Justine Musk's Blog, page 15

Jennifer Lawrence + the elements that make your content go viral

What makes stuff go viral?

Jennifer Lawrence charmed the hell out of me at the Oscars Sunday night. The next day – after I’d already posted a video clip of her post-show interview on my Facebook page – I noticed she was trending on Twitter. Last time I checked, that same video on Youtube has been viewed almost two million times (nearly three million by the time I posted this).

And people are giving her love. God this makes me feel better about our world, someone commented on my FB page, and others quickly Liked their agreement.

She’s an interesting comparison to Seth MacFarlane, who also generated attention following his performance as Oscar host – if nowhere near the same level of affection.

In his book CONTAGIOUS: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger identifies the “principles” behind remarkability. As in: what compels people to remark on stuff, to talk about it and share with friends. I see two of these principles at work here – emotion and story – and since story packs emotion, you could fold them together.

Both Seth and Jennifer triggered emotions: Seth touched off some anger for the perceived misogyny of his (rather lame and disappointing) witticisms Sunday night, while Jennifer invoked genuine humor.

What both anger and humor have in common, Berger points out, is that they are physiologically arousing.

When we get energized is when we tend to take action. We kick something. Or forward the piece to our friends. Or subscribe or click or buy.

Compare these to the “low arousal” emotions of contentment and sadness. When you’re content, you’re relaxed and blissed out. When you’re sad, you’re maybe curled up in the corner with a pint of Ben + Jerry’s. What you’re not doing — so much — is interacting with the world.

People are much more likely to share things that wind them up and get them going. (For the research that supports this, check out Berger’s book.)

I shared Jennifer’s video because it got me laughing; I responded (multiple times) to an article on Seth because some of the comments pissed me off.

People are much less likely to share the things that send them downward, that decrease their arousal.

I’m reading an absolutely beautiful memoir by the talented writer Emily Rapp and yet I haven’t been talking it up (the way I have, say, Jess Walter’s incredible novel BEAUTIFUL RUINS). The fact that the subject matter carries such grief and sadness (and triggers memories of a tragedy in my own past) probably has a lot to do with this, although until I read Berger I hadn’t made the connection.

So that part – concerning emotion — seems straightforward enough. Jennifer Lawrence, though, takes things a step further: we’re not just sharing that clip, we’re tweeting about how we want to make her our new BFF. We’re falling in love with that girl. She makes us feel better about our world. Is it just because she tripped going up the stage to collect her award for Best Actress – and joked about it afterward? Is it because, in her post-show interview, she was so naturally and candidly herself?

Authenticity is powerful, no question. But a lot of people – both online and off – are authentic and funny and yet fail to break through the noise, or compel that kind of “ohmigod I love her” response.

As Simon Sinek lays out in his book START WITH WHY, there’s a big difference between when you say you like something and when you say you love something.

You’re operating from different parts of the brain.

To like something is to have a rational and logical appreciation for the benefits it bestows. Liking takes place in the neocortex. It’s not hard to articulate why we like a thing or what we like about it; the neocortex is all about the verbal.

When we love something, however, we’re moving into a deeper, older part of the brain: the limbic, which is nonverbal and emotional. We experience a surge of feeling that we struggle to translate into words.

We fall in love first. Then we search for reasons to justify that love, to explain it to ourselves and others. It’s as if love exists on one side, language exists on the other, and in between lies silence and mystery. This is why you don’t understand why your friend loves her idiot boyfriend whom you absolutely cannot stand and know is no good for her; chances are, your friend doesn’t understand either.

That’s the limbic at work.

That’s why story is so powerful.

Story takes raw data – the facts and information that appeal to our rational, logical, linear-thinking, verbal neocortex – and creates a narrative around it that delivers an emotional charge. It doesn’t just talk to us – or at us – but also moves us, in a way that can open up our subconscious and slip into our belief system.

In his fascinating book THE STORY WARS, Jonah Sachs talks about how evolutionary advantage has shaped our brain to respond to certain story elements. Because anything that disrupts our normal environment signals a potential threat, our attention automatically goes to what is novel and different. We pass over Plain Joe and notice the freaky dude in the corner, or the supermodel by the water cooler.

And because altruism and cooperation are so necessary to our survival as a species, as well as our advancement as a culture, we notice that which violates social norms and upsets the status quo. If it upsets the status quo in a good way – that aligns with our personal values – we cheer. If in a negative way, we shake our heads and throw tomatoes.

You can’t watch Jennifer Lawrence without absorbing the context around her, the world she is in; your brain is seeing a story, whether you’re fully aware of it or not. She catches our attention because she breaks the normal pattern: she trips. It’s sudden and surprising and sets her apart. It makes her vulnerable: we feel for her, possibly remembering some “oh f*ck!” moment of our own (an incident in seventh grade, in which I overturned a tray of drinks and caught the attention of every single person in the crowded cafeteria who then started laughing and howling at me, came to mind).

In her post-show interview, she is honest and expressive (check out her frowning expression when a journalist asks her if she worries about peaking too soon). She’s so easy to read that it’s easy to trust and empathize with her because we know she’s thinking the same thing that we are: Wow, these questions are lame.

We weren’t supposed to be talking about JLaw today (except for her Academy win). We were supposed to be talking about Seth, and the red-carpet fashion, especially the plunging necklines and rampant cleavage. Despite the incredible accomplishments of many of the women in the audience, over and over again they were served up as objects for our consumption. They were stunning and sexy and preternaturally youthful.

The male-dominated world of Hollywood equates being relevant (if you’re female) with being nubile — with being, to put it crudely, highly f*ckable. Actresses preserve and play off their sexuality in order to get that next job. So they go for the Botox, the fillers, the plastic surgery. We admire their beauty while knowing that it comes at a price most women can’t afford. Some of us are quick to criticize those women for participating in that system in the first place.

Enter Jennifer Lawrence, with her comparatively modest dress and her girl-next-door glow. In a milieu of spin doctors, public relations training and carefully manufactured appearances, she comes off as real and authentic. She doesn’t show her breasts or sing about other actresses showing their breasts. She is perfectly and easily herself, in a culture notorious for telling women that who they are is never good enough.

