Suzanne Falter's Blog, page 19

How I Stopped Being a Wounded Decision Maker

Nearly my entire life, I’ve made decisions based on one thing: how I felt in the moment.

Turns out to be a bad idea.

Back in my early twenties, when I was starting out as an advertising copywriter, I chose to work for an abusive jerk in one of the most notorious hack agencies in New York. It was the place that invented that American icon, Madge the Manicurist.

I also ignored an invitation to interview with Ed McCabe, the grand circus master of creative boutique agencies. He was the guy every young writer wanted to work for, but I blew off his entreaty.

Why?

I didn’t know how to ask for help.

At age 20, I thought I knew all the answers — I didn’t need no help, no how. “All ad agencies are alike,” I told myself, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. So I chose rashly, with no preparation.

Thirty-two years later, I was still making the same mistake. Fresh out of a 25-year marriage and newly out as a lesbian, I was in no mood for circumspection. I dove headfirst into a love affair with a rank abuser.

A month later I came to my senses and walked away – only to return to her a month later on an impulse. A friend at the time advised me against it.

“That scares me,” he said. But I ignored him. After all, I always knew the right answer … right?

Wrong.

In recent years I learned to make decisions slowly and with a great deal of thought. The bigger the decision, the more thought goes into it. It’s starting to feel like an act of Grace.

Conscious decision-making has taught me that I am not alone. That it’s best to get feedback from trusted friends. I’ve come to think of these wonderful advisers as my personal ‘board of directors.’

Friends talked me off the cliff of compulsively overwork when it was time grieve my daughter’s death. Others advised me to walk away from a potential abusive relationship, which allowed me to run towards the woman I was really suited to.

Still others kept me from blowing a chunk of my retirement fund on a painting I adored but really couldn’t afford.

In the end, the choice has always been mine, but I made it with eyes open and all the options on the table. So conscious decision-making has saved my bacon again and again.

Here’s the part I really love: this zen-like approach to decision making is fun. The pressure is off. No longer must I be the swashbuckling hero of the moment, swooping in to make a big decision with no forethought or research. No longer must I save the day the way I used to as a child in an alcoholic family.

I can take my own sweet time. I can make my choice when I’m damn good and ready, and not a moment sooner.

Not surprisingly, the woman I am partnered with now is a beautiful decision maker. She vets every choice thoroughly, turning it over from all angles. She’s truly open to not seizing every opportunity, but exploring the downsides as well.

Still, at times, it can uncomfortable to peel myself away from a rash decision. The old buzz of pheromones and the thrill of the adrenal rush still beckon.

But I’ve learned to stop and reflect before I choose. Because I know that on the other side is excellent self care, which is far more sustainable than the sugar rush of a fast choice.

Do I still honor my instincts? Absolutely. It’s just that now I know how to sit with them.

My big takeaway is this: The world will not end tomorrow if I don’t act today. Turns out you and I can act in good time, slowly and consciously, and so enjoy the warm glow of satisfaction from a decision well made.

May you choose well and slowly, my friend.

Hell, you may even find it fun!

 

 

 

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Healing Grief With a Memorial on Wheels

In the last four years, I have learned a lot about how to process grief.

You know grief.

It’s that terrible, black sadness after loss that consumes us when we let it. It’s also the reason so many of us drink, shop, drug, and chew ourselves into oblivion.

We think we can’t handle our grief – so we do anything to avoid it.

I say we can handle our grief; that we’re biologically wired to process it. My proof is that unprocessed grief sticks around. Our grief is always back there, simmering in the background, until the fateful day we finally take it on and deal with it.

There are things we can do. Studies indicate creating an altar, memorial or shrine is one of the best ways – even for a loss that happened years earlier.

I know I’ve found this a tremendous comfort since Teal’s death. In her memory, I turned my Teal-colored car into a moving altar.

I bought the car six months before my daughter died. The first time I drove her around in it, I proposed we call it ‘The Tealster’ – her nickname from childhood, long since outgrown. “Great idea!” she said with a laugh. “Then you won’t call me that anymore.”

My Teal Memorial on Wheels just naturally happened after her death. The first thing I did was put a sticker on the back window; it’s of the Hindu goddess White Tara, who symbolizes sensitivity . Teal was tremendously sensitive and a lover of all things relating to Goddesses, so it seemed a good fit.

Then I had a license plate made that said ‘TEALSTR’.

