“Mommy, I miss you. Please let me stay home with you today.”

She had been pleading ever since I picked her up at her Dad’s house, and here we were, sitting in the parking lot at school, cuddling in the front seat, as she asked one last time.

But instead of quickly answering that of course she had to go to school, that’s her job and our commitment and she can’t just not go every time she doesn’t feel like it because that’s how life works and various other Puritan work ethic arguments … before I answered, I checked in with my heart.

And … I remembered the blog post I read the day before.

From an astrophysicist mom with two kids, ages 4 and 6.

She has been battling breast cancer for 5 years, through surgery and chemo and radiation and remission and back again.

It is now spread throughout her body, and is lodged in her bones.

Hospice is coming to her house tomorrow.

I thought, if this was one of my last days, if hospice was coming for me tomorrow, what lesson would I want to leave my daughter with?

The lesson that we always go to work and keep our commitments and show up on time, no matter what?

Or … the lesson that sometimes, we all need a mental health day.

The lesson that all need to fill ourselves up before we can go out into the world.

Whether that filling up is via alone time or walking in nature … or via spending quality time with our mommies.

And … I remembered that first night in the hospital with her, 18 months ago.

She was sleeping in the open PICU ward bed while I silently wept in the cot beside her, shaking, in regret.

Regretting … all the books I didn’t read her.

The games I was too busy to play.

The cuddles I declined, as I was distracted by iPhone and email and social media and launches and dishes and all the things I was supposed to be doing on my never-ending to do list.

So after discussing with her that commitments are important, and how much she does love school – both the learning and her friends – and that we can’t do this every day, and exactly how she felt and what she needed and why … we came to an agreement.

Yesterday, my daughter took a mental health day to spend with her mommy.

We played Uno and Go Fish and this weird game involving hanging monkeys from a plastic tree. We made a poster with rules she thinks are important for living in this house and I showed her how you can use a black piece of construction paper to make free-form Lite Brite art. I taught her how to sweep the dining room and we sorted through the last packed box in her bedroom closet.

We cuddled on the sofa and watched Barbie as a fairy, saving the kingdom from the evil Laverna. We talked about her birthday party plans, how her father thinks, why heat waves make light bend differently.

We went to Target, sang songs, prayed, washed her hair, read books.

We danced.

Yes, today she went to school.

Happy to see her friends. Happy to talk about the letter Z. Happy to go ice skating.

Yes, today I’m back at work.

(Not at full pace, due to a post-spending-the-day-with-an-extrovert hangover migraine, now medicated for the most part via the wonders of sumatriptan.)

I am here, answering those emails that had been pending, drafting my Monday morning email to you a day late, checking up on the program I neglected yesterday.

Certain that yesterday I made the same decision I would have made, as if it had been either of our last days. 

That’s all I can do in this life.

And … that’s all that there is.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing about the different genres of crap that get in front of us seeing or living our truth – today’s video is about accepting reality.

This video is for you who have resentment, tons of stress, are tired or overwhelmed or overworked …

(yep, that’s me too!!)

If this video resonates with you, please share your thoughts, stories, feedback, or questions below!

(And … we’ll be covering more of this in the 18 Days to Live Your Truth program – more info coming soon.)

Not just because it’s all carby and toasted and smothered in real butter.

But because this morning I haven’t earned my food yet.

There are tasks yet unfinished.

The unanswered emails, the unbought gifts, the unwashed dishes, the unlaunched sites, the uncollected receivables, the uninterviewed experts, the unresponded press requests, the unengaged @ replies, the unsold clients.

There are self cares yet untaken.

The unswollowed vitamins, the unrested sleeps, the unpolished toenails, the unfulfilled prescriptions, the unstuck acupuncture, the unsmelled perfume, the unbought health food, the unlifted weights.

Who am I to think I deserve food.

Sleep. Sex. That new novel. This red sweater. A long walk. One delicious minute of unrestricted laughter or intimate connection or untamed joy.

With all these yet undone, how could I possibly deserve to be happy?

Yet.

You say that we all deserve to be happy.

But how do you know that? Where is that written down?

I wish for proof, some testimony from the gods, some authoritative ultimate that can argue with the doubt ingrained in my bones, that can convince my soul of its worthiness.

And yes, I know. I teach this shit.

I teach that we all deserve self care and we all deserve ecstasy, that to be able to express our souls on this earth we must create the space for it to flourish, that before we can do or make or create or help … we first must just allow ourselves to be.

The reason I teach is because this is the great lesson that my soul must learn this time around in this corporal existence. This is the great lesson that my soul must share with all of you to finally reprogram the molecules embedded in my very cells, to finally move on to the next exploration.

This lesson, this fundamental truth that I, that you, that we all deserve every morsel of these ecstasies.

We deserve them for no reason.

We deserve them for every reason.

