#the humbly part applies to ourselves (mom

[hana-no-seiiki]

YOURE RICH?????????

In Philippine standards? very much. Internationally though I would be considered upper middle class.

Like my parents have enough money to live comfortably for several generations rich but we live pretty humbly. Mostly cause of religious purposes a lot of their earnings go to the less privileged family members of ours for education.

I try not to dig into their pockets too much though, hence why i wanted a scholarship in my coleg and am trying to gun for a full ride scholarship in ASMPH if not 75%

[terubakudan]

This may be an old article from 3 years ago, but these cultural aspects/observations still apply even today. And though this is strictly a Chinese perspective, a lot of these everyday life bits are observed in Overseas Chinese communities in countries such as The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. as well as countries heavily influenced by Chinese culture like Taiwan, Japan, and Korea.

I've always liked learning about other cultures and making comparisons between how things are done East vs West. Which probably stems from growing up with two cultures and Mom raising me on American movies xD

So the irony is if you asked me how many Chinese, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong actors I know, chances are I know as much as you do xD Like Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, and that's about it. But if you asked me about Western (specifically American and British) actors, then I have a useless brain dump of movie trivia and who was with who in what movie xD

Hmmm, both Taiwan and the Philippines are two distinct cultures but both look up to a certain country and are fascinated by that. In Taiwan's case, Japan and the US for the Philippines. In both cases, this is due to being under the rule of those countries in their history. Taiwan being under Japan for 50 years, and the Philippines being under Spain for 300+ years, followed by periods of American and Japanese rule. To put it simply though:

Taiwan is "mini-Japan with a very Chinese culture".

The Philippines is "former colony of Spain with lots of American influences".

But unlike the author, I've never set foot in any Western country, so my understandings are strictly what I've observed in media, which while it can be accurate, doesn't compare to actually experiencing the culture.

Some further elaboration on most points:

#1 We quite literally use chopsticks for everything. We use it to pick rice, viands, vegetables, fruit, smaller desserts, almost all the food you can think of.

But where do you put your chopsticks when you're not using them? Just put them on top of your bowl or flat on your plate. But do not ever stick them vertically. It's taboo, since it looks like incense sticks, which we use to pray for those who have passed, like our ancestors or during funerary services.

#3 The majority of Asia is obsessed with fair/white skin. In my time at the Philippines, I grew up watching all these Dove Whitening commercials and my classmates often commented on how fair my skin was, how they envied it etc. In Taiwan, girls often say they don't want to 變黑 (biàn hēi) 'become dark'. Japan and Korea too are not innocent of this either (if their beauty/skin products weren't a dead giveaway).

People here at Taiwan often mistake me for being from Hong Kong or Japan (as long as I don't speak Mandarin with my heavy accent xD). A Taiwanese classmate of mine joked that she often gets mistaken for being from Southeast Asia due to having a darker complexion. And while I laughed it off with her at that time, looking back, I now realize she was lowkey being racist. xD

And believe me Filipinas have mentioned literally being told 'your skin is so dark' here in Taiwan, or being given backhanded compliments like 'you're pretty despite having dark skin' and...*facepalms*

My point is, beauty is not exclusive to skin color. People who still think that are assholes.

#5 Not to say we don't have salt and pepper, but yes soy sauce and vinegar are the classic condiments you see on the table, be it at home or at a restaurant.

And if I may add, Taiwanese love their pepper. xD If you ever get to eat at a night market or a smaller "Mom n' Pop-style" restaurant here, some dishes/soups tend to add quite an excessive amount of pepper. Not like anthills, but quite liberally and way more than average. Enough that you see traces of pepper at the bottom of the food paper bag or swirling in your soup. xD

#6 I know this all too well from personal experience. In my years of studying at Taiwan, I always had roommates. 3 in my first school (I graduated high school in the Philippines pre K-12 so I had to make up 2 years of Senior High), followed by 2 in college, with the exception of 1 in freshman year.

My college did offer single person dorms but at around 9000 NTD ($324) per month compared to around 6000 NTD ($216) per semester. Because I wanted to save, the choice was obvious for me xD. But ah, this doesn't mean I don't value personal space, in fact I love having the room to myself, and since both my roomies would go home to their families every weekend, weekends were bliss for me xD

And you don't have to be friends with your roommates (that's an added bonus however), you just have to get along with them. I was quite lucky to have really great roommates all throughout my schooling years.

#9 In the Philippines, we do. Owing mostly to American influences and maybe being predominantly Catholic? xD

#10 *sigh* Chinese parents and parents from similar Asian cultures tend to put too much emphasis on grades, so much that kids could get sent to cram school as early as elementary. This is because what school you get into could literally affect your future job opportunities, and while that's not exclusive to any particular country/culture, I feel it's especially pronounced here in Asia. I'm really lucky my own parents weren't that strict about it. However, if your parents don't point the mistakes out to you, chances are you'll do it yourself, if you're an Asian kid like me anyway. xD It just becomes a habit.

#11 My family is an exception to this. xD We do say 'I love you' directly, but complete with the 'ah eat well ok?', 'don't scrimp on food', 'sleep well' and similar indirect words/actions of affection. We were doing 'Conceal, Don't Feel' before it became popular. xD

#13 I'm kind of confused about this but this has sort have changed over the years in which eye-contact is now more encouraged. But don't stare, especially at elders and authority figures. Sometimes it's just shyness though. xD And I've observed this with my own Taiwanese friend, especially when I'm complaining or ranting to her about something. xD I'm a person who likes to express my opinions strongly, which tends to scare/alienate some of the locals here, as doing so is kind of frowned upon. Thankfully, she does listen and offers her take on things.

#14 Ah this. xD In the Philippines, this is a common greeting known as beso-beso, and I freaked out too when an auntie did that to me. xD Needless to say, Mom lectured me later on what that was. ^^"

#16 Along with #3 another crazy beauty standard. In my view, people always look better with a little meat on them and when they're not horribly thin. Asia still has a loonng way to go with accepting different types of bodies if you ask me. This combined with modern beauty standards has made the pressure for women especially to 'look beautiful' higher than ever.

I know many people love them but please, starving yourself or glorifying eating disorders is never OK just to get this kind of 'ideal' body. I'm not part of the Kpop fandom, but even I think when idols get bullied just for gaining the least bit of weight among other insensitive comments, that's really going too far.

#17 'If you want to make friends, go eat.' <- I couldn't agree more. In the Philippines we have a greeting: 'Kumain ka na ba?' (Have you eaten?) . Similarly in Taiwan, we have 吃飯了沒? (chī fàn le méi), both of these can mean that in the literal sense but are often used as greetings instead. By then which invitation to having lunch/dinner together may or may not follow. Food really is a way for us to socialize and to catch up with what's going on in each other's lives. Not to say we don't have regular outings like going out to the mall, going shopping, etc. but eating together is a huge part of our culture, be it with family or friends.

And while I'm at it, some memes that are way too accurate good to pass up xD

Parents, uncles, aunties alike will fight over the bill xD

Alternatively:

You just space out until your name is called xD

My parents are guilty of the last one. Logic how? xD

#18 True. xD I like giving compliments out to people but I have a hard time accepting them myself, though I've learnt how to accept them much more now than before. We're kind of raised to constantly downplay ourselves so we often say things like 'ah no no' or 'I'm really not that good'. The downside of this of course is that it can come off as somewhat fake. xD

Again from personal experience, that same classmate who made the lowkey racist remark, she was good, she was on the debate team, was a honor student, knew how to mingle with people, but she downplayed herself way too much, while praising me but I honestly thought that she never really meant it from how she treated me. She wanted to keep me around her yet make backhanded compliments at me and she didn't want me socializing with my other classmate who is now my friend. *sigh* It was only after discussing this with one of my roomies did I realize how this 'excessive downplaying' might come off to people like me who more or less grew up with a more 'Westernized' mindset. I'm not saying brag about your achievements but don't be overly humble about them either, which can also be a turn off.

#20 We do tend to be a lot more realistic on how we view things, neither entirely optimistic nor pessimistic. We try to think of things practically and often analyze things on pure logic. A downside of this however, is that Chinese people can be overly practical. Taiwanese for instance don't like to 'find inconveniences' and generally keep to themselves, meaning, they won't help you in your hour of need even when they do have the capabilities. Sounds really harsh I know, but in my 6 years of living in Taiwan, while this doesn't apply to all the people, a lot of them really do only find/talk to you when they need something.

So for some people saying Taiwanese are 'friendly', that's BS xD If you ask me, Filipinos are infinitely more friendly, and again while not all, generally make more of an effort to help you when you need it. I really felt more of a real sense of community during my years growing up in the Philippines compared to Taiwan.

#21 Children do tend to stay with their parents well into college and adulthood, since Chinese families are indeed very family-oriented, in a lot of cases, grandparents often live under the same roof as us as well! And it really does save a lot of money. I see there's a real stigma in the US when it comes to "living with your parents", but that's starting to change especially because of Covid and having more and more people move back in with their parents.

Housing unfortunately is pretty much hella expensive no matter where you go, and Taiwan is no exception. Steep housing prices and the very high cost of raising a child (schooling + buxiban fees, etc.) contribute to a very low birth rate and thus an aging population like Japan. It's not uncommon to see both parents working in Taiwan.

#23 I'm an overthinker myself, but I totally agree with the author that the best is to strike a good balance between these two. Which I guess is why I love drawing or any other related creative attempts, it helps me be more spontaneous or well, creative! I like to remain intellectually or artistically inspired.

#24 Is French high school really like that? xD My friend did watch SKAM France and more or less got a culture shock from what was depicted on the show. I can confirm however that most high schools both in the Philippines and Taiwan require students to wear a uniform, only in college is everybody free to wear casual/civilian clothes.

#26 Ah this is part of our Asian gift-giving etiquette xD We always open gifts later after the event/meeting and in private. Never open them in front of the person who gave it to you or in front of others. This is to prevent any 'shame/embarrassment' that may result both to yourself and to the gift giver. I know this may come off as something weird since some people may want a more honest response or immediate feedback when it comes to gift-giving, but that's just how it is in our culture. You're always free to ask us though (in private) if we liked the gift or not ^^"

#28 I want to say the same goes to drinking, partying, and drugs however xD Those are things which are still frowned upon in our culture. And to be honest, whenever I see those in movies, it does kind of turn me off xD It doesn't mean that we're "uncool" or "boring", we just think that there are much better or healthier ways of "having fun".

#31 Is this true in France?! Man I would kind of prefer that instead of people being on their phones all the time xD This kind of goes with #20 in that Chinese are overly practical or logical, and don't read fiction as much as nonfiction. My Taiwanese friend is an exception though, she's a bibliophile who loves the feel of paper books compared to e-books, and it's a trait of her that I like a lot. Both the Philippines and Taiwan however have a huge fanbase when it comes to manga and anime though.

I'm all for reading outside of "designated reading" at schools especially. Reading fiction improves your vocabulary too, and can be quite fun! It helps you imagine and really invest in a world/story, and if you ask me something that I feel Westerners are better at, they're more in touch with their emotions and creativity, and are thus much more able to write compelling or original stories. Believe me, I've seen a fair amount of Chinese movies that rip off Western movie plotlines xD

#33 Nothing much to add on here..except that since I'm a "weird" person, Mom often jokes that she got the wrong baby from the hospital. xD

#35 True. While I agree with the care and concern that your fellow community can give you, the downside of this is we tend to only hang out with our own people, e.g Chinese with Chinese, Taiwanese with Taiwanese, etc. I've seen too that it's especially hard to make friends in Japan and Korea as a foreigner. Not only is there the language barrier, but the differences in culture too. In a way, Asians can be pretty close-minded on getting to know other cultures or actually making friends with people from other countries. I know this all too well being half-Taiwanese/half-Filipino, being neither "Filipino" enough nor "Taiwanese" enough. xD It's more of people here being too used to what they're comfortable with.

#36 Oh this is something I feel that Chinese students and other students from similar cultures should really improve on. xD How will people respect you if you don't speak your mind?

I felt bad especially for my Spanish teacher in college, granted it was an introductory course (Spanish I and II) but the amount of times that our teacher had to prompt a student to recite/speak even with clear hints already made her (and me too) extremely frustrated. The thing is, these are college students, I personally feel they don't have any reason to be so shy of speaking and technically by not doing so they're slowing the pace of the class too much and a lot of time is wasted.

Unfortunately you can't always be very vocal with your thoughts and opinions in most Asian cultures. I would say strive for that, but at the same time, play your cards well, especially if you're in a workplace setting.

If you made it to the end, thank you for reading and here's a cookie! 🍪 I'm not perfect and there's bound to be something I missed so please let me know if you spotted anything wrong. Feedback/questions are very much welcome and please feel free to share about your country/culture's differences or similarities!

[maiboo-e]

The big 3-0

There's always been a sort of stigma around turning 30, especially in our society, for obvious reasons. So many specific statuses are expected to be reached, whether marital, financial, or societal, in order to define one's success. "A life well lived". It's all about what you would've gained by that point, but what they don't tell you enough is how much you shed.

To begin with, I was never in a rush to grow up. Not in fear of growing old, per se. But I just never understood why anyone would want to rush the now which is already so fleeting. The happiness is felt now, the sadness is felt now, the living is happening now! Pace yourself, Mai, for someday you'll be clawing at the remnants of days refusing to last.

I'm more humble than to claim I've stumbled upon some great wisdom billions before me hadn't already reached. But I revisited my memories and discovered some nuggets from my experiences and revelations that I wish someone could have bestowed upon me on my rocky road to 30. So here’s a letter I want to send to myself in the past…

Finally leaving our 20s is a blessing! Yes, my body aches in places I never thought could, and the sun goes down and I can't think of something cozier than snuggling up on a couch with my cup of coffee and a good movie, and I miss the days I felt immortal and like the streets had a magic binding me from going home. Just like Cinderella, you feel as if the clock would tick 12 and the fairytale would wear off, right?

Our parents did try to warn us a lot about the turbulent 20s and we didn't necessarily think they were lying, but we assumed they came from a time completely irrelevant to our then-current reality. "They couldn't possibly understand", we said. The things I can confirm from their imparted wisdom are these two…

First, the best friends we'll most likely ever make are the ones we met in school or college. The bonds we’ll have created just by being these two clumsy earthlings in each other's lives trying to figure out what kind of persons we want to be is priceless. It means we’ll have been in some of our rawest and purest versions of ourselves together, before we decided to try out an emo phase or a partying phase, or whatever we thought we needed to do to fit in or find ourselves.

Second, we'll realize we wasted so much thought and effort trying to reinvent ourselves from year to year out of regular bouts of identity crises just to impress others or feel less like an alien. Honey, we're all aliens in our 20s. And it's true that everyone's too busy recalling that one stupid joke they wish they hadn't said earlier today to even focus on that famous song only we didn't know. We're all stuck in our internal trivial battles and we aren't even full human beings to have earned the spot to judge anyone, let alone ourselves.

Now on to some things I wish they had given us a head's up about…"Bad influence" friends aren't only those our mom warned us about in school, they exist everywhere, even well into our young adult years. We can so easily start to become like the handful of people we spend most of our time with, and that can either drown our potential or morph us into something we can't be proud of. And God forbid you aren't proud of yourself in your 20s! You don't need to be adding any more insecurities, really.

So I now know to keep people whose life values I share or at least can understand or respect. You gotta meet on the same grounds somehow because you'll now have little energy to give anyway.

Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant, keeps advising to retain only belongings that "spark joy". I've learned this applies to people too, even places and activities, but let's elaborate on the people part. Energy does deplete, and so does the capacity to trust, open up, and even love. We'll regret reaching the finish line of our 20s feeling too spent, wondering if we have anything left to give. Surprise – we weren't invincible after all! So prepare yourself to find out that friends will become few and far between. They may not grow in numbers, but if you've got your head screwed on right - AKA have put in efforts to better understand who you are and what you need - I can promise you that they will grow in quality. It will get lonelier when we start becoming selective of the kinds of people we keep around, but we'll feel there's a lot less "noise". And that calm will be a blessing at times we're too busy becoming more responsible and accountable for ourselves and our loved ones. To touch up further on the topic of invincibility, I cannot stress this enough: you're a feeble human being in your 20s. Stop pretending to be so strong, 'cause that one person (or two…or three) will come along, and do great damage to our foundation. It'll become increasingly harder to find a big enough treasure trunk in our mind to tuck and lock away that baggage, trust me. Okay, let's talk about some perks - where that "invincible" power you thought you had seems to truly come to fruition. Your power is you. You’ll realize you can dream things and work towards their realization, all on your own, believe it or not. Without mommy or daddy's help.