People often think it means ‘Teal Star’ – and I don’t disagree when they ask about it. I simply tell them about Teal and what an angelic, thoughtful, compassionate presence she was.

Worded on the license plate holder was a phrase she received in meditation one day: ‘Give Fearlessly and You Shall Never Want.’

A tiny tray of origami stars in varying shades of teal fills part of the console. And on the dashboard is my ‘Goddess of the Month’ – currently Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity and abundance. Though the Hindu goddesses were new to me when she died, I have studied them extensively since her death. It’s a way to stay connected to all things Teal.

Not surprisingly, I often feel her around me when I drive. So much so that driving has become a critical part of my healing.

For the first two years after her death, I always had a box of tissues in the front seat, and I cried freely as I drove. As I felt Teal’s energy swirling all around me, I allowed myself to surrender to life as it is, in spite of the pain.

And so I learned that grief is not to be feared, but is simply the way back to a whole and healthy life.

Lately, I’ve been thinking I will buy a new car – not immediately, but pretty soon. I take this as a sign that my heart has healed a great deal. For sure, my life is the happiest it has ever been, even after the worst loss imaginable.

Perhaps this is why. For by allowing myself to have this little sanctuary on wheels – one I was sure to visit at least once every day – I allowed myself to literally sit with my daughter’s memory for many, many hours. So I could embrace my grief and cry for all I was worth (and yes, I pulled over a lot when crying on the road.)

If you’re struggling with someone or something you have lost, I recommend creating a mobile altar on wheels that allows you to get the peace, and privacy, you may need to really let go. Drive to the beach, a park or a favorite place, and bring your memories along for the ride. If you need to pull over to cry in peace, do it.

Give yourself all the time in the world to  enter that most sacred of spaces – your emotions. In letting go you will embrace what is, and so find your way back to peace.

Namaste.

PS. Want to talk to me live about altars, grieving and such? I’ll be on Facebook Live, Tuesday, March 22 at 10AM PT/1PM ET. You can find me on my profile page — A recording will also be posted on my fan page. See ya there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Pep Talk For Anyone Who Needs to Let Go

Question: what do you long for, dear friend?

What, in your heart of hearts, do you know you could have if only …

If only, what?

You won the lottery? You had more time? You didn’t have this blasted [INSERT PERSON, PLACE OR THING] holding you back?

If so, then it could be time to surrender — but only if you are willing to let go. (And I do mean completely.)

Here’s the catch.

It’s damn hard to let go.

Most of the time, we think we are all powerful, wielding credit cards, cell phones, tight schedules and big demands. Yet behind all of that posturing is our fear.

We are afraid the ghost of our suffering will catch up with us, that bad memories will bombard us. Or that we’ll run into that former lover, the one we’d do anything to avoid, in the Safeway .

We fear we will lose our steely grip on control and be brought to our knees by circumstance. We are afraid that by losing everything, we will crumble to the ground and die.

Yet when you have nothing — when you finally let go and fall apart — then you are finally free. In that moment, you learn the truth: that all of this resistance and suffering you’ve cooked up is unnecessary. Then you start to see that you can have anything you want … if only you will allow ourselves to trust the Universe to bring it your way.

Ranier Maria Rilke wrote: “Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”

This is the hard part. If we can just relax into that receptivity and stop the incessant striving and pushing, then life can finally, truly turn our way.

Perhaps for you that critical surrender means letting go of a treasured client or contract you’d wanted forever. Without that guaranteed source of income you think you will never make it. You believe you will simply dissolve, and cease to be the glorious You you keep trying to be.

Ah, but friend, what if …

What if the Universe has something better prepared for you that you can’t even fathom?

Can you let go and surrender into that infinite possibility? This is when your heart opens, your love for the world expands and you are finally set free.

When I gave up my 23-year marriage, my big showcase home, my identity as a nice straight lady, and then, subsequently, the woman I thought was the love of my life, I began to surrender and truly fall apart.

For a while I roamed around, staying with friends here and there, not sure exactly what to do. And then, incredibly, my daughter suddenly died. And so, in a curious way, I was reborn. Yet, believe me, I still tried to hold on and avoid the sinkhole that was my grief.

I launched a business only 8 weeks after Teal’s death because I was afraid to stop. When that, and a subsequent business both quietly dried up  … well, then I had to let go even further. By then I was retreating frequently to my beloved spiritual retreat — a hippie haven north of the Bay Area where clothing was optional, and you could float around in the meditation pool for hours gazing at fig trees and the evening stars.

