When bringing ideas into reality, we’re conditioned to believe we need to move quickly, go after our ideas with a passion, and when we become riddled with fear because of that conditioning, we make up that there’s something wrong with us. There is another way, that is far more sturdy and takes the pressure off… read on.
After recording our episode for the podcast, my wonderful mom Sherrill Douglass and I kept chatting for a bit around the notion of how helpful it is to remember to stay curious to understand. We talked about it in terms of relationships throughout the episode, but my mom said off the cuff to me later…
“We all have a hidden world inside of us to discover”
When she said it, I felt such a beautiful feeling come over me - why? Well let me ask you, dear readers, what are the implications of knowing this? What are the implications of knowing that every single one of us has a hidden world inside of us that has yet to be discovered? On one hand, it immediately gives me a feeling of hope for my own personal experience… that there is always more to come, more to learn about myself that will be revealed. No matter my age, no matter my circumstances, the hidden world inside of me will continue to show me more of what makes me feel alive - I feel this when I look at art or read poetry or listen to new music. When I’m discovering new cultures or working through the punches that life throws at me… that’s a real big one. Every time I walk through a big humdinger in life, such as my health, the health of my family, death, you know the events that shake you to your core - every time I walk through those I learn a hell of a lot more about my own needs, what’s important to me and what isn’t - those are the fast track events that help us discover more about our hidden world, but we don’t have to wait for the “bad stuff” to see this fact. And it makes life so rich to consider it. Our minds are so fickle with wanting to keep us identifying with the same beliefs about ourselves, then we adapt to these ideas of who we are and we become bored and wonder why. The same goes with the people in our lives - our minds take the liberty to slap labels on folks and then we wonder why we get bored in our relationships. There is so much more to be had!! There is so much more, forever and always, to discover about yourself and about the folks all around you. You can truly never know everything there is to know about someone. And the more you see this, the more room you’ll have, the more bandwidth you’ll experience inside of yourself to stay curious about your hidden world and the hidden world inside of others to then understand how you and they, click!
If by chance you happen to be reading this and it feels like a scary idea to go spelunking in the hidden world inside of yourself - I’d like to offer you the perspective that by nature, learning more about who you are at your core, is an incredibly freeing and natural experience. Any ideas you may have of it being terrifying is purely your mind giving you an unhelpful opinion. Many folks I work with have admitted that they haven’t looked in that direction before because they believed there were parts of themselves that they didn’t like and they had spent years trying to stuff them away or trying to avoid them. But every single time, with a little bit of understanding about how we filter our present moment through memories of the past, folks tend to see that those ideas of getting to know themselves being scary, stems from past experiences of feeling shame around who they are. And again, in this moment, if you want to, you can give yourself the permission to begin to discover the beautiful hidden world inside of you despite the opinions of the past that are loud in your brain. You can be gentle with yourself, take your time, you have your whole life ahead of you to play in that sandbox. There’s no rush. Because YOU aren’t going anywhere… your mind may go a million different ways, but YOU, are untouchable and just a gem cave waiting to be mined. And the more you discover your hidden gems and make those known to the world, the more you’ll find success in your relationships, your career and your peace of mind, because more and more you’ll make your outsides match your insides. In my mind, the very definition of living authentically.
And the more you stay open and curious about discovering the gems inside those around you, the more deep connection and love you’ll find in everyone you meet.
Sending love in all directions,
Jess
What do you think about this statement?
“When you’re married to an idea of who you’re supposed to be, you miss out on who you’re becoming”
What does that mean to you? I wish I could hear you, but at the very least I’m grateful to give you the opportunity to reflect on the question. Before I jump in I want to share with you a message I received on the hotline from Rabbi Mordechai, who’s episode was released just last week. He has a beautiful reflection to share and it’s fitting for the theme of today… (paraphrased for you here)
“We’re looking for a feeling that comes from observation, not from judgement… Like the difference between the love in our marriage and the love for our kids… a constant feeling of love without judgement… it comes from a different place… Follow the feeling that does not come from judgement because that comes from your stories…”
Why I thought it would be fitting to share Rabbi’s thoughts along with my opening statement, is because it all works together. When we’re married to an idea of who we are supposed to be, who our partner is supposed to be, who our friends or family members are supposed to be, we miss out on who we are becoming, who our partner is becoming, who our friends and family members are becoming. As Gerrick shared in his interview, he was so married to the dream of what his career was going to look like that once he had obtained that dream, he ended up staying in a job for far too long, not listening to the whispers from inside of him that the job wasn’t the right fit any longer. As Rabbi mentioned in his message, that’s where we can get mixed up. When we have an idea of what something is supposed to look like and we judge one way or another, we may feel somewhat of a feeling of satisfaction, but it’s empty - it doesn’t fill our bodies with a sensation of love or contentment, hope or excitement.
