Tara Sophia Mohr | wise living

Photo: “Life flows on…” by Christa Gallopoulos
 
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I don’t often excerpt other people’s work here, but I recently read something so gorgeous I knew right away I wanted to share it with you. This is from one of my favorite teachers, neuropsychologist and Buddhist teacher, Rick Hanson. Rick writes:
 

“One of the strangest and most meaningful experiences of my life occurred when I going through Rolfing (ten brilliant sessions of deep-tissue bodywork) in my early 20′s. The fifth session works on the stomach area, and I was anticipating (= dreading) the release of buried sadness. Instead, there was a dam burst of love, which poured out of me during the session and afterward. I realized it was love, not sadness, that I had bottled up in childhood – and what I now needed to give and express.
 
We can hold back our contributions to the world, including love, just as much as we can muzzle or repress sorrow or anger.
 

 
I was so moved by this: we expect to get in touch with buried pain, or grief, inside, but what about this – that inside of us rests a bottled up, unexpressed well of love?
 
“I realized it was love, not sadness, that I had bottled up in childhood – and what I now needed to give and express.”
 
I just wanted to hold a space for those words here. They stir my heart each time I read them.
 
We are so large, so sacred, so miraculous, so gifted – so much more so than the world has told us or than the world understands. We came into the world full of so much love, and along the way, got so many messages that caused us to hold back.
 
It is time to burst the dam of love.
 
I hope you’ll share in the comments what these words stir in you.And parents, what does this bring up for you in terms of your parenting? Please share.
 
By the way, if this spoke to you, I hope you’ll check out more of Rick’s work. It is quality. Rick is the author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom – and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. I’m proud to say Rick is also a featured guest teacher in my Playing Big program, where he shares his wise and gentle approach to dealing with fear. Rick also writes a lovely newsletter called Just One Thing, which is where I read the passage above. You can subscribe to it here, (free!), if you’d like.
 
 
 
 
Love,
 
Tara

Cafe Lalo, one of my favorite places in NYC
 
At this moment I on the plane coming home to San Francisco from New York. I had a fabulous week in NYC that included:

• Staying at On the Ave, a sweet little boutique hotel located at a great spot on the Upper West Side. I recommend!
• Speaking to hundreds of brilliant women at tax and advisory company KPMG.
• Sitting a beautiful long table with Jeanne Stafford at her fabulous women’s networking dinner, EVEnts, and speaking there.
• Meeting longtime and new readers of my work like C.V., Katie, Rosemary, and so many others  at my evening salon on Playing Bigger. It ran smoothly and beautifully due to the help of Playing Big grads Ariane and Kiki!
• Joining Christine and Bronson for their NY radio show on 106.7 FM to talk about how women undermine themselves.
• Daily breakfast at this adorable cafe (how can you resist a place called: “pecan: a barista and a cook”?)
• Late night visit to Cafe Lalo (I try to never leave NYC without coming to this place at least once. It is cheerfulness manifest.)
• Fabulous meals (and needed green juice to fight a cold!) from here, here and here.
• A visit to the theater to see family drama Other Desert Cities with Stockard Channing, Judith Light, and Rachel Griffiths (I recommend. I really do love a play, or movie, where nothing happens except people talking to each other.This was one of those.

It was a great week. I love this city, and I loved the “work” (it is so not work!) I got to do when I was here. Thanks to everyone who made it such a lovely week.

Love,

Tara

My friend Molly asked me to contribute to a series of posts on Fierce Self-Love – as a part of the warmup to her upcoming course on that topic.

I’m excited about what Molly does over at her site, Stratejoy. Her work targets women in their mid-twenties, women grappling with their “quarter-life crisis!” (Have you heard that term yet? It’s a new thing.)

She’s created a community for thousands of young women who want to consciously craft their lives and find greater meaning EARLY in adulthood.

I’m a big supporter of this because of my own experiences. I started consciously working on my personal growth early in life, and along the way was often frustrated when people remarked to me that inner work is for the second half of life. That you only get interested in it or ready for it when you are older.

I believe that is so not true, that many children, adolescents and young adults are seeking tools to live aligned with their values and help them go after their dreams.

So, for her “ABC’s of Self-Love” blog crawl, Molly asked me to write a post about questioning, as it relates to self-love.

Of course, one way we can love ourselves is to question the limiting stories or inner critic narratives that live in our heads. But I want to write about something else here: the importance of asking ourselves powerful questions.

