We may appear to be fucked on both sides as Generation X but we also are the wisest and fiercest generation. I was sent a fantastic video from two women friends this weekend about a woman on IG Kat Hurley who encapsulates our Gen X women fuckery in this reel here.

What I have realized in this year in the 5-5, writing my second book (getting to the finish line people on this book proposal with the brilliant Robin Colucci who is saving my author soul and breaking open parts of me I didn’t know existed) and the two years I have been writing the column on Permission - we may be the authority on how to get s**t done as the “sandwich generation,” but we need to give ourselves a break. We are harder on ourselves than anyone else is on us. We beat ourselves up on all sides. We have every tool and philosophy and mindset baked inside us… we just need to chill the f**k out and inward focus.

We are quick to the chase and if we calm down. and take our smart, savvy as something we don’t have to give away, we will realize fast we don’t need to be told we need self-confidence or self-worth. I don't need to read a whole book to tell me I am worthy. I know! We have read ALL the books. We just don’t know how to believe if we give ourselves 45 minutes with our sphincter unclenched, the world won’t fall apart. We simply want to eke out a 10-20 minute session of self-solitary yes-ness. A complete oops-worthy carefree state of being which doesn’t completely mean we are dismantling the very fabric of our power. We are scared we have to protect our sanity and serenity all the damn time, which is understandable based on the generational trauma and internal fear of losing ourselves after being completely absorbed by the boomer’s obliviousness. But we have to let go of the reins. Unclench the sphincter. Release the clutch.

I did this at the poker tournament this Saturday.

When I found myself at the main table with the remaining other player three hours into the tournament, I was pitted against a super drunk dude in a cowboy hat and dark glasses with $4000 big blind bets. Everyone at the tournament was crowded around to watch. The place was loud. I knew even if I lost to him, I had 2nd place. I was happy but I thought, I came this far. Maybe I could have first, but I wasn’t attached to it. I already went way farther than I thought I would, and that was tripping me out.

Never once in the whole tournament did I think, I can’t do this. Never once did I think, here’s where it ends. I used all the tools I have orchestrated the last five decades of my life in all the variables of drama, trauma and triumph. I was calm, stayed steady, and when my chips were real low (I mean 30 minutes in I was almost out of cash), I pulled back on my wild betting a little and just folded for a bit till I got back my legs. It didn’t matter that the gal next to me was cleaning up. I cheered her on and took in her steady energy. What mattered was four of the 8 of us were going to advance to the other table that was also whittling down. I didn’t know if that would be me, but as I treated this experience like when I do something for just myself in life - I ignored some of the chiding from other players when they knew I had a bluff hand, or a high card, and held my seat. Two hours later, I took my seat at the second table.

While this is a tournament where you do it for charity, the amount of “money” were were throwing around initially was based on a $150 buy in. We were given way more than that in chips to start, but every dime I had on the second table was earned in the steadiness. I mean, I had like $40,000 at one point. People at the party were loud and drunk. While I was playing poker, they were drinking. I didn’t socialize with anyone. I peed for a quick five seconds. I didn’t drink anything but water and I didn’t eat. As I watched players drop on the second table, and I saw a pair of 7’s land in my hand, I knew I had the tournament against the drunken cowboy if the dealer turns a third seven. Life’s big IF. When he did, I felt a hard adrenalin rush. I have stared down life’s adversity and unexpected twists and turns with a calm just like this. I enjoyed the adrenalin rush silently. I didn’t need anyone to know until I threw down my cards. I went all in with my chips. I knew that I had him.

By the time I won, I was shocked. I went there with zero expectations. To have a nice mocktail, play for 30 minutes, lose my shirt and go home. But when I won after 3 straight steady hours of playing poker, I was shocked but also knew why. I went all in when needed and I pulled back to bide my time. I ended up winning a 2 night all paid lake cabin in Lake Arrowhead worth $1100. All for a $150 buy in for charity.

We are the steady generation. I have nothing more to prove. I have done all the work. I can sit at the table when there is chaos all around me and be the one who zens out. I can be the observer, and the knower, and at the same time, reap the fun and joy out of rocking the house.

