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
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
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.
Dear diary,
My first big publication came out last week - a feature in Goop called “11 Professionals Helping People Find More Satisfying, Successful Careers” to be exact. I have been waiting for this feature to come out for nearly a year now and I’ve learned so much along the way that I wanted to write down the two big takeaways so I don’t forget them…
PATIENCE, young grasshopper.
You truly cannot move at a faster pace than the greater intelligence behind life. TRULY. Every step of the way, IS the way. A few months back, I found myself absolutely exhausted of my running script around this Goop article - thoughts of questioning when I thought it would come out, hopes that it would be a gamechanger for my business, fears that I was holding too high of expectations - and it dawned on me, “Jessie! There is nothing holding you back in life… ever! Your thoughts are making you feel like things should be happening faster or life would look different if only things would be happening when you think they should, but beyond your thinking there is the flow of life that you can trust… stop spinning about it, it will come out when it’s supposed to… enjoy what’s happening now.” It’s amazing when you think you know something deep down then you get smacked upside the head with an aha that takes you deeper. And guess what happened once I saw this, yet again, for myself? It felt like I was pulled back at warp speed into observation mode of the unfoldings of the last year anticipating Goop’s release and of course, I could see how all of my experiences, my insights and realizations, HAD to happen BEFORE the article came out. If it was released when I was originally expecting it to, I wouldn’t have been ready. I would have managed because we always rise to the occasion, but it holds so much more impact and I’m so much more peaceful, now. Takeaway? I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again… LIVE IN THE FEELING OF HINDSIGHT.
FOREBODING JOY IS A REAL THING.
Shoutout to Brene Brown for this heads up! The day Goop came out I was so excited I could hardly get out of bed fast enough. If the evening before (when I got the official YES IT’S COMING OUT TOMORROW!) was any kind of indication of my mood, the big release day was going to feel like my first visit to Disneyland mixed with Christmas eve as a youngin, the moment I turned around to my husband on bended knee, college graduation day and my wedding day all wrapped up into one. I went to the computer before the Goop newsletter was sent out, carefully typed in g-o-o-p dot c-o-m, scrolled down the homepage with baited breath and BOOM!!! There it was… the perfectly curated intro to the article, scroll scroll scroll, then…. my face. In one of the top online magazines on the internet. Cue excited feelings aaaandd….. nothing. What took the excitement’s place?! Everything that I would have never thought would be flying through my mind. Fears, worries, stress. ALL made up. Brene Brown says, “Our actual experiences of joy—those intense feelings of deep spiritual connection and pleasure—seize us in a very vulnerable way” and boyyyy was she right! To be completely honest, I have brushed by this feeling before but it’s never sat with me the way it did the day of the release. All day I felt like I was walking a tightrope of extreme joy and gratitude, then my foot would occasionally slip into doom and gloom. Luckily, with what I know to be true about my mind, I was able to witness it all and consistently stay in the moment because I so desperately didn’t want to miss any of it by being distracted by the nonsense trying to run the show upstairs (shoutout to the hubs for stepping in as a sideline coach!). All of this to say, I am incredibly grateful I was able to witness myself in the experience because it was the first time that JOY churned up fear in a real way for me. Staying out of the muck of my mind while chaos is going on around me?! I can ride that wave til the cows come home, but this was a new one for me. The takeaway? FEARFUL THOUGHTS ARE TRULY NONSENSICAL AND THERE IS NEVER A GOOD TIME TO ENTERTAIN THEM.
With that, I will leave you for today, dear diary. Moving forward, let’s remember that you’ll be learning new things every day for the rest of your life and you don’t know anything til the moment that you know everything.
XO,
Jessie
“Maybe it’s the ultimate act of self-love to be a spiritual activist FOR YOURSELF…”
This bubbled up the other day as I started out on a long overdue and much needed walk for fresh air. The Southern California rain had been encouraging a very introverted and introspective mood that was frankly quite low to begin with due to my hormones raging from switching up my birth control after 15 years. I had been really in my head about my next moves for work; What’s on the back burner, what’s ahead of me and brainstorming what I could do to move things forward. My thinking went from creative, exploratory, exciting to DOOM AND GLOOM. Isn’t it amazing how Thought can do that? One minute you’re in the middle of playing around in your thoughts as if you have every color of Play Doh and you’re curiously putting different sculptures together, breaking them apart, smooshing them into new shapes. Then all of a sudden the Play Doh weighs more, the beautiful bright colors are no longer and the dough isn’t pliable. You look down at a pile of rocks that are multiplying with each rock feeling really real, really heavy and really significant - aka DOOM AND GLOOM.
With my hormonal low mood, I already felt like I had a thick layer of green gas hanging around me 24/7 that I was fully aware I was looking at life through. I reminded myself on multiple occasions, even when I didn’t sense the green gas as much, to not take my gnarly thoughts seriously. My spiritual self had my human self’s back, so to speak. But who knows what happened on this particular day, the thought storm of Play Doh turned rocks was too heavy to handle. I reached into the ol’ goody bag of tools I have for these moments, also known as the only tool I have for these moments, and I asked myself OUT LOUD, “What do I need to do right now?” Wisdom always knocks with the answer and I was moved to go outside for a walk, and as always, it was exactly what I needed.
After getting outside, my perspective naturally came back and I could see where my thoughts went to hell without me noticing. You may already be a step ahead of me, but it was the moment I started to fall into the ol’ trap of needing to figure out things to do to move me forward faster in my work - whatever that even means. I say that because my own expectations and timelines are all made up, so who am I comparing myself to should I figure out something that would move me along faster? My own expectations? That again, are made up? I remembered all of this then AHA! What I know to be true, what is best for my well-being, is to TRUST the greater intelligence of life. TRUST that Universal Mind, the ever-flowing energy that is around me and within me, that my Wisdom is tapped into, will continue to nudge me forward via my gut instinct and when I heed it’s direction, everything unfolds EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to - beyond any of my wildest hopes or expectations. With my re-gained perspective came that delicious feeling of peace washing over me then there she was…
“Maybe it’s the ultimate act of self-love to be a spiritual activist FOR YOURSELF…”
It was so clear. To stay in the drivers seat of my thoughts, to remind myself that I can’t trust or believe the things going through my mind because my feelings coming from those thoughts were going to make me feel scared, anxious, fearful or just plain yucky - especially when I’m already in a low mood (from the hormones, but generally also from hunger, lack of sleep, hard day, etc etc) - is being an activist for my spiritual health to continue leading a soul-centered life. Like I said earlier, acting accordingly to what I know to be true about what’s going on in my mind when I feel like shit (aka nonsense that shouldn’t be paid attention to) is merely my spiritual self having my human self’s back. It’s like seeing the traffic on the freeway coming to a screeching halt from a distance so you make a quick decision to exit and take side streets to your destination.
So I say do it. Take the exit before the three car pile up. Be your own spiritual activist for a soul-centered life.
It’s the ultimate act in self-love. If you’ve ever been unsure how to have self-love, this is it, folks. Honoring what you know to be true, that Universal Mind HAS YOU, and it isn’t some airy-fairy, luck of the draw look at life. That it’s 100% my experience, as I’m sure you’ve experienced as well, that when you follow those inner nudges - your KNOWING inside - life flows and unfolds in a manner that can’t be described. Things always work out. So speak up for yourself! Talk to those very real looking thoughts and tell them you don’t want to believe them anymore and fall back into the lazy river of life that’s already flowing and pulling you forward!
Lastly, after having this insight I approached a staircase I needed to climb. I looked up at how many stairs there were and how steep they were, I took a deep breath in with my eyes closed, then with my first step on the first stair my inner voice, my Wisdom, said “Slow and steady.” I felt a zing of energy go from my toes through the crown of my head. I knew it meant much more than just climbing the stairs in front of me. I lifted my head in full gratitude with tears in my eyes and said, “Thank you.”
Here’s to you and your spiritual activism for your soul-centered life…
Here’s to us.
All my love,
Jessie
Have you ever noticed that as a culture when we refer to riding a roller coaster at a theme park, the perspective or feeling we get from it is FUN. Maybe we aren’t personally big fans of roller coasters, but we know the intention behind the experience is to be thrilled, get an adrenaline rush, feel accomplished and revved up to go for another spin when it’s over.
But when we’re asked by our friends and loved ones how life has been when we’re catching up, if we reply with, “life has been a roller coaster!” the intention behind it and the feeling we share is that it’s been kind of rough. Of course we’re referring to the highs and lows we’ve been experiencing, but we initially get a sense that, in general, we’ve been feeling the suck. Today, I share with you a short story that takes back the meaning of roller coaster when we refer to our adventurous lives.
Because that is what life is, pure adventure.
If that sounds a bit too sugar coated for you, let me remind you: The deeper we are grounded in the perspective that we are ALWAYS OK, that we are standing in the middle of our well-being 100% of the time and the only thing that keeps us from feeling it is Thought. When we find ourselves in the pits, we may be hypnotized by it momentarily (or not so momentarily), but we can trust that eventually we will naturally shift into more of an observer of our own thinking as opposed to believing we’re messed up, life is falling apart, or everything is going to hell in a handbasket. So our experiences - good and bad - can then just be part of the whole adventure.
Is it really possible to be in the driver’s seat of our experience when we’re feeling shitty? YES! Read on…
The other night, I found myself really exhausted at the end of a long day. I had been in my thoughts about a big project that’s on the move, so I was more than done with myself. As I was driving home, sitting in traffic, the wave of exhaustion and being tired of staying in my thoughts made me cry - it was a good release. I got home, I was alone for the evening so I plopped in front of the TV and ate my dinner. Moments later I felt the sadness coming towards me again, but this time I had to pause the TV to give full attention to what felt like a force running full steam ahead right at me. I knew I couldn’t see it’s face for what it was because it was moving too fast then it hit me and I wept. Full on. I was looking at what was around me and thinking how a book on my coffee table that I’ve been loving didn’t look appealing anymore. I thought about my clients, my future success… I questioned everything. All within a matter of moments and I kept weeping.
