The Oprah Syndrome

Hi, Boomers,

You have to have lived on another planet last week to have missed Oprah's closing show. Well, there were actually two last closing shows. Twenty-five years and thousands of guests and hundreds of hours of self-promotion with her charity work and book promotions, image issues, and cathartic moments. No matter her weight, Oprah has been every woman's muse.

Humans need gurus. We need models and counselors and guides to help us live our lives without drowning in quiet desperation. We are surrounded by people, places and things, and yet, we are still lonely and full of fears. After all, we're going to die some day for sure. No one can stop that, not even Oprah. We can't figure out why our lives remain stagnant and lacking in excitement. We expect more of ourselves; we are looking for another paradigm, a new way of looking at life and Oprah and her gurus have been the people who would help us find happiness and peace, and maybe take away all our thoughts of mortality. We will live on through Oprah.

Oprah makes us feel better about ourselves because, after all, who else but Oprah is going to bring us joy, give us have self-esteem, find love, be better parents and stay healthy and physically fit, and put off dying. We trust her and we love her and we worship her. She has assured us that she has made life much better for all of us.

We seem desperate and committed to have someone else help us cope with loneliness and provide us with everything that we cannot do for ourselves. Don't we have our own resources to make ourselves find joy and passion in life? Sure we do but we haven't realized that we are basically lazy. Desperate and lazy. Viewers sit on sofas and watch Oprah and her guests generate excitement and energy, make interesting decisions by taking actionable steps to achieve their own dreams. These guests are their own change agents. We like to watch them do cool things and go to spiritual places. We want to find out what inspires them. We want to be like them. But we are simply voyeurs and outsiders.

On Oprah's last show she gave us a directive to follow the actions of those thousands of guests who are examples of inspiration. These are for the most part people who lived life to the fullest and inspired others along the way. So, after 25 years, Oprah told us to get a move on and find our calling. Yes, that's right: our calling. She told us we can follow our dreams and be all that we can be and make our mark on the world just like everyone who came before on her show.

However, she forgot to tell us to get off the couch and stop watching television. That's because she owns a TV network called OWN and she has programs on OWN that she wants the couch potatoes to watch. They, too, will be as inspirational as her talk shows.

Unfortunately, Oprah gave her spirited address to those who simply watch on the sidelines and leave the action to others. Oprah never gave the couch potatoes a life line to do what we are called to do. Most will not do anything at all but watch the next version of her talk show. While Oprah was telling us what we should do, she was moving on to other projects and other journeys that were going to be bigger and better than what she had been doing for the last 25 years. She left it to others to help us get off the couch.

Anyone and everyone is entitled to retire or to be a change agent. It's not just the way of the powerful and rich. But Oprah thought it was time to pass on the crown on to the next guru. She did her part and played her guru role to the fullest. Along with giving away cars and trips, she sponsored schools and helped many people and recommended many good books. Maybe some of it was show biz and some of it was real but all of it was her calling. This might be her finest journey.

Namaste,

Joan

Yoga And The Art of Body/Mind Maintenance

Hi, Boomers,

Every day I give gratitude for yoga, especially today when I gave my son on the morning of his 38th birthday a yoga class. This is the second time he asked me to give him a class since I have been spending the week with my family. Yesterday, my daughter in law also asked me for a class. They are both awesome yogis.

Years ago, when my life seemed to be in a downward tumble, my son and to-be daughter-in-law asked me one Sunday to go to their favorite yoga studio to practice with them. I was beside myself with glee. Because I was living in Venice at the time behind Muscle Beach, I had been practicing at my gym down at the Marina. It was a small class and not very inspiring but it was yoga nonetheless. But to practice with my family made me really happy.

Thus began a ritual of Sunday practices either at Maha Yoga in Brentwood (where I now live - really west LA next door to Westwood and UCLA campus) or in Venice at Yoga Works where our favorite yoga teacher gave a class that could kill a decathlon athlete. We would come out of the studio, sweating and exhilarated, and go to a favorite breakfast place on Main Street and talk about the what was on our minds at the time. It was a simple moment in our lives and we don't have that kind of simplicity much any more.

My second son and his wife are also yogis. Although they don't practice much anymore, their hearts are opened and they spread the positive joy. My intention is to give all of them together a yoga class in the not too distant future.

The lives of my adult children and their wives are so much more complicated and stressful at this moment than I could have possibly imagined. I thought I'd be sailing over smooth waters at 66, but I am still that parent that my sons rely on to give emotional and psychological support. I am hitched mentally to their well being and their happiness as they try to put one foot in front of another and live their lives to the best of their ability. Both the men and the women in my family are terrific parents, devoted, loving, embracing and understanding and I am extremely proud of them as divine beings and professionals.

But what yoga adds to their lives is extraordinary and they are well aware of yoga's benefits. The birthday boy just left the house this morning telling me how fantastic he feels, how clear and joyful is the beginning of his day. He went out the door playing "Tool" feeling positive and hopeful. The success of my family rests on his shoulders.

Yoga is a mind/body experience that is connected by breath. In Sanskrit, the word breath is prana or life force and it is considered sacred. Yoga is a practice that creates joy and a positive attitude; it centers the self by emptying the mind, for it is truly a meditation whether the yogi is moving or siting in silence. Yoga/meditation has an impact on the way we think (more positive) and the way we feel (more joyous). It gives the body more energy as it speaks to the spiritual center of our being. If this is the gift I can give to my children, I am content and fulfilled. Nothing else matters.

