Love the one you're with: yourself!

I'm taking a break from networking, signing business deals (#likeaboss,son), giving The Kitten nubbins and, most importantly, this: http://youtu.be/ylJvzCJJVgc...to express my sadness that apparently so many people hate Valentine's Day. No me gusta. And before you assume that I'm 8, or that I woke to bouquets of roses and edible panties...meh, not so much. I woke to NPR because I'm sexy like that. In fact, I actually have had several serious boyfriends break up with me because of my inability to be romantic. What can I say: at heart, I'm an over-stimulated teenage boy, with a short attention span and I don't have time for romance! I have time to um (cough cough) get it on, and then baby, it's not me, it's you, you need to go so I can drink wine alone in the bed, in peace and quiet and watch true crime TV with the cats. Simple girl, simple pleasures.

On the other hand, before you judge me, considering my sketchy (at best), taste in men...this is not necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise, you'd be watching my misadventures on Prison Wives, for f**k's sake. And/or, Big Love...assuming I could be the main wife and sign off on all the other wives. Hmm. Note to self. (If you're reading this in Utah and you are tall, blond, hot and not allergic to cats...how you doin'? Email me!)

But, I digest.

My point being: Valentine's Day isn't the issue here. The issue is all the horsesh*t we put on Valentine's Day. The way we make people feel that to be single is the worst thing ever. The way we make people feel that having a "relationship" means you're not damaged, and that your life has meaning. The way we make people feel that it's okay to not want to figure themselves out, since that's terrifying, and they have a boyfriend/girlfriend so all is well, everything's cool, don't freak out.

 It's no longer a day to give some flowers and, hopefully, some hot sex to your steady sweetie(s), but a day to overcompensate. So if you're feeling crappy about aspects of your life, Valentine's Day can become a day to have the most amazing romantic experience, dammit, because if nothing else, at least you have a man/woman. At least you're not horribly and painfully alone...right? If nothing else, right, you're doing better than all those pathetic single people...even if you and your man have horrible sex...or you ignore each other the rest of the time...or you're bored by each other and you sext other people or you suspect he does...at least you're having a romantic dinner at Applebee's tonight.

Meanwhile, a lot of single people, instead of intelligently understanding that if you don't make room in your life for a real, loving relationship, if you keep recreating your previous mistakes and "dating" people who are not (emotionally) available...you shall stay single...a lot of single people are all, "Gawd, Valentine's Day sucks!"

I'm kind of exaggerating to make a point...and kind of not. If people could just shut out all the horsesh*t society puts on them--TO SELL roses, cards, chocolates, status--and accept themselves...well, then they'd probably only date/marry people who "get" them, who like to have sex with them, who make them laugh. We'd understand that being single can actually be amazing if you use that period(s) in your life to create a real relationship with yourself, so that when you eventually meet someone who gets you and who is worth your time...you recognize them, and you value them. Because you recognize and value yourself.

So when I say, "Love the one you're with"...yes, I mean love yourself...the one you'll always be with!

xo
C.

31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 25, 2013

Day 25: Come on in, the water's fine!

I write those words in Queens, New York, wearing leggings, a sweater, and sweatshirt, huddled in my apartment which is alternatively over-heated and frigid[1]…but the expression, while perhaps seemingly incongruous to the situation, is apt. At a certain point, in figuring out how and why you’re going to change your life, you have to stop thinking and just do. You have to stop looking and just leap.

Okay, some of you are vomiting in your mouth right about now, thinking I’m that perky chick you knew, and hated, in college who majored in women’s studies,[2] listened to Joan Osborne, for f**k’s sake, and wanted to save Tibet, and ate vegan cookies…wrong, wrong. Vegan cookies are especially wrong[3]. I did wear Birkenstocks in college because 1) they were comfortable, and 2) it was a women’s college, and 3) I was young and foolish. Now I wear Birkenstocks to piss off my dates.

