Supreme Reaction doesn’t know if this is real or not most likely 50 Cent is playing but there is a realness to it he is moving at to fast a rate for any of his friends to keep up at this point he will almost be so ahead that he will need bigger and more powerful friends Im sure the circles of money and power he moves in are very extreme . but check out is new track and leave a comment .

N*ggas see me and ask where Lloyd banks at  50 says at the end of the track, “N*gga, I don’t know where the f*ck that little n*gga at. I ain’t heard from him. F*ck Yayo too, I’m on some new sh*t. F*ck the group n*gga! I’m gonna introduce you to my new n*gga. Uh. It’s ’11. I figured out what’s the matter with this sh*t. It ain’t me, it’s these n*ggas. It’s the Roc. I’m on my Jay-Z sh*t. Nah, nah, f*ck the group man! I’m on my bossin’ sh*t. I’m all the way to the top god d*mn it. Yeah.” (“I’m All Turnt Up”)

You can click on the image to get to the Amazon website to review the book in more detail.

I remember long ago reading all the self-help books I could find on how to be persuasive when dealing with interpersonal conflicts.  The toughest individuals were the ones that were the most aggressive and could care less how you felt.  They would always have a counter-argument that would tear apart the great principals put forth by Dale Carnegie such as “Focus on the problem, not the person”.

So, when I came across the concept of “Mirror-like wisdom” and understood it, I never had a problem when dealing with difficult people.  All the resentment from my past faded away.

The next time I had a confrontation with another person; it was easy to be a relaxed witness to whatever was unfolding.  To understand that this angry person in front of me was an actual “reflection of your mind” is quite profound.

I truly wish that more people in the psychological field will be able to use this understanding for the benefit of ALL their clients.

All the best,
Neo

In Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem,” he sings “There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” From what I can tell, Virgo, the week ahead will be one of the best times all year for welcoming the light that comes through the cracks. In fact, I urge you to consider widening the cracks a little — maybe even splitting open a few new cracks — so that the wildly healing light can pour down on you in profusion.

This is a pretty accurate description of my life this week.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..
The Second Coming, W B Yeats

I memorized this poem a long time ago, and each time something went drastically
wrong in my life,
I felt like I was revisiting this truth! yet no one around me seemed to know of
this poem. So, imagine my joy when I saw a book of the same name, sitting alone
on a book shelf, I guess waiting for me to pick it up.   

I have read the first two chapters of the book... I am loving what I am reading
so far, cannot wait to read more.

I remember how profoundly it struck me when Sally Field’s character, Sybil, was at the point in her therapy when she felt that the world was coming to an end. And the therapist pointed out that it wasn’t the world that was coming to an end, it was just Sybil’s world as she knew it that was changing in a big way. She was actually beginning to remember parts of her life and thus coming together as a personality system in a better way.

Sometimes allowing things to fall apart is the best thing we can do. Often resistance only serves to prolong the agony and fear of change. When we allow ourselves to go with the flow and surrender to the process of what is happening instead of denying it or fighting it, we create space for a greater part of ourselves to emerge.

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t stand up for ourselves or fight for what we believe in. I only mean that when there is a breakdown of sorts in our lives, it can be useful to surrender to the natural process of that breakdown in order to achieve the full benefit of what is created as things fall back together again.

For example: When we feel like we are coming down with something, it is not an uncommon practice to fight it or suppress it with pills and caffeine instead of listening to the signals our bodies are giving us and taking the time to nurture ourselves and rejuvenate. We are so conditioned in our society to suppress our feelings and keep it together and tough it out that we are forgetting how amazing we really are. Yet, when we actually listen and nurture ourselves accordingly, we emerge as stronger, happier and more productive beings.

This is nothing new. I am only choosing to look at it more closely these days, since I have made a commitment to allow myself to feel more and do less. The commitment came about as I realized I was heading full speed into a dead end street (figuratively, not literally) as a performer by working too much, playing too little and burning that famous candle in both ends. My programmed response, from years and years of deadline driven habits and adrenaline junky behaviors, would have been to will the dead end street into a through street and plow ahead as if nothing had happened.

Instead I stopped, got out of the car and began to smell the flowers. And, as I allowed myself to breathe and to surrender to doing absolutely nothing but smelling those flowers, a new idea formed in my mind: “What would happen if I let myself just be for a while? If I actually took that time off that I said I would take off after I finished my last project? Would my world fall apart? And if it did, would it then be possible for it to come back together in a much better way?

