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.)

Still Bitchy...

Here's an update on how my No Gossip challenge is going...BADLY. I engage in so much idle chatter that leads to smack talking at work that I need to stuff my ears and mouth with cotton. Like I said, we do it because we're bored. In the past two days that I've been at work we've been too busy *gasp* working to talk about anything, but we found a way. Tomorrow I'm going to be a bit more diligent about watching what I say. On the plus side I'll be done with work by Thursday. On the minus side, if the only way I can be done with gossip is to not talk to people on the reg I have a bigger problem than I thought.

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.

Gossip Folks

In the grand tradition of shining light on my not so illuminated parts--not those parts, it's too cold to shine light on them in December--I have decided to out my guiltiest pleasure and probably one of my most shadiest traits; I'm a gossip. I love talking mad shit about people. Not because I think I'm better than them or anything, actually I'm not making any kind of judgement on them when I gossip, I do it because I can. When I don't have anything nice to say, I ramble and babble and eventually mad amounts of shit comes out about everyone around me.

Usually the stuff I say is so superficial that the person I'm talking about could laugh at it--I don't consider that gossiping--but every now and then I say stuff that might upset the person if they heard it, like saying a former co-worker smells like a cat or that another former co-worker has issues with her family therefore she'll always have relationship issues. While 80% of the stuff I say is as true as saying "the sun rises in the east" who the hell am I to go around spouting my version of the truth about other people to other people?

This has been the case since I could talk, and it is pretty much best summed up by a conversation I've had with my mom way too many times to count:
Mom: "You say things that can be mean and vicious sometimes."
Me: "I'm only telling the truth."
Mom: "Who asked you?"
Hmm....good question. No one ever asks you to speak the truth all the time about everything. How rude is it to just go around with verbal diarrhea spewing your version of the truth to whomever may listen? Very, but no matter how much at-one-ment I feel with others and how much I know that everything I say about others is a judgement about myself, even if it is just an observation, I still can't break the habit. I mean I've been gossiping since I was a wee one, now I'm old enough to have my own wee ones and for sure I don't want my unborn daughters to pick up that habit.

Gossipping does not feel good, actually it does not feel any way to me. The only reason I do it is to make small talk/entertain people/ exercise my jaws....guess I should read more so that I have more interesting things to say or do as the old adage says and keep my mouth shut when I don't have anything nice, or anything at all, to say. But how boring would that be? I'll figure out soon, because starting tonight, NO MORE GOSSIP and SMALL TALK....Ummm actually starting tomorrow.