Mother’s Day was last Sunday, and I’m imagining it wasn’t easy for some people because it is so easy to get it wrong.  For those of you who experienced no feelings of longing, regret, sadness, or mixed feelings, I am truly happy for you.  When our wishes are fulfillable and fulfilled, well, that’s pretty wonderful.

But for some of us, for all kinds of reasons, Mother’s Day is not easy.

Ways Mother’s Day Can Feel Bad

• If your mother is alive, you probably did something for her, but you still might feel that you didn’t do quite enough.
• If your mother has passed away, you may regret all the things you didn’t do for her while she was alive or miss her with an ache that is undiminished by the years.
• If your mother was an unhealed, vicious human being, Mothers Day is at best ambivalent and at worst a very painful reminder of the love you never received.
• If you are a mother, it’s hard not to have expectations of what your children “should” do to prove how much they love you. Maybe your children got it just right, and you feel well loved.
• But if your children didn’t get it just right, if they didn’t call at all, or they didn’t talk long enough when they did call, or they sent you something, but it was ordered from a catalog and not bought personally, or if you felt their gift was an obligation and not coming from a generous part of their hearts — oh, so many ways to get it wrong.
• And if you’re the child and you know your mother has expectations, it’s hard not to get lost in trying to meet those expectations instead of honoring your mother from the center of your heart.

So, if you are the child of a mother and the mother of a child, you’re smack dab in the middle of two powerful, possible Guilt Enhancers.

My Mommy Died an Angel

When my mother died in 2003, we had pretty much worked out the kinks in our mother/daughter love pipeline. The last week of her life was spent chanting “I love you.” I was with her those last few days, and I was able to sing for her a song I had written called, “My Mommy is an Angel.” The chorus goes like this: “My mother was an angel with inhalers and her cholesterol was too high. But my Mommy, she was an angel, and we all know that angels never die.”

My daughter is now 31 and our relationship is still vibrantly interesting.

My Mother Guilt

I did a very powerful healing over New Year’s and got in touch with my own Mothers Guilt. The four-day workshop I attended involved incredibly deep work including hypnotherapy, psychodrama, screaming, crying — intense, it was.

I healed my fear of being like my father and hurting people with my power. This healing has allowed me to step into who I am called to be in a bigger way than ever. I am very grateful.

But I also got to experience a lot of other people’s stories, stories that involved horrible parental, mother abuse. And, while I was never any such parent, I was unhealed when my children were little, and I leaked my rage upon them and their innocent hearts.

My daughter is the older of my two children, and like many older children, she got the brunt of it. I never beat her or shook her or shamed her, but I did lose control of my emotions with her and definitely yelled at her and scared her.

The first time I saw her after my healing workshop, I completely owned my misbehavior for the first time. Though I had thought I had completely owned my misbehavior with her before, I knew when I heard her say, “I don’t remember” in a tiny little girl voice, that she did in fact remember, and her body remembered absolutely.

My owning my Mothers Guilt set us both free. Our relationship has been easier and more free-flowing since our talk. I am completely grateful. Completely grateful.

Healing Hearts

Now on Mother’s Day, since my mom is dead, I don’t need to worry about meeting her expectations or mine. The gift I give my children on Mother’s Day is that I honor all mothers  and mothering in my heart.

I honor myself and all other mothers ,past, present, and future.   I hold my mother, myself, my daughter, who now has baby fever, and my son’s not yet discovered future wife, in my heart. I hold all of our mothering and experience of being mothered in my heart and love it all. The fabulous mothering and the less than fabulous mothering — I hold it all in my heart.

It’s taken me a long time to get here. But I like Here plenty fine.

Blessings,

Vicki

The best therapy I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot of therapy, happened at the two Natural Singer workshops I attended, facilitated by Claude Stein, www.naturalsinger.com.

The workshops are for anyone who wants to learn how to sing better, from the person who thinks they “can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” to professional singers. Claude has taught at Juilliard, plays a mean piano, and is a little bit psychic. He creates miracles for everyone who attends.

I mean that.  It is an honor to be a part of this most personal reclaiming of our most personal connection with the world:  our voice.

In most of my presentations all over the world, I lead groups in a song I wrote called “Beauty Like a Rock”.  (You can check this out on my You Tube  channel http://www.youtube.com/user/vickihannahlein.)

When I’m teaching this song, I asked people how many of them are singers. A few hands go up sometimes even up to a third of the group. Sometimes no hands go up.

Then I ask the group, “If I asked a group of five-year-olds how many of them were singers, how many of them would raise their hands?” The response is always, “All of them!”

“Where did our singing go?” I ask them. “When did you lose a sense of yourself as a singer?”

I always hear stories that break my heart and make me cry. One woman said that her grandfather told her she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket when she was four years old, and she had never sung again. She cried when she talked about this forty years later.

