So difficult for women. Taking ourselves seriously.

Men do it easily and fake it easily.

I’m not quite there yet.

By now, we should look very steady, not swaying with every new wind. We might not be where we expected, but that doesn’t mean we failed.

We try too hard to play no-win games. The best of what we have become is inside us.

Heaven help you if your hair is medium brown. You’ll have had highlights, lowlights, been blonde, red, often several at once. We fall for every kind of advice. We wear pointy toed shoes that hurt. We wear painted on eyebrows, despite becoming a living cliché.

The Soft Seasons have naturally mouse-brown hair. They look great with finely woven caramel light. The Light Seasons speak of sunshine, so the brightening effect of pale yellow sun highlight is very consistent with their energy.

On everyone else : a distraction…that too often escalates over the years to become a highlight that has coalesced into one big uni-streak. That was me for years. Eventually, that was how I was used to seeing myself. What good is beach blonde when it makes your eyes gray away?

In Hollywood, you probably look odd without the yellow helmet, or the implants, for that matter. In the real world, at the office, in the car, at school, does Gwyneth’s yellow wall work in your favor?

The rich warmth of the Autumns, their spicy heat, and the dark force of the Winters is shattered into 10,000 pieces by blonde light. Give them a hot molten glow and a still, simple gleam, respectively.

Not everyone is flattered by blond, even if you’re 20. Which girl will be taken more seriously (ignoring the earrings)? Which twin’s eye colour is stronger?

When you’re blonde and you shouldn’t be, it feels tense to be around. Remember the relief when Pretty Woman took off the blonde wig? You FELT your insides relax.

Forced beauty feels so demanding.

Would Nick Arrojo, whom I love, have I ever told you, do tricolour stripes?

Accidental beauty could have happened by itself. Easier to be. Easier to look at.

Being taken seriously is one of the gifts of aging. Too many of us squander it by being blond when we shouldn’t be.

Perhaps there is only one person who should not take you seriously, and that’s you.

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© 2007–2010, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Since I’m forced to do something essentially boring, I’ve had time to ponder why so many more good ideas come to me on the bike than when I’m having a hot bath. Same thing with driving-or anytime that I am not free to write. I believe that my left brain feels busy and important, or thinks it is, so the other side is free to wander.  The usual message from  the dominant, analytical, pessimistic left is “That will never work”.  When that side is busy, it loosens the clamps on the right, which it must perceive to be silly. So I’ll keep biking, but I have to do something else sometimes.

You have your Creator picture and I have mine. Mine looks something like this.

Bad events must be the signal to switch gears. The more horrible the event, the louder the Creator is singing the MAKE A MOVE song. The Universe is trying to tell you or show you something. These are the times when I try to make decisions I would never normally make. From the article about Jennifer Kries Life Force Power DVDs (AGT article The DVD I Use To Heal), you know I’m really taken by this program. I’m in no hurry about the knee and feeling very receptive to any direction.

I felt I should explore that a little further. Yoga often feels too static, but Cardiyoga isn’t out there. I watched the Flow Yoga  selection video clips at Collage Video. It spoke to me. Flow Yoga looks like where many of the movements from Pilates and jazz came from.

At first, the workout looks absolutely like a trance, like you’re having altogether too much fun by yourself. Nevermind, I said that I was committed to change and going somewhere new.

We hear a lot about “mind-body” exercise but I never really see it described as more than “consciousness about the movement”. My Deeper Self always looks for the connection that makes my children think I’m odd, and I cannot disappoint them. I see it like this. Since there is no distinction between your mind and your body, which I wholeheartedly adhere to, when one goes one way, the other has to follow. If they are united without barriers, if they are “one”, then whatever is happening in your mind mirrors to the molecule what is happening in your body, and vice versa. When the barriers in front of one are removed, so do they dissolve for the other.

Exercise shifts the control over to my body. If you’re read the Esther and Jerry Hicks books, there your control is over the mind, and the calming of the body follows. This is the reverse. The body settles in and the mind starts to realize it feels good. I ordered Shiva Rea’s Fluid Power Vinyasa Flow Yoga. When you watch the clip, you might think “I don’t think I have enough internal endorphins enjoy that like she does”. Neither do I, trust me. My kids would tell you that I have almost none. To get somewhere new, you have to move your feet that way.

The program is kind of fabulous. Do I chant? Only in my head. For now. There are 213 minutes, divided into about 30 or 40 short sections that you mix and  match, or play pre-set 30-100 minutes sequences. As Shiva says, it’s like “land swimming”. After 20 minutes, my concentration is all over the place. But for those 20 minutes, I go to places I have never been. It is a heck of an eye-opener. And, may I say that I’m very proud of myself for making this choice.

Having been raised in Prince Edward Island, where a large part of my soul resides, where I am truly at peace, my connection to any ocean is very strong. Is it coincidence that the rhythm of the waves and of our breathing is so similar? I think not.  Nature conserves energy, so when she finds a pattern, structure, or beat that works, she uses it at every level.

These programs are about teaching your mind to feel (instead of your body) through the metaphor of reaching for the tidal rhythm of the ocean, “the one breath that unites us all”. The visualization metaphors, what women were made for, are wonderful and very fresh – at least to me, who doesn’t know Yoga jargon. Shiva’s voice and the production quality are hypnotic. Shiva sways naturally when she talks. The movements are so graceful and rock gently back and forth with each breath.

This DVD keeps the left mind busy and takes you outside your preconceptions all at once. We really are all connected, to each other, to every molecule on this planet by very real beams of energy that we can barely understand. Though still in its infancy, the internet is the best visualization of that reality. The ocean and the star-filled sky simulate the same vision of humanity as one being with one collective mind.

Look at the borders of your comfort zone. Make a conscious decision to go outside them. It won’t happen by itself. Imagination and possibility await in a no-limits Universe.

With respect and with thanks to the Universe, and to you for your place in it.

Leaving your mind behind is fun sometimes. It clears the head wonderfully. Clearing the skin is much easier to do. It’s automatic when you wear the right colours. It’s harder to explain. At 12Blueprints, a video so you can watch it happen in Clearing Skin With Colour Analysis.

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© 2007–2010, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

I absolutely believe our body can heal in an accelerated way, just like I believe you can accelerate your life.

I believe that your food contains your medicine till proven otherwise. Food can be powerfully anti-inflammatory (and anti-aging) if you make the right choices.

I believe that there is no division between Nature and our bodies, between the energy fields around us and within us. There is also no distinction between what is happening to your body and what is happening in your mind. Your Deeper Self and these forces are one and the same, fully swirling and intertwined.

I believe that when something happens, there is a reason for it. It is the time to push you in a new direction.

I believe that you better be careful what you ask for because you will get it.

I believe that if something in your life isn’t going as you wish, your first step should be to flip the mirror 180 and look harder at yourself.

Having laid that groundwork, and since I instantly become a pessimistic wreck if I can’t exercise somehow, I decided to hobble over to WalMart to look at the Pilates selection, while I await my Pilates/flow yoga order from CollageVideo.

I found this. For $5 (they only had Level 1), how could it be bad?

Below is the 4 video set, available on the Jennifer Kries website.

Well, it’s far better than bad. It’s simply awesome.

The program has about 8 sections. There is a 20min. session of each yoga, Pilates, and ballet, all appropriate to a Level 1 of 4 position.

This is way more. It’s a brilliant integration of mind with body, taking the concept further than just repeating the “mind-body”expression, but actually explains and demonstrates it. There are fabulous sections on understanding and awakening energy sources, meridian medicine, chakras, and ancient healing beliefs in Chinese medicine in ways that will work for you today. Everything is short and concise, not overly meta-energy. She is a serious practicioner, a graceful athlete, and so pleasant to listen to.

I haven’t really been open to those ideas, or I’ve never had to be.

So what was the message? What was I supposed to learn? Why did I have to be forced to open up to this type of movement and thought?

Could this be the big flashing sign in the sky saying “lean back and stop pushing”? That it’s time to allow and to receive and wait quietly, and accept that I’ve pushed hard enough for long enough. A change is needed.

In this clip, Jennifer explains the Hot Body Cool Mind workout concept.

On this page, you can read about Waking Energy. I do the Sitting version 3 times a day. The more I do it, the better it feels. I like the doing part. I’m not good at just sitting, though I seem to be headed that way.

At beYOu.tv, this is a preview of Waking Energy Standing. You can find Jennifer on YouTube too.

My knee is getting better all the time.  My heart is feeling cautiously extra-pumpy that something good is going to happen.

At 12B, answering the question of whether you can borrow colours from your neighbor Seasons. Why, yes, I did use the picture at the top in that article too, but I like it a lot. It’s how life should be.

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© 2007–2010, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

I had to do it twice because she didn’t feel these colours could be hers. (True Summer). She saw only grays and old lady colours, instead of the fabulous roses and blues.

She felt the personality was nothing like her. She sees herself as a firecracker, but that’s only a small part of her being. She can soothe everyone around her into loving one another, even if they don’t like each other. She is highly capable, steady, diplomatic, and sensible. Courtesy and decency are central to her nature. She also has beautifully shaped hands. She is a True True Summer, and not even the darker version.

She said “they don’t make clothes in my colours”. I’ll grant that professional clothes are hard to find, but I know for sure that there are True Summer clothes out there. In fact, it’s the Winters who need full colour saturation who have trouble finding interesting colours, except in workout wear. There’s loads of black and some generic teal and plum thing, but not much really beautiful stuff. (There’s more True Summer and saturation talk in Elisa Is A True Summer, at 12B).

