Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. What I would say to my 13-year-old self

What I would say to my 13-year-old self

Here I am on my 13th birthday. Nice glasses, huh? The cake looks better. :)

 

You may recall I asked four questions in the last post.

1. First, try and sum you up in about three sentences, if you feel you have a calling, that kind of thing.

2. What does living an authentic life mean to you? Where in your life do you feel the most authentic? The least?

3. Can you describe a situation you have experienced wherein you felt you were being asked to be less or different than who you authentically are? How did you respond? Do you have suggestions for others who may find themselves in a similar situation?

4. If you were to go back to, say, your 13-year-old self right now, and tell her what you wished someone would have told her or that she would have already embraced (maybe she already had) at that age, what would it be?

As I was writing these questions for Gina, I realized I had some answers of my own. In particular for my 13-year-old self.

-Always speak your gut truth, compassionately and respectfully.

-See, feel, honor, and respect your emotions, and allow yourself to express and release them, whatever those emotions are.

-Trying to make someone “like you” or to “fit in” is an exercise in futility. Just express sincere, compassionate interest in other people, and you will be fine.

-If you have a burning desire in your heart to create or do something, create or do it. Don’t worry about anything beyond that, just do the creating part and the rest will take care of itself.

Me, age 13, with my cousin Amy and horse Princess. 

 

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Authenticity. Four Questions: Gina Williams

What Does Authenticity Mean? Four Questions

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. –Sarah Ban Breathnach

I asked Gina Williams four questions about what authenticity means to her. Gina is a writer, photographer and communications professional. She works by day as Public Affairs Director for the Oregon Business Association and enjoys a creative life as well, as a poet and photographer.

 

Gina then. :)  

 

The questions I asked are:

 

1. First, try and sum you up in about three sentences, if you feel you have a calling, that kind of thing.

 

2. What does living an authentic life mean to you? Where in your life do you feel the most authentic? The least?

 

3. Can you describe a situation you have experienced wherein you felt you were being asked to be less or different than who you authentically are? How did you respond? Do you have suggestions for others who may find themselves in a similar situation?

 

4. If you were to go back to, say, 13 year old Gina right now, and tell her what you wished someone would have told her or that she would have already embraced (maybe she already had) at that age, what would it be?

 

1.       I can best describe myself as a hard-working free spirit, artist, mom, communications professional & professional goof-off with a zest for life. There is a saying that I love: “Be a human doing, not a human being.” That pretty much sums up my life philosophy. I am married to an amazing and talented man who is also an artist who gives me the freedom to follow my dreams. I am the proud mom of two incredible teenage sons who are the loves of my life. I write sentences for a living and write poetry and fiction in order to fully live.  I love to play with my camera, ride my bicycle, run, roller skate & explore this amazing planet as much as possible.

 

2.       Living an authentic life, to me, means never giving up on dreams – not the outrageous ones, not the tiny ones. Living authentically means being honest with myself and others about the fact that I am a complex person, as most of us are, but none of us should settle, ever. Living authentically means being proud of things that others might not approve of or understand and living large, in spite of societal pressures. Living authentically means helping others achieve their dreams, as well. As for the least authentic part of my life, I suppose that would be giving in to fear or anxiety occasionally.  I can slip into “worst case scenario” mode at times. (I can hear my husband laughing right now). The disruption in positivity caused by my own fretting can be extremely frustrating.

 

3.       I’m not sure if I have ever been “asked” to be less or different than who I authentically am, but I have felt disrespected and caged in the past. I handled that difficult time by looking deeply within my soul and examining my goals and dreams from top to bottom, inside and out. I concluded that art will always be a hugely important part of my life – as critical to my survival as oxygen. Without it, I am broken. The fact that some people haven’t agreed and/or do not agree with this, I finally realized, was not my problem. Once I accepted the very real need that I have to nurture the creative spirit that I’ve had since I can remember, my wings grew back and I’ve never been happier. As for advice, I would tell people that they already know themselves and to honest with about what gives their life meaning. I would also tell people not to take themselves or others too seriously and have fun! Don’t let shame or fear dictate the direction of your life. Say yes more than you say no.

