My amazing friend, Sheri Salata, is a deep, loving, soulful woman who had the career of her dreams for 21 years including titles as Executive Producer of the Oprah Show and co-CEO of OWN network. When she decided to move on and “produce” her own life she was one hundred pounds overweight, no man in site, and nearly 57 years old. Today her book, The Beautiful No, arrives in stores, and I’ve invited her to be a guest blogger on the topic of
What I Know About Love.
Did you grow up being taught that feeling and expressing your feelings is wrong or bad – especially your painful feelings?
I often have the experience with my clients of hearing them apologize when they start to cry. “I’m so sorry that I’m getting emotional,” they often say to me.
“It’s okay to cry,” I tell them. “Crying is a natural way of expressing feelings and releasing pain.” When they are trying to be very quiet about it, I often say, “It’s okay to cry out loud and allow yourself to make noise.”
Self-care and self-love are necessary parts of a happy, healthy, and balanced life. So often, we find ourselves taking care of everyone else, attending to their needs while ignoring our own. Whether it is a matter of time and energy constraints, self-esteem issues, or deep-seated feelings about our worth in the world, being good to yourself is something that we all deserve and are worthy of.
Summertime gives us myriad opportunities for self-care. The sun simply feels divine. Summertime treats such as a simple popsicle can offer a much-needed boost in mood. And the opportunity to be around friends, neighbors, and loved ones outside at a campfire or an outdoor party breathe new life into our daily existence.
What can you do when there’s nothing you can do?
Sometimes something happens. Perhaps your sweet old cat takes a turn for the worse, or there’s a money problem, or your son waves goodbye as he gets on a plane to start college on the other side of the country. Sometimes it’s on a larger scale: maybe there’s been an election and you’re grappling with its consequences (see my last post on this topic: Take Heart).
Or you might be dealing with something ongoing, like a dead-end job (or no job at all), life after divorce, chronic pain, or a teenager who won’t talk to you.
Whatever it is, at first it’s normal to feel rattled, frozen, or unclear about what to do. After awhile, you do what you can to change things for the better. But often there’s not much you can actually change, and sometimes nothing at all.
Still, there is always one thing you can do, no matter what.
What do you do when the bottom falls out?
The Practice:
Take heart.
Why?
It takes heart to live in even ordinary times.
By “taking heart,” I mean several related things:
When you take heart, you’re more able to deal with challenges like aging, illness, trauma, or conflicts with others. You’re also more able to take advantage of opportunities with confidence and grit.
The world is not holding you back. You are holding the world back. You are holding back your strength and your strength can make a difference at this time. You have a power in you that can move mountains, and, better yet, people. But you’re still allowing others to tell you what’s possible or right.
Maybe you’re still chasing kudos to glue some sequined wings onto your hobbled back. But no amount of approval will ever set loose the inspired potential that you already possess. You have the power to shed your ordinary skin. You have the power to turn pain into hope, disconnection into union, and this moment into a balm to some section of humanity. You are holding back the floodgates of your own wild ride.
Wild success is not about what the world can give to you, but what you can give to the world.
Aging is a natural process occurring for each of us, although it’s one we’ve been taught to resist. With the numerous serums, health products and procedures promising to help win the battle against aging, many are caught up in this constant “fight” against aging and left desperately looking for the next miracle product to stop or even reverse the natural effects of time’s passing. In fact, so pervasive is this growing resistance to the aging process that, according to Orbis Research, “the global anti-aging market is estimated to reach $331.41 billion by 2021.”
The fact is, there is no miracle product or serum. Aging is going to happen, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle. When it comes to our views on aging, there is a deeper truth we can embrace, and one which would benefit us greatly as a society.
Currently, our culture places our value on external appearances. We obsess about how we’re perceived, how we get ahead by the way people perceive us, if we’re going to be respected, or if we’re going to get the attention that we need, etc. It’s a focus that leaves us constantly looking for validation and our worth from the outside in.
However, in a time not too long ago, there was more value placed on the internal aspect of our life. The wise old sage was the most coveted individual in the tribe. He or she was the leader of the people, the most respected, and the one whom everyone looked to for guidance.
Unless you are in a dark place of self-loathing (in which case please find a professional counselor to help you work through it), I know that the fastest way to love yourself more is to be in a healthy, happy, love relationship.
I have come across so many people who tell me that they are “working” on loving themselves, and once they do THEN, they will begin dating.”
