I turned fifty and had a facelift

On September 11, at 7:31 pm I celebrated my fiftieth birthday. It's true! So I had a facelift yesterday.

But, before I go into detail I do want to take a moment to express my most sincere gratitude for the outpouring of birthday gifts and greetings and messages I received via email, ecard, twitter and on facebook from my customer-friends, colleagues and on-line community members. My online e-commerce endeavor has gifted me with a loving, lovely extended family. I am blessed to have found abundance and true wealth through the unchartered, unexpected twists and turns my professional practice has taken over the past several years. So a word of wisdom here: if Spirit ever urges you to quit your job and become an ebay psychic, do it. And be ready for the ride of your life. Don't resist the seemingly absurd, just go with the flow...

At fifty, I see that has become a way of life for me now. I am comfortable accepting change without getting too anxious, angry or frustrated. I'll take what life gives me with gratitude, trusting, rather than try to mold circumstance to be as I think it should be. But I am a Virgo, a scientist, a thinker and a perfectionist. How did this happen? Maybe its an Oshun thing... the water, the movement...

In the temple I call a kayak, I meditated.

Once upon a time I realized that I can’t control everything. That was the beginning. I realized that things will happen, not might happen, but will. There are things that I cannot control that will affect every aspect of my life, and I must must must accept that, or I go crazy. No, thanx.

And, somewhere along the journey I became aware. I learned that you can’t change things in your head if you’re not aware of them. You have to become an observer of your thoughts, a self-examiner. I have learned to take a deep breath to calm down and get perspective. I have learned to take a step back. I have a technique: You know how you’re watching a movie and the camera zooms away and you can see much more of the world on the screen than you could before? How it goes from closeup to a larger, panoramic view of things? That’s what happens in my mind’s eye. I start to zoom away, until I’m pretty far away from things. Then whatever happened doesn’t seem so important. A week from now, a year from now, will this matter? Probably no one will care, not even me. So why get upset about it? Just let it go, goodbye.

I learned to laugh. I try to see "things" as comical, or at least incedibly interesting, rather than frustrating. It requires a certain amount of detachment — you can laugh at the situation if you’re above it, but not within it. That detachment is a good thing, beacuse life isn't always about me, sometimes "things happen" so I will be in a particular place at a particular time to be there for someone else. When I am delayed, I always wonder who is waiting for me.

I realized that I can’t control others. This was one of my biggest challenges as a mother and healer. I finally realized that even the people I love and I am tyring to help are acting according to their personality, according to what they feel is right, and that they are not going to do what I suggest all of the time. I have to accept that. Accept that I can’t control them, accept them for who they are, accept the things they do, and send a blessing rather than a curse when they need it most.

I accepted change and imperfection. I accepted the fact that the world is constantly changing, and I am a part of that change. Also, instead of wanting things to be “perfect” (and what is perfect anyway?), I accepted that they will never be perfect, and learned to accept this moment instead.

And so, I've had a facelift. It's a parodox, isn't it.

I've learned to enjoy life as a flow of change, chaos and beauty. What is perfection? It’s actually a very interesting question. Does perfect mean the ideal life and world that we have in our heads? Do we have an ideal that we will try to make the world conform to? Because that will likely never happen. Instead, I will try to see the world as perfect the way it is. It’s messy, chaotic, painful, sad, dirty … and completely perfect. The world is beautiful, just as it is. And so am I, with my turkey neck and lip lines, crows feet and sunspots.

My facelift? No, not a surgical procedure on my body, but certainly a change in my "image." My facelift is my commitment to continue to go with the flow for the next fifty years. You'll see it on my web pages at my Bonanzle and ecrater stores and on my website. There's a river running through them now, and the lotus avatar has been replaced with the face of Mother Oshun.

Life is not something static, but a flow of change, never staying the same, always interesting, sometimes funny, always beautiful. There is beauty in everything around us, if we look at it as perfect.

May you be blessed!