And she gives us an opportunity to celebrate that, to pass it around and share with each other, in a way that — when you think about it — is nothing less than revolutionary.

More, please.

Jennifer Lawrence is remarkable ( + why stuff catches on + goes viral)

What makes stuff go viral?

Jennifer Lawrence charmed the hell out of me at the Oscars Sunday night. The next day – after I’d already posted a video clip of her post-show interview on my Facebook page – I noticed she was trending on Twitter. Last time I checked, that same video on Youtube has been viewed almost two million times (nearly three million by the time I posted this).

And people are giving her love. God this makes me feel better about our world, someone commented on my FB page, and others quickly Liked their agreement.

She’s an interesting comparison to Seth MacFarlane, who also generated attention following his performance as Oscar host – if nowhere near the same level of affection.

In his book CONTAGIOUS: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger identifies the “principles” behind remarkability. As in, what compels people to remark on stuff, to talk about it and share with friends. I see two of these principles at work here – emotion and story – and since story packs emotion, you could fold them together.

Both Seth and Jennifer triggered emotions: Seth touched off some anger for the perceived misogyny of his (rather lame and disappointing) witticisms Sunday night, while Jennifer invoked genuine humor.

What both anger and humor have in common, Berger points out, is that they are physiologically arousing.

When we get energized is when we tend to take action. We kick something. Or forward the piece to our friends. Or subscribe or click or buy.

Compare these to the “low arousal” emotions of contentment and sadness. When you’re content, you’re relaxed and blissed out. When you’re sad, you’re maybe curled up in the corner with a pint of Ben + Jerry’s. What you’re not doing — so much — is interacting with the world.

People are much more likely to share things that wind them up and get them going. (For the research that supports this, check out Berger’s book.)

I shared Jennifer’s video because it got me laughing; I responded (multiple times) to an article on Seth because some of the comments pissed me off.

People are much less likely to share the things that send them downward, that decrease their arousal.

I’m reading an absolutely beautiful memoir by the talented writer Emily Rapp and yet I haven’t been talking it up (the way I have, say, Jess Walter’s incredible novel BEAUTIFUL RUINS). The fact that the subject matter carries such grief and sadness (and triggers memories of a tragedy in my own past) probably has a lot to do with this, although until I read Berger I hadn’t made the connection.

So that part – concerning emotion — seems straightforward enough. Jennifer Lawrence, though, takes things a step further: we’re not just sharing that clip, we’re tweeting about how we want to make her our new BFF. We’re falling in love with that girl. She makes us feel better about our world. Is it just because she tripped going up the stage to collect her award for Best Actress – and joked about it afterward? Is it because, in her post-show interview, she was so naturally and candidly herself?

Authenticity is powerful, no question. But a lot of people – both online and off – are authentic and funny and yet fail to break through the noise, or compel that kind of “ohmigod I love her” response.

As Simon Sinek lays out in his book START WITH WHY, there’s a big difference between when you say you like something and when you say you love something.

You’re operating from different parts of the brain.

To like something is to have a rational and logical appreciation for the benefits it bestows. Liking takes place in the neocortex. It’s not hard to articulate why we like a thing or what we like about it; the neocortex is all about the verbal.

When we love something, however, we’re moving into a deeper, older part of the brain: the limbic, which is nonverbal and emotional. We experience a surge of feeling that we struggle to translate into words.

We fall in love first. Then we search for reasons to justify that love, to explain it to ourselves and others. It’s as if love exists on one side, language exists on the other, and in between lies silence and mystery. This is why you don’t understand why your friend loves her idiot boyfriend whom you absolutely cannot stand and know is no good for her; chances are, your friend doesn’t understand either.

That’s the limbic at work.

That’s why story is so powerful.

Story takes raw data – the facts and information that appeal to our rational, logical, linear-thinking, verbal neocortex – and creates a narrative around it that delivers an emotional charge. It doesn’t just talk to us – or at us – but also moves us, in a way that can open up our subconscious and slip into our belief system.

In his excellent, fascinating book THE STORY WARS, Jonah Sachs talks about how evolutionary advantage has shaped our brain to respond to certain story elements. Because anything that disrupts our normal environment signals a potential threat, our attention automatically goes to what is novel and different. We pass over Plain Joe and notice the freaky dude in the corner, or the supermodel by the water cooler.

And because altruism and cooperation are so necessary to our survival as a species, as well as our advancement as a culture, we notice that which violates social norms and upsets the status quo. If it upsets the status quo in a good way – that aligns with our personal values – we cheer. If in a negative way, we shake our heads and throw tomatoes.

You can’t watch Jennifer Lawrence without absorbing the context around her, the world she is in; your brain is seeing a story, whether you’re fully aware of it or not. She catches our attention because she breaks the normal pattern: she trips. It’s sudden and surprising and sets her apart. It makes her vulnerable: we feel for her, possibly remembering some “oh f*ck!” moment of our own (an incident in seventh grade, in which I overturned a tray of drinks and caught the attention of every single person in the crowded cafeteria who then started laughing and howling at me, came to mind).

In her post-show interview, she is honest and expressive (check out her frowning expression when a journalist asks her if she worries about peaking too soon). She’s so easy to read that it’s easy to trust and empathize with her because we know she’s thinking the same thing that we are: Wow, these questions are lame.

We weren’t supposed to be talking about JLaw today (except for her Academy win). We were supposed to be talking about Seth, and the red-carpet fashion, especially the plunging necklines and rampant cleavage. Despite the incredible accomplishments of many of the women in the audience, over and over again they were served up as objects for our consumption. They were stunning and sexy and preternaturally youthful.

The male-dominated world of Hollywood equates being relevant (if you’re female) with being nubile — with being, to put it crudely, highly f*ckable. Actresses preserve and play off their sexuality in order to get that next job. So they go for the Botox, the fillers, the plastic surgery. We admire their beauty while knowing that it comes at a price most women can’t afford. Some of us are quick to criticize those women for participating in that system in the first place.

