Everyday Transcendence: A New Way To Define & Experience The Light (Or, Get Your Motherf*ckin' Spirit On)

Originally posted August 6, 2014

I'm starting to strip away some of the language so often associated with the spiritual path-walk. Much of what I see and hear and read about spirit is often mixed up with language that can sound both confusing and elitist; if you don't get the language, you might not get the principles, thus this might not be for you.

That's how I felt for years. Sometimes I still do.

Which is why I've decided to do something about it.

I'm starting to engage with the idea of Everyday Transcendence, which means this:

Many of us are having spiritual, holy moments all the time. They're all around us. They are us. It's the way we notice the sunlight on the river. Or how the smell of our spouse shifts time for one swift moment while we're hovering over the stove. It's putting the phone away to kiss a knee or pulling the phone out to take an everlasting image. It's listening to the rocks settle after a wave comes in or giving an all-the-way smile to the old woman happily dining alone at your favorite restaurant.

We often forget to honor these moments because they don't look how we think they're supposed to - they don't look spiritual enough.

That time you cried while looking at your kid for no reason other than Holy shit that's my kid and I've never seen anything more profoundly perfect. The day you were talking about that passion project you thought was a little bit out there and the person you were talking to flipped out about its awesomeness and your throat tightened and your eyes stung because Whoa, this person sees me and I think I might really be onto something. The first time I listened to "I Will Wait" and kept hitting the back button and kept turning the volume up and kept covering my goose bumps with more holy goose bumps and then started weeping because There is nothing more than this song and this feeling right now? That's what I'm fucking talking about. That's Everyday Transcendence.

These are holy moments. It's time we started honoring them.

Three things:

1). Our bodies hold our emotions. Example: last October, I realized some things about someone I love. They were really, really hard things. They'd finally been unmasked, and I was feeling the feelings of the real for the first time in my life. Like, really feeling. Not I'm-so-mad-and-hurt-and-I'M-SO-MAD. Not like that. More like, "Oh my God, help me...no, this can't be," and then sobs that soared and wails that trailed their way into my phone and out into my friend's ear, my sweet and dear friend who was helping me survive the moment. The feelings I felt took my breath away and replaced them with gasps for a solid hour. I couldn't believe I'd ever recover.

I thought I did, but a week later I was in the emergency room with pain in my ears, pain I'd never, ever experienced. Both ears, me writhing and nearly catatonic, in undeniable agony, begging the doctors to come and help me. I was finally diagnosed with a double inner ear infection, "strange for an adult," that resulted a week later in a mild case of Bell's Palsy and another trip to the ER. I realized immediately that the emotional pain I'd experienced the week before had needed more space to escape, and had chosen my ears as its route. For days I was in bed, unable to fully hear, largely alone with my thoughts and those dark, lingering feelings. I felt them. Sparks of knowing began to ignite.

We need release.

The body knows.

2). We can not get transcendent by thinking thinking thinking. This is not a cognitive process. It's a feeling process and the only way up is through; we need to go fully through the feeling process to get to the good stuff on the other side. This is where much of the modern spiritual culture starts to rub me in a way that feels slightly less delicious than I'd like; there's talk of embracing this and sending your energy toward that - the language is golden - without real and in-depth acknowledgement of the realities of our current - and sometimes gray - emotional landscape. Thus, we tend to read the inspired memes (and I'm a full on sucker for inspired memes, just look at my Facebook feed if you don't believe me) or books or essays and think, "Okay. I just need to think about focusing my energy. Think positively. Believe in good things." And yes, we do need to do those things. But we can't start there.

Because...

3). We must start with truth. And our truths are often, initially, less-than-golden. But the only way to achieve the inner landscape we want is to get really fucking real. Telling ourselves that we're just fine when we're decidedly and obviously not is a dead end road toward spiritual fulfillment. The only way to get on the path toward connected living - which I'll define here as living that connects our mind, body, and spirit - is to look at the shit, cry about how gross it is for as long as you need to cry about it, and then be still. Feel your body. Listen to what it's saying. Really listen. Is there action you need to take? Do you maybe need a nap after all those tears? Maybe the shitiness really feels over and you're ready to welcome the golden. Or maybe it feels like it's all just beginning. You will know what to do next when you listen. You will.

