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Sunday, December 1, 2024
HomeGratitudeWhat Gets Us Into Trouble.

What Gets Us Into Trouble.

“It’s the things that we know FOR SURE, that just ain’t so, that get us into trouble.” ~ Wayne Dyer.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer is one of my greatest teachers.

Back when I was still waitressing and utterly miserable- I would get off my shift, and I would go, stinking of food and self-loathing, on these walks by the Pacific Ocean here in Santa Monica. I had Wayne Dyer on my iPod (after years of my mom’s insistence, and my adamant refusal, to read his books) and I’d walk and walk and walk and listen to the same recordings over and over again as I did my goofy speed walk with my dorky arm swing. I’d go faster and faster, as if I could end up eventually leaving myself behind.

Wayne was my company.

I memorized his lectures on those sunset walks. I knew when I walked by a certain palm tree, Wayne would be saying, “Don’t Die With Your Music Still in You,” and when I got to the incline that led down to the beach, he’d be talking about squeezing an orange.
He said when you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out. So, we are squeezed, by life, by traffic, stress, whatever it is, if vitriol comes out, if anger and meanness and ugliness come out, then that is what was inside of us. No matter who does the squeezing. Like orange juice. Doesn’t matter who squeezes it, it will still be orange juice. I thought a lot about what was inside of me and how I blamed a lot of other people/things for what was being squeezed out.

I had to walk the same route, listen to the same lectures. These were the things I could count on. Palm tree, sky, clouds, sun setting, orange, squeezing, don’t die with your music still in you, park bench.

I’d go to work and take orders for poached eggs and iced teas and wheatgrass shots with mint in them and I’d write “BP” on my wrist so that I’d see it as I was taking orders. “BP” meant “Be Present” and if I didn’t write that- I would forget. If I didn’t see the ink on my arm I would float away. I would be the opposite of “Be Present.” I would “BG”. Be Gone.

Away. Out of my body. In someone else’s body. A body better than I was sure mine was, a life I was positive trumped my pathetic one.

You can see that I was in one of my dark nights of the soul for many of these years. I won’t sugarcoat it.

I looked through some old journals the other day, the few sporadic ones I kept, and it made me alternately sad and really fucking proud of myself.

Pages and pages and years and years of the same words.

“I am ugly. I am drowning. I am fat. I am a fuck up. I let myself go. I failed. Why can’t I get my shit together? I will not eat tomorrow. ” And on and on over and over and on and on. Years. Same circus, different clowns as the years went on. One year, when I was 26 or 27, I changed the “I am fat” obsession to “I am old.” I was 27.

Twenty-fucking-seven.

(I am no longer twenty-seven.)

(Nor do I wish I was.)

old journal entries
old Journal entries

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I lead all these workshops and retreats around the world now. In the beginning, when I first started doing my workshops, I said so much of what was just “inside of me.” As if I being squeezed. What came out? Naturally, what was inside of me. Like orange juice. Wayne Dyer. On repeat. I regurgitated what he said because it was what worked for me. It was what helped me get through those days of wanting to die.

But, as time went on and I climbed out of the pit of depression and self-loathing and grief-left-too-long, I began to find my own voice.

In the words of Mary Oliver, in her poem “The Journey”

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Manifestation Yoga. That is the name of my yoga company and retreats and classes.

When the student is ready, the teacher shall appear.

I am a firm believer in expressing gratitude to our teachers. Always. So, Wayne- thank you. If it wasn’t for my walks with you in my ears, day in and day out, I might still be scribbling how much of a monster I am on pieces of paper. I might still be in the throes of “Why can’t I get my shit together?”

Do I think you did this? No.

I did.

But without you, I couldn’t have. I mean, yea sure, eventually, maybe. Because, as you point out, when the student is ready, the teacher shall appear. So eventually, my teacher would appear. But you came along at the right time and although sometimes I still feel like I’m a mess, most days, I know I am on track.

I will never stop saying thank you. Not to you, not to any of my teachers and my pain and my past and all those who led me. It’s what keeps me anchored here, most days. That Thank You.

You speak of finding the god within ourselves. I don’t often write about god or talk about it even, but last night I got it. All those years I spent in the prison of self-hatred and grief, I did not see any god or light inside of myself.

Last night, when my beloved friend, and your daughter Skye Dyer, sang that song, “I am the light,” I wondered why so many of us, myself included resist that. Why so many of us walk around with “I am the darkness.”

We may not be literally saying it, but we’re believing it.

Last night you said that it wasn’t the things you don’t know that get you into trouble. You said it was, “The things that you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

You read one of my favorite poems to demonstrate this truth. I could hear this poem 678 times and never tire of it because I have been the accuser so many times, the one who was so sure, the one with crumbs all over my face and chocolate chips buried under my bitten down finger nails.

The Cookie Thief by Valerie Cox:

“A woman was waiting at an airport one night,

With several long hours before her flight.

She hunted for a book in the airport shops.

Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see,

That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be.

Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,

Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock,

As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.

She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,

Thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”

With each cookie she took, he took one too,

When only one was left, she wondered what he would do.

With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh,

He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other,

She snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother.

This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude,

Why he didn’t even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled,

And sighed with relief when her flight was called.

She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,

Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat,

Then she sought her book, which was almost complete.

As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,

There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair,

The others were his, and he tried to share.

Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,

That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.”

Skye and I in pasadena 10/24/14.
Skye and I in Pasadena 10/24/14. We will be together again in Miami on Nov 8th!

So, here’s what I knew for sure ten years ago that just weren’t so:

I am a bad person.
I am a failure.
I am ugly.
I am nothing.

I left last night thinking of all the things that we all know “for sure.”

“I know this person is going to say…..”
“I know that I am right.”
“I know what people are thinking.”

FEAR. False Evidence Appearing Real. That’s a case for it, if I ever saw it.

I am not dying with my music still in me. I refuse.

I know firsthand that one of the ways that we manifest what we want into our lives is by expressing gratitude. And not just expressing it, but really being it, a walking talking “Thank You” with a body. So, thank you.

And, as you say, the space inside the jar still exists when the jar perishes. So, may my “Thank You” always exist even after my jar does not.

This is a pic of you and I from last night and I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that what I know for sure is only one thing: LOVE.

At the end of my life, when I ask one final, “What have I done?” Let my answer be, “I have done love.”

xo Jen Pastiloff, Beauty Hunter, Lover, Thank You-er

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Jen Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Join her in Tuscany for her annual Manifestation Retreat. Click the Tuscan hills above. No yoga experience required. Only requirement: Just be a human being. Yoga + Writing + Connection. We go deep. Bring an open heart and a sense of humor- that's it! Summer or Fall 2015. It is LIFE CHANGING!
Jen Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Join her in Tuscany for her annual Manifestation Retreat. Click the Tuscan hills above. No yoga experience required. Only requirement: Just be a human being. Yoga + Writing + Connection. We go deep. Bring an open heart and a sense of humor- that’s it! Summer or Fall 2015. It is LIFE CHANGING!
Book Girl Power: You Are Enough now! A workshop for girls and teens. Space is limited. Sep 19 Princeton! Sep 20th NYC. The book is also forthcoming from Jen Pastiloff. Ages 13 and up. (NYC is 16 and up due to studio policy.)
Book Girl Power: You Are Enough now! A workshop for girls and teens. Space is limited. Sep 19 Princeton! Sep 20th NYC. The book is also forthcoming from Jen Pastiloff. Ages 13 and up. (NYC is 16 and up due to studio policy.)
Join Jen Pastiloff  and Emily Rapp at a writing and the body retreat in Stowe, Vermont Oct 2015. This will be their 3rd one together in Stowe. Click the photo to book.
Join Jen Pastiloff and Emily Rapp at a writing and the body retreat in Stowe, Vermont Oct 2015. This will be their 3rd one together in Stowe. Click the photo to book.
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  1. That was a great read Jen, because I did the exact same thing, living in the Bay Area, trying to find myself at age 22, walking on the beach with earphones glued to my ears listening to Wayne! I love him! Skye has a lovely voice and I cried listening to her sing to her Dad! I lost my Dad as I turned 24 and this was so inspiring! Thank you Jen! I follow you all of the time! I can’t wait to make it to one of your classes! Love to you always…..Kathy

  2. I love to read your work.

    I have felt cheated, felt like a failure,didnt know which way my life was heading….
    I have immense Gratitude for the
    Divine,for my Gurus and my inner guidance who showed me
    a path of Fulfillment and to view
    the glass as half full not half
    empty.
    I THANK my friends and family
    for their support who helped see
    me emerge outa the
    Dark tunnel of pain n anguish
    thank you.
    Now I am blessed with a lovely
    daughter and a loving husband –
    so I would tell people who think
    its the end of the world when the
    chips are down “dont Despair”
    the silver lining is just a mile
    away…..have “Faith” and “Hope ”
    they never let you down.

    To all who i have met I have much Gratitude for being
    in my life.thank you

  3. I can’t keep writing the same comment over and over!
    but YES. Fucking YES. <3
    I am going to declare what I (think I) know for sure that just. ain't. true:
    Jen is braver than I am. She is BETTER than I am. she writes and she teaches and she can do it and I cannot.
    xoxoxoxo

  4. My mother died last year, at almost 96 years of age. She announced she was going to heaven and then she decided she wasn’t hungry anymore. I called Hospice. For three weeks, Mom told us over and over and over, at least a thousand times, Thank You. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Those were her last words to me. And I mean, this post has me in tears because you’ve hit on everything, everything in the world and in life that matters. Love, thankfulness and just not ever, ever giving up. And when the time comes, you can then be at peace with utter thankfulness for your life. That’s what my Mom did and that’s what I want to do too. Thank you so much for reminding me.

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