Bonanzle and Ebay as Spiritual Teachers

Zen Masters, Dolphins, Wise Elders, and Tomatoes. Its a blog post that I wrote recently about finding wisdom in unexpected places. Like a tomato garden... and upon further reflection, an e-commerce venue or two.

Tomorrow marks my one year anniversary selling on Bonanzle. I arrived on the shores of Bonanzle with a boatload of other refugees from ebay, huddled masses seeking a new marketplace in which to set up our shops. Bonanzle whispered to us...

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

On February 1, I posted the following blog entry:

"As many of you know, I have a new storefront on Bonanzle.com Bonanzle is a brand new e-commerce and social marketing site that reached a million listings in 6 months, and was recently voted the best ebay alternative according to Examiner.com. It's a grassroots effort, championed by a growing base of forward-thinking veteran sellers, who share a community-centric, cooperative spirit. Management is responsive, accountable, hands-on, and creative. There's team spirit at Bonanzle, a refreshing change for sellers migrating from ebay who have felt that they had become more like spectators watching their on-line marketplace storefronts being managed more and more by the venue and less and less by themselves. While Bonanzle expects business owners manage their own businesses, they simply provide the venue, albeit a venue that listens, really listens, to the wants and needs of the sellers who are setting up shop there."

I went on to announce a line of Bonanzle bath and body products I had developed to fund-raise for the fledgling site, giving 20% of the sales to the venue on top of the $24 voluntary monthly membership fee I happily paid for the privilege. (You can read it in its entirety if you are so inclined, here.) It was an exciting time, everyone had their sleeves rolled up, generosity in all of its magnificent forms flowed freely! And, of course Bonanzle flourished!

Bonanzle has really grown in the past year, with now over 2 million listings on its books! Many features have been added and tweaked for the better, and yet some key elements are still left wanting creating real barriers to sales. There are a lot of bells and whistles to play with, and the new syndicated selling and affiliate programs promise to drive traffic to the site. Although I no longer keep a memebership there, and so I no longer sell BonanzleSudzle, I maintain a storefront at Bonanzle, and I do believe that the venue has the potential to take off. In my heart of hearts, I hope the huddled masses will find the promised land.

All in all, my experience at Bonanzle has been extremely positive: I have made great –lifelong– friends through the forums and I have learned e-commerce marketing skills that are transferable to my own website and beyond. I have witnessed the beautiful spirit of community and cooperation soar to the stars! And, although there have been some ugly moments that left me scratching my head, all in all it has been a wonderful learning curve and a fertile field for personal growth. And so, this Sunday morning I raise a Mimosa to my fellow Bonanzlers, in gratitude and celebration!

Cheers!

It is my regular Sunday morning habit to write, so I took a moment of reflection and focused on the past year and my adventures in e-commerce. I'll call it my Bonanzle Awakening as it was the event of my journey beyond ebay and my anniversary there that has inspired me. I think it's a celebration of personal growth that can be translated beyond its application to my e-commerce businesses and marketing plans. And so I'll share...

Awakening... at some point you realize that it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for fulfillment, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that any guarantee of "happily ever after" must begin with you and in the process, a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You affirm that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen, is different from working toward making it happen. You focus and get going!

You awaken to the fact that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected. You learn that people don't always say what they mean or mean what they say. You decide to be true to your truth and to take care of yourself and in the process a sense of safety & security is born of self-reliance.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for. You remember that it is truly in giving that we receive and that there is powerful joy in creating and contributing. You stand firm in your conviction that principles such as honesty and integrity are not outdated ideals but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build your business, and life.

You humble yourself to the truth that you don't know everything; that it's not your job to save the world and that you can't teach a pig to sing. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO. You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

And, then you learn about love.

You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You learn about trust.

You come to the realization that you deserve to be treated with love, kindness, sensitivity and respect and you won't settle for less. You take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that life isn't always fair, you don't always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people. You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You learn to be thankful.

In my Awakening I vow to take responsibility for myself, and I make myself a promise to never betray myself and to never ever settle for less than my heart's desire. I promise to keep my chin up, boobies out, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

I am thankful.

May you be blessed!