Life Is A Gift That May Take Courage To Unwrap

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

One Of The Keys To Life...

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

"You Are Not Alone"

"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

Honoring Wisdom Over Your Thought Turds

A few years ago, my husband Mike and I had plans to hang out with our best and dear friends at their house. A casual mid-week evening catch-up that would serve as a boost to get through the rest of the week. I remember that I was in an absolute hole - a deep one. The kind that made everything look dark and impossible. I was in the midst of a major career change, but didn't have a vision of where I was headed yet, so I was often in a state of mental chaos. Mike kept saying to me, "Let's just cancel! They will completely understand!" but I knew in my gut that I wanted to see them - I didn't really know why because I was an absolute basket case and looked as such, but it didn't feel right to cancel. The whole way over I was complaining about my sadness and the circumstances in my life that I knew for sure was the reason for it. When we arrived at the house, I couldn't get out of the car - I was so incredibly upset, but I still wanted to see them. So being the wonderful human beings they are, they came out to the car and stood by my open window while I sobbed and told them everything that I thought was horrible about my life. I practically fell into a panic attack because my thoughts were being spun up a million miles an hour and I felt incredibly trapped because of it. After a good chunk of time of me going on and on and getting tons of love and arm squeezes from my besties, we headed back down the hill.

Why share this experience with you?

It was incredibly pivotal in my understanding of how my (our) experience of life is being created. Read on for more clarity...

As we drove away from our friends, I remember feeling a little embarrassed by my extremely upset state, which was odd because I had absolutely been vulnerable with them before and felt safe to do so. Looking back, as I mentioned earlier, I was beginning to get a glimpse into the notion that my thoughts were creating my experience. Though life looked really stressful at the time and everything I shared with them felt really real, it was the first time the flicker of insight that my feelings are always coming from my thoughts began to spearhead my consciousness (awareness). I remember recognizing that the suffering I was sharing with them was all in reaction to the swirling thoughts that were going through my mind in that moment, and not what was actually happening in front of me. It felt a little out of body, to be honest - I couldn't even judge myself for being crazy, because I could see for the first time why I couldn't stop going on and on: I was reacting to my thinking. My in the moment experience was my husband and two friends looking at me with incredible love and care and offering up their supportive advice, but what I was experiencing internally was thought after thought that brought me pain and suffering, so that is the experience I was living in - I was appreciative of their care, of course, but I completely missed out on the heart to heart connection that comes with being in the moment, which would have inevitably brought me peace.

It's incredible looking back on something like this and seeing in hindsight how wisdom is at work, even when we aren't aware of it. That the principle of Mind, the greater intelligence behind life that our wisdom and insights come from, always ALWAYS has us. If Mind is the ocean, we are a wave within it. Even through the chaos of my personal thinking, I was able to follow the feeling that my wisdom was making me privy to - a peaceful knowing inside that I needed to make that visit to my friends. I know now that I needed to unravel in front of a different audience to experience a bit of a shake up in my awareness. I had fallen apart like that with my husband and parents, of course, but this insight was never able to come through after speaking with them because I would stay in the spin in my head. It took having this different experience in front of my friends to make me see what was actually happening in that moment. You know when you get advice from someone over and over again, then you hear that same advice from a different person and you feel like you've heard it for the first time? It was a similar feeling to that!

If you're an avid reader of mine, you may be thinking, "But wait a minute - if our experience is coming from inside out, it shouldn't matter who you're talking to - how did that insight come through during such an intense thought storm with your friends and you claim it couldn't come through with your parents or Mike?"

Ugh, you guys are so smart - I'm SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Having the different experience of my friends as opposed to Mike or my parents, naturally made me reflect on what had just happened with my melt down, therefore allowing a *moment* of internal peace during that inquiry! In that moment of peace, wisdom saw that the door to my intellect was open for a split second and it ran through just before I slammed it shut again to launch into more chaotic thinking. What an incredibly relieving realization, that our wisdom will take any opportunity to spearhead the storm in our mind, even when we aren't aware of what's going on.

This points to such a beautiful part of life that we all so innocently aren't aware of. We have a bottomless well of knowing, an internal tour guide if you will, that is ALWAYS directing us... nudging us along through life. But when we're gripped by our fearful thinking about ANYTHING, we believe our mind is trying to warn us about something that we should pay attention to. It isn't so. Those fearful thoughts are purely thought turds trying to clog up the well (sorry for the image, but you got it, I bet!) The more we're conscious (aware) of this process, the more we naturally check in with our wisdom and begin to ignore our thinking when it doesn't feel right. And when we do, we return to a peaceful state, naturally allowing our new, fresh ideas and guidance to bubble up from our wisdom, turd-free.

Sydney Banks, the wonderful human being who had the initial insight into this life-changing perspective, the 3 Principles, had this to say...

"Look in the mirror and you will find one of the wisest people on earth IF you can take your personal thoughts away."

You've got it all within you dear readers - every single answer you've been looking for. But I will continue to share every experience possible with you, so you can see your reflection in me.

All my love and see you next week~

Jessie

Anthony Bourdain: A Tribute & A Wake Up Call

"He was an ambassador of the Soul"

It's true. My husband Mike hit the nail on the head when the tragic news of Anthony Bourdain ending his life flooded our social media feed.

Like many folks, Mike and I became fans of Anthony Bourdain during his "No Reservation" days - loving his raw, honest, sometimes rough (always tell-it-like-it-is), completely heart-connecting way of being. He opened our eyes to different cultures, he made us excited about the potential to follow his footsteps in our future travels, spotlighting completely pedestrian yet delicious diamond-in-the-rough places to eat. Screw the reviews from hoity toity know-it-all food critics, if the meal was delicious, that's all that mattered. Whether it be from street carts to a hut in the middle of the Amazon, dumpling houses to finding out what your neighbor is REALLY GOOD at making, connection was Bourdain's mission and food was his love language.

Observing the outpouring of love for this tower of a human being after his passing made me realize something pretty huge and profound about his purpose. He made each and every one of us feel like his friend, like we were the only ones getting in on these secret, divey, hole in the wall eateries all over the world. He opened our eyes to the politics, misgivings and misrepresentations of so many different cultures - and the way he showed us through his gift of revealing and honest conversation made us feel like we had a seat at the table or around the campfire; We were his personally invited company to each of his adventures. He asked the hard questions and because of his incredible deep listening skills, curiosity and open heart, humanity was revealed in every individual he was breaking bread with.

I don't think I will ever forget his recent venture to West Virginia for CNN's "Parts Unknown" that literally left me in tears. With judgements that I didn't even realize I had, until he unveiled his own and I saw my reflection in him, to witness the duality of this extremely open-hearted culture of kind human beings with staunch beliefs that would normally make the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up; Again, the conversations, the connection, his willingness to hear their perspectives and to share why his and my progressive world can't stomach them, was an art. When he asked why this previously very democratic state voted red for the most "city-slicker, anti working-man, 3x married president," they earnestly answered: because they didn't feel heard in the plight of coal-mining. They were told by the left that their jobs would be lost when most don't have anything but 7 generations of coal-mining history behind them with no higher education. Alternately, Bourdain ingeniously then asked, "Would you tell your kids to work in the mines?" and the response was a collective "NO" - he looked for the gap, so we could see the gap. The understanding and humanity was felt. These are good people who see the argument of the environmental problem with coal-mining but don't feel like they have any other way to turn, so with every last penny earned they will send their kids to college with the pride of a black-smudged dime.

This was the Bourdain we knew, the feeling we held for him when we brought him up over dinner with friends. His heart extending beyond himself to others, to have empathy, to see, feel and make US feel, that we are all one - in search of a delicious soul-hugging meal. As I was reminded by his dear friend Helen Rosner in her beautifully written tribute in the New Yorker, Bourdain was effortlessly honest with his audience about the shadows of his depression as well.

In a 2016 episode of “Parts Unknown,” set in Buenos Aires, he held an on-camera therapy session. “I will find myself in an airport, for instance, and I’ll order an airport hamburger,” he says, lying on a leather couch. “It’s an insignificant thing, it’s a small thing, it’s a hamburger, but it’s not a good one. Suddenly, I look at the hamburger and I find myself in a spiral of depression that can last for days.”

I know what the beginning of this spiral feels like, as I'm sure you do. That triggering thought or that triggering experience that begins the thoughts that lead you to your habitual thinking that feels 6 feet deep. I don't care if you're experiencing depression for the first time, if you feel like you just deal with 'low days,' or if you find yourself under so many layers of chaotic thinking that you can't even remember how to breathe - any whirlwind in your mind that leads you to feel like the ground is literally no longer beneath you and that your inner compass won't stop spinning, can make you feel lost in the most profound of ways, I've been there.

