A couple years ago, I had a near psychological meltdown. The fires and drought in my home state were evidence that life was changing and water would soon be more valuable than any other element on earth. I was dealing with more drama with Sage’s dad than ever and it was tearing our family apart. Then the image of the Syrian baby washed up on shore appeared in the media and I couldn’t stop crying. I cried for weeks. Everything seemed to be shaped by my fear and by the evidence of tragedy both environmental and humanitarian that was befalling, and continues to, our planet and ourselves. I was also balancing a fairly new career as a publisher with the nuts and bolts of an industry I felt both at home in and like a total alien in. Everywhere I turned there was a mountain to climb, a cause to get behind, and a heartbreak to tend, I felt sad, angry, alone, powerless and hopeless. And this was before the 2016 election…

Soon after the big crack in my psyche and heart, I was on a drive down to Mexico with my spiritual godfather, Gay Hendricks, for my first TLC (Transformational Leadership Council) meeting. One of the first presentations to be made was by Dr. Anita Sanchez called: The Four Gifts and depicted four sacred gifts the elders of all indigenous tribes from around the world agreed upon and wanted to give the world in order to heal from the divisiveness, pain and suffering of the intense times in which we find ourselves then, and now.

These four gifts are:

       The Power to Forgive the Unforgivable

            The Power of Unity

            The Power of Healing

            The Power of Hope

In the power to heal the unforgivable, Anita spoke of being sexually abused by her father for much of her youth, until her father was murdered in a hate crime in Kansas City. She spoke of the rituals of forgiveness the elders put her through in order to move the trauma from her body. From there, she was able to become an activist, healer, and PhD. teaching Fortune 500’s the power of inclusion. To be able to forgive her father took everything she had, and it put in perspective for us that forgiveness of that which we find unforgivable is the key to healing our world. I couldn’t agree more…

Forgive me as I learn to forgive you.

In the Power of Unity, she showed us how to be in right relation, to unify all beings in our mind and soul to include all elements of nature, all colors of people, the sky, the ancestors and the spirit world. For in unity we find our strength to connect deeply with others and to live with no fear of “other” getting, taking, or hurting us as we are all one. We live unnaturally in the modern world. What I mean by unnaturally, is that we have an illusion that we are separate from others. We think that what effects one group doesn’t affect the other, but in this we live painfully isolated, trying to “make more money,” get the promotion, land the account, compete in the modern marketplace…etc. What occurs from this type of belief is a disparate “us and them” yes, even the them you don’t agree with politically are one with you.

The Illusion of No-Relation is Healed by the Visualization of All-One Relation.

The next gift she shared was the power of healing. In this section, Anita taught us to “listen with the softest part of our ear” in order to really hear others, and in doing so, this heals them (and us). Imagine a council of those from North Korea, Syria, Russia, the US, and China all sitting in a circle of respect, listening with the “softest part of their ears.” What would be possible if we all did this and through this action healed the most broken parts of our psyches? We would perhaps experience life on earth as love in detail, wouldn’t we? I began to use this with Sage’s dad and others, and it worked. For what was being said wasn’t what others necessarily meant…understanding their pain underneath their words helped me see that we are all seeking the same thing: To belong.

Listen with the “softest part of your ear” to heal yourself and others.

The fourth and final gift is the gift of hope. Where Anita taught us that her elders believed that the pain, the struggle, the heartache is all manageable, but the loss of hope would not be. As Gloria Steinem says, “Hope if a form of planning” and I agree. While we can become “addicted to hope” and not be realistic in how we see the world, hoping is also a motivation to ensure the world becomes what it could be one day. Without hope, we lose our passion for what’s possible. A hopeless people would never have the energy to fight for what’s good and right in the world. A hopeful thought opens the door for all that you can create for your life and our world.

Hope is a form of planning. –Gloria Steinem

As I watched this powerful, strong and beautiful woman present these gifts, I could feel a sense of responsibility overwhelm me. I just knew I had to publish her story and the gifts of the indigenous elders for the world to read, absorb, and use to heal. For the first time in weeks, I could feel my duty become stronger than my despair. I approached Anita and asked if she’d like to talk about a publishing partnership and from there, a two-year friendship and collaboration took place. The result of which is this beautiful, healing, insightful book which is available today!

It’s days like this that I am renewed. To have found Anita in a time I was so distraught and lost was a spectacular transmutation of sadness to compassionate action. And sharing this work with the world has given me a sense of purpose. It shows that the world is indeed on a healing path, and that our pain and the pain of feeling like we can’t do enough can be healed. Through connecting your concern with hope and compassionate action, you can heal yourself and our world. Through these simply four gifts, we can indeed recreate our world.

I hope you’ll join me in congratulating this majestic, beautiful, humble woman, Dr. Anita Sanchez for a job very well done today. You can post for her here. You can mark it to read here and you can buy it here. For more information, and to see an interview with Anita, go here.

I hope you will read this book and join me in a commitment to heal the divide within and in our world.

With all my hope, light, and love,

Warning: I am going to use “I” a lot in this post. Not because I have a huge ego, but because I’m using my life as your laboratory this week. I’m sharing things I haven’t shared before, and so there’s a lot of the pronoun I. Here we go!

I wake up early and get my day started around 5am. I am sorry to admit I read the news now, and have subscribed to the matrix. Alas, it’s just so entertaining and perplexing. I’m a problem solver so I solve all of the issues of the world before my second cup of tea.

