I’m at my alma mater, about to stay up all night doing work, like the other college kids… Except I’m not a college kid, but they don’t know that..

I’m leaving town in less than a week, going abroad to start work on my international heal the world venture. Yes, that venture that I’ve been talking about forever. It’s happening. The ticket is bought. One of our team members has already left…

Some weeks are dry and then some days everything happens at once. So much has happened since my last entry.

Taking a moment to sort things out before I put the final touches on one of my creative writing projects…

I’m grateful…

Someone broke my heart this week. I know. You’re like, what? How is that possible? There wasn’t even anyone in my life to break my heart… There wasn’t. But there was. A guy. I’d known him for a while, but never had a romantic type thing with him… Then one day I said my prayers, and I was meditating… I’d always thought he was a fabulous human being… But on this particular day, somehow in my prayers, the thought of a husband came to mind, and then I saw his face. This guy… And I asked if he was my husband, and the answer was yes, but the answer was no… Meaning the answer was yes on my part, but he would have to choose me…

And so I told him about my prayer and my vision, and he said that he didn’t “think” and he didn’t “view” and he didn’t “see” us being together. But he wouldn’t pray about it. He wouldn’t say that he didn’t choose me… He wasn’t willing to go there. He wasn’t even willing to ask a prayerful question about me. And that hurt. Because he’s a prayerful kind of guy.

And it hurts now as I’m writing about it, because I hadn’t thought about a husband in almost a year… I mean, I had thought about it, but I hadn’t been led to connect with anyone on that level in almost a year. But after I saw homeboy in a vision, I thought it was him, you know? I was sure… And it was strange to be so sure about a thing and then it not happen. To choose a thing and then it not choose me.

And so I cried. Because, hey, what else was there to do? I argued with him until he got tired of arguing with me. How could he not know that he was the one? Why wouldn’t he pray about it? Why didn’t he see the vision that I saw? It just didn’t make sense, God. All of this disharmony of wills just didn’t make sense… Because there are guys in my life who had chosen me. They had dreamed of me and hoped and prayed and begged and I don’t know if they had seen me in a vision as their wife, one of my exes said he had, but I had not chosen them, or maybe we had chosen each other for a time and then one of us deviated…

And it didn’t make sense that one person could want a thing and choose a thing, and the thing they chose wouldn’t choose them back, because according to what I’ve been learning, God, You said that for every cause there was an effect, and I thought that it meant that for every inspired wanting, there was an answer to that wanting…

And I feel like Trinity from “The Matrix”.. The oracle said I would fall in Love with the one to birth my child, but he doesn’t choose me, and he thinks I’m trying to force my will on him, and the whole crying, red-eyed thing is not looking too good on me, and so I have to stop… I have to let it go. I have to let him go, even though I don’t understand how and why and why not… Am I ugly? Or too poor? Or not successful enough? Or maybe I laugh too loud or I don’t do my nails or I’m too serious or too sweet. Maybe I don’t talk the right way or I talk about the wrong things…

You see what rejection will make you do? It will make you doubt your very worth. It will make you doubt your very right to be yourself. It will make you wonder if you are okay, with all of your idiosyncrasies and all of your failures. It will have you thinking that you have to be another way, other than you, in order to be Loved…

But it’s not true. Rejection is a lie! Don’t get it twisted, they probably don’t want to be with you for whatever reason, but if you didn’t do anything… If you didn’t cheat or lie or steal or hurt or try to manipulate the object of your desire… If you gave your all and tried your best and opened your heart as big as it could open, danced your greatest dance, wrote your best resume and handed your whole self to that one that would pick you… If you did all that and they said, “no thanks”…

It’s OK. It doesn’t mean you’re not worth sh*t. It doesn’t mean that something’s wrong with you. It doesn’t even mean (hard as this is to swallow) that something’s wrong with them, or that they can’t see or they’re stupid or whatever, even though it makes us feel good to talk about them. It just means that they didn’t choose you. Perhaps they don’t make choices from the same place you make choices. Perhaps when choosing a candidate for a job or a life partner, they don’t want the best qualified. They may want the least threatening or the one who doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable. Perhaps they want the prettiest candidate. Or maybe they want the easiest or the one that will make them look the best… You see where I’m going.

Our choices are all not made from the same places, so while I’m sitting over here moving on a vision, the object of my affection may be compelled to act from other motives. He obviously did not consider visioning and praying when it came to deciding about me. And I can’t get mad at him. I mean, I could, but that wouldn’t do any of us any good. He has a right to his reason for being just as much as I have a right to mine.

I’ve been asking why for the past few days… How come I would be clear about a thing and it’s not clear about me?  The answer hasn’t come yet. I could try and rationalize it and say that I have to grow some more or I could say that the thing of my choosing has to grow some more or I could be all philosophical and say that there must be some lesson trying to emerge.. Or I could be honest and say I really don’t know why these things happen.

