Grateful for the Book Tour

I knew I’d be writing a post like this.  I knew I’d feel changed and ever-grateful for my time with Lissa last week.  But to tell you the truth I thought it would be for totally different reasons than it is.

You see, Lissa is a Goddess.  She is a Rockstar.  She is a Rockstar Goddess!  She is grace under pressure with enough energy to light up a big city.  I was in awe of the way she moved through each day, accomplishing everything on the agenda, answering her hundreds of emails, and being loving and open enough to sit and talk with individuals after events about their very personal female problems.  She has made her way to the stage and it’s going to be so much fun to watch it all unfold and know I had a small part in it.

When the opportunity to serve as “roadie” was first brought to me I told Mark I needed to do it so I’d know if my career goals were right for me.  Since I started writing again in 2007, I have dreamed of a career like Lissa’s.  I wanted to write books and travel, speaking to crowds and doing book signings.  I’ve thought so much about this dream that in ways it has disrupted my creative writing.  As time passes and I see myself no closer to “the goal” it has really brought me down.  So getting to experience the “Rockstar Author” life vicariously through Lissa was just what I needed.

I assumed that I’d get there and think “YES!! THIS IS THE LIFE FOR ME!”  Instead, it didn’t take long for me to realize I thrive on the simple, quiet life I have.  I reserve the right to change my mind (which is something I am told Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity, used to say), but that high-demand-everybody-wants-a-piece-of-you  life is not for me.  I love that I can sit on the couch and read a book for an hour without feeling like there is something else I need to be doing.  It’s nice knowing I get to pick the girls up from school everyday and schedule playdates for them.  I don’t need to be anyone else’s Rockstar because I am one to the people it matters to the most.

During her presentations, Lissa often mentioned how you can leave your job but you can’t leave your calling.  Her calling as an OBGYN was to take care of women.  As the author of What’s Up Down There? and creator of Owning Pink, she is still answering that call.  This was something that flashed like a red light across my imagination every time she said it.   THE CALLING!  I’m not 100% sure of my calling but the trip definitely gave me some ideas.  Although I’m resisting it like you wouldn’t believe, I think it has something to do with teaching!  Just like Lissa, I left that traditional job yet I still feel called to help educate people (though I’m not exactly sure on the subject).

This Thanksgiving week, I am so grateful for the chance I had to test-drive the car before I plunked down the money to buy it.  Now I’m one step closer to the me I’m meant to be!

In honor of the holiday week the next 4 days on the blog will be low-key!  I am still in need of “click stories” if you have an “aha” moment you’d like to write about!

Lissa Rankin

In honor of heading off on tour with Lissa, the Sunday quote is from her.  I wanted to choose a quote directly from What’s Up Down There but I was so excited about spreading the message that I gave all of my copies of the book away.  The following quote from Lissa comes from a post she wrote on Owning Pink called For Victims of Molestation.

“Most importantly, know that you are loved. Your body is beautiful and whole. Your vagina is precious and wondrous. You deserve to be touched, to feel pleasure, to be cherished, to know joy, to live bountifully, to radiate sparkles of a life fully expressed. You deserve to heal.” -Dr. Lissa Rankin

Referral Day

I waited until the last possible minute, hoping someone would send me a click story.  Alas, the clickstories inbox remains empty.  As for me, I got nothing at the moment so I thought I’d refer you to a post I wrote for Owning Pink last week.  It is about an issue that I do not have the privilege to be voting on today, but one that peaks my interest none-the-less.  Please click here to read my thoughts on California’s Proposition 19.

PS:  I really want to keep click stories a part of the blog…if you have one please send it my way.  See the writers wanted page for details!!!

Jennifer Shelton’s Click

I am so excited to have Jennifer Shelton here with a writer’s click.  Jennifer is one of my favorite Owning Pink bloggers and everything she writes moves me in some way.  One thing I have observed in Jennifer as I’ve come to know her through blog posts and other exchanges is that she is a woman truly embracing her gifts in this life.  You can check out her website FemCentral as well as read her inspiring words on Owning Pink.  (She is also a really excellent astrologer if you are ever interested in getting a chart done!)

I am a writer. It’s hard for me to type that. I’m not sure I even fully believe it. But, people keep telling me that I’m a writer, and I figure that if I repeat it enough times, it will eventually sink in.

I’ve wanted to be a Writer since I was a small child. In second grade, my teacher sent me to the principal’s office to show off a poem I’d written in class. In fourth grade, I read a story about a woman who had pledged, as a young child, to be a writer when she grew up. She turned forty, and was unexplainably sad. She then remembered her pledge and started writing. I decided, at the age of 9, to
make the pledge myself!

