The Plunge.

My friend and coworker, Jalene, facilitated a workshop for our staff at my home on Tuesday. This workshop was entitled, "The Plunge," a play-on-words bridging the pool party theme with the diving into inner awareness she was hoping we would engage in throughout the workshop. Her encouragement to us was to make this year the best year of our lives, and she did so by sharing her own enthusiasm about her commitment to making this year the best year of her life. She spoke with passion and excitement about what it means to plunge into your life, to say, "This is the year that I'm actually going to do it!" She encouraged us to sketch out what our life will smell like, sound like and taste like, to really flesh out the feelings and sights and sensations that we want to be experiencing. She has us write down the colors and the aromas and the feelings of this future vision, this someday experience that we can see ourselves having.

And I saw it. I saw myself living vibrantly, in full, authentic expression. I saw myself unafraid; in full acceptance of who I am and the choices I have made. I saw myself proud and inspired, awed and humbled at the beauty of Life. I saw myself dancing out of a spontaneous desire to feel my body move and to celebrate the fantastic-ness of the moment. I saw myself totally present, totally aware of my own Divinity and to the Divinity in others. I saw myself radiating this love and receiving it back. I felt the inexplicable joy that arises out of authentic awareness and the complete calm and peace that comes from trusting that Life really wants what is best for us. I saw things just working out for me because I am in congruence with Life, not resisting it, not needing it to change.

But then I got scared. I realized that if I were to live this brilliantly, this fully, this expressively then I would no longer be anonymous. I would no longer blend in and be safe. I would be seen. I would no longer able to control how I was being perceived. It would be balls-out, full blown visibility.

And then it occurred to me: I am using my weight to stay hidden. I am using my weight to, literally, weigh me down and keep me from having the energy to be seen. It's as if the weight has served me by keeping me small and limiting my expression to certain expressions. Its prevented me from taking risks and stepping up into the fullness of who I really am. It's created a fog, a sludge, through which I can stay hidden.

The quote by Marianne Williamson comes to me, again.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I have created the weight as a means of resisting being fully present in my life. It slows me down. It makes me tired. It tells me that I can't do this or that or this. It is my excuse for why I can't step up to my potential and live it now. "I'm to heavy," I say to myself. "Maybe when I'm thin and wiry then I can be energetic with Life." Who wants to see a fat girl in love with life, anyways?

But the weight is going away. I've lost 14 pounds since August 4th as a result of this new fuel I'm giving my body. And while I'm excited about that, I'm also scared. This means I'm really doing it. I'm stepping forward. I'm taking the Plunge. Am I ready to be seen? Am I ready?

Yep, he's my kid. No doubt.

My coworkers spent the day at my home today for a team-building retreat. And, while most of you may be rolling your eyes and throwing up a little bit due to images of corny, awkward, Office-esque team building games, it was actually a very lovely, heartfelt experience. Seriously, you really wish you worked at my office. The women (and one man) that I call my coworkers are the most loving, compassionate, funny, inspiring, diverse, and authentic people that I could ever dream of working with. Could you imagine working with a bunch of other therapists all day and feeling BAD? Heck no.

Anywho, during the lunch break we busted out the karaoke machine and I took some video, which I am very tempted to post, but I want to stay working where I am working. What I will post, however, is what I stumbled upon when I left Jack alone for two minutes:



I love this kid.

Update on the diet...

Alright, so I really thought I'd be posting a lot more during this whole diet experiment. And I thought the posts would look like

SONOFABITCH, I hate this fucking diet. I hate everything. I'm so damn hungry! I need icecream, NOW! Why did I agree to do this? My insides hurt. I want to go eat the entire Taco Bell menu. Fuck Marla. Fuck this diet. Fuck the dead people who told me to do this. I want a Frosty.

But, instead, I've only had minor bouts of frustration and angst. I didn't have any serious cravings until recently, when I was home sick with a 102 degree fever. I wanted a quesadilla like you couldn't believe. And when I told myself no, myself argued back, "Okay, how about some icecream." And when I said no again, she said, "SHIT, then how about some nachos?!" I said no again and she said, "I hate you and I hate your ass face!"

It's a new idea to take care of my body. I've always taken pride in NOT caring about my body. It's like I didn't want to be like all of the other depressed, insecure, body-loathing girls who obsess every day about the number on the scale. So, I spent my life rebelling against this idea of caring about one's body. Instead, I shunned anything that looked like body care: gyms, health food, diets, counting calories or carbs or pounds. And (I admit it, shamefully), I looked down on those around me who DID care and who were cutting out carbs and not eating after 8pm. Look at them, I thought, all obsessed about their bodies. Tisk, tisk.

So I'm relearning what it means to take care of my body. To care about my body. To care FOR my body. It's new and I kind of like it. In fact, I'm thinking about taking a nutrition class so I can understand what my body does for me and what I can do for it. Who knows. Maybe by the end of this thing, my Body and I will be friends again.