What I do know is that even in the midst of our unchosen-ness, we can decide what to do with our good selves. We can choose whether or not to harbor bitterness or we can decide to let the things that don’t choose us choose what they may. We can bless them and free our spirits for other opportunities, even if it’s them in the future… We can honor our feelings and let ourselves cry until we are done. We can improve on our own character and our own lives, not so that they will Love us, but so that we will be proud of how we show up in the world. We can forgive. Yes, again. And again. We can forgive.

And we can even choose Progress and Joy and Openness and Love and Divine Guidance and Abundance. Oh, and Self-expression! We can choose a Fabulously delicious Life in the midst of our disappointment. In the midst of our lack of understanding. Understanding does not have to be a condition for happiness…

In the midst, of our unchosen-ness, let us not forget that we still have choice. Let us not forget that we are still enough…

Day 227

When What You Choose Doesn’t Choose You… Choose.

I’m at my sister’s place, by the ocean… My nephew and his dad just woke up, so I might have to go to my sanctuary (my car) to write this post. We’ll see what happens…

I ended up in the car… Too much talking, baby making noise… My sister woke up as well… I wrote a whole bunch already, but I’m starting over… Give me a minute to check in.

My almost-husband is leaving town tomorrow. I’m sad about it… I know, I haven’t filled you in. I had this fundraising party a few days ago. A lot happened surrounding the planning and execution of the party, but if I can sum it up: There was a lot of drama. I trusted people to help me and found out later that they were trying to sabotage the event for various reasons. Some people on the planning team came through and gave their all to help, and others flaked out and canceled at the last minute.

Mr. Almost Famous, my almost, could-have-been husband, hosted the event for me and championed me the whole time.

I got stronger, I learned to speak up, I learned to be nice to people even when they are not nice to me… Mostly, I learned not to take things personal. I dealt with strong and powerful people and the only way to deal with strong and powerful people without getting bulldozed by them is to be a strong and powerful person. And that doesn’t mean you have to be mean or arrogant or evil. It just means that you have to recognize that you, too, are valuable, and your ideas are valuable. You have to be able to stand in a room with folks who are going to try and pimp you in any and all ways possible and say, “No, I’m not doing that. I’d like this to happen”. You’re going to have to say, “Such and such is my friend, and I’d never do that to him, even if it would make me more money”. When you interact with strong and powerful people, you are forced to come to terms with who you really are and what you stand for.

Are you gonna let them turn you into a monster or are you gonna keep on praying and believing in goodness anyway?

When somebody betrays you, are you going to lose faith in humankind and get all bitter or are you going to seek out those whom you can trust?

Because the truth of the matter is, our limited experiences do not encompass the entirety of the universe. Just because we haven’t experienced loyalty doesn’t mean loyalty does not exist. It all exists. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s up to us to decide how we want to do this life thing.

And it sounds so simple, right? Here you are, single, broke, unaccomplished, or in some horrible ordeal,  and you just wake up one day and decide that you want your life to be the opposite, even though maybe you’ve never experienced that, and your life is supposed to change… You want a happy relationship, a lot of money, true success… Maybe you’ve never even known anyone that has any of those things. And we are supposed to just sit here and decide that we want a kind of life that we’ve never even seen anyone experience and then it’s supposed to happen? It sounds ludicrous.

But I ask you, how else is it going to happen and what are the alternatives? Settle for a stupid life? Settle for fake, back-stabbing Hollywood relationships? Dumb ourselves down and hate anyone more successful than us? Don’t smile too big except when we are watching movies alone? Cry ourselves to sleep at night? Don’t ever let ourselves feel stuff anymore? Don’t get too close or too kind? I mean, really, what are the alternatives to going for it?  Drinking and drugging and sexing our lives away so that we don’t have to think about how much pain we’re in? Cheating on each other? Lying all the time?

Let’s just be real. These are the alternatives to happiness. These are the alternatives to going for it. Of course, there is also the possibility of an “OK” life. A steady job that will help one eventually buy a house and a car and whatever else. A steady relationship that will provide a source for children and companionship, even though there might not be that much love and passion. It’s even possible that an ok life can be a good life, and it can be exactly what some people want… Everyone doesn’t have to experience everything.

I think what it comes down to is knowing who you are and knowing what is important to you. And then making a decision about what our lives are about…

My fundraising party crossed me over from girl to woman. Women don’t care about posing for the world. They do what they are compelled to do. Even when they are afraid, they take action. They Love fiercely and protect their loved ones. Women choose what kind of lives they want to live instead of being pushed around by the current winds of the world. I am a woman now. I’m actually a woman…

I’m sitting in my car dropping tears because this chapter is over, the whole party planning thing… The whole Mr. Almost Famous thing… It’s consumed my life for the past month, and it’s over now.

I feel things in my heart again… I have Love in me again… I’m not scared of it, now, though. I don’t know what happened. I’m not scared of getting hurt. I have real friends and family. I see who they are… They came through and represented at the party…

New chapter now… We’re still on an intentional adventure. I think we’ll stay here until we’ve accomplished some things. A marriage, a book or song or script sale, a whole bunch of money that gets me completely out of debt, a job I really love… Any of these would be physical signs that, yes, I have graduated from this part of my life. I’m on my way. There have been triumphs.

