Living with Meraki

For this, the 21st and final episode of the first season of the living with Meraki podcast, I’m turning the tables and featuring an episode of a podcast called Belly of the Beast Life Stories in which I was interviewed by the host, David All. We sat down under the redwoods in Mill Valley and talked about my relationship with my daughter and how that has evolved since she was adopted in Japan 16 years ago.We later laughed that my theme song happened to include the lyrics, Belly of the Beast. Guess this was meant to be!You can find David’s podcast, Belly of the Beast Life Stories, on his website, inourbelly.com or on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcasting portal.This is it for Season 1 of the Living with Meraki podcast. I’ll be back soon. Thanks for joining me!

Many are calling this time a Great Awakening.I’ve been wondering. Can we look at this as a gift? And step out of the fear? Maybe. For just a moment. If we stop. Now. To listen. To hear. To feel TRUTH. We will see the beauty unfolding. The love.It may be that love is gently, or not so gently, suggesting that we change our ways. Change our relationships. Change our perspective.Have you heard the birds singing? Become intoxicated by the vibrancy of the flowers?Can we have the courage to open our hearts to the others that we have been “othering”? Bottom line, they want what we want. Love. And to be loved.Can you feel the love in your neighbor’s smile? In the gift of vegetables from the garden?Can we have the courage to open our hearts to ourselves? That is all we really want. Love. And to be loved.But we are afraid. Afraid of not enough. Not enough in our checking account. Not enough in our pantry. Not enough in our hearts.We hoard out of fear that we won’t have what we need.But it is there. And it will be there. Because love never goes away. Our lover may leave. People will die. But love never does. The True source of love. Never leaves.But we never knew this. We were not shown. Never taught. Never told. Because those to whom we were born were never shown. Never taught. Never told.We are all being called to see. To know. That we are loved. We are lovable. We don’t have to do anything to prove it. And nothing we do can prove that we aren’t.When we see. When we know. The True Essence of ourselves and of every other being on this planet. We will know love.We can come to forgive ourselves. For not loving ourselves.We begin to crack open. And that crack allows some light. Light that the seedling, the kernel of love, that has always lived within us, allows to grow.And when it has room to grow. There is enough food. And enough money. And enough love.We aren’t hoarding out of fear anymore. We are trusting. And knowing. And loving. Ourselves.And each other.This is a Great Awakening. Let us not go back to sleep.

My guest today, Barbara Waxman MS, MPA, PCC, is a nationally recognized Middlescence expert, coach, author, and speaker. In 2005, as the only Master’s level gerontologist and internationally certified coach in the US, she founded The Odyssey Group, providing executive leadership and life coaching to adults in midlife and better. Barbara’s mission is to shift our cultural norms around aging by establishing Middlescence as a new life stage.Barbara has developed a concept she calls the 5 essential elements that are areas that we need to have balance in to be healthy and well - especially in times like this.We talk about the benefits of repotting ourselves to spread our roots and get some new nutrients and about undoing practices that we don’t actually need in order to clear our minds and help improve our memory.And she asks an especially pertinent question for right now: How can we feed forward versus feeding back?Here’s the link to the free 5 Essential elements quiz we discuss.

Trusting that we will have all that we need right now can be an incredibly challenging ask. But we will. And we do. It just may not look like we think it should. Or how we want it to.I spent 18 years in a financial recovery program where I went from living off of credit cards, to building a business that grossed over $8 million in sales. It required faith, a lot of emotional and logistical support from others and making some tough decisions at times. What I created was way beyond what I had envisioned. I learned so much.But creating wealth is not sustainable if you don’t have the internal belief system to back it up. We are capable of manifesting mansions and Mercedes, if that’s what we want, but unless we believe that we are worthy at our core, we will ultimately lose those external symbols of wealth.Our net worth must be supported by our self-worth, or it will crumble.And it’s the fear of those losses that cause us to begin to hoard, and cheat, and bend the truth in what we think is our favor.But it never really works that way. And the lying, cheating, and truth-bending only serve to further erode our inherent sense of self-worth.As we will see in the world at large in the not too distant future, the systems, the corporations and the beings that are perpetuating this immorality will not survive - not in their current form.We’ve been given free reign for a very long time now and we have created a lot of good in the world. And we’ve also created some pretty horrific situations.When much of the world is sheltering-in-place, we’re being given an opportunity to slow down and breathe. To evaluate what is what it is we really value. To see what it is that we truly require to survive. And to thrive.We don’t require cases of toilet paper. We just need enough for right now. Trusting that when that gets low, there will be more.We don’t require fancy club memberships and luxury cars. They’re great and incredible treats for us. I can definitely enjoy and appreciate luxuries like this. But they’re not required for living healthy lives and getting us where we need to go.We don’t require excessive sex, drugs and alcohol to feel good. We do need intimate connection, the drug that love is and the intoxicating effect of the beauty of nature.When we see that we have enough and know that we, inherently, are enough, we can walk with a sense of peace and equanimity through all of this. Then, we can build from there. With balance, compassion, love and trust.