So in the meanwhile, I pretend.

I try to act as if I have already learned the lesson.

I swallow the vitamins. I play in the rain. I surrender to the orgasm. I devour the frozen yogurt with a pile of chocolatey mix-ins. I spend the afternoon browsing the independent bookstore looking for anything in particular.

I take a bite of this english muffin.

And I wonder.

I wonder if someday I’ll feel that I actually deserve it.

–

Do you struggle with guilt, with feeling like you must get stuff done before you deserve a break, before you deserve to be happy? What are you doing to unlearn this untruth?

but this video I’m asking you the other side of the question.

What happens when you run *everything* in your life as a business?

(And don’t forget to leave your questions, feedback, comments below! I love hearing from you guys!)

And the only way to create that for my people is to first create that for myself.

So instead of New Year’s Resolutions I’m focusing on personal projects – such as getting better sleep, setting up & practicing a beauty self-care routine, improving the flexibility in my hips/waist/back, etc – that will help create that space in my life.

The most important trick is that I’m only being with one project at a time, and I’m being with that project until it’s done.

Whether it takes 3 weeks or 3 months or all year.

(The idea is that I’m able to be with the project in the feminine because I have *more than enough* time … but since I’m only doing one at a time I’m tricking my feminine into focusing without her turning into a guy. This trick is something we’ll be talking about in the 2011 Business Plan from the Feminine class next week.)

Project #1: Hacking Sleep – Week 1

A good night’s sleep.

Without it – my workouts don’t make a difference, I crave crappy food or forget to eat entirely, I’m living on coffee and diet Dr. Pepper, I’m tired & moody & short-tempered, I don’t enjoy my daughter or the other people I love, I can’t write or think or create.

Without sleep, I pretty much go to crap.

And for the last 6 years my sleep has been horrid.

But it wasn’t always this way.

For the first 30 years of my life, I slept 7 to 7 1/2 hours a night. I thought I never woke up during the night and always had dreams. Slept like a rock, through anything, no problems, no alarm, waking up by 5:30-6:30 am like I had a clock in my head.

And then, in 2004, I got pregnant.

When the hormones kicked in around week 7, my brain turned to some sort of mommyness that changed my sleep forever.

And while I still don’t use an alarm clock (I still wake up without fail by 5:30-6:30 am, regardless of when I went to sleep or how much sleep I got, unable to sleep in no matter what), I sleep lightly.

Plagued by whorlybrain. Hear every noise. Wake up unsatisfied & already tired & unable to handle the stress of the day without turning into an absolute pisshead.

And the worst part … this insane part of me prided myself on getting no sleep.

I still got stuff done, I stayed up late emailing and got up early to write blog posts and kept taking care of my daughter and pushing through and making it happen and getting everything done on the to do list.

That even with 5 or 3(!) hours of sleep I could survive.

As if my life is just about *survival* …

No.

My life is not about survival. Fuck that.

My life is about Ecstasy.

So project #1 towards a life of ecstasy is to create the foundation for it to happen.

To create the conditions and the routines necessarily for a good night’s sleep.

I’ll be sharing more about what I’m using (the Zeo sleep coach machine) & what I’ve already discovered (like that I get better sleep when I go to bed an hour later) in upcoming posts.

But for now, I ask you – are you just surviving in your life, or are you thriving?

Is your life something you’re enduring, or enjoying?

Are you taking in the amazing people and experiences, or are you unable to because of lack of sleep, lack of good food, poor health, draining people, or inadequate self care?

Where are you on creating space for ecstasy?

I love all of your light parts.

Your creativity, your caring, your courage. Your smarts and intelligence and strength. Your love of learning and life and beauty.

You sleeping at the foot of your daughter’s hospital bed every night, you willing to be naked in every blog post, the way you flip upside-down and hang half-naked from a pole. How much you give of yourself, how you see the goodness in everyone, all you’re willing to provide and create for those you love.

I love all of your you parts.

Your laugh, your smile, your curves, your toes.

The disjoined stories you tell when you’re not editing your words, the way you hate white cars and the skin of tomatoes and gooey things that stick to themselves, how you claim to be a vegetarian but you still eat bacon and In-N-Out, how you can find peace strolling through a financial district with a coffee early on Christmas morning or shivering with your toes sunk into a deserted beach at midnight.

I love all of your dark parts.

The truths you’re scared to share with anyone, the seeming mistakes you’ve made, your greatest fears, your kinks, everything you’re ashamed of lusting for, all of the ways you feel that you’ve failed or are inadequate or broken or wrong.

Everything.

Because I know the truth.

The truth is that there is nothing wrong with you.

Everything that you have done or have not done, everything you are or are not, everything you will be or will never be.

All of it is exactly the wholeness of you that makes you a wonderful, unique creation.

