(+)

How can you not smile when you see this?

Today's Note From The Universe

I just had to share my note from the universe today just because why the hell not!

It's like you're a fabulously complicated jigsaw puzzle piece, Anastasia, with stunning colors, wildly serrated edges, oceans of emotion, mountains of possibilities, worlds of talent, and complex energies, but for as long as you see yourself as just human, you'll never quite know where you fit in. 


The Universe

Lessons Learned From...Madonna

1. Reinventing yourself every decade or so is necessary, especially since every 10 years or so you hit a new life stage that requires a new outlook and a new wardrobe.
2. Going by one name is better than three.
3. Owning your sexuality only gets better with age.
4. Anyone can have a beauty mark with the help of a kohl pencil.
5. Being ballsy is the best quality in a girl...if she wants to live the most kick ass life ever!

A Little Bit of Inspiration S'il Vous Plait

Every now and then you need a little bit of inspiration to get your day going.

Coco

Josephine

MIA

Jane Birkin

David Bowie

Yoko and John

Stevie Nicks

Lena Horne

Quoted...

It is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.

-Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore (July or August 1881-June 30, 1997)

and one more...

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times...but only when one remembers...to turn on the light.

You Gotz To Love A Spiritual Girl

Bat for Lashes has nothing to do with this, fyi

So yesterday one of my ladies was arrested on a technicality--keep track of and pay your tickets girls--and she took the whole thing like only a now age spiritual gangster could, in stride. Just as I was gathering up the cash and hunting down a co-signer to post her bail, she called to tell me that she would be out by Saturday morning at the latest, was sharing a holding cell with a woman who practiced reiki and holistic medicine and that the whole experience was super healing. Only a girl super in touch with her higher self could see the healing in being thrown in the clink for driving with a suspended license, talk about seeing the silver lining! After I hung up I thought about something my teacher, Gabby B, said during a lecture she gave last Friday "Being happy is not about being happy all day every day it's about being comfortable   during the times that you aren't." While I know she wasn't happy about where she was--when it went down she called me freaking out a bit so I know she wasn't 100% cool with this--but she knew that she was supposed to be there, accepted her assignment and opened up for healing and growth. And strangely enough, she isn't my only friend that's taking shit in stride and learning from the funky stuff that happens to us in life.

Last week a few my pals and I went out--FYI I have officially retired from the club scene--and while we were out someone stole my pal's Michael Kors wallet from another pal's purse. While she was pissed and hurt as hell, at no point did she play the victim or lash out at the girls who we suspect stole her things. Instead she took a few minutes to get calm and decided that it was time to go. On the ride home she kept saying that she knew it supposed to happen for whatever reason and that it would be all good...Guess what, it was. She called me the next day to say she was fine with everything--thankfully the only thing she lost was some cash, her driver's license and the wallet--and that she was working on getting a replacement wallet. She saw the whole experience as something to learn from and not anything to get hysterical over.

Both of these ladies taught me that no matter what the situation is--jail, stolen wallet, your soulmate taking pots from your house...long story--it's all about how you CHOOSE to experience it that makes it. You can choose to play the victim, get angry, kick and scream, or shrug it off, say all in a day and get on with your life. I know which one I plan on doing from now on. I mean which one feels better to you, honestly?

Thank You for Being A Friend

Thursdays are all about being thankful due to the process of aliteration--HELLO, Why else would Thanksgiving be on a Thursday? Anywhoo...In honor of being Thankful on Thursdays I'm totally throwing down the G word--gratitude--and laying the thanks down for my amazing ladies and gents who if they threw a party and invited everyone they knew, they would know the biggest gift would totally not be from me but the bottle of rose would be. 

*HelloTricie *Ari S Diddi (please say the Diddi) *Amber *Keisha *Gabby *Kindra *Rodney *Rakeem *Kris *Rosi *Rosalynn *Nikki *Loren *@BashfulAshley bc she knows that we struggling bloggers turned journalists need to stick together (thanks for the shout out doll!) * Junji who brings the lolz when I need them * BG the OG *Yosef *The Kid ...Who am I kidding, I'd pop pink champagne for anyone that I am even mildly acquainted with and that is something to be thankful for as well. To the rose!! 