Then my spiritual retreat center burned to the ground in a wildfire. So if I wasn’t free before … well, now I was. Like seriously.

So the big lesson became detachment and taking each day as it comes.

But here’s the punchline — I. Truly. Am. Happier.

And all I had to do was let go. Completely. Unbidden, an abundant writing contract landed in my lap. Then a new speaking career was launched. Just yesterday I had a call from a literary agent asking me to show her my memoir when it’s done. Oh yeah, I found the love of my life — and I even get to marry her.

There is something unexpected and sweet about this state of non-attachment. The usual supports are gone; unusual taboos are being lived. In the chaos you realize you are made of unique and beautiful stuff. So you discover you are loved and supported in ways you’d never imagined.

In that ultimate moment of self-reliance, devoid of all your usual props, you can finally know what you are made of. And what you are made of is love. You are not your judgments, your hurts or your long list of to-do’s. Nor are you your self-criticisms and your relentless drive for perfection.

No, dear friend, you are nothing more than your big, beating heart. The degree to which you can know and live this love is the degree to which you will set sail and honor the path you have been given.

There is no valor in holding back in the name of practicality. Do that thing you have been given to do in the small of your heart – the one that propels you forward with an ‘if only …’. That is where the magic is.

If it means some carefully constructed structures must dissolve as you face your worst fears, then so be it. On the other side of all that loss is simply freedom.

You will survive – and, in fact, you will thrive; I can promise you that. That dream of yours is like a great beam of love waiting to pour out into the world and light your path as it lights others. And in that divine consciousness is all the magic and power in the world.

Why resist, dear friend? Why not just dissolve? For I can tell you right now with a smile and an arm around your shoulders: Not only do you deserve it … we all do.

We truly do long for your gifts. So will you just surrender?

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Why Women Over 50 Know How to Kick Butt

If you are a woman of a certain age … let’s say 50+ … you may have noticed something. You no longer give a damn what other people think.

All that ‘model behavior’ we are taught just has to disappear at a certain point. I’m talking about those culturally-approved cues we learn as young girls in our pre-teen years.

For those of us who grew up in the 60’s, we had models like TV spy Honey West and those chic girls from The World of Henry Orient. I also had my older sisters Sarah and Lisa, who showed me how the world worked.

Sometimes being appropriate required a certain amount of lipstick (but never orange because that would make our uber-stylish mother plotz.) Sometimes it required we sit decorously and listen to the men drone on for hours.

In my case, it also required I be straight instead of gay — something I knew about myself at age 20 but managed to successfully hide, even from myself, for the next 30 years.

I counted on role models to show me the way. As a kid, I loved Honey West because she was powerful, authentic and real. (Okay, she was hot, too.) My Honey West doll even came with a tiny black plastic revolver that she could tuck into the belt on her cat suit.

Tellingly, Honey West’s creator, G.G. Fickling was a pseudonym for Mr. and Mrs. Fickling because they didn’t think the wife’s name should be on the work. Even though Mrs. Fickling’s job was to provide Honey’s ‘style sense’ – as well as everything that made her a dynamic, but believable female character. (Gloria Fickling, thank you … wherever you are.)

So here we are today, and I can safely say not one of us wears a girdle. We may have left our marriages; we may even live alone and love our lives just the way they are. Or perhaps we’ve staked out ‘our turf’ in our marriages more completely.

We get, on some level, that this is it. Our last hurrah has arrived so we’d better damn well make the best of it.

Recently I published a novel, Transformed; San Francisco,  in which the female protagonist comes to terms with her long suppressed desire to be a professional dominatrix. She’s given up her position in New York society; her marriage was tattered to shreds after her husband found our she’d been domming around with six of his friends.

And why? Because poor Electra had to sneak around in order to be who she really was. Yet, when she changes her name from Pamela to Electra and moves to San Francisco to finally BE that dominatrix … she stumbles.

Can Electra really have what she wants? Like … really?

It’s almost hard to believe you can have what you want when you’ve been culturally programmed to defer to others again and again. Especially if what you want is way outside of the box.

So it becomes a question of giving up on ourselves. Will we? Or won’t we?

In 2010, I, too, came to San Francisco to seize the rest of my life. I left behind my 25-year marriage, came out as a lesbian and found my way to the real deal.

