The Tao of Jessica Simpson

Here we grow again. Spring. Somehow Dallas managed to get three inches of snow the first day this year. Yet whether snow lay on the ground or not, spring has sprung all the same. Sometimes things don’t happen as quickly as we’d like them to. We feel stuck. We get that feeling that things are never going to change. They’re never going to be the way that we want them to be. Truth is, of course, that we only appear stuck. Everything is always in motion. Just because we can’t see or feel the earth spinning doesn’t mean it’s not. Earlier I was faxing twenty million things for my law practice. I had a fax that just wouldn’t go through. I tried three times. I was stuck. Suddenly, for whatever reason, I decided to look at what I was faxing, instead of continuing to mindlessly feed it through the top loader of my machine repeatedly, wishing I was doing something besides faxing. It was actually the wrong document. I grabbed the right one, put it through my trusty Brother All-in-One, and away it went effortlessly.

Getting unstuck and change are most certainly in the air, seemingly everywhere. That magical prospect yet again. That glisten in your eye – the thought that 2010 could be your year. YUP. It most definitely could. I’ve watched laid-off friends pick themselves up by the bootstraps and form entirely new existences for themselves, coming out the other side not only unscathed, but with freedoms they’d never dreamed imaginable. I’ve watched friends go back to school and seek out the career they never even dared admit to themselves that they even wanted in the first place. I got another email recently from a friend who’s a big company VP that’s days away from embarking on a 2 month spiritual journey to India and Thailand. Another who quit his career all together and took a similar trip last year, recently moving out to LA to follow his passion and try to “make it” as a singer/songwriter. The stories go on and on, all the way to VH1.

I had yet another veggie sandwich last week at Buli on Cedar Springs with my friend Jordann. Although I’m uncertain as to whether or not she is aware of my penchant for a certain brand of reality TV, she all the same mentioned that Jessica Simpson had a new show called “The Price of Beauty” on VH1, when we were talking about my blog (I’d included Jessica in a previous rant entitled “John Mayerhem”).

In her new show, Jessica plans to travel the world with two friends, exploring the price women pay to feel beautiful, and hopes to grow what she considers to be true beauty – the kind on the inside.  In the series premiere, she headed off to Thailand. Rising above the ghosts of chicken of the sea past, the Jessica of 2010 had some considerable insight to share when discussing her inability to meditate with a Buddhist monk: “I couldn’t be at peace with myself, so maybe I have a little bit more work to do”. The recognition that just like true beauty comes from within, so too does inner peace.

It’s funny how sometimes we forget that celebrities are people too and that they’re entitled to inner peace, just like everyone else. Before Jessica Simpson was Jessica Simpson, she was just some junior while my class was ruling the school at JJ Pearce High School. No one would dare dream of ridiculing a co-worker for packing on a couple pounds, yet she’s shredded to the entire planet for it. Now, she’s taken her show on the road and is airing it for all of TV and Web Land to see – beauty is inside life. So, Jessica, I applaud you. You go find yourself your peace of mind, and don’t stop till you get enough.

What is the price of beauty anyways? Maybe it’s the price we pay when we do something in favor of outward appearance, instead of acting in a way that jives with our authentic selves. It may manifest as an eating disorder, shopping addiction, addiction to plastic surgery, relationship addiction, or in some other way all together, but the result is all the same. We make ourselves sick. Jessica’s friend asked the Buddhist monk if inner peace = outer beauty. The monk replied that true beauty comes from within, and explained that “if your mind is deep in meditation, your body, your skin and your health will glow”. Meditation, like yoga, means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A simple explanation might be that it can simply mean the harnessing of control of the thoughts of the mind, in an effort to be able to simply sit and quietly be with yourself.

So being the music fan that I am, I used to ALWAYS listen to music ALL the time. Alarm clock goes off (cookies to the first person who guesses where I was working when the ringtone was “Blow Up the Outside World”), and I’d head to the bathroom (turn on CD player – now Pandora for Blackberry) to brush my teeth and shower. I’d be out the door and into the car (I think there were about three straight months where the first jam on the ride to work everyday was Pink Floyd’s “Time”) where I’d drive off to sit in a chair at whatever job I’d spend the bulk of my waking hours at. Once rear was in said chair, I’d turn on whatever version of technology I was currently using to feed my habit, and there I would sit. Until it was time to get back in the car for some more tunes, before arriving home. From home, things could go one of two ways:

1. leave home, go out, listen to more music; or
2. stay home, watch TV (not technically music for the most part).

Both ended with falling asleep with the TV on, and then completing the cycle by waking up to the outside world blowing up yet again. How does a girl get a little peace around this joint anyways? Well, you can start by spending some time each day just shutting it down. Shutting it all down. Getting quiet. Whatever that looks like for you. Enjoy the silence.

IN SUMMATION: I was asked recently to give five tips for going from tense to tranquil. In a nutshell: move, breath, learn, dream, share. In my experience, doing these things leads you on the path to the one thing that ultimately leads to tranquility – the ability to just be. Within that ability to just be resides true beauty. Beauty inside life.