Welcome to GirlfriendIt.com

I’m back from Maui, and spent yesterday planning for 2010 with my team. While that’s all fabulous and exciting, I also want to reflect on my vacation, and the state of mind I had which enabled ideas to flow freely, love to grow and compassion to deepen. In looking more carefully at this, I realized I had a certain routine while on vacation which enabled me to access deeper parts of myself; A routine in which I took care of myself.  Ahh — back to the concept of self care, – and an expansion of the Self-Care Bootcamp I began in the end of 2009. So, what did I do in Maui?

1. Daily exercise: Ok, here’s the truth.  I didn’t do one hour of killer cardio on the stairmaster, run 6 miles every day or lift weights 4 times per week.  I did 30 minutes on a stationary bike, while reading a novel or listening to empowering, motivating audio discs. Hardly hard core.  Sometimes, after 15 minutes, I transferred to the elliptical machine.  I never stayed more than 40 minutes in the gym.  Ever.  During my official 6-week Self Care Boot Camp I took the advice of a long-time friend who is a personal trainer which was this:  ”Less is More.”  I cut back on power yoga.  Cut back on lifting weights.  Started walking with a friend, stopped running stairs.  As a recovering exercise bulemic who didn’t used to consider the 60 minute spin classes I taught five times per week as my exercise for the day, I have come far.  Some days, I skipped the gym entirely. Other days, I went for a long walk with my dad.  And one day, I decided to explore a new part of the beach path and went for a run/walk.  I tried to surf, pushed past my fear of choppy waves and snorkeled with my kids.

2.  Daily quiet time to reflect: Part of the Dating With Dignity 10-Step Process to Manifesting Love includes developing a connection to the still, quiet voice inside.  I call it “spirit.”  Others call is a Higher Power, the Universe or God.  As part of my daily routine while on vacation I took time to listen to reflective audio tapes, read important passages that connected me to spirit, or just meditated for 5 minutes or so while laying on the beach, in a hammock or near the pool.  It doesn’t mean I  sat cross-legged uttering ommmms for 40 minutes.  While I don’t get to meditate in those environments at home, this reminded me that when I take time to reflect, I connect.  This practice grounds me.  It reminds me to let go of anger, practice forgiveness daily, be compassionate and focus on the abundance that I have in my life.

3.  Charged my batteries: Typically, during this particular trip to Maui each year, I am an avid reader.  As a person who belonged to book clubs for more than 10 years via an organization called Literary Affairs, I used to read fiction monthly.  I read books that touched on a variety of themes, including historical fiction, cultural conflict, and memoirs.  I enjoyed reading authors who were winners of the Pulitzer Prize.  I knew what books had won the Booker Award.  I was a reader.  In the last two years I gave up my love of reading fiction, focusing more on books related to my expertise.  I read nonfiction exclusively.  Yikes, I realized, as I sunk my teeth into a juicy novel written by one of my favorite award-winning authors, the sand squishing between my toes.  It felt so good.  It was like eating chocolate.  I read voraciously.  I went to the book store and remembered how I always loved the classics, and picked up Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte.  I woke up my damn brain to something more than business planning, love, dating advice and writing technique. This was a brand new level of self care.

What’s more, I had picked up some knitting I started ages ago and decided to bring it with me.  I hadn’t knit in years.   It too felt so good.  I remembered that knitting is meditative for me.  My brain empties with each stitch.  It’s rhythmic.  And, as my mom was a talented knitter, this time the act connected me to my mom.

Last, I spent time with connecting with people via shared experiences.  I laughed with old friends as we gathered on lounge chairs or patios, barbecued pork loins, chopped vegetables alongside a girlfriend, and dished about boyfriends past and the nuances of raising teenage daughters with other moms.  I luxuriated in down time, meandering.  Wondering.  I walked with my kids.  Let them stay up late.  Stopped watching TV.  Days with no plans or expectations.  Whoohoo!  Why,  I wondered, don’t I allow myself this kind of time at home?

I realized it’s time to take my notion of self-care to an entirely new level.  It’s my theme for 2010.  Self Care Gone Wild!  It doesn’t mean I resolve to lose 10 lbs, get manicures or treat myself to a massage now and again.  Nope.  It means finding time to do those things I love.  Meeting MY needs.  Creating down time.  Reading. Joining a book club again, in fact.  Reading another classic perhaps.  It means I will sit with my daughters knitting, taking time to finish the cashmere pink and brown scarf I started while we watch American Idol together.  It means I will go to the damn beach, which is just four miles away, and sit on the sand– even if it’s the middle of winter.  I will walk with a friend, listen to audio CDs while I sit on the stationery bike that has been gathering dust in my garage. I will not attempt to life weights, go to yoga and do the stairs — all in the same day.  I will take time to read with my kids in a coffee shop, on the patio or in the bookstore.  I will take time to connect to spirit, and make choices from this grounded, deeper place.  I will cease freneticism 24/7.  I will love more deeply.  I will take care of myself, my needs and my spirit.

Now, back to reality.

The truth is, this break up was horrible.  I could have saved myself pain, tears and months of agonizing heartbreak if I had lived in reality.  I could have moved on more quickly, creating space to meet someone new if only I had not waited to do the work I ultimately did to find self love, date with intention, and create a life I loved.  Fast forward 18 months later, and behold, I had become a dignity-dater looking to make a move forward.  As a result, I landed in a nice relationship with a man who lived outside of Los Angeles where I live.  We dated for three months.  He was an excellent communicator, passionate and we had the same spiritual sense of being.  Nevertheless, he was NOT a match.  While on a trip together, I realized that while I thought this man an incredible person, he would never be the person with whom I could partner.  That said, I had to have the “it’s not a match,” conversation.  I loved him.  He was sweet, and had been there for me when my mother was very sick, dying from cancer.  Nevertheless, we agreed that while love is necessary, it is NOT sufficient.  This, my friends, was a clean break.  I missed him terribly the first week.  After all, suddenly there was nobody to talk to while driving to work, not a soul who cared that I had gone to the grocery store to buy chicken and ended up with chocolate.  There was nobody to say goodnight to before my head hit the pillow.  And there was nobody who would stand beside me at my mother’s funeral.  Bottom line?  Yes, it was hard. It was uncomfortable.  And, quite frankly, it hurt.  But, I knew that if my patience and wounded heart could withstand the test of time, if I took comfort in my friends, hobbies and the incredible life I had created, I would not only survive but thrive.

So…. is there such as think as a clean break? Yes.  And no.  I value the break-up conversations.  I even value break-up sex.  The problem becomes when breaking up is so dramatic, poetic and perfect that it leads to nothing less than shear  fantasy.  It leads to what if’s?  What could have been?  And, if only.  The challenge becomes when breaking up leads to making up, breaking up again, and then once again, a dramatic reunion which results in fantastical sex and connection.  This, my friends, is one hell of an unfulfilling, no-win romantic rut.