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 

Getting Grateful!

So I've been riding the freedom train for 16 days now and it has been enlightening in more ways than one, not that I'm fear free and totally hooked up to instant manifesting like my boys JC and Buddha but I'll be there one day lol. Anyway, as a part of my 40 Day Fear Cleanse I was tasked with getting grateful for my freedoms. Well, as someone who is unemployed and suddenly single it's been hard to think about the freedoms that I have in a positive light, or I should say it was.

Yesterday I went for my weekly visit to my therapist--I'm American we all have/need a therapist--where the two of us got down and dirty with the roots of my codependent behaviors. She got in my face for a second and told me that my avoidance of setting boundaries in all of my relationships, work, romantic and otherwise, as well as my tendency to create idols and my deep seated desires to do whatever it takes to keep the people I care about in my life at my own expense all stem from a period in my life from around age 11 where within a year my parents separated and my grandmother that I was close to died. This sparked my core fear, that everyone will eventually abandon me, and codependency became my security blanket. But what does this have to do with my freedoms? Well once we got down to the root of my issues, she turned to me and said "Anastasia you have some amazing insight and thankfully you are figuring this out now while you're young. You have your whole life ahead of you to figure out what makes you happy and to break that cycle." I felt like a weight was lifted and as soon as I could I called my mom who expressed that she had similar issues when she was in her 20s and that I should be glad that I figured this all out before I got married and had kids like she did. She told me you don't want to wake up at 35 and wonder what has your life become because you have given up your power to be someone's wife or to have a certain lifestyle. Oddly enough her words rang truer than she knew because I had begun that way about my last relationship, yes I loved and still love my ex but a growing part of me was so caught up in the frame that I would do anything to hold on to someone who made me feel like I was worthwhile because of him. That brings me to the freedoms that I am grateful for.

I am grateful for having the freedom to get down to the truth about me. The freedom to explore what makes me happy not what makes my friends, parents or some guy happy. I have the freedom to hop on a plane to Paris and look for a job if I have the money and the desire. I have the freedom to accept a job where I'll be traveling 80% of the year or to do yoga for the next 30 days or to sit on my ass and do nothing. Thanks to s break up and losing my job I have found the freedom to shake off the person I thought everyone wanted me to be and to become the person I always was but have been hiding behind a hoard of shoulds. Now if only I had the freedom to breathe easy in the Spring without the need of Mucinex, drinking a pond full of water and killing my productivity at least once a week. Damn you allergies!

Me Too...

Do you remember when you thought you could do or be anything? Yeah, me neither. It's time to remember what it feels like to believe that there is no limit to your life or love.

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.

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.

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.