A Vision for Your life

Each of us needs to have a mission statement and vision statement for our lives. Major corporations and even small ones craft a vision to inspire them to success. Likewise we need a vision to inspire us to achieve beyond our own expectations. To point us in new directions and give us the determination to get there by visualizing what it would be like when we have arrived. To quote Aristotle, "the soul never thinks without a picture." So, What is the vision for your life? Where do you see your most successful self? A few years ago I was trained by the Institute of Cultural Affairs in Community Facilitation. This course gave me the skills necessary to aid community groups with whom I was working to determine and achieve their common goals as a neighborhood. One of the exercises taught to me, I want to now share with you to aid you in determining and creating a map to achieving your life's goals. Its what I use to help me to stay focused on my goals and keep them tangible.

The key is begin at the end. Imagine yourself at your most successful. The ask the following questions and write the answers down:

1. What am I doing?
2. Where am I doing it?
3. How do I look?
4. How do I feel? This is an important one, holding on that feeling will make the goal seem that much more real.
5. Who surrounds you?
6. What feels good?
7. Who are you talking to for support?
8. Who is paying you?
9. How much are you getting paid?
10. Why are they paying you and not someone else?

When answering these questions, remember that its your ultimate success story. So there are no limitations, so dream big. Think about what your perfect world would look like. Just by answering these ten questions you can see clearly where you would like to be. Next you must note where you are now and then how you will get from point A to point B becomes your goals. You goals should be distant enough so that you can work for it, but clear enough to measure progress. This can be done quarterly, yearly, every five years, whenever, as your vision for yourself becomes refined, refine your goals. Next you should create a visual representation of this exercise. This is known as a Vision Board. I have been working on creating my vision board and will share it with you later. Now start work and begin to envision the most successful YOU.

Love now

Love now...

My cousin who I love dearly and I have this most interesting way of making our daily walk to the subway more interesting. We play this game where we try to imagine the life story of people we pass. It usually ends up leading back to our very lives, which does not surprise me. If you've read my earlier blogs you know by now that I think our stories are universal. Today, I practiced our game in reverse. I wonder what people who passed me on the subway, stood next to me on the train and passed me in the street could tell about me. Could they tell my story by just looking at me? Could they see all there was in the making of ME? With that thought in mind I smiled at the man seated in front of me on the train, held enough eye contact for a New Yorker, with the elderly woman who I passed on the platform this afternoon and probably every afternoon and starred at a baby being held my his mother longer that I should have. It was as if I wanted to shout, there's more to me than meets your eye!

Above all, I realize that this game made me stop and notice humanity, all about me. I've recently seen a video called the Love Now. I don't know if many of you have seen it. Today, I called to mind the part of the video that said, and this is loosely quoted, "We make pilgrimages to see the Dalai Lama, be in the land and go to the temples of Buddha and Gandhi for some moment of hope, when we encounter divinity all around us every day.... The whole world is our temple/church." More on this later. Check out this most inspiring video at http://www.lovenowmusic.com.

I am falling in love......

With me. I am beautiful. I am beautifully human. My face and body are different than it was years ago. But I am more beautiful now than then. I look at my face and body both changed by the birth of my two children and I stare. I stare at how knowing and instantly endearing my eyes are, I see them reflected in those of my children, how my smile has become more genuine, because I know true joy, how my arms are stronger from carrying my children. How my hips are more defined from giving birth, how my hair is longer and healthier from having a baby in my womb. I love my hands, they have become softer from being used to soothe, I love my breast they can sustain life. I love my skin how it melts into that of another and provides warmth. I love my mouth, the way my lips move when I say I love you and mean it. I love the way I move, with a purpose. My nakedness is appealing and when I am clothe I stand in the center of who I am. Please accept this not a sign of conceit but rather a sign of a woman coming in to her own. Let me inspire you to stand in front of the mirror naked and stare at your reflection with the utmost desire and see yourself for who you are today and how your beauty has grown. To all my girlfriends, excuse me when I stare...I am just amazed by your beauty!