Enter Jennifer Lawrence, with her comparatively modest dress and her girl-next-door glow. In a milieu of spin doctors, public relations training and carefully manufactured appearances, she comes off as real and authentic. She doesn’t show her breasts or sing about other actresses showing their breasts. She doesn’t do anything controversial. She is perfectly and easily herself, in a culture that is notorious for telling women that who they are is never good enough.

And she gives us an opportunity to celebrate that, to pass it around and share with each other, in a way that — when you think about it — is nothing less than revolutionary.

More, please.

5 reasons why you should totally sign up at the last minute for this women-only erotica workshop with Rachel Resnick + me

1. Develop a compelling signature voice….

…..unique and passionate, the kind a person can track a mile away. By tapping your creative core, exploring your inner fantasy landscape, you will learn how to bring more of yourself into your communication style.

Your voice is who you are.

You don’t need transformation. You’ve already bloomed. You need to remove the blocks that prevent you from being who and what you truly are. Writing erotica scenes — learning how to ‘go there’ – how to reach the hidden parts of yourself and surface the treasure you find — will help you do that.

2. Get creatively unstuck.

Shake up your routine. Get out of your rut. Try something new. Expose yourself to new ideas, inspiration and influences. You never know where you’ll find the next cool idea that you can transfer to your own work – to innovate, to break through, to soar. Maybe you’ll find it with us.

3. Step up to your edge – and beyond.

Learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable – to ride your edge, and push beyond – is one of the most powerful ways you can invest in your future. The sense of increased confidence you get from new experiences transfers to other areas of your life.

Little steps, little risks, add up to big leaps.

Come risk a little.

4. Meet cool LA women.

Dynamic enough to be varied and stimulating, small enough to be intimate. Come share some thoughts, tell some stories, make some friends. Have some fun. And a glass of prosecco.

5. Develop and polish your writing.



You will get a great, in-depth critique that will make you a better, spicier writer. Whether you want to write blog posts and tweets – or the next Great American (Erotic) Novel – you’ll come out of this workshop inspired to go for it.

It’s tomorrow. So if your intuition is feeling us, decide now…

Sign up…

Come spend the day with us!

Check us out here

Post below or email me any questions or to be on the list for future events.

storytelling, soul + the power of the erotic

The universe is made of stories. — Muriel Rukeyser

1

I was struck by this post by online blogger-god Jon Morrow. As one of the “five techniques for spicing up your writing” he recommends that you

write a steamy sex scene:

“Our job as writers is to say the things other people are unable or unwilling to say. Sometimes that means being brutally honest, but more often, it means touching the taboo – subjects like cowardice, greed, jealousy, hate, and yes, sex.

Instead of running away from all those scary feelings inside you, cuddle up next to them and say howdy. Get to know them. Learn how they work. See them for what they are rather than what you feared they would be.

Yes, it’s hard, but this is what we do, people. We speak the unspeakable.

If you flinch at the idea of writing a steamy sex scene, how will you ever find the courage to address topics like suicide, double standards, and legacy? Those are the really tough topics, and the truth is, you’ll never be able to learn how to handle them with grace until you can feel something scary and not go running for cover.

In my opinion, sex is a good place to start, because while it’s dangerous, it’s also fun. Writing a steamy sex scene can and should be a helluva good time.”

It was a moment of synchronicity for me because I’m co-hosting an “erotica for entrepreneurs ( + writers!)” workshop with my writing coach Rachel Resnick in LA on Feb 17. (I’m a big fan of Rachel. So is Cheryl Strayed, who provides one of the testimonials.) One of the promises we make is to help “unleash your writing voice” and I was really struck by that.

Seth Godin writes a lot about the importance of being vulnerable (in fact, he wrote a picture book for adults called V is for Vulnerable). To work with risk and vulnerability, to bring all of yourself to your message: Godin refers to this as art, which he claims is the only true way to “create things that matter to other people”.

We bond with each other through vulnerability. We crave authenticity and connection. We live in a superficially polite society, and sometimes we want more.

We don’t just want to know what you think. We want to know what you really think.

People hesitate to do this – to put themselves on the line like this – because it’s polarizing.

Some people won’t like you.

If you’re willing to take that risk, though – to say what others are unwilling to say — here’s the thing:

A lot of people will find you fascinating.

When they see you take a stand, they will stand by you (and buy your stuff, and advocate for you, and demonstrate other signs of fierce loyalty).

One of my favorite nonfiction books of recent years is Sally Hogshead’s FASCINATE; in order to cut through the noise, in order to catch people’s attention and compel them, you have to invoke an “intense emotional focus” (which is how she defines fascination).

There are seven “psychological triggers” that we are, thanks to evolution, hardwired to respond to, and one of these triggers is passion (which Sally originally called lust).

Passion can infuse

“…communication with warmth and positive chemistry. Passion can bring approachability and friendliness to a conversation, encouraging strangers to lower their natural barriers of resistance, making them more likely to absorb our message.”



Passion is about feeling rather than thinking.

And as Hogshead puts it: “Passion is very VERY hard to ignore.”

But to write, to communicate, to deliver your message with passion, is to open up, to reveal some aspect of your inner life, to be vulnerable.

To “go there” as we would say in my writing workshop.

We talk a lot in writing – and in life – about voice. A great voice is a distinctive voice, it sets you apart, it resonates. It shows us who you are. And so often we talk about finding your voice: it needs to be uncovered, unearthed, unleashed, as if we trapped it without even realizing.

Your voice is your truth.

And to speak your truth, you have to get naked.

2

Emotion lives in the body. It’s why we talk about gut feelings and broken hearts and butterflies in the stomach. When my own emotions started thawing out several years ago – after a lot of therapy – I was amazed at just how physical those sensations were. I could feel them in my gut, in my chest, moving up through my throat, creating pressure behind my eyes.

(That saying – the only way to heal it is to feel it – is true, to my continuing annoyance.)