Shortly after these few moments of grave sadness passed through me, it was as if I could see clearly again. I thought to myself, “My God! You are weeping as if someone died!” I asked myself out loud, “Am I going to be OK?” And of course, my Wisdom inside of me nodded with an ever so knowing, YES. And within a few breaths, perspective came back to me. I was calm, I remembered all that I knew, then I was moved to take a shower so I took it. I headed to bed after this whirlwind experience that felt incredibly spiritual - though it was painful, I couldn’t help but find it awe-inspiring. I was so grateful for the understanding I have of how our mind works. Even though my insecurity level was quite high, my consciousness stayed quite high also. In the old days when I would experience this type of force of insecure thinking, I would believe it meant something about me, about my life. I would get tossed into an anxiety attack and it would take a few days of analyzing where it came from to gain some relief. This time around, even though those same insecure thoughts flowed through and I had to hold ground… I did just that. I held my ground and rode the wave of sadness. I witnessed myself. I let the gnarly wave of Thought energy kick everything up in my mind and I reminded myself that it was exactly that. It wasn’t real, and it would be gone soon… however painful and uncomfortable, I sat in the experience and reminded myself what I knew.
When I spoke with my husband the next day about it all, he clarified an incredible perspective on the whole experience in a way that I loved. I knew what it was that I was experiencing (Thought), but I couldn’t stop reveling at how intense it was.
“It’s the adventure of living life” he said.
Beautiful. Simple. Ordinary.
That’s exactly it, my love. It’s the adventure of living life. The roller coaster. There’s no need to make sense of it. There’s no need to judge it. It’s just part of the ever evolving experience of being a spiritual being having a human experience on this planet. And it’s in those moments that we learn, we grow, we’re reminded of what we know and what we don’t know; they keep us on our toes and provide texture and color to our lives.
I will continue to be amazed… here’s to your roller coaster.
All my love and see you again very soon~
XO, Jessie
Wow.
I feel free again.
Again?! Where did I lose my freedom, you ask?
Well, I never lost it, but for the last month, I have been so incredibly hyper aware of my thinking. Instead of incredibly let’s go with, annoyingly, hyper aware of my thinking. I’ve been tossed in thought storm after thought storm about my work, where it’s going, what I’m doing to move it forward. I have been craving more. And what’s worse? I haven’t been able to define what that more is. Have you experienced that before? It’s usually the precursor experience to a big change which is exciting, but wow it can be a mess of chaos in my head. I have been in my own little Jessie jail because my awareness that I’m gripped and not enjoying the shift has been irritating me and keeping me stuck in a feeling that wasn’t bad but uncomfortable, like a backseat driver that you’re on a 7 hour journey with. I know that I’m caught up in my own tizzy, my own made-up whirlwind. I know it has nothing to do with anything because no matter how tossed up in my thinking I am, I am fully aware that Divine Mind - the greater intelligence of all things - Universe - has me. No matter how cross-eyed I get, it really doesn’t matter. There is a flow that is moving me forward and tossing me breadcrumbs to give me evidence of it - but even with the breadcrumbs that I’ve seen and this knowing about flow, I have been frozen by my thinking in my down time, trying to ‘figure things out’.
So how did I get back to the feeling of freedom again? How did my thinking walls come crashing down?
I’m so glad you asked because my understanding isn’t actually the answer, it’s quite the opposite.
Knowing what goes on inside of my operating system had actually made me stubbornly determined to get out of this feeling of confusion - how to get to the next level with my work and business - by trying to play volleyball with my thoughts and WIN. Like I was trying to trick the system. Does that make sense? I’ve been strong-arming my thoughts to the ground to triumphantly make space for my Wisdom (ahem, I failed… it doesn’t work that way). See, the beauty of this understanding is, once you know what your thoughts are, you aren’t pulled into them emotionally in the same kind of way ever again. Yes I have felt gripped, annoyed, confused, irritated as of late… but I never felt pulled under water. I haven’t once felt yucky inside, no anxiety or depression - the moment I’ve sat in front of a client or friend or even just being out in the world, my annoying thinking would wash away because that’s it’s nature and I let it. But that’s why it didn’t dawn on me what I was doing to myself. None of my stubborn thought wrestling had resulted in traditional alerts in my body because my understanding of what Thought is had made me still feel content (to a point). Whenever I was previously stuck in my thoughts I would get a tight chest, yucky belly, I’d get super hot and sweaty, but this time I was just sitting around frozen with my thinking face on (the permanent crevasse between my eyebrows has grown deeper by the day).
So what is actually happening when I do all of that wrestling? Just more thinking!!! Here’s what I witnessed in myself: I have been so determined to get through this little phase inside-out, that when my Wisdom came through one day to meditate, I actually said to myself, “No, that’s outside-in, I don’t need to DO something to get through this, my understanding will get me through this!” Oh my god - more thinking that told my Wisdom (which was informing me what to do next, from the inside-out!) to eff off and I believed it (face-palm).
And guess what? The moment I finally said, “Fine! I’ll go sit on the balcony for a few minutes!” BAM! It instantly came through my Wisdom to join a workout class…
What?!
Yes. You heard me right. Join a workout class then everything will become clear about what to do next with my business. And guess what? I haven’t even stepped foot in a class yet but my vision is clearing up again. When I heard that from within, I did some research on what classes sounded exciting - that in itself filled me with joy. From there it came through to get back to meditating in the morning, so I did that first thing this morning. And guess what? I’m sure you guessed it.. more inner promptings! During meditation, it came through to journal again. So I picked up my journal and when I started writing, my vision for the coming months and year spilled out of me, exactly what I’ve been searching for. Then guess what? After having that vision fall out of me, my eyes came off the page and my mouth dropped. I realized that all the opportunities that are swirling around me right now, that have previously brought me a glimmer of insight that they were somehow connected but I couldn’t understand how (that was all part of my frozen thinking), are all absolutely in line with the vision that plopped out of me. Furthermore, I could see how Wisdom that came through me for clients in recent sessions, was also Wisdom that I needed to hear for myself… it’s as if all the pieces to the puzzle fell in place. But again, that’s the beauty of knowing that we’re being pulled forward even when we are distracted by our thinking - it’s just so much more fun to be able to witness it as it’s actually unfolding.
We are an incredible species, us humans, don’t you agree? It’s like our spiritual selves hang back in these scenarios, sipping a Mai Thai, enjoying the view, and thinking to themselves, “They’ll get it together soon.” Then we see one thing and our whole perspective shifts and we’re back in alignment, seeing the magic unfold. What an incredible feeling to know that even when we feel tight, stuck, or challenged, it’s all going to release soon and that blip of time where you felt like you were being dragged through a keyhole backwards was just a period of growth, yet again. None of it is bad or wrong, it just is.
It feels wonderful to be back with you, thank you for allowing me the space to go into a proverbial hole and contemplate my navel. I’ve been missing writing and it feels great to be broken wide open again, I’m so grateful.
I hope you have a wonderful week and if you haven’t already, have so much fun hitting the poles to VOTE if you’re in the States! I personally, cannot wait.
All my love and see you again very soon~
XO, Jessie
Let me ask you this…
Have you ever found yourself in a routine of doing something, whether that be a daily or weekly task or even a tradition with family, and you eventually find yourself feeling like you have to push hard or lift some serious mental weights to make it happen? Maybe it’s going to the gym, your morning meditation, the order in which you do your morning routine or it’s the cookies you always bring to the Christmas party?
Any of these things became a routine in your life, an expectation you placed on your own head, because at SOME point they brought you peace, joy, excitement… a full heart. Then one day, it feels hard, it’s not as fulfilling… but because at one point it was the thing that felt like a game-changer in your life or it was something that brought you and those around you a ton of love, it feels blasphemous to let it go.
Are you with me?
I was just having this discussion with a dear friend who has been getting deeper and deeper into the understanding of how our minds work. Understanding how we operate. Understanding that real change and peace comes from following our own Wisdom, our gut instinct, and that we don’t have to believe our thinking 100% of the time. That real change comes from understanding that when we take action and make decisions from the inside-out we are not lost - it’s when we look for things on the outside to make our insides feel better that we feel more lost than ever.
Apologies… long winded side bar.
Back to my friend.
He had gotten in a routine of journaling and meditating every morning as tools to ease his anxiety (pre learning about this understanding). These tools are absolutely beautiful and there’s nothing wrong with him having them in his life, but with this new understanding, he started to find himself waking up with less and less anxiety yet he felt he had to do his routine, even though it was becoming uninspired - even though he wasn’t necessarily motivated to do them anymore. Once he saw it for himself that it was just a thought in his head that he had to do these things to start his day off on the right foot, he dropped the journaling and found himself newly inspired for his meditation. And who knows! The journaling will more than likely reappear in his life at some point, maybe it already has since we talked, but seeing it clearly that there is much more benefit to his well-being and energy if he journals and meditates when he’s moved to, was a game-changer!
I have brought all of this up to share that I have come across this ‘I have to’ feeling with this beautiful, cathartic, love-filled blog that I share with you. Over the last several weeks as I’ve gotten busier and busier in my days, I’ve felt frustrated, drained and overwhelmed with getting my article out on a Monday (even if it’s 11:59pm, god willing). Something that started out as a way to get deeper into my own understanding and share my story so you all could benefit from the journey and insights I was having, has become a subject of stressful thinking in my mind. Have the last few blogs been in vein? Absolutely not. However, I have had to find ways to strike a match to light the candle within me to be inspired and motivated to stay on this timeline I set up for myself!
