With a rich, deep, mystical genealogy as being Half Irish, (the other half being ALL German!), I wanted to celebrate my often under appreciated Irish heritage with ALL the GREAT things about Being Irish!  (A tribute to you Mom!)

What is conjured up in your mind when I say “The Irish” ???

Typically we all think of the Irish as…well… lemme put it this way:  When my son was just a toddler undergoing serious medical evaluations and tests, I had the doctor ask me a series of family history questions, and when she asked me, “Is there a family history of alcoholism?”  I simply responded with “Uh..well, we are Irish!”
I think we were both so stressed out from an entire day of medical testing that we busted a gut belly laughing over this spontaneous knee-jerk outburst of mine!
Timing is everything, isn’t it?

Actually I’m probably the only Irish person who is allergic to alcohol.  I’m serious, it gives me hives.  (Along with gluten and other delicious delights that the average population of humans enjoy putting into their mouths!)

However much fun we like to poke at stereotypes… it is fun to simply cut loose and not take everything so seriously!  I have learned this through embracing my Irish-ness.  Life is lighter and brighter when I do not take myself so seriously!

The Following are 12 Things I LOVE about my Irish Heritage! (My German side may be jealous, but I’ve promised to celebrate my German heritage during Oktoberfest… uh… however, that might just be my Irish side talking again!  Ha ha!)

12 Things I LOVE about my Irish Heritage:

#1:  Irish Women are Beautiful!!   Inside and Out!  Known most famously for a Fiery, Passionate, Spirited Nature! Such as our Beloved Maureen O’Hara.  (AND I LOVE my Irish Mother!  She is the embodiment of YOUTHFULNESS & FUN!)

#2:   Rainbows, Leprechauns, Pot-O-Gold and all the Luck of the Irish!

An Authentic Irish Rainbow shot in Ireland!

#3:  The Most Colorful Breakfast Food!

Enough calories to count as a full meal!

Ha ha!  I was just seeing if you were paying attention!

I meant the Breakfast Cereal with the Colorful Candy Marshmallows!

Remember… Lucky Charms are “Magically Delicious!”

The Quiet Man

I’ll be interviewed by Michael McCleary on his Radio Show, Anything But Ordinary Radio. Join me at 10 p.m. Eastern Time (9 Central, 8 Mountain and 7:00 Pacific Time). He will be taking LIVE calls, and I will be answering questions Live from the audience. The call-in number during the Show to chat with me Live and ask your Relationship questions will be: 347-857-3760

The link to get you to the Radio Show’s info page (with instructions on how to connect to the Live Interview) is: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133891480013683

I’d LOVE to hear from you… AND if you want, you can send me your relationship questions through my Relationship Web TV Show at http://RelationShift.tv or send me an email at tamara@RelationShift.tv

And don’t forget to sign up here (top right hand corner) or on my http://RelationShift.tv site (if you haven’t already), to get my Book FREE. My gift to you!

I look forward to connecting with you LIVE!

Much love,
Tamara

Christmas, Chanukah, (Hanukkah), Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Las Posadas, to name a few of the Winter Holidays, isn’t this SEASON amazing?? A SENSORY schmorgasboard of delights!

This time of year there are SO many sights, sounds and smells yet in our fast consumption society, we can rush through our days this time of year and barely savor the tasty treats that are here for us to experience and enjoy.

How often do we rush through an entire life only to miss out on the experience of living?

I love the quote by Mary Oliver, “Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”

I think children this time of year are my greatest reminder of the passion and wonder I want to cultivate in my everyday experience. Have you ever seen a child look at holiday lights with wide eyes? Or I love the way they’ll audibly gasp over a toy as if someone just handed them a handful of diamonds.

What if we could be in wonder instead of already knowing? When was the last time we were open to the experience alone…without knowing what it was going to be like?

How many surprises are there anymore in adult life? Do we allow ourselves to be surprised and delighted? When was your last thrill?

