The Portal of the Present Moment

I spent years stuck in a heavy mind-created reality of anxiety and depression. And being home with small children all day, every day is intense AF on the best of days. I was at home with my own mind-created stressful negative illusion of reality and every day was just survival until my husband got home and I could be alone in a less stimulating environment.

I knew something was off. I remember a knowing feeling that things were off and my headspace was not as it should be, but I didn't know what to do. I was paralyzed by anxiety.

In retrospect, my desire to be alone was the urge to find a quiet space to reconnect with my higher self. Unfortunately, because my mind was a constant barrage of criticism and anxiety, I would always spend my alone time tuning into something external: podcasts, TV, social media, etc. because it provided a brief respite from the torment of my mind.

I eventually found space and clarity in yoga and then meditation. Well, first with SSRIs, but they only provided a few weeks of clarity before the cloud would descend again. But each time we upped my dose or changed my meds, those few weeks of clarity were what I needed. I knew things could be easier and more joyful and I knew I could figure out how to get to that point on my own.


"Time is the horizontal dimension of life, the surface layer of reality. Then there is the vertical dimension of depth, accessible to you only through the portal of the present moment." 
-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Upping the Lunar Vibes...

It's cold and rainy outside so I'm letting the girls binge watch The Berenstain Bears while I clean and listen to podcast episodes on astrology and moon cycles.

I found this lovely free lunar calendar from Ezzie Spencer. I think it makes a delightful wallpaper for my laptop. I cleaned up all the files and stuff on my desktop, set my tool bars to disappear, and it's all quite zen now. 

Still supes grateful that my husband bought me this laptop shortly after I started blogging after he surprise won a shit ton of money in Vegas. Thanks, Universe!

Fresh lunar ink.

Dudes. I just treated my sister and myself to astrological birth chart readings for my sister's birthday. (It's more fun if we both do it, right?) That shit was on point AF for both of us. Bonkers level on point. Apparently my current shift towards the land of the woo is the right direction. It's meant to be my jam. And, shockingly, it is. Once I released all the ego/mind resistance to it, it's all been flowing to me. And it will be a lucrative career path for me, apparently. Sweet. Bring it on. I'm just going to follow my passions and see what happens. Neat.

And I got a new tattoo today. A full moon on my inner right wrist. Seems appropriate for this moment in my life. And the current impending blood moon eclipse situation. It's more visible than any of my others to date. Another step away from the mind-created guidelines of my business-degree-having "self." I'm leaning into my moon sign, pisces, the sign of intuition. I've been feeling a full moon tattoo for a while now, I just had to decide where. My sister asked if I wanted to get tattoos today and I immediately knew I was down. Then the reading beforehand sealed the fucking deal. Full moon all the way. All of my tattoos mark important parts of my life. I'm having a shift right meow. I'm just going to remain open and allow and see what magic the universe has in store for me.

Do you bujo?

"As awareness grows, addictive patterns will weaken and eventually dissolve."
- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth


Do you bujo?

I've been keeping a bullet journal for a year and a half and it's been a GAME. CHANGER. Big timez helpful for processing these crazy changes I have been experiencing over the past several years. Just basic journaling is super great for the mental health. Bullet journaling kicks it up a notch, as it includes traditional journal entires as well as any thing else your heart desires. It's a custom journal just for you and your life situation. Watch the video. Just do it.

The habit tracker is a great tool for personal growth. I now use mine as a tool of awareness, rather than a tool for setting rigid goals and then being hyper critical of myself when I fail to live up to unrealistic levels of perfection... been there, done that, not interesting in revisiting that mind-created headspace of despair.

There it is... my January habit tracker in all its imperfect glory...

You have now witnessed the frequency of some of the most intimate details of my life. (The [not pictured] labels are all abbreviations that would make no sense to anyone but me.)

You are a collection of space grains dancing to the tempo you create.

"At the minute scale of the grains of space, the dance of nature does not take place to the rhythm of the baton of a single orchestral conductor, at a single tempo: each process dances independently of its neighbours, to its own rhythm. The passage of time is internal to the world, is born in the world itself in the relationship between quantum events that comprise the world and are themselves the source of time." 

- Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

You are a collection of space grains dancing to the tempo you create. I don't know about you, but I choose to create a tempo that brings me joy.

Synchronicities are my favorite.

Synchronicities are my favorite. They often happen to me while listening to music or podcasts/audiobooks and whatever is being said/sung will sync up exactly with what's happening in my life.

