It Takes a Lot Sh*t Archives

Shoveling Out New Pathways

“All successful people have the uncanny ability to focus on what is possible in a situation, what positive results come from it. No matter how much negative feedback they get from their environment, they think in terms of possibilities. They think that everything happens for a reason, and it serves them. They believe that every adversity contains the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.”
~ Anthony Robbins, Unlimited Power ~

In my recent book, “It Takes A Lot Of Sh*t To Make a Garden Grow,” I feature some amazing individuals who have faced and many are still facing some pretty hefty life-challenges. But it’s not just their challenges that I find so compelling. It’s how they each have risen above them to find more positive pathways and perspectives in which to grow their lives. They are beyond inspiring. I hope you take the time to “meet” them.

My blogs give me a chance to continue writing about others who are helping me learn to be a better “excrementalist,” as I’ve been called! I’d like you to meet three incredible people. Each symbolizes my firm belief that no matter what we’re dwelt with in this lifetime we all have the power to shovel out of crappy situations and ultimately create extraordinary new lives. One is a chef who lost his sense of taste. The other is a brain scientist who was nearly decimated by a stroke. And the third is a surgeon who was struck by a disease that crippled his fingers. Their stories are featured in a riveting article in the www.dailygood.org: Lessons from Those Who Lost…and Found, by Pavithra Mehta. Click here to read the entire article.

I’m always in awe of the power of the human spirit and what we’re truly capable of accomplishing, especially when we’re tested time and time again with mountainous “manuretia” that oftentimes seems insurmountable. Chronic pain. Disease. Accidents. Tremendous losses—physical, mental, spiritual. Homelessness. Cruelty. Divorce. Heartache. Blindness. The list is endless.

But every day I read about one more person or animal who not only survives but thrives against all odds. Their stories help me rebound again from whatever pit I’ve spiraled into and under. I truly believe this is Earth School and we’ve individually raised our hands to take on this crazy curriculum of learning—each with our own unique life agenda.

The key ingredient to success is sheer balance between the garbage and the garden. Both are reflections of choices that we ourselves make. Sure you probably didn’t plan for all that “you-know-what” when it hits the fan big time. But how you deal with it is how you inevitably grow beyond it. It’s up to you. All the mulch and compost and germinating seeds and endless acres of verdant possibilities are who you are. How rich and abundant your garden is depends on what you add to it and how much you put into it; how much you’re willing to shovel and grow a new life.

Whether you look at life as fertile ground for infinite possibilities, or as Pavithra Mehta sees it, a way to find what was seemingly lost—it is a twist of fate and perspective that can make or break us. The key, or the shovel is in our very own hands…

A Novel Idea for Mother’s Day

Why not give Mom some sh*t she’s gonna really love?!

Isn’t it time to give Mom something she can really relate to after all the challenges she’s faced (or the crap you’ve put her through!) Here is a book with the voices of many who are shoveling their way out of amazing mountains of life’s “manuretia” and not only surviving, but thriving. Just like Mom is doing!

See book details and order today!

Healing the “ouch-effect”

“The voyage of self-discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
~ Marcel Proust ~

Remember the last moments of the classic movie, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial? It’s one of my most favorite movies and those last seconds expressed by the boy, Elliot, and E.T. as they say goodbye to each other reflects all that I’m feeling right now.

E.T.: Come…

Elliot: (solemnly) Stay…

E.T.: (puts his finger to his glowing heart) Ouch.

Elliot: (mimics the same action, tearfully) Ouch.

E.T.: (E.T. and Elliot embrace each other, then E.T. puts his glowing finger to Elliot’s forehead) I’ll…be…right…here.

Elliot: (tearfully) bye.

E.T.: Be good. (touching heart about to leave.) Ouch.

