CAUTION: Late-night, can't-sleep rant, inspired by a dream of friends sitting in a circle with spoons and a jar of marmalade jelly...

When you've had it up to your tit chakra with life's challenges, cursing the total abandonment of your discernment - that once was as clear as your best friend's voice in a game of "hotter/colder." It's now about as compelling as an apathetic babysitter just off her swing shift stocking shelves at Sam’s Club, muttering guidance for her version of the hotter/colder game: ‘tepid and meh’ - whilst itching to be done with you so she can get to a rave.

When you decide that you just want peace and the return of the hotter/colder discernment that you had as a child, guiding you to the certainty of 'next' – not the next of what to be when you grow up, who to marry, or what to do next weekend, tomorrow, or later today – just the comfortable, infallible knowing of what to do in the next moment.

[WARNING: I’m not writing this because I’m altruistically sending a note of encouragement to Facebook friends who’ve experienced hard times, just because.

I have the capacity to be that kind, and I’ll be that kind again someday, maybe later today.

But this ain’t that.

I’m not writing this because I’m bored and need attention (although that’s perhaps closer to the truth.)

This ain’t that either.

I’m using this canvas for a selfish, gratuitous, vomit to alleviate the momentary feeling of walking-through-the-world like an exposed tooth root.

This is ex-lax for emotional constipation, and this blank page is the latrine. And most is written in the 2nd person so I can feel all noble n’ shit… but who are ‘we’ kidding (see what I did there?)

You’ve been notified.

That being said…]

There’s something so sweet about a broken heart.

Look out. (non-sequitur rant forthcoming...)

Break out the duct tape and the toilet paper and one of those Swiss Army camping tool thingys with the bottle opener, and the useless teeny knife, and the 'nail' file that you wouldn’t dare take to any part of your body (except long-unattended foot calluses - in which case it may aid in sparking a fire if you don’t have waterproof matches or flint.)

And while I’m on the subject, and already squirreling-off after 77 words, what’s the deal with those swiss-army scissors? They come already-dull, and what the FUCK is that little c-shaped piece of metal for? Is this for brain surgery on flying squirrels who’ve crashed into boulders after being exposed to kryptonite in the wild?

There must be a hidden camera so that the SWISS ARMY I.T. dorks can laugh at you until no sound comes out as you BEND 'extra bucks' coupons from car-lease-length CVS receipts with their stupid, dull scissors-tool, because your kids stole the Cutco kitchen scissors to cut your $300 jeans into shorts.

Is that just me?

If you’re one of those people who read my rants over coffee in the morning, or wine in the evening – Hiiiiii!

I hope that I have once again served to make you feel like less of a loser. I know it’s Tuesday, and you probably have to go to work or something, but have that mimosa and celebrate being ‘in the middle.’”

I mean, in a world of infinite possibilities, THE MIDDLE is the worst, and the best, that life can ever get. And that’s good news.

I’ll explain…

Two of my children were sitting next to me at Tomodochi’s Sushi Bar the other evening, and my inside-out voice announced my self-chicanery out loud:

“Dudes… I just said ‘yes’ to the waiter (passing out water in a busy restaurant) because I felt it was polite to say ‘yes’ to his water, even when I wasn’t thirsty.  Then I drank the water I wasn’t thirsty for because I didn’t want him to feel like he wasted his time on me.”

Sofia, 12, (A.K.A ‘the only adult in the house” (she’s a Virgo)) : “Why didn’t you just say: ‘No thank you?’”

Me: (While remembering years and years of sitting in restaurants as a kid, drinking water until I felt like puking because the waiters kept filling my glass and I didn’t want them to feel like they waisted their time on me): “Old habit I guess, but I see it now…and I feel it even more.”

Tonight when I got home from the restaurant, I trolled through Facebook while waiting for my kid to change into her P.J.s - the designated uniform for binge-watching “Marvel’s Agents of Shield.” 

My friend, Dominic Scaffaldi, posted this take on the Serenity Prayer that so resonated with the water-waiter thing that it made me laugh out loud:

After two days of searching for this rat who was supposed to feed the python, and somehow snuck out of the box we were keeping it in, and into my purse to escape into my truck (long story), we caught him. 

WE CAUGHT HIM! 