It is so important to wake up to this, to begin to learn what these genuine feelings that are implications of you listening to your truth, feel like in YOUR body. It’s absolutely human to get caught up in the shoulds and the supposed-to’s in our heads and I’m also not suggesting you stop aspiring to new heights for yourself or in your career or your relationships, but it’s a very different experience, in fact one that takes the pressure off, when we become present, when we lean into unconditional love for ourselves and see what comes forward from there. When we can use our imagination as guideposts for moving forward, but not being attached to expectations or outcomes.
As Albert Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
What a fantastic reminder for us all… me included. There’s a learning curve to not listening to the faithful servant in your mind as your source of truth and instead listening to your intuitive mind, your wisdom, the truth that is unique to you. But it isn’t impossible - it’s a delightful discovery I make over and over and over again.
Sending love in all directions and I’ll see you next week,
Jess
When was the last time you checked in with yourself to ask yourself what it is that you really want? I think if you’re like any other human being, you could give me an answer right away because we humans tend to have ourselves on our mind a lot of the time. But for the sake of this moment of reflection, I’m not interested in what you don’t want and I’m not especially interested in what you think you want or need. I’m interested in you giving yourself the time to sink into the quiet inside of you and see what bubbles up from your curiosity.
What is it that you really want?
Is it a deeper connection to yourself? A deeper connection to your partner or your friends? Would you like to trust yourself more? Would you like to not worry so much? Are you tired of the same old fears coming up and rueing the day?
It’s not often that we allow ourselves the time to reflect on these deeper needs because we’re so good at adapting to our ever-changing circumstances and tolerating things inside of ourselves not realizing that we actually have choice.
Oof. Tolerations.
Are there parts of yourself or beliefs that you have that you tolerate the consequences of? If you’re not sure right in this moment, that’s OK. It’s a deep question. As a dear client of mine recently said when I pointed out some behavior of hers that she’s learned to tolerate, she so honestly replied with, “It’s taken me a while to even get here to talk about it because I was so used to my old behaviors towards myself, that I couldn’t tell you that it was behaviors that I was tolerating. I thought they were just... me.”
Did that make you nod your head? I did when she said it because it is so true about the human condition. We get so used to our ways of doing things. We get so used to our habits of thought. We get locked in to ideas of what we think we want out of life or a career or ourselves that we stay focused on the idea as opposed to being present with what’s changing inside of us. As Teddy mentioned in the interview this week, it wasn’t until he realized that keeping up with the celebrity scene wasn’t getting him out of bed in the morning so to speak, that he assessed what he was doing with his life and started his journey inward to start asking himself these deeper questions I’m posing to you today.
I want to circle back to what I said earlier about not being especially interested in what you think you want or need. I want to clarify what I mean. We tend to have thoughts about things that we think we want or need outside of us because we innocently believe we need those things for our well being. And it’s a trick of the mind because you have your well being right now. You don’t need anything else to obtain it. It’s a judgement or an assessment if you will, from constantly looking outside of ourselves and believing we won’t be OK without x, y and z. It’s deeply important for me to share that with you because I recently woke up to some demons that have been living rent-free in my head that I thought I had cut out like the cancer they are, years ago. And that’s money fears. I’ve woken up to them before and I’ve seen how they were fears that didn’t belong to me, they were other people’s fears that I had absorbed. But they’d been rearing their ugly ahead again in the recent past and when I was kind of shocked to be feeling what I thought was an old thought system I had cut out, I had realized in hindsight that yes, my initial realization of my money fears had definitely changed my relationship to money, but because of those initial realizations, I hadn’t noticed that I was actually still tolerating a bunch of thinking around money.
For example, when I was really busy in my practice, I would entertain thoughts that it could all go away. And when it was quieter, because that’s the ebb and flow of business, I would entertain thoughts that I may not get more clients. All of them rooted in fear, none of them rooted in truth. It wasn’t until I realized I was tired of the dog and pony show inside my mind, and as I asked YOU earlier, I asked myself what is it that I really wanted? (Answer: to be free of the grip of these money stories), then I was reminded that I am the one in charge of my experience and I have the choice to stop identifying with them. It has been an incredible journey since for me, because I feel a deep peace.. but I will warn you from experience - when you’re done with old habits in your brain, and you begin to choose to not get caught up in them and stay in your peace instead? They will rear their ugly head... louder and louder. Almost as if they want you to believe you need them in order to avoid the fearful story they’ve created. The ultimate gaslighter. But what’s fabulous? Is when you know this, when you remember this conversation we’ve had today, you’ll see through it. All I ask is for you to have patience while you practice staying in your peace while you allow the noise to pass.
As Father Greg said last week, practice makes permanent, boy oh boy is that right on the money.
So, dear ones, what is it that you really want? What is it that you want to be free of? What are you tolerating that you can be done with? I so want your heart to be given the opportunity to rest, and you are absolutely capable of experiencing that.
Sending love in all directions and I’ll see you next week...
Jess
When do you feel love in your heart? What does it feel like? Is it a tingly sensation all over? Does it feel like relief? Does it feel warm? Does it feel like you’ve dropped into a peaceful place? Take a moment to reflect on that for me.
