Anne Lamott is one of my favorite authors.  Her words
are luscious and her descriptions of her life and
experience are both heartbreakingly honest and
hysterically funny.  So when I saw that she was going
to be a speaker in April at a conference in New York
sponsored by the Omega Institute - one of my favorite
authors in one of my favorite cities sponsored by one
of my other favorite places AND on my birthday! - well,
I just figured it was meant to be.  I knew seeing Anne
would be a pretty good present I could give myself. 
What I found though was that she was actually the
bow on the top of a pile of wisdom and inspiration
gifted to me by the other speakers.

My first gift was a gift of awareness at just how much I
have conformed to my environment.  Iyanla Vanzant
was leading the first workshop I attended.  If you’ve
never heard her, she is dynamic.  She also wears all
white flowing gowns and started the class by having
everyone dance.  Right.  8:30am on a Saturday in
New York City?!  Now, had this been 8 months ago
and I was still in school in California, then I probably
wouldn’t have minded nor thought anything about it. 
So it was interesting to see how quickly I had
morphed back into a cynical East Coaster!

Next I, by accident, got a gift of learning a lesson.  I
had misread the conference program and thought that
the events on Friday evening were all part of an
optional pre-conference intensive, which required a
separate fee.  But when I heard people buzzing on
Saturday morning about Mia Farrow’s emotional talk
on her work with Darfur the night before, I quickly
realized I had blown it!  My gift was my opportunity to
practice self-forgiveness and to learn to stay in the
moment - both of which I was finding hard to do as
my mind would drift off during other speakers,
wondering how her talk was, what else I had missed
and how could I have been so dumb as to have
misread the program.  This one seems to be a gift
that keeps giving!

The conference was entitled “Being Fearless” and
speaker after speaker emphasized that fear is nothing
to ignore or to run from, but to embrace and move
through.  It was shown that we all have it and when we
can release the stories we carry about it, we can
become the powerful, amazing persons just waiting to
emerge within us.  An analogy Noah benShea told
illustrated this so well for me:  Suppose you had 12
horses that had to carry all your faith and your fears.  If
11 of these horses carried your fears and only 1 had
your faith, which would you put in front?  You wouldn’t
want any of the eleven to lead - they would go
nowhere.  But if you put that one horse with faith in
front, it would lead the others on the way.  

I heard Reverend Michael Beckwith proclaim that
vision without action is fantasy and that action without
vision is chaos.  I heard Robert Kennedy Jr. give
example after example of the travesties of justice and
mutilation of the environment occurring in the US
today and was at the same time shocked, horrified,
and inspired to action.  I heard Zev Kadash share a
moving and unbelievably terrifying true story of his
experience as a child in a concentration camp who
was one of the Jews on “Schindler’s List” and was
awed by the strength of the human spirit to survive. 

In short, I was totally inspired and ready to sell all my
earthly possessions, move to a commune, eat only
organic raw foods and meditate for hours on end - all
with a smile on my face and love in my heart.

And then Carolyn Myss, in her irascible, no nonsense
manner, said something that shocked me back to
reality.  She said that what you don’t want to do is to
keep searching for your purpose.  What you want to do
is to ask to wake up and be madly in love with the
people in your life and where you are in life.  It is the
old adage of not having what you want, but wanting
what you have.  And by doing so, you move through the
fear and distractions into your being. 

I realized just how masterful I am at creating
distractions to the fear in my life.  I’ll start another
project, another hobby, another relationship - anything
to avoid having to stay put and address the fear.  And I
also saw how rich and powerful my life is and can be
if I could learn to live it fully. 

Anne Lamott concluded the conference with some
words on everyday courage that gave me both pause
and laughter.  Afterwards she was signing books and
I got the chance to meet her and wish her a happy
birthday, as she had shared that hers had been a
couple days earlier.  When I told her that it was my
birthday too and this was gift to myself, she
commented that there are a lot of powerful people
born around this time.  I smiled, and knew in my
heart that I was indeed one of them.

