February,
I know you will
be fabulous!
Warning: laughing at imperfections
may cause wrinkles; go ahead, laugh anyway.
—Kelly Martinsen (said repeatedly to
friends over wine and over time)
Vainglory: Excessive elation or pride over one’s own achievements. Boastful vanity.
Oscar Wilde once said, “The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” Amen! Don’t you just love, love? The month of February is often described as a “love” month. The idea of love is historically defined as a feeling or exchange of intense emotion shared between two (oh, how I love definitions!). Love could be thought of as an exchange between two people, a person and a pet, or in some cases a person and an object (yes, I love my Louis Vuitton wallet!)—but always two. Is this necessary? Is it even fair to the concept of love to say that you can only feel it or achieve it as part of a pair? Because to be honest you only need yourself to experience the warmth Oscar Wilde defines. In fact, it is easier to share love between two people if you first love one person—yourself. Sound cliché? Maybe it is to some degree, but it is also true. Because to love someone, you must know how to love through imperfections—and we all have them.
I didn’t always subscribe to this “self-love” talk. Seriously, you don’t have to look further than a self-help book, church, a yoga class, or a social media meme to realize self-love is all the rage. Still, even with these constant reminders, I didn’t really embrace or vibe with the whole “self-love revolution” until one day when there was a slight change in my daily routine. Truth is, I first came to recognize the value of self-love because my imperfect ass was running behind schedule!
I was late to yoga class, and I had to place my mat in a space that was not my usual spot. This started me off feeling very unsettled. I loved my yoga space. I felt strong in that yoga space. I obtained headstand in that space. I had a partnership with that space. My space and I had an unspoken agreement: if I was there in that space, taking that class, then I would achieve new poses, or stay longer in difficult poses or even just have the best Savasana of my life. (Savasana means “rest” and many yoga classes end with it; who doesn’t want to have the best rest of their life?) But I was late, and some woman had her yoga mat in my space. So while I eyed the woman and her JadeYoga mat that were sitting in my beautiful space with a jealousy so strong it was verging on rage, I walked quickly to a new space. As if the idea that I had a new space wasn’t bad enough, the only spot available at the studio came with something so horrific that I began making my way to the exit. The yoga teacher saw me and guided me gently back to that horrific spot. What was there that made me almost bolt for the door? A mirror!
When I do downward dog, I usually feel strong. Core sucked in, shoulder blades tucked in my back pockets, hands spread wide; I love my downward dog, always have. Today though, the view I got in that mirror was not the same view I had held in my mind. No, the reality was the view in the mirror: a forty-seven-year-old ass. I was horrified, thinking about the miles I run, the effort I make to eat right—and in the end this is what my downward dog (read ass) really looks like? I was in a tizzy, I couldn’t hold a pose to save my life, I was seriously unsteady and found myself wobbling in mountain pose. (Mountain pose is basically standing up straight.)
After what seemed like forever, this mirror-dominated class was finally coming to a close and I realized that I had spent the past hour chastising myself for my food mishaps, blaming my mother for my genes and the big hips that come with them, and then berating myself for my “un-evolved vanity.” When I finally went into the closing pose of the series, headstand pose, the face looking back at me in the mirror not only didn’t look strong, it looked funny. Really funny, like, “wrinkles upside down” funny.
It looked so funny that I stood there and I laughed. Literally, I laughed out loud, undoubtedly killing the Zen of several of my classmates. I laughed at my fat ass, my focus, my wrinkles, and my vanity. And right then I loved myself. I had wasted the last hour judging myself on the things that I try never to judge others: the clothes I was wearing, the weight on my hips, the upside down muffin top (really, a muffin top is bad enough right side up, but upside down the view is indescribable). It was only when I looked at my wrinkles, which looked even worse when turned topsy-turvy, that I finally had the opportunity to smile. With the smile came the laugh and with that laugh I thought, You’re funny, Kelly. I love you!
We all do it, though, don’t we? Our thighs are too big, our lips too thin, the roots of our hair are too dark or too light. We stand in judgment of ourselves instead of providing the same love that we offer our friends and family.
Every morning, why don’t you (and I) make an effort to focus on falling in love with yourself! It is a real challenge to love yourself with the same abandon as you love a child, a pet, a partner, or a designer handbag. If you focus on your strengths, on the things you can do instead of what you can’t do—like maybe squeeze into your old swimsuit w—you may just realize how lovable you are. I can do a handstand (after practicing for three years) and I love myself for it (even if my face looks funny upside down). When I love myself I am a better mom, a better sister, daughter, wife, and friend—and in return I become more lovable to everyone in my life. When I love myself, I am the person I want to be. Loving yourself is not being complacent or automatically accepting. It is often the opposite. When you truly love yourself, sometimes you must change your attitude, your food choices, your relationship choices.
