When you're angry and you know it then it's better that you show it

We interrupt regular programming to bring you this important reminder: If you've been dissed, get mad. Don't only get sad. Don't just quietly absorb as gospel truth the stupid things that repeatedly come out of seemingly rational people's mouths; you are not a sink sponge.

Depression is anger turned inward. You have a right to be angry. You have a right to express that anger. You do have a responsibility to find a healthy outlet for it, though.

"Use your words" isn't just for frustrated toddlers. We could take that advice, too. Heck, get creative with it.

How about picturing those turds who diminished you and calling them out in the privacy of your room? "You latrine-tending rotted gut pus-oozing boil on the nose of humanity, you. You're just wrong." You can say any version of this, or write it down. "You ignorant irrelevant idiot. You arrogant arseholian blight on the landscape of earthlings."

How do you know they're wrong about you? Well, do they know you better than you know yourself?

Wait, what? You're not sure you know what it means to know yourself? Oh honey that right there is where to start.

If you haven't spent your limited time on earth thus far asking the question, "Who am I?" you are practically offering up your heart as a dart board with a splendiferous marquee that says "Free target practice."

Straight up: this whole knowing thyself thing, it's work. No shortcuts. You won't find the answer on social media, so watch how much time you give that. You won't get the full picture from your mother, either, nor your (supposed) soul mate, your BFF, nor your dog, much as she worships you.

And if you think that sounds like knowing yourself is a gift so rare, why yes, yes it is.

You are not your feelings. You are not your body. You are not your thoughts. You are not your history. You are not your aspirations. You are not just your parent's child, or your spouse's spouse, or, for that matter, the punching bag for adult bullies, whether or not they mean to be mean.

The stuff you are partly made of is indestructible. But it's coated in fragile packaging. The packaging might get dinged as you travel your path. Protest loudly! Don't just sit in the dust and wait for more kicks in the gut. You cradle the Divine in your soul—would you allow Him to be disrespected along with you?

Have you ever heard of an elevator speech? It's a roughly one-minute spiel you have ready. Business people like me are told to have one in case we rub elbows (in a literal elevator, or not) with influencers. Yours you will say over and over to yourself until it fits snugly on your tongue and smoothly over your heart and when someone with blinders on opens their mouth and spews absurdity your way, you say your elevating elevator speech. And drop the mic.

You gotta write that speech. You gotta know yourself. You gotta believe what you say about yourself to yourself.

Because only then will you see that these tormentors, these gaseous malodorous detriments to God-fearing churchgoing do-gooding elders/any agers everywhere, they're unawoke. The mouth opens, the tongue flaps, but the membranes in the brain didn't get on the train. And maybe eventually you'll manage to tsk tsk and shrug them off.

You are loved beyond what you know about Love.

Not just another dance or yoga class, please

Here's the thing. I don't really want to teach yet another dance or yoga class, not the way we've always structured those classes. Because I don't want to teach people just how to dance or how to pose. Or breathe, for that matter. Or lie still and think of the moment and nothing beyond.

All valuable things, but I've taught that, and there are many, many people teaching that now, and many more on their heels training to teach that.

I want a gathering. Fairly small, with some regularity. I'm calling out (in my head, from my heart, trying not to sound like "Is there anyone out there???") to women and those who identify as feminine. Come show up, for yourselves and for this new group as yet unformed.

We would move, yes, and there would be resistance at first, frustration even, if the joints protest or the coordination isn't there. But laughter would carry us along. The surprise and delight at what it feels like to be in our bodies, to be part of this collective body, would be the point of the evening. We're setting aside the need to achieve—that's for our daytime selves.

The music would be curated as much for the message as for the rhythmic sound. The stretching and lying still at the end would be a time to reflect. I can't wait to share nuggets of philosophy from my favorite contemporary female writers. Maybe they'll want to bring an excerpt to read next time.

And then! at the very end, when everyone is loosey-goosey gooey from the feels, we'll have a thing, which I'm not talking about here, which will give them something personal and memorable to treasure and share if they wish.