The way you understand love is the way you make love

The way you understand anything is the way you make it, why not love. I have seen my mother make Roti on many occasions, yet I cannot make Roti, why? Because I don't understand all the steps involved in making my favorite dish. I just don't get it. So it is with my sex life, it is a direct response to my current understanding of love. When I understand the woman I am, I feel sexy. It is then my sex life takes on a clarity of its own, this is manifested in me being more open and direct about what makes me feel good and what it is that I want.

In my early twenties, I was not so sure about how I wanted to be loved, because I was not so sure about myself. What I knew about sex came from the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, I read and then I acted, what I understood was what I read, someone else's experience written out to help us understand the act of sex, a manual much as a car manual is written by someone else and it helps you figure out how to open the hood and check the oil, etc. I know now having read my car's manual how to open the hood and check the oil, but I never do it because, I just don't quite get it. Likewise, though I am grateful to Cosmo for the tips and techniques I learned, it was not my thing. My thing is what I have learned over the years, its precious to me, I gained an understanding of what it is to love myself.

In my relationships throughout the years, I have loved every which way. I loved with guilt therefore I made love with a level of shame, I loved with fear, so I made love with fearing that if I was not good enough I would be abandoned. I loved with a sense of power, not in myself, but power in the act itself, so I made love selfishly, only to hold someone else captive. These experience I can now admit were not true expressions of love.

Now that I am older and I am growing in my understanding of me and my spirit and love itself, I can make love as if I better understand it. I can be sexy and open and even use some of the tools Cosmo taught me because I understand love to be the very nature of the divine, and I am a divine being. We are here because of the power of love. The act of creation is solely based on love, and as a woman I can I become so filled with love that I can create. That's sexy!

The power of love, as I now understand it to be, is the one thing that connects each and everyone of us beyond any barriers, in race, class, or geographical divide. So yes, from a woman's standpoint, sex does get better with age. Age brings understanding, and understaning brings orgasms. And in each orgasmic moment you will begin to see flashes of your divinity.

My obvious choice - Sleep

Sleep is my redeemer. It restores me, it renews me, it refines me. When asked what are my plans this weekend I want to reply SLEEP. When asked what I want to do by my partner I want to reply SLEEP. When asked what I want for Christmas, I want to reply SLEEP, Valentine's Day, Easter, my Birthday, you know the rest. As you can tell by now, I rarely get the needed amount of sleep. I am a mother of a thirteen month old who has been unable to separate my bed from his, an eight year old who is going through a week of not wanting to sleep in his bed without the lights on and regular checks from his mother, and a nocturnal boyfriend who feels that we should have logical conversations after two in the morning.

I love to sleep. I remember after the break up of any of my numerous relationships I would sleep it off. I sleep when I am happy, I sleep when I am sad, hungry, full, whatever, I sleep. When I arrived from my life changing trip across the country, I could not wait to fall asleep in familiar territory, my old room. I slept the way I slept when I was a teenager, in my teenager room, on my teenager bed. I was home again. This is what sleep signifies to me it signifies being home again, letting your guard down and disappearing from the world and all its entrappings for a while, if I am lucky a long while.

Sleep renew the cells of the body, renews the mind and generates new thought. It provides answers to our long held questions and creates a new beginning for you each time you awake. At this moment all the children are in bed and I am heading to my therapy session with my therapist Pillow. I will see you when I awake tomorrow. Goodnight.

Transparent Parents

So much has been made about the subject of transparency. Its been said that we need a transparent government, a transparent financial system, transparent corporations with transparent practices. How about transparent parents? Should we as parents be completely honest with our children? Should our children see through our goals, desires, dreams and household business? When I think of transparency I think of communication. Communication is the vehicle you take to the destination of Transparency. So I communicated to get to the bottom of how my children felt about this subject?

I asked their appointed mouth piece, Lauren my 11 year old what she thought about mommy sharing in all honesty our household business; and since the financial crisis has been all over the news I decided to frame the conversation around our family finances. I asked her would she be interested in knowing what our financial situation was and how this affects her? She wanted to know the how this would affect her part. Her response surprised me, she said kids want to know some of your business, not too much nor too little. This was an Aha! moment for me. At that moment, I realized that children want normalcy, a middle ground, we think as parents that we have that if we speak to our children we have to go to the extreme and reveal everything, but that is a learned adult trait. Children know what a grey area is innately. Basically, answer the questions they ask as honestly as possible, not having to delve into areas that they are not ready for. I strongly believe that when they ask that means they are ready to know.

