Brené Brown  talks about how the new help group ala AA should be for “busy-ness” and I thinks she’s right.

We stay busy and keep our plates full so we don’t have time to stop, swallow and digest the little and big things.

Super Hero? Bang, zoom, to the moon!

If we’re not living on purpose we fill ourselves with tons of chaos and fixings to stay busy.  What is there to fix?

If staying busy is what means your life is worthwhile, you’ve got another thing coming.

Here’s the catch, if you’re not taking care of yourself and honoring what your heart enjoys about life, then you’re not living.

Instead of pretending I’m invincible and “I’m fine”, I’ve given up telling people the full spectrum of what’s going in my life because it’s a lot right now and I believe it’s A LOT for A LOT of people. Lots of transitions in all kinds of relationships- work, love, family, trust.  Death has been smiling at me and it’s been daunting and simultaneously shaking me in my sleep that I don’t get enough of.

What am I learning?

• It’s important to be discerning on who you share with, how you share and when especially when it’s big shit. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate to tell the cashier at Whole Foods who is asking how you are as a social nicety that your cat’s dying or you’re on your way to a funeral, again.   I’ve learned that it’s probably not best to allow your ex to treat you to a night cap and also best to not text your ex, anything, unless you don’t want him to remain your ex. Don’t mistake full disclosure with vulnerability and pick and choose wisely.  I don’t think I really understood the word appropriate until this year.

• Certain stories are meant for your journal and no one else.
• Being honest and upset is sometimes really inconvenient, especially when you’ve had too much to drink and you can’t get out of your dress by yourself.  I’ve learned that eating well, sleeping well, keeping good company and doing nice things for yourself makes pretty much any bad day a bajillion times better.
• It’s a good day when you can actually get to do something that makes you feel good -dance, do yoga, listen to a wise soul, take the time to read and let someone make you laugh.  Being in connection with what gives you joy will soothe your soul and show you where you’re out of alignment with it.
• Being present is the greatest gift you can offer even if it means 22 extra hours of driving that week or only getting 3 hours of sleep. I’ve learned that you learn who your real friends are over and over again and ultimately, how much of a friend you are to yourself in listening to your gut instincts.  You break old habits by being aware of them, making different choices and practice being who you want to be and you can be really fucking proud of that.
• To not mistake my friends for therapists and that the best medicine can often be you listening to someone else’s crazy.
• By rescuing everyone else, it can be really hard to ask for help.
• It’s easy to become addicted to being busy, being tired, being in complaint, seeking and processing.
• Fighting anything, be it cancer, the end of a relationship, your boss, your weight, your past, your skin, your desire, your addictions, isn’t going to help you win.

Creating a battle or a fight keeps you busy playing with fire instead of understanding the depths of your emotions and ultimately, experiencing life.  It’s happening right now, RIGHT NOW, where are you and why are you wasting your time trying to beat it?

The only thing that is unforgiving is time and yet it’s our greatest gift.

I was asked today to start living my life just for me and when I really asked myself, “am I?” I got queasy.

If I wasn’t running around busying myself, unconsciously and unsuccessfully proving I’m enough to Tom, Dick, Harry and Peggy Sue, what would I be doing?
If I wasn’t spending the past ten years, if not all of them, trying to make everyone else happy and be the girlfriend, daughter, friend that I thought they wanted- who would I be?  Who is that person?

In the chaos, find the beauty.  The ebb and flow of loss and birth doesn’t clock out and have a day off or a paid vacation.  Ride the wave with more grace by trusting the water and yourself.  Be humble, know you’re on borrowed time that you signed up for and how you feel, what you choose (thoughts, actions, etc) are opportunities to make this world better when you leave it.

You are the artist of your life, paint it black, red, pink, sparkly, blue, green- whatever, just paint, make a mess and give yourself a gold star for it.

Spring, spring, spring into action and happy happenstance. 

Any opportunity to set intentions and clear the slate for a new chapter, I’m IN!  This Wednesday marks the first full moon of the season, spring is here.

My favorite go-to-site for starry related inquiries, Cafe Astrology, has great insight as usual:

A Full Moon occurs on Wednesday, March 27th, 2013, at 5:27 AM EDT.

On Wednesday, a Full Moon occurs when the Sun in Aries opposes the Moon in Libra. The Full Moon is a time of culmination and the promise of fulfillment of that which was started at the New Moon. It is an emotional time – a time of romance, fertilization, and relationships.