This was before we shopped for makeup. We tried eyeliners. The energy was wrong. It felt sticky. Her eyelashes looked too thin. We went for coffee to think about it. We finally settled on some lovely colours.

She called me recently. The makeup was dull and made her look old. Even the foundation that was perfect 6 months ago, was off.  People told her she looked better in the crimson and black she used to wear. She wanted makeup that would make her look more alive, or even a bit alive.

Make no mistake, I enjoy these challenges A LOT. I like to encounter the resistance. I lived it too. I also feel sorry for her frustration. It most certainly takes time to teach your eye how to find your colours, and to resist the observations of your Book Club and the lady at the post office. You have to exercise big patience while you go about getting the elements of the picture working together. But Karen’s is more than usual.

The thought that came into my head was “You are MAKING this be hard.”

Yes, we all have things we’re better at, but this was like going looking for obstacles. So, why?

Next thought : Do I do it too? What am I making be hard?

Revealing answer : “This is how Karen felt watching me trying to register a business name and deal with Revenue Canada!” I was all in a fluff and she was thinking “Why are you MAKING this be hard?”

Next example : Christmas gifts. People tell us that they want nothing, but we still go sweat it out on our own on Dec. 23, worried that they won’t like it. Why did we make that be hard?

We make things hard if we NEED them to be hard. Is it about not being able to release the control over the situation? Is it that we need to feel just a little under-appreciated?

Watching men think is fascinating. Generally, they are great simplifiers. They do the obvious and don’t worry. They ignore whatever doesn’t agree with their first assessment. Very seldom does a man choose the harder path intentionally.

Men are also able to proceed without all the information. So, not only will they choose the easiest path every time, but they will also make a move to get on that path without knowing what lies ahead. Sometimes, all they know is that they want the end result, that they will follow the most obvious path in getting there, and they will fill in the rest of the blanks as they go along. You know, it makes a lot of sense. Women, on the other hand, we clutter up our lives with over-emotion and over-analysis.

I am delivering the intention to look for the most effortless and uncomplicated solution. The difference between 80% and 100 is not important. 99% of people won’t even notice. Whenever I start feeling freaked out, my first words to myself are “Christine, LET this be easy”. I am exploring the possibility that most things really are as easy as they seem, before I muckled on to them and made them hard.

Chances are nobody else watching is finding your particular difficulty very hard except for you. For some reason, we chose for it to be hard. Time to stop that.

Try it for one whole day. Decide to let everything be easy. Don’t make it be hard till you are given a reason to.

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© 2007–2010, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Have you looked at the hair stuff at Sephora? The deals? I couldn’t pick just one. Fekkai’s Glossing Shampoo. Juicy Couture’s hair elastics. The Carol’s Daughter set is $37. Do you have girl children from 15 to 25 to buy for?

2. Free passes to a Les Mills gym. If there’s one in my little town, they cannot be hard to find. Do you know Les Mills? I believe they’re an exercise franchise from Australia. The classes and music are pre-choreographed. There are no bad classes and there are many class styles. I’ve taken several, all outstanding.

No pressure. Go whenever.

3.Chalean Extreme . I really want this. You may remember Chalene Johnson from the Turbojam exercise videos at BeachBody. This series is focused on building muscle with strength training. For women over 40, for anyone, cardio is all fine and good, but equal amounts of strength and resistance training make your frame of body and your frame of mind strong. It deeply roots the “If I can do this, I can do anything” notion in your head.

Here’s what I couldn’t wait for :  Insanity. The hardest workout ever put on DVD. This link takes you to the BeachBody homepage. On the right is the link to Insanity. Watch the video. I can tell you, it is all this and more.

4. Smart Wool socks. So much more than socks. Many places to buy. Being warm goes a long way towards being enveloped by that festive feeling.

5. Wyndham Estate’s Bin 555 Shiraz. At $15 or so, this is a wonderful red wine. Though I don’t distinguish all the flavors wines possess, this one is said to taste of strawberries, plums, licorice, and pepper.  Getting into the Wynham Estate’s site requires that you be of legal drinking age, but you can Google and read many reviews.

6. Towel warmer. Until they build ladders into bathrooms, since which home of 5 has enough towel racks in the bathroom, and it eludes me why they haven’t exploited this vertical design option yet, this is very useful. And such a treat.

There are several designs and prices. The one below is about $50 at Sears Canada.

7. Brie warmer. It is the thing. Arrive with one of these little tubs, like a round ceramic butter dish with a top, plus the Brie inside, a loaf of French bread, a few raspberries, and you are the star of the show. I saw some cute ones at Chapters, though I don’t see them on the site. They were $19.99.

8. Festive Stripe Stemware and table runners at Pier 1 Imports. Whether it’s the glasses that get me festive or the stuff inside, something will work. These are so pretty I’d keep them out all year.

The tablerunners are so beautiful too. I loved this Christmas tree design, and the Starburst. Lovely hostess gifts.

9. The camis at Smart Set. $20 for 2. In nylon/spandex, the feel is light and silky, not cotton, underwear, or sleepwear. They are not childishly ornate. They have a smooth ballerina scoop, rather than a more casual looking V. The straps are set wider apart, better with a more open neck blouse or sweater. The 20! colours are good. The straps are adjustable. It is SO hard to find lower layers that don’t look too much like lingerie or our daughter’s tank tops. It is not too short or too long. The border and straps are satiny.

The link will take you to Smart Set but the Flash viewer won’t let me link further. Just look for Nylon/Spandex Cami under Smart Fashion.

10. These SO-cute mascara samplers. Know a teenager? After they get over the discovery of their own hair when they’re about 13, the next fascination is eyelashes. Ships for free in the US, as does a lot of product at this great store. When will retailers ship free to Canada?

What’s going on at 12B? There is a trilogy of articles in process. The first is What Are Clear And Soft Colours?, because every Season needs to know.

The next one, going up sometime today, is The Mystery Of Brown, where I think about how to choose Spring’s browns from Autumn’s. It’s easier with clothing than makeup.

These are leading up to visiting Louise again, from Louise and Stevan Are Light Springs, and choosing makeup for Louise’s eyes.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

This is the story of a dog born without forelimbs. He was born on Christmas Eve, 2002. Even his mother didn’t want him.

His owner didn’t think he could survive and was thinking of putting him to sleep. His present owner, Jude Stringfellow, wanted to take care of him. She was determined to teach him to walk on his own. She named him “Faith”. In the beginning, she put him on a surfboard and let him feel the movement. She used peanut butter to reward him for standing up and jumping around. Even the other dogs encouraged him to walk.

Amazingly, after only 6 months, he learned to balance on his hind legs and move forward. With further training in the snow, he learned to walk like a human being.

He loves to walk around. Wherever he goes, he attracts people to him. He is becoming famous in newspapers and on TV. There is a book entitled “With A Little Faith” being published. Jude plans to leave her teaching job and take him around the world to preach that even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul.

In life, there will always be undesirable things. You need to look at them from another direction to feel better. Try to look from the opposite side and learn to transform a bad thing into a good thing. You will get better and better at doing so.

This is not a story about being happy because there is always someone who has less than you do. This is all about you alone and learning to see in a different way.

I hope this message will inspire you to find new ways of thinking about old problems. Be thankful and appreciate every beautiful day.

“Faith” is the demonstration of the strength and wonder of life.

More about the wonder of life as we look at Dark Autumn Jewelry at 12 Blueprints. The colours and feelings we wear are the outward reflection of the colours and feelings we are. That connection is the bridge. It lets magic happen.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

“The more skin you show, the less authority you project.”

I take that to mean,

The more skin you show, the more power you give up.

Is that statement obvious to you?  I never considered it to be either/or till I read that sentence. The more you want of one, the less you get of the other.

Is seduction weak?

I never, ever think about looking sexy. It absolutely does not enter my head. In my 20s, I worked at it. Now I don’t care. Since it’s a choice, I’d dress for power over seduction. Pay more attention to my ideas than my body parts.

No question, the more cleavage you show, the less seriously you are taken. It is noticed, but as a storefront. The only power it confers is like a physical blackmail… I own this and if you want it, then you have to blank. It feels weaker than stronger. It’s like a contest to see who’s willing to give away more than someone else to get the big prize … but what exactly is the prize? and why should we have to show more than a man to win? Is it a type of reverse sexual harassment, an un-requested but un-ignorable sexual advance?

You certainly cannot do it at work. The 2mm of cleavage Ms. Clinton revealed was too much. She reduced her ability to be taken seriously and she compromised the impact of her message. She also seemed somehow vulnerable to dumb advice, because she allowed fashion to override her instinct and sense. Assuming that the men on her playing field are wired differently is wrong.

Male magnet

When do men wear their shirt unbuttoned too far, or make any allowance for physical show from other men, in their business and casual dress? Showing too much skin would be a sign of vulnerability and ridicule, though it would be forgiven. Our rules are not different, though we would never be forgiven so easily in the workplace. Why do women agree to expose more skin and accept the consequence of weakness?

I talk to my daughters about giving too much away, or looking like you will. I used to think young girls displayed themselves as a competition with other girls. Needless to say, that is not what young men see. Or old men, for that matter. They see a bull’s eye. But I think the girls know this. There’s something predatorial about them too, not just the boys.  At 16, I suppose you can show half your breasts and wear heavy black eyeliner. It’s almost a uniform. It is not an age group that is taken so seriously anyhow. What can I say, I’m a mom first. I don’t see anyone’s kids as the age they are. I see them as all the ages they’ve ever been.