To this day I can feel the flutter of those triggering thoughts arise, like when you feel like you're about to hiccup... Before I actually have the thought that can send me down a spiral or into a storm, I sense it first... like the hiccup. This is the energy of Thought - this is the gift of Thought - this is the principle of Thought - this is where the power of understanding Thought can change your life. When I read the news about Bourdain, I literally yelled "NO!" out loud, before fact checking the internet. I couldn't believe what I was reading. As soon as I saw that his death was confirmed, I was thrown into a complete and utter sadness that overwhelmed me for the rest of the day. Why? Because I wish I was there to speak with him, I wish he knew what I know.

What do we always say about people who are, or have considered, ending their life? They have suicidal thoughts... read that again... they have suicidal thoughts. As a culture, we are innocently calling out the issue without recognizing that the answer is right in front of us. The energy of Thought is transitory, it doesn't EVER stop, and the quality of our thinking goes up and down all day, every day. We, as humans, have the gift of turning that formless energy (that feeling that I sense when my depressive thoughts are on the horizon like the feeling of a hiccup), into FORM (pictures in our mind). It is literally the superpower of our personal thinking minds - WE are the thinkers, WE create those pictures. Imagine stepping outside and feeling a beautiful breeze surrounding you, and you reach out to grab the breeze then open your palm to reveal sand - like magic, you grabbed the formless but energetic air and turned it into something. That is what we do as thinkers. We take the energy of Thought and turn into the form of pictures in our mind.

By way of the principle of Consciousness (awareness), these pictures become VERY REAL to us because our feelings come from our thinking 100% OF THE TIME - no exception. It doesn't matter what your circumstances outside of you are, you are feeling your thinking every moment of every day. You are creating your outside reality by way of your inside thinking, and being aware of this, is the gift of Consciousness. So as you can imagine when you are in the middle of a thought storm, with so many thoughts that you can't even keep up with how fast they're firing in your mind, you feel like you can't breathe, you feel like you're not worthy, you feel like the love you receive from others isn't real, you feel like the world is closing in on you - that is your body telling you that you are believing your thinking that ISN'T REAL. It isn't true for you. Plain and simple. And when we are honoring ourselves, when we have the understanding that our thinking can be taken less seriously when it makes us feel like shit - those moments where we think we can't take it anymore and need to do something about it, we know we have the choice to sit it out. We choose to call a friend, a partner, a loved one, knowing that this current reality is not permanent. It will pass. Because it is an energy that is constantly shifting and will most definitely autocorrect to a neutral and peaceful state, with time. Or rather, the moment you choose to live a different reality.

I understand if this seems like I've over-simplified a state of being that seems much more complex - but it isn't. The difference between you being in a low mood this morning and naturally being lifted out of it versus Anthony Bourdain is the layers and layers of thinking that is being believed so that it doesn't feel like there's a way out. Spiritually, the more shitty thinking that is believed, the more habitual it is (and this can go on for YEARS), the emptier the self-love cup. When we've believed lies that we tell ourselves in our own little reality, we find evidence in our life to support it, then we feel justified in our thinking and our light shines a little less than it did before. And the smaller we feel, the lower our mood, the more we believe our thinking, the more we can't pull ourselves out if it. But it all starts with the above understanding. Simple but not easy sometimes, and I understand. I've been there. I haven't been to the end of my rope, but I've experienced the dizzyness that begins to make you feel like you're crazy and you can't cope. There is ALWAYS a voice inside that will tell you what to do instead, telling you what you need to come back to a peaceful place - this is your wisdom. It is with you all of the time. But it's like a quiet flute being played behind the band of the shitty thinking, and the band needs to be turned down to hear it.

The nature of energy is to flow. That's all Thought is. So maybe it'll take you talking out loud to your shitty thinking and saying "Oh, hello again," to put distance between you and the pictures. But having this understanding will at least give you the opportunity to see that you always have the freedom to choose your next thought; The freedom to choose your next action. You're not at will of the freeloading thought turds that are floating in the beautiful abyss that is your mind. Knowing that you have the power to create your own reality through the lens of whatever thinking you're believing at any moment in time, allows the triggering, depressive thinking to melt away. And just this awareness in itself will begin to shift your thinking, which shifts your feelings, which shifts your behaviors. It's an amazing experience.

When Bourdain passed, all of this information was swirling around my mind. I was desperate to write a post for social media, but I couldn't think of a way to concisely share my tribute along with my outrage for how many lives could be saved by knowing a simple understanding. If you're reading this and you've considered ending your life or still consider doing so now - please know that you have a purpose that is meant to be shared, and if you don't feel that right now, it's because the noise in your head is too loud to hear it. But it's there. It may take time to quiet the band upstairs, but like anything worth doing, the reward on the other side is living your life in your truest form while being able to help others understand themselves like you have learned from your own battle.

In closing, astronaut Scott Kelly's tribute to Bourdain took the words right out of my mouth...

"... I watched his show when I was in space. It made me feel more connected to the planet, it's people and cultures and made my time there more palatable. He inspired me to see the world up close."

Tony, thank you for conquering your battles as often as you did. Thank you for not allowing them to keep you from us, because what brings me peace is knowing that you knew on some gut level that you were touching lives and changing them for the better. How lucky are we that you won that battle as long as you did. I always had a feeling I'd meet you one day and give you the biggest hug as appreciation for all that you taught me...

Until we meet again...

All my love and see you next week~

Jessie

Anthony Bourdain

Taking The Leap! An Interview With Valerie Mya Of On The Go Glow

"My decisions didn’t come from business textbooks, they fully came from my gut. The feeling was freeing, I just knew when things felt right."

This coming from the woman who has found herself CEO of an incredibly successful spray tanning business making everyday women and men feel like their most confidant selves, as well as A-list celebrities like Courtney Cox, Kristen Bell or best friend and Agents of Shield star Elizabeth Henstridge, get red carpet ready.

I met with Valerie Mya over lunch on a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles, where it seemed the flowers and breeze knew we were getting to know each other for the first time. The patio was filled with a beautiful energy that most certainly reflected the light inside both of us that couldn't be more excited to share our histories. At the time, Valerie and I had met in a class and she had casually mentioned what she did for work. Little did I know till we had our lunch that this pixie-sized beauty was a badass boss. When she went on to share with me more about how she got to where she did, without any hesitation my wisdom jumped out of me and asked for this interview because she is an inspiration through and through. If you have ever had ANY hesitation to take the leap into a career, whether starting your own business or shifting gears into a new industry or company, and the only thing that holds you back is the idea that you don't have all your ducks in a row or know-how, read on for proof that passion, purpose and gut instinct is all you need.

Valerie Mya/Dana Patrick photography

Jessie: Did you know while you were growing up that you wanted to run your own business one day? If not, what did you have dreams of doing?

Valerie: As a kid/young adult I was never great at school. I had more of the creative brain - I was into dancing and acting. But the way schooling was set up didn’t really fit me, I almost failed high school. So no, I didn’t think owning my own business was a possibility. That was until I realized I was smart, I just had another way of learning (LOVE that!) Having this business has definitely helped me see myself in another light, and made me realize there are all different kinds of “smart.”

J: What was the moment that it hit you to start this business? What was the first insight and where were you?

V: As I mentioned earlier, I was into the performing arts, so when I moved from New York City to LA I needed a part time job in between the acting struggles. I worked at a few tanning salons as the main spray tan technician. I realized people requested me all the time; I didn’t really know then, but I believe I had a “thing” for making people feel comfortable - I loved making people feel good about themselves. Being a very independent type of person (I moved to NYC at age 14 on my own), I knew working for myself would be ideal. The idea of bringing this service to people just came to me (<--- WISDOM!), and I knew LA people love convenience, so I started it casually on the side not knowing if it was going to take off.

J: What did it FEEL like when you had that first gut pull?

V: People always say it’s so impressive to start a company but in a way, it always felt easy. I didn’t over think things and I just went with my gut with every decision I made. Listening to my gut made it feel as easy as brushing your teeth. Don’t get me wrong, the manual labor was hard and I had a lot of very long days/nights but when it came to making decisions, at the beginning and through out, it always felt easy.

Side note! Because Valerie didn't have pressure-filled thinking around needing to make this venture successful, she stayed out of her own way and was much more peaceful in allowing the steps to unfold in front of her and tap into her wisdom. This is absolutely possible for YOU, it just takes the simple understanding that your thoughts are the only thing getting in your way and making you believe you can't be successful. Carry on...

J: What were the first steps you took?