I then said to her if I explained our financial goals she would understand better how this trickles down to her, why mommy says no so much. She agreed. See my financial goals should also be theirs. If they and I own our goals they would be easier to achieve. Our conversation reinforced that children understand much more that we think they do. Mine understand whats going on even when I don't talk to them about it. So its better that I engage them in conversation regarding the things that affects their everyday lives and their future. When saying no to them for some of their requests, like going to the movies every weekend or purchasing an item every time we go shopping. I ask them to suggest something we can do as a family that's for free or I say lets bake cookies at home instead of buying something. They begin to feel powerful in the role they play in the family, part of the decision making process. When ever a financial goal is accomplished, I intend to celebrate with them, my partners for our progress and great accomplishment.

Racing towards the finish

I am moving a such a pace that its hard to breathe. I compare my life to driving with my boyfriend, who happens to be always in a rush or fancies himself to be competing in the Daytona 500. That's how I am living. Days are a flash, weeks fly by and months fade in my internal rear view mirror. Tonight as I took my shower, I wondered why is it that my life moves at such a pace. I know for a fact that my life moves faster because I am mother and mothers are built with vortex type engines. I also know that my life is busier now that I live in NYC. NYC is not for the weak, you are propelled along by this city. However, these aren't the only reasons I feel so much part of the Human Race, we all race along because we want to be the first, the fastest, the best and the brightest. Look at our choices in the cars be drive, our computer, our phones, all our accessories.

As I stood there I contemplated what exactly is it that I am racing towards, I began to see the absolute folly in my rush. To what end am I racing? The only inevitable end that awaits all humans is death. Why are we so preoccupied in getting to the end. As my children grow older they will eventually have lives of their own and I will eventually no longer be here to share their lives with them and all my other loves. Just knowing this gives me incentive to SLOW DOWN.

I am beginning to see that in this race through life we have been given the tools to slow down. Our awe of nature, our children, our families, our pets, our passion are all YIELD and STOP signs on our way. Whenever my mind is racing, I have noticed that I feel older, older in my thoughts and older in my body. My mind is ahead of my body. Whatever I feel that is what I am. If I slow my mind down to be present to the very moment we are in I will feel and act my age. If I can slow my mind down to be present with my children, then I will feel and act like them. Slowing my speed means that I can live to see more of the race.

I never knew how long the night was

So said my Zion. You see, Zion and his sisters decided yesterday to watch the movie Halloween secretly in their room. As such, last night was the longest night of my Zion's young life. I remember being 8, for that matter 28 and watching a "scary" movie, then again, I am easier scared than others. I am strictly drama, documentary and some comedy type of girl. Anyway, as he entered my room for the fifth time during the night, I had to remember how I felt when I was eight and watched Jaws. It was beyond my young reasoning as to why a shark, as a matter of fact that Shark would not live in any body of water including my bath. I never could have survived a movie like Halloween. So, I gave in and let my baby sleep in my room. Now, tonight the night came too quickly for his power of reasoning to grow and he can imagine his worst fears lurking in every recess of his room.

You see, the worst thing about fear is how fast it grows. It feeds upon its very self. It multiplies as we try to avoid looking at it in the eye. Once confronted it cannot grow. If you give in to the worst possible manifestation of your fear it will now be malnourished. At eight, eighteen even at even at my age we are all battling with our own fears. I asked Zion why he was not scared during the day and the answer was light. See fear loves the dark, the dark of the unenlightened mind, the dark of the ignorance, the dark of a child's unreasoning mind. As we grow we need to shine light on the deep recesses of our mind, eliminating fear.

Now there is such a thing as healthy fear, fear that prevents us from putting ourselves in harms way. However, when fear is coupled with faith and reason it can be eliminated. I am afraid in deep water. Why? Because I cannot swim. So reason prevents me from jumping in with out a thought. Faith and Reason are the weapons used to slay fear. If I could only convince Zion to reason with himself about the impossibility of the events he saw on screen happening tonight, and give him the faith that he will see tomorrow just fine, then I would have done my job. But I cannot, because the mind reasons with itself when its ready and strong enough, not when its weaken by the growing monster, fear. I once read, "To be alive is to know fear, to really live is to conquer fear!"

