After watching the clip of Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk at the 2009 TED conference on nurturing creativity, I was totally inspired... and very surprised. Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love had a profound effect on my life. I remember being totally awed by the fact that this woman could drop out of life completely and go in search of herself abroad. If I could have taken any one of those three journeys for even of the fraction of the time she did I would have been ecstatic. I had been longing for years to take a sojourn inward and just be with myself. I wanted desperately to unplug and go somewhere and ponder and write with no distractions and no interruptions. For many years this was my burning desire. So to say that I envied Elizabeth Gilbert would be putting it mildly. Not only did she get to take one year off to travel and immerse herself in foreign culture, she found the love of her life, came to terms with herself, and wrote about it in a book that sold 1.5 million copies. If that’s not “having it all” I don’t know what is.

You can imagine my surprise when I listened to the lecture from the conference. She presents a very interesting and poignant theory about how to better manage the creative process and confesses that she had to do some research on this topic to manage her own difficulties since her book has been published. “What difficulty could you possibly be referring to Elizabeth?” Being mobbed at book signings or getting recognized at the supermarket? Such problems, I wish I had them. No, she’s talking about the possibility that at 40 years old she had already done her best work and that it’s all downhill from here. She’s currently in the process of trying to write her next book but instead has found herself fighting for her creative life. Who would have thought that finally arriving meant coming to terms with the most painful aspect of the artist’s life: that you’ve already said everything that you’re going to say, that anything you do from this point on will always fall short of what you did before. Not exactly the tools of inspiration and as she says in the lecture the reason why many a young artist succumbs to self-destruction.

So I thank you Elizabeth Gilbert for being so public with your struggle because now instead of envying you, I feel for you and I am reminded that we’re all struggling...with something. We may be in different places on the ladder but the difficulties are no less painful the further up you go. We never really arrive. There’s always more to do. It’s all a process. And as the Buddhists have been saying all these years: there is no there, only here.

45 Lessons That Life Taught Me

This was a column from The Plain Dealer in Ohio written by Regina Bret. Just a little something to make you stop and think...

45 Lessons That Life Taught Me

1. Life isn't fair,but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate,resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret,you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

In any competitive situation, whoever has the least interest, has the most power.

When I read this quote, it just about knocked me over.

The quote is from The Joy Diet by Martha Beck What’s funny is that I had been working on a blog post for the last couple of weeks about want. You know, the things you have buried so deep in your consciousness they’ve practically disappeared? Those things that if you were able to have/acheive them, would give you a sense of peace/accomplishment/contentment? Those things that if you had them, would make your heart sing? Notice you don’t ever tell them to anyone, least of all yourself.

As a life coach I always begin by asking my clients what they want in the different areas of their lives. The process of coaching is an inquiry into want, but want is also a vehicle. It is our desire for various things in life that propels us into action. Whether it’s the desire for something (money)or the desire to keep something from happening (losing our jobs) desire is the prime mover. Yet, it is so difficult to articulate our wants. I’ve noticed that most people are either afraid of them or they have spent so many years denying them that they can’t even locate their desires. Helping people to identify their wants and lay down a plan for actually getting them is to me the most rewarding thing I can do.

In any competitive situation, whoever has the least interest, has the most power.

The quote is referring to the basis of all Buddhist doctrine which is the concept of detachment. Detachment is a rough concept to grasp. Wanting something, doing everything in your power to make it happen, but letting go of the outcome takes a lot of discipline. Holding on too tightly to the outcome causes tension and impedes performance. Professional athletes aren’t focused on winning when they compete, it’s focused on playing the game to the best of their ability.

There’s a movie in theaters right now that is a documentary about the casting of the 2004 revival of A Chorus Line. In the movie Rachelle Rak, who is a veteran broadway performer is up for the role of Sheila. If you know the show, Sheila is the provocative, somewhat bitter, sexy, older dancer whose quick wit is ready with a comeback at any moment. Rachelle could not be more right for the part. In the course of the movie there are many interviews with the dancers who are being considered for roles. In one of the interviews Rachelle comes right out and says that she doesn’t want to let herself think about getting the role because she doesn’t want to have to experience the devastation she will feel if she doesn’t get it. It is clear that she is afraid of her wanting.

