Quoted...

Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail and you will weep each time and idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no peace excepting there.

- A Course in Miracles 

Quoted...

Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. 

- ACIM 

Check Yo'self Before You Wreck Yo'self

Lately I have been consumed with learning as much as possible about personal dramas. My personal drama, other people's dramas, how I effect other people with my drama and how other people's personal dramas effect me. As I've been going about my drama research, the Universe has decided to provide me with teachable moments to experience how these dramas meet and interact on the daily. This has given me plenty of time to learn that no matter the situation I have to check myself before I wreck myself if I want to get out of interactions with people totally unflustered.

My first opportunity to check myself and not meet ego with ego, came while talking to my ex from high school on facebook. Every few years he pops up in my life, usually when he's single, to see how I am and 9 times out of 10 these conversations end in him insulting me because I am not interested. Our real problem is that while I see him as a 27 year old man that I have nothing in common with, he sees me as a 15 year old girl who is insecure, unsure of herself and would love to be with him. (Truthfully, I was painfully unsure of myself all through high school and stayed in a relationship with him because I thought he was as good as I could get...FALSE EXPERIENCE APPEARING REAL) Whatever our perspective differences our conversation went from me trying to end the conversation peacefully to him attacking me. I had to go back and reread the thread to see if I ever once attacked him, insinuated he was less than or anything and nope nothing. His issue was that he was expecting one reaction and got another, I say his issue because the way people perceive you is never your issue. Either way, eventually I found myself slipping into my "poor me" drama and had to check myself before I wreck myself. Instead of further engaging in a cyclical conversation that was upsetting and tiring us both out, I decided to get off the merry go round and just stopped answering his messages. Honestly I probably should have stopped answering them after a day or two but I didn't want him to feel like I was pulling a Gotye on him but it has been ten years and unlike my most recent ex and I, me and the high school beau don't have much in common. It's not a bad thing, he is just a person I would see in the park and say "cargo shorts, really?" and keep it moving. No judgement, we just aren't on the same wavelength mentally, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, culturally etc and that happens after 10 years. Anyway, my personal drama experience would have been done there with a BIG lesson learned--go with your gut and don't let people peck you--but my lesson was not done.

Thursday night I went to a party hosted by some of my favorite fab Atlantans at the Gucci store. Drinks were flowing, food was being passed, the energy was effervescent and I was totally soaking it all in. I even met a super cute guy who I think was sent my way not as a potential mate but more as a sign that I am beautiful and guys do like me. (We did exchange numbers and I'm sure he'll pop up on my cell when/if he's supposed to...I love this chill approach to dating and meeting guys.) While I was fully in my me-ness and feeling as bubbly as the prosecco that was being passed around, I was roped into a conversation with a guy that was all about me meeting his ego with defenselessness. This stranger, straight up to me I was going to need to wax my upper lip when I turn 30. It was like the record scratched and everyone at the party went "err?" At first I responded with my usual "poor me" defenses and tried fighting him off, however that is exactly what he wanted. (You see everyone has a way in which they attempt to get energy/attention from others and his way was to giveth then taketh away or as the Celestine Prophecies would say, he was an interrogator. ) After a minute or two, almost as if a light switch was thrown in my brain, I identified his compliment with a but as an attempt at getting a reaction from me and simply told him that he should end his compliments with the compliment and leave the buts out then I walked away. (After a bit of a tug-o-war with him hugging me and refusing to let go. FYI I am not as young as I look or as weak as you think, my dad was in the military so I know how to break a hold and throw a punch if necessary.) This interaction ignited something in me, along with the one with my ex from high school and a conversation that I had with a girlfriend about her boyfriend earlier that week. 