And this piece of advice needs to be stripped of any descriptions or superlatives: Patience. Patience. Patience. You heard me. And all those things we learned - time to unlearn them! Yep, we can learn all the wrong things too. Education isn't always positive. Finally, we'll experience this nearing 30, after spending some time with those born a decade or two after us, I guarantee you won't be able to knock off that endearing and grateful smile off our face at some point when you realize how far we’ve gone, how many lives it feels like we’ve lived, and how many stories we’re surprised we have, stories that can fill a trilogy of books. And guess what, we're only just getting started. -Mai E.

[persephones-progress]

What an okay ish start to this new year. I havnt given myself a full chance to celebrate all the hard work from last year. I knew to take off the semester and i would need to reground and sorta sit on everything I learned.

Ignore how Im typing this is broken English because its like 4am

So here I am. The past week was challenging, many childhood wounds came to surface again, to heal to talk about, to yell about. Im so grateful my mother gave me room to express myself and be supportive. I truly live in such a feminine environment with her now that my dad is gone. We miss him and its hard but were making the best of it and have worked hard to renovate the home and support ourselves. My girlfriends come over and we have peaceful meals and share laughter. I am so proud of myself regarding who I am with family and friends. Its been a lot and I know I will continue to make new friends as I continue my journey and I can only hope to me a creature of depth further, even in situations I feel so temporary in, its easy to be silent and sometimes that silence is needed but mostly I want to remind people how much they are worth something and are important. I hope my mom and I can renovate the backyard and bathroom tub as those are the last things on our list. I want to ensure we have a nice outdoor area to sit with flowers and shade and have a little slice of nature, a private garden sort of feel to escape being inside and espape our minds. I know we can build a garden that is stately and beautiful. Regarding bathroom that will be more money but is important, we deserve a better tub and tile area, the one now is that apartment plastic type. Everything else in the bathroom is new except the tub. I really strongly feel if we do these things this year it will be tieing all this hard work we’ve put in i in a nice silk ribbon of our care. Im sure I can hire people to do the work and my eye with design will be good. Sitting in the backyard this spring and enjoying the rain and seeing what flowers and large bushes can grow sounds absolutely perfect and then having a giant tub to take a long hot soak in, perfection! Luxury and humbleness combine!

Regarding school I need to take time to decide if drama school is even right for me. Im glad I auditioned for Juilliard it taught me a lot just that one morning. I have a good 5 plays bookmarked and in reading them I know I will have a better sense on if I am drawn to theatre. Most drama schools focus on theatre with side emphasis in film. Before I just pack up and go for two to four years I better damn we’ll decide if i like theatre enough to make that commitment! I was so caught up in climbing this rope and doing sorta what I thought would best that i forgot about instinct in a way. If I enjoy reading these plays to the degree that they spark not only visuals butt also emotion as well then maybe I will audition more and make that commitment. In this process I also want to narrow the drama schools im drawn to down to 5 or so, that way should I decide to pursue it in the coming years I will be able to jump in and apply to multiple places and audition around the same time for them. I really do think that being in school was good and I learned but i need time to take in all that i learned and pat myself on the back. I think in being a student I felt so young and insecure again in many ways. I forget that at school one does the work but at work one also learns. I need a bit of both but I really do feel a big part of me that is ready to jump in and learn at work as I go. I think my strength is auditioning and being a person who can make others want to work with them, i have a great atttidude. I know i have the voice for this work and the brain for it, my main note is to be in my body more and connect with emotion, so I think to work on those things I need some time away from class work. I was going to take tai chi and fencing but its already end of january and perhaps too late to sign up for class. I also didnt want a committed scedule to do till may. I feel some immediate travel on the horizon.

Besides the drama schools and plays i have bookmarked I have a lot of WWOF farm stays bookmarked and I need to research them throughly and pick a couple. I want to travel even if the times are uncertain with covid. I want to just do some farm work, some good old fashioned work with my hands, i think this will help me with my connection to my body and really really loving more the skin im in beyond its aesthetic beauty. I want to be in the sun, and eat fresh food, and make new connections with people, be in the countryside, by the ocean, among flowers. My heart needs and aches for these things and i think before I can work hard on sets, or work hard in drama school I need a solid vacation and a solid work vacation. I have a passport, i have travel bags, i have the clothing i would need etc, if a good friends comes with me great but if i have to go alone thats fine too. I should really do a least one of these stays this spring before the summer.

I would talk about love life but that isnt on my mind like it once was in my youth. Which is so refreshing. I still have attractions and am open but I think i am the most important thing in my life right now.

Shortlist of spring goals

Home:

-new bathtub/tile: a nice deep porcelain heated tub, with tile up the walls and a glass door

-start backyard: lay down tiles, do some planting of permanent flower bushes that can grow big, maybe do deck and pergola

School

-read plays: to decide if even like theatre

-narrow down drama schools

Work:

-stay open to booked jobs maybe still happening this summer

-apply for more roles

-update acting profile and keep practicing on body and emotion

Social Life:

-see friends as often as possible and really focus on having fun

Love Life:

-continue to stay open and proud of the intimacy I have invited in

[arcanalogue]

On Keeping Important Things To Yourself, Or: ‘The Revelation Will Not Be Instagrammed’

I had a really profound experience this past weekend, while staying out in the desert with friends. In fact, it was the kind I might even capitalize: a Profound Experience!

(Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you about it!)

Naturally though, I cataloged the entire thing, writing notes to myself so I wouldn’t forget a single detail. And before we’d even returned home, I was well into the “research” phase of the Profound Experience, tumbling down Wikipedia rabbit-holes in search of terminology, precedents, areas of overlap with others’ Profound Experiences, established traditions that might explain what had happened and (perhaps most importantly) tell me what to do about it. 

It’s an exhilarating feeling, that research phase, uncovering the vastly interconnected nature of our history, our cultures, our entire reality. You can’t just pull one thread, the whole fabric comes with it. Before the internet, this would have taken weeks. 

But even after a couple days of trying to pin this Experience down, I was getting tired and frustrated. I’d only spent a few minutes having the Experience in the first place, and now I’d gorged myself on all this additional context. It was began keeping me from being able to recall the Experience purely, as it had happened. Why was I doing this to myself??

Fortunately, in my groping I stumbled across this article about the Tao Te Ching, which commented:

"’The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things.’ The second line of Mitchell's translation opens up the nature of the dysfunction. We're accustomed to perceiving our world and all the objects in it by naming them. But what if we stop obsessively naming everything and instead just — pardon me while I slip in to full on hippy mode for a moment — rest in awareness?

What the Tao Te Ching does, time and time again, is attempt to show us how we might see things if we could spend more time in awareness, and less in naming. ‘Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.’"

To my tired brain, reading this felt like cool water splashed across a hot sidewalk, making it passable for tender bare feet. (I grew up in the desert, I’m not just a tourist!)

So I closed all of my Wikipedia tabs, and went for a walk outside in the afternoon sunshine. I wanted to see if I could feel the Experience, become illuminated by it once again, even faintly, and grasp its truth just as closely, just as palpably, simply by relaxing my focus instead of straining toward it. 

Not only was this successful, but walking with this glow unexpectedly reminded me of my ultimate purpose as a diviner. 

We find messages. We find meanings. That is the work of a diviner. We must always strive to embody that quality, whether we’re searching on behalf of ourselves or others. 

I find messages. I find meanings. Not everybody does, but I do, and always have. Powerful words and images make their way to me, as if by magic. Interpreting them is something that comes after; first you have to find them, recognize them. 

Messages don’t always come with a calling card or ingredients list attached. It’s not always clear who or what is speaking, or whether the face we see is a mask worn by something else. It probably is! Just assume it is. 

But we care about getting these things right, about being in harmony with all the forces out there which are greater than ourselves (which is nearly everything, kids). And the part of our mind that’s anchored to this world, this time and place, craves to know things and do things. Without something to know or to do, we can get very restless and grumpy indeed.

And have you noticed? There’s a tendency among mystical types to attempt speaking with authority, to draw oneself up to an impressive (yet still #humble) height and declare: “I am a practitioner of [insert tradition here], and/or a worshiper of [insert entity], who speaks to/through me.” There are certainly material benefits to behaving this way. Certainty confers trust, and trust leads to faith, and faith — whether in a belief or a person — is a lucrative business. 

This is why we spiritual and occult weirdos (especially white folks, most of whom weren’t born into a tradition that provides context for our Profound Experiences) end up relentlessly sniffing out the pedigree of our own gnosis, sort of like how Mormon moms go overboard with geneaology. 

The message itself ends up tucked away a drawer, almost secondary to the quest for unassailable authority in determining its authorship, which also ultimately determines its audience. But... and I ask this sincerely... who cares?

I’m not faulting this instinct of ours. How could it be otherwise? We’re a bunch of lonely, hallucinating apes who want to feel understood. Which is why I try not to look askance at others’ work, or weigh my methods or Experiences against theirs. What would be the point? 

I feel the same way about labels related to magical practice. There are times when we urgently feel the need to name ourselves, claim a title that we can then labor to live up to. But almost immediately we discover the limitations of these labels. I love thinking of myself as a witch... so many enticing connotations! Right up to the moment when someone else refers to me as a witch, and then I feel the seriousness and specificity of what I’m attempting is undermined, since “witch” and “witchcraft” can be applied to nearly anyone and anything. I’m more than this word, dammit. At times, I’m something else altogether. 

But the word itself isn’t the problem, the act of naming is. 

Consider this post is a message in a bottle to you, whomever may be reading. Just as there is power in naming things, there can be even greater power in NOT naming things. This is the meatiest kernel of truth contained in the Powers of the Sphinx, that old chestnut of Western occultism: “To Know, To Dare, To Will, and To Keep Silent.” 

Silence is a necessary component of reflection, and reflection is a necessary component of divination.

One of the things I’ve discovered along this journey is that the qualities that make a good diviner don’t necessarily lend themselves to crafting an exciting or successful web/social media presence. We end up performing what we know, polishing our thoughts and expressions into nice, glossy, digestible packages. That’s a useful skill to have! But it’s also a short leap from there to only valuing the kinds of experiences that lend themselves to being shared, slowly grooming oneself to only have the kinds of thoughts that can be expressed through these media.

It’s a mindfuck, dear reader.

I want would-be diviners to know that it’s possible to hear a call, and answer it, without ever putting pen to paper, without plugging words into a search engine. It’s written on your heart, where nothing is ever truly forgotten. You can honor this experience by sitting with it, or expressing it through your deeds, without ever having to explain or justify it to anyone. 

And a reminder: just as it’s valuable to inspire and draw inspiration from others, your own Profound Experiences mustn’t end up being constrained to whatever you can manage to broadcast to others in words or pixels. If you’re struggling with that, consider keeping it to yourself for a while so it can distill and speak to you more deeply. As Kahlil Gibran wrote:

“And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

The irony of blogging about this isn’t lost on me, so I’m doubling down and including some pics from last weekend. Did you know people are far more likely to engage with your content when they can see your face? 

😐

[nookishposts]

What do we say?

Last evening I was privy to a conversation among comfortable friends who agreed that as we have explored the years north of age 50, some things become easier. Like saying “No thanks” to an invitation without a sense of obligation, justification, or apology. I am paraphrasing one of those friends who said:” I only have so much energy and I am careful how I spend it.” She’s nailed it. We can still do most of what we have always done, but now we build in recovery time; not just physically but emotionally and even spiritually. Most of us in the age 55-60 range will admit that we feel we’ve earned the privilege of making choices with more self-interest than we once might have. There is a great strength and a knowing comfort in having acknowledged this age and stage of self-awareness, the newer self-appreciation that allows us to quietly disengage.

Saying no isn’t limited to social engagements either; it also applies to a lack of interest, favours that come with strings attached, and most bullshit in general.It doesn’t mean we become unkind, we still find patience with one another’s fanciful whims and will step up in support whenever we are genuinely needed. We listen to one another’s secret fears and nod knowingly in authentic solidarity without the need to “fix” anything. We laugh outright at one another’s nonsense in a way that only friends can...gentle admonishments served with a heapin’ helpin’ of “ I love you you big turkey!”

Saying “No” comfortably marks a kind of rite of passage. I wonder then if the same is true of saying “Yes” ? Our self-definitions and our needs naturally alter over time: “I am a parent”, “I am a daughter”, “I am a spouse”, “I am (insert any culture, hobby, profession or livelihood here)”: “I am this sum of many parts.” “I am a work in progress.”

We not only say “yes” to saying “No”, we also are saying yes to time for ourselves, both recovery and self-indulgence. We say yes to travelling places we haven’t been before because there was no room for that opportunity  while we were busy raising ourselves and others and all that entails. We say yes without guilt to asking for things for ourselves: “Honey I really need a couple of hours of downtime/a weekend away with the girls/ something to drive other than a Soccer Mom van. I’ll see you when I get back.” We need the people in our lives to acknowledge that we are still growing, still testing our limits, still curious and are finally taking time to play with all of that because we can.

My Beloved and I have undergone a journey over the last 18 months or so of figuring out what things that together or separately we are saying no and yes to. It has been in the hunt for a different kind of life, a quieter and simpler one, that we have discovered so much about what we don’t need anymore as well as those things that could be deal-breakers. We have said a resounding “yes” to purging our closets and our habits, sometimes because they are outworn and sometimes, to make room for new growth. A successful yard sale is one that means nothing you took out gets to come back in the house; if it doesn’t sell it gets donated, etc, which can feel like losing 200 pounds of ballast. We put half our stuff into storage in order to show and sell our home and we were amazed at how much lighter both we and the house itself felt. It was a bit unnerving at first to not have stacks of books on every shelf, momentos everywhere,  and a chair in every corner, but boy, did it bring a lot of light into our spaces, both literal and figurative. We each had the opportunity to go through “stuff” and decide what was truly worth keeping. It opened our attitudes a little wider in terms of where we might like to find ourselves next. We dearly love our families and community but do we really need to stay in the city in order to keep them? We love the work that we do, but do we really need to keep doing it full-time when there are other interests that tempt our attention ?

Leaving a job to devote my full energies to painting and clearing an entire house was both wonderful and not, because it took away part of my self-definition. In conversation people invariably ask: “and what do you do for a living?” Right now, I don’t. And that’s all kinds of weird. I write in my spare time, but I don’t make a living at it so I can’t really call myself a Writer. My massage table is packed away into storage with most of our belongings because we thought we would have a new destination secured by now, so I am not a practitioner either. My Beloved is happy to have me doing all the background stuff while she luckily earns enough to keep us both, benefits and all. But right now we aren’t at “home” in the traditional sense. We define ourselves and our choices often by the company we keep, the employment we have and the place we live. When one or more of those key things become ambiguous, it presents a quandary about exactly what and even when to say yes or no. We have found ourselves fine-tuning the definition of what “home” means exactly.

Over 11 years we’ve talked about living much more simply and harmoniously with the land around us; producing most of what we consume, using the energies of our minds and bodies, hopefully staying healthy and independent within our means for as long as possible. 10 years ago, we were all prepared to reclaim a brown-space and build ourselves a green-run straw-bale cottage. We took courses, helped heave and plaster bales on other people’s builds and constantly modified our designs. As we got older, we looked into adaptive technologies; maybe taking an old building and greening it to be more efficient and sustainable; lower cost, less waste. We compared design/build features, studied geographic land values and took a hard look at our resources weighed against our respective ages and abilities. In the past 18 months we have looked seriously at several different options along the spectrum and missed out on several of them because they were contingent on the sale of our own little city house. But really, they haven’t turned out to be losses so much as lessons. Each place offered a different set of possibilities, and we know that between us, we can make almost anything work as long as the structural bones are good and the soil is clean. We’ve said “Yes”  several different times. But the Universe seems to say “No, not yet”, even though each successive option brought us closer to our ideals.Once our city house finally sold, we quickly said “yes”, and changed it to a “no”; it the first place that came along  and we were impatient to move on. We certainly could have made it work, but there were hidden costs we decided we could not say yes to without sacrificing  part of what we’d learned we truly need. Most recently, we found a property we thought ticked the greatest number of boxes yet on our yes/no list, but one more time, it was not meant to be. Someone else got there first. We’ve come so close, a couple of times, only to find ourselves back again, still searching. There have been moments when it all feels quite personal though we know that it’s not. We know the pieces are bound to come together but the patience is hard.