(from the movie, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial))

I thought about how many ways to express it, this deep sorrow I’m feeling for the suffering of the world right now. E.T. said it best, “Ouch.” My soul hurts. My spirit hurts. I feel this immense state of “ouchness” for the people in Alabama and all the surrounding areas struck so horribly by a second-time twister. And those in Syria begging us to help them and all we do is watch horrendous film clips of babies, mothers, the innocent ones, brave reporters, being mowed down by murderers. “Ouch.” And animals caught in the cross-fires of human cruelty—gassed and shot, abandoned. We’re exposed to them all on Facebook and all over the media. Wolf carcasses spilling out of the back of the truck of their beaming human killers. Oceans suffocating in swirling acres of plastic. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look there seems to be more and more suffering. Even within my own family and friends there is some great sorrow that I can’t alleviate. I can’t make it go away. So I stand in the middle of my life and cry out helplessly to it all, “Ouch.”

I know so many of you feel as I do. Many of you turn to your religions, to prayer, to organizations, activities, selfless volunteer work that helps greatly. I find that all of these efforts are powerful. Finding a place of peace and love within our own lives, our own circle of loved ones is a way to feel less hopeless. Doing something good is always the answer, always the way back home. Shoveling out the garbage and creating gardens of new perspective is how we discover new pathways to higher consciousness. I find sustenance in giving my talks, reaching out to others and giving them something within themselves to want to go on no matter what. I write and speak about what I need to believe, and it’s not always easy.

At this moment I am feeling this deep sense of “ouch” for our beautiful planet and the pervasive pain it’s going through everywhere. I wonder if that angelic little E.T. asked me to go with him right now would I leave all this ouchness for a better and different and kinder world? My spirit says, “Yes, go…” But my humanness says, “Stay and make it better. Don’t give up. Live…”

As my beloved mentor Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, expressed to me when I was at another low place in my life looking at the world in the sixties through hopeless glasses, “If the end of the world would be imminent, you still must plant a tree today.” He believed fiercely in never giving up hope.

At the end of each of my talks I offer people a small, smooth stone out of a bowl. I tell them it represents each of them, each of us. A stone thrown into a pool of water radiates ripples that go on and on and on. Seeing ourselves as that little stone, sending out ripples of positivity or negativity is our choice. But it’s not just an empty gesture. There is actual, scientific evidence that what we think—good and bad—can and does change the world, thought-by-thought, ripple-by-ripple. Here is an excerpt from my book, Nature Teachers:

“Dr. Masaru Emoto, an internationally renowned science researcher and author, has written a revolutionary series of books, the first one entitled, Messages from Water. The premise of his research is that the power of prayer, beneficial healing sounds and words can even change the physical property of water crystals. In his continued research, Dr. Emoto has discovered that all substances and phenomena have their own unique magnetic resonance fields. His photographs of the dramatic contrasts between frozen water before and after prayer, angry and kind words or thoughts, and gentle and strident music are amazing. His work is so important on so many levels. He is documenting the scientific evidence that all of life is a vital force capable of reacting to positive or negative energy. Everything. The more we are aware of this vital energy, the more we are able to focus on our own power and the impact it has on everything and everybody.”

I encourage you to read Dr. Emoto’s book. It may help you realize that you actually can do something right now to help the world, just by your loving thoughts. I had to write this to remind myself that this is so and to help heal this quagmire of sorrow I am feeling for this life, these earthly beings of all species that I love so much. So, to answer beautiful E.T.’s quest to leave this place, I would probably have to do what Elliot opted to do as well. Stay. And do all I can to bless the “ouchness” of our beautiful planet with all my heart and soul; see it healing and growing in spite of or maybe because of the cataclysms in its wake. And follow E.T.’s sage advice to simply, “Be good.”

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life.

He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil – he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Can we say something NEW for a change????

It Takes A Lot Of Sh*T To Make A Garden Grow: Rant #1: Talking Sh*t

As a die-hard wordsmith I’ve always been sensitive to language—certain key words we say to express stuff. Lately I’ve become more and more aware of the over-use of some of the same ways of defining things; many (“most!”) of which I am also guilty of saying A LOT: Seriously. OMG. Are you kidding me?