The Aries-Libra polarity is a relationship axis, where Aries represents “self” and Libra represents “other”. Where Aries is about self-assertion, Libra is about compromise. The energy of the Libra Moon is the awareness of the need for relationships and all that comes with maintaining them — compromising, negotiating, graciousness, and balancing. The Aries Sun, on the other hand, is self-assertive, leading, and personally courageous. This Full Moon urges us to strike a balance between meeting our personal needs and tending to the needs of a significant other, and between independence or autonomy and dependence or companionability.

The Libra Moon is diplomatic, equality-minded, and fair-minded. The Aries Sun, however, values authenticity over tact, and is energized by independent efforts. The Full Moon illuminates this conflict.

This Full Moon is especially powerful, as the Sun aligns with Venus, Uranus, and Mars, opposing the Moon, and squaring Pluto. Changes are necessary, and resistance will only serve to attract opposition. A sextile to Jupiter alleviates some of the tension.

With the Moon full and bright in the sky, symbolic “illumination” occurs in our own lives. However, these new feelings and revelations are emotional ones, as emotions burst forth into our consciousness. It’s time to express ourselves, and to let things out of our systems. Of course, we might want to exercise some care while doing so, knowing that what is coming out of us is new and not particularly rational as yet. Full Moons are about exposing or illuminating issues that are already there, but that have not yet been dealt with. Where does the Full Moon fall by house in your natal chart? Read more here.

This phase of the Moon occurs at 6 degrees and 52 minutes of Libra opposite the Sun at 6 degrees and 52 minutes of Aries, affecting people born with personal planets and points at approximately 3 to 11 degrees of the Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) most significantly.

is Beauty.
Simply the moments where you are so struck by the awe of what you witness, feel, know that you are silenced into nothingness and everything joins you in that reverence. That is consciousness, that is God, Goddess, Divine.

As a child, I knew not what religion was.

My grandmother’s crucifix, that was my size, made me incredibly sad and my earliest memories were of wanting that bleeding man to not be so alone.
My solution? Undress all my Barbies, wrap them in toilet paper loin cloths to be fashionably on par and hang them up all over the wooden cross so this guy wouldn’t feel so lonely or awkward. I seriously wish I had a photo of that and my family’s face when they found my Buddy up Jesus project. Priceless!

Buddy Christ Motivator_by_Saint Jimmy (deviantart)

As a pre-teen, I wanted so badly to be confirmed, for a ritual to take place that marked me as a valid something. I dreamed of having a bat mitzvah or quinceañera, a rain dance rite of passage and to get to wear a hooded cape in the mists of Avalon. I just had a Thanksgiving plate of mythology and tradition that I wanted to eat up and digest.

I didn’t understand the practices but I loved the community of my friends’ religions except the whole sin bit and certain rules that seemed to exclude people- that didn’t make much sense to me.

I was taught to find my own way by my parents and when I started asking tougher questions beyond my Barbie years… my father gave me Siddhartha and my English teacher recommended the The Way of The Tao to read.

The places in life that caused me to pause were little and easy. I don’t know if I really saw religion as anything else but good story telling and at that point I wouldn’t have been able to have a conversation about spirituality.

I did know , however, what caused me to feel like I had insight, the keys of the universe- they were the little moments I felt sublime. Perhaps what some would call grace.

Falcor? Ewok?

The right song on the radio that “randomly” sang exactly what I needed to hear, dogs sticking their heads out of car windows, sunrises that found the details out of the darkness.

It took me 20 years but I no longer shudder at the words God, Lord, Holy, Spirit like I once did. I resisted these words as I didn’t understand them and saw they often made people shift their weight or stand weirdly erect. What helped was no longer having God be synonymous with religion, dogma and righteous separation.

I had the opportunity a few years ago when I lived in Sedona to reexamine what I experienced as sacred, spiritual, or God-ish. People who were visiting often asked me what the deal was with a vortex. Stay with me here…
These places all over town that were supposed to provide spiritual insight and be psychedelic in some fashion, vortexes or correctly, vortices (but no one ever called them that, it wasn’t Southwesty enough I suppose). It was in trying to explain it to someone who had no vocabulary regarding consciousness, yoga, metaphysics, etc. that I, too, was able to understand my own definition of the nameless.

Sitting atop Cathedral Rock at sunset

“When you stand in witness of a view so potent with beauty, you can’t help but shut the hell up. There lies peace and in the face of it, you know what some call divinity.”