What the girls think they’re getting and the real result of the display are, of course, not the same. Do the boys or men even care what their name is? Of course not. At that age, the desperation may be normal and maybe expected from a mating point of view. At 45, it’s less comfortable.

We’re too smart to choose to ignore the price. When you’re young, you have more optimism and ignorance than is safe. You don’t realize or don’t want to believe how differently men think. Women are contextual, they need a story to go with the picture. When describing a latest boyfriend, they describe his job, his strengths, not his looks. Men, every single one of them, including my husband, doctor, brother, employer, father, and son, are visual. Call me a pessimist, but I believe it’s true.

What NOT To Wear

This is not to say that we should all dress in long gray dresses, flat shoes, with a large wooden cross around our neck. My kids watch What Not To Wear. I only watch the hair segment because I deeply love Nick Arrojo, the hair guy. I would never have believed the hangup women have about chopping off long, dry, straggle-ended, downright ugly hair. His best line : “Well, you don’t look like a mermaid.” I’d crawl to him on all fours.

Gushing aside, even Stacy who works in the trend-enslaved fashion industry, does not show cleavage at work. She knows she’s not Madonna. Costumes and theater are expected from celebrities at all times. Not us. She doesn’t look masculine, but she is age and position appropriate. Dressing like you’re 20 is self-defeating, and you don’t want what it’s getting the 20 year olds anyhow.

I find it an interesting program. They begin with women who want to be invisible and make them provocative, the producers must tell them to, but they usually do it with clothing that still garners respect. It is noticed through quality, imagination, fit, but not cleavage.

An e-joke

Part of an email that made its way to me:

WOMEN ARE LIKE APPLES ON TREES.  THE BEST ONES ARE AT THE TOP OF THE TREE.  MOST MEN DON’T WANT TO REACH FOR THE GOOD ONES BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID OF FALLING AND GETTING HURT.  INSTEAD, THEY JUST TAKE THE ROTTEN APPLES FROM THE GROUND THAT AREN’T AS GOOD, BUT EASY.  THE APPLES AT THE TOP THINK SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THEM, WHEN IN REALITY, THEY’RE AMAZING.  THEY JUST HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE RIGHT MAN TO COME ALONG, THE ONE WHO’S BRAVE ENOUGH TO CLIMB ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP OF THE TREE.

A lighter topic at 12B

Have a look at Soft Autumn’s Jewelry. If True Autumn wears liquid heat, what does the cooler and softer version of Autumn wear?

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Last year, I did 5 of these articles, Gift Ideas For The Real World 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Having just looked them over, why they’re pretty good, sez me. I didn’t want to duplicate anything.

I’m not sure I can think of that many ideas this year. Although, once the ball starts rolling and people chime in, we can come up with some amazing things.

For you early shoppers, how about these?

1. Stainless steel compost buckets at Lee Valley. They look great on the counter and stay nice and shiny.

2. The rolling composter at Lee Valley. I tried composting once in one of those big square plastic tubs you get from the city. I attracted every raccoon and possum for miles. This guy is easy to roll, gets hot enough inside to kill weed seeds, and produces gorgeous earth in less than a month. Read about it on the linked page. I have a friend who owns one and it is the BEST thing.

While you’re at the Lee Valley, site, check out their gifts organized by activity and cost. Really good.

3. A Comfort Plus Pillow by Sleep Innovations. Changed my life, this did. It took about 3 nights to get onto it but for my neck and shoulders, it is a wonderful thing. Got mine at Zellers, normally $40 but they go on good sales often. Your face doesn’t sink into it and rub off all your night cream, quite a big bonus for me who goes to bed very gooped up.

4. A Silpat baking mat. Listen : if you don’t have one, don’t wait till Christmas. Just go buy  yourself 2 of them. These things are unbelievable. They make life better!

5. Jams and honeys. These are just such a treat, but so expensive to buy yourself. If someone gave you one and you ate it in 3 days all by yourself, well you’re not out anything are you? Many companies make these.

The PEI Preserve Company is a favorite of ours. Should you ever be so fortunate to visit PEI, this place is a MUST SEE. Beautiful restaurant, gift shop, bakery, and samples upon samples.

The Garlic Box, McGarrigle’s Mustards, the Jellies and Teas, all fabulous. In fact, their chutneys and relishes may be better than the jams. The Balsamic and Cracked Pepper Mustard is wonderful.  The Antipasto is a PEI summer staple. Who wouldn’t love a beautiful Summer Honey box?

6. Wicked Good Hand Warmers at LLBean. On those long winter walks through the woods, you will be LOVED. Give them out to everyone like M&M’s. They work incredibly well. The fabric is quite durable so you can slip one over your toes and wouldn’t wear through it.

7. Double layer long underwear at LLBean. I might have said something like this last year, but this fabric is so cushy and warm and dry that I’ll risk repeating it. The outfits run big. I’m a size 7 and the Medium is a bit too big, but for sleeping, it’s fine.

8. A rain barrel. There are many that can be found through Google. The wooden whiskey barrel style is expensive. Home Depot has them now and then, and they may be on sale now where you live. They look so good in the garden, a focal spot.

In plastic, they come in  various shapes and sizes. Home Depot even has collapsible ones. What a nice and easy way to water the garden. Or to wash your hair.

9. Bottles and bottles of Paula’s Choice new Resist Barrier Repair Moisturizer.

10. A subscription to Fitness magazine. I’m loving this publication. It’s not too exercise-hard-core. The nutrition and health articles are terrific. Coming home from a long day and finding a new magazine in the mailbox = a good evening.

Also, the latest installment at 12 Blueprints : Icy Colours and Pastels. If you’re a Winter or a Summer, you need to know the difference.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Gifts From Real People 1. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

The Maritimes in general, and PEI especially, have a heavier gravity than anywhere else. PEI magnetizes its children back. When Islanders meet, we discuss how our conniving to return permanently is progressing. I’ve got it down to July and December so far.

This is the story of Laura-Jane and Cameron. It begins 2 years ago in Victoria, BC. In December, they packed their possessions into trailer, sold the condo, put away the tight skirts and high heels, acquired a pair of snow boots, and headed East towards a hazy horizon on which sat an old blue PEI farmhouse listed on the MLS site.

They moved into a wood-heated, uninsulated old farmhouse in the midst of PEI’s worst month, a -20C February. They were told that they were going to die. As one who has hunkered through many a PEI February, believe me when I tell you that it is a miracle that they didn’t.

Dreams of growing their own berries and living the back-to-the-land dream soon gave way to the reality of melting snow in pots to have water, and shovelling out 3ft snowbanks from one single storm. The indescribably luxurious nearby motel, with hot water of all things, was home for a month. Miserable at the time, it somehow became magical in reading their account of it, probably because it wasn’t happening to me, and I’ve learned that you don’t die from it.

Eventually, windows and running water were installed. At some point, you’re committed enough to not be able to turn back. Like being 6 weeks pregnant, like taking on a new life dream and saying farewell to an old one that doesn’t speak to you any longer, there are still moments of questioning. So much of life, and of relationships, is about stability shifts. You just tip the scale a little and keep balancing on the side you made heavier.

Can you reach adulthood in Canada and not own a pair of these? I’ve been seen at the mall in mine. And proud of it.

Laura-Jane took up a blog to chronicle the daily progress and activities, but also the evolution and reflections of their life’s dream. You’ll find it at Whimfield: Modern Pre-Industrial Living.

Laura-Jane’s blog posts and photographs are wonderful on so many levels.  This site speaks of going after happiness and not denying restlessness, of not knowing all the answers ahead of time, of not looking back with regret, and of how little risk there really is relative to what we perceive there might be.

Reality transitions allow you to go back if you need to. I wonder how often that really happens. Seldom, I would guess. Doing that thing that lifts your feet off the ground has an energy of its own. It can take a lot of hits before it caves. Do read the About page, where you can be inspired by their message.

Why Bother? is a recurring theme in many posts. Laura-Jane’s answers are grounded in her relationship with Cameron. Slowly, she is defining the life she wants to share with him and what she’s willing to trade in to do it. Those discoveries are shared with a deeply touching honesty and exposure that few would be comfortable in attaining. The ultimate answer to Why Bother? is that it feels so good to love and be loved.

In many of her posts, Laura-Jane is trying to figure out HOW to contact her inner voices. Like so many of us, she trusts that they’re there to guide her, but how do you go about hearing them? How do you recognize them in the first place? In the very beautiful Big Wheels Keep On Turning , she expresses fear that the loudest that these guides ever get is a whisper. It’s up to us to do the rest.

I love the genuine voice with which she writes. So many of her feelings are simple worries that we all share if we’re trying to change the present. Fragile delights arrive every day, just waiting to be noticed. It feels like a daily dose of reconnecting to what really matters most.

About seeing what you want to see, in This Is Our Bedroom. The photographs are so honest, so not-postcards, that they glow with the unassumingly breathtaking beauty of this gentle place. There are no busy effects. It’s just life at its least complicated. Nature seems to express its beauty through a powerful, pervasive serenity that can be missed or too easily ignored.

About why it’s just good enough to live with those you love and not need more in I Love Living In The Country :10 Reasons Why.

