Monday, March 29, 2010

Bragging Rights

Don't you love it when you set an intention, or start on a quest, or make a declaration and the universe turns itself upside down to support you? Through a couple of grapevines I have heard of Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts - a 5 week self development program hostessed by Regena Thomashauer in New York City. Only recently did I realize Mama Gena has a book outlining this amazing course which is all about the art of identifying your desires, having fun no matter where you are, incorporating more pleasure into every day of your life, and the ultimate, exhilirating, creative force known as the Power of Pussy.

I'll comment more on the PoP as I digest the book more, I mainly wanted to say it for shock value - although I have to say it absolutely, positively works, and not just on sexual matters.

In Lesson 2 - The Womanly Art of Whetting Your Own Appetite, one of the exercises is to brag outrageously every single day.  Now, I had a hard time with this concept at first because it seems, well, arrogant. And I'm so use to looking out for everyone else' feelings that I don't want to make anyone feel bad.  But, look, if every woman never tells anyone else how amazing we are, or about the things we've accomplished, or about the good things that have come into our lives, none of us will ever know that it is, in fact, possible to live up to our potential. We learn best by example, right? Why reinvent the wheel or struggle along alone when we could share victories, big and small, with other people on the journey?

OK - so here goes - here's a small one.  Today, I tried for the first time ever, eating Dulse with Avocado. I love it! It's delicious!  My husband will hate it. He already thinks the healthy nutrition kick I'm on is insane. On previous trips to Whole Foods he has physically pushed me passed the display of dried seaweeds.  If he had been with me at the store I never would have bought it. So, it actually seemed a little naughty, a little like a stolen delicacy. I may just hide it in the cupboard and not tell him about it, not because I fear his reaction, but because this way its my little secret that no one else gets to know about

Whew! that felt good!  Here's another - I bought new jeans last week. A size smaller than the ones I was replacing! So, my health food kick is paying off. (As are my belly dance and S Factor workouts.)

OK - here comes the big one.  Several years ago when I first started dreaming about what I wanted in my life, what schedule I'd like to keep, how much time I'd like to have for all the things I'd like to do, I had a vision, or a feeling, of what that would look like.  Guess what it looked like?  Today.  Guess what it felt like? Right now.   I had that realization the other day. Even though I just consciously started this Deva journey toward more pleasure and excitement,  I had this aha! moment of having arrived.  Right now I have the time, the work schedule, the ability to give this Deva journey my all because all that time ago I started visualizing and imagining what it would be like to have the time, the schedule the ability....  So, this conscious creation, manifest your life stuff we all learned about in the The Secret must actually work! (And I'm now living proof, so you start doing it too!)

Here's our homework for today and tomorrow and every day that comes hereafter: do something that pleases you!  Make a list of miniscule and gargantuan things that would bring you pleasure and start doing something from that list every single day. I'm not talking about icing on the cake or rewarding yourself for a hard day's work. I'm talking about making your pleasure the absolute #1 ultimate priority of every single day. The one thing that must get done no matter what. It's important, it's critical to your physical and spiritual health. Pleasure is not an option, its a must-have, a necessity. It will not make you a selfish bitch, it will make you a better person! 

If you have something to brag about, please comment here or let me know on Facebook! I would love to share in and learn from your pleasurable victories.

Oh, and go out and get "Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts" - it should be on every Deva's bookshelf.

Have the Reddest Day Ever!

In Grace,

Kell

Friday, March 19, 2010

A new kind of dance.....

A while back I was watching a lot of BraveheartWomenTv and ran across Dale Allen, creator of an amazing performance art called In Our Right Minds. She talks about how our culture is completely left-brain oriented and that women can learn to know and love ourselves better by becoming more acquainted with our natural right brain instincts.  For me it was one of those Aha! moments when the voice in the back of my head said "Ok toots, put down the self-help book (left-brain activity) and get on the dance floor (right-brain activity)!

I had taken about a year and a half of belly dance lessons and was loving it, but then I put it on hold while we went through the process of packing and selling a house and moving. I have looked around here and found some good studios that offer classes, but haven't yet made the commitment of time or dollars. Recently it seems like everywhere I turn, the universe is throwing some new aspect of body image, sexuality and the belief systems I've held about it, and the relationship between how healthy my body is and how healthy my spirit is.

