Trusting Intuition

“One of the major causes of illness in our society is

ignoring our intuitions” -  I think this was Christianne Northrup from Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

Mariposa corazon
acrylic on wood
2004

I have had the scrap of paper with those words on it in my bathroom for probably 13 years. 

I have heard it said that it is important to trust one’s gut instinct.  That animals pay attention to the signals they get when something doesn’t seem right: they run away from trouble.

But humans: oh no: this doesn’t feel right or something is wrong, but will do it anyway.  Like women that attract the wrong kind of man, and know it and do it anyway or do work that isn’t satisfying or don’t speak up for themselves when they know they should like me.

Well I think the principle of trusting one’s instinct can apply to many other situations in life.  However, that doesn’t make it easy. It can in fact make it harder. It means one speaks up when it’s tough, it means excepting responsibility for one’s actions, being willing to change and it can mean peace of mind (a good thing).

I find when I follow my heart or trust my judgement (another form of trusting my instincts) things are better for me. With regard to my children, I have found when I do pay attention to my instinct I make better choices for them and me.  When I work with children, I find trusting myself to pay attention to the details and my intuition has often been more successful than paying attention to my brain.

In daily life it is important to be centered as one navigates the terrain of different people and situations, from driving to work, stopping anywhere along the way, at work and on the way home. 

I have not always been good at trusting myself in regard to things related to me.  That has gotten me in some sticky situations. 

From a spiritual point of view,I think trusting one’s self is as important as breathing.  Paying attention to one’s self, how one feels on the inside and how one is processing whatever event is going on is healthy for the body and soul.  It’s when one doesn’t listen yucky stuff happens.  For some people dis-ease begins by not following one’s intuition, listening to one’s gut, trusting one’s self knowledge. And let’s face it, there isn’t a single person on the planet that hasn’t been in a challenging position with another person or persons.

I think a key to trusting one’s instincts has also to do with knowing one’s self.  When you know yourself, hopefully it makes one less inclined to do something not right. 

In the book the Secret, there is a page of quotes has to do with focusing so much on self growth that there is no time to judge or critize others.  I translate that to focusing on oneself to the extent one can trust one’s instincts and flow through situations and life.

Marianne Williamson wrote a book called AWoman’s Worth.  It is one of the few spiritual books I read from cover to cover.  Life is going to challenge us.  It is what we are here for.  How we do it is all up to us.

 Trust yourself.   Trust your intuition. Know your worth.

Statue at Ojai Foundation

Be Kind

“Drench yourself in self kindness.

Women  are very good at shining kindness outward, yet if you ask how kind they are to themselves, they often cry.

Turn the spotlight inward.

Before we can move to healthier ways, we must be where we are.

Radical self- acceptance is a connecting, soft, slow,

compassionate way of being.  We can help each other. When you see a friend beating up on herself, take her weapons away and just hold her.”

                                             From succulent wild woman by Sark

We are way too hard on ourselves sometimes. Me included. I guess it comes from wanting to always be perfect or not make mistakes. More so not wanting to make mistakes.  But sooner or later we all make one. Not intentionally. Sometimes we think we have a situation under control and discover we don’t.

The one thing a person can be in control of is how they respond. Saying I’m sorry, listening compassionately. These are things we want for ourselves. So we should give them. 

I have learned to step away from my computer when my son wants to talk to me. so that he sees I am focused and engaged in our conversation.  This is not always easy, I am sending email, checking balances and handling business. But he is also important.  I am learning to be a better listener.

The words above are inspiration for me.  I forget about being kind to myself.

And I know many women who also do the same thing. It a one day at a time thing, but definitely worth working towards. Be kind to yourself.

A Little Backsliding – it doesn’t do a body good - Day one again

Buddha
Ojai Foundation

I recently backslid on the eating better program.

It started with me being tired on a Friday night. Instead of dragging my behind into the gym, I said “doesn’t some fried fish and French fries sound good while I watch Fashion Police?” dreadful mistake.

Cause then the next night, it was wouldn’t a little rice dream frozen treat taste good? 

Well, it wasn’t much, but it was too much for me and it made me sick and weakened my tired immune system and triggered my allergies. So then I was sneezing and feeling bad and like I was going to descend into the old terrible eating patterns. 