Now what do you suppose takes you away from that loving feeling? In conversation with Father Greg from Homeboy Industries on the podcast, he mentioned something that really hit me in the chest about his work - “How do you infuse hope in kids whom hope is foreign?“ It hit me because I have spoken with countless people who, although most haven’t come from tumultuous backgrounds such as gang life, feel as though love and therefore hope, IS foreign to them. In fact, how is it that I myself, coming from a very loving home, and a very privileged life when it comes to loving relationships, have experienced that sense of hope and love being foreign? Like they have gone missing? I feel a little shy saying it considering I have had resources and people in my life that equate to incredible privilege compared to many, but I know it’s a feeling that many of you can relate to, at some point or another in your life. And it makes me curious - knowing that we come into this world as a little ball of love and hope - which I’m sure you’ve felt when in the presence of a baby, you don’t have to take my word for it - it makes me curious…
How is it that we forget who we are?
For me personally, I know that when I’ve felt the depths of despair it’s because I’ve made up a future that scares the living hell out of me. I’ve made up a perspective of myself that isn’t rooted in truth. The world that I’ve created in my mind is absolutely terrifying and I’m living in it and experiencing it as if it IS truth. And the tricky thing about those terrifying times? We only see in life what enforces the current movie that’s playing in our mind, so a terrible cycle gets created in what we’re thinking and what we’re seeing. One reinforces the other.
We all have histories full of experiences that act as different notes of the music being played through our mind, but the theme I notice in us all is that when it comes to those periods of our life, however momentary or long, the love we have for ourselves becomes conditional.
Until we feel fulfilled by what we see in our lives, we must withhold love from ourselves.
Not until everything is in some arbitrary version of perfect - we abstain from allowing ourselves to drop into the essence of who we are - almost as if that abstaining is punishment for not getting it ‘right’ in life. And yet, the more we abstain, the more we avoid dropping into our true essence, the more gas we’re throwing on the fire that is the horrific movie in our mind that creates that cycle of illusory hell that we feel we can’t get out of.
So how do we break the cycle? I understand it can be hard to see who we are at our core when the noise in our mind is loud, I’ve been there. So here are some thoughts that are straight from Father Greg’s mouth yesterday that I won’t even attempt to say more succinctly (though I will comment throughout from my own peanut gallery)...
“Move beyond the mind that you have” (yes)
“Make friends with your wound or you’ll be tempted to despise the wounded” (and it goes without saying that if you haven’t made friends with your wounds, you will be tempted to despise yourself… as the wounded... as illustrated by everything I said earlier... ok, carrying on)
“The goal is not to be a stranger to yourself” (this seems so simple but a point that we so often miss because we’re caught up in running away from a falsified version of ourselves in our mind)
“Fall in love with being loving” (couldn’t have said it better)
“Practice makes permanent” (absolutely) and…
“Ventilate the world with tenderness” to which I would add ventilate your own pain, your own fear, the delusions you have of your life... with tenderness towards yourself. As Father Greg so beautifully put, “Love is like water to a very dry sponge and the moment of connection of water to sponge is tenderness.” And finally, as he shared from his experience of creating Homeboy Industries, “you can create a community that is transformational with dosing one another with love and tenderness”, and I believe you can create an environment inside of yourself that is transformational by dosing yourself with love and tenderness. With that, eventually, you will allow yourself to see from a deeper place, all that you are, more permanently, and the implications of that are infinite.
So how are you feeling now? Do a little scan for me... are you feeling a little lighter? Warm? Is that a bit of a smile peaking through? Ahhhhh... there you are. God I love being here with you.
Sending love in all directions and I’ll see you next week~
Jess
Let me ask you something... how often do you find yourself judging yourself or other folks? Be honest... there’s no judgement coming from me whatsoever because we all find ourselves doing it, even if it’s harmful - especially to ourselves (we do that more often then we even realize.. right?) Why do you suppose we do it so often? Have judgement? We can take this from many different angles, but I’d like for you to consider the source... the seed to that judgement. Instead of analyzing the many possibilities of details we could analyze, let’s consider something even more simple. Let’s pull this puppy up from the roots.
First let me ask you... did you come into this world judging others? Did you come into this world judging yourself? Have you ever noticed that it’s a common practice when we’re caring for toddlers who are beginning to walk, that if the toddler falls, instead of hovering over them or making a big fuss, we instead keep our voices high and the energy celebratory? Like “Whoops! Bonk! You’re OK!! You just fell and you can get back up again!” Why is that? It’s as if we know something deep down about helping that little babe to not attach fear or judgement that something is wrong with them or to them trying something new. It’s inherent in us to want to allow that baby to have freedom of mind when it comes to the beginning stages of walking, knowing that if we burdened them with our own worries, it could potentially stop them from trying; Or they could become fearful of trying, and it could influence the way they try new things moving forward. It’s so intuitive. And yet, when it comes to so many other subjects and facets in our lives, we have been influenced over and over and over again, from our loved ones and people in our lives who have had an opinion on the way that we act or do things, or we take into consideration the way we hear our nearest and dearest judge and have an opinion of others. And of course, there are the opinions and judgements that we see and hear all day every day from messaging in media, personalities that we love, celebrities, brands, pop culture, the culture we come from, it’s endless! Why do you think we take in all of these opinions we hear and immediately absorb them into our psyche? From my point of view, love and belonging... it’s all we ever want. It’s all we need on a basic level as a baby, and it’s all we desire as adults.
