See this?

This is the lovely contraption I now wear to bed at night.

Oh, and not only do I get to wear that, I also get to wear a mouthpiece that we around here affectionately refer to as, “The Beaver Teeth”, which keeps me from clenching my jaw at night.

Fetching, no?

But even though every time I put this on I feel sort of like a criminal who is so dangerous they must be kept in face restraints at all times (a la Hannibal Lecter), I don’t care.

Because…

Are you ready for this?

I. Now. Sleep. At. Night.

It is a MIRACLE!!

There really are no words to describe it, except THANK YOU.

Every so often I toy with the idea of going back to school and getting my Ph.D. in Spanish. But I never do, and I think I’ve finally figured out the reason why. Apparently, I’m already doing a post-doc in Suffering and Doing Things The Hard Way. Or, to be more accurate, I’m doing extensive research into how to unlearn this.

Back when I was about to turn 29 and I saw the rest of my life stretching out before me as an endless procession of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, I decided that I had had enough, and by God, I was GOING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BE HAPPY! So I hired my very first coach and got to work.

Now, 6 years later, I have completely transformed myself and my life. And what’s more, I’ve gotten really good at no longer staying stuck in anyplace where I’m suffering emotionally. This is not to say that I never have hard times or never feel anger, sadness, disappointment, and the like. But now I know how to feel what I’m feeling and just let it be without making up all kinds of stories about What This Means, and I have lots of support, and resources, and skills, AND I know that if there’s something I can do to help myself feel better, I can do it. So I’ve gotten really skilled at navigating the flow of all of my emotions.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for those times when I’m facing any kind of physical suffering. Anytime I’m faced with physical pain, it practically takes an act of God for me to realize that maybe, perhaps, there might be a way for me to do things differently and actually feel better.

And apparently the Universe has decided that it’s finally time for me to “get” this, because it’s bringing up those final few places in my life where I’ve had trouble really getting things to work well, and they are all somehow tied into some kind of physical issue.

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I have been in a very quiet, contemplative place lately, watching as some new energy percolates and rises to the surface, and I am now in a place where I am ready to declare independence for myself. I am declaring independence from the belief that I have to make my life match up to anyone else’s definitions of success for my life, as well as from all the places in my mind telling me that my life should somehow be in any way different from the way it is right now.

About six years ago I decided to leave the work-a-day world and go into business for myself. I’ve spent a large portion of those years with different classes, workshops, books, seminars, and programs designed for entrepreneurs. It’s all great information, especially since I was on a pretty steep learning curve. But I’ve reached the point now where those products are actually keeping me out of my life.

I realized that what I genuinely desire, and what the people who produce those products desire, are not the same thing. And I’ve been making myself wrong and feeling guilty for wanting what I truly want, and not wanting what they say I should want. Let me explain.

After six years of trying out a lot of different possibilities, I realized that my goal in life is not to be a worker/earner. If I had to give a name to my “reason for being”, I would say that I am a spiritual contemplative/mystic/writer/professional dreamer. So I like working about 10-12 hours a week, with lots of time left to create a nurturing home, take care of the errands of daily life, maintain my connections with other people, think, observe, process life, and create.

I like that the way I contribute to and help change the world is through working on myself, and transforming my connections to the people around me, one encounter at a time.

Unfortunately, even in the personal growth/New Thought community, that business model is never really presented as a viable option. It seems to me that whenever people are talking about things like The Secret, and The Law Of Attraction, and other principles of Deliberate Creation, the emphasis is always on BIGGER, and MORE. If the concept of “enough” is ever addressed, it only seems to be in the manner of finding a way to temporarily let what you have be “enough”, only so it can move you to a different place where you can finally get MORE. There doesn’t seem to be much work addressing the question of genuinely being satisfied and feeling like you have enough.

And that is where I started to feel disconnected from the popular concept of personal growth, because I could no longer ignore the fact that I am really satisfied with my life right now.

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Since January 1st of this year, Marianne Williamson has appeared on Oprah and Friends radio each afternoon at 3 pm to teach A Course In Miracles. I first went through the Course about 5 years ago, and I thought it would be a really neat experience to go through it again under the guidance of Marianne Williamson, whose work I really admire.