SO! In staying in line with what I teach, I am doing for myself exactly what I tell everyone else to live by. After this week, my blog features will be coming to you when it hits me in the gut to share a new revelation or an insight that has taken me deeper. Not only will I be re-inspired, you will feel that inspiration seeping through the screen as well. My writings may very well still be delivered to you on a Monday, because that’s the funny thing about removing an expectation thought, the routine may not change but since there’s nothing on it anymore, the inspiration is back in flow. However, it may come to you on a different day, I may skip a week or you may receive two in one week instead! My inner fire has already been re-ignited and I’m so incredibly grateful you have been here, and ARE here, to witness my journey.
Lastly, I had thought to myself, “But Jessie, it’s called MONDAY Musings! What are you gonna do, just look like a weirdo that sends out a Monday Musings blog on a Saturday?!” And then it hit me… I made up the title, so I can very well change it ;)
How is THAT for a metaphor about EVERYTHING we see in life as fixed, when truly, EVERYTHING is fluid…
All my love and see you on the next Musings release.
XOXO,
Jessie
Hi, I’m Jessie, and I was tricked into being a spiritual person.
Does that sound harsh? I don’t mean it to. I was recently reflecting on my journey to where I am now, what I know to be true about how our mind works and the spiritual component to life that is undeniable, and I was in awe of how I’ve gotten here.
I was at a party Saturday night and in sharing about what I do with a new acquaintance, I shared that I am a spiritual teacher with a Behavioral Mastery practice. They were intrigued… I was intrigued!
“How did I get here?” I thought to myself later with a smile on my face. I grew up in a family who was very open to any and all beliefs that helped people get through life, but we were not religious by any stretch of the imagination. There was no negative talk about spirituality - in fact, anytime we’d get into deep conversations about religion, what my parents always pointed to was how religion had become a form of power and control for many cultures (including within the states), by mistelling the story of a wonderful man who gave a sense of peace and health to those around him, and that the spiritual component was a positive aspect that could help others feel connected to something greater than them so they didn’t feel alone… and who could argue with that?
For the longest time, even up through my twenties, any word that reminded me of religion or God would leave a bad taste in my mouth. I would immediately shut down in my mind - there was no convincing me of something positive that could come from it. BUT you want to hear something crazy?! Two things that completely contradict the first statement of this paragraph. One, my dad would play gospel music from time to time (specifically, Andrae Crouch) and I couldn’t help but dance and sing at the top of my lungs, the feeling it brought me was incredible. Two, I would get the weirdest pull to watch a Sunday morning sermon on tv every now and again (I would inevitably switch it after twenty minutes because the religious angle would take over any nice feeling that I had), but still! Interesting, to say the least! I was intrigued by something bigger without realizing it!
So how did I get here? How did I go from feeling icky saying anything about spirituality to calling myself a spiritual teacher?
I was bamboozled! But in the best of ways…
Throughout my entire life I have looked to my mind for answers. I have been overly analytical since I can remember. Any feeling I had, I analyzed it. Any feelings other people were dealing with? Analyze. Relationships going sour around me? Analyze. Going into adulthood, especially as a performer, any feelings of insecurity (aka MASSIVE insecurity) would baffle me because I loved every element of being a performer. I would analyze myself into the ground (which tended to lead me to the toilet - hello, anxiety!) as to WHY I felt insecure, WHY I had fear, WHY I couldn’t handle myself. And you know what?! I always took on the challenge. It was painful, I suffered so much on the inside, but I was fueled by the discovery, I was fueled by that feeling of release I would feel when I’d uncovered the nugget of old memories or self talk that I perceived as the thing that made me feel awful. And yet (or shall I say, inevitably), the suffering would continue to come back - maybe in a different costume, so I thought I was dealing with a new issue, but it was constant, never ending work.
So one day I changed my outsides by changing my career, thinking that would be the end to all suffering - and of course, it wasn’t. Things got so bad for me that my body started to protect itself from my constant internal struggle. I gained weight, my lymph nodes blew up to the size of golf balls and I was so incredibly unhappy. Any and all tools and management tactics were out the window. I had analyzed myself into a corner and my brain was just frozen with a habitual loop of unhappiness on repeat. Until one day I had an insight. The most beautiful insight that single-handedly changed my life. I was in the shower, I was riddled with so much anxiety that I had a hard time breathing and yet I was past any emotional release like crying. And BAM! It bubbled up. No one was in the shower with me, yet I was reacting as if I had emails in my face and co-workers yelling over me (which they never did in real life anyhow). And it dawned on me that what I was feeling was everything going on in my mind, not what was going on around me! For the first time in months I felt a shift inside me that brought more relief than any over-analyzing result I had ever come to before. If I could see it so clearly in this one moment, I could potentially start seeing my thinking for what it was in ALL the moments of my life!
How does this all connect back to spirituality, you ask?
After that fateful day, I was on a mission to unfold an understanding of the mind set forth by Sydney Banks and his work called the 3 Principles (when I shared my insight with my mom she excitedly proclaimed, “That sounds a lot like the 3 Principles!” so on I went). Syd would refer to the principles as spiritual principles, but they looked so logical to me and fed my intellect in such a way that I bypassed the whole spiritual part and took the literal understanding of how our minds work more to heart. One of the 3 Principles is the principle of Mind, also known as Universal Mind or Divine Mind. This was the most spiritual-esque looking one to me, but it made sense. The greater intelligence of all things that moves through us, around us and connects us; A little beyond my intellect at that time, but the examples he would use would make sense to me and the feeling it brought was immense. One example he used was when we get a cut on our arm, without any effort on our part, our body sends all healing elements to the cut to heal it. Of course there’s science behind what goes to the cut, but what is the actual force behind those elements to get it there? We don’t tell our body “Hey, body! I just got a cut, send red blood cells and new tissue to that gash on my arm!” of course not! That’s the energy of Mind.
As I deepened my understanding over the last few years, and as I’ve shared with you over the last 10 months, belief after belief revealed itself to me as thought, judgements about myself or the ‘way things should be’ revealed themselves as thought, urges and habits revealed themselves as thought, the way I interacted with others and my relationships with them revealed themselves as thought, fears, expectations, anxieties… ALL revealed themselves to me as THOUGHT! And guess where all of this has left me?
If thought has fallen away (most of the time) and it isn’t what dictates my interactions with the world, how I manage to maintain my happiness or how I move forward in my business or relationships anymore, what’s left?
The overwhelming knowing that was HAS me is what IS me. Universal Mind. And with my very own GPS system to navigate Mind - my Wisdom. The more I have seen this for myself, the more I drop out of my thinking into the beautiful feeling of peace and Wisdom within me, the more I see life unfold in front of me. An example of something that would make me incredibly scared and impatient in the past: I now can trust the gaps of space in my business that in the past would give me the illusion of things drying up, but now, knowing that Universal Mind is driven and fueled by love just as we are, I know that that space is a gift, it’s meant to be, for creating, organizing, rejuvenating - whatever it is that I need to be filled up to continue to give back and teach. There’s a knowing and a trust that I never thought was possible. And guess what?! It allows me to continue to LIVE, even in the moments that could press me to go outside of myself to try to hurry things along. It doesn’t work. It’s all inside-out. And it’s all spiritual. Though I can share an expansive array of evidence from my life that proves this spiritual energy exists, you can’t see it - but you can feel it. Even now, if you’re uneasy with trusting a greater Wisdom via your own Wisdom, if you feel peaceful reading this, it’s because it’s a truth that your spiritual self already knows exists, it’s just waiting for you to turn off the tv upstairs and hold hands with it. It’s OK to not ‘know’ things and still trust them to be true.
Pure magic over LA on a very ordinary day…
Take it from me, the previously proclaimed non-spiritual optimist. The moment you drop out of your personal thinking mind and start opening yourself up to seeing things differently - seeing a deeper meaning to life’s ups and downs - Universal Mind will show you the most immense, connected, love-filled experience of life you could ever imagine. Moments are full, interactions are magical, and gratitude and love knows no bounds - and all without any thinking effort whatsoever.
Here’s to you and all the magic that you are~
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
No matter who you are, no matter what you do, where you are from, who you were raised by, what your circumstances were growing up; No matter your age, your relationship status, the color of your skin or the culture you're immersed in... WE ALL seek the same things.
Belonging, safety, love, peace, joy, purpose, happiness, success, health...
Can you take a wild guess as to where you find them or who you need in your life to achieve such graces?
You might've guessed it but I'll put it to you loud and clear...
You have them all, and then-some, within you, RIGHT NOW.
Prepping to write this, I sat for a few minutes with my eyes closed, my forehead relaxed and my tongue released from the roof of my mouth (I highly recommend doing this right now if you aren't already). I put on one of my favorite meditation tunes from my husband (Click here if you'd like it for yourself), and I imagined myself falling back... into myself. Does that make sense? I visualized myself literally falling backwards, or rather, floating backwards, into an abyss... into my Consciousness. The feeling that washed over me was pure peace and tranquility, then the tears came. Tears of immense gratitude for feeling all of those graces I mentioned above: Belonging, safety, love, peace, joy, purpose, happiness, success, health.
