The thing about “The Soapbox Therapist” becoming the new show on Oprah’s new OWN Cable network is that YOU CAN HELP MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Soapbox Therapy blog/column has been reaching out, inspiring, supporting, and loving you and your gorgeous selves for almost 1 year! (anniversary is 7/8/10!) Now the opportunity has arrived to reach out to even more amazing human beings and help support them on their journey to self-discovery, self-respect, and self-esteem…one television episode at a time!!!!! YES, that’s right… Soapbox has TV on the brain!

Here’s the deal: Oprah is launching a new TV network called OWN, and this competition is to get MY OWN SHOW on the network!!!!! The show? “The Soapbox Therapist”!!

All you have to do is click on the link below, watch my video, and VOTE! You can vote AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT!!!!!!!!!!!! YES, AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT!!!!! The people/videos with the top 5 votes will automatically be invited into the next round, an in-person interview and audition in Los Angeles in July, so we need votes, numbers, and positive comments FAST!!!!!

So, over the next 5 weeks leading up to the Soapbox Therapy blog 1 year anniversary, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE VOTE your beautiful fingers off and let’s celebrate loving ourselves from the inside out and the outside in and every ounce in-between!!!!!

Thank you for believing in me as I believe in you, you gorgeous fabulous self-aware emotionally intelligent Soapbox readers, you!!! Let’s take “The Soapbox Therapist” to OWN!!!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR “THE SOAPBOX THERAPIST”

love love love love love,

Once in a while I learn a word, a phrase, a way to explain something I’ve been trying and craving and yearning to explain in that perfect I-get-it-and-it’s-never-made-more-sense-than-it-does-now-kind-of-way.

Last week, while having tea and catching up with my beautiful friend Rebecca, it happened; I learned the phrase I’ve been looking for.

Here’s how it went down …

Rebecca and I were talking and all of the sudden I was far away from the table, from my cup of tea, from our conversation, from the moment I was supposedly living. My body was still there, but my mind was in the future … in the what if-when I have-if I don’t have-when that happens-what-if it doesn’t happen-what will I do if-when and maybe and I’m not sure and I think so … and later and then and in a few years…and and and… She stopped me mid-sentence.

Come back, she said. You’re future tripping.

Future tripping? Yes. Future tripping. It’s a phrase nothing short of amazing.

The thing about future tripping is that it’s different than simply thinking about or planning the future. It’s a trip, in every sense of the word: a leaving, a getting away from, a zoning out, a seemingly drug-induced exit which takes you away from the very moment you’re in. It’s unplanned and unexpected and sends you to a place of worry and fear and what-if’s and what’s-next and then what’s-that are completely and utterly consuming. And intoxicating. And addictive.

We all do it, this future tripping thing. We all think about what’s to come, we hope and consider and ponder and worry and plan and discuss and wonder. We pack up our past and leave our present to sit, wait, and have some tea without us while we skip into tomorrow or next week or next year or 10 years from now.

We trick ourselves to believe that if we talk and think about what’s next, we could possibly relive ourselves from being where we are, in this place of who-really-knows-what’s-going-to-happen … but it doesn’t work. The future trip just takes us away, spins us in a circle, and throws us back to reality just in time to realize that while we were off planning on how to have the perfect life–we just missed something … we just missed everything.

This present moment – this very second that we’re in – no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable, deserves our attention. Planning is amazing, preparing is responsible and beautiful. Future tripping…that’s a diversion, a distraction, a trick, a seduction.

There’s an extremely important difference between future planning and future tripping. Planning takes planning. You can choose to take an minute or an hour or a day to think about and plan a certain event. Plan to plan, make an agreement with your brain that that’s where you’ll be–planning for the future, rather than tripping over the present moment to get there.

So plan to plan, but other than that…be here. Be in this moment. Not because the new must-have book you’re reading, yoga teacher, mother or best friend told you to be present because that’s what they heard is the new fad; be present because you choose to. Be here because you finally get it..in that perfect I-get-it-and-it’s-never-made-more-sense-than-it-does-now-kind-of-way. Love it.

Choose not to miss anything. Choose to experience all of the tiny perfect and imperfect and scary and exciting and joy-filled moments that are right here. So unpack your bags, and stay a while. Don’t miss a thing.

And that’s the thing about future tripping …

Check out “The Thing About Future Tripping” this month on TheISCollection.com!
Love,

Dear Brooke,

JAM

Dear J,

This question may be short, but it’s so packed to the rim with beautiful, juicy, delicious, growing learning opportunities, that I’m pretty much beyond excited to respond. So, here we go…

The fact that you included the detail of your mother being Jewish isn’t for nothing. As it turns out, these feelings of guilt in response to happiness and success are actually in your genes. Really? Yes, really.

Let’s take a little journey through history…

In the 60s, therapists starting seeing tons of clients who were describing practically debilitating feelings of guilt. They described extremely traumatic experiences, including witnessing others around them die, or surviving as others were killed instead of them, simply by chance or blind luck. What the therapists found to be in common amongst an astounding number of these clients is that they were survivors of the Holocaust. These strong and beautiful survivors’ feelings of intense guilt, even thinking they were wrong or bad for living through the Holocaust, came to be known as Survivor Guilt.

(Currently, the label Survivor Guilt spans beyond Holocaust survivors and can be experienced by anyone who survived a traumatic event of any kind.)

So, even though there are Holocaust survivors of many ethnicities and religions, the Jewish culture has carried this survivor guilt in their bodies-minds-souls-core…since they started surviving which, come to think of it, according to Jewish text, has been happening since way before the Holocaust. But, I digress…

So, flash forward to present day.

Though the guilt you’re talking about is not directly connected to the Holocaust, the thing about Survivor Guilt is that it’s been passed down from generation to generation, and during that passage it’s shifted, changed, become diluted, even miscommunicated and misinterpreted. You, sweet darling, don’t feel guilty for surviving a traumatic event, though you are in fact a survivor; a joyful, blessed, beautiful, happy, healthy, and alive being, and you’re experiencing Survivor Guilt…circa 2010.

So, now that you have a total grasp on what’s going on with you and your cute mother, let’s talk about how you might shift your thoughts, because not only is this guilt not working for you, it’s actually not working for anyone around you either…

You can absolutely change your mindset to a place of being proud of yourself for where you’re at, and come to realize that empowering yourself actually empowers the people around you. Yes, you can actually help others by loving yourself. I know, crazy-exciting.

Like having a daily workout, the following is a daily mantra that I think fits the bill perfectly for working with Survivor Guilt, especially of the modern day variety. It’s an amazing quote by Marion Williamson that Nelson Mandela recited in his 1994 inaugural speech. I took out some “God” parts to make it more universal, but kept it in quotes nonetheless.

My suggestion: print this baby out, change it to the first person, and say it to your gorgeous face in the mirror every morning. And see what happens.

Without further ado…

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be?? Your playing small does NOT serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the light that is within us, ALL of us. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So JAM, go shine your amazing light all over the place…and survive like nobodies’ business.

Love,
Brooke.

Click here to read this column on Cheeky Chicago this month!