Sometimes all we need is to get out of our own way.

Love and Blessings, Caroline

I’ve been reading little bits of Pema Chödrön’s book, “When Things Fall Apart.”  I’m finding it helpful to compliment Eckhart Tolle’s teachings on presence. In particular…

“…the point is not to try to get rid of thoughts, but rather to see their true nature. Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really they are like dream images. They are like an illusion — not really all that solid. They are, as we say, just thinking.” Pg. 29

This passage – in conjunction with the previous paragraphs – helps me to “surrender to what is” (in E.T.’s words). Suddenly I can feel much bigger, vaster, more substantial than these little rambling threads. (Or, as Pema calls thoughts on page 28, “clouds.”)

Which brings me to this present moment. “Thinking.” A constant movement, outward and away from myself.

Feeling this more consciously, I am reminded of an epiphany I had a day or two ago while discussing the nature of “manifestation” and “intention” with a friend. In short, I feel fine when I, from a still place, engage in, as E.T. calls it, “playing in the world of form.” However, “the rub” comes in when I contemplate asking for things from a place of really being invested in the things, caught up in “how great my life is now that I have…” (putting the wish in present tense).

The investment in “things” is what I am tired of. Though there is a part of me that wants “things” as much as (if not more than) anyone else, alas, this whole “Secret” phenomenon, etc. has really rubbed me the wrong way. And yet, here I am, dwelling in the manifest world, and there is a real spirit of playfulness when I really tap into spiritual arenas.  From there, from stillness and deep, inner peace, manifesting a hobbit house or a palace would be…just what it is.

You can imagine how freaked out I was. My entire business is in my computer. Everything. All of my coaching programs and workbooks, all of my advertising stuff, all of my research. Not to mention how many very important non-business things are on it. And somehow, I had neglected to back anything up in the past six months.

We did everything we could to get rid of this virus. My husband downloaded registry cleaners and anti-spyware and anti-adware programs. And, yes, finally, we DID get rid of it but by the time it was gone, it had done quite a bit of damage. Although I was able to salvage some things, there were still others that I could not save.

After spending a lot of time being totally pissed off, I finally came to the conclusion that what was gone was gone. With some files, I was just going to have to start all over. As much as it sucked, there wasn’t much else I could do.

As I started reorganizing information in a different way that I had the first time, as I created new folders and deleted files that were no longer working (and after I created an automatic backup system for my laptop) I realized that what I was creating now was much stronger and more solid that what I had created before. In fact, I was even a bit grateful that some files were destroyed. Had they not been, I never would have thought about how to recreate them (and, this time, make them even better).

It’s awful when things fall apart. It’s downright HORRIBLE. We need time to be angry about it, to mourn what we’ve lost. That’s not a process that should be rushed.

But maybe things fall apart for a reason. Maybe they fall apart so we can rebuild them with the new tools we’ve got. So that they can be stronger. More solid. You know, like a phoenix, rising from the ashes.

How prepared are any of us when a loved one dies, a child gets sick, a relationship ends, or we face our own mortality? Would anyone ever want to enter willingly into these spiritual deserts?  At first, our psyche gives us the anesthetic of denial.  Running is usually involved in this, either literally or figuratively, and can include drinking, eating, shopping, sleeping, or any other number of means of escape. The sense of needing to flee is intense.  But all matter of not looking at reality, no matter how effective, are temporary salves,  just shock absorbers.  Sooner or later, we need to become ready, to the best of our ability, to sit with those feelings that seem too hot to hold. 

This is the well-worn course to weather difficult times. Some Buddhists call this “relaxing with what is”, allowing pain, grief, and sadness an open vessel (us) to have their way sort of speak.  We learn to inquire into those emotions, describing what they feel like in the body, in a detached a way as possible.  Feeling our feelings, but not judging them. Allowing space for all sorts of internal experiences to be here, now.  I mean they’re here anyhow. If tears come, let them. Panic arises, we stay with it… spiritual warriors present to the storm.  Not trying to do away with any of it, not forcing our pain to pass quickly. We can continue to attempt to skip the process, but areas of our lives which we avoid have an uncanny way of repeating themselves in different guises until we learn.  We are beginning to discover a way to walk barefoot on the burning sand paths of our life’s journey.