Seriously, can he be any cuter?

The answer is no, he can't.

These videos were taken over the weekend at my great-uncle's birthday party. My dad (on the right) and his brothers started playing for the guests and Jack couldn't resist. Luckily, his smart mom had packed his guitar for the long car ride up. He grabbed it, threw the green ribbon strap over his shoulder, and joined the band! Prepare for CUTE!



If you listen, you can hear Jack singing in this one, too.

I'm Coming Out!

So, I just outed myself at work. Up until now, everyone here thought I was your average single mom therapist whose only interesting or alarming features are her love for karaoke and weakness for cigarettes. They don't know that I'm a closeted woo-woo. But today, at our potluck lunch after treatment team, they all noticed that I had forgone the carnitas tostadas and rice for my own tupperware container of brocolli and edamame.

"Are you on a diet, Amber?" one of my coworkers asks.

"Well, yes," I say, reluctantly. I really don't want anyone to think I'm dieting. I've never been on a diet before because I hate diets. I hate people who diet. I have so much resistance around dieting because I watched my mom struggle with diets my entire life and I swore I would never be caught up in that energy. I watched her loathe herself as she ate out of the tiny plastic trays and I felt her shame as she swallowed the Fen Fen. I felt her judgment of herself with every Slimfast and every weight watcher point she consumed. I was witness to her silent but bloody battle with the Diet and I have resisted anything that looks like that war ever since.

In the end, I have just as unhealthy relationship with food as she does. She is restrictive with food, I am indulgent with food. Food is her enemy while food is my comforter. However, we're both food-obsessed women. And our similarities don't end there. We are both anxiety prone and avoid conflict like it is the plague. We underestimate how loveable we are and esteem ourselves lowly. While we're both fantastic at a party or in groups, we both fear rejection and mask it with humor and charm.

But its in how we deal with these feelings of not-good-enoughness that brings forward yet another difference. I go straight for the deep healing, submerging myself in childhood memories and exhuming the ghosts of my past. I try to erradicate my conditioning and give my inner child new messages about herself. I write and meditate and cry and feel it all, believing that once I remove the source of the deep, inner pain I will be free. My mom, on the other hand, resists inner work as if she's allergic to it. She'll often say to me, "I'm just not that deep of a thinker, Amber." She goes for the physical level of reality. Feel anxious? Take an anxiolytic med. Gaining weight and feel bad about it? Go on a diet.

I'm beginning to see that we both have something to learn from one another about healing. She could get over her resistance to inner work, I could get over my resistance to getting on the treadmill. In our mutual attempt to bypass what we percieve as challenging or too hard, we have stayed stuck. So it is true: What we resist, persists!

But back to what just happened.

"Oh, which diet? Is it weight watchers?"

"No!" I say, with a little too much disdain in my voice.

"Are you just trying to lose weight?" another coworker asks.

"No, not really." They all give me confused looks.

"Oh, then what is it?"

"It's just this thing I'm doing." Yes, I really said that.

"It's a medical thing?"

"No, it's not medical. It's kind of a weird thing I'm doing." Yes, I said that, too.

My coworkers looked at me, not used to this lack of self disclosure coming from me.

"Alright, it's kind of a spiritual thing," I say, scanning their faces for reaction. "My spiritual teacher (yes! I called her that!) told me that I need to eat from a restricted diet for four weeks. She says that the way I have been fueling my body is keeping me stuck in negative patterns in consciousness. So, I'm dieting."

"Oh, cool," one woman says and they all turn back to their food. They are totally satistfied with this answer. This was not a shock to them, at all. The conversation moves on and I feel strangely liberated.

I see you craving icecream in your future...

So I just returned from seeing Marla, my psychic medium friend. "You have a psychic medium friend, Amber?" you may ask. Yes, yes, I do. Come on, are you really surprised?

To say that she's my friend might be a misnomer. It's actually like she's the person I pay to talk to dead people I know and to give me messages from Spirit. My friend, Pam, turned me on to her while I was pregnant with Jack and- mostly to get Pam to shut up about me going- I dragged my sister-in-law with me and had my first psychic reading. What happened in that first session was truly one of the most amazing and life-changing experiences I have ever had and I have been dragging groups of my friends to go see Marla ever since.

Last weekend, I dragged one such group up the winding road to Marla's home in the hills of Los Angeles. I'd been told before that I should set an intention for the session prior to it, inviting those in spirit I'd like to communicate with to bring messages and to answer any questions that I may have. In other words, you have an audience with God. Show up prepared.