I’ve been doing the daily exercises, as well as practicing applying the principles to my everyday life. Yesterday was a hard day, because I was dealing with a lot of health challenges-AGAIN-and it was making my arthritis flare up-AGAIN.

So I prayed, “Dear God, please help me. I need a miracle.” Then I got really quiet and listened.

I felt guidance and support come in, and I could tell that it was God because it was loving, kind, and gently amused with me.

“Dude,” it said, “take some pain medicine.”

Oh…right.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

So today I had to go to the doctor for, um, we’ll just call it a lady problem. This concerned me because I knew I needed antibiotics for this particular problem, which I’m not supposed to be taking on account of they could reactivate the Hostile Alien Bacteria, in which case I would have to hurl myself into oncoming traffic, because there is just NO WAY I can be that sick again right now.

Happily there is another, safer, kind of antibiotic I can take, although my doctor did tell me that there is another treatment option we could try for C DIF, should the need ever arise. But when he told me what it was I thought that I might still choose the oncoming traffic, because the next level of treatment involves a stool transplant.

That of course is really too horrifying to even consider, which I told him, to which he replied, (and I SWEAR I am not making this up):

“Hey, the healing power of stool is legendary.”

LEGENDARY.

I really had nothing to say to that, but I didn’t have to because while we were on the subject he told me about this company which allows you to send poo through the mail to whomever you wish, in order to convey the message that, “Dear My Congressperson, You are full of …it.”

Happy Tuesday!

Lately we’ve been having a lot of trouble with the cats going to the bathroom in inappropriate places.

So I asked my husband, “Do you think one of our cats has an incontinence problem?”

“No,” he replied, “I think one of our cats has a ‘being a fucker’ problem.”

I have been in a pretty un-funny place this week, but I couldn’t let the week go by without posting something. So I’m posting something from my friend, Lynne, who got it from Gary Craig’s newsletter.

Astrological Light Bulbs

How many members of your astrological sign does it take to Change A Light Bulb?

Aries: Just one. You want to make something of it?

Taurus: One, but just “try” to convince them that the burned-out bulb is useless and should be thrown away.

Gemini: Two, but the job never gets done - they just keep arguing about who is supposed to do it and how it’s supposed to be done!

Cancer: Just one. But it takes a therapist three years to help them through the grief process.

Leo: Leos don’t change light bulbs, although sometimes their agent will get a Virgo to do the job for them while they’re out.

Virgo: Approximately 1.0000000 with an error of +/- 1 millionth.

Libra: Er, two. Or maybe one. No - on second thought, make that two. Is that okay with you?

Scorpio: That information is strictly secret and shared only with the Enlightened Ones in the Star Chamber of the Ancient Hierarchical Order.

Sagittarius: The sun is shining, the day is young and we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, and you’re inside worrying about a stupid light bulb?

Capricorn: I don’t waste my time with these childish jokes.

Aquarius: Well, you have to remember that everything is energy, so…

Pisces: Lightbulb? What lightbulb?

Author Unknown

This, my friends, is freedom.

No, not for the cats. FOR ME!

No longer do I feel that I spent 6 years in post-secondary education solely to become the doorman for the 3 beasts who share our home.

Free at last. Oh, yes. I am free at last.

Given that my days are filled with writing, teaching, and managing our household, I spend a lot of my time asking questions. My question range from wondering about the meaning of life, to wondering just how so many disgusting things can come out of such small, furry beings. And why do we let them live with us, again?

But I am only one person, and so obviously I alone cannot formulate all the questions that need to be posed about our human existence.

This fact was brought home to me last night as my husband and I were watching an old episode of “Top Gear”, because I realized that never in life had it occurred to me to ask,

“Can a nun drive a monster truck?”

So clearly, in an effort to meet this evolutionary need, that is why God made boys.

I had two thoughts when I saw this sign.

One: just exactly where did this advertising firm find a focus group whose everyday life regularly includes rogue pachyderms rampaging through their houses and wrecking all their furniture, and

Two, and probably most importantly: Do we need to move?