I’m back to not quitting things and that’s a big, big deal. I have pure space for actual love, and I don’t think I’ve been that way since I was eleven years old! I actually have been working and making income, so I’m on my way. I Love people again. I care about people again. And I even let people Love and care about me, and people have been so good to me… This is actually who I really am, a sweet, goofy, hypersensitive, idealistic, nerdy, smart, studious, dancing, exercise-loving, tomboyish, passionate, goody-two-shoes woman…

Let the haters hate and fight until they knock themselves out. They have no power over me. The past has no power over me. There is no alternative for me. There is only a good life on the horizon. There is only a good life here and now. I am grateful for it. I cast my will, Lord, upon the waves of existence. I allow You to make the future come to pass as it will. I stand in faith and confidence that God is for me, and not against me. I am willing and ready to be guided into Truth and Liberty. And I say Yes! Yes to Life! Yes to Love! Yes to a Goodness and a Joy that is more than I can even fathom! Yes to manifesting my Destiny in this Lifetime! Yes to Progress and Abundance and Success!!!! Yes, Yes, Yes!!! There are no alternatives to happiness for me… None at all.

Day 226

The Alternatives To Happiness

I am having to do grown-up stuff now, stepping into my true calling… Sometimes it is scary to deal with big and powerful people when you are used to feeling small. Sometimes it is scary to step out and tell the world who you are and what you’d like to do, risking that you will be rejected, risking that people will stab you in the back, risking that you will not be successful….

And we come to the place of prayer, the place of surety, Ya Kafil… The place without fear. From here, we can see life clearly. We can plant seeds of confidence and excellence. We can make decisions for forward movement…

I’m moving forward. Soon I’m going to have a husband. I feel it. Soon my writing will be done, at least this phase of it… Soon I will have a lot of money… Soon, God willing, the community center I envisioned will be built. Soon, the me that I have always felt in my spirit will be me…

Life is different already. I am so much stronger. I am so much more at peace. I am so much willing and wanting to participate in this life… I dare say I am so happy… Even now.

This is what happens when I pray. Everything on the outside disappears and it is like a magic place opens up in my mind. I can even feel the presence of my heart in my body. All things seem possible to me and I feel bold and safe. The fear evaporates. Action is taken. Forgiveness takes over… Clarity takes over. Fear dissipates. Life has a totally different meaning. Peace becomes important and the mind is focused. Love… Love opens up in my heart.

My heart is open again. I guess it’s been almost a year since the disappearance of Dream Lover. My heart is open again. Oh, sweet Love. Oh, sweet Life. I am overwhelmed with the possibilities of all that you could be. I let go all the evil. Choosing good over evil in this moment. I’m choosing faith again. I’m choosing boldness. I’m choosing movement and ease.

You are making me into myself. I feel it. And if I had to go through this storm, if I had to cry a whole year straight and get my heart broken over and over… Whatever I’ve been through and whatever I go through, it’s worth it if I will actually be able to say that I lived my true destiny on Earth, if I actually am able to become my true self…

Oh, I’m in Love again. With nothing in particular. Here’s to a new day. A new day indeed…

225

Grown-Up Stuff

I’m so excited! It’s my birthday today!!!! I feel like a little kid. I want to go put on a pretty pink hat so everyone can give me a gift and tell me how special I am and how much they love me. I Love birthdays.

I just wrote a long birthday blog about all the things I’m thankful for and all the little golden tidbits I have learned over the past year, but I don’t feel like posting that one.

My birthday has already been wonderful. I’m getting off the internet so I can go do one of my favorite things: hike out in nature and smell the trees before it gets too hot. I’m going dancing today. I’m spending time with people I Love and people who Love me. I am recognizing all the people in my life who are such generous, giving, kind, Loving, fun, creative, alive souls and being grateful for them. Me. I have friends. Me. I have people in my life that I Love. Even now.

I am letting go of all the dark stuff. It has been falling away for some time. I let it go again. The feeling I have today is priceless. I want to dance. I want to share. I want to smile. I want to enjoy. I want to pray. I want to give. I am not worried about tomorrow. I trust that tomorrow will work itself out just fine and in this moment, oh this lovely moment, I am confident that all of my efforts will not go in vain. Every little bit adds up…

… My brother just called me to wish me happy birthday. My brother, who I used to fight and war with… The guy who was my best friend growing up… He’s my brother again…

I am so grateful today, God. I don’t think it can be captured in words. Today is an abstract picture, a beautiful dance, a heartfelt prayer. I am alive today. I am sitting inside of my embodied spirit. The real me is back…

I start this day with God, my trusted companion. The thoughts in my head mean something today. It matters. It feels like change. No, growth. Love. It feels like openness and assurance. I’m on my way to my favorite park. I have to go.