It’s sometimes said that the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our questions. I think that’s true.

Here are seven of the most loving questions I think we can ask ourselves

1. What do I really want?
2. What is my heart’s desire?
3. What is this teaching me?
4. What is the gift in this?
5. What am I ready to let go of?
6. What am I avoiding?
7. What would love do in this situation?

Notice what these questions have in common:

1. They are about the present – not the future or the past.
2. They are short, under seven words. Simple.
3. They begin with the word “what.”

There are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, I believe the most helpful questions we can ask ourselves meet these three criteria.

They don’t try to predict the future or figure out the past. (Sorry, Freud!)

They are simple, simple enough that our hearts and souls can hear and understand them. Once a question gets too complex and weighty, only the frontal cortex can understand it – and when it comes to the questions that matter most in our lives, the frontal cortex probably doesn’t have the answers. We need to speak to ourselves in language simple enough that our hearts and souls can understand — and then reply.

These questions also begin with “what.” “What” questions open up a space for naming what is happening, for creating possibilities, for generating ideas. They don’t demand an answer about “how” (“how” comes later, after a gorgeous and rich and wise “what” is uncovered) or try to figure out “why.” The “what” leads the way.

So try it this week. Set aside the why questions, the complex questions, the either/or questions. When you are reflecting, or journaling, or talking with a friend, think in terms of questions like these: big, open-ended, simple, short, “what” questions.

See what gifts show up in the answer.

Love,

Tara

This post is part of the “Blog Crawl of Self-Love” hosted by Molly Mahar of Stratejoy. You can check out other great posts by bloggers Amy Kessel, Rachel Cole, Randi Buckley and many others. Find out more about The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt here.

Love,

Tara

When you beautify your mind, you beautify your world. – John O’Donahue

Sometimes we get caught in an odd misconception: that we are simply “supposed to be” happy. That psychological normalcy is an upbeat, cheerful, satisfied attitude. We assume that if the external events in our life are relatively stable and good, we should be “happy.”
 
The problem is, we live in a world that is still very wounded, still very unwise. There is a great deal of pain and darkness in the world. Whether it is the depressing physical environments we encounter, the headlines in the news, or the wounds other people act out in the way they treat us, we each get a lot of messages every day that we are not enough, not sacred, and that life is not safe and abundant.
 
I believe we are deeply affected by all of this. That we are vessels – and our attitude, our mood, is a product of what is poured in the vessel.
 
Each of us is responsible for our part – for what we pour in, each and every day. Do you pour in beauty? Do you pour in uplifting music, or uplifting words? Do you pour in loving thoughts? Do you pour in bitter thoughts, cynical television shows, harsh words, violent images?
 
I depend on spiritual literature, poetry, prayer, music, visual beauty, movement, and conversations with loving people so that I can “pour in” enough light each day to feel the way I want to feel, and to be the woman I want to be.
 
What you pour in will determine the quality of your life. It will shape what you are able to see. It will make the world look like a dark and ugly place or a kind and beautiful one.
 
What are you pouring in? What do you pour in each day that makes a difference for you? Please share in the comments so others can learn from your practices too.
 
Love,
 
Tara
 
p.s. – I’m having a great time in New York. 3 speaking engagements, 1 radio interview, 1 Broadway show, and 1 bottle of brand new moisturizer that froze on the walk home from the drug store. Literally.
 
We have two tix open for my event tonight in NYC due to cancellations. If you want to grab one of those spots, you can join us here.
 
Love,
 
Tara

It’s happened a few times now. I’m teaching a class, or sitting in a circle with women at an event, and someone raises their hand to participate in the discussion.

She says, “I just have so many interests. I’m excited by so many different things. I try to do too much. I end up juggling a million things. What can I do about that? Any recommendations on how I can FOCUS?”

The first time someone said this to me, I had a hunch about what to say back, so I simply said it: “Is this – the juggling, the million interests – actually a problem, or did you somehow get the message from someone else that it was a problem?”

“Hmmm….interesting,” she replied. Then she sat quietly for a few moments. “I guess it’s not a problem – I actually love everything I’m doing and I don’t feel scattered in the way people seem to think I would, given how much I have going on. Sometimes things get very overfull and chaotic, but I don’t actually mind that – I even kind of enjoy it.”

This – this conversation – keeps happening again and again: women are sure they aren’t focused enough, when it turns out that their abundance of interests are serving them beautifully. It’s as if there is a special kind of inner critic weighing them down, the “make choices and focus!” critic.