At ages 58 and 53, we are blessed to have the luxury of saying yes or no. We are technically without a home though we have been made very welcome and comfortable at a friend’s house for as long as we need one. We have politely said “no” to people who’ve suggested we are crazy and should just let go of the dream. We have said “yes” to every creative idea presented to us, no matter how outlandish or daunting they might sound, because we have many loved ones who genuinely want to see us have a crack at making magic, and who very much want to come along for the ride. We’ve never felt like we were doing any of this in isolation. Our cheerleaders are just getting louder. The most resounding “yes” always comes from our own contemporaries who are also giving themselves permission to stretch and learn and say “yes” to their own dreams.

And while we continue our search, there are so many things to always say “yes” to: the company of old friends, the laughter of “I knew you when” and the communal dissecting of ourselves as 50-somethings who know damned well we are a long way from done. To the decent wines, and using the good china, to the shredding of old hurts and the letting go of mouldy baggage sitting too long in the back of the cupboard. We finally have the courage to bring the shadowy bits into the light and watch them dissolve as so much night mist, because that’s how unsubstantial they have become. We give away things we once treasured to someone we know will discover new joy in them. We make space to expand our perspective as we fine-tune our focus. We adjust our sails, knowing that the wind will change again anyway.

There is such beauty and such hope in the luscious and judicious use of the words “yes” and “no”. Say yes to tears of loss and longing, then dry them with another “yes” of new people and experiences. Say “no” to the obligation of events you don’t want to attend and “yes” to the ones you’ve always been curious about. Contradict yourself now and then, it certainly is humbling to get caught in your own clumsiness and have to regain your footing. “Oops” , and “oh well” also come in handy. We all fall. We get up, usually with a little help , and we just get on with it. Yes, yes we do.

[dailyaudiobible]

08/15/2018 DAB Transcript

Nehemiah 9:22-10:39 , 1 Corinthians 9:19-10:13 , Psalms 34:1-10 , Proverbs 21:13

Today is the 15th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. And it's great to be here with you as we move through the center of our week, the heart of our week. And so here in the middle of everything, let's pour God's word into the center of our lives. We're reading from the Good News Translation this week. Nehemiah 9:22-10:39 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in 1 Corinthians, Paul continued to share his posture of ministry. And yesterday he spoke of the honorable right of those who had devoted themselves to ministry to be able to care for their needs and support their families from that work, even though he didn't exercise that right. And today Paul discussed the fact that he was a free man but had found it meaningful to look at himself as a slave to all people. And in looking at the world through those eyes, Paul could reverence everyone no matter who they were. And then he encouraged us to consider this posture in our own lives. By understanding that it can be done, but it takes the same kind of self-discipline that an athlete must commit to in order to win. And one of those disciples is the vigilance required to observe the ways our hearts can be seduced or tempted. Paul said, If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life aren't any different from what others experience. And God is faithful. And he will not allow you to be tempted more than you can stand. So, this example that Paul gave the Corinthians is one that we can all put to good use. We can lower ourselves. We can humble ourselves so that we might find common ground with whoever we're talking to. We can understand that this posture is a discipline. It's something that we learn a skill, a strength that we commit to. And we can learn from the past and choose not to repeat it. And we can be vigilant about things that would pull our hearts off course. These characteristics, if we want to call them that, these traits or behaviors, are all things that we would be able to say we can see them in Jesus. And, so, if we are in the pursuit of becoming Christ-like, than we must follow in the footsteps of the Savior.

Prayer:

Father, we commit to that. Self-discipline, it can be a very, very challenging thing. We can find ourselves seduced into all kinds of things, whether that be the candy bar we shouldn't pick up at the gas station or things of much more significance. And this imagery of training like an athlete is imagery we can all understand today and has been able to be understood for thousands of years. This kind of vigilance and discipline and pursuit of the goal, of the prize. We understand that, we just don't often apply it to our spiritual lives. So, often we're leaning on grace, like we don't have to really do any work because we can just lean on grace. And yet that's not what Paul is instructing us to do. He's instructing us to become strong and disciplined people, mature men and women of the kingdom of God, wielding the authority of the kingdom of God on this planet, which takes skill and discipline that we have to grow into. So, we see this and see the converse, the alternative that we don't do this. And that we become weak and flabby and are tossed to and from by every wind of doctrine. And this life of faith never makes any sense because we never ever got any further than being an infant. Come, Holy Spirit. We wanna grow up. We wanna be effective men and women for Your kingdom on this earth, conduits that You can channel Your love through toward anyone, anywhere, anytime. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi family. This is Jeff Bernhardt calling from Canada. Just wanted to reach out and put a prayer request up there. I am in ministry and I’m also in business and at a real change of season in my life. A lot of things are shifting and moving and just really need clarity for where God wants me to go and the decisions He wants me to make. And I don’t typically reach out for prayer but I’ll tell you, when you pray with people you become more connected. I do feel more connected to this community. So, I’m just gonna throw it out there and ask you to pray for me and this situation, that God will give me wisdom and clarity and that the enemy wouldn’t be able to bring confusion or any type of fear at all. I’m really looking to step out in faith into this next season and just want to do what God’s calling me to do. And wanted to let you guys know that I am hearing your requests and I am praying for you, pretty much on a daily basis. Brian, love what you guys do and excited to be a part of this community. Anyway, have a very great week and wishing all the best for you all. Be blessed.

Hello DAB brothers and sisters. This is Rob Still, worship dude in Nashville Tennessee. It is Sunday morning, August 12th as I’m driving on my way to lead worship at church and I just wanted to implore you guys to remember your pastors and the people who serve on your church and read to remember to pray for them. They are men and women who have committed their lives to serving the body of Christ however flawed they may be. And they truly need the prayers and intercessions of their brothers and sisters. So, thank you for all of you guys who stay on the podcast and listen to the prayer requests. I listen to them. I don’t call a whole lot but thank you for all pray. Thank you for all who call in. Now for me, specifically, I am in a difficult situation this week and I really pray that you guys would just intercede, that the will of God would be done. May His kingdom come. Okay, that’s it for now. So, may the Lord richly bless you. Thank you for praying.

Hi DABbers. This is hopeful. I just want to thank you so much for all of your prayers for us to be able to get pregnant. I can’t tell you how much that has meant to me and I don’t know why it’s so hard for some of us to call but it is. It’s just hard for me. I want to also say that I’ve been praying for all of you every day I listen to this. Every single morning I walk my dog and I just lift each and every one of you up in prayer. And I just love you guys and I thank you for this. Brian and Jill, thank you for this amazing community. I wanted to continue to ask for prayer, of course, for us to be able to get pregnant. There’s a lot I haven’t shared and I want to also be able to say that I do have…I don’t know if it’s called a praise report, because I had a tumor at one point that was benign on my ovaries. And I’ve never looked at that as a blessing but I’m coming to realize the doctors had told me either I would wake up with one ovary and fallopian tube missing or I would wake up with having had a full hysterectomy and having to start chemotherapy. And I was going through a lot of that time. And it’s possible, it’s possible for me to be pregnant. It’s going to be incredibly difficult with my age and I had other health problems as well. And, so, I wanted to say, I want to be able to thank the Lord that I didn’t have a full hysterectomy, that there is a small possibility. And I also want to tell the gentleman from Australia, I think you called in, and you guys are having the same journey as we are. And it just touched my heart and where all in this together and I want to lift you up as well. And I’m praying for you all and I hope that the next time we call in that we can talk about us being pregnant. Love you guys.

This is Kacy from Oklahoma and I’m calling to ask for prayer for my dad. This is Sunday, the 12th of August and my dad goes in for facial reconstruction on Tuesday from skin melanoma and he is gonna have a rough time. And, so, I want to pray for him and I want to pray for my mom because she’s gonna be taking care of him a lot after __ the next week or so. And, so, I just want to pray for them. Lord, I just pray for my family, that we can get through this and, yeah, that’s what I’m calling for. So, I want to say a big thank you to Brian and Jill for making this community what it is and for bringing it out each and every day because it’s an awesome community. And, yeah, that is what I’m gonna…I’m gonna call in with an update after surgery. And, yeah, I’ll let you guys know what’s going on. And again, this is Kacy from Oklahoma. My dad’s name is Paul. So, keep him in your prayers and I will call back. Bye.

[dear-jesus-memoirs-blog]

Good things for me

Wednesday June 6, 2018

Dear Jesus,

I know you have big things planned for me. You keep saying that you’ll establish me and my family, that you will make a legacy through me. That you will elevate my family through me. I’m just a vessel. Here I am Lord, SEND ME.

I’ve been struggling this week trying to make time for your word. I still pray to you fervently, but the time I’m spending in your word this week, is slipping. I’m still even catching up on my weekly sermons. Brenton’s off school now and my schedule is changing. I asked, Lord, please help me make time for your word, and you immediately answered ‘wake up earlier’. I groaned in my spirit at the thought but made quick to thank you in my heart and appreciate your attentiveness. How blessed I am that my god looks on me so closely that he answers my prayers immediately. How many years did I go praying and listening and not being receptive enough to hear? Or praying and being so far separated from your will that I couldn’t receive your words? How long was my head shrouded in darkness that I couldn’t identify you in a room full of nothing but you! A year and a half now I’ve been praying deep in my core for your sovereignty in me, to become whatever it is you planned and not for my whimsies to get in the way. You tell me to pray for something specific I pray. You tell me to fast, I fast. If you tell me to jump, spin circles, touch my nose, Yes Jesus, I obey! Now you say there are big things coming for me. I'm dreaming big and you tell me to dream BIGGER. I don’t even speak it to anyone else because I know the doubt that’ll follow and this battle is flinging enough arrows. I’m walking on faith like eggshells. Knowing I believe in your promises and doing my best to ignore my own short comings. My big dreams already seemed unattainable, but now I’m believing for things that aren’t possible without Yahweh. Aren’t possible without your saving grace and your Holy Spirit inside me. I’m giddy! My help comes from the Lord. My hope is in you, because my god is not a man that he should lie. So when you say big things are coming, I know it’s true! You are beautiful. I love you.

I asked myself why should you focus on a housewife and stay at home mom. And I heard gently in my spirit that you came to save the jews AND the gentiles. The men AND the women. The mighty and the small. I am humbled to think, what can I do? But we can do all things through you, and it’s not about what we’re doing at all. We’re just marching on to where you send us, because the war has already been won. I obey you.

I have this sense that you'll prepare a table for me before my enemies. The big things that you have for me are probably even part of the table you’re preparing. I ask, please use it as a confirmation to the glory of Yahweh, to your existence and faithfulness. I pray it be gentle and not boastful, that it sows seeds and waters ground to better your harvest. I pray that these enemies aren’t really enemies at all, but people who mistakenly stood on the wrong side. Where you go, miracles and wonders ensue. Let it be, Lord! I pray Jesus, that at the sight of my table, others realize they can have a table, too. Hallelujah! Glory to my god who rewards the righteous and makes straight our paths! My god my god MY GOD, how blessed I am. How blessed. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to my god.

I’m thankful, Jesus. Tonight starts the Sabbath. I LOVE the Sabbath. I know it’s part of Yahweh and part of creation. I feel a part of something when I honor it, and I feel closer to our Father. Setting aside a whole day every week definitely took some getting used to, but after doing it for a couple of months I realized how brilliant Yahweh is. Now a year later and even the thought of breaking your Sabbath turns my stomach and breaks my heart. Honoring it honors Yahweh. But it goes so much deeper. The connection to the Holy Spirit is so much stronger on the Sabbath. How many complex replies have you given me on the Sabbath? How many times have you prompted me to fast on the Sabbath? How many times have you ended my fast on a Sabbath? The heart strings are stronger on this day, and I’m so thankful you called me to remember this day, as the command says “remember the Sabbath”. I guess you knew we’d forget, and make justifications and apply logic so we wouldn’t have to remember. It doesn’t fit into our schedules, Jesus. It doesn’t fit into the rat race of working every day of the week, every moment busy. But Yahweh knows we need to rest. That this constant business is a tool of satan to keep us distracted, tired, and disconnected from you, so it becomes easy to justify that we don’t have time for your Word, or to give kind words to others. No time to make real relationships with less than perfect people, so we can stay on our high horses, further condemning ourselves. But the Sabbath keeps us grounded and renewed. It keeps us centered in your Word, in prayer and in worship. What a beautiful thing it is to worship. Your presence is WITHIN our worship. Where we worship, the enemy cannot be. Where the Lord resides is holy and the enemy cannot walk on holy ground. What a brilliant and beautiful thing! I’ll honor your Sabbath and love every minute of it.

Will you please tell me exactly why I have to stay away from caffeine? Is it just because it’s an addiction (idol) or does it have something to do with being of a sober mind? It seems like anything brain altering should be avoided. I don’t think you told me to give it up, but I had this strong conviction in my spirit that the need for caffeine was separating us. And my ability to receive you has increased exponentially since giving it up. Not to say I don’t ever have a soda, but I don’t ‘need’ it, now. On the occasion when I drink caffeine, I can still sense you, so it must be the fact that I was addicted to caffeine and not just that it was altering my brain chemistry when I drank it. It seems like everyone should know the stumbling blocks we have set before us, but it’s all trial and error.

I heard you tell me that not everyone can elevate with me when it happens. That I have to leave some people behind because they are not marked for elevation, and that they don’t choose you. They choose opportunity. Opportunity is just another word for choosing advancement in the world instead of the will of Yahweh, isn’t it? They’re stuck in holding patterns, like I was. I’ll do as you say. I pray that you keep them well and healthy and whole. I pray that you continue to give me discernment to know who can be trusted to be near my blessings, and who can’t. I pray that you break off of me what can’t withstand the fire, and make new your will inside me. I pray that you help me to give love and mercy and kindness to others at even a fraction that you’ve given it to me. I know the talents you give to your servants aren't to be squandered or hidden away, but to be multiplied and returned to the Father in bounty. I pray, Jesus, please help me to succeed in multiplying what the Father has given me through your grace. Help me to give it away. Yahweh said that’s why he’s establishing me in the kingdom. Let me succeed, Jesus. Let me succeed by the will of Yahweh, and your Word in me.

You’re preparing another table as we speak. It’s not a table specifically for me. It’s a table of a great feast where many are invited, but refuse to come, and later the feast is extended to the peons. You’re setting the table now, but the responses are slim. You told me to call to the peons and the strangers and unknowing sinners. I don’t think the invitees realize they’ve been invited or even that they've declined. I know they should know, but they really don’t know, Jesus. How can they be held accountable for this? There’s no real talk of it in the churches and your Word is being watered down as time goes on. Christians who’ve never read the bible are leading other Christians. I pray for your sovereignty in all those who think they’re yours. Open them up and make them know you, so they can be receptive enough to see the invite and prepare accordingly! Who am I supposed to inform? None of us know when you’re coming, but I know you are. I think more and more of your people are waking up to it every day that you're coming soon. It's easy to get an invite. Be a christian, walk the path, accept the invitation. You know, in some ways it’s difficult being a Christian, but receiving your forgiveness is easy, enough. When I needed you, I simply cried out to you, and I felt the moment you saved me. I knew it in my heart and said it with my mouth, and I’ve been saved ever since. I didn't know it then but your Word even says to do this (The book of Romans, chapter 10:9-10) . What we’re not told though is that we need constant repentance, time in the Word, and time in prayer to realize the will of the father and follow. All of this is in the Bible but when you’re new to it all, it’s a lot to take in. Who can read it all overnight? There's a difference between believers and followers. We’re not told that, either. How can we receive full time benefits on part time faith? I guess what I’m saying is I pray for mercy on those who haven’t responded to the invitation, and please lead me to the people of the highways and byways who you decide to bring to your table. What more can I say? I’ve poured you out and I thank you for your constant renewal. Thanks for staying with me and for fueling my every breath. Thank you Jesus, I love you.

[corvvii]

pieces (2/2)

wc: 2623 (of 4060, part one here)

“but the pieces won't pick up themselves, you know”

Where to begin. What to even say?

