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.
When do you feel love in your heart? What does it feel like? Is it a tingly sensation all over? Does it feel like relief? Does it feel warm? Does it feel like you’ve dropped into a peaceful place? Take a moment to reflect on that for me.
Now what do you suppose takes you away from that loving feeling? In conversation with Father Greg from Homeboy Industries on the podcast, he mentioned something that really hit me in the chest about his work - “How do you infuse hope in kids whom hope is foreign?“ It hit me because I have spoken with countless people who, although most haven’t come from tumultuous backgrounds such as gang life, feel as though love and therefore hope, IS foreign to them. In fact, how is it that I myself, coming from a very loving home, and a very privileged life when it comes to loving relationships, have experienced that sense of hope and love being foreign? Like they have gone missing? I feel a little shy saying it considering I have had resources and people in my life that equate to incredible privilege compared to many, but I know it’s a feeling that many of you can relate to, at some point or another in your life. And it makes me curious - knowing that we come into this world as a little ball of love and hope - which I’m sure you’ve felt when in the presence of a baby, you don’t have to take my word for it - it makes me curious…
How is it that we forget who we are?
For me personally, I know that when I’ve felt the depths of despair it’s because I’ve made up a future that scares the living hell out of me. I’ve made up a perspective of myself that isn’t rooted in truth. The world that I’ve created in my mind is absolutely terrifying and I’m living in it and experiencing it as if it IS truth. And the tricky thing about those terrifying times? We only see in life what enforces the current movie that’s playing in our mind, so a terrible cycle gets created in what we’re thinking and what we’re seeing. One reinforces the other.
We all have histories full of experiences that act as different notes of the music being played through our mind, but the theme I notice in us all is that when it comes to those periods of our life, however momentary or long, the love we have for ourselves becomes conditional.
Until we feel fulfilled by what we see in our lives, we must withhold love from ourselves.
Not until everything is in some arbitrary version of perfect - we abstain from allowing ourselves to drop into the essence of who we are - almost as if that abstaining is punishment for not getting it ‘right’ in life. And yet, the more we abstain, the more we avoid dropping into our true essence, the more gas we’re throwing on the fire that is the horrific movie in our mind that creates that cycle of illusory hell that we feel we can’t get out of.
So how do we break the cycle? I understand it can be hard to see who we are at our core when the noise in our mind is loud, I’ve been there. So here are some thoughts that are straight from Father Greg’s mouth yesterday that I won’t even attempt to say more succinctly (though I will comment throughout from my own peanut gallery)...
“Move beyond the mind that you have” (yes)
“Make friends with your wound or you’ll be tempted to despise the wounded” (and it goes without saying that if you haven’t made friends with your wounds, you will be tempted to despise yourself… as the wounded... as illustrated by everything I said earlier... ok, carrying on)
“The goal is not to be a stranger to yourself” (this seems so simple but a point that we so often miss because we’re caught up in running away from a falsified version of ourselves in our mind)
“Fall in love with being loving” (couldn’t have said it better)
“Practice makes permanent” (absolutely) and…
“Ventilate the world with tenderness” to which I would add ventilate your own pain, your own fear, the delusions you have of your life... with tenderness towards yourself. As Father Greg so beautifully put, “Love is like water to a very dry sponge and the moment of connection of water to sponge is tenderness.” And finally, as he shared from his experience of creating Homeboy Industries, “you can create a community that is transformational with dosing one another with love and tenderness”, and I believe you can create an environment inside of yourself that is transformational by dosing yourself with love and tenderness. With that, eventually, you will allow yourself to see from a deeper place, all that you are, more permanently, and the implications of that are infinite.
So how are you feeling now? Do a little scan for me... are you feeling a little lighter? Warm? Is that a bit of a smile peaking through? Ahhhhh... there you are. God I love being here with you.
Sending love in all directions and I’ll see you next week~
Jess
I’ve had an awareness rolling around my mind, probably because it has come up with multiple clients as of late, so it feels important to share.
So many of us are missing out on real, heart-felt, fulfilling connection with our loved ones - even while we are in the same room - because we’re spending all of our energy on our thoughts about them as opposed to being present with them. For example, it happens a lot between parent and child, so innocently. The parent is filled up from constantly thinking about the kids - worrying about this or that, strategizing for the following day, planning the future or feeling guilty about the past, and because they feel so filled up on their children from thinking about them all of the time, they don’t realize how empty the connection to their child in present time has been.
Is this making sense? Does it feel familiar?
It’s nothing to start having judgement around, it happens to all of us, all the time. We’re absent minded A LOT, why do you think I’m so passionate about sharing these things? It’s something we’re often not aware of because it’s such a trick of the mind when we think we’re present and then we have issues and confusion when the loved one in question feels distant or disconnected. The hat trick the mind is pulling on you is the fact that you haven’t been absent minded in your head - you’re thinking of them all the time! But you’re absent minded to the present moment, where real, deep connection is cultivated and exists.
How does this trick of the mind play out in real time?
In children, you may experience them having more tantrums, crying in a way that seems misguided, acting out - in adults, you may experience them having more tantrums, crying in a way that seems misguided, acting out. Forgive my tongue in cheek delivery, but truly, kiddos are mini adults with just a much bigger and louder expression of their insides since they don’t have words for what they’re experiencing. Nevertheless, in ALL of us, when there’s a void due to a longing for connection, it’s important to check our own state of mind. Where have we been? Just noticing this, starting to become aware of our presence when we’re present, is not only enriching for our relationships, but for our own experience of life as well.
So will you join me in checking in with yourself from time to time? When your child has a full meltdown because the bananas are ON the pancakes instead of IN the pancakes, instead of thinking they’re ridiculous, maybe check in with yourself on where you’ve been? It might not be the whole shabangy, but I can guarantee you that it isn’t something a little deep connection can’t fix.
As my mom has shared with me before, when I was a little one, I had a very easy time of asking for what I needed. The memory she’s shared is from when I was really little and I had been missing her so she asked me what I needed and I said, “I need to sit on your lap and put my hands on your face while you talk to me.” Oh man, heart. melted. It’s a testament to my parents that I always felt safe to put my heart out into the world and ask for what I needed. I remember asking if I could sleep in the middle of their bed from time to time, or being a very lanky teenager and asking if I could sit in the middle of them and hold their hands while we watched TV (pretty sure this was just before I moved out at 18). It’s a skill that I’ve taken for granted because it was something I never questioned in myself. But knowing the results of those asks always led to me feeling better - feeling safe and comforted and whole - I can see now how that was me listening to a deep part of myself that each and every one of us has when we listen. When we aren’t absent minded.
