Essential Self Extravaganza

[singlepic id=391 w=320 h=240 float=center] As 2010 came to a close, I realized that over the past year, I have had the opportunity to become part of three brand new communities (without even changing my physical address). As I embarked on life coach training, certification in music and sound healing, and improvisation as a violinist in the local “open mic” scene, I was welcomed into three totally new worlds for me.

As I crisscrossed the Bay Area and the internet interacting with these distinct groups, it occurred to me that no single place brought together people with such wide-ranging interests. What fun it would be if someone could create a space and purpose for gathering that would allow the expression and sharing of all these creative souls! I realized that I could be that person!

I was inspired to create the Essential Self Extravaganza. The name refers to a central concept of Martha Beck's life coaching approach, which guides us to find and follow the voice of our essential self, versus the social self we so readily construct as an identity to show the world and "fit in" with the rules of our families, religions, cultures, professional group, or demographic.

[singlepic id=395 w=320 h=240 float=center]

I had had enough of the typical "holiday party", where the focus is on the display of our social selves. The typical conversations starting with the question, "So, what do you do?" or "Where are you from?" were familiar to me, yet no longer of interest. Instead of complaining or lamenting about these kinds of parties, I decided (in the empowerment I am growing into) to host my own gathering - the kind of party I would want to attend myself.

[singlepic id=389 w=320 h=240 float=center]

That set my imagination free, and, as is always the case when I open up to trust my own creativity, it flowed effortlessly. I immediately formed a picture in my mind of how the day would be presented, who I would invite, and what I would say in the invitation. I sent out personal invitations (no e-vite or Facebook event for this one). I hand-selected the people I wanted to include. I expressed myself from MY essential self.

And what unfolded on December 17, 2010, was perfect in the way that the universe is always divinely perfect and complete.

[singlepic id=407 w=320 h=240 float=]

The gift of video is the ability to capture some of the magic that happened and share bits of it with you here. When you have some time, grab a cup of tea and enjoy these amazing offerings from the generosity of the spirit. Soulful Songstress Aletha McGee offers an impromptu song during a break:

Artist and Vocalist Jovani McArdle creates a song for me, inspired by a hand-painted card I chose from her collection:

Poet Loc Tran performs his piece, "Enough":

Writer and Actress Sarah Lau performs a scene from her one-woman show, "Remedial Girl":

Cellist and Designer Chi Chen performs an original composition based on J.S. Bach's canonic cello suites:

Performance artist Deborah Eliezer creates the character Fifi, who offers a song and dance:

Randy Bales and I lead the room in a participatory version of The Beatles' "Across The Universe":

And the final free improvisation, involving everyone in the room...AMAZING! Take a listen:

It reminded me of the first principle of Open Space Technology: "Whoever comes are the right people." Once I sent out invitations, I released my need to know who was coming, or to interpret why certain people weren't. I released any guilt about not inviting certain people out of fear of offending them. I simply stood in my own love and desire to share what is deeply true for me with a group of other souls who I knew would have much to share in a free, open setting.

[singlepic id=401 w=320 h=240 float=center]

The only "structure" I put around the day was the written invitation. Three blocks of time of two hours each were designated for the three types of activities I envisioned sharing: life coaching, music healing, and performances by local open mic artists.

The rest I left open to the perfect unfolding when the right people gather in the right time for them. This reminded me of the third principle of Open Space Technology: "Whatever happens is the only thing that could have."

[singlepic id=398 w=320 h=240 float=center]

It required a trust, which I have been training and growing over the past year, that I did not have to tell people what to do, and that I did not have to know the answer all the time, and that there is absolute beauty in not needing to know.

I felt the profound magic of gathering in sound - the wordlessness of shared energy, the oneness of harmonious voices, the collective, improvisational creation of music in the present moment. I also saw the inspiration that happens when bridges are built, between people whose paths may not have intersected otherwise.

[singlepic id=393 w=320 h=240 float=center]

I have always felt that one of my purposes in life was to be a bridge - a translator of sorts between the various different worlds I have inhabited. The event reinforced that image for me.

I was able to relax and enjoy something I created. (This was nearly a first for me)

[singlepic id=392 w=320 h=240 float=center]

In observing myself prepare for the event and decorate the room, I learned about my own capacity to "overdo" and about the fine line between abundance and excess.

I practiced observing myself with gentleness, allowing myself to receive the information I was gathering without labeling it or criticizing myself in the process.