I know this is not one of my best entries, because what I have to give right now is more than words, and I’ll have to grow a little more to find the exact words to express this… Sunshine. Babies’ smiles. All rightness. A feeling of magic, a feeling that your life is and can actually be whatever you like… A deep and profound gratitude… More than words is enough for me today…

Day 224

More Than Words

I found my mojo y’all! It’s been MIA for about a month, but I found it. Don’t ask me how. I don’t take credit for Grace. I only acknowledge being available to receive it.

An encouraging phone call yesterday, from someone on my team. I was considering running to Texas with my one year old. It was a rough day. He had been crying all day. Teething. Rash. Bored. Wanting my attention…

I had competitors for my fundraising party. Someone was doing my exact same idea on a date earlier than me. I’m not gonna say they stole my idea, but oh the irony… I was sinking fast again. Doubting. Fearing. Wanting all struggle to end…

Nothing particularly has changed, except my mind today. I sat still. Just now. Just before writing. I sat still. I prayed and meditated until I could feel Truth. It’s as if there’s this whole other world in our minds and our Spirits. When you go there, or at least when I go there, all things seem possible. Life seems good. I am able to work with a smile.

But I have to keep checking in. I notice the difference when I go more than a few days without prayer or meditation. I get caught up in the outside world. I get swept along with other people’s objectives. I lose all sense of Self and want to run. I feel weak and powerless and confused.

This morning, I went to the well to drink of the Spirit stuffs. The Truth stuffs. The Real stuffs. Is our inside world a reflection of what happens on the outside or is our outside world a manifestation of what goes on in our hearts and minds? I don’t have all the answers, but I know that it makes a difference when you remember. I know that this morning I can go into my day not as a beggar hoping and praying that one day I will be saved, powerless and needy.

This morning, because I have checked in, because I have reminded myself that my life is a good life, I can put my back into my work. I can continue to plan my fundraising event in spite of my competitors knowing that if God puts something in Your Spirit, then He has already made a way for it to manifest. I can move with confidence and so much Love. I can be thankful for everything, and I am thankful for everything and nothing, Allah. This computer, which came as an unexpected gift. The internet that allows me to reach out and touch and share with so many people. A warm and comfy bed and food. My new little companion who follows me everywhere and offers so much Love and Joy and compels me to give and understand beyond my limits.

My clear mind.

The pain that I don’t even remember anymore.

A Loving Heart.

The feeling of Aliveness welling up in me again. Again and again we go to the well. We tap in to our inside Selves and bring out what is good. We tap in to excellence. We find the Truth. And we let go of all that no longer serves the evolution of our soul. We let go of all that no longer supports the experience of Divine Peace and Happiness. We let go of all that is no longer in alignment with the manifestation of our Destiny.

This morning, I go deep in. I come to You again. I relax knowing that my will is Your Will, and so all that I see in inspiration must come to pass. This is my day. I am strong. I am grateful. I am humble. I am Divinely guided. I am full of Joy and I express it. I am Love. I am brilliant and talented. I am all that I am. I am supported and I partake in the Abundance that is around me even now. I give my all. One day at a time. One step at a time. I give all that I am. And I get up again, in Faith… Ameen.

Day 223

The Inner World

The busyness can be overwhelming. Guys want to date me again. Open doors, closed doors. I had to take a moment to get in touch with my Spirit again today. I had to stop for a minute and rid myself of the fears that are creeping in, the sense of overwhelming panic that can take over when you don’t stop and breathe, the numbness that becomes you when you are in constant activity.

So I am here now. This is me. Back. Sure. I am not quitting. That’s it. All of the things I have started, I am seeing them through till the end. They will be finished. And I must say, this is the hardest thing for me. Finishing.But, by the Grace of God, I’m going to finish. And instead of being fearful all the time, I’m giving confidence a try.

Woman that you are, I am speaking Life into you again. Again. Again. Until you get it. We will keep doing this until it becomes your life. Until you walk in this way of Spirit. Woman. Trust again. Be born again. Love again. Give your all again. Woman. Care again. For yourself and others. Dream again and believe. Believe that Your dreams will come true. Live again.

I am speaking to you, myself, and any who will listen. Enough. The time to be strong is now. The time to know God is now. The time to open is now and the time to release is now. We open. We let go of all that hinders us. All these thoughts of fear. We welcome the empowering ones, the loving ones. We welcome Love and we give it back to the world.

We give it back. We allow ourselves to have everything we need. We open. We release the need for struggle. We realize that we have created these conditions in our life and we release the pattern in our consciousness that is responsible for these conditions. We welcome ease. We welcome support. We welcome the profound experience of reciprocity. We welcome a mighty mighty change in our lives.

What if we believed? What if we really believed in the possibility of the manifestation of our greatest thoughts? What if we were able to divorce fear for good, once and for all? What if we could actually forgive everything and really really start anew? What if we really believed in goodness?

