Baubo the Belly Goddess
There’s an old woman—a wild woman if you please—who lives in the hearts of women everywhere. She’s the cheeky little goddess named Baubo, the goddess of mirth. She kicks and dances, sometimes with suggestive moves, as she roars and cackles, reminding women that laughter—belly shaking laughter—is good for us.
But not just laughter, it is a particular type of mirth. For, within her bag of gifts is the ability to make women laugh unrestrained, not caring how they look, if their makeup is smeared or their hair mused, it causes them to double over holding their aching bellies and later wiping the mascara-smearing tears rolling down their faces.
This laugher is never shared when men are present—for they wouldn’t understand. It is reserved for those days when women pull away for ‘time with the girls.’ Often it is late at night. Sometimes the event resembles a slumber party filled with giggling seven-year-old girls.
In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D, describes this type of laughter as often containing obscene innuendos. (Oh, my goodness! She says, her hand over her mouth, a pink blush on her cheeks.)
In ancient times, women’s sexuality often held a sacred context. In our language today, it is difficult to understand how that can be, since many women today have been taught that ‘obscene’ is not ladylike.
However, there is something different about obscene laughter shared between women. It seems to reach deep into our psyches, shaking loose things that are too tight. It plays on our bones and helps us begin to breathe. For to be able to laugh like that requires that we exhale and quickly take another breath. It is a type of humor that goes beyond the intellect to the very core of our being.
No one knows for sure where Baubo lives, but I saw her last weekend at a women’s retreat in San Angelo, Texas. Before that, she danced across the floor late one night when my sister and I sat up late and talked about—men.
Then, again, she often shows up in the personality of a particular friend of mine who never takes life too seriously. I saw Baubo once, years ago when my aunt kicked and prissed across the floor, her undergarments on her head. Then again, Baubo was present every time Mae West stepped on stage.
She’s a wild woman all right, but I call her Baubo, and laugh my head off every time she shows up. Look for her, invite her in, and laugh till your sides ache.
There are no mistakes, just lessons.
Personal growth is trial and error.
As long as we live, lessons will present themselves to us to learn.
Now if that’s not the most discouraging lesson of all! After all the work I’ve done on myself all these years, one would think I’d learned all my lessons and could coast till the end.
Not so. Very few of us receive the truth complete, unabridged and sight-blinding, because of instantaneous illumination. We learn it one tiny step at the time. Sometimes, even when we’ve learned it, we find ourselves learning the same lesson all over again, but in an even deeper way.
The experiments you try and fail at, are just as much a part of the lessons as those experiments in which you succeed.
I think we are too hard on ourselves. We make a mistake and we beat up on our self, shaming, putting down, and telling ourselves we are awful.
Since we attract the lessons we need to learn, every time we attract the same lesson, we are reminded we haven’t learned that one yet. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a part of the whole life-lesson process. We learn from it what we can and move on, not brow beating, but reminding ourselves we’re further down the road to becoming the person we choose to be. We may have to repeat that mistake, but eventually we will get there.
I work at learning to accept myself, even with all my warts and moles. When I screw up, I remind myself the whole world is not going to shun me and think I am a terrible person. That I can still love me, hold my head up, make a correction in my path, and keep going.
How about you? How do you handle it when you make mistakes?
Feel free to comment, below.
As long as we live, lessons will present themselves to us to learn.
Now if that’s not the most discouraging lesson of all! After all the work I’ve done on myself all these years, one would think I’d learned all my lessons and could coast till the end.
Not so. Very few of us receive the truth complete, unabridged and sight-blinding, because of instantaneous illumination. We learn it one tiny step at the time. Sometimes, even when we’ve learned it, we find ourselves learning the same lesson all over again, but in an even deeper way.
Life moves so fast that, before we know it, we’ve stacked up a bunch of years trailing off behind us.
One of my core beliefs is that I came into this world with a set of lessons to learn, and if I don’t, I just might have to learn them in a subsequent life. Whether that be fact or fiction, I don’t know. However, it behooves me to live my life as if it is. It makes my life better and I believe it makes life better for those with whom I come in contact. This post, and the next three, will be the basic measurements I use to guide me in doing so.
The first one is to:
SHOW UP
Make it a point, every day, to show up–be present–regardless of how good the bed feels. Climb out of bed, pour a cup of coffee or water, or soda, or juice and take a look outside and even step outside if you can. Celebrate the new day. Notice the sunrise, the trees. Listen to the birds singing their welcome of the morning. What do you see, smell, hear, feel, taste? Fill your lungs and give thanks for a new day. It is about not wasting my time and energy with thoughts of what might happen, could happen, probably won’t happen, or what I wish would happen.
In other words, showing up means to live in the present moment.