So it's a book club that dances, a support group that dissects societal expectations, a dance group that dares its members to get saucier by the minute. Can we really be all that, let alone in an hour and 15? Are there people in my vicinity who want more than a dance or yoga class?

Here's the other thing: there's no clear way to promote this thing. That became painfully clear to me after my first promo, from someone who wanted to know just one thing: what kind of dance do I teach?

And in the meantime, I feel a little guilty that I'm abandoning my one loyal yoga student who came faithfully week after week. I've put my yoga teaching on hold indefinitely. I am neither called nor trained to heal with restorative yoga. If you hurt now, you'll likely hurt even more after your first few classes with me, because that's what it means to demand more of your body if you haven't been moving much, if you haven't been questioning your sedentary life. You will need to commit to pushing past the initial protest from muscles you didn't know you had. You will need to trust that on the other side you'll find a powerful understanding of the new you.

Why am I doing it this way? For me. It's what I need at this point. I need people willing to come alongside, suspend entitlement, discard inhibition, and when I say, "Jump!" or "Shimmy," not collapse in a wussy heap. If I can't find people for the kind of class I want to teach now, I won't teach.

That's the truth.

Pleasure is not a bad word

Women are wired to do for others before we take care of ourselves. Even asking God for something for ourselves may bring on guilt for being "selfish." But what if we ask for it so that WE might be in a better position to serve, to spread joy?

"Pleasure" as a word has taken on seedy connotations. (Thank you, adult toy industry, etc.) "Sensuality," same thing. It's way more than having sex! In her essay below, Danielle LaPorte takes us a step beyond the clinical-sounding "self care" to encourage us to give ourselves permission to experience pleasure. She suggests three exercises using our imagination, unlimited by constraints on time and finances.

Prioritize Pleasure
By Danielle LaPorte

"Pleasure brings you into your body—and you cannot CREATE unless you are in your body.

A lot of us leave our bodies. Definitely in traumatic situations, and also in overwhelm. We're all familiar with the phrase, "You just check out." Your mind wanders. You're not attending to your breath. You are not in your sensuality. You can't have full connection when you're not embodied… so you cannot make things that will last.

When you’re more fully here, when you are BEing… human… then you can bring in the holy. And THAT’S creativity. You’re here in your pleasure, in your body, on Earth—and that’s when you bring heaven down.

Pleasure is a doorway to the divine, via your Joy. Knock, knock.

The idea is to begin shifting your pleasure priorities, so you start doing less of what you don’t like to do, and more of what you love. Start by visualizing three ideal days (based on an exercise by Abraham-Hicks): a perfect at-home day, a fantastical away day, and a day where you just love on and save the world.

Vision 1: Your Home Day Ideal 12 hours.
In everyday life, where would you be, what would you be doing, who would you be with, what would you be eating, how would you be earning, helping, creating, living, loving in a span of twelve hours? Walk through everything that would go into the waking hours of blissdom for you. Focus on ideal and don’t worry about how you’re going to make it happen. If bliss would be “I’m working in my jammies from home” and presently you’re commuting three hours to the office, write it down anyway.

Keep your vision within the confines of space and time. Let your imagination and idealism unfurl, but… save the really impractical things like, “I wake up in Athens, lunch in Manhattan, and smoke a bedtime hookah in Rajasthan” for your Away Day fantasy. Don't worry about how it's gonna happen, okay? Just feel into the ideal.

Vision 2: Your Fantastical Away Day for 12 hours!
The next step is extravagant, fantastical, time-bending, like, if your ideal 12 would be you're lounging in Morocco, smoking a hookah, you can do that. If you want go spend the day meditating on Venus, or you want to be making love in Bali, you can be doing that. Your fantasies will tell you so much about your current reality. And in that place, what would you be eating? How would you be earning? Would you not be working at all? Would you be a nun? Would you have your own talk show? Yes. How would you be helping? I love that layer of question in both your practical and your fantastical.

Vision 3: You love on the world for 12 hours!
What would give you pleasure in terms of being of service to the world? Meditate and pray in the morning, change laws, clean up beaches, donate, chant, cheers, work in a soup kitchen, invent a global water purifier, get everyone to come together in peace and design programs for climate restoration and children adoration? Go there!"