Now if I threw you for a little loop by saying consciousness, never fear, I am here to share how I came to understanding it more clearly for myself. It has taken some chipping away at the overused version of the word that often times brings thoughts and feelings of hierarchy or someone achieving some level of understanding that you will never achieve. Divine Consciousness is purely our gift of awareness that resides within ALL of us, all the time. It is within this awareness that we can realize for ourselves that we have all of the answers to all of our life's qualms... answers to questions that each and every one of us has. As Sydney Banks says in his profound book that I refer to on a consistent basis for deepening my understanding of our experience of life, The Missing Link:
Mental health lies within the consciousness of all human beings, but it is shrouded and held prisoner by our own erroneous thoughts.
Side bar: Those thoughts are why our level of consciousness can go up and down throughout the day. When we're believing our stressful thinking {still happens to me, even if just for a moment - I'm human, too!}, our consciousness is in the ground because we're flailing around trying to find answers in those crappy thoughts as opposed to our wisdom, our gut instinct. When we are peaceful inside, in flow with our wisdom, we have a higher consciousness because we are aware that our knowing has us, and will continue to reveal answers as we need them. Ok, carry on with Syd...
This is why we must look past our contaminated thoughts to find the purity and wisdom that lies inside our own consciousness.
When the wise tell us to look within, they are directing us beyond intellectual analysis of personal thought, to a higher order of knowledge called wisdom.
Like the sun, your wisdom is always present beyond the clouds of your erroneous thoughts
Isla Mujeres, Mexico
When I fell back into myself in my brief meditation, those tears of gratitude were not only coming from the peace that washed over me from feeling the depth of truth that all which we seek lies within us; But from this place I felt expansive, a deep feeling of love that unleashed a flood of memories where I felt this same feeling because I was present and totally aware (conscious) of how pure the moment was. Nothing that was extraordinary, but absolutely ordinary: flashes of memories with my family sitting around the table with coffee or going on a bike ride, me at a tiny age in the back seat of my parent's car, collecting myself to head out on an exciting day trip adventure. My husband and I on a walk talking about our dreams, watching a sunset in Joshua Tree on vacation with my friends who are family, a moment where I sobbed in traffic because immense gratitude hit me so hard I couldn't contain myself, looking up at the stars during an outdoor summer concert...
Have you had these types of experiences? The kind where something hits you out of no where and you think to yourself how perfect a moment, an experience or a feeling is? And you're totally aware of it and grateful for it? You even say to yourself "I want to remember this forever."
In those moments, you were just completely aware of YOU - the brush and branches of any thinking that may have normally gotten in the way was gone, and you were experiencing YOURSELF in pure alignment form. It may have looked like it was the experience you were having that brought on all of those beautiful feelings, but you were truly just experiencing yourself, shining bright and effortless. The more you can realize for yourself that that IS you 100% of the time, even when you are distracted by your thinking, the more your thinking will stop distracting you. The feeling is so incredibly amazing that you'll naturally continue to make the effort to ignore your stressful thoughts. Like I've said many times before about this understanding: it feels like pure magic that no one told us we had.
Throughout your day, whenever you experience peace wash over you, even if it's just for a moment, pause to sit with it if you can or at the very least, just notice it. If you are reading this and thinking "There is no way I can have even a moment of what she is talking about - I work a stressful 9-5, I have kids, I have to make the meals, I barely even have time to take a crap in a peaceful state of mind." Well, to that I say, you are proving my point that we all innocently believe that the life that goes on outside of us is where we seek: Belonging, safety, love, peace, joy, purpose, happiness, success, health... But the truth is, when you are aware of what exists within you underneath the chaos of your mind, it makes no difference where you are, what you're doing or who you're interacting with - you can experience consistent, beautiful peace inside - because it's YOU; And nothing outside of yourself can take you away from YOU, only you can do that by continuing to believe your old script.
As a 15 year old client of mine said so clearly to me the other day when she had a huge insight into her anxiety, "OMG! It's like I'm choosing to get caught up in my own drama! My thoughts are my drama! They aren't real, they're just drama!"
Mmhmmm.....
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
I had had a great insight into my experience of something earlier and after discussing it with my husband Mike, we both said, "That would make for a great Monday Musings!" So I sat at the computer, got curious and distracted by other things, and by the time I opened up my website to start typing (a couple hours later) I had forgotten what the peak AHA! insight was that I wanted to write about! I have since remembered the insight, but I wanted to share this mini story because it is the perfect lead-in for what I am about to share.
I'm sure you have experienced a similar forgetfulness like I shared above (hello, everyday!), you can relate to the idea that our mind is constantly washing away our thinking. Our forgetfulness points us to the fact that not one thought is ever fixed, so why is it that so many of us feel stuck, so often? Why is it that we can have the thought "I wonder what I should get for dinner?" or "I love this movie!" or "That's a cute shirt!" and not get gripped by it, but the moment we have an insecure, fearful or angry thought like "What if my presentation doesn't go well?" or "Do I look heavier then I did yesterday?" or the biggy and most common: "What if I'm not good enough?" we believe that those thoughts mean something about us?
Sit with that for a second...
"I wonder what I should get for dinner?" versus "What if I'm not good enough?"
Why does one thought feel like it implies so much more than the other?
Well, as human beings, we very innocently believe that the thought "What if I'm not good enough?" tells us something about who we are, or where we are in the psychology of our minds, because the experience is so heavy when we think it. It feels so incredibly real to us because every thought comes with a feeling, so the emotion that washes over you and the sensations you feel in your body when you have that thought make you feel tiny, insecure and incapable. But guess what?
"What if I'm not good enough?" is a thought, just like "I wonder what I should get for dinner?" Nothing more, nothing less.
But how could this be true, you ask? "What if I'm not good enough?" comes with a plethora of evidence from your own life, with experiences and memories that you can pull up to support the fact that you may not be good enough to accomplish what you're worried about! That's the thing... our thinking is produced by a neutral energy that uses us to pass through, and in using us, it pulls up our own life's experiences as opposed to Henry's down the street (Imagine how easy it would be to disregard any insecure thinking if it brought up pictures from Henry's life? We'd instantly feel empathetic for the guy and forget we were concerned about our own lives! Poor Henry, whoever he is). Does that make sense to you? It resides within us as we think it, but it is not of us. The more you see this for yourself, a space between you and what you're experiencing organically appears so you can allow the experience to pass through you without fearing it or judging it, naturally bringing you back to a neutral, peaceful state of mind.
The true nature of who we are is content and present in the moment. That's why any time we're anything but these things, our body alerts us via feelings and sensations that we're believing our thinking that's made-up and untrue for us, in that moment. We've been hijacked and we're believing the culprit... We're using the beautiful gift of Thought against us.
I love this metaphor: picture a snow globe. You pick it up and shake it like crazy in every direction, causing the snow to whip and whirl around inside the globe. What do you do when you want the snow to settle? Do you tell the snow what to do? Do you judge the way it's falling or whirling around? Of course not! You put it down or hold it still to allow the snow to gently fall to the bottom... the same goes for your thinking. I understand it's difficult when your thinking is making you feel uncomfortable (that's usually the point we start judging it and wondering what it means about us), but just like when you get a cut on your arm and your body sends everything needed to that cut to begin the healing process, if you don't DO anything to mess with your thinking (make sense of it, judge it, breathe life into it), it will settle. It will move through. It will pass. It will adjust itself. As much as you want to feel at peace and 'yourself' without your thinking, so does your mind.
Nothing within you is ever fixed, you are a whirling energy of change being held together by a skin suit. It is absolutely human to have expectations, beliefs, and values - but guess what?! Those are all fixed thoughts, so if anything challenges those things, you feel nuts inside and you won't even be able to see the challenging thought or experience for what it is because you're all wrapped up in what it isn't. Is it bad to have expectations, beliefs, and values? Well, expectations will kill ya.. but beliefs and values? Absolutely not. But the point I'm trying to make is that the more you are aware of what they ARE [thoughts], the more you can ebb and flow with what feels right in your Wisdom, your gut instinct, to then assess, act and experience life from the well of peace and contentment you are residing in under the distraction of the busyness in your mind.
The more I see all of this for myself, the more I realize how truly separate our spiritual selves are from our human selves, and the only thing that toggles us between the two is this magical gift of Thought. I'm literally giddy when I am in flow with my Wisdom and the Universe then I get tossed into my insecure human self. I'm serious, it literally makes me giggle because it's an incredible thing to see! I will forever have that duality of course, and I will forever have moments of being gripped by my thinking because I'm a human being! BUT the moment I remember what is going on and what it is that I'm experiencing when I'm gripped, is when the gratitude and joy kicks in that makes me so happy to be alive and have this understanding. The wealth of who I truly am: love, joy, peace, resilience, confidence.. comes shining through and connects me to the heart of life and others around me. It spills over in every direction and what unfolds for me from there feels like pure magic.
What it feels like to see the magic...
Lastly, I want to leave you with a nugget of wisdom from Mike. I often say that it takes courage to trust and surrender to all that we are and all that unfolds from that knowing, from our Wisdom, our Soul. Mike shared that it felt to him like that was actually the easy part. From his perspective, what takes courage is knocking down the walls of thought that have kept you from surrendering to all that you are and all that you truly know, in the first place.
I completely agree.
Here's to you and all the courage that resides in the wells of your being to choose a different perspective that will knock down those walls. I can't wait for you to see what life can be like once you do.
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
It's Saturday night, the weather is a perfect SoCal temp of 75 with a breeze, the sky is so clear that the nearly full moon shown brighter than the lights below and Mike and I are at the stunning Getty Center museum to see Combo Chimbita, a Colombian rooted NY-based band that gives all the funk, soul and cumbia one could ever wish for on a date night out.