P.S. You know I had to punish them for watching a rated R movie, right?

I am a daydreamer

When I was little I would stand at my grandmother's back door in Guyana and watch as the Atlantic and the sky merged. She taught me that was the Horizon. I would watch the horizon for hours. This was my signal that the world was ok. I was an interesting child, a loner really who dwelled in my imagination. I pretended to be whoever I wanted and daydreamed most of my days away. I became engrossed in my play so much that being interrupted with the call for lunch was too much for me to bear. As I sat through lunch I already knew what I would be doing after my required afternoon nap; daydream and pretend some more. As I got older, I added a new joy to my hours of daydreaming pretending, writing. I was the only child in my family that kept a diary, so every night as became engrossed in recounting the days events, and my family honored my strange practice. Throughout my teen years I kept a journal, which I then realized that once shared, it's pretty much like being found naked beneath your covers, when you didn't want to be. Yet still, I wrote my teen life away. I had very few friends in high school and many in my imagination and continued to daydream. Then I entered my adult life. I had lovers then children, I worked full time and became what I thought was the lifetime goal for every woman, independent. I still day dreamed. I missed my journaling practice but became so afraid of the exposure that I stopped.

Then my most eventful relationship began, I can't remember ever being able to write what I was feeling the entire time, the feelings were too intense to put in writing and this is the beginning of how I became lost. I became lost in him, lost in the role I played as mother to my children and partner to a man with a large consuming personality. I couldn't remember who was the girl that stood at her grandmother's window. That was until I experience heartbreak. The kind of heartbreak that feels like your soul is ravaged, when you pray for night because the daylight is not meant for the brokenhearted. I know you know. I was broken, so I began journaling. I journaled morning, noon and night. I was living alone with the children and felt a trust that I would never be exposed and laid bare. And so I wrote, I wrote about all the things in my adult life that I could hardly stand to express even to myself, but now it all came out on these pages. Through writing and daydreaming, my version of mediation, I made a life changing decision to move across the country. And so I was born again. I was born again because I was able to learn to love and value the delicate girl who I was as a child. I began to return to a time that I was not molded by what everyone else desired for my life. I now know that I am free to return to that girl who daydreamed and pretended her life away. This is not saying that I don't have any responsibilities. I am a mother of three and I work full time, so of course I do. But I am able to daydream each day even if it's for just a few minutes, and recently I read an article that said to daydream a few minutes a day can add such an improved quality to your life. So dream on, pretend that you have the life you desire, let it become real to you and it will!

I am not alone and you are not alone

They are many times in life that I have felt alone. Alone in my thinking, physically alone and detached from another human being. It took me some time to realize that you are truly never alone. The divine surrounds and is within us and all around us. This amazing power is reflected in the best of way in our circle of friends.

Being on a different coast from one of my closest friends is most challenging to our friendship. We are both mothers of three and we are three hours apart, so when my day is ending her children are now coming home. This makes connecting with her very interesting. However, I know that she is thinking of me as I am of her. I know this because sometimes as I lay there thinking of her, my phone would ring and its her, likewise when I call she says I was just thinking of you. I have another friend who recently when I was experience some diffculity said to me on Monday morning, I was thinking of you all weekend. That meant that she was with me in spirit even thought we were not together. I am sure this has happened in your life as well. As a matter of fact, I am thinking about all of my friends. I am thinking about all of humanity. My fear are yours, my guilt are yours, my challenges are yours, or will soon become yours, my mercy, my forgiveness, my kindness, my humility, happiness and my love are yours. I say this with absolute certainty that we are all connected. I know this because in my lifetime, I have yet to express a fear or concern that has been original.

Knowing that your friend, mother, sister, or a soul you have not yet met understand you and your fears, you hopes and desires gives true comfort. When someone says to you I know how you feel please do not discount that. They probably truly know how you feel, we feel the same things. I know what it feels like when my girlfriends are tired, lonely, afraid to decide, unsure of what do next, overwhelmed, worried about their health, their children, etc. Not necessarily because I have gone through all of those emotions, although I have, but more so because I share their burden. When someone says I feel for you it takes it beyond just understanding what you are going through. Its a powerful moment when some feels what you feel. And sometimes in these situations there are no words need. Times like these provides us with a chance to express true humility, in realizing that we are not alone. We are all part of the greater whole. When one suffers we all suffer. In households, in extended families, in countries and in our universe.