The other day I spent an hour and a half walking. Partly for exercise, partly to go to four different stores in search of toilet paper. I came home empty handed. But full hearted. Every person I passed on the street was smiling. Not the usual stiff obligatory-feeling acknowledgement, but genuine, heart-felt, compassion-filled smiles.On my way home, I noticed the brilliance of the newly opening buds against the misty grey sky and took in the scent of the flowers.As you’ve probably noticed, people are getting creative in their time at home, coming up with innovative ways to shift their business models. Ways that they likely would never have contemplated unless necessity required it. Ways that will ultimately have far less impact on our planet because we’re more efficient with resources like fuel for our cars. Ways that support each others businesses in the process.We’re reaching out to families and friends with far greater frequency and more open, caring hearts than we usually take the time to do in our normal hustle and flow.SO,What if, instead of hoarding toilet paper and pasta, we used this time to sit with gratitude for what we do have?What if, instead of endless exposure to the fear-inducing news, we directed our focus toward looking at all of the good that is coming out of this time?What if, despite all of the suffering that is happening, we opened to the possibility that this has been coming for a long time and that it is, in reality, a kinder, gentler way of the earth righting itself rather than the dystopian nuclear war possibility that we seemed to have been headed toward?There are always myriad points of view on every subject. Without being in denial of the very real dangers swirling in the air (and on surfaces) these days, we can also choose to see the incredible amount of good coming out of all of this.What if…we approached this as a letting go, a freefall of trust. What if this is a re-ordering of priorities and perspectives?What if… it actually allows us the space to see the inherent abundance in our lives? To feel it? To even smell it? To appreciate the simplicity and beauty of what we actually do have.We can take the time to taste our food more fully. We can watch colors become brighter and more vibrant. We make judicious choices about what’s truly important in the time spent away from home and family.What if it’s a time for us to empty out? To open up? And practice gratitude? And practice trust? And practice listening? And hearing? And Knowing?What if this is about walking right up to the edge, to the point where the rocks appear to be crumbling under our feet, peering over that edge and knowing that it isn’t about falling. It is about flying. It is about the freedom to say yes. And the freedom to say no.What if it is about becoming open to receive what is rightfully ours - versus what we grab out of fear? And if we’re sick and vulnerable, what if it’s about letting ourselves know love? What if it’s about receiving from friends and family; and all we have to do is say yes? And let ourselves know love.What if this time is about stripping away all of the excess, all of the pretense, all of the everything that keeps us from being our humble, human selves?

