To Dream....

To dream....

On Sunday I held a Dreamlining Seminar. Dreamlining is a process of outlining what are traditionally called dreams (very ambitious goals), and defining them and creating time sensitive action items out of them. Hosting a dreamlining seminar was one of my "dreams". I usually operate in isolation, both in expression and in life practice. I'm always reluctant to work in and with groups, for a variety of reasons. but lately I've been thinking that the collaborative and the creative processes go hand in hand, and that transformation also requires embracing others. So I held my seminar.

It is very exciting to get to hear others begin to consider and reconsider their visions for the future. They say people teach what they need to learn. Maybe in talking about freedom, I'm learning to be less detached from outcomes and less caught up in fear.... Maybe in daring others to get closer to the edge I'll work up the courage to take bigger leaps...

Anywho, it is super fun to facilitate thought provoking interactions, and I think I want to delve more deeply into this kind of thing... let me know what you think....

<3

Tall Tales

So I had my kids write tall tales yesterday… these are supposed to be stories that are exaggerated and false, but with a grain of truth in them. Well, kids being kids, they skipped the grain of truth part and dove right into the fantasy part.

Here are two of the most poignant stories….

First, a giant pickle tearing the world apart with his bear hands..

The second… imagine a world of hearts. All the people are hearts and everything is heart shaped. Then a giant vacuum comes and sucks all the hearts and all the color out of the world…

Deep, huh?

At first these stories seemed uber ridiculous to me. But the more I look at them, how beautiful they are…, how they speak to a psychic, cosmic reality… doesn’t it feel like there are many forces sucking the love out of our lives daily? Some going at full speed and some low-pressure vacuums, lightly taking the air out of us?

And how do we deal with this force? Do we pretend to be phallic symbols, towers of strength, monsters, idealized images of ourselves, trying to conquer everything it feels like we are at war with? Do we break down and ride slowly into an undefined and unseen future, like the “ghost trains” in many of the kids drawings? Do we fashion ourselves both princesses and mermaids, diving between land and ocean whenever the other gets too unaccepting of us? Or are we actively creating a new picture…. 

Lets dream together!

Dream-lining

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ....” – Alice in Wonderland

What would you do if there were no way you could fail?

What would you do if you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?

What would you do if you were filthy, stinking, rich?

These are the questions from Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4 Hour workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. I’ve been considering these questions, and making plans about my dreams. I want you to join me.

How does this work: So, we’ll sit together and consider what our dreams are. In other words, how would we answer those 3 questions. Then we’ll start an action plan. How will we make these dreams happen. Then, we will live our dreams. That simple, I promise.

I’ll be doing this next Sunday, February 27^th, at 1:30, at my house. With food and drinks. Martini’s, anyone?  Let me know if you want to join me, all are welcome.  

I’d love to have you there, as kindred spirits get the mind going….

<3 Sharla 

The motivation, for me....

         A couple weeks ago in Bible Study we were asked the question, what motivates you? Its a simple question, with simple answers, but it also warrants behavior. When you know what motivates you, you have to check your answers to make sure you are in alignment with that motivation. Example, if you are motivated by making money, but you are broke, something is wrong. Either you are not really motivated by this, not motivated enough, or doing something wrong in trying to fulfill your desire for money.

 

         If life is a race, I am a professional hurdle jumper. All about bursts of energy propelling me to heights, landing before I realize the power of the jump. When you do hurdles you run short races, never long before you're on a new track.

 

            For the past 4 years I've been jumping through hurdles. I've been approaching everything with a desperate sense of urgency, a feeling that I need to always move quickly and jump very high over an obstacle, all while preparing for the next one. In college there was the hurdle of time. I felt like life was an hour glass. The sand was happiness. My happiness, though always present, was about to run out. So I had to race against the clock. Here's what I mean:   I have a love hate relationship with school. At the end of the second year, feeling like LMU was a bad choice, like I could never be as happy as everyone else on the bluff, like I could never totally fit in and like this school was a good choice but not the best I decided that I had to work like hell to get out of there. I felt like the place was beating me, and I had to race the hour glass, to somehow beat it. So I signed up for every class I could take, changed my major to the one with the quickest requirements to fill, and made it happen.

