Ever struggled with self-worth?

A transformational moment, which changed my relationship with beauty forever, happened when I looked through a camera lens and saw my naked body. I was taking part in Christine Benjamin’s i Of The Beholder photography project. Initially, I thought I was participating to empower and support other women, in having a kinder relationship towards their bodies.  However, my attention did not go to the huge scar and empty space where my right breast used to be. My eyes went directly to my remaining breast and the rest of my body, finding flaw upon flaw. I was shocked and devastated by my reaction. I cried for being so mean to myself my whole life, and I wept for every woman who has ever thought she was not enough. I tell that story, and the huge impact it has had on my life, in the first chapter of Third Time Lucky: A Creative Recovery. Those tears helped to uncover a story line that pulses through the veins of every modern woman. 

Commercial societies feed off the notion that beauty is a commodity whose value increases when women believe they are “not good enough.” We listen to popular culture’s distortions about how to become beautiful. But true beauty is innate, silently and patiently yearning for each of us to turn inward, to reject the “according to” mentality, and to get curious about what makes each of us unique and magnificent. 

There is no time for self-hate; there is too much hatred in the world. We are in dire straights. Now is the time for each of us to become compassionate witnesses; time for us to soften our gazes and open our hearts to the beauty and light shining within; time for us to cultivate self-acceptance, self-compassion, and ultimately self-love—what some call sacred feminism, which includes men too. 

This is not just a woman’s issue. It doesn’t matter what part of the country I travel to, where people come from, how rich, attractive, talented, or educated they are. Everyone I meet through my work struggles with their own self-worth.

It is time to get it: you are already enough. 

You are worthy. 

The Pursuit of Happiness

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." ~ Dali Lama

What makes you happy? I asked the same question to a group of twenty-five people in a Creative Recovery workshop last Saturday at The Life Healing Center. The answers ranged from hiking in nature, playing with their kids, walking the dog, cooking and eating a great meal, laughing with friends, to feeing heard and understood. No one said money. Not one.

When I reflected this back to the group most of them were surprised. Are you? As a culture we say we want to be happy, but we are preoccupied with the pursuit of money instead, and wonder why we are not happy. Yes, we need money to survive, but how much do we really need? When I was working my way up the corporate ladder, a ladder that has no end, I found out first hand that the amount of money I made bore little relationship to the amount of happiness I was experiencing. In Third Time Lucky I share that my "mantra" during that time was "work hard play hard". A mantra that eventually brought to my knees. Not out of devotion, rather out of stress and exhaustion! 

It is up to you. You decide how happy you are going to be, by how much time you devote to experiences that bring you happiness. It really is that simple. Once you know what makes you happy you can go towards it..... and relax into it.  So I invite you to consider - What truly makes you happy? Your happiness contributes to your community's happiness.

This week is officially "Sustainable Happiness Week " in Santa Fe. It is a part of a global movement calling for a new economic paradigm inspired by the Bhutanese model of Gross National Happiness. In 2011 the United Nations urged member nations  to place  the "Pursuit of Happiness" as a priority in measuring success, over economic development. Wow! If the United Nations can give happiness the thumbs up, you can too!

You are worthy of making happiness a priority in your life. 

Om Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu (May all beings everywhere be filled with peace and happiness)

Pasha x

New Moon - New Theme

What stops you from starting? For many of us the fear of not getting it right or failing. What if you could give yourself permission to do it anyway, regardless of the result? 

"The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results." Bhagavad Gita 

The above quote is taken from the ancient Indian spiritual text the Bhagavad Gita, which translates to "The Song of God". Some scholars say it dates as far back at 1000BC. You are not alone in your procrastination. Humans have been struggling with "getting it right", (according to what our limited experience thinks "right" is), for thousands of years. It's human nature to struggle. Ready to get off your own back yet? 

Luckily, the nature of the Universe is here to help us recognize that, and to support us in releasing old themes that no longer serve us.