All my life I though I had to fight. I thought the only way to stop feeling like a "poor me" was to go from damsel in distress to Xena, boy was I wrong. As A Course in Miracles says, "In my defenselessness my safety lies," meaning before you defend against anything you need to take a minute and ask yourself what am I defending against. No, really what am I defending against? When I was talking to my ex on facebook there was nothing to defend against, because not only am I not capable of being attacked but defending against nonsense makes more nonsense. Did you get that? There is no way to make sense of nonsense and it is NOT my job or anyone else's to force people to see sense where they refuse to. People have to come to things on their own in their own time and no amount of forcing will make them change. So next time you feel someone spitting nonsense your way stop trying to check them and shake them into reality and check yourself then cross the street as Iyanla Vanzant would say.



As a part of learning to check myself and keep myself in check, I have committed to wearing a rubberband for 30 days and every time I feel myself acting out of fear, falling into the poor me trap, not living in the present, or just generally not living in my truth, I'll snap my rubberband to snap back to life and reality. So if you see me snapping myself with a rubberband anytime this month know I'm just working on me. 

Miracle Moment

I had a beautifully amazing Miracle Moment all written up about how I get down and get over those crappy feelings that tend to come over even the happiest people on the planet, but my inner guide who is part Chola jumped in and said "Delete that crap and speak YOUR truth, whatever that means." So, I highlighted my rather lengthy post on showing fear the door and sent it to the trash bin. That left me with a lovely blank slate where I was free to get down and dirty with myself and speak my truth to the world which is...I don't know. I know what my truth is, my truth is that I don't know. (Let's pretend we have some sense and not get caught up in an Abbot and Costello skit ok.)

Knowing that you don't know can be both frightening and empowering, depending on where you take it to. Think about when you were a little kid, you didn't really know much about the world and everything was new, fascinating and amazing.  You totally relied on your parents and the other adults in your life to teach you what was what and as you became familiar with the nouns around you, things became less fascinating, amazing and magical and more mundane. However life is always amazing and magical, we just think we know everything so we take it for granted and dismiss what doesn't fit into the boxes our mind made when some adult told us what was what way back when. The second you stop and say "Maybe I don't know everything about everything and maybe that's not the point," you open yourself up to learning all kinds of new amazing stuff that you could never have learned while you were busy telling everyone how much you know. You also get to relax knowing that no matter how many books you read, lectures you go to, degrees and certifications you earn or how many people kiss you tush YOU CAN NEVER KNOW EVERYTHING and neither can your teachers, pastors, big sister, life coach or therapist. Experts are never experts on everything and the only thing that separates them from you is the amount of time they devoted to learning one thing, not everything. (Ever heard the phrase "Jack of all trades master of none?")

Teddies arren't supposed to talk. 

Now back to that little kid that doesn't know anything and is aware of that. If that same little kid is frightened by something, say a curtain that looks like a ghost in the moonlight, all he has to do is ask for help from someone who knows more than he does. Usually the kid calls screams for their parent in the middle of the night and the parent comes in, turns on the light and tells them there is nothing to be afraid of. From that moment on the kid knows that the thing dancing in the moonlight is a curtain not a ghost and is able to fall asleep. Just like a child's fear of the unknown can turn into the boogey man or a murderous Teddy Ruxpin--don't judge 5 year old me, Teddy Ruxpin was creepy--an adult's fear of the unknown can turn into a fear of being alone or not living up to their potential. Why? Well simply put, no one is a afraid of things they understand, for the most part. Do you know anyone who is afraid of the present moment? Exactly. We're always afraid of what we think is going to happen next. Newsflash, you can't know what;s going to happen next. Even when you think you know what's going to happen next, you're really basing that assumption on what has happened before and jut because it happened before doesn't mean it'll happen again. Ask any good psychic and they'll tell you that the future is not fixed so it doesn't pay to obsess over it. Just chill in the not knowing every now and then, which is way easier said than done. 

This morning I woke up feeling pretty shitty about some things that I don't know and it took me stopping and saying "I don't know how this is going to work out, and I can't do much about it" for the mood to start moving. Do I know now? Nope. Am I stressing about it? Nope. Why? Because it's not my job to know what's going to happen next week, next month or next year, it's only my job to focus on making today as amazing as possible and allowing space of the unknown to work itself out in ways that I can imagine and ways that I couldn't even come up with in my wildest dreams.

