All right, the devastating earthquake in Haiti isn’t breaking news anymore, but the Bitch would be cold and heartless indeed if she didn’t weigh in on what some short-sighted or incredibly idealistic headline writer is calling “The Disaster of the Century.” (After all, we still have 90 years to go, and even though the Doomsday Clock was just ratcheted down by a minute, we’re still seven minutes away from complete and total annihilation by a bunch of fuckwads, so let’s not forget that.)

But you can’t call yourself human and not feel something at the sudden (and probably horribly painful) deaths of a huge number of people. Numbers are impossible to estimate at this point, but they’re talking 50,000 – 100,000. People. Dead. That’s the size of a decent city. And THREE MILLION people in Haiti are affected by the earthquake in some way. Tons are homeless. Their tarpaper-and-spit shacks collapsed, not exactly being up to earthquake building code requirements. And now they’ve got nothing.

So, total dickwads like Pat Fucking Robertson aside (really? Haiti is cursed because it made a pact with the devil? is that the best you could come up with, Pat?), where do the rest of us stand on Haiti?

1. Fact. Haiti is a dinky country located where it’s hot and humid much of the time.

2. Fact. Despite being the first independent nation in Latin America, which sounds all civilized and shit, Haiti — like most of the world — has had an incredibly fucked-up history including pirates, slavery, smallpox, revolution, more slavery, dictatorships, coups, crushing poverty for most and incredible wealth for a few, and US military occupation.

3. Is this a reason to ignore Haiti? Most of us haven’t been there, have no family ties there, have enough shit to worry about…

Three fucking million people. That’s about how many Presbyterians live in the U.S., living right next door. You’d help them, right? But here, have a look at these photos. People’s homes. Lives. Gone. If you’re breathing, you’ll feel something here. Fucking help Haiti.

So, what’s it gonna be? Don’t give me any shit here. Three easy ways to send help to Haiti:

1. RIGHT NOW, you can text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti. It’ll be charged to your phone. Yele Haiti is a foundation created by musician Wyclef Jean to help impoverished people in his home country. So easy. Just fucking do it. (Hint: this works more than once.)

2. So you can get into this texting for Haiti thing, right? Then text “Haiti” to 90999 and you’ll be sending $10 to the Red Cross. Not as hip as Wyclef Jean, but whatever.

3. Want to give money the old-fashioned way? Fine. CARE is focusing on rescuing children trapped in the rubble of the schools they were attending when the quake hit. Next, they’ll focus on bringing water and food to those who need it. OXFAM is another highly respected aid organization, focusing for now on getting clean water to quake victims.

Go on. Go. What are you waiting for? Already gave money yesterday? Fine, great. Then give up your latte today and DO IT AGAIN.

I am brilliant. You knew that already, but dude. I am fucking BRILLIANT.

You know this world peace thing that has people holding hands and kumbayah-ing all over the place? It even has the evil corporate sellouts Starbucks on board with a trite-but-effective Hallmark moment on Youtube.

What? The Starbucks thing was for African AIDS awareness? Oh, whatever. SAME FUCKING THING.

Jeez.

Where was I?

Oh, right. The world peace bullshit. C’mon, people, we grow through conflict. Hasn’t anyone ever mentioned that before? “Turn the other cheek” never meant be a pussy and walk away from potential conflict, it meant BRING IT, BRO! BRING ME SOME ASS TO KICK!

But hey, I can profane the Bible in so many other ways. We’re talking world peace shit here.

Which I have a solution for.

Sure, I think the whole idea of peace is a little silly. After all, war gives people something to do. It helps keep the population down. It gives people something to fret about. It causes shitloads of karma. That stuff can’t be bad, right? I mean, without war we’d be, like, happy or something.

But hey, have it your way. And because I’m brilliant I have the solution. To end war.

Inflatable boxing gloves.

BOP. Put a pair of these bad boys on and whack away. Think about it: your boss, your wife, the dude with 11 items in the 10-items-or-less line. You name it. BOP. Conflict ENDED, man.