Here’s the ridiculous narrative most of us got as we grew up: You pick your “interests.” You are allotted a hobby or two, and a professional focus. Then you just stick with those things, and live a sane, serene kind of life, where you have plenty of time for your work focus, your hobby, your family, and for making a lovely dinner every night! The implicit message is: If you are sane, if you are strong, if you have a good moral compass, you’ll be able to focus. If you can’t, you should feel a little ashamed, and like a bit of a mess. People who can’t choose a narrow focus never complete or accomplish anything.

So what if this wasn’t true, at all?

Or what if it was true in an era when people stayed in jobs for 30 years and needed a very specific technical expertise to get a good job — but is not true in the era that is ours?

Or what if this idea came from a patriarchal culture obsessed with labels, categories, compartmentalization and “focus? A culture terrified of anything having to do with the messiness, the overfull-ness, and the mysterious connections between the disparate parts of life?

And what if you could totally let go of that internal voice of should saying you should love less and focus more, and instead begin to see the beauty and wisdom of each choice you made to place something in your market basket?

I know a lot of women who love a million things. We really only love a few things, but those few manifest in a million ways, and we love the diverse manifestations.

We juggle. But our juggling doesn’t actually look like a panicked, clumsy rush to catch all the balls. (You know, the kind that graces all the magazine and book covers, showing the crazy women pulling her hair out trying to manage it all?) Our juggling doesn’t look like that. It looks like the expert’s juggling. It’s graceful, beautiful, practiced. It’s a sight to see. It’s a gorgeous dance.

If you feel like you have too many interests, if you feel like you lack focus, I urge you to rigorously ask yourself: is there *really* a problem here? A problem in my getting things done? A problem in my working myself to exhaustion? If yes, address those specific problems – don’t hack away at what you love or tell yourself you need to love more narrowly.

If the answer is no, if in fact there is no real problem, then you’ve probably just absorbed a kind of criticism often labelled at creative women: focus. But the people who were threatened by your garden of interests, don’t know you, and they don’t know your rhythms. Only you do.

Love,

Tara

***

I’m coming to NYC next week, to do a few speaking events. One of them is open to the public and will be a small-group evening salon. I’d love to meet you! Tickets here.

Love,

Tara

***

Yesterday, I was listening to a beautiful interview with the late Irish poet John O’Donahue.
 
He said,

“One of the biggest problems of modern life is that time has become the enemy.”

He spoke about how so many of us struggle with time: we struggle with how much we have, we struggle to fit things in, we complain about the lack of it.
 
Yes, it’s problematic that the pace and expectations of modern life leave us without time for white space, for reflection, for downtime.
 
Yes, “lack of time” is an ever-convenient, oft-used excuse for not following one’s passion, not doing one’s art, not tending to their spiritual lives.
 
But until I heard John O’Donahue say, “One of the biggest problems of modern life is that time has become the enemy,” I hadn’t realized the depth of the problem. When you set yourself up in that oppositional relationship to time, you are cutting yourself off from the very flow of life.
 
Whatever this magic-carpet-ride of life is, time is the backdrop. Time is the fabric of our lives. Time is the sea in which we swim.
 
Time is mysterious, ancient as the cosmos, holy as breath. Do you really want to live in a fight with it, or a complaint against it?
 
Make love to time. Listen to its music. Spend time with it, lovingingly. Hold it with a soft, open hand and allow it to show you its secrets.
 
Find out how soft it is. If its a fabric, it’s silk. If it’s a music, it’s a sound that rolls and leaps like the wind.
 
You’ll find out that time is wise, and alive and making a quiet music.
 
Today, make love to time, and see what you two create.
 
Love,
 
Tara
 
Please share in the comments: what is your relationship to time, and what comes to mind when you think of “making love to time”?
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Special Course for Entrepreneurs: Abundant, Happy Launches

As you know, I’m just coming out of the Playing Big registration period. I’m excited and proud that 140 women from around the world are participating in the program.
 
I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve learned about marketing and product development that allowed me to successfully fill a program with a large group – and wanting to share what I’ve learned with you. I’ve created a short class in which I’ll do just that.
 
I know that, like me, many of you run small businesses that offer something needed and positive to the world – as coaches, wellness practitioners, artists, consultants. Many of you are walking the exciting – yet frustrating – path of promoting products or services online. (Or you are thinking about doing so soon.)
 