In fifth grade, my teacher was so impressed with the assigned short story that I’d written with my spelling words, that she told me I would be a great author some day. In middle school, I placed second in my state for an essay I wrote about being an American. I was sure my writing career was going to be successful.

And, I kept hearing a chant in my head– write, write, write, write…

In high school, I don’t remember writing much of anything but entries in my journal. In college, I wrote and wrote and wrote but I was writing papers for my political science and philosophy classes. (It was the 80s and I majored in Political Science and Russian.) I would occasionally buy a Writer’s Digest magazine and attempt to write a short story or start on a novel but I always became extremely frustrated and gave up. Also, it seemed that everyone I knew thought they would someday be a published author. I started to dismiss my dream as being unlikely to succeed. Plus, I didn’t take a single creative writing class during my college career, so I assumed that was a sign that I liked the idea of writing more than writing itself.

But, I kept hearing a chant in my head – write, write, write, write…

I couldn’t find a full-time job when I graduated from college in ‘92, so I went to graduate school to study Slavic Literatures. For the next 7 years, I wrote academic papers on the major (and minor) Russian, Serbian and Croatian authors. I thought I would become a professor and academic writing would be my profession. If I couldn’t write great works of fiction, I could at least write about great works of fiction. The problem was that I hated academic writing! I finished all the coursework for my Ph.D., took some of my exams, but when it came time for the dissertation, I got a full-time job.

And, I kept hearing a chant in my head – write, write, write, write…

Over the last 10 years, I’ve taken one continuing ed short course on creative writing at Duke. I’ve spent one weekend on a retreat with Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones. I’ve entered (and lost) two short story contests. I’ve sketched out and completed the research for one novel. But, I always spend 3-4 months intensely working on creative writing, and take 1-2 years off. I get frustrated when I sit to write a creative piece and nothing comes. I try free-writing. I get angry. I yell at the voice in my head chanting “write, write, write, write” and tell it to shut up! It never does.

This past January I started my own website, FemCentral. I feature a theme a week and each day, provide a resource for the theme. One week was about the female body, and I asked OwningPink.com for permission to reprint one of their posts on the vagina. They agreed, and to my surprise, a few months
later, they asked me to write for them! So, I started writing blogs about my life and wondering why I couldn’t take that same discipline and do some “real” writing – short stories and novels.

As I got more and more involved online, I entered the social networking scene. Looking at friends on LinkedIn, I noticed that one person listed her profession as “writer, nonfiction.” The “click” on reading that was probably audible for miles. It had never occurred to me that a Writer could write non-fiction.
For some reason, Writer, to me, meant writing creative fiction.

Now, I still didn’t consider myself a writer until someone left this comment on an OwningPink.com post of mine, “I’m so happy when I discover new writers.” If she had said that to me in public, I would have looked behind me to see who she was talking to! I’m a writer? All I do is talk about life lessons I’ve learned the past forty years. (Yes, like the woman in the story I read as a child, I am now forty!)

A couple of weeks ago, I met with a woman named Sherrie Dillard. She is the author of two books on intuition, including Discover Your Psychic Type. I’m always interested in developing my intuition, and while reading her book, discovered she lives 20 miles from me! She teaches classes on intuition locally
and does psychic readings. I’ve never been to a psychic but I felt drawn to go and see her. It took me a year to get up the nerve to go but, I did. And, when she tuned into my “guides”, one of the first things out of her mouth was “are you a writer?” Ha! I said that I’d like to be.  She said, “You are a writer. You’re
a good writer. You are supposed to write and write and write, about anything and everything. The more you write, the more successful you will be.” Well, I’ll be damned. I wasn’t dreaming this up all these years after all! Still, I had needed some kind of supernatural validation, an “edict from on high,” to take
myself seriously.

Yes, I am writer. I’ve been writing all this time. I just had to let go of my preconceptions of what being a Writer meant. The chant, “write, write, write, write” is still there but now, instead of being an urgent command, I hear it as a cheer!

Leslee has been a great supporter of me since I joined the OwningPink.com community and has encouraged me to write. I thank her for the invitation to write for her blog!

What’s Up Down There?