When we’re present in our presence.
Sending all the love in the world to you,
Jessie
Last Sunday morning, I curled up on my couch with a big, cozy blanket, grabbed my cup of coffee that has become a Sunday treat, and a delicious almond croissant (did you know Trader Joe’s has croissants that rival a french bakery? They do… they’re in the freezer section of all places, but I highly encourage you to check them out). One of my favorite teachers, Elsie Spittle, had recently given a talk, so I pulled her up on my TV and settled in for an hour of bliss.
In the talk, Elsie said something that stuck with me. You know those moments when you hear something that you very well may have heard a million times before, but for whatever reason, this time it wakes you up inside?
“Your body is an expression of spirit.”
I couldn’t stop reflecting on how profound that awareness is. For a time, I think I had seen my body as a vessel for my spirit, separate from me. I didn’t disregard it for that reason, but it looked more like a task to take care of it from that perspective. It felt good to feed it well, it felt good to exercise to keep it healthy, but again, it felt separate from me. I hadn’t really noticed that I felt this way until I heard Elsie - “Your body is an expression of spirit” - in one fell swoop I felt a feeling of coming together of all of my parts. As if before I heard her, I saw myself only as the formless energy that is my spirit, the me that shines through my eyeballs, the me that people feel when in connection, but it made me feel so touched, even tender, to see the whole of me as an expression of my essence.
Upon my reflecting I realized something from a more pragmatic perspective as well. When we are lost in thought, when we are consumed with the script the story writer in our mind is telling us, our body reflects that back to us. I’ve shared this before, how our body is the greatest alert system for where we are in our head, but I’m seeing it deeper. What a gift, our body is. It is a constant mirror, reflecting back to us where we are in our state of mind. When we are suffering, when we are… I can’t think of a better word so I’ll say it again… consumed by the world we’re creating inside of ourselves, our body works with us in unison to let us know we’ve gotten off track. An analogy that comes to mind is our cars: If we see an alert on our dashboard that we need to get an oil change, that is a gift from the car saying, “Hey! I’m not functioning quite right anymore, do this then I’ll be working like new!” Without thinking twice, we know what we need to do. We may drive around with the light on as long as possible before we sense that it’s absolutely necessary to get the car fixed, but we respect the fact that we know it needs fixing in order to work well.
The same goes with our bodies.
What if we began to consider this for ourselves more consistently? Respecting our bodies as an expression of our spirit? What if when we began to get the alerts from our body - a tinge here, an inner pressure feeling there, a sore back here, a little dizziness there - what if when we got those signals we respected our spirit in the same way we do our cars? What would that look like for us as humans?
What comes up for me is that those signals are an opportunity to look at the mirror our body is holding up for us. We aren’t broken by nature. We aren’t in a constant state of dis-ease, by nature. So if when our spirit is free to express itself through this skin suit of ours, we feel relaxed and confident and at ease, or differently put, full of life and energy and charisma, whenever we feel we’ve gone away from those baselines, it’s an OPPORTUNITY to notice our state of mind and check in. I personally remind myself in these moments that I am willing to be uncomfortable while the thinking I’m in passes (because it will pass, it always does), then inquire (like taking the car to the mechanic), “What do I need right now?” I am always, always, always met with an answer which ranges from, “Get a drink of water” to “Stop kicking the can down the road” - it’s fascinating to me every single time and when I nurture that voice and honor it, I find myself back in flow, feeling my essence like a warm hearth in my core.
Because I have freed her from the trappings of my mind.
“Your body is an expression of spirit.”
Sending love in all directions,
Jessie
As I was laying on the MRI table and experiencing huge waves of deep love and gratitude, feelings I would never expect to be present in such a situation, I knew this was something I wanted to share with you.
In early November, I had some concerning symptoms in my left breast that got me to the doctor. In the 4 1/2 months that followed, I had a total of two mammograms, two ultrasounds, an MRI and multiple calls with my doc that never left me feeling resolved. My doctor, who I had never met before this experience, was incredibly kind and incredibly thorough, so much so that I sometimes wished she wasn’t so good at her job. But a tiny mass had been found that no one could understand through imaging, and doctors (I have found) don’t like to be left scratching their head - clearly something I was grateful for, and knew was wholly important to the process, but man was I feeling done with being poked and prodded and squeezed and smooshed and on my most tired days, I would dream of what it would be like to just not care and stop with all of the searching.
I received the call that I was going in for yet another MRI (this would make 6 images total, in case you lost count), but this one was going to be accompanied with a biopsy. I was instantly devastated because my mind went straight into fear about what it could mean, but soon after the initial shock, there was also a sense of peace inside that felt like I knew two things; One, that I would be OK no matter what the results were, and two, that it wasn’t going to be cancer. “Brave” my mind said when I observed my wisdom telling me it wasn’t anything to worry about. It’s amazing what our deeper self knows. It’s so honest (sometimes honest in a way you don’t want to hear), but when it’s handing us truth that is grounded and frankly, all for the best in the face of the unknown that looks scary to our minds, it’s truly remarkable AND gives our mind a run for it’s money when it so desperately wants to keep our attention on the ain’t-it-awfuls.
I had a month to wait until I could have the procedure and my goodness, did that month become one of my greatest teachers. I had this incredible opportunity to watch my mind and my wisdom play ping pong. I had put the whole procedure day on the back burner, so to speak, because it wasn’t going to be healthy for my body whatsoever to identify with any thoughts that were making pictures about how it was all going to go. As I’m sure you’ve experienced, however, the mind is going to do what the mind is going to do, so it unleashed the fearful thoughts at random, all the time. This is why I say that month became my greatest teacher. At the beginning I would find myself following the carrot of a thought that looked like I needed to consider it. Something as innocent as, “What is it going to be like?” would pop up and I would start down that rabbit hole. But when I quickly realized that I always ended up swimming in the depths of incredibly unhelpful thoughts, I knew it was time to take my power back from my mind and be a bit more vigilant about not taking the bait of any thought that had to do with the future (the dark and scary future, that is…). After that realization, it became easier and easier to notice when it would go to the gutter and my deeper self, the quiet voice of my wisdom, would gently step in and say, “You’re not there yet” allowing some peace to wash over me that would allow the scary thinking to move on.
