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Owning Creation: Giving Birth for A Living

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

A while back, a conversation Lissa and I had about being a mom and an entrepreneur struck a chord in both of us and produced her wonderful post on birthing what wants to be born. That post produced a moving discussion about the choices we make about where our amazing, female creative energy goes – into babies, projects, passions and work. As I sat with this and let the words of Pinkie wisdom seep into me, a wondrous thing happened I want to share with you. I felt some of the tangle of my personal confusion on this subject begin to unravel. When I told Lissa and Joy they encouraged me to untangle and reweave in public in the hopes that it might be useful to others. And so here I share some of my tapestry-in-progress with you. Blessings to you in your personal struggles and choices as you release your own amazing creative powers. ~Dana

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The need to create

We women are just bursting with the ability, talent and NEED to create. Not just procreate – though that’s obviously a biggie hormonally and otherwise – I mean: CREATE. I wasn’t completely aware of this myself until recently, which is ironic because in addition to co-creating two children, I’ve spent my whole professional career trying to create stuff. This has been frustrating because I wasn’t an artist or a welder or a software developer, I was a marketer. (Marketers don’t make stuff, sadly; we make stuff up.) So, unconscious of the fact I really wanted to create things, I aligned myself with people who did and made a career out of launching new products into the market and advising organizations on how to take advantage of new technology to create new businesses. Somewhere along the line I stopped owning the failure of not being happy in all my jobs and started owning success by realizing I was a creative spirit and that creating stuff fuels me and brings me joy. Seeing it come to fruition in one form or another makes me ecstatic! I loved making kids! I love parenting kids – now teenagers whom I adore. I have – count them – four businesses! And I love them all! It’s all just the creative energy in me visioning something wonderful in the world and then setting my energy to bring it into being.

Lissa and I laughed because of course, she has given birth to one beautiful child and many businesses too – a medical practice, an artist’s body of gorgeous work, two books, and a blossoming creation in Owning Pink she’s inviting us all to co-create with her. But of course, we’ve both created children and sometimes the demands and desires of motherhood and entrepreneurship get a little tangled up and confused.

Confusion

For myself, this tangle is definitely confusing; and I’m not just talking about the energy management of it here (though that is often beyond confusing!). I mean something deeper. Something so deep that it’s tangled up with roots that go so far down into my spirit and my being I can’t even see where they end. This bonked me on the head when Lissa and I were chatting on IM about this. We were talking about how fun it is to start up a business (and how exhausting) and about the parallels with having a kid. At first we were focused on the similarities:

  • neither a baby nor a startup business can exist without you;
  • both cry a lot and need constant care and feeding, sucking at your very being; and
  • you LOVE them both to the point that it can make you wonder where you start and they stop.

After a bit we were all confused. Birthing anything new is an act of creation and so in many ways they feel so much alike, is there really no difference? Could you just start a business and never have a kid (or visa versa) and have the same experience? Well, no… there are significant differences too:

  • a child is an independent soul with its own intrinsic purpose on this earth, while a business’s purpose is to further the growth and development of all the independent souls it touches (employees, owners, customers, investors etc.);
  • a child should be nurtured until it can function completely independently, while an organization always needs leadership; and
  • your love for a child should be a personal connection, while your love for a business (which is also “owned” by others, either financially or otherwise) should be a little more distant for your own health and well-being.

They’re one in the same

And then it hit me. In addition to being a mom, I’m also an entrepreneur, a professional risk taker. A serial Pleaper (i.e., Pink Leap of Faither). And in this conversation I’m just now realizing why those two aspects of my identity are SO important and SO related. What I realized today is: My JOB is giving birth and it’s also my LIFE. There’s no separating them out!