 

4.       If I could go back and speak to my 13-year-old self, I would tell her that I am proud of her, then and now.  I would tell her to never, ever let society, family or anyone else dictate the course of her dreams. But I also don’t believe in regret and although I have had some difficult times, even painful and soul-sick times as many of us have had, I wouldn’t change a thing. I would just give my young self a big hug and tell her to listen to that voice in her head that says, “fly, fly” and keep on, keeping on because the future is going to be amazing. I would tell her that yes, there will be some dark days, but in spite of life’s arrows, she will never lose her childlike joy and delight at the simplest of things.

 

Gina now. :)

 

I would love to hear your answers to these four questions!  

There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. -Nehru

 

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Lasanga recipe

Lasanga Recipe (Great Aunt Martha Dale)

I had a couple of requests for the lasagna recipe, so here it is! I should tell you a little bit about great aunt Martha and uncle Don first, though. Both have passed now. They lived in Chicago, and every year they came to visit our farm in South Dakota was a celebration.

Don worked with the Coca-Cola company, and would bring us all this free shit (ie, promotional materials) every year…to this day I have a red button pin with white lettering that says, “I believe in elves.” I tend to stick it to my shirt every holiday season. I’m not sure where it came from, but…thinking back…I wonder if Keebler was a subsidiary of Coca-Cola at the time. Maybe it still is. None-the-less, I love that pin, and I do like a good Coke (regular, not diet) from time to time. Martha and Don also introduced our family in South Dakota to real honest-to-God bagels and Fanny May candy.

 

 

Don liked his manhattans; I remember that. He gave me a Carpenter’s album for my 16^th birthday when we were visiting them in Chicago. That was an utterly amazing trip for a 16 year old, I am telling you.

When they visited South Dakota, Martha would play cards with the gals while the guys were out pheasant hunting. She was always quick with a joke, smelled like leftover cigarettes, coffee and powder, and was an amazing, warm spirit. To me, she was like an exotic angel from another exciting realm. One of the fondest memories I have of Martha is while waiting for chicken at White Fence Farms restaurant in Chicago, and then after the chicken arrived. This was on my 9^th birthday, not the 16^th. I think! We just kept going “mmm, mmm, mmm.” It was an “inside” joke between us after that.

 

 

I am somewhat tweaking her recipe (like add more garlic!) but basically it remains true. Don’t be stingy on the salt.

 
Meat/tomato mixture:

1 lb. ground beef

Minced garlic (her recipe is one clove – I’d do more)

1 TBSP parsley

1 ½ tsp salt

2 cans tomatoes (or one large can)

2 cans tomato paste

1 onion, chopped

Brown the beef first with garlic and onion, drain, mix all together and simmer 30 minutes.

Cheese mixture:

3 cups small curd cottage cheese

2 eggs, beaten

2 tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

2 TBSP parsley flakes

½ C parmesan cheese

Mix together and set aside.

Pasta:

9 lasagna noodles cooked in boiling water until just tender, rinse in cool water, dry.

Shredded Mozarella cheese

In 9 x 13 pan, place half of the pasta. Layer half the cheese mixture, then half the meat sauce, then half the mozzarella. Repeat the layers, placing the pasta sideways instead of lengthways this time. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Love the food you make, and the people you share the food with.

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Lasagna Dinner

Lasagna Dinner

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so entwined that we cannot think of one without the other. –M. F. K. Fisher

We must eat. We inhabit bodies which require fuel in the form of nutrients to continue functioning.

Can eating be reverent? Can cooking be an expression of our simply authentic selves? I believe so, absolutely. 

 

I remember my ex-husband once saying, after we had woken up early in the morning as I was preparing for a family gathering and meal that day, “You are so completely in your element here.” He had a huge smile on his face.

My friend Stella, whose mother is Greek, told me the most important ingredient to put into the food is love. Amen! Have you read the book or watched the movie Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate, Laura Esquivel)? I cooked once when I was angry. The menu was split pea soup and I nearly chopped off the end of my left little finger along with a carrot. I carry the reminder to this day with a scar and loss of sensation in that finger. When I cook now, although it’s not nearly as often, I prepare food with joy, love and appreciation in my heart.

For a dinner party recently, I made my Great Aunt Martha’s lasagna recipe, which takes about three hours to prepare before baking. This is not for the kitchen-feint-hearted! I typically prepare the lasagna a week ahead of time and put it in the freezer until the day before the dinner party, so I’m not rushing around at the last minute.

