Right before I launched the Owning Pink website, when I was up to my ears in stress, deadlines, chaos, and fear, I got an email from my guru, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who wrote Kitchen Table Wisdom. She barely knows who I am, but I had emailed her about an art show I am having at Commonweal, where she works, and she wrote me back and said, “You Go Girl!” Mind you, the woman is this wise-sagey seventy-something year old saint. When you’re in her presence, every word that comes out of her mouth is something you want to write down and remember forever. So the words You Go Girl seemed, at once, completely out of character and exactly what I needed to hear at that very moment, as if she has ESP in addition to being God’s gift to Mother Earth.

I was so excited to receive this playful validation from my guru that I told my husband I wanted to write it on the wall. Now mind you, the wall of my home office is white and pristine. And the house is rented- not ours to deface. But my cutie-pie husband said, “So write it!” I looked around, wide-eyed, to see if he could possibly mean what I thought I meant. He pointed to the clean slate white wall and repeated, “Write it.” In a moment of glee, I grabbed one of my daughter Siena’s magic markers and started doodling away. It felt so GOOD!

I wrote to my friend Joy, who was about to quit her practical day job to jump off a cliff and come launch Owning Pink with me, to tell her I had just written on the wall with a magic marker. She wrote back, “Wait!! Writing on the walls is inappropriate and ultimately might not be a cost effective solution!! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA. I fucking love this. You may have created a monster Liss. =)” (Really. Her exact email, copied and pasted.)



It got me thinking. We all follow so many rules every day. Turn your blinker on when you’re going left. Don’t leave your underwear on the floor. Try not to murder anybody. Avoid writing the word “Fuck” on the internet. Don’t write on walls. Of course we have rules. Otherwise, there would be anarchy. But every now and again, you gotta break a few rules to get your mojo back.

So here’s today’s exercise. What you will need depends on what rule you’re going to break.

Step 1: Think about all the rules racing through the back of your mind like a ticker tape. Then stop the tape and inspect them for a minute.

Step 2: Check out the tape for any rule you can break without hurting anyone or endangering your health, your career, your financial security, or your valuable relationships. What’s the worst thing that can happen if I draw graffiti on the wall? We’ll have to repaint the wall when we move out. Or even worse, we’ll lose our security deposit. So what?

Step 3: Break the fucking rule! (But don’t tell anyone I told you to do it). Maybe you’ve always wanted to get a tattoo but the rule is that nice girls don’t get tattoos. Who cares? Get a tattoo! Maybe the rule is you grunt politely during sex because only bad girls moan. So moan your heart out, baby! Maybe the rule is that you should only go from A to B. But sometimes A 1/2 is so awesome. I went on a first date once where we got in a car and kept turning left. I would close my eyes and yell, “LEFT!” when the mood hit me, and my date, the driver, would yank the steering wheel left. We ended up on a set of rickety bleachers cheering for a Little League team. Rules, schmules. Just do it! Now go!

What are you still doing here? Did you engage in some safe rule-breaking, baby? If so, dish! Tell us your story. You might inspire someone else to break an age-old rule that no longer serves them. And you might inspire me to write more on my wall. 

Crazy rule-breaking love,
Lissa

PS. Just realized the writing is just too damn straight. Need to go write upside down, backwards, and sideways, just to break some more rules!