I believe you can do both at the same time.
The good news is that working on yourself is a great thing and you can find strategies to be more loving and kind and accepting of yourself and you need to know that the critical voice in your head can be lessened but folks, honestly, you’re never going to eliminate it entirely.
As a career and success coach, I hear my fair share of wanting to bulldoze through change, especially when life seems to throb like a toothache, turn into the life you never thought you’d have, or slow to a crawl through the rubbery land of powerlessness.
Everybody wants to rush through transition like it’s a bad root canal. But transition is a threshold. It’s a sacred life appointment—the crossing from one world to another. You will reclaim yourself here, be infused with messages you could receive no other way. This is not just positive mumbo jumbo. I am describing to you a possibility that exists for you, right now, right here, and will not come again, at least, not in this way.
I know, maybe, you’d still rather the root canal.
It’s natural to feel this way. Sometimes, growth can make us feel helpless.
When life becomes uncomfortable, we are being invited to explore our own personal power and dormant capacities. We have the opportunity to turn “scared” into “sacred” and experience a universe of expansion instead of contraction. But it’s up to us. It’s a choice. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But only if we consciously choose for it to be that way.
Whenever I have the privilege of leading transformational workshops, I am always in awe of what an honor it is to be invited into people’s lives and have them share so openly about their past as well as the honest and raw feelings they have about themselves and their lives. I expect to feel the same sense of awe and privilege at my upcoming workshop ‘The Body Shadow: From Self-Loathing to Self-Loving’ hosted by Omega in June 2019. Of course, we are also seeing so much of this in today’s culture – people, especially women, coming forward and sharing about the assaults, attacks, abuse, and secrets that they have not wanted, been able, or felt ready to share.
Although I am always very mindful of never assuming I know or can even comprehend what someone else feels, since I never want to diminish someone else’s pain by comparing or making sweeping assumptions or generalizations, I think it is fair to say that most of us have endured situations that felt off, wrong, or were just downright soul-crushing. And, in order to deal with or manage the pain or to just do what we need to do to get by and function, we learned to manage it, push it down, remain silent, numb ourselves, or stay busy and try to forget about it.
Although all of our stories are personal and unique, whether it comes from what we are seeing in the news, the #MeToo movement, how we feel about our bodies, or the stories I hear from the people I have the privilege of working with, I am always so present to the insidiousness of the shame we all carry.
Two men stroll down a leaf-covered wood lot path on a clear, brisk autumn morning. Jeff and Mark have been friends for years. They enjoy their Saturday morning walks and talks together. Yet, something’s different about Mark today. Jeff senses there’s a problem. But he says nothing.
Two minutes later, Mark stops walking and turns to Jeff. His eyes are searching for a place to begin. Then, following right behind his slowly spreading smile, these words spill out: “Jeff, are all these voices that are arguing in my head bothering you too?”
A second later, they both break out laughing. The spell Mark had been under was suddenly broken. He had been the captive of a dark inner dialogue.
What’s a dark inner dialogue? Just what it sounds like: A negative tug-of-war in the unseen recesses of your mind where you’re the only one pulling on both ends of the rope. Still more to the point, being in a dark inner dialogue is finding yourself losing a heated argument when there’s no one else in the room with you!
You have no control of what other people think about you.
The only control that you have is over yourself, and how you respond.
Your responsibility is not to make others happy but to be yourself fully.
People’s opinions of you reflect more about themselves than about you. So don’t take it personally. Just because they judge you a certain way, or have a negative opinion of you, doesn’t mean it’s true.
It’s just their opinion. It’s their perception, and perception is not reality.
Our perception is a projection based on our current level of consciousness which is determined by our conditioning and experiences.
So make peace with who you are, and who you aren’t. The more you love and accept yourself, the less you will seek it from others.
Let's start with why have a spirit in the body? Why not be the spirit?
If you're just a spirit, what does chocolate taste like? It takes energy to make visual pictures, to make sound, to taste. So when you get into the suit you can see, smell, touch, taste, feel. Back to what does love feel like?
I can have a conscious idea as a spirit. Love is nice. But what does love feel like? Well, get into a body and release dopamine. Oh, that's what love feels like. The body converts our reality into sensation so that we can experience physical things. But you also have choices of where you want to go and what you want to do. It's not just the feelings going in and going back to Source, it's the Source with information of what to do coming into the body like a two-way street.
