Here's the Memo! (eBook)

Memo #1:

This is Your Life!

Here’s your first Memo: This is your life! It’s not that of the celebrity on Instagram, who looks way too perfect, the girl at work, who’s talking shit about you, or your friend, who dumps all her stuff on you, but always seems to forget to ask you how you’re doing. It’s yours. I really want you to slow down, breathe, and take that in. We’re BORN~DASH~WE DIE. When you read a tombstone it says something like, “Here lies So and So. 1947–2024.” We see the year of birth and the year of death, and in between there’s that little DASH that represents ALL the richness of their life.

If you go on the premise that we only get this one life – at least one that we remember (unless you are psychic, which is a whole other thing), how do you want to live your DASH? Life is not a dress rehearsal! If you want to make the most of it and live as fully self-expressed and joyfully as you can, the first step is reclaiming your dash and permitting yourself to fully inhabit it. Here are five ways to get you started:

1. Let Go of What Everybody Else is Doing.
2. Let Go of the Things You Can’t Control.
3. Let Go of Your Buts and If Onlys
4. Practice Being Mindfully Present.
5. Take Center Stage in Your Own Life.

Let Go of What Everybody Else is Doing.

This is so much easier said than done because what “everybody else is doing” is in our faces 24/7 thanks to technology, social media, and the fact that we live in a world with people!

Maybe you’re on your friend’s Instagram feed, and you’re in the same profession, but she is having more success. Maybe you just got passed over at work for a promotion by someone junior to you. Maybe your mom is an alcoholic, your sister is in a crisis, or your spouse is unemployed. We’ll all have this stuff, but being excessively bothered and bogged down by it will not do us any good except hurt us.

So when you see your friend in all her glory on her latest post, go ahead and feel the feelings, then decide I am not going to “compare and despair” or get into self-pity. Flip the script and choose to be self-nurturing and inspired. Ask yourself, How can I take care of myself? What positive action can I take in my career today? Or with your sister in crisis, think: love and boundaries. You can be loving, but also have personal and emotional boundaries. Check in with yourself and ask: What can I give her today? Maybe it’s a 15-minute call or a lunch, or maybe you need a breather and you text her something like, “I love you and I’ll get back to you soon.” We’ll all go through trials and want to be compassionate and supportive to those we love when they do, but not at our own expense.

Let Go of the Things You Can’t Control.

There are so many situations in life we can’t control… aging, sickness, death, legal troubles, world events, and the list goes on and on. All of these situations affect us and in Here’s the Memo! I will always encourage you to honor and process your feelings because our bodies are built to digest feelings just like they are built to digest food. But I will also always remind you that you have a choice in how much these things weigh you down.

Let’s talk aging. In the aging process, there will be inherent losses, even in the best of circumstances. I remember when my daughter was 17, we went on a girl’s trip to NYC with her best friend and her best friend’s mom. And we had a blast! I got to show Caroline my old stomping grounds – where I used to live, where I used to work, where I met her dad, bla bla bla. Then we went shopping at a hip boutique in the East Village and I was not prepared for my feelings.

When I had lived in NYC in my 20s I would have bought that baby doll dress, those overalls, that mini skirt, but at 40-something, No way! (BTW hats off to women who wear anything at any age, they inspire me, it just doesn’t work on me… trust me!) Anyway, in that cool little shop, I experienced a poignant moment of nostalgia and grief and really wished that someone had given me a Memo way back in the day that said: Enjoy this! Enjoy this time in your life when you can throw anything on and rock it!

I know that’s a relatively benign example and there are much greater losses in the aging process: body changes, hormonal shifts, and health issues, to name a few. In all these cases, what works for me is to: acknowledge, feel, but not dwell. Think of it like this: If we’re driving and we spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror and not through the windshield, we’ll be in trouble. Aging is inevitable if we’re blessed enough to live long lives, so finding ways to accept, appreciate, and even celebrate this in your day-to-day life is essential if you want to fully inhabit and enjoy your DASH.

Another biggie we have little control over are legal problems and dealing with them can be overwhelming: they can trigger a lot of fear and anger, be very expensive, take years to sort out, and truly test our patience. How do you navigate all this? Of course, allow space for your feelings, but take some agency and decide you will not let your legal stuff rule your life, and to the best of your ability, don’t let it. Every day, ask yourself, What can I do about my case today? Then do it. Then think, Okay done; now my job is to pray for and/or visualize the best outcome, surrender, and be with what’s good in my life today.

Let Go of Your Buts and If Onlys

So many of us are chasing these goals we think will fulfill us: My life is great, But it’ll really be perfect when I lose 10 pounds or I would be truly happy If Only I could meet the right partner. The terms But and If Only can be used interchangeably or But can be used to describe a present obstacle and If Only can be used to connotate a future/fantasy condition. Whatever semantics you choose, here’s the deal: life and all of us will never be perfect and as long as we buy into But and/or If Only… thinking, we will always be chasing and earning and literally missing our lives.

Our lives aren’t out there in some future moment, when our Buts are resolved and our If Onlys comes to fruition. Our lives are right now, and if we don’t learn to inhabit this moment, we won’t miraculously learn how to, once we lose the weight or meet the partner. We’ll just be on to the next thing; the next But or If Only.

Once my husband and I had kids, I had a big But and If Only Combo Platter going! Because of my suburban upbringing, I really believed that in order to give them a good childhood, we needed to raise our children in a house with a yard. My inner monologue went something like this: I’m happy raising our kids in our cozy condo, where they play hopscotch in the courtyard and chat with the neighbors, But our lives would really be idyllic If Only we owned a house!

And when I have a goal, I go bananas. Seriously, Realtor.com became my kryptonite and I was off my rocker—looking online, visiting open houses, dreaming and scheming about decorating, cathedral ceilings, window seats, and Brady Bunch grass. I would picture big backyard barbecues with family and friends, extravagant holiday parties, and dressing up at Halloween to greet our trick-or-treaters. It was so fun!!!… until it wasn’t.

My fantasy life truly resembled a good addiction in that I thought it made me happy, but it was really robbing me of precious life. I was getting stressed out, putting so much energy into something that was not actually happening. And I wasn’t being present for the beauty in my life in the right here and now.

So, I set a boundary for myself: Aim, do your day, be present, show up with excellence for all your stuff, and then at the end of the day, you can take a half-hour or so to have at it with real estate. And guess what? I was much happier. I didn’t even use that half-hour most nights. The goal of buying a house became right-sized: something to look forward to, rather than something that consumed my every waking moment.

Our Buts and If Onlys are inherently human. Desires are healthy in that they show us what we want and where we are heading. They only become wonky when we make them a condition of our happiness, they rob us of being present for the good already in our lives, or they delude us into thinking that we will magically be happier when…

Practice Being Mindfully Present.

Let’s talk: mindfulness. How present are you? Have you ever been with a friend, but not really been there? Like, when they’re speaking, instead of truly listening, you’re formulating your next response. Or maybe you find yourself giving them pat answers so you can steer the conversation back to your stuff, check your texts, or get back to TikTok. I somehow never do this with my friends, my kids, or actually anyone in my life, except drumroll, my husband. (I know! So not proud!)

When my children were little, I would literally look that guy in the eye while he was man-splaining something; feign interest, nod politely, and even throw in a few um-hmms and wows for good measure. In reality, my brain was running through my mental...