Namaste

(The divine in me recognized the divine in you)

Joan

Happy Birthday, Jonathan

The Single Life and Bali Here I Come

Hi, Boomers,

I was musing today about being single. After years of fighting the odds to mate with man, I have succumbed to the freedom, the joy, the bliss of being single. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up sex. Being single and sex are not antithetical to one another. I love sex now as much as I loved it at 19 when some hunk took my virginity at UCLA on New Year's Eve. Funny, we never forget who took our virginity. Oh, well, sorry, "took" is not appropriate since I was the other half of the consenting situation. I can still remember that small, dark motel room in Manhattan Beach, past midnight, January 1st, with a little light coming through the faded white, shabby venetian blinds. His name was John and I was madly in lust. But I digress.

So being single is being able to come and go as I please without checking in with anyone. It's being able to be in Las Vegas with my family and not worrying about whether I have called my significant other today to let him know that I miss him and I promise to be home on Saturday afternoon. It's fully planning my day without questions, planning my trips without censure, planning my meals without a thought for anyone else. I can go to bed when I want and get up when I want and take my computer to bed and read at 3 am if I want and listen to the silence. I can get up to feed Baby Jude Love at 4 am and gaze into his little face with love.

I'm going to Bali in August with two single female friends. I am visiting my tango friend, Brenda, who, with her husband, built Desa Sanctuary in Ubud. Check out the website. It's so very beautiful and special.

The way this trip camd about was that Brenda emailed me on Linkedin to connect with me and to say she was reading my blog. Bali had been in my head for a long time and I felt I needed to get there before the Eat, Pray, Love movie came out this summer and the followers of Ms. Gilbert began to pay homage in Ubud to her personal journey. A few days before, my friend, Carol, a yoga student of mine at UCLA, was talking about going to Bali with her friend and I immediately invited myself. I showed Carol and Adrienne Desa Sanctuary and everyone was hooked. It took us 3 days to make the plane reservations and reserve a sanctuary for a week. Women are so smart and efficient with organizational execution because we know what we want and communicate efficiently. Bali, here we come.

Last year I went to southern Spain and Morocco with GAP Adventure Tours and I was the oldest of the seven women. It was a fabulous journey and one that I will remember always. The year before I went to Costa Rica for a yoga retreat and then an eco tour with my guide friend. Another great adventure. Being single allows me to plan my travels intuitively and take fully advantage of my curiosity. I used to think that I could never, ever travel without a man beside me. Life sure plays funny tricks on us.

So while I think that I may be falling in love as indicated in my last post, I am not rushing to fall in love. This is probably the first time I have been reserved in a relationship process. I have some things at stake this time around. I'm older and maybe a little wiser and maybe, just maybe, happier with who I am, my family relationships and my dearest friends.

Life is beginning to work out very well for a change.

Namaste

Joan

Slogging Through 60

Dear Boomers,

  I haven't blogged since April 26th.  I feel a bit remiss but not necessarily guilty...until now.

I've been in a general malaise outside of my yoga teaching.  Oh, I love my work and am grateful every day for my students, my private clients and my friends.  

I guess it has to do with adult children this week and the end of the old lover comeback.  Let me start with the old lover comeback:  there wasn't one; it was a non-started, a fake and phony attempt to reconnect with heart or devotion and with a dedication to carelessness;  Moving on (although I didn't move on all week), the other issues revolve around my sons and their inattention.  I guess it's great not to have sons that have a mother complex - the tiny voice inside of a man that says to a woman - No! No! don't come any closer to my heart because I really cannot love you with my total being.  That's the inner mother.  The outer mother is a symbol of the inner mother.  Too complicated, huh?

Anyway, whenever I try to connect to one or the other of my sons, I get, "Mom, didn't I tell you not to call my home phone," or "Mom, I'm on my way to work, getting Starbucks, call you later."  No call later. One is chewing me out while the other just ignores.  What's the brain process here.  We live in different cities.  I try to come into Vegas once a month to see everyone, be with my grandchildren, be available, yada, yada, yada.  

What is family connection, anyway?  What does it mean to be connected to family?  Family asks after you, as in, are you happy, feeling good, depressed, or are you doing all right with finances, work, dating.  Sometimes I think a mother/grandmother should just take off for Tibet for six months and let everyone wonder what happened to "Mom."  She used to be around a lot and now she just doesn't care about us anymore.

I won't leave.  It's just not in my nature to leave my family.  I almost did once in Buenos Aires when I could have had a job teaching English as a second language.  I thought long and hard about it.  I'd dance tango all night at the milongas and then I'd get home about 3 am and get up at 7 and teach English to those peacock Argentine men in their high rise buildings.  I'd last about one week.  I wonder if women who are a couple feel this kind of lonelinessor is it because I am single that I sometimes excess being ignored.  

Anyway, I had a great weekend despite kissing off the old lover with an epic Beowolf poem exhaustedly, meticulously composed over a three day marathon.  I was obsessed to get it perfectly written, and, if I do say so myself, it was a masterpiece of irony.  And I already know the old lover won't even get it, let alone read it.  But it doesn't matter because I feel fabulous today at 65.  Oh, but you see, I also had a marvelous date with a much younger man this Sunday and all went right with the world.  After the walk on the Venice boardwalk, which resulted in my buying T-shirts for my grandsons (oh, yes, I don't hide much), we went to an exquisite move called "Examined Life - Philosophy is in the Streets."  Age didn't seem to matter much.

The day and my date reminded me of the best of times in Berkeley in the 60's at the beatnik coffee houses along Broadway and Columbus Avenue with jazz puncturing the cold night air.  WOW!  I felt like 19 again.

Namaste

     Joan