Much has been said and written around the dictum “as viewed so appears" – the fact that what we focus on creates a reality. I intentionally chose the word fact here. Science has proven that our words and thoughts do create molecular changes in things. It’s why when we have a “bad day“ everything seems to go wrong from our flat tire to the longest line at the grocery store. We create the out-picturing of our reality. As viewed, so appears.

Conversely, when we feel joyous, everything seems to synchronistically lineup. People smile back at us and the world feels like a very different place.

Therefore, choosing what we take into our perception of reality is hugely important. I’m not suggesting that we ignore tragedy in the world - but we cannot swim in a steady stream of it constantly and not get waterlogged ourselves. We can’t turn away, but we can choose to see through the lens of compassion and love and choose that as our focus.

It’s way too easy to get sucked into the victim vortex. Once we begin swirling down that drain, it’s very difficult to get ahold of the edge and climb out. It’s way too easy to get stuck in the despair of the problem, rather than in the hope of the solution. And we will have a lot of company in that. Misery loves it.

I’m not suggesting painting pretty Pollyanna pictures of our reality. I am suggesting living in the solution rather than puttering endlessly in the problem.

And I do want to bring the focus back to our own lives because what happens in micro, happens in macro. When we begin to get things right with ourselves, everything begins to incrementally shift. It’s not about selfish, it’s about self-love. When we begin that pivot every everything turns with us just a little bit.

So now, let’s swing back to where I began - as viewed, so appears. When I see things as happening for me, rather than to me; when I see the gift in the lessons; I lift myself up instead of grinding myself down. I see redirection as divine protection, instead of poor me. I get to slow down and breathe in the line at the store instead of ramping up my anxiety.

As viewed, so appears. When I see myself as a loving, lovable, worthy gift I will treat myself as such. When I see the iridescence in the petals of a flower or the hope in a puppies eyes, everything seems a bit more shining and sweet.

As viewed, so appears. When one perspective shifts, it shifts everything. Today, I will choose, right here, right now, to see myself as love. Come to think of it, I’m going to take out my magnifying glass and amplify that one a bit…

The Dolly Parton meme going around has me thinking about what we choose to share of ourselves to the different social and professional circles in our lives, and maybe more importantly, what we don’t choose to share with certain people. As I thumbed through my own images with this meme in mind, I began to see the parts of myself that I present to each of these seemingly different worlds. I get that you may not want your potential new boss or landlord to see your after-hours self, but the fact that we choose to compartmentalize our lives seems, in part, to be based on a fear of rejection. And when we cut off parts of our full expression depending upon who we’re with, we’re not really free and not really honest about the whole truth of who we are.

Balance and trust. When do we rely on the familiar and when do we take that leap of faith? The discomfort of the unknown, the unseen, can feel like having your head in a spin cycle. Releasing one trapeze bar to reach the next requires the faith that you aren’t going to fall and spat as a result of that mid-air leap. Faith is like any muscle that is built over time. With a little bits of evidence here and there we grow stronger and build more of a foundation in that faith.

But when a major leap is required, we seem to forget the stability of this foundation that we’ve worked on so hard for so long. We often step into fear – False Evidence Appearing Real instead of Feeling Everything And Rising.

That leap requires courage. Coeur - a heart, raging with so much love that we are carried to that other side. Spirit, Source, the Divine has that kind of love for us. And when we love ourselves enough to say yes, to step into the truth that we are held, we are loved, we are taken care of, the path becomes clear. The fog lifts. And we will see, feel and know that we are safe.

The love of self called for here requires compassion. It requires that we forgive ourselves for all of the ways that we have continued to perpetuate the abuse that we may have, at one time, experienced at the hands of others. When we believe that we deserved the abuse, we prove it by repeating it in some form or another. And most of the time we don’t even realize what we’ve done.

We have to do the Ho’ oponopono and turn it all around. Because that is what it’s all about. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. This is the ancient Hawaiian prayer of compassion and forgiveness known as the Ho’ oponopono.

We do the Ho’ oponopono and release the relentless should. We stop should-ing on ourselves and listen to that still small voice - The one that pipes up when we can get quiet enough to hear her. Her’s is the voice of truth, the unafraid, the voice of courage. That raging beautiful heart that wants to lead us to our Light. The Light that we came here to be for ourselves and for others. The Light that is the Truth of our souls.

Listen. Have courage. Lean on that structure - that foundation that you spent so much time and energy building. Trust. You are held. All is well. You are taken care of.

Because I needed this medicine today, I wrote this piece for myself. May it benefit you as it is benefiting me. withLove and manyBlessings.

What if doing something inspiring and fun actually is necessary and actually supported us in elevating our vibration and our mental state so that we could not only generate the income for necessities, but feed our souls to facilitate our rising above a state of mere survival?

At 58, as viewed through the lens of the last bits of my second Saturn Return (something that happens roughly every 30 years), I am currently viewing my life in thirds. In doing so, it seems that I have spent this second third trying to assemble the jagged shards and broken pieces of the first third into some recognizable semblance of a life.

What I’m coming to discover is that the end of this second third is resulting in a sort of primordial glop in which I am beginning to find that something does lay beyond this life of efforting. Of striving to get it right. Trying to figure it out. To win the race to the finish line. I am coming to discover that there is no finish line. No there there.