Today is the New Moon. A time for new ideas, new projects, new themes. What have you been putting off? Today is a great day to take one step towards fulfilling your soul's purpose.

It doesn't have to be a gigantic step. A baby step will do just fine. Last week, I was speaking with a friend about how scary it was feeling for me to leave a relationship behind, and I didn't want that fear to stop me. She immediately pulled a video up on her cellphone and told me to push the play button. Tears filled my eyes as I saw her 11 month old granddaughter take her first few steps. The video was less than a minute. In that minute I saw how courageous that little girl was. I saw the determination on her face as she put one foot in front of the other, knowing that she could fall at any moment, but she kept moving ahead. Regardless.

At the beginning we don't have to move ahead fearlessly. We can move ahead with our legs trembling, and with our arms outstretched, looking for the nearest compassionate witness to call upon for encouragement. What is important is that we take the first step and keep going.

The New Moon invites you to take a step today. What will it be?

Namaste - I Honor the Light in You

Looking forward to book talk and signing at The Ark in Santa Fe tomorrow at 3pm. I hope to see some of you there! For those of you who can't make it, I'd like to share a few excerpts from my Indian adventures in Chapter 9 of Third Time Lucky: A Creative Recovery. It jumps around a bit to give you an idea! Enjoy....(This is about four pages, chapter length is eighteen pages.)

Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations. —Paramahansa Yogananda 

There was chaos everywhere. Cars were speeding past in all directions. Cows were wandering aimlessly, one or two even stopping in the middle of the crazy traffic to take a shit. There were hundreds of people shouting and moving their heads from side to side, for no apparent reason. It looked as if people were running straight into the traffic for sport. I had to cup my hand over my nose and mouth to try and block out the intense aromas that ranged from unfamiliar spices to shit to overpoweringly sweet incense, just in case I would throw up. At the same time, a small gang of children tugged at my shirt, begging for money, which made me feel guilty, sad, and annoyed all at once. To top it off, monkeys were randomly hopping across telephone wires overhead. I wasn’t dreaming. I was standing on a street corner in New Delhi, clutching Max’s shirttail, wondering how in the hell we would ever get across. 

Nothing could have prepared me for India. It truly was a culture shock. At home, it felt like anything was possible, and in India, it felt like anything could happen! Nothing was easy. The most helpful thing Max said to me, before we left, was to forget the idea of having personal space—something that was important to me and most Westerners, and is totally alien to Indians. I remember getting on my first bus in the Himalayas. Since there wasn’t an available seat, I suggested we wait for the next bus, which might not be so crowded, so we could sit together for the twelve-hour drive across the mountains. Max just laughed and said the next bus might not be for days, and this one wasn’t crowded—yet. I watched dumbfounded as at least sixty more people crammed into the bus, and another twenty or thirty climbed out of the windows to sit and hang off the roof. 

Traveling was a death-defying act in itself. It appeared that the only way to let another vehicle know you were coming around a hairpin turn, on a steep mountainside, was to honk your horn. From what I could gather, whoever went the fastest and honked the loudest went first. On every single journey, we passed horrific crashes along the roadside. Death never seemed very far away. 

On the other hand, the whole country was exploding with life. Life was everywhere. In the cities, Bollywood music blared from each bus, rickshaw, and vendor cart that lined the streets. Anywhere we went, we encountered a restless sea full of color, sounds, and smells. People, animals, and vehicles occupied every inch of space in what I can only describe as total and utter organized chaos. All of our senses were on high alert because we needed them all—to stay alive! It was terrifying and exciting to take one step off the edge of the curb and get caught up in the energetic web that was keeping the whole thing moving and together at the same time. It felt dangerous and exhilarating all at once. 

I loved it and hated it. There was never an in-between feel-ing for one moment of the entire six months I was there. I was blasted out of my comfort zone the moment I arrived, and I deeply understood that I knew nothing, not even how to go to the bathroom or eat. I had heard about the absence of toilet paper, so I brought my own, which ran out after a few days, due to an early onslaught of “Delhi-belly.” Eating anything with your left hand was a major faux pas, again because of the lack of toilet paper, if you know what I mean. 

