Browsing Tag

jen pastiloff

Guest Posts, Gratitude, Jen Pastiloff, On Being Human

A Note from Jen and Angela: We Are Back!

July 2, 2019
back

Hey everyone! We are back! It’s been a while since we’ve posted, but so much has happened! The big news is that “On Being Human” is in bookstores now! The book was named by both The Washington Post and Inc.com as must a read during the summer – can you believe it? Jen has started touring the country and will be doing both book signings and workshops. She started off July in Denver and is headed East for stops up and down the coast over the month. Details on upcoming events can be found here.

Angela’s life has been about book launch party planning, easing into summer, writing, reading, and getting used to being engaged to The Guy. Not quite as glamorous as having a best-selling book out, but just as over the moon exciting (especially the bit about The Guy).

We both so appreciate your patience during the needed hiatus and are thrilled to be back at it with new posts scheduled starting next week. The essays we are going through are amazing and we are always eager to read more, so don’t hesitate to submit a finished piece about no bullshit mother hood, perspective from a young voice, or observations on making it all work (or not!) If you haven’t received a response on your piece or are looking to know when it is scheduled, send Angela a note and she will get back to you.

In the coming days we will have a form on the site where you can give us feedback on features and themes you want to hear about, so keep an eye out. We want to hear from you and are excited about what ideas you have for the site.

Thank you so much for joining us on this crazy ride and enjoy the long holiday weekend!

xoxo-

Jen and Angela

P.S. If you don’t already, follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Jen can be found here and here. Angela can be found here and here.

P.P.S. Don’t be an asshole.

 

Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts, Manifestation Retreats, Young Voices

What Jen Pastiloff’s Retreat is Like: According to a 22 Year Old.

January 21, 2016

By Haley Jakobson.
Imagine you are 22 and freshly graduated and suddenly sucked into the city of New York like a vacuum, dust pounding into your ears and grit clouding your eyes. Imagine that you feel very alone, despite your dad being a ride away on the 6 train and your college friends scattered around Manhattan like bread crumbs. Imagine you are depressed with a heavy coating of anxiety, a strong nail lacquer that you can’t chip off with the underside of your fingernail. And now you are at work, and despite all of these things, or maybe because of them, work still bored you and you find yourself scrolling through the vortex of your Instagram feed.

This is when you find her. Somewhere buried beneath the yoga pictures that intimidate you and the dogma that comes with them that sometimes bites you from inside the screen, somewhere beyond the pictures of Saturday night snapshots that might have been forgotten otherwise, and hungover Sunday brunch photos you were invited to be a part of but were too sad to join – you find her. She says: “girl power you are enough.” She says “fuck.” A lot. She says, “don’t be an asshole.” Well, duh, you think – and then remember how often you forget this. You read on. Continue Reading…

Birthday, Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts, Jen Pastiloff, Jen's Musings

Getting Older is Everything. Don’t Believe The Lies. A Message To Young Women on Jen Pastiloff’s Bday.

December 12, 2015

By Jen Pastiloff
For as much as I talk about telling the truth, I still get butterflies when sharing my age. My friend Michelle Filgate had an essay in Buzzfeed yesterday about how she used running to treat depression and then she got injured. She interviewed me and it said, Jen Pastiloff, 40 years old, and I sat up and had a moment where I thought how could they have gotten that wrong? I am so not 40 years old.

But I was. Yesterday.

Today, I am 41.

It mortifies my mother-in-law that I tell people how old I am. Especially here in LA, we are not “supposed to” do that.

Youth is a commodity! You’re not “supposed to” age!
I call bullshit.

Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Jen Pastiloff, Jen's Musings

Shitty Advice.

August 29, 2015

By Jen Pastiloff.

I am working on a book of essays called You, Of All People. Shitty Advice will be a chapter title as will I’m Sorry, But.

Anyway, I’m up early.

Me, of all people.

Early– Ish.

Ish is one of my favorite words. My sister and I always say we are more Jew-ish than Jewish. When I teach yoga and I ask my class to go into a dolphin pose or forearm balance or I always add or “ish.” It’s like 9 am-ish (okay, it is 9:59) but I was up real early at 2:45 when I couldn’t fall back asleep due to the heat (and maybe the one too many glasses of rosé I drank with my Irish friends at 4 p.m.)

Nathan Connelly and Jonny Quinn of Snow Patrol and me. Check out Nathan's band Little Matador, too. It was so hot that I think Sun Patrol is a more apt title.

Nathan Connelly and Jonny Quinn of Snow Patrol and me (not of Snow Patrol.) Check out Nathan’s band Little Matador, too. It was so hot that I think Sun Patrol is a more apt title.