Most of you know that I write for a website called Owning Pink (technically I should have a button here, but I’m just not that computer savvy and couldn’t get it on the page).  I met Lissa Rankin M.D. in May of 09 about a week or so after she launched her website/blog on Twitter.  I was immediately hooked on Owning Pink and in awe of Lissa.  I must admit that in the past year and a  half she has been my biggest inspiration.  Every milestone I have watched her achieve has somehow felt like it also belonged to me.  I am so emotionally invested in her mission and success!!  All that being said, her book What’s Up Down There: Questions You Would Only Ask Your Gynecologist if She was Your Best Friend was released on September 28th and I pre-ordered 3 copies (one for me and two to give away).

The weekend my books arrived I was out of town.  My daughters informed me I had a package while we were catching a ride with a friend.  Knowing I’d ordered extras, I turned to my friend and asked it she wanted a book about vaginas.  She answered with a resounding NO!  I wanted to defend the book and insist my friend take a copy, but honestly in that moment I thought what if it is just a book about vaginas?  What if it’s boring or worse what if it’s full of embarrassing tidbits that would make my conservative friends squirm?

I’d been advertising the book and telling everyone on FB to pre-order it and I had promised myself that I would write a review once I read it.  Now that I had the book, my big fear was that I wouldn’t like it. If I didn’t like it I decided I’d stick to the old rule: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

After only a few pages I quickly discovered all my fears were unfounded.  This was Lissa at her finest.  I’d been reading her words for over a year and this book was just an extended version of the beautiful posts she writes on Owning Pink.  I could hardly believe that I found myself unable to put down a book that can be found in the women’s health section of the bookstore.  The book is almost 400 pages and I read it in about 3 days.

What’s Up Down There is full of valuable information.  It answers so many of the questions you had/have and are too embarrassed to ask and answers some that you may never think of.  Almost every answer given includes a story from Lissa’s personal experience as a woman or a doctor.  You really feel like you are having a conversation with Lissa.  There were several times where I had the urge to be like “Oh my gosh, let me tell you about this time that…” then I would remember Lissa wasn’t sitting in front of me telling me these stories, I was reading them.  (I resisted the urge to email her with my OMG stories because I’d be willing to bet those emails are flooding into her inbox these days.)

The book has a wonderful flow and is broken up easily so that you can pick it up and read a quick section while the angel hair pasta is cooking or you’re waiting for your kids to put their shoes on before going for a walk.  It has stories that will make you laugh, cry, and cringe a little bit.  It has information about every stage of life from puberty to beyond menopause.  The underlying and most valuable lesson in this book is that you are wonderful just as you are.  Lissa is all about love and this book invites women to love every inch of themselves including all those girly parts that we often curse.

If you are a woman and someone asks you if you would like a book about Vaginas, ask what the title of the book is.  If it’s What’s Up Down There by Lissa Rankin M.D., SAY YES!  Do not miss the opportunity to read this book, even if parts of it make you blush and think heavens me it’s worth it!!  And if you are a man, consider reading it so that you’ll understand a little about what the women or girls in your life are and will be going through (also you might learn a few tricks to use in the bedroom).

The Word God

I find these days that I have a very strange reaction when people write or talk about God.  When I stumble upon religious blogs and read about a God that is very “human,” I feel somewhat assaulted.  I was reading through some old comments on this blog yesterday and found one in which the person mentioned that we should let God be the judge.  That person had commented in my defense, yet reading the comment still urked me.  I was thinking about this recently and I had this “click.”  What if I don’t actually believe in God? WHOA!  I’ve been chatting back and forth with a blog friend who is an atheist.  We have A LOT in common.  So I’ve spent some time over the last couple of weeks with this question and of course the answers have come to me.

The first answer I received came to me by way of that assaulted feeling, only this time I was reading my atheist friend’s blog.  He is an excellent writer and so often when reading his stuff I find myself shaking my head in agreement.  But in one particular post he emphasized his belief that there is no God and I couldn’t stomach it.  My heart ached as much as it does when someone talks about that judging, vengeful God.  So maybe I do believe in God.  WHEW!

So if I do believe in God, but my God is not that father figure waiting to reward or punish me, who or what is God to me?  During the week that this question was in my head I was reading the book “The Field” by Lynne McTaggart. The book was a bit over my head at first, but as luck would have it I began to really understand it and find my answers in its pages.  Basically the book discusses the scientific research being done that proves our connectedness and the power of consciousness (which I would define as our perceptions, beliefs, and ideals about our lives and environment).  “The Field” is, as I understand it, an energetic plane which contains all the memories of the past and the future.  Within it are all the discoveries that ever have and ever will be.  And we all have a connection to it and can go within to find that connection.  This book provided me with my definition of God.  God is this “field” and it isn’t subject to time, it knows all that ever was and all that will ever be.  It is always present and all powerful (particularly if you tap into to it).