As I sat with what I wanted to chat with God about, a few things came to mind. I wanted to know about my next steps as far as living in community are concerned. I wanted to know how I was doing as a parent and if God had seen that orange-throwing incident or if he was busy in Iraq that day. But mostly, I wanted to know about a spiritual teacher. In the past month or so, I've been visualizing myself as a gigantic magnet, pulling my spiritual teacher to me. I'm not sure where this idea came from, getting myself a teacher, but it's been a strong, clear, energizing visualization that I've been doing several times a day now for several weeks. (I know that I may have lost some of you already, what with the psychic talk and now the spiritual teacher stuff, but it's time I just come out of the closet and say it: I'm a woo-woo, new-agey, stuff-that-Frank-Peretti-warned-us-about-in-Piercing-the-Darkness-kind of person.) (And if you get that reference, HIGH FIVE!)

I've been somehow aware that I am about to enter into a new place of learning in my life. It's as if I graduated from Self Awareness High School a few years ago and now it's time to go to college. Will my next step be moving to a spiritual community somewhere, like Esalen in Big Sur or Kashi in Atlanta? Or will it be in living my life here, in San Diego, with the assistance of a spiritual teacher who help me break free from the limiting chatter of my mind and the distractions of my ego.

It turns out that my next steps involve... a diet. Wha...?

Okay, so let's get back to last weekend when I went to go see Marla with my buddies Donavon, Billy, Don, and Lynette. Don's childhood friend, Steve- who had passed away many years ago- came through immediately with stories and images and messages for Don. Billy's parents came through after that, telling us that he was "such a joy, such a joy, such a joy to raise." Lynette's grandmother came next, along with an ascended light being who told her that she is much more capable than she allows herself to think that she is. I was next. My heart beat loudly in my chest and I breathed in, saying, "I am open to the message you have for me, Spirit." Marla looked at me and said, "You don't feel very good about yourself, do you?"

Blink. Blink.

"But you put up a good front."

Ouch.

"You need to break this dynamic. The only things you can control is what goes into your mouth and what goes into your head." OUCH. "Your head is noisy. And you need to STOP it."

I feel tears of shame and anger burning behind my eyes and I want to scratch her face off.

"You have a large pain body and you are arrested in your development. You've been wounded and you're stuck in your woundedness and you like being stuck there. You are like a fourteen year old in how you feel about yourself and how you are hormonally. You have to make a choice about what is going to source you. You have to get a handle on this."

I feel like screaming, "What the fuck do you think I've been doing for the past 25 years of my life? I've been in therapy and in workshops and dedicated my life to Jesus and then rededicated my life to Jesus. I went to USM and have two masters degrees and, at one point in my life, basically lived in the self-help section at my Barnes and Noble. My entire LIFE has been about finding inner peace and feeling connected to Spirit. Don't you fucking sit here and tell me to get a handle on this."

"You have to be mindful in your choices, Amber. This is what they're telling me. You must live a conscious life and consume things that are good for your soul. No more tabloids about Britney Spears so you can feel better about yourself. No more junk food and no more junk for your mind. You have to make a CHOICE. You have to control what goes into your head and into your mouth."

"Well, I obviously have a problem with controlling what goes into my mouth," I blurted with a good helping of sass. Marla didn't miss a beat. "You have resources, Amber. You need to get unhooked. It's up to you. It's time to grow up."

I stare at my hands, feeling exposed and incensed. I wanted Marla to be impressed with me, to look at me awestruck and say something like, "You've done a lot of evolving since I last saw you. Your chakras are really open and your aura is shimmering. And I see you changing the world with your brilliance!" Instead, I like the Emperor who has been exposed by the little boy in the crowd who shouts out, "You're NAKED! You have no golden robe. You FOOL!"

"I want to work with this with you later, one on one. I want you to come back and we'll work on this. We need to grow you up. Okay?"

Fast forward one week and here I am, sitting at my computer, wanting to write down what just happened an hour ago. I want to write it down because I believe that what I'm embarking on is the start of a powerful journey of healing and ascension and I love reading stories like that. I've never written one, but I've always wanted to. So maybe this is my Traveling Mercies. Or my Road to Daybreak. Hopefully more Traveling Mercies and Road to Daybreak than Bridget Jones' Diary. Although, that did get optioned.

I knock on her door and she invites me into her home after introducing me to her husband. He leaves and I sit down in the chair she leads me to, a comfortable leather chair that sits facing hers. "They were talking to me about you while I was grocery shopping today," she says while finding a box of Kleenex and turning off a kitchen light.

"Oh, it's nice to know someone was talking about me today," I say, lamely. I'm nervous, afraid of another rough scrubbing like I got last time. I'm aware that I feel a little like I'm standing in front of a firing squad and the gunmen are making small talk with me.

"Yes, I was walking up and down the aisles and they showed me this cycle. This crazy-making cycle that you're in." She sits down and places the kleenex box in front of me. "They tell me that you need to get out of that cycle." Her eyes glint with what looks like mischievousness.