Our first stop was a tiny village at the foothills of the Himalayas. Max had been going there by himself for nearly ten years. He always rented the same house, which was about a forty- minute hike from the village, straight up. It took longer with a heavy rucksack on your back. The only way to get there was to walk, as there was no road. He assured me it was worth the effort, that the house was really special. The “house” was a log cabin on wooden stilts, which had stacks of cut firewood underneath it. There was a twelve-foot ladder leaning against it that led to the front door. This immediately freaked me out, because I was afraid of heights. I hated climbing ladders, especially rickety ones, but that was the only way to access the cabin. Inside the one and only room, a thin mattress was thrown in the corner. There was a wood-burning stove in the middle of the floor and some shelves with a few cups, plates, and half-empty spice bottles scat-tered around. The house stood alone on the side of the mountain, except for one other identical-looking house about two hundred yards away, which was empty. 

The first time I saw the house, I looked at Max and exclaimed, “Are you kidding me?!”  “Isn’t it great?” he beamed. It was clear that his idea of great and mine bore no relationship to each other whatsoever, a theme that would resonate for the rest of the trip. I was panting, exhausted from the long hike up the side of the mountain, and asked, already dreading the answer, “Where is the bathroom?” Naturally, it was the great outdoors. After the initial shock, and being mindful of not wanting to appear too whiny at this early stage of the trip and of our relationship, I decided to jump in and make the best of it, only because I knew the alternative was to be miserable. We had already rented and paid for the house for one month.

 Almost every day, the melody and chorus of the Lemonhead’s song “The Outdoor Type” went through my head. It was clear I was not as outdoorsy as I may have claimed from the comfort of my living room. In fact, I had never even been camping up to that point and couldn’t light a barbeque without the help of a hair blow-dryer. I liked the idea of being the outdoor type, but that is where it stopped. Although I loved being in the mountains, I hated all the hard work it took just to survive. I hated having to dig a hole every time I needed a bathroom, and yet I loved waking up to the endless beauty that was constantly around me. There was electricity, sometimes, but you could never count on it. Nothing was easy. To have even a simple cup of tea meant we needed to start a fire. Bags of groceries needed to be hauled up from the village, cleaned, and cooked on the stove every day. It took hours to prepare food and clean up properly, so as not to attract unwelcome animal visitors at night, like bears and wolves; luckily we never did. Each day simply revolved around keeping warm enough and feeding ourselves. 

It was both physically and mentally challenging, so much so that I totally forgot I had had cancer; I was too busy surviving! If someone had told me how hard India was going to be, I don’t think I would have gone. In retrospect, I am glad I didn’t know,  because I never would have thought that I could have done it. But I did do it, with a lot of help from Max, and it was a good reminder that I am a survivor. It also showed me how protected I was from the realities of hard-core life. 

There was no avoiding life in India. There was no TV to turn on and get away from it all, no bottle of red wine to open, and no place to shop—in the mountains, at least. I also realized what a spoiled brat I was and how much I took for granted. I started to face myself on that mountain, and I didn’t like everything I saw. India became a mirror for everything about myself that was beautiful and repulsive. 

After one month on the mountain, it was a relief to walk down to the village for the last time. I was excited to see the rest of India and hoped it would be a little easier. Max had carefully planned an itinerary full of sacred and special places that he had discovered on his travels, off the beaten tourist trail. Our plan was to slowly make our way toward Goa, a previous Portuguese prov-ince on the western coast, and stay there for the last two months, if I liked it. We stopped off in remote little towns and villages along the way, for days and sometimes weeks at a time, depending on how we felt, who we met, and sometimes depending on when the bus or train decided to come. Timetables and schedules were not taken very seriously in India.