As they work to experience this transition to the fullest, they grow and learn more about what they want to be part of their life and what they consciously choose to reject. As Laura-Jane says, “eventually the quiet voices get louder and the louder ones subside”. On the days when that seems too hard and too far away, eat brown sugar from the spoon and read the Sears catalog.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Sites To Know : Whimfield : Modern Pre-Industrial Living. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Well, happy feels better.

We’re very busy and have a lot to do. We’ve been wronged and have to devote some time to thinking about that. We’re looking for happiness outside of ourselves. If we had a little more money, we could fix the problem. Happiness is not out there.  If I got that job, I’d calm right down.  If you’re bringing yourself along to the new job, you may not find that your problems suddenly disappear. If I got rid of that mole or this scar, I’d really feel so good. The purest tranquility lives in us now but we choose not to fixate on it because there is a leaky faucet that is irritating us.

If we could just be. Just taste. Just see. Without feeling that the time or the place have much importance at all.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist. At 37, she has a stroke.  As a brain scientist, she watches her brain functions shutting down, one by one. So that’s just spellbinding, that this would happen to this woman who would later be able to lay it out, moment by moment, for other stroke surviviors and neurologists.

When the Left brain was rendered non-functioning and quiet, the normally silenced Right brain found its voice. And it was life-changing because what she found was that this happens to be where euphoria resides.

Watch her here at TED. It’s 18 minutes long, as are all the TED talks, but just watch it. It is AWESOME.

She writes as she speaks. The language is so clean, the book is small, the message is far more scientific than mystic. And yet, it transcends. It seems so obvious and so possible, like confirming something we already know anyhow, something we are already electrically wired to receive.

I see the value of meditation, of quieting your mind, but I never make time. Metaphysical joy discussions feel like wading around wondering what the point is and how to actually get there. This isn’t like that. You already are there. As you read, you can feel yourself recognizing something you feel you might already know. You can feel it waking up and saying “Hey, how long have you been in here?”.

The deepest joy, the most profound peace and calm and understanding, the most expansive and interconnected oneness, pure happiness – they’re already there. They always were. These are the parts of the brain that have been shown to be stimulated when prayer or meditation attain their highest absolute. There are other ways of getting there than having a L-sided stroke. What if it were just a matter of choosing to be there?

If we could learn to simply cherish the miracle of interwoven molecular genius that is digestion, or vision, or reproduction. If I had to come up with a definition of religion, I see human beings like the electron cloud around a nucleus. Linked to one another and united to a common whole, not just all humanity, but beyond galaxies. There is a shared and essential (to continued life) subconscious that instructs us to be good to one another, because as in any web, when you weaken the one, you harm the whole. Is this why I am so taken with the internet?  One problem with the religions I know is that it feels like not everyone is welcome at the table. Here, anyone not at the table is missed.

During her recovery, she describes how we are perceived by anyone with neurological impairment, be it stroke or some other. We are taught to think of how Alzheimer’s, autism, and other patients see and feel and hear us. My mother had Alzheimer’s disease. She didn’t care when my next appointment was or what colour my hair was. She just lived life moment-by-moment. If she felt fine in that moment, life was good. She never talked about wanting it to end, and only seldom about feeling there was anything wrong with her. I appreciate now how I must have appeared to her. She just wanted someone to “BE” with. Since she had no hope of recovery, it wasn’t important to try to teach her to reconnect externally to herself. I remember applying conscious effort to shutting myself off when I was with her, and what a lot of effort it took. Just to be, to rub her arm, to look out a window, and I thought her brain was blank. I see now that it was my brain that was limited with its minute preoccupations, while for all I know, she was soaring.

In the last few lines, Dr. Taylor quotes Einstein (and I quote approximately), “Until I’m ready to walk away from what I am, I can never become what I will be.” This line resonated with me like a huge gong in my head. When I’m faced with a decision I’m having difficulty with, this is the banner that starts blinking behind my eyes. If I allow the complacency of “I am who I am because I’m used to it and that’s the way it is”, then I have little hope.

Knowing what I seek is in me makes it easier to find. Like trying to solve a difficult puzzle, knowing an answer does exist gives me more faith that I can find it, rather than thinking it’s a trick question without a solution. I just have to get through all the locks in my own head. I see that I have to be silent to hear my guides. They won’t force their way in. I have to shut up. The past 2000 years of spiritual teaching has been about trying to hear voices coming from outside us. In fact, the necessary silence is to allow something inside us to be heard.

Her recovery was, and is still (though she has fully regained L brain functions) devoted to not losing the glory she found within. Fascinating too are her choices of what to recover and what she decided to leave behind. Jealousy, argument, dominance, she chose to lose permanently. As familiar as this feels, like confirming something we know already, there is practical guidance for how to move towards this peaceful, wonderful place. You need not be alone in a church or in a hot scented bath with your  mind completely empty to feel a glimmer of the sensation she describes.

Imagine if her bleed had been R sided. She probably would have had the fearful experience so many stroke survivors describe.

Buy the book because you’ll want to underline.

Do not miss this. Please do not miss this.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Actually the hardest thing is knowing what our limits are.

No, that’s still not it. The hardest thing is knowing what it is we want in the first place. After that, we can know our limits, and then make them public. It goes against our lifelong training of politeness and keeping the peace. It requires taking responsibility.

Forget what you don’t want

We know what we don’t want. We don’t want our husbands to do this. We don’t want our kids to do this. Knowing all that isn’t really moving us forward or covering new ground. What we need to be asking is what we DO want.

Then we have to say it out loud. Not inside our own heads and hoping others will hear.

But once we do declare where we stand, everyone else says “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

More important, the universe needs to hear you. It feels the vacuum your question set up. Puzzle pieces that are still far away are shape-shifting and moving your way. But YOU have to ASK.

Limit long-term goals

Don’t overdefine your goals. Long-term goals because limit possibility, especially if you’re changing tracks. You don’t know what the options really are. Saying “ I will be making $150,000 a year by the time I’m 50” is rigid, like wearing blinders against to the plasticity of opportunity out there. Besides, by the time you’re halfway to the goal you thought you wanted, the scenery has shifted anyhow. It serves to set the initial course, to give you a heading, but this type of goal always feels unimaginative and uncreative. And what if you’re broke at 50? Does that mean you failed?

I have however found that trying to write down your wants, or goals if you like that label better, a most interesting exercise ONLY for finding out how much I really believe in my want, how much true energy I’m willing to put behind it. It seems your body will have huge resistance to writing something that your subconscious does not believe to be true. Be suspicious of any goal you are having trouble writing down. You can write a goal that seems closer to where you want to be than where you are now. That is plenty good enough and it still works because it’s honest and it’s the best truth you have right now. It’s like those computer games where you have to reach a certain level for the next set of clues to be revealed.

I think it’s also more difficult for women because we place our decision-making weight on relationships. Most of us would not take jobs that compromised our children. We give up exotic holidays because we prefer to visit family. Men tend to focus on the goal, the one goal, apart from all other goals.

Getting your wants in 8 steps

Step 1. Have an answer for the question : “WHAT Do You Want?”

Step 2. Start. You don’t need all the answers, or any answers ahead of time.

One step at a time. Just one step. What do you WANT next?

Feel fear? Not sure of what? So do it nervous. It will go away.

Step 3. Practice. The first attempt will be bad. See it coming. Don’t think about it too much. It will go away.

Step 4. Recognize a limit as whatever is pulling you away from your wants. Block it out loud in the best way you can.

Step 5. Prepare for humiliation. It’s on the path to humility. The light and the shadow. You have to take them both.

Step 6. Take a look around. Still standing. Your Deeper Self and the Universe are locking on target now.

Step 7. Notice that it is in reaching that we arrive. It is not by getting there.

Step 8. Allow yourself to receive. My worst thing. Getting out of my own way.

So many places to fail. Easy to see how hard it is to get anywhere.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Nobody can pretend that looks and first impressions don’t make a difference. Absolutely, we should be judged only on the person we are inside, but how it should be is not how it is. Or will be in the foreseeable future.

When you develop and learn and change on the inside as well as outside, it feels like moving more towards what the world SHOULD be like.

Exercise is that way. It is about so much more than what you look like.

Tracy Effinger is well-known as a fitness personality. She created the amazing Squeeze workout videos.  You can read about the Squeeze concept here, on her site.

I spoke of the one that started it all in 3 Workouts You Should Know. Tracy e-mailed to thank me for the mention and asked if I’d be interested in another program. She sent me Squeeze Stronger.

I like this woman’s delivery. Her plain-speaking personality really shines through. She doesn’t soften the message just because she’s a girl. She doesn’t talk to you like you’re a girl and need careful treatment. Without being military, she is passionate and serious about helping you get this job done. You can watch clips at Collage Video.

She’s gorgeous, she’s powerful, and obviously doesn’t buy into the Barbie body mentality that fitness people are probably pressured with, especially if they work with celebrities. A fit body is supposed to empower you to resist that and love yourself as you are, so when they give in to the knife, it feels a bit of a letdown. If they, with their strong bodies and mental images, could not resist the social pressure, then how should the rest of us?

But she is also a painter and a jewelry designer, and very accomplished at both. You can see more of her art work at her website.

I love this pendant. It’s a reminder to all of us to “squeeze all we can out of life”.

