The Sound of Silence

*So, as usual I'm almost a week late with my answer to Danielle Laporte's Burning Question, but better late than not at all. 

There used to be a time that being alone in silence was quite unnerving for me. The minute the sound went off my thoughts went on overdrive convincing me of everything form my impending death by plane/car/intruder/being eaten alive by the million cats I'll have to fill the void of being single...and that was well under the age of 20. I used to be so terrified about what my mind would kick up the second silence settle on to a scene that I began sleeping with the radio on, which eventually morphed to sleeping with the TV on. The comfort of a sound to concentrate on allowed my mind to stay so busy listening that it forgot to think about all of the awful things that could happen to me on the daily. Inevitably,  the power would go out or I would be away from home and unable to sleep without the comfort of some outside sound and right on time like bangs at a Sleigh Bells concert, my thoughts would go on a mad dash that resulted in me laying awake for hours glued to my bed, praying for sleep. Eventually, sleep would come but not a restful one. Nights came and went, much like my anxiety issue,  and eventually I learned to deal with silence.

I don't know when or how it happend, somewhere between my breakup and learning a new normal I think, but one day I woke up and silence felt good. It felt calm and even necessary. All it took was for me to grasp one simple concept, "You are not your thoughts." I am not my thoughts, you not your thoughts and neither is ya mama. Of the 60,000 thoughts we have everyday, at least one of them is going to be less than amazing but that doesn't mean you should run with it. Picking up the one randomly bad thought you have every couple of hours and taking it for a ride on the merry-go-round until it has you dizzy and whipped up into a frenzy is so unproductive. I'm not saying you ignore your bad thoughts just say "thanks for sharing bitch" and keep it moving. No need to ruin your sleep worrying about what bills you have or haven't paid, what man you're going to meet or not meet, when you'll find a job and if you'll die a cat lady. All that time you spend worrying is a waste of time, point blank.

Back to silence. The minute I embraced the fact that my thoughts are just thoughts nothing more and that I control them not the other way around, silence became my greatest ally. I wake up and enjoy a cup of hot tea in silence after meditating, spend time in silence when I get to my hotel soaking up the scene and every night before I go to bed I chill the f*ck out in silence. Like my grandpa used to say....

What Do You Have?

G is for grrrateful..that was lame lol

I know the week is almost over but I've only just had enough time and energy to thoughtfully sit down and attempt to answer this question. Away, with gratitude being the theme of the week--Oprah ended Lifeclass with it and Iyanla Vanzant was talking all about it on her Hay House Radio show--it seemed only fitting that this week's Burning Question was all about acknowledging what you have. So many of us focus on the void/lack/have nots that we totally forget the things on our wish list that we already have. As we all know, getting grateful for what you have is the only way to get more of what you want. Without further explaining, here are the things that I want that I already have....(that doesn't mean I'm scratching them off my wish list though.)

"I want more love"= Well not only do I have the love of my nearest and dearest but in the past 6 months I've expanded that list to include some kick ass spiritual gangstas that send all kinds of love and good vibes my way everyday.

"I want to be financially independent and secure"= Since I never specified how much and just left it kinda vague I have to say that I have more money. Much more money than I had this time last year AND I just started a job to ensure that I financial independence is here. I also learned that a job is not the end all be all when it comes to income because I made more money when I was unemployed than I did when I had a job. lol

"I want soul expanding work."= Here's the thing, for your soul to expand you have to push yourself to your limit, say eff the comfort zone and rip the envelope open. As I sit here in a hotel room in Baltimore writing a brand new definition for normal, guess what? My soul is expanding in all directions which will eventually allow me to sit comfortably in a level of greatness that I could never have dreamed of. Oh and least I forget, in this new line of soul expanding work I am making new friends all over the country and opening my heart up to more love and abundance that I could have ever dreamed of. Booyah!

(+)

After finding out a few not so settling things on Sunday, I sooo needed to hear/watch this.

What Do You Do?

Can't wait until what I do pays me as much as whatever she does. 

This week's burning question deals with the one question that I feared being asked at cocktail parties, events, dinners, pretty much wherever I could meet new people. That was until a certain guy I know told me to stop glossing over the things I have done and start saying with confidence what it is that I do.  I literally remember being at an art thing in a circle of PhD's and MDs and when they asked what it was that I do and I shrugged and mentioned something about being a Jack-of-all trades and a master of none. Everyone laughed and then someone said, "Really, what do you do?" Before I could answer my ex swooped in and said she's an amazing writer. That really meant a lot to me, but it didn't change my habit. It took years of having other people introduce me as "an amazing writer," "the cutest young writer in town," "my favorite fashion writer," and simply a writer for me to stop saying I work in retail or whatever crappy 9-5 I was doing to pay my bills while I freelance. It may have taken years of affirmations, people seeing in me what I could never see in myself and me accepting my greatness for me to stand up and say "I am a fashion and lifestyle writer who has tons of experience online and is working her way into print one mag at a time," when asked what do you do but I have finally come to a place where I am proud of me.  Now when I tell people what I do they don't laugh, they kinda think it's cool. If only I could stop telling them it's not cool and that writers are usually poor until they aren't. One limiting belief at a time.