I then write, post on social, and write some more. I read some spiritual text before meditating for a few minutes (I am not on the meditation wagon right now, so I give myself 11 minutes to do my mantra, at least I’ve got that!). At 6am the emails from New York start, and often I have to present a book to our editorial, marketing and/or sales people at Atria before my second cup of tea. Actually, on those days I drink coffee. Being on New York time from small-town Ojai demands a little more in the caffeine department.

I put my phone on silence and listen to all the badasses in NYC present their book lists. I love my colleagues there, they are bright, sharp and sparkling examples of people who not only read, but have the minds that could solve all the woes of the world if pointed in that direction. They keep me on my toes, and often, every day actually, I learn. And learning to me is the key to existence. If I’m learning, I’m a happy girl.

Here’s where I’ll list what I do for money, but mostly for love, so you can feel better about what you do for money—or better yet—so you can get some ideas about how to diversify how you make money so you can do more of what you love.

I teach for money, but mostly for love. I teach business, publishing, and marketing to writers, CEO’s, entrepreneurs, and hopeful all-of-the-aboves. I always wanted to teach. As a little girl, I set my room up like a classroom and taught my stuffed animals. So, I love this. Oh, and being a college dropout didn’t, in fact, affect my ability to teach, but made it better.

So, you have no limits due to your education, or lack of one.

I consult for money, but mostly for love. I fit into certain businesses like I’m one of the tribe. I love business, it’s a huge creative outlet for me. I love to solve problems for CEO’s and founders. I love to be in a changing environment teeming with creativity. I don’t consult with dry or dead or inauthentic companies. I don’t consult for men. No offense, but I prefer females who take big risks, that’s my thing and that’s what I’ve chosen to support—only. If more women took more risks, the world wouldn’t have climate change. I know that in my bones. Ok, here’s where I tell you I do not have an MBA, and that I use tarot, pendulums and spells in business. Being myself in my authentic witchy ways helps me be successful. And I read the tarot for CEO’s of publicly traded companies, so here’s where you can claim your wonderfully unique way of being and doing.

You don’t need an MBA to succeed in business, you need to be yourself, period.

(You may need an intergalactic MBA tho’ more on that in future posts :-)).

I write for money, but mostly for love. After writing Life by the Cup, I decided that books don’t always make an author money but the peripherals definitely do. The tea company sales skyrocketed after my book came out. While I can’t take all the credit, I can look at the flavors that had been flat for five years and see that because I featured them in my book, the sales went waaaaay up, and I can take credit for that. My love language is being seen, I love being acknowledged for my contributions to things—even if I have to acknowledge them by myself in the wee hours of the morning. 🙂

So, here’s the deal. I need a LOT of editing and I’m a published author, and a publisher for God’s sake. I just hired a line editor and she edited almost every freaking line of Love in Detail, after I’d rewritten it a hundred times and had it edited, then it got edited again. Sam, who helps me run ZTV looked at the edited doc and her eyes were so wide, she wanted to save it just to look at how much my writing was edited. I felt exposed for like a second, but then laughed because I AM NOT AN EDITOR, I am a writer. I make money with my writing but not in the ways you would think. So, here’s where I tell you the most important thing in the world about writing: take the pressure off of yourself so you can express your words without judgement and…

There are thousands of editors who want to fix your sentences, but there is only one you who can tell your story—so write the freaking thing ok?

Which leads me to the next thing I do for money. I am a publisher. I publish books for money, but mostly for love. This is my hardest job. I say hard because it’s a business that I both love and want to change, badly. I want to do publishing in a way that hasn’t been done before, and I have lots of ideas. But, unlike the consumer packaged goods industry in which I consult, publishing hasn’t got a lot of cash. This is the dichotomy of the ages. The publishing industry shares ideas that can both heal and change the world on such mass scale and yet it has very little margins and resources. Vying for the minds of a shrinking readership is not a fun way to make money, nor is it a cash-rich, fancy, big expense budget sort of world. But it’s an important one, and one that I believe in SO MUCH that I dedicate a lot of my time to this. In fact, most of my time is focused on Enliven, my publishing house at Atria/Simon and Schuster, while I work several other jobs at the same time in order to fulfill my potential, and my love story, this is my official “day job” with my side hustles being my moonlighting. I had NO IDEA HOW TO BE A PUBLISHER a few years ago.

And so this is where I tell you that reinventing your life at 40 and beyond is TOTALLY POSSIBLE.

Learn a new industry, make it your business. What have you always loved and never pursued? Do that now, seriously. Please. Now.

I have two kids, a dog, a husband, a cat, a house, a consulting firm, a publishing imprint, a writing passion, and my own brand. I have a staff, clients, and a full plate—but when I began this reinvention of my life I was alone, doing it all myself, so don’t let that staff thing piss you off or make you think I’m in any way privileged. I don’t look like a model, my body isn’t superhot or even all that in shape, I’ve put on some pounds working the hours I work. I won’t be posting me tree-posing on the beach in Bali anytime soon.  I don’t have superpowers, I have caffeine. I don’t have a lot of extra time, but I have friends I adore and mentors and a community. I have full days and work twelve hours. I do it for money, sure, but mostly for love. I don’t do it all right, but I am sincere in my effort. I am not perfect and I don’t get my hair done very often, but I show up with or without roots to give it my all.

And so, what is it you do for money, or want to do for money but mostly love?

What do you desire more than anything but don’t do because you worry there isn’t enough time, or you are “too busy” or?

Do you want to make an impact, make more cash, or make more love?

Do you worry about not having enough of anything?