Quoted...

This is one of my favorite quotes in live...ever. If you're going through a tough time or you're feeling a little less than fab whip this one out, I do it on the daily.

If you don't love yourself, how the HELL are you gonna love somebody else?

-RuPaul (reason #1 I think all straight girls need at least one gay friend.)

Guilty!

So if you haven't seen at least one Sh*t  __ Girls Say video, I can't explain how insanely dead on and annoying these videos are. Right now I am totally in love with, and embarrassed for myself and some of my friends, Sh*t New Age Girls Say. Never did I consider myself a "new age girl" until I saw this video and recognized that I say and do quite a bit of these things--pulling Angel Cards, sending love to folks, "I love Deepak Chopra", tapping, meditating... Again I am embarrassed by this, but I also say like 80% of the stuff in the Sh*t Fashion Girls Say video too so i guess that makes me a new age fashion girl? Well if you can't laugh at yourself....





"It looked like Forever 21 threw up all over her." "She was wearing Tory Burch flats" "Amaze." "Can I have a vodka soda." "OMG I'm totally tweeting that." "OBSESSED!!" (So embarrassed, lol.)

Just Drop It Mama.

In an effort to get rid of the not so awesome stuff that has been blocking me from having the super awesome stuff that I deserve, I decided to drop all of it for 8 days. I'd like to say that I arrived at this conclusion to drop everything I've been holding on to like an Alex Wang at a sample sale on my own, but anyone who knows me at all knows that letting things go isn't really my bag. I actually came to this beautiful place of wanting, needing and finally throwing down release while I was talking things over with one of my spiritual running buddies. In a not so beautiful moment I'd begun to hold on to expectations for my relationship, career and living situation in an effort to find comfort in the "what will be"and the "what was" instead of embracing the "what is."This caused all kinds of stress, fear, moments where I was bawling on the couch and all I kept thinking was "You are a spiritual gangsta not someone who lets the past or future rule your present," and boy did that make me feel worse--hello ego posing as my higher self, I see you.

In the middle of this strange slip I reached out to my fave spiritual mama for a real reality check to get me back to where I belong. I told her everything that was going down and what I was trying to do and basically she said I needed to drop it, all of it. I needed to stop replaying the past like a broken VHS, let go of my expectations and do nothing-- a message that came to me three times that week. So I did. I sat in my meditation spot, wrote a letter politely demanding that my ex get out of my space and take any of his bad juju with him and forgiving him for everything, lit a candle or two and mediated for like forever. I wish I had some beautiful story of how the minute I did that he called--well he texted the next day to say he was in town--or that a job magically appeared--a job did come my way the following week--but that night the only thing that came through was peace. Finally I could sleep alone in my bed without feeling alone and that was all I really needed, to be at peace with my own company. This peace felt so deliciously amaze that I continued my 8 days of allowing to fifteen days, so far. I know I'm on the right track, because not only does it feel good but everywhere I look and listen someone is saying "release", "allow", "let go", "drop it."

Like I said, I haven't had major miracles happen every moment of every day--partly because I realized that in doing something to achieve a particular outcome I was feeding my ego and trying to do magic tricks--but I did come to have a few major revelations about myself...and here they are in no particular order:

*I like the way it feels when I come through for people. Let me rephrase that, I like the way people feel about me when I help them out. Basically I'm not really the supportive, loyal to the point of being a masochist because I just am, I'm that way because I'm addicted to the high I get when someone says "Thank you for coming through for/being there for/helping me." This addiction has caused me to call some emotionally unstable/effed up guys into my life. I try to fix/help/hit them with the Virgo Earth goddess energy that radiates off of me and they take what they need then move on. Sooo I'm going to start volunteering to get my helper high and let that fulfill that need so that I can stop calling in people with holes that I desperately want to fill