By the time biopsy day arrived, of course the anticipation was unnerving (I’m only human after all) but I truly felt peaceful deep inside. I didn’t have anxiety, I didn’t feel fearful, I had an overwhelming sense of what Barbra Streisand says to herself before she walks on stage, “Let go and let God."
Before the procedure I was introduced to Jessica, an incredible nurse who would be my liaison throughout the entire process. When she first sat down she walked me through how the whole shabangy was going to play out. As she began, I welled up with tears and I shared with her, “Don’t mind me, I’m just releasing the tension from anticipation.” From there on out I was fully present and what came forth was immense. For the following hour and a half, while I laid on my belly with my arms stretched over my head like Superman, I was tasked to not move a muscle and it was an incredible opportunity to relax in the midst of a pretty uncomfortable procedure. Of course, there were moments of physical pain that would give me a little jolt, but instead of being tense and full of noisy fearful thoughts, I felt a sense of deep peace and as if my heart was filling up the entire room. Jessica was by my side with her hand on my back, coaching me in my ear, “You’re doing so good, hon”. The surgeon, someone I had never met and still haven’t seen (since I was face down), was so gentle and kind, letting me know every move he was making moments before he made them. It was a dance. A dance of life that we were all a part of and I was fully aware of how special it was. I couldn’t stop quietly weeping to myself because it was all so heartbreakingly beautiful (in fact, I’m tearing up just recalling it for you). At one point Jessica, with her hand on my back, said, “You’re ok” when she felt me crying and I said back to her, “I know, you’re both just so wonderful.”
I shared all of this with you today because what I experienced in that operating room was a microcosm of what is available to us every single day, in our daily lives. It may seem brave to follow the quiet voice of your wisdom when your mind looks much more reasonable with all of it’s opinions, but man oh man, when you honor the truth inside, the gifts that come thereafter are what make every moment from small to big, incredibly rich and valuable.
Life moves through you, not to you.
Enjoy the dance.
Sending love in all directions,
Jessie
PS~ The cells came back benign. Hallelu.
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
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
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've been bubbling on what to share for today - I had a few ideas, good ones, but they were coming from my intellect. Experiences I have had lately that are great examples of being aware of the 3 principles in motion, but they aren't meant for today, my gut isn't sounding the alarm. Instead of pushing myself to sit in front of the computer, I stayed put, knowing my Wisdom would bubble up with something, even if it was in the eleventh hour.
And just like that, as Wisdom always does when you look the other way, it hit me...
I was sitting on the couch watching "The Great British Bake Off" on Netflix (the sweetest [no pun intended] show. I highly recommend it for winding down without having to commit to a storyline), and this massive insight hit me:
Our spiritual selves can be at peace even while our physical human selves, our bodies (or as I call them, skin suits) are experiencing physical changes or pain.
It takes a commitment to the observation of the interplay between the spiritual and physical since in the face of physical pain in our bodies, our thinking can run rampant. But if you can stay in a higher consciousness (awareness) of what is happening in your thinking, you will naturally be given the opportunity to stay in a peaceful, content (even joyful) inner experience. Think about pain or dis-ease in the body, of course you feel it, there's no way around it - every sensation: burning, pinching, prickling, tingling, nausea, etc. But as soon as you feel it, you have the free will to choose to continue breathing life into that pain by way of staying hypnotized by your fearful thinking around it OR you can be aware that you're experiencing physical pain (this is the observing of the interplay I was talking about at the top), and with the nature of how your mind works when you observe, a distance is created between you and the thinking around how much pain you're in, giving you the space to allow that thinking to pass which organically shifts your focus elsewhere.
WHOA.
The more I allow this to unfold, I'm brought back to the fact that our internal experience does not depend on our external circumstances; Therefore our physical pain would be in the same contention for outside experience, since our physical body is outside of our spiritual selves. Are you with me? (Hang in there, this next example will help make it more clear...)
For example, I have always struggled with a nauseated belly when I'm nervous. I was experiencing it the other day just before I left my house for a workshop that I was teaching. First, I was quickly aware that I was in my thinking about how the workshop would go, so my anxiety immediately dissipated when I said out loud, "Jess, you're not there yet which is why you feel anxious and nervous. You always rise to the occasion. Take one step at a time, come back to the moment." Realizing that I had become gripped by my thinking when I wasn't looking, then choosing to get in the driver's seat of my experience, naturally allowed the thinking and feeling to pass. However, because I had gotten so wound up momentarily, my stomach was still nauseated after I felt more peaceful, so my thinking, once released from my grip as far as the workshop, found it's way to focus on my upset stomach. As our minds work, it had a field day with my thoughts around my nausea and I quickly became hypnotized by it. I became even more nauseated as more and more insecure thinking was being created, and I even thought for a moment, "Should I just throw up so I can feel better?" But as soon as that thought swam through, I caught myself believing all of my made up nonsense and took the distance. I knew in that moment, that just like the nature of Thought, the nausea would pass if I didn't breathe life into my thinking around it. And sure enough, I was naturally shifted to focusing on other things and realized many minutes later that everything had left me and I was back in the moment. All of this happened within minutes, by the way, that's how quickly we can be overtaken, as well as how quickly we can catch ourselves and choose a different adventure.
You always have the choice when you observe where you are in your thinking...
Your well-being does not depend on your physical health.
Yet again, a moment of clarity that just came shining through. You can be managing anything from acute or chronic pain to terminal illness, and as much as you breathe life into the fearful or insecure thinking that swims around the physical attributes, because your feelings and emotions come from your thinking 100% of the time, you can choose to stay hypnotized by it or just be aware of what's happening, so it passes through you naturally. You cannot be destabilized from your well-being when you stay in observation and awareness. You are human, of course, so pain can absolutely take you by surprise, your thinking can run a 10k marathon before you catch it, or hell, you can suffer from your thinking around your physical pain just because you feel like it, that's the beauty of free will! But the difference between understanding how your mind and internal experience works versus being gripped by your chaotic mind because you don't know what's happening, is having the freedom to choose how you feel, inside. You are OK either way, because we are always OK (which brings peace in and of itself), but isn't it freeing knowing you don't have to stay gripped by an experience?
