40 Things I Know at 40
Remember that Baz Luhrman song for the class of 1999? Everyone's Free to Feel Good. This is my version.
When I was 10 or 11, my sister and I would listen to the Top 8 at 8 on Z95.3 FM every night before falling asleep. One year, Quit Playing Games with My Heart by the Backstreet Boys was #1 on my birthday. It felt like that was a gift from the universe.
Later, flamenco would show up as a gift from the universe on my 18th birthday. I love how the universe be giving me gifts and little angel winks on my path.
My birthday is next Wednesday (your girl’s a Gemini), so as I wrap my 40th year, today’s post is a smorgasbord of 40 things I’ve learned along the way.
1.
The body is the key to overthinking. If you’re overthinking, you’re under feeling.
Your body is speaking to you constantly. It doesn’t have words, so it uses sensation. In the chaos of life, it can be hard to tune in and listen. We get stuck in our heads.
The body holds the answers. You are your own map.
2.
What works for one of us won’t work for all of us.
Think about it. Some people are die-hard vegans. Others will never give up red meat. Some people swear by non-monogamy. For others it would cause a five alarm fire and inspire jealousy-induced crimes. Other people can't live without a glass of wine at dinner. And then there are alcoholics who this would never work for.
You are the maker of your own bespoke life.
3.
We are the embodied dream of our ancestors.
A recent study out of Barcelona’s Center for Genomic Regulation showed how your ancestors from 14 generations ago may be impacting your current life.
Environmental memories live within us for 14 generations. That includes trauma. Their fears are woven into our code as safety measures. Their gifts and skills are inherent. Our ancestors are alive and well in us.
4.
The things we want want us back. Your desires are no accident, they are seeds planted in you inviting you to realize them. When pressure is put on a seed, it will break open into becoming. When pressure is put on coal, it can become a diamond… in only a billion years or so — no joke.
The desires that live in you are designed with you in mind. You contain a dizzying array of desires within you. Pick one. Get curious. Pull on the thread. See where it leads.
5.
Butterflies never see their own wings. Can you imagine being as beguiling as a butterfly and never seeing your own magnificence?
I hope there are people in your life who can see your full spectrum glory in a way that you may struggle to. Keep those people around to remind you of what you can’t see in yourself.
6.
Just like we notice nature, nature notices us. We are animals, after all. On my evening walk, three different times cicadas started buzzing and screeching as I passed. Are these randy cicadas trying to win me over?!
Sorry fellas. I prefer the human male variety.
7.
Sexual energy = creative energy = life force energy.
8.
I don’t like products with names like Better Than Sex Mascara. Come on. It’s not better than sex. Maybe it’s better than bad sex but that isn’t saying much. No sex is better than bad sex.
“I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.”
-Neil Gaiman
Life is too short for bad sex.
9.
Pretty sure the multiverse is the reason I have memories of things that haven’t happened yet. A good one got away and while we were saying goodbye, I told him I hoped in some other universe we were still a thing. Science fiction romance helps me let men go.
10.
There is a theory that women's fight and flight stress responses may have been systematically bred out of women from the Burning Times in Europe.
and I had a riveting conversation about it in Notes:
11.
On the different twists and turns on my road, feminism has found me.
A 70 year old client who urged me not to change my last name when I was a newlywed. After leaving home and country for my husband, I didn’t. My last name was a tether to my home.
Joanna Brooks who led me to Mormon feminism. I heard her speak on an episode of RadioWest with Doug Fabrizio in the early 2010s when I was living in Utah and her words felt like a homecoming.
The fierce feminist flamencos found me at 18.
My Popo (maternal grandma) is a feminist. She had an arranged marriage when she was 15 or 16 and had never even seen her husband before the day of. She wishes that she’d had a chance to go to school and see what she could have become.
12.
Leaving five minutes before you need to leave will give you ease in your travels. I don’t get this right 9 times out of 10. It's a goal!
13.
Female friendships keep getting better with age. Girls and women have been socialized to be pitted against each other. And we are figuring this out and healing our relationship dynamics. The more I allow myself to be seen, the deeper the relationship can go.
14.
When you don’t have much of a childhood, you may enjoy a second adolescence later in life. Like me!
15.
Unless you do the work it will show up in your romantic relationships.
If you lose love, it will find you again. Love has the map. I was worried when I was married that if something happened to him I would be alone forever. Who would love me? I had been triggered constantly when dating with my abandonment wound. I came to believe that he was the only one who could love me. In fairness, there is a fraction of truth: he is the only man who could love me like that.
17.
You have permission to change your mind at any moment. Whether that’s leaving a date, a sexual encounter, a relationship, a job, a religion or a marriage. You can pivot at any time.
18.
You attract good friends and lovers by being one.
19.
Our world is not built with women in mind. Our world is structured on a 24 hour clock. This is a male paradigm.
As a menstruating woman, I operate on a 28(ish) day cycle. All of the seasons are reflected in me in one month. It does not serve me to contort myself into a schedule that doesn’t honor these seasons and cycles.
20.
I am a woman with a womb. My womb is the source of my creativity. In this sacred void, I can dream and actualize a baby, a bakery, a best seller, a business or a bedazzled jacket.