The other day I was looking through my wish-list at Amazon.com, editing out things I had put on there years ago and which no longer seemed interesting, and I ran across a book called The S Factor, by actress Sheila Kelley.  (I think I discovered her on Braveheart Women TV too.)  She played a stripper in a movie called Dancing at the Blue Iguana a few years back and tells about how learning to strip completely changed how she thought of and related to her own body (not to mention that it was a killer workout). The book seemed to jump out of the computer screen at me, so I ordered it, then went to Sheila Kelley's website and ordered her first workout DVD.

The workout arrived yesterday and I put it in this morning and followed along as Sheila broke down a smokin' hot strip routine into basic, simple, step by step movements.  What can I say?  It was FUN, made me feel good and girl-howdy am I gonna be sore tomorrow! I felt like me and my body got a foothold on a new relationship today and I look forward to seeing where it takes me. I'm probably not on a new career path, but am looking forward to getting my shimmy on again, and checking out a local ballroom dance company I found online. I'll be back in my right mind again ASAP.

Have the Reddest Day Ever!

In Grace,

Kell

Monday, March 15, 2010

The harshest critic.....

Today did not feel very Deva. It was frustrating. I felt pulled in a million different directions and like whatever I ended up doing I didn't do well. Like I TRIED really hard, but that's all I ended up doing....trying really hard.

Mondays are usually my favorite day of the week, which I planned on purpose because well, it feels absolutely divine to buck the trend on that particular stereotype. But, usually my Graceful Deva "work day" involves a couple hours of actual day job work, and then time committed to fun work like organizing my website content (still in the works, but coming soon!), working on creative projects, practicing artplay like drawing and painting, or putting together the space in the garage where my dad is going to build me a workbench.  A day devoted to the administrative side of living on purpose.

But, today my kids didn't have school. I don't even know how to describe my frustration with this day without sounding like the biggest mommy bitch ever , but today those wonderful, beautiful boys that are and always will be the best thing that ever happened to me, STOMPED ALL OVER MY GROOVE!

If I needed the computer, they were already on it. If I picked up a paint brush and start working on a friend's birthday present (which is months late already), they instantly needed something to eat. When I was ready to walk out the door to the gym, they couldn't find their shoes....for a 1/2 hour. If and when I actually settled in and started doing something, within 5 minutes they were hovering - reading over my shoulder, or wanting to be entertained or needing something.

I think I spent most of the day telling myself to breathe, begging for divine guidance, and knowing that I was not being a very good Deva. A very good Deva wouldn't feel so frustrated. A good Deva would have organized her day better. An extremely good Deva would have been able to juggle the work and the extra time with her kids as the joyous occasion it was supposed to be. I walked around the whole day with a giant ball of anxiety in my throat and chest - and all the while kept realizing that I am the one who spent the past 13 years creating the family culture in which this behavior is normal. I have raised children who need me possibly a little too much (maybe I needed them to need me?) and I have trained them, and myself, to expect me to take care of everything.

So, it came as an enormous surprise to me that when I said goodnight to my 13 year old and apologized for what an awful day it was and how crazy I acted and how frustrated I was with everything, he shook his head and said "Oh, I didn't notice."  Now, maybe he's just being a 13 year old guy and anyone else with a marginally more developed intuition would have noticed that something was up with me.  But, it was absolutely stunning that I had spent the whole day barely avoiding a panic attack and his day had actually turned out perfectly fine.

A little later, I tried to describe to my husband what an awful day it was by recounting all the things I had not gotten done and kept having to backtrack because of all the things that kept coming up that I had gotten done. I started the day with a full hour of holosync meditation. I did 2 loads of dishes and 3 loads of laundry and scooped the kitty boxes twice.  I went to the gym and sweated on an elliptical machine for 1/2 hour and still took the dog for a short walk later. I worked on the website for almost an hour and waded through 114 previously unread emails. The painting project for my friend is almost done now. I helped one son with his algebra homework and spent 45 minutes reading aloud to the younger one. I even drove to Best Buy for some hands on research for a computer I'm buying for my day job. Somewhere in there my legs got shaved, dinner got served and I did not eat any sugar!