[singlepic id=394 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Afterwards, I honored myself with rest.

I was surprised and delighted by so many moments that unfolded without my knowing or needing to know. I was simply a witness, wide-eyed, curious, receptive. I released my need to control what was happening, when it was happening, and whether people were having the kind of enjoyment I thought they needed to have.

[singlepic id=396 w=320 h=240 float=center]

I wrote this post as a way to remember the perfect unfolding when we are allowed to be free and to share from what is essential within each of us. May you experience the trust and the unfolding of your own spirit in 2011!

To see more photos from the Essential Self Extravaganza: Visit the Facebook album

To see more videos from the Essential Self Extravaganza: Visit the YouTube playlist

Wake-Up Call From Jay-Z And A Chinese Mother: You Have The Choice To Be Victim Or Master Of Your Life

[singlepic id=374 w=320 h=240 float=center] I happened to be awake and watching television last night when the hip-hop artist and entrepreneur Jay-Z appeared on the new Oprah Winfrey Network show, "Master Class."

He was speaking about everything he had learned so far in his life. His childhood roots of living in urban housing projects, and having a father who abandoned the family when Jay-Z was 11 years old, were completely foreign to me, as a child of married, Chinese immigrant, PhD-educated parents in the upper middle-class suburbs of the Midwest.

He told the story of a typical day, being on the playground with friends, and having to run and take cover whenever gang members would drive by, shooting automatic weapons at random. After fifteen minutes or so, he and his friends would re-emerge and start playing again.

As I held my breath and imagined a story of how "horrible" it must have been to grow up under such dangerous and uncertain conditions, I heard Jay-Z say this: "It was truly a remarkable upbringing."

What? Did he really say that? And WOW.

It caught me off guard because I had spent the better part of the weekend - ever since clicking on a link that caught my attention while mindlessly wandering Facebook, entitled, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior".

I shared the link on my profile and then started reading the 1000+ comments it had already generated on the Wall Street Journal's site.

Slowly I realized that the whole conversation about who had been a "victim" of bad parenting -- all the stories and voices that emerged out of the woodwork to either (a) denounce and label this woman for her raging lunacy, or (b) claim that they, too, had been products of this kind of egregiously wrong parenting - was making me feel crappy. I was also feeling the call to craft a detailed response to the article, going through it point by point and sharing my own experiences growing up. But the more I read all the complaints and comments being thrown around, the crappier I felt.

I didn't realize until seeing that Jay-Z story why I was feeling that way.

As I looked at the images of dilapidated asphalt lots and urban housing projects, and heard the facts about regular drive-by shootings, my mind went immediately into story mode. Without missing a beat or even noticing the belief creep in, I made Jay-Z's story into a tragic childhood.

But then Jay-Z's own voice of truth stepped in. He now chose to see that childhood - the very same facts I had just heard him recount - as "a remarkable upbringing".

These words, at first startling, began to ring true to me as the voice of wisdom, self-compassion, and deep gratitude for everything - every little thing, not editing it for the "good" stuff - that he had received in his life.

Can I imagine being grateful for witnessing drive-by shootings as a child? On a regular basis?

Absolutely not.

By the same token, can I imagine anyone else's life - for example, someone else's Chinese mother, or someone else's Chinese daughter - and what it could possibly mean to them?

Absolutely not.

The only life I can ever imagine is my own. And I am imagining it all the time. I create the lessons learned from my life by the beliefs I hold in my mind.

I can choose to make any circumstance of my life a tragedy, a comedy, or a remarkable gift given only to me.

The question is, do I choose to feel crappy about my life?

Or do I choose to feel the awe and wonder and curiosity that comes from deep, deep gratitude for every single thing I ever experience in this one, remarkable life I have to live?

It's my choice right now, and in every moment I am here. Let me be deeply grateful for that.

Your Dreams Are Always Coming True

[singlepic id=348 w=320 h=240 float=center] There are a few things I remember always knowing about myself, ever since I was three years old. I remember being in the back seat of the car, when I was three, hearing my parents and brother talking about someone getting into "Harvard". Something about that word rang in my ears. I asked what "Harvard" was. I don't remember what they answered, but I do remember thinking, "Someday I'm going to go there."

I let it go for the next fourteen or so years. And then I ended up going there for college.