*I don't want to be a writer because I want to be a writer, I want to be a writer because someone else saw that talent in me and said you'd be a great writer. I love writing, why else would I do it for free, but the kind of writer that I want to be has nothing to do with being some prolific hipster writer who writes while sunning herself on the roof of her Brooklyn apartment and appears in videos for her friend's indie band. That's the kind of writer I always thought he would date so I tried to be that girl, while I love being cynical, listening to obscure music, French New Wave films, Sylvia Plath, looking cool and bored and wearing Wayfarers, I'm sooo not that girl. I went to a state scholl where I studied fashion in hopes of being the next Anna Wintour or Carinne Roitfeld. I want to write stories that weave every aspect of pop culture together, past and present, and tell you how it all relates to what you're being told to wear and what you're actually wearing. Oh and stuff about meditating and getting spiritual.

*I'm not hurt because we broke up, I'm hurt because of what that means for all of the plans we made that I was holding on to. When you're dating someone you make plans for the future and our plans included moving out of Atlanta this year, getting married in the next two years, having kids, traveling the world and eventually growing old together. Those plans are gone...time to make new ones.

*I'm not over it, I'm not ready to fully forgive him, I'm not ready to move on and that is perfectly all good. People want you to get out of bed with one guy and into bed with another and that is sooo not normal. Breaking up is a grieving process and grieving takes time. One day soon I'll be able to say I'm completely. totally over it and send him lots of love but that's not right this moment...maybe later who knows. Until then, writing forgiveness letters, doing releasing meditations and the like is only me fooling myself and I'm not in the habit of fooling myself.

*I love 70s rock...that as nothing to do with anything but it's true.

*I like doing nothing, meaning I like siting back and giving the Divine time to do his thing while I do mine. As my Note From the Universe said this morning "Today, just do a little bit so that I can do a lot of bit."Word!

Stillness is the Move

One of my favorite songs, not all time favorite songs but it's creeping it's way up there, is The Dirty Project's "Stillness Is The Move." The beat is sick, the lyrics kill me and any song that has a video featuring girls doing hipster choreography in American Apparel in the mountains while llamas and Siberian huskies look on gets an A+ in my book. Oh and did I mention I love the lyrics? Yeah, I did? Well I just did it again, oops.

Long before I picked up A Course in Miracles the lyrics of "Stillness Is The Move" hit a chord deep in my little soul that oves all kinds of rhythms but has difficulty spelling rhythm--thank you spellcheck. Now that I've gotten mad deep into metaphysics, like waist deep not ankle deep, the lyrics are hitting a different part of my psyche. That's the beauty of music, you can love a song for years and as your perspective on life changes the way you listen to the song and what you hear in it changes too. Kinda like how I used to sing the heck out of Salt N Peppa's "Push It" way back in the 80s when I was a wee tot and had no idea why my parents thought it was inappropriate for a 3 year old to jam to but now I kinda see it...kinda. 

Back to "Stillness Is The Move." Honestly, the song does more out the gate with just it's title than most songs do with an entire 3 mins--hello, Blackeyed Peas...Stop.  Stillness is really the only move that we need make on the reg. Ask any yogini/meditating maverick/spiritual teacher, stillness is essential to touching Christ consciousness/enlightenment/peace/whatever you call it. Not just stillness of body, because only your body can do things, but stillness of the mind. Only through quieting your mind can you receive guidance, you can't hear what folks are saying if you're always running your mouth and your mind. Also, a big part of spiritual teaching is that you don't need to do anything. The Universe/God/the HS/Tom Cruise/whatever deity you pray to does not need you to do anything but be still and co-create with it and to do that does not require you to physically do anything. Moving on.

Lyrically, the first few phrases--they are called phrases right--touch on some of the basics in ACIM and they go a little something like this: 

When a child was just a child/ It did not know what it was/ Like a child it had no habits/ No opinions about anything.

 According to the Course, and every other bit of spiritual liture I've picked up, we are like children. We came into this existence and completely forgot who were, spiritual beings having a physical experience not the other way around. Therefore having no connection to our true nature we allowed others to form our opinions of who and what we are, ie I'm a middle class African-American girl from New Orleans...fyi that is sooo not who I am, I am much more than any label.