Intuitive knowing will reveal itself once we've gotten all the way down to the real, deep, gritty truth. It's a spiritual guarantee.

I used to think that I needed to have it all figured out to be allowed to talk about these things. I used to think that I needed a "way", a curriculum, a system I could fall back on as The Thing That Made Me Legitimate. I used to think that I needed to hide the process, that I needed to make this stuff look just so easy and natural if I was to be trusted. But the getting from here to there - sharing the routes with the most majestic scenery and the best pit stops - is something that's genuinely lacking on our current spiritual map.

And that's the void I'm here to fill.

There is no one way to get transcendent - there are so, so many ways. The way I experience spirit now looks different than it will when my kids are in high school. I'm at the very beginning and have so much to learn about the roots of my ways of being, my inner shadow, and the tools that help me achieve sustainable moments of spiritual opening. And I'm starting by beginning to notice, embrace, and shout about my moments of Everyday Transcendence.

I want to go somewhere together. I don't know where we'll end up, but I promise you this: it'll be raucous. It'll be true. It'll be clear and murky and shaky and sure.

I promise you: it'll be beautiful.

To us,
*E

When Shit Gets Loud, You Gotta Get Still.

Originally posted August 19, 2014

I have to tell you.

This is all looking very different than I thought it would.

Two years ago, I signed up for an online business school run by a powerhouse woman in NYC.  I knew I had a fire in my belly, something I needed to share with the world, and I was going to leverage this program into a self-made business that both fulfilled me and made me a serious earner for my family.

Flash forward to right this minute: my business exists and has garnered gorgeous clients and earned me enough to keep it going.  I often feel purposeful.  And I also know that I haven't "gotten there", to the fullest, most shining, golden, THIS IS THE THING manifestation of that fire in my belly.  Right now, as they are, The Dig Sessions lack clarity-of-purpose.  They're incredibly well-intentioned, and yet there is more for me.  I know this.  

I've been wanting to hear, "Here's the plan," followed by a color-coded, actionable list of items designed to seamlessly bring me straight into the manifested center of the business of my dreams.

That is what I've been wanting.

And then last week I went to a retreat up in the hills of upstate New York.  I learned how to listen to my soul's voice there through meditation.  And at first, I was annoyed and surprised by what I heard.

Because my soul wasn't giving me the angle or the catchphrase.  I wasn't hearing my title or visualizing a diagram of the Everyday-Transcendence-centered product I want to offer. 

Instead, my soul said, "Get still," and I said something like, "What the fuck did you just say?"  And again, clear and quiet and humming with sincerity my golden middle replied, "Get still."

I knew exactly what this meant; getting still is what I've needed to do for months now and is also the exact thing I've been neglecting to do because I have a business to recreate!  Yoga and meditation have felt like extras, things to add to the If I Have Time list.  Instead, I'm now quite certain that putting those two things at the top of my This Shit Is Non-Negotiable list is going to be the very act of surrender that provides all of the business clarity I've been stalking and hunting for so long.

When I first heard clearly - and believed with unwavering certainty - that getting still and going further in was the only thing I needed to focus on right now, I'll admit that I was scared.  I was even a little bit pissed.  It just didn't seem prudent to take my foot off the gas; striving for success and relatability and clarity has been in the front of my mind for so long.  I couldn't really imagine what it would look like to just quiet down for awhile.  

But a primary takeaway from my time in the hills was the integration (finally!) of something I already know: the only place I need to look for every answer I will ever need is right inside my belly.  I need only to ask my soul the questions and then dutifully heed the answers.  Every single thing that's supposed to come next, will.

That's just the way it works.