At some other point in time, I remember falling in love with the sound of the French language. I loved learning a foreign language which enabled me to speak elegantly, fluidly, gracefully. It contrasted so much with the angular lines and frantic tempo of the Chinese dialects I heard in my family. And, like music, it was a doorway to a secret world that expanded my ability to understand others and express myself in a different way. I remember thinking, "Someday I'll study at the Sorbonne." It seemed like a throwaway thought at the time, but I remembered it. And I ended up doing just that, as a scholarship winner for six weeks during the summer between high school and college.

Six years ago I defrosted another set of childhood dreams. For as long as I can remember I have pictured myself living in California. I was fascinated with what it symbolized, and with the images of it in my mind. The sunshine, the ocean, and the ideas of freedom and innovation appealed to me inexplicably.

I also wanted to "be like my violin teacher" since the first moment I saw her when I was three years old. At the time, the image of a solitary woman walking into a room, commanding the respect of hundreds without raising her voice or raising a hand, was something that captivated me. To boot, she wore three-inch stiletto heels every day and a perfectly coordinated suit ensemble, with pantyhose, makeup, and perfect hair. Seeing her at least twice a week and sometimes every day of the week for fourteen years, I can count on one hand the number of times I saw her wear pants instead of a skirt or dress. Somehow she represented an exciting set of possibilities, so different from the other women in my life.

These were the images I carried with me to California to start my own violin school in 2004.

My dreams came true.

I became that image of "perfection" that I held in my mind as a necessary part of the package. Even though in my heart I intended for my school not to have the political in-fighting, favoritism, and vicious competitiveness among parents that was a constant undercurrent in my teacher's school, knowing what I didn't want was only a first step. I was swept away by the strong tide of other people's definitions of what success should look like. I knew this, and I observed with frustration all the things that were missing from my school despite its outward appearance of success, but I didn't quite have the awareness to envision and declare what I *did* want.

When I finally began to wake up to what I did want to bring into my life, there was a growing clarity that I needed to walk away and create something new.

The gift of walking away was creating the space for me to recognize that my dreams are always coming true.

What you are believing in each moment - with or without knowing you believe it - becomes the reality you create, moment by moment.

I've begun to get a lot more conscious and aware and specific about what I'm believing. I recognize that once I am able to see and clearly state a belief, and then truly let go of it (as my life has shown me time and time again), I can rest in the peace of knowing that all of my dreams are already coming true.

My life has shown me that I am truly blessed in every moment, and no experience is ever wasted.

On my "bucket list" of dreams are the following items, mundane and otherwise:

• work as a barista in a coffee shop (a dream since high school)
• teach yoga or do yoga outdoors every day
• live in a tropical place
• work on a farm
• produce a Broadway-style musical, write a movie screenplay, or write for a character-driven television drama
• play music in a movie soundtrack
• sleep in a tent on a beach (OK, that was inspired by my friend Mary B)
• write books (yes, plural, and not the kind that are glorified pamphlets...at least one of them will be a memoir, and another will be a tell-all fictionalized account of my adventures teaching violin to kids of Silicon Valley elite, a la "Nanny Diaries")
• be a spiritual teacher
• be a healing artist
• be an inspirational speaker
• dance and sing and be free

I smile, knowing that all of these dreams are already coming true right now. There is such peace in knowing that the only thing I need to do is allow.

What dreams of yours are already coming true?

Photo, used under a Creative Commons license, by Kai Yan, Joseph Wong

Love Hurts…Is It True? A Few Things I Once Learned About Love...And How I'm Unlearning Them

[singlepic id=373 w=320 h=240 float=center] Have you ever thought about how you learned what love means? What moments in your life explicitly taught you how to love? What examples of love did you observe, and what did you unconsciously learn from them?

For most of my life, I have had a murky understanding of the words "love" and "compassion". They were abstract concepts, which I felt no bodily connection to. They were supposed to be good things that good people expressed and felt all of the time, but I had no clue what they felt like to me.

"I love you" was not something ever uttered in my household. As far as I know, the phrase doesn't exist in the Chinese language, at least as it applies to families.

For most of my life, "love" was a word used by my parents to rationalize their financial anxiety, anger, worry, asking for too much information, and criticizing. "If we didn't love you and care about you, we wouldn't bother to nag you so much," they'd say in defense of themselves.