 I say beginning, because each new day, every present moment is a chance to practice.  We may still run to our chosen addictions, from time to time, but we are more aware of what we are doing.  We are more able to be comfortable in our discomfort, to allow for ambiguity without immediately seeking resolution.   

Book of the Day When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron 

Quote from The Book of the Day: ”When we have reminders of death, we panic. It isn’t just that we cut our finger, blood begins to flow, and we put on a Band-Aid.  We add something extra-our style.  Some of us just sit there stoically and bleed all over our clothes. Some of us get hysterical; we don’t just get a Band-Aid, we call the ambulance and go to the hospital.  Some of us put on designer Band-Aids.  But whatever our style is, it’s not simple.  It’s not bare bones.”

“Can’t we just return to the bare bones?  Can’t we just come back?  That’s the beginning of the beginning… Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones.  Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time- that is the basic message.”

Let them.

The phoenix rises from the ashes-

Rebirth in its destiny.

Each of us has a “soft spot”: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.

Often, when we feel that soft spot, it’s quickly followed by a feeling of fear and an involuntary, habitual tendency to close down. This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and cling to pleasure. In practice, however, covering up the soft spot means shutting down against out life experience. Then we tend to narrow down into a solid feeling of self against other.

One very powerful and effective way to work with tendency to push away pain and hold onto pleasure is the practice of tonglen. Tonglen is a Tibetan word that literally means “sending and taking.” The practice originated in India and came to Tibet in the eleventh century. In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it, and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating compassion, lovingkindness, freshness; anything that encourages relaxation and openness.

In this practice, it’s not uncommon to find yourself blocked, because you come face to face with your own fear, resistance, or whatever your personal stuckness happens to be at that moment. At that point, you can change the focus and do tonglen for yourself , and for millions of others just like you, at that very moment, who are feeling exactly the same misery.

I particularly like to encourage tonglen, on the spot. For example, you’re walking down the street and you see the pain of another human being. On-the-spot tonglen means that you just don’t rush by; you actually breathe in with the wish that this person can be free of suffering, and send them out some kind of good heart or well-being. If seeing that other person’s pain brings up fear or anger or confusion, which often happens, just start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are stuck in the very same way.

When you do tonglen on the spot, you simply breathe in and breathe out, taking in pain and sending out spaciousness and relief. When you tonglen as a formal practice, it has four stages:

1) First,rest your mind briefly in a state of openness or stillness.

2) Second, work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy, and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light. Breathe in and radiate completely, through all the pores of your body, until it feels synchronized with your in-and out-breathe.

3) Third, work with any painful personal situation that is real to you. Traditionally, you begin by doing tonglen for someone you care about. However, if your stuck, do the practice for your pain and simultaneously for all those just like you who feel that kind of suffering.

4) Finally, make the taking in and the sending out larger. Whether your doing tonglen for someone you love or for someone you see on television, do it for all the others in the same boat. You could even do tonglen for people you consider your enemies–those who have hurt you or others. Do tonglen for them, thinking of them as having the same confusion and stuckness as your find or yourself.

This is to say that tonglen can extend indefinitely. As you do the practice, gradually, over time, your compassion naturally expands– and so does your realization that things are not as solid as you thought. As you do this practice, at your own pace, you’ll be surprised to find yourself more and more able to be there for others, even in what seemed like impossible situations.

- Pema Chodron from When Things Fall Apart:Heart Advice for Difficult Times

Two or three days in, I wonder what I’ve done.  Not that there’s any grand drama about whether I’m in or out, on or off, part of or apart from, really …

I mean it’s like my long ago friend, a miner – maybe for a heart of gold – who used to say to me, Les, whenever you worry what people think about you, just remember, at least six billion persons don’t give a damn.

That’s the thing. I joined the network and immediately started looking around for groups. I found some. It’s like they were waiting for me to arrive. And in what seems to be a never-ending search for a place to belong, a place to chat, a place for words (ah, yes, that place for words), I arrive and once again find that I’ve arrived with me.

It’s not like it sounds.  I like me. On good days (and the days are getting better as I go), I’m liking me a lot more than I used to. But there are parts of me I’ve really never met, not fully, not completely, and they – more than the rest – are determined to be met and seem to come to the party ill-prepared and looking a little more rag-tag than my liking.