This is my manifesto. My recommitment to You, God. This is my recommitment to Life. I’m not quitting. Things have been challenging for me for some time. I have been on the bottom and begging for life to start for some time. My heart has been a broken bag of bones for some time. And, yes, I have been trying. There was a lot of pain, you see. There was a lot of fear in me. There was a lot of resentment and sadness. Sometimes it takes a while to get rid of it all… I wasn’t even aware of all that I have been carrying for so long.

But I asked you take me to depths of things, Lord. I asked you to take me to the Truth and to teach me about life. I asked You to restore the joy in my spirit and the twinkle in my eyes. I asked you to teach me how not to cry every day and how to make it to the other side of happy. And You are teaching me. And I am grateful. I leave it to You to work my life out. I leave it to You to make all that is good come to pass. I leave it to You to have Your way with me and cleanse me of all the ugly that has burdened my heart and spirit for so long. I leave it to You to make the healing. To bring the Love. To put everything in its correct place. To restore everything to order.

I will do my part. I will be brave again. I will Love again. I will open wider than I have ever opened in my life. I will let go of everything that has ever bound me. I will activate my genius. I will smile on purpose when I feel like crying. And I will try with everything in me. I speak my will into the world.

I speak the Truth of my life into the world. A good life, God. A great life. I’m calling forth a great Life. Full of Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Full of peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. And abundance. Abundance as my experience. I’m calling forth cleanliness of Spirit. Divine Guidance. Divine Guidance. Divine Guidance. And Truth. Truth. Truth. Goodwill amongst people. Mutual goodwill. And Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace. I am allowing for the work that you have put me here to do to be done. I am allowing for my work to be complete. Full expression. In this lifetime. Reaching all whom it should reach. In this lifetime. In this lifetime. I recommit my Self to myself. Now. I put my back into it. I put my heart into it. I put my spirit back into my life. I will not quit. I will not quit. I will not quit…

Day 222

Dont Quit

I went to two job interviews yesterday. I thought I had at least one of them in the bag. The verdict is still out, but the interviewer didn’t say, “start tomorrow.”

My international community building project is getting legs. It’s moving. I was asked to be the CEO and now I have been asked if, when I go overseas in May, I would like to stay indefinitely to oversee the development of the project. I am here. I live my days struggling. I came here for a reason, to go to school. Then I stayed because I had access to all the people I needed to know and workshops and events and collaborations and writing ops out here in LA. But now I don’t know if being here is necessary. As a writer, you have to write. That’s it. You have to have a nice portfolio of work to present to people. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter who you meet. The proof of your merit is in the pudding. I’ve taken the classes. I’ve met the people. Now, my task at hand is really just to polish some stuff and submit it. I feel confident in my ability to do well on the projects I’m working on. I’m not a screenwriter Master yet, but I’m on my way.

But something happened yesterday when I got invited to stay overseas indefinitely. My heart broke. I thought about what would really happen when I go overseas. The mosquitos. The government corruption. The abject poverty. The culture that doesn’t really respect women. I got scared. Who did I think I was to try and change any of this? I mean, really, who do I think I am and what am I going to do? How dare I think I can uplift these people when I can’t even get a job? These were the thoughts that ran through my head. But it didn’t stop there.

I thought about Dream Lover. I hadn’t thought about him in a long time. He abandoned me. But I remembered how I felt when we were talking about our life plans and he said, “let’s go overseas and adopt a village and make the world a better place”. It seemed so romantic. It seemed like the perfect thing to do with my life. Everything seemed possible because he was strong and he knew how to get things done and I was happy with him.

And my heart broke. Because he wasn’t here. Because no one is here. And I don’t know what to do. I am not running from anything, but nothing is pulling me anywhere, either. I realized that what I want more than anything in the world is Love. A partner. Someone to build with. A partner to live out my dreams with… But no one is here.

One of my team members on project international save the world had an issue with the people that we are seeking help from. She said that she would rather seek help from people that are a part of her religious affiliation first than seek help from others… She called them “believers”. I am speechless. Out of touch. I don’t even understand the concept of believers and nonbelievers, saved and unsaved. I don’t understand the rules. I really don’t understand how we live on this Earth with more than enough resources for everyone and there is such abject poverty everywhere. I don’t understand why men and women try to exploit and betray and use and suppress each other instead of just letting each other be? Where did we come up with this way of  being? Where is Dream Lover? We had work to do together. Where is he, God?