Issue a pair of these to every man, woman, and child (and the ambiguously-gendered; wouldn’t want to leave anyone out here) and you have your world peace within about two weeks. Just insist that any conflict be resolved with the inflatable boxing gloves or we’ll be cutting balls off.

Simple.

Effective.

So. Fucking. Brilliant.

As a spiritual practitioner, I get all kinds of clients. (You might say it takes all kinds, but that’s beside the point.) for the most part these are people who have begun to make thoughtful choices in their lives, and who are looking to consult a higher perspective in order to get the tools with which to make increasingly conscious choices in the future.

Fine.

Those people don’t suck.

Nor do they really need my help, much. They’re looking for a nudge and that’s what they get, a nice big hearty nudge that sends them off in the direction they want to go.

I love those people.

Then there are the Fix Mes. Whatever the problem, whether it’s Mommy Issues or Daddy Issues or body issues or self-flagellation issues, or if they just haven’t been laid in three years, these are the people who Just Want to Be Fixed.

NOW.

FIX ME NOW. Their puppy eyes gaze back at me over my crystal ball. FIX ME NOW. PLEASE.

The thing is, most of us want to be fixed. And now. Fix. Me. Now.

The other thing is, it’s not that simple.

I knew there was a catch! Dammit Bitch. What do I have to do, anyway? Work for it? I have to work for it don’t I? It takes 7 years? Fine, I’ll wait. 7 years. Just fix me now, willya? Just a little? Pretty please?

Yeah, well, no. It doesn’t work that way.

It’s not that healing doesn’t take work, because it often does. It doesn’t have to, but most of you love self-inflicted pain, so off you go making things harder for yourself than you have to.

But the main problem is that when you offer your tender white throat up on the sacrificial block to be fixed by whatever high priestess you desire (and I look smashing in high priestess garb), you GIVE YOUR FREAKING POWER AWAY.

And how many times have we talked about that?

When you start thinking of yourself as

a) broken, and

b) incapable of fixing yourself, you end up becoming

c) fucked,

because there is nothing anyone else can do TO YOU that you cannot already do for yourself.

BROKEN + HELPLESS = FUCKED

The Quick Fix, i.e. Lose Ten Pounds in 3 Days! does not exist. Whatever “fix” you receive from another person is like crack. You know about Workshop Junkies, don’t you? People who adore going to spiritual or self-help or motivational workshops? They zoom into all that collective juice and come away thinking they are going to CHANGE and BE HEALED and TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, but then a few days or a couple of weeks go by and things look about the same. The sky is gray and dull again and lines are long and traffic is slow and there’s never any parking. And people suck and hell, THINGS DIDN’T CHANGE WTF? And then they sign up for another workshop so they can CHANGE and BE HEALED.

Is that what you want?

I’m not saying that the alternative is all about crying and tantrums and painful childhood revelations. It doesn’t have to be.

But when you stop asking to be fixed, you stop thinking of yourself as broken.

And when you stop thinking of yourself as broken, stuff magically heals.

So put that in your 2010 pipe and take a deep deep drag. Smoke me, baby. You’re hot and you’re not broken.

(Oh, hey, and that 10 pounds? Stop treating yourself like a fat person and they’ll go away, too.)

Goodbye, Year of Suckage aka 2009.

Oh, not for me. I had a fabulous year. For you. I know how many of you have been sniveling about the various woes of 2009, and I know that you’re now looking forward to casting all that aside with one flip of a calendar page.

Well, hell. It ain’t that simple, baby. And yet it is.

Fine, Bitch. Explain yourself, wouldja?

No problem. I’m always happy to oblige.

1. It’s not that simple. So what was your beef about 2009?  It was a tough year for a lot of people. I don’t mean to say Quit your complaining, lots of people have it way worse than you, but I could say that. But it was a rough year. Not just from the economy tanking, people losing hope for change, foreclosures, homelessness, hunger, hopelessness, and litigious ex-husbands, no — there was a lot going on. On an energetic level. Woo-woo bullshit, the kind that’s real and smacks you in the ass.

