There will be tough times. Sigh. There will be tough times for all of us, and some of us are more sober about that fact, based on our past experiences, than others.
 
Tough times come in many categories: challenge, growth, fear, overwhelm, striving, burning, new, transition, change, pain, joy (yup that can be just as hard) or those tough times that are downright shitty in all areas. We know this to be true. It will be hard, we will transform, and so will those around us.
 
Yesterday I was mountain biking up a hill. It was tough, and of course it was both a literal hill, and a metaphor for those tough times in life. It got me thinking about something simple I do, that works for me, in those tough times to get through. My mantra.
 
The word mantra works for me. The literal Sanskrit (ancient language) translation is “to think, to think a thought behind speech or action.” This is something else I’m curious about a lot, how our thoughts lead to action, movement, behavior. Good old Webster says “a word or phrase that is repeated often or that expresses someone’s basic beliefs.” Again, I’m curious about how we live our beliefs and values in the world. So mantra, something I repeat to myself, to support me in action, so I can live in the integrity of my beliefs.
 
There are lots of mantras or words/phrases out there to try on (Thomas: I think I can, Dori: Just keep swimming), but I think it is the most potent if we create our own. Something short, memorable, potent, and emotionally charged, which will light a fire under our ass during those tough moments, and remind us that we will make it through. Taking a breath, letting it out. Feeling the intensity in my gut.
 
I’ll share mine as an example. My mantra is #jazzhands.  It’s an unlikely mantra, but to me it is a potent seed of transformation. This is a mantra that already existed within me, came out of my experience, and creates that feeling between laughing/crying where I feel the hope and tragedy of my life intermingled. And, most importantly, it immediately snaps me out of whatever messy thought pattern I’m in, brings me back to the present, and reminds me, oh right, yes I can!
 
Jazzhands is about my prior career, the career that I left because of my illness, the grief and loss associated with my illness, the metamorphosis and change process and growth as a result of hitting bottom, having a sense of humor, and being present on stage… the stage of life. Not wasting a moment. Being curious and joyful about living in this body, in this lifetime, even when it feels like suffering and pain. And that everything I’ve gone through has lead me to this present moment where I get to show up completely and say yes to my life. #Jazzhands.
 
So what’s yours?
 
Try some on. Keep it simple, memorable, and potent. And then hold yourself accountable. I wrote it on my mirror. I wrote it on my website. I say it out loud in groups and get other people literally doing jazzhands (choreography!). Fully mind, body, spirit people! So get in there and do some internal questing to uncover your personal mantra. Remember, there’s nothing too silly, odd, or weird, and the only person it has to make sense to is you! You don’t have to justify it, you just get to live it.
 
And then start practicing, because if you want something to be there in the tough times, you’ve got to practice it in the other times. So when you’re biking up the “hill” you can shout out loud #jazzhands, make yourself laugh, scare some prairie dogs, and keep peddling. 
 
Post your mantra below or on Facebook, to get some accountability and claim it, and have fun with it! 

This past week I had the great fortune to go to Las Vegas and witness the ending of an era as the show Jubilee, which has run in Las Vegas for the past 35 years, had it’s final show. I was a performer in Jubilee for almost 2 years.  
 
My identity as a performer, dancer, and showgirl is something I have grieved repeatedly since I became sick. Unable to walk up a flight of stairs, I remembered walking up and down thousands of stairs a night, with 4 inch heels and a headdress on in Jubilee.  I cried and cried in my bed, night after night, feeling like I didn’t even know who I was without performing. It’s all I ever wanted to do. It was my identity. And now what? Goodbye rhinestones.
 
I slowly began to realize that there were other things that I could do, such as become a Dance/Movement Therapist, which incorporated many of my interests. I began graduate school, but still felt a hole… the nagging feeling that it wasn’t the same as performing. There is always that comparison. 25 years in my performer identity, and only a couple years in grad school not yet fully owning a therapist identity didn’t outweigh each other yet.
 