Things get a bit real in the next verse with the lyrics:

On top of every mountain/ There was a great longing/ For another even higher mountain/ In each city longing for a bigger city

When you are living from an ego based mindset, where the effect is the cause and you are looking for material things to fill those voids you think you have, nothing is enough. To paraphrase The Rolling Stones, you can't get no satisfaction.

Then during the bridge then get even more metaphysical on us:

Isn't life under the sun just a crazy dream?/ Isn't life just a mirage of the world before the world?/ Why am I here and not over there?/ Where did time begin?/Where does space end?/ Where do you and I begin?

Let's make this easy and short because this post is getting long. The world under the sun/this live is a bit of a crazy dream. It doesn't really exist in the way in which we think it does. All of this is perception based, the end. The real world is the world of spirit-in Course terms. Time isn't real, space isn't real and you and I are all connected. Don't believe me? Ask someone who knows a thing or two about quantum physics and string theory and such. They can break down the realness of time and how you and I and everyone we know are all connected to an infinite field of consciousness explaining how you can be empathetic to someone who has experienced something you've never experienced in your life or how you can feel when someone is watching you and a bunch of other creeptastic stuff.

Like I said this has gotten waaay longer than I intended it to get so peep the video and chew on this:

After all that we've been through/ I know we can make it after the wait the question is a truth/  There is nothing we can't do/ I'll see you along the way baby the stillness is the move.

Thank God I'm Unemployed...So Now What?

A month ago over a glass of wine, or two, apres Breaking Dawn I explained to one of my spiritual running mates that I was being moved from my j-o-b in retail because not only was I done with working like a slave pushing clothes but I felt my purpose was coming to an end. The next day I walked into a store meeting to find out, BOY WAS I RIGHT! My time as a supervisor at a not quite designer store was coming to an end sooner than I thought because as of December 27, 2012 the store would be out of business and we would all be jobless. Instead of freaking out that my secure meal ticket was being revoked and that due to the economic r******** I would never find a job, I took a deep breath, took it in stride and moved on. What could I do? Nothing really, and since retail was never really a career move for me why would I dream of sweating losing a job I didn't want?

I've mentioned it before, but I fell into retail post grad after not finding the job of my dreams or any job that didn't involve pyramid marketing schemes when I moved to Atlanta in 2007. Most of it was my fault, my limiting beliefs that I couldn't find a job due to the economy, that I wasn't qualified to get the job I dreamed of and that Atlanta only had limited opportunities kept me from grabbing my job by the balls. I also had this unending trust in my degree, exhibited by most recent grads--Newsflash your degree is not you and does not guarantee anything other than student loan payments. This misplaced trust coupled with the tiny mad ideas keeping me from applying and fully applying myself led me to apply for a part time gig at French Connection that pretty much put me exactly where I needed to be to learn lessons in humility, budgeting, valuing money and what I really am capable of, for the next 5 years.

Fast forward to now. While I'm 5 years closer to my dream job than I was in 2007, I still feel a little behind the power curve. Or felt rather. Yes I have stylist credits to my name and have contributed to a boat load of blogs on the internets and I've started laying the ground work for me to be taken seriously as a writer and style expert, but had I known then what I know now, I'd have my j-o-b. But that's the point. My journey is mine not anyone else's and toiling in the belly of retail for holiday after holiday while honing my craft as a writer has given me invaluable experiences in life. That experience has everything to do with the next job on the horizon, I have no idea when, where, or how it's coming I just know it's coming, and nothing to do with the job I wanted the second I accepted my diploma that I have since lost. (Side note: If you lose your degree does that mean you didn't get one? I mean that would suck if I had to do school all over again because I ost my degree.)