You’re a sensitive person. You felt this. SMACK! You dug deep inside yourself and brought up all kinds of sewer sludge that now you’re wishing was still buried in there. And now you’re looking around helplessly, wondering what to do with all the shit inside you that you can no longer hide.

This is why it’s not so simple to change your outlook by changing the page of a calendar. Your shit travels with you.

2. It’s easy-peasy lemon-squeezie. Seriously, people, you’re making this way harder than it needs to be. So sure, you unearthed a bunch of nasty stuff and you can’t get rid of it. Right? Is this where we are now?

Fine. I’ll give away my secrets. Because I sort of like you.

Here it is. It’s in two parts, so pay attention. If you blink you’ll miss it.

A. Be open to the possibility that things can change for you in a way that’s easy and painless.

B. Then fucking forget about it.

Yeah, I’m serious about that last thing. Forget about it. Go on with your life. Let go of needing to let go. Take one step and then another. How many new-age platitudes do I need to roll out here, anyway? Just take a breath and do whatever you need to do in the next moment.

And if you do that? You are going to kick 2010’s ASS. I promise.

Now go. Kick some ass.

We all have a friend like this. You know the one. Ditsy, big watery eyes, forever gazing up at the sky and sighing with apparent lack of brain function. And then looking at you earnestly, telling you that in order to be happy, you have to forgive yourself.

Excuse me? And WTF?

Forgive MYSELF? Dude. You don’t know who you’re dealing with here.

I have forever banned from my inbox one such chirpy optimist who sends out delightful email missives all too frequently, each one containing nuggets like, “As we bring our fears to the Light, to Source, fear cannot be sustained and it dissolves in the intensity of Love.”

Gag.

And this chirpy optimist (hey, nothing wrong with optimism — I practice it every time I exhale, trusting that I’m going to breathe in again) chirps about the beauty of forgiveness. As if this forgiveness is a magical state of enlightenment that we must all strive to attain.

Oh. That’s what you thought forgiveness was too, isn’t it? Something magical. That will solve all your problems.

Well, get over it. It’s not.

Forgiveness, simply put, is the act of releasing an energetic hold placed on another. This energetic hold arises when you look outside yourself for the source of pain or discomfort you feel inside. In other words, it starts with blame.

Hoo hah.

Oh, I forgot. You’re really good at blame.

In fact, 50% of you are really really good at blaming yourselves. For everything. And everything receives the same amount of blame. Burn the toast? “Oh, how horrible, my toastmaking skills suck, I FAIL!”  Encounter a red light on the way to work? “OMG I suck at driving, I’m going to be late, I should have taken a different street, I FAIL!” You’re a brain surgeon and you lose a patient? “I SUCK! I don’t have brains in my fingers! I should have been an electrician! I FAIL!”

And while that’s entertaining — watching people self-flagellate and cry Glenn Beck-style Vicks Vaporub-enhanced crocodile tears while tearing out their hair and gouging their eyes out with a spork — it’s nowhere near as fun as what the other 50% of you do, which I call The Dance of Blame. Burn the toast? “You SUCK! Why’d you buy this toaster anyhow! What a stupid toaster! Who the fuck wants toast anyhow!” Red light on the way to work? “STUPID LIGHT! Hey! Fuckhead! Yeah, you! If you actually drove the fucking SPEED LIMIT we would not all be here waiting at this fucking LIGHT!” Failed brain surgeon? “STUPID FUCK! He just HAD to go in for fucking surgery, the asshole, and then STOP BREATHING on my table! HOW DARE HE DIE! Doesn’t deserve to live!”

And while blame can be really really entertaining (a national pastime, really), let’s not forget it’s just one piece of this forgiveness bullshit. That’s right, in order to “forgive” yourself you first have to go into Blame Mode and get all weepy and berate yourself for not taking enough Me Time.

Ew. That just feels crappy, doesn’t it?