I don’t Love anyone, God. My heart isn’t in anything. I’m just going through the motions. Survival. Writing. I want to do those things, but nothing makes sense when your heart isn’t in it…

Yes, this is an official breakdown. It will pass. It is passing as I write, but there is still action to be taken. What should I do, God? You say go overseas. He is not with me. What will become of my life? You say take it day by day. Find something to love…

Am I on the right path? You say Yes. I am tired. You know. My heart is hurting. You know. Will it pass? You Say it has passed already…

I don’t have any fight left in me, God. All defense mechanisms are shot. I am ready and willing to be Guided into Truth and Freedom. I have heard that You are more than any given thought. You are more than any situation. You are more than our feelings, and that anything, anything is possible once We are in tune with You. In this moment, I choose You again. And again again. I choose You, The Omnipresent. I choose Life in this moment. Even without Dream Lover. I choose Love in this moment. I choose it even if I don’t see it. Even if I’m not experiencing it in my immediate life, I choose to allow myself to know that it is still in the world. It is in me. I hand over my life to you, oh Creator of All Creation. I will go where you lead me. Lead me, please. Lead me to the life I see in my dreams. Take me to the other side. I will follow…

Day 221

When Your Heart Isn’t In It. Choose Again.

I’m home alone and not super busy. I’ve been super busy every day for a couple of weeks now. Working. Looking for work. Working on creative projects. Planning international trip and fundraising efforts. Cleaning. Spending time with family and friends.

I’ve actually been super busy. Super busy is good, but I like quiet moments like this, too, when there’s nothing but me sitting in the dark with a candle and I can check in with Myself. I can see what all the busyness is about and make real choices. I Love moments like this. I’ll be busy in about an hour, so this one won’t be a long one.

I’m good today, God. I’ve been good for a while. By good I mean… Well, you know what I mean. My mind has been at peace. I’m not at war with anyone. I have energy to do the work I like to do and I have had support from the best of supporters, my good friends and family.

Old demons come my way from time to time in the form of doubts, ex’s and new men who don’t want anything except to take and manipulate, sometimes a bill is due and gas is running low and I worry and think about running back to my momma where everything is safe, but those moments don’t last so long anymore. I am beginning to know that I am safe no matter what…

The other day my tire went flat. There was a nail in it and I know that tires can simply be patched if you have a nail where the nail in my tire was. The Triple A guy came and tried to convince me that I needed to get a whole brand new tire. I felt alone, and I felt sorry for myself that I was a woman alone in a big city, because men often think that a woman alone is like a sheep to be devoured. In the past, I would have tried to act like a man and argue and outsmart the Triple A guy, but this time, I just decided to be a woman alone, because that’s what I am. I’m not alone alone, but you get it. I didn’t have my dad or my brother or my husband or boyfriend to call when my tire went flat. I had to handle the situation on my own, as a woman. So I made a choice. I decided that I was going to handle the situation just as I am. A woman. A sweet, kind woman who knows what’s up with her tire… So, I wasn’t mean. I didn’t argue or get an attitude. I stayed sweet and I simply told him that I didn’t want to get a new tire. I wanted to get my tire patched. And that’s what we did. I was proud that I could do stuff on my own, as a grown up…

I had meant for this blog to be about words and images. They’ve been on my mind for some time.I’m learning a lot these days. I’ve been doing “spiritual counseling” sessions with my therapist friend for the past few weeks. I can’t even explain to you how it works, nor do I even know if it does work, because the evidence of it working would be the complete transformation of my life, and that hasn’t happened on the outside yet, but something is working, because the situations that would have made me go into a depressed coma some time ago are not affecting me in the same way anymore. I am able to keep moving in spite of whatever emotions or circumstances I encounter and I don’t even feel like I’m faking it…

I want to tell you something I learned. In our sessions, we usually start by me getting into a meditative state. Then my friend will say, “I’m going to drop a word into your mind.” He will say a word like “money” or “love” or “ease” or “success” or “guidance” and then I will tell him the image that pops up in my head. Then he guides me through a process where I release all ties I have with this image until I come to a place where I am able to give and receive Love to this image. I don’t know what any of it means, but I do know that during the process, sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry, sometimes I feel completely euphoric and one time I even threw up.

So one day I asked him, “What is going on with this? How is it that I’m experiencing all of these emotions and feelings, when all we’re dealing with is words and images?” And he asked me what the mind is made up of. I said muscle and tissue and he said, muscle and tissue is the brain, but what is the mind made of? And that was it! Words and images. Our entire mind is made up of words and images, memories and perceptions. We walk through the Earth with so much baggage, but everything we experience, every sensation, is in our minds. A body alone is nothing. You can slap a corpse in the face, kick it, talk about it, not give it any food, and nothing will happen. It is the words and images in our mind that make up our experience. This was a brand new realization for me, because it meant that if I could change the words and images, or if I could change the way I felt about certain words and images, I could in essence change my life. And that’s what I’ve been doing.

I have been cleaning up all of the words and all of the images in my brain that destroy. All of the perceptions that limit. All of the ugliness and hurt that takes away my smile. I have been forgiving and forgiving and forgiving and forgiving until I get tired of forgiving. And then I have been forgiving some more. I want my mind to be like a garden, not like a twisted maze full of resentments and plots and dark places and fears. No. How can I create anything good if I’m starting off with dry soil and ragged places? A cleansing has to take place. A detox. A removing and repairing of the words and images that have defined who we are for so long and dictated the creation of lives we are not satisfied with. And we will never be satisfied until our lives reflect the Truth of who we are.

