the amazeballs muchacho of authenticity

When I was in Chicago last month, I was to meet my sister’s boyfriend. I don’t need to get into specifics, but let’s just acknowledge that my mom won’t even consider an introduction. She refuses to accept that they are together and wholeheartedly disapproves of the entire situation. Mom’s kinda playing the old-school, unfair, crazypants card here, but so it is.

My sister is in love. No one can dissuade another from being in love. However, that does not stop my mother from continually trying to get me to instead push my sister to date the son of the sausage king of Chicago, whose own mother once met my sister and has been dropping the son as bait ever since... (I did mention both that my sister already has a boyfriend and that reason has yet to arrive in these proceedings, right…?)

This whole family balancing was an interesting, precarious, Jenga process of assemblage because it made me question my own judgments, expectations of what I want sis’s boyfriend (now, maybe perhaps potential future husband?) to be to (oh so selfish) me; it shined a Fresnel on the structures of the mind for prissy, pretty mags. Rather than pre-define him by my societal or cultural prejudices, I wanted to be clear on what my sister deserves and so first I had to define what that is.

I want any boyfriend/potential husband to be sophisticated, well-read, sharp, liberal, charming and most definitely funny, because really, his sole purpose at proposed future familial excursions is to keep me entertained. And he’d get big points, of course, if he owned a beach house. Big points.

Ok, so once I got the nonsense of what this little “mags” body thinks she wants for her sister, I thought I’d get real and take some time to think about what was important for her. What do you want for those you hold dear?

People might say: All I want for them is to be happy.

But, sometimes don’t we see people who are “happy in love” and yet something doesn’t smell quite right? They aren’t really the fullest expression of themselves while in love with that person or perhaps they’re sacrificing an innate part of their core to be with him/her? And you/I/we, in turn, miss that person?

In my musings, I think what’s key is to have someone to turn you on. And I (for once) am not talking about sex here. Does my sister’s boyfriend bring out the best in her? Is she the most grounded, light, fun, giving, and dependable version of herself both with him and outside of their time together? Are her priorities in order? Or is she taking on his characteristics, bending to be in his world?

The same questions can be applied to a spiritual person or practice. A lotta people can get wrapped up in something “woo,” and we think, um, where’d they go?

I had lunch with a colleague (a beautiful teacher in Chicago) and she spoke of people being able to traverse dimensions and go to different planes of consciousness. That’s cool and all, but my wiring is practical. I want to be here. When the last guy I was dating expressed a distaste for the woo making people float in lala land, or live in some kind of alternate reality, I determinedly responded, “I don’t want to be anywhere else! I love New York.” I’m not reaching for the clouds. I’m grounding to the pavement. (and it’s sparkly in New York, btw, have you noticed?)

When you first meet someone who’s enlightened, it’s kinda disappointing. Unless you have a previously bestowed love for them or you’re far enough in your development to be sensitive to higher frequencies and can tap into that kind of vibration, usually they’re just lumps of bones and mass, all ordinary.

You want them to be all, like, walking on water with firecrackers shooting out of their forehead, and you end up on a cold, damp floor in a four-foot cave across the world, or at a lecture in midtown, and see this little person sitting there all normal and scratching their nose, and maybe (depending on how “famous” they are), dozens of people around ‘em perhaps fanning or primping pillows for him/her, and think… This is it? What’s the deal here? Unless they are tapped into a deep meditative state or some such, when they are hanging around they are doing just that—hanging.

It’s a little disarming at first because we want them to be so much jazzier. We think every moment of life, particularly in the presence of the “enlightened,” should look like it’s been bedazzled within a millimeter of itself. When we asked monks in Fiji and India what they do when they’re not teaching, you know what their answer was? “We really like action movies.” “We have huge games of cricket.” They’re on Facebook.

With all the enlightened folk that I’ve come into contact with, and I am so so grateful that there have been many, here’s the common thread. They’re just regular. If there is any spangly brouhaha surrounding them, they are not organizing it—they just happen to be in the middle of it. When the ordinary is spectacular, that’s when you’re awake.

There’s the old zen adage, the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

If you’ve found a teacher (or a lover,) when you are in their presence, no one else exists; the rest of the world falls away. But they are not the moon, they are the pointer. The moon is you… their job is to bring out the best in you. The real you. Eventually the rest of your world falls away and you encompass that “now-ness” for yourself and others.

It’s only natural and enjoyable, that in the early flush of a relationship, romantic or spiritual, we take on the characteristics of our new love. This is part of the excitement that this kind of discovery can bring to us and provides a fun and connective texture to our lives.

My sister is peppering up her lexicon with Spanish words, so we got a “muchacho” spiced in here and there. With her last boyfriend they liked to call each other “lover” over and over again, with varying degrees of emphasis, unendingly, in public. (Needless to say, I am really. really. really. happy that phase is over.) My friends toss around “amazeballs.” The spiritual vocab a la mode is “authentic,” it used to be “prosperous.”