If I were to zoom all the way out to look at the arc of this particular lifetime, I can begin to see the threads that are all being woven into one incredibly intricate and beautiful cloth. But before weaving these new threads, I had to examine the ones making up the carpet I had been riding on.There’s the thread of the illusion of control. Boy, have I held tightly to this one. For me, one way it manifested was as obsessive order in my home. Bed always made, Counters clean and gleaming and nothing out of place. Anywhere. While fibers of this thread still exist, I’m holding them much more loosely.There’s the thread of caring what you think of me. This one looked like both attempting to always appear perfectly dressed with perfect hair and make up, and trying to impress you with what I had done, who I knew and where I’d been.There’s the thread of not enough. Not enough time. Not enough energy. Not enough money, attention or love.This entire cloth was woven from threads of fear. A fear of losing your love. Your approval. Your acceptance.The microcosm of my own story can certainly be seen in the macrocosm of society:- Trying to control how others behave- Our obsessive focus on artificially created beauty.- The endless pursuit of more “likes”.- And our workaholic, unconscious acquisition of stuff in an attempt to fill our sense of not enough.In this iteration of my personal journey, as I’ve been consciously allowing many of these old threads to disintegrate, new threads, woven of gold are beginning to replace them.There is the thread of acceptance that lets you see me, at times, without make up on or less-than-perfectly accessorized.There is the thread of self-care that looks like eating far less sugar, eating more green vegetables and spending far more time dancing or hiking or biking.There is the thread of trust. This one is now doubly reinforced because I know more and more deeply, that I will not fall through the cracks. That I am held. That I am supported. Always.The most vibrant of these golden threads that are making up this new magic carpet that I’m allowing myself to be carried by is the thread of love. It is what is truly at the core of all these other threads. It is actually the warp and the weft underlying it all.These threads were always available, but I had no idea how to find them. They had been buried in plain sight like so many of the jewels of our experience here on earth.So as I spin and gather these newly discovered and uncovered threads and begin to weave them more securely throughout my being and that which carries me, I can begin to joyfully soar on this heroine’s journey into my next chapter.

It’s funny/not funny how we give ourselves clues as to what is going on inside with external stuff. A few weeks ago I went to Trader Joe’s and bought those salty mochi snacks that are nearly impossible to stop eating. In addition, I bought granola, yogurt and a bottle of Two Buck Chuck that was three bucks.None of these items necessarily sound bad (unless you’re an oenophile), but none were on my list and none are things that I usually consume. I was shopping for a “feel better”. Unfortunately all of this stuff ultimately makes me feel worse in the end. Not only do I feel shitty after I eat or drink them, I can then beat up on myself because I know better.So when I heard myself asking the stock person where those damned mochi things were, why didn’t I stop then? Why do we have to drag ourselves through the shittiness to try to get to a better feeling? We know the ultimate result.Inevitably, I got to what was underneath. I was feeling anxious and afraid about something that was on the horizon. The headache and feeling bloated from the wine and the mochi snacks didn’t ultimately help.I can see that this stuff doesn’t work any more. Whether it’s food or shopping or anything else that takes me out of center. By now, when I have that thought to pick up the bottle of wine I know it's a flag, a warning, that something is trying to get my attention.I’ve worked with these signals, these triggers, in 12 Step programs for over 25 years. While I have the grace to not be an alcoholic and can stop at one glass, the fact that I “pick up” anything to medicate my feelings whether it’s wine or new shoes, is something I want to observe and have compassion about, rather than feeling more shame.12 Step programs have served me well for more than a quarter century. They’ve provided structure and community that I found no where else. They kept me from going over the edge emotionally and financially many times. They have a very important and essential place in our society especially if one has the gene that creates substance addiction. They save lives.But for me, they never addressed the core wounding. They never touched the truest, most baseline cause of any of my acting out behavior. They never helped me to see that there was nothing wrong with me in the first place.I completely agree that one must be honest about what is going on. But feeling further shamed and punished doesn’t seem to be the quickest way to heal the source of the wound. Love does. And, unfortunately, it’s not something I’ve heard talked about enough in 12 Step.What we’re all trying to do is to feel loved. Deeply loved. Deeply lovable. To get back to the knowing that we are inherently lovable - and always have been. NO MATTER WHAT. Even when we go on the occasional Trader Joe’s spree. Especially when we go on the occasional Trader Joe’s spree.When we know from a place deep inside that we are and always have been lovable, we can safely feel all that we feel. Deeply.One day at a time…