But get reflective for a moment if you aren’t already - when we hear our loved one’s judge others, we clock it because we don’t want to be judged the same way out of fear that they would view us differently... leading to not feeling loved or having belonging with that person. When someone has an opinion of us that isn’t quite right but we love them deeply, we may begin acting accordingly to that opinion - take it on as a part of our personality - out of fear of losing love and belonging if we were to speak up and say that their opinion of us isn’t actually US. That what they see isn’t who we actually are.
All of what I’m talking about here is conditioned thinking - other peoples thinking that you have absorbed as your own. Other people’s opinions, that you have absorbed as your own. We all have them and they live in our ego mind - and ego is merely thinking that you have about who you think you are and how you think life works. And our egos are full to the brim of beliefs that aren’t ours. They’re also full of past experiences that brought us pain or insecurity or doubt.
That is where our judgements originate from.
When we’re aware of our conditioned thinking and can separate ourselves from it by looking at it objectively, we naturally don’t judge ourselves or others as harshly because we know that we are all just doing our best with whatever conditioned thinking we’re functioning with in that moment. As Father Greg from Homeboy Industries says (who also happens to be next week’s guest on the podcast)…
“Stand in awe of people and what they carry, as opposed to judgement in how they carry it.”
All of this is incredibly freeing to begin to notice because not only will you find yourself not judging others nearly as much, but you begin to judge YOURSELF far less. I still trip myself up with judgements of myself and I will definitely be tripping myself up and unlearning for the rest of my life BUT it isn’t necessary to go on a mission to seek out your conditioned beliefs and work at untethering them all... just beginning to notice them is like pulling the thread that unravels everything. Or like Natalia shared in this week’s interview on the podcast, it’s like pushing a button and watching everything drop. The implications of watching everything drop is that you’ll wake up to who YOU truly are before your personality was created, who YOU are before your conditioned thoughts take a hold of you, and you’ll naturally feel a deep sense of love and belonging because it never went anywhere in the first place.
Love is inherent in who you are, belonging to yourself and to others is inherent in our nature. We inherently belong to each other, the only thing that ever divides us is the thinking that comes between us. Between each other as humans and between us and life.
So what is the takeaway for today? Get curious. If you’d like to wake up to your conditioned thinking and you don’t even know how to begin... just be willing to notice your own judgements. When you’re harsh with yourself, don’t take the bait... instead... attempt to look at it objectively and get curious as to where it even comes from. I can guarantee you that it’s root is a story you’ve take seriously as a fact of life and who you are, that you can lovingly make peace with as a part of your old self …and say goodbye to.
I stand in awe of you.
Sending love in all directions and I’ll see you next week...
Jess
I’ve had an awareness rolling around my mind, probably because it has come up with multiple clients as of late, so it feels important to share.
So many of us are missing out on real, heart-felt, fulfilling connection with our loved ones - even while we are in the same room - because we’re spending all of our energy on our thoughts about them as opposed to being present with them. For example, it happens a lot between parent and child, so innocently. The parent is filled up from constantly thinking about the kids - worrying about this or that, strategizing for the following day, planning the future or feeling guilty about the past, and because they feel so filled up on their children from thinking about them all of the time, they don’t realize how empty the connection to their child in present time has been.
Is this making sense? Does it feel familiar?
It’s nothing to start having judgement around, it happens to all of us, all the time. We’re absent minded A LOT, why do you think I’m so passionate about sharing these things? It’s something we’re often not aware of because it’s such a trick of the mind when we think we’re present and then we have issues and confusion when the loved one in question feels distant or disconnected. The hat trick the mind is pulling on you is the fact that you haven’t been absent minded in your head - you’re thinking of them all the time! But you’re absent minded to the present moment, where real, deep connection is cultivated and exists.
How does this trick of the mind play out in real time?
In children, you may experience them having more tantrums, crying in a way that seems misguided, acting out - in adults, you may experience them having more tantrums, crying in a way that seems misguided, acting out. Forgive my tongue in cheek delivery, but truly, kiddos are mini adults with just a much bigger and louder expression of their insides since they don’t have words for what they’re experiencing. Nevertheless, in ALL of us, when there’s a void due to a longing for connection, it’s important to check our own state of mind. Where have we been? Just noticing this, starting to become aware of our presence when we’re present, is not only enriching for our relationships, but for our own experience of life as well.
So will you join me in checking in with yourself from time to time? When your child has a full meltdown because the bananas are ON the pancakes instead of IN the pancakes, instead of thinking they’re ridiculous, maybe check in with yourself on where you’ve been? It might not be the whole shabangy, but I can guarantee you that it isn’t something a little deep connection can’t fix.