The next day I was in shock. Okay, truth, when I won and everyone was cheering and people were taking pictures of me, I was also a little stunned. I wanted to leave immediately. I saw how tired I was. I saw how much I loved playing poker. I don’t sit down and do something not talking for 3 hours except writing. I don’t even play drums for three hours. I had not only found something I completely loved, but it wasn’t an overnight success story. I had played women’s poker every month for a couple years at my friend Malin’s house for fun. Then I won a tournament.

Like I talked about in Billy Joel’s doc. He had a “win” and then a let down. He had a success story long before he was a success, but he was considered no one. He wrote Piano Man but still didn’t have a solid hit. It wasn’t until he wrote “Just The Way You Are” that he blew up. He wrote about his wife Elizabeth, and while it was a sappy song, it connected with the world. He just stayed in what he knew. Slow and steady. Trusting the talent.

Of course, I am at the part of the doc where he starts to abuse himself with drugs and alcohol which we as Gen X can do if we don’t have relief from the pressure (including from yours truly) so we have to lean more than most into the self-love to get out of the pressure cooker.

The next day, I was so tired. I was like floored tired. My brain was exhausted from focusing that long on cards. I dreamed of Ace high and a pair of Jacks. I allowed myself a day off. I kept it simple. I went to church and then I laid on the beach with my partner and we boogie boarded, and read books, and listened to New Orleans jazz. It was heaven. Summer is seemingly over for the tourists here in Venice and we have the beach back to ourselves as locals. The sky was stormy and blue at the same time, and as I laid there, when my brain was like “you didn’t do this for your kid” or “did you call your mother?” or “What about that email you were supposed to send for that client?” I was like, motherfucker, we are in a serious day off. I just won a poker tournament. What is wrong with you!

In the business of living as the “sandwich generation,” our biggest fight is to see ourselves as the ones who need the break. To stop not believing in how radically cool and incredible we are. To lean into seeing how effortless we can be in rising to the top. No begging, clawing, screaming, carrying on. We hold the power. We have the skid marks. We have lived many lives.

We get to enjoy the slow and steady knowing we are moving faster than anyone else still.

I heard a woman in one of my AA meetings this past week say something brilliant and I quote her here: “I am done lighting myself on fire to keep other people warm.”

Drop the mic.

If you love my column, and you want to be in the know on what is happening with my book, and all the stuff around the gathering of this community, please become one of my heralded paid annual subscribers. It makes the algorithm adjust when someone plops down $30 and I get to rise in the Literature category, which was as much of a shock this past week as winning the poker tournament. But there is a comparison. I played women’s poker every month for a couple years and then won a tournament. I have written this column every week, now twice a week for the same amount of time and got #86 in Rising Literature. So you keep putting your neck out there, put your money on the table. Say Yes. And you continue to rise.

Please also share this with fellow peeps!

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I used to love to write from the dark. Dark dark dark. Movies I made were dark, and short stories I wrote were dark, and the light to me was a sham and bubble gum b******t. I loved short stories because they were weird and perverse, and usually dark. I wanted to be as weird and dark as I could be, I stayed in that space for a long time until my life in itself was darkness and then I was living in the dark.

I desperately clawed to find the light.

I know that sounds kind of hokey but it was true, and now that I am in my fifties, I truly want to be only in the light. That said, I confess I have my ups and downs, trauma triggers, panic attacks and moments when my nervous system takes over and won’t calm the f**k down. I doubt in this lifetime my make up will ultimately change, but I get to love on and appreciate those parts of me because they push me even closer to that desire for light. They are the messengers but they are not the harbingers of grief. The protection mechanisms I had in the dark can speak to me, but I get to balance them in the light.

What does this have to do with storytelling? After I wrote my book about sexual abuse and published it in 2023, I was free. I had written a self help book I felt was essential for the recovery spiritually, emotionally and physically for sexual abuse survivors. It worked for me, and I believe it will work for any survivor who wants a new life in the light. Then I discovered how many women don’t give themselves permission to be the greatest versions of themselves because they are buried in what I call Gunk. So I wrote a book about Permission, happiness and wealth (hence the column you are now reading), and it is a wonderful follow up to the life I can lead after so much darkness. Keep your fingers crossed I find a fabulous agent and/or editor who understands and champions the book because women need this message.