So now I realize I’m on the same adventure many of us find ourselves exploring, how to blend my creative energies in my professional, creative and family lives. When I think of it this way, I feel like a success as a creator; and by viewing all these adventures as creative efforts I find I’m having a lot more fun. Because the act of creation assumes a little mystery about what the end result will be and when I think of them as creative efforts I have less attachment to exactly how they come out in the end. I also realize they are creative collaborations with the people in my life – my husband, my kids, my partners, my clients – and where we share creative visions so much more is possible.

So what about you, Pinkies? Where are your lives rich with creative energy? What are your strategies for blending them? How do you infuse creative excitement into facets of your life? How do you manage the creative tensions that inevitably arise?

Love, light, and creation,
Dana

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Posted in Owning Balance, Owning Creativity, Owning Motherhood, Owning Parenting, Owning Success, Owning You, Owning Your Family, Personal Empowerment | 9 Comments »

Creating and Procreating: Owning What Wants to be Born

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

I’ve been thinking about having another baby for four years now. Because I was the ripe old age of 36 when my daughter Siena was born, we started talking about it right away. In fact, my husband and I were so certain we were meant to have at least one more baby that I took my IUD out when Siena was eight months old and we were all ready to go at it again.

Then my stay-home Daddy husband cut two fingers off his left hand with a table saw and all hell broke loose. So we tabled the idea for at least a year, because Matt had pins in his hand from 8 hours of surgery and couldn’t even a change a diaper. Then he had to get two more surgeries. Then we were switching health insurance plans, so I couldn’t get pregnant. It was literally one thing after another.

But I’ve finally come to a certain peace about the fact that I don’t think I will be having another child (sniff, dab). Now, I’m almost 41 and it just seems like the time has passed, and I’m okay with that. But there’s this little pang when I think about it.  It’s almost enough to make me rethink my decision to put my IUD back in…but not quite. Recently, I was talking to Pink Goddess Dana- who has been volunteering her time to Owning Pink to help us turn it into a Pink Business (more on that soon, Pinkies!), and I realized that I’ve been gestating and giving birth for over four years now- and I’m a little tired.  In the past four years, I’ve been busy giving birth to ME.

How it all came to pass

It all started January 6, 2006, when Siena was born. By the spring of that year, the idea that I might leave my job as a full-time OB/GYN was planted, and by later that year, I had taken a Pleap (Pink leap of faith) by quitting my job. I spent most of 2007 gestating what a truly whole health medical practice could look like and dreaming about being of service in a whole new way. That same year, I wrote a memoir. In 2008, I joined an integrative health practice and nurtured the little seed in me until it blossomed. In 2008, I grew Owning Pink in my belly and gave birth to it in April 2009. In December 2009, I gave birth to two more books. Now, I’m about to do it all again by starting the Owning Pink Wellness Center in April 2010. And then, I’ll write my next book.

What wants to come through?

Which leaves me with little time or energy for allowing a baby spirit to grow into a human being inside my womb. With this realization comes more than a wee bit of angst. Am I being selfish for denying my daughter the opportunity to have a sibling?  Have I become a work-aholic with no balance in life? Am I expending my creative energy wisely or might I be better off slowing down and growing my family?

To be honest, I just don’t know. All I know is that the urge to create businesses and books seems to be stronger for me than the urge to procreate. And since I already feel torn between my commitment to serving my patients and Owning Pink and my commitment to motherhood, my inclination is to protect myself from feeling torn even further. Why create more conflict for myself?

Priorities?

Some might judge this as un-feminine. They might think I’m a bad mama or that my priorities are not straight. And they’re welcome to their opinion. But me? I’ve just gotta OWN it. It is what it is. That’s how I feel, that God is using me as a vessel to give birth to other creations, that every book, every blog post, every workshop, every patient encounter is a co-creation between the two of us, that I am becoming a mother over and over again, every time I tap into the divine spark and create something new.

And yet it doesn’t look how others expect it to look. I’m not feeding new blonde beings into the Mill Valley preschool system. I’m not buying new Pink clothes for a sister for Siena. I’m not sitting in the stirrups pushing a baby out into this world. But damn, it sure feels like I am. I feel like I mother at least a dozen new creations right now. Which leaves me feeling like I don’t need to get pregnant again to serve my life’s purpose.