And then an odd thing happened. I began to feel better, and stronger, and, wait … maybe I could perform again? I think that time was maybe even worse, in that it was so confusing. Like a carrot being dangled in front of my nose, while I was already moving down another path. So I thought, maybe I could go back to Vegas one day, and be a showgirl again, because now I was feeling better. The previous identity was rearing it’s head again.
 
And then I got sick again. Damnit! There is no way that I could rely on my body to dance through 12 shows a week again consistently for years. So, I began to grieve again. Goodbye rhinestones, and feathers, and lashes.
 
Was I at the mercy of my identities? Where did I get to take the responsibility to choose… but what do I choose? It seemed like there were only two options:
1.  Don’t give up- be the person that goes back to their prior identity, doesn’t let things get them down, fights for it, and becomes greater at it than ever before. Plus has a physical illness… impressive! Or:
2. Brave new world- become the person who grieves, lets go, and chooses the new scarier unknown path, and shines brighter than she could have ever in her prior identity. And, PS, she did this all after an illness… also impressive!
 
Either or, either or, either or.
 
Then I got quiet enough to get out of my own way, and see what was already happening. The truth is, performing/old identity is known, this new career is not. Do I want to spend my life doing what I already do, or growing to what is unexplored and create that? And most of all, how can these maybe, actually, work together. News flash: de-compartmentalize!  These are both threads (and contain many other threads) to who I am… how do I integrate them? Is there space for the past to become present again, in a whole new way? Can rhinestones live in therapy?
 
Seeing Jubilee I felt nothing but proud, and excited, and grateful to be part of an amazing lineage. I was reminded by someone I love dearly that no matter what I am doing in life I will always be a performer, a dancer, and showgirl. So for the first time this was not an experience filled with grief. It was an experience filled with deep reverence for the part of myself that is still me. And brought up a lot of questions around how this part of me still gets to shine, sparkle, and be in the spotlight today.
 
We all have parts of ourselves and our identities that seemingly die with illness or other set-backs, and we have to try to make sense of who we are now. Now that we’re not who we once were, but we aren’t someone new yet either. Instead we’re in the very uncomfortable and messy in-between.  We may not get to choose what happened to us that made us sick, but we do get to choose how the threads of our past identities get to live in the present.  It may be a rough road of realization, but with support, creativity, and (for me) glitter, we can “figure it out.”   
 
So, does this feel true for you?

I look at the candles on my cake, flickering and imbedded in chocolate.
 
Turning 35 feels like turning 15, and, I hear, like turning 75. Some things change, some don’t. Illness makes us feel the passing of time differently, don’t you think? If time is the dialectic of past and future helping us feel the tension of the present moment, then a birthday is the dialectic of birth and death… the anticipation and palpable tension in the room as you inhale before the candle is blown out. Inhale.
 
My mom put 34+1 on my cake… a “3” candle, and a “4” candle, and then a single striped candle to make 35. It was hilarious to me in its absurdity. There was definitely a whole year, exactly five years ago, that the toxicity in my bloodstream was so high that I didn’t commit much to memory. Fuzzy. When I think back on it it’s like I’m looking through a pair of glasses that have been smudged for 3 years without being cleaned.  I remember telling my therapist at the time that I had “lost a year of my life.” She told me that “important work was being done” in that year, more than in any other year prior. I hated her for that. For trying to put a silver lining on my grief. Now I know what she said was true. That was a cocoon year. 34 + 1.
 
My wishes this year I realize are the complete opposite experience of that fuzzy year. Don’t tell anyone I told you, but I’m wishing for a continued experience of health, relationship, and awareness, at a pace that is sustainable and inspiring! And also to change the world. Wish.
 
Time lights candles, and blows them out, until there are no more. Exhale. The future continues to arrive. A future of inhales, wishes, and exhales. Of our friend/enemy time. Of +1s. And, ideally, of not missing a stinking minute.