Sacrifices were made, but I am now happier in love and life than I’ve ever been. Mainly because I finally get to be me. 100%. Completely.

This is our opportunity as women at mid-life. And frankly, I couldn’t think of a better age to be, wrinkles and muffin tops notwithstanding. Unlike our younger counterparts, we have had more of an uphill climb, but look what we gained in the process.

Like Honey West, we are not afraid to kick butt when we have to. So we can finally, totally be ourselves.

Thank frigging God!

PS. Please feel free to add to the conversation. Have you had your own Honey West moment?

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The Five Minute Antidote to Your Fear

There came a time not long ago, when I felt like I was on top of the world. My work was going well, my relationship even better – I had a spring in my step as I climbed out of bed each morning. I simply couldn’t wait to unwrap another excellent day.

But now it’s another story.

Today I am fresh out of minor surgery, which means I’m limping around with a black plastic ‘boot’ on my foot. I feel immensely sorry for myself. I’m also battling some age-old demons in my head as I launch my first novel in 25 years.

I feel vulnerable, weak and afraid.

So when am I going to get this right, this slippery, disorganized thing called life? When am I going to finally dissolve into that place on the horizon where money and health are abundant, the weather is always  excellent, and me and my pals are relaxed AND have plenty of time to chat?

Oh yeah … that would be never.

Sometimes I just forget.

The Buddhists say this is one of the Four Noble Truths – the notion that there will be suffering. They even have a name for it: Dukkha.

Dukkha is all about craving and clinging, and wishing that things were any other way than they are at exactly this moment. And if I think long and hard enough, and listen to the sweet consolation of my love as she encourages me, I finally get the point.

Dukkha is actually a critical part of life. And why, you ask? So you and I can get over it, basically, and thus move forward. Which is another one of the Four Noble Truths; there is an end to suffering. We simply must do the work necessary to get there.

I’m not a practicing Buddhist and I’m sure I don’t have the subtleties right here. But I do know when Life presents me with one of her lessons.

The mad, deep fear in my gut comes from long ago. I had an ambitious father who wanted me to be a star, and a mother who was competitive, jealous and wanted me to stay in the background. They have been duking it out in my head for decades now. And the beautiful thing is that now I know when they’re at it again.

So of course I’m going to feel afraid about launching books and being in the spotlight. Yet, at the same time, here I am laid up and unable to move around much at all. So I have plenty of time to contemplate the blank screen, and chip away at my endless list of book promotion tasks.

They go together rather neatly, don’t you think?

It’s as if Spirit just couldn’t resist the chance the help me really live into that old fear of mine – and do something about it. Which is exactly the way I resolve such conflicts.

Where I’m heading is detachment; that divine state of nothingness in which I crave nothing more than doing the next right thing.

In such a simple, joyous place, I imagine I won’t feel beholden to any agenda at all. I’ll be in happy free-flow all day long, taking the path one step at a time. Do you know that essential place of bliss I’m talking about?

There is no second-guessing, no doubting and shame. There is no wallowing in stories, or peeved fist-shaking at the past. Instead, there is a simply, gracious focus on what is, right here and right now.

Oh … wait. I can do this in this moment. And actually, so can you. All we have to do is look at our fear and get clear on what it is – a ghost from the past, here to remind us to look elsewhere. And then we have to surrender to it. It’s a fact; There will be suffering. So why try to avoid it or feel sorry for yourself about it?

When I remember this, I can forget about the saga of my Achilles tendon and get busy creating the next right thing. I can take three deep breaths and refocus my attention as I choose, very intentionally, what to do next.

I can forget all about my little dramas and let the next moment unfold, held once more  in the lovely grace of divine flow.

So what can you do right now to dissolve your own web of tension? What next right thing can you relax into?

I invite you to consider that this moment – right here and right now – is yours for the taking. So may this be your invitation to take it.

Namaste.