Look Up, Tune In, Turn OnBy Janet M. Neal When you find yourself stuck in a rut, change your perspective.  When your life seems dull or overwhelming, look at life from another’s perspective.  A trip to a foreign land will help, as would watching a documentary.  Or how about having a conversation with your teenager about something you take for granted?  I learned this lesson when my son asked me if he could play an album.   My 15 year old son is into all things 60s and 70s after listening to the soundtrack from Across the Universe.  It seems that his listening to it had not only jostled his curiosity but also his visual acuity – he seems to have just noticed the album collection he has walked past every day of his life.  So last week he asked if maybe I had any music he might like.  That’s all I needed:  I started pulling out albums left and right and lovingly caressing the memories.  “Oh, here’s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Déjà Vu – a classic!” I crooned.  “Is that a group?”  he countered.  **Sigh**.  Finally he lit up when I pulled out a Beatles album – a common link.  Who would have thought the Beatles would BRIDGE the generation gap?!  And then the fun began. First he put the album on the turntable, put the needle on and told me it didn’t work.  Lesson number one:  turn on the receiver.  Next he complained that it kept shutting off.  Lesson number two:  you place the needle on the OUTSIDE of the album, not the inside.  Getting the needle on the album itself proved challenging, as he kept dropping it just off the edge (with me cringing in the background).  Then he had no idea how to put it on the song he wanted to hear.  I told him to look at the lines on the album, which seems to be another foreign concept requiring my intervention once again.  “What number is it?”  I asked.  “Four, “ came his reply.  I placed it perfectly in the groove and the 4^th song started…which was not what he wanted.  Puzzled, I then asked him, “Well, which side is it on?”  Another foreign concept:  these things have 2 sides?!  Other lessons included how to remove the album, discussing the fact that if there is one on the turntable already, one must REMOVE that first before putting another on, and then how to handle the album so as not to put fingerprints all over it.  And of course, how to put it back in the dust cover.   After all this he just looked at me, put his earphones back in, turned on his iPod and walked away.  So much for bridging the gap.   What it did for me though is to change my thought patterns and jolt me out of my automatic pilot life.  I realize I take so much for granted and appreciated that blast from the past to remind me that people come from different places, experiences and viewpoints.    When I get stuck in a rut, there is another way to look at the situation at hand. I’m reminded of an image that came to me as I was meditating one day.  I envisioned myself high on a precipice.   I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the less I feel heights are my friend!  So here I was, standing on this mountaintop, staring down at my inevitable demise and feeling the wave of panic engulf me.  Not what you would imagine being the side effect of a calming meditation session!  But just as I was about to break out in a cold sweat, I heard a calm voice say, “Look up”.  Slowly I raised my head and looked out instead of down.  There, ahead of me, was a gorgeous vista, complete with a sunset over a spectacular mountain range.  Immediately the panic evaporated and I was filled with calm and appreciation.  Ah – the lesson of perspective:  by changing how you look at something, you change how you feel about it.   So even though I may not have converted my son into a Three Dog Night or Seals and Crofts fan, he did give me a chance to look at my life through another’s eyes.  It also gave me an appreciation on the perspective he has towards me.  I’m sure he has a new appreciation for me because he just texted to say he was ROTFL about it…. 

 …then allow me to introduce you to an elephant you should never forget. Here at The Professional Women’s Center, we pride ourselves on, above all else, our members. One such member, Karin Abarbanel author of, How To Succeed On Your own and co-author of The Art of Winning Foundation Grants has just released her latest book, “Birthing The Elephant, The women’s go for it! guide to overcoming the big challenges of launching a business.”  Touted by Publisher’s Weekly as a, “positive, cheerful” and “practical book”, it looks to be a verified success in the literary and entrepreneurial circles.

Feel free to come in and take a look at copies we have available in our bookstore. And be sure to come by Sunday, March 30, when Karin will be reading from and signing copies of her book.

Stay posted for details!

When I was a freshman in college, the cheery lemon cream cement block walls of my dorm room were covered with posters resplendent with inspirational sayings.  My favorite was the one with the butterfly motif that said “If you love something, let it go.  If it comes back, it was meant to be.”  It had that touch of heartbreak and melodrama with a smidgen of optimism that resonated with my 18 year old view of life.  Ah, to be a martyr for love – a truly noble calling!

 While I did become the Joan of Arc for the lovelorn for a time, letting go with practiced painful panache, I didn’t seem to ever get that second part of the saying – the coming back part.  In my mind, the coming back was a guy realizing he had made the biggest mistake of his life, returning with flowers and begging for forgiveness, at which point I would immediately declare all was forgiven and we would ride off into the sunset together.  Surprisingly it just never happened.  I came to write off that adage as a pithy attempt at, well, selling posters to 18 year old girls.  But what I never understood about it before was that it wasn’t about the eternal hoping to get the prize – it was about the letting go of the attachment to it.  Now, just a couple of years later, I’m beginning to get the message. 

There have been many things in my life in the last few years I’ve had to learn to release:   some literally, some emotionally, some mentally.  In a lot of cases I harbored a secret wish that they would come back to me.  But the amazing thing that I have come to realize is that when I release not only the situation, but more importantly, my attachment to the outcome, things have a way of working out.  How many times have I plotted and planned how something should work out, only to be disappointed?  And conversely, how many times have I had an incredible time when I was able to “go with the flow”?  It is not that I should give up the “prep work” – it’s the expectation of the result that needs the release. 

