Previously published 2 years ago.

My dad died two four years ago today.

I miss him every most every day. I achingly, desperately, want to hug him again. What I would give for one moment with him! To lay my head on his chest, hear him call out  (I can’t write the actual sound he made, somewhere between hello and a happy bellow) when I came over to visit, to see him with Lilly again (especially the time he let her paint his toenails).

Oh this happy weird ache. Happy because I love thinking about him and weird because it’s so terribly tangible as if I could, if I just concentrated hard enough, get him back.

But this is not a post about loss, this is a post about courage or how my mom overcame (overcomes) her fear.

My Dad fell in love with the back of my mom’s neck

Which was the first thing he saw at the party where they met. My  mom was a true beauty. Heck, at almost 75 she still is – Molly Gordon calls her the “Barbie for the over 70 set.” Which is not to say  my mom isn’t smart – she is. But smart was not encouraged in her family – her Dad would not let her skip two grades when her teacher recommended it– or in women growing up in southern Indiana in the 40′s.

Beauty, on the other hand, was. Her beauty and aliveness so captured my dad’s heart he pursued her for two years even though she was, gulp, married to her first husband and he had been married three times (twice to the same woman, so is that kinda of 1 1/2 times?).

Fast forward 45 years

Dad died just a month short of my parent’s 45th wedding anniversary. During their life together, my dad treated my mom like a beautiful queen – it’s a cliche, but he did. He made the money. He made the big decisions. He even pumped the gas.

Dad was born in 1919 – a very different generation. He adored my mom and in his mind that meant sheltering her. The biggest fight I ever had with him was when my mom wanted to go to work – she hadn’t worked since they were married – and he said no, “I want you available when I want to be with you, not off working in some store.”

Did I mention Dad was born in 1919?

Our family’s big fear

My mom is 16 years younger than my Dad. He was 43 when I was born, unusual in the 60′s. Somehow, my dad’s age became a background story of fear. He would die and sooner than we wanted him to.  He was the youngest of his large family and one by one, his brothers died of heart disease.

As my parent’s aged, they became connected at the hip, and my sister and I began to fear my mom would never survive his passing.But health scare after health scare, he survived.

And then he didn’t.

And my mom was very, very alone.

A few months later, her best friend died very suddenly, the friend my sister and I always thought she would pal around with when dad was gone.

And a few months after that, I was suddenly going through an unexpected divorce and good for nothing much more than crying and sitting on the couch.

What did my mom do?

My mom who had never pumped gas before,  my mom who had never banked on-line before, my mom who had never sold or bought a house before, nor negotiated with people who you hire to fix things, who hadn’t traveled alone in 40 years, who had few friends because they had moved 4000 miles to live near me and Lilly, and then Dad got sick and she had nursed him, blossomed.

Oh there were plenty of nights of crying and plenty of days in which she could barely get out of bed and she got depressed and medication helped, and still, she took her fear of being alone, of being overly dependent on us kids, of being taken advantage, of not having a reason to live, she took those fears by the hand and used them to make a inspiring, full, new life. Specifically she:

• Connected – she let help in like never before. My dad was a big believer in going it alone. He loved to help others but didn’t like to be beholden. My mom joined a grief support group two weeks after dad died. Then a church. She plugged right into her neighborhood even though most of her friends there were my age.
• Put one foot in front of the other – no big plans. Do the next thing. And then the next.
• Gave herself lots of pats on the back -  she’s proud of herself and she takes compliments when other people tell her how courageous she is. Leave her a pat on the back in the comment section and I’ll pass it on.
• Lots of going to bed early to bed and watching old movies — comfort without guilt, even shadow comforts when need be. Healthy distractions more often, just getting in the car and doing little errands to be in motion.
• Did a fair amount of bootstrap pulling – this needs to be done so go do it. There is comfort in getting things done and not letting the grieving own you.
• Talked to my dad – out loud. Many times a day. When she needs some courage. When she’s proud of herself. Probably when I bug her.
• Threw the occasional pity party – another word for pity is compassion. We can stay stuck in grief and fear so much longer when we refuse to admit that this sucks.
• Created systems to help her feel safe – she figured out how much money she could safely spend per month, she checks with me before big decisions, she stuck with her support group, she got a little therapy, she has good money advice, she relies on my sweetheart and my sister’s sweetheart for guy input.