Well, if love was such a great thing, and that was how love made me feel, then I didn't get why I should center my life around it. At all. It didn't feel good to me. It felt confining. It felt like a minefield, where I never knew if my next step would land me in a sudden explosion of admonishment, shame, and guilt about why the particular thing I just did was the wrong move to make.

I convinced myself that I didn't want my life to hurt. I created an association between love and hurt. So I did everything I could to make sure I was not dependent on love for anything vital in my life. Ha!

"Compassion" was an even more foreign concept. The images that come to mind when I think of "compassion" involve Mother Teresa, Sally Struthers and images of little kids with distended bellies and black flies on their eyelashes, and the Pope. I'm not sure why these people represent compassion, but it's interesting that I've never met any of them personally. (OK, I got within 25 feet of the Pope once, when I was eleven years old, but I was playing violin at the time and was delirious from sitting in St. Peter's Square for four hours in the hot sun of an Italian June.) My point is that "compassion" was an even more abstract term than "love", and I always thought it was reserved for saintly, selfless people who gave their lives to some grand, charitable cause. In other words, it was a luxury I could not afford to indulge in.

I've recently begun to learn that in order to experience the love and compassion I was seeking from everyone else in my life, I had to be willing to explore and discover what love and compassion feel like for me. I had to learn to demonstrate love and compassion toward myself first. This has involved identifying, questioning, and effectively unlearning many of the beliefs I had about love and compassion, which I held onto without knowing, and which were governing my behaviors without my knowing it.

[singlepic id=372 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Today, I choose to share with you what I have learned, and also what I am unlearning. Each of the thoughts below are real beliefs I once had about love, and below them are the turnarounds that I am consciously choosing to practice, notice, and become more and more familiar with.

I could tell you that I am “letting go” of these thoughts, or that I have outgrown them.

But what actually feels more true for me is that I am developing a different relationship with these thoughts. By distancing myself from my thoughts enough to observe them, I have paradoxically become more intimate with them. I am able to look at them without avoiding them or pushing them away or labeling them as “wrong”. I can touch them, feel them, sense them, and know that they are within me, without loving myself less because of it.

I am willing to notice when I am believing one of these thoughts and acting on it and creating stress, and I am empowered to look directly at the source of the stress, without fear or less love of myself.

I am far from being perfect at this. It’s part of my practice to be willing to look at the imperfections long enough to choose something new and act without fear in that new direction. By acknowledging what has been painful for me and what I am growing through, I hope you can acknowledge some part of yourself that needs healing or more loving attention from the simple question, “Is it true?”

Love Lesson #1: The number of items I complete on my "To Do" list indicates my level of productivity, and therefore, my value in the world.

This may not seem to be about love, but it has been such a central belief in my entire life path, that I confront it every day. And every day I ask, “Is it true?” I am starting to get to answers that feel more true for me and set me free to do what’s truly important to me, not to anyone else. But with such a strong cultural message of achievement and productivity as the basis of human existence, this is a daily, moment-to-moment practice. I include it here because I've learned that true self-love is felt and demonstrated independent of how "productive" I am, and that becoming more productive does not help you learn how to love.

Turnaround: I am complete, as I am, in this moment. (notice that “what I do” is not part of the turnaround)

Love Lesson #2. What I am able to afford to buy indicates my level of freedom and status in the world.

This thought originated in my family’s struggle for survival and advancement and was reinforced by the strong consumerism in our culture. Without realizing it, I have created many outcomes in my life based on this belief. What I eventually realized was that ownership and accumulation of things do not equal greater freedom, and the only status that matters is the one you create from your inner world.

Turnaround: What I am able to LET GO of indicates my level of freedom and the status of my self-trust in the world I am creating.

Love Lesson #3. How I look and act in the workplace is more important than how I look and act at home.

This thought originated in so many examples I saw of “putting on a face” to play the game of work each day, and how starkly that outward face contrasted with the true self that emerged in the privacy of the home. It was confusing to me and I never understood the justification for sharing your best self with the outer world, and letting out all your stress and aggressions at home, with the people you claim to love the most.

Turnaround: I am creating a life based on authentic expression and generous sharing of my essential self. (I don’t see a necessary distinction between how I present myself “on the outside” and who I am at my essence)

Love Lesson #4. Love is an obligation and responsibility to another person.

Almost everything in my early life was framed as an obligation and responsibility. It seemed like the only reason to live a life was to be viewed as responsible and duty-bound in every possible way. Joy was not even in the equation of values. I still consider “desires” a luxury and have to practice consciously opening a valve in my mind to allow the flow of messages from my heart to enter into my awareness.