 

Tomato and meat sauce. When cooking for a good friend who is vegetarian, I substituted baked squash and eggplant for ground beef. It was fabulous, if I do say so myself! My friend thought so too.

 

Pasta.

 

Cheese mixture. Cottage instead of ricotta, and didn’t grate the mozzarella myself!

We can bring our simply authentic selves to any meal – fast food in the car or on the couch, a take-out pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – as long as we do it with love. But if you do decide to cook, please don’t do it while you’re angry! Trust me, you don’t want a bunch of blood on your cutting board alongside the carrots! That might be a pizza-ordering moment. J

Simple, good salad recipe: Spinach leaves, sliced strawberries, mandarin orange slices from a can, glazed pecans or cashews, raspberry vinaigrette dressing, freshly ground black pepper.

 

Everything is nearly prepared. The dinner party was meant to be for four, but turned into two due to unforeseen circumstances. I froze individual servings of the left-over lasagna, and it was just as good heated up a couple weeks later.

I inherited Grandma Handke’s china and silverware. The bouquet is from Artistic Flowers & Home Décor. www.artisticflowers-decor.com. The gold tapers are from Cost Plus/World Market and burned beautifully. I picked autumn leaves at a park, and put them in a large, heavy book to flatten. I will be able to use them again for Thanksgiving dinner.

As the holidays approach, have fun with any simply authentic cooking you may do, and definitely with the eating!

Soul food is just what the name implies. It is soulfully cooked food or richly flavored food, good for your ever-loving soul. –Sheila Ferguson

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Authenticity

The Definition of Authenticity

 

Dictionary.com defines “authentic” as 1. Not false or copied; genuine; real: an authentic antique. 2. Having the origin supported by unquestionable evidence; authenticated; certified: an authentic document of the Middle Ages; an authentic work of the old master. 3. Entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with known facts or experience; reliable; trustworthy: an authentic report on poverty in Africa. 4. Law, executed with all due formalities: an authentic deed. And then it goes on to talk about music and cadence.

Thomas B. Macaulay wrote that the measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

 

I don’t know about you, but I remember many times I’ve done things when nobody is watching I would have never told anybody about! I don’t think I ever stuck a booger or piece of gum under the desk in grade school, but I did sneak cookies from my piano teacher’s kitchen cabinet while I was waiting for my lesson to start.

 

As an adult – good grief – it can be SO embarrassing to do exactly what you feel drawn to do in any given moment. I have felt held back so many times in the past, which is of course precisely why Spirit gave me the prompting to write about authenticity! I realize now no-one can hold me back but ME.

 

I’m thinking about this guy who regularly practices with a rope with weighted balls at either end (I’m Googling; it may be called a bolo) on the lawn outside my office building. He typically wears a fedora type hat over his dreadlocks. This may not seem unusual – especially if you are, say, on a college campus – but this is just outside a big complex of Shorenstein office buildings. There you’re more likely to see smokers on their breaks in business attire. This would also be unusual in my home town of Raymond, South Dakota, population 50. (No, I’m not kidding. As of the 2010 census.) 

 

This young man seems completely unconcerned with what anyone thinks about him, and completely free. I’m drawn to his spirit, and now know that I will stop and talk with him the next time I see him.

 

Personally, I’m okay with embarrassing myself at karaoke. Stretching as a singer and voice teacher. Taking on new clients at the office. Making a new dish I don’t know how will turn out for a dinner guest. Dancing like no-one is watching. Making dress designs just for the fun of it. I sure as hell don’t want to go sky-diving or bungee-jumping. I might want to learn to ride a motorcycle rather than just being a passenger. Maybe try water-skiing again. And do more with art again other than just collages. Although I totally love my collages!

 

 

This is the first dress I designed on paper that got made into a real dress!

 

 

This is the physical representation of that dress design!

 

 

 

A sketch I did in 1994.

 

 

 

A sketch I did in 1999.

 

 

 

 

Collage circa 2010.

 

 

 

 

At the Sacred Success workshop, after a guided visualization, we were invited to go on a walk-about and find something in nature that would be meaningful for each of us. I knew within a couple of minutes that my meaningful “thing” was a dragonfly. The dragonfly is a symbol of Archangel Michael, and has been meaningful to me for years now. So it was no surprise I saw one within a minute or two of starting my walk-about. It immediately flew away.