This metamorphosis that sometimes felt like a burning, melting, metaphorical peeling of skin – a skin that had to be shed because it no longer fit – is beginning to reveal shimmering glimpses of light. A light that refuses to be contained. A light that cannot be diminished…

I’ve long had a conflicted relationship with mothering. Both as a child and as a mother of my own daughter. In this past year and a half, I’ve developed a new relationship with my mother, with the concept of mothering and with my bond with my daughter. This shift has come as a result of coming to truly know my own inherent lovability. That it always existed. I just had no idea how to touch it, how to feel it and how to rest and trust in it. I had a lot to unlearn to get here. But this homecoming is where I’ve always needed to be. 

I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in all of this. I’ve shared other parts of this journey. And today, I’d like to share a letter I’ve written to my daughter, reflective of this newfound relationship. It is truly a love letter. Perhaps it will touch something in you, too...

… She was living the dream of having married the “right guy” from the “right family”. She converted to Catholicism to marry him and with that came the procreation directive. She was living that dream, but it wasn’t her dream. It was the dream that society told her she should have - my mom and virtually every other woman in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s…

Heads up - in this podcast, I discuss some adult issues. If there are little ones around, you may want to grab your headphones.

Just before Thanksgiving, I had gone to my otolaryngologist for a checkup following surgery I had had in the spring for something called idiopathic subglottic stenosis. It’s where you have scar tissue blocking your windpipe. Breathing becomes increasingly difficult as your windpipe opening gets smaller and smaller. Ideopathic means that they don’t know the cause. I had never been intubated and had not been injured in my throat in any way so there was no cause that they could pinpoint.

After surgery, my doctor recommended quarterly followup treatments of steroid shots in my throat. Sounds lovely, right? Apparently the scar tissue tends to grow back repeatedly and the steroids reportedly limit that recurrence. This is a surgery that most have to have 2-3 times in order for the scar tissue to completely diminish even with the steroid shots. I refused the treatments. I was not into the idea of having myself shot up with steroids every three months ongoing.

So at this checkup, eight months after surgery, my windpipe was completely open. No scar tissue. The doctor was amazed at the lack of regrowth considering that I had declined the steroid treatments. “This happens in less than 50% of patients” she muttered.

I knew better than to try to explain that I had been working on healing the issue on an energetic level. The smirk on her face the first time I mentioned the possibility before surgery was telling enough. I wasn’t going to go there again.

On a metaphysical level it is said that issues with the throat revolve around not speaking our truth.

What I am presuming is different in my case versus that of other women with repeated recurrence (this condition is found primarily in white women in their 50s) is that I was addressing the underlying cause. I was repeatedly risking speaking truth. My truth. The unvarnished, un-codependent, empowered truth. With my work colleagues. With my 12 step community. With my friends. And most importantly, with my family - those whose rejection I feared the most.

It didn’t mean going around and beating people over the head with it. It meant speaking from a grounded place. From a knowing place. From a place of resonance within my body.

During the period when I discovered this scar tissue in my throat, my body was also developing symptoms in another way…

Meraki is a word from the Greek that roughly translates to that feeling of soul, love or creativity you put into something; it’s your essence. I’ve spent my entire life trying to get to that essence. to be able to feel it. and touch it. and live it.

From therapy and 12 step to seemingly every possible self help workshop and book, I’ve been a traveler on this path for decades. The journey has included working in radio and television commercials, becoming a playboy bunny and underage exploits with a well-known television actor. It’s traversed the journey from sexual abuse and divorce to parenting and marrying someone of the same gender. It’s gone from building a multi-million dollar handbag design business to having to put groceries back on the shelf because I didn’t have enough money.

What I’ve finally come to recognize is that this path that we’re on, this life journey that we chose this time around is about remembering who we truly are. It’s about getting back to that essence and living from that place - living with Meraki.

Living withMeraki is about being in the flow. It’s about living from that tuned in, turned on, dropped in place. It’s about plugging in to Source and letting the current power us.

Living withMeraki is something we’ve touched on at times in our lives and when we did everything just felt right. There was a knowing. A confidence. A joy.

Living withMeraki is a practice of coming back again and again to that place of presence - of being so completely in the moment that everything else falls away. We’re not in future worry or past regret. We are just. Here. Now.

When we live from this place of connection to our soul, love and creativity, we do have all the answers (just like our kids accuse us of!) We have everything we need. We always did but in these moments, we know it.

Living withMeraki is about remembering our birthright. It’s about remembering where and what we came from. It’s about our soul path. It’s about the love that we are and it’s about living with that spontaneous spark of creativity that lets us feel truly alive. Every single day. Every single moment. In every single relationship that we possibly can!

This journey has certainly been rich and varied and I’m so incredibly grateful for it. I’m here to share a bit about my experience in the hopes that it might serve to benefit you as well. I’m no expert. On anything. But I’ve learned a lot along the way.

In this podcast, I’ll be in dialogue with others who are also living withMeraki - with a connection to their soul, love and creativity. May you be inspired. May you recognize the refections that you find here. May you know the joy that is living from this place of remembering who you truly are.