Ahhhhh....
All my love, 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
Really feel out this statement: Your emotions get in the way of every great thing in your life.
On first reading, does that feel true for you? Read it one more time: Your emotions get in the way of every great thing in your life.
Not so long ago I was putting some new thought into redefining what I do and how I explained my work to the world because I was finding my old descriptions were getting lost on people. Saying that life is actually an illusion and it's all being created on a moment to moment basis by your thinking, is quite meaningless to people when all they've asked is, "What do you do?" As I searched and bubbled on the question "Why me?" considering there are a million and one self-help gurus, therapists, healers, reiki masters, etc for people to choose from when feeling in the dumps or needing help to make change in their life - this is one of the lines that bubbled up:
Your emotions get in the way of every great thing in your life.
The more my intellect put that statement to task, it became more and more clear to me how true it was. I have absolutely experienced it in myself and I have definitely witnessed it in my friends and acquaintances around me. And I'm not talking about the beautiful, love-filled emotions that connect you to the heart of others and your surroundings, I'm talking about the emotions that fill with you with worry, fear - the emotions that make you feel guarded.
Think about how often an emotion is the thing that stops you from moving forward, from connecting, from risking, from being your ultimate self. Let's start off with the glaringly obvious moments where it stops us: Asking for a raise or promotion, a major audition, having difficult conversations with our partner, having difficult conversations with our children or family member, having difficult conversations with our friends, buying a house, moving out of our current living situation, taking the leap into a new career, socializing at a networking event... this list can go on and on. Then we can boil it down to the minutiae of our daily living when an emotion gets in the way: Seeing an old friend at the store unexpectedly (and most often, avoiding them), witnessing a stranger being emotional and not reaching out, adoring something about a stranger and not letting them know, eating a treat, NOT eating a treat, saying no to intimacy with your partner (this one hauls in a plethora of emotions that can get in the way: too tired, too overwhelmed, too much on the mind, too little time, putting it off... etc), getting out of the house to exercise, reaching out to a friend to catch up... seriously, this list can also go on and on.
For a lot of you out there, with most of your daily experiences, your emotions are holding you back from acting out of your wisdom.
Why?
Because with every thought, comes a feeling. To say it differently, you are feeling your thinking 100% of the time, not the experience in front of you. When it comes to moments where we have to risk, be vulnerable, connect without expectation - we jump right into fearful, insecure or judgemental thoughts, and guess what that does? Well, because feelings go right along with those fearful, insecure or judgemental thoughts, that thinking looks really real in that moment, and even though you've made it up, you believe it more than your wisdom that was about to take you into action.
Now, will your wisdom misguide you? No - never. Your gut instinct, your wisdom, is rooted in who you are before all of your thinking. On top of that, like a wave in the ocean, you are a part of a greater intelligence behind all things, a Universal Mind that is keeping you afloat even when you aren't paying attention. And who you are, who every single one of us IS at our core, is pure love, understanding, peace, joy, appreciation and gratitude. If you don't believe me, think of a time when you're most peaceful, joyful, or relaxed - got a picture in your mind?
Now check in with the feeling in your body... feels pretty good, right?
You just experienced in real time, a feeling that came from your thinking (and if you just plowed through reading this, go back and invite some beautiful experiences into your mind, I don't want you to miss out).
When you're in that peaceful place, that is what I call having a neutral mind, it's what you auto-correct to when you aren't being deceived and distracted by your thoughts. And when you're in neutral, wisdom has room to bubble up. By the way, sometimes our wisdom will tell us to hold back, don't go over there, don't make that call, don't talk to that person - but it's always for our highest good, guiding us down the path of least resistance EVEN in the face of life seemingly showing us bold resistance. Your internal experience does not depend on your surroundings or circumstances, you don't have to take my word for it, just listen to the feeling inside of you after reading this - your own wisdom will tell you.
So to bring this right-to-the-point lesson full-circle: Life is too beautiful, exhilarating, fulfilling, loving, moving... for you to miss out on connection and being your true, ultimate self 24/7. Emotions will happen, thinking will grip you... you're human! My thinking still grips me! I just allow it to pass within moments these days as opposed to hours or days later, because if it doesn't feel good, it isn't true. When you allow that gripping, insecure thinking to pass, the feeling that fills you up - the warm and loving emotions - will change your life. And from there, you have the freedom to choose what is best for you, always. You have the tools to master your behavior because you aren't living in your own reality that no one around you is even privy to.
I will leave you with a quote from Sydney Banks, the beautiful human being who had the insight into how our minds truly work:
If people could learn to stop reacting to their experiences in life, we'd all be fine.
So simple. So true. Let that sink in. Re-read it. Realize it for yourself. To the extent that you understand that you don't have to take your experience or your thinking or feeling seriously, you are protected from being destabilized. You just observe it, and you're back to neutral.
So for this week, do me a favor and be a witness to your internal experience. That's it. Don't stress about doing anything about it or working at anything. Just witness it... that in itself is going to bring beautiful shifts in your experience of life. It will look a little more like this...
My Grandma Adell in all of her glory...
All my love and see you next week~
Jessie
"NO ESTÁN SOLOS!"
AGAIN!
"NO ESTÁN SOLOS!"
AGAIN!
"NO ESTÁN SOLOS!!!"
The feeling, in this moment, I am going to do my best to describe. What you've read above is the phrase my best friend and voice for healing, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, engaged in with the crowd of thousands at the Families Belong Together march this past Saturday. This was her rallying cry at the end of the most heart-to-heart, honest, and inspiring speech, translating to: "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!" for the families, single mothers and children being faced with more pain and suffering when they had dreamt of hope, change and belonging when arriving to the U.S. She spoke to the humanity in all of us, she spoke to the wisdom in all of us, she spoke to the hope in ALL of us; And in that moment, while I and thousands of others raised our voices to the ether in unity, with love coursing through us, I felt the Oneness.
Oneness?