V: Because I started this business as kind of a side hobby at first, I started very basic. I got equipment, an email account and started spreading the word through word of mouth. After getting some routine clients under my belt I signed up for Yelp, and because I was the only company open 24/7, we were the only spray tan company to come up during late night searches. Yes, we really are open 24/7, you can get a spray tan at 2 in the morning (and yes, it happens). That really is what helped make On The Go Glow different than others and get the name out.

V (cont'd): I put in the blood sweat and tears at the beginning. From designing the website, to managing the phone calls, to spraying etc, I did it all. Being open 24/7 there was no “we are closed,” so whenever a spray came in, I stopped what I was doing and I showed up - I did that for about 3-4 years. I remember spraying from 8am to 9pm, sitting down to eat dinner and the phone ringing for another spray at 10pm. By that point I knew I needed to start hiring. (9 employees later, I think that was good idea!)

J: Did you ever have doubts at the beginning and do you ever have doubts or fears now? What makes you peaceful in those moments?

V: Honestly, at the beginning I didn’t have doubts, because it felt kind of like a small hobby. Don’t get me wrong though, once it took off and I realized “Wow, okay, this is a full blown business,” I had a moment of “Can I do this?” Like I mentioned before, school wasn’t my thing and I didn’t go to business school. But when the doubts hit me, I realized I was already doing it, I already owned a business, I just had to keep trusting myself and not over think anything. As for now? Sure! Doubts and fears always creep in. As the business grows, so many things have to change within the business, and the thought can creep up “Do I know what I am doing?” When I do have doubts and fears I always remember all the clients that keep coming back, all my employees that feel like family and who express loving working for OTGG. Everyone involved calms me and the proof of succeeding is all around me, within them and in what I have built. As scary as it can be, it’s also very exciting to see OTGG grow.

J: What do you feel your company does for people and what do you offer?

V: Whenever I hire someone I say the most important thing I care about (besides epic spray tans) is that the client feels 100% comfortable. I believe OTGG gives people a safe place to “bare it all” and look and feel amazing after. We see all walks of life and I really think we make sure everyone feels comfortable in their own skin. It's a boost of confidence that we spray - we love spreading self-love. We offer long lasting incredible spray tans that don't smell, we believe in using only healthy products on your body, so we have our own organic solution - and all in the comfort of someone’s home or hotel room (or anywhere really) 24/7. 

J: Have any crazy stories to share?

V: We have a lot of crazy stories! From those very late 2am calls, to getting so close with clients that we go through marriages, divorces, and deaths with them; Spray tanning someone with cancer and having her cry after because she said she hadn’t felt so good in a long time. I have a huge list of stories, that honestly has changed my life. I am currently writing a book that will have a bunch of funny and heart touching stories and explaining the amazing connection strangers can have while "baring it all."

What is becoming a theme of my interviews with these superstar Taking The Leap entrepreneurs, is that they didn't allow any momentary doubtful or fearful thinking get in the way of them and their unfolding reality. That's it. So if you're sensing a flicker of curiosity within you to explore something new whether in work, career or relationships, I encourage you to follow it, because your thoughts (and your feelings coming from those thoughts) are the only thing getting in your way.

To close, I'll leave you with two pieces of solid advice from Valerie...

I have noticed, this year, once I took the fear of “not having money" or “will the appointments keep getting booked” away, the company really took off again. Taking away the fear (Ahem... not believing those thoughts!) has allowed the business to really flourish. Just like at the beginning when I wasn’t over thinking it.

As for taking the leap?

Do it, take the leap. Know that it may be hard work and very scary at first, but it will be well worth it. Trust your gut. If something feels wrong, don’t do it (even if the business textbooks say to). I really didn’t follow any business plan I just went with what felt right. I had a lot of people telling me “you should do this - you should do that,” but most of the time I didn’t listen. Tune into yourself, listen and trust.

TUNE INTO YOURSELF, LISTEN AND TRUST. Amen, sister.

All my love, see you next week~

Jessie

An On The Go Glow technician can be booked in the Los Angeles or Las Vegas areas via their website at www.onthegoglowmobile.com

Your Guide To Self-Love

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

My Excalibur Is My Strength As Much As It Is My Weakness

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

Reflections (Not Sleepless) In Seattle

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

Here's To You, Peaceful Warrior

I have been on an incredible journey this week, with an awakening that is blossoming like a sea anemone when the tide begins to shift. I have had a unique relationship with this subject that has allowed me to be fully open like the anemone when it's tentacles are exposed in all of it's beauty, as well as shut down and in question of it, like when the anemone gets disturbed and completely closes up. Where am I now with it? Completely open, exposing all of it's beauty and vulnerability, in effortless flow with the sea.

What is the subject in question? Spirituality - And please for the love of all anemone's everywhere, keep reading, I promise not to bore you or go down any religious path (quite the opposite is true) - and coming from a woman who was raised without any specific religious or spiritual beliefs, you will more than likely see a small reflection of yourself whether you were raised with a religion or not.

As far as my previous religious/spiritual experience, I've had quite the hodgepodge to pull from. I've gone to an array of Christian Sunday services of different sects, Native American spiritual circles, a day of prayer in a Hindu temple, I camped on the side of a mountain for a week to explore deep meditation. When I was young, I had a curiosity for watching different types of sermons on Sunday morning TV, as well as rocked out to an LP of the inimitable Andrae Crouch while vacuuming my parent's living room.

Growing up there were conversations of Jesus being a great man who gave people belonging by telling his story, similar to so many other great leaders whether in religion or activism. It seemed to me that the folks writing down their stories were the one's that screwed up the feeling of it all. Heart, connection, love, understanding, belonging, a feeling that could be identified in music, dancing, paintings, ART - that is what was most important.

So why all of this backstory? Well frankly, I'm realizing as I type that I've been on quite the search my whole life for something that fits for me. I've always sensed there was something greater, it never felt right to think that we're these skin suits that walk around then get dumped in the earth when we're done grinding away our whole lives. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks this time last week.

I was with a dear mentor of mine who replied to me after asking about some blocks I've been feeling with my work: "You aren't accepting the spiritual."

WHAT?!

The 3 Principles behind our experience of life that is the base of my work is spiritual! I talk out my nose to you and my clients all day long about listening to your wisdom, to trust the Universe - if that ain't spiritual, I don't know what is!!!

But guess what? He was right.

The moment he said it and I got past my thought storm that spiraled from "he doesn't realize how far I've come....." there came the bricks. I could see and trust all of what I was saying for YOU, my readers and clients... but when it came to my life, I was still trying to teach the cooks in the kitchen how to make my food. In my meditations I had been having incredible experiences, insights deepening my resolve to continue this path of sharing my work no matter how difficult it seems (aka the reality of building a business, which really only looks difficult when in a bummer state of mind). But as soon as my eyes would open from meditation, the thoughts started flying and I couldn't completely release my grip on the blueprint of my life. I needed to know each step like the board game of LIFE in front of me. For you? For the people I see day-in and day-out? I was tapped in - I could see it - but I was too scared to completely surrender for myself.

Of course I'm human and will surely have to catch myself in all of my humanness in the future, but I've released my grip on my own innocent, getting-in-my-own-way experience of life. A veil has been lifted.  I can see all of the breadcrumbs from the Universe - the synchronicity and manifestations are so obvious that I almost have to look around to see if anyone else is noticing them too. And to add insult to injury (with the most positive of meaning behind that), just before this crack in my world exposed itself, I was drawn to pick up a book I've had on my bookshelf since my sophomore year of high school. It's the only book I read word for word back then, and I think it will be by my side for the rest of my life. As so eloquently written by Dan Millman in Way of the Peaceful Warrior, this perfectly sums up what I've always been seeking:

(A conversation between the Peaceful Warrior named Socrates and Dan, a college student in search)

"... you fear death and crave survival. You want Forever, you desire Eternity. In your deluded belief that you are this 'mind' or 'spirit' or 'soul,' you find the escape clause in your contract with mortality. Perhaps as 'mind' you can wing free of the body when it dies, hmm?"

"It's a thought," Dan said with a grin.

"That's exactly what it is, Dan - a thought - no more real than the shadow of a shadow. Consciousness is not in the the body; the body is in Consciousness. And you are that Consciousness - not the phantom mind that troubles you so. You are the body, but you are everything else, too. (...) Only the mind resists change. When you relax mindless into the body, you are happy and content and free, sensing no separation. Immortality is already yours, but not in the way you imagine or hope for. You have been immortal since before you were born and will be long after the body dissolves. The body is Consciousness; never born; never dies; only changes. The mind - your ego, personal beliefs, history, and identity - is all that ends at death. (...)"

Then the clincher...

"Words mean little unless you realize the truth of it yourself. And when you do, you'll be free at last."

