I'm totally manifesting a Vita-Mix

Just because the last few weeks of 2012 are all about manifesting amazing shifts for 2013, I'm sharing this great vid by my fave spiritual gangster Gabrielle Bernstein. She is actually giving away her December coaching class, all about manifesting, to everyone who pre-orders her new book May Cause Miracles. I did coaching with her in January and it was amaze so you know I'm already booked up for the December class. Get grateful and get your manifesting on.

My Fairy Tale

Waiting...waiting..waiting

Everyone has a story that they tell themselves when they get out of bed every morning and before they go to sleep at night. For some lucky people their story is "my life is awesome" and "everything always goes great." Most of us over age 7 or so, do not live with a story that is so amazing. We have layers of stories that we tell ourselves to reinforce our deeper story and the older we get the more layers we layer...kind of like an onion or an ogre depending on who you ask. This tendency to layer and reinforce means that you can spend years peeling back the fears without touching on your story or, if you're like me, your mother and a book you were destined to read can point it out to you.

Let's start at the beginning. Two weeks ago on my way to work I rear ended someone and my 10 year old car fell apart, literally. Like I barely scratched the other car and my car just crumpled and fell apart, which was for the best since it was 10 years old and falling apart anyway. Not long after that I met up with my ex which resulted in a pretty disastrous encounter. While it looks like shit was hitting the fan, by the end of the following week I had more than enough money to pay my bills for the next month and get a new car--which I did on Sunday on my own with my own credit score no co-signing--and I was offered an amazing new job that would not only make me a decent living but would also bring all kinds of new experiences to me. New car and new job in hand, it looks like my life is finally coming together and one would think I am jumping for joy and filled with gratitude but instead I've been cautious, wary and haven't celebrated at all. As I was wondering about why I haven't been celebrating, the thought hit me that I do not believe that this is my life. Literally, I do not believe that my life is pretty good these days and all I could focus on was the one spot in my life that isn't good. However, the not believing that it's my life has more to do with my personal drama than me not thinking I'm worthy or anything like that.

Cinderella didn't even pick out her dress.

So what is my personal drama? Well, it was cleverly layered deep beyond the fears of abandonment, not being good enough and God knows what else. All this time I thought the abandonment issue was my core story but while reading The Celestine Prophecy I had an aha moment and realized that my core story is "I am a victim." Ever since I was a little girl I have played the victim, people were smarter than me, had more than I did, got more attention and whatever else I told myself to prove that the cards were stacked against me. My mom told me she noticed pretty early on that I was a "poor me" type when she was talking about two of my cousin's being bright girls and I said "what about me?"...I was 8 or 9. She seems to think that after the birth of my brother when I was 6, the new dynamic in the family put me in a place where I was no longer the star and to get my spot back I played "poor me." But it didn't end there.

With friends and co-workers, with getting jobs and dating and pretty much everything in my life I have played the victim. I have handed over responsibility for my life to other people and conditions, all the while blaming everyone for my life but me. He left me, she doesn't like me, my parents don't have enough money--sidenote if it weren't for my parents I would be homeless since my rent is way more than I can afford on my own--I didn't go to the right school, I didn't have the right amount of support, blah blah poor me blah blah. These stories churning around my core story like the arms of a hurricane churning around the eye do nothing but wreak havoc in my life and relationships and keep me in a place where life happens to me, instead of creating the life I want. It keeps me a damsel in distress waiting on someone to rescue me when I am perfectly capable of rescuing myself.

This is my kind of princess

This is soo not the life I want, one cloistered in a tower waiting on a savior so that my life can begin. The life I want is one that is beautiful, unfolding, full of adventure and love. A life that I co-create and can claim full ownership of. A life where I AM NOT A VICTIM! Sadly, that doesn't happen over night. You don't go to bed saying "my personal story is one of playing the victim" and wake up saying "I'm Xena warrior princess and I run this show." Life is about subtle shifts that add up to major shifts. So for now, knowing my story is enough because now that I know better I can do better. Will I slip? Hell yes, I'm a person and I have no interest in being perfect but I will progress. I can rewrite my fairy tale and will, but stories evolve one word at a time and 27 years of learning take time, and therapy, to undo. All I can do now is say I AM NOT A VICTIM!