I’m sure there are many more things my mom has been doing that I don’t know about. She has become fiercely independent in her new life. And while she is often very afraid, she isn’t stopping. She is HUGELY BRAVE and a big inspiration to me.

I’ll be thinking of my dad all day today, remembering all the sweetness, all the love, all the truth-telling (one of my favorite things about my dad – called it like it was), all the growing up in the country stories, all the self-made man stories, and all the love he had for me and my mom.

Go now, love somebody.

This is yesterday, when a coaching client (super fab super smart doctor-writer-coach-farmer, what an amazing hyphenate that is!) discovered she was actually working 20-30 hours more a month than she realized.

She did that thing called keeping a time diary and it revealed such gold.

She vaguely knew she was working longer since changes at the hospital but without clear facts, she took not being able to do what she had previously been able to do personally. As in “I must be losing my edge, getting old, missing something, not working hard enough.”

What does taking it personally lead to? Only big heart bruises, no creative energy, less compassion for yourself and others, and perhaps a pint or five of your favorite frozen dessert.

This is what happens – but only every time- we forget to pay attention to what actually is. As in the facts, ma’am.

On a call today with the amazing Molly Gordon talking about getting just right clients among many other important self-employed creative thing, several people talked about the difficulty of choosing what to work on. My dear friend Camille Maurine chimed in about how she is passionate about all her projects so she doesn’t want to choose.

Passion without reality means little or no action on what we care about. Little or no income. Little or no impact.

The world needs us to get out of our way.

It’s why I wrote the Satisfaction Finder, it’s why I declare the most important thing I need to do each day the night before, it’s why I have a Brain Trust… and it’s still hard to be human and face how much time I actually have in a day.

If we are unwilling to be human, and actually admit we are living in space and time, we have very little chance of getting much done.

Or of enjoying doing it.

So keep a time diary for a week, plan your day the night before and include only what you really can do on your list (rather than what you wish you could do), let yourself grieve all the things you want to do but can’t right now, get help choosing, but for golly’s gosh sake, let yourself be human.

Love you!

Links: Molly’s call (you can still get a recording), time diary, Camille Maurine, The Satisfaction Finder.

As a child, I remember many a summer evening, lounging on the floor of my uncle Walter’s house in Bedford, Indiana, listening to my dad and Walter and Uncle Pryce talk business.

No. Not talk, pontificate. Extol. Preach.

The theme was always the same: be in business for yourself. Business was god. With a small g.

But still, god. (Yes, we went to church, too.)

When I got my first job out of film school, as an assistant to a literary agent in LA, my dad said, “Why did you get a job? I thought you wanted to be a writer?“

Oh no, Dad was not a patron of the arts. He believed that I would make more money working for myself than working for the Man.

My Dad did not have in his possession the statistics that most writers earn poop.

This week I feel like I returned to my family roots by writing about being self-employed.

It may be a new direction for me, working with self-employed women (and maybe men, I like men, I live with two of them and they are very lovely) around the inner work of being self-employed.

I’m feeling such a nice tickling about this idea.

In the meantime, in case you missed them, here are some great things to know about – not just for the self-employed.

Swooning

I’ve only been reading Danielle LaPorte for a few months. Oh the grief over all the juicy good I have missed. She’s sexy, truthful and loving. Good stuff.

Swigging Tequila

I sometimes paint myself into a corner with my writing, feeling I have to be serious or comforting or… Why do I tell myself that? That’s a topic for another post.

I love reading the very naughty Naomi Dunford’s very very very popular blog.

(I wrote a guest post this week. I don’t really swig tequila. It’s a metaphor. Or a joke. Or both. )

Admitting Mistakes

I’m putting on the Big Virtual Retreat next week. I made some marketing mistakes promoting it. I feel bad about them. Here is where I talk with the uber smart and very grounded Dave Navarro about what I learned doing this project.