My schedule has been very busy with all my new changes and going to the gym sort of slid onto the backburner…..but not too far.

I am picking myself up, dusting myself off and getting back on track. I have to acknowledge that sometimes too much of a good thing can be bad.  I was eating so well and so in charge that I had to see how bad I would let myself get.  And really I didn’t do anything really, really terrible that I can’t recover from. 

But it made me aware that I have to pay attention all the time.  I have to have my food prepared ahead of time and do the shopping and meal planning that has helped me be successful.

There is a saying that “you can’t rest on your laurels”.

I have made substantial progress in my eating and caring for myself plan: I can’t think that life is all good and I don’t have to work anymore.  I do. I do.  I do.

This reminds me I am human. Having a human experience. Food is my weakness. And I have to plan some treat days now, making sure I work extra hard in  the gym on those days.

I love the eating program I have become accustomed to. It helps me organize one of the most important aspects of my life: taking care of my body.  

Note: I will say the fried fish did taste good. Was it worth all the bother? No, not really, I was curious about how it would feel to eat something off limits, as anything deep fried should be.

The other stuff I ate, that I am not telling about, was it worth it? No.  And I won't do it again soon.

Fashion rules or fashion mistakes

Like most people, I have rules that I follow, strange though they may be.  Mostly they involve being kind to others, you know: treat others the way I want to be treated.  The rules I am specifically talking about are my fashion rules. 

Recently I was in a store that had a sale on long sleeve t-shirts.  I was buying one and had to decide on the color, was it red? Was it orange? White? Or black? Or green?

This is where the rule thing comes in to play:

I don’t wear red and green together: too Christmassy.

I don’t wear red and black together: just don’t like for me. 

Thus my conundrum.  I left without a new long sleeve t-shirt, because I wasn’t buying 2 and I couldn’t decide.  It made me realize about my fashion rules.   Sometimes I think I am so easy going about stuff and I am not. For example:  I am OCD about my workout shoes, I only wear them in the gym.  And gym clothes only in the gym. 

This made me come home and empty out my long sleeve t-shirt drawer to see what was in it and why I feel like I don’t have anything to wear.  I counted at least 4 grey  long sleeve t-shirts, a few black ones, three green ones (different shades), one orange one, one blue and white striped one, one red one (new) and one white one.  No wonder I feel like I have nothing, I have several shades of the same THINGS.

Back to the rules, my wardrobe used to consist of black and white and grey.  It worked.  Now I want to break out of that mold and be in living color.

Like Rome wasn’t built in a day, my wardrobe change won’t be either. 

I am experimenting.  Trying to be open to new possibilities and get myself out of the box. The rule box of choosing what colors I will wear together. 

I guess the first step in changing is taking inventory of what I have.  And then adding and playing with that.  Now that I know I have so many grey long sleeve t-shirts I won’t be buying any more.  I don’t think I will wear black and red together, why? When black and pink and black and green look so great together. Oh, new note: I don’t wear black and orange together either.  Just a thing.  It isn’t going to change.  I also don’t wear yellow.  Just doesn’t go with my skin color.

I am going to be more mindful of my color choices: actually gray goes with black, red, orange and green….. I might be on to something.

Colorful collage

You know it’ good when your son asks to learn the recipe

“You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.”
Julia Child

clay food

This summer I had the experience of having my son want to learn how to cook one of the dishes that is a regular in the rotation in our house. 

It pleased me beyond measure to have him be interested in learning how to prepare a meal.  It meant that one day he could cook this dish for his friends, that maybe one day this might be a dish he prepared for his children.

I was so excited, I thought I would burst with joy and happiness.

He actually went shopping with me to purchase the ingredients.  And then when it came time to begin the cooking, he balked. He wanted to watch.

I said I would walk him through; the best way to learn was by doing.  I pulled out my cast iron dutch oven, poured some olive oil in it, put the onions in the pan and then he took over.

It was weird telling him how to prepare the Bolognese sauce that he loves so much.  I always make it the night before so the next day it is delicious, all the spices and sauce melded together.  I now pass on this tradition to my son.

It is the first one. And thus makes it special in my heart.

We cook for our children. Painstakingly preparing dishes we hope they will like: the pasta mama, the chicken curry, the teriyaki salmon, etc. These were popular dishes in our house.  It always cracked me up when there was a complaint that it wasn’t just right. And of course they wouldn’t eat it (another topic).