And in order to forgive OTHERS — well, seriously, why would you want to? If you’re a blame-everyone-else kind of person, then releasing your hold on that blame isn’t going to be easy. You LIKE blaming. It’s part of the empty shell of identity you’ve crafted around yourself. Think you’ll give that up easily, just because some New Age shithead tells you that you won’t be happy until you forgive everyone on a very long list of people you’ve ever known? Hardly.

So now what?

The Bitch has the answer.

To start off, own your shit.

That’s right, own it. You’re a blamer? Do it loud and proud. But don’t take yourself too seriously, because everyone around you knows you’re full of shit. Blame yourself continually? Then go over the top with it. “OH MY GOD THE TOAST IS BURNED! MY LIFE IS OVER! KILL ME NOW!” People will also know you’re full of shit and begin to ignore you, as they should, instead of rushing to your aid. Owning your self-blame is actually more difficult than owning your blaming of others, because socially, we reward self-blamers. But get over it and just be dramatic. Enjoy it.

Next step. After you totally own your blame, ask yourself this question:

Can I, at least for right now, let go of this stupid-ass grudge I’ve been holding for the past 8 years and pretend it never happened? Just for now?

If the answer in your head comes back “Yes,” then do it. Let it go. You’re not obligating yourself to forever. It’s just for that moment.

If the answer in your head comes back “No,” ask it why the fuck not! Ask it why you’re insisting on being a total douche, and remind that fucking voice that we’re talking about just for a moment — a nanosecond — and what the fuck is so scary about that? And then challenge that fucking voice to a face fish-slapping duel if it won’t listen and fucking let go for like a SECOND.

And forget about forgiving. And get on with your life.

Chances are you see this every day:

I made that one up. So what. But guess what it is?  If you know me, you’ve probably already guessed.  Masturbation.  Using, of course, my amazing, new, tried-and-true technique! (Only available if you visit my alter-ego porn site and subscribe for $119.95 a month. I guarantee it’ll help you more than seeing your shrink. Because, guys, it WON’T make you shrink.)

Politics, like a lot of life, is filled with this shit.  I will not lower your taxes!  Through me you’ll have jobs! Security! Wealth! A winning side! A scapegoat! You’re the “best country in the world”! I’ll tell you anything you want!

Why do you fall for this, time and time again? Obviously, because you know it’s true.  I have something you don’t have that you absolutely NEED. The Bitch is self-assured, relaxed, all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and I can give you all you ever need. Just suck up to me.

Wait … not *that* way. (Your mind is totally in the gutter. Get it OUT of there and listen up.)

Remember a short while ago we talked about what you really want?  You still don’t know what you want if any of this appealed to you in the slightest.  Because I just told you what you do want, what you’re missing, and how to fill that huge hole in your soul that I just told you you have.  And a part of you still believed me.

So what’s the problem here? What am I venting about?

We are raised to be good, upstanding members of society.  Put in other terms: we’re raised to be disconnected from our Self and each other. We’re expected to be unquestioning, to be totally believing of others’ bullshit, and to be bowled over by peer pressure.  If we have to make a tough decision – like in the photo – chances are we whine, “what should I dooo?” Not what we WANT, but what we should do. If you’re really fucked up, which means you’re “normal”, you’ll be translating “should” into “want” in everything you do so as not to appear like the indoctrinated mush of putty that you are.  What you want is exactly what you’re told that you should want. No need to listen to that silent inner voice; it’s already muzzled.

All this sales shit is geared towards that gnawing emptiness you believe is you. It supports it and creates it.  No matter how “enlightened” someone is, if they’re trying to get you to improve, there’s some of that crap there.

If you pick up a New Age magazine, what you’ll see is more of the same: advertisements, solutions to your problems, products, more happy-sounding thoughts and shit to fill that empty hole that is your soul.  But it will only connect you to Who You Are if you stop believing you’re that pile of mush.