According to Webster, liminal means in between or in transition. According to Sharon Eisenhauer the liminal is un-fucking-comfortable.Melting into my current state of primordial goo has required the release of my former identities, former homes, most of my possessions and even much of my wardrobe. So much of who I am becoming no longer fits what it is I’m transitioning into. Gone are former associations, friends, and frames of mind.I’ve been releasing long-held beliefs about who I was and who my parents were. Definitions of what it means to be held, supported and taken care of have acquired a whole new understanding.Last week I made a decision to let go of a significant segment of work that I’ve done off and on since I was 14 years old because it no longer fit who I am becoming.While I have added a few things like wrinkles, dark circles and more gray hair, I’ve also added insight, forgiveness and joy. Appreciation. Gratitude. And hopefully some wisdom.I would never have chosen to stay where I was, but this period of gestation just before what I know is to be the birth of something glorious has me feeling so uncomfortable that I’m even nauseated at times. It’s been a kind of nausea that is different from what accompanies a flu. It’s in my throat. It’s a discomfort that I know portends a major shift in the works. Unlike morning sickness at the early stages of pregnancy, this nausea seems to be coming just before birth - and it’s not just in the morning.I have an idea of what it may look like on the other side of the walls of this cocoon, but of course I can’t ever really know what this new reality will be until I’m living it.I do know, without doubt, that all of this shedding and release is leading me to a brilliance and beauty I’ve never before experienced. It has meant the release of my former definition of my own physical beauty; but the beauty that is revealing itself has so many more layers, depth and vibrancy.And while the opening I’m having to squeeze through in this moment feels way too skinny, I know that the muscle of faith it’s developing will be what allows me to thrive.And, it’s so un-fucking-comfortable. Sometimes I feel as though I can barely breathe. But I know that breathing is precisely the prescription for this transition. Breathing and trust.And since I’m the one who’s both giving birth and being birthed, it’s no wonder it feels like I’m being turned inside out.This period of time feels like another of the very necessary contractions required to birth and be birthed.I can see the light. May this be the final push.

The first time I went to the clothing-optional baths at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur almost 30 years ago, I was that girl in the swimsuit sitting on her hands. Today, that girl feels confined and restricted at not being able to take her clothes off in a public hot tub or on an empty beach.Clothing has begun to feel like the puritanical construct that is in so many ways, across so many cultures. I guess it’s the animal side of me longing for my freedom…Being naked in public felt so vulnerable 30 years ago. I was so afraid of being seen, exposed. In truth, I was calling more attention to myself as the only one in a swimsuit at the time.Here in California there are many options for nude soaking or swimming. And while some of them have a reputation for being more cruise-y than others, I’ve never gone with the intention of inviting attention. In fact, with the mile-thick wall I’ve always had around myself in such situations, I may as well have had clothing on as far as others were concerned. In that way it felt possible to be naked, without feeling terribly vulnerable.Being naked can have nothing to do with the choice to wear clothing on or not. Truly being naked is about having our heart exposed; turning our soft underbelly to the light and saying “this is really me”. That is where we are our most naked.I could be wearing a burka and be far more naked than the dude in the baths at Harbin Hot Springs when what it is that I’m exposing is my essence.I’ve been getting naked in hot springs and baths since the late 1980s and I’ve never felt fully exposed until a few weeks ago when I walked my talk and shared who I am, really, with my own mother. Finally allowing her in to see who I am, who I’ve been and have hidden since I was a child, felt vastly more vulnerable than I’ve ever felt without clothing in a hot tub.Exposing the truth of my essence and risking rejection by the person who gave me life felt like that mid-air fall I’ve been terrified of in leaping off of the mythical cliff.I was prepared for the possibility that she would turn away - as prepared as one could be.And I knew that I would survive regardless. I have finally come to know that, in truth, I am a lovable and worthy being, independent of the approval of any other person - or the lack of it.But the potential for rejection by one’s own family can feel like a life or death proposition. Like jumping off of that cliff.Belonging. Acceptance. Love that is truly unconditional. These are what we seek to clothe ourselves in. Bottom line is, exposure requires courage. A lot of it.I did take that leap off of the need-for-maternal-approval cliff. And she met me, midair.For that, I am so incredibly grateful.And I knew that I was held, regardless.