And just for the record, who made her grandfather God? Who made anybody God who says to anyone, “You can’t carry a tune in a bucket.” I don’t think her grandfather intended to take her singing away from her for the rest of her life and break heart, but he did. It was a power-play. Someone had shamed him this way or some other way, and he was getting back his due. Let’s forgive him and ourselves immediately, for we have all done this to ourselves and others.

Claude Stein and his magic

Everyone can sing. Everyone can sing, including you, including everyone you’ve ever seen on American Idol. With the right support, anyone can learn to match tones, which is part of what singing is about.

At the second Natural Singer workshop I attended at Breitenbush Hot Springs, a short drive from Portland, Oregon, a man for my community began the four-day workshop trying to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. The only way you could recognize the song was from the words because I don’t think he got one note right. He didn’t even go up where this song went up and down where this song went down.

But he was willing to get up and sing in front of over 30 people because his desire to sing was so great he was willing to look like a fool if he had to in the process of reclaiming his voice.

Claude asked him and all of us to do some wild and crazy things. We would fling our arms while singing. He had me sink into my hips and shake my booty while helping me learn how to sing like Bonnie Raitt. He even dragged a man across the floor to help him let go of his fears and get into his body.

By the end of the four-day workshop, our tone deaf friend was singing Row, Row, Row Your boat quite well. He did everything Claude asked him to do and he didn’t give up, so he learned how to sing.

But that’s not the end of the story.

This brave man came back to his hometown and joined two choirs. He sang and sang and sang. Six months after the workshop, he tried out for a musical and was cast in the chorus of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Not bad for someone who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

Entertaining New Ideas

All you have to do to free yourself from limiting ideas you have cherished your whole life, is be willing to entertain a new idea. Be willing to say to yourself, “Maybe I am good at math,” or “Maybe I love technology and I’m really good at it.”

If you’re reading this and wishing you had a chance to work with Claude, I have good news for you. He is doing a workshop at Breitenbush at the end of May. Check out his website for more details. I guarantee this will be a life changing event. At least as life-changing as you let it be. www.naturalsinger.com

My Singing Epiphany

I walked into the first workshop I took with Claude thinking I had a tiny, weak voice unworthy of ever singing solo. I walked out being able to belt a song across the gymnasium with heart and soul and confidence.  I have never sounded the same since.

Whatever is holding you back doesn’t need to hold you back. If you are willing to entertain the idea that you could be free, and you’re willing to let yourself look like a fool if you have to in the process of gaining your freedom, then the sky isn’t the limit, it’s just the first floor.

Blessings,

Vicki

What happens when you let fifty gurus into your home via the internet?  Answer:  Your brain gets overrun with groovy possibilities.

They are all brilliant, they all have something to offer, and they all say I need them right now.  Suddenly I am spinning and crazed. I’m not having fun anymore and my goal is to have fun every day, since every day just might be my last.

Yuck.  How did I let this happen?  To whom did I give away my fun and how can I get it back?

A Note About Fun

I believe Fun is a grossly underrated spiritual practice.  We trust seriousness and overwork and being stressed and overcommitted.  We even brag about how busy we are.  But tell people you believe in having fun and they will often say something about how life is serious and we can’t always have fun.

I’m legally blind.  I know it can’t always be fun.  But the sooner I get my pain to migrate to my funny bone, the sooner I will regain my perspective, and the sooner my brain will work well again.  I take fun very seriously.

Enter Real Life

How do we build a business, run a home, raise loving, responsible children, and succeed in our career while staying centered and happy? I am committed to living these questions and the answers out loud.

Radical Releasing: Unsubscribe.

Here is one way to create more space in your brain and your life: Cut two or three newsletters you are getting. Even if you aren’t opening them, they are taking up space in your Inbox and in your psyche. Unsubscribe even if they are fabulous, (I just cut Jack Canfield!). Too much of a great thing is still too much.

Cut back and breathe deep! Get your life and your sanity back!  Unsubscribe from me if you are not getting great benefit from my newsletters.  Yes, go to the bottom of the page right now and unsubscribe if your inner voice of wisdom is telling you to do that.

I walk my talk.

It’s easy to say no to stuff that doesn’t serve us. It is much harder to say no to the good stuff, the great stuff, especially when all these great people seem to be hollering that you need what they have right now. RIGHT NOW!  Sign up now or you are missing the one and only opportunity that will ever come your way.

Yuck, once again.

I’m susceptible to urgency, because I am a recovering urgency addict. I have learned I cannot trust urgency. That push of “Now! Now! Must do it now!” does not serve me.

I am starting a movement, a Joy Revolution, and I am getting my message out with integrity and without urgency. I have anointed myself the Queen of Anti-Urgency, the Queen of Self-Expression, and a Master of fun.  Ha!  Who can stop me?

Free Week of Joy

Do not sign up for this unless you need some practice re-calibrating yourself to focusing on joy rather than on your To Do list.

But if you want some help getting joy in your life now, click here: http://www.daringtobejoyful.com/freeweekofjoy/. Again, don’t sign up unless you hear something inside you that says, “Ah! I’m parched and this feels like fresh spring water.”

