Covid Coming Out Party

Interestingly, I didn’t get to this post about Social Awkwardness until today…because I was too busy:

Getting Out There
Talking and Listening and
Taking Time (gasp) to get to know people!

Of course it started out as an assignment from good friend and counsel, but since I was already all dressed up with nowhere to go, I had one foot out the door.

It’s quite a miraculous thing to go on a hike or walk these days, and quite a few people are noticing the magic of simple encounters with another human being. With mask or without, it doesn’t seem to matter to folks who are more focused on regaining connections.

There was the earnest Gen Z-er who made the distinction for me that her peers were interested in changing the world unlike Millennials more interested in posting pictures of avocado toast. Her throw-down, not mine.

Then the forensics accountant who worked for Customs, a G-girl with a wry sense of humor and deeper soulful side.

And Sherree Patrice, wearing the most fabulous Elton John-esque specs and Minding Her Own Mission mask.

The very kindred spirit who had spent much of her life raising two young adult girls, dis-entangling from a Force of Nature mom, and learning to live with a fearfulness that really wasn’t hers but her husband’s.

And then the Iranian gentleman who responded two years ago to the oncologists’ dire predictions with “I’m not dead yet.” He keeps walking instead of waiting.

The pool of people willing to risk a get-together was growing! So Movie Night it was, with:

an “old-fashioned” British bloke I dare not pigeonhole with description;
a hairdresser who has discovered and loves the 11% British-ness among her African roots;
a ginger girl who self-identifies “bi” and is happily expecting Baby with new boyfriend from Romania via Australia;
an intuitive coach born and raised in Cape Town whose home may actually be in a galaxy far, far away; and
a German woman passionate about motorcycles, scuba diving, cats, and good “sex and snuggling.”

That we watched Car Wash, that early Seventies’ Blaxploitation film, before finishing the night with talk of other realms, Oneness and “individuated oneness blobs”…may say it all, or that I just have to leave it there… or here.

Smell What Roses?

I know…these aren’t roses. I don’t much like them actually. Too stiff and formal for my taste. And these – whatever they may be – just sung to me.

So let me get back to Roses. Growing up I had been told that I liked to smell them “too much.” Of course our memories are funny things, so my mind has been set to wondering whether I’ve been holding the wrong message in my head about those dang flowers. My friend Paul started by asking “Why do you think you were told that story?”

Did Dad really say “too much” as gentle prodding …to achieve at a higher level? Or was it his realization that I preferred wandering instead of powering through life? And was it just statement of fact and if so, where did I find the Un to transform the happy thought of noticing and smelling flowers into a stick to beat myself over the head?

All those questions were not as important as the one Paul then posed, “How do you turn it – the negative – around?”

So here: I saw the flowers and noticed them at all. That was the gift to cherish.

Any of you remember this ditty? Love Ella’s version:

…You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene…

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.

Finding Home

It’s March 1st or thereabouts, the point being that I’m moving into new digs, an apartment complex with the very 60’s, beach-y name of Surf Terrace. I love that I actually need to make my checks out to Surf Terrance, the owner having been either drunk or distracted when he filled out the paperwork for his newly-purchased investment property.

Despite its beige and brown exterior, the apartment complex brings The Pink Motel bubbling up into my mind. A novel I read as a 12-year-old, it was one of my favorites with Florida as its sunny and exotic backdrop and an eccentric cast of characters to meet. For some reason it continues to be fodder for the imagination of the girl born and raised in foggy San Francisco but who no longer considers it home. To this day, I’m drawn to the brightly painted houses I’ve seen in San Miguel de Allende and Lima. Much to my neighbors’ chagrin and eventual acceptance, I even had my home in Oakland painted and dubbed Big Green.

I never expected to become so attached to Long Beach with its oil rigs never far from sight, but its port city grittiness and diverse demographics are actually what resonate. On tour, the modest swimming pool and common areas of Surf Terrace are deserted, giving me the sense that privacy is prized over community. That in a weird way also says Home.

Then as I walked through the front door of Apartment #218, there is the full-on ocean view punctuated by palm trees, and the warmth and aesthetics of a tropical place pour into my heart. After all my wanderings this past year, I know that Home is inside me, not necessarily just “where the heart is,” but in every cell, put there by soul-stirring sights, experiences and memories.

Strange Gratitudes

We’re an odd lot – Americans – when it comes to celebrating our holidays. Never mind the Christmas in October creep, let’s take Thanksgiving and our love-hate relationship with it. “It’s a really big deal here, i’n’t it?” notes my Brit friend Paul. Grounded in the tradition of breaking bread together and being thankful for blessings, it’s become a mad, frantic dash to… I don’t quite know… you fill in the blanks… gluttony, excess, strained pleasantries.