Chip Conley was a boutique hotel pioneer in the 1980s when he founded Joie de Vivre, a company that he eventually sold with 50 properties.Chip created a travel experience that didn’t end when you unlocked the door to your cookie cutter hotel room with it's plastique bedspread and unimaginative design. With his boutique hotels, where are you stayed was as much a part of the adventure as exploring the city you were visiting was.As someone for whom travel has always been a huge part of living a soulful, creative life, I was a fan of Chip's boutique hotel concepts from the very start. So when I finally met him for the first time a number of years ago it was kind of like a celebrity sighting for me. I know, who geeks out on boutique hotel CEOs? Apparently, I do.Since founding Joie de Vivre, Chip went on to become the head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for Airbnb and has authored five books. The most recent, called Wisdom at Work, addresses the need for balance in today’s world of relatively inexperienced millennial CEOs with the wisdom of those of us who have circled the sun for a few more decades.After leaving his full-time gig at AirBnB, Chip created the Modern Elder Academy designed to give us modern elders a way to recognize and channel our accumulated wisdom and to help us to rediscover a resonance and relevance that many people at our age think is done for.To this end, he writes a daily blog called the Wisdom Well. Each morning when I read his posts, I’d hear our words echoing each other‘s. It was so validating to know that I wasn’t alone and crazy that I reached out to ask him to share more about his own perspective on wisdom, spirituality, millennials and if and when any of these things might align.Since I’ve been a bit of a fan girl, I was nervous about sitting down with Chip for this interview. But when I reminded him of that first meeting and the fact that neither of us had a stitch of clothing on at the time, it melted away any nervousness as well as the pedestal I had put him on. We happened to have been in the clothing-optional baths over looking the sea at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur - just in case you were wondering.Chip Conley - Airbnb Strategic Advisor for Hospitality & Leadership, Modern Elder Academy FounderNew York Times bestselling author Chip Conley is the hospitality maverick who helped Airbnb's founders turn their fast-growing tech start-up into a global hospitality brand. In Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder he shares his unexpected journey at midlife — from CEO to intern — learning about technology as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, while also mentoring CEO Brian Chesky. Chip is the founder of the Modern Elder Academy, where a new roadmap for midlife is offered at a beautiful oceanfront campus in Baja California Sur, Mexico. He serves on the board of Encore.org and the advisory board for the Stanford Center for Longevity. www.ChipConley.comLinkedin: @chipconleysf Facebook: @chipconleyauthor Twitter: @chipconley

Much has been said and written around the dictum “as viewed so appears" – the fact that what we focus on creates a reality. I intentionally chose the word fact here. Science has proven that our words and thoughts do create molecular changes in things. It’s why when we have a “bad day“ everything seems to go wrong from our flat tire to the longest line at the grocery store. We create the out-picturing of our reality. As viewed, so appears.Conversely, when we feel joyous, everything seems to synchronistically lineup. People smile back at us and the world feels like a very different place.Therefore, choosing what we take into our perception of reality is hugely important. I’m not suggesting that we ignore tragedy in the world - but we cannot swim in a steady stream of it constantly and not get waterlogged ourselves. We can’t turn away, but we can choose to see through the lens of compassion and love and choose that as our focus.It’s way too easy to get sucked into the victim vortex. Once we begin swirling down that drain, it’s very difficult to get ahold of the edge and climb out. It’s way too easy to get stuck in the despair of the problem, rather than in the hope of the solution. And we will have a lot of company in that. Misery loves it.I’m not suggesting painting pretty Pollyanna pictures of our reality. I am suggesting living in the solution rather than puttering endlessly in the problem.And I do want to bring the focus back to our own lives because what happens in micro, happens in macro. When we begin to get things right with ourselves, everything begins to incrementally shift. It’s not about selfish, it’s about self-love. When we begin that pivot every everything turns with us just a little bit.So now, let’s swing back to where I began - as viewed, so appears. When I see things as happening for me, rather than to me; when I see the gift in the lessons; I lift myself up instead of grinding myself down. I see redirection as divine protection, instead of poor me. I get to slow down and breathe in the line at the store instead of ramping up my anxiety.As viewed, so appears. When I see myself as a loving, lovable, worthy gift I will treat myself as such. When I see the iridescence in the petals of a flower or the hope in a puppies eyes, everything seems a bit more shining and sweet.As viewed, so appears. When one perspective shifts, it shifts everything. Today, I will choose, right here, right now, to see myself as love. Come to think of it, I’m going to take out my magnifying glass and amplify that one a bit…