The beautiful Getty
There were views of the city, drinks, dancing (so much dancing) from EVERY age you could think of (variety at it's best since the concert was at a museum), we were ALL having the time of our lives. Then all of a sudden I hear the fierce lead singer Carolina Oliveros say "I don't know what's going on" while she then turned around to stare at her guitar player. Being that Mike is a guitar player, we both knew what was up and were feeling for the guy. His pedal board lost a connection, a power cord came loose - something of that nature. Mike has had to deal with this mid-gig on a plethora of stages as well, but any time I've seen him experience it, he's like a magician. He tests all the possible problems, finds the glitch, and wails right back in time with the tune, merely moments later. The bigger point is, whoever Mike is performing with (especially lead singer Brian from Brian Buckley Band), they ALWAYS continue to sing or improvise, allowing Mike to get it together and the audience is none the wiser.
*Here comes the point*
Instead of allowing that process to happen, lead singer Carolina who had already announced her insecure thinking ("I don't know what's going on"), walked off stage and motioned to the band that they were done! After many minutes of the band talking to each other side stage, much to the chagrin of all who were in attendance, she came back to the stage to say they could not go on and thank you to everyone for coming. Granted, they may have had 20-30 minutes max left of the show, but that's not the point. I literally witnessed her become completely hypnotized by her insecure thinking, ESPECIALLY after having announced it to the world because it threw her into a horrible thought storm that made her nearly dizzy with stress, and off the stage she went. In that moment, I knew I couldn't save her because she had to come down from it all, but I desperately wanted to run after her and tell her what she had just experienced and that she didn't have to let it own her the way it did.
It doesn't matter if you're a performer or entertainer, you can relate to this experience if you've had to have a hard conversation with someone you had a bunch of nervous/insecure thinking about, you've had to deliver a speech at a wedding or give a presentation at work - all of these experiences are susceptible to overthinking in the moment and leading us to having flashes of insecure thoughts that make us blank-out. I used to experience it A LOT as a dancer - like, A LOT. I had SO much insecure thinking around doing well, being good enough, thoughts of being judged when I stood on the audition line, the works. It didn't matter how much I self-talked my way out of nausea, nearly EVERY audition was a mental war. And here's what's worse! I adore dancers and dancing with all of me, so I networked my way into tons of auditions - but do you think being invited to a tiny private audition for a replacement dancer for Beyonce (my dream job at the time), being run by a friend of mine, eased any of the insecure thinking? Nope! The bigger the stakes, the more love I had on an audition because of hopes/dreams/not letting friends down?! The worse the thought storm. In hindsight, each and every one of those opportunities were learning experiences to help the depth of my understanding now, but holy cow was it a painful fight...
every. single. time.
And here's the thing, just like I experienced as a dancer and what I witnessed on stage at the Getty, when we breathe life into that insecure thinking, when we give it value and make meaning out of it, we completely lose ourselves - our GREATNESS - to that thinking. We get lost in translation. We don't show up to the world, the performance, the presentation, the meeting, the conversation, as our true selves. Our light doesn't shine and we aren't able to connect to the heart of others because we aren't present, we're lost in our own reality upstairs that has nothing to do with the moment.
What would I suggest to the amazing and badass lead singer of Combo Chimbita? If you recognize that something is going off track, there's absolutely nothing wrong with acknowledging it, but with the understanding that your mind is constantly bringing you new thought and that you can let it move through you, any opportunity to take a mere moment of pause and choosing to stay in the moment (maybe even saying to yourself 'stay in the moment') will naturally and effortlessly bring you fresh new ideas straight from your Wisdom that will keep you in flow and creative, in an instant. Like I was discussing with Mike, if she had taken that moment of pause (and I'm talking a quick deep breath in, breath out type of pause), amongst a myriad of other options, she could have come to the front of the stage and sang acapella with her Guacharaca. And guess what would have happened should she need to go totally rogue from her original set up and do that?! We as the audience would have been in complete awe. Her voice, her instrument, would have bled love and connection more than anything she had planned in her original set. And if you need an example for being tripped up in a meeting or presentation or speech? Taking that moment of pause can lead you to keeping things light - maybe sharing that you've had a brain fart - no matter the level of serious in the room, humor brings everyone to the present in an instant. Whatever it may be, those are the human moments we connect to - those are the moments that move us - those are the moments we remember.
So if you are a performer or an entertainer, a bridesmaid with a speech or you're concerned about a future meeting or conversation, KNOW that we always rise to the occasion when we're in flow with the moment. When we drop out of our thinking, even just momentarily, magic happens. The Universe has our back and our Wisdom drives the train.
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
"How many of you can tell the difference between the living and the dead?"
Dr. Judith Sedgeman, EdD posed this question to a room of soon-to-be doctors, and much to their dismay (and after much eye-rollage), she was adamant to get their opinion.
"Seriously, HOW many of you can tell the difference between the living and the dead?"
One student raises his hand, much to his chagrin... "No pulse, heart stops beating, lungs stop filling up with air..."
Dr. Sedgeman responds, "OK. How can you tell without touching them?"
Long pause in the room.
Another student takes a stab at the answer...
"There's no life"
Dr. Sedgeman: "That's what we're talking about. That energy that you know has left. The spiritual component of our existence."
*Let that sink in for a minute. Take your eyes away from your screen and breathe in that undeniable knowing.*
After hearing this simple yet incredibly powerful example to point to the spiritual nature of life and who we are, I got introspective. Stories of folks at the end of their lives, and experiences of my own, flooded my memory. Isn't it true that we're so often told from the ones we love before they are about to pass away, to live life to it's fullest? That their greatest regret is that they allowed fear to get in the way of endless amounts of opportunities, may it be in reference to their career, love, relationships, adventure, travel, finances and so on?
What comes up for me is that when we have a sense that we're at the end of our lives in our current skin suit, when we're in our final days, we naturally drop out of any and all insecure thinking. There is an element of pure surrender to the natural process we're experiencing and all that is left is the feeling of Oneness that exists between us all. We are 100% our spiritual selves. There's a feeling of not being able to see where 'I' or 'We' end and our surroundings, the energy behind life, begins. It becomes blatantly clear that any thinking that kept us from voicing our love for others or from going after our dreams or what kept us divided (ahem.. the current state of our country) was a complete waste of time, because it was just that... thinking that we believed. Though in the moment, the fearful and insecure thoughts looked really real and seemed to be warning signs that were logical, in the end we see that it was all self-made, it wasn't reality. That it was all BS. And who knows what 'could have been' should we have not paid attention to those thoughts.
One of many personal experiences that I've had that points to our spiritual nature is one that I'll never forget. The week I spent with my grandfather while he was passing was literally like watching a butterfly in transformation. When I first arrived to his home, he was still getting up from his bed with assistance, he could absolutely connect to who I was and speak a few words. As the days passed, his circulation slowed to his extremities and he slowly drifted away in his human self, but he stayed with us. Days went by and finally at 3 or 4 in the morning one morning, my mom called hospice. When the hospice nurse arrived, she took one look around the room and said, "Are you all here, all the time?!" She was referring to the room full of women that wouldn't leave his side - me, my mom, aunt, sisters, cousins, nieces... we all took turns caring for him, rubbing on his feet, sharing stories and laughter around him, eating cereal and making pot after pot of coffee to keep us going. It was my first experience where someone who represented science shown light on our spiritual nature. The nurse said, "You all are keeping him alive." My brain couldn't make sense of it, but I absolutely knew what she meant. His spiritual self, who he was beyond his skin suit, the energy that exists within and around us all, was keeping him connected and plugged in, it had nothing to do with his will power.
Thayer Douglass. My Grandpa.
If you haven't already gotten the gist of the message I'm trying to portray to you, I'll make it very clear.
You can surrender to that knowing, to that Universal Mind, to that greater intelligence, RIGHT NOW.
How, you ask? Oh, I'm so glad you inquired.
You have a factory-installed, innate compass or rather, guide - that is like your own Mission Control center for your life. You don't have to go searching for it outside yourself, you don't need any tools to keep it tuned up and most importantly, you don't have to do anything to know it's there. All you have to do is follow it's inklings.
So what is it?
Your Wisdom. Your gut instinct.
It is 100% connected to the Universal Mind, the greater intelligence behind life. That is why every time you follow your gut, life unfolds without having to work at it. Even when your Wisdom guides you in a direction that looks risky, different, unknown, or you get insights into possibilities on your horizon that seem impossible - it takes courage to surrender to that knowing, but once you do, you begin to live a soul-centered experience of life that's immense. Hard conversations are had with more ease because you are coming from love and that love is felt by everyone involved. Leaps of faith feel supported and the risk isn't terrifying, it's thrilling. Breadcrumbs from the Universe are incredibly apparent and you begin to move in flow with the Oneness of it all.
Many folks have shared with me that what I'm saying makes sense, but are afraid they don't know the difference between their Wisdom and their thoughts. And to that, I answer... it's all in a feeling. Our Wisdom bubbles up one moment before our thoughts clobber the hell out of it with 'logic,' fear, judgement or insecurity. But guess what? No problem. You have a built-in alert system that tells you where the quality of your thinking is. And again, it's all in a feeling. If you are experiencing any feelings of angst, fear, anxiety, depression or physical symptoms of tight chest, sweaty pits and palms, upset belly, etc... all of these feelings and emotions are alerting you that you're believing your thinking that isn't true for you (and if you're thinking of an experience you've had in the past that you're determined is real like a break up or losing a job, it still isn't true for you, now. Why? The experience is in your past. It's important to appreciate it, but then leave it in the past and come back to the moment... it no longer supports who you are now which is why the thought of it makes you feel like shit). Conversely, if you are in any feeling related to joy, excitement, peace, contentment, happiness, love, etc... you are standing in your Wisdom. You are in flow and total alignment with Universal Mind.