If I, a college dropout, a sentence-maker who needs millions of edits, a former failure at everything can do it, what is possible for you?

Is it that you really are limited on how you live and make money?

Or is it that you’re having a lack of imagination?

Because that is the moral of this love story: imagination is everything.

When I was broke and nearly homeless, I imagined Sage and I healthy and happy and invented a tea company that helped moms.

When I was single and broken-hearted, I imagined love and then Gerard arrived—where I was serving tea—he fell in love because I was living an imagined life made real by actions.

When I was fired from my company, I imagined a new career helping founders NOT get fired by their boards and now I consult female founders.

When I was feeling lost, I imagined being found.

When I felt lonely, I imagined having true friends and mentors and they appeared.

Here’s your assignment from the universe: Imagine all the ways you can make money from your love, your original passions and unique nature, and let’s see what arrives…

Here’s to your own money-love story, and here’s to diversifying, and here’s to your imagination bringing you the joy, wealth and wonder you so deserve. Tell me what you are going to do this year to get closer to you and your personal, authentic love story in the comments.

In Adoration,

When I feel like I’m not sure of my next move, I have a practice I call Love in Detail (which is also my next book). I will take notice of all the details around me, bring awareness to the love that is inherently found in my point of view, breath, and then take the next compassionate action. This practice has guided me consistently into right action and ultimately success. Love is in the details, and if you can actively become aware of the details around you, you will find a pathway to your ultimate purpose. I know this might sound lofty, but hang in there with me…

Success is a moment to moment crafting of your life, beliefs, and actions. It’s a daily discipline of noticing details, following them as a trail to your purpose and your own personal brand of success. Being successful has no end, but appears in the details before you, if you notice them. For instance, when I open my inbox, it’s filled to the brim with requests. I often feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of email that enters my world. So, I’ll bring my awareness to my breath then, which I tend to hold when I’m overwhelmed. I’ll breathe into my body deeply, opening each email and slowly my nervous system calms down. I’ll then take conscious notice of the conscientiousness of my staff and send a thank-you or gratitude toward someone emailing me, as in “thanks for keeping me organized, I’ll get that to you today, Superstar!” And then I’ll make a handwritten list of each item being requested, dance around a bit, sip some tea, and get to work. It’s a classic case of reframing.

Here it is again—my simple ABC’s for getting the details of love flowing in your day:
1.    Awareness
2.    Breath
3.    Compassionate Action

Details are where love reside. From my research and countless interviews with Near Death Survivors, I’ve discovered that when we leave our bodies, we experience love without form. When we are in our bodies, we get to experience the earth plane which is love in form—infinite form…a buffet of love options. You’ll get to read much more about this in my next book (more on that next week), but for now, isn’t it amazing to think of your life as Love, in Detail?
​​​​​​​
How do the details affect you? Let’s take writing for instance. If you dream of being a writer (or a business owner, or mom, or…), at first you will most likely produce some crappy sentences, paragraphs and even a disaster of a draft—instead of beautiful literature (or profits or even children ). Yet you feel the desire to keep going. You stop putting meaning on your bad writing because you sense that the bad writing is teaching you something. You understand that to be a good writer, you must first be a bad one. Mastery builds confidence, and you’ve come to understand this.

One day, you lose yourself in a sentence. Each letter curves just so beautifully, you become fascinated with the world before you, click click, words form black on white on the page—they were absent and then present, you created them before your very eyes. You marvel at a concept to write about, you feel inspired, sit down to write it down, and your mind seeks and seeks until the words land on the page. You’ve made something out of nothing, which is in itself a miracle. All doubt fell away while you weren’t looking. You lose yourself in a paragraph, as the words flow from your hands you forget to be self-conscious, you lose track of all previous artistic anxieties. You forget that you are not trained, you forget about those who have come before you and those who will follow. There is no copyright or proprietary notions, there is no comparing this line with that. You focus only on making the most beautiful passage of combined words to evoke an image in the mind and heart. You don’t think about the reader but you pour yourself into the details of each word, their depth, the way they sound on the tongue. The more detailed you become, the more sure life is.

Mindfulness is the awareness of the details, flow is the expression of them. An artist, a craftsman, a maker, a master, all are lost in the details, and what emerges is Love. You were born to express this love in whatever flavor you so desire. My friend Jeremy makes delicious beer, it’s his Love in Detail. My mom comes over and takes a toothbrush to the tile in the guest bathroom—cleaning is her Love in Detail. My husband always makes sure the fridge is full—nourishing his family is his Love in Detail.

As the writer loves the process of expressing her Love in Detail, the reader loves the doorway the writer has built for her. Each word bursts open as the reader’s eyes recognize their familiar outline in unfamiliar order. She senses the curves, she is infused with the love from the author, those words through which she felt so sure, and those she considered over and over before moving to the next. Our most beloved works of art were those the artist struggled over, loved deeply, and finally disappeared into. Each older work is a time capsule, a lifeline to he or she who has left the earth plane, but remains with us through the details of their self-expression, their love. For love is timeless and ageless and when detailed with great care, from it is born a masterpiece transcendent of physical form, a hue of heaven somehow grasped in material identity.

Did Roald Dahl love Charlie as he wrote about his adventures in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory? Did JK Rowling love Harry Potter as she created him and followed him through Hogwarts, eventually translating him into the minds of millions of children? Did Jane Austen love Mr. Darcy, so much so that every girl today still swoons over the confusing appeal of the author’s beloved curmudgeon character? Details transcend time. Love is in the details of any great work. And so, you too will make a great, detailed work of your life. You will experience and gather detailed memories, creating detailed relationships, loving the details of your favorite restaurants, your first home, how you felt when you said Yes.

