What is wild?

wild (waɪld)

Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed

   synonyms: untamed, undomesticated, feral 

uncontrolled or unrestrained, esp. in pursuit of pleasure.  "wild behavior"

1. (Zoology) (of animals) living independently of man; not domesticated or tame

2. (Botany) (of plants) growing in a natural state; not cultivated

3. uninhabited or uncultivated; desolate: a wild stretch of land.

4. (Anthropology & Ethnology) living in a savage or uncivilized way: wild tribes.

5. lacking restraint: wild merriment.

6. of great violence or intensity: a wild storm.

7. disorderly or chaotic: wild thoughts; wild talk.

8. dishevelled; untidy: wild hair.

9. in a state of extreme emotional intensity: wild with anger.

10. reckless: wild speculations.

11. not calculated; random: a wild guess.

12. unconventional; fantastic; crazy: wild friends.

13. (foll by: about) intensely enthusiastic or excited

14. (Card Games) (of a card, such as a joker or deuce in some games) able to be given any value the holder pleases: jacks are wild.

15. wild and woolly

a. rough; untamed; barbarous

b. (of theories, plans, etc) not fully thought out

adv

16. in a wild manner

17. (Horticulture) to grow without cultivation or care

18. to behave without restraint

n

19. (Physical Geography) (often plural) a desolate, uncultivated, or uninhabited region

20. the wild

a. a free natural state of living

b. the wilderness

When you read these words what calls to you?  Where in your life are you domesticated? Where have you adapted to your family, your culture, your work and gone against your wild nature?  Where do you yearn to be more wild in your life?  In your heart?  

Play with this and see what comes up for you.  Is there resistance, shame, or judgment popping up?  Delight, freedom, and new ideas? All of that?  Choose one wild part of you that emerges and welcome it in, research having it as part of your life. How does it feel to live with this part of you?  

For me, one of the big wild things I've welcomed into my life is dancing in nature.  I love being at the beach, the park and moving my body. Feeling the air whipping through my hair, the sun on my skin- Alicia Keys, Rhiannon, Mumford and Sons, Fun, Pink, Beyonce singing in my ear.  At first I was self-conscious, I was the only one dancing at the beach.  Plenty of people were walking, jogging, swimming, surfing, boogie boarding... It's like the Pyramid game "Things you do at the beach." Dancing at the shore as the water laps up against my legs.  Not in that category.  But I kept with it, my wild kept calling me to the shore and now I dance, for me, for my wild to emerge and show up in the world and take its place.  

I would love to hear about what emerges for you and how it feels to come home to more of your wild.

                        Dancing on the beach at sunset.  My wild so happy to be playing in the world

Love

May we remember our magic, our strength, our knowing, our worth, our truth, our great beauty. May we receive more than we can imagine, open our hearts wider than we ever thought possible and walk through our days with gratitude and awe for our lives and the beauty and love we encounter.

What's going on?

How are you doing? Are you noticing the swirling energy of change that's in the air? I keep getting calls from friends asking me what's up, sharing that they've been feeling really cranky, angry and weepy lately.  Me too. This is a time for the old to come up and out- so if you can sit with being uncomfortable for awhile while these emotions come up and out, then you are freeing up space in your life for more of the joy, pleasure and love that's awaiting us. In total transparency, I've been screaming in pillows, throwing temper tantrums on my bed, sobbing, and getting misty eyed while watching Parks and Recreation.  

It's a time of great change, and when that happens I can get uncomfortable and reach for chocolate, tv and a glass of red wine.  I've spent a lot of time trying to get my life into homeostasis and in a nice comfort zone...which is...fine and yet it doesn't always feel very vital, vibrant or engaged. So I've been doing my best to walk away from the chocolate, tv and red wine and just sit with what's coming up and why it makes me so uncomfortable. 

I've never been that great at sharing how I'm feeling in the moment, with myself or others. I was excellent (think Olympic Gold Medalist excellence, Meryl Streep excellence) at keeping my good girl smile on and would then sob in private, eat ice cream, and have all the conversations I needed to be having with others in my head. Then five years later talk with the person about how I felt (and because I hadn't talked about it or felt it, those feelings felt very present, even magnified 5 year later). Not very productive. Nothing was dealt with, just shoved down. And while in the moment that might have felt safer or quite honestly all I knew had to do at the time, it didn't do anything to create more intimacy, trust and love with myself, or my community.

I've been learning to be more present to my emotions, to the sensations in  my body and when I find myself reaching for my iPhone to type in people.com, I stop and ask, "what am I not wanting to feel? why?" There are a myriad of answers that pop up in my brain and I do my best to bypass that chatter, breathe and let that sensation, that energy (emotions are energy in motion) out through tears, words, writing, screams, singing, dancing, walking, hitting a pillow...ways that are safe to myself and others and most importantly...honest. 

