May 2014 – Finding My Muchness

You can fly to the moon on your talents too.

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Tova

“Why do you think you’re qualified to ‘teach’ people how to grieve? A lot of people have gone through loss. What makes you think you have anything special to share?”

Many years ago, when I first shared with my mom that I felt called to help women find their way through grief… with sequins… that was her response.

My mom, my entire life, told me that I could do ANYTHING I set my mind to. She told me I could fly to the moon on my talents. She told me I could start and run a business that would make bajjilions. She is the one who encouraged me to start my own handbag business at the tender age of 21. And she told me top think BIG! “It takes just as much effort to make 10 bags as it does to make 10,000” she’d say, completely overlooking the fact that it takes a lot more effort to SELL 10,000 bags.

But that was fine- because with her (not so) blind optimism and encouragement, I believed whole-heartedly that I could absolutely do it.

When I was a teenager and painted disturbing horror-ish characters, life-sized, crawling out of graves on my bedroom wall, she brought her friends up to my room to brag about my talents.

And it wasn’t only me. When my older sister – the book-smart brainy one- was thinking about going to nursing school, my mom said HELL NO. You are going to medical school. And she did. A really prestigious one. On a full scholarship where she received her MD. and her Ph.D. Now she is a pediatric cardiologist who helps fix babies hearts.

So when my mom, for the first time in my life, questioned my ability to do what I felt I was being drawn to do, it stopped me in my tracks. It made me question myself and what the hell I thought I was doing with this Muchness thing.

Sure, if it was just about creativity and clothes, I was more than qualified, but maybe if it was about the deeper stuff, the stuff that sits in darker places, I wasn’t exactly equipped for the job. It derailed me from this goal for over a year.

But another thing she taught me is that if I’m meant to do something, I will.

I met Dr. Julie, and together we’ve been creating this Muchness After Babyloss 8-week program. Because now, the time is right.

To kick off the launch, we created a 7 day mini-challenge, to help loss moms get to know us and what we stand for. That program is now in progress.

The feedback, response, is incredible.

Being witness to the opening up among the 650+ participants is so reaffirming.

Comments from participants like these amaze me:

“I feel like this is helping to get me unstuck. My therapy sessions do not seem to be as productive the last 6 months as you have been in three days.”

“The challenges have been tough, but yesterday, for a brief moment, I felt more like myself than I had since my first miscarriage.”

“This challenge/group has made it easier to get out of bed today. Thank you for this. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

“This program is already helping me tremendously! I was leery at first. Thanks for all the love”

…they make me know I am on the right path. And my mom was right. I can fly to the moon on my talents… I just didn’t even know till now what some of those talents are. I too am discovering my Muchness, more and more every day.

If you are feeling called to go deeper into your healing journey after loss, we (Dr. Julie and I) hope you’ll consider Muchness After Babyloss.

There is light and life and joy and purpose after loss. We want to help you find it.

We are hosting a free confrence call this evening where you will get to hear from myself and Dr. Julie and ask any questions you may have about the 7 day free challenge or the 8 week course which starts May 18.

Want to find out more? Comment below or register to get call information emailed to you.

Why are you such a Judgy McJudger?

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Tova

When I speak publicly or lead workshops one of the things I get asked about often is how I walk out the door, wearing my muchy Muchness, and don’t care what people think. The question itself is sorta a backwards compliment, but I’m not picky. I’ll take compliments in any form. 🙂

Now, I have an answer to this…. or the parts of ideas and thoughts that have pieced themselves together into an answer, and I’ve become so subconsciously aware of when people are thinking this, that I sometimes bring up the topic on my own in talks.

It basically boils down to this:

When I proactively make a choice to forget to judge others, somehow that makes me forget that they may be judging me.

It doesn’t happen automatically- there are certainly times where I stand in my closet and think “God- if I wear that, what are “they” gonna think?” but then I remind myself that just because “they” may wear beautifully tailored clothing, with perfectly coiffed hair from the salon and impeccably polished fingernails, doesn’t mean “they” are a judgmental bitch. Frankly, if I assume “they” are, than what does that make me? I’ll tell ya what…. a judgmental bitch.

I get that this is not so simple. I get that there are a lot more layers to this “who am I and how do I fit in with the world and people around me” conundrum, but frankly, I don’t have time to be doing that kind of math and emotional spelunking. Besides, I indulged those thoughts for years. I was left wearing gray and feeling invisible and like crap. But hey, at least no-one on the outside of my head was judging me, right?

So what do I do? I look around my closet, pull out something that makes me smile, is clean, weather appropriate and meets the general, broad guidelines of “appropriate” and walk out the door, reminding myself that everyone is human and sparkles make me happy. Anyone who wants to judge me behind my back just needs a little Muchness in their lives! (and PS- while you’re back there, don’t forget to kiss my muchy ass! 🙂 )

So last week I went to an incredible event- the Mom Grows A Business Conference in White Plains NY. This is me on that day.