So here's to you, Peaceful Warrior, I hope no matter where you lie on the spiritual spectrum, whether the only relationship you have to me is through reading my blogs or if I'm lucky enough to connect with you in person, I want nothing else in this life but for you to reach the peace of mind and freedom that comes with recognizing that our personal human thoughts are the only thing that get in the way of us being guided so effortlessly in this thing called life. Like the sea anemone, completely open, showing it's beautiful colors and swaying back and forth with every swish of the sea around her. And the beauty of it all...

...it was with me the whole time; In me, around me, of me..

...As it is within you, around you, and of you.

Thank you for reading such a meaningful post that comes straight from my heart to yours.

All my love,

Jessie
 

Urges Or Habits You Can't Break? This One's For You... And All Of Us

We ALL have something, if not multiple things, that we habitually do or have urges for throughout our days. We're human and it's how we've been taught to cope with the stressors of life. For example, do you zone out to TV for too long? Smoke, drink, bite your nails? Mindlessly eat? Do you ever get caught up in your phone? Do you mindlessly scroll through social media?

*Raises hand*

I have fallen pray to the mindless scrolling on social media, as many of us have, and I recently recognized that I do this out of a need for a comforting feeling when I'm in my thoughts about life. Sound familiar? You may be experiencing it with a different form of urge or habit, but the lessons are the same. For me, I've been wanting to override the urge, because my wisdom has been telling me to "back away from the phone" for quite some time now. So of course, as the Universe provides when you're open and curious about something, I came across an audio from 3 Principles practitioner George Pransky that got my insights going.

What is the nature of an urge? It is a thought with a great special effects system. My Consciousness (which provides all of the special effects) makes the urge look really enticing, so my thoughts begin saying "Oh, I'll just look at it for 10 minutes" or "I'll look up this one thing then put it down," because no matter if it's 'good' for me or not, in that moment with all things considered, my reasoning makes it look like the best idea. AND HERE'S THE KICKER - this actually kind of blew my mind because it made so much sense. You will always have thoughts to support the urge because the intelligence behind life follows your lead - the ever-flowing energy that keeps our thoughts moving is a servant to our current thinking, not necessarily what we would consider to be best for us (<--- that last bit is what made my jaw drop).

I see your furrowed brow... keep reading.

*Let all of this sink in like music, don't overthink... just reading through it will begin the awakening within you and you'll see examples pop up in your life to deepen the understanding...

Let me ask you this: Have you ever done something where you look back and go "What was I thinking?" Like speeding to work because you're late, you know cops don't normally hang around your route and you don't want to get in trouble at work - then you get pulled over - DOH! That is exactly like me picking up my phone and here's why - if in the moment I have the urge to pick up my phone (like speeding to work) and my thinking supports it (ie: the reasons as to why it's a good idea), the intelligence behind life will be of service to that thinking and continue to provide more thinking to support it (this is how we get caught up in thought storms!)

So how do you break the habit or the urge, you ask? Well, there is a resolve that exists within us when we no longer want to engage in a habit or urge, however large or small. The larger the resolve, the more the intelligence behind life will support THAT thinking. Since I've had this insight that my phone provides false comfort that keeps me disengaged, I've hit my limit and my resolve has become incredibly strong. If I were to quantify it, I would say that I am 75% not wanting to get caught up on my phone, and 25% willing to do so. So when I pick up my phone for work, the intelligence behind life, that energy, supports the thinking going through my mind in that moment which is now just to do my post or engage with whatever I need to, and put it down. And here's the thing, it isn't about having a strong will to overcome the urge anymore, the resolve in itself has shifted my thinking and the energy is spiritually supporting it. This goes for any type of urge - eating, smoking, drinking, nail biting, etc.

Pransky made a great point - if you look back on any urges/habits/addictions that you've overcome, you'll notice that your resolve existed from the first time you gave in to the urge, but as time passed, your resolve got deeper. And your resolve can change, it can grow stronger and weaker, it isn't something that only grows stronger (or maybe it never grows stronger at all). Need an example? My husband Mike was a smoker since before we were together, and for most of his smoking years, didn't think much about it - I would say for the first two years of our relationship, there was no talk of quitting. But then something shifted and he decided to switch to American Spirits because they don't have any chemical additives, therefore making it a bit easier (as far as the physical side effects) to drop the habit. Though he didn't have any intention of quitting at that point, in hindsight, this was the resolve growing without him even being aware of it. From there he quit about a year or two later, but his resolve wasn't strong enough - just one more was enough reason to keep it going. Then one day he heard about a famous study that showed that if you quit smoking by age 30, scientists couldn't show a statistically significant difference in mortality rate from non-smokers. That was it. He decided that no matter what, he would have his last cigarette on the last day of his 29th year. And guess what? He did it. Cold turkey. 9 years have gone by and he doesn't even have the slightest urge to pick up the habit again. Now, I also have friends who have quit and still feel the urge to pick one up when others are smoking around them, but the resolve is so strong to not pick up the habit again, that the intelligence behind life supports it!

So what to do now, you ask? Truly, nothing. Your awareness has already been engaged. Re-read above when you feel the need to get a little more clear on the understanding, but having the understanding of how the nature of urges work in and of itself, naturally creates a buffer between you and the urge. Just like the rest of my work, as soon as the understanding clicks, even the slightest bit, there is literally a cognitive shift that permanently changes your perspective on life. That's why I can see someone for one or two sessions and they see life differently in all aspects. The beauty of this work and why I call it the understanding, is because once you see it clearly, the insights keep coming and coming, your understanding gets deeper and you become more peaceful - it's absolutely incredible to watch.

As always, I hope this brings some insight into the way you tick as a human being and brings you some peace of mind. Feel free to comment below with any questions or observations and share it with your friends and family to spread the word - urges and unwanted habits are the pits!

All my love and see you next week,

Jessie

Guilty As Charged!

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

You Don't Have To Be 80 To Have Wisdom

I had a complete post written for today's Monday Musings, and my gut was nagging at me throughout the entire process that the timing wasn't right for what I had written.

What won't leave my mind is the powerful movement following Parkland. I am so incredibly proud and in awe of the students and the driving force for change within them, I can't help but reflect on how powerful, strong, and wise they are. What a gift to us all, what a wake up call for so many, to see in real time that you don't have to be 80 to have wisdom. It is truly within us, at all times, no matter your age. It is so incredibly inspiring to witness what tragedy can be turned into.

One of the Three Principles that I refer to here in different ways (without saying it directly) is Universal Mind, or the greater intelligence of all things. I often say this is your wisdom, your gut feeling; I also think of it as the power source as well as the lazy river that holds you up and guides you along in life. Universal Mind is truly the energy woven into the wisdom within and around us. My jaw was on the floor when I witnessed this so strongly watching Emma Gonzalez, a Senior and survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, giving her incredibly powerful speech to a gun control rally. She was a conduit to her wisdom, and oh how powerfully she trusted it. The strength I felt from her grounding, she was as mighty as the oldest Sequoias in the Sierra Nevada mountains. (Click here to watch if you haven't seen it yet).

Isn't it amazing how our most intense experiences, whether tragic or romantic, get us right to our wisdom? There's no time for erroneous thinking - we live in the moment, we say what we feel, we ACT. We DO. Every thought that comes up is straight from our wisdom, and there's nothing but trust and movement.

Let me remind you that it doesn't take a tragedy or the most sweeping love affair to get to this place.

It is there for you all the time, you just have to look in it's direction. When we experience something so intensely, we're often forced to surrender to those experiences, thus being in the moment. Living with an energy and vitality that others feel around you. Watch Emma, yes there is an immense amount of pain, but you can see the moments when she hurts because she has a memory flash across her mind from the tragedy, but she is standing in her wisdom. It takes my breath away and makes me feel so empowered for change, because SHE is so empowered for change.

Finally, I would love to share with you what I posted immediately following the tragedy. At the time I felt hopeless, shocked, in disbelief, and out of words. Then this is what bubbled up to share with the world...

