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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

Like the Bitch? Dude. Of course you do. Then go ahead and subscribe to my RSS feed!

(Fuck, Bitch, where have you been?)

Well, have you looked here?  That’s right, people, The Bitch does guest posts.  Call me if you want things shaken up over at your place.  Have a quick look at my blog standards first, just in case.

Okay, moving on here.  We need to talk about something that’s been cluttering up the internets for far too long, taking up space that could be useful.  You know what I’m talking about:  self-deprecating humor.

The next time you laugh at, say, Amalah the Mommyblogger, ask yourself, “What the fuck am I laughing at?  How is this shit funny?”  Oh, sure, we laugh at people poking fun at themselves.  And here’s why:  Better them than me.

Sure, it’s easy to laugh at someone falling all over their ass or imagining that they were going to fall all over their ass and wondering what other people are thinking about them or would think if they actually did fall all over their ass, and then writing about it in a charmingly self-deprecatory way.  That’s fucking funny, we think.  Because it’s 1.) Not us, and 2.) Laughing at the stupid shit we do has become socially acceptable, and socially expected.

So when did it become passe to talk about ourselves in a positive way?  To say things like, “Hey look, I am fucking-A awesome!”  People who do that are thought of as assholes, even if they’re sort of right.  (Or they’re worshiped, the way you worship The Bitch, but that’s WHY you love me.  Because I am so different.  Plus I’m totally hot.)

I’m tired of this fakery shit, though.  Sure, people are capitalizing on their feelings of inner inadequacy by processing them in a highly public manner, and The Bitch is all about going public with inner shit, but this stuff feeds on itself and creates more.  One person writing about the time they fell down a hill because their fucking heel broke but they had a glass of wine so people thought they were drunk off their ass and never believed the story about the breaking heel and OMG they are soooo embarrassed by this and can never never never show their face in public again (never mind all the hundreds of Flickr sets devoted to said blogger and blogger’s drunkblogging and drunkblogging blogfriends)* just creates this giant sucking VACUUM that other people rush in to fill.  But people, you cannot possibly fill the void of someone else’s feeling of inadequacy by writing about your own.  Just because this shit is popular does not mean it’s even remotely useful except as a global communal catharsis tool.  And rushing in to fill that fucking vacuum only makes the holes in yourself appear bigger.

Instead, I want people to write about the great stuff they do.  Everybody has successes; when did they become something to hide?  Hey, you made toast this morning?  WAY TO GO!  YOU ARE AWESOME!  At least, if it was superior toast.  None of this bread-no-warmer-than-if-I-stuck-the-slice-under-my-arm shit.  I want REAL toast.  Toast-colored toast.  THAT is something to be proud of.

And let’s take this a step further:  don’t limit your anti-trash talk about yourself to what you put on the internet.  Is it a crime to say “I am wonderful!” and actually mean it?  I mean, who among you is truly NOT wonderful?  Why can’t you just SAY IT, for fuck’s sake?

