The Law of Attraction says that whatever your life is about, whatever you like about it and hate about it, it’s only there because you brought it in.

We attract the things we want. We also unwittingly keep out some things (we think) we want. If we could see how we repel what we want, then we could get those things, right?

A conversation I had this summer got me thinking about this. Then, I was asked to talk about Color Analysis to a chapter of the wonderful Red Hat Society in our town. In this fabulous garage, in 30C heat, I’ve included here segments of that talk. Each segment is 9 minutes long, so you may not want to watch them all. I put them here just because it seemed a chance to meet me beyond just reading what I write.

Part 3 has the section that finds the similar between the LoA and having your colors ‘done’.

This is Part 1.

Our limiting beliefs about ourselves are how we keep out what we want. If we could be free of those, if we could even see what they are, we’d be closer to getting what we want.

Well, that’s the key, but having it is only the bud on the tree. The key to losing weight is “eat less, move more”. Great, another key, but having it doesn’t change the scale. Those who have the cash figured out how to get people to change their ways, how to use the key.

Everyone watching us can see how we attracted our successes or repelled them. Same with our failures. It is we, ourselves, who can’t see it. Nobody’s ever going to explain ourselves to us, and we wouldn’t believe them anyway.

Part 2

What if we could see the entire package? Then we’d know, and eventually accept, all that we are, including how we impair our own progress. However humans find happiness, there is always mention of self-understanding and self-acceptance. They seem to be key ingredients in the happiness recipe.

We can face the fact that it’s time to get over what we don’t like. It’s a type of self-forgiveness really. “I have to learn to live with all of me now. I must learn to express who I truly am, and can stop chasing who I am not”.

When you see yourself more clearly, you can also see where you raise your own obstacles to your happiness. If you have stubbornness, you can choose determination but decline ridiculous obstinacy, and so learn to hear others better.

Part 3

We can’t see our own true selves any more than we can see our own true colours.

Personal Colour Analysis (PCA) also shows you who you are, and lets you see who you are not. That’s the connection I was developing. There was an article at 12blueprints.com recently that made me think about this (“When Your Season Doesn’t Feel Right”). There, you’ll find a quote from the client, Anna, that describes her PCA experience more clearly and beautifully than I ever could have.  Her phrase “like meeting myself for the first time”, I keep thinking about it. It allows you to be released from a whole sphere of “not me anymore, never was”.

It is more liberating than limiting to understand your best self. It keeps the distractions down. Though PCA is often thought to shrink your choices, it opens many more doors than it closes. It begins as a search for the most flattering shade of blue. The final result is accepting that looking like yourself, instead of  how others tell you (and women) to look, is a profoundly calm and strong place to be.

Releasing all the self-defeating paraphernalia we drag behind us can’t happen till we know what it is.  Freeing ourselves of all that we do to look less beautiful and complete cannot happen till we see what those things are. Our journey is not the same as our mother’s or our friend’s. They have their own ways of squashing their life’s progress and their true beauty. You have to find your own.

Shutting off the noise in a world where too much of the wrong stuff gets in and gets out means finally stepping into our own shoes. PCA is a tool for learning to speak in your own real voice.

Self-silencing bring tension and dis-ease.

Part 4

An ancient part of our brains searches for beauty. We’ve evolved to see beauty in balance. Balance is the whole reason for PCA, to balance who you are already on the inside with how you look, with what you buy, which announces to the world who you are.

An important friend called balance with Nature “divine symmetry”, like that of being harbored by our Earth and of nurturing her in return. Perhaps, deep down, it is that interconnectedness that will ensure our survival, hence the evolutionary reaction of relief in the presence of balance (beauty).

Color is an encompassing philosophy.

Part 5

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

PEI roads are under construction. They must be riding the latest wave or resource money. Almost every main road is closed or one lane. You peer around every corner looking for the sign saying “Road Closed. Use Alternate Route.” You sob over your steering wheel, “There ARE NO MORE alternate routes.”

The Help

A book to read in 3 days, sitting on the porch. It’s the story, told in alternating chapters, of 2 “colored” maids (as they said at the time) and 1 white woman in the early 60s Mississippi.  The ways in which the lives of the white and black women intersect had me looking at those times in a different way. The cruelty was there, but not so graphic to exceed my very low tolerance level for that sort of thing.

The love the maids had for the white children they raised and the secretive ways in which the white women helped the maids were not something I’d thought of before. In so many stories of those times, the white women are portrayed as Stepford wives, probably because there was truth to it. The author was raised in circumstances like these and her words to the woman who helped raise her are sad and beautiful.