Now I am endeavoring to be a romance writer, and here is the best part about that twist. It’s not a twist at all. The Universe has been strumming their fingers on the desk waiting for me to catch up to all the versions of this career I have started and stopped. It’s hard to write about romance in a light way when the love for yourself or others is in a dark place. Sure, you can write the darker movies where love doesn’t conquer all, but I like when love works. I like happy endings. I like when the light and the dark make the dawn.

I was reminded today that a romance novel I am writing that involves horses and Malibu was actually first gestated in 1998 in a week long holiday in Haiku, the Upcountry of Maui, Hawai'i. Fields dotted with the spikey tops of pineapples and the smell of sodden soil was the topography high above the green frothed Pacific Ocean. I had seen a sign in the one road town for a rodeo, and that was all that I had needed to rush back to my rental and put down on paper my lone cowboy looking for love. But I recall it was like writing through mud, and I made a decision about myself. I can’t write about love. I am too dark.

We make decisions about who we are as writers in places and spaces that truly are calling for a more emotional and psychological healing. Our original writer self is simply overshadowed by the trauma. So many of my clients have blocks in their writing not because they are not writers or shouldn’t be writing about the topic, but because there is a deeper wound and an underlying cause that forces them to buck up against the literary assignments given. Some people I can pull from the fire, and other people just burn up and let themselves be devoured by the pain. They ultimately need to want to save themselves and believe in their writer spirit.

My current romance novel that I decided was ready to be written needed a vocation for the male love interest. Like all good romance books that I am reading as research such as Emily Henry and Abbie Jimenez, tension is created between the potential love interests and they also heal each other. My friend Meta, also a writer, suggested he has horses. I mean randomly she said this one day sitting in her backyard having one of our conversations about writing. “His horses keep coming onto her property and it drives her nuts…” she said. While I won’t run with that exact story line, now I was recalling many parts of this puzzle over a lifetime.

Attending a coaching event in Arizona and learning about equine therapy and thinking it was bunk.

Deeply interested in race horses, and even considering buying into a share of one on an app lately.

The fact that as a little girl I rode horses and it saved my life for a little while.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the equine therapy that I now recalled, and I googled therapists in Malibu. Sure enough I found a ranch and the owner and I connected. Shock of shocks, her main clientele are from trauma. She had also been sexually assaulted as a young girl. My people. As I asked her about me riding horses as a young girl, she said it balanced my nervous system and settled me down so I felt safe. It makes sense because when I stopped riding horses and showing in dressage and show jumping, I turned to drugs and alcohol. They became the main stage for my nervous system regulation.

And we know how good that turns out…

So I am now understanding that the Universe is sending me all the nuggets and signs and they are in the joy of creation. I could turn my back on them and get worried it’s not the right path, and I should know and left brain the f**k out of the narrative, but I also think its time to not turn away from the light but rather let the sun fall on my face and my keys to fly across the keyboard.

Here’s a question for you reader: Where has a story popped up and then gone away and then popped up again twenty years or more later for you? Or even something you did, and discarded that a person in your world then re-fired up for you? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Let’s open this discussion up!

Our connection to our peers as writers is very deep. When we have a circle that hears our evolution in our writing, they can mirror back to us, even what they didn’t now about our past narrative and writing dreams. That is because it is in our aura.

We wear our stories in our hearts and they come through in the essence of who we are.

So based on my convo with my writer friend, and the history of me writing about a horse guy in Haiku, I booked an equine therapy session with the gal in Malibu. I am going at the end of month as research but also to reconnect myself to the horse who has a heart 8 to 10 times bigger than the human heart, and no judgement because they have no pre-frontal cortex. I am going to deepen in at a ranch in Malibu and allow me, and my female character in my romance novel take flight.

If I told you I wasn’t scared, I would be lying.