Today I decided to try on the eyes of a child, to experience everything new and fresh… and my first experiment was a cup of Cocoa. I didn’t do what I normally do with beverages…. gulp it down while juggling 15 other things at once, and typically forgetting about it until it’s sitting cold and uninteresting. (How many times have you had a cup of coffee or tea and then put it down and by the time you get back to it, it’s cold?)

Today I took 10 minutes to just experience a cup of hot Cocoa. Just to see what it was like to be with that beverage. Did I have a spiritual experience over melted chocolate? Yeah, I did. I actually tasted it, I mean really tasted it. And I actually finished it too. Every last drop… not a one missed!

(By-the-way, Chocolate IS a Spiritual Experience! Especially when used appropriately. But I cannot elaborate further at this time. That is for another Sensual Blog post! However, I highly recommend you explore all your own personal boundaries with…. Chocolate.)

I digress…

This is such a succulent time of year with myriad opportunities to experience and play with our senses! There are lights, sounds, smells, and tastes!

Take time today to pause, to see, to smell, to hear and to taste a bit of this most delicious season. Stop and pull it into yourself and experience fully this perfect moment to be alive.

I’m just giddy today for the gift of taste buds! I mean, how amazing are they?!

Oh please don’t get me started! I’m really wound up about the bliss of sight, sound and smell today too. I’ve been rocking out to holiday tunes, and really excited I can read the precious cards from friends in the mail. It’s the little things that make up a whole life…and energize the moment.

Let’s not go the rest of this day merely breathing. Let’s play like children with the gift of our human experience. What sensual opportunity will you play with today?

Okay the Cocoa was so much fun! Next I’m off to home make a rich wintry mushroom barley soup and inhale the scent of onions browning in butter, (gawd how I LOVE the smell of onions cooking in a pan of butter!) What do you love to taste? To smell?

I’m going to savor on my tongue a big fat mushroom soaked in that buttery sauce, and I’m going to chew it so slow that the taste of it lingers in my mouth for 5 minutes or more!

To cap off a total sensory explosion, I’m may just take in the flickering lights of my cinnamon and brown sugar candles as I light them and immerse myself into the most gorgeous display of velvety soft bubbles one can cram into a tub.

If I’m feeling really playful and adventurous, I might toss in one of my son’s tub toys and remember how much fun it is to have a toy boat floating in a sea of peppermint bubbles!

Cheers to you and your holiday season… and to your own SENSUAL experience of this RICH season! Take it all in. If you’re reading this, it means YOU ARE ALIVE this day! What a gift that is! I’m glad you are here! Let’s play!!

Much love,

Tamara

Looking for support in your Life, Love, and Relationships? If you’re interested in working with me privately, or in a vibrant virtual small group setting, let’s set up a free mini-consultation to see if our work together is a good fit. Call, 303-800-4654 or send me a message on Facebook or Skype! Here’s to a Happy, Healthy, Fully-Vibrant and Expressed YOU!!

Why the fascination with virtual worlds? Why are people spending time, energy and money in another universe as made-up avatars representing who they wish they were or really desire they could be?

Is there a duality, a disintegration with needing to express oneself through a dual existence in a virtual world?

First let me say upfront that I find this topic intriguing as I am a huge lover of fantasy. I love Sci-Fi and I can see the strong attraction to such virtual worlds found on the internet, such as the popular, Second Life.

It’s very alluring to think I could create an avatar from my wildest imagination and do things in the Second Life reality that I cannot do in this reality. I will openly admit that this has a seductive quality to it.

It also has the lure of addiction.

The sexy, attractive, alluring quality of being able to be completely free is well… uh….. intoxicating.

However, creating our succulent juicy freedom in another universe comes with a price I do believe.

The price tag is multi-faceted. Let’s unravel this Hot Topic.

Okay, so role play is fun and spicy, and we love fiction… so the element of using technology to allow us to expand our play is stimulating to say the least.

The problems exist in motive. If we are purely playing and have a firm grasp of this reality, then fine, no need to read on.

However, what I am posing is that the allure and attraction is there because we are not living into our fullest, most honest expression of who we really are…. right here in this reality.