Loving and being in love should start with you! When it does, you begin to make the right choices and fill the world with your own light. That light reflects out to the universe and brings you loving partnerships. It comes full circle. Every day is a new beginning with new decisions to make. When we wake up each morning we can either spend fifteen minutes recognizing some wonderful things that we love about ourselves and even writing them down on the next page. Or we can spend fifteen minutes digging through the closet to find the pair of pants that make us look skinny! (Stop hitting the snooze button and you can do both!) But the truth is, if we forgo those fifteen minutes of skinny-pants searching, we just might be on time for yoga!
Reflections
WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT YOURSELF?
Falling in love is easy . . . but staying
in love is very special!
Love: A feeling of strong or constant regard for and dedication to someone.
Okay, so we talked about love, you have written a list about all the things you love about yourself. Yippee! But you don’t want this book to become sickeningly Pollyanna-ish, so I am going to share something with you that I hate. I hate Valentine’s Day! Reading that sentiment, you may conclude I’ve never been in love, I’m going through a relationship shift, or I’m just a miserable person; however, you’d be wrong. I’m actually married to a man I love a good 98 percent of the time (the remaining 2 percent, I’m busy deciding where to hide the body). I am not miserable. Actually, I am pretty happy because I believe life is a blessing. But, as happy as I am, I am also realistic and I have come to learn that life, even a blessed one, is anything but perfect. Valentine’s Day proves it.
My strong negative feelings toward Valentine’s Day have to do with the fact that this holiday pretends life or, more accurately, love is “perfect” at its inception. I contend that things often seem perfect. I go further and say that what seems perfect is often not perfect; it is just a first-time experience. There is a difference between perfect and new. Valentine’s Day reminds us of new, of firsts: first date, first kiss, first apartment, first trip, first child. Sure, the first kiss is great (hopefully the first child, too)! Everyone knows that, but why is it great? Because it’s new! When love is new it has the wonderful added energy of anticipation and discovery, “Wow you like the Beatles? ME TOO!” However, anticipation and discovery are not love. Anticipation is excitement. Anticipation is an endorphin high. The first kiss isn’t love! Waking up and kissing each other when you’re ninety-eight years old for the 100 billionth time (and the breath that goes with it!)—that’s love! And love, well it takes work!
In my opinion true love is watching someone floss their teeth and kissing them right after, or even worse sitting on a toilet while they floss their teeth and then days or even minutes later being intimate with that same person. And real love is doing that over and over and over. Trust me, and I say this with all due respect to my husband, saying “I love you” is a lot easier before you’ve shared a bathroom. Real love often means putting up with each other’s crappy (no pun intended) behavior and forgiving each other for being imperfect. True love is rediscovering each other again and again and again. And when you are angry or, worse, find yourself becoming indifferent to the person you are with, love is the energy you will need to make you go deeper and share an even more profound level of yourself, a side of you the person you are with has never seen.
In Liane Moriarty’s novel The Husband’s Secret, she writes of a couple that is struggling with a choice: “They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they each liked.” Wow! Stripping down layers of you, revealing a new level of “otherness,” and falling in love with a different aspect of the same person year after year. That is probably what St. Valentine had in mind. That would take humility, courage, patience—and it’s a risk! Yes, to show someone a new part of you is a risk!
The key word in that definition of love above is constant! Love needs to be constant. I remember how I felt when I met my husband at twenty years old; I couldn’t not think about him, his wavy hair, his muscles, and his cute, sly grin. Twenty-year-old me had an ongoing fairy tale with twenty-year-old him. I miss twenty-year-old me. She had so many admirable qualities. The Kelly that Kevin first fell in love with was fun! She had no fear; she had endless energy; no wrinkles and—yup, you guessed it—she had perky boobs!
I imagine sometimes my husband misses her, too. (And not just her boobs.) You see, forty-seven-year-old me can sometimes be a hot mess: forgetting to breathe during her son’s wrestling match or her daughter’s lacrosse game; stressing over the last bill that came in the mail; and snapping at her children or her husband when she is on a business call. Some days she might be too tired and stressed to remember to even kiss her husband goodnight. Forty-seven-year-old me sort of sucks sometimes. Or at least she is not nearly as fun as twenty-year-old me. That’s okay because guess what? My forty-seven-year-old husband is not his twenty-
year-old-self either (hello, hair loss). We can’t be, we have responsibilities; worse, we have shared responsibilities. If you think paying bills or caring for a loved one is hard alone, just wait until there are two of you making the decisions. For me and Kevin—together for twenty-seven years total—more ups than downs; but, yes, downs.