What happens if I start crying and never stop?

I give myself permission to find this story. It deserves the light. I give myself permission to take the time the novel needs to grow and deepen. To be as insular, and as prolific and restless as I need to be as a writer.

Find that story you discarded again. Let the words sift through your fingers like hot desert sand. Treat it with reverence and then fling it on the page to be then owned by you.

Possess your writing. It’s yours.

If you are interested in the Human Design that I walked about in my video, please check out Stephanie Zhong at

https://www.stephaniezhong.com

What would you think if I told you EROTICISM is the SECRET sauce to wellness? Would you buy a book written on that topic? I know I would, and while she hasn’t written the book yet, that is the position of Tina Koopersmith MD, who after 30 years as a fertility specialist is focused on prioritizing Pleasure to remind our nervous system that we are safe in our bodies. I am sure many of our listeners are going through fertility-issues, or have questions about late in life motherhood, or like me, are abuse survivors with the body trauma, so this is going to be a fantastic conversation for you but also for everyone, looking at a deeper relationship to our bodies and sexuality.

So why hasn’t she written her book yet? On today’s episode we talk about the headspin many people come to me with –” I think I have four books, I can’t decide which book to write, I want to do the book more aligned with my coaching practice, but I feel more called to this other book…”

As a Coach, Tina’s mission is to guide women to nourish all 4 of our bodies: the mind body, the heart body, the physical body and the energetic body because we are ALL worthy of self-care, self-acceptance and self-love. Join us as we find out where she is in the writing process, her many experiences with patients in infertility and amazing tools for happy healthy sexuality.

You can learn more about Tina at womensreproduction.com

If you enjoyed this show, may we suggest other similar episodes you may like? Check out recent episodes with my book client Angie Wisdom who wrote the  book The Non-Negotiable You and talks about coming to writing as a complete newcomer. Or perhaps listen to Alisa Zipursky, an author who has written a frank self-help book on Healing Honestly from sexual abuse. There is always a guest for everyone at every stage in their writing journey so subscribe to not miss any upcoming guests. If you liked this episode, I would love a review! It’s the lifeblood of podcasts.

I have written a  book!  Check out No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. I also have a 21 week series Abused No Longer. 

Life & Business Coach Angie Wisdom came to me to write a book because it was something she didn’t think she could do… which made it very appealing! A high achiever who brings her clients to find a life they love, Angie endeavored to write about how critical it is to trust yourself and be authentic in all you do.

She had to overcome some perfectionism to write the first draft of the book. Wanting every line and idea to resonate wasn’t helping her forward momentum. She soon learned we would craft the book into the vision she saw in drafts two and three.  Now she is releasing this incredible book The Non-Negotiable You in June 2023 and already has a best-selling companion journal Start With You.

I personally did three rounds of the Start With You Journal, tracking every day what my intentions were, and was shocked at how clear and directed my life became. Her book is an extension of the journal, diving deeper into some of the concepts of values and purpose.

From this episode, you will walk away with a deeper insight into the book writing process from a novice (who now knows not only how to write a book but publish one with her marketing partners), as well as hear a highly sought coach talk about core concepts that can make you see how you focusing on you first can enhance your life.

She also stresses it’s up to you to choose your seat, and create a meaningful success and a life you love.

You can learn more about Angie at

https://angiewisdom.com/

If you enjoyed this show, may we suggest other similar episodes you may like? Check out recent episodes with Alisa Zipursky who talks about the magnificent messy process of writing about childhood sexual abuse, or one of my great book clients Joy McManigal who has written a book for young adults called The Good Life. Subscribe to not miss any upcoming guests, and if you liked this episode, I would love a review! It’s the lifeblood of podcasts.

I have written a  book!  Check out No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. I also have a 21 week series Abused No Longer. 

Since 2016, Author Alisa Zipursky has been blogging about her experiences as a millennial woman trying to live a full life while healing from her abuse. As many of you know, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and I am thrilled that Alisa is my first guest who has written a book about her healing. She wrote Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame to put a book out in the world that honestly addressed the balance of trauma recovery and living a happy life. Going out in the world and trying to be practical or rational about your abuse story to make others less uncomfortable is just b******t, and she takes that head on as an effort to show how it can ultimately combat shame. 