Chew On This

The kid is on to something, trust me.

Somebody Save Me

She-Ra 

The week may be pretty much over but since I've spent the past few days on an extended job interview in NYC with little to no time to blog, I'm answering this week's question today. Honestly, the experiences I had this week were absolutely necessary to me answering this question in a truthful, honest manner proving once again that I have no idea what's best but someone else does. So here's my answer to this week's Burning Question, What's one dumb thing that you used to believe in? (Be warned, this may get long.)

Growing up all kids have superheros that they look up to and secretly wish would swoop down and save them from having to do their chores. They learn that when things get tough it takes super human strength to stop a speeding train from derailing, to rescue an old lady from a burning building or to save the world from an evil genius. As they grow up their heros become a little less kryptonite resistant and a little more real. They learn that Superman, like Santa and the Easter Bunny, is just a story and that the real heros are the people who stand up for what they believe in and go against what is popular to do what is right. Their heros go from She-Ra, Batman (my fave superhero because his super power is being super rich), Wonder Woman and the like to Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, Barack Obama and perhaps their parents. While it's great to look up to people and have archetypes to relate to, our society's hero worship has one major flaw--perhaps more than one but I only care about one--and it is that salvation comes from someone outside of you.

 Batman has a bank account and a butler with nary a superpower.

I've believed most of my life, and kinda still do a little bit, that someone else has to save me. Whether that meant Jesus, Batman, Han Solo, a hot guy in a black Audi, my mom, my dad or Oprah, I have always believed that I was a frail, damsel in distress that needs someone stronger to make everything ok. I don't, and neither do you. While it took years for my mind to accept that my salvation was totally relient on the kindness of strangers, it only took a few short flights for me to recognize my problem and a few even shorter minutes for me to allow the solution to be revealed.

I hate flying, probably because I don't fly too much. When I say I hate flying, I mean I break into a sweat when the plane hits a bump and have had panic attacks on three flights in three years. My wonderful ex boyfriend used to hold my hand and soothe me on flights, giving me the confidence and support I needed to not freak out everyone on the plane. This past week flying without my training wheels had me a little antsy, and when I say a little I mean doing rounds of EFT in the airport to clear my fear of every part of flying. I found myself reaching out to hold the hands of strangers and calling for a flight attendant when things felt less than safe. I eventually landed at Newark with a new friend, happy to be on solid ground, and still oblivious to the fact that I am unable to self soothe and constantly seeking salvation on the outside instead of on the inside. It wasn't until my return flight when some guy who was trying to pick me up no doubt--FYI I am not the kind of girl that meets men on planes especially when the live in a different part of the country and have a touch of the chauvinist in them--sat next to me after out flight into Baltimore explaining how he wanted to have 4-5 kids. Not only was that insane, I've known you for all of an hour and you're telling me about kids, but it was a huge wake up call. Had I not been seeking someone to hold my hand and tell me that everything is going to be all right, I woud not have ended up on a "date" at the airport with a man who clearly believed that a woman was only good for making babies! (Wrong country, wrong decade.) Now I didn't have this revelation in the Baltimore/DC airport, I actually had it on my second flight while alternating between bothering the woman sitting next to me, reading A Course in Miracles and meditating. Between all of that, and praying that the plane wouldn't crash, a ton of bricks fell into my lap and said "You think you need someone else to save you from everything, loneliness, fear, this plane crashing, deciding on what to do on a Saturday night. What you don't know is you have to save you." I instantly relaxed in my seat, stopped bothering my people around me and finished reading my book. While the plane shook here and there I remembered that I do not need anyone to save me, even the pilot although I do need him to fly the plane because that is outside of my area of expertise.

Buffy Summers is still my hero.

Is my fear of flying completely done, I won't know that until I get on my next flight but I do know that my addiction to finding salvation outside of me is done. I am not some princess in tower waiting on a prince to rescue me from the clutches of a wicked witch, or some old maid waiting on a man to save me from the misery of being single. I got this! More importantly, when I feel like I don't I know that there is a higher power inside of me who has this.