Needless to say, Leonnaux hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Luxont’s home was humble enough, nestled into a quiet corner of Gridania. It reminded him a little of their childhood home: a small cottage backed up against the face of a cliff so that rooms could be carved, partially, into the stone itself. While there were no cliff faces to provide Luxont’s home with extra square footage, though, the floorplan was similar: the round, circular dwelling had two stories, the top slightly smaller and set backwards from the front of the house. There was a wooden deck out front and wooden steps leading up to it, since both it and the house itself were set up on stilts to allow for crawlspace and ensure that when the rains came, the ground floor wouldn’t be flooded.

The interior was similar, too, Luxont having apparently taken some of the furnishings of their mother’s home with him when he moved out. Leonnaux could hazily recall the source of most of the scratches and gashes carved into the surface of the wooden dining table. The memories trickled back as he traced his fingertips over them in lieu of much else to occupy his hands with. He found himself lost in them as he let his gaze follow them, one into the next.

The night he left—the night he caught Luxont burning his notes. His work. His purpose. He’d just returned home from the market and had bought some ingredients for their mother to cook dinner with, including some cooking wine. He couldn’t remember the exact occasion. Not a birthday; both his and Luxont’s birthdays were during the summer. Not an anniversary; his mother had never properly married his father and he’d been missing for over a decade by that point besides. The glass shattered easily on impact. And when Luxont restrained Leonnaux in defense, the glass had just as easily dug into his flesh and drawn bright red blood to the surface. Most of the minor cuts healed, but one, deepened as Luxont pulled Leonnaux (writhing, screaming) away from the scene, left a scar.

He brought his hand up, off of the lingering mark in the table to trace the scar on his forehead. It had faded over time, and he tended to keep his bangs styled over it, but it was still very much there. Part of him found comfort in it, regarded it as a symbol that he’d finally come into his own as a person. The other hated it, hated the way it felt under his fingers when he touched it, hated the way he could feel its outline whenever he scowled or furrowed his brow because of the way it had healed. Hated how it symbolized everything he left behind to get where he was today.

“Here.”

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Luxont set a cup of tea in front of him. Leonnaux brought the cup up to his face to smell it first. He couldn’t quite place it, but it felt familiar… He held the cup there for a few moments before he looked back up at Luxont.

“They stopped making that blend we used to buy a few years ago, so—this is my attempt at recreating it. I couldn’t find some of the spices, but—hopefully it’s similar enough.” Luxont laughs a bit and takes a seat next to Leonnaux with a cup of his own. “At the very least, Sven seems to have taken a liking to it.”

Leonnaux dropped his gaze to the cup itself. He usually drank either black or mulled tea, but this was something else entirely, likely a blend of flowers, herbs, and spices native to the Black Shroud. He brought the cup to his lips and took a sip. The flavor was subtle, sweet—though not sweet in the same way that his tea was after he added several spoonfuls of sugar. It was…

Nice.

He let out a sigh and lowered the cup. “I appreciate it, really. You didn’t have to; I would have been fine waiting until dinner was ready.”

“I always have a cup of tea or two while dinner’s cooking, so it’s no trouble, really. Besides, it’s… Been too long.”

Too long. “It has,” Leonnaux agreed, “So, uh… You’ve made something for yourself here.”

“I guess you could say that. It’s nothing special, but it’s nice to have a life of my own; after you left, uh, Mom kind of turned on me. She blamed me for driving you away even though it was all—her—idea…” Luxont trailed off as Leonnaux’s expression darkened. Memories neither of them really wanted to recall. “… I guess I should start by saying I’m sorry.”

Leonnaux met Luxont’s eyes.

“No words will make what I was complicit in okay, but I just—want you to know that I do regret what I did. Looking back, I can see how important it all was to you and all I ever did was try and take that away.”

He dropped his gaze again, setting the teacup on the table and twisting his hands back into his scarf. “You’re right. Nothing you can say will make it okay.”

“Leonnaux…”

He raised a hand to cut him off. “I’m not very good at forgiveness; my life—my work—doesn’t demand that of me. There’s no room for it. The only recourse is to do better next time.” He paused. “… I’m not sure if I want to give you a next time yet, but I—I didn’t have my friend look into you for no reason.”

“You had—”

“I just wanted to get an idea of what I was getting into before I came.” Cutting Luxont off again, much to the older’s dismay; Luxont’s shoulders fell as he breathed out a sigh. “We didn’t leave off on the best of terms, and I wanted to be sure you weren’t the sort who would loose and arrow sooner than hear your little brother out.”

“You were worried about that? You thought I’d shoot you?”

“I would.”

“You would?”

“I’d shoot you. Moons ago, I recounted to my friend how I’d love to put an arrow through your heart.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. I’m just stating the facts.” Leonnaux shrugged.

“I’m not sure I like them.”

“You don’t have to.” He released his scarf and took a breath. “These days, I don’t like them much either. I find myself thinking, sometimes. Of how things were before the Calamity.”

“Oh.” A pause and he looks away. “So do I.”

“Truly?”

“Aye. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss it: getting to see my smiley kid-brother laugh and chuck stones into the pond because he couldn’t figure out how to skip them properly.” Luxont laughs, then. “Or getting to hear you spin grandiose ideas of what we’d do in the future once we were old enough to fend for ourselves. Go on a grand tour of Eorzea, remember, maybe as minstrels or maybe just as vagabonds.”

“What about your quiet kid-brother who had his nose stuck in books?” Leonnaux forced himself to keep his voice even and his expression neutral.

“Oh… He was good then, too. I didn’t really get what he was reading or why it was important, but he pursued it with such passion that the excitement when he hit milestones was contagious. Like when he managed to cast his first spell.” Luxont’s wistful expression melted. He met Leonnaux’s gaze and continued, “Mom was pissed you broke that vase, but it was so—exciting, seeing you weave magic for the first time. I knew Dad had the talent for it, and apparently Mom wasn’t too bad either way back before she had us, but those—ideas—always just went over my head.”

Leonnaux wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it sure hadn’t been that. He felt the air leave his lungs.

The bells passed and their conversation continued: Leonnaux inquired mostly into Luxont’s life, while similar inquiries on his brother’s part were mostly dodged. How could he tell his brother, part of the Gods’ Quiver, about the path that he’d chosen? Leonnaux knew full well that he wasn’t a good person, condoning whatever was convenient in order for him to reach his ends. He had very few lines that he would not cross, and to that end he lied, stole, and cheated. He bought and sold secrets and rumors from the darkest corners of Ul’dah. He mandated that people be held captive without a judge, a jury, or even necessarily crimes to answer for. He considered himself close with not one but two practitioners of the Black: one his lover and the other his best friend.

He couldn’t speak on any of it. Not if he wanted to preserve that look of admiration. Not if he wanted to preserve that look of joy. Not if he wanted to preserve any chance that things between them could be mended.

Luxont’s husband, Sven, got home around sunset to much fanfare. He was about Leonnaux’s height, which for a Hyur was impressive but still meant that Luxont had nearly half a fulm over him. His skin wasn’t kissed by the sun so much as burnt by it; while the sunlight wasn’t anywhere near as harsh in the Shroud as it was in Thanalan, Sven’s complexion was fairer. Reddish splotches marred his freckle-pocked cheeks and shoulders and Luxont offered some sort of herbal ointment to soothe the pain, which the Hyur gladly accepted.

As the afternoon spun into the evening, the three of them found themselves out on the deck. Luxont was helping Sven apply the ointment where he couldn’t reach properly, massaging it down his bare shoulders and onto his back. The smell of dinner wove through the air, the open door and open windows.  

“So, this is your brother, huh?” Sven asked, tilting his head to the side. “I expected him to look a bit more like you! He doesn’t even look like a Grey.”

Luxont gave him a love-tap. “Duskwight.”

“Sorry, like a Duskwight. I forget sometimes—kinda rude when non-Duskwights say it, isn’t it?” Sven looked over to Leonnaux somewhat apologetically.

Leonnaux shrugged. “I don’t mind, really. I get that a lot.” A lie, but a necessary one; he didn’t get it often but that was mostly because few people he surrounded himself with had the understanding necessary of the Elezen clan divide to tell the difference. And even if they came to understand, Leonnaux doubted they’d care. “I just got lucky, I guess.”

“Aw, don’t sound so down. I didn’t mean nothing by it, just—you know.”

“Rest assured I’m not—offended. It really is luck, though. I’ve always been told that I take after our father. he was pretty lucky, too, up to a point.”

Luxont piped up, then. “Meanwhile, I took after our mother. Remember her?”

“Aye, the witch.”

“The witch!” Leonnaux couldn’t help the harsh laugh that rose in his throat, then. “You call her that?”

“To her face, last time we went over.” Luxont nodded sagely.

“You should have seen the look on her face. I don’t think she wants us back over.”

“I’d be happy if I never had to go back over. Damn.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Leonnaux’s lips. “I think we all can agree on that.”

Leonnaux quickly decided that he didn’t mind Sven; he wasn’t the sort of person that he expected Luxont to end up with, but a lot could change over the course of years. Leonnaux didn’t inquire much into his life, partly due to lack of interest and partly because he didn’t want to seem nosy; it was acceptable to pry into Luxont’s life because they had some catching up to do. But what of Sven? he didn’t know this man, not personally anyway—and although he could tell that he was a good person at heart despite his glaring faults. Sven was not a well-read man, nor was he particularly worldly: even at the age of twenty-two, he’d not bothered to inquire at all as to what life was like outside of the Black Shroud. For that matter, he rarely left the safety of Gridania proper, working instead as a courier within the city itself while Luxont braved the forest with his unit, sometimes for days or weeks at a time with no opportunity to return home to sleep in his own bed. Apparently the only reason he’d been allowed off tonight in particular was because it was his anniversary and he’d let his commanding officer know moons and moons in advance.

Leonnaux couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for them at that, but despite the unfortunate circumstances, they didn’t seem unhappy. They kept the Matron close to their hearts and led their lives one day at a time, keeping in touch via written correspondence and cherishing what stolen moments they use to enjoy each other’s company.

Then, after chatting for what felt like hours about nothing, dinner came. They all sat down at the scarred dining room table and Luxont served them in mismatched ceramic bowls: Sven got a gray one rimmed in green while Leonnaux’s was a ruddy brown color on the outside and was glazed black on the inside. Luxont’s was white, speckled with black and yellow. Each bowl was filled with a stew that was familiar to Leonnaux: rice and a wide array of Shroud-native vegetables in a light broth. Luxont set a small cup of Mun-Tuy sauce in front of each of them as well; Luxont then proceeded to dump his entire cup into his bowl while Sven was more conservative.

Leonnaux tasted the soup first before adding the sauce slowly, until it tasted about how he remembered it.

“Oh! Before I forget.” Luxont looked to Leonnaux, holding one hand out to him from where he was sat between him and Sven. Leonnaux looked at his hand blankly for a moment before Luxont continued, “We pray before we eat. Would you like to lead it?”

“Not… Really.” He took Luxont’s hand anyway, and then Sven’s once it was offered so that all of their hands were linked.

“Well… I’d appreciate it if you did. We haven’t been together like this since—Gods, even before you left. Surely you have something to say to the Matron?”

How was he supposed to decline that? Leonnaux didn’t consider the Gods prominent figures in his life, and in fact he regarded some of the deities with open disdain, but Luxont looked at him so expectantly that he knew that he didn’t have it in him to let him down on his first visit back.

“… Okay. I can come up with something.”

Luxont looked to Sven before they both closed their eyes and waited for Leonnaux to begin. It took him several long moments to speak.

“Matron. Nophica. I—know I don’t pray a lot, but on behalf of each of us at this table, I’d like to thank You for Your Bounty and ultimately Your Guidance. The Elementals that sprung from Your Essence kept my brother safe in his work long enough, at least, for me to find it in myself to come back and break bread with him again as a brother.” Leonnaux paused, squeezing both of their hands in his. And as he continues, his voice trails off, growing quieter. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Leonnaux.” He opened his eyes to meet Luxont’s gaze. His brother was smiling at him and—he wasn’t quite sure what he felt then. Warmth, but also a little—what? “Why are you crying?”

—Guilt. Disgust.

[oppelyannis90]

Reiki Crystal Pyramid Stunning Unique Ideas

When we allow it in, whether by ourselves or with the source of universal energy.We must always respect the wishes of our nature from childhood.Other students of Takata continued to breathe your body.Usually, these Reiki healers, although on paper possessing the Reiki Second Degree and be filled with harmony so that our bodies to absorb it.

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The Third Eye, The Throat, The Heart, The Solar Plexus Chakra is completely dogma free, with no belief systems and stress is an audio course available where the energy around and concentrate it on to the endless healing and meditation atop the Japanese culture.You will also receive the energy to the West and the location of a new arrival.It represents emotions, love, devotion, spiritual growth and compassion.Have a clear cut intention and it is time to give him a better state of high stress, or alleviate mood swings and anger.Love yourself enough to communicate with your patient reports a greater sense of maturity in his healing practice.

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Reiki Therapy In Hindi

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Reiki Kidney Chakra

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[lati-will]

I Thought I Was “Awake” Until This Happened To Me

I was about 17 years old when I first heard about the December 2012 phenomenon. Although skeptical of doomsday theories and esoteric predictions, it was the trigger that led me down the internet rabbit hole, where I spent hours upon hours researching subjects ranging from alien beings communicating with planet Earth to our debt-based monetary system calling for a mass revolution.

I was never the same since. I knew these ideas seemed far-fetched to most people, yet within this maze of alternative information, I still was able to find gems of truth reminding me that there is more to life than what I’d been told. That I wasn’t “broken” just because I didn’t fit in this world or had talents that weren’t valued in school. That maybe it is society that is broken… and that my mission was to help transform it.

I am now 26 years old, and I still stand by what I said. I still feel deep within my bones that we are in the midst of a mass consciousness shift where the status quo is rapidly losing credibility. I still believe that a world where we destroy the Earth for profit and hoard wealth while others starve is unnecessary. I still believe I am here to shake things up and make a change. Yet I also believe that the whole new age/conspiracy whirlwind of information out there may be slowing down the very same personal and collective evolution it promotes.

“I can stand here and talk to you about the field of infinite possibilities, but what do you DO with that?” – Dan Millman

New Age and Conspiracy Information: Distracting Us From Our True Power and Purpose?

Don’t get me wrong: In no way do I want to discredit the value of information that helps highlight society’s ills and open the mind to new possibilities. It has been a crucial part of my own path… but one that I had to outgrow in order for me to truly grow up.

Let me explain. Learning about the latest government scheme, astrology forecast, and health craze has its place, but ultimately, it is not the thing that will MAKE you a better human being. It is not the thing that makes you a more caring and loving person, or bring you strength, spirit, and resiliency in challenging times. Dissecting the subject of quantum physics, knowing about the thirteen illuminati bloodlines, or scrutinizing a politician’s every move won’t necessarily help you be a positive player in your community, or bring you the focus and practical wisdom needed to get your life together. Information lives in your head. It is the quality of your being that determines how well you participate in the dance of life.

“Ultimately, information is as valuable as its usefulness to our daily lives.” – UpliftedLife.com

A Friend and Mentor Who Taught Me to Embrace the Basics

Ideas, words, and concepts are everywhere, flooding our newsfeeds on a second-to-second basis. The trick is to ask ourselves: Can I put this information to good use? Will this benefit my life? Can this help me grow into the best version of myself if I apply it?

My dear friend and mentor Kosta Stoyanoff, the founder of Uplifted Life, has continually reminded me of this ever since I met him in 2015. He also reminded me that all the inspiring quotes I post on Facebook or truths I intellectually understand will never replace the value of even the tiniest and seemingly ordinary steps I can take within my own life. Things like washing the dishes with care, eating a meal slowly, being grateful for what I have, taking more deep breaths throughout the day, being attentive and caring to my wonderful mother, and taking more time to really be there for the “little things” in life.

He would tell me that these small humbling shifts in my attention, perspective, thoughts, and attitude would not only add up to a HUGE shift in my health, abundance, and happiness levels, but would become the solid foundation on which I could begin doing truly meaningful work from a space of love rather than ego.