She is a beautiful writer and on today’s show, we get deep into the balance of personal narrative and research in her book, as well as who connected with her when she first started the writing process online. When she got public in her survivorship, the first survivor who connected with her was from India, but she also heard from people in her social circle that they were affected by abuse. She realized it was all around her in this seemingly perfect community in Bethesda, Maryland. The truth is, we are all surrounded by survivors. 

We chat about:

*Her grandmother was Alisa’s biggest champion through the early process of her writing her blog (which eventually led to the book.)

* How she at first felt that just body memories were not enough to be a legit survivor only to discover this was one of the biggest areas where people connected with her story.

* When she shared about a niche experience in her process of facing abuse that she never thought anyone would connect with, that it was exactly what people needed to hear.

As writers in recovery we are tasked with writing about what goes on inside us, even if we think we will be stigmatized as angry feminists as abuse survivors (which may be on some levels true, but not so binary). Our job is to show that it is not black and white thinking for healing where you are either thriving or victimized. We get to have many layers and stages of our recovery and it is ever changing.

She offers practical strategies for survivors of sex abuse to support themselves in living full and vibrant lives. 

You can find Alisa at - Founder HealingHonestly.com

Author of Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame (June) pre-order now!

If you enjoyed this show, may we suggest other episodes you may like with Book Client/Authors of Kim’s? Check out recent episodes with Joy McManigal, Author of The Good You or Matthew Brownstein, founder of the Institute of Interpersonal Hypnotherapy. Subscribe to not miss any upcoming guests, and if you liked this episode, I would love a review! It’s the lifeblood of podcasts.  My podcast is also connected to my 3x weekly column Inner Circle so be sure to subscribe!

I have written a  book!  Check out No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. I also have a 21 week series Abused No Longer. 

Book client Joy McManigal has led a varied life from owning a pub in Ireland, working in​​ the movie business, facing bankruptcy, and raising four daughters with celebrity Giancarlo Esposito. All of her life’s twists and turns landed her on the decision to write a book that would help young people dodge some of the pitfalls she encountered. Young adults have a lot to overcome and learn, including doubting themselves in today’s hyper critical society on social media. Their path will be one of a Good Life if they can discern their values, mission and purpose - tools rarely taught in high school or even college. Her new book, The Good You, was written to press the concept of Help not Hurt out in the world for young adults. She gives four key pillars to look at why you are motivated to make choices in your young life.

We talk about the creative process she went through and how exhilarating it feels to write a book. Her moment when she knew she had to write this book came in a dinner conversation when friends were expressing they were struggling with their kids and they asked her, “Why are your kids not so messed up?’ She understood all her capacities as a mentor, teacher and coach combined provided her kids the tools they needed from her mothering perspective. The book started as a guide for mothers to not raise kids who are not screwed up, and it morphed into a book focused on how to be a good person in a simple non-complicated way.

We chat about:

* Writing a true vernacular and terminology for young readers as a midlife writer.

* When she realized her self-help book needed her story so the readers could invest in her as an author.

* Writing five drafts and how the vision has changed of the book.

Her advice to any writer starting the process is to be clear about your motivation for writing a book. Remember why you initially started which anchors you on days you are staring at a half-baked book. She also suggests a writer to be flexible with their book as it evolves. 

Joy is in the process of shopping her book and so we are rooting for her to land an agent to get this amazing book in bookstores all over America! What a great graduation gift! 

If you enjoyed this show, may we suggest other episodes you may like with Book Client/Authors of Kim’s? Check out recent episodes with Matthew Brownstein, founder of the Interpersonal Hypnotherapy Institute or Amy Powers talking about network marketing from an Ivy League perspective. Subscribe to not miss any upcoming guests, and if you liked this episode, I would love a review! It’s the lifeblood of podcasts.  My podcast is also connected to my 3x weekly column Inner Circle so be sure to subscribe!