As my mom has shared with me before, when I was a little one, I had a very easy time of asking for what I needed. The memory she’s shared is from when I was really little and I had been missing her so she asked me what I needed and I said, “I need to sit on your lap and put my hands on your face while you talk to me.” Oh man, heart. melted. It’s a testament to my parents that I always felt safe to put my heart out into the world and ask for what I needed. I remember asking if I could sleep in the middle of their bed from time to time, or being a very lanky teenager and asking if I could sit in the middle of them and hold their hands while we watched TV (pretty sure this was just before I moved out at 18). It’s a skill that I’ve taken for granted because it was something I never questioned in myself. But knowing the results of those asks always led to me feeling better - feeling safe and comforted and whole - I can see now how that was me listening to a deep part of myself that each and every one of us has when we listen. When we aren’t absent minded.
When we’re present in our presence.
Sending all the love in the world to you,
Jessie
Last Sunday morning, I curled up on my couch with a big, cozy blanket, grabbed my cup of coffee that has become a Sunday treat, and a delicious almond croissant (did you know Trader Joe’s has croissants that rival a french bakery? They do… they’re in the freezer section of all places, but I highly encourage you to check them out). One of my favorite teachers, Elsie Spittle, had recently given a talk, so I pulled her up on my TV and settled in for an hour of bliss.
In the talk, Elsie said something that stuck with me. You know those moments when you hear something that you very well may have heard a million times before, but for whatever reason, this time it wakes you up inside?
“Your body is an expression of spirit.”
I couldn’t stop reflecting on how profound that awareness is. For a time, I think I had seen my body as a vessel for my spirit, separate from me. I didn’t disregard it for that reason, but it looked more like a task to take care of it from that perspective. It felt good to feed it well, it felt good to exercise to keep it healthy, but again, it felt separate from me. I hadn’t really noticed that I felt this way until I heard Elsie - “Your body is an expression of spirit” - in one fell swoop I felt a feeling of coming together of all of my parts. As if before I heard her, I saw myself only as the formless energy that is my spirit, the me that shines through my eyeballs, the me that people feel when in connection, but it made me feel so touched, even tender, to see the whole of me as an expression of my essence.
Upon my reflecting I realized something from a more pragmatic perspective as well. When we are lost in thought, when we are consumed with the script the story writer in our mind is telling us, our body reflects that back to us. I’ve shared this before, how our body is the greatest alert system for where we are in our head, but I’m seeing it deeper. What a gift, our body is. It is a constant mirror, reflecting back to us where we are in our state of mind. When we are suffering, when we are… I can’t think of a better word so I’ll say it again… consumed by the world we’re creating inside of ourselves, our body works with us in unison to let us know we’ve gotten off track. An analogy that comes to mind is our cars: If we see an alert on our dashboard that we need to get an oil change, that is a gift from the car saying, “Hey! I’m not functioning quite right anymore, do this then I’ll be working like new!” Without thinking twice, we know what we need to do. We may drive around with the light on as long as possible before we sense that it’s absolutely necessary to get the car fixed, but we respect the fact that we know it needs fixing in order to work well.
The same goes with our bodies.
What if we began to consider this for ourselves more consistently? Respecting our bodies as an expression of our spirit? What if when we began to get the alerts from our body - a tinge here, an inner pressure feeling there, a sore back here, a little dizziness there - what if when we got those signals we respected our spirit in the same way we do our cars? What would that look like for us as humans?
What comes up for me is that those signals are an opportunity to look at the mirror our body is holding up for us. We aren’t broken by nature. We aren’t in a constant state of dis-ease, by nature. So if when our spirit is free to express itself through this skin suit of ours, we feel relaxed and confident and at ease, or differently put, full of life and energy and charisma, whenever we feel we’ve gone away from those baselines, it’s an OPPORTUNITY to notice our state of mind and check in. I personally remind myself in these moments that I am willing to be uncomfortable while the thinking I’m in passes (because it will pass, it always does), then inquire (like taking the car to the mechanic), “What do I need right now?” I am always, always, always met with an answer which ranges from, “Get a drink of water” to “Stop kicking the can down the road” - it’s fascinating to me every single time and when I nurture that voice and honor it, I find myself back in flow, feeling my essence like a warm hearth in my core.
Because I have freed her from the trappings of my mind.
“Your body is an expression of spirit.”
Sending love in all directions,
Jessie
As I was laying on the MRI table and experiencing huge waves of deep love and gratitude, feelings I would never expect to be present in such a situation, I knew this was something I wanted to share with you.
In early November, I had some concerning symptoms in my left breast that got me to the doctor. In the 4 1/2 months that followed, I had a total of two mammograms, two ultrasounds, an MRI and multiple calls with my doc that never left me feeling resolved. My doctor, who I had never met before this experience, was incredibly kind and incredibly thorough, so much so that I sometimes wished she wasn’t so good at her job. But a tiny mass had been found that no one could understand through imaging, and doctors (I have found) don’t like to be left scratching their head - clearly something I was grateful for, and knew was wholly important to the process, but man was I feeling done with being poked and prodded and squeezed and smooshed and on my most tired days, I would dream of what it would be like to just not care and stop with all of the searching.
