I don’t know how to start this page without talking about my Bubbie.
She was my first true mirror – the only way I knew how to see myself. In her kingdom, I was a 12-year-old who could dance to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in front of a towel of a naked woman I had pinned to the back of my door. (Yeah, I was a really cool kid.)
So, when she died (or, more accurately, when she gave up on life after my Grandpa died), my mirror shattered. And I’ve spent the years in between searching every inch of my soul for each piece, playing caricatures of different parts of myself, trying to become whole again.
I remember once sitting in front of a dance floor in Aruba. Bubbie got up, walked to the middle of the room, and started – gyrating – in front of everyone. I was maybe eight – I was mortified. I was a really shy kid.
She looked me dead in the eye and said, “Michael, if you don’t get up here and dance with me, I’m just going to keep getting sexier and weirder.”
Eventually, the sheer embarrassment compelled my body to the floor to stop her.
She grasped my hands in hers and said, “Someone needs to be the first one on the dance floor. If you can just hold your embarrassment and everyone’s judgments long enough, eventually they’ll all realize it’s safe to be silly and playful and real too.
You can be the fool.”
Bubbie’s to blame for all of this.
The other person I have to blame is my husband Garrett.
Most partners shut you down when you pull out a pendulum upon meeting their high school friends or post naked pictures online.
Garrett isn’t most partners.
I’ve known that boy since I was 18 years old. I’ve been on adventures with him across the country, world, and our own psyches that are too sacred to even talk about here. He let me unravel and explore and only ever followed my breakdowns and cashless months up with, “I trust you – you know what you’re doing. You’ll figure it out.”
This isn’t a Garrett shrine website – and I really promised myself I wouldn’t make it all about Garrett. But it could be. Everything could be. That boy is my light. Without him, I’d be sitting in a very dark room right now, unable to see just how magnificent both I and the world around me are.
I went from working in PR to being – in this order – a health coach, herbalist, author, spiritual teacher, Sacred Branding (was once trademarked) business coach, Mapping Sensitivities facilitator (never got around to trademarking that one), sex coach, hypnotherapist, and NLP practitioner.
And somehow Garrett never once batted an eye.
“Oh, we’re swapping out wings and beer for gluten-free, dairy-free organic now? I’m down.”
“So you want us to dress like our high school selves and play yard games because you inexplicably think it’ll help you heal your digestive issues? That makes sense.”
I trust myself today because he trusted me in the dark.
Above anything else, it’s Bubbie’s courage and Garrett’s steadiness that underlie every gift I get to give to clients.
The endless whisper, “Keep going. You’ve got this. And, when you don’t, I’ve got you.”
Okay, before I get too sappy, I’m really proud of my work. I’d like to tell you about how I actually work and how to work with me. So, please head on over to the Work with Me page.
And thanks for listening – or reading. It’s some of my most personal stuff. And I’m asking you to share your most sacred stuff if we work together. So we both know what Bubbie would say:
“Be the fool.”
I don’t know how to start this page without talking about my Bubbie.
She was my first true mirror – the only way I knew how to see myself. In her kingdom, I was a 12-year-old who could dance to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in front of a towel of a naked woman I had pinned to the back of my door. (Yeah, I was a really cool kid.)
So, when she died (or, more accurately, when she gave up on life after my Grandpa died), my mirror shattered. And I’ve spent the years in between searching every inch of my soul for each piece, playing caricatures of different parts of myself, trying to become whole again.
I remember once sitting in front of a dance floor in Aruba. Bubbie got up, walked to the middle of the room, and started – gyrating – in front of everyone. I was maybe eight – I was mortified. I was a really shy kid.
She looked me dead in the eye and said, “Michael, if you don’t get up here and dance with me, I’m just going to keep getting sexier and weirder.”
Eventually, the sheer embarrassment compelled my body to the floor to stop her.
She grasped my hands in hers and said, “Someone needs to be the first one on the dance floor. If you can just hold your embarrassment and everyone’s judgments long enough, eventually they’ll all realize it’s safe to be silly and playful and real too.
You can be the fool.”
Bubbie’s to blame for all of this.
The other person I have to blame is my husband Garrett.
Most partners shut you down when you pull out a pendulum upon meeting their high school friends or post naked pictures online.
Garrett isn’t most partners.
I’ve known that boy since I was 18 years old. I’ve been on adventures with him across the country, world, and our own psyches that are too sacred to even talk about here. He let me unravel and explore and only ever followed my breakdowns and cashless months up with, “I trust you – you know what you’re doing. You’ll figure it out.”
This isn’t a Garrett shrine website – and I really promised myself I wouldn’t make it all about Garrett. But it could be. Everything could be. That boy is my light. Without him, I’d be sitting in a very dark room right now, unable to see just how magnificent both I and the world around me are.
I went from working in PR to being – in this order – a health coach, herbalist, author, spiritual teacher, Sacred Branding (was once trademarked) business coach, Mapping Sensitivities facilitator (never got around to trademarking that one), sex coach, hypnotherapist, and NLP practitioner.
And somehow Garrett never once batted an eye.
“Oh, we’re swapping out wings and beer for gluten-free, dairy-free organic now? I’m down.”
“So you want us to dress like our high school selves and play yard games because you inexplicably think it’ll help you heal your digestive issues? That makes sense.”
I trust myself today because he trusted me in the dark.
Above anything else, it’s Bubbie’s courage and Garrett’s steadiness that underlie every gift I get to give to clients.
The endless whisper, “Keep going. You’ve got this. And, when you don’t, I’ve got you.”
Okay, before I get too sappy, I’m really proud of my work. I’d like to tell you about how I actually work and how to work with me. So, please head on over to the Work with Me page.
And thanks for listening – or reading. It’s some of my most personal stuff. And I’m asking you to share your most sacred stuff if we work together. So we both know what Bubbie would say:
“Be the fool.”
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