And sure, lots of us have this fucked-up inner voice inside us telling us how shitty we are.  But that stuff is NOT TRUE, so you have my permission to stop listening to it, RIGHT NOW.  In fact, every time you hear that voice, I want you to tell it to go fuck itself, that YOU are in charge, and that YOU MAKE AWESOME TOAST.

~~~~~

From the this-would-be-fucked-up-if-it-wasn’t-so-funny department, The Bitch received a death threat in response to her post about vigilante vegetarians.  So if you laughed at that post, I have to assume you’re included in the threat.  Watch out for people wielding fur coats and tomato stakes.

*This is a TOTALLY hypothetical blogstory, but if it wasn’t TOTALLY hypothetical you could probably read about something very similar to it here.

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As you know, I exist to enlighten you heathens from the bullshit that lies amid the fucked-up swill that is the New Age and self-help movement. (Doesn’t the phrase “New Age” make you want to throw up a little? I can barely type it without losing my breakfast into my laptop. Ditto “self-help.” Fuck that.) My modus operandi is a little like decorating a golden brick with lotus flowers and then smashing your brains out with it. Whatever works, that’s my motto, even if it requires reconstructive brain surgery afterward. Whatever. It’s your brain, not mine. You asked for enlightenment, right?

Today’s topic: your thoughts create your reality. Change your thoughts, change your life!

If there wasn’t some truth to this, why would you be reading a bitch like me?

But here’s the problem: far more often than creating something empowering from this concept, people use it to punish themselves.  They say, “Oh, well, this shitty dumbass thing happened to me, so I must have created it.  I am a bad person for creating this bad thing in my life!”  Or they say, “I had a desire to slip an overdose of laxatives into that arrogant prick’s morning coffee today, so I must not be a loving person. Oh no! I must control my thoughts!”   Or, “I’m feeling shitty, and I had all these bad thoughts about myself, so I need to clench my butt cheeks and think only happy-Oprah* thoughts!”

Notice a thread here?  Control.   It’s all about control, people.

Yes, your thoughts do have an effect on you and on your life. But you can’t control them. You can’t control your emotions, either. Most of the time we can’t even control our bodies. I know how my body reacts when a spandex-clad** aging crooner starts singing “Feelings.”  Can’t control it.  And it isn’t pretty. (That sound you’re hearing now?  Ever hear a cat about to throw up?  ulp.ulp.ulp.ulp.  You hear it and you know what’s coming and there’s no way in hell to stop it.  Splat!  It’s a little like that, times about a thousand.)

Here’s an experiment to show you that you can’t control your thoughts.  Ready?  Okay:  do not think about red monkeys.  Do. Not. Think about red monkeys.

You can’t think about anything BUT red monkeys right now, can you?  There’s fucking red monkeys ALL OVER THE PLACE.  See?  And trying to NOT think about something only makes that thing more present.  Go play this with someone else and have some fun.

Do you know why you like The Bitch? Because I don’t try to control my thoughts. They are the same thoughts that you have and don’t admit to having—and you laugh because you’re seeing that they’re not so bad after all. (Though hopefully you’re not thinking about spandex men singing “Feelings”. Then you’d really be kind of fucked up and I’m not sure I want to know you.)

This isn’t to say that we’re helpless peons at the unholy mercy of our fucked-up thoughts and feelings. Of course there is choice and free will and all that.

But you want to know a secret?  Lean in a little closer.

If someone tells you to control yourself – or your thoughts – they are trying to control you.

Oh fuck, I don’t mean the Vulcan Mind Meld or anything.  No one is trying to turn you into a fucking robot.  But asking you, expecting you, to change your thoughts is a subtle form of control.

It’s brainwashing, people. Wipe you clean, ma’am?  If you can get people to try to do something impossible, like controlling the uncontrollable, of course they’ll come back time and again asking for more help and advice. Side of fries with that brainwash?  And you give them your power, willingly, because you feel like a failure.  You buy into the idea that you need to put away a part of yourself in order to feel accepted.  You try and you try and you try, failing every time (because you’re trying to do the impossible), and every time wondering what more you could have done.  You give away more and more of your own power every time you do this.

The bitch does not want your power. I totally deserve your worship, but only because I’m helping you become enlightened. No one deserves your power.  No one except you.  I help you find your own inner Bitch, and for that I of course have your undying endless gratitude.  Also you can send money.

Back to the whole “you create your own reality” thing. Does the Bitch disagree with that concept? Of course not. Look at the reality I’m creating for you right here. No spandex, for one thing.  Freedom of thought and expression.  Feel how good it is to call me a bitch?  Go on, say it.  You know you want to.  And then say “fuck.”  Right out loud.  And then say, “I am perfect.”  (Because you know I am.)(And more importantly, I know I am.)

But even though my words say something else, the Bitch isn’t about ego. The Bitch is about honesty, about calling things for what they are, and about having fun at the same time. That’s my reality.

What’s yours?

*That’s the thin Oprah, obviously.

**Yet another type of control.  And while a nice pair of Spanx cures a lot of ills, nothing can make “Feelings” palatable.

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Last night I attended a free talk by some healer-person shilling for her new book.  She presented herself as having developed this “revolutionary” new healing method, and after droning uncomfortably on about it for an hour (note to public speakers:  connecting with your audience is actually important! please take note!), she opened up the floor for questions.