Opinions

Believe me- others feel differently.  My mother would love to have another grandchild. Siena’s preschool teacher would love to meet a baby brother. Even some psychic a friend hired to read me said I had two more baby spirits waiting to get born. But I have to be okay with that. I have to live with the uncertainty, the possible regret, the fact that my family doesn’t look exactly the way I imagined it when I was a little girl dreaming of white picket fences.

It all comes down to creation

Creation can get confusing, can’t it Pinkies? There are days when I can’t tell how my creative forces are best expended. Should I dance with the Divine and co-create a new message to share with the world? Should I co-create a new series of art? Should I co-create new writings? Should I co-create another baby? It gets muddy, I’ll admit. I get confused as hell. We all just do the best we can and pray that what we create is done from a place of the highest intentions and the noblest part of our souls. Then we surrender to living in the muck. (A special thank you to Baby Spirit Coach Elisabeth Manning for helping me sort all this out in my mind!)

What about you Pinkies? Do you ever confuse your creative energy?  Can you tell what you’re supposed to create next?  Do you think giving birth to babies in any way resembles giving birth to businesses, art, writing, or other creative projects? Am I totally off my rocker here?

Let’s talk about this. I honestly think it’s such rich, juicy stuff. Giving birth is so inherently what we as females are all about that it nearly defines us. Yet, can’t we expand our concept of what it means to bring life into the world? How many creations have you squelched to give birth to babies? How many babies have you neglected to have because you were busy in business?  Are you so busy serving your community, your family, or your job that you’ve forgotten to give birth to YOU?

Dana, I’d love it if you’d explore this conversation in another post- maybe help us talk about sacred commerce, balancing our creations, and bringing Pink into the workplace.  And Pinkies- if you have wisdom to share, post comments, write a blog post on the Posse blog, or send something you write to Joy@OwningPink.com. I’d love hear more about what you all think…

Let’s talk, dear ones….

Creating & creating & creating,

Lissa

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Posted in Alternative Health, Lissa's personal yada yada yada, Owning Balance, Owning Creativity, Owning Surrender, Owning You | 42 Comments »

Nurture Yourself In the Face of Tragedy, Stress, & Too Much Work

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

resilience

Dearest Pinkies, please welcome back Stacey Curnow, author of the blog Midwife For Your Life, where she originally posted this piece – which blew our minds – in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti last week. Settle in for a serious dose of Pink perspective, and get ready to see the world in a new way. Thank you so much, Stacey.

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If you were to gather up the day’s news you would invariably come to the conclusion that the world needs saving, right? Well, I expect it will need saving tomorrow, too. And in the meantime, I am going to reflect on what it means to “do something” in the face of great suffering.

Yes, the reports from around the world are dire, but they reflect something else, too: The scale of suffering is balanced by resilience, courage, and hope.

What is Resilience?

I’m reminded of a recent article that described resilient people: they’re distinguished by the fact that after a trauma, they don’t just return to their point of departure. They cope and then get strength in the future from their experiences in the past.

Our resilience as individuals has created an extraordinarily resilient species. Without diminishing the tragedy in Haiti at all, we can predict that some people will come out of this trauma stronger for the experience.

And yet, that resilience looks like the sort of thing you’d expect from superheroes. Many of us have not even experienced that degree of trauma, much less overcome it to become stronger.

But we look at the headlines, feel our responsibility for making the world a better place, and then begin to think that we should be superheroes, that we have to be, because the suffering we see—whether in Haiti, or in our own home towns, or even in our best friends’ relationships—calls out to us to alleviate it. And many of us serve others in our work: for us, that sense of responsibility can become a chronic, debilitating condition.

