Missed Flight

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Back in my TV days living as an adrenalin junkie, I loved seeing how close I could cut my arrival times at the airport. Heart-bursting races to the gate were a bizarre badge of honor signifying my cavalier attitude towards jet travel. Collapsing in my seat, wiping the sweat from my eyes, I’d casually order a scotch and water from the stewardess as soon as I could catch my breath. And if it were 8:00 am so much the better.

See? Exuding a superior attitude, I sipped my scotch, glancing at the pedestrian travelers around me drinking crappy coffee and coke. I’m an important TV person. I live on jets. I’m cool. I know Howard Cosell. I am somebody.

(No wonder I was called to write a book about the ego! I know that sucker so very well!)

Strangely, I never missed a flight. Never have missed a flight … until this morning.

What possessed me to book a 6 am plane to San Jose (CA) I have no idea. I got up “on time” at 3:15. I left the house “on time.” But then I spaced the airport exit. And then I missed the shuttle bus from the parking lot. And then the check-in kiosk refused to grant me a boarding pass. And then the lines were horrific.

And then the airline attendant said, “There’s a $25 rebooking fee.” And that was that.

The closest I ever came to missing a plane before was actually a flight out of Quito, Ecuador in 2009 when I had—I kid you not—a 15-hour layover. I was sitting in the empty departure lounge, wondering where everybody else was, when an airline attendant came bursting through the doors gibbering in Spanish, grabbed me and shoved me down some back passages to get me to the plane that was about to depart.

But I digress.

I have to say, now that I’ve had the experience, there’s something calming about missing a flight. The rush is over. There’s nothing you can do. You have all the time in the world to get through security. Your TSA pre-check is wasted but you have a great chat with one of the security guards. You stand in a long long coffee line that would normally set your teeth grinding and enjoy talking to fellow travelers. You sip coffee watching the sun hit the snow-capped Olympic mountains. You eat a relaxed breakfast, catch up on emails and write a blog with plenty of time to spare.

It’s a pause. A suspension of forward motion.

And it’s actually quite delicious.

Tug O’ War

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You want to fly! But part of you holds back. You’re jazzed about creating a fantastic life! And part of you sits in the corner, sucking your thumb in self-doubt.

Sound familiar?

I used to think this was the inevitable war playing out between my Higher and lower selves — the conflict between my divinity and my humanity on the battlefield of everyday affairs in work, money, intimate relationships and spirituality.

I used to think that to fly all I had to do was be good and do everything right.

When that didn’t work out I was disappointed, but comforted by the belief that this war within was normal. It was the LIGHT and the DARK within me wrestling for supremacy — the devil and the angel sitting on either shoulder arguing over my soul like a dry wishbone ready to split.

Every time my “good self” won I felt great. Every time my “bad self” won, I felt terrible. Meditate for two hours every morning for a week? I was righteous! Too hung over to even think about it? I was a horrible person.

For decades, when I ate right and said and did all the right things I was flying high. And when I wasn’t good I flagellated myself with guilt until I was back in line.

Sigh.

I suppose this crap is inevitable. After all, religion’s been around for a loooong time. And believing in good and evil is like … um … the way it is. Right?

Um … NOT!

It’s a belief designed to fail.

It’s a belief designed to incur maximum emotional distress and keep us spinning.

It’s a belief designed to keep us in the fold. (And whether the “fold” is Catholicism or Zen or Advaita doesn’t matter one bit.) And as long as we’re dealing with “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong” we’re screwed.

What to do?

Look. Have you ever noticed that when you do “bad” stuff it always comes with its own repercussions? Hangovers, STDs, unwanted pregnancies, broken relationships, addictions and, in general, unremitting pain and suffering?

Have you ever noticed that when you do “good” stuff it always comes with its own repercussions? Happiness, high energy, warm connection with others, satisfaction and joy?

Who needs religious/spiritual guilt and a bunch of dogma and stupid rules?

LIFE teaches us what works and what doesn’t on its own. We just have to live it.

I guarantee, as soon as you get rid of all the “spiritual rules” and guilt crap that keep you recycling through the whole Sin and Redemption Game, the lessons life gives you (that you give yourself) will whip you into shape faster than you can say “Pass the pretzels, please!”

