There was a moment last Tuesday when I was watching the twitter stream about The Real Life: Poems for Wise Living, and the tears started rolling.

I was reading tweets about the poems, and it was clear they were making an impact.

Why the tears? Because that was a moment of homecoming, a milestone moment of coming back to my creative, writer-self.

You know me as a writer, and maybe even think of me as a “good” writer.

But there were years of avoiding, ignoring my creative self. I want to tell you the story of them, in the hope that it may serve you in coming home to whatever love you’ve lost.

I got a *lot* of praise from parents and teachers about my writing when I was growing up. Except when I didn’t. Sometimes I had a teacher who didn’t like or “get” my writing style. Sometimes my work just went unnoticed.

What happened to me is what happens, I think, to a million of us when we are growing up. The work (dance, music, writing, sports, math, gymnastics, you name it) stops being about the work, and it becomes about the praise or criticism. The winning or losing. How we are received by the world.

Paradoxically, the more praise I received about my writing talent, the less confident I felt. (There is now fascinating research by Carol Dweck on how and why this is the case). The more I was applauded, the more pressure I felt to produce brilliant work. The more afraid I became of my writing not measuring up. When I didn’t get major praise, it felt like a dramatic failure. That my not being a “good writer” was finally being found out.

Combine that with prestigious academic environments (like one that starts with Y and rhymes with kale) that have a very specific definition of what good writing is, where left-brain thinking is on overdrive, and where 99% of the writers you study are white men. Combine all that with the general litany of self-doubting stuff I (like most young women) was telling myself all day long, and you know what you get?

Seven years without writing. Seven years without a poem, an essay, an article, a thing.

It actually was seven years, like Joseph – seven years of famine.

Seven years when the inner critic and the fear of failure won out.

What was missing from my life during those seven years was not just writing but everything writing practice gives me: daily bliss, meaning, a sense of self-expression and of accomplishment, but most importantly, let me say it again, daily bliss. Daily contact with something bigger than me. Daily grace.

I was willing to open up that locked box of writing only out of pain, which is why, I think, we make all the biggest hardest changes in our lives. I didn’t know I was missing writing, I only knew I felt dried out and like life was rather gray, not vivid, not alive. When I became willing ask myself how I could move out of that pain, a simple whisper said, “Write, write.”

At the time, that sounded like the oddest thing. I had decided writing wasn’t my path, that it wasn’t a good fit. I thought I wasn’t a good writer.

The whisper was persistent and I decided to follow it. And something graced me with an insight then: I understood that to write, I had to let go of attachment to other people’s estimation of my work. I had to let go of the whole “love me, praise me” thing. I had to be willing to do it for the love of it.

I did. Honestly, I never left behind the little lift I get when someone appreciates my work, but something shifted. I became the authority on my work. The point of it all became the process of writing – not the reception I receive.

I find it fascinating that in wholly giving up attachment to being good, I got to learn this year, without a doubt, that I am a good writer. Finally I could hear people say it, because the sane part of me, not my ever-dissatisfied ego, was listening.

That is the history, part I. There is more to say, but let’s leave this piece at this.

And as part of “Wise Living goes interactive in 2011,” I’m inviting to you a conversation about all of this: creative recovery, getting back long lost passions and pursuits, letting go of attachment to how your art/ideas/voice/self is received by others. Join me for a small group (up to 20 participants) call about these topics, free.

Next Wednesday, Jan 19th, 6pm PST. If you’d like to join, sign up here.

Love,

Tara

I didn’t grow up in a rough environment. I grew up being told, almost every day, that I was special.

I grew up with lots of love from my family.

I got a good education and good grades.

I got lots of feedback that I was intelligent, talented and could do all kinds of things in the world.

So how is it that I ended up self-doubting, not really doing my thing in the world, and had to fight like hell to find my way back?

What happened? How does it happen to so many of us?

I don’t know the answer, but I have some ideas about the strains of the answer for me.

One strain has to do with what Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has uncovered in her pioneering research. Her studies show that when children are praised for their innate abilities (i.e. “You are so smart. You are so good at math”) they become paralyzed by the compliments. Rather than becoming more confident, they become averse to doing the activity again, because they areafraid of disproving the compliment. They become afraid of falling short, particularly as the level of challenge increases. Sound familiar?

On the other hand, children that are praised for their effort (“Wow, you worked so hard to learn that –great job!”) learn to link effort with validation and love, and they go back in, again and again, for other challenges. Rather than getting caught up in ideas about their intrinsic abilities (am I good at this or not, smart or not, etc.) they fall in love with the process of working at something to get better at it.