I received the call that I was going in for yet another MRI (this would make 6 images total, in case you lost count), but this one was going to be accompanied with a biopsy. I was instantly devastated because my mind went straight into fear about what it could mean, but soon after the initial shock, there was also a sense of peace inside that felt like I knew two things; One, that I would be OK no matter what the results were, and two, that it wasn’t going to be cancer. “Brave” my mind said when I observed my wisdom telling me it wasn’t anything to worry about. It’s amazing what our deeper self knows. It’s so honest (sometimes honest in a way you don’t want to hear), but when it’s handing us truth that is grounded and frankly, all for the best in the face of the unknown that looks scary to our minds, it’s truly remarkable AND gives our mind a run for it’s money when it so desperately wants to keep our attention on the ain’t-it-awfuls.
I had a month to wait until I could have the procedure and my goodness, did that month become one of my greatest teachers. I had this incredible opportunity to watch my mind and my wisdom play ping pong. I had put the whole procedure day on the back burner, so to speak, because it wasn’t going to be healthy for my body whatsoever to identify with any thoughts that were making pictures about how it was all going to go. As I’m sure you’ve experienced, however, the mind is going to do what the mind is going to do, so it unleashed the fearful thoughts at random, all the time. This is why I say that month became my greatest teacher. At the beginning I would find myself following the carrot of a thought that looked like I needed to consider it. Something as innocent as, “What is it going to be like?” would pop up and I would start down that rabbit hole. But when I quickly realized that I always ended up swimming in the depths of incredibly unhelpful thoughts, I knew it was time to take my power back from my mind and be a bit more vigilant about not taking the bait of any thought that had to do with the future (the dark and scary future, that is…). After that realization, it became easier and easier to notice when it would go to the gutter and my deeper self, the quiet voice of my wisdom, would gently step in and say, “You’re not there yet” allowing some peace to wash over me that would allow the scary thinking to move on.
By the time biopsy day arrived, of course the anticipation was unnerving (I’m only human after all) but I truly felt peaceful deep inside. I didn’t have anxiety, I didn’t feel fearful, I had an overwhelming sense of what Barbra Streisand says to herself before she walks on stage, “Let go and let God."
Before the procedure I was introduced to Jessica, an incredible nurse who would be my liaison throughout the entire process. When she first sat down she walked me through how the whole shabangy was going to play out. As she began, I welled up with tears and I shared with her, “Don’t mind me, I’m just releasing the tension from anticipation.” From there on out I was fully present and what came forth was immense. For the following hour and a half, while I laid on my belly with my arms stretched over my head like Superman, I was tasked to not move a muscle and it was an incredible opportunity to relax in the midst of a pretty uncomfortable procedure. Of course, there were moments of physical pain that would give me a little jolt, but instead of being tense and full of noisy fearful thoughts, I felt a sense of deep peace and as if my heart was filling up the entire room. Jessica was by my side with her hand on my back, coaching me in my ear, “You’re doing so good, hon”. The surgeon, someone I had never met and still haven’t seen (since I was face down), was so gentle and kind, letting me know every move he was making moments before he made them. It was a dance. A dance of life that we were all a part of and I was fully aware of how special it was. I couldn’t stop quietly weeping to myself because it was all so heartbreakingly beautiful (in fact, I’m tearing up just recalling it for you). At one point Jessica, with her hand on my back, said, “You’re ok” when she felt me crying and I said back to her, “I know, you’re both just so wonderful.”
I shared all of this with you today because what I experienced in that operating room was a microcosm of what is available to us every single day, in our daily lives. It may seem brave to follow the quiet voice of your wisdom when your mind looks much more reasonable with all of it’s opinions, but man oh man, when you honor the truth inside, the gifts that come thereafter are what make every moment from small to big, incredibly rich and valuable.
Life moves through you, not to you.
Enjoy the dance.
Sending love in all directions,
Jessie
PS~ The cells came back benign. Hallelu.
"NO ESTÁN SOLOS!"
AGAIN!
"NO ESTÁN SOLOS!"
AGAIN!
"NO ESTÁN SOLOS!!!"
The feeling, in this moment, I am going to do my best to describe. What you've read above is the phrase my best friend and voice for healing, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, engaged in with the crowd of thousands at the Families Belong Together march this past Saturday. This was her rallying cry at the end of the most heart-to-heart, honest, and inspiring speech, translating to: "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!" for the families, single mothers and children being faced with more pain and suffering when they had dreamt of hope, change and belonging when arriving to the U.S. She spoke to the humanity in all of us, she spoke to the wisdom in all of us, she spoke to the hope in ALL of us; And in that moment, while I and thousands of others raised our voices to the ether in unity, with love coursing through us, I felt the Oneness.
Oneness?