When we talk about voice, we mean the voice that resonates with the truth of the body. It embodies an inner guidance system, a sense of soul.

It knows what it knows.

But so often that knowledge is messy, inconvenient; it cuts against the status quo; it threatens to hurt or offend.

So we disconnect.

According to psychologist Carol Gilligan, boys and girls disconnect from their inner voices – suppress them, bury them – at different ages for different reasons.

Boys do it around age 5, when they start absorbing a definition of masculinity that values power, strength and domination over emotion, relationship and empathy.

Girls do it around age 12, when they start absorbing a definition of femininity that values being nice, getting along, looking out for other people’s needs (often at the expense of their own).

This kind of femininity also encourages them to suppress their anger and aggression. To avoid conflict at all costs. Nice girls never rock the boat.

So when their inner truth would disrupt their relationships, or put them at odds with the culture in general, girls learn “not to know what they know.”

“Do you want to know what I think,” a participant in one of Gilligan’s studies was quoted as saying, “or do you want to know what I really think?”

3

I remember when a twentysomething woman asked me to recommend biographies of successful, accomplished, powerful women. It was not enough that they were successful and powerful, they had to have, as she put it, “really rocked being a woman.”

I knew what she meant. She wanted stories of women who took the traditionally masculine concepts of power and ambition and injected some feminine soul into them so they didn’t feel quite so…distasteful, as if to buy into them was to taint or compromise yourself as a woman.

She wanted to know what that looked like.

Power, competition, ambition, achievement = boy stuff.

Relationship, empathy, emotion, nurturing = girl stuff.

Dr. Stephen Henshaw writes and speaks about how girls today find themselves caught in the “triple bind”: expected to be good at boy stuff and girl stuff and to look pretty, thin and hot (effortlessly, or risk being perceived as shallow and vain). Which means that girls are now supposed to look out for the feelings of the same girl they’re competing with for college scholarships and trying to murder in field hockey (all while cultivating and maintaining a thin, stylish, hot appearance).

This gets tricky.

As a result, Henshaw writes, girls feel hollowed-out, stressed, exhausted and confused by the demands to live up to conflicting expectations and to please everybody.

Many girls — and women — feel that in order to succeed at the “boy stuff”, they have to disconnect from the “girl stuff” – from their own sense of the feminine – in order to be taken seriously.

There’s a cost to that.

You see it partly reflected in the rise of thriving businesses like Mama Gena’s School of the Womanly Arts and Sheila Kelley’s The S Factor. The promise here is to reconnect women with the beauty, pleasure and sensuality of being female: how to rock being a woman.

Sheila Kelley gives a compelling TED speech about why this is even necessary. Her intro states:

“There exists in every woman an Erotic Creature. When Sheila Kelley discovered this sleeping giant, her life changed irrevocably. She had stumbled upon what women were missing and launched it into a worldwide sensation, ushering in the 4th wave of feminism by teaching women to own their sexuality. ”

Kelley talks about “the Yin effect”. Yin is the feminine to the Yang of the masculine and the world, Kelley says, “cuts out a piece of the yin.”

The physicality and sexuality of the female body gets shut down due to a series of offenses that create a sense of body-shame, of being constantly judged.

These offenses range from the barbaric (stoning a woman to death for expressing her sexuality) through to subliminal (the media global uproar over the unwitting exposure of Kate Middleton’s nipples). They “eat away at the emotional boundaries of the female body” until you separate from your physical self in some way; you no longer own your body. Women internalize this shame, and then express it through eating disorders, hiding in baggy clothes, cutting, chasing some ideal of perfection, “mini-manning up to be taken seriously”, or just living with the nagging discontent, the sense that something, somehow, is missing.

(Kelley’s list of symptoms, by the way, echoes what Dr Henshaw writes about in his book THE TRIPLE BIND.)

Here’s what I think:

When you separate from your body, you also separate from the emotional, intuitive life of the body.

Your inner knowing. Your Yin.

Which is the voice of your freaking soul.

What women are seeking when they go to places like Mama Gena’s or The S Factor isn’t to learn how to please a man – any newsstand is loaded with magazines that promise to teach you how to do that — but to please themselves. They seek an ease and comfort inside their own skin, a release of authentic sensuality — their ‘erotic creature’ — in a way that they can integrate with the rest of their lives.

They are seeking wholeness.

As Kelley found her own sense of wholeness, she discovered what she describes as a “dark soulful emotional sexuality”.

Soul. Emotions. Body. Sexuality.

Everything connects.

The voice of the soul speaks through the body. You can’t shut down one without damaging your sense of the other.

4

When I was younger (and not the wise mature creature who sits before you now), there were times when I would – as I eventually came to think of it – “vixen out”.

I would use clothes (I like clothes) and maybe a bit of makeup (I don’t like makeup) but it was more about attitude, the way I carried myself, stood or strutted, made eye contact, smirked knowingly. It was a persona I could switch on or off (I was also good at disappearing, which is impressive given my height). It wasn’t any authentic expression of desire on my part. I did it to get a dopamine high off the hits of attention. I was quick to shut down that persona when the attention got uncomfortable, retreating into a “who, me?” kind of faux innocence that I’m sure made some people – like my therapist – want to throw something at me.

Much more recently, I attended my first yogadance class. I had no idea what to expect – maybe some woo-woo thing where you shake your hips while doing downward dog (and how you’re supposed to accomplish that, who knows). It was definitely a bit woo – the instructor described it as “dancing through the seven chakras”. I knew that I could spend the hour feeling self-conscious and silly, or say to hell with it and commit. I don’t like to waste my time, so I chose the latter option.

Halfway through the class, something interesting happened.

Something about the emotion of the music, the instructor’s talk about the heart chakra, and the way I was moving – throwing back my arms to open up my chest like I’d learned in regular yoga – made me feel delicious, sensual and primal. I experienced a kind of power that didn’t depend on being looked at – we were all dancing with our eyes closed – but felt grounded and centered, like it was coming up through the earth itself.