I’ll tell you what the Bitch likes: being treated like I’m already enlightened. Because I am. Yes, I still have pain, angst, anger (like that doesn’t show), and a hell of a lot of estrogen. And balls. My idea of enlightenment includes that. And you’re enlightened too. Even without the masturbation (or with, because dude—whatever blows your skirt up).

Oh yes, and I go for the penguins.  Not the bus.

The Bitch has been busy.

Not only that, but The Bitch is just effing tired. Heh, I said ‘effing’ when I go ahead and say ‘fuck’ in the title. That’s irony. Either that, or The Bitch is just freaking tired. Too tired to type proper profanity.

So what’s new with you?

You know what? I should probably care about SEO optimization and all that shit but I don’t. I’m just downloading what’s in my head here. We don’t even spellcheck.

So when I start talking about my real topic, you won’t be surprised, will you?  So here we go:

Last week there was an election. Remember that? And a whole bunch of people were like crazy happy, because in one day, ONE FREAKING DAY PEOPLE, the world changed. Colors were brighter. People smiled at one another. People hugged each other (except for the gays in California, who are still not allowed legal hugging) and remembered what it was like to hope.

Hope.

Hope is a fucking transient thing, people.

[I should mention here that while a whole bunch of people were chill about the electionary outcome, a whole bunch more were pretty pissed off. It usually goes like that.]

[But fuck them since I know who I voted for anyway.]

Hope. What’s up with that, anyway? One day we’re all boo-hoo-the-world-sucks, and the next it’s like dude!-look-at-all-the-colors!-shiny! You know? And what’s happened since then? Seriously. I want to know. What’s happened?

The sun still comes up, right? And it still goes down? And you’re still paying off your mortgage (or not) and working at your job (or not), and things are pretty much the same as they were the day before the election. Right? Still drinking the same coffee? Still have two-legs-two-arms-two-eyes-a-brain (or not)?

I’ll tell you what’s different.

Hope.

You thought things would change, and so your perception of things changed. That’s all. Your perception. Remember this, will you? Because next time you’re all boo-hoo about something, remember it’s not the THING that needs to change for you to feel better about it, but YOUR PERCEPTION OF THAT THING. That’s all. An attitude adjustment. Change your brain, change your life (without the extra helping of judgment that there is something WRONG with your brain, okay?). That’s all it takes. Looking at things differently.

What, not convinced?

Fine.

An example, then.

Two people. Person A sells or gives away all his shit. All of it. Every last bit. He doesn’t make a ton of money from the selling, and he’s careful to give his shit to people who might love it the way he did. He’s left with what fits in his car. People ask, “WTF?” and he says, “OMG, I can’t believe what’s happening to me. I feel so fucking powerless. I had to sell all my shit and now I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. THIS SUCKS.”

Person B sells or gives away all his shit. All of it. Every last bit. He doesn’t make a ton of money from the selling, and he’s careful to give his shit to people who might love it the way he did. He’s left with what fits in his car. People ask, “WTF?” and he says, “DUDE! I feel so free! This is totally awesome, like, I am CONNECTED with the universe! You should try it.”

Okay, maybe this one is too obvious. But who is, um, happier? Who has hope? Who seems more open to the possibilities that life might just be sort of okay after all, even when things sort of suck?

Now, I’m not asking you to go all Pollyanna here, but seriously: who do you want to be, Person A (the realist), or Person B (obviously on hallucinogenics)?

See? It’s all in how you look at it.

I read a Twitter lament recently from someone lambasting the bazillions of homeowners who got in over their heads with loans they couldn’t possibly repay, and it got me to thinking about what made those homeowners sign away their first-born with blood on a dotted line made of precariously leaning towers of sub-prime greed.

1.  They were sorta greedy.

Everyone wants the American Dream.  You know what I mean:  the 4 bedroom 2.5 bath 3-car-garage behemoth in the suburbs, where nobody walks and you drive through two miles of identical rows of identical houses to a big fresh new-smelling mall where everyone gathers to eat by themselves in the drive-thru lane of Burger King, or if it’s a special night they wait 90 minutes for a table at Applebee’s or Olive Garden and eat the same thing thousands of people are eating all over the country at the same fucking time. 