The Dolly Parton meme going around has me thinking about what we choose to share of ourselves to the different social and professional circles in our lives, and maybe more importantly, what we don’t choose to share with certain people. As I thumbed through my own images with this meme in mind, I began to see the parts of myself that I present to each of these seemingly different worlds. I get that you may not want your potential new boss or landlord to see your after-hours self, but the fact that we choose to compartmentalize our lives seems, in part, to be based on a fear of rejection. And when we cut off parts of our full expression depending upon who we’re with, we’re not really free and not really honest about the whole truth of who we are.

Balance and trust. When do we rely on the familiar and when do we take that leap of faith? The discomfort of the unknown, the unseen, can feel like having your head in a spin cycle. Releasing one trapeze bar to reach the next requires the faith that you aren’t going to fall and spat as a result of that mid-air leap. Faith is like any muscle that is built over time. With a little bits of evidence here and there we grow stronger and build more of a foundation in that faith.But when a major leap is required, we seem to forget the stability of this foundation that we’ve worked on so hard for so long. We often step into fear – False Evidence Appearing Real instead of Feeling Everything And Rising.That leap requires courage. Coeur - a heart, raging with so much love that we are carried to that other side. Spirit, Source, the Divine has that kind of love for us. And when we love ourselves enough to say yes, to step into the truth that we are held, we are loved, we are taken care of, the path becomes clear. The fog lifts. And we will see, feel and know that we are safe.The love of self called for here requires compassion. It requires that we forgive ourselves for all of the ways that we have continued to perpetuate the abuse that we may have, at one time, experienced at the hands of others. When we believe that we deserved the abuse, we prove it by repeating it in some form or another. And most of the time we don’t even realize what we’ve done.We have to do the Ho’ oponopono and turn it all around. Because that is what it’s all about. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. This is the ancient Hawaiian prayer of compassion and forgiveness known as the Ho’ oponopono.We do the Ho’ oponopono and release the relentless should. We stop should-ing on ourselves and listen to that still small voice - The one that pipes up when we can get quiet enough to hear her. Her’s is the voice of truth, the unafraid, the voice of courage. That raging beautiful heart that wants to lead us to our Light. The Light that we came here to be for ourselves and for others. The Light that is the Truth of our souls.Listen. Have courage. Lean on that structure - that foundation that you spent so much time and energy building. Trust. You are held. All is well. You are taken care of.Because I needed this medicine today, I wrote this piece for myself. May it benefit you as it is benefiting me. withLove and manyBlessings.

