Wonderful quotes like, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away" serve as placate reminder that we're still not quite doing 'it' right.

We're not yet living our life to capacity.
We're not appreciative enough.

The message is:
Be present in this moment.
Slow down.
Get still.
Smell the roses.
Give love.
Live consciously.
Be grateful.
Breathe deep.

And yet we're constantly receiving messages to the contrary that say:
Achieve.
Build more.
Own.
Create.
Innovate.
Succeed.
Learn.
Improve.

Both sets of messages are useful and have a place.
I just have trouble merging the two.

One set of messages fosters a teeter-totter combination of inspiration and guilt and the other set implores me to strive, be ambitious and to ‘be-do-have’ more, more, MORE!

While there must be a way to integrate the two in some sort of delicate balance, I've yet to discover the key to 'success'.

I adore my family and yet am torn at times as I am pre-occupied with events that seem out of sync with my priorities:

I love my children.
I want more for my family.
I want my children to have certain opportunities.
Opportunities cost money.
I work harder to get more. (short term pain, long term gain)
I enjoy my work and my passions.
I feel selfish and misguided in my priorities.

If we only get one time around, and we must not squander our time and our love… how is it possible to satisfy daily needs, dreams and desires and stay firmly connected to what really matters in a quality way?

Aaah. The eternal mother/woman dilemma.

BALANCE.

At this time in my life, I choose to expend my energy in several ways.
Between family, business, volunteerism and music. I’m maxed out – for time and energy. There is no extra these days.

But I am choosing. So, why do I feel guilty?

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements would call this battle with guilt living under ‘The Judge.’ In Mexican Toltec teachings ‘The Judge’ is inside of you, consistently condemning, judging, criticizing and finding fault in you and in everyone around you. In being human, he says we’ve been ‘domesticated’ – we’ve been exposed to agreements (spoken and otherwise) that were laid out for us by our parents, our communities, our church etc since birth. These agreements are so deeply engrained in us, that the running ‘commentary’ in our brain, prevents us from really living.

We feel guilt because ‘the judge’ inside of us, is constantly referring to the ‘agreements of our domestication’ and criticizing our actions, feelings and decisions in accordance with those agreements we’ve been taught since birth.

Living an authentic and whole life and becoming a full person, completely alive, awake, full of love and creativity, is learning to live without listening to ‘the judge.’

The messages we receive can be overwhelming.

It is extremely difficult to ‘tune out’ the world’s push and zero in on what is important.
If this moment is all you are guaranteed, how do you choose to spend it?

And how can you combine the two sets of messages?


Highly Recommended Reading – The Four Agreements. Or grab it on audio CD and listen to it while you drive. It is a wonderful way to ‘wake up’ to your life.

"Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive; the risk to be alive and express what we really are." - Don Miguel Ruiz

We decided to take our kids to the World Water Park in West Edmonton Mall on the Saturday of the four day Easter weekend.

It was us and 127,911 other people. All lying, sitting and standing on the tan cement 'beach' under greenhouse glass. 

The world's largest petri dish.

It grosses me out just thinking about it.  All those snotty noses, bare feet and water-slide enemas. People is various stages of wellness, coughing, hacking and sharing the same 8 public toilets. All those babies in diapers and little (or big) people peeing in the pool. It is probably one of Capital Health's secret testing laboratorys; they go in there at night and swab things down, testing for all sorts of microbial treasures. No wonder they use enough bloody chlorine to burn the hairs out of the inside of your nose.

But we did it for the kids.

It's a racket. $107.70 to get into the pool. $7.00 (non-refundable) for a locker. $5.00 (non-refundable) for tubes. There is a concession that serves giant pretzels, popcorn, hotdogs, chips, pop and slurpees. And two stocked bars for the adults that insist on drinking to complete the island experience.

I had the worst headache all day, and I never get headaches.  I even thought that I was going to throw up once. I've never done that before.

Three hours was enough. The kids swam their little hearts out. And it gave me time to people watch.

What a wonderful opportunity to examine the shapes, sizes and colours of people. Tall, slender, muscular, fat, thin, hairy. Big boobs. Little boobs. Droopy boobs. Stetch marks, cellulite, enormous moles. Bikinis, speedos and cover-ups.

I had been dreading wearing a swim suit. Women and swim-suit season. We hate it. Obsess about it. Tan, wax and pedicure ourselves in order to prepare for it. If you've planned a holiday, you've probably watched what you ate, or downright starved yourself in order to prepare for the vacation. Added extra workouts and doubled the lunges.

Then, the big day arrived. You hit the beach, a tad self-conscious, hesitant to remove the cover-up you're wearing because you are convinced you're the most hideous creature to roam the face of the planet. 

