Two years ago, when my son went off to college and to the adult world arena, I remember sitting at my desk at my marketing position in Carlsbad, thinking, now what?
That summer had been unbearably hot and a gal in the office had taken leave of work and I had been working more for the company. I felt a bit unhinged by my new life…my son off to the real world, a big portion of my world felt uneven and lacking a certain component.
Coming from a self-help loving background of books, to writing, to authorship, to self-care deep breathing to practicing yoga, I had been sideswiped by the empty-bit and felt 
utter shame about it, too.
This had all taken my heart and soul by surprise. I was thrilled my son was off to the big world but adrift on how my new world would FEEL as good?
I used to think these parents that whimpered about this topic were pathetic and needed to ‘Get a Life,’ as they say…
How much we think judgmental thoughts usually smacks us that much harder in the face, I have learned the hard way later on in life.
So back to that AH HA- MOMENT of MANGO JANE & THIS HERE…
I looked deep within my soul and found out two things:
BOOKS + YOGA
make me happy. One of the best moments of my life was receiving a publishing contract in 2012 from a UK publisher
that had massive worldwide distribution. They rocked the MIND/Body/Soul planet.
One of the next best things had been learning to stand upright on my head upside down without the help against the wall. I would do these poses all over the place. Popping up in front of Lake Louise, A big Buddha, at the Paradise, the beach…Mexico in Playa Del Carmen…you name it, my cranium became rock star resilient to the upside down heaviness of my body. I could even hold my pose for over 10 breaths and scissor my legs upright in a trip-pod handstand.
I felt weightless upside down. I felt strong, happy and free and that’s when I truly realized there was something deeper inside each ASANA than just striking a pose and snapping a shot and posting away on Instagram.
That fall after I watched my son skateboard away into a ray of light at UCSB in Santa Barbara, I stood there frozen to the sidewalk with the great big blue Pacific Ocean there behind me silently witnessing my life coming full circle that one September day back in 2018. I walked back to my car with tiny tears and felt that pang across my chest that finally understood “It. Goes. Fast,” remark punching me right in the heart.
Luckily for me, I’m a self-help junkie/a lover of self improvement, a lover of personal empowerment, yada yada, so I remember telling my husband, “This is not how I’m going down…”
I remember him looking at me with clear eyes. I remember reading thinking he was thinking “Good…” I remember knowing at that moment, my world would be only better if I PULLED MYSELF UP by grabbing that next rung on the ladder in life.
How can we grab it though if we don’t know where it’s leading? How can we move out of ‘HOUSE MARM/EMPTY NEXT MODE-FEED ME BON-BONS’ if we don’t have a plan…inspiration?
The answer is simple: WE CAN’T.
That’s why it’s important to figure out what you love. Figure out what you want to do with your time, be healthy, be happy and just get to it.
So back to that self-help world…YOU BET, I did come up with a plan and made myself stick to it. And, even though I had been a Bestselling Author/newspaper columnist, writer, marketing person, avocado hustler at the fruit stand with my LOVE, I signed up for my 200 hour yoga certification and starting doing down-dog with lots of 20 year old rock star yoga students and other middle-lifers like me looking for meaning midlife or maybe their reasons were not that…I’ll never know, but it’s easy to guess the simple answer like Ockham’s razor Theory suggests…
Let’s not get off topic. Let me get back to that desk in Carlsbad at my marketing job two years ago…
Public Domain books were up for grabs on publishing. I had the best idea to start publishing them…I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but that mere idea felt as if a life jacket had been thrown my way mid-air/midlife and I reached up and put it on, found the rung on the next ladder and pulled myself back up in the game of life and ditched that sad/depressed/woe is me/I’m getting old stint.
And two years later, I am just about to publish my first REAL writer besides my own writing and public domain books. I am a yoga instructor at two different places in San Diego, teaching my first private yoga stint this weekend and busy publishing books for Mango Jane Publishing.
When I am at the fruit stand, sometimes customers now as me what I do to stay in shape. They don’t seem to believe that it’s truly yoga, they seem to think it’s something else. I find Yoga is completely misunderstood by most of the population and I guess in many ways I am still finding my groove in learning just the mechanics of it all; embracing those Vedic Wizards in all that they knew early on 5000 to 6000 years ago (luckily, written down, passed down by the written word). I often stand there in front of the fruit before they leave:
Are they talking to that midlife mom that felt adrift?
Miracles happen people.
In my 300 hour, my yoga rock star professor that can jump into a scissor handstand and hold it perfectly with ease and steadiness often writes on her Instagram that yoga isn’t about the pose, but living a better life.
I am now living that life and the words sink deeply inside as I write this and feel proud of that empty nest mom that had about 15 extra pounds on her body not give up on herself and decide to get busy following micro-dreams to ease my hurting heart.
I am in my late 40’s and no longer associate with my age but more with ‘how I feel and what my body is telling me.’
I have ditched the bonbons and the brag posts on Instagram about poses I am working on unless I can completely do them with steadiness and ease, and not just fling my legs up into the air for a quick pic and a good brag shot.
I have just published my first LITERARY CLASSIC BOOK – JANE EYRE & in case you’ve guessed it, this publishing business isn’t that easy. It takes many hours and lots of patience and I’m still learning my way through it all.
I am on the upside of the learning curve & I love working on it. It brings me utter joy to sit and format books, create the covers investigate the reasons to buy bulk isbns/barcodes and whether or not Ingram Sparks is worth the hastle when KDP Publishing is rocking it so easily.
My yoga schedule is now filled to six to seven days a week and I practice my home flow in the evening whenever I can with the rock star purple valley people on primary series one. I have done yoga before called Ashtanga…however, not really I realize when taking this online class at night with John Scott…which just happens to be the very first yoga book I bought for myself back in 2015 (I have come to realize researching pays off with everything.)
So the reason I am sharing this is because it took me two years to finally publish JANE EYRE. And, the day it happened, my sister was here to witness me sliding around in my socks across the hardwood floors in our flat/apartment in Vista, California with pure joy.
She asked, “What are you so excited about?”
“I am just about to publish JANE EYRE.”
I DID.
I can still throw my legs up and hit handstands, however now I realize that’s nothing to brag about. The real joy 
comes from control, precision and the micro measures of time spent learning to do it accurately with love and passion from the true space of LOVE.
Never stop dreaming. If you are in the doldrums of your goal or where you want to be, HANG TOUGH and get busy with that plan of attack that makes your heart sing…and eventually that rung on the ladder will be right there within your grasp because you have actually done all of the hard work to reach that moment on the ladder.
HAPPY LABOR DAY 2020!
Mango Jane Publishing