I am the least crunchy person you’ll probably ever meet…but I am, possibly, the most optimistic person you’ll meet, so when I say, “Shut up and do it,” I say it with love[4] and because it’s true. I started this business knowing less than nothing[5], but I was desperate and determined…and look at me now! (Pause.) I mean, okay, don’t look right now, because I’m in sweats, and covered in cat-hair, but behind this squalor (and even more cat-hair) is a life of opportunity, because I just made a way.  I stopped thinking how, or worrying about figuring things out minute by f**king minute, and just did it. Basically, I gave up on being a perfectionist. It’s so tiring trying to be perfect and the limited energy I have needs to be spent on 1) nagging clients and 2) tormenting men[6].

My point being: Dive on in, the water’s fine! You’ll make it happen, and if you don’t, well something even better will work out. Want some help getting your toes wet? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or leave me a note in the comments, or visit my Facebook page, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta,” for a free consultation.

---

[1] Sounds like my typical date! Thank you, ladies & germs.

[2] Don’t even get me started. I’m a woman myself; I don’t need to be studied.

[3]When I eat a cookie, I demand butter and possibly some lard—life’s short—and if some doe-eyed animal has to be sacrificed for said cookie…excellent!

[4] …meh.

[5] But still more than anyone who voted for Romney. Ha! Aww, Boo, don’t be like that…

[6] Yes, when it comes to boys, I am essentially 8 years old, so if I like a boy, I become very obnoxious. On the other hand, I also become very naked so it all works out in the end.

31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 8, 2013

Day 8: Come in Good Faith

If you've been enjoying/tolerating this blog for any length of time, you know that I did indeed go to law school, for all of the wrong reasons(...hmm, doesn't that sound like a horrible country-western song? If some ballad along those lines wins next year's Country Music Awards, I'll 1) laugh till I choke and, 2) sue, sue, sue dammit!). But luckily I have an excellent way of dealing with law school: since graduating in 2007, I've worked diligently to forget as much as possible of what I *cough cough* "learned." And yet...

 And yet, I recently found myself explaining the concept of "eminent domain" to a friend and I was 1) amazed I had remembered anything, 2) outraged with my brain. This is the same brain which has to call all the boys I date "baby," since I can't remember their stupid names after like 5 minutes...but some useless factoid of legal "knowledge" is lodged in my cranium? Irritating. (Right now my brain is humming lyrics to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" and happy.) 

But one aspect of legal "wisdom," I do believe in, boys and girls, is the concept of coming in "good faith." You don't go to court to play games, or make a stand, or send a message, because that's what Twitter and melodramatic movies are for. You go to court because you have a serious legal issue, or you know, you're Lindsay Hohan and it's Tuesday...ha! (I'm here all week; tip your servers and try the lamb.) 

My point being...if you're trying to make serious changes in your life, big or small (and you cannot have big changes without starting small, sorry.), you absolutely must approach those changes and how you facilitate them in good faith. I frequently have prospective clients who, after getting super excited for my strategies, freak out and start picking holes in everything and making problems. They refuse to do anything because they already can tell nothings going to work. Instead, they fight me on every point. Or rather, they would fight me on every point...but I have no time for haters. Boring people are boring and I have a lot to get accomplished today. 

That to me is the antithesis of good faith: if you're determined to fail, and to tell me in full detail why my ideas won't work--without even trying one, for f**k's sake-- and why you're doomed to fail...well, fine! I guess you are a failure, thanks for making it easier on the rest of us. I'm not, thank Yahweh for all involved, your mom. I'm not here to convince you to make the changes that you yourself are desperate to make. Sorry, but I'm going to treat you like an adult. Irritating, but true. If I wanted kids, I'd be married. So you're going to have to give me and yourself 100 f**king percent. You're going to have to come to me in good faith and say, "I'm going to help you to help me. I'm going to invest in your ideas and myself." Then, like some bad 1980s buddy-cop film...it's on!

I'd love to hear your rants/kvetches/praise/shout-outs (...oh yes, I did!) in the comments section. Or, if you're interested in getting some help with that good faith, email me @carlotazee@gmail.com.

So, it's Black Friday and I've been shopping for what I can write about following Thanksgiving, on the theme of being grateful (...see what I did there? #clever!), and through a long chain of events, I was reminded of a boy I had dated briefly in 2008-09, who, in the midst of a six-month disgustingly soppy love affair...abruptly dumped me. Dumped me, as he profusely wept. Dumped me, weeping, a mere two days after confessing, for the umpteenth time, his love for me. Confusing. You are correct: it was rather a confusing time for all involved. And by "confusing," I mean that when he told his friends they all, to a man, told him he was an asshole...and then asked, "So, um, you won't mind if I call her, right?"

