slow suicide

chronically delaying gratification
is akin to waiting for death;
if you're still breathing,
remember that you deserve happiness
right now.

i’m really good at this.

“i’ll be happy when…”

“i’ll let myself have fun after…”

“i’ll hang out with people once…”

“i’ll give myself some credit upon the completion of…”

…this ever-elusive constantly shifting benchmark.

i certainly don’t have this figured out but fuck this whole entire shit, really. i can’t remember how she put it, but in her memoir, shonda rhimes basically described not really living life as ‘slow suicide.’ sadly, i relate. it’s been a challenge i’ve had most of my life.

inevitably, i think about this idea in relation to now. it feels even more relevant. but there’s probably a split-mindedness for a lot of us:

“right now is the time to put in work to survive, it isn’t the time to find joy. i don’t have the space or the luxury.”

“i don’t know what’s what, so maybe all i can give myself right now are little joys. wait, is that frivolous and privileged and irresponsible?”

i’m going to get morbid now, so bear with me if you can, because i’m going to bring it all together for our higher good.

in the beginning, i followed the news for covid a lot and then mostly stopped because it got overwhelming. one thing i found in my initial research that has become increasingly clear along the way is this: the virus is unlike anything we’ve seen and as much as we think we understand it, in many ways we don’t. we are constantly learning new, often paradoxical things about the virus, who’s at risk, its prevention, its treatment.

‘it’s spread by respiratory droplets. uh, it’s also airborne. oh yeah, so, you can also bring it inside with your shoes.’

‘build up your immunity— wait— but not too much because your immune system might attack itself while fighting off the virus (cytokine storm).’

‘it’s really only affecting folks 50-60+ and people with pre-existing health conditions— younger folks, children, and pregnant women should be cool. jk, this virus could put anyone in critical or fatal condition and we’re not sure how or why.”

‘take ibuprofen to treat your symptoms— actually, hold on— it could make things worse.’

‘liquor stores are an essential business. so yeah, alcohol might aggravate the virus.’

we’re all vulnerable. this virus could quite literally kill any one of us and there’s only so much we can do about it from a physical standpoint. with all the incomplete and shifting information, we’re somewhat left to our own intuition and devices when deciding on appropriate care for ourselves. science is crucial but it’s got its work cut out for it at the moment.

the material realm is showing us its limits. for me personally, there is no greater signal to tap into the unseen for strength and wisdom. there is no greater call to surrender control while simultaneously reclaiming our sovereign power as truly magical beings.

part of that magic is practicing expanding our view to transcend the 3d reality sometimes, if we can. not in a spiritual bypass kind of way, but in a grounded and self-empowered way: holding the severity of this situation in sight while also knowing that you are a miracle— periodT— and contain infinite possibility.

it’s beyond heartbreaking right now. but here we are. still here. we are the lucky ones. let’s not take that for granted, if at all possible. part of our magic is that we can create more magic, joy, love, health from dust. from nothingness. because it is what we are. we are allowed the magnificence of ourselves at anytime, every time, regardless of the circumstances of our lives. you are allowed to be happy right now— even if a split second is all you can muster.

gratitude?

you know how everyone’s been talking about being mad grateful for what they do have right now? i didn’t really relate— and still don’t always— when folks talk about gratitude. i felt and still sometimes feel shame for ‘being an ungrateful ass.’

here’s the thing: honesty with your emotions is super important right now (and in general). it can be hard to connect with gratitude when you are trying to survive in your own right, when you are ANGRY, when you feel betrayed, confused, resentful, lost, abandoned. by the system, for starters.

some of us are anxious, depressed, barely functional and just trying to hold it together. that’s okay. lovingly and gently witness that without wallowing in it. there is a difference. remain aware, compassionate, and PERSIST. you *will* ultimately move through.

our journeys and feelings that come with are relative to self. always remember that when you try to judge yourself and compare.

gratitude is absolutely a valuable and powerful practice, but if you’re not connecting with it, that is perfectly alright. you can try again later— or not. many paths, y’all.