This morning both kids woke up sick. The morning was long. I had just put the one year old down for an early nap and popped in my earbuds to enjoy a new episode of My Favorite Murder. Karen was saying that she isn't into New Year's Eve because she's sober and doesn't enjoy watching a bunch of young adults getting drunk and barfing everywhere... and right as she said the word "barf," I watch my kid on the baby monitor roll over and puke alllllllllllll over the place.
...and that is my strangest/grossest synchronicity to date. #motherhood

But I'm also here to share that OPRAH and ECKHART TOLLE are doing a 10 part podcast series on A New Earth. I. AM. SO. PUMPED. 

New year. New moon. New approach to personal improvement.

via

New year. New moon. New approach to personal improvement.

Instead of setting rigid goals and then berating myself when I fall short, I am observing and tracking my decisions with loving awareness.

Being an Enneagram 1 personality type, my mind automatically defaults to impossibly high standards in every aspect of my life. Then, if/when I fall short, my inner critic berates the hell out of me. My mind accepts nothing short of perfection, and objective perfection is a fallacy.

In moments of potential poor decisions, I take a deep breath, pause, and tune in. I then know what decision will best serve my higher self. Next step... listen and do what I know to be best. That last step has been a struggle during 2018 and I'm not bringing that bullshit into 2019. Nope. I am evolving and strengthening my relationship with my higher self; it is time to let go of behaviors that no longer serve me.

Awareness creates change. I observe and track my behavior in my journal, then reflect on how I can support myself in making better decisions going forward. For instance, 2018 showed me that being well rested and well nourished results in my better using my free will to make good decisions.

I focus on the present moment and what is the right decision to make NOW. Then when the next situation comes up, I make the right decision NOW. And so on and so forth... That is what life is, a never-ending series of nows. So just live in each one and make the best decision as each situation presents itself.

In 2019, I'm not making giant sweeping statements about my behavior in the future. I am making one decision at a time, in the now, guided by what best serves my higher self.


"As you increasingly honor your true being, elements in your life that were previously props for your inauthentic self fall by the wayside. Other elements now enter your life to support your authenticity, as the external follows the internal." - Shefali Tsabary, The Conscious Parent


"All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of being." - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Yin O'Clock

New favorite podcast alert! I've enjoyed interviews with Shaman Durek on other podcasts, but my mind was blown when I recently learned that he has his own podcast! Go listen to the 12/6/18 episode on the quantum nature of reality with Brandon Beachum. It resonated with me so hard.

I'm diving deep, ya'll. And the deeper I go, the more I want to learn. Spirituality and psychology and quantum physics and alignment and flow and dharma and alllllllllll the woo AF stuff that has always resonated with me peripherally but I never allowed myself to fully buy. My mind always kept the woo at arm's length. Now that I'm just letting go and fully allowing my higher self to guide everything, I'm deep in woo woo land and it all feels so much truer than the traditional mind-based approach to life. 

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. So why not tune into your higher self and allow the universe to guide you into your best life? Why not? It's a fuck ton easier, I can tell you that for surezies. And more fun.

I'm currently working hard on balancing my yin and yang. I've been go go go my whole adult life. It has manifested as physical ailments off and on; I would rest until I was able to function again and then gradually work back up to running myself into the ground. Then, since I insisted on ignoring my physical ailments whenever possible, it began showing up as raging anxiety along with occasional bouts of depression. Then, my anxiety had to reach literally debilitating levels before I admitted I had a problem, and even then I just started popping SSRIs and tried to keep on keeping on. Spoiler alert: that wasn't the right answer. And the anxiety came back, so I would up my dose, and it came back, so I upped it again, and it came back, so I switched to a different SSRI. It came back again...

The answer was and is mindfulness. And connection to my higher self.

So in 2019 I will focus on honoring the yin. I will rest more. I will do what I am called to, instead of what I "should" do. I will further explore my interests and hobbies. I will nourish my body with more vegetables and fruit and less grains and meat. I will prioritize my rest (as much as my tiny offspring will allow). I'm hopping on the morning celery juice bandwagon. I will get back to my daily yoga practice. I will read a physical book every day, even if it's just for five minutes while I finish my morning coffee.

I want to model a healthy balance for my girls. I want them to see me rest. And read books. And follow my own inner motivation instead of what the collective mind-based society says I "should" do. Yin. Yin. Yin. I am vata but have pushed myself to be a pitta my whole adult life. 

I need to chill the fuck out, tune into my higher self, and wait for the universe to show me the next stepping stone of my life.