You are probably excited by the potential of how many people you could reach and the possibility of creating something financially scalable and sustaining. But you are also probably frustrated with launches that landed with a thud – when you announced a product or service online and saw no – or very low – sales. It’s such a disappointing, ouch, icky moment. I’d like you to not have those disappointing, ouch, icky moments anymore.
 
I’d like to share what I learned with you – the strategies that work and how to build successes even out of the things that aren’t doing well so far. This is marketing – but with special attention to the approaches that bring together integrity, authenticity, and effectiveness. CLICK HERE to learn more.

As you all know, I do a lot of work helping women quiet that vicious, critical voice we each carry around.
 
The one that says, “You are going to screw this up.” “If that was a worthy idea, someone would have done it already.” The one that asks that pernicious question, “Who do you think you are?” This is also the voice harassing you about how you look in the mirror.
 
I write and teach about how:
 
1. We all have a mean inner critic and we will all continue to have mean inner critics. There’s nothing wrong with you. But the critic will get in your way if you don’t learn how to cope with it.
2. What the inner critic says to us is totally false, totally irrational, totally wacko.
 
What I want to talk about now is a counterintuitive and really important fact. Even though what the critic says is wacko, irrational, wrong-o, we shouldn’t argue with it.
 
Arguing is when….
 
it says, “You are ugly!” and you say (or try to say) back, “No, I’m not, I’m beautiful!”
 
or, when it says, “You aren’t prepared enough – you are about to fail horribly!” and you say, “No, I did a good job preparing!”
 
That would be what we call arguing with the critic.
 
From the time that the first inner critic uttered it’s first blow, (“That cave painting SUCKS! You are pathetic!”) arguing with the critic didn’t work.
 
The critic *loves* arguing with you. Arguing with you is a victory. That’s you coming on to its turf, because the critic is intimately tied to the part of our mind that loves arguing, that loves intricacies of rhetoric, that loves trying to control reality through the talk that goes on in our head. If you are arguing with your critic, the critic will win the argument.
 
So here’s the thing: we do need to respond to the critic, but not by meeting it with it’s language.
 
Just notice the critic, as an observer, and name it. “Oh, hey, that’s my inner critic talking.”
 
Kindly say, “Thanks so much for your input! But I’ve got this one covered! You can relax.”
 
Or get out of mental dialogue entirely. Get into action. Connect. Start doing the thing it’s chattering about.
 
Respond by remembering that this is the same stuff your critic has been saying to you for years, that it has yet to be proven true, and that today, like every day is your opportunity to prove it false.
 
***
 
Entrepreneurs:I’m incredibly excited about a short class I’m going to be teaching about what has helped me successfully promote and sell products and programs online. I’ve had success and failures with this – and along the way I learned the strategies that work. I *really* want to pass on what I’ve learned to you – I’m tired of seeing talented people put great work into the world and end up feeling really disappointed and confused about why things didn’t really sell. I have been there too – and I’d like to help other creative entrepreneurs no longer be suffering there.
 
If you would like more emotionally easeful and financially abundant experiences sharing your work with the world, check it out! The class starts soon – Friday!. Click here to learn more.
 
Love,
 
Tara

Hey there,
 
I’m writing today to let you know about a special mini-course I’m offering for entrepreneurs.
 
As you know, I’m just coming out of the Playing Big registration period. I’m excited and proud that 140 women are participating in the program.
 
I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve learned about marketing and product development that allowed me to successfully fill a program with a large group – and wanting to share what I’ve learned with you.
 
I know that, like me, many of you run small businesses that offer something needed and positive to the world – as coaches, wellness practitioners, artists, consultants. Many of you are walking the exciting – yet frustrating – path of promoting products or services online. (Or you are thinking about doing so soon.)
 
You are probably excited by the potential of how many people you could reach and the possibility of creating something financially scalable and sustaining. But you are also probably frustrated with launches that landed with a thud – when you announced a product or service online and saw no – or very low – sales. It’s such a disappointing, ouch, icky moment.
 
I’ve been there! Oh, the ouchiness.
 
Quite honestly, out of frustration with those experiences, I started learning. I learned some techniques and ideas about how to effectively share a product or program with potential customers online. Everything I learned was totally counterintuitive – the opposite of what I’d been doing before. Big surprises. Big learning.
 
