also willing to allow your mind and body and family and others’ needs to become paramount.

What a sweet soul. What a giving soul. What a selfless soul. Seriously.

But that doesn’t mean we should allow our soul to be last. We have to schedule SOUL TIME for our creativity, for our expression of soul in the world. 

Your soul expression is the key to your total wellness. It also fuels more energy for your family, loved ones and business. 

Each time I write or work on my novel, my business soars, and my family notices how happy and light I am. It is an example, not a lesson. 

So, if you’re willing to schedule some time for your soul’s expression, we have scheduled time to play with you and facilitate that through our new series: BGA: BOLD GODDESS ACADEMY. 

These are monthly 1-day soul expression days for your soul to have a voice and a platform to express through writing, creativity, and business expression.

I created these because I myself need them. I always create programs I need. It’s the soul’s way of quietly emanating the way forward for me too :).

You can sign up for one or all, and you can attend via online or in person. You will receive nourishment, tools and joyful experiences at these trainings. They are the scheduling for your soul to shine.

So, I hope you’ll join me for this new series…it’s my heart meeting your heart in commitment to our soul’s need to create. It’s our carve-out in a busy world of giving to others.

Because when your soul is expressing, your life will shine brighter. 

There are limited spots available (for real!). So, grab yours now. Your soul (and my soul) will thank-you for it!

It’s time to play! 
​​​​​​​
With love and soul,

Zhena

Do you ever feel that you’re in a loop of behavior that keeps you from seeing the way forward?

Do your habitual thoughts feel at times to be limiting your opportunities? Even subconsciously?

The deeper the thinking grooves are, the more entrenched we are in our past, which causes us to miss the present moment lever which can catapult us out of a repeating pattern and into the trajectory of our soul’s growth.

If you’ve read Life by the Cup or know anything of my story, you know that my son, Sage, is the reason I started my last tea company: Zhena’s Gypsy Tea. It was started to support us and pay for his operations, which it did, and it gave us a platform to do the same for tea workers worldwide. Sage had several major operations from newborn to toddlerhood and finally in sixth grade received a clean bill of health. It was a long journey. Since then, every time he got sick or had a fever, I would go right back to the panic mode that assured swift action to change the situation. I had panic and urgency engrained in my psyche.

The tea company is now gone, per the investors who managed it since I left in 2013. But it remains a feather in my cap of life, a totem symbolizing the strength of motherhood. 

Last month, I launched Magic Hour. It’s a tea and transformation company whose mission is to create ceremonies and rituals of connection on a daily basis. As I relaunched another tea company, I did expect the old thinking and habits to arise again. What I didn’t realize is the external feedback of the universe would send along lessons for me and Sage of the unhealed parts of ourselves.

Last Friday, just after I filmed my Magic Hour Session for this month’s box: REBIRTH (irony? Ha). I got a call from Sage that he had to go to the emergency room and was being transported to the hospital in Ventura due to old scar tissue from his surgeries as a baby blocking his digestive tract. Gerard and I rushed down there and Sage’s dad—who was a big point of conflict for me since Sage’s birth—was there already. We spent the night watching over Sage.

Four days later, we’d gone through all of the ups and downs of Sage’s infancy and created harmony around the situation. Sage’s dad worked with me—not against me. Gerard was able to care for our daughter. Instead of the poor care we’d had when he was an infant, we had stellar care due to the fact that Gerard has excellent insurance for us. All of the pain points of the initial situation were resolved. There was no conflict. The entire medical team marveled at how well the room smelled (of course I brought essential oils and a diffuser), and they couldn’t believe how many synchronicities magically happened around Sage’s care. With a lot of love and a lot less fear than in the past, we were able to miraculously avoid surgery.

We got to have a “redo” of our past pains and grievances, struggles and fears.

This is how karma and the loop of healing works. We get to relive and relive a situation over and over until we heal the negativity and live in the present. A new tea company, old scar tissue. A new opportunity for us to create something beautiful, old grievances that need healing. A new life—Sage is an adult now—an old idea that he is “sick.” But he’s no longer sick. We’re no longer victims of circumstance.

While this is an extreme example, it’s something we live with every day. It could be that you once received terrible news via email and now you avoid clearing your inbox. Or you were once hurt by a female colleague and now live with low-grade distrust of other female colleagues. It could be that you had a terrible heartbreak and now always keep a part of yourself safe from your relationships instead of being “all in.” Whatever it is, when you heal it, the world becomes much more possible for you.