You Know You're A Spiritual Gangster When...

This is totally for a laugh. To me, spiritual is who we all are by default and the path you choose to connect to the divine is your practice, and that practice is as individual as you are. If you're comfy reading the bible and going to church that's just as awesome as meditating or going to brunch on a Sunday morning. It's a personal thing and I'm not about making your personal business my personal business okay!

1. You carry crystals with you everywhere you go, even to the club. 
2. "Stop. Drop. Meditate," is your mantra
3. "Holla for my mala"
4. You find the hidden spiritual meaning in almost every song you listen too, including stuff by Gucci Mane. 
5. You have a team of spiritual mamas that keep you in line when your ego gets a little cray.
6. You meditate before and after you go out.
7. You get mad and rant and rave BUT you forgive the person, the situation and yourself afterwards. 
8. Russell Simmons is your homie. 
9. You constantly check yourself before you wreck yourself. 
10. You find yourself going deep and sharing your downloads with people in the most random places. 

* Bonus: You pull a card before you walk out the door. 

Miracle Moment

My two fave OG Spiritual Gangsters, Russell and Rev Run. 

Amongst my closest friends I have developed a Rev Run like reputation for sending weekly inspirational texts that bring a bit of the mystic into the mundane. I started this years ago when I was still living with my mom as a means of spreading a kind word, support and a few lolz by signing it Rev Ana. Anywhoo, I've decided to take these miracle moments public since my nearest and dearest aren't the only ones who could use a minor shift on a Monday morning.

Today's Miracle Moment came to me while I was on gchat with my bestie Amber as we were trying to chat me through a crazy moment that deals with my ex and his ex. I felt myself going crazy stalker ex-girlfriend for a minute and reached out to my most grounded pal--in the relationship arena that is--to help me through. All she did was offer an ear so to speak and gave me the space to talk it out with me really. Our talk turned from my drama to how I cope with my intuition shouting something that my brain is not ready to accept. This lead to my first miracle moment--that's right I have 2 big, beautiful shifts for you--I told her the only way I can shift my focus from dwelling on the past and the future is to acknowledge that everything that is meant to happen in my life will eventually happen and all I have to do is show up! This may seem a bit too pre-determined for some of you, but for me it just means that I'm completely putting my faith in a higher power who knows my life's plan. It doesn't mean I'm going to sit on my ass and not work towards my goals, it just means that I'm going to let go and get in the flow. There is no reason to fight an uphill battle all your life trying to make something happen, if it's supposed to happen it'll happen with the right amount of hard work and divine intervention. 

After that little nugget, our conversation shifted gears to the ways in which society constantly reinforces the notion that the keys to happiness and success all lie in the arms of someone else or in a certain job, living in a certain house, making a certain dollar amount, wearing the right clothes or basically anywhere outside of you. Hence the reason people continue to sign up for Match.com and eHarmony and spend their entire paychecks on having the right car, the right cell phone, drinking the right coffee and buying groceries at the right store. This reminded me of my favorite quote by Gabrielle Bernstein that goes a little bit like this, "when you place your happiness in the arm of someone else, you're screwed." (Miracle Moment numero 2) Actually, anytime you place your source of happiness, success, self worth, love, peace, security etc outside of yourself you are totally effed. Why? Simply put, everything outside of you is subject to change whether it's the man, the job, the money, the house or the Choos, they are all fluid and temporary, the only constant in your life is you. So if you don't have a good relationship with you and your Source--by Source I mean God/the Creator/the Source of all things, I don't say universe because that feels silly to me but it may work for you--then you will continue to look for whatever you think you lack on the inside, outside and you will never find it. Trust me, I've found happiness in the arms of a man, the bottom of a bottle and the shoe department and the one thing I noticed is none of those things made me happy for long. So chew on that with your lunch. 