How many of us have ever felt stale, depressed, lack luster, stuck in our current life? How many of us have felt dead in our jobs or relationships?

If we find our spark in another universe, I think we cheat ourselves by not finding it first right here in this one.

I can relate to feeling stuck, feeling depressed, alone, and having felt I lost my moxie. The way out for me was to unshackle myself from the prison I put myself in called, “my life.”

I set myself free when I began to let go of the need for meeting other’s expectations. (ugh… the people pleasing tendency is like a French Revolution Guillotine! Run!)

I began letting go of approval and appreciation seeking behavior. I began letting go of “needing” love and seeing the difference between “need” and “love.” (Whew! What a load of baggage and crap that was! Burn baby Burn!!) When I let it all go, I began to experience FREEDOM! ….and Love, Acceptance, Joy, Peace…all the goodies of grace.

Find your voice! Your freedom! Fully expressing who you are is the most delicious existence. In this place, no virtual world can come close! I promise you this!

And just as a side note, to be completely transparent with you. I have a very ADD mind and I have trouble keeping track of the 10 million things I have going on simultaneously… so that said…

I do believe that if I were juggling two realities, it would most likely eliminate any drinking of alcohol, (an exquisite Red please as it is like sipping the sun off of an ancient vine), but nonetheless, I’d have to give up this almost-spiritual-experience as drinking a glass of vino might make it all the more confusing to remember which life I did what in and with whom. (And I’m NOT convinced that virtual wine is a good as the real thing… so is virtual uh…. you know…. s_x, as good? Really? I’m NOT convinced of that either!)

I wonder if people in a virtual world like, Second LIfe, ever bore other Second Life people by telling stories over again they’ve already shared? You know like when you have to sit through a friend’s recitation of a story they’ve already told you. Or repeating jokes. So annoying. I would eliminate that in another life.

I digress…

Perhaps the answer lies in Freedom. Or the perception of lack thereof in this life.

I mean consider the freedom to look and be anything you wished to look like or be like! How many of us would change the way we look if we could with a few key strokes on our computer?! Hey, eliminate your gym membership and the guilt of that huge green chile burrito you ate for lunch. (Okay fine, I ate it, but whatever! You get the point!)

How about if you don’t have the $10,000 for the new boobs you’ve always wanted? (It’s totally cool if you don’t want boobs, You hate big boobs and you love your tiny ones, I’m just using it as an example, that is all. Roll with me here.)

And men, how about you get a full mane of sexy locks, tossled all Hot and sultry-like? Having women sigh and melt as you walk by and you just feel the fingers of the wind ruffle and play with your long luscious locks of hair?

Of course in THIS life you’re totally bald and have already lost the battle with Rogaine, or have a strong investment into Victoria’s Secret to keep your Secret a Secret! but in your virtual world, you create an avatar that rivals Pamela Anderson (those are too big for me personally… but I honor her vision for her own self. Just sayin), or how about that mane on Daniel Day-Lewis in the movie, The Last of the Mohicans?!

Or you just have a blast getting your Johnny Depp on with your bad pirate Captain Jack Sparrow look and driving virtual women wild! (Okay can I just give Hotness thumbs-up to Orlando Bloom too from the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean?) …just sayin… in case you are creating an avatar. wink!

Digressing deeper….

Okay, so playing in another reality, you have freedom to create the being you always wished you could be. Is that what the attraction to diving into a virtual world is? Being who you’ve always fantasized about being? Having what you always wanted?

Mmmm! I think we all just crave to be free.

I talked about cases in the media regarding couples divorcing over one spouse cheating and having sex with other avatars in virtual worlds, in my blog post on my http://RelationShift.TV site. These are very real people having very real consequences to behaviors they exhibit using virtual worlds like, Second Life.

Is life not complicated enough that now we have to create more chaos with Virtual Drama? (And can I just add, who has time for a Second Life? I can barely seem to accomplish my First one!) That’s NOT a judgement, that is a legitimate question coming from a seriously busy single mother in this FIRST LIFE!