There is no rush. There is no rush.  Unless someone is bleeding from an artery or cannot breathe, there is no rush!

Blessings and May the Joy Be With You,

Vicki

When I was six and getting taught to swim, I was told, with great certainty, that the only way to swim was to put your face in the water.

I hated putting my face in the water, and I thought there was something wrong with me.  I did not like the lessons and thought I did not like to swim.  I could swim, I passed all the tests, but I thought swimming was not for me.

Fast forward twenty two years. I am a new mother of my first born child, a perfectly marvelous little girl named Katie.  Her father and I were committed to being the very best parents we could be, so we followed the advice of the day and enrolled ourselves and our baby girl of six months in an introduction to swimming class.

We were told, again with great certainty that we needed to get our daughter used to the water, specifically having water on her face.  We dutifully donned our suits and entered the pool with our precious bundle of joy.  We passed her cheerful self between us several times, and then, as instructed, we dipped her in the water on one of the passes between us.

We were told she would be startled, but that she would soon recover.  Let’s just say the screaming began and did not end and we exited the pool.  Not only that, she screamed during every bath for the next three years.  Three years.  No more water in her face, mind you, I had given that up, but the memory of our betrayal of her trust took years for us all to recover from.

She recovered from her water phobia completely only when we got a hot tub and she could play in warm water and completely control the situation.

Fast forward another thirty years.  I’m in Bali staying in a delightful small hotel called Melati Cottages. There is a pool.  It is hot in Bali, and I love to cool off in the pool, but I do not swim.

Then I get it. I can swim any way I like and it is still swimming!  Yes, if I wanted to become a competitive swimmer I would have to learn to put my face in the water, but for my purposes, I could swim backstroke or dog paddle.  I get to swim with my face happily out of the water.

I could get great exercise, cool off, and thoroughly enjoy the water, my body, the surrounding tropical foliage, and feel pretty darn grand about myself.

Authentic swimming is not just about swimming.

In all areas of our lives people err telling us what we should do:  how we should do yoga, and how we should eat, and how we should dress, and how we should not get any wrinkles, and blah, blah, blah.

It’s not that any of this advice is bad or wrong. It’s just that we all get to run all the expert advice through our own system and decide what is authentic for us.  Period.  That’s  it.

Where have you surrendered your authority? Do you let anyone else tell you whether or not you get to sing, write, dance, wear hats, wear or not wear makeup, or eat dessert first?

We have been systematically taught to surrender our authority. When we do this, we lose our authenticity and we are no longer the author of our lives.  We are the victims of bad or good advice, but we are not practicing taking responsibility for our every choice.

With responsibility comes freedom and with freedom comes joy and with joy comes my floating in the pool in Bali feeling grateful to be alive.

I’d much rather be floating in the pool on my terms than avoiding the water on someone else’s terms.  So there!

My perfectionism is so insidious and so pervasive that it can and will spoil anything.

“Turmeric is good for preventing cancer.” someone tells me.

My Perfectionist Voice says, “Now you feel bullied.  The only way to be free is to not drink turmeric or not fully embrace drinking turmeric.  I you do drink turmeric, you will think about all the other things you could be doing to be healthy that you aren’t doing.  You are an unhealthy aging loser.”

Sigh.

Every tip for better health — reducing sugar, building up core muscle strength, raw foods,   — all gets eaten by my Perfectionism and then spit out on my self-esteem.

But I am tricky and I don’t give up.  I have found two new ways to get my Perfectionism to instantly evaporate.

There is nothing wrong with me.

I’ve started saying to myself, “There is nothing wrong with me.”  For some reason, this gets in better than “I love myself completely and unconditionally.”

When I say there is nothing wrong with me, my whole body tingles with relief.  Try it.  Let me know what happens for you.

There is nothing wrong with me!  There’s nothing wrong with me!  I think even if I had an addiction other than perfectionism, saying to myself and believing that there is nothing wrong with me, would help me set myself free from shame and help me find a solution to any problem confronting me.

I want to lose weight, but there is nothing wrong with me.
I want to increase by core strength, burn fat, and reduce the size of my belly, but there is nothing wrong with me.
I want to feel more energetic and reverse the aging process, but there is nothing wrong with me.

It is working of already.

I like my face.

The other sentence I stumbled on in my imperfect recovery from Perfectionism is “I like my face.”  When I say this I smile.  Try it.  Does it make you smile or giggle?  Do you feel the freedom that comes with embracing silliness?  Does saying you like your face feel like a Big Lie?  If so, see the paragraphs above on “there’s nothing wrong with me.”

The next ten people I meet, I’m going to stick out my hand to shake hands and say, “Hi!  I’m Vicki.”  To myself I will say, “and I like my face.”

So there is nothing wrong with me and there is nothing wrong with you and I like my face and I like yours too!

Like this approach? It is a good thing I’m a coach.  There is a lot more where this came from…