My Police State

“Unprecedented,” was my friend’s word. An ex-policeman sworn to protect, his 4″ high text included stats on infections and number of deaths as sufficient justification for closing beaches, requiring all to wear masks, and sending patrol cops and cruisers to warn away anyone thinking of coming out on a ‘warm’ Southern California weekend. “Realize we are one or two steps from martial law,” he texted, although I don’t know whether he meant this as statement of fact, warning or prediction.

Another good friend Paul has a longer view and mostly sees history repeating itself in the most dire way. Whether you might have characterized the So Cal scene as It’s All About Me or We Just Wanna Have Fun covidiocy, it’s gone. It’s not exactly the proverbial ghost town since an empty beach volleyball court is still the seashore and an inviting place to wander and pick up stuff out of the sand.

Joggers and walkers are mostly lone, some daring to make eye contact, others who sport masks generally not. Daddys with children scan the parking lot before unloading bicycles or wandering onto the seaside path. Feels like the time of the Brownshirts in Germany, Paul says, taking a drag on his cigarette as we overlook the new beach scene. “I feel sorry for them,” he adds. I think he means all the frightened citizenry, and then he adds, “They’re just doing their job.”

I realize at that moment he’s talking about the police and that they’re just another chess piece in this game.

That’s the perspective that keeps me dropping in every morning for our Conversations on the Balcony. Consequent. He makes the distinction that if you are consistent, logical and just plain “make sense,” you needn’t strive for authenticity. The listener will decide that you are for them…or not.

I invite you to sit with that awhile. It threw me, although I sensed it was the why and how of his ability to be principled, non-judgmental and not a bit wishy-washy about either. So much argument, defense and ferocity over how one should feel about the mandate to Shelter in Place. I realized that instead of feeling frustration over The Man, it might serve me more to look at my own personal police state and free myself from being a prisoner of old mindsets and habits.

Funnily – although never coincidentally – I have recently pulled the Squirrel animal medicine card, its ‘magic’ the gathering. In this time of staying at home, I imagine that we are all looking at what we have gathered in our space, be it gadgets and broken things waiting to be fixed, worries or stress. As for me, I’ve pulled out the papers and endless jottings and shredded all chronicling and preservation of the past that doesn’t serve me any longer. And made room for an “untroubled heart and mind” instead. From prison cell to nest.

http://www.valjoy.com

LOVE in the Time of Covid-19

I regularly pull from a deck of Animal Medicine Cards to set my intention for the day or get an idea of where my head is really at. Not surprisingly, I picked Armadillo out of the card fan this morning. Its guidance? Boundaries.

As someone who has been watching the news on a limited basis and attempting to keep my own hand on the rudder as I steer through 24/7 CVN (CoronaVirus News), it was perfect. Of course, that’s the double-edged sword:

Are you seeing what you want to see? Gathering justification for fear and hunkering down?
Or as the guidebook directs, thinking about “what you will and won’t do; what makes you feel uncomfortable and what is comforting to you.” Manifesting your intentions and commanding the universe?

I armed myself with these thoughts as I ventured out for my daily “hell no, I’m not staying in.” The official pronouncements have worked on me in classic deprivation fashion. Tell your body you can’t have something and it wants It.

That’s not to say that I’ve embraced what a friend calls “covidiocy.” I’m trying to do what I haven’t done most of my life – to respond instead of react, or perhaps pay more attention to what my gut reactions are saying.

How do you:

Discern what keeps us safe in a world where every little thing from a handshake to a hug carries danger;
Pick apart fact from fear-mongering;
Ground yourself when chaos is hovering everywhere;
Hold a steady and normal course in these windy and rough times of change?

I imagine all of us are struggling with this, and the temptation is to be judgmental when people “come down” in a different place than you. How would it be if we noticed that deep-down, this is what the world needs – to protect, understand and respect each other again. To heal from the inside out.

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Take a look at this powerful documentary about a brave woman looking to take her life back from crushing pain. This screening is a real and unedited look at Kristie Farley’s session with Europe’s leading specialist and developer of the Willow System, Rita Harrison. You will more than “get back” the 55 minutes from all the surprising parallels to your own life that we can almost guarantee will show up. Whether your pain is the “small, nagging” kind or the beast that assaults you in a dark alley, you don’t have to live with it.

The screening will be followed by a Q & A session. RSVP for the Zoom link.

December Screenings (PST):

Friday, 12/13, 10 am
Sunday, 12/15, 10 am
Tuesday, 12/17, 7 pm
Thursday, 12/19, 8 pm
Sunday, 12/22, 10 am
Wednesday, 12/25, 1 pm
Saturday, 12/28, 12 noon
Monday, 12/30, 9 pm

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Change Please

Now to the Change part, which is the Life part, because yeah, yeah, “Change is the only constant in life.” Yeesh, we know this and do it every day as best we can. There are the days when everything goes ‘well’ – whatever that means – and it’s easy to talk about smelling the roses, savoring the journey, and just ‘Be – ing’. You may try to replicate that for the next day and the next, but this is when you realize you really can’t and shouldn’t so precisely. “Have a nice day…or not,” a friend and I have begun to say, to turn on its head that programming that Nice and Good and Fine look a certain way and are what we strive for.