Connect with family and friends, listen, really listen to what they say and what they don’t say, what their actions tell you. Hear them. Understand them, or at least let them know you want to understand them. And if you don’t understand them, ask them to help you do so.
Listen to your own inner voice. What is it that I need to say today to be authentic. Be totally honest with yourself and appreciate all you are.
Recognize and accept that we each have both a light and a dark side. Allow the light of day to shine on the dark in order to diffuse its power over yourself. (We’ll talk more about this in the future.)
It includes allowing ourself to be vulnerable, to take risks, to know what our passion is and be willing to step out and take a risk to achieve it.
To take risks for our heart’s desire by letting go of one trapeze in order to clasp the other.
Being present also means to put phoniness aside. To not ‘act happy’ when we feel lower than dirt. To address why we’re not happy.
Showing up is not about me proving to you I am a good (or bad) person. Showing up is about listening to my own sense of wisdom and aligning my behavior toward self and others, accordingly.
What does showing up to life mean to you? What parts of that do you find difficult to follow? What parts are easier? Feel free to comment.
3 there are no mistakes
There are no mistakes, just lessons.
Personal growth is trial and error.
The experiments you try and fail at, are just as much a part of the lessons as those experiments in which you succeed.
I think we are too hard on ourselves. We make a mistake and we beat up on our self, shaming, putting down, telling ourselves we are awful.
Since we attract the lessons we need to learn, every time we attract the same lesson, we are reminded we haven’t learned that one yet. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a part of the whole life-lesson process. We learn from it what we can and move on, not brow beating, but reminding ourselves we’re further down the road to becoming the person we choose to be. We may have to repeat that mistake, but eventually we will get there.
I work at learning to accept myself, even with all my warts and moles. When I screw up, I remind myself the whole world is not going to shun me and think I am a terrible person. That I can still love me, hold my head up, make a correction in my path, and keep going.
How about you? How do you handle it when you make mistakes?
4 we come into this world to learn life lessons
he lessons you come into this world to learn will present themselves to you over and over again until you learn them. Once you have, then you will continue to the next lesson.
We are back to one of my favorite words: BEHOOVE. I am no authority on how we might come into this world with a set of lessons to learn, or even if we do. But I do know when I CHOOSE to believe that we do, and practice learning those lessons the first, second, or third time around, my life is SOOOO much easier. Therefore, it behooves me to learn each lesson and be done with it.
How do we know when we’ve learned one of those lessons? By making different choices the next time the same situation presents itself.
One of my lessons has been to not put my foot in my mouth by saying something about someone I wouldn’t want them to know I said. I did that once in an email to an employee I supervised, and then realized I had hit Reply All instead of simply Reply, like I intended to do. Wow. Took me a while to get over that flub. Of course another lesson in that example is to be very careful before sending email.
I also learned:
I am not responsible for another person’s feelings. However, I am responsible for choosing to be considerate of another’s feelings. Not because of who they are, but because of who I am. (read, who I choose to be)
And I choose to be a person who is polite, courteous, kind, thoughtful and respectful to all I meet.
4 redux
The lessons you come into this world to learn will present themselves to you over and over again until you learn them. Once you have, then you will continue to the next lesson
Thinking about this lesson later this morning I thought of one of my lessons that I have learned that I do not have to repeat. That is allowing people to talk to me in a way that I do not deserve.
When I encounter someone who speaks to me in a rude, abusive, or controlling way, giving me orders when they have no right to do so, I learned to say to them, “I do not talk to people that way, and I will not allow you to talk to me that way.”
Once, I was walking down the street of a small town when a stranger yelled at me, saying, “Stop. Do NOT walk down that street.”
I didn’t know the man from Adam, and turned to him and said, “Is that a please?”
“Oh, please, yes, please, ma’am. We are filming a movie and you were walking right into it. But that was rude of me. I should have asked please.”
My husband marveled at my immediate response. I hadn’t even stopped to wonder who the man was or why he didn’t want me to walk that way. I simply knew I deserved to be asked in a polite, courteous manner. My husband has bragged about that so many times over the years.
I don’t know where my response came from, but it did teach me that is one lesson I have learned. That I deserve to be treated with the same courtesy and respect I give others, and I do not have to settle for anything less than that.
When we know we are worth more, we have learned that lesson well.
5 learning lessons orver again
As long as we live, lessons will present themselves to us to learn.
Now if that’s not the most discouraging lesson of all! After all the work I’ve done on myself all these years, one would think I’d learned all my lessons and could coast till the end.
Not so. Very few of us receive the truth complete, unabridged and sight-blinding, because of instantaneous illumination. We learn it one tiny step at the time. Sometimes, even when we’ve learned it, we find ourselves learning the same lesson all over again, but in an even deeper way.
