Boho Girl

cedar, two years & 3 months…{taken with Cross Processed iPhone app with an Instagram filter Hefe}

A wonderful woman that reads my blog wrote me an email last week telling me she had a dream about me in labor (hello dear francie!).  In this dream, I was sitting on a chair and she was there, with some other women, supporting me through the contractions as they came and went.  Then she wrote about it in a metaphorical sense.  About believing I was giving birth to something amazing in my life.  My sister Darlene that same week also had a dream about me giving birth while she was with me, although she took it a bit more literal, and when chatting about it on Skype, had a totally wishful/hopeful grin about the idea of us having another baby.  I joked with her that I know SHE wants more babies in our family but honestly, we are so totally okay with just the three of us.  As Cedar came bouncing up to the laptop screen saying hello, we giggled and collectively agreed that Cedar is enough.  ; )

As much as it can still be such a bummer that I may never experience what it is like to carry a child in my womb or bring a child into this world through my own birth, I am not in that space any longer of needing/desiring it.  Although of course when I hear other people share their stories about pregnancy or birth or breastfeeding, I do get that ache down deep in my gut and depending on the headspace I am in, the heartache can linger or it can drift away in a few minutes.  Its natural and its part of grief.  It never fully goes away but it hurts much less as the years go on.  This will be my constant practice, to find my medicine, my lessons in these aches as I am attracted to and tend to attract earthy goddess women that revel in their birth/pregnancy experiences.  These stories will always be part of my circle.  There was a time when I protected myself from women like this and now I seem to be embracing these goddesses and facing it all like a gentle warrior.  At times I will feel misplaced in a circle, until I am reminded that our birth story and its many layers teaches them too and then that sense of belonging returns.

I AM in love with the idea that I am receiving messages that I am about to birth something extraordinary in my life and even more in love with the idea of it having to do with us living somewhere new by Summer.  We are ready for new.  So ready.

…and I am in love with Cedar’s new hat.

photo of elise by creative monkey photo

Inspired Balance ~ Everyday Peace Workshop

Elise is offering one free space in her  Everyday  Peace Workshop to one of my readers!

She is also offering anyone who signs up for the workshop starting 3/1 and mentions (via email) Boho Girl – the class for $20 instead of $35 – with a free copy of her ebook Simple Feng Shui for Everyday Peace.

About Elise:

In my past – and we are talking high school here – I was an overachieving, stressed out, flute and viola playing, National Merit Semi-Finalist daughter of a Methodist minister. I got lots of scholarships, attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas and joined a sorority. I tried, but it turns out I wasn’t the Texas sorority kinda’ girl. I dropped out and came home to the Midwest. I continued my schooling and worked in the fields of microbiology and biochemistry before I came the conclusion that I was extraordinarily miserable working in a lab all day.

Luckily, I met my dream boat at a party in the mid-nineties. Not to get too sappy, but it really was love at first sight. Ask anyone that was there. It was so crazy cool! I left my schooling since I was hating it anyway and moved to California with him a year later. After arriving in sunny Palm Springs, I fell into non-profit arts management as a traditional career. We got married a little after that, moved back to midwest, and had our first child. Life was extremely stressful, but we tried to be happy.

I was run over by a truck a few years back. There is just something about those near death experiences that do tend to change your outlook on things. My life certainly changed. I stepped out of the rat race, went to Feng Shui and Soul Coaching school, and found out that life was way more amazing than I was giving it credit for. Who knew?! A year later I was fired from my job while pregnant on April Fools Day, so I decided the universe was trying to tell me something. I listened.

I took a huge leap of faith and became a Certified Soul Coach and a Certified Interior Alignment Practitioner of Instinctive Feng Shui and Sacred Space Clearing. I received my Interior Alignment certification from the amazing Laurie Bornstein and her Harmony Life School of Interior Alignment. I am extremely blessed to be one of the few, select individuals worldwide, personally trained and certified by the inspirational Denise Linn in her specialized methods of coaching. Additionally, I am a Red-Ribbon Professional Member of the International Feng Shui Guild.

I founded Inspired Balance in 2007, started helping people find more peace, and here I am.