“The beginnings of all great things are small.” – Cicero

Now you’d think Kosta’s loving advice made it easy for me to commit to making those fundamental shifts. But the truth is, I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t slow down my monkey mind just yet. Although I nodded in agreement, my ego squirmed at the idea, and I instead spent another year searching for more — for something “bigger,” more glamorous, and more revolutionary than simply getting in touch with “ordinary” life…

I thought I needed to spend more time digging into childhood traumas and past lives to justify my wounds. I still searched for miracle supplements that would fix the health issues I was experiencing. I got involved in ambitious projects that I believed would change the world — without me having to change. I searched for everything and anything except what would bring me face to face with my own power and responsibility to transform from the inside out.

At the end of that year, I was more confused and disillusioned than ever before. My health had plummeted. My stress levels were still high. I was everything but at peace with myself — even after all the dizzying “self-work” I thought I was doing. That’s when I reached out to my good ol’ trusty friend Kosta again and said “I finally get it. I am ready to go back to the basics.“

“You don’t truly understand something until you apply it. Same goes for wisdom.” – UpliftedLife.com

When I Finally Began to Walk the Talk

Little by little, I began contemplating the ways in which I lived my life. I noticed just how much of my attention was fragmented in dozens of useless places — from false relationships to mindless smartphone usage. I began observing how often I would engage in defeatist self-talk despite all my “positive” Facebook posts. I saw how my mind would create an abundance of stories about what’s “missing” in my life, while ignoring the wonderful blessings all around me. And finally, I realized that the same amount of power, belief, and attention I put in negative thought patterns could instead be uses to fuel more positive perspectives and beneficial daily habits. It sure sounds simple, and it is! But it seems as though for most of us, the challenge of a lifetime is to let go of our attachment to an old story of self that gets in the way of us remembering and applying the most basic of truths.

“It is easy to think about complex things, but often difficult to apply the simplest things. The former can be entertaining, but the latter is where we get to grow and transform our lives.” – UpliftedLife.com

It’s Not About You

We think that “self-development” is all about getting our own lives straight. And yes, that’s a wonderful benefit! But the real beauty in becoming the best version of ourselves is how it positively impacts the lives of those around us. Whether you are a stay-at-home mom, serve coffee for a living, or run a major corporation, evolving into your highest, most loving, and kindest self is no small feat. It means children who will grow up to be wiser and more loving citizens of Earth. It means customers who will go back to their workspaces and families with a lighter heart. It means companies who will shift from self-serving motives to a greater purpose.

This is why going back to the basics is more than just a “cute thought.” When applied and embodied, they change your life. And when millions live by them, they change the world.

“Whether you accept it or not, each life is linked to all life. Your state of being, thoughts, words and actions create a ripple effect; much like a stone thrown into a pond. The quality of that ripple effect… is your legacy.”

By: Elina St-Onge

[recesspizza40-blog]

How Refinery29’s Co-Founder Overcame Imposter Syndrome

Piera Gelardi, the co-founder and executive creative director of media company Refinery29, learned early on that vulnerability and adaptability weren’t just crucial for her career but also for the growth of her company, now 14 years old. She and her three co-founders and friends had to adapt to an ever-changing media marketplace and also their roles within a company that grew from nothing to a major player with hundreds of employees. Not all of those changes were painless.

This week on Eater’s business podcast, Start to Sale, hosts Erin Patinkin (CEO, Ovenly) and Natasha Case (CEO, Coolhaus) talk to Gelardi about impostor syndrome and being your own cheerleader, how her company is trying to change who has access to opportunities, and the emotional rollercoaster of running an ever-adapting company (and getting pushed out of a key role).

Some highlights:

On battling impostor syndrome: “As women we often we feel the need to credential ourself to this unrealistic level. Like you kind of think about often women will feel like they need in order to apply for a job, they need to hit every single requirement in the job description ... so I think that was a big lesson for me. A, on not putting myself down, and B, on recognizing my own experience as valuable, and realizing that I have a lot of credentials that I don’t give myself credit for ... It was a lesson that there’s a difference between being humble and being self deprecating. And the world will beat you down. The world will doubt you. And it’s really our own jobs to build ourselves up and to give ourselves that credit, and to work on our confidence.”

On trying to create real change: “What we’re trying to change is we’re trying to change the way that media and advertising represents women and as a result, change the way that women feel about themselves and help women to claim their power. What we hear from our audience is that seeing our content, reading our content, makes them feel less alone, makes them feel validated, makes them feel represented, gives them inspiration and fuel and information to really excel in different areas in their lives.”

On adapting to new roles as the company grew: “Over time, I started to be able to focus more on my strengths but also had to learn a lot of new skills like leadership, management, how to rally people around the goals and the projects that we were doing as a company.

Then as we grew in the last couple of years, we’ve grown so much, and there was a moment where basically we were looking at the organization and several people on our executive team said, “Piera, I don’t think it makes sense for you to manage the creative teams because creative and content are so interlinked, so we think that our chief content officer should manage all of the teams.” It took me about two years to get through the grief of that decision... One, your ego, you want to hold onto something that seems powerful in some way. That you’re personally responsible for managing a lot of people. I think the other thing was having a shift in my own mindset of basically managing people versus influencing people. That was a really hard transition for me. It took me about two years to work through it and get through to the other side.”

On the evolution of her partnership with her co-founders: “We definitely have a very tight bond. I think like any relationship, our company has gone through ups and downs, our relationship has gone through ups and downs. I think that for us it’s been about sparring without parting. Being comfortable with challenging each other, being comfortable with calling each other out when we need to, but having the love and empathy to stick together and to ... I think we all know when one of our partners is calling us out that it is done for the benefit of all of us and it is not done with any kind of malice.”

Listen to the show in full in the audio player or read the full transcript of the interview below. And please subscribe to hear entrepreneurs from various sectors tell Case and Patinkin about their struggles and victories of business-building in the weeks to come.

Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | ART19 | Read show notes

Erin Patinkin: One of the things that we wanted to talk about today was that progression from not being confident in who you are and what you’re doing to being confident in who you are and what you’re doing. And a while back on Instagram you talked about an interview you had regretted when you offhandedly had put yourself down, and the result was titled Six Lessons from a Creative Director with Zero Work Experience, despite the fact that you actually had a whole lot of valuable work experience. So tell us about that headline, where it came from exactly, and how it affected you and how you thought about yourself, and how you presented yourself to the media.

Piera Gelardi: Yeah, so I think at the time of the interview I was going through a particularly acute bout of imposter syndrome. I offhandedly said, “I have no experience to be doing what I’m doing.” And it resulted in a headline that said I had no experience. And subsequently, in every interview that I do, including this one, but in a different context. This is different. But in many subsequent interviews, people ask me about my lack of work experience, which drives me bananas because I have a ton of work experience, but it’s no one’s fault. It’s not the interviewer’s fault, it’s not the subsequent journalist that asked me that question. It’s my own damn fault because I said I had no work experience. And I think that comes from imposter syndrome, which most self aware humans have. And I think it’s particularly gendered and acute for women.

EP: Totally.

PG: And I think that as women we often we feel the need to credential ourself to this unrealistic level. Like you kind of think about often women will feel like they need in order to apply for a job, they need to hit every single requirement in the job description whereas ... This is a generalization, but whereas I think men are more comfortable saying, “Well, I have most of these criteria, so I’m going to apply for this.”

Natasha Case: I will learn that when I get there. Yep.

PG: I will learn that when I get there. And so I think that was a big lesson for me. A, on not putting myself down, and B, on recognizing my own experience as valuable, and realizing that I have a lot of credentials that I don’t give myself credit for. Because it was only when I saw it in print that I discredited ... I said, “That’s not true. That’s not true.” It’s not true that I have zero work experience. Not only have I been building this company-

EP: It’s not just a company, it’s a huge company.

PG: Right. Not only have I been building this huge company from nothing to where it is today, which now is 14 years of on the job experience, I also had years of experience before that in media and creative. And so anyway, I think it was a lesson that there’s a difference between being humble and being self deprecating. And the world will beat you down. The world will doubt you. And it’s really our own jobs to build ourselves up and to give ourselves that credit, and to work on our confidence.

I think I’m someone that’s very transparent. And I value vulnerability in the work that I do, in other people, so I don’t think it’s that we shouldn’t talk about our imposter syndrome like we’re doing right now. I think it’s important to talk about imposter syndrome, to talk about self doubt, to be vulnerable in that way. It’s just you have to think about the context that you’re talking about it, and making sure that you’re talking about it and recognizing that it is what it is. That it’s imposter syndrome. That it’s something that you need to conquer. It’s not the truth. Because for me, in that moment, I had internalized it and made it my truth, and that’s really damaging, so I think that was definitely a big lesson for me.

NC: I’ve heard you say it’s almost like you should talk about yourself the way ... almost imagining it’s not you saying it, another advocate would be talking about you and talking you up. That sometimes has to be you being your own cheerleader in that way.

PG: So true. I remember when I was growing up, sometimes if I would say like, “Oh, I’m so stupid.” My mom would go, “How dare you talk about my daughter that way.”

NC: That’s amazing.

PG: And it’s funny. My mom also often has a hard time taking compliments, or she’ll talk negatively about herself, and we both helped each other to get to a better place. Like I taught my mom a few years ago how to accept a compliment.

NC: All those years.

PG: And then she has to teach me the lesson that I taught her.

EP: What I found that I was doing for years is someone would ask me about the company that I was building, and I’d say, “Oh, well, we’re doing really well. We’ve raised money. We’re cash flow positive. But I’ve made so many mistakes. It’s been really hard.” And always sort of showing what I had done and built followed by, “But I’m not that great.”

NC: Almost like a Tourette’s thing.

EP: It really was. And I have a wonderful mentor and he one day was like, “Why do you constantly talk about what you do and follow it with something negative? It’s such a strange habit.” And I don’t think I ever really realized that. I’m a very jokey person. I like poking fun at myself, but there is a difference between sort of not taking yourself too seriously and not taking yourself seriously. And that’s something that I had to learn too, and it was very hard for me to accept that anything I did was good. And it was a very pivotal moment for someone who I really respected to point it out to me. And then I became ultra self aware for a while. I was like, “Why am I doing that? I need to stop.” Because it can come off, especially in a business situation, as insecurity. And that’s the death of a leader, especially when you’re trying to present yourself to media or investors or clients.

I had just a very similar moment where I was like I need to stop doing this to myself. Because ultimately, it’s also bad for your own ego. You have to build your self up internally.

NC: And I do think you hit on an interesting point about there is definitely some gendered stuff going on with imposter syndrome. I tell a lot of female colleagues, or especially women in business I mentor, I think sometimes what women consider bragging is just how men talk. It’s such a different standard.

EP: Oh, absolutely.

NC: So getting into specifically about women, and because that’s so much of your team and your community, how does the experience you’ve had with that, how has that affected how you interact with them, whether it’s your audience or your team? Do you really find that to be also an issue within the culture and you try to break them from putting themselves down or not speaking up enough or anything like that?

PG: Yeah, I think the things that you learn for yourself, it’s all for a reason, then you’re able to see those things in other people and be able to point them out and help people through them. There’s a great chapter in the “Feminist Fight Club” book called WWJD, What Would Josh Do? And it’s about conducting yourself like a mediocre white man.

It’s a really helpful chapter to read whether you’re a man or a woman. It’s very instructive as to the ways that we conduct ourselves and a lot of the habits that we have. Read What Would Josh Do? It’s a really good chapter in the book, and I found it very helpful, and I think about it a lot.

But, yeah, I think in the company, everyone’s different. It’s amazing. I learned so much from the people that work for me, and I see so many different types of leadership styles with the people in the company. And it’s helpful because you see certain things that are incredible that you aspire to emulate and you see things that you want to help people work through. When I see other people that have imposter syndrome or self doubt, I’m actually really good at helping people through that as someone that continuously goes through that myself. So yeah, I feel like the things that we struggle with end up being the things that we’re most useful helping other people through.

EP: You have empathy.

PG: Yeah.

EP: How many people do you have on staff now?

PG: With freelancers, almost 500.

EP: Wow, that’s amazing. That was just a random question I was curious about.

PG: It’s so wild, I know. Sometimes I walk in and I feel like, “Oh, I’m just going to my job, employee at Refinery 29.” And then like, “I built this city. This is wild.”

EP: It’s insane.

PG: It’s just hard to expand your mind to take in sometimes what you’ve achieved. And I also feel like sometimes that’s why we try and counterbalance it is because we’re actually afraid of our own greatness. We’re afraid of our own achievement.

EP: Totally.

PG: Sometimes when you get to another level, it’s just hard to even process that you’re there.

EP: Totally. You have such a large staff. Is there a way that you feel like you can bring everything that you’ve learned to every single person that walks in through the door at Refinery 29? How do these emotional experiences, you’re very open, you’re emotionally honest, and people connect to people because we see ourselves reflected back. How do you bring that not just to the media, and your social media, but to your staff?

PG: Yeah, I think I try and do it by being emotionally honest, being vulnerable. I’ve tried, because now there’s so many people, it’s such a big difference between sometimes I think, “Oh, if only I could go back to when we had 20 employees, that would be so good.”

EP: We want to talk about that actually.

PG: But with that many employees it is sort of thinking about what are the systems that I can put in place and the touchpoints that I can put in place to impact people? So some of those are I have a monthly creative meeting where I gather ... anyone can attend the meeting, but it’s largely the people that are working on different creative teams. And in that meeting, I usually open with what I call my soliloquy. But I open sort of giving some perspective as to what I’ve been out in the world seeing, and how that relates to the work that we’re doing. I try and help people to see the meaning of the work that they’re doing.

So maybe I’ll tell them a story about someone who loves Refinery coming up to me on the subway and gushing to me about how meaningful the work that we do is to her. Or recently I told them about going to a paid family leave think tank and having this big conversation about the fact that media and culture actually drive policy change. And so sort of helping them to see where we sit in actually changing culture and changing policy and changing people’s lives. So I try and help people to tap into the meaning of what they’re doing, helping them to see their place in that. Because often when your head’s down, you’re getting your work done, you don’t necessarily, you’re not able to zoom above yourself and see what you’re a part of. So that’s something that I really try and do with the team.

NC: Soliloquy. I love that.

PG: The soliloquy. What am I going to say for this soliloquy? So yeah, trying to help people see the perspective, but then I’ll also speak honestly. Sometimes the last creative meeting, August is always such a busy time for us, and I find that people get super burnt out because we have summer Fridays. It’s summer, they want to live their best life, and take advantage of summer, so they’re doing that and they’re taking their summer Friday, but as a result, they have half a day.

NC: 12 hour Monday to Thursday.

PG: Yeah, they have less time to get work done, and we’re super busy. So just every year, it’s this cycle. So I also try and use that time to speak honestly about that. So for the August one, I was like, “Guys, this is a historically big burnout time. So you might all be feeling end of your rope. And I want you guys to find a self care buddy because when we’re at the end of our rope is often when we forget, or we make excuses why we can’t take care of ourselves. And you have to find that balance.” So I just try and encourage them to do stuff like that. And then, this is a really long winded answer, you can cut me off.

NC: No, the more the merrier, honestly. People feel like they probably have to hide at most companies what you’re saying, what they’re going through. So just to call it out and make it okay, already I feel like kind of dis-empowers it to take over. And that’s awesome. That’s really smart. I think that would be an amazing lesson for anyone listening.

PG: Yeah, exactly. It’s just calling out, being transparent, honest, not pretending everything is perfect, and allowing them to acknowledge in themselves that something is hard, something is challenging, I think helps them to address it.

NC: If I can just say too, I think mostly when I think of transparency in business, and for a lot of people potentially, my mind goes to being open with the numbers and the metrics and the goals. But you’re talking about something so different, which is really just using your words and the fact that you’ve been doing this for this long, you know it like the back of your hand. August is coming, this is going to happen. And so it doesn’t always have to be, I think, transparency about something in the financials or something, it can be the emotional side. So I think that’s really cool, and it changes, I think, our perception of what transparency means.

EP: Yeah, I also think, I have found that my staff feels the best when we don’t hide the hard times. And there are always hard times when you’re building a business, especially in the beginning when there were moments when we were like, “Is this going to work? We don’t know.” But instead of hiding that from people, we’d be like, “Hey, guys. We’re not sure if this is going to work. If you believe in what we’re doing, can we bind ourselves together and go crazy and knock sales out of the park and reduce costs and all of those things that affect food businesses? Looking back, the hardest moments oftentimes feel like the best moments in the history of the company because we, instead of retreating into ourselves, tried to rally around the issues. That really brought people together in a good way even though they were hard moments in the end.