If you want to be successful, learn how to immerse yourself in details from which you can fully express your soul into form. The craft of whatever you take on will open the doorways of your prosperity. Our divinity is in the details, dig into the details of your day, your work, and your relationships to find the daily gold of your own purpose. Each detail we notice or create is an imprint that blooms a thousand times a second. Each detail is its own universe, and you contain universes, dear one.

And here are my sure-fire steps one more time:

You got this!

With Love, in Detail,

I don’t know about you, but I love stories. I love reading them, watching them, writing them and making them up for future novels and screenplays I’ll someday write. Stories are the very fabric of our experience here on earth. We remember the ones that uplift or scare us, and we tell and share the ones with which we identify—either for good, or “bad.”

But, like anything, story can be used to create suffering or healing. It’s the most powerful tool I know of that thoroughly affects the psyche and emotional well-being of each of us. How? Let me show you.

I tell stories for a living. I write blogs, books, posts, brand stories, curriculums, and I help shape the stories of my authors at Enliven along with the brands with which I consult. I’m the kid that told such convincing stories at show-and-tell that my teachers would call my parents to make sure everyone was “ok” after the car flew off the cliff and rolled thirty times down the embankment to avoid hitting a deer (which was kinda only not at all true).

Once I learned that I was a writer—which helped me stop telling such harrowing tales to classmates, I focused my imagination on writing short stories. This landed me a full scholarship to an all-women’s college, and a creative writing grant from Sue Grafton. Here’s where stories are good: They can open doors for you.

Stories can heal us simply by the retelling of them. A painful story shared with a close friend or therapist can help us move it through our bodies, and into a space of healing. I see this every time I host our monthly women’s writing circles. Our writers write and everyone reads, gives praise, feedback and constructive tips on what they would like more or less of. We laugh, we question, we expose our hearts. What occurs is healing and from this a sisterhood. This is where story can truly transform our lives in a practical way.

Now, here’s where story can cause suffering: When we identify with one that repeats in our heads and clouds our possibilities. We stick to stories that tend to be defining moments. For instance, I love telling the story about getting fired from the tea company. It makes me marvel at the turn of events. I’m not mad about it. I’m not bleeding (anymore) from it, and I actually find it fun to give the twists and turns of the journey to show my audiences that not only can we reinvent ourselves, but the stuff that looks scary as hell can actually point us to our destiny. I’m writing now. What was the one thing I mourned daily while at the tea company? No time to write. So, is this a healing story or a suffering story? I choose healing.

Now when you are moving through your life, what stories do you tell over and over? Is it a breakup story or a big break story? Is it a story of how you met or how you started your company? Is it a story of how you once felt a certain way? Is it a story from your childhood or one of justifying an addiction? I’d love you to take inventory right now.

Healing stories connect you to others. Suffering stories isolate you from connection. Plain and simple. So, let’s get some healing on.
Take Action:

Identify your three main stories and then add a perspective to them. Are they suffering stories or healing stories?

Example:

I got fired. It wasn’t my fault.
-Suffering.

I was released, and now I’m free to find my true calling.
-Healing.

*
We are divorced, he/she is a cheater. I was betrayed.
-Suffering.

We are no longer married, he/she set me free, I have a wide open space for myself, my dreams, and my person now.
-Healing.

*
I had a rough childhood.
-Suffering.

My childhood taught me to have sensitivity to others’ anger which is masked pain. It gave me depth, compassion, and skills to discern who I want in my life.
-Healing.

*
All the good ones are taken.
-Suffering.

My soulmate is out there looking for me. In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate my delicious singledom.
-Healing.

*
No one hires people over fifty.
-Suffering.

I’m excited to share my badass experience in exchange for all forms of currency: Appreciation, cash, and fun.
-Healing—yum!

*
There’s not enough funding for my business. Taxes are too high. It’s too expensive.
-Suffering

If a fidget spinner can make someone a quadrillion million zillion bucks, I can freaking do anything.
-Yep.
One thing you may notice about looking at the three main stories with which you most identify, is that they are clues to what you are meant to be working on in your life and psyche. They are your targets for knowing exactly how to max out your own growth potential. They also expose the mindset you’ve formed around your perceived limits and inevitable expansion.

Do you find yourself telling the same story about:

Your age
Your love
Your body
Your money
Your opportunities
Your relationships
Your dreams
Your Past
Your future

Examine whether or not your three identifier stories are suffering or healing stories. How you can tell, is that a suffering story will make you feel stuck and heavy in your body. A healing story will feel effervescent and light edged, maybe even cause a flutter in your fabulous tummy.

So, that’s the assignment from the universe this week. I can barely wait to hear your stories in the comments on the blog, oh how I love our conversations, sweet seekers of holistic success, you make my heart sing.

Here’s to your best story yet,

P.S. Have you seen our updated website www.zhena.tv? I’m kinda super proud of it. I spend a lot of time branding women, and hadn’t rebranded in three years—check it out and tell me what you think—it’ll evolve a lot, but I hope it sparks some creative energy in you to keep your own brand fluid and filled with the gorgeous life force you are.

P.S.S. If you haven’t signed up for our final live Author’s Academy, we have room for 10 more aspirational, inspirational creatives who want to publish their first or next book from a position of power, blow through the idea that there are gatekeepers, build a scintillating platform, and work some word & soul magic. It’s a fun event and there will be breakthroughs, and maybe breakdance. You never know.