Turnaround: Love flows freely in the space between people. Love liberates.

Love Lesson #5. Loving someone means the right to criticize them in a "loving" way.

This was reinforced in every arena of my life from my family to my teachers to the higher academic training I received. I was trained to thrive on criticism. No matter how good a job I did, I wanted to know how to do better. We call this “drive” and “ambition” and hold it in great admiration in this culture. We aspire to “improve” ourselves in every way. The problem with this is we have no opposing muscle group or internal barometer to tell when “enough is enough”. We forget that by living our lives based on constant striving, we are training ourselves for imbalance and ultimate dissatisfaction, with no end in sight.

Turnaround: Love is truthful, accepting, calm, and peaceful. Love is filled with joy.

Love Lesson #6. Love means the right to hurt someone without having to apologize.

I remember the exact moment in a past relationship when I realized that this was my model of love, and the intense pain it caused me to see it in myself. But that moment of realization was also liberating, because I was able to see clearly where I was in the moment, and to consciously seek out another way to express love.

Turnaround: Love has no fear – neither of pain nor of apologizing.

Love Lesson #7. Love expects a return on its investment.

I believed that love was a transaction. I believed that I, as a person, was the investment of my parents’ love. I also believed that I owed a debt to them for providing this love, for withdrawing love from their bank accounts and depositing it into everything that I needed and wanted. As I saw the magnitude of their investment growing, I could not see a possible way to provide a reasonable return. So I kept setting the bar higher. Finally there were no more ladders to climb, and I had to come down to the realization that I am love, and that the returns on my love originate from within me and from my connection to the source of all love – not my parents but the universe.

Turnaround: Love is self-renewing, and expects nothing in return.

Love Lesson #8. Love means constant devotion, never relaxing or taking time for yourself. Love is the ultimate act of self-sacrifice.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “It’s because we love you…” or “If we didn’t love you, we wouldn’t…” as the justifications for overworking, overstressing, overdoing, overworrying. There was not one moment in my recollection that the major love figures in my life ever relaxed or took time for themselves. And they took pride in their self-sacrifice, since it demonstrated how responsible and duty-bound they were. It made love look very unappealing to me as a way of life.

Turnaround: Love comes from love. If you are not loving yourself, you cannot truly or fully love another person. Self-sacrifice is not loving.

Love Lesson #9. Love means living up to the expectations of those who love you (and sacrificed to give you your life).

This relates to the “return on investment” belief. I really saw myself as an asset of my family with certain expected returns. Every time I saw myself taking a step outside my “asset class”, behaving in a more high-risk (and high-return) way, I felt the weight of not having managed expectations, and having been at least slightly irresponsible. I had a nagging sense that I was never doing things the “right” way.

Turnaround: Love is free of all expectations about the future and exists fully in every present moment.

Love Lesson #10. Love needs to be earned.

So you might be noticing a theme here. I once believed that I had to earn love, live up to the expectations of those who loved me, pay back the investment of love that others put into me, and sacrifice myself in the name of love.

Turnaround: Love is the joy, freedom, and peace that exists within each of us when we are truly free.

I still don’t see myself using the word “love” a lot. Writing this post was a struggle, actually. I suppose I learned during the writing that I don’t have any obligation to use a word, like “love”, with so many old and convoluted (and false) beliefs attached to it. I prefer the words "peace", "joy", and "freedom", as a three-pronged cluster of words that captures the feelings I experience when I love myself. These carry a more important meaning for me right now - how they make me feel and how they free me to express who I am in every moment.

And it never hurts when I’m loving myself as I am right now.

Creating Your Vision for 2011

What's your theme for the new year?

I've never been a New Year's Resolution person, but every year on December 31, I take time to reflect on the previous year and write down what I remember. I focus on things like what I learned, how I grew, and the events that were most meaningful for me.

This past year was a particularly abundant year of growth and change for me. Last December 31, I finally felt clear and took the step of writing a letter to the thirty families in my violin school, announcing to them that within two weeks, the school would come to an end. While I had no idea what would unfold as a result of that action, I was absolutely clear about my intention of letting go in order to move into the next phase of my life and accept whatever it would bring me.

