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…a final (humbling/inspiring) thought for the day, care of our dear friend the Dalai Lama.

(Working on it, working on it, working on it…)

ONWARD!
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

KNOW WHERE YOU HAVE POWER, AND WHERE YOU DO NOT HAVE POWER…

Dear Ones –

During Oprah's speech at the Life You Want Tour, she quotes Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz, in that fabulous moment when Glinda banishes The Wicked Witch of the West with this line: "You have no power here."

Oprah was talking about how important it is in your lives to be cognizant of where you have power, and where you do not. She said that so much of the stress and pain we bring into our lives comes from trying to interfere in other people's energy fields — trying to meddle in domains where we simply have no power.

The truth, of course, is that the only energetic domain in which you have any power is your own. You don't have power over your spouse, over your parents, over your neighbors, over your co-workers. Even regarding your own children, there will come a moment when you realize that you no longer have any power over their energetic domain (and for most parents I know, that moment comes a lot sooner than they are expecting it, and is often a shocker) And trying to hold power (even with the best of intentions) over other people's lives will bring you — and them — nothing but suffering.

Then I heard Pastor Rob Bell speak about the same topic last weekend, when a woman in the audience came to him for advice, asking, "How can I bring my mother along on my spiritual journey?" This woman was in obvious distress, saying that she'd had such extraordinary breakthroughs in her own spiritual growth, and how she desperately wanted her mother to experience all this grace and liberation, as well, but her mother was stuck and depressed and resistant to change. You could see it was breaking the daughter's heart, and all she wanted to do was bring light and goodness to her mother's life somehow, but clearly it wasn't working. And it was making the daughter suffer horribly — just when she should be enjoying her own growth and evolution.

Rob Bell spoke to this anguished woman so eloquently about how — again — you do not have power in other people's domains. You can love them, but you cannot fix them or control them. Rob said, "I think 75% of the problems and suffering I see in people could be alleviated if they could just be made to understand that they cannot change others — indeed, that they are not even SUPPOSED to change others."

Ask yourself how much of the pain you suffer in life is because of something you wish somebody else would be, or do, or fix, or transform. Your friend who needs to stop drinking. Your brother who needs to get a job. Your mother who can't let go of her bitterness and rage. Your father who can't open his heart to love. Your daughter who can't stay in a relationship for more than six months. Your son who needs to change his diet and move to a new city and find a good church and get away from those bad-influence friends of his. You best friend who needs to discipline her unruly children. Your neighbor who needs to realize how her own unresolved emotional pathologies are causing her to stay miserable and broekn. Your nephew who needs to leave that horrible woman. Your cousin who needs to get counseling for her gambling. Your college roommate who needs to stop letting men use her. You boss who needs to learn how to meditate. And so on, and so on and so on and so on…

The fact is: You're probably right. All those people may indeed need to make exactly those changes. Obviously, their lives would be better for it. Any fool can see that.

But it's not your domain.

And meanwhile, you're leaking energy, when what you really need to be focusing on your own power, your own life (which is hard enough to manage, and has its own set of problems that really require your full attention…as any fool can see.)

I have been guilty of this forever. I have a history of getting deeply, profoundly, aggressively over-involved in other people's energy fields — losing sleep and peace over my worry and judgment about other people's lives. (Or, rather, I should say, losing sleep and peace over MY PERCEPTION of other people's lives.) Getting involved where I have no power. Neglecting my own growth and development because I'm too busy minding somebody else's business. Making myself sick with anger or disappointment or sorrow or frustration over how somebody else has behaved. Often destroying relationships because I go around messing where I have no right to be messing. (I don't care if it's out of love and concern — I still have no right to be making myself crazy by getting involved in somebody else's energy field.)

But now I have this new mantra in my head, one of the best lessons of the whole Oprah tour: YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE, LIZ.

You have no power in their domain.

You have no power in their energy field.

You have no power over their choices.

You have enough trouble (I remind myself) managing your OWN energy field. So focus on the one person in the world you can somewhat control (YOURSELF) and stay the hell out of their business.

And if somebody is trying to mess around in your domain, gently but firmly remind them (or at least remind yourself): "You have no power here."

Then go on about your way, in peace.

We must love each other. We must be kind to each other. We must be generous in act and spirit with each other. But for the sake of grace and sanity, WE MUST LET EACH OTHER BE. (Or else somebody might drop a house on us, too — as our friend Glinda would warn with a smile…)

ONWARD,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

IN PRAISE OF THE INNER CRONE!

(Somebody asked me the other day if I would re-post this message I wrote last year on Facebook, so here it is….)

Dear Ones –

OK, we all know about the "inner child", right? The innocent being who still lives inside of us, who needs and deserves love and care, and whom we sometimes have to channel in order to learn self-compassion?

I'm a big fan of the notion of the inner child. It can be a really healing construct. Once, when I was going through a particularly dark season of self-loathing, I taped a sweet photo of myself (age 2) on my mirror, and taught myself that any harm I did to me, I also did to HER. It made me kinder and more tender to myself. Imagining other people's inner children makes me kinder and more tender to them.

So the Inner Child is a good thing.

These days, though, I find myself spending less time thinking about my Inner Child, and more time focused on my INNER CRONE — the old lady who lives inside me, whom I hope to someday be.

Because she's a serious bad-ass.