I’m not into goddess religion – or religion in general – but I thought, very clearly, This is what goddess energy feels like. It was part of me, but connected to something larger; it was moving through me, like the spirit of creativity itself. It didn’t feel like something I had to switch off or disconnect. It was mine, but it was also a gift to me, and to the world.

And it made me think of the kind of dancing that in ancient times celebrated the fertility goddesses, whether it was Hathor in Egypt, Aphrodite in Greece, or Ishtar in Babylon. Women undulated their hips and shook their bodies. Every culture has its version of ‘fertility dancing’ – but, now, framed within a different context that sometimes involves a stripper pole. Exotic dancers once danced to connect with a higher energy; many exotic dancers now perform for money, in a culture that often holds them in contempt.

Slut. Whore.

Digging for gold.

Because these are the stories we tell about female sexuality. A moral woman is a pure woman: a virgin. If she is not a virgin – and most women don’t remain virginal forever – she is impure, and if there is no monogamous heterosexual relationship to legitimize her, she is tainted and inherently untrustworthy.

Female sexuality is the villain that got Adam kicked out of the garden (somehow Adam himself is not responsible for his choice in the matter). It’s the siren who calls sailors to their deaths; it’s the succubus who sucks men dry; it’s the femme fatale who ensnares the protagonist and destroys him; it’s the golddigger who trades up. When female sexuality combines with a sense of personal agenda and autonomy, there’s danger and destruction ahead.

We need new stories.

We need stories of female sexuality from a uniquely female point of view; we need to access that “dark, emotional, soulful sexuality” that makes us whole; we need to let our erotic creature know she is loved and valued. We need to speak up with both body and soul. We need a nakedness that is about heart and truth and vulnerability and joy — and not just getting off on somebody getting off on us.

It’s not enough to say what we think.

We have to say what we really think.

I often think of that quote by Muriel Rukeyser: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”

There’s still so much of the world to split open.

If you’re in Los Angeles on Feb 17, come join us!

how to go beyond happiness ( + neil gaiman’s advice on creative living)

Recently some friends and I tore up the dance floor. So much so that the organizers of the event came up to me the next day, called me a ‘dance machine’ and said, “You were out there with your crew until the bitter end. You guys set the energy level all night.”

And it occurred to me that some of the happiest moments of my life have been on the dance floor, whether it was some grungy rave club in San Francisco or sleek VIP scene in Miami or Marie Antoinette themed masquerade in Los Angeles or retreat in the Utah mountains run by people well aware of the power of an excellent DJ.

It turns out that dance actually does make you happier. Jane McGonigal lists it as one of the ‘happiness hacks’, writing in her book REALITY IS BROKEN:

“Synchronizing physical behavior to music we like is one of the most reliable – not to mention the safest – ways to induce the form of extreme happiness known as euphoria.”

Other happiness hacks are to:

Practice random acts of kindness twice a week.

(we get dopamine hits when we can make someone else smile first)

Think about death for five minutes every day.

(we can create a mental state of ‘post-traumatic bliss’ that helps us appreciate our lives more)

Which makes me wonder: if I know that dance makes me happy, why don’t I do more of it?

In fact, why don’t I do the other ‘happiness activities’ that aren’t just pie-in-the-sky, woo-woo suppositions but the discoveries of millions of dollars of scientific research?

I’m not the only one.

McGonigal points out that despite the rise of positive psychology, the rates of both clinical and mild depression are

“….increasing so quickly, the World Health Organization recently named depression the single more serious chronic threat to global health, beating out heart disease, asthma and diabetes. In the United States, where we frequently put on happy faces for each other in public, we admit in private to surprisingly low levels of life satisfaction.”

A lot of us think that happiness activities are just plain corny. Or forced and inauthentic. On top of that

“….there’s an undeniable tendency toward irony, cynicism, and detachment in popular culture today, and throwing ourselves into happiness activities just doesn’t fit that emotional climate.”



Another thing about happiness is that, even as self-help gurus tell us that “happiness is a choice” and “happiness lives within”, much of it is actually social. We shouldn’t be looking inward but outward: to friends and family, to community, to something larger than ourselves: to sites of purpose and meaning.

(I wasn’t happy just because I was dancing – I was dancing with some of my favorite people in the world. I even dance-connected with a handsome stranger.)

Maybe this is why some people consider the pursuit of happiness to be overrated, including the father of positive psychology himself, Martin Seligman. Seligman prefers the term wellbeing, or flourishing, because happiness seems too incomplete a concept to underpin a life.

“Well-being cannot exist just in your own head,” he writes. “Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment.”

He sums up the five crucial elements of well-being in the acronym PERMA: positive emotion, engagement (the feeling of being lost in a task), relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Each element is pursued not to get us something but for its own sake.

What becomes clear is that happiness isn’t something that happens to us, anymore than good physical health simply happens (at least beyond a certain age). We have to practice certain behaviors – and minimize or stay away from others — in order to stay fit and vibrant, both physically and mentally.

It’s just easier not to.

We also have to cut against the rugged individualism and rampant consumerism of our culture, where achievement isn’t about personal fulfillment but the pursuit of good grades, good colleges, good jobs, money and status; where we think that we can’t or won’t be happy until we get that house, that car, that body, that wardrobe; where the pursuit of happiness translates into a kind of pursuit of the self.

In fact, a study published in the journal Emotion headed up by UC Berkeley’s Iris Mauss found, as this blog post describes:

“that the more people value happiness, the more likely they are to feel lonely during stressful events.

Mauss and her colleagues found that inducing people to value happiness increases feelings of loneliness and even causes a hormonal response associated with loneliness—troubling news given how much emphasis our culture places on happiness, particularly through the media.

Why this effect? The researchers argue that, at least in the West, the more people value happiness, the more likely they are to focus on the self—often at the expense of connecting with others, and those social connections are a key to happiness. “Therefore,” they write in their Emotion paper, ‘it may be that to reap the benefits of happiness people should want it less.’”