Sometimes the most important lessons are learned in the midst of chaos, yes? My inner bully came out today and blasted my Self to smithereens for not being perfect yet. Its true that I could have handled certain situations better. Its absolutely true that many times today I forgot to reach out and accept the Grace that is always available. But, its also true that I handled it all 100 times better than I would have a year or two ago. And longer ago than that it wouldn't have occurred to me that dropping everything to fulfill the every whim of my whining children didn't feel good. So maybe the frustration is actually a sign of growth?

However I want to spin it, there will be other awful days like today. There will also be lovely ones where I'm organized and graceful and in the flow. But the point is, I am a work in progress. Having a long way to go does not negate how far I have come. Isn't it amazing that I have so many fears of letting other people down, of what they will think of me, of saying "I'm a Deva" and then failing to be divine in their eyes.  And yet, "they" are not the ones I truly have to convince, are they?

Every thought, every action, every goal, every step along the way is a spiritual one. Even the shitty-est days can be the Reddest Day Ever.

In Grace,

Kell
The Graceful Deva

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Silver chandeliers, red patent leather, and green mason jars

Today I officially set my new universe in motion, instituting Deva Play Day, also known as Tuesday.  Its not just that I'm keeping work, cleaning, parental duties, etc. to a minimum, but this is the day where I experience something - some kind of adventure, great or small and really go through the day feeling like a Deva. And the feeling part is key, because sometimes you realize your adventures might seem rather Plain Jane to someone else, so its oober important to know that being a Deva is mostly about the being, rather than the doing.

I have to back up a little though and talk about something that struck me a few days ago, on Sunday, when I was at a jewelry party at my aunt's house. This is the type of party where there's very little sales pitch, just piles of jewelry and you try on anything and everything and then decide what you want to buy.  Most of the women there were my aunt's age - 55 + , but absolutely beautiful, funny, what I would consider to be accomplished women. Well dressed and accessorized to the hilt. The thing that struck me up the side of the head though, was that every single one of them had something awful to say about themselves.  Of course, they all did the typical comparing wrinkles and gray hair thing, but every woman there, at least twice in the couple of hours I was with them, made some comment about how stupid, fat or ugly she was, or how undeserving, or how bad, unlucky things always happen to her.  All I could think was "Goddess forgive us, we keep bashing you in the mirror no matter how beautiful you are!" So, I made a point of looking every woman there in the eyeball and complementing her in some way. But, mainly I took a lesson home, along with my silver chandelier earrings. If I don't want to hate my Self when I grow up, I have to notice when I tell my Self how stupid, fat, ugly, undeserving I am and stop it. And then start telling Me how drop-dead gorgeous, fantastic, hot, funny, wicked smart, and worthy of all beautiful things I am! And if I live like I believe that, pretty soon everyone else will too!

So, this morning, me and my silver chandelier earrings went out to explore my new surroundings. Like I said before, this might seem really ordinary, but I decided to start small, right here in the community I've lived in for 4 months but haven't taken the time to get to know.  I headed into the historic downtown area and parked outside a small antique mall.  My eyes were immediately drawn to a large display of old, discolored fruit jars in the window.  I had just opened a package that came in the mail, an order of Chinese Medicinal Teas, one of which is called "Radiant Woman." I have to make this tea a gallon at a time and I was wondering how the heck I was gonna store it all in my little fridge.  These beautiful green and bluish Mason jars seemed just the trick. So, in I walked, silver chandeliers swinging, high heeled boots clicking, feeling like a Deva.  Now, it may just be my imagination, but I think the man at the counter believed I was a Deva too cause he was super nice and flirty and asked me a bzillion questions about my self and how long I've lived here and where I was from and did I have kids, etc.  Every time I pour tea into one of my new old fruit jars I'm gonna remember that when you act like a Deva, people treat you like one!

I wandered around old town for a while. The art gallery/studio I wanted to visit was closed, but something about the sign on the door that said "We're sorry we're closed, we're all working artists and sometimes we can't be here" totally thrilled my heart.  Maybe someday I will have a door, and a sign, and somewhere else to be. I checked out the hours at the heritage center and the tea shop, picked up fliers about local wineries at the Chamber of Commerce, and bought oranges and bananas at the fruit stand on the corner. Then, having exhausted the delights of downtown Sherwood, I headed up the highway for the most stereotypical, absolutely normal destination possible. I was looking for the closest Ross Dress For Less.