I acknowledge the lure and attraction of the virtual worlds as being the “safe place” to be and do whatever one feels prohibited from or restricted from doing here in this world. Perhaps that restriction is physical, as in what I described above. (Or if someone is wheelchair bound, in a virtual world they can run, jump… and fly!)

There are companies, jobs, employment, and commerce in these virtual worlds too. Money to be made and exchanged, such as the Linden Dollar in the virtual world, Second Life.

I wonder how many unemployed people here in this Life have great jobs and financial security built up in Linden Dollars on Second Life…can you believe there’s even money laundering going on in Linden Dollars?! We humans are highly creative… and what is it we’re creating?

I wonder if you can be employed in Second Life and still collect unemployment in this First Life?

Things that make you go Mmmmmm…

If we were really free to be, to live and to do in this world what we felt was our true passion, our true calling…our fullest expression of who we really are…

I mean to live 100% into who we really are and not what family, friends or societal pressure tells us to be. If we were given the pass to be free, what would we do differently or be differently right here, right now, in this world?

Would you do something different to earn your living if you had this freedom and you knew you could not fail?

Would you be a different version of you than everyone currently sees or knows you to be? How would you be different? What’s the FREE and unrepressed version of you look like and do?

I have to at least make a guess that the pressure to be something or the current limitations on us in our created world here, are the very same reasons why a virtual world where you can start over fresh with a clean slate are very sexy, attractive and appealing.

How many Second Life strippers are high-level corporate executives here? Or perhaps even stay-at-home-moms who are unseen for their sexy, succulent selves in this world? How many men are strong, confident, heros in their virtual life creation because they feel powerless, emasculated here in this life by an emotionally abusive partner, overbearing mother or past abuse?

I can see a lot of reasons why a person would feel empowerment through an avatar.

However, if running to a virtual world is not in your techie / geek toolbox of coping mechanisms, what can you do when you find that this life is not quite what you want?

What can you do when you feel you’ve lost your moxie and you feel dead in your job or lifeless in your dead-end relationship?

How does one re-create….re-invent themselves in this life?

How do you create a new you?

First step in creation is knowing who you are. Do you know who you are? What do you want?

Highly critical questions and answers.

Second, after as Socrates put it, “know thyself” define what you want. What is important to you? What legacy do you want to leave behind?

Third, set goals for yourself to step into this Mastery of you.

When you are not living fully the unique being that you are, you’re robbing all of us of the gift of YOU!

A genius mentor of my own once told me the reason he hated organized systems of anything is that they forced a perfectly amazing, neurotic, beautiful, passionate, being into a boring conformity looking like everyone else in the system.

How many of us are deeply touched by something that looks like everything else? Aren’t we touched by the differences? How rare would a precious stone be if it were just like all the other stones? It’s rare because it’s different. Not an everyday find.

Are you an everyday find? Or are you living today Out Loud the unique YOU that you are? You came here to bring the YOU-ness into the world, YOU have a design, a message, a purpose!

If you need help finding yourself or what that unique expression of you really is, get that support! It’s critical to enjoying this life! It’s critical to happiness… fulfillment rests upon this!

Go out and get the tools and inspiration you need to help you re-create NOW the work, the home, THE Life you want to live… in this…your First Life.

Here’s to unique, beautiful, wonderful, quirky, neurotic, exotic, passionate, powerful, you and me!

All my love and blessings,
Tamara

Looking for support in your Life, Love, and Relationships? If you’re interested in working with me privately, or in a vibrant virtual small group setting, let’s set up a free mini-consultation to see if our work together is a good fit. Call, 303-800-4654 or send me a message on Facebook or Skype! Here’s to a Happy, Healthy, Fully-Vibrant and Expressed YOU!!

The United States Declaration of Independence, in its most famous sentence, lays out 3 unalienable Rights for all humankind: 1. Life 2. Liberty (liberation, freedom), and 3. the Pursuit of Happiness. So… we want to Live. We want to be Free and we want to be Happy. We are alive, but are we truly free? How about happy?