I’ve written about this before here, because when I read Dweck’s research it so strongly resonated with my own experience. In my childhood, I was so used to being told I was brilliant and amazing, so used to being at the top of the class that I found it very difficult to stay in the game when I wasn’t.

As my talents put me in ever more competitive environments, excelling at anything came to involve lot of trial and error, and receiving a lot of negative feedback. I wasn’t used to that, at all. I found it intolerable, emotionally, creatively. I stopped doing the creative things I loved, like dance, theater, and to some extent, writing poetry. I turned to more left-brain pursuits where my performance felt less high-stakes, and that was one of the major turns I took away from my authentic self and my right work.

The other thing that happened was that I lost my spiritual connection. For me, playing big and making an impact has always come from a spiritual foundation. For me, achievement itself has always stemmed from a spiritual foundation.

What I mean by that is this: when I get down on my knees in the morning, and say, to a power greater than myself, “I want to be of service, I want to bring more light and love and sanity into this world,” when I have a regular connection to spiritual texts – from book of John to the Tao De Ching to Pema Chodron -then…big ideas start flowing.

With those ideas come inspiration and motivation that give me a magic carpet ride into action. And with all of that are tears in my eyes, and a sense of poignancy and gratitude about the miracle that I get to do this next thing, that I get to serve and live and express in this particular way.

I remember the first time I realized, with some shock, that spiritual connection translated to all kinds of achievement in the secular realm. These ideas and sense of purpose I would receive through my spiritual life would win me all kinds of awards, and got me into the most prestigious schools. This seemed like a big secret most people didn’t know about – the secret of what actually can bring achievement and success. It’s certainly not the only road to worldly success, but it’s seems much more pleasant than the toiling and scheming one. When I fell out of that spiritual connection, I lost my access to the guidance and inspiration for sharing my voice in the world.

The third thing that happened had to do with my environment. Though it had many, many strengths, my university was not, for me, a particularly empowering or supportive place. I just never quite found my voice there, my creative self or my leader self. I’m not sure why this is – I think it had something to do with being suddenly uprooted from everything I knew to go there. I think it had something to do with the patriarchal and conservative nature of the culture. And it had to do with the way my need for a very safe environment for my creative work couldn’t be met there.

All three of those strands: the need for praise I brought into adult life, the loss of spiritual connection, and the environment I was in – each contributed to a piece of loss of self. I can see that now that I’m on the other side. I can see how each piece created the other – how, for example, my university context contributed to that loss of spiritual connection, how stopping my creative pursuits was such a painful denial of the the truth of me that it then became uncomfortable to face my life during that spiritual time – so the spiritual time fell away.

Right-path-hood, connection to self, is a virtuous cycle and a vicious one. When we gain one anchor in our lives that connects us to our core, authentic selves, we literally gain energy to create more of that. When we lose some strand connection to ourselves, we are weakened by that, and are therefore much more likely to lose more strands soon.

As a coach, I never ask my clients “why” questions, because “why” sends us into the past and sends us into an analytical mode — neither of which are so potent for making change in the present. Most of all, I don’t ask why questions because it immediately sends our minds into hypothesis-making, and we tend to make up answers in order to answer the question asked. Our “why” suppositions, full of projections and denial and oversimplifications, are usually wrong.

But as I teach my course on Playing Big, and as my work increasingly grows in this direction of helping women recover their voices, I want to know why. I want to pull back the camera, go up for the birds eye view, look at the landscape, and ask: “Why? What happened here? How did so many of us lose and shut down our voices, or turn away from our right paths? What is the primary, fundamental cause, if there is one, and what are the secondary ripples that happen from there? Why are so many of us still paralyzed in sharing our voices in the world?”

Why? What happened for you?

The World Will Be Saved By Western Women

Read More: Female Leaders , Female Leadership , The Balanced Life , Women , Women Leaders , Women’s Leadership , Living News

-Tara Mohr

If you had asked me 5 years ago whether I thought that meditation was an integral component of health and wellness I probably would have shrugged and perhaps even chuckled. Well, since then, I have learned that meditation, in particular it’s affect on stress reduction, is an integral part of health wellness and sexuality and should be incorporated into every woman’s daily routine.

Easier said than done you may say. Take it from me, a Type A, multi-tasking do-it-all woman who can’t sit still for 5 minutes, much less try to clear my mind and to still for 20 minutes.

I am going to convince you about the importance of incorporating meditation into your life and daily routine and give you some simple techniques as well as recommendations. I want to hear back from you after 6 weeks of doing this and hear your thoughts and experience. I guarantee you, and I say guarantee with all sincerity, you will see changes including improvements in mood, sleep, patience, concentration, energy as well as your libido.