Five years ago I was scared shitless but excited about not knowing exactly how or where I would end up. I thought that by now I'd be married with a kid on the way and my name on the masthead of my favorite glossy. Now, I'm bursting at the seams with excitement over finally being free of the cash wrap and I have no plan on going back to retail ever again. Not that retail sucks or anything, I mean how else could I afford my wardrobe without a discount--I'm just closer to 30 than I am 23 and right about now its time for this little princess to come into her own as a grown up and retail doesn't have a thing to do with it.  I fully accept that I had to work where and how I did for the past few years in order to get to a pont where I could finally value myself as a woman first and a writer second. What's my next move? I have no earthly idea but I know it's going to be effing awesome!

(+)

Fiona Apple + The Beatles + old timey malt shoppe being ransacked= Fiona's cover of Across the Universe from the Pleasantville soundtrack...great song, pretty good video.


 

Quoted..

There is a voice inside of you, that whispers all day long."I feel that this is right for me, I know that this is wrong." No teacher, preacher, parent, friend, or wise man can decide, what's right for you. Just Listen To The voice that speaks inside.

-This is one of the many reasons I still adore Shel Silverstein. 

(+)

"Check yourself before you wreck yourself" Truer words to live by have never spoken.

Shit Yogis Say

So I almost died in yoga class yesterday, maybe I had too much coconut water before I got down with downward facing dog..or maybe it was because I haven't done yoga in forever and I was nomming on chips and chili before going to class. You say potato I say vodka. Either way this so brought my dehydrated yogi in the making body back to life. BTW, I am so not endorsing Lululemon...unless they want to send me some free yoga gear : )

Emotional Hoarding

Watching the show Hoarders it a bit like watching a train wreck. You start off with seemingly normal people who have homes bursting at the boards with years of junk that they can't let go of, without the aid of a therapist. Most of us sit back and wonder how did these people let stuff take over their life and vow that we would never, ever end up in such a situation but most of us already are. Just because our homes look more the something out of Dwell than something from an A&E special does not mean that we are not experienced hoarders holding on to past experiences that no longer serve us. Like the home of a hoarder being choked with odds and ends, our minds are being slowly suffocated with fearful thoughts based on past experiences that we are too ashamed of to ever clear out on our own, or with help. 

In the 27 years that I have been alive, I have latched on to quite a bit of unhealthy thoughts that stem from experiences I refuse to let go of. Honestly, at 27 most of these experiences seem foolish to have impacted my life but at 12 they were for sure make or break. That tiny instant where a group of girls in middle school made me feel like I was wrong or bad or different because I was my authentic self was planted inside me and lived there until, well now.

This is what your untrained mind looks like.

How did I get over this tiny mad idea that has been controlling my every move ever since middle school? Well not by checking facebook and realizing that the girls who mercilessly teased me and made me feel small aren't shit. Of course catching up with my "bullies" and seeing that by and large they are fat, married without meaningful-to me-careers, only made me feel good temporarily because these thoughts were based in judgement and judgement is based in fear and unloving thoughts. Eventually I would still revert back to the 12 year old girl who cried in the bathroom because her "friends" wouldn't talk to her or because someone called her nasty names. Entertaining thoughts like that were like me acknowledging that I was a hoarder and not hoarding any new stuff without throwing the excess baggage away.  The only thing that allowed me to throw out that feeling of not being accepted was to acknowledge where it was coming from, forgive and release the people I resented for not accepting me and to start loving and honoring me for being me.

Honest to blog, I love me. I love that I can quote Clueless and enjoy music that ranges from top 40 to college radio and everything that isn't only hip-hop. I love that I can spend hours in a museum or library all on my own. I love that I love the smell of books and freshly printed paper and Harry Potter and The Fountainhead and The Never Ending Story and David Bowie. I love that I am uniquely ME! And anyone who does not accept that can pick up their walking papers. Does this new found sense of self love and acceptance mean that all of my drama has been cleared from my mind and that everything is neatly organized? Hell no! I still have times where I feel like I do not belong but those times are few and far between, and when they come up all I say is "I am pure divine love living and breathing  in action and anyone who does not accept that...well that's not really my business who does or doesn't accept me."