It was an act of trust. My self-proclaimed commitment, or theme, for 2010, was to live from my Core of Peace. To experience life, perhaps for the first time, from a new, unfamiliar place called Peace.

[singlepic id=371 w=320 h=240 float=center]

This year, as the end of 2010 approaches, I face another opportunity to grow in my trust. I realized, slowly over the past several months, that it was time to face letting go again. This time it was letting go of a lease that no longer makes sense for the business and life I am creating. It took me an entire year of holding on, experimenting and playing, believing that I would "make it work", and avoiding the dread of everything I was making it mean to let go.

And now I am in a place of clarity again. The feeling in my body is freedom, expansiveness, lightness. The energy in my body is purposeful and focused. And from this place, I am taking the actions - those mundane steps that my mind had made to be so unpleasant through its thoughts  - that are necessary to create the physical space that is reflected in my mind and body.

After months of dragging, feeling heavy, dreading what I had to do, I have spent the past two days steadily working my way through those previously dreaded actions.

And you know what? They are not so dreadful after all!

In fact, when approached with clear energy and a feeling of purpose, they have no negative or positive charge whatsoever. They are just items that get done. And what remains is the pure joy of SPACE.

Letting go of material items has always been a challenge for me. It's beyond my current comfort zone. It doesn't energize me to clean or organize or think about the arrangement of physical items. But in the past year, life has handed me these opportunities to exercise that muscle, little by little. And to experience the reward of the empty space left behind...a reward I had never truly experienced before, because I was simply too afraid to allow it.

So as the current year comes to a close, and I watch items move out of my life and into the hands of those who joyfully accept them and need them in theirs, I am able to create a vision for my new year.

In 2011, my theme is Creativity and Expression. I took some time to create the following vision board for Who I Am and How I Feel While I Express My Creativity in 2011.

[singlepic id=369 w=320 h=240 float=center]

While I was previously skeptical of the vision board process, I now cherish the opportunity to take in these images and read the affirmations each time I turn on my computer. I recognize the value of small, frequent doses of inspiration as I create my life one step at a time.

So, do you have a theme for 2011? Are you curious what would happen if you created one?

Here are some great resources for creating your own vision board, not just for the new year, but any time you're in the mood for taking a look at a new horizon.

Christine Kane's blog post on How To Make A Vision Board>>

Oprah.com's Dream Board tool (you must create an Oprah.com account to access the tool)>>

And here's my video blog from my office on the day my clarity came through>>

How does it FEEL to celebrate?

I've never really been good at celebrating my birthday. There are a few birthdays in my life that I remember - one was my 6th birthday when I had a party at my house with my favorite girls from second grade, complete with musical chairs, Bozo buckets, a violin serenade by my brother, and hand-selected party favors for each guest. Another was my sophomore year in college, when my roommate totally surprised me by inviting over half a dozen or so of my best friends, who arrived with cake, balloons, and songs to sing. Yet another was in my twenties, when my brother procured tickets to see Itzhak Perlman and the Minnesota Orchestra, and my parents came into town to join us.

But when it has come to my really knowing how to celebrate myself, and knowing what I really have wanted to do on my birthday, I've mostly come up blank.

Now I know that it's because I have been more focused on what it LOOKS like to celebrate than how it FEELS to celebrate.

What Celebrating Looks Like

[singlepic id=332 w=320 h=240 float=center]

In our image-obsessed culture, we can easily be led to believe that what we SHOW about our lives - how we make things appear - is actually more important than how we FEEL about our selves as we live our lives.

Even the lyrics to popular songs teach young girls what it means to "party in the USA" - "Welcome to the land of fame, excess, whoa am I gonna fit in?".

[singlepic id=331 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Because feelings are often difficult to express in words, or not accurately captured by images, or perhaps don't match up with the social pressure to perform and please, I have (perhaps like you) defaulted to suppressing the feelings, not bothering to connect with them, and making choices based on what will make me LOOK like I'm doing fine.

I did this without being conscious of it. It happened slowly, in small steps, over time, like any changes do.

How To Learn What Celebrating Feels Like

[singlepic id=330 w=320 h=240 float=center]

When I have been in relationships, I have felt particularly pressured to celebrate in a way that LOOKS a certain way, to demonstrate a certain level of happiness or to do something that would reflect where I "should be" at a particular time in my life.