21.
This year I’m going to do a better job of syncing my cycles with life.
22.
Women, especially when they bleed, can tap into their oraclular abilities. The veil is thin. Messages come through more readily from the other side. So when we are in the thick of modern living, it can be wildly disorienting — for everyone. For the woman who bleeds. For the family and friends and coworkers around her. May we menstruate in peace.
23.
Society doesn’t like it when women are not constant. That’s asking us to be something we are not. The feminine is nothing if not changeable. We are water. As vast and varied as an ocean.
24.
I see certain numeric patterns everywhere. My old house number where my wasband and I lived shows up regularly. (I glanced at the clock and there it was, again)
25.
I don’t have all the answers. Thanks for reading anyway.
26.
You can reinvent yourself at any age. And I hope you do. There’s a dancer I follow who is 57 and moved to NYC to pursue her dream of performing on Broadway. My mom taught art for decades before pivoting into a life coach career. (Apple, meet tree.)
Someone said recently that they want to fail fast and quit early when they know something isn't the right thing.
27.
I’m so over being sold to while scrolling on social media. Fairly convinced that we are the ones that are actually on the menu…
28.
Flamenco jaleo is when you call encouragement to the artists during a performance. ‘Ole’ is the most common jaleo you’ll hear. It gives the artists courage and makes the audience a pivotal part of the show.
This is the only appropriate time to catcall a woman.
29.
I want to empty out. My mind is too full of other people’s ideas.
30.
We need more women’s voices. The holy books are filled with men’s voices, history and narratives. Women make up over half the population and are under represented in sacred texts and literature. Let’s change that, shall we? (
recently wrote a brilliant piece about this topic.)This was evident during my time in the Mormon church. During General Conference twice a year, the general authorities and officers of the church would speak to the saints. A recent average I saw was that 93% of the speakers were male, and a paltry 7% were female. This leaves the female populous feeling underrepresented and quite honestly, under acknowledged.
In 2013, a woman gave the closing prayer in General Conference for the first time and it made history.
Too little too late.
31.
My body is not a machine. It’s an animal. It is deeply instinctual and cyclical. There are a lot of ways we expect ourselves to do impossible, unreasonable things.
We withdrawal without depositing. We finance our futures, we draw from our bones and cells. One day, the bill will come due.
32.
Emotions are tunnels. It may feel dark and scary, but don’t try to hold your breath, like you did in tunnels when you were a kid. In fact, breathe through the feels. Feel it all. Move it through. Sound it out. Alchemize all that is inside of you. Let the emotions complete their cycle and be released. You’ll have more interior space when you’re done, I promise.
33.
Tantra teaches us that we can use our emotions as fuel. Anger and rage are designed to incite a riot inside of us so that we will change our lives for the better. So let yourself be moved by your emotions. They are vehicles of change.
34.
Recently I’ve been reading a book called Biohack Like a Woman and am trying eating three square meals a day with no snacking. This apparently gives you the benefit of intermittent fasting between meals.
Aggie recommends starting each meal munching on some vegetables to have the fiber prime the digestion process. Also, if you can eat within the daylight hours, this is recommended.
I don’t own a scale, but I can feel the difference, and can see more of my waist indentation in the last few weeks.
35.
I feel at home in the company of cats. The flamenco name that was given to me is La Gata. Like burlesque dancers or drag queens, your flamenco name is given to you — you don’t choose it.
The funny thing is that La Gata is exactly what I would have named myself. It was in the field and Kasandra La China felt it too.
36.
Food allergies get worse as you age. After breaking out in hives for a year straight during my 30s, I discovered that I have a wheat allergy. It took a lengthy elimination diet to discover what was the root cause.
The funny thing is I can eat bread in Europe without an issue. The US fucks with agriculture in all sorts of capitalistic, unhealthy ways.
When harvesting ears of wheat, they spray Round-up on the wheat to encourage them all to open at the same time — instead of in their natural rhythms, which would take far too much time and energy.
Maybe I’m allergic to Round-Up instead?
37.
Scars are evidence that we are stronger than before. Immediately after the body is wounded, it begins the work of reparation. The body is a formidable, self-sustaining ecosystem.
38.
The original Pinterest were my bedroom walls as a teenager. I tore sheets out of magazines and covered the walls with these glossy images. (High five to
for leading me to this realization in her recent nostalgic piece!)39.
Things end. I had short hair for a decade and never thought I would change it, until I did. Some friendships that were like-giving for many years grew distant. I didn’t expect my marriage to end, but it did. I never suspected I would leave the Mormon church. But I did.
Grieve the endings fully. Every tear you shed will drain the sadness from you, one drop at a time.
Give yourself permission to evolve. You don’t have to be beholden to decisions you made an earlier age.
40.
Life is an inside job: Happiness. Pleasure. Self care.
We are responsible for our own liberation.
Thank you for being here. You matter.
"Give yourself permission to evolve. You don’t have to be beholden to decisions you made an earlier age." So much this. If you are not growing, you are stagnant.
I love this list so much. I too turned 40 this year and my marriage ended.
I’m curious about 14 and 21.
Can you elaborate a touch? Inspired!