Are you interested in having more happiness, joy, peace, harmony and feeling more freedom in your everyday life? If you are, then please make sure I’ve got your name and email address in the little pop up box that pops up here on this website, (the opt-in box), as I promise to send you the link to the FREE webinar.

Or you can leave me your name and email address in the little box sitting on my Web TV Show, http://RelationShift.TV and I promise to let you know the day and time I will have scheduled the FREE webinar with Marc de Bruin (from Australia) and I (here in the USA)… we’ll do it LIVE and on camera so we plan on having an absolutely hilarious romp while hitting all the important and weighty issues!

We will be taping this LIVE so take advantage of getting all the juice for FREE upfront now because the reason we are taping this is to create a very valuable product and it will not be FREE again! That’s the way those things roll! So if you like great deals and expensive stuff for FREE, better get it while it’s HOT. (well, it is true. You snooze you lose. You can’t ever say I didn’t warn you. It’s right here in writing!)

I’m excited! It’s going to be juicy, informative, practical, deep, funny, wise, life-altering, relationship answering fabulousness for home, work, family, the whole person’s whole life!

What more could anybody want? You get Life, Liberty and Happiness… and when you have Happiness you no longer have need to pursue it!

SEE you there!

Much love,
Tamara

As you know I always do a video with my blog… and I tried shooting this video about 4 different times… but I couldn’t do it without moisture.. the kind around the eyes. See.. some people cry beautifully and look pretty & sweet. Me? Uh… crying involves copious amounts of snot, slobber, edema (swelling) around the nose & eyes and a redness that comes from some deep latent irish gene that only expresses itself in tandem with tears.

So if you’ll pardon me.. I’ll just inset a few photos here and there!

You see it all started in May of 2000. Well… that’s when my whole world changed forever. Ta Da!!! My son, Parker, arrives on my scene!

Enter: All my preconceptions of what kind of mom I would be.

All my dreams, aspirations, desires, (a.k.a. expectations & attachments), to what my child would, could, should and would absolutely NOT be.

Strategy: Be the mother of the next incarnating Buddha!

Implementation: Total “health” hyper-vigilence! Peace, calm, chamomile and yoga with my baby. Eating only organic foods, preparing all baby food from scratch, breast feeding like a champion, reading books aloud, singing to, cuddling with, performing infant massage, and any and every infant bonding technique known to man… all in an effort for… well… bulding and nurturing physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual… perfection of course!

Course Correction: Diagnosis of PDD NOS by 18 mo. Official diagnosis of Autism, High Functioning by age 4. (Of course I didn’t believe the “experts” so they did the whole evaluation over again at age 5.) Diagnosed Autism High Functioning at age 5.

What is it I have learned from motherhood?

1. I did not have unconditional love

True. I thought I was so spiritual… so loving. C’mon, do you see Mother Teresa?! But you see? In even having an expectation that my son “should” be this or that or act like this or that… is well… an expectation. And why did I want that? So I could look like a good mom? I told myself that it was for my son’s best interest that I wanted these things for him, but was it? I mean, did it bother him? Or did it bother me? …it bothered me.

I think it’s normal that we as parents really look to get a little social equity from our children. When they behave well, we look good. When they make “THE” grade, we look good. When they make the team, we look good. We feel pride… uh… it’s about us again, isn’t it? How is that love? How is that unconditional?

Many people use their children to get their own sense of self-worth. If we do that, when do we really “see” our child… or any other person for that matter? That is a pattern of narcissism that leads to an unhealthy life of never really listening to or seeing another outside of the context of self. (And who do we call autistic??? Mmmmmm!!!)

My true test of unconditional love & acceptance came when I could finally love my son… accept my son in the midst of a hellish melt-down temper tantrum in the middle of Walmart or Target and still feel quiet, calm, solid, and okay with me…when I didn’t feel like it reflected on my ability to parent.

When I found I no longer worried about the judgement of others.. about what I looked like… or about looking like I had it “under control,” is where I found love, peace.. and acceptance… real unconditional love for my son.