It's a lot easier to produce a celebration that LOOKS a certain way, because you can go to any store and find cards, decorations, party invitations, gift wrap, and other accessories that create a celebratory LOOK. You can get dressed a certain way, go to a certain place, and think that it's going to make you FEEL like you've celebrated.

But I've found that in order to celebrate your soul, to acknowledge what you really want, you've got to stop.

You need to slow down, rest, and create space in your life. You need to breathe deeply.

You need to relax your whole body, even the places and muscles you never knew you had.

You need to get to a place of inner silence, where you can become an observer of your thoughts rather than attached to them as who you are.

You need to know what peace FEELS like first.

And if you've had the courage to trust enough to do all that, you will automatically experience the spontaneous positive feelings that I just call "joy".

These feelings have nothing to do with how things LOOK. They are not dependent on conditions or circumstances. They are what is already there, at your core, without your having to do anything.

It turns out that a true celebration is when you can finally connect with that place in your core that does not need you to do anything at all.

So what did I do this past weekend for my birthday?

I slept until I felt like waking up. (I already do this most days, so I rarely feel sleep-deprived anymore, and I even more rarely feel guilty for "sleeping in".)

I savored a breakfast made for me by Rocket Man (that's the pseudonym on this blog for my partner who is such a compassionate witness as I learn to love myself). And by that I mean I noticed the fluffiness of the pancakes, I amused myself with the juiciness of the blueberries, and I allowed myself to eat two strips of bacon without a single voice of self-criticism in my head.

I then spoke out loud a thought that had popped into my head earlier that morning. "How about going to Napa?" No plans, no reservations, no idea where we were going, no agenda for what had to happen. We just decided to go.

While I looked up directions and addresses of restaurants, Rocket Man was looking up places to play music later in the evening. I didn't know it at the time. I thought he was just surfing on Facebook again.

Little did I know I would experience two things I never thought were simultaneously possible: doing exactly what I wanted, and not having to figure it all out on my own!

[singlepic id=329 w=320 h=240 float=center]

After eating a delicious meal at Cindy Pawlcyn's Mustards Grill, we headed up the Valley to Calistoga to scope out a potential retreat site for my new offerings in 2011. (Stay tuned for more excitement on that front!)

We then came back to Pacifica, where at the Chit Chat Cafe, a monthly open mic was happening. The Chit Chat Cafe sits directly on the Pacific Ocean, at the back corner of a small shopping center. It's a small local hangout, with a selection of coffee drinks, baked goods, a couple of wines, and a few computers sitting at the back wall.

As of the last two weeks, I had been following a calling to sign myself up at my weekly open mic to share a bit of sound healing magic. It had occurred to me when I first started coming to open mic that a participatory music experience would be perfect. But I wanted to fit in and find my place first. To become comfortable as a violinist in this brand new setting, before giving people reasons to look at me funny.

Each of the now three times I've done this at open mic, I have been pleasantly surprised, not by the crowd's response or feedback, but by how it makes me FEEL to offer it. My fears of being "looked at funny" have been replaced with a deeper connection to who I really am, and what I can really offer in this world, if I only would step up and try.

So perhaps it's fitting that on my birthday, I stepped up to the mic at Chit Chat Cafe, and shared a few sentences about how, after many years of being trained as a performer and someone who's supposed to know more than other people, I've come to be interested in the healing power of sound and music to connect me to people .

[singlepic id=328 w=320 h=240 float=center]

And then it was just "Ah".

The openness of harmonious sound. The togetherness of wordless interaction. The infinite possibilities of vibrational connection.

No need for further explanation beyond the sound. The energy in the room was palpable, because we had taken that moment to come together and focus our energies on just one sound....the one we were creating in that moment.

When it came time for me to play with Rocket Man, we already felt part of something larger than ourselves. The space was prepared for us - first with a day of celebration, and then with the intention to be who we are, sharing what we love, in this room full of people.

Our sound was unamplified and therefore intimate. Both of our songs transcended labels, categories, and time. No one cared who wrote them, where they came from, or when they were first performed. For one evening, all that mattered was the moment we shared with the people in that room.

The kinds of interactions we had with people after that performance were unlike any other we've experienced so far as a band. The last time I remember such a heartfelt connnection with an audience was when I was a teenager on a concert tour in Moscow, too young to put words on the wordlessness of musical communication, and too distracted by the hard work of "doing it right" to realize that I was touching my life's work already.

This birthday was a celebration of my growing ability to trust how I FEEL and my constant practice of letting go of how things LOOK.