A friend shared about her reluctance to take the next step in the practice of sharing herself – her resentments, her fears, the harms she had caused – with another human being. Even she, in her reluctance (“dizzyingly terrified”), knew her fear was irrational. Yet, there it was. It went everywhere with her, together with her spiral-bound notebook in which she had listed all the things she was to share. Me, myself, and I, ‘cept the notebook, when not in her purse, travelled in the trunk.

One day, crazy busy, she realized the notebook had gone missing. Some time later – a long time later, long enough for the notebook finder to have read, copied, and shared it with at least half of the town and all of her workplace – a workmate emerged from the building, carrying the book.

“Is this yours?” he asked.

Indeed.

~

That she shared this recently was a gift. This woman is someone I have deep respect for; someone who helped me sometime ago with a sticky wicket kind of problem. Her sharing this particular story endeared her even more to me. And tonight, it’s travelled along into my lexicon and somehow managed to lodge itself into my creeping awareness. That awareness of me being me.

~

It’s been relatively easy for me to admit I’m a perfectionist. I’ve heard it about me for so long, I can’t even remember when I first was told. And I’ve always accepted this label, at times even worn it like a little badge of honour. Yet it wasn’t until this evening that I realized I am perhaps more hobbled by my thought that some among us are perfect.

Institutions. Professions. Creeds. Codes.

Tonight I know I’ve been wrong, and it’s not being wrong that hurts so much, it’s thinking that I’ve believed in Superman all this time only to discover he really is Clark Kent. And like Lois, I can’t seem to reconcile the two.

~

I’ve managed to get involved in a rather hasty and surprising activist uprising. And I suppose I must be ready or the teacher wouldn’t have appeared. The me who’s tagging along for all she’s worth for many, many years wants her day and neither of us are quite sure how to manage any of it.  She’s the one who marched with linked arms in anti-war protests. One, two, three, four, we don’t want your stinking war, she’d chant for all she’s worth. The flower child, the pacifist who thought one should die for peace, the one who’d conscientiously object for peace, sit-in and lie down in the streets for peace.

That was a long time ago, though. And she and I seem to have come face-to-face with each other on this social networking site, all these years later.

I’m still here, she says, and she’s proud but she’s lonely. She’s bold but unsure. She’s courageous and suddenly afraid for all the things she thought worth fighting for, and all the supermen and superwomen, don’t seem all that super … or all that different from her … after all.

~

I’m reading the book “A Bitter Pill: How The Medical System Is Failing The Elderly” by Dr. John Sloan. It’s an excellent book if you can get over page after page of indictments and the sorrow his experiences – those of his patients – evoke. I’ve had to put the book down for a time, because I can’t quite seem to get over it. It seems that everywhere I look everything is falling apart or has broken completely.

And this is the thing. Flower children need a cause to resist. Protests are useless unless there’s something to protest against. And in the great spiritual law which is “that what I focus on expands and what expands I focus on” there is this dawning understanding that I – and all the other “I”s have somehow created exactly that which we protest, else how could it have been there to protest at all?

It feels crazy, all of it.

~

A friend and I were talking about schools yesterday. I told her that I had homeschooled my children for two years some years ago.  As I did what was necessary to remove them from the public system, it was noted that my children needed to be adequately instructed in order to write tests and exams throughout the year. An appointment was scheduled for me to meet with the school board coordinator to receive materials and whatever was available to use at home. Not surprisingly I discovered there were few materials to be had. There was no curriculum. No texts. And no tests.

No tests, I repeated. But the requirements are that they write tests, I reminded her.

She didn’t want to talk about this. Instead she told me how hard it was being a teacher, and how, following a nervous breakdown, she had moved into the board end of things. Less pressure. I commiserated. And asked again about the tests. Aren’t tests necessary to determine a pass or a fail?

“Who are we to say if a child passes or fails?” she finally replied.

Indeed.

~

It feels like everything has failed, like everything is broken. The government, its citizens, the electoral process, health care, the penal system, the schools. And tonight, on said social networking site, there was brief chat on the state of journalism – the profession and its creed.

Somehow the thought that journalism as a pure, vibrant SuperProfession was not only an illusion, but also so broken as to be unfixable has touched something in me, and touched me very deeply.

I don’t know what it is exactly, yet. Although I suspect it’s somehow connected to a flower child, who’s caught up with me, a little breathless and a lot curious.

She’s carrying a spiral-bound notebook and she’s holding it out with a question in front of me.

She’s saying, Is this yours?

We already know this part.

The next part is, what are we going to do about it?