 I fell in love with the open-hearted Indian people. Everyone we passed in the villages would say “Namaste! Namaste!” It was the word for hello, goodbye, and thank you, and it meant “the light inside of me greets the light inside of you” or “the God in me sees the God in you.” Imagine greeting people like that every day and meaning it—instead of “Hey, how’s it going?” or “What’s up?” and not even waiting for or wanting to hear a response. For me, “Namaste” felt authentic. There was a genuine friendliness that we encountered everywhere we went. They asked us all sorts of questions, with no visible trace of self-consciousness, which touched my heart in a way I never could have expected. “Where you from?” “You married?” “How many children?” “Sit down, I buy you a chai, you tell me all your troubles. Baba make them go away.” Their brown eyes opened wide and gleaming, smiles beamed, and heads bobbed from side to side with excitement to make our acquaintance. It was hard to imagine having any troubles at all to tell these people who had, according to Western culture, nothing. They appeared to be happy with what little they did have, which made them rich in my eyes. There was an inno-cence and lack of sophistication about most of the people we met that was regal and beautiful to me. 

*That trip  to India was thirteen years ago. I am ready to go back again now! Hoping to go later this year.....

Anyone have any Indian adventures they would like to share?!

Namaste....

Pasha

Pilgrimage to Heart

Every Easter weekend thousands of pilgrims and travelers, of all denominations, descend on the small village of Chimayo, nestled in the hills of northern New Mexico. A chapel was built there in 1816, in honor of the miraculous healings that were reported to have taken place at the site. It is affectionally known as the "Lourdes of the Southwest."

Last Friday, after an upsetting phone call with a dear friend, I spontaneously hopped in my car, and drove the 30 miles from Santa Fe, to check it out for myself. I was in need of some healing. Although I have been to the Santuario de Chimayo many times, I have never been there on Good Friday. As soon as I hit the highway, I saw dozens of cars parked on the side of the road. All abandon by pilgrims that had decided to walk the whole way. 

"Watch for Santuario Walkers" signs were placed along the highway, which was also speckled with temporary, bright blue restroom cubicles. Tables appeared every few miles, stocked with water, oranges, and other provisions for the walkers. I had heard that no one asked for money. Local families often set up the tables, as an offering of support to the pilgrims. The sight of so many people, all ages, colors, shapes and sizes, walking with the destination of blessings in mind, brought tears to my eyes. I drove in silence, only breaking it to whisper my mantra to myself. I wanted to be a part of the devotional energy I felt, even though I was driving.

When I turned off the highway, many more cars were abandoned in the ditches and surrounding fields. Now there were hundreds of people filling the winding and narrow road, as well as cars, that were traveling in the same direction at a snails pace. Some people were walking by themselves, others were in groups. Some pushed strollers or wheelchairs, while others spoke on their cell phones. Some wore t-shirts, displaying a photograph of a departed loved one on the back, others wore string vests and shorts, displaying their tattoos and jewelry. Everyone was walking for a different reason. There was room for all of it in the desert landscape.

A few miles outside of Chimayo I too abandon my car. I wanted to walk. I wanted to let go of the anger, disguising the hurt, I felt earlier when I hung up the phone. I prayed for understanding, forgiveness and the grace to let to go of the situation with love - instead of anger. When I reached the chapel, I got down on my knees and cried. I was not alone. Kneeling before me, was a young man in his twenties, his arms and legs covered in tattoos, his broad shoulders shaking, while his tears steadily flowed. Behind me I could hear a mexican family, jovially speaking to each other in Spanish, as they lit a candle together.

It occurred to me that none of us were that different. Each one of us may have started our walk from a different place, but for each of us the destination was the same…..love. 

What burden do you want to lay down? What part of your heart wants to rise up and be known? 

You can create your own pilgrimage by walking out your front door, with the intention to release, receive, and return - slightly altered, and changed in some way. 

It's a few days later, and I still haven't talked to my friend. I pray that when we the time comes for us to talk, I will be able to listen, and to speak, from an open heart, instead of a wounded one.