Share yourself today, call your friend that might be experiencing a hard time and let her know that you more than understand what she is going through, you FEEL for her, and that she is not alone.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness - Improve Breast health with your mind

Most of us have made the connection between our mental well being and our physical well being. I must admit it took me some time to see this. About five years ago this shift in thinking was clearly necessary. I was 32 years old and noticed a lump in breast. I was not one to frequent doctors, so the entire situation sacred me. I had a two year old and a five year old, so they of course were my priority. I was in a realtionship that revolved around the person I was with, his needs were always foremost. I never insisted that my needs should be met. I just gave in to what I thought would make the relationship work. I exented love freely and it was not always returned, I did not express my needs for fear I'd seemed too needy. I wanted to maintain the image of being independent and self reliant.

Realizing that the situtation that I was in was indeed serious, I went to the doctor who scheduled a biopsy and then followed with a lumpectomy. I can never forget the day of and the week leading up to the surgery. I kept my usual routine never letting anyone sense my fear. The morning of my surgery, I was more worried about who would watch over the children that day than what was about to happen. After the surgery and finding out that the diagnosis was a good one, of course I continued my schedule not stopping to further delve into any reasons this might have happened. Until of course, I went to class. See my herbal teacher was fill with compassion, but she was also a straight talker. When I told her why I had missed last weeks class she look at me and asked "Who are you nurturing and not nurturing yourself?" I knew right away what she was implying. I just simply smiled and made my way to my car. The entire ride home it all came out. From a child I have always been the nurturer in the family, caring about everyone else's feeling before my own. I was a quiet child and followed the notion that children should be seen and not heard extremely well. Now as an adult I continued this practice. I started to ask myself, could there be a connection in who I was and what was happening to me? Of course!!!

As I continued my herbal studies I became convinced that when working with someone to heal themselves you must heal any fractures in the spirit first. Today, this is the very theory on which my entire herbal practice is based; looking at the person as a whole, mind, body and spirit. This discovery made me hungry for any material I could get my hands on that linked your emotional state with your physical one. Now I am a firm believer that what goes on inside your mind is directly related to what goes on inside your body.

So for Breast Cancer Awareness month, I encourage you to continue with your breast self examinations and regularly schedule a mammogram. But most of all, I encourage all of us to nourish and nurture ourselves with love and joy. Stop putting everyone else's feelings ahead of our own. Stop over mothering, stop being overprotective of our children and stop having overbearing attitudes! The freedom that comes from this release toxins from our bodies not only making our breast healthier but our entire body and mind.

My life's billboard - Know Yourself and have Faith

Why is it so difficult to trust ourselves? We learn to trust our partners, our parents, co-workers and our children. However, many of us never learn to trust ourselves. This manifest in a circle of indecision. We are afraid to decide and stick with our decisions. We fear the unforeseen, unproven punishment that life will somehow dole out if only we decide one way or the other. There is no "perfect" decision. However, there might be a better decision for you if you know who you are.

I have been working on creating a vision for my life, and one of the questions in one of the many exercises I have to take is if you had to create a billboard and you could say anything on it what would you say? Aside from reminding everyone to vote, since this the single most important election of our young lives; I had to think for a minute. Then it occurred to me, my billboard would say, "Know Yourself and have Faith". Knowing who you are is paramount in the building of YOU. Each of us in our day to day life are gathering the tools necessary to build YOU. Knowing yourself is the foundation. Know what you want for your life and what you don't want.

I have learned that to know yourself you have to listen to your life. Hear the messages that are given to you each day. Stay connected with your feelings. Trust you intuition. If you trust and act on your intuition you will increase your self-esteem and build trust in yourself. We were taught at an early age to ignore our intuition, be more factual. Believe only what you can see and sometimes we have been taught to not to even believe that. We were also taught to put others feelings ahead of our own, when this happens we begin ignore our inner voice. We begin to listen to the chatter of others and this creates self doubt. How many times we have done something or avoided something because we went with our gut? On these occasions we may have been disappointed or delighted that we did trust our gut feeling. Practice this more and more each day with little things like what to eat, what movie to see and what book to read.