Believe That!

I don't generally take the advice I'm given, whether or not I asked for it. Usually it's because it doesn't resonate with my soul, and I've always been the kind of person who doesn't believe something's hot until my hand is on fire. Being that I usually dismiss the advice I'm given, answering this week's burning question "What's your favorite piece of advice that you've been given?" has proved to be a bit more daunting than it should be. I mean seriously, my mom, my dad, my grandparents, friends, co-workers and love interests have all given me tons of solicited and unsolicited advice I just couldn't recall anything they've said if you told me my life depended on it. (Sorry guys, I check out of most of what you say unless it hits a deep spot in my soul other than that I follow my own internal advice. Unless it's what to do when I'm sick or something. )

Well, since my memory is failing me when it comes to advice I've been given I can say the best piece of advice I've ever heard comes courtesy of Dr. Maya Angelou, she who knows why the caged bird sings. And it goes a little something like this, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them." Now Dr Angelou didn't tell me this herself obviously, but I have had my mom and my therapist repeat this to me more times than I care to count because I have a habit of expecting things from people that goes totally against their nature. I have friends that I expect to stop being self centered for 5 minutes when I know they are incapable of talking about anything but themselves, I expect people to be rational and logical that I know are incapable of being either one of those things and I expect my brother to be more like me when I know he's ok as he is despite never being able to be as awesome as I am--heehee. Time and time again, people show me how to deal with them and time and time again I set myself up for failure but setting my expectations well about their behaviors. That is until I realized how peaceful my life could be if I stopped expecting anything from people, especially the ones that show me what they can and can't handle.

So next time someone gets cray-cray on you remember they are showing you they are undiagnosed so treat them accordingly.

I'm So Excited!

Being excited doesn't have to be scary.

This week's burning question is all about being sooo excited! Or better yet, how you get down with excitement. As a kid most of us are excited about 90% of the time about the teeniest things--Saturday's at the park, ice cream, petting a pony, going outside to play--but as we grow up disappointment teaches us that you shouldn't get excited until you know for sure that everything will work out. To that I say pish-tosh! Imagine how awesome life would e if you were as excited about having lunch with a friend as you are about getting a raise? Personally, I get equally excited about new emails, drinks with my friends, a new episode of New Girl and a million and one things that most people would consider to be mundane--hell I get excited about going to therapy every other week. You want to know something, being excited about the little things makes everything a reason to be grateful and to celebrate, and we all know that being grateful and celebrating makes you feel awesome and feeling awesome is the key to feeling even more awesome. So go ahead and get excited about your life even if you're just excited that we're one day closer to the weekend.

Quoted...

Loss brings out our truest self. And while natural grace doesn't come naturally to all of us--especially when we lose --it can be cultivated...you go out of your way to be grateful.

-Danielle LaPorte 

This Week's "Burning" Question

This week's Burning Question is quite literally a burning question. Inspired by a story told to her about traveling Irish folk, for some reason this made me think of Johnny Depp in Chocolat, who burn their boats upon reaching their destination Danielle has asked her readers what boats would they burn, figuratively of course. (It's literally a burning question not because the question is on fire but because the question is about burning however, it's about burning figuratively...that just made me smile.) Word/grammer nerd minute over, here's my answer.

I'm not really a bridge, or boat for today's purposes, burning type. I see value in sometimes being able to go back where you've been in an effort to reset and carry on in a different direction is exactly where you need, kinda like the saying you can always go home. However, I don't think that's what Danielle is trying to get at via her question. I think what's she's after, correct me if I'm wrong, is the boat filled with lessons that we don't want or need to repeat. The boat that is weighed down with internships, shitty bosses, past relationships that didn't serve you, basically the boat that is carrying a full set of monogramed Louis Vuitton luggage with all of your life lessons in it. While I'd be happy to get rid of the mistakes it took for me to learn the lessons, I don't want to burn the lesson or the boat that carried me to where I am unless I'll be able to build/buy another boat when needed. All of this is generally speaking of course. In particular, I would love to throw a container full of lighter fluid and a match on the boat that brought me to where I am in my career, which is unemployed. The boat that carried me here is full of disappointment, feeling less than worthy of a job outside of retail, rejection, low self esteem and a fear of never accomplishing anything on this go round. I could totally stand to lose those feelings and my ties to working as a sales girl ever in life.  I do want to keep every positive experience I've gained in the past few years but the rest of it could totally go up in flames, and that's the point. Burning the extra crap allows me to swim the last few miles to shore with complete confidence that I am ready for whatever is next because I took the time to learn the hard lessons along the way.

You Say You Want A Revolution?