God is not a father, a mother, or a son.  God is just a word.  Which brings me to one more piece of my answer.   I read this post over at Owning Pink and really got a lot from the discussion in response to it.  Like Dana (in the article), I believe that God is neutral.  I don’t think there is a being judging us, but I also don’t think there is something smiling on us when we do something good.  When our intentions are in line with what is best for our lives, we feel it, we KNOW it.  It’s not a reward or a punishment, it’s simply going with or against the flow.

I’m not quite sure how or if I’ll continue to use the word God.  It seems that how I define God is very different from the way most others define the word.  To me, there are many words that could be used instead.  There is spirit, energy, the Universe, flow, power, love, higher self, or “the field.”  The important piece of information here is that we are all connected and there is something that holds us together.  If we can use God as an excuse to go to war and to discriminate, then it doesn’t seem logical to me that THAT is actually God.

Alice’s Click

The following click was sent to me by a fellow member of the Owning Pink Posse. Alice Grist is an author, tarot advisor, and Reiki practitioner. You can visit Alice’s website here and learn more about her book, “The High Heeled Guide to Enlightenment.” You can also follow Alice on Twitter here.

I’d like to share this story with you as it describes how in the midst of madness something just clicked and life changed both instantly and gradually to became very different to how it once was.

I was once quite an exhausted party girl. Having been donning the glad-rags, over-drinking and living for the weekend for ten plus years, I was beginning to change. Things hadn’t been going well in my life and I had found myself contemplating a way out, not anything drastic, but I desperately wanted to abandon my life and start afresh. A zillion random ideas whizzed through my mind, possible retraining, traveling, lord knows what – I was truly grasping at straws. Then I struck upon something that had always been very dear to my heart; faith and alternative spirituality. As a youngster my Dad had been a Vicar, who eventually became a Wiccan ( Witch) and so I had been raised familiar with all manner of esoteric things. I was a dab hand at tarot, and had embraced spiritual healing. However in the haze of my teens and twenties all this fell aside in favor of spirits of an altogether different kind. Enough was enough though and I started to research Buddhism, Kabbalah, Shamanism, Reiki etc etc, and before you know it I had started to find another path. But that wasn’t the click moment.

The click came one morning before breakfast. I was drawn to the computer where I wrote one blog about my thoughts on spirituality. I then jumped into the shower, home of all great a-ha moments for me, and suddenly I knew it. I was to write a book for Women in my situation. Women who were looking for spirituality but weren’t quite sure where to start. I had to write it starting now and it would be called The High Heeled Guide to Enlightenment. Mission received. Click. Two and bit years down the line and that book is now in print – mission accomplished, and I have another one on the way. My life is utterly transformed and I am finally following a path that I know is my very own. Love, love, love that click.

Surrender

I went to visit my friends in North Carolina a few weeks ago.  I also got to have a short visit with my mom and my sisters.  Mostly, it was a great weekend.

When my plane took off to come back home and we were climbing higher and higher I looked down and recognized the landscape.  I saw a familiar building and a neighborhood.  It reminded me of something that I had been trying to let go of.   Feelings of fear, resentment, and regret bubbled up.  It was all ego stuff, attachments I needed to free myself of.  For me a portion of that weekend had been about making peace, forgiving and moving on even if it was only inside myself.  So it astonished me that I looked down and saw this representation of a chapter, a struggle, I’d been having within.  As the plane moved through the sky I made a decision to surrender and I felt the peace of it.  When we descended toward Tallahassee at the end of the flight we passed through the thickest, whitest, most angelic clouds I had ever seen.  Rays of sunshine streaked through them and the sight of it took my breath away.  It verified the beauty of surrender!

Flash forward a few weeks later and I do feel freer.  My reactions aren’t the same.  The things that bothered me before that moment don’t bother me now (or at least bother me a great deal less).  But it seems as always, life tests me and I am having to remind myself of the message of surrender.  I am finding myself attached to goals and outcomes I prefer for myself.  I spend a lot of time analyzing how I might get to where I want to go.  I look for signs to suggest a direction and a means of transportation.  I want to know when, how, and what!  But I’m also awake enough to see what I am doing to myself.  I feel the knots in my stomach and I know I should stop and choose another thought, another activity, something that helps me remember the truth.