As we begin to trust ourselves we can then ask ourselves for the answers to our biggest decision and greatest problems. The we can look for the answers in the books we may have chosen to read, a comment by a parent, co-worker or friend. Or maybe even on TV or a movie. My most successful way of getting to know me is by journaling. Journaling provides a space to examine our most innermost thoughts and desires. This is the key to knowing YOU. Our dreams are also telling, if we cannot listen to the answers we receive during the day they may come to us at night in our dreams.

Trust yourself to manage the building of YOU. You are the CEO of your life and you have the most powerful partner at your disposal - GOD. The answers that you need you can find them within. More on faith and visioning later.

My Style and my Thoughts are being redefined

Each morning as I prepare to leave my house for my commute to work, I take one last look in the mirror to see if my reflection truly reflects my style. As I grow older my style is becoming more and more defined. There was a time that I received gifts in clothing or just had an item in my wardrobe that I felt compelled to wear. Not so any more. I wear nothing that doesn't make me feel as if I am standing in center of who I am. My clothing reflects me. Does this mean that I don't want gifts in clothing? Of course not!! I am becoming more and more transparent to my friends and family so they are able to make choices knowing who I am and what MY style is. As a matter of fact my closet shopping buddy says she can pick things out for me with her eyes closed:) Now that knowing someone!

As children we all had our favorite outfit and wish we could wear it over and over again. I bet the reason was that we truly felt while wearing that outfit a kind of comfort deep from our soul. I am returning to that feeling. When you are clothed in garments that lets your body shine, your soul shines also. You know that feeling!

Similarly, when we get to a certain age our thoughts need to be redefined. Our thoughts reflect who we are. As our clothing adorns our bodies, our thoughts adorn our spirit. When our thinking deeply recognizes with our soul, when our thinking aligns with the person that we've become, the world/universe notices.

We are bombarded with many thoughts on a daily basis. The challenge is knowing which one to hold on to and which to get rid of. Do our thoughts not fit us any more? Have we outgrown a particular way of thinking? Is it no longer our size? Have we received thoughts over our lifetime that keeps resurfacing? Like that old garment in the back of the closet that we wear on days that we have "nothing to wear", even though we know it not our style. We can tell those thoughts. How many times have we thought a certain way and think to ourselves, now thats not me. It more my mother, my father or some one of influence in our lives. Do our thoughts make us shine? Abandon thoughts that do not make us feel comfortable. Don't get too hung up on this either and make it harder that it truly is. Just stop thinking that way. Each time you do remind yourself that its like easy like changing your clothes. Strip out the old thoughts and pile on new, beautiful, sexy ones.

Despartately seeking Solitude

I have been planning, at least on paper, for months now a mini-vacation alone. By mini-vacation I mean a weekend. That's as long I could go with being away from Shiloh. As the days go by I feel more and more overloaded by the election, by wall street, by the job and by my children. Tonight, I heard my favorite Bob Marley song on the radio while driving home and wanted to have that feeling of being completely lost in the moment and time. Impossible when there are three children in your back seat. Just as he got to the part of the song that I most wanted/needed to hear an all out fight broke out between Lauren and Zion. Great! Now its to much to just listen to one song completely? Oh my god, I thought for a moment to just ignore it and focus on the song, FOCUS ON THE SONG!! I couldn't. It was then that realized that my live was completely and totally compartmentalized to maintain sanity. There is a compartment for when I am at work, one for when I am with the kids, one for when I am with my partner and a very small one for me. The feeling of wanting to run away overtook me again. The kind of runaway that takes you beyond your bath, your sacred space or that small window of time before everyone awakes. I wanted the day/days long runaway. I wanted to move at my own speed, write my own agenda, or have none at all. Answer to no one, be inaccessible and unable to be found if only for a spell. I want to get lost in my on solitude.