Violent Striving

Of course, feeling this responsibility and acting on it every time is the fastest way to total collapse. So the next question is: Is constant striving necessary to save the world? Is it the best way to achieve our goals? Is it even the best way to do our jobs?

I sure hope not. In fact, I don’t believe it. Would it take some serious rewiring for you to think of overwork as a form of violence? It took me a little while to look at it this way—as one of the most prevalent forms of violence in the world—but I think it’s a good point and worthy of more reflection.

Thomas Merton was a 20th century American Catholic writer, a Trappist monk, a poet and a social activist. He promoted interfaith understanding and was one of the first Westerners to develop relationships with the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn.

He was a man who saw the suffering in the world—and had dedicated himself to addressing it—but he wrote “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.”

He proposed that unless rest, wisdom, and delight are embedded in the problem-solving process itself, the solution we patch together is not likely to offer genuine relief. Born of desperation and exhaustion, it almost guarantees that an equally perplexing problem will emerge as soon as it is put into place.

Really, what good can come from the nonstop effort? When we are working constantly, eating poorly, sleeping little, stressing and worrying, we are little good to ourselves. In this condition, how can we possibly be of service to others?

The Consequences of Overdoing

I often fear that it may be too late; that there is much to do; that there is not enough time, money, or people to do it. But I also realize that this fear itself wears me down. I believe that the overwhelm, the overwork, the over-caring that we feel actually diminishes our ability to care, our willingness to help and our effectiveness in the long run.

I can’t speak for others. I can only look at my own life and ask these questions. And so I do: Are my important relationships suffering? Am I frequently mentally fatigued and emotionally fragile? Am I experiencing an illness or pain in my body?

The answer to any one of these questions is too often yes. So I go back to Thomas Merton’s proposal for undoing all of this harm: Commit to rest, wisdom and delight. Not as a means of avoiding our work in the world, but as a means of making us stronger for the work in front of us.

Dolce Far Niente

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, wrote that we are at risk of losing the talent of appreciating ease. I think she’s right. Italians actually have a name for this talent – dolce far niente (which translates to “the sweetness of doing nothing”). The fact that we don’t even have an English equivalent for this lovely sentiment speaks to a certain malaise in our culture, don’t you think?

So here’s my prescription for ridding myself of the malaise and injecting some dolce far niente into my system:

Start small. Eat and drink well. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Smile and make eye contact with the people around you. Say you’re sorry simply and without defensiveness. Be a good friend. Take walks and look up often. Laugh a lot. And then, once you’re rested and ready to begin again, focus on the world—on the work—in front of you.

I’m always ready to take a dose of that medicine.

How ’bout you Pinkies? How do you cope with tragedy, disaster, stress, trauma, excessive work? Do you feel responsible, as if the weight of the world rests on your shoulders? How can you let that go? What do you need to relieve the burden and find your mojo?

Simply onward,
Stacey

Join the Pink Posse and Feel the Love

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Posted in Guest Pinkies, Owning Balance | 21 Comments »

Mojo Monday: OWN Your Accomplishments

Monday, January 18th, 2010

done

Dear Pinkies, please welcome the brilliant Danielle Vieth, a wonderful writer and wise Pinkie who came to the rescue a few weeks ago, when some of us were feeling surprised that the New Year hadn’t filled us with new ideas, new dreams, or new energy the way we expected. Phew, thank you, Danielle, for reminding us to slow down, take stock, and allow for things to happen in their own time. It’s a message we can’t hear often enough – and makes for a perfect Mojo Monday exercise.

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Happy Mojo Monday, Pinkies!

A fresh new decade and a new year are upon us. With the New Year comes new goals, desires and intentions. If you and your goals feel less than ready to hit the ground running, it could be that you could use a little closure on the past year. A lot goes down in a year and watching the ball drop in Times Square isn’t always enough of a wrap-up. In short, we need to take stock of where we’ve been in order to get to where we’re going.