Q:  O guru healer-person in whom I am blindly and unthinkingly placing all my trust and faith, how can we mere ignorant mortals apply this revolutionary new amazing healing method in our own lives please oh please?

A:  That’s going to be in my second book.*

Q:  Oh, but healer-guru, we are here now and you talked about empowering ourselves, and we really really want to know what we can do to apply this revolutionary new amazing healing method in our own lives please oh please?

A:  Chapter 8 in my book [glancing over at the table stacked ceiling-high with copies of said book] has some exercises that I stole from Osho.  You can do those.  Basically, shake and scream for awhile and then you can go to a place of inner stillness.

Q:  WTF?

Q:  Okay, guru-person, we are getting restless now.  You made a promise.  You were going to tell us how to heal ourselves.  How, o how, can we do that?

A:  Meditate.

Q:  That’s it?   Meditate?

A:  Yup.

[This is where they stormed the stage and bore the guru-person off on a rail while they shouted something about stabbing her in the chakras.  It got sort of ugly.]

Meditation. It’s billed as a panacea, something that will cure every ill and imbalance.  You.Must.Meditate.

But … what is meditation, exactly?

Most people view meditation as a sort of struggle.  Calming the monkey mind.  Cultivating stillness, inside and out, so as to eradicate every thought.  KILL THE THOUGHTS!!  BANISH THOUGHTS FROM YOUR MIND!  MAKE YOUR MIND EMPTY!!

Fuck that.  That’s almost impossible.  And trying to do it sets you up for all sorts of judgments (I am having thoughts!  I FAIL meditation!  I am a baaaaad person!), resentments (FUCK meditation!), and disconnects you from what you’re trying to accomplish, which is self-awareness.

Let me say that again:  meditation is simply a way to gain self-awareness.  It’s not supposed to be anything other than that.

By observing yourself without judgment, you learn about the patterns of response and reaction that habitually come up for you.

So what is meditation?  Observation.  Nothing more, and nothing less.  It’s a keen observation of yourself on every level—physical, emotional, and intellectual—and completely without judgment.

And it can be done anywhere, under any condition.  There are no “rules” to meditation.  You don’t need to sit on a special bench or cushion.  You don’t need incense.  You don’t need a fucking temple bell to tell you when to start and stop.  You can do those things if it helps, but there are no requirements.  None.  You can meditate at any time and in any place and in any manner by which you are willing to objectively observe yourself.

Now we’ll open the floor up for questions.

Q:  Sex?  During sex?

A:  Whoa, slow down there!  Well, yes.  ONLY if you can do it so that you can objectively observe yourself while you are otherwise, uh, engaged.  But dude.  If the idea excites you so much that it’s your first question out of the starting gate, there’s probably something in the experience for you.  So go for it.  I’m not sure I’d want to be your partner, but whatever.

Q:  What about breathing?  I heard that meditation is about breathing.

A:  Of course.  Breathing is important.  (Forget to breathe for long enough and you’ll be dead, which makes the whole meditation thing kind of pointless.  Way to get out of meditating!)  The way you breathe not only says a lot about you but it also affects how you move energy through your body.  And since the ultimate way of experiencing anything is through the physicality that is your body, your experiences are going to be affected by your breath.  So when meditating, one of the things you will be observing is, naturally, your breath.

Q:  But … HOW should I meditate?  Can I read about it?  Tell me all the answers, guru-person!

A:  Number one, I’m not your guru, so stop it.  I’m your bitch.  Number two, yes, you can read all about meditation all over the place, but DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE FUCKING RULES.  Reading about something like meditation naturally opens you up for asking stupid questions like, “Am I doing this right?”

• Meditation shouldn’t hurt.

If you’re not comfortable, don’t do it.  Stop and get comfortable.  Try to get comfortable enough that you can move beyond thinking about how comfortable you are, but there’s no reason to try to get past the pain or to breathe into the pain because hello, the pain shouldn’t be there.

• Give yourself time.

Think about meditation as a gift you are giving yourself.  It’s the one time when you can access some inner stillness.  But be patient; the stillness doesn’t happen overnight, and it can take time to get to that point especially if you continue to fight with yourself.  But just having a quiet half-hour to yourself can be an enormous gift.  Allowing yourself the freedom to let that time develop as it will, not caring if, for instance, you use it to plan the next day’s menu or to write an important email in your head, is part of that gift.  Judging yourself for failing that day’s meditation just lets you feel shitty about yourself in yet one more way.  Who needs that?

• Meditation will change your life.

Seriously.  If you let it, anyway.  Stuff will come up, so be prepared.  No one said this was going to be easy.  Stuff will come up, and you’ll look at it.  The end.  No need for judgments.  And if you start judging yourself for moving back into old patterns and crappy-feeling emotions, oh well.  Clear the slate and start over next day.

But if you make it a regular part of your life, you’ll see change.  (Hell, you’ll change even without meditating, but that’s up for discussion another day.)  You’ll get to know yourself.  You’ll move on down your spiritual path, whatever that is and wherever that takes you.  It’s totally fucking work but it’s totally fucking worth it.  So do it.

And?  The Bitch meditates daily.  And we all know you want to be more like the Bitch.