The sexual revolution was well under way before I was born 

This week's question is all about what kind of revolution you want. I'm right with Danielle when she says that there are tons of societal revolutions that she's down for, but can't quite be the fearless leader of because she lacks the whatever it is that is needed to run that show.

I would love to be a healthcare revolutionary, God knows I curse and spit about the lack of affordable, quality healthcare that focuses on prevention and treating the disease not the symptom, but Anastasia MD or politician or aid worker catching malaria or dysentery like it's a badge of honor ain't me. I would love to revolutionize education but my mom and everyone else in my family who work in inner city schools trying to ensure that no child truly gets left behind have that covered. I would love to revolutionize the lives of women across the globe, since many of us at home and abroad are still treated like second class citizens although every man had the luxury of being born through one of us. I want to revolutionize how we eat, but I kinda eat fast food more than I'd care to admit so I need to start revolutionizing my plate first. Actually, the only thing I really have the competencies and motivation to revolutionize right now is my life. You know the saying "healer heal thyself?" Well that's where I'm at. I know that my life is going to have a HUGE (Julia Robert's in Pretty Woman yelling at the shop girls who treated her like a poor hooker voice) impact on this tiny speck of rock floating in the cosmos that we call Earth, I just know that it won't happen until I heal me first. I mean how insane would it be for me to go around revolutionizing the world and I don't even have a semblance of having my shit together? I barley have my closet sorted let alone my career, relationships, spirituality, diet and all that other stuff straight. Not that I think that I have to have it all figured at once, Rome wasn't built in a day nor did it fall overnight, but I think getting closer to a general idea of things is necessary.

So the only thing I can/want to revolutionize right now, February 28,2012 at 3:10 pm Eastern tim, is me and bringing my life, my life, my life, my life into the sunshine.

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.

This Week's Burning Question

Hey! Hey! This week's burning question is all about money, money, money honey boo, boo child! So many people see the word money and think either it's the root of all good or the root of all evil when in truth money isn't the root of anything. Money allows you to pay your bills and live whatever your definition of a comfortable life is, but on it's own money has no energy attached to it that you do not give it. And if you think money is the root of all evil, you'll never have any. Conversely, if you think money can buy you everything, you'll never have anything worthwhile that money cannot buy you, ie love, peace and happiness since those things aren't for sale. Meaning it is perfectly amazing, and even spiritually aligned, to want $1 bilion in the bank, you just have to know what you want the money for. If you think having a certain number of 0s in the bank will change your life, you're probably right, but what's so sucky about your life that you need $1 billion to change it? So before you go out and get to bringing home the bacon ask yourself, what's your purpose for money?


For me, Anastasia Nicole Simon, on this day, February 14, 2012, money is all about comfort and self sufficiency. My purpose for money is to pay each and every bill, including those pesky student loans and grocery shopping at Whole Foods (I love eating organic but it ain't cheap), with grace and ease and have more than enough left over to save, travel and make the occasional donation to Neiman's, Saks, Bloomies, Nordstroms, and Jeffrey's. To finally decorate my apartment the way I want to, which means I can buy art, furniture, and little kick-knack type things that make a house a home. A new car!!!! Phineas is in need of an upgrade and he and I have been thinking Prius for about 8 years now. And yeah, that's about it. I just want to be able to depend on me for my money and never have to ask my parents for rent/bill/gas/food/clothes money ever again, not that I won't take it if they donate : )

How Does It Feel?

Or more accurately, how do you want it to feel is the question Danielle LaPorte posed to readers as the first of her Burning Question series. As a huge fan of Danielle and her ass kicking, spirit junkie ways I have decided to tackle this question and let my burning desires come up to the forefront.

I want my day to feel like a post workout high.

I want kissing to feel like drinking hot chocolate.

I want my next success to feel like Halle Berry felt when she won the Oscar. 

I want my body to feel like a bird flying south for the winter.

I want smiling to feel like sunbeams.

I want my friendships to feel like Girl Scout Cookies that you buy in bulk so that you can have all year until cookie time comes again.

I want my neighborhood to feel like Cheers, where everyone knows your name and they're oh so glad you came.

I want my integrity to feel like the pyramids at Giza.

I want my money-making to feel like a teacher does at the end of the school year when each of her students passed every standardized test with flying colors.

I want my word to feel like an unbreakable bond.

I want my laughter to feel like kids on a jungle gym...and sound that way too.

I want the end of the day to feel like a tall glass of lemonade on a hot summer day.

I want being of service to feel like a an angel getting their wings.

"I want my philanthropy to feel like a cosmic Queen on her best day." I love this so I didn't change a thing about it.

I want my challenges to feel how Rosa Parks felt when she sat down on that bus.

I want my love to feel like a secret garden that only he and I know the location to.

I want my writing to feel like JK Rowling felt penning Harry Potter. 

I want my ideas to feel like cotton candy bliss