That’s how I saw it, spelled it out and it still holds water with me today.

Unity with beauty- be it with a conversation that blows your mind with possibility, a spring flower on it’s first opening, the vulnerability of a hand on the small of your back that makes your heart flutter, the breath the Earth horizon seems to breathe as the burst of red sunsets cast their warmth at sunset, tears on a kind face, the depth in a newborn’s eyes, a sky so clear that it kisses you and grants you wishes.

This is what I call God.

Being human allows you to forget how perfectly round this experience is and it’s the momentary returning to something greater and all together simpler that requires nothing, just to behold and be held. Behold, be held in, of and by beauty or just give a dog a belly rub. Dog/God. Meh, same thing, just spelled backwards. Coincidence, methinks not.

Happy Heart Day to you!

TEDx offered a beautiful valentine’s honoring this morning and I give it to you humbly and so joyfully.

xoxo
Ella

  ** published on Elephant Journal 2/14/2013:  http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/02/freedom-to-choose-ella-lauser/)

“Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.”

- Simone Weil

When discussing abortion, a highly charged political point as well as a big decision that deserves much space and time for reflection, I’m concerned that we aren’t aware of how a child is brought into the world and how they are brought up affects everyone involved.

To choose what is right for your life is, in my opinion, the key to honoring life itself.

I’m pro-choice in all aspects, however, that doesn’t mean I’m not pro-life; they are not mutually exclusive except in the war between right and wrong. I respect everyone’s choice and individual opinions, even if I don’t agree with them nor they with me.

I choose to give my attention not to war, to fighting, and dualistic  black and white philosophy but to love, truth and compassion.

What is true for one, is not true for another because of ideals.  Ideals change, truth does not and it is through curiosity, critical observation and/or examination that we become wiser, freer and have the ability to create change for the highest good.  Inquiry leads us back to ultimate, unwavering, un-sell-able truth- the kind that just rings.

In my experience s as a doula, supporting people through challenging circumstances and often uncomfortable questions, I’ve become a devotee of questioning, honoring and understanding well-being, with a particular interest in primal prenatal and perinatal health. Very powerful lessons have come through conversation, studies that have given light to subjects I never considered, and questions in my inbox in the middle of the night titled “Help! I’m Pregnant“.

A colleague and wise adviser of mine has been studying the story of Womb to World for upwards of 20 years as a Registered Nurse,  Maternal-Child Health Nurse, Birth Consultant, Labor & Post-Partum Doula Instructor, Primal Period Educator.  Her name is Anna Verwaal and she recently brought to my awareness something that I think all people should consider and reflect upon especially when politicians are in debate about Personhood Measures that will make it more difficult for people to choose whether or not to have abortions.

Like Anna, I advocate for the journey that shapes our life, from womb to world.

Consider what goes in to the climate of our collective womb, consider that the emotional turmoil of not wanting to have a child has lasting effects in society.

Womb Ecology, shares studies that reflect the genesis of antisocial behavior and being related to pre labor intrauterine life.

What I found incredibly revealing and helpful to clarify my understanding in the battle of the womb was their perspective from primal health research specifically on “Deviations usually classified as criminal behaviour:”

When exploring the Primal Health Research Data Base, the keyword ‘criminality’ leads to research indicating the importance of prenatal factors. Two Finnish studies suggest that certain maternal emotional states in pregnancy are risk factors. In one of these studies the authors identified 167 children whose fathers had died before they were born.(64) Also identified were 168 children whose fathers had died during the children’s first year of life. Then the medical records of all 335 of these children were followed for 35 years. Most of the fathers had died during the Second World War when cigarettes and alcohol were severely rationed, if they were obtainable at all. In both groups, the parents were of comparable age and from comparable social classes. All the children grew up fatherless. However, only those who lost their father while in the womb were at increased risk of criminality (plus alcoholism and mental diseases). The results of this study suggest that the emotional state of the mother during pregnancy has more long-term effects on the child than during the year following birth. The other Finnish study researched 12,059 children born in 1966 and followed to the end of 1998.(65) The pregnant mothers were asked at the antenatal clinic if they felt themselves to be depressed. The Finnish Ministry of Justice provided information on criminal offences for all descendants. For male children of prenatally depressed mothers there was a significant increase in criminality.