Yeah. That dream.

That’s the dream that has sold 5 million iPhones.  That’s the dream that skyrocketed Wal-Mart to its place among the walking undead of capitalism. That’s the empty dream that millions of people have been chasing for years.

2.  They were sorta stupid.

They didn’t do their homework.  They thought, as many did, that the bubble would never burst, that the markets would continue to go up forever, that a real estate investment is a sure thing and not the crap shoot that it really is. Tons of people have bought into this mindset, so if it’s you, you’re not alone. But do you know how many people willingly put themselves into hock for $300K, $400K, or more based on the emotionalism of “But honey, it has a three-car garage and a jacuzzi!”*

3.  They believed the loan officer.

We believe doctors, lawyers, and anybody sitting on the other side of a desk from us.  Why?  Because they display their diploma on the wall behind us! 

This gives them the ability to know what is right for us?? Hardly. But we fucking do it all the time. Somehow that white coat, that desk, that diploma, renders us incapable of making a decision on our own and gives the person wearing that white coat or brandishing that diploma the Ultimate Authority to Decide Our Lives.

So fucking stop it. Stop giving away your power. Stop thinking that other people know more about you or your life than you do. Because the Bitch is fucking tired of it.

You do this, you know you do. You’re a nice person, right? So you’re concerned about what people think of you, right?

ZINNNNG!

That’s giving away your power. The SECOND you second-guess yourself about something because of what someone else might think or say or do, your power goes right out the window. You might as well sign over the papers to it right now. Go ahead. Sign ‘em over.

“But, Bitch!” I can hear you whining right now, “Those people, they’re Experts! They went to school and stuff! I don’t know ’bout birthin’ no babies!”

Yeah, and I’m sure you heard at some point that a third of doctors and lawyers graduated in the bottom third of their class, right? What makes you think these people know any more than you do, especially when it comes to YOUR FUCKING LIFE?

“But, Bitch!” You’re still whining. “I’m just being respectful! These people went to school and they studied and they, like, KNOW stuff!”

Shut up. Shut. Up.

Do you hear yourself?

Do you hear that sucking sound?

That’s the sound of YOUR power being sucked right out from inside you, YOUR power that you’re willingly giving away to anybody else, ANYBODY but you.

Why?

Because you’re fucking afraid to own your own power.

True.

You’re afraid. We’re taught to fear the power we all are born with, the power we all own. We are taught to just give it away to anybody who seems more educated, smarter, or more powerful than we are. We are not taught to own what we came here with.

The thing is, YOU are the person who knows what’s best for you. Sure, a loan officer, a doctor, a lawyer is going to have some specialized knowledge that comes from schooling and experience that maybe you don’t have.

But you still have the ability to know what is right for you. You just don’t believe that you do. It’s easier to give it away and trust someone else, and to hand over your life and your future to someone else. It’s easier to do that than it is to own what you came here with.

Trouble is, if you decide to own your power, then you also own the consequences of the choices you make when you own your power. You can’t blame anyone else anymore. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to look to yourself not only for your power but also for whatever happens when you make (gasp!) a mistake?

If you can do THAT, then you automatically have a toehold over everyone else in the universe. You make choices, you make choices that feel shitty and so feel like mistakes, and you learn. Ba dum bum. That’s life. But it feels a helluva lot better than giving away your power and feeling fucking helpless.

Take back your power. Take back your life. It’s YOUR life, after all.

*Okay, that was a rhetorical question, but if you demand an answer, it’s this: A FUCKING LOT OF THEM! ALMOST EVERYONE YOU KNOW! There, was that specific enough?

So I may have mentioned before that I read other people’s blogs.  Guilty.  The Bitch reads blogs all fucking day, sacrificing her precious eyeballs for you people.  Fucking ungrateful.  And the Bitch is like an Internet Sponge, soaking up all the crap awesomeness that’s floating around out there.  And lately I’ve been running across some really awesome stuff, at least when measured by the Bitch-O-Meter.  Take this one.  This guy Tim starts off talking about words, and then look what happened!  First he totally pisses me off by telling me to “mind my language” (as if!) and then he gets all wise and shit and starts saying stuff that makes sense.  So go read it.