if you don’t feel gratitude right now, allow the other emotions that are currently present within you to exist. don’t go into shame if you can help it— shame actually happens to be the least supportive emotion. if you’re in shame, witness that compassionately as well. we’ve all been there.

feel like screaming or taking a very long nap or both? i’m tired, too. you’re allowed to be fucking pissed.

anger is a catalyst and can be a turning point if consciously harnessed. anger is also recognized as the beginnings of change on the hawkins scale, which measures the relative energetic frequencies of emotions.

the point is to not *stay* angry or in our lower vibrational emotions. we get to use such emotions instead as an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and practice self-compassion. from here, we begin to find our way through— and beyond. to our true selves, to our peace.

life as it is

i often don’t know how i’m going to pay my bills. sometimes i don’t know if i will. but i always do.

knowing i always have a choice in how to expend my energy, i respond by orienting my thoughts towards what i *do* want and what i *can* do.

it saves me and keeps me sane every time.

in the last 9 years of being a full-time freelancer, i’ve learned to shift many of my perspectives in order to survive this whimsical, demanding, unpredictable life i’ve chosen.

so now, i stop to take a moment of gratitude every time i deposit a check and every time i pay my rent.

most recently, i’m recognizing that the life i’ve had for the last few years and the life i have today, *is* my life.

doesn’t mean i can’t change things, that i can’t fulfill dreams, that i can’t grow, that i can’t want more.

it does mean that the life to be lived and be present in and grateful for is the one that i have right now. like, now now.

this is it.

this. is. it.

be here now.

wherever you go, there you are.

all such things collide *here*

what are you doing with the you you’ve got right now?

i am being nice to myself? present to myself? fully experiencing myself, others, and this world? both the grandeur and minutiae? 

presence. that’s my word for the year, though i try to escape it for words like “abundance” sometimes. presence chose me. it knows i need it.

full time freelance life has forced me to take stock of my blessings much more than i used to. and i’m ever grateful for that, too.

best wishes to all my creative comrades out here living to dream and dreaming to live. <3

living inside yourself

home is everywhere

when you live inside yourself.

i release all attachments and call my energy back from people, places, spaces, times, dimensions, and things where i’ve given my energy away. i call *all* of my energy back and return to my body. i am in my body. i am home, i am safe, and i am whole.

your relationship with self should be the sweetest one; find ease, knowing, and love within yourself, and your cup will run over with more of the same everywhere you go.

working true.

instead of working hard

work true.

what does working true look like for you?

how much space are you giving your voice, your truth, your heart, your inner fire?

how much weight does the sense in the seeming non-sense of your intuition and your body receive?

have you experienced the flow of when your work and your way of work is aligned with your truth? the truth? a truth?

you are welcome, you are here. now is now.

no one is coming to save you

how much power are you placing outside of yourself? how much are you deferring to another person, to some thing, or even to the universe instead of owning it yourself?

while i am so grateful for having grown my ability to feel and work with my intuition, energy, and the universe, i realized that i’ve largely worked with and considered them at the exclusion of my own agency (paradoxical, right?). can intuition, energy, and the universe be wielded with agency? of course. over the last few months, however, i saw that i’ve been too much in the flowy feminine (where intuition and feelings live) and lacking the initiative, action, and decision making of more masculine energy to really own myself and my life and live inside of it.

what’s tricky is that i’ve seen the magic that comes from being in real alignment and flow with the feminine; seeing how easily i could manifest when i’m just regular with my qigong practice got me spoiled and missing the big picture; in believing in the universe so hard, i somehow calculated a belief system that i could just sit around and not do shit— including my practices— and the universe would just come and get me when it was time and fix / do my life for me. i’ve been sitting here banking on being saved, y’all. i was pretty convinced.

i’ve waited a few years and through this distortion, i made myself lazy, complacent, avoidant, confused, and disempowered. it’s not that i’ve done nothing to progress my life in the direction i want over the last few years— i absolutely have done some things— but i have not nearly applied myself in the way that i could and should have been.