You are able to leave the “charge” of your past by feeling peace about your present.

As I’ve been meditating on the past week, and how the whole thing played out, I realized that a presence meditation would be so beautifully useful for us all now. With the New Moon in Pisces tomorrow, we have a chance to be reborn and cleanse our past of grievances and old hurts.

If you cannot join us for our free New Moon gathering tomorrow, that’s no problem, here is a practice you can bring to your heart to cleanse and rebirth.

Rebirth Meditation

Sit in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes. Dab your favorite essential oil on your pulse points—I often use Bergamot, Sandalwood and/or Lavender.

Take 4 deep breaths into your heart, envisioning it glowing green.

  1. As you exhale the first time, envision the glow growing into your entire chest.

  2. On the second exhale, imagine the green glow filling your neck and throat, into your brain and above your head.

  3. 3rd exhale, envision the green glow now filling your stomach, pelvic area, thighs and knees.

  4. 4th exhale, see the green glow oozing down through your feet and watering the earth, see it filling the roots below the surface of the earth.


With each breath in repeat:

I am ever present to the present.

With each exhale repeat:

I receive the lesson of the past and wash it in the light of my heart.

Repeat this 3 times, or until you feel you’ve removed the “charge” you still may feel of the past situation or the present situation you wish to overcome or transmute. You can apply this to past pains, frustrations with people or the system, or you can use it to shift your mind when you can’t see how to move forward in a situation whether it be personal or professional.

Oh, and yes, this month’s March Box for Magic Hour is wildly on point: Rebirth & Raise the Vibe. I came up with this before this situation presented itself, and yes, time must not be linear as it was exactly what I relied on during this whole week. Sage felt the love too, he’s home today and I am mothering and pampering him with the best high-vibe tea, broth, and Reiki.

We are only as powerful as our courage to move from pain and fear to possibility and growth.

Our lives are the laboratory of the divine. We are fortunate to get to live on planet earth where consciousness and energy can be transmuted by our willingness and intention.

I hope you will tell me how this practice helps you shift a moment or share any of your thoughts in the comments below.

I am forever grateful for your friendship and sharing with me here, I know that we are one and when I grow, you grow and when you grow, I grow. Stay tuned for some upcoming workshops and events I’m planning after my Portugal trip in a couple of weeks. And remember, when we are present, we are in choice, and when we are harboring the past, we are stuck. Let’s leave that stuckness to the elements that do it best

In Light,

My husband and I are pretty chill about Valentine’s Day. We aren’t “box of chocolate” chill, but we don’t spend a bunch of money or do anything too out of the ordinary. A daily love ritual is more important to us, instead of playing catch up (like cramming for a test!) on V-Day, we attempt to take sacred space for each other a few minutes or hours at a time, primarily through 3 simple questions we ask each other every day. 

• What are you most excited about today?
  
• Is anything making you stressed or feel worried?
  
• Would you like help or feedback on anything? 
  

Then if we have time, I’ll ask him some “coaching” questions (I know, I’ve too gotten that–never coach your mate, but…)

• How do you feel about your schedule today as it relates to your big life goals?
  
• Is there anything you’ve got on your calendar that isn’t necessary (just busy?)?
• What would you do today if you had all the money, support and freedom in the world? (how can we make THAT happen!?)

While having this morning interaction, we are able to set a tone for the day–helping each other gauge and adjust before the day actually gets going. We don’t do it every single day (today he meditated while I worked on my novel, cup of Coconut Chai in hand!), but we do it often enough to feel that we’ve got each other’s goals in mind and heart. We’re both ambitious when it comes to how we want to live–free, joyful, in a natural environment with no pollution…and taking an ongoing interest in our very busy individual lives, helps bring us closer–instead of ships “passing in the night” we become lighthouses for one another to safely land.

I hope this is helpful to you, I’d love to hear about your own rituals and what you do for Valentine’s Day in the comments below! We learn from one another 🙂 and I love learning with you here!

Tea, Togetherness &…  Organic, Fair Trade Teas from the world’s finest Biodynamic Tea Estates and an Elegant Violet Glass Apothecary Display Jar for your home or office. Transformation World’s Greatest Teachings Combine for a Monthly Self-Care + Together Ritual for Health, Joy, Intimacy, Friendship, Love, Money and Success in Life. It’s a like Masterclass for the Soul 🙂

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