Now, shopping probably seems more Diva, than Deva, but my intentions were pure. I am tired of drinking out of coffee mugs with insignias from banks my father use to work at, or vacation places my kids have been, or even worse, ones in the shape of Chewbaca or R2D2. And I sure as heck am not going to drink something called "Radiant Woman" out of them! So, when in need of something cool and cheap, I head to Ross. I found some gorgeous mugs with divine red and yellow poppies on them and my heart was happy. Then, I walked through the shoe section.  BIG MISTAKE. But Oh My Goddess is there anything more Deva than patent leather red sandals with a 3 inch wedge heel? I think not. I am wearing them as I type. I keep practicing getting up and down out of the chair, walking up the stairs without falling back down, etc.  I have a Deva cousin who wears ginormous heels everywhere and she taught me once that you absolutely cannot wear heels and keep your hips from swinging.  Now, swinging your hips when you walk is a perfectly natural, healthy thing to do but one that we seem to thing is inappropriate in all situations. So, tonight I'll practice swinging my hips and wearing my red patent leather three inch heels while I do the dishes - and then when I put on my comfy black Nikes and head to the gym, I'll keep right on practicing.

Have the Reddest Day Ever!

In Grace,

Kell

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Tap Tap Tap

So, it really is amazing that when the student is ready, the teacher will come.  In addition to cruising google images for photos of things I want to be, do, and have and putting some really cool stuff into my Deva Datebook and thoroughly enjoying the beautiful spring flowers that are everywhere, I've spent the last couple of days tapping.  I had barely heard of EFT or meridian tapping years ago when a friend was learning about it, but I had somehow gotten onto an email newsletter list about a series of podcasts talking about the ins and outs of tapping yourself healthy, whole and thriving.  I missed most of the series but tuned in for the last couple of presentations and decided to try it out.  Based on the system of energy meridians in the body, which are accessed by acupuncturists to help release blocked energy, the concept is that we can release blocked energy in our selves by literally "tapping" on specific energy points and speaking some statements about a specific problem.  (Like "I have this incredible pain in my lower back," or "It really sucks that I don't have any money.") This release of blocked energy usually involves the release of an old uncomfortble memory or belief pattern that we may not even have known existed but that we then realize has been manifesting in our body in some way or even keeping us from accomplishing our goals and dreams.

I followed along with some of the demonstrations and was amazed by just how great I felt afterward, even if the specific problem being addressed didn't go away completely.  Then, I did a tapping specifically regarding the lower back and by the time I finished the 5 minute session, the pain and stiffness was completely gone!  I leaned all the way over in my chair and wrapped my arms around my knees and stretched out my whole back and it felt so good!  That was 2 days ago and even though I've been spending tons of time sitting in front of a computer, my lower back hasn't hurt at all.  The other tapping session I did that had a kind of funny, interesting outcome was one I followed along with about money (or the lack thereof.)  As soon as the mini session ended, my phone rang, it was my father-in-law and he needed my address so he could mail me the $100 gift card that came to his business as a rebate for a cell phone I had bought my son months ago.  I actually laughed out loud into the phone and hurt his ears!  I'll be using that card to pay for my other son's birthday party this weekend, which is one of the things I was stressing about.

I've decided no Deva's repertoire is complete without more information on tapping, so I'll be delving into it more deeply. Anyone who would also like more info can go to http://www.thetappingsolution.com/ or simply google "meridian tapping" or "E.F.T." Or, if you're already an expert, please share some knowledge!

On a hilarious note, any grown ups who want to laugh hysterically, or shiver uncontrollably, should check out a photo I found when I was googling images of skydivers.  I did NOT specifically look for pictures of nude skydiving, and cannot imagine anything more cold and uncomfortable, but what falling through space at that speed does to a woman's breasts is just inconceivable. I also would never have guessed how turned on a guy could get by falling through cold empty space. Turn off your child safety settings and google it yourself.

Have the Reddest day ever!

In Grace,

Kell