[Back story/science: Reticulating snakes (pythons, boa constrictors, etc) - that is, snakes that eat their prey by biting it around the throat, squeeze it until it suffocates, then eat it whole - can't and won't eat when they're shedding because they're blind with temporary cataracts. It's kinda like when you get a bad sunburn and your skin turns white before it peels? Same thing. There's a white coating over the snakes eyes that blinds them, so they can't see their food to strike and eat it while they're shedding.

So when I recently got a small rat for our python, "King," to eat, and he just meandered around the feeding box - sticking his tongue out at the rat, but not doing anything about it - I knew it was bad timing. So we put the rat in a moving box in the kitchen, and waited.]

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." — Thomas Jefferson

Doreen Virtue threw me for one.

I had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a friend/client/whateves (same same), and during our chat we went spelunking about religion, spirituality, 'woo-woo,' and what's true.

She informed me that The Hay House (Publishing Company) Darling, Doreen Virtue - prolific producer of New Age Books, Oracle Card Decks, and all-things angel - announced 2-ish years ago that she had 'found Jesus,' repented that she'd been unwittingly working for 'The Enemy', and was (for lack of a better or accurate description of her transformation) born again.

That freaked me out, and sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole of investigation into: "What's going on with Doreen Virtue?"

Freaked-out, as in: "Does she know something I don't know?" - Since I went from Jesus, to all-things spiritual, and back-again; and SHE went from all-things-spiritual, to Jesus...

Is the one-of-us who 'has it wrong' going to burn in the eternal fires of hell?

Michael Macentyre’s: “How People Deal with Bees and Wasps” as a metaphor for how people deal with the thinking in their heads: 

1) WAFTERS – You’ve been at this for a while: hanging around or studying enlightened people; being really annoying to the rest of us ‘cause you’ve SEEN the separation between you and your thinking. You cool-ly go through life. You get down, sure, but you ‘waft it away,’ and we all want to be like you. I do your courses, your retreats. I read your books and listen to your podcasts. I want to waft too. (and people sign up for my schizzle because they think I'm a wafter. HA!)

The next installment of “Famous quotes to reconsider”: 

Les Brown Vs. the Old Lady and Her Lumpy Dog

I went on my LinkedIn account this week. 

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out – I learned that term over the summer and my children made fun of me as if I’d just learned what ‘LOL’ means) is the reason I still have a LinkedIn account. 

Every once-in-a-while I go on with the intention of getting off, and find a pearl, and a reason to stay.

The invitations pile-up and I go through them. There are 4 categories of LinkedIn invitations:
1) People who are genuinely interested in what it is I do, and also want to share what they’re creating in the world.
2) People who want to help me “Grow my business to 6-figures!” (often with means that seem awfully insincere, and make me want to puke.)
3) People who seem to think what I do is in the same vein of what they do, so invite me to increase their ‘numbers.’
4) People who mistook LinkedIn for Tinder.

As I was sifting through the invitations, feeling more benevolent with each click of “Accept” - as if mine was the actual HAND OF GOD, saying “you’ll do” (LinkedIn makes me feel both like a pompous asshole and a deity, all at once), one of the invitations from category #2 had a quote from Les Brown, one of the patriarchs of the motivational/human potential movement:

“Life is a fight for territory and once you stop fighting for what you want, what you don’t want will automatically take over.”

YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY

I did a podcast with Phil Goddard a little while back “The Coaching Life.” 

After about an hour of ‘getting naked’ about eating disorders and boob jobs (just another day at the office), to how I see the world in general, he asked a question (paraphrasing): 

“What would people be surprised to know about you?” 

At the end of that conversation it seemed like the well of revelation had already been drained, and I found myself reaching for more nakedness… 

“Should I tell him about my public period blow-out? Or the time I came off a Master Cleanse without reading the instructions, and ended-up having to shit in a disposable coffee cup in the back my truck? Nah, that would be just more of the same.”

I’ve revisited that question over the past couple months, and I wish I could go back and talk about something that I think it’s relevant not only to coaches, but to anyone who’s looking in the direction of what’s really true about being human.

Your peace, wellbeing, and snort-laughing is never at the end of a fight. 

If you approach life from a ‘when i win-the-war-with _______’ paradigm, there’s always going to be another war...

Against the number on the scale... against the number in the bank account... against the current politicians or the current policies... fighting against the current relationship, or fighting for the next one...