Getting-Ready-to-Get-Ready Syndrome

The symptoms of Getting-Ready-to-Get-Ready syndrome include feeling like you can’t possibly move forward until you lose ten pounds, get a degree, receive permission, know the right people, have enough money, get more experience, pay your dues, or obtain the right equipment.

The trick to defeating Getting-Ready-to-Get-Ready syndrome is doing fifteen minutes of research. (And yes, this can be one of your fifteen-minute daily tasks.)

If you assume that you need to do something before you can do the thing you really want to do, please check that assumption — especially if the source of your information is your own mind. Google it, ask around, and, most important, ask someone who’s already done the thing you really want to do.

Chances are good that you’re over-complicating things.

There was the photographer who was convinced she couldn’t market herself until she had digitally optimized all her photos for her website, which would have meant weeks if not months of painstaking work. I asked her if she had one photo that she thought of as iconic, and when she said yes, I urged her to place just that one on her site. She was up and running twenty minutes later.

Lara was a highly intuitive performer who was feeling a pull toward embarking on a second career as a life coach, but she was feeling discouraged by the two years and several thousand dollars that certification would take.

Now, I admire and respect the people who’ve gone through coach certification, but it is not a prerequisite to being of great service to people.

When I pointed out that she already knew enough to at least get started with a few clients, she brightened right up.

Last I heard, she was running high-end retreats once a month in Beverly Hills — further proof that if you can deliver outstanding results, nobody really cares about your credentials.

And finally, there are the countless men and women who’ve told me that they can’t possibly get started on X, Y, or Z until they lose weight.

Honey, your destiny doesn’t care how much you weigh.

You can find a lover, sell your art, star in your show, and earn your fortune with the body you have right now. And it’s entirely possible that you will become so busy and happy working on your project that your body will self-adjust and become closer to your version of perfect.

After all, there’s nothing like joy to create health.

In Praise of Those Last Ten (…Or Twenty…) Pounds

In Praise Of Those
Last Ten (…Or Twenty…) Pounds

Oh, you ten (…or
twenty…) pounds…

You remind me:

I am not a teenager
anymore

(Thank God)

My life is not lived
just for me alone anymore

(Thank God)

I’ve got good food and
good wine and good appetite

Thank God.

You jiggle a bit.

It’s not a bloat; it’s a
blessing.

Softer.

Stronger.

You have lived through
the unthinkable.

Those friends who have
gone –

The love and grief for
them that remains –

Is that part of the ten
pounds?

The jobs well done that
no one praised –

Is that a pound or two?

And those ice-sharp playground
taunts, those adolescent bone-aches,

That twenty-something
battle for Self – ferocious –

Where is the weight of
that?

Jealousy does not become
us.

Ten pounds hardly seems
like a distinction worth making when

One body is so much like

Another.

Feet Leg Belly Back Arms
Head Hands

Not all of us have every
part and

There might be an organ
that’s not quite working right or

A hormone that’s out of
whack

We’ve all been a little

Damaged in transit.

But here we are.

Here to criticize
ourselves

Here to be a better
example to our daughters and our sons

Here to shove the
photo-shopped images out of the way and say

This is what the Body of
a Person looks like.

This is the truth of me.

All of me.

Only me.

And remember, if twenty
years from now you would find a photograph of you taken today you’d think, “Wow
– I had no idea how beautiful I was.”

So let’s put on the
bathing suit and go swimming.

Let’s invite our lover’s
hand to caress our belly.

And let’s put on lovely
clothes that fit and

Give away those
not-our-size-now clothes

Because believe me, one
of your

Brothers or Sisters (who
do not enjoy the luxury of excess) could really

Use those and Lord knows
they’re not doing you any good

Just cluttering up the
closet

Torturing you.

So we stand naked and
say,

“Thank you, Body, for
loving me so well and so long.”

Offering a blessing on

This Body

Whose

Shadow

Leaves an

Imprint

On the

Air

We Breathe.

By The Way, You Look
Really Great Today