Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. The Art of Discipline

The Art of Discipline

I’ve been reflecting recently on discipline in regards to living an authentic life.

I suspect pretty much no-one is going to live the life they truly want in their heart without dedication and consistency. Even Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones was consistent about showing up on stage for every gig, even if someone else had to drag him out there and stick the guitar in his hands. (I read that a while back in Rolling Stone Magazine.)

I think I came out of the birth canal disciplined. If I could have cleaned my own diapers, I would have. My home gets cleaned every week whether it needs it or not, meaning it never needs any more cleaning than has already happened…unless there's some odd thing. Like a big pickle making thing or having people over for dinner thing. Which really isn’t that odd, now that I think about it.

I also always know my bank account balances and what it is my kitchen. As I am running out of something in the pantry, I write it down on the grocery list. I have never, in my entire life, ever run out of toilet paper.

I am disciplined, and structure in pretty much everything around my day job. Yet it's very clear to me my dietary habits are something I don't want to be disciplined about. I have this list of suggested changes from my naturopathic physician, after keeping a food diary for a week.

Really? No cheese? Seriously, my love affair with Chardonnay? Cigs are gone. But I miss them too, from time to time. I love peanut butter but did buy a jar of almond butter. Okay, it’s good. But it’s still not the same! Almond milk for the rest of my life? Tomatoes are one of my favorite things and there are tons in the garden!!!!! Are you kidding me in regards to the citrus fruits??!! OMG!

I am being so dramatic. Dr. C assured me that I can try taking dairy out of my diet, etc., and see what happens. It doesn't mean I can never have a slab of medium cheddar again as long as I live. However, my digestive system might be better able to take on a piece of say, aged, white cheddar...which I have fallen in love with lately....instead of softer cheeses…and that grapefruit is not something I need to say goodbye to forever.

Sigh.

I have decided to take most of the recommendations on a little at a time…slowly. So it doesn’t seem so dramatic. Acupuncture, for the first time in my life – I’m digging on it so far, after two treatments. Some thought re-arranging will be needed, and great self love.

Here’s to the discipline of great self love!

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Just Be You

Just Be You

As I was cleaning the bathroom floor just now, on my hands and knees, I began having an imaginary conservation in my mind, as we all do from time to time, with a close family member. (Hopefully you are having a mental conversation with your own close family member and not mine. I might be fearful otherwise.)

The question in my imagination (which probably never would have been asked anyway) was something like this. “Why aren’t you going to organize that lunch we talked about?  Who is going to do it if you don’t?” It could equally have been, “You’re not going? But you said you would.”

No matter the myriad of questions that could have been posed in my mind, the response was this:

I have spent far too much of my life trying to structure myself and activities around what I thought other people wanted or needed from me.

As it turns out, what I thought they needed or wanted from me wasn’t it at all.

They just needed me to be me.  

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Authenticity and Body Image

Authenticity and Body Image

It’s only in my 40’s I’ve realized I have had a negatively distorted body image for basically my entire adult life. I look back at photos of my 20 something self in a two piece – if not necessarily “bikini” – swimsuit and wonder what on earth I was worried about.  

It’s true we are all bombarded with media images of beautiful women in Hollywood who work out a lot and have personal trainers (I recently read that Gywneth Paltrow works out for two hours every day and hates it, but considers it part of her job) and have Botox injections and cosmetic surgery, etc.

I like looking at these beautiful women too, okay? Just for one example, I am amazed by Cher. Who clearly has a really good surgeon and takes very good care of her body.

I am equally amazed by Annette Bening, whom some may say snagged the perennial bachelor (Warren Beatty), has probably had no facial surgery, and looks just as beautiful with lines on her face and takes very good care of her body.

My breasts were very small as I was coming into womanhood. Looking in the shower or bath from the age of 13 through like 19, I kept wondering if I would EVER get breasts that amounted to anything. Around the age of 21 (I must say my breast size was never an issue in my sex life – it only was in my own mind), I simply accepted my small breasts. It never occurred to me to have an augmentation. In my 30’s, I finally found a bra size, Nearly A, that actually fit right! I was thrilled! Bought two of those comfortable bras with no underwire before the line was discontinued and essentially wore them out.

Guess what? My breasts are a bit bigger now that I’m getting closer to 50. And I love them! But so is my waistline and my belly! And I don’t love that so much. So go figure…

I am seeing a naturopath about the weight gain and GI digestive issues (so this isn’t totally vanity!) and have a more nutritional path to follow. Yet I still haven’t quite figured out how to love my body exactly as it is in any given moment. I’m pretty sure it’s not about learning something, rather about releasing something.

In the meantime, here’s to an awesome Godwalk!

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Trust Your Own Emotional Compass

Trust Your Own Emotional Compass

I was playing my keyboard and singing when a memory came flooding over me and I sat down and wrote this post.  

It was Christmas at my family home. A lot of relatives were over for the festivities. I was in my bedroom playing the piano and singing Christmas music. One I chose was STAR OF THE EAST. I was having a very good time playing the piano and singing that song. If I remember correctly (my memory is a little sketchy here), other relatives were singing with me.

Uncle Steve rushed in (this part I remember for sure) and asked me to play it again because (this part I don’t remember for sure) one of the older female relatives – could have been my maternal grandma, or great-aunt – really liked that song.

So, I started playing it again.

Then another relative came in and asked me to stop playing it because X older female relative was in tears.

Obviously, Uncle Steve and whoever the other relative was interpreted X older female’s emotional reaction in very different ways. Based, no doubt, on their own emotional responses not only to the music, but how they felt being around someone who was crying. I did later learn that STAR OF THE EAST was this relative’s deceased mother’s favorite Christmas hymn.  So, it brought about some emotion.

The moral of this story, if there is one…? Trust your own internal, emotional compass.

I was a teenager when this happened, and not all that integrated with my own emotions.

I suppose if I were to go back and do it differently, knowing what I know now, I would simply shut the lid to the piano and walk over to either my grandma or great-aunt, and ask her if she wanted me to play the song again. I would take her hands, if she wanted them to be taken. If she wanted to cry and other people were uncomfortable with that, perhaps, I could whisperingly ask if she wanted to step into the laundry room or outside for a moment.

In which case she could weep to her heart’s content on my shoulder and and / or tell me (if she wanted to) what memories that song brought up about her mother. I suspect they were very good ones, and that she missed her mom.

I don’t think of this as a coulda, woulda, shoulda thing. That was a long time ago.

I just wanted to write about the memory when it swept over me…as it’s an awesome reminder to trust your internal, emotional compass. Therein, authenticity lies.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live. –Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Authentically Yours, Laura

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