I was in bed by 9 because this old lady can’t day-drink that much and continue it (it meaning staying awake) into the evening. So now I am up and thought maybe I should blog because it has been awhile and I always swear to myself that I will blog more frequently but apparently I am a big fat liar to myself. So. Anyway, happy Saturday.

Last weekend I was in Chicago. It was my first time and was a bit of a bucket list thing for me. Growing up on the east coast, it always amazed me that I had never been. Just like as a Jew(ish) person from Jersey, having never been to Florida until I was a grown ass adult was just plain weird. But I have fixed both things. I have been to Florida and now Chicago.

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My workshop in Chicago was, as someone said in a note they left me, #fuckingawesome. It was hashtag worthy.

 

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People drove from all over (Indiana, Ohio, Florida, Minnesota) and the room was light and bright and filled with beautiful people who trusted me (and themselves) enough to show up even though they had no flipping’ clue what the heck my workshop actually was. (Most still didn’t even after it ended and tears were streaming down their faces and they all stood clapping. They just nodded yes yes yes and This was everything even though they had no idea what to call what just happened.) It felt like an outer body experience for me in many ways and I truly felt grateful that I get to do this for a living. I have no idea what the future will hold, if I will have a baby, how I will continue on with this travel schedule, this site, bla bla bla but hey, I am here now and enjoying the ride and isn’t that something?

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What if we stopped and just went, “Oh yea, this is great. Right now.” I may not know what next year will be like (who does?) but that is what usually gets us into trouble, isn’t it? Stopping ourselves from being in the moment by going, “What if this doesn’t last? What if the other shoe drops? What if?”

Thank you, Chicago!!

Wearing Electric & Rose.

 

Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Jen Pastiloff, Jen's Musings

Sabotage!!

May 22, 2015

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black1-300x88By Jen Pastiloff.

I warned you that I was going to start blogging again so here I am. Friday night. Feeling kind of disgusted with myself over how disorganized I am, how bad at time management, how messy. If you knew you wouldn’t be my friend anymore. Wait: Are you my friend? Will you be? Gah, I am so needy.

Sometimes I worry that the really earnest people who read me, that they won’t get my sense of humor. But I can’t worry about that, right? < Needy. needy. Right, right? It’s weird because I have this big following (again, barf at the term following) of love and light and namaste people who, when I post the “Don’t be an asshole” videos will say things like: You are not an asshole, Jen. You are human.

Totes. I know this. I know I am not an asshole but I kinda am. We all are kinda assholes, at least sometimes and if you aren’t in on that joke, you are missing the big joke of life. The big joke of life is that we absolutely cannot take ourselves so seriously because we are just not that important. (Cue: Jen, we are so important. We matter.)

We do matter. We are enough. But you know why I tell my yoga peeps not to take themselves seriously, especially at 7 a.m.? Because it is so fucking boring,

It is really boring. Ever hang out with someone who takes themselves really really seriously?

Excuse me while I pour myself a stiff drink because even the thought of that is just. too. much. Continue Reading…

Birthday, Guest Posts, Jen Pastiloff, Jen's Musings

It Was All A Dream.

December 16, 2014

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black

By Jen Pastiloff.

So last night I was waiting to board my flight at JFK.

It was a long day. We (hubby and I) had taken the bus Sunday morning from NYC to New Jersey, after my “birthday that never ends” celebration. I had never done that before- really let myself be loved like that. It was also the first time I traveled that wasn’t work related in ages.

It felt good.

It was the first time my husband came back east with me and met many of my friends and my family and got to see where I was from. We have been married 5 years this coming February and it was the first time he has come back with me, so it was special.

On my actual birthday, I saw one of my dearest friends, Laura Donnelly, shine on Broadway in The River. I sat there and watched someone whose dream was realized- she was onstage in this gorgeous red dress and she sang and I thought,”This is my friend. This is my people.”

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And I teared up. Because, Fuck yeah! She did it!

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I hung out with Hugh Jackman on my birthday. <<< Yea, that’s kind of amazing. I could probably stop this blog with that line. “I hung with Hugh on my birthday.” I sound like an asshole. Don’t be an asshole, Jen.

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Eff that. I shall be an asshole. I hung with Hugh on my birthday. And he is just as lovely as you would imagine. Kind and funny and generous and present and humble.

"Don't be an asshole" starring Hugh Jackman and Jen Pastiloff

I’m getting back to the JFK bit, bear with me.

I hung with Hugh Jackman and drank tequila with him and he made a “don’t be an asshole” video with me and then my friends took me to the fanciest dinner I have ever had in my life- 7 courses at Jean-Georges. In true NY fashion, we didn’t start eating until midnight. And there were copious amounts of wine. And dessert.