"So, it's like this." She picks up a pen and starts drawing a circular spiral. "It starts out with you. Then," she draws an arrow along the spiral, "it goes to you looking at your life and having all of these expectations of what your life should look like right now. House, education, yard, dog, marriage, kids, career... and you don't meet the expectations. Right?" Right. She draws another arrow. "Then, it goes to your family, who support this notion of you not meeting the expectations. Right?" Tears. Right. She hands me the kleenex. "And then it goes to food, which is what you use to manage the bad feelings. And so you stuff yourself with food, and then you feel even worse, and then you go to Jack to try to make yourself feel better. But then," she draws more arrows, "the old bad feelings about your life choices come up again and you're in it all over again. It's crazy making, right?"

Right.

"So, you need to find a way to stop this crazy-making cycle. If you could ask any question to God right now, any question at all about anything, what would you want to know?"

"I would want to know how to make the Eckhart Tolle book make sense to me," I answer. "I would ask God to give me the experience of no longer identifying with the ego but with my true Self. There are times when I feel like this is happening but is scares me because I feel like I am disappearing."

"Well, yes, but would it really be a bad thing, or a scary thing if the ego disappears? And you are no longer bought into the image of you? The image that you are your job, you are your body, you are a mother, you are your feelings, you are a...?" And instead you were able to say, 'I am not this image, I'm just.... I'm just.' It is time for you to dis-identify with the image of you, Amber, that you are a thirty-something woman who lives here who has made these choices..."

Choices. Every time she says that word, shame and self loathing wash over me. "I have a lot of judgment about the choices I've made," I say.

"Yes, you do." She goes on to tell me about a client of hers who makes unconscious choices out of her woundedness and doesn't stop herself and say, What is it that I really need right now? "When we're unconscious, we get ourselves into trouble. Look at America! America is desperate for fathers and so we make ourselves sick so we can go to the doctor and get some nurturing. It's crazy, Amber. So, you have to make a choice to live consciously, to see yourself going round and round in this deadly pattern you're in and get the hell out. But you don't. So, what's the pay off? What is this giving you? What are you getting out of living this way?"

Tears burn in my eyes. I picture myself making good choices for myself. I picture myself choosing fruit instead of a bowl of icecream. I pictures myself declining a cigarette. I picture myself balancing my checkbook and overwhelming fear comes over me. "This way, I can stay victimized. I can stay wounded. I don't have to feel responsible for my life and I don't have to take care of myself. Because I feel too small to take care of myself."

"Okay, that's honest. But here's what's going to happen. Spirit is going to have to drop a huge brick on your head, like cancer or diabetes, to get you to stop all of this nonsense and then you'll be flat on your back in the hospital. "

"I know that," I say to her. "And sometimes I think I want that Spirit to throw that brick at me so I'll be forced to stop."

Marla looked at me. "I know you do. And this scares me. Because that brick could be deadly. That brick could be debilitating. That brick could leave you unable to care for that beautiful baby of yours and leave him totally devastated that his mother is gone. Seems to me that it would be smarter to simply choose to leave this deadly pattern than to have to end up in the hospital." She went on. "What do I have to say to you today to get you to realize that I am the brick. Do I have to slap you? Spirit is saying, 'STOP!' Spirit is saying, 'I will stop you if you don't.'"

I felt the resistance to begin to lose it's grip. I realized that I was being given an opportunity here to step fully into life. Which, quite frankly, scares the shit out of me. Marianne Williamson understood this fear when she wrote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

So, I'm on a diet. It's The Perricone Weight-Loss Diet, although Marla swears this isn't about the weight. She even made me take the cover off of the book she lent me so that I won't be focused on the weight part. Four weeks, I've committed to. Four weeks of no sugar and no corn and no rice and no bread. Four weeks of no icecream, among other things. Marla believes that this process will be lifechanging for me, and she's offered her help. She and I will talk over the phone throughout the next four weeks and she'll guide me as I detox my body and learn how to take care of myself in a whole new way.

I can't help but wonder if she's the spiritual teacher that I've been drawing to me. I can't help but think that she is, if only for the next four weeks. But I feel her commitment to me and to my healing and it makes me want to be just as committed to me as I am. I realize that I have been given an opportunity here and I am not going to snub my nose at Spirit and miss the boat. I am going to drop everything and take advantage of this big gift.

Toward the end of our session, Marla said something that I believe. It scares me to admit it that I believe her, but I do. She said, "Amber, this is not from me, this is from Spirit." Pausing, she closes her eyes, and listens for a moment. "Whoa," she says, opening her eyes and looking intently into mine. "This is why you are here. You have to do this because you are going to help millions of people. This is why you chose the family you chose, this is why you went to USM, this is why you came to me. Everything has led you to this. You are going to help millions of people heal, Amber."