Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Ask For What You Want

Ask For What You Want

Surely I am not the only person walking around on this planet who has realized asking for what we want can be…really, really hard. Uncomfortable. And about a bazillion other words, but I’ll stick with hard and uncomfortable for now.

I’m not going to delve into why this may be…our familial and social programming…not wanting to hurt another person’s feelings, fear of speaking up on our own behalf because we might be perceived as selfish, etc., etc., etc. The list could go on until the end of time. I’m sure there are many times you have kept your mouth shut, like your lips were duct-taped together, rather than actually asking for what you wanted. Oh, the horror!

The older I get, the more I realize how silly this is. Yet I still experience this silliness at the ripe old age of 48.

I’m writing this post because something occurred to me when my lips were anything but taped together – my mouth was propped wide open at the dentist’s office. I had to have a crown put on – a huge filling put in many years ago was finally wearing out, the tooth was cracking, and I was experiencing sensitivity to temperature.

So, there I was in Dr. Maggie’s office, enduring an hour and a half appointment with a lot of drilling, one of my biggest uncomfortable fear scenarios. (Singing solo in public is another and I really don’t enjoy pap smears.) You know that smell of having your teeth drilled? Do I even have to describe it? I didn’t think so. It’s a smell that makes me want to run to somewhere like…I don’t know…Mars. Maybe Greenland. At the very least, into the restroom or parking lot.

My current dentist does a really good job of keeping that smell, and any pain, at bay. I love my dentist, this clinic, and everyone who works there. When Dr. Maggie was inside the tooth drilling, and I winced, she asked if I could feel it. Well, yes, I could. Apparently this is rather unusual. Most people are totally numbed at this point. She pulled out some rock star formula that was developed in France and goes deeper into the bone. I didn’t feel anything the rest of the procedure. I mean, it still wasn’t fun, but I didn’t have any pain, and didn’t smell a whole lot either.

What an eye-opener! When I went to the dentist as a child and it hurt (the shot hurt, too; albeit needles were much larger then), I just assumed there was something wrong with me, that I shouldn’t have been feeling the painful feelings I was experiencing.

What a gift to have a sensitive dentist so many years later, with much better technology, who presented another option and asked if I felt that when I winced.

Just another lesson in learning to ask for what I want. I encourage you to do the same.

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Clear and Pure Intention

Have a Clear and Pure Intention

I have mentioned previously the Sacred Success workshop I attended with Barbara Stanny and 16 other women September, 2012. I keep in touch with many of these women; each week we share “upbeat updates” highlighting our accomplishments, gifts received and lessons learned (not necessarily in that order) the previous week.

I was married and step-mother of three boys for over 12 years. Their father and I divorced as the eldest, a Marine, was killed in the war in Iraq at age 21. I still keep in touch with the other two (now 26 and 24) on Facebook from time to time. I shared this in one of my upbeat updates and received a note in response from one of my “Sacred Success Sistahs” that said, among other things, “I bet you were a great step-mom. That's why the kids are still in your life. They don't have to be there, they are choosing you.”

 

My response was that I thought for the most part I was a pretty lousy step-mom, but even then I knew I was doing the best I could with the tools I had at the time. I really did try to have a positive impact on the boys, and to keep my marriage and our family together. It's clear now that I did a better job than I thought I did. My intention was good - and that is just as important as anything else…

I wouldn’t call myself a great step-mom. In fact, at times I recoil from memories of things I am embarrassed about and utterly convinced I would do differently, in retrospect.

Yet what I do know is that I did the best I could at the time in any given moment. That’s all any of us can do. What I believe our parents did as well. And there is nothing more authentic than that. Everybody makes mistakes, takes missteps. If we have a clear and pure intention, the rest will eventually take care of itself.

Always do your best. –Don Miguel Ruiz (One of THE FOUR AGREEMENTS)

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Your Authenticity as a Model

Your Authenticity as a Model for Others


There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. –Robert Louis Stevenson

Many parents know this. Many non-parent people know this. It is good being happy. Most of us tend to feel happier when we are around happy people. I was a step-mom for over 12 years, and I knew this. And a lot of the time I sucked at it!

A lot of us suck at being our authentic selves in relationships. Perhaps especially when we are around people (like children) we feel we need to teach, who can also be the most likely to emulate us. Which is pretty back-asswards, when you think about it. Which, I suppose, is why so many people grow up convinced they are going to do everything the exact opposite of how their parents did. Which typically doesn’t work either, in the long run.

It seems so many of us have expended so much energy trying to make other people happy, that we end up tense and unhappy ourselves, which does just about as much to please other people as poking a hole in a bicycle tire so the bike will fit better into that tight space in the garage. Which is approximately as effective as expecting other people to change for the benefit of our happiness.

Whatever we say, do, or even think, can be a gift of our (hopefully often happy and tension-free) authenticity to the people around us. They can absorb our experience, from our example, without us having to “teach” a thing. Doesn’t that feel like a relief?!

If you’re a parent, you have a very good idea of what your children are unconsciously picking up from you. If you’re a teacher, you know how you are reaching your students. Or not. If you’re in a romantic relationship, you know how your lover is responding to you before they say a word or you ask a question.

As you’ve probably figured out reading my blog, I am an avid reader and have favorite writers. Every writer I admire has been influenced by other writers and has their favorites as well.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my faves - Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.  

My son, Sam, at three and a half, had these keys to a set of plastic hand cuffs, and one morning he intentionally locked himself out of the house. I was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper when I heard him stick his plastic keys into the doorknob and try to open the door. Then I heard him say, “Oh, shit.” My whole face widened, like the guy in Edvard Munch’s Scream. After a moment I got up and opened the front door.

“Honey,” I said, “what’d you just say?”

“I said, ‘Oh, shit,’” he said.

“But, honey, that’s a naughty word. Both of us have absolutely got to stop using it. Okay?”

He hung his head for a moment, nodded, and said, “Okay, Mom.” Then he leaned forward and said confidentially, “But I’ll tell you why I said ‘shit.’” I said Okay, and he said, “Because of the fucking keys!”

God, that made me laugh the first time I read it, and still does re-creating it for you. J

Here are a couple recent photos of two activities I engage in that sing to my authentic self. Batting a tennis ball around the court (without keeping score or serving) and watering my little garden plot. It was also really fun to put braided pigtails in my hair at the age of 48. I got a little help with the back part.

Do you know how to give folks what they most, most, most want from you without even asking what it is?

In all regards, just be yourself.

That’s what they were after when they manifested you into their lives.

Whoa! –The Universe – www.tut.com (Thoughts become things…choose the good ones – registered trademark.)

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Vacation Photos

Vacation Photos

Here are a few vacation photos. We will get back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. J

 

The Golden Princess in Alaska, Ketchikan

 

 

 

 

Sawyer Island Glacier

 

 

 Priceless intricate carving on woolly mammoth tusk

 

 

 

 

 

Glacier Gardens, Juneau

 

 

 

 

 

Mendenhall Glacier & Nugget Falls

 

 

Skagway

 

 

 

 

Awesome Italian boots I picked up in Skagway (a splurge)

 

 

 

Victoria, BC, Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last, but certainly not least, some photos of me and my love aboard the ship.

 

 

 

Authentically Yours, Laura