In a story both quite funny and heartbreaking, were buried moments of the great things that women do, instead of the vile things that men do.

Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Milk Shampoo and Conditioner

At Winners, for $7 a bottle, I buy these products. They’re so great. The shampoo cleanses just enough without overdrying the hair. The conditioner is especially good. I rinse it out of the top half of the hair and try to leave some in the bottom strands. I went back and bought 3 more bottles of each.

Walking with a camera

Feel the descent of thinking mind, I tell myself on walks. How do I do that? I’m the guy who’s looking at her feet while she walks the dog. Churning and grinding inwardly, I forget to look around, much less feel around.

My best holiday revelation was that, cut off from my computer when I’m looking for a color picture, I found better examples in the world around me than with Google. I walked with a camera. Suddenly, I was SEEING mind. I saw this when I focused on the beauty around me.

Thinking mind is still hanging around, but I could feel my borders dissolve a bit and mingle with the forest, the leaf, the broken bottle. There were even glimmers of FEELING mind, a space I have vowed to inhabit for 5 minutes each day.

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I see women with children under 5. I know that place, I know that marriage. He’s sitting in the car waiting, while you’re running in circles trying to get 2 children ready.

I took some heat in a previous article (No Secrets In My House) for saying that marriage is not good for women. That’s fine. I like an honest response a lot more than someone telling me “Marriage makes me complete.” Motherhood is another topic that could use some real-world truths spoken upon it.

We all understand that there is no glory like our children. But life’s biggest rewards (and lessons) carry the biggest price tags.

The problems

People who tell you everything is great are lying. Makes you feel inadequate. The toddler years are ugly. Everyone’s marriage, sleep, diet, etc are the same, which is to say a mess. These people will tell you life with teenagers is easy too, but you’ll know better by then.

When babies cry, you’re not doing anything wrong. Try food. Then sleep.

We all resent our lack of freedom.

Nobody is coping.

We were all tired all the time, angry most of the time, and had no sense of humour for 15 years.

We all hated our husband if when he didn’t adjust his life.  We all fantasized about what we’d do with his insurance money. Not that we’d kill him and bury him out back. But if the beer truck got him on the way home, oh, well, these things happen.

In 10 years, it gets better. In 20 years, the marriage recovers or ends. Being alone isn’t that much different from what you’re doing now. Therapy hasn’t nearly caught up with the complexities of raising children and a 30 year marriage.

Date night becomes fight night. You didn’t know what a fight was before you had a kid.

No woman can believe how unprepared for emotional commitment and parenthood men really are. We wonder how our sons will be different.

We are all amazed at the cruelty of their deliberate blindness to our despair, while their golf game went uninterrupted. Even the good-parent husbands would finally get home and see the child for 5 minutes at bedtime, and be watching the News around the child’s head.

His idea of watching the kids means getting their needs met ASAP, putting them in front of a screen, so that he can sit in front of a screen. Or everyone can sit in front of a screen together.

The power, the lessons, the gifts

Get good at buying yourself presents with his money. Realize that he’d have to spend serious money to find someone to look after his kids like you do. He will not say a word about a pedicure if he has a clue. If he is without that many clues, he can cook his own supper. Learning to let yourself show anger is not such a bad thing, when we’ve spent a lifetime being taught (told) to suppress it.

Drop the standard. Anyone who thinks the house isn’t picked up can do it themselves. Priority adjustment.

Talk truthfully to other women…and they will talk truthfully to you…and they will be your salvation. Just knowing you’re normal helps.

Give it time. You’ll be the one in control again. You’ll be pushed to the choice of caving in or standing up, and you’ll stand up. For the rest of your life, you’ll have learned to stand up.

Don’t wait for him, or anyone, to notice that you might need help. They won’t. Tell him he’ll be doing this at this time, bringing this child, these documents, and making these stops on the way. You’ll get comfortable with confrontation and delegation.

Notice that accepting offers of help is hard for some of us, like me. Especially when the resentment meter is at the max. We do it to ourselves but we become a one-woman-show. Coping skills and independence you never could have dreamed of.

You’ll be congratulated for your great kids one day, and he’ll have the humility to say “She did 90% of it” and you’ll honestly say “Quite right.”

Get them to 10 years old or so, and realize that if you could raise them virtually alone, there is NOTHING on this Earth you can’t do.

Your job won’t make you a better parent, but being a parent will make you better at your job. You’ll never talk to people the same way again.

You finally understand the full implications of the words “emotional investment”. To know what it means to give your life for another opens doors in your head.