We don't experience the world fully unless we are willing to give everything away.  Samaya means not holding anything back, not preparing our escape route, not looking for alternatives, not thinking that there is ample time to do things later. -Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart

So lets give away our distractions

Climb down from our wheels

And be in the world.

How do we ever capture what’s in our hearts and lay it on the page?  I think of Bob Unke, one of the finest and most prolific poets I’ve had the pleasure to know.  Hope this is okay by you, Bob; I still have the two volumes of A-Z that you sent me over ten years ago.

~

What is it the tech guy used to say to me:  “Can you reproduce that?”

I awake this morning, remembering that last night I didn’t lay out a plan for today as I said I would.  This thought feels more anxious than ashamed. Yesterday brought some gains. Yesterday was my weekly check-in call with my sponsor. Yesterday was a modest list of “do things” and a getting-them-done. Yesterday was a willingness to not panic, not berate myself, not fall apart, or if falling, to fall with as much grace as I could summon.

This was good, said I, must do this again tomorrow, although even then I wondered how I could do again what’s already been done.

God answers our questions every time, right on time.

~

I decide to tackle the room that has become like that ‘teenage wasteland,’ a place where all my papers and bills and envelopes (opened and not), old schedules, resumes, books (ideas for, some begun, some not), books (read and reread), stories, articles (mine and others, how-to and how-not-to), receipts, guarantees, creditors, ideas, projects, recycling boxes, deal with this now, later, never piles.

I’ve been “tackling” this room since it moved in some months ago. Today, I decide, I won’t tackle it at all.  I will just enter, and go and see and be. I will be one with this place, and do what I can.

It’s a dangerous place, this. Thinking I enter alone, I know I don’t. Thinking it’s just paper, I know it’s not.  These are pieces of me, the good, the bad, the ugly. I am a builder of stones in the river. I am the mistress of paper piles, of alphabetizing and then deciding on categories, or no, maybe chronological is the only way to go.

I do this for as long as I can. I lose track of time in the Leslie Triangle. Diving, I then surface too quickly. I remember Barbados and an ocean dive. Sixteen and an introduction afterward to the heart-starting, blood-warming slam of cognac.

Today I come up a little shaky but holding on to courage and acceptance instead of a snifter.

This is how we do again what we did yesterday – how we replicate, not by dodging or weaving but by remembering and holding our seat. The blessings flow over me, mix with my tears and wash me.

~

The phone rings later. I am in arrears, I hear the automated voice say. He sounds like an old friend, this computerized voice. I pay the amount. I try to mean it when I bless the thought that for today I am still credit worthy. I try to affirm that this is how money works, it flows in and out in perfection, just like any other – every other – energy.

I keep eyeing the bed like I’m calculating the cost of falling apart there. Instead I go to the book shelf and take down Pema’s book by the same name. I pause and open. I open to page 128, the second page of her chapter “The Trick of Choicelessness.”

“In the vajrayana (The “diamond vehicle”; the practice of taking the result as the path.), there is something called the samaya bond, whereby the student’s total experience is bound to the path. At a certain time, after a lot of intelligent questioning, the student may finally feel ready to enter into a samaya relationship with his or her teacher. If the student accepts and trusts the teacher completely and the teacher accepts the student, they can enter into the unconditional relationship called samaya. The teacher will never give up on the student no matter how mixed up he or she might be, and the student will also never leave the teacher, no matter what.

“The student and teacher are bound together. It’s like a pact that they make to attain enlightenment together. Another definition of samaya is “sacred oath,” or “sacred commitment.” But it’s nothing holy; it’s a commitment to sanity – to indestructible sanity. Samaya is like a marriage with reality, a marriage with the phenomenal world. But it’s a trick. This marriage is a little bit like having amnesia. We think that we have decided to marry this partner of our own free choice; however, unknown to us, we already are married.

“…In vajrayana Buddhism there are descriptions of many different samayas, but they all have to do with realizing that we are bound to reality; they all trick us into that choiceless situation. Even if every inch of our being wants to run in the opposite direction, we stay here. There is no other way to enter sacred world. We have to stop thinking that we can get away and settle down somewhere else.

“…All these constantly arising thoughts are the mind of our teacher. This is where we begin to be introduced to the fact that our teacher is not separate from our experience. We realize there is not alternative to the experience that we have. Our experience is the only experience there is. [And] this is the ultimate teacher.”