Anyway, in the midst of this confusing, emotional time, one afternoon the phone rang...and my caller ID identified the number as belonging to the boy's mother. Note: I adored his mother. She adored me. He introduced us within a month of meeting me, and she was so welcoming, so charming, so fun...I liked her almost as much as I liked her son. But today, I wasn't really up to speaking to her, assuming she was going to blame me for ruining the relationship. Since inwardly, that was what what I sometimes thought: I must have fucked it up. Intellectually I knew that if that schmuck was going to dump me, then god bless, his loss...but I wasn't, at that point, the yenta I am now. I had only recently graduated from law school, with a hefty amount of debt. I hated the law like poison. I hated the idea of being an attorney even worse. The dazzling success of my twenties seemed a lifetime away. I was bartending and whining and generally saying, "How the f**k is this my life?" So now to be dumped by a boy who had treated me like a queen when we were together...baroo?

But, I'm a big girl, so I answered the phone, and his mom immediately started weeping and apologizing. She was furious on my behalf. She was mortified for me. She had been fantasizing of being a grandmother to numerous little brown grand-babies..and some cats, sure, whatever. She had shown my photo to all her friends and bragged about me....and then her son did this. (Hell truly hath no fury like a woman deprived of grand-babies.) And then...she begged me not to take him back. No, in fact, she demanded that I not take him back, that he didn't deserve me, and she apologized for his cowardly behavior.

 I felt like I had stumbled into the Twilight Zone and/or had perhaps momentarily stopped understanding the English language. She was after all his mom: shouldn't she want us to get back together? No, she said, she had taken back too many men who didn't treat her right, and wasted too many years feeling like something was wrong with her, and she couldn't let that happen to one more woman. [Insert here the sound of my head exploding.] I was literally speechless. She had hoped her son would marry me, but once he called her, in tears, to admit what he did, she felt she had to call me...and even as she was speaking, her second husband was standing watching her, equally speechless. We were all speechless.

Of course, at the time, I didn't really understand what an incredible gift this woman had given me. I didn't really understand what a woman of character she was. But as time went on, and I met more and more people who had also suffered romantic setbacks like that, and lost--for reasons beyond their control or their "fault"--people who made them feel special, alive and unique...and unfortunately blamed themselves and thus started to believe that they were "damaged," or "at fault"...increasingly, I understood that this boy's mom gave me a gift I can probably never repay. She was yet another person who insisted on returning my confidence to me. I couldn't have created this business, and tried to help other people without her generosity, determination and love at a moment when I truly needed it. It took tremendous strength of character to do what she did...and I hope she knows that I know that.

Because if you believe that you are at fault...you will become at fault. You will become damaged. You will continue to chase people who do not love or appreciate you. You will not find the love you so desperately desire. Instead, you'll find users, losers, abusers and other people who don't care.

So, if you at home are reading this and like approximately 99% of other humans on the planet, have, at one point, had your heart unexpectedly and savagely broken by someone for seemingly no reason... let me give you the gift that this boy's mom gave me. It'll just take a moment, then you can return to buying crap on-line. Ready?

1. It's not your fault. (You were dumped because of forces way, waaaay outside your control. There was nothing you could do, or not do. This breakup was not about you. Write this on a piece of paper, tape it to your bathroom mirror or fridge and stare at it till you believe it: You are not at fault!)

2. Do not take them back.  (They're not worth it; you are. They will break your heart again and again and again and...did I mention 'again?')

3. Love yourself as you want to be loved. (Otherwise, no one else can or will.)

Of course, in hindsight, I give thanks to the Goddess pretty much every day that I was dumped by that extremely short boy...especially because the next few boys I (cough cough) "dated" were fine as hell (....bitch, you know how I do!). They were models, or actors or bartenders or crazy and tall, funny, smart (...oh, stop it...) or all of the above. So I'm not writing this for that boy, dear lord no, he's somewhere doing mediocre improv comedy and feeling sorry for himself and his penis...or is that redundant? #meowmeowmeow

No, I'm writing this for his mom to say "thank you" from the depths of my heart. To let her know how grateful I am and shall always be to her for what she did. And to remind you, out there, that if someone dumps you, you need to turn around, shake their hand, thank them, and move on. Life's very short. Don't waste it chasing idiots. "Waste" it having fun, learning about the world, challenging yourself, being alive...and anyway: how much fun can you have with some (short) idiot who doesn't appreciate you? Exactly.