The communities we choose are reflected not only in our vocabulary, but in our dress (Converse, barefoot, Louboutains?), stomping grounds (the bar, the temple) and sport teams (insert yours here.)

But it seems the fine line between fanaticism and devotion, between blinded love and a healthy relationship comes down to is: Is it bringing out the best in you and is it bringing out the real you? Are you attached to the finger (the teacher, the lover) or are you looking to the moon? (yourself. shinier. the ultimate inner bedazzle)

After I wrote this, I found the most emailed article in the New York Times in the last couple of days has been “The Happy Marriage is the ’Me’ Marriage.” It basically posits that helping each other’s self-expansion is what makes a happy marriage. Not a successful marriage. A happy one. Does the other person fuel your growth? (This was THE MOST emailed article in the New York Times for the last five days straight. Not politics, weight loss, will iPhone finally come to Verizon, or what’s the hottest new restaurant of 2011…nope, self-expansion. Times are a changing… but I digress.)

Everything is a process. I’ve been involved in plenty of relationships that weren’t supporting my higher good, and when I first found yoga, was so loud-mouthed about it I’m surprised I didn’t get slapped around. For all of us, of course, there is no wrong place, no wrong way to do it. There are appropriate times to hibernate in introspection or even get lost in a flurry of sex. But ultimately? Ultimately we want to get to the place where “muchacho” is a spice and not the main enchilada. Is the "muchacho" a life raft, helping us to cling to where we are, what we know? Or is it the key to our self-expansion?

It’s difficult to allow ourselves to get uncomfortable. We want it to be warm and fuzzy, familiar, easy. It’s only when we get out of the comfort zone, when we reach, confront the pretty or the ugly, that change takes place. This is the key point to distinguish—are we holding on to pleasure because it’s familiar?

By the same token, if we’re reaching for the shiny (yes, please! reach!) but there is still discomfort/pain/longing that arises, there’s just simply more to do. No biggie. Just a fact of life. “Your head has more mountain to climb.” We want to get to the point where sitting and scratching our nose is enough of a bedazzlement. Where authenticity to ourselves is not about us doing what we want, but us being ok with where we are. If not yet here, the “yay!” happiness follows. Promise.

I was asked to write an article for the (lovely, right on) www.amareway.org site about authentic happiness and this is the main essence of it all.

We can have our muchacho and eat it too. We want to have the moon, but at some point we need to let go of the finger. The ultimate universal relationship isn’t with our lover or our guru, it’s with ourselves. That’s why the self-expansion makes you happy in a relationship, it’s for you. Until we can be real to every moment, we need to be real to what’s within. That’s when happy arrives. And maybe it’s wearing a sombrero.

the processing princess

Today I cried.
And cried.
And cried.

And I am not, never have been, a crier. I’ve almost always been envious of criers. Even lying on a yoga mat, going through meditations dispelling grievances, I listened to a bestie’s unmistakable avalanches of tears in the nearby front row, admiring, “wow, she really lets herself go there… kinda jealous.”

Several of us participated in a weekend workshop whose main premise was to remove the barriers and charges that we construct in our lifetimes of conditioning via media and society, in turn releasing patterns of hurt from relationships and images of what we think things are supposed to look like. Awakening into a daily practice and journey of living a life of integrity and true authenticity. Geez louise, that sounds so blahbitty blah. I almost just fell asleep myself re-reading that just now.

It’s about being real.

Real in a society that prizes dramatic camera angle shifts and theatrical underscoring in game shows. Real when “have a nice day” can often be a rote response devoid of eye contact.

All this processing was not easy, but necessary. Beautiful, but sticky and unglamorous.

Thank God for two urban upscale chic twin sisters out from Cali who kept it all on the level and led us through it all, b.s. flowery spiritual pretension aside. Shout out to Catherine and Elizabeth, um, you rock beyond belief.

After a very long and gorgeously arduous Day One of our workshop, I rousted from leggings and blankie, quick-changed to designer jeans with a sweep of shadow from my Mac palette, and out the door to meet the person who is a new great joy of my life. Who I hope will continue to be the great joy in my life...

Instead of finding a sweet respite my (ugh, HATED this word at this moment) my f’ing PROCESSING brought up a state of irritability usually completely foreign to me these days. Grouchiness, disconnection, poutiness, exhaustion—all in the middle of what was supposed to be my awakening, enlightening, om shanti weekend. I was meant to be walking on water, bestowing virtual rose petals to those around me, blessing people with my angelic presence by having them waft through my wake, and instead I was stomping my feet on Houston like a sorority girl just shy of her daily minimum iced-venti-skinny-sugar-free-vanilla latte requirement.

The universe was telling me, sorry sweetheart—no comfort here, you’re going to have to process this one on your own.