Though meditation is usually recognized as a largely spiritual practice, it has many health benefits. You would be surprised how meditation techniques are not only being implemented into general medical health care but also in managing serious medical conditions and chronic diseases. Research studies have demonstrated that practicing meditation can alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression and has eliminated the need for medications in various chronic inflammatory conditions of the skin, irritable bowel, lupus as well as arthritis. It has also proven effective in managing symptoms of ADHD in both children and adults. The bottom line is, in my mind, it has a direct effect on stress reduction, which in turn decreases inflammation.

Everything bad that happens to us in life, health wise, is related to inflammation. Alzheimer’s disease is inflammation of nerve cells in the brain; Multiple sclerosis is inflammation of the peripheral nerves in our body, cardiovascular disease is inflammation of the small vessels of the heart, cancer is basically inflammation gone out of control. Believe it or not, depression is associated with high levels of inflammation, which generally correlate with high levels of stress. When there is inflammation in your body, cells either die at an increasing rate or burst and release more inflammatory mediators called oxygen free radicals. Meditation actually decreases inflammation levels in your body, which is one of the mechanisms by which it has healing effects on your body and mind.

Additionally, during meditation the brain waves actually change from the active alpha waves to the calming theta waves. Theta waves are associated with a feeling of calm as well as increased GABA secretion, which is a neuropeptite that causes feelings of relaxation. I’ve listed below some of the main effects of meditation that have been documented in the medical literature.

It lowers oxygen consumption and decreases oxygen free radicals

Decreases cortisol, the stress hormone

It increases blood flow to the brain and increase brain chemicals such as GABA, Dopamine and Seratonin

Increases exercise tolerance and sugar metabolism

Helps with symptoms of PMS and PMDD

Lowers blood pressure and brings high blood to normal.

Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of cortisol, norepinephrine and ephingrine the fight or flight hormones

Decreases muscle tension (any pain due to tension) and headaches.

Increases your immune system and alleviates symptoms of allergies by decreasing inflammation

Improves wound healing following surgery

Effects of Stress on our Bodies

Normally, any life threatening situation triggers off the STRESS RESPONSE. In everyday life, any number of events can be triggers for stress, including work, children, our relationships, finances, family members, and many more. The stress response is designed to enable a person to act quickly and survive intense, short-term challenges, which require less brains and fast reflexes. This survival response is well suited if we are in a life threatening situation, however the same response is triggered in traffic jams, work related irritations, family squabbles and many such situations-.which results in our body preparing for a life-death situation. And then as these situations don’t come to an end, with a single confrontation, we remain in a perpetual state of stress. As such, our cortisol levels rise, which effects sugar metabolism and we gain weight. Our epinephrine and norepinephrine the fight or flight hormones, remain elevated and we become anxious and depressed and lose our interest in sex.

During stress, the heart beats faster and blood pressure rises. The blood flow is diverted from the internal organs to the muscles as well as the areas of the brain that control muscle coordination. As a result, the rain releases chemicals that help the body cope better with injuries, including those that block pain and help the blood clot faster and less of the feel good chemicals such as GABA dopamine and serotonin. All these symptoms lead to the feeling of being run down, tired, moody and basically stressed.

While meditation is not a magic bullet or quick fix, it is probably one of the most effective means for reducing if not eliminating stress in your life as well as the harmful effects that stress has on your body (not to mention your sex life). Meditation comes to the rescue in such a situation and induces ‘RELAXATION RESPONSE’. Meditation has a counter-balancing effect on the fight-or-flight response in most stress-inducing situations. Relaxation is achieved by countering the stress related activation in your brain. Meditation actual activates areas of the brain responsible for relaxation.

Unlike some medications, meditation has no potential side effects. People with physical limitations may find it easier to practice than strenuous physical exercise for stress relief, plus, no special equipment is required. Unlike enlisting the help of a professional, meditation is free. However, it does take discipline and commitment, so some people may find it more difficult to maintain as a habit than methods that enlist the help of someone or something outside themselves for added motivation. Also, some people may find it more difficult to free their minds of the thoughts of the day, and thus find it more difficult than methods like journaling that involve focusing on these events.

I hope that this has given you a brief insight as to the importance and health benefits of meditation. I urge all of you to start today, and as I mentioned earlier I want to hear back from you in 3-6 weeks. If you attempt to mediate daily, I GUARENTEE you will begin to notice dramatic differences in your life. I am speaking to you here professional as well as from my own personal experience. And as with anything good, it doesn’t come easy and does require time and effort in the beginning as well as commitment to make a change and improve your life, sexuality and health.