And so when school starts in a week and a half, instead of over-caffeinating and spinning in circles and false-starting and half-believing and listing and color-coding and just not being sure if this is the right way to go right now, I'm going to get still.  I'm going to get good and intimate with the voice of my soul, know its tones of voice, and learn as much as I can.  I might even take a few (color-coded) notes.  

And when I'm ready to know what's next - what precise and measured step to take - I will know.

With lit-up Love,
*E

When Grouchy Turns To Grace It's A Good, Good Thing.

Originally posted August 21, 2014

I woke up grouchy this morning.

It was gray here and I've been traveling a lot and I just really wanted to stay in bed until I was ready to get out.

I stole as much time as I could.  They let me.  They can be so generous, my kids.

Once I felt properly awake I called them up to me for our morning snuggle, something that's happened almost every summer morning, a naturally-born custom.  They have their favorite sides; they each prefer the arm where Their Tattoo is.  

So we were cuddling and I let them know that I was off.  "I'm not mad at you.  I'm just feeling a little bit grumpy this morning.  It'll help me out if you can just remember that and try and go easy on me, okay?  Thanks, guys."

It felt weird, my mood.  I've been in this good space of easy flow and I had a few moments of slight panic that giving in to the grouchy was inevitable.

And then, a Miracle: I remembered that it wasn't.

We can change what normal looks like.  We can change what it feels like, too.

Normal for me has become flowing.  Anything that feels stuck I'm learning how to unstick.  I have some tools now.*

And so this morning, when I felt myself giving over to the grouchy, when I was getting short with my kids and started feeling like a failure because I was still in my comfy clothes at 11:15, I remembered this: I choose how I feel.

I need to say it again because it's that important: I choose how I feel.  The perspective I bring to my situation is up to me.  

That's powerful, isn't it?  I mean, I spent so much of my life feeling like life was happening at me.  It feels revolutionary to consider that instead of life happening at us, our circumstances are largely defined simply by how we choose to perceive them.

And so instead of berating myself for my comfy, lazy morning, I decided it was just what I needed.  After a month of here-and-there, an aimless morning felt luxurious and smart.  And when we finally got out the door at close to 2:00 to do some food shopping, I felt like I'd won the day because I was buying nourishment for my family AND I'd gotten dressed.

It's all a victory if we decide it's so.

At bedtime tonight I couldn't stop snuggling my boy and kissing his still-barely-pudgy cheeks.  I apologized for my grouchiness and he replied, "You weren't grouchy today," and I about fell out of his bed.

Six months ago, today would have had significant potential to have spiraled into a heaping pile of yelling, guilt, and tension.  Instead, it turned into just another mostly-nice, mostly-non-descript day in our lives together.  

I'm making choices about how I want to feel for myself, yes, but the overarching wins belong to all of us. 

Lovin' on ya,
*E

* I'm working on a post now that details some of the things I'm doing to stay in my Zone of Flow.  I'm also talking about how I even got into this Zone.  I'm still a spiritual neophyte, but I'm feeling sure that I'm supposed to talk about my personal path-walk, and so imma do just that and hope that it's useful.

What To Do When You Get To "Fuck Everybody".

Originally posted April 18, 2014

Around 5:00 yesterday evening, my friend sent me a text that said, "I'll be in town around 6:30 or 7:00. I need you to meet me for a drink and a hug." I knew that this really meant, "I need to say fuck a lot and talk about how much the world annoys me," and I was so, so game.

So I made the kids sandwiches for dinner, and had my coat on when my husband got home.

We sat down, pored over menus as efficiently as possible, and ordered drinks.

"Cherry cosmo, please."

"Lemonade in a martini glass, please."

Then we turned toward each other and she said, "So here's the thing," all casual and chatty, "fuck everybody," and I had never been more in love with this friend of mine.

Because here's the other thing: I had forgotten how cleansing the purge is.

I spend a whole lot of my life these days walking the line between trying to keep it real and trying to manifest things like miracles through positive focus and love.