What I learned helped me create the thriving Playing Big program, which has had 100+ women register since it’s first year – and the program is growing. I’d like to turn around now and pass the baton.
 
I’d like to share what I learned with you – the strategies that have worked really well for me. This is marketing – but with special attention to the approaches that bring together integrity, authenticity, and effectiveness.
 
We’ll have three calls, covering the top 10 strategies that helped me develop a product my audience wanted and then market it effectively. On each call, we’ll cover a few of the strategies, and then we’ll talk through your questions and dilemmas about your online product launches. And, since “selling” can be stressful and feel very heavy, we are going to do this all with a spirit of supportiveness and *fun.*
 
You’ll get the trifecta of moi: 1) my MBA training, 2) my hard-won lessons learned creating failing and successful products launches online, and 3) the coach who is *not* going to let you stand in your own way here. Nope.
 
I’ve learned so much from my own journey and I’m really excited to share it with all of you creative entrepreneurs.
 
Let’s suffer with our launches less.
Let’s sustain ourselves more abundantly.
Let’s use tools that work and that stay way out of the marketing sleeze-zone.
Let’s have the joy of seeing our work make it’s way in the world.
 
The Details:
-Three 75-minute class conference calls
-Listen to the call recordings anytime, at your convenience, or attend live Feb 3rd at noon PST, Feb 8th at 10:30am PST, Feb 15th at 10:30am PST.
-We’ll cover both how to develop a product your audience wants and how to market it effectively
-We’ll talk through your questions and dilemmas about online product launches and marketing
 
This course is a $97 investment.
 
Click below to sign up.
 

 
P.S. – This is starting quick, this week because 1) I wanted to do it with all the details from the Playing Big launch super fresh in my mind and 2) because I’m honestly so excited about this I kinda couldn’t wait!
 

 
Love,
 
Tara

Photo by Arvalee Knight

Your playing big isn’t defined on the world’s terms. It isn’t necessarily owning an empire or making millions. You know what playing big means for you. It’s following that inspiration that is in your heart. Seeing it through. It is getting out there – visible. It is your voice, your vision, your unique contribution, flowing forth, no longer shrunken down, stopped up inside you, or compromised.

Playing Big Registration Closes Tomorrow.

Click here to get your spot.
 
A short video about my secret agenda with Playing Big. Click here to watch.
 
Last week’s free Information and Q&A Call about Playing Big. Click here to listen.

So, how do you know…if it’s your irrational inner critic talking? Or if you are just being realistic? We started a discussion on that topic last week, here.
 
I’m continuing that conversation with this post.
 
Here are seven common characteristics of how our inner critics sound. Usually, all of these qualities aren’t in operation at once, but a least a couple of them are. Recognize your inner critic here?
 
1. This voice critiques us harshly. If you hear a voice saying things you would never say to another person, it’s the inner critic.
 
2. If you feel out of control of this voice, more like you hear it than you create it, like it invades your thinking rather than reflecting your real thoughts, it’s the inner critic.
 
3. The inner critic repeats itself. If you are plagued by the same thoughts over and over, not really thinking but rather hearing a broken record, it’s the inner critic.
 
4. If you hear a thought you know is irrational or untrue, but the thought won’t leave you, it’s the inner critic.
 
5. The inner critic also attacks us for hosting the thoughts it just put in our heads! After it criticizes, or plays out the worst case scenario, it follows up with lines like these “Get a grip, get some perspective.”
or “Don’t be so insecure, other people are confident and relaxed…just look over at Joe….”
 
6. Though the inner critic seeks to sabotage you, it makes arguments about what’s in your best interest – what is realistic, effective, what will protect you from harm, what will ensure the best outcome. The inner critic tricks us by framing its argument in terms of what’s best for us.
 
7. The inner critic may take inspiration from people in your life who played the role of outer critic. It adapts and expands on their behavior and often exists as a version of their voices inside your head. Listen for echoes of a parent, a sibling, a boss, or the voice of societal institutions or major cultural forces such as your religion, company, or country.
 
Why is it important to know these qualities? Because when you are clear on what your critic sounds like, you can identify yours when it speaks up – and separate yourself from it’s voice. You then have a choice: do I want to take direction from this irrational, fearful part of me – or not?
 

Want to learn more about my women’s leadership program, Playing Big?

Click here to join us live TODAY at noon PST for a free informational and Q&A call about the program! If you can’t make it, no problem. Sign up anyway and you’ll be emailed the recording!
 
Love,
 
Tara