*No lie.  WTF??  After all this build-up about “personal empowerment” and “revolutionary healing method that’s going to heal the earth and change the world” you’re saying you havent even yet GOTTEN TO THAT PART?  You suck.

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You know her by sight.

She’s the woman who walks confidently up to the head of the line you’ve been standing in for five minutes, speaks quietly to the person in charge, and walks away smiling.  She got what she wanted.  She also got what you wanted, only you didn’t speak up.  Pussy.

She’s aggressive.  And I mean that in a good way.

Aggression is simply the ability to come right up against boundaries, meeting them, time and time again.  You know people like this.  You may also be able to reproduce it yourself on occasion.  But why not all the time?

It’s the dreaded “nice” thing, isn’t it?

Yeah, well, it’s too bad that “nice” also equals “doormat.”

(To be clear, we’re not talking about kindness here.  Being an aggressive bitch is not incompatible with being kind.)

You want to be that person, the one who gets what she wants?  (or he, either way)  Follow these simple steps:

1.  Get clear on what you want. This may be the most difficult part.  After all, to be clear about what you want takes some doing.  Some insight.  Some self-awareness.  And you have to put aside those inner fuck-you-over Voices Of Doubt.  But once you do all that, what remains is, simply, what you want.

Oh.  One thing about this.  Understand that what you want is subject to change.  And it’s OKAY that it changes.  Expecting yourself to remain perfectly constant at all times for now and forever into the future is like dooming yourself to robothood.  And we don’t want that.  We like you all soft and pliable.  So do allow for some change.

2.  Say what you want. Go ahead.  You can practice right now.  Yes, out loud!  It really only counts if you do it out loud.  Tell someone, anyone, your naked self in the mirror even, what you want. And let it be wild, if that’s what you want.  Like kink?  Then fucking say so!  But say it.  Say what you want.  You’ll never, EVER, get it unless you do.  Sure, I can read your mind (and I know what you’re thinking RIGHT NOW, perv) but no one else does.  So unless you want to put you life on hold until you’ve surrounded yourself with a bunch of fucking mind readers, say it.  Say.  It.

3.  Expect what you want to be handed to you. If you don’t truly believe you’ll get what you want then you’re sending out mixed messages.  Make your message crystal clear:  THIS is what I want and I am SAYING what I want and I EXPECT it now bitch!

Truly expect it, though.  Which means you may have to examine those underlying thought-patterns and identities that are preventing you from getting what you want.  But when you hold yourself with perfect confidence, the world responds!  Things fall into your lap.

See how easy it is?  You’ve probably already done this at least one time in your life, noted how great it felt … and then fell back into that doormat trap again.  Well, get your head out of your ass and get the fuck out of there!  Check out the boundaries you sense around you and push back at them a little!  And above all, have FUN with it.  Life doesn’t need to be so fucking serious all the time. 

If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.

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Here at New Age Bitch it’s a policy to never keep things inside that are chafing.  No, we let them out.  Alllll the way out.  It’s a proven fact that holding things in creates problems and discomfort.  Holding things in leads to an eventual eruption.  Hold something in that’s longing to come out long enough and you end up with a messy premature ejaculation of emotion.

People do this all the time.  You do it too, I can tell.  You hold things in.  You keep what you think inside you, what you feel, what you believe.  You wait for the right time, or to be around the right person, or to find the right moment.  You hold things in because you’ve been trained from infancy to do this.  Crying only works when you’re in diapers, and most of you aren’t hardcore enough to pee yourself and sit in your own shit all day just so you can tell it like it is when you feel like it.  You’re such a sucker.  There’s never gonna be a right time, a right person, or a right moment.  You have to take life by the balls and make it yourself.

But what about tact?  Social niceties?  Can you really expect to be able to say everything you think at a given time simply because it’s there inside you and New Age Bitch says let it out?

Actually, yes.

Do you really want to go around for the rest of your life holding in all that stuff that’s eating away at your insides?  Wouldn’t you rather get it out and be done with it?

Don’t answer that.  If you haven’t left to go buy yourself a jumbo box of Depends (and you know who you are…and soon we’ll know too), you’re still with me.  And you’re nodding your head yes.

(Isn’t it cool—in a creepy way—how I can see through your screen like that?)

There’s one easy way.  You like it the easy way; I know you.  You want self-awareness, but you also want someone to tell you who you are.  Okay, I’m fine with irony.  Whatever.

Scream.

That’s it.  Scream.  Good, long, and hard.

(Yes, we’re still talking about screaming.  Unless you’re the one who went out to buy Depends, in which case I can’t help you change.  Literally.)

Really.  Scream!  Right now!  Go ahead.  Take a good deep breath, lift your head a bit, and let one out.

There.  Didn’t that feel good?  Now do this every day.  Maybe ten times a day if you’re holding in a lot of shit, which you probably are.  Most of us are pretty fucked up in that department.

Want to cry now?  You’re not alone.  Letting out what’s been pent-up for so long brings up other buried emotions too.  So go the fuck ahead and cry.  I’ll mock you, but so what?  In ten minutes you’ll be feeling so much better that you won’t care.  In ten minutes, after some good hard screams and that cry, you’ll feel lighter.  Cleaner.  More like yourself.

I dare you to try it.

What have you got to lose?

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