it’s significant to note that i’m not a fan of hustle or busyness as a lifestyle. it’s not for me. i did and still do believe that one can work smarter versus harder— and that a lot of the “smarter” part can be managed and led by the universe, energy, and intuition. that said, the human we each embody needs to take some responsibility for the physical and mental contributions required to initiate, progress, and complete things. these contributions must be intentional and consistent. a part of me always knew this but somehow thought i could do the absolute least and get away with it. i now know better.

interesting how we can use practices and belief systems that are otherwise meant to be healing and empowering to support our fears and challenging conditioning; how working with energy and the universe somehow insidiously became covers for my self-avoidance, feelings of inadequacy, fear of success / failure, and my lack of belief in my own capacity and potential. i needed someone or something else to do my life for me and let me hide under the covers and collect the rewards. hwhat?

so, this 2020, my greatness is in collecting my entire self and taking some responsibility. first starts with my holistic health— body, mind, spirit— because that is the place from which all else springs (probably more on this later). whatever this generally and comparatively unsexy initiative yields this year, is fine with me. anyone else been feeling outside cultural pressure to solve and achieve their entire life within in the confines of a single year that is 2020? i’m cool.

you were made to breathe easy

watch a sleeping baby breathe, and you’ll notice their belly effortlessly rise and fall with each inhale and exhale— it’s automatic. babies naturally breathe deeply.

who cares about deep breathing? stress relief cares, for one.

and oxygen isn’t just to keep us alive, either; like water, an ample supply is needed to keep our biological systems running as they should.

breath is also our first line to replenishing our life force energy. breath it is our birthright.

the traumas and stresses of life eventually bring most of us out of our natural deep breathing flow, and as a result, we typically become shallow breathers— even breath holders— as we grow older. no bueno. good news is that we can re-train ourselves to breathe abundantly!

know how singers are trained to sing from their diaphragms and not their throats? similarly, deep breath comes from the diaphragm and has a few names: diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing, or belly breathing.

fun: i’ve been told that one of the reasons the buddha statues often have a large belly is to indicate all the abundant life force he held. clearly from all that good ass breathing.

alright, so for those of you who want to try some good ass breathing. lie down, get real cozy, and put your hand on your belly. imagine you are filling up the ballon that is your belly. practice inhaling slowly, feeling your belly expand, and then exhaling slowly, feeling your belly contract. play with seeing how far you can fill your belly up.

you might notice that as your belly is expanding and contracting, your chest is also automatically rising and falling along with it to a certain extent. on that note, here’s a second version to try: 

put one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. now on a big long inhale,  first fill up your belly, then your abdomen / rib cage area, and then your chest. they’ll all kind of fluidly rise along with one another, becoming most pronounced once you intentionally reach each respective point. slowly on the exhale, begin the release of air in your belly, then your abdomen, and finally your chest; feel them collapse as you go along.

the first time i did the second breathing exercise for about 10+ minutes, i felt super relaxed and high off of the oxygen— my body had become unaccustomed to that much oxygen!

soon after that first experience, i began using this deep breathing technique when i wanted to inquire about something with my higher self; it’s a really great way to deeply relax, quiet my mechanical mind, and make way for my subconscious / higher self to speak.

if you’re looking for a deeper dive into a similar deep breathing method, look up “pranic breathing.” last time i checked, there’s a book and an audio guide.

the more we practice deep breathing, the more that information is strengthened in both our conscious and subconscious, which makes it more possible for such breathing to begin to occur on its own. whether practiced more formally during a designated time period, on the fly whenever we remember, or in a stressful moment, it's all valuable.

now go get the life force, health, and wisdom that's yours to claim. <3

living the feeling first: a means to manifestation

i’ve been thinking about joy lately, especially as it being a way of manifesting our dreams even before they materially come to fore;

a couple nights ago, i picked up the book creating money by sanaya roman after a long while. i re-read my notes and a bit more of the book. i’m only about 20 pages in; i tend to read very intentionally, stop to reflect a lot, and simultaneously take notes.

in my review, i was reminded of a powerful perspective shift:

i manifest best when i choose to *right now* genuinely live out the higher qualities i believe money (or whatever i’m looking to manifest) will bring into my life.

an exercise + illustration:

• think of something you’d like to manifest

• what higher qualities do you think that manifestation will bring into you and your life?