Everyone is going to stare. Point. Laugh. Snicker. Judge me. I have cream of wheat porridge legs. I can't go swimming.

But open your eyes and take a good look around. Realize that noone looks like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. Especially under the blue light of a foggy day outside the greenhouse windows.

So, I find myself examining (hopefully not too obviously) everyone else's parts. Flabby arms, jiggly thighs, stretched out pooches and hairy backs. I didn't see one stand up and out pair of Pamela Anderson boobs in the whole place. In fact, there were far more tiny Kiera Knightly boobs than anything 'outstanding' to examine.  

We women tend to put living on hold, because we aren't perfect yet!  'When I'm five pounds thinner, when I've got a tan, when I feel better about myself.... then I'll do it!' All the reasons we find that keep us from living fully and loving every moment.

All the observation didn't convince me to take off the long brown sweater that I wore into the pool area. That damn headache. Plus I can think of nothing I dislike more than swimming in an ice cold petri dish. Give me a lake any day.

I only got my feet wet.
And thought about who there might have Plantar's warts.

Try as I might to present a solid and composed exterior, I am still a gigantic marshmallow on the inside.  I worry way too much, laugh way too hard and cry way too easily. However, I will say I am getting better at managing my emotions and my abilities and I continue to learn daily at record speed.

After coming through a long few weeks, I am thrilled to proclaim that I have learned (or revisited) a few good life lessons in the last seven days. Here they are summed up. 

1) You can't please everybody all the time, so quit trying.

I was invited by the central Alberta Soropomists, to speak at their International Women's Day luncheon. I was very grateful for the opportunity.

I am not shy and I have a lot to say. Easy enough... I'll speak from the heart, balance with smarts, a dab of humour, punctuate with swear words. What can I say? That's me. I said exactly three swear words during my story telling portion of my speech. I said 'shit', in context of course. Then, during a particularly descriptive part of the speech, I colourfully said, "Most days I am shitting my pants," while talking about the business journey I am on. It got a laugh. Lastly, as I summed up the last of my thoughts I said, "women are most than the lines in their skin, the sum of the pounds or the perkiness of their tits."

Invariably, I offended someone. I'm sure she was a lovely, classy woman who thought I was completely crude, vulgar and classless. I admit, the words probably would have offended my Grandmother. But in the context of the stories/events I was sharing, they were perfectly acceptable in the eyes of a 'real woman on the run'.

So what? She didn't like me. Not everyone is going to like me. 

Not everyone likes Hillary Clinton, not everyone likes Barbara Striesand. Not everybody likes Madonna. Not everyone liked Mother Teresa. Not everyone likes me. Not everyone likes YOU.

You can't make everyone love you. There are plenty of people who do. Get over it.

2)  Nobody is perfect.

I may not be as big of freak as I think I am.

Do you know how meanly I talk to myself?  Oh, the mistakes I've made. Noone else has ever made the mistakes I've made. I must be doing 'it' wrong. My life would look different/I'd be more successful if I was doing 'it' right.(Whatever the 'it' is.) I wouldn't be 10 pounds overweight if I wasn't so lazy. I'm a bad mother because I didn't have yet another loonie to send to school for the 72nd time this week and I haven't ordered books through Scholastic yet this year. The kids will be traumatized for life! I'm not good enough, yet. If I was better as this, I'd have more of that.

Give me a break.

We've all got skeletons in our closet. We've all got imperfections. We all stink when we poop. I am NO better than you. You are no better than me... Everyone makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect.  Judgement/criticism is something people feel they must do to feel better about themselves. 

There is an idea of a 'perfect' someone we're aspiring to be that doesn't exist. The perfect me is a culmination of a mass of images and expectations in my head. Most of the images create a constant feeling of self-defeat for me. 

Why? Because it's a figment of my imagination, this 'perfect' woman who I will be when I've: lost 10 pounds, found a way to get rid of my stretch marks, bought better shoes, got a tan.  This expectation has been created from every airbrushed photograph or ad I've ever seen. And it prevents me from loving myself fully now. She is a woman without baggage, without wrinkles and stretchmarks; a woman who eats clean and dresses in classic and timeless clothes. 

We're forever taking advice from all the 'life-experts,'who are preaching to us from their flawed and imperfect pulpits (Example: Martha Stewart (prison), Anthony Robbins (Infidelity)). The ones that tell us what to wear, how to look, how to do, be and live more. Messages like: be a barracuda in the boardroom, a cougar in the bedroom, a swan in public and a bitch when caring for your pups.

As long as I am focused on the perfect woman I am aiming to become, or am searching for, I lose out this minute.  

So I need to remind myself to stop. Stop beating myself up. Stop setting myself up. Stop judging and criticizing someone else in order to feel better about myself (that doesn't work anyways).