A lot of people ask me how I get so much done, and I jokingly reply: Caffeine! But, there’s another trick to being productive I want to share with you now, one that I usually don’t talk a lot about: Daydreaming, and for extended periods of time.

The secret to success is…
Spacing Out

When was the last time you spent a day just staring at the sky, or “zoning out” on nature or in your home, without a screen? Do you do this often or does it make you feel bad? Do you feel like you have to be reading or being productive when you’ve got a few moments of reprieve?

I spent the day with the founder of Atria Books, my “boss,” my friend, my mentor: Judith Curr, last week in Malibu. We had a lot to go over, and a lot to review on the Enliven list. It was a rarity to have more than an hour to meet, as when we’re in New York, it’s just so busy. But, we were able to just be together for a few hours with less demands and more time to explore through conversation, and a little daydreaming, and we uncovered so many solutions, ideas, and wonderments by giving ourselves enough time to stare out the window at the sea, and give ourselves time to just be with ideas and solutions to challenges we face as publishers. It was miraculous really.

I asked her how she got so much done, because her list of to do’s includes launching weekly NY Times Bestsellers and running a huge organization. She too said she daydreams a bit, by the seaside, in the form of gardening. When I got home from our meeting a new book was waiting for me on my bedside, Thank-you for Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman where he writes of thanking a new friend for being late to a meeting so he could have time to daydream a bit, to make connections in his mind that he formerly couldn’t without the spaciousness.

These instances reminded me that spaciousness is the key to how I am able to discover everything possible in my life, my projects, and in my relationships.

Spaciousness
is
Success

Giving time to “be with” a business, a perceived problem, a creative project, or a person means there is spaciousness and spaciousness leads to having time to look into the sky and not “know” for a minute or an hour. By doing this, your conscious mind can send a note to your subconscious and let it come up with a new answer, a new path, a better way forward. Without the daydreaming time allotted to send messages back and forth from your conscious to unconscious minds, there is a lack of spaciousness, and a more “desperate” vibe when it comes to getting where you want to go. Without spaciousness and time, there is a grasping, and grasping leads to failure.

So this week, I have an assignment from the universe for you. Give yourself an hour every single day to do nothing. Zone out. Stare at the ceiling. Don’t use your phone to zone out, don’t use the crazy news to zone out. Don’t use Facebook or Instagram to zone out. But zone out, daydream, make spaciousness a practice and let me know how it goes in the comments.

I bet what is possible in not scheduling anything during this hour will surprise you. I bet the best is yet to come for you and your dreams. I bet your subconscious is a well ready to be tapped for more than you ever imagined possible.
Sending you time, love, and spaciousness,

Ten years ago, I went to a ten-day silent meditation retreat called Vipassana as taught by S.N. Goenka. What I learned was simple, excruciating, and mind-blowing—literally. While I recommend you do this retreat, it’s not realistic for the majority of us to go away for ten days with no contact with the outside world…but, these are the lessons that stuck for me, for a decade (so far), which is why I’m sending them your way in hopes they blow your mind open for your week ahead ☺.

YOU ARE FREE TO BE

& the world doesn’t need you to check your email every hour, or even every day.

You train people to have expectations by how often you respond, or not.
What happens if you take a day to respond to something? Will the world end?
Set a time each day to check email and social, then shut it off. You can do it!

YOU ARE WANTED, BUT NOT ALWAYS NEEDED

Your kids/family/friends/staff don’t actually need you to always be there.

That feeling of obligation you feel doesn’t always have to be there. Unless you’re nursing or in the middle of a crisis, your presence isn’t usually as required as you may think. Both fabulous and a little poignant. Start observing what is habit and what is true need in your relationships to connect more deeply.

RE-ENVISION SUCCESS AS A DAILY PRACTICE

Your ideas of success are just that: Ideas of success, not necessarily real—so why not reinvent them everyday?

Turns out, underneath it all, I thought being needed and busy all the time was success.
As soon as I realized I wasn’t needed all that much (and wasn’t all that “important”) and didn’t need to be “busy” to be present, alive, and happy, my world split open—in a good way!
When you’re able to reinvent success on a daily basis, you enjoy constant growth!

NAME, KNOW, LET GO

If you name it, observe it, and move on, you become liberated from “it.”

In Vipassana, you observe a sensation and then let it go. This is priceless in daily life for those of us overthinkers, sensitives, and empaths. Naming your emotions and beliefs that stunt you sets you free..
Example: “Overthinking.” Observe, move on. “Judging.” Observe, move on. “Fearing.” Observe, move on.

What I learned through Vipassana, and the continued practice of it in daily life, is that if you name something that is bothering you, it will go away. So, this week, I’d love for you to practice this and let me know how it goes! Here’s your Intergalactic Assignment ☺.

I hope this is helpful for your real life, as we don’t have time for fluff these days now do we? If you found it useful, let me know on the blog, social or here ☺. I can’t wait to hear how it works for you if you choose to do the practice this week.

This is my last week in Bali and I’ll be back in the States next week. I’ll probably write about re-entry…because, isn’t everything about reentry?  Sending you love, and Vipassana-level insight for this week to come.

With Love, in Detail,

Mondays used to mean I would have to kiss Sunday goodbye and enter the world of supermarket sales and moving tea through distribution channels. Mondays also used to mean I was exhausted because I had usually worked a trade show or caught up on marketing over the weekend. Running Zhena’s Gypsy Tea was fun, but it also eventually became a grind like any other grind—meaning, it stopped being fun and started being mostly work.