Penelope Trunk goes so far as to dismiss the pursuit of happiness as “vacuous.” For one thing, we have a happiness setpoint that is largely genetically determined; for another thing, we are terrible at predicting what will make us happy; for yet another, the things we tend to think will make us happy (like job security or financial success) aren’t likely to come our way anyway. So the pursuit of them will only doom us to frustration.

It’s better, Trunk writes

“To want an interested life. Not that I want to be interesting, but that I want to be interested.

I want to get up each morning and have something I’m excited to do. I want to have intellectual challenge and physical challenge and emotional challenge. I want personal growth, and I want goals that are difficult but attainable, through which I can track my progress.”

Note that Trunk’s emphasis on looking outward to the world (being ‘interested’) as well as purpose, meaning and challenge maps rather neatly onto Seligman’s sense of flourishing/wellbeing.

There’s a scene in SURVIVOR –the show about people trapped on an island divided into tribes and competing for prizes — where the winner of one of the challenges gets to assign various meals of descending quality (from a steak dinner down through bread and water) to her starving tribemates. What’s interesting is how it becomes a visible exercise of the tribe’s pecking order. The alpha person gets the steak; the final, pathetic meal goes to the person most likely to get kicked off next (and whom the assigner doesn’t have to worry about pleasing).

This is where, as human beings and particularly as Americans, I think we get confused. We think we have this innate drive to pursue status because it will make us happy, or bring us the money and material pleasures that will make us happy.

But we pursue status because the ancient part of our brain still equates that — not with happiness — but survival.

High-status people get to eat, and feed their offspring.

Low-status people risk starvation, exile and death.

The higher up the pecking order you could climb, the more likely you were to find food, find a mate, provide for your kids.

In our culture, thankfully, status might translate to an ability to get a great table at any restaurant at any given time (…the eating thing again…) but it’s no longer so strictly synonymous with survival. Both the CEO and the waitress serving him coffee get to eat.

Which is why money can’t actually buy us happiness – it was never meant to.

Once it meets our needs for survival, its basic evolutionary purpose is done.

And you don’t thrive, or flourish, or create an inner sense of wellbeing, just because you’re driving a Mercedes (at least not for long). A psychological concept known as the hedonic treadmill ensures that we’ll not only adapt to any increase in pleasure, we’ll soon take it for granted and want and expect more (whether or not we can actually get it).

Better to step off the treadmill as best we can, and turn our attention elsewhere.

It’s not about the pursuit of happiness – or at least our muddled and flawed understanding of it– but the pursuit of wellbeing, of interestingness, of the life conditions that enable us to flourish. A successful pursuit demands that we be active, engaged participants not just in our own lives but the larger human community.

We can’t just consume. We have to create.

The flourishing life is the creative life.

Which is why I love this advice Neil Gaiman wrote to an art student struggling between her parents’ wish that she aim her achievements at financial security versus her own desire for creative fulfillment:

“The greatest satisfaction you can obtain from life is your pleasure in producing, in your own individual way, something of value to your fellowmen. That is creative living!

When we consider that each of us has only one life to live, isn’t it rather tragic to find men and women, with brains capable of comprehending the stars and the planets, talking about the weather; men and women, with hands capable of creating works of art, using those hands only for routine tasks; men and women, capable of independent thought, using their minds as a bowling-alley for popular ideas; men and women, capable of greatness, wallowing in mediocrity; men and women, capable of self-expression, slowly dying a mental death while they babble the confused monotone of the mob?

For you, life can be a succession of glorious adventures. Or it can be a monotonous bore.

Take your choice!

Neil Gaiman”

I like that. Take your choice. It’s like that scene in THE MATRIX where Keanu has to choose between the red pill and the blue pill. Or that scene in the Indiana Jones sequel where the characters find their way to a cave that holds the Holy Grail. But there’s a problem. The real Grail is disguised among many possible Grails, and to choose the wrong Grail means to meet with certain death.

The Grail’s immortal Guardian advises the characters: “Choose wisely.”

Indeed.

dating + the(un)disturbed mind

1

A girlfriend came by the house the other day bearing gifts of Coffee Bean. As we sat at the kitchen table and sipped our Sumatra roast she gave me a blow-by-blow depiction of the date she’d just been on with a guy.

My friend is striking – the last time I was at an airport with her, someone mistook her for a famous actress and asked for her autograph – smart, entrepreneurial and funny as hell. What amazed me was how quickly her conversation veered off the cliffs of her own self-confidence and into an abyss of uncertainty and self-doubt.

The guy hadn’t called or texted (yet).

My friend wondered aloud if she had been funny enough, or charming enough, if she had talked too much or too little, if she had freaked him out with an offhand comment she’d made about having a family –

“Dude,” I finally said, “stop. Just stop. Stop second-guessing yourself.”

2

In his book THE GREAT WORK OF YOUR LIFE, Stephen Cope talks about

“…the power of nonattachment. Give yourself entirely to your work, yes. But let go of the outcome. Be alike in success and defeat.”

Although he’s talking about work – more specifically, the great work of your life, otherwise known as your dharma – these ideas could just as equally apply to the dark, grim, soul-crushing ritual otherwise known as contemporary dating.

“….clinging to outcome has a pernicious effect on performance,” Cope writes. “Clinging (or grasping) of any kind disturbs the mind. And this disturbed mind, then, is not really fully present to the task at hand. It is forever leaning forward into the next moment – …..Grasping, it turns out, is just another form of doubt. ….The mind that is constantly evaluating – “How am I doing?” or “How am I measuring up?” or “Am I winning or losing?” – is the divided mind.”

You don’t know, I said to my friend, what else is going on in that guy’s life. Maybe there’s an on-again off-again relationship that just got switched on again. Maybe he’s going to Spain. Maybe he got trapped beneath something heavy. Or maybe he just decided that he wasn’t attracted to her for reasons that are all about him (maybe he prefers brunettes, or waifs, or she reminded him of his mother, or he wants to be with guys).

You have to ask yourself: So what?

When she chews over the date the way she was doing, she was operating off the assumption that she could have controlled the outcome – and the reason she didn’t was because she messed up.