Oddly enough, when I relaxed, let go and loved him no matter what, my parenting became firm, solid, consistent and reliable… independent of where we were or who was looking at us, my response to him was firm & consistent and not reactionary. I no longer put on a “show” for onlookers to make sure they knew I was a good mommy. I didn’t care what anyone thought anymore. I was finally free. Free to love. Free to be the best mom I could be. Free to “be” with my son no matter what showed up…. behaviorally or not.

The miracle? He began to respond to my strength, solidness, reliable consistency and love.

I became more compassionate and loving… toward him…. and oddly enough… it shifted to more compassion and acceptance for myself and for all those “others” around me as well.

My journey with Autism and with my son.. has shown me how to be truly present for someone else. I’ve learned that not everything is a reference to him or me and that everyone deserves their own acceptance, their own opinion, their own voice… not to be judged by me or my perception of what is “right.”

What has mothering given me? I’ve learned how to love, how to forgive, how to be courageous in the face of doubt & uncertainty. I’ve learned to let go, to enjoy the moments and to be solid in the unsolidness of it all.

What about all my early perceptions of parenting? We can all enjoy a laugh! Uh… I’m laughing! It’s funny!

I still got baby Buddha… just not the one filled with Mother’s expectations & attachments! (Laughing out loud again here!)

Cheers to every imperfect mommy who wouldda couldda shouldda done it differently. Cheers to all who feared they were not equipped for the challenge. Cheers to all who rose to the task anyway in their perfectly imperfect parenting.

I dedicate this to you…. YOU are the everyday Hero. The one who shines brighly!

I found Parker here dancing outdoors in the rain. “Hey, honey, what are you doing outside in your underware, goggles, and umbrella?” “Mommy, I need the goggles so I can see through the storm and an umbrella so I can play in it.” ~Out of the mouths of babes!!!

May YOU always find YOUR goggles to see through YOUR storms and have your umbrella ready so YOU can play in it!!!

(My miracle boy is now vlogging! Check out his vlog Right Here!)

One thing that struck me about Jessica.. in addition to the fact that she is so rapidly rising on the internet as a genuine presence and authentic success, is that she is 100% client-centered and has a devotion and a hunger to succeed for her clients that is…. well… contagioius!

During our time together, I observed this dynamo juggle, move & shake business on the web like I’ve seen no one do before. Motivated? Uh… motivated… leader providing great leadership to others in marketing themselves through social media in a very big way.. well, that IS Jessica Northey!

There’s a reason this woman has over 54,000 followers on Twitter (her handle is @JessicaNorthey on Twitter) but her company, FingerCandyMedia.com is busting loose like a wild fire out of control! Stay tuned!

I don’t know about you, but how many sefl-proclaimed social media “gurus” have you met only to find they have just a few thousand followers? Seriously! Surf the net.. it seems eveyone thinks they are a social media expert after they take a weekend workshop on the subject… take a workshop and become a guru in a weekend… right???!!!! I’d never trust my social media marketing to someone who has less of a following than I do myself.

This woman was so humble during our interview. Jessica cautions me that she does not consider herself a social media marketing guru, but rather she’s just passionate about people, marketing and all things techie!

Watch out World! This is a gorgeous, single woman with a brilliant mind who is also a techie! A rare… and stellar combination!

She’s got the heart and the drive to serve anyone trying to get their message out and play a bigger game! (Jessica Northey creates Celebrities on the web… she’s got a long list of Celebrity clients! Jessica says she creates Weberities! I loved that term as it speaks to what we can all accomplish with the right kind of relationships built through the web.)

“My mom was a single mom who worked hard and was always there for me. I have a passion to help anybody who has a dream, and especially women… I want to give of myself to empower women,” says Northey as I asked her about the driving force behind FingerCandyMedia.com

Jessica lives in Tucson, Arizona with her dog, Sissy (which my 9-year-old son, Parker, could not get enough of while we interviewed Jessica!) Sissy is actually a celebrity herself, but that’s for a another blog post! (Maybe Parker will blog about Sissy on his own blog at http://Parkerisms.com )

My son, Parker is 9 years-old, (he has his own Video blog at http://Parkerisms.com), and the truth is, he knows more about what makes a GREAT speaker than most adults I’ve seen “speaking” from the platform.

Years ago I gave my own voice away to the Sea Witch in an attempt to “fit in.” (Yes, a Walt Disney movie reference from The Little Mermaid)

Like the mermaid, Ariel, I thought that life on land with Prince Eric would be worth the price of losing myself. That if I just swallowed my own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs….be a very very “good” little girl, behave and keep very very quiet… surely I would find happiness.

Instead, I was smothering my soul. All I found was a dullness.. a falseness that was covering up my light and dampening my spirit.

I had become a hollow chocolate bunny in an eternally empty Easter basket.

Not real. Not satisfying. Easily broken and cheap.

Craving something richer and deeper out of this experience called “My Life,” I stole back my voice from the old Hag… traded in my false “legs,” setting free my mermaid tail. Plop! For everyone to see.

Ooooh the courage to allow others to see… me.

Me. The imperfect one, the one that doesn’t always have it together.

Spinach stuck on a shiny white tooth while closing the biggest business deal of the century.

A full-out poppy seed smile at the H-O-T guy in the bagel shop who just complimented me on my True Religion jeans.

Tripping in my leopard stilettos while trying to feel into my sexy…

Spinach, poppy seeds & leopard stilettos (because I LOVE them!) … a real version of me. NOT the version I want you to see in order to manipulate you into giving me your love and approval.

For me, stepping into my own power as a woman (or mermaid) means opening my mouth to allow this inner calling… my voice… to spill out, regardless of the cost.

…even if it means I never get Eric the prince. Even if it means I get banned from the castle… or forfeit the life that everyone else here seems to want on land.

You see, I realize I prefer the sea. I always have. And I love it’s watery depths, changing tides, enchanted echos and endless adventure.

It’s so much easier to be honest! It’s a lot of work making people love, honor and adore you! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink… know whatta mean?)

I’m so free when I’m honest. Free to “be” without agenda or manipulation. Free to speak without fear of retribution. Free to love everyone (including me), in the most unconditional way. Free to laugh, play, swim, dance and be silly just for the fun of it. Free to be feminine and SEXY because I love being a girl, woman, lady… mermaid. (And I’ve learned tripping in heels can still be sexy… if you play it off right.)

Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty we’re free at last.

Me? I’m free to celebrate the tail I was born with… the one that was given to me.

I don’t have to compare my tail to all the other legs in the world anymore.

So what does this have to do with being a GREAT speaker? Being real, being vulnerable up there on the platform and being courageous enough to show an audience who you really are without worrying about whether you look foolish is what GREAT speakers do. (Go ahead! Be foolish! It really feels good.)

It’s showing everybody your tail when they had expected legs. Stuff like that.

GREAT speakers take the risk of showing themselves in front of the multitude.

Me? Ask anyone who’s been in my audience. I’m just me. Out loud for everyone to see. I never quite know exactly what I’m going to do on the platform… it usually hits me just before my feet reach the steps of the stage, but it always comes pouring out of me… unfiltered for whomever is there and thirsty for what flows naturally.

I’m more committed to my own voice these days and the real message is coming out of it’s pretty little container more often. Muscles become stronger with exercise. And honestly, I’m still finding muscles I never knew I had before, so I’m in a process of becoming and building… just like everybody else.

Flex your honesty muscles on stage and take risks to be open and transparent for your audience. Serving others and reaching them at the level of their soul takes you being vulnerable to see and touch your own soul.

Soul-to-soul. This is the stuff of GREAT speakers. Think of those that have gone before us and moved history with the power of their voices? Did they “behave?” Win popularity contests? Did they play it safe? (I Love you, Dr. King!)

Please don’t be fearful or afraid to speak up just because historically speaking, people on land usually murder, crucify, and kill any voice too powerful that speaks forth the highest truth. (I didn’t make this up…. )

It’s no wonder we’re all terrified on some level…. just sayin.

Silent for what price? I think we learn from history (hopefully), and that we’re waking up and evolving as a global community.