In starting my business there has been a lot of prep work that needed to be done.  I’d never done anything like this before and had a vision, but not necessarily an expectation of how it would all come together.  I was truly in the flow of things and I was swept along in an amazing fashion with doors opening left and right.  It was such an example to me of doing the next right thing, letting go, and seeing what the process placed next in my path.  I was living and loving the process, without the preconceived notion of how it should or would be.  

So you’d think I learned my lesson.   

I have come to believe that life affords you ALL sorts of opportunities to try out your new skills.  The next time I faced a challenge, instead of doing what I had JUST done – taking the next step and trusting the process – I somehow decided I now KNEW how this was supposed to work.  I think by now you know how that turned out.   

So after realizing once again that perhaps that way doesn’t work, I’ve come up with a new mantra:  How can I serve?  At least for today I’ve realized that what I do is not about me.  I am the messenger, the conduit, the enabler of something beyond me.  I have unique skills and talents that allow me to bring things to fruition for which I am grateful.  I’ve come to realize that serving means utilizing whatever skills I have, regardless of any judgment I may have put on them in the past.  I use to think that serving meant a huge commitment but now see it could be as simple as making a sales clerk smile.  I just never know how something I do, no matter how insignificant it may seem to me, could affect someone’s life.   

I’m still an optimist and still the person that wants to makes things happen.  Those are part of my gifts.  Martyrdom?  Been there, done that.  Today that saying on my college poster speaks to me not of martyrdom but of freedom.  I’m letting go of rigid expectations that took up so much energy and space in my life in the past.  And who know what I just might get in return.  I’m looking forward to it…without expectation!    

…then come meet your newest acquaintances.

As of February we are carrying a new line of jewelry. A friend to the center, Nesli Cakiroglu, has brought to us a unique jewelry line from Ana Products™. All pieces are imported from the Mediterranean coastal nation of Turkey and reflects their national artistry which is influenced by both Eastern and Western influences. The results if which are much like our members varying in design, inspiration and flare. We welcome you to come by and see for yourself!

There are few things in life that make me feel my age as much as getting new technology.  Whereas my children are counting the days until they can upgrade their cell phones to the latest and greatest, I am content to muddle along with mine until there is a problem that forces my hand.  This time it was my son’s phone dying before the upgrade period, forcing me to take advantage of my “free” upgrade so I could give him my old one.  This was not only a huge issue for me in just making the decision on what to get (it took me at least 3 hours of research and I’m still not sure I made the right decision…), but a huge problem in learning how use it.  As I can’t seem to find anyone to tell me how to do this, or a child who could do it for me without a significant bribe attached, I have had to….(get ready…) read the manual!  Taking the time to stop and get to the basics is a humbling experience.

When I am on a roll in life, whether it be with work or personally, I don’t like to stop for anything or anyone.  It becomes an annoying waste of time to do anything that is not on my ever-increasing and never ending to do list.  So taking the time to figure out my phone was not what I had in mind, especially if it forced me to slow down. 

I often feel that if there is a lesson I need to learn, I get an initial whisper.  When I don’t heed it, I’ll get a tap on the shoulder.  Ignoring that usually then results in being hit over the head with a two by four.  I’m coming to see the cell phone as perhaps my whisper.  The migraines I had a week were the two by fours. 

If I had thought that stopping my work flow to address the issues of the annoying cell phone was bad, waking up with a migraine every day for a week made the cell phone issues seem like a pleasure.  I found during that challenging week I would awaken, stumble with my head pounding to the medicine cabinet to take my miracle meds and then lay back in bed perfectly still for another hour.  It was during this forced meditation that I found many answers to life’s questions.  Amazingly when I was slowed to a standstill, I was able to allow the answers that reside inside to float up to my consciousness.  It brought to mind an incident that happened recently with my boyfriend and his laptop.

My boyfriend’s laptop was on the fritz and he was searching all over for his CDs to use to repair the problem.  Not only did he not have a manual to consult, he had no backup disks!  An anxious phone call to the ever helpful help line (a term which is sadly becoming an oxymoron), assured him that everything was already inside the machine - he just needed to push a button and it would take care of itself.  And amazingly it did!  I remember wishing that all of life could be like that.  How interesting that shortly thereafter I was able to see that it really is. 

Life’s answers, it seems, are not that far away.  Sometimes it takes something annoying, like a new cell phone, to remind you to slow down.  Sometimes it takes it will take something a little stronger, like a migraine to get your attention.  But regardless of what it takes to get you there, the answers, just like on the laptop, have been preinstalled.  The trick is learning to find that manual. Slowing down and finding the quiet within are good ways to start. But don’t worry - if you don’t think you can find the time to do that now, there’s a two by four with your name on it somewhere in the future to assist you!    