So in these next few days, the support I offer you is this. Sit with what wants to come up and out.  Don't get caught up in the story of it. Be gentle and loving towards yourself.  Scream in your car, call a friend and sob, do some free form writing and burn it.  Take a walk and let nature work its magic.If you need more support, I'm here for you.

Love yourself up and reclaim your wild heart---all it wants is to be seen and loved and let out of its cage. 

Quit Pretending

I was at the acupuncturist yesterday and she looked at me and said "quit pretending, quit being the good girl." And this was without me saying a word.

Wow.

Quit Pretending.

Those are some big words and a big mission. Quit wearing masks, quit playing nice. Quit pretending I'm happy when I'm not, or my heart isn't broken when it is. Quit pretending I don't want more, more pleasure, more laughter, more delicious invitations for play, more sunshine. 

Quit pretending I like working by myself, cooking for one, and the new season of the Voice. 

Last night I sat down and wrote out all the areas of my life where there is pretense, where I am settling for so much less that I desire or am worthy of.  My love life, romance, work, vibrant health, relationships, connection, intimacy, joy, dance...where am I settling merely because it's better than it was before, its better than yesterday. Thank you and, I want more. SO MUCH MORE.

I want to dance in the park, have a man bring me flowers, have someone else change my windshield wipers, figure out my ecommerce fulfillment options, and take my car to the shop.  I want invitations to outings where I can wear my fancy dresses. I want a massage once a week - even typing that makes me squirm a bit but it's true!!  I want to live somewhere with more sunshine and where I can walk everywhere.  I want to go to Morocco, take cooking classes and sleep in the desert. I want to hike the Alps and walk through the countryside of Ireland.  I want to be an extra in the next Hunger Games movie. I want to meet someone who owns a cupcake shop in Denmark and go work there for a week.  I want to feel grace and peace.  I want to hear the words, "I'm sorry I hurt you."  I want my heart rocked by great love, my body caressed, words of adoration whispered in my ear.  

Oh the list goes on...I'll keep sharing with you as it comes to me, because this has opened a door that I am so delighted to walk through. In the meantime...

Where are you pretending- with yourself and others? What do you want? What is your soul, your body, your heart craving?  What truth do you need to tell yourself and then tell someone else?  Speak it out loud. Own it. It's yours for a reason and denying it, pretending yourself around it won't change it. 

Seeing you, loving you and cheering us all on as we drop our pretense, our masks, get uncomfortable for awhile, and then some more as we walk in this world with our truth, our desires, our hearts out there for all to see. And that's how we change the world and get our desires met.

Clank

A friend once told me that if I ever had a cooking show, it should be called ‘Clank’.

Clank because I’m renowned for my ability to drop pans, forks, and ingredients as I cook. Clank because my guests are due to arrive in 30 minutes and I finally read step 7, which says ‘marinate overnight’. Clank because my linens are known to be wrinkled, my wine glasses adorably spotted, and things coming together as the cocktail hour is winding down. Clank: imperfect, messy, noisy.  

I spent years trying to be Martha Stewart, in many parts of my life, and I quit cooking, I stopped having fun, I lost my love of it (it being anything) as I got tied up in the quest for perfectionism.  The need for everything to be neat, tidy, approved of, clean.  The opposite of clank.

Recently, I started cooking again, taking an ingredient and making something up. An inherited trait, as my Mom jokes none of her meals can ever be duplicated because of her improvising.  I love this.  I realize now, clank is where the juice is, the fun, the creativity.  It also means there are meals I create that aren’t so pretty and some that aren’t so delicious and it means I’m having so much more fun.  The journey to creating them was filled with a lot more flow and joy instead of referring to a recipe every 10 seconds. While I can remember the names of all of my 5th grade classmates, looking at a recipe and holding that info in my brain for the 20 seconds it takes to implement escapes me…and it feels stifling.  So un-clank.

I spent so many years trying to be perfect, to be loved, to get it right…I forgot to live. I forgot that life is a shit show and things happen.  Pans are dropped, ingredients forgotten and you can still end up with a pretty amazing meal.  And most times, even better than the original recipe because its all your own and laughs were had along the way.

It’s the moments of dropping a bag of cinnamon that delight me now- the bungles, the whoops, because this is where so much of our humanity is.  When I started traveling I was told the worst moments make the best stories and it’s so true.  Whether it’s the Friday night I made pulled pork for my Catholic friends during Lent (it was delicious and they did take some for the next day), my first attempt at ice cream sandwiches involving brownies on sheets pans and too melted ice cream as guests watched, cardamom instead of coriander, tablespoons instead of teaspoons…this is the beauty of living.

So I’m learning to laugh again, ease my shoulders, learning to love my particular form of Clank in all parts of my life, trusting that all is well and enjoying the imperfection in all of it. What’s your Clank? How can you have more fun and delight with it? Where can you give yourself more space for your humanity to show up?

Clank away!!

*no pans were dropped or damaged during the writing of this blog.