In Tracy’s own words,

“I have actually gotten painting commissions from my website when customers went there to buy DVDs.  Also, all the art work in my DVDs are blown up versions of my paintings! It is very important to me to have my art in the DVDs and I do think of painting and exercise the same way…tapping into who you are and using your energy source to make more of yourself.”

She sees all the things she does as feeding into one another, in a self-perpetuating loop. It is not a question of carving out time for yet another thing, but rather that every element would suffer if one were to be lost. Like the most successful of businesses, when you own and value cog in the wheel, then you create a far more powerful and unified product with more ease. Your life is the most important business you are invested in, whether you wanted to be or not.

Tracy’s programs are shining testaments to how much you can accomplish by exercising at home with minimal equipment. The movements are so effective that you’ll feel them with a 1lb wt. They are so different that even experienced exercisers discover muscles they didn’t know about. Her cues are exact and the moves are not complex so you can feel the right muscle without any uncertainty. The workouts would surely be equally useful to men and women but it’s clear that an intelligent woman is teaching them.

It’s all in the visualization cues. “Pretend you’re pulling your belly away from your T-shirt”, or “reach and flatten your back as though you’re trying to place your chest on the wall in front of you and your buns on the wall behind”, or “imagine a set of cables on the wall in front of you and pull as though you are trying to resist in both directions”, these help adjust your body to do the movement correctly.

It also occupies my mind better. When you’re doing 3 sets of 10, having the instructor count all 30 makes time drag. I much prefer imagining, using your right brain to learn. It works so well that there are books using that approach in almost every sport, but I think they’re especially effective with women. Men think in terms of numbers and facts. With women, pictures and stories work better. That’s how Tracy writes the script.

Most every review at Collage is 5 stars for all Tracy’s videos. They really are that good. Some people had a few minor objections, none of them mine. As hard as it is to be negative when someone gives you something, goes against the grain of good manners, my personal thing was this : when I like an instructor a lot, as I do this one, I will buy every program they make. I’m really happy when no move, not even a stretch, is repeated. I like everything to be new and different. There is barely any repetition between the 2 programs, but there is a little in a couple of movements. Just something I’m sensitive to.

Is this not gorgeous? If I had a meditation room, I’d put this on the wall.

The first release of the DVD had a small glitch in the Lower Body and Abs premix, where part of the warm-up was left out. The track with Play Whole Workout was fine and it was easy to go from the warm-up back to the lower body premix. You’ll see it called The Dead Lift Glitch in the reviews at Collage. I asked Tracy if there was anything she would like people to know and her response was so interesting :

“I had wanted it perfect and had worked so hard to get it that way.  The imperfection was a great metaphor for impermanence and accepting imperfections….just like we have to do with our bodies.  I had to just accept it and let it go!  I had spent so much money on replication, I could not go back and fix it right away, another hard thing for me.  I had to accept whatever reactions were going to result from it.”

How fascinating would it be to have lunch with this woman. Her mind thinks way beyond the surface of things. Finding the connections between seemingly separate elements is one of the great talents of female brains. It always sends a spark in me when I see it.

We are all so much more than one thing. Each activity feeds and strengthens and inspires the others. In a man’s head, each part of his life is compartmentalized. In a woman’s brain, the screens all flow together. Every file contains some data from every other file. It makes our lives more difficult when we’re working mothers because we can’t keep the components apart, but in terms of making our lives richer and our problem-solving more textured, we’re got something special.

You don’t have to do it daily. You don’t have to do every set. I don’t. DVDs that I can complete the first time disappoint me. There is only 1 thing nobody but you can do : start. 1 minute. Just 1 minute. If you’re not doing it, it’s not because you can’t (unless you’ve been injured). It’s because you don’t WANT to. What defines who gets what they want, and who doesn’t, isn’t their ability. It’s how much raw want they put on it.

Then stand back and watch your arms change shape and your legs stop jiggling.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Squeeze by Tracy Effinger. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Bestsellers are not my usual thing because I don’t enjoy reading about war, torture, abduction, cleverly evil murder, psychotically grisly murder even if it is original, wrongful imprisonment, abuse with its numerous forms and target groups, no matter how poignant the emotion or powerful the literary construction. I won’t watch it either, which doesn’t leave much at the video store.

Since I don’t seem to have the patience for romantic fluff stuff, finding books that take me to new places without fearing that I’ll feel altered for weeks is a thrill. A good friend whose preference runs to much bleaker and more miserable scenarios than mine, often listens to Canada Reads programs on CBC Radio and gave me these.

I do so highly recommend them for being refreshing and imaginative departures from the serious theme and the places you might normally go in books. The first two are spoken in the voice of young adolescents, delivering astutely obvious commentaries on the adult world.

The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch

Abnormally high and low tides are depositing bizarre creatures on the tidal flats in Olympia, near Seattle. Miles is 13 and his parents don’t watch him closely. He is navigating the world of society’s expectations of the male as he becomes the local celebrity for the sea creatures he keeps finding.

For the descriptions of his world through the eyes of a 13-year old boy, this author is exceptionally observant and accurate. The biology of ocean creatures seems unbelievable, along the lines of “I had no idea barnacles did that!” on every page. The cast of characters is perfect. The book may be written for adolescents but I found it a brilliant summer read, even better if you’re beside an ocean.

The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie by Alan Bradley

Again spoken by a child, this time 11-year old Flavia Sabina (sometimes Dolores) DeLuce. There is everything here – an English village mystery, an intricate plot, two older sisters who are often busy catching up or figuring out what hit them, a preoccupied father, and a Pippi Longstocking spirit.

The bee in Flavia’s bonnet is chemistry…but her passion is poison.  Mr. Bradley is sitting on a gold mine. How fast can he come up with another book? I didn’t want this one to end. It is written for kids but sometimes simpler is better for grownups too. There are books scheduled for release in 2010 and 2011.

This review/interview at the National Post tells the story of Mr. Bradley who seems a very nice guy who is also busy catching up and figuring out what hit him.

Rockbound by Frank Parker Day

Here is the great book you’d never pick up unless someone told you to. Written in the 1930s, you are transported to the Tancook Islands, about 4 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia near Lunenburg. Two families of fishermen inhabit the island of Rockbound, in the days when the Bluenose was one of many sailing fishing boats. The dialect is a German/Dutch/English that will remind you of anyone you know from Cape Breton. I can’t imagine how these people survived the hardships of this life.

Living for entire winters alone in a lighthouse, forcing vegetables to grow on a salt-sprayed island, expert sailor men lost at sea, navigating in the fog and dark by the sound of the waves on a nearby reef, the changing appearance of the foam on the water 2 days before a tropical storm, and ships so weighed down with fish that it’s a wonder they ever made it home set the scene. The story and characters are not the stars here so much as the day-to-day battle with the natural world.

This is an amazing story of a time and people about which little is written. Find the book here at Chapters Indigo Canada.

Have you read anything this summer that you still think about each day?

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

If you’re a Winter, you can no more wear Spring’s makeup or hair than you can wear her clothes. You look drained to a not very gorgeous greeny-beige-grey shade. You would instinctively not wear the yellow-green – what am I saying? I wore Autumn’s Chartreuse which is close enough.

Since we did my colors, back in Demo : Online Color Analysis, Lora has kept a suspicion that I wasn’t Warm Autumn. She kept coming back to it and always wondered if I could be deeper than she thought, at least a Deep Autumn, if not even darker. When we did me, I provided her with a bare minimum of photos. We’ve learned a lot since. The photos needed would BEGIN as follows:

-       outdoors on an overcast day with 10AM-12 PM light; a sunny day will overexpose everything and wash colors out; end of day light has too many yellow wavelengths

-       your best and worst colors

-       no makeup in any picture

-       1 shot of your hair down, the rest with it covered

-       wearing black

-       as neutral a background as possible

-       wearing the exclusive colors of the 2 seasons you think you might be – or be prepared for the analyst to have trouble deciding, and request certain colors be worn and more photos taken

I’m not certain if Lora has fine-tuned the system any more since then or what her photo requests are today. She may ask for completely different photographic criteria. I have no doubt that she’d agree that the more pictures you send, the more likely you’ll be analyzed correctly. We’re talking more than 10 pictures.

Controlling the lighting is certainly the hardest part. If you can’t afford to see an analyst, or there’s none nearby, you can definitely get excellent guidance online. You’ll still be better off and more educated about what looks good on you.

One other pitfall is to take direction from hair color. If the hair and clothes match in any way (complementary, analogous, monochromatic), there’s a tendency for the eye to match the clothes to the hair and conclude that the color works.

With my Color Analysis trainer, once I was placed in a neutral gray room, wearing a gray cap and gown, and color draped for 3 hours, we still couldn’t decide. Lora’s very intuitive about color and her suspicions were right on. I’m very much on the border of Deep Autumn and Deep Winter. We tried again on the second day, fresh set of eyes, and Deep Winter won out.  My skin is quite yellow and seems to support some warmth. But it was in the Winter colors that sharpened the edges of my face and cleared the yellow overtone away.

I felt no opposition to any of this. It was just so obvious.

Get rid of the orange in the hair?  No problem. I could see that it clashed. I was adjusting well, even though I really thought I knew my colors before. My trainer said she had her season wrong for years and took 2 years to accept that she was another season.  I felt so pleased that I got in sync so quickly.