Standing naked

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This whole time back from my seven-week, drop-everything-that-doesn’t-work-or-feel-good journey through CA/AZ/NM I’ve been housesitting at a friend’s place in Olympia. And I’ve been filled with ??? Where to next? What next? Wanting ANSWERS!!!!! Like NOW!!!!! And yet … I find myself in this delicious place of just BEING here.

I know that screaming to the heavens, racking my brains for answers means I’m only creating more not having the answers. I know ticking the days off the calendar makes me feel scared. So, following my recent mandate of only doing what feels good and doing what I want to do … I’m not doing any of that. Nope.

I am resting in self-created beatitude.

Happy, content, secure, cradled, enjoying beauty, feeling aligned, feeling blissful, feeling present, feeling all is well, feeling everything is perfect, feeling new and wonderful things and people and places and ideas and creations are coming … feeling excitement at the not-knowing, feeling excitement to see what will show up out of this overflowing wellspring of joy and alignment and just being me.

Out on the edge of forever … naked … yet utterly clothed in peace and glory.

This is my task – my only job. To stand in peace and glory … the place of unconditional love for self and life … and watch more and more of me show up.

This is everyone’s task … everyone’s only job.

Just as I knew back in the fall of 2014 that the next step/task for me was to write The E Word, I’m clear that the next step/task for me is to simply stand in the beauty of my own being and let life deliver the goods that have already been created that are waiting for me … that have been waiting for a very very long time

Words don’t teach. Experience does. How will I ever know if this works unless I stand in this place and simply be?

Living from the INSIDE OUT

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Since I cut loose and ran off to the Arizona desert in March I’ve been on a roll. All the heaviness of 80-hour weeks prepping for a book launch that fell flat—all the horrible self-judgment and feelings of failure because I didn’t sell 5,000 copies in the first month (the gold standard is 25,000 pre-sold before launch) — fell away.

I remembered what it was like to breathe cold dry air and inhale the freedom of vast expanses filled with nothing but distant up-thrust mesas, sand and sky. To sit for days and do nothing … no meditation, no “contemplation,” no trying to figure shit out or “raise my vibration.” Nada. Nothing.

Empty. Alone. Alive.

Wow. I said that word a thousand times as I re-introduced myself to life—the world I came here to dance, create and love in. Clicking off the miles from one jaw-dropping vista to the next, my emotions gradually lifted from frustration tinged with despair flavored with dullness to … grateful … then peaceful … then awed. Finally a tender little sense of happiness flickered in.

Maybe I’d survive the publishing game in its current state of insanity with my soul intact after all.

Sixteen days have passed since my return to what I used to call “home” —a city not a residence (all my stuff is in storage and I’m house sitting for the friend that opened her Greek island home to me two summers ago to write The E Word.) It’s a gig that will end July 20th with a big fat ?

It’s clear my 25-year stint in the Pacific Northwest is over. But I have no idea where to go next because there is no pull … no clear call. So I consciously sit at the temporary craft table set in front of the French doors in my friend’s palatial living room as I work … and radiate contentment.

I feed the dog and evoke gratitude. I cook dinner and conjure excitement. Peacefulness and harmony. The sense of arrival in the right place. Comfort. Appreciation. Beauty. Boldness. Adventure. I conjure the feelings and hold them, over and over and over … driving to the store, sweeping the floor, brushing my teeth at night.

Where to next? The answer will match the vibration I hold.

It’s not easy. My finances are as uncertain as my heart, and July 20th is not that far away. The habit of fear flutters in my chest. Anxiety seeks to clutch my throat. Doubt lingers in the doorway, a dark shade, waiting.

It’s so easy to let the vibe falter. So very very easy … because we normally live from the OUTSIDE IN.

A glance at my bank statement holds far more “realness” than the newfound joy in my heart. The outrageous rent prices on Craigslist in places I think I’d like to be (California?) are lead weights on the fragile buoy of hope … housesitting has become a business triggering thoughts of fear and competition once again.

Breathe Cate. Dance. Know. Trust. Feel what you want to feel. Ignore EVERYTHING else. Seeing may be believing … but it’s not creation. It’s a dead end. Turn your back on the old monsters. They’re as tired of you as you are of them.