During this beautiful holiday season, I recently felt that everyone in my life was stupid.  Like there was a conspiracy somewhere and I was the lucky one who got tested on just how much stupidity I could handle.  I was losing that battle.  It was when I realized that my children had also lost all their intelligence that I decided that perhaps the issue just MIGHT be with someone other than everyone else in the world.  I hate it when it all comes back to me.

  I can, for the most part, handle pretty large amounts of stress.  I’ve worked hard at creating a balance in my life so that it doesn’t create a problem for me or those around me.  But this time it got away from me.  The signs were probably there, but I was in a Scarlett O’Hara groove (“I’ll think about it tomarrah…”) and didn’t acknowledge it.  Sometimes I know the signs are there but I just can’t see them – a little like my son’s dashboard which flashes an ominous “INFO DISPLAY” message, but the LCD on that display is broken.  Well, it’s trying to tell us something but who knows what it is – so we just ignore it and keep going.  Or sometimes the signs are very obvious and I still ignore them.  Like my “Low Fuel” light glaring at me.  Funny, those things are telling the truth, as I discovered when I had to be pushed across the intersection where I stalled out.  I was on my way to the gas station, but had to make just a couple more stops first….

  Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know what is more stuffed with turkey, dressing and pie - me or my refrigerator.  As I gaze at its contents, now overflowing with bits and pieces of a wonderful holiday celebration, I can’t but wonder at what truly makes the Thanksgiving leftovers so great: their flavor or their memories.  A bite of the turkey reminds me of the endless “just 20 more minutes” before the bird was ready.  The aroma of the sweet potato casserole elicits a smirk when remembering the forced smile I wore when its contents were described to me - and my subsequent sheepish request for seconds after my hesitant initial taste test proved a delightful surprise.  And the melt-in-your-mouth sweetness of the apple pie warms my heart with the memory of love and appreciation at my handiwork. 

Since when did leftovers get such a good rap?

Wasn’t there a time, not so long ago, when I myself felt like a “leftover”?  A remnant of  a past life - incomplete, worked over, and left on a shelf for another day?  A walk around my house was a tour of a life that use to be:  half the crystal, a few snatched tools from a wrench set, books with no book shelf, chairs with no table, empty spots where family portraits use to hang. 

When you are viewing life through the lens of leftover-as-less-than, life takes on that hue.  You notice what you don’t have and find evidence of it everywhere.  Just like when you’re looking for a car and that is the only car you see on the road, or when you’re trying to get pregnant and all you see are babies, or you’re divorced and all you see are happy looking families everywhere.  Leftover is what happens when you don’t have the complete picture. 

Thanksgiving, however, has made me realize there is yet a different way to look at leftovers.  Rather than focusing on what is missing, focus on what is present.  Yes, there may not be enough plates for a party of eight, but hey, there’s plenty for an intimate dinner party.  There’s food for many meals to come, each resplendent in memories and yet additionally able to create ones for the future.  That which is left is often times more flavorful, as the individual ingredients have now thoroughly aged and integrated into a new more robust version of itself.  And life, as a leftover, is equally as rich: embroidered with the trappings and trimmings of days gone by and poised to take advantage of the moment present. 

If life were such that I had a choice as to whether to start afresh or to move forward with the collection of experiences I’ve accumulated, there would be no hesitation in my choosing.  I would gather up my bags of leftovers, grateful for each morsel, and head on down that winding road.  What was once thought of as a burden now has become a life sustainer and enhancer.  Life as a leftover brings new hope, new experiences for growth and new ways to transform that which was into that which will be - and its pretty darn tasty too!    

Yesterday we held our first Open House and by all accounts it was a success!  A wonderful blend of entrepeneurs, corporate employees and those in transition stopped by to check out the facilities and enjoy the camraderie, delicious food, and for the lucky ones, a chair massage by our wonderful massage therapist, Regina McLoughlin.  Members will be able to fully enjoy Regina’s talents starting this week as she joins the PWC as one of our fabulous massage therapists. 

 The comments most heard last night were “what a beautiful facility” and “what a great idea”!  The 10% of attendees who joined last night surely felt that way as well! 

If you missed the Open House, stop by anytime and we’ll give you a personal tour!

On Sunday, October 28th we hosted our first Author’s event, co-sponsored by Watchung Booksellers.  TaRessa Stovall read from her book “Other People’s Skin” and then opened the floor to a lively discussion on the bias within the African American community in regards to skin color.  The audience enjoyed the passionate stories and all felt that it opened the door for continuing dialogue on this and other topics.  One participant asked that we hold another forum to talk about male/female communications issues.  Talk about a lively discussion!  I look forward to hosting more of these types of events as we move forward with our mission.