Today, Mondays look a little hectic in all honesty, but also promising. It’s when I present new books to the editorial board for Enliven, and it’s now when I write to you and have a weekly practice of sending you the Monday newsletter. This brings me joy because I love to write for people, and bringing this new newsletter to you means I have an opportunity to do one of two things: Inspire or Bore you.

So, let me know if I bore you so I stop, and if the content you begin receiving here is inspiring (which is the point) let me know what you want more of and what you want less of. Then, it’s not just an email letter, it’s a conversation!

So, for this first newsletter, I want to share an intention I set for myself at the beginning of the year, it’s so far been fabulous!

Phew, what a great thought, right!? Now, at the tea company, I was myself when I was working in the tea fields for worker rights, designing new packaging, hosting big gypsy tea parties, and being super creative. I was not being myself when I was fighting off competition on the shelves of major chains, defending my decisions to people who didn’t think gypsy tea parties and fair trade were worthy expenditures (it’s true, they weren’t my tribe), and working long hours on supply chain hiccups due to dock strikes and rushed orders. Nope, none of this fed my soul. It was necessary but not me.

So when I left the tea company, it was with great sadness but also a great relief, as there was somebody who would love and thrive on that sort of work and they should absolutely be successful at being themselves at it! But what happened when I realized I didn’t know who I was anymore? What did getting paid for being myself mean when I couldn’t figure out who “myself” even was? And not to mention but I usually got in trouble for being myself, meaning I was too loud, too excited, too risky, too impulsive, too fast, too changeable. Being myself hadn’t paid off in childhood so I became the strong CEO tough girl. So, who was I really?

And what does it mean to get paid to be you?

What I’ve spent the last three years doing is checking out what brings me joy and what it really means to be successful. I’ve measured currencies like cash, attention, time & energy, and I’ve discovered that getting paid to be myself means I get to be enthusiastic, expansive, curious and in service to a higher purpose in my day while not feeling like crap for saying the wrong thing in the wrong meeting. I get to be me, and if you’ve ever taken a class with me or worked with me I cuss, I am fierce, and I don’t have an edit button on my mouth. So what does getting paid to be myself look like now? And how can it look for you?

1.       I get to discover and celebrate talent in others: As a publisher and QueenMaker™ (brander), I get to be a cheerleader and I like being a cheerleader (enthusiasm)

2.       I get to work as a consultant on projects of my choosing: This quenches my insatiable curiosity and keeps me excited! I’ve worked on A.I., green cosmetics, meditation courses, nonprofits, consumer packaged goods companies, and countless other exciting businesses.

3.       I get to travel and serve a higher purpose. Through this my heart is returned to the feelings I felt as a fair trade activist—that was the greatest “job” of being of service and now I get to help systems designers make it real for more people than ever.

SO, what if you got paid simply for being yourself. What would it look like? What would your days look like and how would you redefine your task lists to feed the job of being YOU?

I have an inkling that you would experience a few shifts, as I am still shifting on a daily basis as my new intention grounds itself, but here are some inquiries for you to look at as you move through your week.

1.       When I’m doing ____________ I feel like I’m sparkling.

2.       As I wake up in the morning, the thing I most look forward to is ________________________.

3.       When I am doing _______________________ the world seems to respond like a happy magnet to me.

I’d love to hear your responses to these questions! Meet me at my Facebook page or respond to this post – let’s get this “being yourself party” started. Because if I know one thing for sure, I know this:

Some thoughts on civilization.
Bali Journal #2

We’ve never been in this territory before. It’s loud and overcrowded, there is construction everywhere. A steady flow of traffic is heading somewhere we can’t see. The new Ritz Carlton is going up where the monkeys used to dwell. The owners of the villa are a young Bulgarian couple who explain how the monkeys used to break into the house and eat the snacks, but sadly have moved on, somewhere away from the massive construction. They are sad.

Geckos made a nest with candy wrappers which rustle over my son’s bed in the downstairs room. He complains he can’t sleep as I listen to motorcycles race up and down the freeway—where are they going? It’s 6am on a Sunday. Roosters and birds are singing, not nearly loud enough though.

We’ve never been in Nusa Dua, it’s a tourist area of Bali. We’ve been in Ubud and Canggu, but never here. We vacated the last property due to noise, rats, and the feeling like the neighbors were yelling at us in our sleep—no insulation and a nightmare of noise. It’s getting hard to escape. I went online and the island was 93% booked for a three-bedroom villa, and those available were over $400-$1,000 US a night, not worth it, I thought. We settled on Nusa Dua as I’d been curious and the villa looked darling.

Last night, we went to the “Bali Connection” which seems to be all the rage here. Oye. It’s like Orange County California had sextuplets and then exponentially multiplied everything wrong with itself into a canned, inauthentic, open air mall geared for very rude tourists. I was embarrassed to be white. After the third or fourth white person yelled at a shopkeeper, I apologized. It’s the tenth or so time I’ve seen it happen on this trip. And then I went into the department store while Mia, Sage and Gerard awaited dessert to get hair ties and another white girl, maybe sixteen, was yelling at one of the women while her mom looked proudly on.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW IF THESE ARE THE LATEST HOT WHEELS?” She was huffing and puffing and was so pretty and monstrous I almost flew across the store to stick my hand in her mouth. She spat and yelled, rolling her eyes as her mom crossed her arms over her chest. I apologize for them, I do. Over Hot Wheels.