It doesn't matter who you are, where you've come from, or what part of the world you live in - EVERY HUMAN BEING suffers from the stories in their head at some point or another - either consistently or in phases. Whether you believe a tragic incident or person from your past continues to ruin your life on a daily basis, or you're scared you're not being a good parent. From each perspective, the person trapped in their thoughts is riddled with anxiety because those thoughts make life look and feel really scary.
•
The difference between you and the person pulling the trigger of a gun, is that they BELIEVE their thought stories to be so real and overwhelming, that getting a gun and killing themselves and others will relieve them from those stories, swiftly and easily. Like removing the stinger after a bee sting.
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If you're a stay at home mom who has gotten so low that you haven't washed your hair in over a week, or if you're an addict using drugs or alcohol to escape the movies you replay in your head.
•
That's why I'm here, doing what I do.
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I would love to be able to reach every single person on this planet to make them understand that they don't have to take their thoughts so seriously - that they don't have to continue re-living past experiences that bring pain. Suffering will continue as long as we don't have the education about Thought.
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My point? Mental health is a factor for mass shootings as much as it is a factor in living a peaceful life. But when you have easy access to something that can swiftly end what you believe is the cause to the suffering you're experiencing, using a gun will never be anything less than the solution to the illusory problem
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Let's remove the easy access to the deadly machine that so seductively makes people believe it will quiet or end the thoughts that bring them suffering... because it won't. Ever.

It is amazing what we learn from our experiences in this skin suit, dealing with our human shit (sorry for the language, but 'stuff' just doesn't cut it). If you haven't heard it yet today, know that you are important, loved and so appreciated for who YOU are - YOUR wisdom. We need you for all that you are. Stop letting your thoughts get in the way of us experiencing your greatness. Take a page from Emma - if it wasn't for her, we may not be having the conversation that new regulations are a must, we may all still be feeling like I did right after it happened - hopeless.

If you would like to join me in pledging to vote for gun safety, or need more information on how you can be part of the movement in your area, click here to be taken to Everytown for Gun Safety.

Here's to you, and all of us ~

See you next week,

Jessie

My Anxiety Named Bruce

Do you ever have too many things going on in too many different directions, where you feel out of control?

Ugh. Me too.

I recently got through a fit of anxiety and in the middle of it, I wished I could transport back in time to Saturday, when there wasn't a care in the world: I was with my husband, in a beautiful landscape two hours out of Los Angeles, watching our best friend compete in a riding competition with her stunner horse love-bug, Roxy (both Roxy & my friend did GREAT by the way).

This is me with Roxy, both without a care in the world (obviously)

That anxiety I mentioned? Well, in case you're new to my posts, our feelings always come from our thinking, and I was in a thought storm of things I needed to accomplish: Two important phone calls needed to be made, a workshop inquiry needed to be tended to, I was needing to write this blog post (which brings on alllll the thoughts about which experience or insight I should share with you all that would make the most sense or the biggest impact on your life); I had thoughts about my friends, my family, and the fact that I needed to schedule the following day (which brings on alll the thoughts about what needs to be done: exercise, pay that bill, pay for that class, post to social media, email that client, outline that workshop, call that friend, GO to said class you have to pre-pay for... oh shit! you haven't listened to that audio you were supposed to listen to FOR that class... ugh, be sure to fit that in too!) and so on...

And then I remembered...

"You're in your thoughts, Jessie. You feel nauseated, anxious, and out of control because you're in your thoughts. Look around, what's happening? Oh, it's a lovely afternoon with your husband, listening to music while he drives us to Target. Jesus. Come back to the moment, Jessie. Aaah, hello again." And then the anxiety dissipated, like magic. Out of all fairness, because I am constantly holding a candle to my life experience so I can put my work to the test and share with you all the results, I was able to see my thinking for what it was VERY quickly. That muscle is quite strong, and I expect it will get stronger every day for the rest of my life. But guess what? So can yours (yup, you heard me right... I am NOT special, to say the least, we're alike in every way).

If you suffer from overthinking which leads to anxiety or panic, hear me out on this (and if you're one of the lucky few that never feels an iota of anxiety, please send me the results to your latest blood test, I don't think you're human). Knowing that our feelings come from our thinking, I had this insight while my anxiety veil was being lifted. Name your anxiety. Literally give your anxiety or panic attacks a name - not the name of someone you hate in life or someone that has treated you badly, but a generic name that brings a smile to your face. Like Bruce or Liam - Ashley or Veronica (I have no emotional attachment to said names, so forgive me if I've listed off someone that's important to you!). It dawned on me that when my thinking is going around in circles so badly that I get anxious, it's not just because of the thoughts I'm thinking, but the thoughts ABOUT the thoughts. I can allow the list of things I have to do tomorrow to show up in my head and move through me, no problem. But it's when I start getting concerned ABOUT that list of things, therefore having thoughts ABOUT my thoughts, that the anxiety begins. SO if I'm beginning to feel the side effects of anxiety before I'm actually aware of the thoughts in my head, I can next time go "Oh hey Bruce, haven't seen you in a while, I don't feel like dealing with you today, thanks!" and I can go on about my day even quicker than going into the thought storm!

Ok so I have something to admit, after I had the insight, I realized I had heard of this technique back while I was in college for Psychology. But it was never as clear to me as it was when it came through my wisdom today. I want you to be able to recognize thoughts for what they are - that they're an energy of your own creation, a story of your own telling - that you can choose to believe, or not. But on your journey to gaining this understanding on a deep level, if it takes you calling out your feelings of anxiety by name so you can recognize it for what it is, as opposed to analyzing each and every thought going through your head (making the anxiety even worse!), then I say do it. For me, all I have to do now is say "Ugh, I'm having anxious thoughts," I check in with the reality of what's going on around me, and it passes. You will get there too. In the end, all it is is choosing to stop believing what's going on in your head as truth. But dammit, life can be hard. I understand. So let's grab a tool box and fill it up together.

Have a wonderful week and I'll see you on the next go-around ~

XO,

Jessie

The Feeling Behind Unity

Pride, overwhelming love, HOPE, justice, appreciation, contentment, JOY, awe, adoration, admiration, sadness, introspection, connecting devotion...

It is so hard to describe a feeling sometimes, especially when an experience is so overwhelming to my mind that all I can do is cry. That is exactly how I felt this past Saturday joining thousands of humans for the Women's March in Los Angeles, and the above adjectives are the best I can do right now (and it's been over 24 hours). The March was the second in it's history, but the first that I attended, and with every vulnerable bone in my body, I admit to you that the reason I didn't go to the first one was because...

I was scared.

I had been SO upset about the Presidential election results, I was so depleted and at a loss for words for the lack of emotional intelligence in my country, I felt blindsided. Politics aside, how could someone with no leadership skills, no kindness in his heart, no respect for women, and no experience (to say the least), be elected into the most 'honorable' seat in the White House? I was sick to my stomach and sobbed among coworkers - it was the first time in all my years that an election would shake me to my core.

Then the light came. The first ever Women's March was announced and I felt rejuvenated. I would be there, at my first ever protest, to stand with women from every cultural background, socioeconomic status, life experience and age to send the message that we are no longer standing down and absorbing the belief that we are not equal and voiceless. The day grew near, conversations were bubbling all around me with feelings of excitement, and all I was feeling was scared. What was happening? When the March was first announced I felt such an immense amount of hope and like I could be part of the solution, a part of history, a part of this huge cultural shift that I was bearing witness to...

My thoughts.

I look back now and as the day of the March was getting closer and closer, I was allowing and believing my thoughts over my wisdom. What if we all got attacked? What if I became claustrophobic? What if I didn't get down there early enough to meet up with people I knew? And so on and so on. These thoughts, when typed out, look so meager and easily dismissible, but especially that first one looked so real to me that it brought feelings of anxiety and stress that froze me. The day came and I just. couldn't. do it. My alarm went off and I snoozed it, but I was racked with sweat and an upset stomach because I was going against my wisdom. By the time I got up, I'm sure I still could've made it (it was still morning, of course), but my thoughts won yet again: Telling me there's no way I could get down there in time or even consider finding someone I knew (because god-forbid I do this on my own!), so I may as well stay home. I don't know about you, but what I've realized from my past behavior is that if I go against my wisdom, I end up wasting a significant amount of time (in this case, an entire day) ruminating in my head - creating thoughts upon thoughts - as to why I made the decision I did. Justifying (again, just thoughts). On this day I eventually told myself that it was in my best interest, and my own form of protest, to work on developing my program, What Moves You. What better way to show my solidarity then to continue to flush out my work that would eventually be teaching people to follow their wisdom and take their thoughts less seriously - my way of helping humanity to never make such an emotionally detached decision ever again. Well, here's what's so ironic - that's a pretty beautiful conclusion I had come to, but I couldn't even type a single word that day or research a single book, because I was going against my wisdom, and taking my scared thoughts VERY seriously.