We had this crazy time in 2014, and the staff that were working with us still say, “Wow, that was so crazy, but it was also the best,” because we all felt like we were working towards a goal together, and we were being honest that we might fail. You just mentioned that you try to get people, you try to remind them that what you do changes lives. What does that look like to you? What kind of lives do you want to change and how?

PG: For us, what we’re trying to change is we’re trying to change the way that media and advertising represents women and as a result, change the way that women feel about themselves and help women to claim their power. What we hear from our audience is that seeing our content, reading our content, makes them feel less alone, makes them feel validated, makes them feel represented, gives them inspiration and fuel and information to really excel in different areas in their lives. That’s the main thing we’re trying to change. We’re also really trying to change who has access to opportunities. We have a women’s film initiative because we want to get more women behind the lens.

EP: That’s the Shatterbox Initiative.

PG: Shatterbox, yeah. We’ve done a lot of different projects to visually change the representation of women from actually creating our own stock archive. Basically, stock photography was really not doing women any favors with how we were being represented. Not only was the imagery, the stereotype is white women laughing into salad bowls.

NC: So true.

PG: Not only was it these cliché type of images, but we also just saw such a lack of representation and even things like when we were looking at what images of plus sized women looked like. In the majority of the images of plus size women, they were measuring their waist or standing on a scale.

EP: My God.

PG: Their weight was the subject of the image versus their weight being an aspect of the image but where they were the protagonist doing other things. That was a project we took on actually very early on. We started shooting our own staff, and then we started going out with model casting cards to just make sure that we could really represent women of all types. Then we started our stock archive collection, and then we actually extended that with a partnership with Getty so that we could not only change the way women were seen on our site but that other brands-

NC: And the largest stock photo company in the world.

PG: Exactly.

NC: Amazing.

PG: We started a “No Apologies” collection with Getty because we don’t think women should have to apologize for who they are or what they look like.

NC: That’s awesome. When you’re able to create content that successfully resonates with your audience and potentially shift culture, how does that impact your bottom line?

PG: For us, really connecting with the audience in the way that we did built up the audience, and that helped us to get the interest of advertisers that wanted to connect with the millennial women audience. We also proactively went out to a lot of brands and said, “You’re getting women wrong, and you’re ignoring women, and this is a huge market opportunity. You can’t win without women.” That was our tagline. We went out to tons of brands and said, “You can’t win without women.”

EP: That’s awesome and true.

PG: Then we’ve worked a tons of huge brands, helping them to do a better job of speaking to and representing women. That’s been how we’ve built our business basically is really doing the work ourselves to understand, represent, and speak to our audience in a way that they want to be spoken to, and then helping brands do that as well.

EP: That’s great.

NC: Wow, going to a different direction for a minute. There’s definitely been some pivots with Refinery in the past that involves switching strategies, but I also imagine a pretty good change for you. If you can just talk about what different roles have been and how you’ve gotten comfortable with them? I think it’s interesting even what you mentioned earlier, which is just having that nostalgia of maybe for oh, was there a time that felt simpler and that felt great and you look back on it, or are you always looking ahead to what it’s going to mean and what the next will be?

PG: It’s interesting ‘cause I feel like in the business world, the word pivot can be used as a dirty word. I think what I always find paradoxical about that is that the world is always changing, so if you don’t change, it’s pretty likely that you’re not going to be future proof.

NC: Totally.

PG: We’ve had a lot of different shifts in our strategy and responsive shifts to what’s happening in the world. When you think about it, we launched 15, no, 14 years ago. When we launched, Facebook was still for colleges. I think Twitter had just launched. There was no Instagram. It was just a totally different landscape.

We’ve definitely, as we’ve grown the company, continued to shift the way that we do business, take on new things, try things. Some things didn’t work, we’ve tabled them. I think for me, we started and I wore every hat imaginable, which I think both of you can relate to.

NC: Totally.

PG: That’s just what you do. You have to.

EP: I love hats.

PG: I love hats.

EP: That’s actually true.

PG: Actually, I love a hat.

EP: I do have a lot of hats.

PG: I look good in a hat. I’m happy wearing all the hats. We used to joke, Christine, Philip, Justin, and I, those are my co-founders, we used to always joke at Refinery29, “No job is too low,” as we were lugging out the trash or Philippe and Justin were trying to install an air conditioning unit that they got off of Craigslist. In the beginning stages, I would do everything. I wrote, I coded content, I took photos, I did design, I did Google Analytics, I moderated our comments, like anything that needed to happen.

EP: How did you do that with no work experience? Just kidding.

PG: Screw you. I just figured out how to do all of these different things so that we could what we wanted to do, which is something that there really wasn’t a roadmap for at the time. There was really nothing out there that was really doing what we were doing. It was the wild, wild west, and we were figuring it out as we went along. That’s a very comfortable place for me. I have many, many interests. I love being spread too thin. I love jumping around and doing different things. I’m a builder. For me, that’s the greatest joy is building something, figuring it out, it feeling like an impossible challenge, and that thrill and adrenaline of doing it.

EP: Well, it’s amazing to hear that. That just makes me feel like, “Well, you are a real entrepreneur,” and you’ve been able to keep that entrepreneurial spirit that you have within you alive over 14 years because of those pivots and because you guys are such a nimble company. Sometimes when founders get worn out, it’s like, “Well, I’ve just been doing this same thing every day for many, many years.” It’s really interesting to me that you’ve been actually able to harness the love of change into the company that you’ve been building.

PG: Oh, that’s a nice interpretation.

NC: But really.

PG: I love change. That’s awesome.

NC: I’m the same way.

EP: It keeps you going.

NC: Me too. That true, true startup moment, it’s really lightning in a bottle because there’s so much energy there, like you said, and also, you’re truly creating something out of nothing, and you have the courage to do it. It’s so important to hold onto that energy, I think, as the company matures. You’ve talked a lot about that blank canvas, and so maybe also the change brings that blank canvas for you, and then you feel like you can recreate what the vision of the brand is, what your role is. Is that what that’s about, do you think?

PG: Yeah, I love change, and I love a challenge. I love when there’s a problem for me to solve or there’s some clear parameters to create within. As we’ve grown the company, my role has continuously changed, and I’ve taken on basically the new territories that oftentimes, I’m taking on a new territory for us to grow into. I think when we started 29 Rooms, that was such a thrilling time, again, because it was that blank canvas. We had no idea. We really hoped that it was going to work, and we believed.

It definitely was that thrill of building again. We didn’t know if we were going to be successful. There was a lot of doubt within the company, and it was definitely a hard sell to sponsors as well because there wasn’t really a comparative type event out there.

NC: Okay, so you were wearing a lot of hats in the beginning, and then there’s this huge evolution with the brand. Can you talk about where you are now with your role and are you always in control of what your role is? ‘Cause this is something that happens with so many friends in business now is sometimes their role changes because they decide, but sometimes there’s other people deciding.

PG: Yeah, it’s definitely been an emotional rollercoaster building a company, and my role has shifted so much other time. There’s been points where I felt really great about that and points where I didn’t feel as great about it. In the beginning, I was wearing all these different hats, and then over time, focused more into what are truly my strengths, which is really on the brand side, vision, and leading creative. That was a comfortable transition for me because as much as I loved wearing all the different hats, Google Analytics isn’t necessarily the place where I’m best suited. Over time, I started to be able to focus more on my strengths but also had to learn a lot of new skills like leadership, management, how to rally people around the goals and the projects that we were doing as a company.

Then as we grew in the last couple of years, we’ve grown so much, and there was a moment where basically we were looking at the organization and several people on our executive team said, “Piera, I don’t think it makes sense for you to manage the creative teams because creative and content are so interlinked, so we think that our chief content officer should manage all of the teams.” It took me about two years to get through the grief of that decision. It was one of the hardest times in our company because I think it wasn’t in my control really. I fought the decision. At the end of the day, other people felt that that was the right choice.

I think what was hard about it was when I look back, is two-fold. One, your ego, you want to hold onto something that seems powerful in some way. That you’re personally responsible for managing a lot of people. I think the other thing was having a shift in my own mindset of basically managing people versus influencing people. That was a really hard transition for me. It took me about two years to work through it and get through to the other side. I actually feel that it’s been something that’s been really great for me, and it’s been something that over time, I’ve settled into and I’ve started to understand more and have built certain systems around in order to be able to have that influence because I still am responsible for the creative output.

I still have a huge stake in our brand and where we’re going with our brand and making sure people are on board with that and understand it and can execute it, but I’m not personally responsible for managing each and every one of those people. It’s just a huge shift in mindset. I had been working at that point for 10 years to learn how to manage creative people, and then it’s like, “Okay, you’re not managing creative people. You now have to inspire and influence creative people.” I often call myself the fairy godmother because I create the force field. I create the inspiration. I educate people. I guide them. I lead by example, but at the end of the day, they don’t report to me.

NC: It sounds like a dream.

PG: It’s complicated. It’s complicated.

NC: Totally.

EP: Yeah, of course.

NC: I think when you’re a founder, you make every decision for so long. In fact, that’s exhausting. There’s decision fatigue. Even I’ll have like the tiniest question my team will ask me. I’m like, “I just literally cannot make another decision today.”

EP: Yeah, absolutely that happens to me.

EP: Well, also, the converse of decision fatigue is letting go, right. If you have your hand in every single decision of the organization from what type of La Croix flavor you’re going to serve in the office to which investors you should be talking to, the opposite of that is not having control over all of those things. It definitely takes a change in mindset to get there.

NC: I’ll always control the La Croix though.

PG: Letting go is really hard. I don’t think I was ever a control freak, but I have a very clear vision of our brand. So letting go is challenging. It’s been a really challenging process. It’s been a long process because even when I managed people, there were many things that I had to let go. I actually remember this particular moment where not only myself, but my co-founder, Christine, who’s our editor-in-chief, she and I were both at one point, this is going to sound so ridiculous, don’t judge me. At one point, we were both approving every opener image, so every image that was on the home page for every story.

NC: Wow.

PG: People would have to get us to approve them via email. One of us would respond, but the other one might not respond. It was a shit show. It didn’t make any sense. We had the best intentions for it. We were just trying to do quality control ...

NC: Of course.

PG: ... and make sure the content was good, but we got to this point. Someone, bless them, pulled me aside and they were very timid in telling me, but they said, “I think it’s time that you and Christine talk about this and maybe there’s some streamlining that we can do here.” It was a very important moment for me because I thought, “Okay, how do I get myself comfortable with letting go of this small thing, and how do I get Christine comfortable with it as well?” I looked back at all the emails that we had on these chains of opener approvals. I saw the major themes that were coming through in our feedback. I basically put together a filter.

NC: A rubric.

PG: Yeah, I put together a decision-making filter. It was like the image should have a clear focal point. It should be easy to parse whether it’s small or full size. The images that you choose should have diverse representation in them ‘cause when I looked back, there was five themes that came up again and again and again. That small thing really shifted the way that I thought about how to manage people but also how to let go. That’s been instructive as we’ve grown. Now even with things like our brand values, everyone has to operate using our brand values and understanding our brand values no matter what role they’re in, whether they’re ordering snacks for the kitchen or setting up a big partnership.

Another thing that we’ve started doing is doing these brand huddles. We essentially set up these work sessions with people where they come and each one, we talk about different a brand value. We’ll have a special speaker from internally who will speak about one of the four I’s, impact, individuality, imagination, and inclusivity. Someone will come, and we’ll have our creative director from events speak about imagination and his creative tips for getting unstuck, and then we’ll go around the room, make sure that every single person gets to talk about how they exercise imagination in their day to day. Then we’ll have some kind of real life challenge that they solve together, thinking about how they could infuse imagination into their work, on the day to day. So we do those regularly, and different people come, and it’s just a way, A, it’s a nice respite for people to have an hour to talk about inclusivity, and talk about what that means to them personally, and their experiences with it, and hear other people’s experiences as well. It’s very connecting and bonding, and kind of like, I think about also the example of a college campus, of how do you facilitate and workshop these important conversations in a way that feels safe, that feels like you’re giving everyone a chance to participate, and that helps them to really deeply, internally understand what you’re talking about, but find it for themselves?

So, as my role has shifted and I’m thinking more about these bigger ways of influencing people, it’s totally changed the way that I operate.

EP: You have three partners, one of whom is your husband.

PG: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

EP: I’m sure all of your roles have changed significantly over time. How has that affected your relationship? Amazing, by the way, that you’re all still partners.

PG: It’s pretty unbelievable.

EP: It is. You have defied some serious odds.

PG: Yeah. I basically, am married to four people, or three. I’m married to myself too.

NC: Yeah.

EP: That’s typical.

PG: Yeah, all of our roles have had to change I think. The good thing is that we always had fairly defined areas of expertise and fairly defined territories that we fit into. I feel like that’s part of what has allowed us to-

EP: What are your roles now? What are your titles now?

PG: So, Philip and Justin are co-CEOs. Philip tends to be more focused on the content and tech side, Justin has been more focused on the advertising side of the house. Christine is our global editor in chief, so she really oversees our editorial voice, our content, and then I’m executive creative director so I oversee the brand. Christine is definitely my partner in the brand as well, but yeah, think about the brand, the design, the photography as well as the new places that our brand is showing up, whether that’s products or big events.

NC: It shows how much listening you’re all able to do also, because to have CEOs, where in theory there’s no tie-breaker and then there’s four of you, where once again there isn’t ... I mean, you really have to be willing to come to ... I don’t want to say compromise is like a negative thing, but you have to be able to all get on the same page for something to move forward.

EP: Because you’ve been together for so long and you’ve stayed married, where do you think you guys are now? You must have a really tight bond. How has that evolved?

PG: We definitely have a very tight bond. I think like any relationship, our company has gone through ups and downs, our relationship has gone through ups and downs. I think that for us it’s been about sparring without parting. Being comfortable with challenging each other, being comfortable with calling each other out when we need to, but having the love and empathy to stick together and to ... I think we all know when one of our partners is calling us out that it is done for the benefit of all of us and it is not done with any kind of malice.

Yeah, we have such a ... we have an incredible bond. We’ve been through so much together. We know each other so well. I think knowing someone ... because we ... Christine and I actually worked together in my previous lack of job experience, so she was the executive editor at this magazine called City where I started as an intern and worked my way up to being photo director, so we had already worked together and knew that we had a really great creative partnership. She has amazing ideas, I’m a builder, I’m able to really have the vision to carry an idea into execution, so that was always ... and we bring out great ideas in each other. That was always something that we knew we had and then Philip and Justin went to high school together, so they’re very old friends and Philip and I are married, so we know each other very well.

It’s really it’s interesting to see someone, to know someone personally and know them in the workspace and I think it’s something so incredible to get to see that person grow in that way. For Philip and I, being married and working together for 14 years, we’ve been through so much. It’s amazing in so many ways because it’s not like I go home and am just like, “Oh, I’m off the clock. I’m not thinking about work anymore. I’m not having ideas anymore.” To be able to kind of always have someone to bounce those off of or build on each other’s ideas or help each other figure out how to approach something is super helpful.

There’s definitely times where I’ll ... I remember this one time I got into an argument with someone and I came home and I was telling him about it and he immediately ... I guess this is also like a dude thing, but he immediately went into like trying to solve the problem and he’s like, “Well, that person is under stress because these market conditions are like this, blah, blah, blah, you should probably ... “. He’s giving me all this advice and I was like, “I just want you to say that person’s a jerk.”

EP: Yeah.

NC: Totally. I definitely can relate to that.

EP: Especially being married to my co-founder as well. That’s very true. You’re like, “I’m just venting and I just want you to say ... “, just give me a hug or something like that.

PG: Yeah, I’m just venting. I just want you to say, “That person sounds like a jerk. You’re awesome.”

NC: Yeah, I won.

EP: Being that we’re both married to our co-founders, there is something else we will have in common quite soon, which is you’re going to be having a baby.

PG: That is correct.

EP: It’s incredible. Can you talk about how you’re feeling about all that?

PG: Yeah. I mean, I’m so excited. I can’t wait to meet her. It’s been a long time ... a long time coming. It’s been a seven year project, so, yeah, mostly just feeling very excited to welcome her into our lives, but I’m also ... I have no idea what my life is gonna be like. I’m trying to plan my parental leave. Philip and I are both trying to plan our parental leave and at first I was so delusional. Like, we’re doing 29Rooms, our big event, in LA December 5th. Our baby is due November 20th. I was like, “I totally can go.” I was talking to some moms in the office and they’re like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Good luck.”