 

          For someone who is obsessed with books, so much so that they clutter her bed at night, I was desperate to get out of college. So desperate that, before the last semester was even over, I applied and was accepted to graduate school, with a full time job offer. I was working out the next hurdle, graduate school, while I was still jumping over the hurdle of my feelings about college. What motivated me to run the race in this way? Not really sure. The lurking feeling that, once again, I was racing against something that I couldn't really see or know, but that I had to beat it, before it beat me. Plus I got addicted to being distinguished. It is quite fun to be "the best", "the only", or the one who seemingly outsmarts the system. But mostly, what motivated me was a false sense of urgency, a DO THIS NOW or DIE mentality.

 

             So I took every opportunity in college that was available in the last year, just to say I did it. Even got a full time job offer and was supposed to go back to school again, and I accepted that. Flash forward to 2 months after graduation. I'm still jumping over hurdles, but the track is longer. I'm very tired of leaping and jumping, with seemingly no end to this race.  My father is ill, deathly ill. The job I had fell through. I wasn't going to be able to go to graduate school either, unless I could foot the bill. there was a lot of business I had to attend to, and it was all urgent. DO THIS NOW. So I did. I worked 30 hours a week and went to graduate school full time, finding a way to finance it. I spent all of my spare moments going between school and the hospital to take care of my dad. it was terrible and terribly stressful. I felt like a machine, running and working all of the time. DO THIS NOW. My false sense of urgency felt more and more real. The adults around me were crumbling, I had to be one, quickly.  I better finish school, get money and establish my life before the world completely fell apart. So I rushed through that too.

 

          Flash forward to now. My father is still sick but a lot better. I am still working, 45 hours a week. Still in school full time. But the urgency is slowly dissapating. Things are working themselves out and I've been looking up long enough to realize the sky isn't falling. So now that it isn't falling, and it isn't a race (or at least an obstacle course) , what is motivating me? That question is really fucking me up. Much of what I wanted, I have. My dad is healthy, School is almost done, I have a job, got more money than I need... and I'm still not totally happy. So what is motivating my current course of direction?  What should motivate the future course? What am I interested in doing, now that I am not jumping over hurdles? How should I run this race and what should be at my finish line?

Dear Old Nicki

I love Nicki Minaj. She’s like lady gaga to me. Obsessive, absurd, creative. I enjoy her quirky clothes and rhymes. But how should she be looked at as a female rapper? 

            Is Nicki’s “success” a victory for women? At first glance you would think so, because she is a woman. However, despite the liquid leather pants and wigs, Nicki does some interesting things to avoid being identified as a female.

              For a long time, female rappers have deepened their voice and changed their mannerisms to appear more aggressive, violent and masculine. Nicki goes back and forth between talking about the aggressive and violent things usually identified with male rappers and stereotypical female behavior. For example, in Bottoms up “We be doin donuts while we waving the 380, we give a lot of money to the babies out in Haiti”. Here Nicki’s voice changes as she points out that she walks the line between gangsta and domestic. Nicki decidedly crosses to the male side of the gender identification line in “Romans Revenge”, where she tells listeners “I am not Jasmine, I am Aladin”. Nicki would rather be the poor Aladin than the wealthy princess Jasmine!  In the rest of the song, she goes on to point out how she is a superior female MC, along with Eminem who talks about killing women and harassing gays, two of Nicki’s largest audiences.

              Nicki may or may not want to be identified as a woman. She doesn’t really think highly of them, as her songs often reference keeping “bitches” around. Nicki has talked openly about being bisexual, and also loves to sign women’s breasts at concerts. In the song little freak, she’s “plotting on how to take Cassie away from Diddy”. However, Ms. Minaj has also publically stated that she does not intend to be in a relationship with a woman, or even to have sex with a woman. What, then, would be the advantage of the tease? Well, because men do it, simply. We don’t expect male rappers to be in love with a woman, and the sex that they do brag about is less about love making and more about exploitive, dominating sexual practices with women. Why should Nicki be any different? She can “keep a couple ho’s like Santa, keep a Vixen”, just like Little Wayne does. But why should she have a healthy, balanced relationship with one? What would be the point?

            What Nicki shows us is that, to be a successful female rapper, you need to look like a Barbie, but act like a man. But with all this, can I be mad at Dear Old Nicki? This monster is not an independent creation, but the result of a culture that teaches women that they are to be judged by their success in assimilating to stereotypically male behaviors and values, a culture that teaches them that women are not worthy of love, or respect, and it is pointless to be a woman. Its not Nicki’s fault I guess, and not my fault for liking the music.