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11 Ways You Know You Are in San Francisco

It is entirely possible to see people in full costume. Any day. Any time. Yes, you may see a grown man in diapers, bonnet, and pacifier ride by on his bike. Five o’clock shadow, too.
Everyone’s really friendly. On the other hand, they are probably stoned. An SF cabbie set me straight on this my first month living in the city. Which could be why the whole damn city smells like weed: one hell of a lot of people in this town need medical marijuana.
Every coffee bar has coders. Lots of them. They are all seriously caffeinated, staring at computer screens filled with row after row of numbers. They may be men or women. They are almost always young.
People wear down jackets in July and August. I was once chastised by an elderly woman wearing a pea coat, gloves, hat and scarf on a chilly summer night. I was wearing only a light jacket. She called me ‘crazy’.
Then the fog rolls in. You’re standing on an average, humdrum corner of the city. It’s night. Then suddenly everyone looks like Sam Spade, walking towards you through the fog, as the city goes all forbidding and mysterious.
The subject on nearly everyone’s mind is sex. And I do mean everyone, both young and old. Witness 1960’s topless dance icon Carol Ann Doda. Her recent death rated a front-page story in The San Francisco Chronicle. Then there’s the world’s largest leather fair – one of the few places it’s still legal to hang out completely in the nude, with or without your harness.
The guy in the corner store can talk wine. You drop by the deli up the street to pick up a quick bottle of vino. Suddenly you find yourself involved in a ten-minute discourse on the relative fruitiness of two merlots, or the hint of chocolate and mesquite in an old vine zin.
You become one with the homeless. They’re everywhere. I still have fond memories of The Screamer, a mentally ill man who stood outside my window and screamed loudly at the top of his lungs from time to time. We had a nodding acquaintance. I gave him cash, and he called me ‘Sister’. Even Super Bowl 50 is rife with homeless encampments – more than 100 tents have sprung up around the edges of the festivities.
You begin to hate having a car. Broken car glass is called ‘San Francisco Snow’ by the SFPD. If it’s not broken into, your car will be dinged, bumped, scraped and dented. And that’s IF you can actually get a parking space. Eventually you will succumb to the Muni-Uber combo, with the occasional Zip Car rental.
You, too, will become a Foodie. It’s inevitable. Hang around this food-coffee-wine-obsessed town long enough and you will start worrying about which ranch your grass-fed beef was raised on. (Was it Prather?) Relax and enjoy. You’ll gain weight and drop serious amounts of money, like $85 on a leg of lamb at the farmer’s market. But boy, will it be good!
One day, you will finally chill out. You wake up one morning and realize you no longer care about all that driven, success-oriented stuff that used to be so critical. Like all those tourists riding bikes hopefully towards the Golden Gate Bridge before they have felt its gale force winds, you have become seduced. Glassy-eyed. Suddenly you have time to wait for artisan grilled cheese sandwiches and six dollar pour over coffees.And so the city has done her work. Congratulations.

If you like Suzanne’s writing about San Francisco, check out her new book with co-author Jack Harvey. Transformed: San Francisco , a sexy, funny thriller.

“One of the highlights of Transformed is the San Francisco setting. Bursting with details, the descriptions of the city render it an important part of the plot… San Francisco becomes just as well developed as any of the characters, both layered and complex.” — Foreward Reviews

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The Gritty, Beautiful Process of Becoming Yourself

These days we seem to be generally all about becoming ‘something’ — especially as the year begins. We want to be thinner, richer, sexier, bolder, more productive yet more relaxed, more spiritual …. hell, even bustier.

We want our flawed and weak selves to disappear and be magically replaced by someone who is infinitely better.

As if we could be improved on just as we are.

I write this as a lesbian who for the better part of 40 years pretended I was not. It wasn’t safe to be me – not in a family headed by two people who were cluelessly homophobic. My story is not new. The repression of who we are shows up again and again through the generations.

Yet, it is a new day. I have been out and proud for more than five years, and seen the dawn of gay marriage in the USA. The growing mass acceptance of transgendered people is proof as well.

Not long ago my partner volunteered to work at a conference for transgendered families. Yes, that’s right. Transgendered families; parents whose children have decided at age six or eight or eleven that they are in the wrong body. There were hundreds and hundreds of people at this conference – it was a dazzling display of openness and self acceptance.

Next month I will publish my first novel in 25 years, which features a transman (female to male) character. Charley is a spy who happens to have transitioned at age ten. In the deep south. In the late 80’s.

Why did my co-author and I make this choice? Because it’s a story of deep self acceptance that must be told again and again.

In Transformed: San Francisco, the fact that Charley is a transman becomes irrelevant; his transition is not even discussed. More important is that Charley is brave, strong, grounded, and a little hopeless in love. That he is gifted with being both vulnerable and tough, sensitive and bold.

Charley is us and we are Charley – even when he blows off paying his taxes and gets suspended by the CIA, his employer.