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.

What and The What?

I know, I know. You stumbled upon this blog and you're thinking,  "Ugh, not another riff on Sex and The City? I thought that phase ended after the movie came out. This girl must sip cosmos, think she's a Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda or Samantha and be super lame." Well, yes and no. I haven't had a cosmo in like 6 years, I would rather eat than buy shoes and I know that Carrie Bradshaw had to have supported her writing by moonlighting as a hooker in oder to afford a rent controlled spot on the Upper East Side with enough closet space to hold her Manolos, Choos, Louboutins and racks of pret-a-porter--writing doesn't pay THAT well future journalists until it does. But, in all fairness I have been called a Carrie since college because I'm a natural born communicator who can spot a fake LV bag from a mile away and often refers to shoes by their name not the brand, as in "Those are tributes right?" "No, they're YSL." "I know. But they're YSL Tribute pumps. I haven't seen that color, they're good." I also LOVE love and labels and support my writing with a steady part time mall gig to keep my closet full of brands I couldn't afford right now without a discount. Aside from those very surface level similarities, I am nothing like your average SATC lover....well I was until I wasn't.

College "It" Girl days captured in 225 Magazine

After graduating from college with a degree in Textiles and Apparel Merchandising--that's fashion merchandising fyi--I left Louisiana for Atlanta with big dreams of finding the perfect job and man. Cut to about three months in and I was working at the mall, living with my mom and miserable because I didn't have any friends--as a reformed party girl with the gift of gab, friends were/are my life blood. I tried moving back to Louisiana to relive my glory days pre-degree only to find that I'd grown to accustomed to the big city way of life, and Panera Bread, to ever call NOLA home again and moved back to ATL with the intention of eventually working my way to New York. Fast forward a bit again and I was working NY fashion week as an intern, kicking ass and making great connections, then my plan to move flopped because I was too scared of my own greatness to take a risk and leave this mediocre life behind. That decision to stay was the best and worst decision I ever made. Best, because I met the love of my life the New Year's Eve after I decided to stay and worst because despite making great strides in Atlanta and moving from blogger to writer and seeing my name in print I'm still exactly where I was in 2007 when I moved here, working in the mall. After two years and 8 months in the most loving, beautiful and perfect relationship ever, me and my Mr Big hit a road bump that left me broken, alone and pining for the one person that I know is destined to be a part of my life forever....we'll save that story for another day. 

Hanging with Candace Bushnell and LohSki at the W Buckhead

My Big break up led me here, after much soul searching and a self help book or two, starting a blog based on a dream I had--I feel like that's something Prince would say--that marries my love of fashion and all things pop culture with my new found spirituality. Yes, I drank the Kool-Aid so to speak but I'm not at all cult like. I mix wisdom from my teachers Gabrielle Bernstein and Marianne Williamson with wise words from everyone from Russell Simmons, Jay Z, Iyanla Vanzant,  the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra and my spiritual running buddies that include the baddest psychic ATL or San Diego has ever seen and a cray, dancer who sees 11:11 as mucha as I do. I also remix the vapid, shallow, anti-feminist comings and goings of Carrie and her crew to fit my daily struggles as a writer, reluctant stylist and student and teacher of A Course in Miracles. Yes, I drink green juice and try to squeeze in a round of sun salutations between my morning meditations and getting dressed. Yes, I carry amethyst and The Alchemist in my Alexander Wang Coco Duffel. Yes, I accessorize with a mala and BCBG pumps. Oh and don't forget I bump Jay Z while catching up on Deepak's tweets, but none of that means anything. Life is all about balance, and that's what this is all about. I can shop like Carrie, meditate with monks, drink red wine while I detox, gather together a power posee of spiritual gangstas and call in all kinds of amazing miracles all while outing my ego and using the F word, both of them, because I am not a body with a spirit, I am a spiritual being in a body and therefore I am inherently spiritual. Word to your mother!