Our feeling is the greatest gift. Like the bumps on the side of the freeway that warn you that you're moving out of your lane and you automatically correct your steering... the same is for your feeling in relation to your thinking. Heed it's warning and come back to what feels right. And if you're in a thought storm and feel all over the place and confused? Ask yourself OUT LOUD "What do I need to do now?" and your Wisdom, your gut instinct, will guide you loud and clear. And remember, you are always OK - even if you feel like your well-being has gone missing; You are actually standing in the middle of it, you're just distracted by your insecure thinking that you're believing. It will pass, I promise you. As a dear MFT friend so simply put it: It isn't my belief, it's my experience.
Back to the classroom with Judith Sedgeman:
"Where does that energy come from?" Dr. Sedgeman inquired of her students after them seeing what she was referring to about the spiritual component to life. She clarified that it wasn't a religious question, she wanted to know what they thought intellectually.
The class stayed quiet, they didn't know the answer.
She replied, "It's OK to not know things, and still take them as true."
Ahhhh... trust the feeling as fact, what a gift.
Here's to you, dear reader, and all of the courage that already resides within you to surrender to our Oneness, surrender to your knowing, surrender to your Wisdom and to live in the feeling of hindsight. I am so excited for you and all that is to come.
All my love and see you next week~
Jessie
Let me set the stage for you.
I am 18 years old, I had just moved to Los Angeles, and a friend from work asks if I'd like to hang with him and some musician buddies after our shift is over. I oblige, and as I walk into his apartment, a guitar player I was ogling just two months previous when I was brand new to the city is sitting on the couch (cue stomach drop). When I had seen him play those months before, I watched him walk off the stage and into the arms of another girl, so I hadn't even attempted a conversation, though I was bummed she existed, nonethless. I'll never forget how we caught eyes as I walked into the apartment and were introduced. We made small talk with friends, then we took our conversation to the balcony and talked for hours. It was that getting to know each other tête-à-tête where you eat up every morsel of who the person is with pure excitement and hang on every word. I asked him about the girl from his show and much to my excitement, they had broken up - BUT - he was very clear, it had been a rough road for a few years with her and he was loving not being in a relationship (ugh, cue another stomach drop of a different kind). Then, much to my {additional} dismay, just as he shares his elation for no longer being in a relationship, she shows up to his apartment to 'talk.'
Cut to me in my 18 year old innocence, I had hardly dated back home because I was enamored with the dance studio and I was on an emotional roller coaster, poor thing. I was stunned to see her walk in, but I was grateful that his reaction was bereft of any iota of excitement to see her. We wrapped up the conversation and I tried to act cool as I slipped out of the apartment with my head in the clouds and my heart on the floor.
The following day my gut was on fire. I couldn't stop thinking about him and my instinct was to call him. My thoughts ran rampant trying to stop me: "He just got out of a relationship, Jessie! Hell, after last night, he may still be in one! You can't be the one to follow up the next day, YOU JUST MET HIM! Screw that, he's awesome - but is it lame to call? Shouldn't he be calling me? And by the way, he hasn't called YOU, so what does that say? Oh, wait, it's still morning, he's a musician, maybe he's still asleep. Nope, if he was into you, he would've called you by now!" As you can imagine, the hypnotic thought storm was real, but I persevered... "Screw it, call him - you never know where it will lead."
[Ring ring ring]
His roommate (my friend from work) answers... "Hello"
Me: "Hi! Is ___ there?"
Friend: "No, he's at the gym. Is this Jessie?!"
Me: "Oh, yeah, will you let him know I called?" (Cue the cringe)
Friend: "For sure... (Insert sarcastic joke about me calling him first). See you at work later"
Me: "Ok cool. See ya dude!" (Cue double cringe)
The guitar player calls back. My memory is a little dusty when it comes to the details of the next move, but what I do remember was having the exchange that we both knew the spark between us was blatantly obvious. He didn't want to jump into another relationship, not just for his sake, but mine too (melt). We agreed to start seeing each other now and again and every step of the way we would ask each other if we were cool with our pace and be completely honest if one of us wanted or needed to jump ship...
That guitar player is my husband, Mike. And 15 years later, I'm pretty sure we can say the rest is history.
Babies...
Why this story, you ask? Because it dawned on me not long ago that this was one of my first experiences where my Wisdom was loud and clear and I had to battle my thinking to follow it. Not only was it a volleyball match between my thinker and my knower at the very beginning, but when we were getting really serious three months later? My gut was telling me that he could be the one I married, he could be the one I saw myself having kids with, and my thoughts were having a hay-day that I hadn't taken in the lay of the land enough. I had just turned 19 by this point, and I called my mom frantic that maybe I shouldn't be moving towards such a serious relationship without having more experience. I'll never forget our exchange after going around and around about my insecure thoughts (my mom was onto the Three Principles before she was even aware of them)...
Mom: "What does your gut say?"
Me: "That he's it, mom. Like I can really feel like he's my forever."
Mom: "Then why would you trade in a Mercedes for a hoopty?" (hoopty translates to a craptastic new boyfriend).
NAILED IT.
She got me grounded in my Wisdom and that was that. It was right all along, it just took courage (and a little push from mom) to follow it.
For today, whenever you read this, I would love for you to take note of a time that you've done this in your life. Where your gut was screaming and against all odds of your thoughts trying to make enough logic to deter you, you followed it. It can be anything. A job you took the leap for, or a job you chose to walk away from. Following your dreams for a career that seemed impossible, or going to a school where you didn't know anyone. Going back to school or having a kid. Leaving home when you did or leaving a relationship that was toxic. Absolutely anything, big or small - I guarantee you, no matter who you are, that you have at least one experience to glean from. Once you have that memory, sit with it. Think of the ripple effect of positive experiences that happened around that choice of following your Wisdom. Feel the warmth of joy and gratitude all through your chest, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Breathe it in for at least a few minutes. Remember what it felt like to follow your gut.
Now...
Go do more of that.
All my love and see you next week...
Jessie
Hallelujah, I have just completed Whole 30. Can we get a collective Amen?!
AMEN!!!
One more time for all the folks in the back!
AAAAAMEN!!
Woohoo! I DID IT!!
For those who aren't familiar with Whole 30, it is a diet plan (I hate the word diet, but there you go), that you stick to for 30 days (no sugar, alcohol, dairy, beans, carbs - essentially nothing that turns into sugar in your body), and along with weight loss and re-balancing gut health, the intention behind it is it to launch you into a lifestyle change with your food habits. I did it once before at the beginning of 2017 to get rid of some extra weight, which it did and I was so grateful for it. This time around I committed to it purely to re-balance my gut health. It didn't matter if I ate a giant salad, cooked veggies and protein, or a pile of fries or ice cream, my gut was bloating to make me look 7 months pregnant after every meal. All this to say that I feel great AND because life is my greatest teacher, I learned yet again that we always have choices to follow our Wisdom and not believe our made-up thinking, even when it comes to food.
But we always have choices on what to eat and not eat, Jessie, this is not new news!
I hear you! But this is a different conversation.
As I do for most of my days as best I can, I was noticing where my thinking was when I craved certain things I couldn't indulge in, when my mind was telling me I was hungry, or when I was grumpy and I would automatically think it was because of the restrictions of Whole 30. Just noticing. And what I came to realize for myself was that every single reaction in my mind that would kick up moldy, crappy, thought turds of urges, wants and needs, was that they were just that, thought turds. When I would have the thought "Ugh, I wish I could have a glass of wine with my dinner, I'm out with friends for god's sake!" I would notice it, or sense the upset feeling it gave me if that was the more obvious alert, and think to myself, "Do you really want the glass of wine? Or would you rather stick this thing through and get the benefits" and my Wisdom was loud and clear... skip the wine and stick this thing through. Immediate peace would wash over me, no will-power was needed, and I would continue to enjoy my experience instead of feeling like I was missing out. Another thought that would come through a lot was that I craved my favorite taco platter from the local taco truck, not just for the deliciousness that it is, but for the ease. Did I really want to feel the gut pain and bloat that I experience EVERY SINGLE TIME I eat that plate? Not at all. My resolve runs incredibly deep with not wanting to feel that way anymore, plus, it definitely wasn't Whole 30 compliant. So I asked myself, what do I really want? Wisdom: I want Mexican flavor and something quick. Great! Turkey meat lettuce tacos made at home will do the trick (and they were DELISH!)
Do you see what I'm getting at here?
Most of us have a ton of thinking around food. We're forced to make decisions about it multiple times a day, in every state of mind and every mood we fluctuate in and out of. We have habits that we believe are what we need to stick to, but more than likely we made that decision on a day when we made choices about what to eat, and we felt great as a result, so therefore we decided that's what our body ALWAYS needs. We heard from a fitness guru or a health guru or a fad that we can't have this, that, or the other thing, and even if the fad passes or the guru comes out saying that they have the new found key to ultimate health, that old thought is now ingrained in us so we don't sway from it, no matter how it actually makes us feel. And let's not forget the labels! Vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, raw foodist, high fat low cal, no fat high carb... the list goes on and on.
Do you see how exhausting this is?
What keeps unfolding for me is that the more we have restrictions, habits we have to stick to, labels we have to uphold, the more thinking we have around the 'not having' or the 'not doing,' therefore creating a hell of a lot of internal pressure because we're forcing ourselves to stick to something that isn't necessarily right for us, ALL THE TIME. Think about it - let's say you have decided that you must have three meals per day at 8am, Noon and 6pm with snacks in between. At 3pm, you don't have your snack because you're overwhelmed with work. You now have thinking around the fact that you didn't have your snack, you're in a low mood on your way home because of it, therefore you grab chow mein because you deserve it (hello, low mood), and you eat the whole thing because you didn't eat your snack at 3pm anyhow. You feel like shit, bloated, feeling bad about it - but you're justified. What if you weren't even hungry at 3? What if all of that thinking just led you to this big greasy meal purely because of your thoughts that had nothing to do with hunger or what your body needed or didn't need?