One of the pivotal scenes of the movie takes place during the final call backs, eight months after the first audition. There have been numerous dance and vocal auditions and it is finally the end of the line. Now it is down to yes or no. Unfortunately it is a “no” for Rachelle. When her agent tells her the news, she doesn’t even flinch. She made some flip comment like “you have no idea how Broadway wants me, you have no idea” and took her things and left. No emotion, no tears, no nothing. HER REACTION WAS SO SHIELA.

Why do we think if we pretend not to want something that we really want that it will somehow lessen the hurt when we don’t get it?

What Rachelle did has nothing to do with detachment--as a matter of fact it was just the opposite. She didn’t just want the role--she needed the role. Her entire career was riding on it. Wants are tricky. You need to know what you want and go after it, but then you have to let go of the outcome. It requires serious trust; trust that if you don’t get what you want there’s a really good reason--or there’s something better coming down the path. It’s a careful dance this one of manifestation. You need to know when to push and when to let go.

Call Them Out!

I had an interesting conversation with a close friend yesterday. While we don’t get to speak all that much there is such a deep connection between the two of us that I often feel like we’re living parallel lives but not necessarily in synch. Our world views and life philosophies are very much the same and thus our interpretations of what happens in our lives and our reactions to things tend to be similar--she totally gets me and I totally get her.

She is in between a business that she started which dissolved very quickly and trying to figure out what she should do next for work. There are a lot of options open to her, she just has to decide what direction she wants to go in. Of course it’s easy for me, being on the outside of the situation to make a pithy assessment of everything but she’s having a rough time of it. I’ve been down the road she’s on--the road of having to reinvent myself and create something from nothing. Anyone who has their own business is often in the business of creating something from nothing and let me tell you, it 's exhausting. My friend being the brilliant writer that she is had a great analogy for what she’s been feeling--she said she’s got too much “drag.” Drag is a technical term for one of the aerodyamic forces that acts on an airplane. When there’s too much drag on a plane, it won’t take flight. Right away I had a visceral sensation of being dragged down as she began to name the elements that make up her drag. I’ve been having my own challenges lately and feeling pretty stuck and got me thinking about what my “drag” is... At first I could not think of one single thing but after I gave it some time here’s what I came up with:

The belief that manifesting anything is difficult.

The belief that I don’t have the capability to accomplish the things I need to and I can’t get anyone to help me.

The belief that there is always something in the way of getting what I want.

The belief that there is always something that I have to fix about myself or some life circumstance that I have to overcome before I can be happy.

I cannot tell you what a relief it was to just name these things. Such a simple exercise yet there’s something about calling these things out into the light of day where I can see them that totally deflates them. I really wasn’t aware of the degree that these beliefs were affecting my life. Knowing what they are is the first step to changing them. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that most of these things aren’t even true. They’re something that my psyche has constructed to keep me stressed out and terminally unhappy--states that I had grown accustomed to living in in the past and my brain was just doing its thing to recreate what’s familiar.

Looking at my drag was like that scene in The Wizard Of Oz when Dorothy finally gets the ruby slippers and is told that the thing she’s been most afraid of (the wicked witch of the west) no longer has any power over her.

My plan for next time I get together with Jean is for both of us to put our drag on the table, out in the open. Name it, look at it, let it go and in doing so take away its power. I invite you my dear readers to comment and in those comments, throw your “drag” on the table as a way of letting go of old things that no longer serve you and while you do repeat after Glinda, “You have no power here, now be gone!

Thanks Twitter!

Tweet What You Eat!
As if we’re all not obsessed and messed up enough about what we’re eating, now the latest technology can catalog our obsession for us and make us feel guilty. Thanks twitter! Just what I want-- to be twittering everything I eat. This application is so useless because you have to put in the calorie count --it doesn’t do it for you. You can put in a calorie limit for the day and once you reach it twitter will alarm you. So now my guilty conscience and my phone will both badger me for eating too much. What a joy. And just for additional fun, the food intake that you post is public information. Anyone can click on your username and ready your entire food log. HUMILIATING if you ask me. Then there’s the “do not eat list.” that way you can “keep track of the foods you don’t want to eat.” Meaning you can see all in one place how many times you broke your diet. Information that I never want to have!!! And you can look back at your old food diaries or search on a specific food and you will see what date you ate it. Because you should be reminded to feel guilty about what you eat as many times a day as possible.