This week’s goddess that stood out for me in our universal energy forecast is the Greek goddess Demeter. I’m on the ocean right now with medium John Holland for our cruise, and I plan on going to the spa this week and swimming in the ocean when we stop, something I have not done in a while. When I am true to my self-care plan I take regular Himalayan salt baths, meditate, spend very little time on personal social media and do a regular inventory of my thoughts feelings and beliefs. Do you have a special way to self-care? A ritual? Are you faithful to it?
Self-nurturing is so important with my busy schedule, and if I forget, or say yes when I need to say no, I regret it. Here on this beautiful ocean one would think it’s a vacation for me, but it’s work and so I’m also aware of the needs of my students here and why they came. So if I don’t take care of me, I won’t be able to serve at my highest capacity, and I may fall prey to want to rescue someone in pain. Most healers and practitioners of the intuitive arts are driven by Demeter’s energy and that makes us good at what we do, but we need to be careful and self-aware and know where the boundary lies.
My whole life, I had been my worst critic. I was my own judge, jury and executioner. I strove for perfection, sought validation and felt that I have to compete for everything in order to deserve something. This is a result of people — most especially my family— criticizing me, telling me in many different ways how I was not good enough and how I need to be different and do better. Undoing that damage is neither easy nor quick. The solution was both simple and complicated but I am now peeling away the ugly layers that covered up my true self.
Growing up, I was constantly ‘teased’ about my flaws. My skin was too dark. My smile was too gummy. My lower lip was too thick. I was too skinny, too shy, too weak, too clumsy, too slow. There was a never-ending list of things that’s ‘wrong’ with me. And those were mostly from my own family — cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents, siblings, and my mom. For who I was and whatever I did, I was simply not good enough. I felt like I could never measure up to standards set by those around me.
One of my first memories were of my parents broken up. I don’t remember them being together at all. Before my father died when I was 17, I remember seeing him only twice. I guess, this is where it all started, as a little girl asking, “Why doesn’t he want to see me? Am I not good enough for him?” That feeling of being unwanted by him didn’t leave me until I was about 18. Did I have daddy issues? Perhaps. I’ll leave that to the experts. But I honestly think that this is not the only culprit that eroded my self-worth.
They say we teach what we most need to learn and lately that has been true for me. I have decided to tackle a new project…I am calling it my “creative challenge,” and it is SO BIG and so intimidating to me that I am not sharing it with anyone… just yet.
Every day, as I carve out time to work on this project, I am confronted by a ton of thoughts of why I can’t do it, why it’s impossible, etc., and then I spend a bunch of time diving into my spiritual tool kit to off load the negative thinking. 
Needless to say, the project is moving at a snail’s pace.
It’s so easy to let the negative monkey mind chatter take over and I’ve had enough of it so here is my new commitment.
Today I am reminding myself of three very important things I seem to have forgotten:
Self Love is the hot topic in the personal growth movement these days and when it comes to finding soulmate love, there are a lot of myths that until you love yourself first, you won’t be able to get anyone else to love you. Can this really be true?
My experience has been that most women and some men (at least in the Northern hemisphere) live with a negative, critical voice in their heads that is often filled with ugly, shaming thoughts, self-doubt, and brings with it feelings of never being “good enough.”
And, I began to wonder, do you really have to eliminate that persistent voice in order to find true love? Do we really need to be 100% in love with ourselves to experience Big Love?
I don’t think so.
What is required is to learn how to “talk back” to that voice and create strategies to love yourself more and better. This includes a big dose of self-awareness so that when the “voice surfaces” you kick its butt!
The low frequency blocker to Love is fear.
YES, you guessed it - LOVE is the cure for loneliness.
There is so much loneliness in our world today. Not only within our lives but on a global level, loneliness is fueled by fear, hatred and mis-trust.
Join Panache Desai each weekday morning for support in reconnecting to the wellspring of calm and peace that lives within you and that has the power to counterbalance all of the fear, panic, and uncertainty that currently engulfs the world.
Designed To Move You From Survival and Fear to Safety and Peace. Available Monday - Friday. Meditation begins at 9 AM. Access early to hear Panache's monologue - around 8:30 AM.
...on all things life, wellness, love, transformation and spirituality...
PLUS! Get your FREE Guide: 12 Mindfulness Practices to a Peaceful Mind