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I had the exquisite pleasure of attending the Sister Giant Conference this weekend. (sistergiant.com) Marianne Williamson invited a most divine bouquet of talent to help shed light on one of America's biggest problems right now: We simply do not have enough women in politics.
We have all been celebrating our newfound 20 percentedness in Congress. But, damn, it's a far cry from the 50% it should be -- that we NEED it to be.
Most of us have an enormous deep-seated distrust and dislike of the political machine. My mantra has always been: Mothers, teachers, nurses, politicians -- I don't know how they do service at that level.
I don't think anyone throws their hat into the political arena without being slightly insane because we all know the level of self-protection and preservation required to even withstand a campaign, let alone actively serve angry constituents.
Women especially always say "I could never do that." Marianne understood. We all feel too vulnerable to put ourselves in such a position. She said we have a cellular memory of being burned at the stake for our beliefs. No matter what your belief system, though, you can very likely relate to the profound fear of the political engine running you over alive.
Yet, Marianne inspired us all for two solid days with endless brilliant women who have ventured into politics, or support those who have. She made it seem shockingly do-able, but more important, she stripped it to its core: we NEED women.
We need women to fight for our hungry children. Millions of children go to bed hungry, go to school hungry, and rely on having one meal a day at school.
We need women to fight against one of the largest profit-making centers in America: prisons. People: they are now building prisons based on third grade test scores.
We need women to fight for our environment.
Marianne told the story about how female hyenas protect their young. When the babies are eating, the females circle them, protecting them from the adult males who try to take their food away.
Her call to action: Can we not at least be as powerful as hyenas in protecting our young?
Therefore, my request: If you know of a woman who should run for office, tell me, so I can spread the word. Let all your women friends know that that woman needs their support. Ask people for money, time and effort on that woman's behalf.
We can change this broken world -- one woman at a time.
If you need inspiration, pick up Marianne's book, "Healing the Soul of America."
Most important thing for me: celebrating the losses. I'm about halfway to my goal of 17 pounds, and it's Valentine's Day time and I wanted to give myself some extra love too.
My favorite regular LA Spa, i.e., it doesn't break the bank every time you go is Olympic Spa: http://www.olympicspala.com/.
For just literally $15 you can soak in the tubs, steam, sauna to your heart's content -- literally for hours upon hours!
I get the $70 combo of scrub + massage. You get scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed so all the dead skin layers are gone, gone, gone, and then they massage you with oil, honey and milk (yes real honest to god honey and they finish the treatment with warm milk all over your body). They also put grated fresh cucumber all over your face while they massage your scalp, shampoo and condition your hair. It is as luxurious as it sounds.
If you want a little added luxury and about 20 minutes more treatment with Bumble & Bumble products you can go up to $100 or $120. I do those every once in a while too, but honestly for $70 you get a lot of luxury. The treatment is an hour long and very nurturing and refreshing.
And, before the treatment I soaked in the hot Mugworts Tea Bath, in the icy cold tub, sat in the Oxygen Stone + Jade Walled Steamroom, and the Himalayan Salt Sauna...and then I took a luxurious nap for about 45 minutes on the warm jade floor -- yes, very warm jade floor. They give you pillows and blankets. There is nothing like napping on a very warm floor.
Everyone is naked at the spa. You actually aren't allowed to enter any of the baths with a bathing suit. So you get to celebrate ALL the different shapes and sizes, and take a moment to just love your own body, love your body moving in and out of the water, steaming it, taking care of it, nurturing all of you, inside and out.
I thanked my body for working so hard, asked for forgiveness for overeating in the past, and for all my negative thoughts -- like it was a bad friend. In fact, my body has been my loyal friend, giving me very little grief. It wasn't doing anything to me. I was doing something to it.
If you are losing weight, definitely check out Marianne WIlliamson's "A Course in Weight Loss." I am really getting a whole new relationship with my body and food out of this course. Thank you Genius Marianne!
Loving you, loving my body, loving losing, and loving CELEBRATING the loss!
Ten days after break up it's clear that the ex is doing some serious soul searching and is on the brink of some possible huge transformation. Don't know how this will all pan out, only know that we started talking about potentially seeing each other. Within a couple hours of this talk I decided I needed popcorn. My favorite these days has been Orville Redenbacher's Salt + Pepper. It is divine and couples nicely with light beer. But, this mini-"meal" = 8 points.
So, I thought I'd do air-popped popcorn with a couple teaspoons of melted butter and salt. Yummy.
But I haven't used my air popper in a while so I ended up with a huuuuuuge bowl of popcorn. I didn't go so far as to it eat it all, but I will say I ate more than I normally would and I saw it was definitely unequivocally emotional eating. I watched myself doing it, was conscious of what was really going on, and took myself to the bathroom where I made myself take a hot bath instead. I still ate more than I should have, but at least I got it together, and identified the real issue.
Next time, I am committed to cutting off the emotional eating faster. And, the time after that even faster. Pretty amazing that this was the first time in 5 weeks that I've had an emotional eating outburst.
I think this is in large part due to Marianne WIlliamson's book on tape that I've been listening to....and the meditation keeping me centered. It takes a village. It takes a full court press -- spirit, mind and body -- to lose weight.
Thank you Marianne Williamson for being part of my village.