Yes. I couldn't tell you where I began and where the world and people around me ended or vice versa. I've had experiences of this feeling before when I am in ultimate bliss and peace, but it was magnified times infinity. Of course my love and pride for what Natalia was so bravely speaking to, the fact that she was standing in her purpose, in wisdom, in flow, blew me away with gratitude. But additionally, to look around to see every walk of life, every ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic background, coming together for the same purpose - for humanity - created a whirlwind of electricity and light that swirled all around my insides and came pouring out of me and all around me. My awareness brought to life, yet again, that we are truly all coming from and functioning within the same energy, the only differences between us is our thinking. My heart, my chest and my belly all felt warm - tears streamed down my face. THIS is what we ALL are at our core - we are love and understanding in motion, our heart connection is inevitable, when we don't get in our own way.
When we don't get in our own way.
I share experiences every week to help identify and explain the energy of Thought as well as the content of your thinking and how you can move away from it. About your wisdom that comes from Universal Mind - the greater intelligence of ALL things that you can distinctly identify by that nagging feeling in your gut when wisdom is trying to tell you that YOU have the answer. About how your Consciousness goes up and down all day every day, depending on if you're aware and can observe where your internal experience is coming from. Need a reminder? Here's an example of higher Consciousness (awareness) "I'm feeling so anxious right now. What am I thinking about? Oh, next weeks meeting, and since I'm not there yet, I'm feeling anxious. Ok - let those thoughts go, I'm not there yet, wheww... " Result: back in a peaceful, neutral mind - back to the moment; Versus feeling anxious, reacting to that feeling by getting mesmerized by your thinking that created it and getting deeper and deeper into the whirlwind thought storm by having more thinking about the thinking that created the anxiety in the first place. This is the result of lower Consciousness because you're reactive to your internal experience as opposed to observing it (by the way, we're all human.... we ALL experience the roller coaster of Consciousness, don't stress).
Alllll of this to say that when I share these experiences, these observations, they're based in ordinary life occurrences that we can all relate to, but guess what? Having this understanding relates to politics as well. I have an intuitive notion that some of you just read the word 'politics' and the hair on the back of your neck stood straight up, no matter what side of the line you're on. Isn't that amazing? That is evidence, right there, of the power of thought. Just the word 'politics' can send you off into a hypnotic world of thinking and now you're having a different experience. Maybe it triggers fear that I'm going to launch into a political debate, maybe it triggers your fears of the state of our country, maybe it triggers your feeling the need to defend yourself because you're in support of the current administration - maybe you're feeling none of these things in this moment but you've experienced exactly what I'm talking about in other situations. But the reality is, just as we have the free will to change on a moment to moment basis depending on our thinking in that very moment, we have the free will to shuck and jive in the political climate. You may be thinking "That's impossible! My politics reflect my values and who I am!" Well, that's exactly it. So many folks get caught up in the thoughts of who they have identified themselves with/who they have labeled themselves as (or who their parents/families identified with, so they've adopted the same political affiliation), that they lose sight of what is happening in the moment in our country. They don't see what is unfolding, therefore they aren't given the opportunity to be curious about if what is unfolding is truly a reflection of what they value, or rather, what feels right to them. It truly does, like everything else in life, boil down to a feeling inside. If what you're trying to process about the state of our country doesn't feel right to you, then honor that feeling. Know that that is your personal alert system within you telling you that something isn't right, and it only takes one thought shift, to have a different experience.
If you are sensing by any stretch of the imagination that I'm trying to sway you a certain way politically, I'm not - and if you feel that way, you are looking at me through a lens of thinking that has nothing to do with me. Maybe I have stirred up something inside of you, and I would encourage you to get curious about it. What I AM saying though, is that I know with ALL of me that every single person on this planet is standing in the middle of mental health and stability, and that connection I felt so strongly at the march was the connection that exists between each and every one of us. We often miss the opportunity to feel it (both the connection to others AND our mental health and stability) because we're caught up in our mental chaos. That's it. We're at the movie theater but we're watching a different movie on our phone, missing all the action on the big screen. If anything that is unfolding in your community or the country is giving you a nagging feeling but you feel so identified by your political party that you're ignoring that feeling, know that your identity to your political party, like everything else, is just a thought. It is your right as a human being on this earth to honor your feeling first, and use your free will, to abandon that thought. It's much less lonely, it's much less divisive. And may I add some personal two cents? Where we are today has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican - it just doesn't. The core of every experience right now is our humanity being put through the ringer, period. I have chosen to let go of any previous experiences or judgements of everything having to do with a political label, because it has been proven to me, time and time again, that once a thought is released, humanity shines through - no matter what party you used to identify with, or plan to go back to, once this nonsense has passed.
To close, I would love to share a portion of Natalia's speech that speaks directly to the heart of every human being - our ESSENCE - nothing more.
"... I urge you all to continue participating. To take action as you are doing by being here today. Some day these children will read about this in the history books. They will read about how kind hearted strangers fought for their freedom and rights. They will know they were seen. They will know they were welcomed. They will know that they belong. They will in return do the same for others. THIS IS HOW WE HEAL HUMANITY!"
Pictures above of the Los Angeles Families Belong Together turnout, Natalia speaking, the biggest squeeze ever after she spoke, a snapshot with Natalia and Marianna Burelli, and the crew.
All my love, see you next week~
Jessie
Is there a difference between loving yourself and liking yourself?
I got this question in a text this morning from a best friend of mine who was curious about my opinion, and I had so many insights bubble up.
What I know for sure is that love is a constant. It isn't a state of mind or something that comes and goes - LOVE in and of itself is always there. The only reason we don't feel it now and again is because we are distracted by our self-critical mind. Picture sitting next to a beautiful flowing stream. It's so quiet all around that you can hear the bubbling of the water as it twists and turns around the pebbles and rocks. There's a rainbow-like hue just above the stream from the sun hitting the light mist that's hovering just above the water. And yet, you have your back turned to to this beautiful stream and you're analyzing the dark clouds you see off in the distance, wondering if they're headed in your direction. That stream of love is still there, even when you're looking away and giving more attention to your fearful thought storms, you're just momentarily (or not so momentarily) turned away from it - your awareness is shifted, but it's there, quietly bubbling along.