Cut to a year later, just this past weekend, and there was a quick moment I didn't think I would be able to attend. My husband and I had plans to go out of town, but we didn't have to leave til noon since he had to work (the old thoughts were coming up a little bit too, but these days I make a concerted effort to trust my wisdom, so I let it go to see what would come up). Sure enough, the spiritual work was already in motion because I happened to reach out to my best friend about a completely different subject, and she wound up telling me she was getting downtown by 7am for the March. There it was, I felt so in line with my wisdom that there was no denying it. The next morning I shot out of bed and got myself out the door with my "THE FUTURE IS FEMALE" shirt on (gifted to me by the same friend, no surprise), and I was giddy like a 7 year old on Christmas morning. As I've been witnessing, when I continue to follow my wisdom on a moment-to-moment basis, the rest of the day unfolds in my favor. And of course on this day, it went seamlessly and beautifully, so much so that I felt short of breath from the love expounding from my body. As I walked the 15 blocks from my car to my friends, the images I witnessed made me cry (remember the experiences that are so overwhelming to my mind that make me cry? Now we're caught up...)

"It's better to show up, than to give up" - Bernie Sanders

They tried to bury us - They didn't know we were seeds

Feminism is not a female cause. It is a human one.

Twitter Rants Unite More People!

Above all else, I hope you see yourself in this story. I hope you can begin to recognize the moments in your life when your wisdom is moving you in a direction and your thoughts are the only thing stopping you. That you feel empowered enough from learning more about your thinking, that you choose your knowing. What I felt on Saturday was out of body, and that bliss is part of my life on a daily basis these days. I can only imagine what will happen as each day passes and the voice of my wisdom becomes louder than the voice of my thoughts, but know that this is absolutely possible for you too. What Moves You?

With all my love.

See you next week,

Jessie

Wisdom & A Roller Skating Rink

When was the last time you followed your wisdom, your gut instinct, to do something you really wanted to do? Something fun, out of the box, and completely for yourself? It's tricky, I know, because often times we get the pull to do the new adventure, then our made up thoughts come in the picture and clobber it with 'logic' as to why you shouldn't do it: You don't have time, you don't have the money, you've never been there so what if something happens to you? Maybe you've never done it before so you make pictures of what your experience may be like, what you'll look like or what others will think.

Oy vey - thoughts are exhausting, am I right?!

Well let me tell you, more than just the immense amount of joy you'll be met with from following through with what your wisdom is nudging you to do, is the magic that you'll witness all around you - the beauty of life and how it unfolds, all because you followed your soul-pull.

I recently followed through on a soul-pull to go roller skating, and I'm telling you now, what I experienced ended up being far beyond the joy I could've ever imagined (though I had a feeling it was going to be pretty darn magical). I grew up roller skating, so my nostalgia was through the roof. From the woman at the admission window (who had blatantly been working there for decades) inquiring if I'd be paying 8 bucks for a skate ticket or 13 for a skate and rent - said with her perfectly frosty pink lipstick and a 'honey' with every interaction. To the 80's carpet, the disco balls and the smell of nacho cheese and feet... I was in heaven. I got there right at the beginning of Open Skate and the throwback tunes were already bumping and skaters of every age, cultural background and skill level were zooming, falling and timidly holding on to the carpet wall, simultaneously and blissfully - let me repeat, I was in heaven.

Moonlight Rollerway, Glendale, CA - aka: HEAVEN

As I'm sure you can gather, my joy was through the roof. I went by myself and couldn't have had a better time bearing witness to everything going on around me: the sweet interactions between lovebirds, the care of a parent coaching their little one, the bliss of a senior skating circles around us all; And the gift of the quiet nature of skating itself, the space it allowed for me to reflect on my state of mind as I watched everything unfold around me.

So where's the lesson in it all, you ask? Well, I had a few bubble up for me. To begin, it is truly remarkable that when I listen inward, when I honor my wisdom and follow through with what it tells me, how any concerning thoughts about life simply melt away. When I am overwhelmed with joy and filled to the brim with that loving feeling, any concerning thinking that may normally plague me is either absent, or it moves through my head before I even have time to take it seriously. I can observe those thoughts passing through my head like the ticker tape at the bottom of a news cast, as opposed to a headline at the top of a newspaper. Additionally, when I'm in this joyful space, I am naturally and effortlessly brought to the moment. I become so open-hearted that I feel as though someone has cracked my chest open to reveal a glowing heart, and the feeling lasts as long as I choose to stay in it. And as you can imagine, when I'm not in my own world of thought, when I'm present and open-hearted, every interaction with the world around me is smooth, kind, understanding, effortless and even humorous. Can you think of a time, activity or vacation that makes you feel this way? How does remembering that thought make you feel? Isn't it amazing that just thinking about that wonderful experience brings you peace? And you're still sitting in the same spot, nothing has changed but your thinking (I'm looking back at you with a wink).

Speaking of life being more humorous when you're full of joy, I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear watching the kiddos in the rink. It was so wonderful to watch them fall over and over and over, and continue to get back up on their feet without a thought. Not only were they determined to be good at skating, but they effortlessly threw themselves into tricks and new moves without any hesitation. The ultimate lesson in following my wisdom being played out right in front of me.

As we age, we create so much thought around our experience - for example if we fall from skating, we create thinking that we're not good at it, so we stop. And not only do we stop, but we make up a story around that fall that lasts with us for the rest of our lives and affects decision making as long as we believe it. From that point forward, we will no longer skate because we 'always' fall - even though it was a one time experience. But who knows, maybe you had some fearful thinking in your head before you started skating that you may fall and embarrass yourself, so the fall is now evidence for that made up thinking (and heck, maybe you fell because of a tiny rock on the ground, or you turned around too quickly, or were human and lost your balance for a split second!) Isn't that incredible? It's amazing how many of us have created an entire world of thought around one experience, and that lasting thought (or thoughts) is then a cemented belief about ourselves, or that experience, for the rest of our lives. When really, it's a news headline thought that we've believed, and it's stopping us short from having new wonderful experiences because we have those lenses on anytime a similar opportunity comes up for us.

You see, as you may be beginning to understand, we live and experience our thinking, not the world around us. The more we can understand that, the more we aren't plagued by thoughts - we see them for what they are, let them pass, and come back to the moment. Life becomes more rich, full of color, peaceful and oh-so-enjoyable. Is there an activity or experience in life that you would like to have but the only thing that stops you is your thoughts about it? Are those thoughts true? Are they really true? How would you feel, and what would you do, if you didn't have those thoughts? It seems simple, because it is! With different thinking, we have different experiences of life.

Finally, with today being Martin Luther King, Jr. day, it feels fitting to share my final insight that brought tears to my eyes as I skated around this ol' skating rink. Humans want to connect. We want to help each other. We want to lift each other up when we fall, literally and figuratively. Without our prejudices, our judgements, our divisive and dividing thinking, we have the same goals of living a love and joy filled life - that's it, plain and simple. And guess what, if you take away that individual thinking, the individual reality we each live in, what are we? The same. We may be in different skin suits, but on the inside, we are totally and utterly the same. We are One. Seeing all of the people that came together to enjoy some skating on a simple Friday afternoon: From the two East Indian girls clinging to the walls and watching everyone take turns to give them pointers on how to skate better, to the African American mom helping her daughter skate and having every child gravitate towards her for help because her energy was SO welcoming. From the Caucasian senior citizen having a lovely lone skate willing to help anyone struggling around him, to the Armenian teenage couple that had the biggest smiles on their faces after he gave them pointers. Witnessing a new friendship evolve between the Asian group of twenty-somethings and the Mexican group of twenty-somethings in the matter of two hours. Every falling child and adult was lent a hand by another in the rink, every human being having the time of their lives and becoming fast friends with each other,  I couldn't have been more proud to be witness to the love that is real between us all. What a gift.

So with all of this, dear readers, I hope you begin to honor yourself and follow what your wisdom tells you when you listen inward. And for the love of god, take your made up thoughts a little less seriously! Doing so will begin to effortlessly shift your energy and your experience of life, and therefore the world around you, as we are living a life from the inside-out, always.

See you again next week.

XO,

Jessie

The AHA's from a Cold in Paradise

Happy 2018 dear ones! How have you been?! I hope your Christmas and New Year were exactly what you needed, whether with family and connection, or space from it all, I hope you got some much deserved rest & relaxation.

To jump right in, have you ever been on vacation, finally at your destination that you've been looking forward to for months, and you get SICK?! If not, I'm sure you can relate in other ways such as getting sick the day of an event you've been looking forward to, or when a friend comes to town, or on your first day of a new job, etc. Oh, it's the worst. Like, really body? You couldn't have planned this a little better? Well it happened to me on a stunning trip to Mexico over the New Year, and frankly, I was a little taken aback by my peaceful state throughout the experience as well as the AHA's I was able to have because of my state of mind. Read on...