 

I had my camera with me and looked for other dragonflies, seeing another once…running after it, begging for a photo. No dice.

 

After that, I decided to be okay with whatever it was that I saw, and really see what I saw, taking photos of other things. It was completely fine with me if I never saw another dragonfly that day. I was at complete peace with this right up until I was told the walk-about had ended and it was time to go back inside.

 

Guess who showed up? Of course! Interesting enough, in a similar color to the “wise one” who had come to me earlier on a guided visualization.

 

 

What does meeting a dragonfly, asking that dragonfly to sit long enough for a photo session, and the dragonfly doing so, have to do with being simply authentic, you might ask?

 

 

 

That’s your challenge for the coming week. You tell me! Have you had a similar experience? What insights did it bring for you?

 

Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you are supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self. –Dr. Phil

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Sacred Success

Sacred Success

 

The price we pay for authenticity may seem high, but who among us can truly afford to continue living as a spendthrift of the self? –Sara Ban Breathnach

 

In late September, I attended a Sacred Success workshop retreat hosted by Barbara Stanny (www.barbarastanny.com.) I have been following Barbara’s work for several years, since reading her book SECRETS OF SIX FIGURE WOMEN. This book so deeply reached me, I used it to co-create a women’s group known as ACE (Abundance Circle Experience.) We met twice a month for something like a year and a half. And then I read more of Barbara’s books. My relationship with money has changed dramatically (for the better) since then.

 

This is Barbara dumping out the water that represented all our "old shit."

 

 

This is the group, minus one woman who had to leave early to meet her ride.

 

But Sacred Success is about so much more than the number of zeros in your bank account balances, your investment portfolio, or your net worth.

 

In this Thursday – Monday workshop at the beautiful Cedarbrook Lodge in Seatac, WA, I developed and embraced a purpose statement (and way more else than I can possibly share here), stood in awe of the courage and beauty of the other 16 women in attendance, and walked out with a song in my heart and a fire in my belly. And several next steps to take.

 

Those of you who know me well know I am a list person, that I compartmentalize my time so I can accomplish all the things I “need to do.” And you all know the routine, right? We don’t want to be a human “doing” all the time rather than a human “being.” I don’t know about you, but it’s far too easy for me to slip into hamster-on-a-wheel mode.  

 

Yet, after Sacred Success, I am VERY excited about what’s on my to-do list, including getting back to writing. I now have a theme for this blog: Simply Authentic…your soul voice is calling.

 

Sweet, huh?

 

That came to me on a Godwalk. (For more information on the Godwalk, see the January 2010 Wishweaving Word issue #35, Take a Risk. http://wishweavers.com/ww/index.php?option=com_letterman&task=view&Itemid=32&id=44.)

 

Shortly after I decided to take a break from writing, themes from Sara Ban Breathnach’s SIMPLE ABUNDANCE started coming to me. This extraordinary year-long daily mediation practice is essentially an instruction manual on living in alignment with your authentic self. So…the word “authentic” was already in my consciousness this last spring.

 

 

We’ll get more into what Simply Authentic means, some Simply Authentic examples from my life, and some ideas for your Simple Authenticity, in future posts. For now I challenge you to reflect on: Where in your life do you feel the most authentic? The least? What does authenticity (either for you personally, or in general) at this juncture, mean to you?

 

Feel free to post comments – the juicier, the better! J

 

Many of us squander precious natural resources – time, creative energy, emotion – comparing the size of our talents to those of others. Today, ask Spirit to call forth your authentic gifts, so that you might know them, acknowledge them, and own them. Do you want to live more abundantly? Have you buried your talents? How can we live richer, deeper, and more passionately if we aren’t willing to invest in ourselves? Many of us have played it safe for too long and wonder why we are miserable.

 

Playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make. –Sara Ban Breathnach

Blog members, after much thought - I've made a decision. I don't feel I'm in the right space, or that this blog has a consistent enough format, to continue writing the blog at this time. I'm going to take time off during the summer to reflect and regroup.

In the meantime, if there are any topics you would like broached, knowing my Wishweaver and voice training background, please feel free to pass along your comments.

Namaste, Laura