I spent the following evening at Viceroy New York (thank you for the champagne!) with so many of my beloved friends, some since childhood. And my husband. And my agent came. And I was in NY! My first roommate from NYU came. My friend Tanya (owner of tanya-b clothing line, who organized Saturday’s party and who I am flying out to NYC to do a photo shoot for on Jan 12) gave me a candle with a Biggie Smalls quote on it. It said, “It was all a dream.”

Juicy - Biggie Smalls

I had the candle in my pocket and I thought, it was all a dream.

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Who’s to say which is the dream and which is real life? I sometimes wonder this.

One time, when I was leading a retreat at Kripalu (were you worried I was going to say, One time, at band camp…?) I was getting a massage and I said to the woman, “I don’t want to go back to real life.” She said, “This is real life. This. Here. Now.”

And I thought about how she was right. Maybe that’s not even what she said. I was in massage-land but she said something to the effect of letting the fantasy part feel “real.” Because me? I always worry that the other shoe is about to drop. This is going to end. I have to go back to real life and real life is bad and messy and painful and something always hurts. This is going to end- I always think that. And yet- it will. It all ends.

But letting go of the idea that just because something good happens to me or for me or I am happy means that something awful is waiting is some straight up bullshit.

I went to bed happy.

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Jen Besser of Putnam Books,.

Jen Besser of Putnam Books.

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10329081_10152408181261114_582759848883491258_nThe next morning Robert and I took the bus to New Jersey so we could drive to Delaware with my mom and visit Benny in the hospital. Those of you new to my page, Benny is a little boy my family and I have fallen in love with, who has Prader Willi Syndrome like my nephew Blaise. He is legally blind and just had a terrible accident that has left him paralyzed. Benny loves princesses.

For my birthday, I knew that the one thing I wanted more than anything was to meet him.

So I made that happen.

We drove to Delaware bearing the gifts (all princess stuff) that people had given us for Benny. People like you who have never met him but have been following his story. Someone brought me a present to my NYC birthday party for Benny. It was the greatest gift. Made me cry. She said she had gone to FAO Shwartz and that she “had no idea princesses were so confusing.” People can be so good when they aren’t being assholes. (Myself included.)

This little boy is such a warrior.

I won’t lie- I have been struggling with understanding why some people have to have so much pain in their lives? This kid has so much with having Prader Willi (google it, it sucks) and being blind. And now, he is fucking paralyzed? I wish I had a greater faith in times like this. I’d say, “Take me!! Take me!” but truly, I am not sure who I would be saying that to. How much can one little boy take??

And then this, in Pakistan this morning as I was posting this blog. All these children. Why? Why? Fists to the sky! Why!

Continue Reading…

And So It Is, Delight

I. Did. It.

December 11, 2011

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I manifested being on Good Morning America! Woo Hoo!

I dreamt it and I certainly expected to be delighted.

I said ” And So It Is.”

Tomorrow is my birthday and I can say that is the best birthday of my life!

I am humbled and honored and proud.

I can manifest anything that I put my attention on. (Repeat after me.)

This morning when Good Morning America filmed my class was the most joy I have ever felt. It was a karaoke yoga class.

Yes, you read it right.

The amazing ABC correspondent Cameron Mathison.

Thank you Sing Out Loud Karaoke and Equinox and of course Good Morning America and Cameron Mathison

. And thank you, all of you.

Joy!

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Birthday, Delight

Horoscope.

December 9, 2011

I have started doing horoscopes. It’s awesome because I am being paid a million dollars to write them.

Ok, that is a fib but it is still awesome fun.

Here is today’s. Whatever sign you are, this is for YOU.


Horoscope for YOU today:


The words “My life is amazing” are heard in a room. You will realize they are coming from your lips.
A mirror will reflect the most beautiful person you have seen in a long long time, and although, at first, you will shake your head in disbelief, that person will be you.
You will notice, with a smile, that it feels good to like what you see in that mirror.
You will do something that scares you, and although briefly you will feel terrified, mostly you will feel good. Really good.
You will be loved more than you thought possible, for a Friday in December.
~~by Jen Pastiloff, professional horoscope maker upper

Feel free to share and create your own and send it to me to post!

PS, Good Morning America is really happening folks! This is the weekend. There are flying in to film me! You can ideed manifest whatever you put your attention on! I did.

I will let you know as soon as I know when it will air. Join me Monday night Dec 12th at my beloved home studio: the Yoga Collective for my birthday class at 8 pm. Come celebrate you and me. It is my birthday and all. 1408 3rd St Promenade, 3rd Floor. All I want is you to buy a Manifestation tee and support Prader Willi Research!

https://manifestationyoga.com/what-does-it-mean-to-own-a-manifestaion-t-shirt/