Husbands, don’t make yourselves too dispensable disposable dispensable.

Wives, no need for bitter. There is happiness on the way.

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Our instinct is to not talk about them. We try to make it look like everything is fine. I see families so busy with that, that the family is imploding. And the whole community is in on the secret anyhow, so it’s a lot of wasted energy and destruction for nothing.

Rather hard to force secrets into the open. Keeping problems quiet and dark makes them safe. They get stronger because they look bigger, just like everything does in the dark. The problem grows inside your lonely imagination. And then you get this crazy idea that you’re the only one fighting this particular fight and that you’re fighting alone.

Pretty soon, there’s the yellow police tape across the problem. The tape says Do Not Cross. It is never, never mentioned. It is not discussed outside the house on pain of severe punishment.

Then the problem shows up again, as it always does. Put up another Do Not Cross line, in front of the first one.

Then another. Pretty soon, you’re keeping out a whole new problem. The thing you were protecting in the first place is forgotten, or isn’t what it used to be anymore. Now it looks terrifying. The fear might even have passed on to the next generation.

The Bodeens have always had drinkers. The Millers never could keep a marriage together. The Smistons lose every job they’ve had. The labels start. This is a whole other problem, because today’s Bodeens have no idea what the original thing to be conquered even was. What kind of shot do they have when their rival is has no identity?

Shine a light on a secret and it will shrivel instantly. Say “You have a drinking problem”. “ I have an eating problem”. “My teenager got into trouble on Facebook”. Now you can see the enemy. You know what you have to fight. No need to take out an ad in the paper. Just don’t protect it and keep it safely hidden where it can send out more and more branches.

Don’t wonder what you’re up against. Drag it out, kicking and screaming, into the wide open. Let everyone take a good look at it, so they can bring their weapons to the fight too. Size up the opponent and muster your defenses.

Create a space for happiness and it will find you. Clutter up all your space with your own personal hellfire and there won’t be any space for the good things.

Let your children in on it (age-dependent of course). I am not so sure that marriage is great for women. I talk about it with my daughters. I don’t tell them not to marry, but we talk about its pros and cons for a woman. They’re empowered about their choices, not beholden to the “sanctity” of this convention. I talk to them about my marriage. I let the community in on the problem, knowing full well that they have the same problems, even if they’re pretending everything is fine.  I can see their pressure valves straining to blow, but they just can’t release the valve. I wonder how many cancer cells are getting by their immune police.

Many might say I’m too honest. I’m the definition of “painfully honest”. Well, I is what I is. But my problems don’t seem huge. My situation is not perfect, but I don’t expect it to be. It is, however, strong.

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Either she’s wrong, but that doesn’t happen a lot, or I’ve had too much caffeine, but I believe I’d win. I’m not sad, scared, or even neutral about 50. Thrilled would be a better word.

My friend feels she’s not where she thought she would be at this time in her life. Neither am I, but that’s not the same as failure. It’s a different path, not a loser path.  Maybe it’s taking longer to get to somewhere better.

Thank you

…for making me a woman at this moment in the history of time, and in this place.

…for knowing that if someone doesn’t like my lines and age spots, they’re the ones with the problem, not me.

…for having given me 50 years worth of tools to use in the next 50. Tools provided by failures, rejections, embarrassments, and self-disgust because they sharpened the grit that shaped something better.

…for not having granted the wishes I had at 30. Instead, you gave me so many more possibilities that I’m having trouble choosing.

…for knowing enough to trust you and stop worrying about the long term. Or worry a lot less.

…for knowing that exercise is the daily celebration of a body that can do things.

…for repelling the marketing that tries to persuade us that aging is a problem we need to address.

…for repelling the marketing that tries to tell me that I should emulate a famous person. I have no celebrity addiction affliction addiction.

…for having seen the advent of Copy & Paste when I could still use it, and watched Click The Link open the world for me and my children.

…for sticking out my relationship long enough to watch the balance of power shift … to me!! I was talking about emotions 10 years ago and he didn’t understand. Now I’m saying “Pass me that calculator, would you?”

…for knowing that a day with 5 mistakes is a good day. At the time, it’s a little uncomfortable. 3 of those times, you’ll get your face ground in the dust. 1 time will pay off but you’ll have to wait a year to see it. 1 time, you’ll learn and become more than you were before the mistake, right there on the spot. Extra mistakes are bonus.

…for knowing that my best self is in the now, not somewhere in the years before. At 25, we’re a pretty storefront but haven’t figured out what to put on the shelves. At 50, I know exactly what’s on the shelves and I know that the inventory will only get better.