Take my shopping trip to Ralph’s two nights ago around 8:00. I strategically timed it to avoid the after-work rush, and thankfully, no jostling and weird cart-maneuvering were necessary. Of course the shelves were bare of some key items on my list – heavy whipping cream and Happy Eggs (organic, brown and delicious!), and the vibe was more Armageddon than Norman Rockwell’s depiction of warmth, home-cooked food and happiness. The clincher came when the rushed shopper behind me tossed two bags of frozen rolls onto the belt.

I wonder what it is that makes us so disconnected from the meaning and appreciation of days once dedicated to the rhythms of life and simple rites of passage. I’m going to let those musings lie for now because I’m busier these days with my own housekeeping.

For some time, my life has been about my disconnects and reconnects – with loved ones, my habits and purpose. The changes have been glass-shatteringly uncomfortable, but today is a good day – as it is every day – to stop in my tracks and notice the blessings that have come in strange packages.

I’m thankful that:

My daughters and I are happily spending the holiday apart, all of us comfortable in doing what we want and without the need to fulfill obligations.
It’s Thanksgiving morning, and I’m not in the kitchen over-cooking (as in cooking too much food) and burning.
It’s storming in Southern California, and I don’t need to get into a car today.
I have a new non-profit, The Pain to Power Foundation, that is reconnecting me to whatever it is that I want and need.
I’m sitting at my laptop and blogging with joy again.

May your holiday season be filled with strange gratitudes.

Stepping into New Beginnings

I have a story around the Fulfilled Inside, Strong Together Retreat coming up in November that captures the magic of life and how unexpectedly blessings come when you allow them in. The trick is that we most often don’t know what it looks like to truly welcome what we haven’t been used to receiving.

Funnily enough, I met this woman at the very first retreat Rita gave …perhaps it was about five years ago. She was fxxking angry then and what with the “orange one” in power, she is still fxxking angry today. Of course that’s not all she is, and I’ve gotten to see the different shades of her passion and love.

She expressed the greatest resistance to the subject matter – love – and came to me several times before the Early Bird deadline with questions about payment details, anger about Arizona being the destination (with its political climate), and so on and so on.

“I have such a resistance to going,” she said, her statement actually laced with one fxxking after another. “I really don’t want to go, and I know that probably is a sign I should.”

“I’m not here to push you,” I said, “you have time. Go ahead and sit with it some more.”

Only two nights later, I was awakened by the vibration of my phone which had fallen onto my chest. It seemed a dream to read her text, “I’m going to go to the retreat with Rita. I’ll just pay in full to you.”

When we finally talked in person, she told me how miraculous the past several days had been, that after some 20 years since her divorce, she was now in a relationships that in hindsight, had been unfolding for the past month. This old acquaintance had come back into her life through Facebook, and after several long conversations and a deep feeling that this is what she had been opening herself up for, she had a “boyfriend!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG”

I had never heard her speak so vulnerably, excitedly about how open her heart was. “We truly love each other,” were her exact words. Let me tell you, I love this woman dearly, but “fxxk” and “asshole” were more a part of her vocabulary than the word “love” ever was.

We’ve talked more and since, and realized that just the process, the work she did in deciding whether to attend the retreat was part of opening her heart and stepping into a new beginning. Fancy that.

Pink Martini and the Messy Living Out of Dreams

Living out your dreams isn’t so dreamy; it’s messy. When you reach for the stars, you encounter bad traffic, arguments, and moments when you just “can’t do this anymore.” Then again, isn’t that what Not Living the Life of Your Dreams also looks like? So how do you tell that you’re actually moving towards it or just holding it way out there? Every once in awhile, you either stop and notice, or the universe smacks you in the head and you sputter, “Uh wow, didn’t see that coming.”

Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl, August 2

This past Saturday, my friend Paul had a major meltdown – tired, feeling sick, and yes, “I can’t… I just can’t” came out of his mouth more than several times. And this from a guy who had a stroke at age 29, died for about 9 minutes trying to live out, “There’s no such thing as can’t”…and freaking survived!

And yes, that miraculous thing then happened after mucking around in the shxx. He noticed that he had actually moved the Dream closer in, and the Show he had visualized for years was on the cusp of going live.