Wanna vent? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com!

Friday quickie vent

This blog is about creativity coaching, yes? It's, theoretically, about me reaching out to you, Dear Reader, and helping you become empowered and passionate about what makes you tick.
Okay, but sometimes, this blog becomes my space for venting. As in, when I made the mistake of reading Jamie Bufalino's Get Naked column in this week's Time Out New York. But my venting today, boys and girls, is not so much about Mr. Bufalino, as about the second letter-writer. Here's a link: http://newyork.timeout.com/sex-dating/2283697/get-naked
(*musical pause here, as you read the second letter*)
Whoa. Where to start, right? Let's make it clear: I'm certainly no dating 'expert', whatever that might mean, but I have run through, um I meant "dated" more than my fair share of mens. I have enjoyed myself. I wouldn't say I'm the easiest person in the world to date (Ha!), but I am fun. I like to drink. I an excellent conversationalist. I show a lot of cleavage. I have an inappropriate sense of humor, and crucially, I enjoy being naked with a good-looking boy. So, maybe I'm no expert, but I have some basic sense to share with the letter-writer, as in: Are you for serious?? How are you, a 40-year-old woman, seriously wondering if this guy is going to change, if he's "committed to getting help," given his history of cheating on every single woman in his life? Um, what to the what! I know what you want to hear--that yes, your love can change him-but let's be honest, shall we?
He's 51; he's cheated on every relationship; he's cheated on you a number of times. And news-flash: these are only the instances that you know about... This isn't a sex-addiction. This is the joy of cheating. The thrill of, probably, knowing that there are lots of women out there who want to have sex with him. Pretty pathetic, right?
And, let's be clear: his behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with you. He cheats because he enjoys it. (So your attempt to justify his actions due to your extended absences is also horse-sh*t, sorry. You could be there 24/7 and he'll still find a way to cheat. To him, cheating = fun!)
I know: what's really painful is the realization that you're not "special," that even though he cheated on all the others, somehow your love didn't "change" him. That can be a depressing thought to consider. It can make you wonder if there's something wrong with you? (Answer: No, there isn't. Not a damn thing.)
Instead, you could understand that you are special to one person, the person to whom it should really matter: yourself. You could understand that and cut your loses, hit the road and stop wasting your time with this "loving father and successful executive." What, btw, does his "success" have to do with the fact that he's a cheating mofo?
Don't confuse the issue: he always has cheated, he always will cheat. So even if he wins a MacArthur Genius Award: he's still a cheater. His lies to you, about his "sex addiction," are boring and predictable; your lies to yourself are the heart of the matter.
This is NYC. My research has confirmed that there are a lot of fun boys out there, looking to meet women. And you're stuck on this loser...why?

and, you're welcome...

Only 99 cents for all this hawt wisdom...http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/15383175

This is for an old friend...

(Someone whom I've known since I was a teenager someone whom, when we were both at our respective colleges, I went to visit her, and we spent a weekend drinking and singing Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" in public, since we thought we were hilarious... till her roommate forcibly made us stop. Yes, that kind of old friend.) Anyway, this friend asked me to get her the email of a boy we went to high school with, since she had some "unfinished bidness" with him. I've never been a huge fan of said boy, but whatever: this is her ish.
She's divorced, and trying to get back into The World. So, she sent the boy a casual email...nothing. Then, spontaneously, she sent him a much longer, very honest, very open email...still (so far) nothing. But watch what did happen: she did realize that she had, finally, been totally honest and open with this boy, so if he still "rejected" her...well, what would she want with someone who couldn't appreciate and savor the (fun/fantastic/crazy) person she really is? Ding ding ding!Now if I can just convince her that joining an online dating service will not end in her being kidnapped/tortured/maimed, we'll really have something...baby steps. Baby steps.