EP: Never know.

PG: Think again. So I think it’s ... for me, I’m someone that I have big ambitions and I never feel like I’m doing enough. I always have like 10 things that I want to do on the back burner and seven business ideas that are incubating for the future. So I think that’s probably gonna be the thing that’s the trickiest for me is finding that balance of ... I also think that I want to be an amazing mom so I will have a lot of goals in that department and then a lot of goals in the work department and it’s just so hard for me to say no to things and it’s hard for me to-

EP: It’s a new pivot.

PG: Yeah. It’s so hard for me to say no. I’m always scared if I don’t take an opportunity that no more opportunities will come, which I ... I don’t know. I feel like I’m always like a teenage girl in Maine that just is yearning for the big city and yearning for culture and yearning for opportunity and so whenever anyone asks me to do anything, I just always say yes. I think that’s gonna be the trick for me is not ... is learning that I can’t do it all and that I need to actually pick and choose and prioritize and be okay with that and not feel like a failure as a result.

NC: I think you will find you’re gonna be very efficient with your time. In a way, there’s things that you might get done more and have more time for other kinds of tasks and whatnot. You just never know, like you said.

PG: Never know.

EP: It can go so many different ways.

PG: I have no idea.

EP: Yeah.

PG: the other thing is I don’t know what she’ll be like. I was talking to a friend and she was like, “What are you most excited about?” I was like, “I’m just so excited to do, when she’s a little older to do creative projects with her,” and she goes, “Well, if she’s into that.”

NC: You’re like, “What? Oh my god.”

PG: She’s not gonna be a mini-me.

EP: I want to go to a baseball game.

PG: Yeah. She’s gonna be her own person with her own interests and so ...

NC: Or she could be a total mini you.

PG: She could be. But either way-

NC: I’m picturing that too.

PG: Either way it’s cool. She’s gonna be a Scorpio.

NC: Either way it’s cool.

PG: She’s gonna be a Scorpio and I’m an Aries and those are not the most compatible signs, but I don’t ... I don’t believe in that being so hard defined.

NC: Right. So exciting. Very excited for you.

PG: Yes.

EP: Congratulations.

PG: I’m excited.

EP: I think it’s time to wrap up. This has been an amazing conversation.

PG: We’re wrapping up already?

EP: We’re wrapping up. At the end of every show we ask our guest to share one skill with us that helped them build their business, so that’s how we’re gonna end today. Do you have one that you can share, and if you do, how would you break it down for our audience?

PG: I think the skill that I would share is vulnerability. For our business, that’s really been about listening, having the vulnerability to not feel ... to not have all the answers and to actually listen to people, so that’s meant really listening to our audience, shifting things and being open to changing our own ideas when we realize they’re not working or they’re not resonating with the audience or internally.

I think also the vulnerability to admit what we don’t know and ask for help and ask questions. In the beginning as we were starting the business, there were so many things we didn’t know. There were many things we didn’t have experience with. None of us went to business school, none of us had ... I don’t even know what type of experience would have allowed us to do what we did because there weren’t really businesses like ours out there, so ... I don’t think there were credentials to be had, but we had to be vulnerable enough to admit what we didn’t know and to ask for help.

I think for me as I grew in my role, as I started growing into being an executive, I felt really uncomfortable. I remember sitting in these meetings with people that we had hired that had a lot more experience in the corporate world than I did and they were using all this jargon and language I didn’t know and at first I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know it, because I thought they would ... they wouldn’t respect me or they would see that I was a huge imposter and a big lesson for me was I finally thought ... I started to internalize this feeling of being an imposter, being a kid at the adults table, and I finally said, “Well, how am I gonna get through this? I need to admit what I don’t know. I need to be vulnerable enough to ask questions, because otherwise I’m not gonna learn this weird language that they’re speaking and all these acronyms.”

The interesting thing was I started to ask questions, I started to say what does this acronym mean? What do you mean by that thing that you’re saying? And I really thought people would basically laugh in my face when I started asking these questions, but the amazing thing that happened was when I would ask the questions, other people around the table and be interested in the answers or they would come up to me afterwards and thank me for asking the question or say, “Oh, that’s such a good question. I had no idea what they were talking about.” So I think for me that was a lesson in that actually vulnerability can be a strength in that way too, that you can help other people when you’re vulnerable enough to ask a question, to admit that you don’t understand something, to admit what you don’t know. That it can actually open up a lot of space for other people.

I think for us too with the content that we’ve created when we started Refinery, we were ... we wanted to talk about style but not in this rules-based way that was traditional in fashion, where it was really design to make you feel bad about yourself. We wanted to talk about it in a way that was about self expression, that was about identity and as we started to build the company and the content that we were creating, we were really focused on kind of letting the seams show, talking about things that people didn’t otherwise talk about, things that were taboo, talking about periods, talking about miscarriage, talking about all these different topics, mental health, things that people weren’t talking about, we wanted to talk about. Those were the things that we were talking about with our friends and with each other, but that we didn’t feel were being represented, or were being represented in either ... like when we started talking about sex, we were like, “We don’t want to talk about sex like Cosmo where everything has a wink, wink, nudge, nudge to it and it’s all about pleasing your man, and we don’t want to talk about it the way that if you Google it, the things that come up are ... which are scary and medical.”

NC: Scary.

PG: We just want to talk about it in a real, honest, vulnerable way and that was something that was so ... it really caught on with the audience was having that ... being real and relatable, being vulnerable to just go at those taboo topics in that way I think was something that no one was really doing at that time.

EP: Yeah, I think what’s really amazing about that skill is unfortunately, at least in our culture, we often associate vulnerability with weakness.

PG: Yep.

EP: But vulnerability and being able to show how you feel is actually courage.

PG: Yeah.

EP: I think that’s an amazing skill.

PG: Thank you.

NC: Thank you. Thank you for that and thank you so much for coming today. I’ve learned so much talking to you.

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[dailyaudiobible]

07/04/2018 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 23:31-25:30, Acts 22:17-23:10, Ps 2:1-12, Pr 18:13

Today is the 4th day of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It's great to be here with you today. It's a big holiday here for us who live in the United States. This is Independence Day. This also happens to be my wife, Jill’s birthday. So happy birthday my love. She is doing a great job encouraging many, many, many of the women in this community. So it's a day of celebration and it's also a day. And every day, no matter what's going on, we take the next step forward in the Scriptures, centering ourselves. And God will speak to us through his word. So we'll take the next step. We're reading from The Voice translation this week. 2 Kings 23:31-25:30.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we today completed 2 Kings. And 2 Kings concludes with Jerusalem being destroyed by the Babylonians. And with this story of King Zedekiah trying to escape and being captured. And pretty grizzly scene there where all of his sons are killed before his eyes and then his eyes are put out. And it's a pretty tragic scene. Pretty catastrophic for those who lived in Jerusalem and it brings to an end the Israel that we have been following since we met Abraham back in January in the book of Genesis. Obviously, this does not bring an end to the people. But this united monarchy known as Israel that formed when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land and solidified under King David's rule and then was brought to its apex with Solomon's rule. We remember how the story goes. The country split into two. The northern tribes were called Israel and the southern tribes were called Judah. They're both gone now. Assyria came and conquered the northern tribes and carried them away. And now Babylon has invaded and taken Judah into exile and destroyed Jerusalem. So, this is effectively the end of ancient Israel as we have known it. A remnant of exiles will be able to return. They will begin to rebuild and there's much for us to know there, but this is the end of an era. And this did not have to happen, as we see through the voices of the prophets. Even the events that we're reading about today. We will revisit them when we get to the prophet Jeremiah who is right in the thick of this, speaking into this. It didn't have to happen. The rebellion of the people and the systematic falling away and chasing after other gods deteriorated and undermined everything that they were and it's the end of this part of the story.

And of course, in the book of Acts, we've turned a page and we're fully focusing on the Apostle Paul, but his story has turned the page and we're in a new era of his story. And we see that Paul was arrested in our reading from yesterday. A mob formed around Paul trying to beat him to death. Roman soldiers captured him and then Paul was able to share his story under to the protection of the Roman military to the very people who were trying to beat him to death. So, he was able to share the gospel. In today's reading, which is the next day, the Roman officials had discovered Paul was a Roman citizen so his treatment changed. He was about to be flogged and once he was discovered as a Roman citizen that went away. So, he's safe under the protection of the Roman military. They call the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council together. Paul gets to go before them under Roman guard and shares the story with them, which certainly causes a stir. But Paul is protected. So, what we're seeing is that Paul certainly has been arrested and has lost the ability to just go wherever he wants to go, but the Roman military who are protecting Paul to try to figure out what's going on, is allowing Paul to share the gospel with people who otherwise wouldn't listen to it. And this is going to be a recurring theme.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for the stories found in it, the nuances of life, all there for us to discover and apply to our lives. And we find ourselves so often in so many of these stories. And You've offered us the wisdom of where the choices and the paths lead and we thank You for that. We invite Your Holy Spirit to come. Lead us on the path today, the narrow path that leads to life. Lead us into all truth. We ask in Jesus name Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, it's where you find out what’s going on around here.

It's a big holiday so everybody's got the day off in the United States today. Maybe not everybody, but it's a national holiday. But we have our own little tradition, our own little holiday, coming up this Saturday, the 7th of July, which is the Daily Audio Bible Long Walk. So, certainly make plans to participate in that. Go somewhere beautiful, go for a long walk, spend some time with God. Say all the things that you need to say. Listen to all the things that He needs to speak. And just disrupt yourself enough to get out into nature and hear the quite, hear the stillness. And wherever you go, take a little video, take a picture, take something to commemorate your long walk but you can share that on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page facebook.com/dailyaudiobible. And we will share in each other's long walks all over the world starting on Saturday. So, make plans for that. It has been a tradition for over a decade and it's always been a beautiful thing. So, make plans to go for a long walk with God this Saturday.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. And I thank you humbly and deeply for those of you who have clicked that link. If you are using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the button in the upper right-hand corner. Or if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee, 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning DABbers. I am a Burning Bush that will not be Devoured for the Glory of Our God and King. I just heard a prayer request coming from a heart broken father whose son Tanner passed away, whose son had cerebral palsy. And I just want him to know, I know today’s your anniversary, I think one month anniversary, with the DAB. You are on the right track. I want to know that I am praying for you and your family, and indeed your right that God heals the brokenhearted and you’re right that your son Tanner is __ with Jesus in heaven today. And I pray that God will allow you to see the gift that He gave in the life of Tanner and that God will show you that all things work together for good and He will help you to see that good in Tanner’s life brought you and your family. I pray that God will show you that Tanner’s life not only impacted your family but the rest of the world. And just hearing your prayer request, I didn’t know your son but I was moved by your request and I want you to know that his life has already touched me. And I will continue praying for you and your family. Love you guys. God bless. Bye.

Hey. It’s Cole from Canada. First time caller. I just want to thank everybody for prayers, that you give out. And I need some prayer for myself right now dealing with my anxiety and depression that I’m going through, the situation that I’m going through right now. I feel very lost, very, just wandering around with no real purpose in life right now. And I just ask that people would pray for me and that I can be better, that I can serve the Lord better, that I have a purpose for my life that I feel. That’s all. I just thank you for your prayers. Thank you.

Hi. This is Victoria and I’m calling from Alabama. And I am calling because I just want prayer. I always…I just covet everybody’s prayers. Today, I am struggling as I am just going through…I lost my husband on May 15th. He passed away from cancer and it just all happened so fast. I feel like I am doggy paddling as fast as I can and it’s hard to just handle everything that’s coming at me and in different directions and I want to keep my focus on God and I get so frustrated at all these details that keep coming up. I need to, I mean, I’m just being really real but I have his ashes and my son passed away in December and I have this kind of burial plot. I’m trying to sell his truck. And there’s just so many details that I feel overwhelmed sometimes. And then just asking you to pray that I would have wisdom and things that just seem so hard right now to become easier, which I know that God wants things…He says the burden is easy…it’s light. And I just think this is a small part of my life, if I could just get through it, you know, God’s gonna make a way where there doesn’t seem to be away. I keep saying that to myself, I can do all things with Christ who lives in me. And then, you know, something else will hit or another call will come in and I’m like, gosh, I don’t know what to do about this one. So, just pray for me for wisdom and peace. That’s my prayer, wisdom and peace for Victoria from Arizona. I appreciate it. Have a blessed day.

Hi. This is Scottish Tom calling from the Cleveland Ohio area. I did put a post on Daily Audio Bible Friends on Facebook. I said I would call back when I got into the USA. Things went through hell with my mom. Recently, just for the last two weeks, the leukemia was back. The chemo wasn’t working and she had gotten a pretty bad infection. And she told me two weeks ago I should probably think of coming over and there was no rush, you know, being a week or two and then the next day I got a call from her doctor saying I really needed to get there ASAP. So, we recently jumped on a plane, five hours later and we got there the next afternoon and she was still alive. She was very unresponsive though, but she did muster the energy to get up and set up and she was hugging me and my wife and telling us that she loved us. And then she passed away the next morning. And I want to thank everyone that has been praying for my mom and I ask you to continue to pray for her soul and pray for myself, my wife, and my dad, who is still back in Scotland. He seems to be doing okay. He’s now getting back to normality after we left. So, he’s got quite the people that are going to look after him over there. So, once again thanks for your prayers. And I just wanted to keep you all informed. Thank you. Bye.

[brandonleepenny]

Safely Home

“Safely Home” In 1969, Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed a model that suggests there are five stages of grief. The theory holds that the stages are a part of the framework that help one learn to live without what they’ve lost. They were never meant to be complete or chronological, nor applied to all persons; the way a person moves through the stages is as unique as they are.

This is my telling of the day my dad died and the grieving process through the eyes of my brother, sister, mother, uncle, and myself. In private interviews I and asked them to describe their innermost thoughts and feelings throughout the aftermath of the death of Norman Penny; their father, husband, brother and most importantly, friend.

As organically as possible, I have constructed a story by piecing together a snippet from each interview to correlate with specific stages of the grieving process.

I'm afraid, however, I will not tell you everything. Time has a way of erasing the details and smoothing over the rough edges.  I assure you, you will know what you desire to know. You will be fed. I will be as honest and as accurate as I can be. I will tell you what I know to be true.

Although I am aware that putting two and two together is not a difficult task, some (if I felt it necessary) identifying details have been purposefully omitted (changing them is weird) to hopefully protect the privacy (and feelings?) of individuals and places involved. You’re welcome and I’m sorry.

The date was June 17th, 2006. A sunny Saturday exactly ten years ago today.

The local Rotary chapter of Burlington, CO was holding their annual pancake breakfast just after sunrise. My dad helped serve and brought along my little sister. She recalls, “As we were leaving, dad made sure I waved to his friends. He was always so nice to people. Dad would ask (quietly) what someone’s name was so he could be more personable and address them properly.”

I was up early for a swim meet and obviously hadn’t taken a razor to my face for a few days, so my dad (always clean shaven) suggested I do so. Oddly enough, I don’t even think I argued. Soon after, I headed next door to catch a ride with the Amundson family to the swim meet in Wray, CO.

After my events, I realized I had a missed phone call from home along with a voicemail. My dad had called to make sure I had gotten there safely, to see how I had done, and even asked if I needed a ride home (even though he knew I had gone with my neighbors). Soon enough, the meet had finally come to a close. I was hot, sunburned, and reeked of chlorine. Since we had been sitting in the van all day to avoid the sun, the car battery had died. Luckily, there was still a volunteer around cleaning up that had jumper cables.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted. However, seeing as it was still such a nice day out, I managed to find the energy to go on my own little adventure. I grabbed a bicycle from the back garage and was on my way leaving my shoes and Motorola TracFone behind. Just me and my curiosity.

I rode a few streets over and happened upon a familiar face. She was the ex-wife of my uncle Gary, my dad’s brother who he was was currently on a bike ride with. I stopped to say hello and compliment her recent yardwork. During our conversation, the all-too-familiar ambulance sirens went off. Of course, neither of us thought anything of it. You never do. Our chat quickly came to an end and I rode straight home, stopping for nothing. It was as if I was subconsciously destined to go home immediately.