Smoking in pregnancy is a well documented risk factor for criminality.(66) In one study(67), involving a cohort of 4169 male and 3943 female subjects born between 1959 and 1961, a dose-response relationship was found between the amount of maternal prenatal smoking and criminal arrest in male and female subjects.

More than 4000 male subjects born in the same hospital in Copenhagen were followed up until age 18(68) and then assessed again at the age of 34.(69) The authors looked in particular at the interaction between birth complications and early maternal rejection. The main risk factor found in these studies for being a violent criminal is the association of birth complications with early maternal rejection. Early maternal rejection by itself is not a risk factor. We can conclude once more that very early influences are implicated in violent criminality.

Have you ever thought about what brutal criminals often have in common?

They are often unsuccessful abortions and these criminals have suffered from severe early childhood developmental trauma.

Saddam Hussein was not just an unwanted child who never knew his father but had a mother , “depressed over the death of her 13-year-old son from cancer, [who] tried very hard to have a miscarriage by hitting and bumping her stomach…. In Arabic, his name means “one who confronts.”  Yeeesh!

Can you imagine what that must’ve felt like for the mother, for the baby yet to be born?

What about a child who is subject to hostile, abusive environments both in the womb and in early development?

One of the most terrifying examples of this is Adolf Hitler, a murderer of millions and a violent criminal of astronomical proportions.  “There is substantial proof that child abuse has severe psychological effects that cannot be reversed. The effects include, but are not limited to anger, hatred, aggressiveness, hostility, poor school performance and poor relationships with peers and/or the opposite sex. Many victims of child abuse often become offenders in violent crimes (Dunning, 2004).”

Imagine being rejected by your mother, father, love, the world…

What could that do your well-being, humanity, life?

For the record, I do not believe that once the fabric of our precious lives has been crumpled, burned or mistreated that we are incapable of healing however our awareness and education about the consequences of choice are paramount for our world to be treated, created and sustained wisely.

Emotional well-being and the emotional well-being of the world is dependent on freedom and learning from when it is infringed upon.

What does freedom look like to you?

I invite you to welcome life with love and consciousness…

Let that freedom ring and echo ” hello beautiful world, I’m here for love.”  

Welcome to February, the word of the month is Fabulous (because it is).

Just to brush up on the definition, this is WHAT FABULOUS LOOKS LIKE…

Fabulous |ˈfabyələs|

adjective

extraordinary, esp. extraordinarily large : fabulous riches.

• informal amazingly good; wonderful : a fabulous two-week vacation.

• having no basis in reality; mythical : fabulous creatures.

DERIVATIVES

fabulosity |ˌfabyəˈläsətē| noun

fabulously adverb

fabulousness noun

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [known through fable, unhistorical] ): from French fabuleux or Latin fabulosus ‘celebrated in fable,’ from fabula (see fable ).

Fable |ˈfābəl|

noun

a short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral.

• a story, typically a supernatural one incorporating elements of myth and legend.

See note at fiction .

• myth and legend : the unnatural monsters of fable.

• a false statement or belief.

verb [ intrans. ] archaic

tell fictitious tales : I do not dream nor fable.

• [ trans. ] fabricate or invent (an incident, person, or story).

DERIVATIVES

fabler |ˈfāb(ə)lər| noun

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French fable (noun), from Latin fabula ‘story,’ from fari ‘speak.’

I love the story of beauty in the image of this soon-to-be-mama. She embodies fabulous, she is speaking and telling the world with her freedom to sparkle and have some serious sass!

The stories we tell of who we are, what pregnancy looks and can feel like ARE SO IMPORTANT, in fact they are of mythic proportion because they are how we shape our world.

Legends, let’s be them.

*Dearest Sienna, thank you for letting me show the world your beauty. I’ve never loved you more! Little guy is going to mega impressed with how pimpin’ you were at 34 weeks.  ;-)

What defines a WOMAN?

What defines a MAN?

We have some sword wielding to do to receive and give as queens and kings again.

What kind of men and women do we want to be?

The meaning we make of this and how we walk the walk along with the talk will make all the difference.

Positive News is a fab UK publication and their Jamie Catto had some fine points to make about the masculine in his recent article “Leading the Men Back to the Women.”

Here’s a little taste of what he had to say…

There’s a scent of reunion in the air. The women want their men back, and I have a foolish and lyrical notion that we can be the Pied Pipers, leading the men back to the women. Our task as men is to re-awaken each other’s maleness and leadership again, but this time expressed through our compassion and service, not our control and dominion.