“Wake-up Call,” is coming into view. It’s about people who reach out for answers and solutions even if our current state of affairs is shitty beyond belief. So if you’d like to be a guest or audience member of Rita Harrison‘s upcoming show, give us a shout. Join her to explore what it can be for you. Click through to my contact page, write WAKE-UP CALL in the Subject line, and GUEST, AUDIENCE (and how many) or BOTH in the message.

So what’s up with Pink Martini? Well, that fabulous big-little group was how I resolved my own mini-mega crisis. I’ve loved them since I first heard Sympathique, and they were playing the Hollywood Bowl! The little girl in me needed to go…and bad, but then all the road blocks popped up: no one to go with, narcoleptic me trying to figure out how to make the trek to and from Long Beach, and as always…money. Yes, all the stories – not reality – was keeping their concert out of my reach. The big boogeyman – feeling alone and unloved – was the storyteller. So if you want to join us the taping of the pilot for Wake-up Call, where the Why Not stories are transformed, email me at http://www.valjoycom/contact.

Let Freedom Ring and other personal musings

“Truck?”

“Did I have a dizzy spell?”

“No… Earthquake…” We all stood, sat – wherever we were – transfixed and unsure of where the safe zones were and whether we should even try going there. By the time the heavy wrought-iron chandelier stopped swaying, we had already exhaled and continued whatever had been our do-ing. Yes, despite all the musings about Freedom and expectations around Celebration, this was going to be a different kind of Independence Day.

It’s taken me well over a week to be able to finish this blog. I felt a malaise about the holiday, but not just because of the prevailing yuck over politics and the state of American affairs. It was actually the desire to be thoughtful and non-judgmental and zen about the day that made it show up how it did – without a barbeque, fireworks, or any other traditional pastime.

By chance, we ended up having dinner with a German friend going home after 13 years here in the U.S. Even though she still holds a fondness for her adopted country, the high rents and stress-filled jobs have made living a good life too unsustainable in Southern California. I’ve heard the refrain often: You Americans work too hard. You’ve forgotten how to live your lives. Then she touched briefly on the subject of patriotism and how frowned upon expressions and displays of it were when she was growing up in Germany. It was after the war of course, and everyone – even those not responsible – continued to live the shame. Thus my careful avoidance of the red, white and blue outfit, I realized. Despite all the Instagram posts designed to cheer – babies and foods dressed up red, white and blue – I just couldn’t find a single one I felt compelled to Like.

Even the intention to write about my personal journey of independence and freedom made no sense, since the past weeks have been about whether that story is fiction or not. According to shaman and friend, “You moved because of your heart…it was a ‘geographical solution’. You are running away but still bringing and suffering your problems…”

So I realize this July 16th that this past Independence Day was not about Us. It was about You and Me – each of us – and what our relationship is with fear (earthquake!), patriotism, independence, and freedom. Maybe it’s time for the quiet reflection without being bombarded by negativity or how things should be, thinking instead to next year – maybe even tomorrow – and how we do It as part of the collective.

Love, Money and Success

Write Your Most Empowered Love, Money and Success Story! Make it your new normal…

Create Your Self Meetup – Los Angeles Chapter
Thursday, June 6, 2019, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

WeWork, 10000 Washington Blvd, 6th Floor, Culver City, CA

Create even more than you imagined by liberating yourself from what doesn’t work anymore!
When you dream big, you are already on the right path to success, but many people make the mistake that when they don’t achieve their goals quickly enough, they stop dreaming, thinking that they dreamed too big. That’s wrong. What’s right is to keep on dreaming big and build the foundation on which it can happen.
Known for her efficient approach, Rita Harrison shows you how to do this in 3 powerful steps. Come and experience it for yourself.
Rita is an international healer, author, and inspirational speaker who has helped close to 55,000 clients over the past 35 years to achieve their goals. Her passion is to help people find their inherent gems and apply them effectively to transform their lives into precious crown jewels!
As the developer and founder of The Willow System, which helps people maximize their potential, she has worked successfully with the Hawaii Counselors Association, Healing the Healers, and SAG-AFTRA Portland besides many others.

Visit www.willow4u.com for more information.

“After an hour with Rita, I found myself liberated from aspects of my emotional landscape that were truly holding me back. I experienced a state of joy and optimism, and carry the results of this experience to this day.
I’ve worked with energy prior, and my time with Rita exceeds anything I’ve done before in real, powerful and exciting ways. This is Rita’s life’s work, and she travels the world doing this – it is her way of healing the planet and its people, one energy system at a time!” –Mary McDonald Lewis, Voice Actor, Affiliate Voice & Dialect Coach