Do I really make these faces?

You know Molly Gordon’s brilliance, right? If not, you are missing out big time.  I made a video blog post for her and you have to got to see the very odd expression the video froze on.  I laughed out loud when I clicked over.

Everybody loves Christine!

Christine Kane and I met when we did an event together a few years back. I fell in love with her immediately, everybody does. But what has made me sit up and take notice is how she has gone from struggling artist to paying off her mortgage!  Read my post about depletion, and learn more about the amazing Ms. Kane!

Hungry Ghosts, Part 2

Where the sexy sharp ass Jennifer Howard tells you how everything is really going to be alright. This woman has a brain and half. Plus she’s intuitive! Plus she’s really really cool.

I hope all these goodies help you remember that life is a wondrous game for playing and failure is just another label.

These wise folks said things like “You help women be effective in the world” and “Comfort is a quality of the Divine, it’s the foundation” and “If it’s killing me, then it’s killing the world.”

Wow. Okay. YES!

And then this one:

Women get into a cycle of depletion and they’re afraid to step out of it, because then they would be freed up to actually take action on what they really want. They are positive they won’t be able to create their heart’s desire. So they stay busy or scattered or overcommitted so they never have to try.”

This one landed like a slap across my face.

I do this!

I hate to admit it but I do.

See I have an ancient, crusty legacy of shame around my creative work.

I have an old stinky story of being a failure.

A public failure.

The stinky shame dates from when I did an Edith Ann impression (a Lily Tomlin character for those of you too young to remember) on stage in front of my whole school and you could see my breasts through my white shirt and I got heckled.

I think high beams were mentioned.

I was in 5th grade.

Did I mention it was in front of the whole school?

I’ve got a lot of stories like that – stories of wildly creative out-going kind-of-loud Jen launching herself at the world and things not. Always. Going. So. Well.

What creative person doesn’t have these stories, right?

I’m 47 now and I’ve done a ton of healing around this and even let my desire to murder my 7th grade English teacher go (that’s another story).

Only I didn’t see until now that

when my creative shame  gets triggered, I kick off a depletion cycle to end all depletion cycles.

It’s like I want to prove I’m a untalented goof and so I exhaust myself by launching too many projects, hiring the wrong folk, miring myself in endless details that do need to get done (thank you very much) but I suck at details so that makes me feel more ashamed plus there is no time for real creative work which would restore my sanity.

But I’m afraid to stop the cycle because then I’ll have the time to replenish and do creative work but what if it sucks again?  Better to stay busy!

Stunningly diabolical!

Michele said, “Women are ashamed to need comfort and support and love to be able to thrive.”

I would add, “We have to build the trust and heal the shame that tells us that if we get comfort and rest and ease, we’d better by damn prove we were worth it.”

So this week I’ll be loving watching my story that depletion is the punishment for being a failure, and must be maintained to keep future failure at bay.

What about you? Is depletion the story of your life these days? If so, maybe it’s just because life is crazy busy and soon you will get some time to rest, maybe a retreat?

Or are you caught in a washing machine of depletion and you feel like you can never get out?

If so, tell me more! Me thinks this could be juicy conversation.

Oh be still my beating heart.

Won’t You Join us Energetically?

So many of you wanted to be here but could not so I thought “What if we retreated together in spirit? What if the women who are here supported the women who are not, and vice-versa?”

You send your energy, prayers, and intentions to the women who are here, this weekend and next week, and I will ask women to send the energy of the retreats to you.

And

What if you took a mini-retreat between tonight and next Friday at noon and let the energy of my Kripalu retreats hold you and inspire you?

You could use the Virtual Retreat sessions (The Retreat is available again with a Refresher Day on April 25th) as one way to structure your time, like my sessions do for the women here.

Won’t you take even a half an hour in the next week to rest in the abiding peace that is your true nature, to calm your well-meaning but often rather busy mind, and to comfort yourself in ways that bring you toward life, rather than away?

If you do retreat, please share your intention and experiences here. Let us feel the ripples of retreats around the world!

Sending you the peace of true comfort and the power of women slowing down, listening, and remembering.