• what are some easily accessible ways you can bring those qualities into your life now— today, this week, in this moment?

unfolding the perspective shift:

• i want more money because i believe it will bring me freedom.

• i realize that i can also easily access the feeling of freedom when i’m being silly, when i’m being fully myself, when i see children being free, when i deeply connect with someone in a way that i can almost touch the entire universe in that moment

• when i choose to be in the vibration of freedom *now*, i am calling in the matching/correlating vibration of that which i desire. and because i am coming from a place of authentic connection to source, i am simultaneously manifesting 1) what i *really, actually* want and 2) more precisely for my highest good.

before finding this book, i intuitively created a similar practice and paired it with intentional action towards manifesting the money i needed. with this way, i catapulted myself out of major, heart-wrenching brokenness in early 2017.

it was a time where every other day i was getting notices of bills being declined, my credit cards were maxed out, i had no idea how i’d be paying rent, and my cash was just enough to feed myself.  it was the closest i’d ever been to feeling like i could soon be out of choices— and would possibly need to move back to cali to live with my parents.

i decided that if this was it, i was going to respond in the best way i possibly could and opt out of weaponizing my pain against myself. i was going to live my best life with what i had been given. it almost felt like that choice was all i had left.

i chose to:

1. live in joy anyway, because i was alive— that was something i did have

2. try my best to turn things around— i did have agency over my actions

3. accept any outcome with grace— i always have a choice in how to respond

from this space, i found myself the happiest and most magnetic i had ever been— socially, financially, and with the opportunities that flowed to me like a force of nature (because it literally was).

since then, my path has ebbed and flowed as i continue to dismantle old programming and belief systems. however, now i have the gift of the experience and evidence of what is possible. i know what i can access when i am in flow. i know that making *who i choose to show up as* my starting point is what truly creates the type of life-affirming magic that is beyond dreams.

the belief that something outside of us will give us the higher qualities we desire is false; if we do end up manifesting what we think we want while we are out of alignment, it’s always ultimately a lesson of some sort. sometimes we can be taken through a long journey before we realize we are still unhappy and unfulfilled. think about the loads of celebrities who have all their “dreams” come true, only to feel more alone and lost than ever. most might not show it, but this phenomenon is very very real.

dreams without grounding in your higher qualities usually end up empty.

if i lack freedom in my life already— before having the money i desire— deep down i will continue to lack freedom even once i have said money; that is, until i practice cultivating freedom from within and with what is already available to me.

so, let’s ask ourselves:

how am i choosing to engage my most basic blessings on a day to day?

how am i showing up as “the person i think i’ll be when i have everything i want” *today*— right now, in this moment?

much love <3

spontaneous crystal therapy

photo // pinterest

my crystal bowl has sat there for years, relatively untouched; presumably clearing and shifting energetic fields unseen and unknown to me.

the other day i was drawn to one crystal, then another, and another. the minute i grasped the trio in my palm, i began shaking (as i do at times when energy is shifting/clearing/generating) and underwent my first spontaneous intuitive crystal healing; i was pretty sure i wasn't done and 15-20 minutes later i went through one of my craziest shake sessions to date.

i kept this trio by my bedside and near me during the day for the following couple days during which i still felt a charge/connection. today i picked them up, felt nothing immediately, and became quite clear our work was done for now.

as i set them down back into my bowl, i stayed for a minute to see if any other crystals wanted to connect with me. i grabbed a black tourmaline (grounding/protecting) first and placed it in my left palm, then the white selenite (elevating/opening); recognizing the duality in color and vibration, i placed the selenite in my right palm. again, an immediate energetic response.

as i sat down, i placed the tourmaline on the left of my seat and the selenite on the right; and surely, i felt the crystals interacting to create a potent energetic field, forming something of a 180 degree arc around and above me; i'm buzzing as i write this.

a reminder that all in our lives ripens when it is time for us to receive it. 

half of the crystals i've used were gifted to me, half i've had for years; we came together for these moments.

it's really quite surreal to follow your intuition and connectedness as it opens; kind of like the real life magical land i always dreamed about when i was little. i knew it was real.

<3