Cravings

In the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body workshop one of the homework assignments is to come up with a list of at least 10 treats that you can give yourself--a treat being anything that when you think of it makes you smile (thanks to the great Martha Beck for the terminology and definition). The rest of the assignment is to do one of the things off your list each day. The thought behind this is that if you’re overeating or bingeing consistently it’s because you’re using food as your primary source of pleasure. Many of us have gotten so used to dieting and depriving ourselves that we have equated eating certain foods to experiencing the ultimate pleasure when in fact eating that food ends up being just another binge because we felt so guilty about what we were eating that we didn’t enjoy it. So part of the point of the workshop is to get in touch with other things that bring us pleasure and to put more of that into our lives. The other concept that I’ve been toying with lately is the concept of cravings. As an eater, I always associate the word cravings with food but I’ve started to broaden that concept for myself. I’ve begun to ask myself what are some of the things that I crave emotionally, because I know that 90% of the time, those are the things that are driving the craving for the ice cream or pizza or whatever it may be at the moment.

Some of the things that I came up with are:
emotional connection- a lot of the time I’m craving being seen, heard and understood by others. Making a deep connection with someone else is its own kind of nourishment that goes a long way. It’s the feeling you get when you have someone in your life that really “gets” you.

a connection to myself- for me this means being connected to my creativity whether it’s through writing, creating a workshop, or performance piece. When I’m being creative I feel connected to the deepest part of myself. Unfortunately it’s not that easy to access that place in my psyche and it’s so much easier to think that I want a kit kat.

Trust in the natural order--for me this means trusting that everything is in perfect order in my life--there’s nothing that has to be changed or fixed or improved upon. It is all working and it’s all good. Faith that everything that is is just as it should be. Just thinking about this makes me let go of stress.

My own approval - I would say that in terms of what’s listed here, this one is the biggie. To let go of trying and striving and just feel that I’ve already arrived at that ideal place that I see myself “someday.” Because we all know that the “someday” place keeps changing so we end up being like the motorized rabbit in Bugs Bunny that has the carrot hovering over him--he keeps chasing it but it’s always just out of reach. It feels like such a luxury to allow myself the feelings of relief that come with finally arriving. I used to have a painting on my fridge that was done in kind of expressionist lettering that said: I Already Am All The Things I Want To Be. What if all those things I feel I’m lacking in myself and in my life had come to me in one fall swoop: In this moment, I am perfect just as I am and I have everything that I need to be happy. Wow, what liberation.

So my wish for myself and for you, dear readers is to answer your true cravings as best you can whenever you can...because no amount of oreos or ice cream sundaes can feed those deep cravings. Only you can do that.

Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body

I’ve not been writing since I was getting ready for the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body Workshop. The workshop was amazing and it was a truly great group of women. It’s always so healing for me to have a bunch of women together in a room talking about their relationship with food. For anyone who has a dysfunctional relationship with food, just hearing that someone else has the same issues and does the same things you do is very,very helpful. It’s funny how we all think we’re the only ones and that we’re totally alone in our crazy behavior. Everyone thinks their situation is so unique yet I hear the same things over and over again in every workshop. Certainly there’s no one who has done anything in regards to bingeing that I haven’t already done myself.

I think the tide is finally beginning to turn because more and more women are realizing that if their eating behaviors are out of balance, then there is a deeper issue. It always surprises me when women say things like, “I just need to get to the gym more or I just need to get my food under control.” You can’t compartmentalize your eating behavior. Everything in life is connected.

I always ask the women in my workshops if they hate their jobs. Often the answer is yes, and yet they don’t see the connection between hating what they do all day and then coming home at night and devouring a pint of ice cream or an entire box of cookies. It pains me that they always assume that the behavior is caused by their own weakness or lack of willpower. Of course this is what the diet industry would like us to believe. But I have news for everyone, if you are overeating consistently and feel like you can’t trust yourself around food, there are real reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing. Instead of asking ourselves what’s really going on, we try to get a grip on our food intake which is just addressing the symptom but not the disease. It’s like having a brain tumor and taking pain killers to get rid of your headache--that’s what dieting is for someone who is an emotional eater. It’s not doing anything to address the cause of the issue. I’m hoping that if nothing else all of the lovely ladies who attended the workshop are seeing their issues just a little bit differently and are able to feed their souls. When you feed your soul, you will inherently know how to feed your body.