My day dreams are made of sleeping. Sleeping until well after noon, taking an afternoon nap and falling to sleep at seven in the evening. Drinking sleep tea, soothing my nerves with skullcap and passionflower, laying on a pillow filled with lavender blossoms, on sheets that feel like heaven and sleeping some more. Your feeling of sleep deprivation may not be as intense as mine. So your runaway may be dedicated to different pursuits. All the same. As woman we are overachievers. Giving ourselves the short end of the stick every time. I hope this reminds you to make a promise to yourself to slow down, take your time, focus on the present and see the magic of nature in all creation daily. And when you can run for the hills - ALONE!!!

Surrender is not a dirty word

For the last year but more so over the past few months I have been working on my surrender. Waving my white flag to signify my defeat in directing what happen next in my life, the life my children and my relationships. What I have come to learn is that surrender could be the greatest gift I can give myself.

Webster defines surrender as to yield to power, control, possession of another upon compulsion or demand. For a woman who considers what she knows of herself to be an independent person, this is a task. Like many of my friends, I have spent many nights tossing in bed not being able to turn off the brain. I have felt that only me can provide all the answers to my life's greatest mystery/challenge. I have felt that the more I think about the problem the solution would somehow materialize. Oh boy, what power I thought I had.

Realizing that you not can control the very next second of your life puts all of the self torture in to perspective. My life, my health, my sanity demanded and compelled me to master the art of surrender. I realize now that almost all if not everything is out of my control. I realize that I must act with faith and trust in the knowledge that the best solution to my problems will come when I relinquish control. The act of yielding power to the possession of another can bring you true freedom. This freedom comes from knowing that other has your best interest at heart. If you believe in God, Buddha, or another higher power, then you must believe that you are always being guided to your best life. With that reassurance, I can lay my day's needs, desire, dreams and wants all out at night, surrender the notion of control and yield these concerns to the possession of another and fall asleep knowing that today is over there is nothing I can do to change what has already happened and tomorrow will be a new day a fresh start to a new life.

I am a free range mother rasing free range kids

There has been much talk about raising free range kids. Free range kids are children who are basically are given the same freedoms we had. Check out the website www.freerangekids.com. I have to say I agree with this theory. I agree that today's children are not given the necessary freedoms to develop into wise decision making, independent souls. I saw the author of the article on Dr. Phil who gave her nine year old a subway card and a map entrusted him to take the train on a bright Sunday afternoon from Bloomingdale's to home. A trip he had taken many times with his parents. The only difference this time he was taking it alone. Well, many were up in arms. Needless to say, the nine year old did just fine, he made it home.

Here's my take. We are conditioned to see our children as incapable of independent thought and action. Children have an amazing capacity to make intelligent decisions. I watch three of them do that every day. Lauren is 11 and travels to and from school on the subway. She has a cell phone and knows how to use it. Its her responsibility to get Zion to school on time and pick him up in the afternoon. I can't say it was not difficult on the first day of school when this schedule took effect. However, I have learned to trust both of them that they will do as we discussed.

Learning how to trust your children, however is an art. An ever evolving one. The time will come soon rather than later however that we will need to trust them, so I encourage you to start early. Listening to what they have to say is key. Give them guidance, help them feel secure and safe. Balancing guidance and freedom is delicate thing. Discipline is necessary. Discuss stranger danger with your children, help your children to understand how to commute in busy intersections and other traffic laws and respect them.

Children need freedom to play, discover there imagination, become an adventurer, find their wings. Connecting with nature is key to a child's health. Let your children play outside. Yes, even in NYC. Do remember as children feeling ill and then going to play outside? Your illness disappeared as if by magic. The magic of sunshine, rain, dirt, and PLAY.

I speak and the universe listens....

My obsession with menstruation this past weekend all culminated last night. My dear Lauren (with whose permission I post this) looked shyly through my room door and said Mommy come I need you. I also knew instinctively, what it was. I was mortified, why, because I wanted to do right by her during this amazing transition. As I walked into her bathroom, I calmed myself and showed her the necessary ways of taking care of herself. You know, here is pad this is how you use it, etc. Oh, you have school on Monday, this is what you do between periods. I need to write the homeroom teacher at note, etc.