Recovering B*tch

There is no beating around the bush or tip-toeing around the obvious on this one, I used to be a not so nice girl. Actually, some would have characterized me as petty, stuck up, mean, catty and of course bitchy. My constant rebuttal was that those people didn't know the real me, the real me was like the sweet chocolately center of an M&M and the me they were seeing was the hard candy shell that melts in your mouth not in your hand. Any friend I've ever had can tell you that I'm fiercely loyal,  always there when you need me even if it's 3am and I have to be at work in three hours and there is nothing I wouldn't do for you, they could also tell you that if you don't have anything nice to say that I'm the one to come and sit next to...or I used to be.

I could tell you how in the past 10 years or so I've honed my ability to bring a woman to tears with a few words or how I learned to take pleasure in judging others and always finding them wanting, but then I would be either glorifying rude behavior or justifying my nasty ways and I'm not here to do either. Suffice it to say, I was a mean girl because in my limited experience I learned that it's better to attack them before they could attack you and we all know that eventually they will attack you. (Which by the way, does sound as insane to me as it does to you and I was the one thinking it.) I'm not saying this to make you think that all mean girls are really just scared, little girls crying out for love and attention on the inside--which is true about 95% of the time--I'm just making you aware of my thought process in regards to being a carbon copy of Regina George, Courtney Shayne and Kathryn Merteuil with a dash of Sanata Lopez thrown in for hood measure. 

To be completely honest this whole not being mean thing just came to my attention about a week or so ago. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of lady writers talking about things that lady writers talk about, Oxford commas, what magazines are hiring, boys, and I felt myself falling into my usual shit talking only for the first time ever it didn't feel so good. Actually it felt gross, like 70s porn star mustache gross, and I didn't know what to make of it. Then to make it even more eye opening, last weekend while working market in a showroom with other 20something fashion girls I felt my mind go into Snix mode and I instantly judged one of the girls for not being cute and for wearing Tory Burch flats. The second my mind did this, my big girl mind said "Who gives a shit if she isn't cute her soul is just as beautiful as yours is and those shoes don't mean anything because it's not real. So get dat ass to forgiving."(FYI my inner guide is a bad mamajama and is not to be trifled with.) Inner voice noted, I started to take notice of how I felt when I judged people for the crap they put on Facebook or carrying a fake LV bag and it didn't feel so good. I felt repulsed by what I was saying and thinking and finally got what my teacher Gabby B was saying when she spoke about change happening when you want it in her video blog. 

The only thing is, now that gossipping is as appetizing to me as a steak is to a vegan what do I talk about? (Just kidding, not knowing what to say was never a problem for me. I came into this world with my throat chakra wide open lol.)

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

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

Quoted

REPEAT AFTER ME: I'm a Universe loving, self-help book reading, new thought thinking, angel card reading , cross legged sitting, abundant life living, gratitude giving, miracle believing, chakra cleaning, crystal using, incense burning, faith keeping, love sending PHENOMENAL SPECIMEN OF THE UNIVERSE ITSELF! From this moment forward I commit to just being me.....

-That Guy Who Loves The Universe 

What Spiritual Looks Like

This blog post about my work with my spiritual gangster and clairvoyant healer Kindra Gans--bomb dot com girl-and getting through this crazy "break up" thingie. It was originally posted on HerFuture.com where it took on a life of it's own and became a Blog We Dig the week I posted. 