And to think that 2 years ago, I wrote “Hey, Universe, Are You Ignoring Me?”

We all start somewhere.

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Colin and Justin’s Home Heist

A TV show about 2 gleefully gay Scottish designers. Shopping is my favorite activity, but shopping with gay men with good taste and singsong Scottish accents just takes it to new heights.They almost require you to sit down with a glass of champagne just to watch the show.

What I love is that they do a rebirth of the person, not just the house. Your best re-construction follows a complete de-construction. The person’s decorating sense is reduced to rubble, much like their house is, but they are rebuilt. My favorite part is hearing their descriptions of the Before Home (“it looks like a global gift shop” comes to mind for one poor soul’s African mask collection). Soap operas got nothing on this.

They have that magical ability to ignore the what-is. They live in the kingdom of what-could-be. Possibility being right up my alley, I’m always fascinated by transformations. They take the house right back to the raw beginning, and then move forward.

Much as I adore these guys, they have a real propensity for painting things white, even in families with kids. Once, to a Dad resisting white, they said something like “Are you a responsible Dad? Do you want your child to have an ordered space (or something similar)?” It could have climbed into the TV, muckled on to their necks, and shook the puddin’ out of them. Let’s be real, men. Let me give you 3 kids, a 100 lb. dog, a cat, 2 jobs, a limited budget, and the rains of April, and we’ll talk about white sofas.  Besides, I feel that one of my responsibilities as a parent is to keep my kids’ immune system aware of what’s out there. A gay couple can no more address a single aspect of parenthood than a couple without children can discuss a marriage avec, and they should not go there.

Anyhow, still the best, funnest, and funniest of the home reno shows. I adore them right up there with Nick Arrojo.

Flavia DeLuce

Among my favorite summer books 09 was Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie. It was witty, literary, and relaxing. Books where the plot devolves into kidnapping, abuse, as it always does, at 9PM when I’m trying to induce myself into 8 hours of pleasant unconsciousness…grisly loss of limb isn’t the sleeping pill that works for me.

This is the English Village mystery, 1950s era, even better, through the eyes of a smart, funny 11 year old girl, even better. Once again, I display my propensity for people not overly concerned with the what-is, children being among the best examples.

The latest is The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag. I’m reading slowly to make it last. There are 9 holds on it at the library, so I’m pacing myself. Why not buy? Because I’ve never read a book twice.

Cardis at J.Crew

I love J. Crew. More at some times than others, but I never stop checking in. I can find age-appropriate clothing that’s not too teenage. I can afford it on sale. And when they do a color, they DO the color. When you stand outside the store and see yet another palette of purple/black/neutral/grey/a little yellow, Crew is giving us curry, tomato, pine, and so much more.

In a cardi with a tank/shell beneath, you’re always the right temperature, can wear pretty jewelry, and don’t get makeup on your collar.

In Bronzed twig, Paradise Blue, and other gorgeous colors. Above is Dark Raisin for Dark Autumn, so much more than good ol’ eggplant. Look also at the lovely Blossom for Soft Summer (wear it with MAC Syrup lipstick).

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At 50, I understand the secret to getting somewhere : keep doing it.

Play all the mind games you need to, but there’s the bottom line.

We can believe that we self-create, co-create (The Secret), or God-create (The Bible). Whichever polarity feels best, the value proposition remains the same.

We can intend, allow, accept, imagine, expect, pray, hope, buy more books about achievement, or buy lottery tickets. We can meditate on the self, be one with the Universe, or fly with angels. Whatever it takes to keep at the doing of it.

Only the first 25 years of marriage are hard.

We squander grace till we’ve known disgrace.

Keep your head down and do the work.

A couple of years, you get calls for expert advice, but you really just outlasted many people.

Whether all the signs point North or South, stay on the path. Just make a move. Don’t worry if it’s wrong or right.

When nothing is happening, there’s just one thing to do. Sling more energy around.

If you keep messing with the energy pot, something can’t NOT happen.

Motivation isn’t a given.

Peace and trust come from the confidence that the right thing will happen. Life has demonstrated that more often than not.

Get in for the long haul.

The young ones are pretty and still wondering what else they are. If they’re lucky, they’ll get to be us one day.

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Talk about freedom from the fight! This is a doozie. Takes big confidence.

Being able to recognize a trend first, then deciding if it’s for you. Most won’t be.

The Soft Seasons and Light Seasons, from 12 Season Colour Analysis, can look great in light flesh-toned lip colours. Some variation of beige-pink lipstick actually looks good, and young, on them.