Giveaway Rules:

• Winner receives one free space in Elise’s Everyday Peace Workshop
• To enter, please leave a comment with a quick tip that helps you find Peace in your everyday life
• One entry per person
• Comments will be closed on Friday, February 25th at 10PM PST
• Winner will be chosen at Random.org
• Winner will be announced this weekend! So check back!

{ Side note:  Doesn’t Elise just have such a serene energy about her in this photo?  Like I could just gaze at her beautiful soft face and worries, fears, anxieties just melt away.  Do we all have a wee crush on her now? And her name.  I have ALWAYS loved the name Elise.}

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WINNER: #24…Lana of House of Wilkens!!  Congrats Lana.  Elise will contact you shortly.  xoxo

Cedar wanted me to tell you all to please kiss a tree this weekend!

{If anyone wants to send me an email with a photo of you kissing a tree attached, I will put them all in a post with a link to your website/blog. How fun will that be? Pls send to denise(at)bohophoto.com}

Sending you peace and tree love for the weekend.  May the luminous full moon shine down on you gently.

Love,
Boho Girl

I think so many of us, me included,  feel the need to fill up space with words in a conversation.  That when a loved one is navigating their way through something hard or uncomfortable, we feel a pressure to say the right thing or to fix it with advice or wisdom.  Most of the time, we all just need to be heard.  Sometimes just simply feeling validated for our emotions is all we need.  A lot of the time, hearing stories from another person going through the same thing is what heals the most.  It helps us to not feel alone.  It gives us strength to carry on…in our own way…in our own time.

I want to practice listening in a way that allows for someone to feel held exactly where they are without them feeling as though they need to move forward right away. I want to practice sitting with it, with them…and breathing into the emotions of now. I want to practice saying “I hear you, I feel you, this is hard or this is wonderful or yes, I understand where you are” more than “This is what I think would help…”.

And I want to invite more of that into my life, my circle, too.

I am holding space for all of this today.

I have fed my family and friends this wrap every time I am with them.  I think during visits, they secretly wait for it.  ; )  I am passionate about nourishing the people I love in this way.

Beware…it causes a food orgasm.

Boho Love Wrap:

• brown rice tortilla (warmed up in pan with olive oil to make bendable)
• goat cheese
• sliced persian cucumber
• sliced avocado
• shredded carrots
• handful of herb salad
• alfalfa sprouts
• dash of sea salt
• dash of pepper
• roll up
• cut in half
• look at the pretty inside
• close eyes, breathe deep and infuse with love

enjoy!

I don’t feel very inspiring when it comes to this particular Valentines Day. I was away from home all week in a hotel with a microwave. So, I didn’t bake any Valentine cookies or do any heart crafts like many of my loves did. In fact, this morning while waking up, wiping my eyes and shuffling my feet out to the kitchen, I kissed my Boho Hubby goodbye with a fuzzy dreaded head and we both forgot to wish one another a Happy Valentines Day. Uninspiring indeed.

What I do know is that I love my husband so true and it feels so damn good to feel safely loved by him. We’re in a bit of a romantic funk with all that is going on, which both of us have gently talked about. When we discuss this, defenses don’t come up because we are aware and admit that both of us equally need to put more intention into romance. I have a girlfriend that has a marriage I deeply admire. She once told me that when her children turned about three years old, she found both her and her husband feeling more sexy and wanton because their children were a bit more independent, so they had more time to focus on their relationship. I don’t mean I am comparing myself to other marriages as just like people, all relationships hold their own kind of beauty and romance and life together. But it of course give me comfort to know others ebb and flow just as we do (with children or not).

We know we need to make time for just him and I and we are planning on getting a babysitter to go to a romantic Moroccan restaurant next weekend…sitting on silk pillows and eating with our fingers. YUM.

But for now, during this lovers holiday, just feeling loved for being wholly me is enough. To me, the sweet small things he does for both Cedar and I on a daily basis holds more value than a Valentine’s card or a box of chocolates or a bouquet of flowers. Like last night when I was in the kitchen, wearing sweats and feeling smelly, cutting a pizza slice into tiny pieces for Cedar to eat and he came up behind me and kissed my neck telling me I looked sexy. Then later when he sacrificed watching his beloved hockey game for us to watch a family film together because that is what Cedar wanted.

Perhaps next year we will be about pink and red this or that. But this year, its about getting through the day and holding one another close when Cedar has finally fallen asleep for the night, and feeling safely loved in one another’s arms.