Zenful Woman

Zen /zen/ – peaceful and calm

Some years back, as a newly minted massage therapist, I tried to start a business in my small Southern town. Even though I was the secretary of my kids’ PTO, a Little League baseball coach, and the de facto director of my church’s youth music program, some of the older locals were convinced that I was trying to open a brothel. While I admit to some small part of me being flattered that anyone thought my still-squishy mom bod was worth paying for, the stakes soon became clear: I was refused a business license. I subsequently filed suit against the town. While the suit was pending, I offered my services for free, mostly just to thumb my nose at the city. I put up a small sign with my brand-new business name, Zenful Mind & Body. I hadn’t had a name in mind before, but felt the nonsense word, ‘zenful,’ served as a sarcastic rebuke of some people’s belief that my business intentions were somehow sinful. Sadly, those were the very people who likely would have benefited most from a massage. At the very least, I may have been able to remove the sticks from their asses, though that may be considered outside my scope of practice.

I lost my case against the city and instead opened for business in a nearby town. But I held on to the name. Even after leaving the profession, the word I had made up in a fit of pique continued to resonate with me. Throughout my 40’s – amidst a very bitter divorce, a heartbreaking post-divorce relationship, and then meeting the man who became my second husband – I found myself struggling in my spiritual life. It’s not that I stopped believing in God because of things that happened, it’s that I could no longer reconcile religious dogma with my own intuition about why things happen, to me or to anyone. So I finally gave myself permission to look for God somewhere else. Now, in my mid-50’s, I am very comfortable in my role as a seeker. I stopped looking for God and realized that everything is God. God is just infinitely there. I discovered that I shouldn’t waste time seeking God the Figurehead, but God the Truth. There are days I feel closer to that truth than others, because I am – after all – sinful. As we all are. Radical, unconditional acceptance – that most loving act – begins with the self. The self, created in God’s image, must contemplate and forgive its own sin and cultivate its own Zen; its own peace and calm, own spiritual refuge.

I have been many versions of myself. I have been a wife twice and a mother twice over. I have been an entertainer, a healer, and a teacher, among other things. The thing I have been the longest, perhaps tellingly, is a student. It took me 35 years to get my Bachelors degree in English and Creating Writing; I attended college for at least some part of 5 separate decades in 3 separate states. And now, finally, I think I am ready to be a Writer. I want to give you my words; to entertain, to heal, to teach. I want my words to create a resonance of connection between us. Behold the Zenful Woman; and may you, in turn, be held.