We all must be ourselves just as we are … no matter what. If this requires special bravery, then special things are likely to happen. Even if the results are immediately disastrous, they make sense over time.

The Danish Girl, an exquisite film by British director Tom Hooper, comes to mind. The film is based on the life of Danish transgender pioneer Lili Elbe, who was the first person to change genders surgically. Her decision to become a woman ultimately killed her – but oh how she lived until her death!

Lili Elbe loved to walk the streets of Paris in her full feminine persona, often passing as the sister of the man she once was. Mind you, this was in 1912. The painting shown above of Lili by her beloved wife, artist Gerda Wegener, completely captures her essential femininity.

The Danish government, in an equal state of openness, honored Lily’s changed identity and even issued a passport in her new name and gender.

We hope that Transformed: San Francisco will help all manner of readers accept those who are different, yes. But for me there is always a deeper agenda. As a writer and speaker, I am here to remind people again and again to honor who they are, even the tricky bits.

Can we improve and learn and grow? Always, of course. But must we change what is essentially ‘us’ in order to fit in? To be ‘normal’ — whatever that is? No.

Rather, we must learn to love our own particular quirks.

For this reason, we included a second character in Transformed: San Francisco who longs to be a professional dominatrix. She begins the book as Pamela Delacroix, a Manhattan socialite who has just been booted out of town for serving as dominatrix to six husbands of friends.

Honestly, Pamela was just doing what came naturally, though there was certainly a better way to get the job done. Namely by leaving her repressed marriage, moving to San Francisco and staking her claim as a true dom which she does. Here she takes the name ‘Electra’ and gets down to business.

Life moves towards wholeness for my characters as they take risk after risk fighting a Christian extremist who believes such people are ‘sinners’. As I know we can, as well.  Emerging from writing this book, I know that a good story can open hearts and minds, just as The Danish Girl has.

At the very least, it has opened mine just a little bit more.

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The Truth About Christmas

My holiday gift to you … a little bit of Christmas spirit

I wrote this short story in 2001, when my kids were 7 and 11 and they were growing up in New York City. Walking around that city, I was always struck by what an interconnected, massive hive of strangers it was … and still is. Especially at the holidays.

Wherever you are this season, may your heart be merry and bright.

Suzanne

 

Download The Truth About Christmas Here

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Ten Great Gifts to Give Yourself This Holiday Season

It’s that time of year when we tend to be focused on everyone else – shopping, planning, hosting, baking for and perhaps partying with those around us.

What if, for a small, precious moment, you thought of yourself? What if you made your own special holiday gift list … just for you?

Here are some ideas for that precious list …

Enough time. What if you planned a little less ambitiously, slowed down, and simply took more time to get things done? The world will probably not end. In fact, it may look a whole lot better as a result.
Check-ins with yourself. All too often we forge ahead in life without ever really noticing how we are doing. When’s the last time you stopped, took three deep breaths and noticed how you’re feeling? What do you need today, right here and right now?
Supportive friends. Take a look and see who your go-to person is for support and understanding. Is there a conspicuous gap? Studies show that those who have a network of supportive friends tend to live 22% longer.
Spiritual connection time. When you meditate, pray or even take a contemplative walk every day and connect to your divine guidance, beautiful things can happen. Your brain naturally cycles down so life becomes calmer and less dramatic. You no longer feel so alone. Begin wherever you are … perhaps with just a quick spiritual thought every day. The important thing is to know that you are supported by the Universe and you always will be. A daily practice has a lovely way of reinforcing that message.
Forgiveness and compassion. When’s the last time you let yourself off the hook?  Can you forgive yourself for your past mistakes? For us recovering perfectionists this feels uncomfortable and false at first. But stick with it, even it is awkward. You will find your way to greater piece, so just naturally things begin to flow with greater ease.