Yes. I couldn't tell you where I began and where the world and people around me ended or vice versa. I've had experiences of this feeling before when I am in ultimate bliss and peace, but it was magnified times infinity. Of course my love and pride for what Natalia was so bravely speaking to, the fact that she was standing in her purpose, in wisdom, in flow, blew me away with gratitude. But additionally, to look around to see every walk of life, every ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic background, coming together for the same purpose - for humanity - created a whirlwind of electricity and light that swirled all around my insides and came pouring out of me and all around me. My awareness brought to life, yet again, that we are truly all coming from and functioning within the same energy, the only differences between us is our thinking. My heart, my chest and my belly all felt warm - tears streamed down my face. THIS is what we ALL are at our core - we are love and understanding in motion, our heart connection is inevitable, when we don't get in our own way.
When we don't get in our own way.
I share experiences every week to help identify and explain the energy of Thought as well as the content of your thinking and how you can move away from it. About your wisdom that comes from Universal Mind - the greater intelligence of ALL things that you can distinctly identify by that nagging feeling in your gut when wisdom is trying to tell you that YOU have the answer. About how your Consciousness goes up and down all day every day, depending on if you're aware and can observe where your internal experience is coming from. Need a reminder? Here's an example of higher Consciousness (awareness) "I'm feeling so anxious right now. What am I thinking about? Oh, next weeks meeting, and since I'm not there yet, I'm feeling anxious. Ok - let those thoughts go, I'm not there yet, wheww... " Result: back in a peaceful, neutral mind - back to the moment; Versus feeling anxious, reacting to that feeling by getting mesmerized by your thinking that created it and getting deeper and deeper into the whirlwind thought storm by having more thinking about the thinking that created the anxiety in the first place. This is the result of lower Consciousness because you're reactive to your internal experience as opposed to observing it (by the way, we're all human.... we ALL experience the roller coaster of Consciousness, don't stress).
Alllll of this to say that when I share these experiences, these observations, they're based in ordinary life occurrences that we can all relate to, but guess what? Having this understanding relates to politics as well. I have an intuitive notion that some of you just read the word 'politics' and the hair on the back of your neck stood straight up, no matter what side of the line you're on. Isn't that amazing? That is evidence, right there, of the power of thought. Just the word 'politics' can send you off into a hypnotic world of thinking and now you're having a different experience. Maybe it triggers fear that I'm going to launch into a political debate, maybe it triggers your fears of the state of our country, maybe it triggers your feeling the need to defend yourself because you're in support of the current administration - maybe you're feeling none of these things in this moment but you've experienced exactly what I'm talking about in other situations. But the reality is, just as we have the free will to change on a moment to moment basis depending on our thinking in that very moment, we have the free will to shuck and jive in the political climate. You may be thinking "That's impossible! My politics reflect my values and who I am!" Well, that's exactly it. So many folks get caught up in the thoughts of who they have identified themselves with/who they have labeled themselves as (or who their parents/families identified with, so they've adopted the same political affiliation), that they lose sight of what is happening in the moment in our country. They don't see what is unfolding, therefore they aren't given the opportunity to be curious about if what is unfolding is truly a reflection of what they value, or rather, what feels right to them. It truly does, like everything else in life, boil down to a feeling inside. If what you're trying to process about the state of our country doesn't feel right to you, then honor that feeling. Know that that is your personal alert system within you telling you that something isn't right, and it only takes one thought shift, to have a different experience.
If you are sensing by any stretch of the imagination that I'm trying to sway you a certain way politically, I'm not - and if you feel that way, you are looking at me through a lens of thinking that has nothing to do with me. Maybe I have stirred up something inside of you, and I would encourage you to get curious about it. What I AM saying though, is that I know with ALL of me that every single person on this planet is standing in the middle of mental health and stability, and that connection I felt so strongly at the march was the connection that exists between each and every one of us. We often miss the opportunity to feel it (both the connection to others AND our mental health and stability) because we're caught up in our mental chaos. That's it. We're at the movie theater but we're watching a different movie on our phone, missing all the action on the big screen. If anything that is unfolding in your community or the country is giving you a nagging feeling but you feel so identified by your political party that you're ignoring that feeling, know that your identity to your political party, like everything else, is just a thought. It is your right as a human being on this earth to honor your feeling first, and use your free will, to abandon that thought. It's much less lonely, it's much less divisive. And may I add some personal two cents? Where we are today has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican - it just doesn't. The core of every experience right now is our humanity being put through the ringer, period. I have chosen to let go of any previous experiences or judgements of everything having to do with a political label, because it has been proven to me, time and time again, that once a thought is released, humanity shines through - no matter what party you used to identify with, or plan to go back to, once this nonsense has passed.
To close, I would love to share a portion of Natalia's speech that speaks directly to the heart of every human being - our ESSENCE - nothing more.
"... I urge you all to continue participating. To take action as you are doing by being here today. Some day these children will read about this in the history books. They will read about how kind hearted strangers fought for their freedom and rights. They will know they were seen. They will know they were welcomed. They will know that they belong. They will in return do the same for others. THIS IS HOW WE HEAL HUMANITY!"