This is one of those places where we tend to twist ourselves inside out. We assume it’s us. Even that popular adage – “He’s just not that into you” – has a way of turning into, It is my fault and something is wrong with me.

And we’re surrounded by books and magazines and various experts who are happy to help us perpetuate that sense of total responsibility for a relationship that doesn’t even exist. He’s not calling because you broke some kind of Rule, or slept with him before the end of his three month probationary period, or maybe you ‘intimidated’ him by what you do for a living, or — gods forbid — you called him.

When maybe – and the odds would suggest this – he just wasn’t the One, or even a One, and you don’t want to date him anyway. You just hadn’t figured that out yet.

But when a date is no longer an exercise in expanding your social circle, meeting someone you might or might not be compatible with and/or attracted to – when it becomes a statement (at least in your own mind) about how loveable and desirable you are, a reflection on your worth as a person – it’s hard not to grasp for a certain kind of outcome.

3

But on top of everything else, a divided mind is not attractive.

Confidence is attractive.

Being at ease – and putting the other person at ease – is attractive.

Being comfortable in your own sense of self is enormously compelling.

Irony is that when you don’t have so much invested in the outcome, when you have the power to walk away – no harm, no foul – you are more likely to get what you want (or what you think you want). And I’m not talking about being aloof or hard-to-get; but about being present, vulnerable, in the moment, enjoying the process as another life experience, focusing on the other person instead of getting lost in your own head, open to whatever this is going to teach you about your life, your ability to be in relationship, yourself.

And whatever happens, happens.

It’s no big deal.

So what?

In order to have that sense of ease and non-attachment, it probably helps to believe the following:

You are okay on your own.

There is more than one kind of happy ending (and sometimes the traditional one actually isn’t that great, as the divorce rate will tell you, or the number of people suffering in quietly — or maybe not so quietly — unhappy marriages). As the predominant creative force in your own life, it’s your task and challenge and privilege to work the raw material of your existence into whatever works for you, no matter what notions about couplehood, singlehood, family and togetherness you might want to reinvent – or invent – for yourself.

Whatever happens, you will handle it and make it come out right.

Your belief in self is the ultimate ace in the hole.

dating advice

1

A girlfriend came by the house the other day bearing gifts of Coffee Bean. As we sat at the kitchen table and sipped our Sumatra roast she gave me a blow-by-blow depiction of the date she’d just been on with a guy.

My friend is striking – the last time I was at an airport with her, someone mistook her for a famous actress and asked for her autograph – smart, entrepreneurial and funny as hell. What amazed me was how quickly her conversation veered off the cliffs of her own self-confidence and into an abyss of uncertainty and self-doubt.

The guy hadn’t called or texted (yet).

My friend wondered aloud if she had been funny enough, or charming enough, if she had talked too much or too little, if she had freaked him out with an offhand comment she’d made about having a family –

“Dude,” I finally said, “stop. Just stop. Stop second-guessing yourself.”

2

In his book THE GREAT WORK OF YOUR LIFE, Stephen Cope talks about

“…the power of nonattachment. Give yourself entirely to your work, yes. But let go of the outcome. Be alike in success and defeat.”

Although he’s talking about work – more specifically, the great work of your life, otherwise known as your dharma – these ideas could just as equally apply to the dark, grim, soul-crushing ritual otherwise known as contemporary dating.

“….clinging to outcome has a pernicious effect on performance,” Cope writes. “Clinging (or grasping) of any kind disturbs the mind. And this disturbed mind, then, is not really fully present to the task at hand. It is forever leaning forward into the next moment – …..Grasping, it turns out, is just another form of doubt. ….The mind that is constantly evaluating – “How am I doing?” or “How am I measuring up?” or “Am I winning or losing?” – is the divided mind.”

You don’t know, I said to my friend, what else is going on in that guy’s life. Maybe there’s an on-again off-again relationship that just got switched on again. Maybe he’s going to Spain. Maybe he got trapped beneath something heavy. Or maybe he just decided that he wasn’t attracted to her for reasons that are all about him (maybe he prefers brunettes, or waifs, or she reminded him of his mother, or he wants to be with guys).

You have to ask yourself: So what?

When she chews over the date the way she was doing, she was operating off the assumption that she could have controlled the outcome – and the reason she didn’t was because she messed up.

This is one of those places where we tend to twist ourselves inside out. We assume it’s us. Even that popular adage – “He’s just not that into you” – has a way of turning into, It is my fault and something is wrong with me.

And we’re surrounded by books and magazines and various experts who are happy to help us perpetuate that sense of total responsibility for a relationship that doesn’t even exist. He’s not calling because you broke some kind of Rule, or slept with him before the end of his three month probationary period, or maybe you ‘intimidated’ him by what you do for a living, or — gods forbid — you called him.

When maybe – and the odds would suggest this – he just wasn’t the One, or even a One, and you don’t want to date him anyway. You just hadn’t figured that out yet.

But when a date is no longer an exercise in expanding your social circle, meeting someone you might or might not be compatible with and/or attracted to – when it becomes a statement (at least in your own mind) about how loveable and desirable you are, a reflection on your worth as a person – it’s hard not to grasp for a certain kind of outcome.

3

But on top of everything else, a divided mind is not attractive.

Confidence is attractive.

Being at ease – and putting the other person at ease – is attractive.

Being comfortable in your own sense of self is enormously compelling.

Irony is that when you don’t have so much invested in the outcome, when you have the power to walk away – no harm, no foul – you are more likely to get what you want (or what you think you want). And I’m not talking about being aloof or hard-to-get; but about being present, vulnerable, in the moment, enjoying the process as another life experience, focusing on the other person instead of getting lost in your own head, open to whatever this is going to teach you about your life, your ability to be in relationship, yourself.

And whatever happens, happens.

It’s no big deal.

So what?

In order to have that sense of ease and non-attachment, it probably helps to believe the following:

You are okay on your own.