I have written a  book!  Check out No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. I also have a 21 week series Abused No Longer. 

Book client Matthew Brownstein didn’t originally come to me to write a book. He was looking to better promote his five already written books. I convinced him to re-write his book on hypnotherapy, and today the book emulates a curriculum for his state-licensed Institute of Hypnotherapy. He acknowledges how he had to let Spirit guide him to let the words come through and be okay if the words didn’t come. He appreciated the structure I provided to him and had to be in the spiritual flow of knowledge and wisdom. He speaks of rewriting the introduction three times, and being okay with being patient in the process. 

Matthew as a young person was your average middle class kid, headed to a liberal arts college, until he had a moment of enlightenment. This affected everything about his life, and he felt the desire to meditate all the time and connect to the mystical branches of the world religions. His desire was to connect to love’s presence and live in a monastery. He went on a journey to understand oneness. 

When Matthew and I met, we connected from a mutual respect for the author Michael Singer (The Untethered Soul). He lived on and off in his Temple of the Universe, where Michael would talk about blockages (“sankars”). So Matthew first went to school for acupuncture to remove blockages for people but the higher wiser voice told him he was going to go to Hypnotherapy school. He was quickly blown away by the power of the mind. He found with Hypnotherapy he could remove the blocks. 

Interpersonal Therapy is his unique brand. It came from him asking the higher wiser voice, what is the spirituality of hypnotherapy? He heard, interpersonal is the answer. The word is about the sacred nature of transformational relationships. Profound, right?

Listen in to hear more lessons and insights from Matthew who has dedicated his life to healing people in the body and mind from his lifetime work. 

We chat about:

-What is at the root of negative belief systems

-What is at the core of the negative memories?

-How we can discover an unforgiven relationship and release it

With his school, and books, Matthew hopes to encourage more people to either learn how to use hypnotherapy for their own healing, or explore hypnotherapy as a profession. 

You can learn more about Matthew at

https://www.instituteofhypnotherapy.com/

If you enjoyed this show, may we suggest other similar episodes you may like? Check out recent episodes with Jenna Dillon, a results-driven Executive Coach or one of my great book clients Jae Wu talking about happiness and moving through after coming to this country from Korea. Subscribe to not miss any upcoming guests, and if you liked this episode, I would love a review! It’s the lifeblood of podcasts.

I have written a  book!  Check out No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. I also have a 21 week series Abused No Longer. 

Sophie McCallum has first and foremost on her website the question, “Are you ready to love being you?” This is over her looking very chic riding an escalator up from the NYC Subway. She emulates strength and grace in mid life, but that hasn’t always been the case. She tells about hitting herself repeatedly in the head with a brush when she looked in the mirror or biting her arm so hard it bled when she was a young girl. When she met her husband and had her boys, she became a super mom… until that fell apart and after divorce came shared custody, and then the terrible bouts of drinking. Sophie hit her bottom. I can relate as a sober woman who used to drink my feelings of low self-worth and emotions away! When she became sober, she was able to look within and find and understand long trapped emotions that held her back from knowing her true self.

So why hasn’t she written her book yet? On today’s episode we get real and honest about our journeys as moms and also as rock star women (she actually plays in a band), as well as my needling her about why she hasn’t yet written the book and why.

I chat with her about:

Don’t write the introduction first 

Understand her reader avatar

As a Certified Professional Coach, Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner and School of Life Participant, Sophie’s mission is to guide women to their strongest position: Self-Love. Join us as we find out where she is in the writing process, her many relapses with alcohol and amazing tools for self-love.

You can learn more about Sophie at https://selflovepeddler.com/meet-sophie

If you enjoyed this show, may we suggest other similar episodes you may like? Check out recent episodes with Sarah Sperry, a Wellness Coach who works with women about burnout, or one of my great book clients Ethan Bach talking about his five psychotic breaks. Subscribe to not miss any upcoming guests, and if you liked this episode, I would love a review! It’s the lifeblood of podcasts.

I have written a  book!  Check out No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. I also have a 21 week series Abused No Longer.