Pictures above of the Los Angeles Families Belong Together turnout, Natalia speaking, the biggest squeeze ever after she spoke, a snapshot with Natalia and Marianna Burelli, and the crew.
All my love, see you next week~
Jessie
I totally stole the title of this article from my husband. But in all fairness, he was talking about me. And he's right.
What is my Excalibur? My entire life, no matter what I've been engaged in - school, my dance career, my career at the agency, and now my business - once I have a goal in my mind and I can see the big picture, I am full-out with my energy towards obtaining that big picture and I climb the ladder to get there hard and fast (at least that's the illusion that my mind creates). I constantly think about what I could be doing to strategically prove that I'm capable of more responsibility or being promoted or hired. But here's the thing, the deeper into this understanding I get with every day that passes by, I've observed myself creating an immense feeling of internal pressure because of all my thinking that gets created from this mindset. Because the reality is, it's just more thinking.
I have to be honest - I've recently been thrown off my own scent a bit. Meaning, I didn't realize I was creating this pressure! Several months ago, I had already recognized and appreciated that that pressure feeling was something I used as fuel in the past - when I felt totally spent I just excused it all by thinking "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" – if the situation becomes difficult, the strong will work harder to meet the challenge, and I was that person! Proudly! It's such a natural second gear for many of us - it's our cultural norm, really. But what's incredible is that with this understanding of the mind, I had been observing my thinking, not getting triggered by it, so I no longer felt that pressure (I thought!). Until the other day I was so focused on big picture goals, I was staring off into space with a concerned look on my face and my husband Mike snapped me out of it. My internal pressure feeling had changed - it no longer brought feelings of anxiety and I still felt a sense of peace within, but it was a weight nonetheless...
I don't know about you, but I'd rather walk through my days looking and feeling like this...
Little Jess... sometime in the 80's
I was heading towards this bigger realization last week, as I had had an AHA moment where I was feeling this pressure (without recognizing it as that yet). I just felt worn out, wishing more things were unfolding faster and my brain wanted to question the greater Universal intelligence that we all live within. If my wisdom knew what I was headed for, opportunity wise, if I could see it AND I could feel it, why did I feel so challenged? Why was life feeling 'difficult' and my patience wearing thin? Then the AHA - if the Universe is always working in our best interest (which it is), and our feelings come from our thinking 100% of the time (which they are), this worn out and impatient feeling I was living in was completely self-created and was an opportunity (more like a big ol' slap across the face from the Universe) for me to go inside and see it. What a lesson.
It always boils back down to the very basics of this understanding, and I will be the first to willingly raise my hand to say that being human means being seduced by my surroundings from time to time. But the reality is, it's simple. Always simple. As Elsie Spittle says in her new book, The Path to Contentment:
"Innate wisdom is a spiritual fact - it's not just an idea or concept. At the same time that wisdom is of spiritual essence, wisdom is also extremely practical. (...) Over time, as I began to see more about the inner workings of my mind, I could see wisdom come to life for me and guide me in my day to day living. It was a natural outcome of simply enjoying my life and not trying to figure everything out with my intellect. I discovered that the more I lived in the present, the more wisdom was released from inside me so that it became my companion and help-mate."
I just had an insight. I've experienced this so clearly in my relationship with my husband, Mike. To this day, I trust and surrender to it's flow without ever getting my thinking in the way. When we met, he had just left a gnarly relationship of a few years and really didn't feel ready to jump back into something. We had spent three blissful hours talking right after we met, there was no denying we had found something special, so in classic Jessie form, I made the first call the day after that long conversation trying to force my way in. He knew we had something too, so we made the decision to literally check in with each other every day. Folks have asked me, "Weren't you guys nervous you'd check in one day and one of you would say you're not into it anymore? That would be heartbreaking!" And the reality is, yeah, that was a total possibility, but neither of us ever got into our thoughts about it. In hindsight, we were just trusting the feeling and we knew what we had felt really good and right. We didn't even call each other boyfriend and girlfriend for months, but it didn't matter. We just enjoyed the hell out of each and every moment, and each day kept leading to the next. Nearly 15 years later, I can't believe I'm just seeing this. Proof right under my nose that the more you enjoy life and follow your wisdom, that gut feeling, life will continue to unfold for you, every step of the way.
Sweet relief. I've come back home. Back to myself. Back to enjoying life and following my inner promptings of what to do next, then taking those steps when they come to me. The blueprint is already drawn, there's no need to use my intellect, my over-thinking and over-analyzing, to make me feel as though I'm doing more, accomplishing more or that I could be doing more and accomplishing more. Because the plain fact of the matter is, the more your intellect gets in your way in that matter, it can create the illusion that you're falling short because your head is 10 steps ahead in the blueprint, while wisdom is happily guiding you along at the pace you're meant to be at. Additionally, each step taken provides more information for the next. Something that our intellect could never 'figure out' for us, that's why the surrender to the feeling inside is so important.
My Excalibur is no longer my weakness, it just has a new responsibility - keep dreaming big, but slow down, follow my wisdom and enjoy the view. God that makes me excited, you?
All my love, see you next week!
Jessie