Over the last 100 or more years, women have understandably lost their trust in men in general. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Fragile-ego’d, self-seeking, solely cock-driven, permanently adolescent men have abused the planet on every level. The air, water, and soil are polluted, the animals violently killed, the children uneducated and the old people uncared for.

And it may sound radical to say this, but there has emerged a masculine edge in women, which has crept in during the past half a century. It is an edge that has, I believe, been born of a lack of trust in the males to deliver leadership and protection through service and wisdom. Women have been over-masculinising like mad to compensate for the essence of true maleness that’s so badly lacking in at least the last two generations of men, who have been addicted to profit and status.

Is it any wonder women have lost trust in men’s expression of their core male values?

Click here to read the whole piece.

There is nothing sexier than a man taking the lead from a place of wanting to honor his woman, in fact I’ll go as far as to say anyone who wants to be in their feminine (whatever their gender or sexual orientation) will melt at the opportunity to be held and not having to take the reigns.  Sighs of relief and ecstasy will be heard ’round the world, people.

Let me bring ya back to the subject… leading men aren’t just Oscar winners.  ;-)

Whatta Man, whatta man, whatta man- what does a man mean to you?

Life is a Mystery by Lauren Gregg – “Harriet the Spy”

Sometimes, life will surprise you and when the surprise garners a reaction along the lines of “WTF!” this is the time to react and reflect privately. Particularly when dealing with people, publicly have grace, be polite and be brief.

Grace is thankfulness, a state of gratitude for objectively seeing what’s to be learned. What makes us uncomfortable, angry, fearful and agitated has much to teach us (as does how we react and manage our emotions).

Have you ever reflected upon what bothered you and written it down (and years later, read your journal only to see you knew something long before it revealed itself)?

It may be your body talking and telling you to not eat tomatoes.

It could be you have a funny feeling about taking a particular road home.

Perhaps when you’re just starting to date someone and they ask you to remove all your items from their house before their sisterly friend comes over, your eyebrows should raise.

Moral of the story?

If there are red flags and something tells you that something isn’t quite right, LISTEN.

Pay attention to yellow flags, white flags and especially RED flags.  See what’s being shown to you, not just what’s being said.

I think people often poo-poo the idea of intuition and the feminine side of everyone is suppressed by such poo-pooing.  A greater wisdom is accessible and very REAL so honor it.

If you have a hunch that someone isn’t quite what they say they are, give it time and eventually it will reveal itself.

What about forgiveness?

Begin with forgiving yourself in that you didn’t trust yourself and made being “in love” or “nice” or “loyal” or “practical” more important than your truth.

What about closure?

Ask yourself who is it for and what does it represent.  Sometimes the permission slip you’re wanting to give something or someone else is REALLY about you.  The degree to which you want to give someone the chance to make up for their mistakes is the degree to which you wished someone did the same for you.  So do that.  Closure can come in a different form than expected. It could come as a dream, a conversation with someone who went through something similar.  Making amends and talking it out isn’t always the answer, especially when there hasn’t been space, time and growth to really see things differently (or objectively).

What about being open-hearted?

Never give anyone the power to close your heart or revoke your innocence.  DO ask questions, seek truth, keep an open mind, honor your heart and cultivate an even wiser approach to observing people and situations.  You can love and have compassion for everyone, truly EVERYONE but that doesn’t mean you invite anyone to come into your life, your bed, your inner circle.

Would you invite some random person to your therapy session?  Nope.  Probably not.

Should you invite Jack to your birth?

Here's Johnny? DEFINITELY NOT.

Use discretion.

Your time, body, energy and heart are precious so be discerning with how, what, when and why your share.  Just use common sense combined with what you feel.

What you feel is unique to you and it’s your emotional guidance system that helps you know YOUR TRUTH for what’s right for you.

Here’s to the love and lessons,

Ella

Yesterday, my Bhakti Yoga teacher shared this quote from His Holiness as we left our Sunday practice.

Instead of beginning the week with lists of how much you can accomplish and looking at your bank account balance, I say read this quote first.  We need lovers, peacemakers, storytellers  right now BIG TIME.

We especially need hearts that aren’t afraid to look at what they fear or where they’ve been out of integrity.  Tell your story to someone today, one you’re continuing to learn from and when in doubt, seek truth and be free to love yourself (and the world around you that so desperately needs it).