That’s because the Light Seasons are SUPPOSED to look light, natural, and outdoorsy. That is their special radiance.

The Soft Seasons are ALL ABOUT “no hard lines, no strong contrasting edges or colours”. Their whole essence is about gentle warmth. Makeup that looks that way is consistent with who they already are. There should be no sudden, sharp, bright, bold, or extreme colour shifts. That feels aggressive, quite opposite to these personalities. Flesh and nude lips are in keeping with the soft colour transitions of their natural design, meaning that the colour of their hair/eyes/skin is not very contrasting or different.

On these 2 groups, the “pops of colour” that are often suggested are the reason many of them shy away from cosmetics altogether.

On True Autumn, pale beige lips are flatter than flat, just as pale beige hair is.  It ages these women by 10 years.  (At 17, with the great lip definition of youth and when the depth of the coloring is not fully developed, a sheer bronze lip works.)

On any Winter blend, lips the colour of skin are lifeless. Their dark force is reduced to a big blank. (If they’re 22, they can do an icy pink lip.)

If you’re 52, brighter lips look younger. Not darker, lighter, or deeper. Just more colour. Not clownish, not pinker. Just a bit bolder.

The ground under our feet is always unsteady. We’ve weathered enough of it to keep our ducks lined up despite.

Where do we find the look of vitality, since we can’t fool anyone by wearing their hair?

Stop trying.

Work to be rid of what brings you down inside yourself. For me, it is the arrogance of expecting.

Learn the colours that make you look old. We’re talking 10-15 years difference here.

Show the world your real self. It looks calm and secure, not jittery about the next birthday.

Deflect the marketers. They’re just doing a job. We don’t have to soak up everything they tell us. This is what the young ones cannot do, no matter how terrific the visual f/x.

Keep all the doors and windows open. Think about giving your imagination more rein than it had yesterday. It shows the house stands strong.

Renovate now and again. Add new ideas but don’t hang bling curtains.

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I don’t know a single woman over 40 who would go back to 20. But few of us are showing the world our real selves. We got distracted in an over-marketed world and forgot that we’re fine the way we are.

Sigourney Weaver looks easy and real, better now than she ever has. She hasn’t succumbed to the blonde highlights and the injections. It’s so much more relaxing to be around than the supernatural way she used to look. This woman looks intelligent and in control of her world. She also shows off the Autumn Season’ s ability to exactly match hair and eye colour.

Young costumes on older women set up a conflict. To resolve it, the viewer has to work. Who wants more work? They work every time they hear music they don’t like, a light turns red, cell phones with 65 buttons. People are attracted to ease and what feels good.

I used to do dress like my kids. I don’t think it was nervousness about age so much as I liked the clothes. I still like them. Hoodies, nylon pants, workout clothes especially, layered tops, they’re comfortable.

People probably thought : What is she saying about herself? That she can still be fun? Is she trying to look younger… does that mean she worries about looking old?  Am I supposed to think something or notice something? Am I supposed to react to this?

I have realized that it was hard to look at. It felt uncomfortable to people. You can’t go by the compliments. People want to say nice things and they’ll find a reason to. Hearing “your eyeliner is crazy” or “blonde hair looks dull and flat on you” is not likely to happen, even if it should.

I hear hairstylists say that women need lighter hair as they mature. I don’t buy it. Maybe a shade or two lighter to soften the effect on the skin (so Sally Field’s skin is better with a medium-dark brown these days, instead of black-brown), but there are too many yellow chunks and stripes walking around. When the colorist stands back and looks at the head they just worked on, do they just look at the hair or the face that has to wear it? Does anyone else find these stripes jarring or aging?

And this just looks like a bad wig.

We have to police ourselves or lose our credibility. That’s a big price to pay, especially when we can have it so easily. It’s the gift that comes with Over 40. It could be almost automatic.

Give them a reason to keep looking by making it look easy and feel good. Life is so much simpler for everyone when we have nothing to prove. That’s a battle best left to the young.

Cover grey if grey doesn’t feel right but don’t look like you worked too hard to change anything. Aging can be scary, but it can be beautiful and powerful.

Wear makeup that looks believable so people don’t feel forced to react to it. Turquoise eyeliner requires a reaction even if you’re 30. Makeup should be your supporting cast, but never steals center stage.

Tell the world who you really are. Look like you really look.

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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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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.

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 2. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

© 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.

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© 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.

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: Speak Your Limits. Replies via email will be seen only by Christine.

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