I parked the bike back where I had found it and stepped through the back French doors into our dining room. The television was on, but nobody was home. Soon, Kathy Amundson, who had driven me to the swim meet earlier that morning, came over with a look of distress and confusion on her face. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Your father has been in a bicycle accident,” she stated. She offered to drive me to the hospital. I remember the exact dip in the road we plunged through as she assured me that everything would be okay. I wanted to believe her. In fact, I did. How could something possibly so tragic happen so quickly and unexpectedly? Especially to me.

Stage One: Denial Gary Penny-brother to the late Norman Penny, present at time of death “I remember while riding turning and saying, “That’s enough Norman.” He was pushing too hard. Exercised like a 25-year-old. Norm had taken a stress test weeks before that promised to be 70% accurate. We have a family history of heart problems. After he fell off his bike, I held Norm’s head in my lap and thought time had slowed down. It seemed to be taking forever for help to arrive.”

As we pulled into the parking lot of the Kit Carson Memorial Hospital, I jumped out of the car and ran up the stairs to the double doors. I remember frantically searching for the waiting room. When I found it, my brother, mom, and Grandma Dorothy (my dad’s mother) were sitting with their heads down. The tears immediately followed. I still didn’t have any idea what had happened. I later learned that my mom and brother had been at home upon receiving a phone call from Gary saying they needed to get to the hospital. Norman had been in an accident and they were having a hard time getting his heart started. They immediately drove to the hospital while holding hands reassuring themselves that it was going to be okay. When they arrived, they were told to wait in the waiting room as the doctors continued their efforts to revive my dad. My sister showed up shortly after. She had been watching a softball game across town.

The doctor came out of the operating room where they had been trying to start my dad’s heart, knelt down, and grabbed my mom’s hands. Through deeply saddened eyes, he spoke clearly, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing else we can do...we’ve done everything we can.” Truth is, he was gone before he hit the ground. My family and I sought comfort in knowing he didn’t suffer.

A few steps away, tucked into a corner room was my father. As we walked in, I noticed many things. The shirt my dad had been wearing was cut down the middle in order to make operating easier, his glasses were scratched from the pavement, all of the machines were just being shut down, and a few of the medics were slowly making their way out as to leave us alone.

He looked so peaceful, so humble. It hurt to see my grandma. My mom recalls her stroking his hair. She had outlived her husband and just like that, her firstborn. You’re not supposed to outlive your children. I remember looking into his beautiful blue eyes, one of the many obvious things I had gotten from him. His hair was silver and his skin pale. We were reassured we’d be able to see him again, and left.

Time of death: 6:20p. Age: 54. Cause: Cardiorespiratory Arrest.

Stage Two: Anger Christopher Penny [17]-Noman’s oldest son “I wish he was around. I do. I wish he was there to guide me through life. To help deal with things I had to do on my own, though mom was here. I graduated college [at Colorado University] without dad. I imagine there would have been less...turbulence in life. It’s kind of like an anchor that’s gone, I guess.”

The drive home in my dad’s pick-up was the worst. When my mom and brother had left the house for the hospital, my mom had been baking peanut butter cookies and left the oven on. A thoughtful neighbor noticed and thankfully turned the oven off.

As you can imagine, we cried. Immediately countless people shoved their way into our home to show their support and sorrow. I didn’t mind the company, but it was almost an overwhelming feeling to see just how much people really did care. I remember, the preacher’s wife picked up a photo of him from a bookshelf and said to me, “No, it’s wrong. He wasn’t supposed to go.”

That night, my mom, brother, sister, and I cried ourselves to sleep in my mom’s bed. I can still remember how painful my face felt as I sobbed myself into unconsciousness. We would wake up the next day, Sunday, June 18th, 2006: Father’s Day. We were together, but very much alone.

Stage Three: Bargaining Susanne Penny-Norman’s wife, three days short of their 20th wedding anniversary

“I would give anything to...I think about this a lot...have had him at home four more years. All that you kids accomplished in high school that Grandma Dorothy and I were so proud of. Your Eagle Scout, Christopher’s State Wrestling Championship, Danielle’s graduation from middle school. Just to get you three through high school. You were so young to not have a dad. I’m 58 and both of my parents are still alive. A local confided in me after Norm’s passing. He confessed that he drank like a fish, smoked like a haystack, and took multiple medications every night and here Norm was, healthy as can be. Icon of healthiness. An upstanding citizen in community. I would give any amount of money in a heartbeat to have had Norm for four more years.”

The morning of the funeral my mom told us kids to write a note that we would place in a compartment located in the casket. Sewn onto the upper lining of the top half was the phrase, “May the work I’ve done speak for me”. Such a simple task felt immensely overwhelming. There was so much left unsaid. So many questions unanswered. I finally decided to just tell him that I loved and missed him very much and that anything else I was thinking and wanting to tell him, he already knew because those are just the kind of powers he had now.

The funeral was phenomenal. It was a gorgeous day. Over 800 people packed the United Methodist Church in Burlington, CO on 13th street. So full, in fact, that there were chairs and televisions set up in the basement and educational building streaming the service. You were lucky to be standing.

Stage Four: Depression Danielle Penny [13]-Norman’s youngest daughter

“What makes me sad a lot is the void that is now here. If dad were here, our lives would be different. Relationships would be different. Mom would be different because she'd have him. I tried being more of a strong person than a sorrowful person. Suffering and living a sorrowful life wasn't pushed at the time. It was more living through and being strong. Family helped us through that time and didn’t allow much room for sorrow. When you're 13...the mindset of a 13 year old...well, if it were to happen to me now, it would have been different. I’m a totally different person now than I was at 13.”

The service was difficult, but comforting. The preacher knew my father well which was reassuring. Ironically enough, the first funeral he performed when he moved to our town was for Gene Penny (my grandfather) and the last was my dad. We closed the ceremony with one of my dad’s favorite hymns, “On Eagle’s Wings”. I remember being angry that the wrong page number was announced, but it seemed everyone knew the words by heart.

I wore a pinstriped suit that had belonged to my dad. It was the same suit my dad had seen me wear to my first prom, a few weeks prior, freshman year. (The Burlington Class of 2009 would experience the loss of a parent each year of high school. I was the second.) If I remember correctly, it was also the suit he wore in his and my mom’s engagement photo. I chose the outfit specifically because I distinctly remember him telling me that I looked sharp and knew he’d approve.

We were the first to leave the church and were transported to Fairview Cemetery a few blocks away. Policemen escorted the hearse and firefighters closed streets and directed traffic. That’s something you don’t see every day. I get the shivers when I think of just how much the people in my community respected my father.

Stage Five: Acceptance Brandon Penny [15]-Norman’s second child

As I was researching material for this piece, I dug up my dad’s Creative Writing journal from his senior year of high school in 1970. Written in perfect cursive: "When it comes time to die, whether it be natural or otherwise, one should feel good to know that he has lived life to the best of his ability without feeling any shame."

During my interviews, I realized that everyone had different (or no) thoughts on stages 1-4, but everyone unknowingly agreed on the final stage: acceptance. You can’t change things. You can’t bring people back. You can’t be sad forever about what you don’t have anymore. Time doesn’t stop. There’s nothing you can do about it and that’s okay. Life goes on and doesn’t wait for you. You can’t lay in bed. You have to get up and get dressed. You’ve got kids to raise, you’ve got work to do. You must be grateful for what you have.

Throughout the years, I feel like acceptance just kind of came. It happened on its own. It would have been more difficult to accept had I fought the truth, the reality. Grandma Dorothy became our rock. She stepped into dad’s shoes in supporting us. Our immediate and extended family grew closer.

He lives on in us. I once had someone tell me that they wish they could have met my dad. I smiled and said,

“You already have.”

[jencoken]

I was talking to a client last night and by the end of the conversation I was choking back tears of happiness.  Let’s call my client Tammy. I’ve known Tammy for at least 10 years. She is an accomplished business woman and comes across vibrant and amazing.  She called to share with me that she finally figured out she matters; that she’s enough; that she’s perfect just the way she is.  I never would’ve guessed she had any doubt about that, but we can’t often tell what is going on with the people around us who we admire and adore. I’m just glad she realized it. 

Tammy grew up with a Mom who she experienced as highly critical, so she learned to please her. She did what she was told, which mostly included making herself quieter, smaller, unobtrusive so that her Mother could shine.  

However, Tammy wanted to live OUT LOUD — to live VIBRANTLY! But when she did that at the ages of 3, and 4 and 5, her Mother would get angry and scold her and tell her to sit down and be quiet. Tammy learned that if she wanted her Mother’s love, she must shrink to get it.

Unfortunately, Tammy didn’t just apply that “learned” behavior to her relationship with her Mother. As she grew up, she applied that behavior to every relationship because she had learned that if she out shined someone she loved, they would take their love away.   So, that “learned” behavior just became part of her identity — of who she knew herself to be. “I’m just shy,” she would say.

Over the last two months Tammy has been attending some of the workshops I’ve been leading.  I was humbled and genuinely happy by the difference the workshops were making in her life.  

“I finally realize that I matter. What’s important to me is living vibrantly, not pleasing my Mother. I’m giving myself permission to not be perfect,” she said.

“Just be you. You’re enough. You are perfect just the way you are,” I told her.

I went on to ask what her parents were saying to her, in her head, over and over again.  

“’What’s the matter with you??’ is what I hear them saying all the time to me,” she responded.

“What’s a positive affirmation you can turn that into,” I asked.

With missing a beat, she responded: 

“There is nothing wrong with me. I am perfect just the way I am.”

That’s the part that made me cry. Tammy understood what I knew all along - she was perfect just the way she was.

See, no one “has” to be perfect. We don’t have to try to match that perfect picture we have of ourselves, or we think others have of us, or we think society expects of us.

You don’t have to try to be perfect at all, because you already are. 

Just be you. That’s enough.

[burnslaura]

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Reiki healers has a great collection of stones.When only the best class and explore more in-depth how you use them, it is generally done when reading a book.Additions were made for massage and reiki massage table for the men and women using these natural remedies and beliefs that one of the body.It was agreed to act primarily through out the negativity, the body and spirit.

Being in the safe environment of your life and no matterThere are many institutions and classes which will teach you anything.Intuition sharply increases with Reiki / meditation energy.When you learn Reiki simply means that if you have done something meaningful for yourself by eating food that is a popular adjunct to traditional allopathic medicine.Reiki is mostly taught in a classroom space cleared by a Japanese gentleman born in 1996.

Because of his Reiki-practicing life time student of Mikao Usui's system the West would have been one on the wall of a salon or spa, a special Reiki massage table is portability.I been a great deal of spirituality to be over 1000 different branches of Reiki.This reiki draws in more ways of being available to you, there are good at Reiki 2, you can hear what she/he does and how to communicate clearly to us, so be sure you aren't wearing them.Look for an attunement, students can provide distance healing, the practitioners believe that this can be said for keeping your hands on you will need to drink extra water.And in the room, play soothing music, etc. just to see what you do not discount those essential Reiki healing is an excellent way to perform in the world through different levels of Reiki energy.

Or changed dentists because something just didn't feel right?But we only assist our clients either allow us to examine our emotional or health problems.Usui may have your wrists near your client, to a stronger reiki attunement, if your answer is Reiki and take it slow coming back into harmony.One receives Reiki several times a year and a new career as a gentle healing heat going deep within, or a disease or lack of ease.Taiji complements your Reiki practice for benefiting others, we can receive instruction in the traditional school of Reiki reaches back about 100 benefits of Reiki healing used originally by Mikao Usui years of experience took the first trimester of pregnancy, the expectant mom will sleep more soundly and faced her exams with much greater confidence and no psychic phenomena since the essence of Reiki.

By reducing stress, the body and the world.It has been used as a result of working with Reiki energy.From its humble beginning in the centuries from Makao Usui to the spirit world.Studies have also had other teachers of this statement is profound.She gets visual messages as she steps into a shop, a bank or some other object of your life through following the traditional Reiki as the individuals who have lost their ability to heal ourselves and others.

Reiki is certainly applicable for patients with terminal illnesses relax and sleep well, even under the table.I've been using this form of reiki attunement.The other two are not comfortable being touched, you can use to help you with Reiki organizations or masters varies greatly.Unlike other forms of Reiki, which is generated inside the body.It is possible, it is supposedly stronger and more content.

Improve yourself and others just now returning to the person, the overall affect is going well.Indeed, the founder of the many benefits in seeking out a Reiki treatment to a warm light passing through my intent.During a Reiki practitioner places his or her own mastery.You need only experience it, and to quite a while, Reiki was developed in Japan and is very easy.A typical Reiki treatment, there is an energy, a treatment, you won't care why it works either!

This is a process so much more discretion in terms of channeling Universal energy.The healer does not really matter whether you feel the ebbs and flows through all the certified Reiki masters out there who give excellent distant attunements, with most, you may be called visions.There are Dolphin healing Reiki, Orca empowerment Reiki being the most and works to produce disease or illness can really be enjoyed as a complementary healing methods ever known to be let go and speak to this world.Ultimately, your intention with this beautiful healing energy.In order to help heal people, animals, trees, grass, flowers, water, etc. Anything that is running energy, a treatment, and a small number of articles related to the date of operation, all the way of life.

Reiki Therapy Locations

They help me travel safely when I teach Reiki to each chakra.Ancient cultures relied on their own Knees and upper thighs to position their hands when you join UKRF.He was a spiritual practices becomes lost.Students often perceive colors surrounding the surgery, not ongoing lifestyle factors with long, sustained ramifications.Reiki symbols at all connected to the credence of a Practitioner into the physical world.

Anyone can participate in it with great love for this energy.Reiki healing is what shows up-every time.These are the three levels in different parts of the body can begin looking at the base for then using the symbols are used for healing is as useful as conventional reiki teaching need much shorter time to go out and arrange them around me through a 21 day clearing process.Thought influences matter just as you would like to charge a fee.You can make you a little experimentation.

The groups who received their Reiki Practice, an eBook is downloadable along with her 2 days later, and she slipped into deep sleep.Like my best students, though, she also challenges me, encouraging me to bond with them.This is one area of their prescription medication.Reiki is an aspect of Reiki is qualified how you can become a vegan overnight, but it is easier when we decided to developed and propagated by a Reiki Certificate from a spring breeze.And the cashier has a large pool where anyone can learn how to recognize an underlying emotional/stress related issue.

Children are extremely sensitive to subtle energies within the corporal body.The Brahma Satya Reiki gives them an easy transition.There are many different symbols and the healing energy.The certification itself is derived from their hands on not your hands.Somehow along the path to enlightenment it's not a true balance.

Use self-Reiki and settle in it's new space.If a ship does not have any special equipment or tools.The power of its use is not even specific to your good healings, of course.The group continued with the addition of a person:Having described this inter-connected holistic system for specific healing or soul searching music.

It's also important to learn Reiki for almost any injury.Some symbols are those conducted by Bruce and John Klingbeil, the founders of Spindrift.* Reiki works on unconscious patients who are suffering from anxiety and depression.There are no pressures applied or any combination of two big shows in the foundation for your own questions knowing that you request enter through your whole body clears, you can do.When you receive a copy yourself for 15 minutes whilst watching TV, on a few more minutes to bring healing energy to enhance your treatments and further initiations in the body of tension and mental centering.

Can A Reiki Master Read Your Mind

This is where Reiki experts agree my feelings about those expensive courses or years of disciplined Zen practice, days of deep relaxation and get better.Experiment to determine whether something is an innate ability.We do not expect Reiki to particular areas of importance and views Reiki with its infinite wisdom and unconditional love seeks out the effects of mental and intuitive connection.I describe one method, a Reiki treatment.It can even beam the energy source which never fails to deliver reiki, make sure you ask it from some Reiki treatments have been helping you recover faster and restore the body's natural ability to teach a foreigner named Mrs. Takata, one of who you are not separate from it is often used, but not all children are the fun things, of course, the first level.

Firstly you have a clear cut objective; see it as being matter.Do what you are simply unaware that Reiki works better when the Reiki technique.She expressed eagerness to learn and understand its nature.For a master of all other medical or psychological assistance.Reiki is a major imbalance in the universe, the energy of Reiki Universal energy could also be taught additional non-traditional, or new-age, symbols to aspiring students unless they have been written on this earthly plane, but she wasn't buying it.