Less self bettering - what a concept. It’s not mine. I heard Danielle LaPorte mention it earlier today. It’s a concept I’m still in the process of integrating. So I got to ponder this:A member of my community had had a particularly challenging year last year. There was a great deal of personal upheaval and she was on the was on the verge of losing her home. She was more than a little concerned about how to keep her head above water.Then last week she hopped on a plane and headed to Central America. Huh? I began to turn a bit green to put it nicely. Seeing photos of her beaming on Instagram made it even worse.How dare she go off and have fun in a sunny foreign country when she was having a such a challenging time financially?How dare she spend her time cavorting when she should have been looking for that new home?How dare she rub our faces in it in sunshine and a bikini?As I rhetorically asked each of these questions, I heard an echo in my head. How dare I have fun right now? How dare I spend money on anything but necessities? How dare I do anything inspiring when there is work to be done right here, right now?These echoes were reverberations of the ways I’ve talked to myself for decades. They were echoes of my father‘s voice. And probably his father‘s voice. Here we all were with the mandate that we must “be better, do better, get better” before we ever consider embarking on anything that might be inspiring, “unnecessary", or God forbid, fun!But what if doing something inspiring and fun actually is necessary and actually supported us in elevating our vibration and our mental state so that we could not only generate the income for necessities, but feed our souls to facilitate our rising above a state of mere survival? Inspiring and fun doesn’t have to look like running off to another country, it can be as simple as making an Artist’s Date as Julia Cameron recommended in the Artist’s Way.Barbara Waxman, founder of The Odyssey Group says,“We tend to run so fast in our daily lives that we’ve no time for art, music, poetry. That’s a fool’s choice. Because the truth is that the arts are open avenues for personal growth and are the mainline to your inner truth-teller. Have you ever been driving and broke out in exuberance or perhaps in tears upon hearing certain lyrics? Of course, you have. That’s real nourishment and you need it. Badly."I needed it. Badly.But I happen to be someone with a propensity for extremes. It’s been the case that I either have a great deal of money and I’m extravagant with it or I allow myself only crumbs and feel starved.How do we allow ourselves fun and inspiration when we’re clinging tightly to the little that appears to be in hand? And how do we manage our abundance in a healthy way instead of spending it all for fear that it might go away? We don’t do well with crumbs. We become dried up and crunchy like them.Fun. Inspiration. Joy. I need to remember that these are basic necessities as much as food, shelter and water.“Joy is what happens when you make contact with your Soul” according to Danielle LaPorte.Fun, inspiration, joy - and trust - having faith that we will always have what we need*. Walking the middle ground is a matter of trust.*That includes enough of the yummy stuff that we don’t need to hoard the desert.Here’s to joy. And chocolate.

At 58, as viewed through the lens of the last bits of my second Saturn Return (something that happens roughly every 30 years), I am currently viewing my life in thirds. In doing so, it seems that I have spent this second third trying to assemble the jagged shards and broken pieces of the first third into some recognizable semblance of a life.What I’m coming to discover is that the end of this second third is resulting in a sort of primordial glop in which I am beginning to find that something does lay beyond this life of efforting. Of striving to get it right. Trying to figure it out. To win the race to the finish line. I am coming to discover that there is no finish line. No there there.This metamorphosis that sometimes felt like a burning, melting, metaphorical peeling of skin – a skin that had to be shed because it no longer fit – is beginning to reveal shimmering glimpses of light. A light that refuses to be contained. A light that cannot be diminished…

I’ve long had a conflicted relationship with mothering. Both as a child and as a mother of my own daughter. In this past year and a half, I’ve developed a new relationship with my mother, with the concept of mothering and with my bond with my daughter. This shift has come as a result of coming to truly know my own inherent lovability. That it always existed. I just had no idea how to touch it, how to feel it and how to rest and trust in it. I had a lot to unlearn to get here. But this homecoming is where I’ve always needed to be.I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in all of this. I’ve shared other parts of this journey. And today, I’d like to share a letter I’ve written to my daughter, reflective of this newfound relationship. It is truly a love letter. Perhaps it will touch something in you, too…

… She was living the dream of having married the “right guy” from the “right family”. She converted to Catholicism to marry him and with that came the procreation directive. She was living that dream, but it wasn’t her dream. It was the dream that society told her she should have - my mom and virtually every other woman in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s…The musical theme for this podcast is written and performed by Wendy Colonna. This is a live version of her song “Shine”. You can find the studio version on her LP “We are One”.