We’ve never been here before. Up until about two hundred years ago, there were only 500 million humans on planet earth. Now, we teeter on 7.5 Billion humans burgeoning and eating up the fish, flying in planes and stomping their feet over Hot Wheels. I see rich women throw fits and cry inside. What has become of us? So fast, so entitled, and so without a plan. This keeps me up at night. Along with the traffic here in Nusa Dua, which seems never to stop.

I perch on the balcony to get my morning meditation in before the kids wake up. I put earplugs in my ears and begin my mantra. I hear a bell and look over the edge of the fence and see a cow and her calf eating grass. She’s so beautiful. Her eyes are so alive, her coat a perfect tawny, her bell and babe swinging and following her lead. I love her. I want to pet her and hang out with her. I decide I need to go vegan again.

A white man in the warung the other night carried on a lively conversation with his date. He seemed like an expat? I was curious but focused my eyes and ears on Sage, as we were on a mommy and me date. Best Mie Goreng ever, we decided. As we ventured into Balinese traditional jelly tea territory the man behind us began to yell at the waiter. An eruption out of nowhere, a volcano spewing hot beer spit.

“WHERE IS MY CHECK?”
Dammit, they are so dumb. He said to his date.

GIVE ME MY CHECK, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?
These Balinese move so slow, they are not getting a tip. I hate that they add the service fee into the bill, I won’t pay it he seethed.

The waiter who moments before was laughing with us over the weird jelly tea turned to the man and was so gracious my heart burst. The young man ran to the till and grabbed the check. It happened so suddenly, a beautiful night, a great conversation, then berating an innocent. Is this white privilege? Who are these people? I don’t know.

Sage and I left a tip for the rude man, and a generous tip for ourselves. But more so, we touched the young waiter’s hands and thanked him for one of the best meals of our lives. We looked him in the eyes and smiled with our hearts. We are sorry for what is happening. I’ve seen privileged women throw fits over their “too sweet” drinks, I’ve seen entitlement ooze from those I otherwise had respected. How did we get here? Who have we become?

Nusa Dua is a series of chain hotels. Chains to be sure. They are a link blocking the beach from locals and from those who clean the sheets and towels of those who stay in the massive resorts. I watch these behemoth buildings from the backside from our sweet little villa. I wonder how long the world, our earth, can sustain these exorbitant metropolis 300+ room hotels.

The Bali Connection feels dated although it’s shiny and new. It’s the end of our civilization all wrapped up in a chain link outdoor mall full of abused Balinese shopkeepers. Making eye contact with them felt like salvation of sort. I will go with you, I thought. I want to leave too. To rescue the locals from the mess we’ve made of the west is daunting. In my heart there is an escape route.

Where do we go from here when here has never actually been defined? How can the yelling, mean, single-mindedness of humanity be taught kindness? Grace? How can we give nature back her homes for the monkeys and birds and geckos? Would it ever be possible to harmonize our greed with their needs? How do we wake up en masse or do we even bother for those so far gone they will scream at a young woman over a Hot Wheels?

I live in a bubble. The person who reported me to the county over my yurt began to pop that bubble. Without my “safe space” I became untethered and started seeing the world in a more harrowing a point of view. I’ve always seen the trash on the beach, but now my safe haven in Ojai was busted. I’m an open wound of sorts, seeing my privilege and wondering how to share more of me in more meaningful ways. My insulation to the dregs of what we’re up against got removed. I am seeing what the world is playing at and I know it’s a deadly deadly game. We are on the brink of either a great awakening or the end of civilization. Because you can only get so rich, you can only have and hold so much. You can only stay at a fancy resort so often before you start to see what was lost in its wake. You can only wish riches on so many, while the population seeks food and shelter.

My driver from the retreat, Made, explained how his grandparents, rice farmers, are now so happy to be using commercial fertilizers as they can harvest their rice now every four months instead of six. He explains that the chicken growers are so happy they can use growth hormone and get a fully grown chicken in three weeks versus a year. He’s glowing with the information, he’s so happy his three-year-old can eat more now and that prosperity and food security has finally become his family’s fortune.

Who am I to tell him the dangers of his thinking? Who the hell am I, the one on vacation in Bali with a credit card and a lot of luggage? Who am I to explain organics and the importance of waiting a year for a chicken to feed your child?

We’ve never been here before. Uncharted. Untethered. Uncontrollable. While I wanted to believe humanity is on the brink of awakening, I see sometimes how naïve I am. Seeing these huge tourists eating huge portions of crabs, lobsters and downing Cokes, treating the servers with such disdain, it’s confusing to me. Have I fallen from grace or have I simply opened my eyes? Have I been catapulted into reality or am I being given a view of something I’m to help fix?

Because resources on planet earth are not meant to be open loop. Don’t run your air conditioning with the door open! Don’t drive when you can walk! Don’t waste so much food! Don’t fly to the meeting when you can use Skype! We are using it up. We are eating it like hungry ghosts.

Mia wakes up and I’ve used my alone time now to write this. I write because I can’t make sense of where we are without it. This is a new place, I’m worried and hopeful, I’m sober and awake.

Some thoughts on being a mother to others. A blog post from Bali. (and the result of three cups of Bali Coffee.)

***

“We’re eating noodle soup in Taipei, see you this afternoon!”

Butterflies hit my belly like leaves in wind—strong, soft, tangled. Poignancy is a word that could replace pregnancy, as it sums up what you will experience becoming a parent. So much love pulses through my body when missing them, away or working a lot, I don’t pay the attention I’ve been given to just them. They grow independent from me. In my mind, I was supposed to be their only source of life, but nothing is more wildly untrue. They need you and they don’t. You’re the most influential being and you’re not. They eat noodles with or without you.