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I was a sponsor of the event, so I had a table full of Muchness Stuff, but what I didn’t expect was to be called on stage to share The Muchness Movement and my story.

But I was, and so I did.

And in that moment- that moment where I felt pretty effing awesome about being confident and experienced enough to grab a mic and hop on stage unprepared in front of 300+ entrepreneurial woman and keep my cool, I was being judged.

Probably by many, many people.

But only one decided to share it on her blog. (That I know of.)

And while I certainly could have assumed that I was being judged, assuming it and reading it in black and white are two entirely different things.

As I read her post, I got a little hot under the collar, ya know? I tried not to get all tense, or start second guessing my decision to wear something I KNEW would set me apart from the…. other women at the event.

OK- now before I go any further I want to point out a few things:

1- Despite what she wrote, I was not wearing vertical AND horizontal stripes. Just horizontal…. with a zebra striped Muchness Band. So sue me.

2- The idea of being styled by a carefree, excited-about-life two year old doesn’t really bother me that much. Better that than the personal shopper at, um…. White House Black Market. (hello….color?)

3- I didn’t have a miscarriage at 23 weeks. In-utero losses past 20 weeks are considered stillbirth. And I was 23.5 weeks. It’s a small difference but important to me.

I wear what I wear because I believe what I write, what I speak, and what I feel. I wear what I wear because once people are done judging me from afar, they may just get close enough to know why. Or I may get lucky enough to get on stage and share it with them. And sharing my Why is why I am here. Because my why seems to open people’s hearts. Because it helps people lower their own barriers, drop the walls and judgements they have built around them that stop them from… well, from doing so, so much in their own lives, with their own truths, hearts and talents.

So…. yeah. In the end, it was a pretty complimentary post- Wanna see what lesson this woman learned about her own Muchness? Go. 🙂

PS- If pre-Muchness Tova saw me now, she would totally judge me. But frankly, she was kinda a judgmental bitch.

Do what you think you can’t do.

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Tova

It’s 12:22 on Saturday night and I’ve been working and working and working- and I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but I just finished something big and wanted to give myself a little pat on the back before moving onto the next thing I gotta work on. I logged on to FB for my “fix” but just wasn’t feeling it. The fact is, I just felt a need to connect with you. The people who really know The Muchness and signed up to hear from me.

About 5 minutes ago I put the final touches on the free Mother’s Day Muchness after Babyloss Challenge. As I scheduled that final email to send, confirmed all the raffle dates and blog posts were properly set up, I felt a rush of pride and anticipation and just wanted to jump up and down and give someone a hug.

But everyone around here is asleep, so I’m reaching out for a virtual one instead, I guess.

While the message of The Muchness is without a doubt for anyone who resonates with the idea of losing their Muchness (and I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t,) I’ve been wanting to create a program for loss moms for a while and feel really proud that I finally am. This Mother’s Day Challenge is a pre-curser to a more intense and personal Muchness After Babyloss Program that will follow. (I’ll tell you more about that in the upcoming weeks.)

Connecting with Dr. Julie Bindeman, a psychologist and 3x loss mom who works with families coping with loss and complicated family planning in her day-to-day practice was a real gift. It gave me the courage, framework, and accountability- to take what I know from my own experience and share it in a way that I know can help people. On top of that, being able to combine the message of Muchness which is such a heart-centric thing, with clinical data and her years of professional and personal experience around this subject has been incredible.

Ya know, there’s always reasons to be afraid. Always reasons not to do what your heart is calling you to do. Always.

But if there is something your heart is truly calling you to do, please know- there are also so, so many reasons to do it.

Sometimes those reasons are intangible, illogical or other people will think you are bananas.

Do it anyway.

I was terrified to create a program for loss moms. Despite years and years of connecting with other moms who’d had losses, despite being one of them, I was (am) still scared. I know that there is so much we struggle with, issues so real and painful, the idea that anything I say, no matter how glitter coated and sincere, may help is still hard to fathom. And it’s scary for me to put myself out there like this. But it’s what I feel called to do. And despite (or because of?) the fear, it feels pretty good. 🙂

When I left my job 20 months ago, I was also terrified. Although people congratulated me – said it was so brave, the truth is, staying there terrified me even more. Having more of those stupid panic attacks under office tables terrified me even more. Some may say brave. Others (particularly those related to me) may say stupid. I believe, at that point, I had no choice.

And so here we are. There are days I panic, but I don’t have panic attacks. Because this road, though bumpy and uncertain, is the right road, one way or another.

I hope you are on your right, albeit bumpy road. And if you know you’re not, I hope you find your way to it…. scratch that. I know you will.

Thanks for hanging out with me while I continue to figure this whole thing out, and if you are a loss mom and want to join me, Dr. Julie and over 650 women (so far) that have signed up for this challenge, you can do that and share it with others who can benefit right here. 🙂