At the end of September/the beginning of October, I was becoming a little too well acquainted with the fibers that make up my carpet after one too many nights balled up on the floor crying myself sick. In my darkest moment I cried out for some kind of help, because I knew there had to be a better way and a few weeks later the universe answered my call when my co-worker gave me the info for a psychic she'd just met on the set of a photoshoot. Initially skeptical I took the information and was surprised when I found myself dialing her number during my lunch break the next day and setting up and appointment for the minute I got off of work. I needed healing and answers and as far as I knew she had them.

On the 10 minute drive from work to her office I felt my heart racing. I kept replaying the last and only time I'd ever seen a "psychic" in my life and knew that if this went anything like that did, I would be wasting my time and money. You see the last time I saw a "psychic" was almost ten years ago when i was a freshman in college and someone brought in palm readers for a program on campus. These dark haired, vaguely middle eastern women had rings on every finger, layers of necklaces, dark chiffon tops, and basically looked like Kim Kardashian meets Stevie Nicks with a thick accent. They didn't tell me anything worthwhile and one tried to get my friend to pay her $300 to remove a dead fetus from her or something like that. Anyway, I was completely prepared for this girl to be a bit full of it when I went to see her but a tiny voice kept pushing me--a tiny calm voice and my intense desire to never let anyone down.

I parked my car in the lot in front of her offices and was surprised to see a very beautiful, normal, well adjusted 20 something meet me at the door and walk me back to her room. This girl was NOT the psychic I was used to. her office was devoid of spooky strange stuff, like beaded curtains and scarves over the lamps, and was super normal. There was a desk, office chairs, a few pictures on the wall, her degree and certificates for completing training as a clairvoyant healer. I sat across from her and without telling her too much she read my soul and saw me broken and weeping on the floor. She also saw a lot of  other things and told me everything I needed to know to begin taking the right steps to heal myself. I left feeling uplifted and knew that this situation would not kill me but that it would make me stronger.

From there I did what any normal person would do, I went home and Googled this "healer" and was a little surprised at what I saw. This super spiritually connected girl who radiated love from the inside out was talking about drinking beers at night, had pictures of her and her pals out on the town on facebook and even outed her fears of recently moving to Atlanta from San Diego and how difficult it can be to introduce yourself as an energy healer to people at networking events and one first dates. In short she was your typical 20 something, scared shitless by somethings and super confident about pretty much everything else sometimes. She was for sure was no fortune teller, nor an angel, and was far from the blissed out spiritual gurus that I thought would be hooked up to a higher power. She was a girl just like me trying to keep her shit together and using her extraordinary gift to support herself. Hmmm... The judgmental ego voice inside me whispered "You cannot trust this girl or anything she said. She's too normal and has fears and doubts and isn't any more enlightened than you are." Then a strange thing I happened, I ran into a former client turned friend of mine at the mall and we began to talk about spirituality and I told her about my healer and how she reminded me of Kendra Wilkinson (yes that Kendra from E!). She told me that just because someone has a life and a past does not discount their gift or mean that they do not have a message for you. I sat with that for a while. Then in the next few weeks I sat back and watched several things unfold pretty much exactly the way she told me they would. Soon, I made another appointment, and another, and one for my friend, and one for my mom and gave her info to my coworkers who went to see her and a former coworker who broke down in her office after she read her from head to toe in one meeting.

 Just because she has fears, says FFFF, meets guys at bars, has a hard time answering the question "What do you do?", drinks green tea for breakfast and beer for dinner and lives like every other girl under 30 that I know, does not discount any of the guidance she has given me--which has been spot on--nor does it mean that she is not spiritually hook up. Not every spiritual person is a monk and not every hot girl you meet is vapid and shallow. Sometimes your best spiritual running buddies are spiritual gangstas who read Deepak and listen to Jay Z while they do it.

 The added moral of this story is never ever judge a book by its cover, or better yet never ever judge.

 If you want more info on Kindra, check out her blog. It's funny, cute, full of advice on debunking the myths that swirl around psychics and info on how to connect with her. Although she's based in Atlanta, she does readings over the phone as well.

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!