As I left her to take a shower. I realized how happy I was to be here with my daughter as she took this giant leap from little girl in to a young woman. I prepared in my head many times for this and now its go time. I knew some where in all my recipes I had the "Moon-Time Tea" written down. Oh man, if I could just find it. When Lauren was a little girl, I knew I wanted to have for her a Moon-time ceremony, now with her permission I have to plan it.

As a mother who's own menstruation was never explained to her other than the practical nature of things. I know that I have to help Lauren understand that her menstrual cycle is not just a messy interference in her daily life. There is joy to be had in this new phenomenon. The fear and apprehension in her eyes was telling. Could it be all the commercials we see in mass media that promotes this aspect of ignoring menstruation, stopping it completely, or the lady in the bikini at the beach who shuns mother nature when she appears, that has made so many of our young women view our periods as an inconvenience and dirty. I understand her fears and share them, overnight Lauren begins the metamorphosis from a girl to a woman. Overnight she enters the realm of fertility and can become pregnant.

When I look around I see that there are many book and much written to support women in their phases of life, pregnancy, menopause, etc. But there is a need to have material that supports our young women in this most important stage of their life. A young woman now needs to know how to handle added stress, and dramatic hormonal changes. These changes have to be recognized by her "community". As such, with her permission. You know, not to be the embarrassing mom. I will be planning her moon time ceremony.....

Menstruation Metaphor for Life

Today I talked to a friend of mine who period was late. We talked about the usual suspects, could you be pregnant, maybe not, maybe your stressed, just wait a few day it'll come. When did you have yours? Mine is just a few days after, etc. By the way how many of us determine our cycle based on that of our closest friends? I am sure more that we know, its just a girl thing. Anyway, as I walked away from that conversation I began to ponder...... does your period reflect what is happening in your life. Is menstruation a metaphor of our life? Well lets see, do you have heavy, painful periods when you are are experiencing a heavy painful period in your life? I know this is true for me. Does you period drag on for days, when maybe you need to time to honor you instead of resuming your normal schedule. True again. Does bring to head all the areas in your life that you may be feeling distress? True yet again.

How many of you chart your cycles? Knowing when your period should begin and end. Knowing when your period should occur and welcoming this change in your life every twenty-eight or so days , can bring a change in the actual way we experience our periods. In my studies I have come to learn that your menstrual cycle is a time to rebuild your reserves, let go of pent up emotions and honor your body. Sort of your monthly built in therapy/rest time. Nature is so good.

Lets do this, lets begin by charting our periods. Start to keep a calendar for the last day it ended and count forward. You will then begin to see how many days your cycle runs. Once we discover this we can then begin to learn to heal ourselves during this time.

P.S. Did you know there are herbal remedies to bring a delayed menses? This is an entire next blog.

Overwhelmed mothers on Oprah - I could've been there

So Oprah did her show today on overwhelmed mothers as I sat and watched I felt like many other mothers out there that recognized with what we saw. So much to do in a day that my mid day you completely moving mechanically not so much pay attention to what we are doing as much as we are paying attention on what needs to be done.

This leads me back to my "Herb Room", the herb room to me represents my center. It pulls me back to the now and defines what is truly important. In that room I feel that I love my children, my work, my life so much more.

Every woman needs her "Herb Room", you, me we all need a place that is a no combat zone in our homes. We need a ritual that defines who we are and what our beliefs are, our purpose and helps us discover our soul.

Creating a ritual can seem difficult at first. Ritual....what is that. Think of it as something that you can do every day at the same time that quiets you and honors your soul. Do you have enough time to burn sage, frankincense, incense and say a prayer? That a ritual. You can now build on that as time permits. The expert that Oprah had today on her show said to wake up a few minutes early, before the stampede of children, to have that time. I have worked on this principle (waking up early) for years, on and off. The times that I have felt the most grounded have been the "on" times never the "off."

Of course, being a new mom with a son that sleeps better in the morning hours than all night, a few minutes each morning seems like hours of missing sleep. So I find time to honor myself at night. What is my ritual? I simply burn an herb depending on the mood and then I drink, tea and draw a card from my herbal cards and concentrate on the message of that specific herb. It truly lays the ground work for the next day. Please let me know what you have been doing in creating me time, ritual in your lives. More on that later...