I write things directly onto the walls of my house to help me remember. What's not written onto the walls of my home is the reminder, "It's okay to say a whole bunch of seemingly negative things sometimes, just to get them out of your body."

My friend and I, we swore like truckers, used our hands as we raved, and didn't need to preface anything we said with, "I know this is irrational" or "Don't judge me" because fucking obviously.

We were soul purging last night, getting all of the shit that had been stagnating for months out and into the air so it wasn't sitting in our bellies anymore.

I had completely forgotten how necessary this is.

I believe so much in the power we have to manifest the life we want through our daily actions - if you want a life that feels good, do good. If you want your brain to feel good, think good.

But then what are we supposed to do with all of the things that do, in fact, confuse us, piss us off, make us angry? Because I think it's incredibly toxic to the soul to live a pretend life, and so I don't want to pretend "I'm great!" when, in fact, I've got months of tiny triggers that have built to bursting.

The solution? A soul cleanse.

"Do I annoy people?"

"Why can't I talk about my births as openly as I want, just because they were beautiful?"

"Why are people telling me my dreams are unattainable?"

"Another cocktail, please."

"Why didn't that guy say bye to us?"

"Why is this shit so hard, and who gives a damn, anyways?"

And on and on for hours until the end, when we looked at each other and breathed in deep, all the way down.

"I feel better," I said. "Like, after all of that, I'm back to the beginning of the circle - we only need to worry about ourselves, just like the rest of the world needs to only worry about themselves. What a relief."

Which is the whole point of a night like last night.

You call in the people and you get right to it. You say things you'd be mortified for anyone else to hear because they don't line up with who you think you are. And then at the end, by some kind of magic, you can clearly see that you're still who you think you are, only better now because there's less shit all over you.

We need our people for the gorgeous, inspired moments, and we also need them for the purge. It's all real and it's all worthy.

Find your tribe, people.

And then get real.

LOVE.
*E

Grief Is A Welcome Bitch.

Originally posted March 20, 2014

Last night, I begged my husband, again, to please just show me he loves me in this exact particular way.  

I've been asking for this exactly particular way of loving for a long time.

Last night, as we talked through tense bodies and tear-filled eyes, he started gently talking about the other ways he shows me.  Like last week, when I got home from work and found the living room lit up with candles, a chocolate cake warm from the oven, and a guy who just wanted to sit down with me and hang out in the candlelight and eat cake together.  Like a few months ago, when he wrote me a rap and performed it for me as a celebration of the still-new re-engagement ring we designed, as a celebration of us; I sobbed when he was done, it was so stunning.  Like every morning, when he makes sure the dishes are done so I have more time to write or work or simply not do dishes.

"I feel like you forget about all of that when this happens."

When he became silent, I stared ahead.

And the grief I thought was long tucked away tore my skin off and left me sitting there, open to the air.

Because I realized that when my father died, he took the way he loved me with him.

:::

My dad was a walking exclamation point.  He exploded with laughter, and punctuated his happiness with words like, "HEYOH!!!"  

He loved me like that, too.   

He told me constantly how proud he was of me.  He'd break out in song, singing "I love Emily, Emily Rita..." with not an ounce of self-consciousness.  He'd write me letters and fill the lines with "I love you!!!!" and, at the end, his big swishing heart with "Dad" laced through.

I didn't know until last night that that kind of love was like water to me.  I needed it and craved it and had it, whenever I wanted it, simply by making a phone call.

But the night his truck hit a tree going 20mph (how can you even die when you're only going 20mph?) the exclamation points got crushed, too.

Those almost-ten years that I've been asking my husband to love me just like that are the same almost-ten years that my dad's been dead.

Grief is a welcome bitch.  She's so cleansing and necessary, and ignoring her does nothing but perpetuate unsettled feelings.  But damn if it isn't scary to open the door to her again.

Blessed be the world that gave me that love for 24 years.  

And blessed be the world that gave me this man, who keeps on loving me just the way he does.

xo,
*E