When we reach those down times in relationships, we need to stop avoiding, and to spend some time with one another and rediscover those areas of compatibility we had when we first met (pre kids, mortgages, bosses, fat asses, and hair loss). I’ll bet that whatever made you both laugh twenty years ago still makes you laugh now, even with all your individual “evolution.” Put faith and stock in the fact that, since you are still together decades later, you are still compatible. But don’t let that be it. Compatibility cannot be the end goal. You must use your compatibility as a match that lights the flame of chemistry between your souls.
You must have chemistry. You cannot be too tired, or too busy, or too anything that you forgo the chemistry. Chemistry (read s-e-x) is vital at age twenty, forty, sixty, even ninety! Don’t just take my word for it. If you sigh as you are reading this, realizing you are in a completely compatible but spark-free relationship, light a flame! Buy some sexy lingerie or just have a “quickie” to see how much closer you are when you are intimate. Notice afterward that you care just a little less about dirty dishes in the sink. Recognize how much less you fight or get on each other’s nerves! It may take work and might not be spontaneous, unlike the people in those commercials with the twin bathtubs; you may have to make it an appointment on your calendar. Still, I say do it . . . yes do it. W
Existing in a long-term relationship, romantic or otherwise, should be the thing that makes our heart race. Yet, so often the endorphins win out. I have seen it time and again. A couple decides to end a relationship because it is easier to be excited by someone new than courageously share a new part of himself or herself.
It may be trivial, but I often think of spouses like cars. I maintain that if you are lusting for this new, hot car, just because it looks like it’s fast or sharp or whatever, don’t buy it until you are positive you have kicked the tires on your old car. Take a risk and see if you can bring that car to new speeds, appreciate the memories within that old car’s fading leather, remember the hopes and the dreams you had when you first bought it, and then check the engine. The truth is you haven’t learned everything there is to learn about your old car. Take a look under the hood and discover that the person you already think you know everything about has more layers than you could examine in ten lifetimes. Find out what has changed within them while you were busy having careers and raising kids. Take a moment, reconnect, share your changes, and fall in love again and again, year after year. Then, for you, Valentine’s Day will be more than one day in February.
Reflections
REMIND YOURSELF HOW HOT YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER IS.
(Or skip this entire writing section and meet your spouse at the door naked!)
While intent is the seed of manifestation,
action is the water that nourishes the seed.
Your actions must reflect your goals
in order to achieve true success.
—Steve Maraboli
Manifest: Clear or obvious to the eye or mind.
I only recently became aware of something called the Law of Attraction. Crazy, right? That is the entire premise of the bestselling book The Secret. But at the time that book came out, life was great for me, I didn’t need a book. I figured that whatever the secret in The Secret was, I must already know it because I was happy. Ah, yes, your young adult years can be almost fairy-tale-like can’t they? Fast forward toward middle age . . . I learn about a conference and my magazine is asked to sponsor it. The focus of the conference? Yup, you got it, the Law of Attraction. I am going to tell you a little about the theory and then I’ll share my experience with it. Then I think you should come to your own conclusions about it.
It’s funny, when I looked up the Law of Attraction, the word “pseudoscience” was one of the first things to pop up:
In the New Thought philosophy, the law of attraction is the belief that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts a person brings positive or negative experiences into their life. . . . Law of attraction is an example of a pseudoscience.
More simply said, “Like always attracts like.”
First, I want to clarify that the Law of Attraction (LOA) intrigues me, not as a science but perhaps more as a general rule. So the “pseudoscience” label doesn’t’ bother me. This book isn’t a science experiment and neither is your life. So let’s turn away from that argument and move forward. Deep believers of the LOA state that you need not take any action toward your goal; it is simply your thoughts that allow the Universe to grant you your abundance or your lack thereof. I say your thoughts (and mine, too) are worthless without action. The LOA at its core states that if you want to be successful, you act successful. From my understanding of it, the LOA says one must behave as if you already have the goal. I don’t know if I believe that.
I want to share with you two LOA anecdotes. As publisher of a magazine, I encounter tons of people every day. One particular guy, whom I will call Rob, was a devotee of the LOA, and his dream was to help others discover it and become a self-help guru. Rob wanted to be the next Tony Robbins. He self-published a book and from that point on he acted like he had already hit the mark. He stopped speaking to me directly and instead had an assistant call me. When we finally met face-to-face at an expo, he was traveling with a PR person, who acted as his mouthpiece even though he was standing right next to her. He and I were speaking, for instance, and she would interrupt and say, “What Rob needs from your magazine is . . . ” as though Rob wasn’t standing inches away and couldn’t think or talk for himself. The second person who also traveled with Rob was a photographer who would snap pictures as if he were already famous. I recognized that he was embodying the strictest interpretation of the LOA. I thought it was an interesting approach. Apparently, though, “living as if” didn’t quite work for Rob’s financial institutions. His credit card for his ad campaign with the magazine was declined—and he left me holding a few thousand dollars in arrears.