The very person who deserves all of the happiness and fulfillment and ecstasy that can be found in this corporal existence.

Yes, Elizabeth, I love you.

I love you, just as you are.

–

Yes, this is a love letter from myself to myself. From that wise knowing part of me to the rest of me who isn’t quite sure if I’m okay. And it was hard to write this, since that wise knowing part of me usually doesn’t get to work the keyboard.

The trick is that I wrote it as if I was writing it to someone else. I thought of everyone I love the most in the world, and wrote it as if I was writing to them. What I would want them to know, what I would want them to hear, what I would want them to be able to share with themselves.

So I ask you … when was the last time you admitted how wonderful you are? When was the last time you let your truth speak to you? What would you want to share with someone you loved … even if that person was you?

Haven’t left since I went and saw Harry Potter at the 9:45 am showing on Thanksgiving Day.

Not even to check my mail. Not to Peet’s for coffee. Not to run to the corner store for more Diet Dr. Pepper.

I’ve been playing marathon sessions of Civilization V. Re-reading Mercedes Lackey paperbacks about magic and gryphons and horses that talk in your head. Taking my morning shower after noon, wearing glasses all day, sitting on the sofa, petting the cat.

Hermiting up.

Completely content. Peaceful. Relaxed. Balanced.

Feeling strangely not-insane.

Feeling normalized.

For the first time in … I can’t remember. Years.

Before the Moment. Before I decided to live my truth. Before I changed everything in my business. Before I started speaking my truth. Before I separated from my (now) ex-husband. Before my daughter was burned. Before I moved to San Francisco. Before I went without child care. Before my daughter was sick for months with no diagnosis. Before my daughter was operated for a brain tumor. Before she started her new school.

Before.

These last 18 months have been epically stressful for me.

Any of those things – restarting a business, divorce, child hospitalized, moving, brain tumor – would be enough to cause major drain of energy, a depleting of resources. But all of them at once? Major clusterfark.

What I expect of myself, the unreasonable standards I hold myself to, I would not force out of my enemy, much less someone I love.

So I’m incorporating new standards.

Gentle, loving standards.

Less demands. Fewer self-judgements. Releasing of guilt.

More space. Lots of alone time. The indulgement in lovely nothings.

On a journey to a different way of arranging my life, inventing something that works for the INFJ / HSP / feminine energy / nerdy / living my truth girl that I am.

God, I feel better already.

—

I’d love to hear from you!

How much alone time do you need? What completely useless nothings do you do that chill you out, normalize you, fill your energy back up? Do you give yourself what you need, or judge yourself for not doing something productive?

Here are a few things I learned.

Writing every day is necessary.

To keep the lines of creativity open, to keep me in the feminine, to remind me that it’s not important to write only things that are publishable or strategic or epic.

Like any creative endeavor, the important thing isn’t about what comes out or how it looks or whether it’s useful or amazing.

The important thing is to just write.

I need self care systems or I will fall apart again and again.

That I’m still recovering from my daughter’s brain tumor, as much as I fell lame and guilty for needing more time. I realized that I was drained down to the pits of negativeness and even on days when I feel great, that’s just because I’ve barely moved past “fine” into “happy!” … not because I’m all the way back.

I must heal myself and fill myself up and create space. First. Before I can do.

The most inspired ideas can only come when they have someplace to be.

That I can’t decide what to offer, create a business plan, set prices, write copy, promote new programs – that are expressions of my soul – if I’m not in touch with who my soul really is.

And I can’t be in touch with my soul if I’m continuously drowning in the endless weight of tasks and have-to’s and to do lists.

I can make money while not launching anything.

Not quite as much as a launch, but about 1/2 as much. That when I’m totally myself, just sharing ideas of what is coming and letting people buy that stuff from me, some people will.

That it actually doesn’t have to be hard.

I need sabbaticals.

That I must have time, on a regular basis, to just write. To not be forced into creating programs on deadlines or launching big campaigns or completing projects. Time without specific results and/or due dates – both of which put me in masculine “get things done” mode.

That I need time to be purely in the feminine.

Time to just be myself.

So, I’m putting sabbaticals on my calendar for 2011.

And I love that I have absolutely no idea what I’ll receive.

Want to join me?

–

Have you ever taken time off from doing and producing and making thing happen … to just be?

To just write, create, allow? (Even if just a day?)

If so, what happened for you? If not, why not?

I Want Today Off.

Off from The To Do List. Off from Productivity. Off from Results.

Off from Flow.

I just want to sit.

Be still.

No moving, no progress, no growing, no intention, no thinking, no analysis.

Just. This.

Eat. Drink. Laze. Internet. Dance. Play. Movie. Read. Walk. Shop.

Eat Again.

Nothing useful, nothing helpful, nothing good or bad or expanding or contracting.

Just. Here.

#thatisall