I don’t even understand what this means all the way, but I know it’s true. I know it’s true because I am experiencing such a radical shift in awareness even as I type these words. It’s not that my situation has changed, but my mind! My mind is clean and clear (or at least on it’s way). My heart is big and open. I respect myself and so I do damage mitigation in advance and don’t allow destructive forces into my space. And if they manage to get in during one of my weak moments, I kindly ask them to leave.

I could go on and on. My friend was right. I am forgetting all of the sad things I used to feel. I go certain places I used to go and talk to certain people that I used to talk to, and I can’t believe that was me, so caught up on fighting, so caught up on sadness, so caught up on everything yet nothing, so stuck in my head, as if the entire world were only made up of my experience. The entire Universe is made up of so much more than I have ever thought of or seen. I have experienced so much Love already, God. I have experienced such true friendships. I have shared from the depth of my being with people, and I never knew it could be me. I never imagined that this kind of life, this kind of way, existed. I didn’t have the words or the pictures, but you placed them in my spirit and then I saw them in my mind and now they are becoming my life and I am so grateful for every single day. Every single day. I don’t care if I’m crying or whatever or if I do something “stupid” or take a long time to get other things done. I am still here and You are working magic on me and I surrender to all that must be done.

And boy, boy, boy, when the work is done… It was worth a broken heart. It was worth being poor. It was worth being rejected and abandoned and betrayed and whatever else. How else could I understand? How else could I feel compassion for the people that I am about to be serving? I might have looked down on them had I not experienced some of the things they experienced. I might have been in a worse condition than them had I been through what they had been through Everything I have ever experienced was worth it for this moment of understanding right now.

The truth of your life is more than the current emotion that you feel. The truth of your Life is more than the flesh. There is freedom in this place. I can smell it. There is a Divine alignment that is for us. It is! You won’t believe me until I am rich and famous and I have my handsome man and kids and I’m running a big organization that heals the world, but I’m telling you now because I know it now. I don’t care what has happened. As long as we are breathing, there is no place where hope can not find you. There is no good that is too good for us. We are worth it. Our lives our worth it. If only we would let them be…

Day 220

Words and Images (Mind Stuffs)

I’ve been busy all week. Some of my fam drove into town right after I wrote the last blog entry and they stayed for a week.  Then they convinced me to drive back to Texas with them, which is where I am right now. I’ll be flying back to LA today…

I Love my family. Didn’t realize how cool and loving they are. I come from a pretty fantastic group of souls. And it just so happened that a lot of the people I grew up with were in town for Spring Break, so we ended up having an impromptu family reunion of sorts.. I have never cried at the thought of going back to Cali, but I’m crying this morning. I’m gonna miss them. They are the people that know everything about me, all my flaws… They are the ones that I have fought with, loved, played with, spent numerous nights talking all night long, went on adventures with, despised, competed with and grown up with. It was so good to see them again…

And now back to our regularly scheduled program. But not. I’m making  plans for my heal the world trip. It’s actually gonna happen. Some team members have already bought their tickets. They believe in me. They believe that I can actually lead this seemingly impossible mission, they believe that I can give hope to the hopeless. It’s time for me to start believing in myself.

It’s challenging. I’ve been broken for a long time. Long enough that I have become used to it. I feel myself coming alive again, and something in me says, “It’s real this time. This time it will last. This time, this life in you is not from the outside. It is the real you coming out at last.” And I believe it. Because there is nothing on the outside of me that would be giving me life at this time. There is no man, no fancy job, none of that stuff that I used to think I needed to feel alive and worthwhile. In fact, I do not see what there is to hope for. I don’t even have my overseas ticket yet. But how I am hopeful?

I am so hopeful this morning, on the dawn of departing from my clan again, knowing that I am going to a place where I won’t wake up to the sounds of loved ones doing what they do in the morning. Knowing that I won’t be hugging my curious nephew and mischievous niece for a while. How am I so hopeful? God, where did this come from? I need to know, because this is what I’m going to endeavor to do with my life: give hope to the hopeless.

I know what it means to be hopeless. I know what it feels like to have absolutely nothing. Even below nothing. I felt it the other day when my car got towed right as I was about to pay rent. Alone. Nothing. Despair. Where and how will anything change? How? And I don’t know still. But how am I hopeful now? I don’t get it. What happened? What is the trick? What do I know that is keeping my insides smiling even as I venture off alone again? Is it the love of my family that sustains me? No. That’s a part of me, a comfort, but that’s not it…

What is it? Give me the words, so I can share please. This is the thing that I am going to have to give to all those people overseas. They do not know what it feels like to have enough. They do not understand hope. What shall I tell them? Get up? Say a prayer? Read a book? Get a job? Find a way to America? Marry someone? What is the truth? Because none of those things are giving me hope right now. The getting up is mandatory, but the hope precedes the getting up..