Are you picking up what I'm putting down?
If our thinking is always flowing, if our state of mind and mood is ever-changing, if our bodies are constantly processing things differently due to stress, hormones, increased or decreased exercise, etc - wouldn't it make sense to go with the flow of what our Wisdom tells us our bodies need, as opposed to having any calculated, judgemental or rigid thinking around food? I've seen recently through social media that 'intuitive eating' is becoming a thing and there's already people nay-saying it - why? Because they don't understand the way their mind works and how to connect to their Wisdom. They've used it as an excuse to eat more crap because they think they're following their intuition to a more balanced experience of food, when rather, they're kicking up thoughts that lead to urges and bad habits as opposed to listening deep down to what their body really needs.
Now, am I proclaiming that if you are a vegetarian, you should stop being a vegetarian?! Absolutely not. If you have figured out that your body functions optimally when not eating meat, that's listening to your Wisdom. What I AM saying though, is that if in ten years you have a hit in your Wisdom that a meatball would do your body good, listen to it, don't judge it, just BE. Same for sweets or anything else that isn't a 'good-for-you' choice. The balance will naturally come the more we listen to what our Wisdom says we need and actually act on it (easier said then done, I understand, but totally worth it to observe). Our thinking doesn't have a hay-day when we continually make decisions out of our gut instinct (like everything I talk about!)
If your mood naturally balances itself without effort when you don't grip your thinking, if your brain's chemicals naturally balance themselves when you don't grip your thinking consistently (this is true, yet a whole other subject), if Universal Mind/Greater intelligence/Universe is always guiding you and pulling you forward for your highest good (hot tip: that's where your Wisdom comes from) - then food and eating falls within that same category of trusting what your Wisdom guides you to and you will naturally stay balanced. Does it mean you'd never have a bowl of ice cream again? Nope. No more chow mein? No again. My favorite taco plate? Nope! Again, balance is the key word here - when you aren't deciding from your intellect, your gut will lead you to the fun things, too. This also goes for food you previously decided you didn't like! (I'm looking at you vegetable haters). Who knows where your thoughts were when you tried broccoli for the first time - and when a friend forced you to eat it several years later, you already had thinking around how you knew you weren't going to like it. If thoughts are the gatekeeper to our experience, do you think you were going to fall in love with broccoli with all that distaste already floating around your head? Exactly. And lastly, should you make a food choice out of an urge or out of a reaction to your thoughts, that is OK too. Like anything else, knowing where you are on the map of being in alignment with your Wisdom/Universe versus succumbing to your thoughts is where the internal peace and health lies.
Again, knowing where you are on the map, and simply observing it, is where your peace exists.
With that, I'm stoked to be getting closer to my Wisdom for my food choices moving forward and hope it inspires you, too. It's incredible how the journey and the deepening of this understanding never ends, no matter the subject or experience.
What a gift. What freedom.
All my love and see you next week~
Jessie
I recently received news that a family member close to someone I love dearly has been given a very tough medical diagnosis. Literally a moment before receiving the news, I had let out a big exhale from all the thought stressors of paying bills, money, the patience it takes to build a really thriving business (we're doing it, the benefits far outweigh the insecure thoughts, but hey.. we're human, too). I know it reads slightly petty to talk about bill stress after having heard such immense news, but that's exactly where the lesson lies. I had a flash...
It was a reminder from the Universe. Universal Mind. The Intelligence behind all things.
In that very moment of exhale I was reminded, with purpose, that what is really important is this life, this time, the love and connection we have to ourselves and to each other, the love that we stand in every day - our core, this moment that we're in - right now. I was hit with massive gratitude that myself and my family have our health, in this moment. That we can call and connect with each other, in this moment.
I reflected on the duality of knowing that your release is not far away, yet what a gift it is to be able to say and do and BE all that you are, and have always wanted to be, for yourself and your loved ones for the rest of your days. What a metaphor for us all to not wait until we're given the expiration date on our current skin suit to be our true selves and TRUST.
I've had many conversations come up lately with clients and family about the courage it takes to truly follow your Wisdom that is always with you, within you. I understand it, wholly. I've been there. It can take literally one thought shift to look at things differently, but as long as you believe the illusions that your thoughts are creating, it can take as long as you need to turn your back to the thinking that isn't real for you - it takes courage. It's a journey of unlearning. We have been told our entire lives that we need this, we need that - for a peaceful life. Even the idea of positive thinking and gratitude - it's been pitched to us that if we don't have those things then our lives will not be the greatest they could be - merely adding more stressful thinking when we feel like we don't have it or can't find it. Here lies the unlearning:
You are already standing in peace and wellbeing that brings forth gratitude, love, joy, contentment. It is intrinsic within you - a constant. It may look like we are on a rollercoaster of our wellbeing going missing from time to time, or even for long periods of time, but it is only our thought-created world within us that distracts us from our wellbeing that doesn't ever go anywhere.
For me, it took a solid year and a half to do the biggest chunk of unlearning to date, and that doesn't include when I first found the 3 Principles, the base to my work, a year before that. While I was studying the understanding behind our true nature and the way our minds work (and maybe this is you right now, with reading my articles), I was constantly left with a good feeling after reading the different books and watching videos of Syd Banks discussing our spiritual nature, yet I didn't have the wherewithal to see it for myself. I would still get incredibly gripped by my thinking - I was in a major career transition and the thought storms were immense. I had so much insecure thinking that I believed to be true that I thought I was the only person on this planet that this understanding was not going to apply to. And yet, I kept going, I kept reading, I kept studying - I couldn't put it down because in the midst of reading and listening, the truth behind the information left me in such a good feeling I knew I had to trust it. That was my Wisdom that was naturally giving me the courage to trust. It gave me hope even when I felt like 'I' had gone missing.
After all of my studying, truth be told, the insights began to roll in the moment I stopped thinking about it (how's that for a mind twist). From listening to leaders in the field of the 3 Principles, it occurred to me that up to a certain point, I had been using my intellect to try and understand it all - how we function and how we can listen to our Wisdom and trust it. It sounded right to me, but I was still analyzing it with my prideful student brain. In all my innocence, I thought I 'had it' because I understood that my feelings were coming from my thoughts, I understood that I look at life through the lens of my thinking in any varied moment, and I understood that the answers to all of my life's twists and turns laid deep within my belly of Wisdom. I understood it, but I hadn't yet realized it for myself (does this sound like you?) I had a moment with Syd's dear friend Elsie Spittle who told me that even in the moments of life looking difficult, she lives in the feeling of excitement of what the next moment or day can bring. With the nature of Thought, she can trust that her current feeling will pass when she lets it. She can trust that when she follows her Wisdom on a moment to moment basis, her goals and dreams will come TO her, and how it all unfolds is always beyond her imagination (and telling me these things tickled her so much she was giggling just sharing it with me, after 40+ years of living this way). I could feel what she meant...
I could feel what she meant.
It was now in my hands to be active in my experience and drop the studying. When I was conscious (aware) that I was being gripped by my thinking (at the time, a lot of that thinking was being worried about things 'working out' in my new career and everything that comes along with that), I would recognize what was happening, which would naturally allow it to pass. It honestly felt like magic. And the moment the gripping, insecure thinking passed, my Wisdom would bubble up and give me guidance and assurance in what to do next. Many months later, I can tell you purely from experience, that the voice of my insecure thoughts is not only quieter, but more rare. The positive thinking and gratitude that we're told we need to experience a more beautiful life? Yes, they make life so much more bright and colorful and rich! But they bubble up naturally and effortlessly without me having to work at it. I spend more of my time in a state of curiosity, excitement, joy, and peace. And what happens when we're peaceful inside? Our Wisdom becomes the louder voice, and when we follow it, life unfolds... just like Elsie said it would.
Sometimes I'm in awe of this state of being. Will thinking and emotions grip me in the coming days, months, years? Abso-friggin-lutely... because I'm human. But having the understanding of what's going on inside of me gives me the tools to not be afraid of what I'm experiencing, which in turn brings me peace even in moments where I can't see clearly.
The take-away today is not to step away from this article thinking you have to work hard at your awareness. Quite the opposite. I share my personal experience with you so you can see that the more you just notice where you are in your thinking, the more you'll naturally be guided from within and see life's little miracles (life hack: your body always tells you where you are in your thinking... and sometimes you'll notice it there first. If you feel yucky in any way possible... you're believing your thinking that isn't real for you). Let me also remind you of this:
You have all the courage you need to follow your inner compass and experience your life to it's fullest potential. The only thing that stops you from trusting it is your thinking that it is impossible for a feeling within you to be the truth. When in fact, it is. Myself among many others have surrendered to it, and life couldn't be more beautiful. Don't wait another moment to be your whole self...
not one. more. moment.
All my love, see you next week~
Jessie
"It is more than a business for me: it is my calling and my life’s work."
Leesa Zelken, CEO (as she says, Clever Entertainment Organizer TM) of Send In The Clowns, is no less than a force to be reckoned with. Speaking to her about her company, where she started, what her process has been and what she provides for each and every joyous 'kid-centric' event - that she amplifies to the nth degree with beautiful, creative, fresh, unique, enchanting and sensational touches, no less - is like speaking to Mr. Rogers and what he set forth to create for children and learning.