Ten days ago I embarked on a journey to Bali and left them with Gerard. I taught a women’s writing retreat on the island and we planned Gerard would bring the kids to meet me, it was a separation by international dateline and a globe. This used to be easier for me when they were younger, we had more time, now I know the urgency of their maturing minds and expanding bodies. I am missing the luxury of their childhood. “Days are long; years are short” is the saying when it comes to raising children. I scoffed at it, but from here I know it.

Sorting laundry and reminding the kids not to shake their toothbrushes so the paste splatters the clean mirror, I forget the taste of this sort of missing. Missing their soft skin and new souls, their nubby noses and burrowed hands. Mia sounded so much older when we talked yesterday, she said, “OMG” four times when speaking with one of my authors, Emma Mildon. Mia’s voice sounded deeper, raspier, like more of the world was behind her. She consumes days like wildfire. Age seven is a third of the way to twenty-one. Will we go to a wine tasting on her 21st? Or a temple? A spa? Will I be here that long?

There is so much risk in opening to life. I cry often when the pain of being alive and scared is forcing me to allow them their own journey. I want to be in every one of their thoughts. Their eye contact opens my soul; I am sad after these ten days that I make more eye contact with my email sometimes than with them. I will change that. Distance has proven I don’t have it in me to miss anything else of them.

Being a mother is pregnant with hot tears and tantrums one moment and wet kisses and fingers wrapped around mine the next. I am a mother at my core. I mother not only these creature treasures by which I’ve been biologically blessed, but also my authors, clients, friends, and even those I don’t know. Even you. I shake my head at the dramas of the world, and wonder where Trump’s mom was during his character development. Missing? Overbearing? Too weak? What creates a hungry ghost and will Mia’s bent for sugar create one in her later? How can I make everything easier for her, for Sage? How can I keep the plankton from dying? The bees from disappearing. Who mothered the executives who build infrastructures that rape nature? How can I mother them?

Mothers are the boundary setters. The ones who are supposed to instill a sense of responsibility, compassion, and manners into the minds of their spawn. Mothers are the friends who read your whole email. The ones who tell you when to stop. Mothers are embattled servants of what is good and right, hopefully. We feel like we fail when we are really only losing by our points of limited view.

We are archetypal, feminine heroic mothers. We parent pets and mother meals. We foster community and hide our needs so others’ can be filled. We mother plants, prophecies, and fill the birdbath. Mothers here on Bali pile their babes two and three on a moped and speed through the streets with concerned concentration, with a dignity granted by their children’s existence. We as mothers are afforded less time for mistakes. We need to mother more and worry less. We need to stop the plastic spilling into the oceans, to say what we think instead of hiding our guilt for not being enough.

While the kids and Gerard are on layover in Taipei, my friend Olivia is planning an arrival party for them here. She wants them to feel loved, and that they were thought of, anticipated with gifts. I didn’t think to do that. I just wanted to fill my needs with their faces and voices. I wanted to touch them to make sure they are real and this life is real, after all, they are somehow my only proof. Olivia isn’t a mother yet, but she mothers better than me today as we go to markets looking for Balinese toys, trinkets and sweets to gift them on arrival. We are all each other’s mother. I am mothering her for her mom while we’re here on Bali. She is mothering my children. We are interchangeable but never irreplaceable.

I beg Gerard for some pictures of the kids in the airport eating noodles. I text him: “Please send pics of kids eating noodles, my mom cells are starved.” But the internet at the airport is slow, the pictures trapped mid-flight between satellites. My heart feels pangs waiting for them while I sip my third cup of Bali coffee. Tucked away on Monkey Forest Road in Ubud I measure the minutes.

The pictures aren’t coming through. I ask Gerard to send me details. He writes: “Kids ate big breakfast, Sage is noodling on his computer, Mia is playing on her Kindle, and I am reading a novel. My international data plan must not have kicked in.” This craving to know what they are eating and how, what they are wearing and how their eyes look at this moment. I want everything. I want it now.

I want love in detail. I realize as I’ve stopped working on that manuscript that detail is required nourishment for the soul of whatever life we’ve chosen.

At the writing retreat, my student and new friend, Worth, told me of her near death experience. She said of the afterlife, “It’s beautiful, but boring. That will always be there, but this life won’t.” She summed up my next book in one line, and I wondered if I’d need to write it now at all. But yes, I must mother that too. I want to savor each word like I want to savor my children’s faces eating noodles in Taipei. It’s written, perhaps sloppily so, but by measure it’s been one of my greatest pleasures—to dive into a sea of words, sentences, and to savor the growing tension of time limits and limited vocabulary have busted my mind open to taste the infinite through the writing, the translating of soul-on-paper process.
Worth mindfully eats her way through her second life, leaving nothing on the table. I envy her as I remember Mia asking for my attention one day, I shooed her away the conference call I was on more important.

I say things to the kids like, “Mommy has to work to pay for this nice house, these yummy meals,” but I know that’s a bullshit excuse that doesn’t deliver them what they need at all. In fact, it makes them believe my absence is the fee I pay for their comfort. I hate that I say it. I will stop as soon as they touch down here on Bali. I will be better. I will take less for granted. I will be the mother they need and that the world needs.

And when they arrive later today, there will be a celebration. And the pictures of them eating noodles will become my prize, I will post them. I will share them. I will dive into the details of them both in person and through the details of being alive.