And this is why I believe in God. Because what else is there but a Higher Power? What else is there in moments like this, when your mind tells you that everything is against you, when you feel like you can’t go on, when nothing seems to be working out, and you get up with a smile anyway? Where does that kind of happy come from besides the inexplicable?

I am convinced that there is so much more to life than meets the eye. I am convinced that my life is a good life, even now. I am convinced that just as sure as I am alive, the possibility for good things exists in every moment, even when we can’t see them. And oh, when we are ready to see them! I am convinced that God willing, I will live to see all the good that is brewing in my soul. I am convinced. I am committed. And I am hopeful. Thank you, God. Ameen.

Day 219

Hope For The Hopeless

Yeah, I cried when I walked out on the street and my car was gone, but so? And? The day is not over and I still have to do my creative writing and prep for some house guests who will be visiting. I’m sorting out my thoughts before I start part two of the day.

After hearing about my car getting towed, some of my family suggested that I pack it up and come back home. Things just don’t seem to be working out for me here, they said. And yes, they are right. It has been a while since I’ve had a bunch of money like I used to have. It’s been a while since I’ve bought new shoes and fancy clothes and pretty furniture. It’s been a while, and it would appear as if it’s about that time to call it quits…

But somehow, I don’t feel like calling it quits or running anywhere. There was a time when I couldn’t force myself to get off the bed or take any action towards the realization of my dreams, but today I felt invigorated, and despite all appearances, for the first time in a long time, things feel like they are looking up. I know. Crazy, right? My car gets towed and I say things are looking up. But I know they are…

I’m closing my eyes so I can see better… How do we know? How do we know when to keep going and when to throw in the towel? How do we know when to pack our bags and say, this just isn’t working. Enough is enough. How do we know where to go for guidance? How do we distinguish the voice of God from the voice of the devil or how to we even decide whether or not we believe in God or the devil?

Everything boils down to one thing: choice. My car got towed today and my money is funny. But in this apartment, with the white walls and big windows, I have come of age. Here in the city of angels I have learned about angels and so much more. And I’m not finished yet. I’m just getting started. I’m not afraid of failure anymore. Hallelujah! Let me say that again. I am not afraid of failure. There is no such thing as failure if you finish the race and give yourself a chance. You would have succeeded in doing your best. The rest isn’t up to you.

Somehow I think that in the midst of doing our best, life takes on a different color. We are well pleased with ourselves because we tried. We tried. We didn’t just give up on our dreams because of a towed car or a broken heart! Come on. Really? Because of one incident, or heck, one year, we make these choices to live a mediocre life that never fills us up.

I refuse. I refuse. I refuse to quit. Let’s make that an affirmation. I choose to finish. I choose to finish what I started. For once in my life. Come what may. I’m not afraid anymore. I choose to give even more because I can. That’s just it. I can. I choose to be talented and strong and powerful because I am. We all are. I choose it even in this moment of doubt, God, because I know that all moments are about choices.

You gave me a Vision. You gifted me with a Vision for my life. You put words in my heart and understanding in my Spirit. You have showed me so much Love and so much Grace and blessed me with people. Good people… I am so grateful. I will not dishonor You by throwing in the towel. I will not shoot myself in the foot by closing my heart. I will not pretend that I know it all, but I will stand up for what I know I know.

And, like Eminem said, I know one thing for sure. Success is my only option. By success, I don’t mean fancy houses and a publishing deal. I mean finishing what I started. I mean giving myself a chance to have my heart’s deepest desires.

When you look at it from the outside, it’s kind of funny. We pretend to give up on so many things. Love. Our passions. Knowledge of Self. Success. We act like we are done going on whatever path, but deep down, we never stop. The artists don’t stop drawing pretty pictures. The writers don’t stop writing, if even in their secret journals. The passionate Lovers don’t stop Loving, even if they are having affairs. And the Believers don’t stop Believing. So why don’t we just keep going? Why do we quit on ourselves when we’re not really done? We lie to ourselves so much that after a while, it becomes hard to know what is true and who we are…Life is gonna have it’s hard times anyway. It’s much easier to struggle when the struggle is for something you believe in…

When I look back at all the moments, years of emotional agony, years of not loving myself, years of not being happy, years of trying to live up to someone else’s standard for my life, years of being closed in and afraid to be myself, years of confusion, I am grateful beyond words for this day. Today my car got towed and I didn’t go into a depressive coma over it. I didn’t throw in the towel and run to my momma. I didn’t ask some dude I don’t like to hold me. I went to a dance audition and made a new friend instead. In this moment, I am choosing to give myself a full-fledged chance at living my dreams and because of that choice, I can do nothing but finish and open and grow and let go and let You, God, have Your way with me.

Sometimes we are actually done with a thing. A relationship, a path, a place… But we know when we’re done and it has nothing to with anything anyone says. We know when it’s time to throw in the towel and we know when our soul is calling on us to finish. We can stop being wishy washy. We know what to do. We were not created without the ability to make good decisions. We know when to stop. But until then, I say keep going…

Day 218

Call It Quits When You’re Done