All it needs is some TLC

About a year ago I burned myself on my neck with a curling iron rushing to get ready in a beautiful bathroom at The Wynn in Las Vegas. (No more rush!) It was nothing serious, fortunately, but it was in a visible spot and I was super hard on myself for hurting myself and making such a silly mistake, and I also was superficially concerned about it leaving a scar, and having to be a reminder that I’d look at every day of how careless I’d been. (Something, of course, I could choose to not add meaning to, but found incredibly hard to do in the moment[s] of emotion.)

My friend Divya, who happens to be a doctor and therapist (a psychiatrist, specifically) and therefore a great listener and the perfect person to soothe my concerns, happened to visit not long after. “Let me look,” she said. “No, it’ll be OK. All it needs is some TLC.” It was so sweet, and so simple, and she was so right. I took care to cover it, to apply nourishing creams, to protect it with SPF. These days it’s a barely visible, and when I notice it, it instead reminds me of my friend, her care, and that all things can heal with time, gentleness and love.

For Dr. Divy, with gratitude for the forever reminder of the power of TLC

Flexibility is strength

I love stretching. Love, love stretching. When I do it, I can feel myself getting taller, stronger, longer; the yin of recovery to the yang of lifting, or running hard. I feel everything connecting, the loop closing, and my body and self becoming more open.

I remember learning something in gym class at some point when I was younger about the different types of physical fitness, about the picture of composite strength, and learning that conditioning aspects like balance and flexibility are, also, strength. Not just displays of brute force. Huh, I thought. I liked that. I thought about it, and I internalized it in a great way. In stretching, I feel myself getting stronger.

I remember being younger and seeing a bridge sway, or some tall pole, maybe both, whatever it was, and my engineer father explaining that this had to happen, from a physics standpoint, for the structure to remain—not just strong, but remain there at all. How unexpected. It was the opposite of what I felt like should be happening, and it was what needed to be happening.

Flexibility in flow, flexibility in surrender, flexibility in bending to see a new perspective, in stretching out of a comfort zone, in reaching for change.

Flexibility is strength. I’m more flexible than I’ve ever been, in a lot of ways, and I’m proud of that. Because I stretch every day, in some way, and I’ve felt the change. I feel stronger than I’ve ever been.

Sierra's pace

Back when I was marathon training, I shared some runs long runs, medium runs and stops under the Venice sign with my friend Sierra, who I met through Venice Run Club. I loved her energy, grit, spirit and sweetness (still do!). She, as a seasoned competitor, helped me prepare for a lot of the not-just-running parts of race prep, like logistics with fueling (“You need to bring water on these long runs!”) and being with it, better with it, even when it felt hard. (“Just don’t think about it,” she said on that infamous 18-mile run day in 88 degree heat under the open sun. We cried in gratitude looking out at the ocean along Manhattan Beach, and also probably from delirium. We made it.)

One Wednesday a few weeks before the marathon, we set out on our weekly 4.5-mile group loop. Everyone was clicking their smart watches and Strava apps on to start, timing it all, calculating. I saw her start and called out, “What pace are you going today?” to see if we’d run together. She turned back and smiled, responding across a few rows of people. “Sierra’s pace!” she said, shrugging her shoulders and continuing to run. Which meant, whatever felt right that day, in that moment, for her. Sierra’s pace. We say it often now, as do others who heard her response that night and, like me, loved it. Sierra’s pace. Your pace. Whatever that is.

For Sierra, who runs, swims, bikes, rests, resets and lives her own way, at her own pace, through life.

Never turn your back on the waves

I started the day in the ocean. Fully submerged, a baptism of a new week, an appreciation for the nearby beach that I consider to be my front yard, and a cold, salty (in the best way) full-body refreshing reminder that I feel very lucky to live where I do and how I do, that this could be every day and any day for me.

When I plunged underwater the first time I had the gleeful feeling of being a teenager again, down at Belmar, the Jersey Shore, with high school friends, bobbing in the waves, diving directly into the biggest of them, and on those very-big-wave days, letting them throw us where they wanted to, wherever they would, when the next one came too soon. We always came up laughing, swimsuits twisted, always better, happier and more hopped up on life for having taken the ride.