Food is an important memory of home and family.  Sitting around the table talking at dinner.  This was a bonding time with my sons, checking in, reflecting on the experiences we had each had in the day, telling jokes, the latest sports mishaps. 

And now, here I am, beginning to pass the recipes on. It was summer and thus too hot to bake so we didn’t get into making cakes or cookies, also his favorites.

But there is Thanksgiving Break when we do a traditional

dinner and dessert.

Back to making the Bolognese sauce, during the preparing time my son did get a little grumpy with me about the directions.

I have been making this sauce for so long, I do it by a pinch of this and little of that. How to pass that on?  Demonstrate.

Put the spices in his hands and let him feel it.

It doesn’t get any better than that. Teaching my child, my son, my young man person how to prepare a dish he has loved.  Now it is his. Like a giveaway, I have given him something that he can have with him forever.

Fall

 “Let us be grateful

to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardners

who make our souls blossom”

  -Marcel Proust

It’s that time of year.  Fall.  The time when children go back to school, the orderliness of schedules comes back into our lives after the looseness of summer. 

Fall catalogues arrive bursting with the latest fashions.  One such catalogue arrived in my mailbox and I almost went out of my mind.  The J.Crew fall catalogue had me salivating.  It was the colors.  As an artist, that is what I am attracted to and the colors were jumping off the page and I was ready to buy everything, vivid, brilliant and pink and bright blue and it was a sensory overload.  I even talked to my son’s about it and they don’t care about fashion or clothes.

I couldn’t help myself.  I felt like someone finally had my sense of color and style.  I can’t, really don’t have that kind of budget, but it will influence my color scheme.  I don’t fit into J.Crew pants anyway. But the colors had me going for a while.

Fall.  Football.  College ball, pro ball, high school ball.  I love football. Even if I forget how the game is played until someone reminds me again.  But I pick my teams based on the color of their uniforms(I am girly like that) and if it is Stanford, UCLA, USC I have to represent, also Longhorns and Michigan, or Ohio, or Florida unless they are playing one of my aforementioned teams.

Fall.  The air is cooler, the air begins to get a little cooler everyday. Crisp, fresh with infinite possibilities.

Children go back to their classrooms ready to resume their learning processes.  They are a little bigger, relaxed from the summer of hanging out.  Or they are children beginning their first school experience.

For the latter learning to be a part of a community, to sit together, eat together, play, laugh and learn together. Huge. Wonderful.

Teachers also go back to their classrooms, rested from their summers, ready to pick up with children they are continuing with or getting to know new children.  Hope, Faith,

Patience. Just like children, teachers learn at different paces.  And hopefully are just as excited to begin the process.

watercolor abstract
watercolor on watercolor paper
8/2011

That is how I feel.  Ready to begin the process of getting to know new children, new parents, new teachers.  To begin new curriculum, engage in joyful and meaningful interactions with children beginning the process of school learning.

Watch some football, college ball, pull out my long sleeved t-shirts, watch the trees change colors, watch the day gets a little shorter, watch the little children growing, watch the grownups growing. 

Fall.  We are beginning a new journey.  Fall promises new beginnings, revisiting experiences past.  I can’t exactly watch myself grow but I hope I am as well.

Inspiration from Marianne Williamson

Urban Venus on the Half Shell
watercolor pencils on watercolor paper
8/2011

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful

Beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

Gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won’t feel

Insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people

Permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson

I recently found these words written by Marianne Williamson in a drawer where I put them a few years ago.  Finding them was like finding a secret stash of inspiration.  These words remind me to not get stuck in the muck of communication gone awry. 

We are all here on this planet to have an experience.  As humans, we have a capacity for deeper, more meaningful connections and interactions.  They begin with our family and branch out into the world, friends, coworkers, people we see in our daily interactions.

We all have beauty, we are all magnificent and glorious.  But we don’t always remember this especially if someone is yelling at us and messing with the flow of karma.

Recently my son’s father left me mean messages on my answering machine, instead of calmly explaining what his problem is.  In another time, I would of shrunk and let this bother me all day.  But today, I decided that it isn’t worth letting go of my joy for.