~

How do I know I don’t need what I don’t have? Because I don’t have it. (Byron Katie) And this applies to both the material and immaterial. I am still falling down the rabbit hole, yet I’m beginning to enjoy it. Beginning to know that it is just what I need right now, everything I encounter, no more, no less, beginning to know I can replicate or not, that I can embrace or push away, that I can resist or relax, samaya is – I am in that relationship with this moment, like it or not.  It’s just incredibly better liking it, all of it, every inch of it, all the time.

/lh

I love libraries. I love the free books and DVDs, not to mention the large collection of free, current magazines to read.  Sometimes I go to the library seeking something specific, but often times I go and simply ask the Universe to point me in the right direction to something I’ll like, or that will have significance in my life.

I spent most of my youth reading fiction books by authors like Elizabeth Berg, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Anne Tyler, and many, many more that I can’t remember or name right now. However, a couple of years ago I started on my 97th journey of self-discovery and was turned onto many non-fiction books dealing with spirituality and such by my (then-brand-new) boyfriend, at-the-time therapist, and my mom.

I read Conversations with God, The Mastery of Love, When Things Fall Apart, and You Have to Say Something, to name a few. For the first time I started really looking into meditation, Buddhism, and how to take responsibility for my own feelings and actions.

Since those days I have read dozens of books that are along the same lines and I get something new and interesting out of almost everything I read. Over the last couple of weeks, though, the Universe has really been taking my library trips seriously!

I was strongly drawn to the Bibliography section a couple of weeks ago, where a book called The Lightworker’s Way leapt off the shelves at me, especially because just a couple weeks before that library trip one of my coaching buddies shared The Lightworker’s Prayer with me; both of these are authored by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. I printed out The Lightworker’s Prayer and have shared it with many of my clients, and of course I have a copy hanging on my bulletin board in my office.

The book reinforced some of my newly-forming beliefs and spoke to me in a beautiful, touching way.  Just last week I went back to the library and walked by the bibliography section again. I didn’t look any harder than I had the day The Lightworker’s Way had jumped out at me; yet on this day it was nowhere to be found.  I’m serious when I say these things leap out at me!

This time, however, I turned my attention to the right a little further down the stacks, and something else caught my attention: a section of auto-biographical books by author Madeleine L’engle. I’ve read her A Wrinkle In Time a couple of times in my younger years, and I remember that she died somewhat recently (2007), but I had no idea what I was picking up when I grabbed her A Circle of Quiet.

I can’t tell you how thankful I am for this book, and I’m only on page 31. Did you ever read something that spoke to you so deeply that you felt close to tears? No, not some sappy Nicholas Sparks novel that is engineered to make you run to the hankies; something that resonates you with you very, very deeply.

Let me back up for a moment. I love life coaching. Guiding people is a pleasure for me. However, life coaching is not the final stop on my journey. I am a writer. Last year, when I started writing in earnest, I felt a spark of joy and effortlessness that I had never, ever felt before. I especially to write fun and silly pieces with a message. As I mentioned, though, I’ve started slowly racking up rejection e-mails and letters from magazines and publishing houses.

I’ve been in a slight funk this week. I know I want to write, in fact, besides this blog I regularly work on various book ideas, submit articles to certain local publications, and just two days ago completed my first ever short story for entry into a competition. However, I struggle with the voice in my head that says “You should concentrate on coaching and finding more coaching clients now! You haven’t made any money writing! Writing as a career is too hard for you to accomplish!” And on and on and on. Obviously, that kind of beating from my brain every day does not a motivated Jen make.

But this book rejuvenated me. Literally overnight. Last night before bed I read a few paragraphs on L’engle’s own struggles with rejection.

But during that decade when I was in my thirties, I couldn’t sell anything. If a writer says he doesn’t care whether he is published or not, I don’t believe him. I care. Undoubtedly I care too much. But we do not write for ourselves alone. I write about what concerns me, and I want to share my concerns. I want to write to be read. Every rejection slip – and you could paper the walls with my rejection slips – was like a rejection of me, myself, and certainly of my amour-propre.

She goes on to write about the various books she had on hold at publishing houses, and the various reasons why she was being rejected. As her thirties came to a close, she believed her bad luck would end, and a new decade would usher in new successes. However, that wasn’t entirely true.

On my birthday I was, as usual, out in the Tower working on a book. The children were in school. My husband was at work and would be getting the mail. He called, saying, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this on your birthday, but you’d  never trust me again if I kept it from you. _______ has rejected The Lost Innocent.