The second time I went under I remembered my dad laughing, and telling me how, when I was younger and we were at the beach (I’d probably just learned how to swim), I told him I was going to teach him how to swim in the ocean. He grew up in Acapulco, Mexico, and spent more days than not in the ocean. It was, of course, actually him who taught me to swim in the ocean, and he always, always told me: “Never turn your back on the waves.” Face them, see them, be with them. Dive into them or ride them, but never turn your back on the waves.

The past week, week+, has felt more emotionally intense for me. Because of things that unexpectedly arose, as (expectedly) so often happens, and because it’s just sometimes like that, full of feeling. It was a reminder, an opportunity, to me to just be with it. To not try to change it, to not force into a direction or a feeling or a time constraint, but to surrender it to fully feel it and let it go, to let it wash over me. It was a reminder of how so much comes in waves, even when part of the same experience. I’m proud of myself for facing it, for facing the waves, and so appreciative for close relations like friends who, with heart-centered kindness, openness and invitation, were there, encouraged me to share, went deep with me and, also, let me be.

For my dad, who showed me how to be with the waves and play through life at all ages, and always with joy

Ask for what you want

I’ve been thinking about how it’s really such a gift to know what you want. For one to know what one wants, and in any moment, really. Because it doesn’t always come through clear, and sometimes it’s actually what other people want, or what we think other people want, or what we’re expected to want so we’ve accepted we want.

To know what we want takes introspection, reflection and connection to ourselves. And it also takes recognition and acknowledgment that it may come in an unexpected form. Like, knowing what we don’t want, or something we don’t want; that’s also knowing what want. Or, not knowing what we want about something big (something we really feel like we want to know what we want about) may take us on a path realizing many little wants that leads back eventually to knowing the big want, even if they seem unconnected. Like what we want for breakfast.

The best way to honor that gift of knowing what we want, I think, is to ask for it. Ask for it in its true form, too; not some version we think is going to be more palatable, or easier, or more “attainable.” Because we don’t actually know that the more (“)convenient(“) compromise we’re proposing is actually convenient or even desirable anyone at all, because we don’t really know what other people. And it’s definitely not for us, because it’s not what we actually want.

Asking for what we want takes courage, and that comes from the heart. The heart chakra, too, is conveniently connected to the throat chakra. A direct line to asking for what you want.

Posted on 8/8, the Lion’s Gate of 2022

Drop in

Drop in here, into your heart. To the place at the center of it all. The space connected to it all, connecting what is all, creating what is all. Be here. Let yourself be comfortable. Fill the space, feel the space, take it up. Breathe into it; breathe out of it. Be with it.

Drop in here, into your heart. Here, you can stay.

Everyone else's is theirs

Everyone else’s—advice, experience, energy, emotions—is theirs. And it’s just that. Theirs. And it doesn’t have to be yours. It doesn’t have to be yours to take on, to do, to become. Everybody is different. Every body is different. Reflect on your boundary; set your boundary; be in your boundary. Exhale, gaze outside, meditate, take your space, put down your phone. Boundaries are a concentration of power.

And! Everyone else’s—beauty, intelligence, success, magnetism and magnificence is also theirs. And it shouldn’t be yours. Because you have yours. And them having theirs doesn’t diminish or detract from yours, doesn’t make it any less. In fact, it makes it more special. It guides you to lean more into yourself; the ways you, specifically, as yourself, are blessed.

This doesn’t have to be yours, either. You can read it; you can be with it; you can leave it. You don’t have to take anything with you except what’s yours. And even that, you can leave, too.

Written on the day of the Leo New Moon from 34-year-old me to 14 -year-old me, and for all the years in between, and probably for moments to come, too. Because it’s taken time with myself and with wonderful, strong, supportive and celebratory friends, and reading things like Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World for Men* that have helped me to open my eyes and arms to all that is mine.

(*So many years of following food, fitness, medical advice just for and by men, like all of “biohacking,” for example, that did not serve me at all and actually hurt me at points and that’s OK, because we’re here now and stronger, more self-assured and understood now.)