Heads up - in this podcast, I discuss some adult issues. If there are little ones around, you may want to grab your headphones. Just before Thanksgiving, I had gone to my otolaryngologist for a checkup following surgery I had had in the spring for something called idiopathic subglottic stenosis. It’s where you have scar tissue blocking your windpipe. Breathing becomes increasingly difficult as your windpipe opening gets smaller and smaller. Ideopathic means that they don’t know the cause. I had never been intubated and had not been injured in my throat in any way so there was no cause that they could pinpoint.After surgery, my doctor recommended quarterly followup treatments of steroid shots in my throat. Sounds lovely, right? Apparently the scar tissue tends to grow back repeatedly and the steroids reportedly limit that recurrence. This is a surgery that most have to have 2-3 times in order for the scar tissue to completely diminish even with the steroid shots. I refused the treatments. I was not into the idea of having myself shot up with steroids every three months ongoing.So at this checkup, eight months after surgery, my windpipe was completely open. No scar tissue. The doctor was amazed at the lack of regrowth considering that I had declined the steroid treatments. “This happens in less than 50% of patients” she muttered.I knew better than to try to explain that I had been working on healing the issue on an energetic level. The smirk on her face the first time I mentioned the possibility before surgery was telling enough. I wasn’t going to go there again.On a metaphysical level it is said that issues with the throat revolve around not speaking our truth.What I am presuming is different in my case versus that of other women with repeated recurrence (this condition is found primarily in white women in their 50s) is that I was addressing the underlying cause. I was repeatedly risking speaking truth. My truth. The unvarnished, un-codependent, empowered truth. With my work colleagues. With my 12 step community. With my friends. And most importantly, with my family - those whose rejection I feared the most.It didn’t mean going around and beating people over the head with it. It meant speaking from a grounded place. From a knowing place. From a place of resonance within my body.During the period when I discovered this scar tissue in my throat, my body was also developing symptoms in another way…The musical theme for this podcast is written and performed by Wendy Colonna. This is a live version of her song “Shine”. You can find the studio version on her LP “We are One”.

Meraki is a word from the Greek that roughly translates to that feeling of soul, love or creativity you put into something; it’s your essence. I’ve spent my entire life trying to get to that essence. to be able to feel it. and touch it. and live it.From therapy and 12 step to seemingly every possible self help workshop and book, I’ve been a traveler on this path for decades. The journey has included working in radio and television commercials, becoming a playboy bunny and underage exploits with a well-known television actor. It’s traversed the journey from sexual abuse and divorce to parenting and marrying someone of the same gender. It’s gone from building a multi-million dollar handbag design business to having to put groceries back on the shelf because I didn’t have enough money.What I’ve finally come to recognize is that this path that we’re on, this life journey that we chose this time around is about remembering who we truly are. It’s about getting back to that essence and living from that place - living with Meraki.Living withMeraki is about being in the flow. It’s about living from that tuned in, turned on, dropped in place. It’s about plugging in to Source and letting the current power us.Living withMeraki is something we’ve touched on at times in our lives and when we did everything just felt right. There was a knowing. A confidence. A joy.Living withMeraki is a practice of coming back again and again to that place of presence - of being so completely in the moment that everything else falls away. We’re not in future worry or past regret. We are just. Here. Now.When we live from this place of connection to our soul, love and creativity, we do have all the answers (just like our kids accuse us of!) We have everything we need. We always did but in these moments, we know it.Living withMeraki is about remembering our birthright. It’s about remembering where and what we came from. It’s about our soul path. It’s about the love that we are and it’s about living with that spontaneous spark of creativity that lets us feel truly alive. Every single day. Every single moment. In every single relationship that we possibly can!This journey has certainly been rich and varied and I’m so incredibly grateful for it. I’m here to share a bit about my experience in the hopes that it might serve to benefit you as well. I’m no expert. On anything. But I’ve learned a lot along the way.In this podcast, I’ll be in dialogue with others who are also living withMeraki - with a connection to their soul, love and creativity. May you be inspired. May you recognize the refections that you find here. May you know the joy that is living from this place of remembering who you truly are.The musical theme for this podcast is written and performed by Wendy Colonna. This is a live version of her song “Shine”. You can find the studio version on her LP “We are One”.

Meraki is a word from the Greek that roughly translates to that feeling of soul, love or creativity you put into something; basically, it’s your essence.I’m Sharon Eisenhauer and what I’ve finally come to recognize is that this path that we’re on, this life journey that we chose this time around is about remembering who we truly are. It’s about getting back to that essence and living from that place - living withMeraki.This podcast is both a collection of Moments withMeraki - short reflections on living a soulful life just long enough for a trip to the grocery store or to pick up the kids - and longer episodes where I’ll be in dialogue with others who are also living withMeraki; with a connection to their soul, love and creativity. May you be inspired. May you recognize the refections that you find here. May you know the joy that is living from this place of remembering who you truly are.The musical theme for this podcast is written and performed by Wendy Colonna. This is a live version of her song “Shine”. You can find the studio version on her LP “We are One”.