The really old ladies always are bad-asses. I'm talking about the real survivors. The women who have been through everything already, so nothing scares them anymore. The ones who have already watched the world fight itself nearly to death a dozen times over. The ones who have buried their dreams and their loved ones and lived through it. The ones who have suffered pain and lived through it, and who have had their innocence challenged by ten thousand appalling assaults…and who lived through all of it.

The world is a frightening place. But you simply cannot frighten The True Crone.

Some might consider the word "crone" to be derogatory, but I don't in the least. I honor it. The crone is a classic character from myth and folklore, and she often the bearer of great wisdom and supernatural power. She is sometimes a guardian to the underworld. She has tremendous vision, even if she is blind. She has no fear of death, which means: NO FEAR.

I keep a wall of photos of some of my favorite crones, for inspiration. The photo below is of a Ukrainian babushka named Hanna Zavorotnya who lives in (get this) Chernobyl. There are a group of about 250 such women — all tough elderly peasants — who have all recently moved back to the radioactive area around Chernobyl.

You know why they live there? Because they like it.

They like Chernobyl because that's where they came from. They are natural-born farmers, who got kicked off their farms when disaster struck. They hated being refugees.They resented being shunted off their land after the catastrophe. They hated living in the shabby and crime-infiltrated and stress-inducing government housing in the city, and much prefer the independence of living off the land.

So they moved back home — illegally — to the most contaminated nuclear site on earth. They have formed a stupendously resilient retirement community there, in what some would call the world's most terrifying landscape.

Is it safe? Of course not. Or, whatever. After 90 years of hard living, what does "safe" even mean? (If you survived World War II and Stalin and famine and communism's ravages, how worried can you be about "safe"?) They drink the water. These women plant vegetables in that radioactive soil and eat them. They butcher the wild pigs that scavenge around the old nuclear power plant, and eat them, too. Their point is: "We are old. What do have to fear from radioactivity? At this age? Who cares?"

All they want is their freedom. So they take care of themselves and each other. They cut and haul their own wood. They make their own vodka. They get together and drink and laugh about the hardships of their lives. They laugh about everything, then they go outside and butcher another radioactive boar and make sausage out of him.

They are living longer and healthier lives than their peers who stayed behind in refugee housing in the cities.

I would put these women in a Bad-Ass Contest against any cocky young alleged Bad Ass you've got going, and I guarantee you — the Chernobyl crones would win, hands down. Put the lady in this picture in a survival contest against any Navy SEAL; she will endure longer.

We live in a society that romanticizes youth. We live in a culture where youth is considered a real accomplishment. But when you look at a seriously powerful classic crone like the woman in this photo, you see how foolish we are to obsess over youth — to imagine that the young offer much for us to aspire to, or learn from.

No wisdom like the wisdom of survival. No equanimity like the equanimity of somebody who plants a garden right on top of a nuclear disaster and gets on with it.

So these days, when my Inner Child gets all fluttery with the panic of living, I just ask myself: " WWMICD?"

"What Would My Inner Crone Do?"

Ask yourself that same question. See what she tells you.

One thing I can promise you she will never say? She will never say: "WORRY.

She will more likely tell you this: "ENDURE."

So listen to her, and get on with it — get on with the powerful act of LIVING.

Hang in there, all you future awesome crones!

ONWARD!
LG

ps — and if you want to read more about Hanna and her fellow bad-ass Chernobyl crones, and see more photos, here is a really wonderful article: https://bit.ly/1wa9hT7

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

EGO vs SOUL

Dear Ones –

Here's a photo I thought you might like: last night at dinner with Pastor Rob Bell and Iyanla Vanzant, after Oprah's The Life You Want Tour…all of us tired and happy and warm with the friendship that has grown out of this amazing event.

I wish I could share with you every moment of wisdom from these great people (and I will try to share more, over the coming week) but here is one beautiful lesson I picked up over the weekend.

A woman asked Rob yesterday how you can tell the difference between when your soul is talking to you, and when your ego is talking to you.

Rob started with an explanation of the ego, as a force that is never satisfied. Nothing will ever be enough for the ego — not enough money, not enough praise, not enough shoes, not enough Facebook likes, not enough donuts. (He didn't say the bit about donuts, but you get the point.) And when the ego DOES get something it wants (success, attention, a swimming pool), all it can do is crow about it.

Like: LOOK WHAT I DID!

Like: #KillingIt.

As for the soul, though, all it wants is joy and light and love…and excitement. When you are living the life that your soul wants to live, you will wake up each morning and say, "Oh my god, I can't believe I get to do this today!" (Whatever "this" might be — write this book, work in this garden, live in this house, see this friend, eat this food, raise these children, walk in the woods with this dog, go to this job, visit this family member, etc, etc…)

There is a place in our lives for our egos. (As Martha Beck, another great teacher always says: "Don't leave home without it.") You need some ego, to shore up your boundaries, to give you a sense of self, to keep some fire in your belly.

But don't let your ego make the big choices for you. Because it will do nothing but forever demand more, more, more, more. It will always say, "We don't have enough yet."

Look for the things that make your soul say, "I can't believe how lucky we are to have this!"…and try to surround yourself with as much of THAT as you can. And don't sacrifice the things that make your soul come alive for the things your ego demands.

Last night's dinner was a soul moment for me. I could not stop smiling. I could not stop hugging everyone and for some reason I really could not stop eating off Iyanla's plate. I could not stop thinking, "I can't believe I get to be here with these great and good people."

Love to you all,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall