Laura Jane, What Would YOU Burn?

Today I'm excited to share the insights of my dear friend Laura Jane. Laura Jane is a yoga therapist, homeschooling mama, and powerful force of love in the universe. If you've met her, you know. If you haven't, you should.

What would I burn, at this time, place and space in my life?

I happily and readily BURN the tired, worn out, unhelpful ways of

self-doubt, worry, and negative self-talk.

 I consciously burn any ways I’ve been being with MYSELF that I’ve let hold me back or slow me from being UNIQUE, ALIVE ME.

I joyfully burn the shreds of comparison and competition that have fed into these toxic, weakening habits I’ve been carrying, and I wake up to a new, refreshed, empowered way of being.

I wake up, here and now to the power and potential that I always have: to instead LOVE myself, support myself, and BE more who I am.

 I awaken NOW to the power of letting that inner bullshit GO.

 I choose instead more wise, loving and enlightened ways of being, perceiving and managing myself.

 I am ME, I am BIG, I am large, I am ready.

HERE, now I choose to TRUST MYSELF, listen within, and brave UP to walking my own adventurous, expanding path that I KNOW I am choosing.

And thus begins a new, free me.

Here I find my power, my ways to contribute, and the EASE of actually loving THIS life.

Burning, purifying, igniting ME.

Loving this choice, this freedom, this power.

I choose THIS, here and now.

Always available, everyday.

Burning into the best of me.

You can visit Laura Jane here. 

Eryn Grey...What Would YOU Burn??

One of the best things about being in my thirties is that I get to see the young people I taught when I was a new teacher grow up. Today I get to share a blog post from a young lady I first met when she was about twelve, a seventh grader in my English class. Now she's a university graduate and a novelist. 

Facebook has connected me with many of my former students, and it's such a pleasure to watch them go through college or have babies or build careers or all three. So I'm bursting with pride to share this WHAT WOULD YOU BURN blog post.

From One Mean Girl to Another

         Last month, CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries was quoted as saying, "In every school there are the cool and popular kids and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot friends. A lot of people don't belong (in our clothes), and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become too vanilla. You don't alienate anybody, but you don't excite anybody either."

         Please. Because seven different colored polo shirts and twenty different types of acid washed jeans aren't 'vanilla'.

         Now, since the CEO of Abercrombie loves to play the 'exclusivity' card, I decided that he might like to hear from someone who fits his category, someone who is pretty and popular and has lots of friends and big blue eyes and bleached blonde hair, why wouldn't he? That's his demographic, is it not?

         Ten years ago, when I was in high school, I worked for Abercrombie folding jeans and spritzing people with way too much cologne. Ten years ago, I bought my first pair of faded, low-rise, acid-washed ripped jeans. Ten years ago, I had a handsome boyfriend who drove a Mercedes and I took a fellow Abercrombie employee to my senior prom. Ten years ago, I was one of the girls who was part of a group dubbed by our high school friends as 'the sexy six'. And it was ten years ago, when wearing Abercrombie and Fitch was cool and could get away with labeling themselves as 'exclusive'.

         Unfortunately, as much as I'm sure the insecure little teenager that lives inside Mr. Jeffries wishes that his business model of 'exclusivity sells' would work, this generation's teenagers are not going to bite. Toms Shoes is a company which began in 2006 and focuses on a "one-for-one" business model where every shoe that is bought sends another to China, Ethiopia or Argentina (you know, everywhere for everyone). Toms has become a hundred million dollar company since its inception 2006

. However, Abercrombie's "sales at stores open at least a year combined with online sales fell 15 percent"

 this quarter.  Whoops.

         What Jeffries forgot, being the savvy business man that he is, is that every generation evolves. The teenagers of this decade are socially conscious and concerned about overspending. They were raised in a recession and have seen the affects of pollution, poor health and lavish waste and guess what? They don't like it. They want to change the world and they know they aren't going to do it in a plaid pair of boxer-briefs and a lime green string bikini.

         If Mr. Jeffries is still trying to fit in with the "popular kids" he has vastly missed the mark. The most popular kids in high school now aren't the bouncy blondes or the all-American football players of yesteryear -- they are the hipsters who value "independent thinking" and "counter-culture"

. Quite frankly, everyone wearing the same pair of jeans and powder-pink-polo shirt, isn't exactly independent or counter-cultural.

         So for many years, I have held onto my pair of Abercrombie jeans because it reminded me of a happy time. It reminded me of sitting on the beach in my Rainbows with a tanned blonde boy next to me. It reminded me of eating Chronic Tacos and laughing until our moms called and made us take our convertibles back to our mansions. However, those days are gone-- long, long, long gone with the crash of the stock market and the fact that now we are all adults with jobs and student loans to pay off. Just like my jeans, the Abercrombie culture has faded and reached the end of its era. I understand that Mr. Jeffries still wishes to hold onto his memories and the hopes that he is still the most popular kid in school but at some point we all have to leave high school and grow up.

         With that said, today I will burn that ugly, outdated old pair of jeans. They will probably explode with all the bleach and the acid in them and the fact that they were so poorly made they can withstand hardly more than the walk to and from the tanning salon and honestly, Mike, perhaps its time you burned your jeans, too.

Kisses!

Eryn Harper Grey

David King, What Would YOU Burn?

Today I am so pleased to welcome a friend and cohort, David King. I met David at my kids' Kung Fu studio (he is one of their instructors), and soon learned that he is a writer, as well as a black belt. We have been meeting every month or so since, sharing works-in-progress, encouragements, and advice. David recently finished his BA in Creative Writing at CSULB, graduating Magna Cum Laude(Huzzah!), and is hard at work on what I know to be a really wonderful nautical novel.

Here is what David has to share: 

When asked a question like this, there’s a lot to consider on my part. Had I been asked this a few years ago, I probably would have produced a laundry list of things, small insecurities and petty ideas scrawled all over it. It’s only recently that I think I’ve narrowed it down to two things, and ultimately those things connect in a ankle-high roadblock that seems to be constantly set in front of me.

I’d burn my hesitation and procrastination.

Hesitation is not always a bad thing, I know. There’s a point where its better to reconsider, reevaluate and otherwise not throw caution to the wind. On the other hand, I’m of the habit of hesitating too much. I look at my looming adulthood and the numerous responsibilities,  challenges, and things expected of me – jobs, taxes, insurance, the daily grind – and I just want to curl back up in my childhood where I’m safe. I won’t deny that the future genuinely frightens me, and that I’m only making it worse by stopping myself; my brain somehow goes to that worst-case-scenario thought and I hit the brakes. I don’t want this Peter Pan complex, yet I still struggle to look at the future with major optimism.

First one into the fire, then. Boom. Look at it sizzle!

I’m also a serial procrastinator – I’m sure it happens to the best of us, but I’ve gotten quite good at it, much to my dismay. It frustrates me, this apathetic stance on things. If this blog is any evidence, I’ve started so many things with the best of intentions, only to lose sight of my goals midway through. I keep putting things off, shoving them to the side as I let distractions take over. It should not take the exertion it does for me to keep focused on one task until its done, and coupled with the hesitation and fear, serves only to keep me from getting what I want.

In that goes too. I imagine it erupts and bursts as it heats up, like popcorn: pop, pop, pop!

If only it were that easy, for me and for everyone else, to take their troubles and ills and incinerate them, watch them go up in smoke. But even the act of looking for things to burnburns in its own way. I recognize the things that hinder me, and I can take steps to fight them. I can let them go, put them to the metaphorical torch and let their ashes get carried away.

Eloquence aside, my thanks to Elana for presenting a prompt that not only got me dwelling on these things, but got me off my lazy butt to look at this blog again. Expect more from me more often by this point, as I start getting the circus back in gear.

Goodbye for now, and remember: don’t play with fire, use it to your advantage!

David has had a short story anthologized! Check it out here, and visit his blog here.

Jennifer Bosworth... What Would YOU Burn??

Today I am excited to hear what Jennifer Bosworth, author of the electrifying STRUCK and forthcoming novel THE KILLING JAR would like to burn. Here is what she has to say:

"When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire." 

That's one of my favorite quotes. I get chills every time I read it, or say it out loud. I have no idea who said it, or what that person meant, which means I get to interpret in any way I please. What it means to me is that once you think you've given everything you have, it's time to look inside yourself, see what's left, and sacrifice that to the fire, too. 

What would I burn? All of me. With the hope that I'll rise from the ashes like a phoenix, ready to do it all over again.

WHAT WOULD YOU BURN?

In anticipation of BURNING's release NEXT TUESDAY (!!!), I have the pleasure of sharing guest posts by writers I know either in person or through the magics of social networking.

The first contribution comes today from my agency-sister Cal Armistead, debut YA author of BEING HENRY DAVID. It also happens to be Cal's birthday!

Here is what Cal writes:

What would I burn/get rid of, if I could?

I love this question, in part because I’ve been to the Burning Man festival twice, and watching The Man burn was truly an awe-inspiring event, like some ancient pagan ritual.  There’s nothing quite like an enormous bonfire to stir your primitive soul.

There’s even something in the bible about gathering the wheat (the good stuff) and burning the chaff (the stuff you don’t need).  Matthew 3:12, to be specific.  (Don’t be impressed. I had to look it up, even though I’m a bona fide preacher’s daughter.)

But aside from the pagan and primitive and biblical implications of fire, I love the thought of us asking ourselves: What do we need to burn off in our lives to make room for our new growth?  

Although I could write an entire essay on intangible, figurative things I’d like to burn away (all those faults and flaws and weaknesses; those stubborn five pounds in my butt region), I’m going to stick with actual, physical items that I could hurl into a fire and watch with satisfaction as they burst into flame.

My partial list:

-       Clothes that don’t quite fit.  Anything that makes me think, “if only I lost five or ten pounds, that would look GREAT on me,” must GO.  This includes the string bikini from my honeymoon, many years and two children ago.  What am I holding onto that for? It only taunts me, and nobody should feel judged by clothing.

-       Old love letters, from relationships that went south a long, long time ago.  Why do I keep them?  I never read them, and I recovered from the angst and pain years ago. Why be reminded of all that? Time to haul them into the fire and be done with them.

-       Old diaries.  Let’s face it, they’re embarrassing, not illuminating.  Nobody is going to write my biography some day and want to include excerpts from my life at age 14.  And holy crap, what if they did?  I’d be humiliated!  Burn those suckers. Let the past be the past.

-       Anything in my basement or attic that hasn’t been unpacked in the 6 years I’ve lived in this house.  Especially the boxes that weren’t unpacked in the 7 years I lived in the previous house.  

Just the thought of burning these items makes me feel lighter.  Not five pounds lighter in my butt region, but still, lighter in general.  I might just feel inspired to do a spring clean purge in my house sometime soon.  I think I will start with those diaries.  Yikes…

Cal Armistead's debut young adult novel, BEING HENRY DAVID, is available NOW from Albert Whitman Teen (at all the places where you buy books--but support your independent local bookstore first if you can!).  It has received great reviews so far, including a starred review from Kirkus and a glowing write-up in The Boston Globe! 

 Visit Cal Armistead here, and wish her a Happy Birthday!