And then she put the makeup on me. Cool red-pink blush. Neutral-cool lips of a similar color. Gray eyes. Cool ivory foundation. I got all weird. A wall went up. I thought I looked like a clown, felt completely insecure. I lost all objectivity whatsoever. My family telling me I looked completely different, younger. HA! My trainer’s husband, telling me he thought I looked better without makeup than with the makeup I had arrived in on the first day. How could it be so? All the respect I have for my trainer. Out the window. I could NOT accept it. The more I stared, the worse I thought I looked. Me who thought she was so objective and open-minded. 

I’ve gotten over it. It took me several hours and a lot of reassurance. It was illuminating to have gone far enough with the analysis to experience that level of resistance. It’s good to have felt the inner struggle that must be overcome. It can be a big adjustment.

When you come to see me and can’t agree to what the drapes tell us, I won’t worry that I’ve made a mistake. I’ll stand there calmly, smiling as my wonderful trainer did, and watch you coming to grips with the door you just allowed yourself to open on Your Deeper Self, your hand pulling on the doorknob and your feet braced against the frame like I was.

You’ll be like Jodie Foster in the very funny scene from Nim’s Island where she’s fighting with herself, trying to leave her safe home and face the unknown. (The trailer only shows a tiny part of that scene. It gets better.)

There is nothing better than a new way of looking at something you thought you knew. Like you, for instance.

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© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

I’m a doctor who wants to own a makeup and color company. I’m a sucker for every transition success story ever told.

More Canada April 2009 is about Joyful Re-invention (click on the magazine cover pic to see a list of contents). It was about finding ways to make change a happy thing.  One brilliant woman left her job in Vancouver, moved to Paris to give guided tours to women tourists of the city she loved. Everyone tried to talk her out of it, of course. She’s swamped, of course. These business ideas are no-brainers. Every city needs this. The whole province of PEI needs it.

Also a good piece on why women tend to be very successful in our second careers, risk-averse that we are (or maybe because of it). And a good article on how the cost of buying mangoes and avocadoes in Canada in December will become out of reach as the cost of transportation and efforts to reduce emissions skyrocket, meaning we need to think of ways to cook rhubarb and beets. The Canadian Model Search Winners seem to be beautiful women in shoes that don’t feel good.

Welcome the midlife change

We all feel a ground tremor right about now. It could be the best thing that’s ever happened. It prevents the next 40 from being just more of the last 40.  Some impatience and craziness is natural. It’s the energy for the change. The fact that we can even HAVE a re-invention, let alone a crisis, is a step forward. We have the possibility to live differently.

Maybe the crisis is pointing you in a bad direction, making you do things you know you shouldn’t. Yes, we all have a right to be happy, but sometimes these actions aren’t going to get you anywhere better. It may look better but listen to your gut telling you it’s going to be a pit of snakes. Listen if all your friends tell you it’s a pit of snakes. If you think you’re coming unhinged, get some solid counseling. If nothing anyone says registers anymore, speak to someone other than well-meaning friends.

The truth about the bad

Having an affair is the cliché of this lifestage. We have all seen romance give way to practicality, to a business relationship. How could it be anything else with 2 jobs, 3 loans, 3 kids, 4 parents, not enough sleep, and a body that hurts more than it used to? The idea of keeping love alive is fine but that doesn’t mean it exists just the way it did 20 years or even 2 years ago.

Nobody has a better marriage, healthier bank account, or smarter children. They may look like they do. If they say they do, they’re lying. They’re expending a lot of energy and cash to maintain the façade. They probably look at you and think of all the things you have that they don’t. Everyone with children, of almost any age, is walking on the edge for 20 years. Unmarried people can’t possibly get it. They’re just exercising the reckless courage of the non-combattant.

Have sensible expectations and remember that nothing stays the same. Romance will be lost from a marriage in the years with young kids. The exhaustion is nauseating. Thursday Date Night becomes Thursday Fight Night. It’s temporary. Just get through the day.

Remember that you’re not doing this alone. Your feelings may be so strong that you think no else has them. It is normal and common to despise your spouse and visualize his death. It is normal and common to dream of having an apartment of your own where nobody bugs you. It is normal and common to believe that you’d be happy to never ever have sex again. Nobody is willing to come out and say it but as soon as someone does, everyone has a story. It is also temporary. Wait it out.

Reframe the picture

Aging is the best thing that’s ever happened to me – but I recognize not everyone feels that way. I’m tired a lot, in Doctor’s offices every 3 months, have lines on my face and age spots, and I could care less. The thing I look forward to most on Friday night is getting into my bed at 8. If all that stuff is the admission ticket to where I’m going, I’ll pay it twice.

You can choose to dwell on the many wonders of youth, but to say it was ALL good would be untrue. The older folks like to remind us that “things were better 50 years ago”. Pffft. Who would go back there, especially as a woman? To a 50 year old, a 25 year old is still a kid, with all the limitations of kids.

If your age causes you to suspect that you’re less than you once were, others will feel the same way. Will you create the very thing you fear? Will you attract what you least want? In thinking about aging as something uninvited, in trying always to evade it, you will bring the negatives closer. Don’t dwell on what you don’t want for too long because next thing you know, you’ll be living it.

The hurricane in your head

Believe in the power that’s there. Feel it physically. Let yourself change and the past not be enough. You are setting yourself free of it. That ship has sunk. Swim away. Swim towards that sunny island.

Could we learn to just be proud to be given the chance to get old? It is denied to so many. The privilege of seeing one’s children grow to adulthood should never be taken for granted. At one time, I thought my obstacles were mountains. If I could but see them clearly, I thought I could dismantle them. Today, I see that there are no mountains. There never were. The landscape is warm and abundant and the fabric is unbelievably rich.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Midlife Re-Invention (There Is No Crisis). Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

For her 15^th birthday, my daughter wanted to sponsor a child with World Vision. This would be the same child whose favorite activity is watching Ice Road Truckers with her father.

Having more than enough

Barira is a  10 year old girl from Niger who sits on our fridge and looks out. It’s somehow ironic that she adorns the food repository.  Her father farms as does my husband so she connected with all of us. He can’t feed his family in a good year and nor can Canadian farmers, but of course the scale is completely different. We know that.

We wanted to send a birthday gift. It had to be flat for mailing and not extravagant. My daughter wanted a musical singing birthday card, which I feared would scare the pants off the child. We find ourselves at the Dollar Store trying to find something not too extravagant.

We are TOO rich to find a gift for this little girl. Everything seems wasteful and excessively adorned. For us it’s disposable, for her unimaginably frivolous. In the cheapest store there is, where we could afford anything, our wealth is still too great to find an appropriate gift. Your whole frame of reference changes when you know what “too rich” actually feels like.

Money and the Law of Attraction

I’ve been reading Jerry and Esther Hicks’s recent Money and the Law of Attraction : Learning to Attract Wealth, Health, and Happiness. The book is as good as any of the previous and doesn’t rehash the old material. There are a lot of new ideas here, presented in their most practical and possible style.

I really like this stuff because it helps me get through the day with a real undercurrent of openness and joy. People who know me are ROTFL right now. Well, I’ll have you know I really am joyful. If I look more intense than joyous, it’s because I’m part Winter.

I’ve learned to find the best things about what I do, even the things I like less (except producing  meals day after day). I’ve learned that we all create our own reality. I don’t have to feel bad for others who aren’t getting what they want because they can make different choices anytime they want to. What’s happening to them isn’t happening to me because I didn’t make their choices. I know nobody can block me or even slow me down from getting what I want because nobody controls the Universe – as a result, I am never irritated by the behavior of others.  That’s quite a cathartic milestone right there.

How others have failed me is never important, only how I’ve failed me. There is never a need to get involved in the actions of others, only in my reaction to them. I do have control of my character, every aspect of it. Everything I’ve sent out there, good and bad, is on a trajectory aimed at my face. Energy stays equal so what goes out comes back in kind.

In this clip from the Abraham-Hicks site’s video clips, watch the 11^th clip from the top on the right side. The video title is the same as the book, an excerpt from the DVD. Listen to how she (Abraham) answers the question at the end.

When does the creating start?

Though I thank Jerry and Esther for modeling such a powerful and easy way to learn calmness and happiness, I’ve run up against a question I can’t answer. This is it : I can’t think of anything I’ve manifested or attracted. However my life changed, it changed because I stuck my claws out there and made a few attempts to drag something in and finally got a hook that stuck. It never just came with “ease” (and by ease, I do not mean absence of effort; more like, you just looked up one day and there it was, like it had been there all along). 

It didn’t come with struggle or worry either. I love doing it. I love the ride and my river moves fast because there’s a lot I want. I’m reading the money book to attract more of money to stay in the raft. Money is an energy (infinite) not a resource (finite). It’s flowing in the streets, kind of like guns. Just because you don’t have one doesn’t mean there’s a shortage of them. How many guns I have doesn’t affect how many you can have.

I live wealth like it’s happened. I look at  my house, I see a castle. I used to worry that I wouldn’t be able to afford to educate my kids, but a friend said “Who do you know that didn’t go to University because they  couldn’t afford it?”. I stopped worrying.

 I quite get what they mean by Leading Edge. My toes are touching the line. I’m not impatient. Our needs are more than met and that’s the only story I tell. I’ve found that thing in life that I would do even if I weren’t paid. We CAN make things just by thinking about them, I’m convinced of it.

The question is not how to get more money, though to realize my dream will take more than I have. It’s how to have it appear by thought, not action. Nothing is getting created that I didn’t build. No doors are presenting themselves, closed or open, that I didn’t go out and ferret out. How will I manifest money if I can’t manifest anything else?