I read this post on Owning Pink tonight and it helped me gather my thoughts to finish writing about surrender, because surrender is really about letting go of attachments.  When I am attached to an outcome that I envision for myself I am existing in a place of fear.  I am not trusting in the idea that my life is divinely led.  If I believe (and I do) that God goes before me to make the crooked places straight, than I must surrender to that idea.  Letting go of my fearful attachments allows me to live from a place of love and faith.  So, starting now I will feed my soul by being present with God, my family, and myself.  I will let go of the expectations I have for my life, my career, and my place in this world.

Here’s a song I love by Mute Math.  It is called Control, but it is really about Surrender!

Also, I wanted to add at the end here that I am pretty sure I have written a variation of this post before.  But part of this journey is about getting the same lessons over and over until you master them.  It would be nice to say this is the last time I write about “Surrender” and “Letting Go,” but it probably won’t be.

Masks

It is quite amazing how the universe works.  It certainly gives you what you ask for and you are constantly asking whether you know it or not.  I didn’t know any writers until I started writing again and now my life is full of them…in fact I know so many that I find myself getting nervous about whether there’s really room for all of us.  (There is…)  When I first became interested in meditation I did an internet search for classes.  I didn’t find anything through google, but the next day a friend called and told me all about a man she knew that taught mantra meditation.  I took his workshop two weeks later.

Currently I’ve been reflecting on my past and wondering how much of it, if any, I should share in my writing.  I’ve read two posts (at least)  on Owning Pink that have made me wonder if I would benefit from embracing my shadow side and bringing it into the light.  I went to church today and the minister started her message with the fairytale “Beauty and The Beast.”  She talked about how we have “good” and “bad” aspects of ourselves and most of the time we choose to hide the “bad” stuff.  We put on masks for the people around us and we form relationships based on those masks.  She went on to say (more or less) that when we take off the masks and show our darkest stuff to others and they choose to embrace us that is real love.  That’s the kind of love Jesus had in his heart for everyone…not just those in his immediate circle.

I have been reunited with my past in a big way this year through Facebook.  On my list of friends, there are definitely a few that had a role to play in the past that I am not so proud of.  In my 25 things list I found a way to let some of them see the shame I carried.  I wrote “I am not who I used to be.”  I was surprised when I heard that a friend responded to that statement with sadness.  She wanted me to remember that time in our life the way she did…as a grand adventure and beautiful learning experience.  And it was…but I had buried the fun and the beauty right along with the beast.

I have worn a mask for years, trying to forget who I was.  I thought I was leaving behind the actions.  But really I was leaving behind the parts of me that made those choices, the “weak” and “bad” parts.  It seems that slowly those parts of me are resurfacing and I find myself desperately longing for love.  But it is a love that can only come from myself when I embrace my shadow.  So, I’ll take the mask off now and go take a shot at writing my story.  It’s the sharing of it that will be the ultimate challenge.

I Don’t Know

Ever since I joined Twitter, I’ve made some cyber-friends.  It starts when you follow them or they follow you and you see a tweet that makes you laugh or sparks your interest.  You might decide to RT (re-tweet) their post or reply to it with a friendly comment.  So through Twitter, I have met @Empoweredandfit.  I’m not sure if he knew Lissa Rankin before the launch of Owning Pink, but I know that he is listed on the site as “Pink God” (because he is in the business of providing wellness services and empowerment for women).  Fred writes quite a bit for Owning Pink and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading his posts.  When you read people’s blog posts and comments you feel like you are getting to know them and often times you want to reach out.  This happened to me one day last week as I was reading one of Lissa’s posts with tears streaming down my cheeks.  Fred had commented and after I read it I decided to contact him.  Long story short, I discover that Fred does something called Intrinsic Coaching and we set up an appointment.

I’ve talked with Fred on 2 occassions now and it has been enlightening.  The one thing that has struck me (and Fred) the most in these conversations is the amount of times I say “I Don’t Know.”  I mean seriously, it is just ridiculous.  What I really want to figure out is why it is so hard for me to just own up to who I am and what I want to be.  I do know…I just don’t want to say it.  What happened that made me so damn afraid to carve out my place in this world and stand in it?  I mean I definitely have my little shovel and my lawn chair right now.  I’m trying to make a dent in the sand, but then the tide rises and the hole fills in.  I am timid and wimpy, but also called.  I know that I was not reconnected with my long lost passion of writing for nothing.  I know that I am not pulled to share myself with people for no reason.  I have glimpses of a grand life, but if you asked me to share them with you I might end up saying “I Don’t Know.”   It’s not because I don’t know, it’s mainly because once I say it, I might actually have to do it.  And that I think is the real revelation in this.  Stuck may suck, but it sure is easy!