It’s my pleasure to share today’s Mojo Monday exercise with you. I first learned this from the ever-inspiring women’s health pioneer, Dr. Christiane Northrup, on one of our monthly telegatherings for Team Northrup. Dr. Northrup shares this exercise with us every January as a reminder of the importance of bringing closure to the old in order to make room for the new.

It’s tricky for our brains and bodies to step into this New Year if we don’t feel any sense of completion from the year that just passed. What’s the solution? Dr. Northrup suggests making a list of EVERYTHING you did/accomplished/completed in 2009. Noting all you did in the past year serves as a solid foundation for what’s next. This is the step to take before creating goals for 2010. Acknowledgement of the year’s accomplishments gives your brain, your ego and your central nervous system a sense of completion so you can stop running the “I’ll never get it done” program and clear the decks for what’s to come. I know we all have big, Pink dreams for 2010, so let’s give them a solid launching pad.

Here’s how:

  1. Grab your journal and set aside some time to reflect upon your year. Find a favorite spot, light a candle, turn off your phone. Do whatever you need to do to clear your head and create reflective space.
  2. Get out your calendar/daytimer from 2009 to jog your memory of what you did and when. (We can’t possibly remember all 365 days.)
  3. List any and all accomplishments, completions, successes, and personal victories. No accomplishment is too small. If it comes to mind, it makes the list.
  4. Comb through each area of your life: career, family, spirituality, finance, love, sex, social life, health, fun, etc. Be sure to list accomplishments that go beyond the traditional definition of success.  (Did you speak your truth or create a boundary?  Did you laugh harder than ever?  Did you surprise and delight someone or yourself? What did you start/quit/join/find/create?) In looking back you’ll be amazed at all you’ve done in a mere 12 months.
  5. To ramp up your Mojo, share your list with a loving friend/partner/spouse. (Important: Pick someone who is truly your cheerleader. No naysayers allowed!) The benefits of sharing are twofold. This person who knows and loves you can remind you of anything you may have forgotten and serve as a witness to all you’ve accomplished. Having a witness to your successes validates them and anchors your sense of completion.
  6. Once you’ve finished, breathe it all in, celebrate like crazy, look at your list and affirm, “Yes, I did that.”

Now you can step fully into 2010 and you and your New Year are ready to rock.

Feeling complete,

Danielle

Join The Pink Community and Feel the Love!

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How to Help & Pray For Haiti

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

haiti2

Dear Pinkies, Please welcome Tre Thorsen, author of Thought by Thought, a blog about listening, heeding, nurturing, loving…being true to ourselves, to one another, to humanity. Today, in the wake of the massive earthquake in Haiti, Tre brings us some thoughts not only about how to help, but to maintain our mojo in the midst of something that seems so uncontrollable. Thank you, Tre – we needed this!

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By now surely you’ve heard coverage of the devastating 7.0 earthquake that shook Haiti Tuesday, January 12, 2010. Like you, I was shocked and saddened and actually broke into tears a bit, as I adore the Caribbean -  that nation’s people in particular are some of the most peaceful and genuinely heartfelt I’ve ever met.

But shock for me soon births call to action, and the first thing I did was begin to pray…

  • for my own sense of calm and clarity and strength and peace of resolve to know how to best help…
  • that anyone who has lost a loved one find joy after loss and peace in the moment
  • that frightened children be comforted
  • that the hearts of the world be opened in compassion to the huge tragedy those in Haiti have experienced
  • to know that those who are in charge of distributing resources from other areas will have the clarity and wisdom and means to get supplies and help there without distraction or delay
  • to defend the presence of resources available for right-now needs for safety and comfort…
  • to defend and support anyone that is stuck under rubble or trapped in the mountains or stuck and alone in any way … that will feel the presence and power of the universal divine Love that is with each and all
  • to defend anyone who has not yet been found will be located, and that anyone stuck in rubble will not suffocate and will be found
  • to defend that there will be a way for supports to arrive, as of this writing, the airport is closed (Note to Pinkies: It’s now open! See how prayer can work!)