You know what to do.

Live from the INSIDE OUT. Feel your way to what you want. Feeling is the key … the only way out. The only way to pass GO!

Live from the INSIDE out … and see where it takes you.

Seeking safety

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Devotion means you have seen the limitations of who you are

and you have seen the boundlessness of what life is.

~ Sadhguru

 

I want safety. Security. I’m 65 and damn well feel like I need these companions more than ever. And yet safety and security have rarely had seats at my inner decision table. Why would they show up now?

Life is a fast-flowing river—an exhilarating ride from start to finish. But we try to capture moments of the flow—the happy moments, the safe moments, the contented moments—and freeze frame them in a box. We still the ever-changing river by choosing the security of the known.

And die to life while still breathing.

When I succumbed to the inner command to write down and publish what I know about the ego and enlightenment in the fall of 2014, in the process I was gifted with stunning revelations and massive growth as a human being and as a writer. But when The E Word was released in January 2017 it was a shitty time for books sales. And even though I’d hurled myself into a year-long marketing and social media frenzy before the book launch, sales were slow. And I quickly found myself swallowed by despair.

Publishing is a numbers game. Slow book sales means no next book and The End to my dreams of being a popular published author. So I threw myself into what I perceived to be The Answer: Take off the author hat, become a Spiritual Teacher and do workshops.

I had to get out there NOW before it was too late! Had to shoulder myself into the marketplace filled with other well-meaning, heart-centered Spiritual Teachers hawking their heart-based products to the millions of needy people desirous of changing their unfulfilled freeze-framed lives into happy fulfilled ones.

I had to target my market. Turn myself into a brand. Craft the right message. Create the right lead magnets. Market test. Create a sales funnel. Do online webinars leading to seminars and workshops and retreats … go go go!!! Sell sell sell!

It was what my publisher expected of me. It was what I expected of myself. But it all felt so forced, hurried and wrong.

So, taking advice from the pages of my own book … I stopped. Just when it seemed the time to lean in the most … I let go of my creation and everything I logically thought it (and I) should be.

Furniture in storage, bursting with confusion and self-disappointment, I hit the road on a vacation/vision quest (publicly called a “book tour” because I had speaking gigs along the way.) For seven weeks I traveled through California, Arizona and New Mexico, staying with friends. I slept long, ate well, washed dishes, worked in a friend’s orchard and pulled weeds in flower beds. I meditated and danced, smoked some mind-expanding marijuana and sat for days alone in the cold, wind-swept desert. I did ceremony and re-engaged yoga.

And slowly I realized I’d made the right choice. Hurling myself, yet again, off the cliff into the river carrying me into the unknown was the only authentic way forward.

I don’t know the result of this choice yet. But it will match the freedom I feel inside as the flight feathers of my heart stretch towards infinity and my body melts in devotion to life.

YOU are the message

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So, I’m sitting in PF Chang’s at the Sherman Oaks Galleria in LA with my friend Robert Rabbin having lunch last week.

Robert is like no one I’ve ever met before. I could use normal descriptors and say he’s “really real” or “genuinely genuine” or “incredibly intelligent” or explain how he doesn’t give a rat’s fart what other’s think about him and thus is peculiarly free from artifice. But that doesn’t explain him.

Maybe he’s so stunningly present and engaged because he’s been meditating since he was eleven. Or (more likely) because he was handed a “you’ve got six months to live” cancer sentence in 2012 and has been thumbing his nose at the medical establishment AND the fuckwit way most humans go about living in this world ever since, choosing to show up differently, consciously working to uplift the deplorable state of the world by his mere presence on a daily basiss.

He does a good job of it. God knows he’s made a huge difference in my life—and I’ve only met him twice. Read More

Turned on All the Time

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We’re supposed to be “ON” all the time. Right? On at work. On at home. On in bed. Where the hell did that expectation come from anyway? Even a freaking light bulb burns out and needs to be changed occasionally.