I used the LOA for the birth of my son Dylan. I visualized having this amazing pregnancy, where I had a cute baby bump and jogged the boardwalk up until the last day of pregnancy when I would pull up to the hospital, sneeze, and out would pop the most beautiful, healthy baby. I got the healthy baby part—and that was, happily, the most important takeaway—but I need to tell you that my visualization of my cute baby bump was not achieved. Instead, I gained eighty pounds and looked similar to a rhino in heat. The sneeze was also not manifested. My labor lasted twenty-four hours, which maybe wouldn’t have been so bad had I been numb from the waist down that whole time with an epidural. Unfortunately, the epidural literally fell out of my back and so the last eight hours I took a freefall from just feeling pressure and watching the contractions spike on the bedside monitor into heavy labor. In the blink of an eye, I went from bliss and excited anticipation into excruciating pain. I was so delirious with pain I was literally slamming myself in the head with a plastic bedpan. Yeah, that was most definitely not a sneeze! The healthy baby part, I would like to believe I manifested that, but the truth is I believe it was simply through the randomness of the Universe. I thank God for that child every day, but that randomness also brought illness into our lives and I can’t believe that I was the one who manifested that.
Here’s a third LOA tale. At one point, the magazine I run was failing and I began to grow weary of the process of selling ads to keep it viable. I determined a number of new ads that I needed to sell every month to stay above water. Now I visualize that I will achieve this goal each month, and that the magazine will therefore be successful. Since I began that visualization, I hit that goal each month, I get those ads. It isn’t a huge number, it won’t make me a millionaire, but the number is enough to keep the magazine going. But here is the catch—it isn’t just manifestation and I don’t only visualize that number. Yes, sometimes the sales simply just flow in, other times I chase them, but every month I hit that number. The truth is I hit that number with a combination of manifestation and work.
When followed too strictly, the LOA fails to account for the elbow grease I believe you need in life to make your dreams come true. This is also the thought process of the LOA detractors who say that the LOA, as it is defined, creates an apathetic approach. Stating the idea that everything in your universe is created 100 percent by your thoughts means that if someone is sick or going through a bad stretch in life, it is entirely their own fault. That is difficult for many (especially me) to swallow.
I think positive, uplifting thinking is important. I will go one step further and say it is absolutely necessary for you if you are to begin to live a more inspired life, but I believe there needs to be more. A balance of wishful thinking and hard work is what I believe in. I will call it, “LOA lite,” and it espouses that like attracts like, and that you get exactly what you put out this world—not just what you wish for.
Here’s simple, everyday example of LOA lite. You get on the elevator and you greet someone with a smile. Nine times out of ten, you get a smile back. That smile is often shared with someone else and so on and so on.
The Law of Attraction Lite can be summed up as a simple theory based on the elevator smile. If you smile, you will get smiles back. If you bitch and complain—and we all bitch and complain—you got it, others will join in on the bitch-fest. Don’t believe me? Try it. Call your sister to bitch about your husband, and I can almost guarantee that she will bitch about hers (or worse, agree with you about yours). Two days later call her and tell her this, “I was thinking about our childhood, and it wasn’t perfect but remember when we had to come to the dinner table with a current events topic? That was great.” (Here is where you need to use your own memory I am pretty certain my father was the only one who mandated interesting dinner conversation from ten-year-olds. W) My guess is she will laugh or smile or share her own funny memory. So, yes, to all the detractors, I say like does attract like! But it also needs to start with a positive effort.
We all want certain things in our life and there are ways that we need to go about obtaining them. While I love the idea of manifesting, if you believe in its power alone as a means to getting what you want, you leave yourself little active control. LOA lite says manifest your dreams but don’t stop with simple intention; go for it, map a plan, do the work, share the smile and then what you wish for can be yours.
So go ahead and wake up with a smile on your face (or at least smile after your first cup of coffee). Create your vision board, fill it with pictures and quotes that sum up all the goals and dreams you have. Stick it up where you will see it every day and visualize what it would be like to have those things. Then get out there and put the work in!
My belief is that when you marry manifestation with just a bit of effort, you will attract all the abundance you desire!
Reflections
VISION BOARDS ARE A FUN, CREATIVE WAY TO SET GOALS AND INTENTIONS. YOU CAN CUT OUT PICTURES FROM MAGAZINES, OR EVEN SIMPLY DOODLE YOUR IDEAS. HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF MINE. YOU CAN FOLLOW THROUGH WITH YOUR OWN ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE.
Vision Board
Reflections
IN THIS SPACE, DRAW OR SIMPLY DOODLE PICTURES OF YOUR VISIONS, THE THINGS YOU WANT. THIS IS A GREAT CREATIVE EXERCISE THAT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH TIME AND WILL REALLY HELP YOU KEY IN TO YOUR DESIRES.
Vision Board