Dad was right about life being a bit Russian Roulette and that we can’t know the good days without having the shxx ones. So I guess I subscribe to the, “It’s all good.” Or not. I’m really loving this “or not” thing to take the edge and Shoulds off of life, because there are other days that are just not fun.

Like yesterday, when an innocent comment like, “I wouldn’t do that” lands with a thud and I have to take a breath to get out of the “Can’t you do anything right!?” file. When you get an invitation to a “bring your swimsuit” bbq and in that off-handed “Hey, bring your friend (whose name I can’t remember)” way. When a conversation that starts as “What do you think about…” turns into wrangling and then to “I feel like a punching bag and can’t talk to you anymore” and finishes out the day with “Guaranteed we’re not going to talk tomorrow.” When the high point of your day is returning a toilet seat to Target. When your sister says the words “family trip” and “Bali” all in the same sentence.

Physical exertion, there wasn’t much, but I would certainly call it a ‘heavy-lifting’ or according to my British sparring partner, a “fxxx-all” day. Essentially it was one of those days when buttons get inadvertently pushed over and over, and memory files are yelling and reacting to each other, and it would have been easy to let the broken record play “Life’s a Bitch, and Then You Die.” The hard feelings could have really set in with each of us making assumptions and decisions about the other.

This is then where the freaking hard work (or not) comes in, all the hours and practice that the magician puts in behind the scenes, deep down, in plain view, wherever it needs to happen to make the Show …. well … magical. Stay tuned.

Agent

“Uhhh, I think I’m your agent,” I said, grasping for some definition of the tasks that were falling to me. And then everything made perfect sense for each of us. The “Why L.A.?” became “of course, L.A.” because where else would a holistic healer have an agent? Then the relationship suddenly had all the right words to define it: Collaboration, Autonomy, Expertise.

As Rita Harrison’s client and student, I knew the Willow System in such a way that I could represent it authentically and passionately. And because Rita and her methodologies aim to and do deliver “optimally,” I had the confidence, competence, and clarity (yes, more about the Power of 3 later) to move into my soul purpose. Ok, let’s say that again. Needless to say, it’s been an interesting road to finding that happiness thing, especially when I’ve sought it from others most of my life.

So I reclaimed the business experience (leaving behind the stuff that had put old ventures into indebtedness), corporate and institutional familiarity (without the non-constructive contempt), and a mother’s multi-tasking and juggling skills (that had lost their sense of purpose with kids grown and off on their own paths). What transformed all of that turned out to be remarkably simple (which doesn’t mean ‘easy’ by any means).

It happened that a reading by Connie Viveros crystalized it beautifully with images so lush I couldn’t speak as I received them. Don’t forget, I now say to myself: Toss a joy for living – tears and all – into the magician’s hat and one by one, all I need to create my new life will be provided one white dove at a time.

Agent of Change

So… like so many others, I’m now in L.A. with a dream. Of course how to materialize it and how it materializes is the rub.

There had been a vague intention and outline of a plan, but what pushed me into action was more a jumping-out-of-my-skin Gotta Get Out of Here. Sure, the “more opportunities” thing awaited, but not a real job as tsk-tskers would say. I’m Taurean, and the lack of a stable prospect scared the crap out of me, but my Five of Spades birth card of the Wanderer put me on the move lest I blow something up.

The good folks I’ve met at L.A. Meetups have been mirrors to notice my What the Heck. Name, Who You Are, and 90-Day Goal introductions often free-formed into musings of hope and dissatisfaction about ourselves and this city of dreams. I say it without irony because L.A. absolutely still is – both stereotypically and authentically – where people come to see what they are made of. An Indian American music producer /composer from Austin, TX and a Canadian “composer for media” had had successes back home, but both were here with game plans for More. The former is giving himself the classic one-year window to find more gigs, and the latter sojourns twice a year for opportunity tours. Other stories include that of the organizer of the Create Yourself – Los Angeles Meetup and a Japanese American film maker who walk the talk every day by crafting work and a life in the industry that they want to be proud of.

My timeline? Nothing beyond Now. The work? Hmmm…health and wellness? Dare I stretch to say Healing Body, Mind and Soul? Writing? Just “something” to bring in the $$? As life would have it, the ruminating was interrupting by a giant crash as I literally and horrifyingly broke a beautiful piece of artwork in the house I was staying. Dust settled and glass shards and shavings mopped up, the message was clear to have a session with my main ally in life.

The answers from a Willow session are always unexpected and big if you let it be. We discovered quickly that goal-setting was a priority, but (and the “but” is key) the guidance was specific – “within the parameters of joy.” Making that distinction opened up possibilities that hadn’t occurred to me when I was only goal-oriented.

It was a subtlety that brings light-year-measurable forward movement. How different would daily, weekly and monthly goals be if I also slowed down to savor the simple pleasures of life? What if I dropped the judgments about all the things I should do and listened to the voice that connects me to myself and a deeper pride? What would happen?