Maybe this is pure projection on my part, but it seems like it’s not acceptable to be tired anymore … or at least it’s not acceptable to admit it. It’s not acceptable to be bummed out about your life. It’s not acceptable to not give a shit about something you really do give a shit about but have finally gotten to the point where the load of it has become so heavy you can’t get it up anymore and you drop the baton you’ve been carrying over hill and dale for miles and miles and miles without stop …

You stumble and fall and don’t want to get up. Or maybe you don’t stumble at all. GASP! You … just … simply … lie … down.

Yeah. See how bad that sounds? Like you’re Frodo and you gave up half a mile outside the gates to Mordor or something and the whole Shire just got flushed down the toilet and everybody dies because YOU took a nap for an hour – or a day – or a month.

Whatever. It’s not the length of time. It’s the fact that you stopped at all. Read More

Road Trip!!

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I don’t know what it is about the words ROAD TRIP … but it sure gets the juices flowing—even when it would seem there’s no juice left. Frankly at the moment I feel a lot like one of those pithy green limes that keep showing up in the grocery stores nowadays. You know the ones. No juice, just dry limey-green interiors with a little dribble of lime taste to them. That’s me!

Somehow I forgot that the creative process is an inhale exhale process – a journey with two beats to it … like my heart. START/GO and FINISH/PAUSE.

I got so wound up in the GO process I forgot to stop and take a breath. Writing a book is a crazy obsessive thing for me … up at 4 am, wide awake with ideas seeping from every pore. Can’t wait to get to the computer where I find myself 6-8-10- hours later in a daze with pages written and a satisfied feeling that can’t be beat. Then up to do the same the next day.

Not so fun is editing … but still rewarding. Then comes marketing once the book finds a publisher and then it’s the RACE TO THE LAUNCH DAY. And then it’s talks and interviews and travel and excitement and and and … all wonderful. And all very draining. Two and a half years of draining.

Which is why the road trip. I could have flown to my destinations in California and New Mexico where I’m doing a few talks. But why? This has been a looooong dreary winter in the Pacific NW with record rainfall. It’s spring. And the desert with its vast empty spaces and wide skies call.

So I’m taking my pithy lime-green self to go lay down on the desert sands and soak up a looong hit of LIFE … it is, after all, an exercise I actually recommend in my book. (Not the laying down on the desert sands stuff. Just the STOPPING part.)

Continuing to race like a crazy person … to push and push and not pause is just my ego driving me – telling me that what I’m doing is so important it can’t wait. That I can’t rest. That I can’t pause. Really?

Ha!

Watch me!

 

 

Lions and tigers and chemtrails … oh my

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So I was on a radio show the other day, talking about (what else?) The E Word, the ego, evolution, and enlightenment.

Thankfully I never get tired of sharing this information with people. It’s new every time. Plus every show host brings her or his unique perspective and questions to the material and I never know exactly how the conversation will roll. That said, most interviews run within the normal boundaries of psychology, spirituality, the evolution of consciousness and the myth of enlightenment. (I say “myth” because the way enlightenment is explained by most New Age spiritual people is truly a fable!)

But not this time around.

About ten minutes into the show my host casually mentioned “the Ascension,” confidently announcing how all the less evolved people on the planet were going to meet their own negative, fear-based Armageddon while the rest of us more evolved souls—apparently about 20 percent of the planet’s population—were going to be whisked away to our well-deserved, better-intentioned Nirvana.

Not knowing what to say, I stammered something about “everybody being subject to evolution and growing up someday” and talked on … until somehow chemtrails came into the conversation.

Chemtrails? What did that have to do with learning about the ego? Read More

Now the real work begins

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Okay. He’s president. Now the real work starts. But first there needs to be some healing.

One of the best ways to defuse the pain of this particular POTUS change is to recognize how much of ourselves we invest in political figures. It wasn’t Donald Trump or Hilary or Bernie who won and lost. In a very real sense it was us.

The ego is our sense of self. It’s our personal story. And all our hopes and dreams and fears, our values, our interests and concerns are contained in that story. If you’re deeply environmentally aware … if women’s rights and LBGT and ethnic minority rights are important to you … if you value honor and reliability, honesty and integrity … and you just watched the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, then your ego–hell, your whole world–has just taken an enormous hit.

POTUS is more than our representative in government. Read More