There is more than one kind of happy ending (and sometimes the traditional one actually isn’t that great, as the divorce rate will tell you, or the number of people suffering in quietly — or maybe not so quietly — unhappy marriages). As the predominant creative force in your own life, it’s your task and challenge and privilege to work the raw material of your existence into whatever works for you, no matter what notions about couplehood, singlehood, family and togetherness you might want to reinvent – or invent – for yourself.

Whatever happens, you will handle it and make it come out right.

Your belief in self is always the ultimate ace in the hole.

the question you need to ask yourself

1

When you make the conscious decision to be the predominant creative force in your own life – the teller of your tale – you have to get really good at asking yourself this:

What do I want?

It’s not just about the big things. Creating a life is also about the small things, the day-to-day things, how they knit themselves into the ultimate story of you.

I was in my car about to make a dash to Starbucks for a coffee and possibly a cakepop, as I am wont to do, when I suddenly thought to ask myself

What do I actually want?

I looked out the windshield and into middle space and tuned into my body, finally paying attention to my emerging flu symptoms. What I wanted, I realized, was to feel cared for and nourished, and there was nobody around who could do that for me except myself.

Radical self-care, and all that.

So for the price of a grande latte and birthday cakepop, I went to Whole Foods and got soup. And I thought about how compelling, how automatic, the pull of habit and routine, so that it overrides what you actually want and need; how easy to get swept up in the mindless chatter unless you literally step back and ask yourself

What do I want?

And that was just over soup.

2

Knowing what you want, let alone stating what you want, is a skill. In his blog and book FIRST KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, Andrew Halfacre says you can improve the same way you improve at anything: through practice. He advises you to:

“Play with starting small – make it a daily habit to have an outcome for all the small things in your life.”



(soup, anyone?)

And adds

“Watch with amusement as your moods go by and practice asking ‘what do I want?’ instead of ‘how do I feel?’.”

For so many of us it feels like a dangerous question. A selfish question. We might wonder if we even have the right to ask it.

We try, instead, to be all things to all people. To be nurturing in our relationships. To compete and win at work. To be pretty, hot and thin. And to make it all seem effortless.

If we can’t do it perfectly, then we shouldn’t do it at all, so we try to be perfect at everything.

This is insane.

3

“A funny thing happens the minute you begin to [compare yourself with others]“

Writes Youngme Moon in her book DIFFERENT: Escaping the Competitive Herd:

…”There is a natural inclination for folks…to focus on eliminating [their] differences, rather than accentuating them.”



In other words, if you’re faster than me but I’m stronger than you, chances are I will work at improving my speed and you will work at improving your strength until we pretty much resemble each other.

But what would happen, instead, if we just doubled down on what we were already good at?

I become amazingly strong and you become amazingly fast.

Excellence in one thing almost always involves sacrifice, a willingness to be just good enough or even mediocre at other things.

And negative trade-offs can not only signal excellence — they can create a sense of identity and difference. They can set you apart from the herd. They can put you in a category of your own.

Instead of this quest to be all things to all people – which so often results in stress, burnout, and ultimately being nothing to no one – what if we learned to say, What do I want?

What if we learned to use that question like a machete to carve away the stuff we have little interest in and are not that good at anyway?

We could create some time and space and freedom to double down on our true interests and abilities.

Instead of pleasing others, we could focus instead on finding our true path and creating a unique identity for ourselves. We could become excellent in a way that differentiates us from everybody else — and shows us who we are and can be.

how to be a visionary

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” — Gospel of St. Thomas

I was struck by an article I read about the top 10 regrets of the dying. Four regrets stood out for me in particular:

I should have pursued my dreams and aspirations.

I should have said “I love you” more.

I should have spoken my mind.

I should have had the courage to live truthfully.

All these regrets could be bundled together into the failure to live an authentic life.

An authentic life, by its very nature, is a creative life, and rebellious. You push back against the life that others would hand you. You learn to say ‘no’ a lot. And in that space of independence you form the intentions, and make the choices, that carve out an existence that resonates with who you are at core.

This also enables you to resonate with others: to connect, to create intimacy, to inspire.

The word ‘authentic’ has gotten a bad rap: overused to the point where it doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Some argue that it should be retired altogether. I still use it because it means something very specific to me, which I will now attempt to explain to you, Dear Reader:

An authentic life is when your inner life finds full, compelling expression in your outer life.

When the way you present yourself to the world feels like an accurate depiction of who you are at core.

When you can give voice to your inner life in a way that connects with the inner lives of others — so that they see aspects of themselves in you. You express what they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or didn’t know that they needed to, or that they even knew they had in them in the first place. This allows them to know themselves better.

I think of that as resonance.

Resonance is an art. And art – short for ‘artifice’ — involves more than honest self-expression: it requires the skills, tools, practice and mastery to bring what’s inside of you, outside, in a way that has meaning and relevance for other people.

Get really good at this, and you just might deliver a vision that changes the shape of reality itself.

People who do this are called visionaries. Eckhart Tolle describes them as people

“that function from the deeper core of their being – those who do not attempt to appear more than they are, but as simply themselves, stand out as remarkable, and are the only ones who truly make a difference in the world…Their mere presence, simple, natural and unassuming, has a transformational effect on whomever they come into contact with.”

I like that: people who function from the deeper core of their being.



Sounds so easy, so simple.

And yet.

One of my favorite recent blog posts is Danielle LaPorte’s The Myth About Following Your Intuition. In it she takes umbrage at self-help gurus who make it sound that once you tune into your inner knowing – your core – your deeper being – the rest of your life will slide magically into place.

Danielle writes:

“Following your intuition ain’t always an act of grace — it can be a total grind. You will have to burn things. You might sweat, toil and dig dig dig to do what you know must be done. Following your intuition might call on you to do the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life.”

Following your intuition – functioning from the deeper part of your being – takes courage. And it’s worth noting that the word courage, according to Brene Brown, derives from the Latin word ‘heart’ (cour) and originally meant:

To tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

Which strikes me as a great definition of the authentic – the ‘wholehearted’ — life.

it is time for you to go on an adventure (font remix)