Fuck, I don’t mean now. Finish THIS post first, and THEN click. *Eyeroll*

Anyway.  I got to the end of Tim’s post where he’s talking about phrases to use instead of the garbage some of us usually fill our heads with, and when I came to “I want…”, fucking lightbulbs were exploding ALL OVER.  Seriously!  You know that mythical “aha!” moment we’re supposed to have when we think of something brilliant?  Well, picture that times like a thousand, because The Bitch is THAT brilliant.  Brilliant times a thousand.  And that’s like a hundredth of the actual lightbulbs.

I want.

Say that a couple of times, will you?

I want.

How does that feel?  Kind of weird, right?

See, the thing is, we’re all sort of fucked up when to comes to “I want.”  Lots of us, when we’re kids or something, are told in one way or another that saying “I want” is a bad thing.  Selfish, maybe.  We should think of others, not ourselves.  Think of those poor starving kids in China while you choke down those cold congealed peas!  And next time eat everything on your plate!

So “I want” has judgments.

And then we put “I want” away.  We don’t know what we want, because we’ve hidden it away in a dark closet somewhere.

Or, we go crazy with “I want.”  We run up enormous credit bills filled with “I want,” each trying to make a dent in the emptiness we feel inside.  We fill bigger and bigger houses with boatloads of crap destined to take over our landfills, and still it’s not enough.  We still feel that emptiness, even when surrounded by everything we thought we wanted.

The trouble is, we still don’t know what we want.  We’re running after something, sure, but we haven’t gotten to the heart of it.  “I want” is still hidden.  It’s underneath that pile of crap, hidden below a stack of credit card statements.

Oh, we talk about what we want all the time.  “I want world peace!” we chirp, or “I want a warm house in a safe neighborhood where I can raise my family!”  We talk about wanting stuff, but it’s the stuff that it’s okay to say we want.  These things are socially acceptable, so we are conditioned to want them.  A 4 bedroom 2.5 bath house in the suburbs, 1.7 kids, an iPhone and a Prius.  That’s what we want.  And while we’re at it, we want good government, adequate and available health care, world peace, an end to climate change, our health, and maybe some more Doritos.

We want what everyone else wants because it’s okay to want that.

But we still don’t know what WE want.

What do you want?

Feel that?  You had to take a deep breath, didn’t you?  You know why?

Because you don’t know what you want.

Most of us don’t know what we REALLY want.  Knowing what you want takes WORK.  You have to dig deep.  You think about what you want and then you go deeper:  WHY do you want that?  And digging deeper takes guts.  It takes courage.  It takes the strength to really look at yourself and answer questions with honesty.  And most of us aren’t all that willing to do that.  It’s hard.  It brings stuff up.  It feels icky.  And it reveals answers that may not fit within the image of ourselves we thought we had.  It reveals a person we didn’t know we were.

Is that what you want?

Do you want to find out who you really are?

Then start asking yourself, What do I want? And start listening to the answers.

Sigh.

You know that voice?  The one in your head?  The voice in your head that tells you stuff?  You know the one I mean.  You’ve been listening to that little fucker for years now, and I am here to tell you that it is EATING ALL YOUR BRAIN CELLS.

This is the voice I mean.  Tell me this isn’t familiar to you.  ONE of these is in your head, almost guaranteed.

1.  You’re so fat.  Look at you, you’re hideous in these clothes!  Ugh, everyone can see how you look, you’re just huge!  Nothing hides it, you are so fat.  Fat and lumpy and ugly.  Fat, fat, fat.

2.  You’re a failure.  Nothing you do ever goes right.  Everything you do is wrong.  You can never do anything.  You never finish anything.  You might as well not even bother trying anymore, because you’ll just fail again.