Unfortunately, as so many of us have experienced time and time again, we allow those self-critical thought storms to get in the way of loving OURSELVES... often. Maybe we can get to a peaceful enough place to turn sideways to the stream to see and feel love for others, or we momentarily dangle our feet in the stream, feeling full of love for an experience. But when it comes down to holding up a mirror to ourselves and being able to say, "I love every bit of what I see - my heart, my humor, my light.. my imperfections, my cracks and creases, my patience and my impatience - I'm in love with every bit of it." We often times put ourselves dead last on the love list. We are so quick to beat ourselves up, to judge ourselves for things we aren't doing correctly, for not understanding things quick enough or for our impatience and not trusting the flow of life! We get in the boxing ring with our intellect and try to outdo ourselves, with ourselves. When in reality, when we fill ourselves up first, when we follow the little nudge from inside (our wisdom), when we give ourselves GRACE - we immediately shift to a place of peace and understanding. As I said above, we auto-correct to our natural state of LOVE.
Energetically speaking, when we're in this state of peace, understanding, grace = LOVE, we are open to see the breadcrumbs from the Universe, we have room to accept more love - whether that be in the form of another human being, friendships, that promotion we've wanted, the job shift we've been eager for, or life just simply feeling easy - even in the face of circumstances that give the illusion of hardship. When we are in alignment with ourselves, we are in alignment with ALL - with Mind (greater intelligence of all things, the energy of all things), the Universe. Our self-love truly governs and is the root to all facets of our life.
Are you wondering how to have self-love? Logically it makes sense to you, but when you really think about it it sounds a little out there and not completely possible? Here's the thing, when you get in the drivers seat of your thinking - when you start to connect that your feelings come from your thinking 100% of the time, you'll know that when you feel off in your body, that is a warning sign from your bod to your intellect that you're believing your thoughts that aren't true - you have the opportunity and freedom to choose to observe your thoughts in that moment, instead of being triggered by them. You create an immediate distance between you and the chaos trying to wreak havoc in your mind, and that in itself will make you more peaceful. You are human, so sometimes you'll get sucked into the storm before you even recognize the moment of choice. But again, allowing yourself grace, seeing your thinking for what it is, will bring you back to that peaceful place and the moldy thinking will pass - it always does the moment it's diffused.
Next step would be to do something that you love to do that may even make you feel challenged. At least once a week, do this. It can't be going to the gym (even if you love it), or something that is career related - think of something you would love to do for YOURSELF, something that may have piqued your interest before, but you always stop yourself with "logical" thoughts. I guarantee you it will bubble up immediately if you ask yourself "What would be a fun thing to do for myself once a week" - catch it, don't let your thoughts tell you it's nuts or that you don't have time or money. A pottery class? Horseback riding? Boxing? Setting goals for longer walks or runs? Crochet? Music lesson? Swimming? Roller skating? Dancing? Cooking? Baking? The feeling of accomplishment and joy that will beam from your insides will create a shift IMMEDIATELY. The peace, the joy, the calm, the light that is created, opens up the information highway inside of you that will allow you to walk the blueprint of your life that is already drawn - and boy is it exciting and wonderful.
Are you hanging in there with me? Here's the thing, as I say to my clients and in every workshop or talk I give, allow this information to flow through you, just drink it in. Just reading all of this is naturally opening up your understanding of it all. The insights are already at work. It's hard for us as human beings to not conceptualize, intellectualize and therapize ourselves into oblivion. But again, that's just more thoughts about our thoughts that create stress and anxiety. Just don't go there, ok?
Lastly, as my friend asked, is liking ourselves the same as loving ourselves? For a moment I thought, "well surely we can have a moment amongst loving ourselves where we don't like ourselves." But the reality is, at our core, when we have love for ourselves, in the moments where we might think it's ok to not like ourselves, we're purely just off course of our wisdom and believing our thinking. For example, this same friend and I were texting a few days ago and in response to something sweet we were talking about I wrote back #METOO. In the moment I wrote it, I got a little funny feeling in my belly - it didn't feel right - 'Me, too' would have sufficed, but I sent it anyway. That funny feeling in my belly was my wisdom saying to not do it (the #METOO movement is very important to me, so it was a bummer to diminutize it). I went against myself, therefore not coming from a place of love and full circle: not liking myself. Did I beat myself up for it? No. I just thought "that was a bummer" and left it. But it bubbled up every once in a while for the rest of the day, so I finally text my friend back in the evening and said, "I wish I would've just said 'Me, too!'" We had a laugh because in the big picture we both knew I wasn't being a turd about the movement, I was doing the best with my thinking in that moment which told me 'oh, it's kind of clever' when my gut felt off, but I appreciated her listening nonetheless.
So is there a difference between loving yourself and liking yourself? It feels to me, in this moment, that they are mutually exclusive. As my friend so insightfully said to my response to her "Love is the foundation to the building and like is what can be built on top" - exactly. And it's all flowing, moment to moment. The more we swim in the self-love stream, the deeper our resolve to care for ourselves first before we beat ourselves up.
Get in that stream dear friends, lap it up. It's always there, even if you aren't looking at it, but life's too short to just be aware of it's presence as opposed to enjoying every possible joy-full moment that you could be playing around in all of it's sparkling, rainbow-hued glory.
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
I totally stole the title of this article from my husband. But in all fairness, he was talking about me. And he's right.
What is my Excalibur? My entire life, no matter what I've been engaged in - school, my dance career, my career at the agency, and now my business - once I have a goal in my mind and I can see the big picture, I am full-out with my energy towards obtaining that big picture and I climb the ladder to get there hard and fast (at least that's the illusion that my mind creates). I constantly think about what I could be doing to strategically prove that I'm capable of more responsibility or being promoted or hired. But here's the thing, the deeper into this understanding I get with every day that passes by, I've observed myself creating an immense feeling of internal pressure because of all my thinking that gets created from this mindset. Because the reality is, it's just more thinking.
I have to be honest - I've recently been thrown off my own scent a bit. Meaning, I didn't realize I was creating this pressure! Several months ago, I had already recognized and appreciated that that pressure feeling was something I used as fuel in the past - when I felt totally spent I just excused it all by thinking "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" – if the situation becomes difficult, the strong will work harder to meet the challenge, and I was that person! Proudly! It's such a natural second gear for many of us - it's our cultural norm, really. But what's incredible is that with this understanding of the mind, I had been observing my thinking, not getting triggered by it, so I no longer felt that pressure (I thought!). Until the other day I was so focused on big picture goals, I was staring off into space with a concerned look on my face and my husband Mike snapped me out of it. My internal pressure feeling had changed - it no longer brought feelings of anxiety and I still felt a sense of peace within, but it was a weight nonetheless...