It's the beginning of the trip when my husband Mike and I have been notified that a majority of the family we're seeing once we arrive to Isla Mujeres (an island that is a 20 minute ferry ride from Cancun) have been dropping like flies (no pun intended) from a bug that was going around. No problem, we've got this! Mike has instilled in me that the moment you begin to think sick, you get sick, so we're already in the mindset of, if we get it, we'll fight it! ("I'm starting to get sick" vs. "I'm fighting something" is a great way to re-frame an illness into a positive action that keeps you more relaxed, the mind holds a majority of our healing power!) A few days go by and there it is... that little tickle/itch thing in the base of my throat that everyone was talking about. Of course my initial thought/reaction the morning I woke up with it was, 'Oh, damn it' - but what do I always say? Our feelings come from our thoughts, so I quickly moved to the positive and was grateful my throat wasn't sore, that my energy was up and I was looking at the most stunning views I could ever imagine. Behold... (and mind you, NO FILTER!)

As the days passed, the symptoms got worse, but I stayed in the "fighting something" mindset as opposed to succumbing to the sickness. Every time I was asked how I was doing I responded with different versions of "I'm definitely fighting something, but I'm good!" And truly, with the knowledge that I am always ok, my suffering would only be coming from my thinking around what I was fighting (not the sickness itself), I was left in a more relaxed and peaceful state of mind. Allowing me to be flexible with what my body needed, the plans ahead in the day and truly leaving me in a good mood!

So where am I going with this?

When we're ill, it's difficult not to acquiesce to all of our thinking around how shitty we feel, because the truth is, we feel shitty! It sucks to not be able to breathe without a gurgle in your chest or to have to pass on the Mezcal because your higher self knows it'll make you feel even shittier. But guess what? Without the thinking around our sickness - the analyzing every change in symptom, the thoughts around how we can't have a good time any more or how the vacation is ruined, or how we can't have a drink without knowing it isn't good for us (but by golly you're gonna kick your heels up in some capacity! Note: I obviously didn't always pass on the Mezcal) - without those thoughts, you are simply back in the moment, able to still enjoy what is in front of you - you just happen to also be fighting something.

Now, let me be clear, I am not saying that if you feel like crap and need to lay down and feel all the feels, that you should instead "think positive" and keep it movin. Heck no. Creating any more thinking between you and the moment you're in is going to create more stress in the body, ESPECIALLY forced positive thinking, when you're not feeling very positive. But the more you can take your thoughts less seriously in general, allowing them to pass like clouds in the sky, a more positive state of mind (aka: Mood) naturally bubbles up, giving you a more positive feeling.

This is the freedom from our thinking I always talk about, and this is just one instance in a plethora of many that we're met with EVERY moment of every day. Does it take work? Hell yes, especially when you're new to the understanding. Does it get easier? Yes, however, we're met with new experiences that challenge our thoughts all the time that can catch us off guard. Even after making it through the vacation in a pretty peaceful state of mind around my sickness, I was tested again on our flight back to Los Angeles. Cold medicine was sold out everywhere we went, so I flew sans drugs, which would've helped dry me up (ps... I flew with a scarf wrapped around my face in hopes to save other flyers from catching my snot monster). So when we were descending into Los Angeles, in the matter of one moment, I was in incredible pain in my face, even my teeth were zinging from my nerves going crazy from the congestion. After a quick trip down negative thought lane, I checked myself. I decided to focus on my breathing, visualizing sipping air into my belly slow and steady and being grateful that we were nearly home. And guess what happened? The pain didn't stop of course, but because my thoughts were peaceful, my body became relaxed and I was brought back to the moment. I looked out the window and saw this insanely beautiful moment... (again, no filter)

My beautiful city, all lit up, and La Bella Luna shining right in my face. I couldn't have asked for a more breath-taking experience to support me coming back to a peaceful state of mind.

So dear readers, I hope this story gets you a little deeper into the understanding that you are living from the inside-out, always - even when something like a cold is so seductively trying to convince you otherwise - it is your choice, in every moment of every day, to think something different. And in this case, not only did I benefit from being on top of my thinking because I was able to still enjoy my vacation, but my sickness didn't get too bad since I stayed relaxed (had I succumbed to my upset thinking, you can only imagine how sick I could have gotten had I sent myself into a stressful state!), and my husband and friends still enjoyed being around me since I wasn't in a miserable mood!

Happiest of Mondays to you all and I look forward to seeing you again next week. As always, be sure to leave me a comment or get in touch should you have any questions!

XO,

Jessie

Follow your gut...

I know you've heard it before... "Follow your gut" or "What does your gut say?" But I'm here to encourage you from experience, after continuing to walk my talk, to truly DO IT... then sit back and watch the magic unfold.

In what I teach, following your gut is also referred to as following your wisdom. Your wisdom being that knowing that bubbles up one millisecond before your thoughts clobber the hell out of it. It is an innate GPS system built into us. It has all the answers on what is best for us on a moment to moment basis, no matter the situation we're in. From our safety and well-being to career choices; From relationship matters to what we're going to eat for dinner to our health, we know what is best for us, at all times. It exists within ALL of us, even if you feel like yours took a hike sometime ago.

So if we have the answers all of the time, then why don't we listen to and trust ourselves? Why are we constantly believing our negative thoughts over our wisdom, and justifying those thoughts as 'logic'? Well, the following things I know for sure: Fear of failure and making the wrong decision are definitely strong-willed thoughts that bring up some undeniably yucky feelings (reminder: our feelings are always coming from our thinking, not the world around us. Take a peak at last weeks post >HERE< for more on that). And when we have a whole mess of negative thinking around something that brings up awful feelings, it makes the negative thinking seem really real about the world around us. Another reason? Sometimes our wisdom tells us exactly what we DON'T want to hear, even though it is truly what is best for us. Need an example? Read on...

I started developing What Moves You while I was working at a top talent agency in Los Angeles. However, when I began working there, I had the intent of it being the career I would retire from - What Moves You was no where in sight. After about 8 months at the agency, I slammed into an emotional wall and had no idea what hit me. I continued to go through the motions of life til one evening I caught an episode of Oprah interviewing Jack Canfield (Author of The Success Principles and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series), and he said something that made me feel like he was talking directly to me...

"You don't want to get to the top of the ladder only to find out you had it leaning up against the wrong wall."

OMG... MIC DROP...

What happened next? The ultimate soul search. See, I had been so caught up in my thinking around how I couldn't believe that I, Jessie, the girl who always had a plan, felt lost. How could that be? That's not who I am! (Ps - that's just a thought). I had a lot of noise to sift through to get to my wisdom, even though it was always there. The first step was to read The Success Principles, which had fabulous information to help chip away at what my soul-pull was. Then one day, like magic, my noisy thinking had subsided while I was in the shower and the answer bubbled up from my wisdom... "Build a program that helps people get out of their thoughts and trusting their wisdom."

HALLE-FRIGGIN-LUJAH!!

But guess what happened next? ALL the thoughts.. "OMG if I have to develop something, how long will THAT take? Geez, that seems like I'm just wasting time! Wait, and what if I do all of that and it doesn't even work out? How would I even become successful with something like this?" Holy toledo did my thoughts go crazy. But do you know what was wonderful about that specific experience? Even though my wisdom had come through with something that wasn't a quick fix to my career stressors (it would have been so much easier to get a job that I could apply for with no real effort beyond editing my resume), it gave me the answer to my life's purpose, my soul-pull. Even though it wasn't an easy path, it was the right one.

Of course, I am human, and choosing to stay in the high-stress job for what ended up being nearly two more years while I developed What Moves You, felt like a giant mountain to climb sometimes. But every time my thoughts told me to get another job while I worked on my program because it was all getting to be too much, I would ask myself "Is it time to leave?" and every time my wisdom came back with, "NO." And do you know why? Working there evolved into my greatest education, even beyond my paid-for college degrees. It gave me the opportunity to put my work into motion. What do I constantly say? We live from the inside-out from our own, personal, thought-generated reality. And with this high-stress job in entertainment where everything looked like it was affecting me from the outside-in, I can tell you now after putting in the work of monitoring where my thoughts were all day, every day - we are most definitely, undeniably, living from the inside-out.

Why this story for today's Monday Musings? It felt completely right to share, heading into the new year. I want you all to begin following your wisdom, one small step at a time. What do you want to eat for lunch? Follow it. You've received an email from a co-worker that's a little passive aggressive and your wisdom is telling you to pick up the phone instead of email back? DO IT, you'll be shocked at how it works out for you. Yes, it may be uncomfortable sometimes, but I'm telling you, life unfolds for you in the most positive of ways when you follow it. Like I say ALL THE TIME, you are human, I am human; It's difficult to get in touch with what's right for us if we have a mess of thinking making a crap-ton of noise in our heads. But we will all be getting deeper and more in touch with our wisdom, learning to honor and trust it more consistently as we grow, every moment, of every day, for the rest of our lives. I want you to feel what it feels like, I want you to see the magic that happens when you do so. You will become more open-hearted, you'll create more connection with others, you'll begin falling in love with life, all over again.