I was lucky enough to work for this incredible woman several years ago as a party performer, and to this day, I proclaim her as being at the top of the list of best bosses anyone could ever work for. Not only did I get to create magic for children all over Los Angeles in the most beautiful costumes with the most epic props and games bringing her imagination to life, but she was incredibly supportive of my path (and still is to this day), extremely generous and always had my back. Needless to say, I can guarantee you each of her employees and performers could say the same about her, and because of that, we had her back with every twist and turn of a balloon animal and shake of a magic wand.
From epic celebrity celebrations to having me perform for children at a homeless shelter, Leesa's heart and creativity knows no bounds - read on for this magical human beings rise to being the leader in her field for 27 years, thus far...
This is Leesa Zelken.. to a T
After having moved to Los Angeles in 1989 to pursue a career in acting (and landing very notable co-star TV roles on shows such as Friends, Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, to name a few), Leesa found herself performing for a friend's child's birthday party completely by chance and it landed her on what she calls the "party career trajectory." As the Universe always works, she was beginning to bubble on needing a career that could provide the 'rush' that she would get from acting and performance, as well as something that allowed for more control, not one of the highlight benefits of an acting career. "I donned a clown suit and performed a fun routine of activities I devised (...) I was the original “clowns are not scary" clown. It was a big hit, I was a natural, and extremely inspired and excited to find a perfect blend of performing and money making. I immediately saw this as an opportunity to start a business, came up with a catchy name, and learned the “tricks of the trade,” such as balloon making and face painting to get the ball rolling on these very basic beginnings of my business."
And so it began...
Jessie: What were the steps you took leading up to taking the leap into your business? How long was this period?
Leesa: In the beginning, I recognized that getting my name out there was the biggest goal. Keep in mind this was 1990/1991, long before social media existed. It was “old school” pound the pavement, pick up the phone approach. I knew I was onto something, but needed opportunities to create interest and word of mouth, which would lead to getting hired and getting paid…oh, yes, getting paid. So, along with my new balloon making and face painting skills (did I mention that I was a “natural” at those, too?) I reached out to local fair and festival coordinators, (was met with a few “no’s” but many welcoming “yes’s”) offering my services for free in exchange for being able to pass out my business card. Immediately, I booked jobs, created cash flow, and took the early steps to establishing my business.
J: When did you know it was time to take the leap full time into SITC? Had you set a specific date? Or did you follow a feeling?
L: Very quickly the interest in me, my business, and what I had to offer caught on. Clients were reaching out, along with their friends, and their friends. I was one of the few people offering services such as mine, and the demand was high. I was honing my “show” adding more services to it, and working non-stop weekend after weekend. I was good at what I did, but there was only one of me. It became very clear, very soon, that I needed to train and hire equally enthusiastic people to do what it was that I did, and this was probably the moment that my labor of love turned into a full time gig. (...) I didn’t follow a predictable path for starting a business. I had no business plan, no forethought into “starting something.” I just stumbled into what I did and learned literally everything I know and have expertise in by doing it day to day (...) Along the way, I learned some things about myself and life and others that added to my success: refrain from saying no to things that simply seem scary but say no to things that seem amiss (<--- Jumping in here to point out that Leesa has refrained from saying no when things seem simply scary because those are thoughts of her own making that are pointless to believe and could keep her frozen, as fearful thoughts do to so many! And saying no when things seem amiss? That's following her wisdom, her gut instinct, which is ALWAYS right. Carry on...), reach out to others for help and support, feast or famine is the way of business and both are necessary and good, have fun in whatever you do.
J: Did you ever have doubts or fears in the beginning?
L: In the beginning I was quite fearless. The quick success, easy money, and—I’ll say it again—“the control” were all exhilarating. I always felt like a rock star, either as a performer or as a party planner. I provided a service for people for a happy occasion and the vibe around what I did and what I offered was pretty positive. I always had cash flow, because of the way in which the operations of my business run, and there was always a confidence in making money and securing clients. In the more recent years, there has been more competition, more changes with social media, and more skepticism on the part of clients, due to financial constraints and just the changing nature of the world, and these things have me more doubtful and fearful as a business owner, at times.
J: Did you have an investor?
L: Nope. Nada. Never. No investor. I only pay for what I can afford when I can afford it. That has always been my approach. If you are running a business at a deficit you are running a business in fear-mode and clients feel that. I run my business in abundance, and that infuses my interactions with clients and staff. (<-- I love this. When we are moving through life in fear-mode that others feel? That is believing our thinking that makes us feel desperate and I can tell you with all of me that the Universe does not respond to desperate energy... ever. She's right on the money).
J: Do you ever have fears to this day? What do they feel like and how do you manage them? What makes you peaceful in these moments?
L: I am very lucky that for the past 27 years I have flourished in my business. I have an 18 year old daughter, headed to Barnard College at Columbia University, and I have been fortunate to run and grown a successful business for all these years, while partaking thoroughly in my “mom-life.” My business has brought me great peace and balance, when the craziness of parenting sets in, and my parenting of a daughter has been more robust because of the role model I have been for her, as I have devoted myself to my work that I love and from which I attain great pride and joy. I think that for me, having one without the other (parenting/business owning) might feel empty, but having both fulfills me in ways that allay all fears and allow for more peace.
J: How do you mentally manage the waves of business that are inevitable?
L: I get pro-active when things seem out of control. I think it is important to not wallow in the dips and bumps in business, but find outlets for revamping, refreshing, and reinventing. Plus, exercise is a great right brain/left brain “workout” and very rejuvenating when I need to step away from “all things party” and give myself a brain break or a kick-start. Thank you, Spin Class, and Pilates for providing great outlets to my work detours and plateaus! (<-- Also, what happens when we work out? We're left feeling more peaceful. When we're peaceful, we naturally make room for fresh, creative thinking to solve a problem, move us forward, or give us fun new ideas!)
J: Any crazy stories to share?
L: In the kiddie party business there is no shortage of crazy stories: like the time we were asked to deliver elephants to an event with just 3 days notice (the elephants were all booked up, but we did manage 2 camels, a giraffe, and a zebra), or the time that our Dorothy character showed up to an event missing one ruby slipper, but managed to find a pair 2 sizes too small on the wicked witch prop for temporary use (her feet, oy—her poor feet!), or the times (yes times) some of our party princesses had to pull off to the side of the FREEWAY with a broken down car in full princess ATTIRE!, and on and on…. Bottom Line: we have a CAN-DO attitude no matter what the “crazy."
J: Any advice for people who are considering taking the leap into their own business?
L: Well, since I didn’t “leap” but “sashayed”, I would probably recommend the latter. Seriously, just love what you do and the rest really does seem to follow. Dive in because of a passion you have, and stay true to your goals. Honor those around you who help you grow and lend support to your business, monetarily and otherwise. Act with integrity and believe in the fact that there is plenty to go around.
J: Any final thoughts you’d like to share?
L: Yes. I most especially want to share this one aspect of my business that I never could have predicted, and something that specifically speaks to my relationship with you, Jessie. I have often said, over the years, “I am only as good as the people I have representing me”, and this adage has really been the cornerstone of my business success. I have been fortunate enough to gather and hire amazing staff, and colleagues to be a conduit to many of my clients. Business owners often talk about how “hiring” and “maintaining” great staff is the hardest part of managing a business. For me, this has never been the case. Not only have my staff over the years astounded me with their commitment, energy, and creativity, but many have become dear friends of mine, and of each other. I have seen these dear friends get married, have babies, and find other fulfilling businesses and careers, and many have remarked how SITC has influenced them in some way or another in these endeavors. Not only can I revel in the accomplishment of a great business with great clients, but moreover I can feel deep gratitude for the people of SITC who helped create this well-oiled party machine.
As Leesa said, Send In The Clowns has absolutely influenced me in braving the world of entrepreneurship, but not in the way you might think. Like the rest of my work and what I share with you all, the feeling Leesa left with me after graduating from her company is what stays with me to this day. Having a boss I admired and respected, standing in her purpose and seeing the strength and joy that came from that is what will always provide a touchstone example for me for the rest of my days. My dear colleagues Molly and Heather wholeheartedly agree and jumped at the opportunity to share their love for Leesa...
From Heather: "What I've always appreciated about Leesa, and found so inspiring, is how she puts her whole heart into each event we do. Whether it's a new client or a repeat, she puts all of herself into the creative effort to make sure each party is fun, flawless and unique for that family. There is never any question about how much she cares about her business and the care and effort that goes into each party."
From Molly: "One of my favorite things about working for Leesa was how appreciative she was about a job well done. You could tell she meant every word and it was incredibly motivating to feel so valued as a team member. I've worked in many industries and it has always stuck out to me how much Leesa recognized and made you feel appreciated for your work. I also loved/love how Leesa really enjoys creating and imagining party concepts from thin air. You can tell it brings her true creative joy and isn't just a job or career or company to her. It's genuine fulfillment and it's such a beautiful thing to see."
Finally, a true testament to what it is like to stand in your purpose and allow wisdom to continue to guide you and allow life to unfold in front of you. Leesa's final sentiment when talking about her beloved company: "I have nurtured it, cared for it, struggled with it, and honored it, much as a parent does with a child. Moreover, I have trusted Send In The Clowns to lead the way, growing and developing at just the right times, maturing and leading when called upon to do so, pausing and re-inventing when necessary."
Thank you, Leesa, for being one of my, and so many others, greatest teachers by standing in your purpose, following your wisdom, and letting life pull you forward. What a gift to us all!
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
Curious about all that Send In The Clowns has to offer? Check out their WEBSITE or INSTAGRAM!