I don't know about you, but I'd rather walk through my days looking and feeling like this...
Little Jess... sometime in the 80's
I was heading towards this bigger realization last week, as I had had an AHA moment where I was feeling this pressure (without recognizing it as that yet). I just felt worn out, wishing more things were unfolding faster and my brain wanted to question the greater Universal intelligence that we all live within. If my wisdom knew what I was headed for, opportunity wise, if I could see it AND I could feel it, why did I feel so challenged? Why was life feeling 'difficult' and my patience wearing thin? Then the AHA - if the Universe is always working in our best interest (which it is), and our feelings come from our thinking 100% of the time (which they are), this worn out and impatient feeling I was living in was completely self-created and was an opportunity (more like a big ol' slap across the face from the Universe) for me to go inside and see it. What a lesson.
It always boils back down to the very basics of this understanding, and I will be the first to willingly raise my hand to say that being human means being seduced by my surroundings from time to time. But the reality is, it's simple. Always simple. As Elsie Spittle says in her new book, The Path to Contentment:
"Innate wisdom is a spiritual fact - it's not just an idea or concept. At the same time that wisdom is of spiritual essence, wisdom is also extremely practical. (...) Over time, as I began to see more about the inner workings of my mind, I could see wisdom come to life for me and guide me in my day to day living. It was a natural outcome of simply enjoying my life and not trying to figure everything out with my intellect. I discovered that the more I lived in the present, the more wisdom was released from inside me so that it became my companion and help-mate."
I just had an insight. I've experienced this so clearly in my relationship with my husband, Mike. To this day, I trust and surrender to it's flow without ever getting my thinking in the way. When we met, he had just left a gnarly relationship of a few years and really didn't feel ready to jump back into something. We had spent three blissful hours talking right after we met, there was no denying we had found something special, so in classic Jessie form, I made the first call the day after that long conversation trying to force my way in. He knew we had something too, so we made the decision to literally check in with each other every day. Folks have asked me, "Weren't you guys nervous you'd check in one day and one of you would say you're not into it anymore? That would be heartbreaking!" And the reality is, yeah, that was a total possibility, but neither of us ever got into our thoughts about it. In hindsight, we were just trusting the feeling and we knew what we had felt really good and right. We didn't even call each other boyfriend and girlfriend for months, but it didn't matter. We just enjoyed the hell out of each and every moment, and each day kept leading to the next. Nearly 15 years later, I can't believe I'm just seeing this. Proof right under my nose that the more you enjoy life and follow your wisdom, that gut feeling, life will continue to unfold for you, every step of the way.
Sweet relief. I've come back home. Back to myself. Back to enjoying life and following my inner promptings of what to do next, then taking those steps when they come to me. The blueprint is already drawn, there's no need to use my intellect, my over-thinking and over-analyzing, to make me feel as though I'm doing more, accomplishing more or that I could be doing more and accomplishing more. Because the plain fact of the matter is, the more your intellect gets in your way in that matter, it can create the illusion that you're falling short because your head is 10 steps ahead in the blueprint, while wisdom is happily guiding you along at the pace you're meant to be at. Additionally, each step taken provides more information for the next. Something that our intellect could never 'figure out' for us, that's why the surrender to the feeling inside is so important.
My Excalibur is no longer my weakness, it just has a new responsibility - keep dreaming big, but slow down, follow my wisdom and enjoy the view. God that makes me excited, you?
All my love, see you next week!
Jessie
I just returned from a wonderful little vacation in Seattle, if you haven't been, I highly recommend taking a few days to visit. There are so many quaint experiences to be had: From the momentary bursts of rain that the locals refer to as 'spit' (because frankly, that's about as bad as it gets), to the endearing observation of when the sun comes out - the locals have a cow and say 'The mountain is out!' because they can see Mount Rainier that is normally disguised by looming fog and clouds. From the architecture, the art, and the food, to the beautiful juxtaposition of the city with it's ever-growing tech population amongst the nature that is being preserved within the city, as well as the immense evergreen forests, mountains and water that surrounds it (the views from the Space Needle and other high points in the city such as Queen Anne Hill are to die for).
I found myself reflecting on my interactions with the world while I was staring off into the majestic Puget Sound, watching boats of every size moving like ballerinas across The Drink (another colloquialism from a local). Each boat left a different wake behind it, some left a little frothy trail and some left a huge dip in the water, with overflow creating a rip tide for everyone trailing behind. There is a wonderful saying that I heard from another dear 3 Principles practitioner, Barbara Patterson, that was so apropos to the moment...
What is the wake you leave behind you when you interact with the world?
Isn't that a fabulous question for reflection? It isn't about walking on egg shells because you don't want to bother anyone and create a wake - it's an opportunity to take in and observe the experience others have of you as you walk through life. Without creating more thinking around how you should be, or judgement on how you've been, just take in the understanding that you always leave a trail of influence behind you, a feeling, and just having that idea in mind will begin to open your eyes to it. You know how once you learn more about something, no matter how big or small, your understanding naturally widens? Your world gets bigger just by gaining that knowledge? That's what I'm talking about here. Just by considering the question, What is the wake you leave behind you? Your perspective has already began to open up.
On that same idea but the flip side of the coin, have you ever noticed that you can often sense the feeling behind what someone is saying more than what is coming out of their mouth? Start to pay attention to it next time you interact with someone. The deeper you get into the understanding that your thoughts are your own and that you have your own experience of life unfolding in your head that no one else is privy to except you, the more you'll effortlessly want to be in the moment and experience the person in front of you in real time, as opposed to seeing them through the lens of your thinking that is mucking up their shine. Like I was sharing earlier, the awareness alone naturally brings you to the moment and allows for connection from your heart to the heart of others. You can clearly hear the intention behind what they're saying, then connection, magic and love unfolds. Truly! Even with the banker who is having a bad day and is a bit snippy with you: When you aren't in your world of thought during the interaction (aka: "Geez, he's crabby, he doesn't have to be treating me this way, should I tell a supervisor? Ugh, he's moving so slow, this is such an easy transaction!") you can sense what is up with them, that it isn't personal to you, and have empathy and love. Again, there is nothing to 'do' here, just the awareness opens your eyes to how you interact - where you're coming from when you speak to others and the influence you leave behind - both being the ever important feeling that leads to connection.