This seemed an obvious sign from heaven. I should stop trying to write. All during the decade of my thirties (the world’s fifties) I went through spasms of guilt because I spent so much time writing, because I wasn’t like a good New England housewife and mother. When I scrubbed the kitchen floor, the family cheered. I couldn’t make a decent pie crust. I always managed to get something red in with the white laundry in the washing machine, so that everybody wore streaky pink underwear. And with all the hours I spent writing, I was still not pulling my own weight financially.

So the rejection on the fortieth birthday seemed an unmistakable command: Stop this foolishness and learn to make cherry pie.

I covered the typewriter in a great gesture of renunciation. Then I walked around and around the room, bawling my head off. I was totally, unutterably miserable.

Suddenly I stopped, because I realized what my subconscious mind was doing while I was sobbing; my subconscious mind was busy working out a novel about failure.

I uncovered the typewriter. In my journal I reocrded thhis moment of decision, for that’s what it was. I had to write. I had no choice in the matter. It was not up to me to say I would stop, because I could not. It didn’t matter how small or inadequate my talent. If I never had another book published, and it was very clear to me that this was a real possibility, I still had to go on writing.

When I woke up this morning, or rather, when my cat woke up me up to be let out, I couldn’t fall asleep because I was full of ideas and plans. You see, right now I have at least three book ideas knocking around, but because of all my other doubts I have hesitated and hemmed and hawed about completing them. After trying to fall back asleep this morning for half an hour, I gave up, sat up, and wrote down my new plan.

Basically, it involves finishing my books and, using the amazing new technologies that were not available to Madeleine L’engle in 1972, when A Circle of Quiet was written, getting them out there some way, some how.

I can publish them as e books. I can give them away for free on my website and blog. I want to write to convey what I’ve learned, to help people, to bring joy to people.  Financial gain would be a happy by product, but, like L’engle, I feel as though I have no choice in the matter: I must write.

And write I have, on this blog post! Hope you’re not too exhausted reading all that! Be well, and remember that if you listen and look, things that make a difference will come into your life.

Be Joyful!

Yesterday and today were almost pain-free. I’m still feeling alot of fluid rushing to my foot and toes whenever I use my crutches or stand up. In a matter of minutes, all my toes turn into these blueish looking sausages. It’s like clockwork. So, here I am on Friday night with my leg propped up in the same position it has been for a week. I hate being inactive.

On a totally different topic that has nothing to do with large tendons, I’m reading a book given to me by a friend. I’m sure most people have heard of it, “Eat. Pray. Love.” I’m on pray. And boy does it hit home for me…

Almost a year-and-a-half-ago I was ending a long chapter in my life and struggling with the transition. The life I had come to expect, know, want was taken and I was left to pick up the pieces of my own broken creation. A dear friend of mine introduced me to a book called “When Things Fall Apart,” which outlines some Buddhist ideologies.

I’m not a sitter, to put it lightly. My foot jiggles up and down across my knee when I’m at work, my mind is continuously racing with thoughts, daydreams, grandeur plans (to rule the world.) So, as you might imagine, just sitting in silence left to my own voice was (and still is) new and difficult for me. But some days, it was that skill that saved me.

It is intriguing  that as I approach yet another crossroads in my life that the same ideals I found many months ago — self-love, peace, patience, quietness — are re-surging all around me (and yet again in the form of a book from a dear friend.) I don’t think it’s coincidence.

There was one quote in particular that got to me as I was reading last night:

If something is rubbing so hard against you, you can be sure it’s working on you… Be a scientist of your own spiritual experience. You’re not here as a tourist or a journalist; you’re here as a seeker. So go explore it.

This book was suggested to me by an old friend and trading it got me thinking about Buddhist philosophy …. it also got me through a rough patch together with a person on the other side of the world who I had never met!

The beautiful practicality of her teaching has made Pema Chödrön one of the most beloved of contemporary American spiritual authors among Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. A collection of talks she gave between 1987 and 1994, the book is a treasury of wisdom for going on living when we are overcome by pain and difficulties. Chödrön discusses:

•  Using painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage
•  Communicating so as to encourage others to open up rather than shut down
•  Practices for reversing habitual patterns
•  Methods for working with chaotic situations
•  Ways for creating effective social action

(hvem er min? Den mest sexye såklart)