3.  God you’re ugly.  Ugly as hell.  Look at you.  No one will ever love you like that.  You are ug-LEE, dude.  Ugly.

4.  No one fucking likes you.  They’re just pretending.  People can’t stand you.  They whisper behind your back; they’re always talking about you.  See how they turn around when you come in the room?  They can’t stand you.

5.  Why do you even exist?  You can’t do anything right, you’re fat, you’re ugly, no one even likes you.  Useless.  What’s the point?  You’re better off dead.

Yo, people, I’m like fucking depressed after typing that shit.  You know how that gets to you?  I mean, somewhere inside you know it isn’t true, but then you hear that voice, the voice that sounds like YOU, and you go, “Well, maybe…” and then you open up all kinds of trouble right there.  You start believing what you’re hearing, and you tell yourself that the stupid fucking voice in your head is more real than what you feel way deep down inside.

Mind fuck.

It’s a form of karma.  Karma with the self.  You create this situation that ends up limiting your own choices, because you become so paralyzed in the trance of that voice that’s you and not-you at the same time, and then all of a sudden you’re the deer in the headlights.  Stopped cold.  Staring blindly into the lights of the oncoming car that’s rushing toward you, about to crush your skull and return you to the Source of All That Is.

Except you weren’t quite ready to be dead yet, so you just ACT as if you were dead.  Because you’re now a fucking ZOMBIE and you can’t think for yourself because you’re now in the grip of that stupid fucking voice.  The voice that’s only real because you’ve tricked yourself into believing it is.

Well, fucking stop it, will you?

Except it’s not that easy, is it?  You’ve come to rely on that voice.  You’re used to it.  You think it’s real, more real than that OTHER voice way down deep inside, the one that should be fucking shouting but instead just emits a pathetic little peep of doubt from time to time.

So you have to train yourself to stop listening.  It’s not easy, people, I won’t lie to you.  But this is what you can do.  You’re going to trick yourself again, see?  Just  like you did a long long time ago when this little fucker started talking to you and you started believing it.  But that was a long time ago and you’re a different person now.  You’re older and you’re wiser and you’re better equipped to choose the soundtrack that plays in your head.

Okay, from now on, every time you hear anything negative in your head, the very beginning of that narrative you know so well, just shout out a big “No!”

“NO!”

That’s all it takes.

Because you are choosing now which voice you will believe.

You are choosing now, and you can do this.  Just start with “no.”  Saying “no” will open up a new door, one that you closed a long time ago.  The door is still there and it’s been there all this time but you weren’t using it.  So you know where to go once you get the door open.  Just open the door with a “no,” and things will start to change.  It takes time.  You have to do this over and over.  But once you get the door open with your “no,” you can start a new narrative, one filled with things you like.

1.  You have everything you need inside you, and you always did.

2.  You are an amazing person.

3.  There is a glow of energy around you, and people notice it.

[One caveat here.  You know the fortune cookie joke, the one where at the end of reading any fortune you add the words "in bed"?  Be sure you are not adding Evil Fortune Cookie Crap to the end of your new sentences.  Do NOT, for instance, do this:  "You have everything you need inside you, and you always did but you're such a fuck-up that you failed to see this all this time and you suck!  You FAIL!"]

See?  Don’t do that last bit.

Need extra help?  Cover your ears with your hands, and start just singing something nonsensical.  ANYTHING to get your mind off that old voice and the crap it tells you.  (Just don’t make it “Feelings” unless you want The Bitch to start stabbing herself repeatedly in the eye with the business end of a USB cord.)

How long does this take?  Depends.  It took you awhile to get to this point, so undoing your own mind-fuck takes some time.  But you should start noticing changes.  And seriously, this is your chance to give yourself a gift that’s anything you want.  Anyone you want to be, that you know deep down you really are, that’s what you want this new-old voice to be telling you.  That’s the voice that never left you, that was always there, but you forgot about it.  Pay attention to it.  Open that door again and let it out to play.

You won’t regret it.