Will you ever know what it FEELS like for you to celebrate yourself? It is my greatest wish for you in your lifetime.

Diagnosis: Human

[singlepic id=327 w=320 h=240 float=center] One of the best pieces of feedback I received from a student in my recent online course was that she felt safe and open to learn from me because I am also a work-in-progress, like her.

So much of our unhappiness, self-doubt, and fear come from the concept that we "need to know". I am beginning to see that my violin school was built upon the false concept that I needed to know how to fix everyone's problems. I can also see how the path of medical training and the system of health care delivery reinforces ideas that doctors "should know" what to do in every situation.

I spent my whole life as the "A student", the "winner", the "leader", the one who was supposed to "know more". We're conditioned to "look up" to people like this, to aspire to be in their position someday. But the truth is that we all share one diagnosis - being human.

In many ways, we have been conditioned to forget one hemisphere of what it means to be human. We have been taught only to acknowledge the bright lights, the shining moments, the things we "ought to be proud of", the items that make it on the year-end highlights list when the holiday cards go out.

The reality is that human experience includes a full spectrum of moments, ranging from intense emotions of rage and fear and inadequacy to completely serene periods of silence and calm. We are carefree and joyful, and we are threatened to our core. We are goal-oriented and focused, and we are desperately lost. We believe in everything we've ever been taught, and we are dissolved into a pool of not knowing.

ALL of this is our human experience. When we begin to deny one half of the equation, either pretending it doesn't exist, or arranging our circumstances by any means possible to avoid acknowledgment of it, our soul begins to hurt. Part of us withers, atrophies from lack of use and attention.

And while the messages from the outside world - primarily those based on marketing products and services in this wonderfully industrious capitalist economy we have - tell us that our problem can be fixed by a procedure, our pain can be alleviated by a pill, our troubles can be forgotten by a vacation, our image salvaged by the right car or pair of shoes, it becomes even more challenging to muster up the courage to listen to the voice inside our hearts, and to do the work of being compassionate with our whole selves.

In the past two years I have been slowly, gingerly learning to question without fear. I have learned to listen and receive without needing to fix. It is a way of being that I am committed to practice each day, and that I am also challenged to keep practicing in each moment. If I don't pause and become aware, my reflexes are still familiar with old patterns. If I don't get out of my chair and look up at the sky, stretching my body and clearing my mind, I am easily left with the tangle of thoughts that once used to drive my every action and decision.

In my current work, as a teacher and life coach, there is the old temptation to feel like "I need to know". To feel that old sense of being a fraud for claiming to have an answer, when in many cases I did not.

The only difference now is that I am aware. I continue to learn, as I have always done, although I now model my learning process not from valedictorians and Ivy League graduates but from nature, animals, and 3-year-olds. I continue to make mistakes, the kind I previously avoided at all costs by restricting myself to a narrow range of possibilities. I continue to be very observant of myself and of others, as I have always been, although I now judge and label a little less. I continue to encounter situations - every day, actually - where I simply do not know.

The difference now is that I am starting to smile at these moments. I greet them and welcome them with a friendliness and openness that I once reserved only for that dose of approval and praise from others that I lived for. Now I can distinguish between smiling at myself and waiting for others to smile at me. I have glimpsed the sensation of more gentleness and kindness than I ever received from another person. I am becoming familiar with the tenderness in myself - the tenderness I now believe I share with every other human being at their core. I am my own gardener, as someone wisely posted the other day on my Facebook page. It's true.

With the number of "inspirational" people in my world, it's easier to "think positive thoughts" than to smile at my own fear, or to smile at my own judgment of others. The challenge is finding a smile to greet ALL aspects of life - and to acknowledge the wholeness of feeling fearful, doubtful, angry, and just plain crappy. Not to resist or avoid these feelings, or try to eradicate them, or wallow in telling about them, but simply to be with them, allow them their time, and then let them go.

Our suffering comes from resisting. Our suffering comes from turning away, and not wanting to look at what's really there. Our suffering comes from blaming ourselves, or feeling bad about ourselves, when the darker, lower, "negative" sides of our experience show their face.

What would it be like to sit with all of it, calmly, receiving it without needing to label it as "good" or "bad", without needing to find a solution, without needing to know the answer?

I feel relief...and a little smile along with it.

Photo credit: Grant Kwok, used under a Creative Commons license