Was the manifestation that  I chose these actions and not those actions?  You could say that I manifested everything I live. Yes, right thinking brings right actions. There is just no feeling of letting it happen. I made it happen. And, anyone who has manifested  money can measure it by the ways of our physical world. I have yet to manifest a cent.

Realizing a downstream dream

My Easter will be spent becoming a Color Analyst. If women could see themselves as their most effective, beautiful, powerful best, I’d be happy. That’s the vision I have of them when I meet them. That’s what I want to help them do – and learn to resist the marketing onslaught that makes us think age is more ugly, more abnormal, and more weak than youth. Aging, or more precisely “anti-aging”, is a marketing phenomenon and nothing else.

My speaking tour will be called You : Gorgeous And Fearless. Everything will turn out fine, but when does the manifesting/creating begin??? 

So, Abraham, from a purely intellectual perspective, what are we supposed to think next? The bank account is going down but I can ignore it with ease. I could sell the piano on eBay but that feels upstream so I won’t do it. Will it have to reach a crisis before I manifest something? Does the room have to be completely empty before the new furniture can fit? I don’t mind waiting but you might take the line “as early as tomorrow” out of your teachings.

Is this like dieting? You can start tomorrow but you won’t look different for a month. Until the new eating kicks in, you will look like your old eating patterns. In the same sense, until the new thinking starts to shift the Universe, life is still bringing you the rewards of your old thinking ways. 

Keep your day job. And your fat pants.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: When You Know You’re Rich. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Women often send one another words and passages that were uplifting in their humor and their sadness. The balance speaks for the experience we live each day. We are the bearers of our family’s emotional weight. We shoulder the role of stewarding a society’s acceptable behaviors (to paraphrase Tracy’s insightful words), whether we fully realize it or not.

A long time ago, a reader sent me the following in an email. I regret that I can no longer find her name, but I kept the email and have read it many times. Perhaps many of you know it already. It is a beautiful reminder of the many things our everyday struggles have taught us. At the end of a day that feels miserable, you just have to keep living. For how long? Until a ball  comes at you that you can’t hit back.

Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her 70th birthday. Oprah asked her what she thought of growing older. 

[[ Right there on television, she said it was 'exciting.'

Regarding body changes; she said there were many, occurring every day...like her breasts. They seem to be in a race to see which will reach her waist first. The audience laughed so hard they cried.

Maya Angelou said this:

 'I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.'

 'I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.'

 'I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.'

'I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life.'

'I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.' 

'I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.' 

 'I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.'

 'I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.'

 'I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. '

 'I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.'

 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.'

 Please pass this on -- you will boost another woman's self-esteem. If you don't...the elastic will break and your underpants will fall down around your ankles! ]]

 Maya Angelou seems an enviably serene woman who radiates simple honesty. I expect that the notion that looking your age is not good enough was one of those things she threw back. More of us should do the same. You will be held in higher regard if you share your true human warmth than if you glow only from the surface of your perfect skin.

 More recently, my dear friend, Gina, sent this. She knows I’m a terrible facebooker, but wanted to be sure that I saw it, so she e-mailed it direct. 

These words, between a poem and a song, celebrate the small wonders for which we make time each day. Women are sisters and friends and soulmates and cheerleaders and we are each other’s beating hearts. We find ways to heal ourselves and each other with our truths and our deep connection to life’s most basic energies.

Alone, we can be frightened. We shortchange the value of our contribution to our homes and our workplaces. With two of us together, our bravery more than doubles. We can take on the world.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: What Women Have Learned. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

It often feels like we’re going at it alone. We dream of another life, or at least being able to opt out of the one we have temporarily.

My body cooks up funny problems to take me out of circulation for a few days. It knows when I need to sign out of my own life for a little while and it grounds me with some strange unimportant abnormality.

I bring it on myself by the Law of Attraction.  I think “I wouldn’t mind having a minor ailment. How wonderful that I could have 2 or 3 sick days and no one would expect me go to work. I could just stay home, my favorite thing.”

  And sure enough, just like you get everything if you think about it enough, I get this. This is why my problems are always gynecological. Men are not empathethic creatures where pain is concerned, but they will back off with this kind of pain. If I had a simple gash in my leg, the men around me would feel I should be at work because they would be. Lots to prove.

The male business model’s paradigm is always PUSH.

And if that works, what do you do next?

And if it doesn’t work, what do you do?

Same answer.

PUSH HARDER.

That mindset believes that if you haven’t put in a 60 hour work week, you haven’t been worthwhile, a “hard-worker” worthy of respect from your kind and yourself.  Interesting that these guys still easily carve out time on the golf course.

 This is the male version of abundance. It’s the thinking of a certain upbringing (small towns), a certain a generation (wartime), and the attitude about life that results (life is a competition because the amount of good stuff out there is limited; if you win, someone else loses so you better beat everyone else to the cash and prizes). The female mindset of abundance is the hamster-on-a-wheel life that women set up for themselves. In both cases, busy-ness and exertion can fool you into thinking that changes are taking place.

 And then after they’re done pushing harder, they’re busy wanting MORE. There’s no line in the sand that says to them ‘enough’. They’ll risk what they already have. In fact, they’ll put it up on the auction block and sacrifice it altogether and allow it to be destroyed to get MORE. The financial meltdown was an example on a grander scale of the male business model  needing to forever prove itself with MORE.

 The male world sees it as a big deal to leave work at 2 to pick up a child. In the female version, where everything is available and possible, it’s very natural. The family is who we do it all for. There’s no way we’ll do anything that would jeopardize that. Men say they do everything for the family too. But it’s not true. They do it for themselves, for their sense of self-worth and to fulfill their idea of what a MAN does.

Men have taught us that one income at a time must be pivotal and protected. They put all these impediments on us to sustain that because it suits them very well. They find they get less interruptions and more eagerness to be accommodated. Women swallow the small seed of fear and resign themselves to “Whatever would we become without that income??” 

Allowing that belief is how we’ve been kept down and kept each other down. We will never make that system work or play naturally within its boundaries. You look at your job for the things you really love and they’re not there. You feel scared and hassled with no control.

We can see the posturing and the bluffing, the bluster and the swagger, for nobody’s benefit but their own. We don’t belong. We know how artificial it all is. This is how they assure themselves that they’re doing something important. Some of them have figured it out – that busy doesn’t mean productive or successful.

 They don’t mean badly. They’re just following a pattern that we’ve all been taught. Nobody wants to reinvent a system that, on the surface, seems to work for everyone. Or looked like it did for our parents. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe we can want and have more than our mothers.

 All we can do is to stop playing. It’s so deeply embedded in our culture that the only ones who can see it are those women who consciously decide to pull away and make up something new. Who realize that it can be whatever you see it as being.

The more I pull away, the more bizarre the thing looks. It becomes ever clearer that money can be soft-earned and not at the expense of what we already have, including family, a huge non-monetary asset, and health, which is the most valuable commodity that exists.

 You don’t  have to live in the male world. That net that restricts all your limbs can be gone. Let the wind move to your back. You don’t have to want people who don’t want you. Don’t think of it as being rejected. Better to see it as a wonderful stream of selection that brings you the people with whom you can thrive. The other kind can screen  themselves out.

The male world, by the very way it’s set up, holds women away. They can’t see it and we can’t either, but the fit isn’t right. John Fowles said “Men love war because it allows them to look serious. It is the one thing that stops women laughing at them.” We’ve become too afraid to laugh.

 There is no single right answer where all the outcomes will be joyful. There are more choices than we admit, fewer consequences, and even less risk.

 PS – In searching for the Fowles quote, I looked first at Aldous Huxley because I was certain he said those words. I was wrong, but he did say these :  “Maybe this planet is another planet’s hell.” Depressing but funny, and freakishly out-of-the-box, consistent with much of what he said and wrote.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: The Male Business Model. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

Like many women, understanding any aspect of finance, wealth, or investment by staring at charts and graphs gets me nowhere. Women don’t learn that way. It makes our eyes glaze over, causing the male financial advisor across the table to conclude that we’re bored or too dumb to get it.

Presenting information to us in the way that is effectively presented to men does not work. Bring on the female financial advisors who can explain in pictures, or with stories, and we’ll get it.  Women care about money. We may attach odd values to it, but we especially want to look after those we love. We don’t want to be in the dark, but there is a linguistic issue here.

Armed with knowledge and understanding, women will become very powerful in dealing with money (and probably bigger risk-takers than the men). In fact, the more knowledge women have about a topic, the better and more confident their decision-making.  Think about this : is the same true for men? I think it’s the reverse, actually.

Barbara Stanny’s book, Secrets of Six-Figure Women: Surprising Strategies To Up Your Earnings And Change Your Life, first published in 2002, does not contain any stock charts. It’s not even about how to invest or manage your money. It enters the picture sooner than that, with how to make the money in the first place by creating an inner change.  Fulfillment and empowerment, with very practical and realistic advice on how to get there, are the biggest landmarks on the road to financial success.

Stanny is the daughter of Richard Bloch, one of the founders of H&R Block. Her first husband lost her trust fund through bad investments, leaving her with huge bills and no knowledge of finance. She was forced to face up to a common trait of inherited wealth, namely big insecurity about her ability to support herself. Her journey is recorded in her first book Prince Charming Isn’t Coming : How Women Get Smart About Money ,  and this one.