I’m throwing out a bunch of my hugely overdone-beaten-to-a-pulp favorites right now. This is not a tremendous annoyance or mountainous challenge compared to the extraordinary stories featured in my book, It Takes A Lot Of Sh*t To Make A Garden Grow. I’m just talking about certain words and phrases that are being over-said. I liken them to a compost pile that, once recycled, can ultimately transform communication into something richer, more exciting, more colorfully intelligent. Think of how eloquently our forefathers expressed themselves. But today we speak in a kind of short hand, texting, half-sentence, sound-bite zaps in non-communicative ways of (not) talking to each other. The trickle down of these words and expressions have become trendy—kind of a lazy fallback to boring-speak. It’s time to shovel out some of these tedious utterances and plant new gardens of expression to make a point. Bottom line, I don’t have a solution, but maybe you do. Here goes:

“Iconic…”

“Note to self…”

“At the end of the day…”

“Back in the day…”

“So yesterday…”

“Helloooooo….”

“Just sayin’…

“Wrong on so many levels…”

“Yeh, NO…”

“No problem…” (uh, what happened to “you’re welcome?”)

“That being said…”

“So to speak…”

“Be that as it may…”

“Having said that…”

“That said…”

“What you don’t understand…”

“Not gonna lie…”

“Whatever…”

“Meh…”

“What you have to remember…”

“Bottom line…”

“Are you kidding me…???”

“After all is said and done…”

“It remains to be seen…”

“Amaaaaaazing…”

“Give it up for…”(instead of “let’s applaud”)

“Put your hands together for…” (ditto previous rant)

“Per se…”

“I want to say…”

“Breaking news…”
(used to be said only when there was really breaking news)

“Really?”

“Gotcha…”

“Wait…what?”

“Seriously…”

“Wait for it…”

“I know. Right?”

“Trying to wrap my head around it…”

What are your favorites? I’d LOVE to hear them!!!!!
Really. I kid you not. No lie….!!!!

This Week’s Featured Interview: Greg Archer

When Greg Archer and I started talking about using his own garbage from which to grow abundantly, I had a preconceived idea of where the direction would be heading. Greg, a longtime Editor of The Good Times newspaper in Santa Cruz, California was from my vantage point a success. His interviews engage him in dialogue with the rich and famous. He attends star-studded events; travels in trendy circles everywhere; is already an accomplished writer co-authoring a popular book, Shut-Up, Skinny Bitches; was a health enthusiast—everything from yoga to meditation to rigorous workouts and more.

I thought we would talk about how he had grown such a triumphant life after years of fighting lack of self-esteem, an unhappy body image and his fight to maintain the course after roller-coaster bouts of yo-yo dieting. We talked about his desire to help men, especially gay men, find more meaningful ways to accept themselves and others seeing beyond the superficial look and preconception of body-beautiful. But as we talked, something profound began to reveal itself.

Greg told me that he has a restlessness within him. He has this almost mystical longing, a calling to go back in time and unearth his Polish family’s story. I asked him to tell me about it and he began to share a story that is not unlike Dr. Zhivago meets the Holocaust meets raw, surreal, unthinkable slave-driving cruelty under Stalin’s bloody grip during World War II, and a Catholic Polish family’s miraculous survival against years of horror. The saga of his relatives covered continents and your heart pounds, you can barely breathe reading Greg’s article about them. It is the foundation upon which he is planning to write in a novel; the garbage of despair upon which his own garden will finally take root and grow.

Greg’s true roots are alive in his Polish ancestry. Their tears and screams and struggles and survival and longings to find a place of their own, a place from which they could call home at last–those are the source of Greg’s own insecurity and feelings of entrapment that has barely anything to do with the present. He has inherited the pain of his astounding family’s past and he needs to unshackle their entrapment in order for him to be free. Only then will he be able to grow the garden of true abundance that is woven into all that he is today — a first generation Pole who is longing to embrace the power of his extraordinary heritage. I welcome you to read an article Greg wrote about his family and that will soon feed a wealth of imagery in a story that must be told – The Family Gift: http://goodtimessantacruz.com/index.php/good-times-cover-stories/667-the-family-gift.html

Why not give Mom some sh*t she’s gonna really love?!

What are your favorites? I’d LOVE to hear them!!!!! Really. I kid you not. No lie….!!!!

What are your favorites? I’d LOVE to hear them!!!!!
Really. I kid you not. No lie….!!!!