I will become a better me everyday. I will love myself more for who I am and where I've been, without trying to mutate into someone I think will be smarter, prettier, funnier and more successful than me. I am enough right now.

Whoa. I almost lost myself there. Still with me?

3) I am getting good at 'the game'.

Developing and running a business is not for the faint of heart. Especially if you are a woman, new to the world of sales, business and networking, you need to feel as though there are people in your corner. People you can trust and lean on. I'm lucky. I've got those supports in place. Family, friends, mentors, colleagues.

I still experience daily challenges (opportunities to grow). I am still working very diligently to keep this wonderful venture afloat and it's hard. I am still awed to meet women (and men) everyday who are everything from generous, genuine gems to egotisical, selfish selves.  (I meet more of the genuine than the repulsive.)

But I've learned one really valuable thing this week that has allowed me to move (in my head) from 'mom of 4, bumbling along, doing a hogde-podgy, ah-thats-so-sweet-magazine' to 'woman, mother, publisher, and entreprenuer', who can hold her own. 

It's like a light has flipped on. A BFO. (a la Mom, that's a Blinding Flash of the Obvious)

I've discovered that I can hang onto the generous and loving one that I am in my heart of hearts and project the confident, firm, tough-as-nails bitch who can gets shit done when I need to. And I like it.

More importantly, I LIKE her.

I'm worth my time, my ideas and my price list.
I can write my own ticket and provide value for it. 
I'm proud of the work I am doing and the respect it is receiving.

And if me and my stuff doesn't work for 'you', oh well. 'You'll' get over it.

There are lots of people you can push around, walk over, tell what to do and make feel 'less than.' But I'm not one of them. 

‘I will not allow anyone to walk through my mind with their dirty feet’. Mahatma Ghandi.

I am a student of life. When I get uptight - and oh, I do - I must remember, I am doing everything perfectly. I'm right where I am meant to be.

And so are you.

Rock on, sister.

My husband and I stole 12 hours away from the rest of the world.

In a cheesy little Super 8 motel in a town about 45 minutes away, in the middle of the stark, mud-spattered Alberta spring, we shut the door on the motel room and effectively locked out real life. Our children, our mortgage, our commitments, our preoccuptations - shut out for a half a day. 

Not long enough to find respite and renewal. Just long enough to remember how much I love him and how much we take each other for granted.

For several sweet, uniterrupted, savoury hours all that existed was our love for one another, a bag a Lay's Ripple Chips and a container of Herb & Garlic dip. 

Pathetic?

Heavenly.

So we laid in the dark, by the glow of a PBS special and didn't think about deadlines, jobs, children and stressors.  We retreated to the sheets, exhuasted and emotional, ready to break apart at the seams and spill out, beaten down from working 'life' so hard.

We turned down the volume and said very little. We didn't talk about family. Work or bills.  We nibbled and made small talk, each offering to let the other control the remote, both wanting to connect and heal and remember who we are... together.

We stared into each other's eyes like heart-sick lovers.  

Daily moments of reality collect like dust on the fireplace mantle. Layer after layer of annoying, persistant, troublesome reality builds until you can't see what's underneath.  Until you can't remember what's hidden under all that dust or why you ever thought it was beautiful in the first place.

Everyday stuff piles up. We both get wrapped up in the 'not-important but necessary' or the 'urgent and important' or the 'important and necessary but not urgent' details of life.  We pass each other in the hallway or at the front door. We forget to say 'thank you' and 'you matter to me'. We silently criticize each others habits and patterns and lose patience with each other. We forget we hit for the same team.

Our days roll into weeks and then months pass by. We know we need time away. We know we need to re-connect and re-focus.  We know we need to spend time alone, but it's hard to do.  The intent is always good. Date night once a week.  Date night once a month.  Maybe two nights away somewhere, if we're lucky. But challenges in schedules, finances and children always ensue and soon another year of our life together has passed in a blur.

But once in a while, we make it work. The door gets locked and the world gets turned away and for a few fleeting hours he is all that exists with me. And we lock together, inseparable.

We're passionate and ageless.

We become every line to every love song that has ever moved me to tears and every scene of every love-story that has ever made my heart ache. And he tells me I am everything he's ever dreamed of and I fall apart, overwhelmed by the love I feel for one man. We ask each other for forgiveness and promise not to let so many little things get in between us.

We shared breakfast together. Greasy hashbrowns and heavy pancakes, holding hands in between sips of terrible coffee and felt ridiculously crazy-in-love.

And who would've ever known that with this man that makes me absolutely undeniably crazy; that I take forgranted and 'put on the back-burner;' that I forget to thank for all the little things, who is reliable and completely accountable to me and our children I would have discovered my happy place.

Under the sheets by television light in the corner room of the Super 8.

My. Happy. Place.