Barbara Stanny

For Secrets Of Six Figure Women, Stanny began by interviewing hundreds of women in many income brackets, searching for traits that were common among the high (and low) earners. If you take a group of equally bright, equally educated, very capable women, why is it that some of them will always struggle financially while other will earn ever-rising amounts? Is there a shared set of characteristics that can be found repeatedly among women earning more than $250,000 per year?

Turns out that there are at least 7. And since they’re not personality traits, but rather ways of guiding decision-making, they can be learned.

This is really about finding that thing that you were born to do with love and passion, whether you are paid or not, and from there gaining the self-esteem to charge what you’re worth. Lessons in uncovering your own set of underlying values, in not being a victim, in finding gratitude for obstacles, and so many of the thoughts that resonate strongly with women, are found here.

There are chapters on facing fear and declaring intention, about pulling away the safety net, and about negotiating on your own behalf. The information comes to you through stories about how other women cope with these issues, how they succeeded and how they failed, and what they learned from it.

There is some great advice to be found on speaking up for yourself. This is probably the spot where women are weakest. The biggest reason that men make more money for the same job is this : THEY ASK for it. Until you learn to take yourself seriously, nobody else will either. Learning to do this can be extremely intimidating for girls and for women. Most of us need all the help we can get at using our elbows.

Chapter 11 is entitled Claiming Our Power. With some thoughts about how women lost it in the first place, and continue to give it up to keep the peace instead of compete, and finishing with some beautifully motivating words about taking up your own space to the fullest, Stanny has written a book that any woman who is thinking about her life will find great meaning in. You’ll read many sections that you’ll feel were written for you personally. What would it be like to be at the center of your world and have all the rest spin around you for a change, instead of whirling around the periphery of the lives of everybody else all the time?

This is entirely action-oriented. She knows that failure, rejection, debt, insecurity, and mortgage bills exist but small change is still change. What she really says is this : Women hold themselves back by believing that avoiding stress and responsibility is pro-family. I do that. I know more women who choose this avenue on purpose for this reason. I’m beginning to see that Big doesn’t look like I think it does. Big is where the choices are.

So many of us can feel another woman living inside us that the world has never seen. We keep her buried because we don’t have time to become her, or think about what she’s like, and besides, we’re a little afraid of her. We feel the things she could be, but she’s so far away from the day-to-day role we play that we don’t know where to start.  Whether you become a high-earner or not, Secrets Of Six-Figure Women will help you discover Your Deeper Self.

Have a look at Barbara’s blog. She posts about once a month, but it is worth reading. This is money and life advice written for the way women understand and learn. My favorite entry, at the end of this page, is entitled “Fear Got You Stuck?”  In it is a line I’ve repeated to myself a thousand times :

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Book Review : Secrets of Six-Figure Women. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.

The full title of Christopher Hopkins’ book is Staging Your Comeback : A Complete Beauty Revival For Women Over 45. 

If you don’t know the book by Hopkins (a.k.a. The Makeover Guy), you have several hours of hugely enjoyable reading and thinking ahead of you. It recognizes our particular needs in a terribly honest way. He’s not too big with indulgence either, the talk is straight up, as in “ …you are not the right temperament for hair color.” Fun moments abound.

 You will read some pretty raw admissions (“I am no longer interested in attention from men.”). The makeovers begin with 12 mommies and grannies, women way out at one end of the I-let-myself-go spectrum. He’s got every Before stereotype covered and achieves 12 remarkable transformations.

 Check out the Befores right here. See you in about an hour.

 Christopher proves that it’s not only certain men and women who can be more attractive than ever as they age. It’s all of us. Every single one. We make excuses for why we don’t care what we look like but the only result is to further and further weaken ourselves.

 Nobody cares how old you think you look. We all know that’s a choice. If you don’t want it to be that way anymore, this is the guy to help take you through a transition.He has vision and imagination. There is so much that can be done before you even think about seeing a dermatologist for Botox or fillers. It doesn’t cost that much money. You use face cream anyhow, right? You do get haircuts, don’t you? We all go out in sweats and sneakers sometimes but there are a thousand small differences that matter.

 What I love about this book:

1.     The women are real. They’re not suspiciously gifted with wonderful skin or fabulous eyes just waiting to be revealed. You know me. I have little use for anything that’s not Real World, unless it’s meant as an entertaining diversion.

2.     He’s brutally honest about what age does to bodies but still respects and enjoys the company and confusion of older women. You also know that I love aging, which I see as an opening of doors. And I love older women and their mind-blowing and completely unrecognized (especially by themselves) potential.

3.     There doesn’t appear to be any Photoshopping going on, at least not too obviously. A beauty book with a pixel of Photoshop is rendered useless, IMO. Right away, the whole thing is out of reach.

4.     He really really gets how to wear clothes, not just for aging but for all body types. Here’s one I never knew, but it’s obvious when he says it as all correct ideas are : The tighter your sleeves, the bigger your chest. OK, I can use that.

5.     The pictures are bona fide, cringe-worthy renditions of the I’m-too-busy/old/young/comfortable/ugly/hot – to care. They are not forgiving or concealing anything. I got a few jolts because I think I saw me.

6.     He’s not trying to get you to spend useless money.  Quite the opposite actually. One of my favorite lines, “In the beauty industry, live and learn is taboo. Forget and buy is the name of the profit game.”

7.     It’s comprehensive. The clothes, shoes, bra, buttons, hair, makeup, nail polish… all covered. He hits on every cliché and has noticed every detail.

8.     The hair chapter is outstanding. If there’s anything that we all get wrong in every conceivable way, and that ages us the most, it’s hair. He covers it all, from color to cut, with a very comprehensive discussion of the very common problem of thinning hair.

9.     He’s heard every comeback. He’ll tell you your fears before you tell him. Your objections get pretty weak when they’re No. 5 and 8 on the Exposing Your Excuses list.

10.  His goal is to give you things you can do yourself. He just wants you to see differently, where seeing yourself is the hardest thing of all. He’s never showing himself off.

11.  He’s funny. I spewed my smoothie on the line about the biscuits.

12.  He can be brutally honest, ( I know I said that already) , almost sarcastic, in trying to get these women to see that they are so much more than they believe. Your best friend can say things nobody else can, not strangers or family, because you know he/she loves you and you can entrust him/her to take care of your feelings. Nothing is held back.

13. He doesnt’ see what is. He see what is possible. Possibility is what it is all about. Learning, change, it’s all in honor of what is possible. And there are very few limits.

See the man himself on YouTube.

He says his frustration with makeovers is that women don’t continue to practice what they learned, they just go back to the familiar. It may be because the transformation is too much of a leap to adjust to, too much like a fantasy. It can’t be incorporated into the woman’s life fast enough, so it just gets forgotten like a dream or a week on a Carribean island.  Even I couldn’t maintain myself in the After Pics and I already use all this stuff. If you presently wear no makeup but would like to try, you’ll need a friend who knows how to do this or a makeup artist. Ask around. Book a private appointment, not a MAC counter on a Saturday afternoon.

Another reason women don’t stay with the changes is the time it takes. I don’t know about you but my tightest commodity is time. Change does take time. It takes trial and error and error and error too. So take on one thing at a time, and pretty soon, you’re in a whole new place, looking back and thinking “That WAS me but it isn’t me anymore.”

He writes a blog. I liked this post on aging. Considering the world of appearance that he lives in, he finds a good balance.

His personal experience with plastic surgery, the new addiction, and how easy to go a little too far with just a little more  is here. 

Enter the Sweepstakes to win a makeover with him!! for US residents only (how could they?).

We’re not trying to look 21. Or 31. We’re trying to look like fantastic 40’s , 50’s , and beyond. OK, maybe a fantastic 60 does look 50, but not 30!!

Sometimes the way you look IS what’ s holding you back. It’s not a symbol of the shallowness and superficiality of our world. This is completely internal. The whole thing is happening inside yourself. It’s your message to your subconscious that you’re slowing down, that you don’t see yourself or your future as worth the effort. If you believe the future looks just like the present, why expend the energy?

What you believe about the world makes it the way it is for you. If you can sincerely say “I like my life and I don’t want anything to be different, ever, not one single thing”, then you’re doing fine. Otherwise, change starts with you. You don’t have to see or know the endpoint. You don’t have to absorb the entire scope of possibility immediately. You are just signaling your subconscious that you’re changing your brain waves. It will get it. It works for every human being and it will work for you. It never doesn’t work.

If you look like you can take on more, this could be the first step in convincing yourself that it’s true. We’ve all seen (or been) the woman who got an amazing haircut but didn’t keep it because she couldn’t match her personality to that cut. Certain behaviors accompany, and are expected of, certain appearances. Amazing, subtle, and true.

Everyone else automatically believes what you believe about you  - I mean, what your subconscious believes. You can strut all you like; if your subsconscious has doubts, that’s what others will hear. Can you know ahead of time where the break in the clouds will happen? No, that’s not part of the deal. All you’re doing is saying “I want the cloud cover to lift. I’m ready to think about a new chance.”

By the end of the book, you feel like you’ve travelled a little journey of empowerment with these women. He has given them back so much pride in themselves. In the After pics, they’re laughing and moving and playing in ways they probably never would have again.

Thank you for subscribing to A Greener Tea. If you are subscribing via email, please be aware that in order to comment on this thread, you will need to visit this post on the Web: Book Review : Staging Your Comeback. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 2007–2009, Christine Scaman. All rights reserved.