And I did, at 4:30am sleeplessly and restlessly pacing in my kitchen, owning my own aggravations, taking responsibility for my reactions, and in that magic transmutation of accepting and letting go of our charges, awoke to a blackberry blinking with words of forgiveness, acceptance from the aforementioned person I would like to keep around in my life. I owned my own bull-sh*% and everything else worked out.

And today after another ridiculous day of intense exercises and meditations, of people moaning, wailing, growling, laughing unabashedly (so much so an outside observer might doubt the laughter’s verity,) I sat relatively calmly in a Neo state of observing, holding space. A slight nausea, a quickening of cell fluctuation and a determined quest during the break for a person holding chocolate to share, were my greatest outbursts.

Until the end of the day, when each of my friends, and several were present, went up to experience something known as mukti deeksha, which is not to be explained or fruitlessly detailed other than to say it is profound and sacred.

My ex and bestie got up and as I held my hands palm to palm, whispering silently to whomever was listening for his highest good, I broke out into rivers of tears. Maybelline Great Lash in Very Very Black waterproof (hardly) mascara staining my cheeks.

Vocal sobs. Not of pain. The emotion of the moment was too overwhelming to barrier behind tear ducts, too visceral to contain inside any subdued or appropriate behavior. (This was a safe space, this would not show up on YouTube, so you know, why not go there?) A moment of almost maternal pride, of honor, of deeply humble appreciation. As each of my peeps went up and the tears ebbed and flowed, it was as though watching family, the connection so strong, and like witnessing a sacrament, the experience so, for lack of a better word (or perhaps it is precisely the right one) holy.

Almost a decade ago, I threw vicious, stiletto-like puncturing wounds of words at the ex and bestie, on a more than regular basis, and wouldn’t be surprised it he reminded me that there was an actual shoe lobbed in the mix at any one of countless raging battles.

Twenty years ago, I stabbed my sister in her shoulder with a pencil. She has a small blue tattooed dot where the lead now lives, that she will still shuffle out in a show and tell of that obnoxious incident.

Whatever the reason, I used to be not nice and very very angry. As we all collectively went through layers and layers this weekend, excavating tombs of fury and resentment, I found that on all fronts familial and familiar, there was nothing left to unearth.

I had worked through it.

There are varying levels of “success” I’ve had in the dozen years since graduating college. Peaks from an outsider’s perspective could include stage door scenes of people lining up for photos or autographs during a successful run, awards, being able to walk into Louis Vuitton and drop thousands of dollars without the blink of an eye, personal triumphs that, not to mention, led to association at times with celebrities, political notables from Mayors to Presidents, first class plane tickets, invites to exclusive international clubs, stints in exquisite rooms at Four Seasons, Mandarin Orientals, Ritz Carltons the world over. These have not been the course of my daily life, but those peaks have been present and abundant.

Without a doubt my proudest moments have nothing to do with anything that might impress anyone else.

I had a strong reaction this past week when someone new in the picture pressed me to define what I was “doing” with my life. This person did not want to see my talents wasted, and it was a challenge to my ego, for shizzle. What I have been doing is unquantifiable and even I can’t take credit for it because it’s out of my hands. At best, I could point toward a room of sweaty, wrought people with a sparkle in their eye and say, “well, I kinda held a sign that pointed them here.” Not exactly press-clipping worthy.

My most significant triumphs have been private.

Non reactive behavior. A cessation of anger. Someone flicking me off or screaming at me and not having defenses flare up, but instead cocking my head quizzically and silently blessing them instead. A peace that has developed within me that is deep enough to withstand terrific earthquakes, and when they come, they are low on the rictor scale and disperse quickly.

Am I en route to saintliness?
Shall I never sin again?

Has anger or resentment taken a permanent vacation from the emotive contexts of my actions? Absolutely not. I don’t have the desire (or the wherewithal, let’s be honest) to be so virginally, crystal clear because I enjoy the grittiness of life too much. I like vodka. I love being passionate. I am innately feisty. What’s the point of existence if there’s no room for naughty?

But if my major weekend processing was about getting through a marginal princess moment, I think I’m all right.

If my biggest conflict was resolving misaligned communication with someone I care for, although unwelcome, uncomfortable and momentarily heart-wrenching, if we could turn that around in a matter of hours, I will warmly and eagerly accept a brief discomfort in the greater trade off toward authenticity. A wave of pain is so inconsequential when kept in perspective of a life that used to be an ocean of ungrounded grasping. That this was my largest disturbance in a world that used to be full of violence, selfishness, petty acting out and anger, is my most exceptional success.

This afternoon I went up for my own mukti experience, and as I stepped to what could best be described as a makeshift altar, I found myself again, overwhelmed by tears. To be humbled by grace, to feel for others more than I do myself, to know that all of that can only be present when I take care of myself first? Fountains of tears of gratitude for all that is, that I am a part of it, and it is a part of me.