Here's to you, and all of your wisdom.

XO,

Jessie

The Flight of Thought

I would like for you to truly ponder this next statement: Your feelings, at all times & no matter the circumstances, are being brought to life from your thoughts - not the world around you. You are feeling your thinking. Period. (What?! YES TRULY!) I had a couple of moments on a flight not too long ago that will help to explain.

The first was while I was waiting for the restroom in the galley-way in the back of the plane. I put my face right up to the tiny window that's in the door of the plane, just because I was curious and loving the view. Then a quick flash of panic went through my entire body from the thoughts of being thousands of feet up in the air with no ground beneath my feet. Woo! Because we feel our thinking, I absolutely could have allowed my fearful thoughts to turn into a thought storm, resulting in an anxiety attack. But instead, I got in the drivers seat of my thinking and moved those thoughts right through by not taking them seriously. I literally said to myself "NOPE!" - turned around, and started thinking of other things, keeping myself in a more peaceful & relaxed state.

You see where I'm going with this?

The second experience I'm sure you can relate to. As we started to descend, the plane was beginning to do those huge drops out of nowhere from turbulence - the kind where your stomach goes right into your throat. A baby starting crying, the gal next to me was white knuckling the arm rests, people were hollering every time we dropped. My hands started to get clammy, I was jumpy and totally on edge, then I realized I was creating stressful thinking around what was happening: "Are we going to crash? OH god, even the stewardesses look stressed, that must mean this is REALLY bad." But remember, we feel our thinking, not the world around us. So what did I do? You got it - I got in the drivers seat and started to say over and over in my head "We are safe and will be landing safely." I immediately felt peace wash over me and I honestly became less aware of the turbulence I'm sure we were still experiencing. Of course we landed safely, and instead of being all wound up and tense in my body, which I surely would have had to recover from had I not gotten in the drivers seat of my thoughts, I was in a peaceful state of mind.

Out of curiosity, did you notice any tension in your body while reading about my flight? If so, isn't it incredible to recognize how you didn't even have to be there, but just by making the pictures in your head you created a similar reaction in your body? That's my point! Life is never happening TO you - you are creating life through the lens of your thinking, inside-out, always.

Listen, you're human and it is definitely easier said then done to catch your thoughts in the middle of an experience, I totally understand. But imagine what life would look and feel like, imagine how much less stress your body would go through, if you made the effort to CHOOSE to stay in the moment and not allow your thoughts to take over.  Especially when we feel out of control of a situation, the thoughts we create lead to such dis-ease (which is often, if we're not trusting our wisdom... that's a whole other conversation!) We have the option to choose one thought over another, it's the free will you're empowered with as the thinker of your thoughts!

YES! Dance break!

Lauren Hurt Photography

For the rest of the week ahead, challenge yourself to check in with your thinking when you notice different feelings or emotions in your body. Whether you feel sadness, worry, anxiety, stress or tension; Or any physical side effects of tightness in the chest or breath, clammy hands, headache, or body aches & pains. I guarantee you that you'll notice you're swirling in your thinking about things that are outside of the present moment you're in. Then get in the drivers seat and say to yourself out loud "I'm not there yet" (if you're concerned about the future), "I don't want to watch that movie again" (if you're playing a scenario or experience from the past over and over), "There's nothing to be done with that right now" or my favorite, "PAUSE." Take a deep breath, take a look at your surroundings, and come back to the present moment. The nature and energy of Thought wants to move through your head, so doing these things will naturally begin to auto-correct your state of mind to it's neutral state, which is relaxed and peaceful (mind-blowing, right?!). The short of the long of it, as Sydney Banks says...

"The life of a thought is only as long as you think it."

Want to hear something pretty spectacular? After having read this article and scratching the surface of understanding the nature of Thought and where your experience of life is coming from, you'll find yourself more peaceful right away. What's even more wonderful? You'll begin to have more compassion for others, as well as yourself,  because you know they're dealing with their own reality of life through their thinking, just like you are.

Pretty amazing stuff, see you again next week.

XO,

Jessie

Staying in the Swill

Have you ever experienced staying in the swill? By staying in the swill I'm referring to that heavy feeling that you put on like a cloak day-in and day-out because you're trapped in your thoughts of worry, fear, or doubt. You try really hard to focus on things you're grateful for, or opportunities that lie ahead, but you generally end up back at square one, feeling like crap. You maybe even have moments that give you hope for a better feeling because you laugh at something, or a wonderful idea or memory passes through your mind; But the moment those positive thoughts cross through and they bring you peaceful feelings, the swill thoughts (or what I like to call, thought turds) pop into your head like the school marm who catches you laughing during a test...

"Don't you dare begin to feel at peace and relaxed, you have to focus on all the things you're worried about!"

Well let me tell you, I have absolutely been experiencing this state of mind for the last week, and am feeling like I've finally emerged through the other side of the fire - a little scathed, and A LOT relieved...

Lauren Hurt Photography

So what in the world happened? Well, I had an experience over the holiday break that was pretty traumatic and put me in an immediate low mood. Like, permanent nausea, rash on my face (literally) type of low mood (my skin likes to make sure I know where I'm at in my state of mind, isn't that nice?!) And as I remind clients and students in my What Moves You community, when you're in a low mood, it can be difficult to see life clearly, to hear the positive intention behind what others are saying, or to even register the positive experiences in life that are happening all around you.

Why is that? It's quite simple actually. We are experiencing life through the lens of our thinking, every moment of every day. Even though it is quite seductive to think that life is happening TO us, or our feelings are coming from what's going on around us, we are in actuality ALWAYS having an inside-out experience; Looking at life THROUGH the lens of the thoughts swirling around in our heads, each and every moment. Being that I had had a traumatic experience, there were multiple things going on inside me:

• For days following I was trying to make sense of what happened. Why did it happen? How could things have gone differently? And so on...
• I was constantly trying to make sense of an upsetting situation that was over and I obviously couldn't time travel to change it, so I was in a perpetual funk. A low mood. A sadness.
• Due to the funky low mood, even if I wasn't thinking about the specific experience, I was seeing life through those lenses - like a pair of glasses full of fingerprints and smudges. I couldn't see clearly; My state of mind was shot. So every little aspect of my life that I had a stressful thought about was amplified ten-fold.

How was I able to overcome the thoughts and therefore the funk? Number one, I had to remind myself that I'm human and it is OK to get swooped up into the negative thought storms once in a while; Surrendering to that understanding in itself began to auto-correct my state of mind. I began to appreciate and love myself for having had the experience, and that it was truly over and in the past. Every time I thought about it, I was making the choice to hit replay on that movie, so I finally made the choice to stop hitting replay.

You see, our feelings come from our thinking, not from the world around us. So every time I was hitting replay on that movie, even if just for a moment, stress and anxiety riddled my body. From there, if I thought about normal life stressors about my life or work while in that feeling, those stressors felt so incredibly real and huge and heavy, they seemed out of my control and I would freeze. I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide away from the world. Mind you, if I were in a positive state of mind, those life stressors would of course still cross my mind, but I would easily be able to let them pass or they would motivate me into action, therefore moving them through my mind without even trying.

Bottom line is, we are the thinkers. No one is climbing inside of our heads crafting our thoughts for us. We have a huge bandwidth for a massive variety of thoughts that we think all day, every day: the construct of who we are (I'm introverted, I'm funny, I'm sarcastic), judgements of ourselves or others, memories & experiences; To what we plan to eat later in the day or what pen we choose to pick up to write with, and EVERYTHING in between. We have so many thoughts crossing our minds at the speed of light, that we often can't keep up. But the more we have an understanding that we are the generators of all those thoughts, and we have the free will to pick and choose what to pay attention to OR we can just observe them flowing through our mind like a ticker tape at the bottom of our television screens, the more at peace we are. As Elsie Spittle so wisely said in her book, Nuggets of Wisdom...

Remember that the nature of Thought is pure energy, so it flows. Use thought wisely - let negative thoughts flow through your mind. Then your natural well-being will rise to the surface.

So dear reader, I hope this shines a little light on where your life experience is coming from, as well as some peace of mind that thought storms and low moods happen to each and every one of us. Having the understanding of where my feelings and funk were coming from, sure helped me to trust that I didn't have to be afraid of what was happening to me, and I knew it would all inevitably pass. But darn it, life can be hard, it will throw you punches, and it's OK to have to work it through sometimes.

See you again next week, XO ~   

Jessie