I kept on praying like this for a long long while.

Throughout the night on into the dawn, the twitter streams for #Haiti flooded in with similar prayers and hopes. It’s so inspiring when you literally watch in real life the flowing support of thousands of people from around the globe…and realize just how many are saying prayers for Haiti’s people.

But this doesn’t resolve the pull of desperate helplessness that comes over us all too often when there’s a human tragedy like this. So I had to keep on praying for myself too because there’s no rationality in feeling guilty that somehow others received a blow and I didn’t. That’s not logical thinking and it’s also not productive in anyway.

So getting past the pulls of ego and back to how my thoughts can devote themselves to understanding how to help right now these people, again I defended the presence of calm and order, because the pull would try to convince anyone that there’s going to be nothing but chaos and mayhem for a while.

The thing about defending truths: we can’t always see how they’ll pan out in the immediate. Nor can we always see how they’ll bear fruit in the months to come. But just like there’s a deep need to steer a sailboat when the winds kick up rather than be tossed about, there’s a vital need to steer our thoughts. And that is what meditating and prayer does for me….steadies my thoughts so that I’m open and listening to next steps of what is mine to do.

And I thought a lot about how any quake..any stirring and sifting can help all of us wake UP to the needs around us, to deepen our compassion to help whomever and however and wherever. We encounter so many human hearts day in and day out…Let this stirring rouse our compassion to be present – mentally and emotionally present in any encounter with another. Whether a smile or a hello. Humanity is reaching out for love, and we can respond with love.

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So, some practical next steps:

First, for soothing melodic sounds, twitter friend @ambienteer offers his recent compilations for download and requests you please contribute to one of his suggested organizations for aid for Haiti.

For latest tweet coverage, search twitter for #Haiti: Go to http://search.twitter.com and type in #Haiti — the hashtag symbol plus the word Haiti. Any tweet using that phrase will come up and you can see latest tweets and information that way.

You can also search twitter #RedCross, #Unicef, #CARE, #ONE campaign to name just a few of the many organizations already citing ways to help.

Pinkie Heather Shaw offered these suggestions in the Owning Pink community:

The American Jewish World Service has set up the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund to respond to the crisis by supporting a network of organizations it works with.

AmeriCares has pledged $5 million to Haitian quake relief, and is soliciting donations to a general emergency disaster relief fund to help it accomplish that.

CARE International is sending relief workers into the city of Port-au-Prince and needs funds to support its efforts. Suggested donations range from $50 to $1,000, but you can name your own amount if you prefer.

Catholic Relief Services has an office in Haiti, and luckily it’s still standing even though one of its neighbors collapsed. The organization is accepting donations of any amount.

Direct Relief International has committed up to $1 million in aid through two on-the-ground partners, and is sending containers of medical material aid.

Oxfam has 200 people on the ground to deal with the crisis, and began its efforts by trying to get clean water to victims of the quake. One of its staffers recorded a podcast describing the situation. You can donate on the American or UK site, depending on where you’re located.

Yele Haiti is sponsored by prominent Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean. You can donate through its website or via text message as described in the next segment.

Musician Wyclef Jean has used Twitter to rally web users to contribute to his grassroots Yele Haiti earthquake fund. He’s urged his followers to text “Yele” to the number 501501. If you send the text, the organization will receive $5. The amount will be added to your next cell phone bill. Consider retweeting Wyclef’s updates and get some of your Twitter followers to donate, too.

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How ’bout your perspective on any of this? How you’re steadying your thoughts, keeping calm, thinking through ways that you can help – whether praying for the nation of Haiti or other ways ?

Striving to stay steady on shaky ground,
Tre (&Heather)

Join The Pink Community and Feel the Love!

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Posted in Guest Pinkies, Owning Balance, Owning Joy After Loss, Owning Spirituality | 5 Comments »

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