Positive messages. It used to be affirmations were ‘the next big thing’ … until it became clear that rote, empty repeating of such messages didn’t always work that well. But what if you just remind yourself when things go awry that you’re doing the best you can? What if you pop some positive messages in among the negative ones  and give them a bit of emotional oomph as well? For it is the heartfelt messages our brain listens to first. Eventually they may just carve new neural pathways … and that’s what makes for real change.
A place to retreat to. Have you got a beautiful, sacred space that is delicious to be in, whether it is a local park, your bedroom or a corner of your office? We all need a handy getaway where we can think our thoughts. And if it’s set up to truly nurture us, then all the better. Fill it with things that are soothing, beautiful and just right for you. A good place to practice many of the items on this list.
Belief that you can do it. So often we are sure we will fail. But what if … no matter what is in front of you … you give yourself the benefit of the doubt? Truthfully, you can tell yourself anything you want about things that worry you. So why give yourself an arm around the shoulder and a bit of reassurance. If you’re like most of us, you could use it.
Belief in the Universe. I’m not talking about some pie-in-the-sky, cross-your-fingers-and-hope-to-die superstition here. I’m talking about a quiet, enduring faith that God wants good things for you. Could you wrap your head around the idea that life is meant to be a great string of lessons with a perfect plan behind it all. In other words, can you trust the path that has been laid out before you. For, believe it or not, the path trusts you.
Pure unadulterated love. That’s all you’re made of, you know; just a whole lot of light, love and happiness, simply bursting at the seams to get out. Even when you feel like hell. Even when you have forgotten. This is the core of love deep inside each of us, like a present waiting to be unwrapped. Simply close your eyes and ask it to come find you. And then sit back, relax and enjoy.

May you find love, light and happiness this holiday season.

All my love,

Suzanne

 

 

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Lessons from the Afterlife: What I Learned Since My Daughter’s Death

It has been more than three years since my daughter Teal’s sudden death from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest. This week she would have been 26. Though I have known the worst grief of my life since her death, I have also — unexpectedly — been lifted up to a far greater place.

In a letter she gave me the Christmas before she died, she described a psychic’s words about our shared path. “We are supposed to be leaders in light supporting each other,” Teal wrote in her usual worldly wisdom. “So from now on I support any light leadership you have to bring to the world … so let’s be leaders of and in light. Ya!”

These are the lessons I  learned from Teal not in her death, but in her life everlasting. If you listen hard enough, if you open up fully enough, if you, too, are willing to believe that good can come from bad, you can discover your own lessons.

These are mine:

I am not special. I am no different from you or anyone else — so I don’t need to keep proving how special or important I am. In fact, I am just like you so I can feel your pain, understand who you are, and so know our common one-ness.
It’s safe to take a rest. I don’t have to keep frantically ‘doing’ and reinventing myself time and again. I can actually stop and rest for a while and, as my friend Jon put it, “let the game come to me.”
I am loved — and lovable. Once I surrounded myself with angry, controlling lovers who I considered to be ‘my people’. Then I found love with a woman who was far more interested in enjoying life with me than managing me. The key was deciding for once and for all that I am lovable. It took a while to talk myself into it … but, oh, it was worth it.  When I was ready, she simply appeared.
The Universe always has surprises just ahead. Sometimes they are devastating — but sometimes they are unspeakably beautiful. I had to lose everything to learn this, and so create a terrifying gap in my very sense of who I was. Yet into this gap poured pure goodness, the likes of which I had never seen before. By letting go, I have manifested true love, a wonderful home, an abundant paying job writing books and speaking from the heart, and an awesome community of friends. The void is an amazingly creative place.
I am enough just as I am. I don’t have to be a superstar like my dad wanted me to be. And I don’t have to be the socially correct, preppy Martha Stewart my mom wanted me to be. That’s who they were. Turns out I get to be me … which is ever so much more fun.
There is a spiritual tenderness to every moment. It doesn’t live in yesterday’s concerns of tomorrow’s hopes. It lives in the here and now and it is always available — if you look for it.
Happiness is well worth cultivating. After we teach ourselves to suffer, to be angry, to be righteous and sad; after we fill our heads with a million hard stories and festering excuses, we have a choice. We can bravely grieve the past and let it go. We can move through our pain one one day at a time until it’s finally complete. We can stop clinging to illusions and finally stand up in our strength. We can look outside ourselves and see there are people all around us whom we don’t even know. We can reach out and so once again find our strength. The past is only the past, not a set of good excuses for the loneliness and suffering of today.
The human heart is designed to heal, to beat more brightly with greater love as it lives each day. It is our responsibility simply to listen and follow, for this heart of ours is our guiding light and our most precious north star. So I have learned to come back to myself and become the woman I was meant to be — alive, honest, and free in my own skin.

I have become a leader in love and light just as Teal knew some day I would be. Little did either of us realize what it would take for this to happen.

Yet this, as with everything else in life, truly is completely perfect.

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