We returned from Seattle on Friday and over the weekend I was experiencing that energy drain that comes after vacation - you know the feeling, I need a vacation from my vacation? Yes, that one. And my dear husband Mike kept inquiring on if I was ok or not, if I needed something or if he needed to talk me out of my proverbial tree. Each time he would ask me, I would go inside, take a look around to make sure I wasn't overthinking anything or stressing about life. And each time I would recognize that I was truly peaceful feeling, I was just literally drained of energy (unusual for the old me, the old me would sense something off inside of me then I'd instantly get spun up about different things I thought I should be worrying about. But as the understanding of how my mind works has gone deeper, the more peaceful I've become - HALLELU!) Admittedly however, each time he would ask me, my thoughts would get a little more wound up around wishing he'd leave me alone because the inquiring was triggering me to analyze more and more - to look for dirt that didn't exist. So in that moment, I observed my thinking and saw that I was beginning to get irritated thoughts when the feeling behind what he was saying was purely love and care. Full stop. Instantly and without effort I was then able to speak to that feeling, because I felt it too. I was able to thank him for how much he cared for my well being and that each time he inquired actually made my mind want to jump off a cliff that didn't exist, so being quiet and hanging out together was all the fix I needed. What an incredible relief that was to him, and to me. It's incredible how much crap we create when we are listening through the noise of our busy minds as opposed to our peaceful heart.
With all of this reflecting I leave you with this: It's all in a feeling. When we're in touch with the feeling, we naturally are moved to it's attention and out of our distracting thoughts. We are all connected, we are all moving through life trying to make sense of our own personal thought world, even though it looks like we're trying to make sense of the world around us. The closer we are to ourselves, our home, the closer we are to each other.
Here's a little snippet of our ride down the Space Needle to give you a sense of the beauty of Seattle (and a quick hi from our very cheery elevator host who was in the greatest of moods because 'the mountain was out'). And yes... I added the tunes.
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
I admit it. I'm guilty. Yep, happens to me all the time...
Hi, my name is Jessie, and I am an overthinker.
Is it the fact that I come from a family of therapists, so it's second nature to analyze the crap out of every little thing? (Which was quickly supported by my Psych education... Nervous? Stressed? Anxious? Dig in your past, you'll find the answers there... oh, bother). Is it because I'm an entrepreneur secretly stuck in the body of someone who wants a traditional 9-5? (I've tried that, so I know it isn't the answer, whew!)
Oh, it's because I'm human? Thank god... I can deal with that.
Since last weeks post (TRUST In The Timing), I've been made aware of the way I process life - lets just say that I don't do my introspection as introspectively as I thought I did - my husband Mike just the other day said, "Jesus, you have so many THOUGHTS!" which made me laugh all while giving me major insight. The insight was, here I am not getting emotionally hooked or triggered by my thinking (at least not a majority of the time), yet I still take the headline thoughts very seriously (particularly everything that comes up pertaining to my business). Do you understand what I mean? I do a great job of not getting tossed into a thought storm that I believe to be true which can result in anxiety and stress, but I still look at each thought with a magnified glass, as opposed to allowing them to pass effortlessly.
I hear ya, Pooh!
The understanding is about to go deeper.
See, the clearer I've become on the role of Thought in my understanding of the world around me: that we live through the lens of our thinking 100% of the time, and that our feelings come from our thoughts 100% of the time - the less I have been emotionally triggered by them. BUT now I have trained myself to grab a hold of a thought, try to make meaning out of it, try to see what the 'hidden message' is within it, then let it go back into the heavy stream of thoughts that flow when I'm done with it. Like catching a fish purely for the sport of the catch, then letting it go back into the water. Because I don't deal with anxiety any more like I did in the past, this new little trick of mine slipped under the radar until it was pointed out to me.
So if I'm not feeling anxious or getting emotionally triggered by this new trick of mine, what's the big deal? I'll tell ya: It keeps me distracted from my wisdom, therefore keeping me frozen instead of in motion. I find myself going around and around in my head some days about which move I should make next for my business: Who should I contact next? Should I start compiling all my writings for my book? Should I get back to my weekly or bi-weekly group meetings? Should I clarify a bunch of topics for guest pieces for online publications now? Or wait til I begin to reach out to them? And of course each idea comes with ten more ideas and guess what?! If I didn't stop to mull it all over and I just ACTED out of my wisdom, all of those things would be done within a day (and by the way, I know the answer is YES to all of the above). Of course I'm still productive, but it takes more effort to rise out of my brain and it's incredible how much time is lost to going around and around with it all. Am I grateful for my understanding of how Thought works so none of them are making me feel ill? ABSOLUTELY. But, I'm seeing now that there's yet another level deeper into the understanding, into the consistent peaceful abyss that exists for the taking - or should I say - for the being.
As per usual with lessons like these, when they show up in more of a brick-upside-the-head kind of way as opposed to a whisper kind of way, the Universe brought me the last piece of the puzzle via my mom and her recent insight that made me (and her) click into a deeper knowing of this thing called life. I am majorly paraphrasing, but it was something said by Sydney Banks, the wonderful human being who had the insight into the 3 Principles behind our human experience that my work is based in: Don't get caught up in the game of the thinking, just observe it. The game of the thinking. That is exactly what I needed to hear. Our thoughts are always at play, sometimes they're playing with knives during a storm, sometimes they're kicking a ball back and forth in the sunshine, but either way - observe the game, and keep honoring your wisdom. Life will continue to unfold for us when we get out of our own way with our thoughts - and what's even more magical? When we're not in our head, or rather, choosing to observe the game in our head instead of play it, we naturally come back to the moment and get to witness all of the little breadcrumbs from the Universe, allowing for the journey to be the fun part, not just the goal at the end of the journey. Wow, what a wonderful feeling.
Thank you for being on the journey with me~
All my love and see you next week,
Jessie
