Seven lessons from five years of running an intuitive business

(Said lessons are wildly applicable to all life paths, in case you're wondering why you clicked on this post.)

Eyes on your own paper. 

When I first started, I didn't do it the way anyone else did it. I did things the way I wanted to do them - channel everything on the spot instead of planning? Perfect. Announce multiple things at a time because that's the way they're flowing through my brain? Done. 

I wasn't looking at anyone else, I wasn't doing it the way anyone else was doing it, and it felt so good. Until I started looking at other people's instagram accounts. Until I got onto a few email lists. I stopped focusing on the process that felt best to me and started to feel like I needed to Learn Things From People Who Knew Better Than I. This would have been fine, except that instead of cherry-picking the lessons I needed, I began to doubt the way I was doing things.

We do things differently because we're meant to do things differently. There are people who need things done the way I do them, who need to hear things the way I say them, who need the energy I blaze out. So I get to do it however the hell I want. So do you. 

Charge whatever you need to show up from a place of excitement and nourishment. 

Don't charge the industry standard (whatever that is), don't charge what you think people will pay, charge what you need to do the work you do. Historically, I have been terrible at this. Or, more accurately, I've been great at the excitement but not so hot at the nourishment. Because I want everyone who wants to work with me to be able to. Because I want to help people even if, especially if, money is a challenge. Because money has so often been a challenge for me. 

Then I burned out so hard I could barely work for a year. Since then, I've had multiple come-to-Jesus moments with myself. Am I serious about doing this work? Am I serious about taking good care of myself? Am I serious about seeing the possibilities and transformation and magic that can happen when huge investments of energy, money, and time are made? Yes, yes, and yes. Yes even when it feels scary.

I made the commitment to myself to raise my prices in October to what nourishes me. (After sitting with that promise for a week, I've decided why wait until October?) Because healers need healers. Coaches need coaches. Women who work a lot need support. If you are in the business of supporting humans (which is every job ever), you need, require, and deserve whatever you need to do that work.

Charge what you need to be paid in order to do the work and show up from a place of excitement and overflow. That number may be uncomfortable. Do it anyway.

Self-care times a million. 

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but as someone who teaches women how to take better care of themselves, to nurture themselves, to treat themselves as sacred, I was often kinda bad at that. Practice what you preach, Amber. 

We're living through a time that calls for maximum self-care. Whatever it takes to keep your own cup filled, do that. No excuses. 

Commitment to self over outcome. 

Focusing on anything external pulls focus from where your true power lives. (Pro tip: Your power lives within you. Here's a little rant on that.) Here are some external things that actually deserve none of your attention: numbers of followers, numbers of likes, numbers in your bank account, things happening the way you wanted. Because they're actually none of your business. External response to your work is not your concern.

Controlling the way things happen in the work as a result of your work is not your job. Continuing to go within, feel the feelings of what you'd like to create, and then taking the next soul-led action - THAT is your job. Focus on shifting your internal experience in the direction that feels good and you can't fail. 

Don't do anything from a place of "I have to do this", do it from a place of "I can't wait to do this, I must do this, I must do this now, sorry dinner dishes you just lost your place in line." 

Why do I work for myself if I post something just because I think I have to? Doing things because you have to do them is terrible and soul-shrinking and we all wanted to leave that behind in elementary school. 

Honestly, everything is optional. Even the things that don't feel optional. You don't HAVE to pay your taxes, you just have to accept the consequences of not paying them. You don't HAVE to stop at that stop sign, you just have to accept the consequences of blowing through it. You don't HAVE to do those dishes, you just have to accept dirty dishes. 

When I do things in my business because I think I have to, they straight up do not work. When I do things from a place of OH MY GOD THIS! THIS IS THE THING RIGHT NOW! it doesn't matter whether it works or not, because I am in my creative genius flow. (Being in that place usually means it does work, but also means I don't feel too bothered either way.) 

Hint: If nothing feels good, nothing feels exciting, it's time to go back and fill your cup. Don't write the thing because you feel like you have to write the thing, go on a walk or watch Harry Potter or do whatever feels like a soul-sigh of relief and keep doing the soul relief things until you feel that inspiration and excitement fire back up. 

Go all in. 

For a long time, I was in the space of "Don't give up." Which is a very different flavor than "Go all in, energy blasters blazing."

Going all in is the energetic transformation that shifts the whole universe in your favor. 

Heal whatever you need to heal to get where you want to go. 

I had to heal an energy of scarcity going back many generations. I had to ground fully into my worth and the worth of this work. I had to heal societal constructs I had sucked up around what it means to be a healer (you have to heal everyone and you have to do it for free) and a woman. I had to heal my own rabid codependence. I had to heal my addiction to emotional drama and struggle and misery and lack. All this work is ongoing. I have to use all the tools I teach and channel more tools weekly to keep myself on track.

Heal your shit. Catch yourself when it bubbles back up and gently remind yourself that we don't do that anymore. 

Being a healer, an intuitive, a channel, a writer, a leader, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a lover of humans is not for the faint of heart. You already know this. But if you aren't quite sure - in this moment - if it's worth the effort, allow me to say: Yes. It's worth it. Keep going. Go all in, if you haven't already. Your soul is yearning for that commitment. 

Love, Amber 

When Jesus Throws You a Birthday Party

A Jesus party would have burritos. And margaritas. There would be unicorns on trampolines and dragons with parachutes and infinity otter pools.

So you walk in. Some ascended master - maybe Quan Yin, maybe Joan of Arc - greets you at the door and hands you a drink. It might be a cocktail glass full of rainbow or a ‘50s era champagne glass filled with clouds (the clouds taste like minty whipped cream). 

A giraffe will join you. The giraffe will tell you where the liveliest part of the fiesta is raging - maybe the dragons are offering rides to the flaming waterfalls, maybe the otters are particularly snuggly in the Lemurian pool, maybe Mary Magdalene is teaching belly dancing, maybe the unicorns are head-banging with a considerably more cheerful Kurt Cobain. 

Next you’ll be greeted by a lion who points out the quieter sections of the festivities - a cuddle room, a place to bask in the violet flame of Saint Germain as you feel any woes leave you, hammocks by the sea. 

You get to choose precisely the experience you want - maybe you’ll rage with the peacocks, maybe you’ll take a nap against a meditating lion, maybe you’ll watch the phoenix fireworks.

We have everything here, you just need to choose what you want. 

Left in front of a marble dais, you get to ask for what you want - naming something mentioned or creating something entirely new. Step onto the dais and you’ll be whisked there instantaneously. Continue to stand in front of it and a party map will appear, with a glowing golden ball to light the way on the map and then jumping out to give you something to follow, if you would prefer to walk and observe the other experiences. 

(You can also place another drink order here, Jesus makes a point to remind you. “Have you tried the wine? The fish buffet is also stellar - we didn’t have sushi in Galilee but holy dragons, do we have it now.”)

Browse the party or jump right in. Stop for food at one of the buffets - Jesus lays out quite a spread, though Mary Mags would like it noted that she does most of the manifesting. Jesus mostly just shouts out “You know what would be great? Ice cream burritos!” in the middle of doing something else and she puts it on the list. “It’s not a gender thing so much as a personality thing,” she assures anyone who’s worried. “We’ve got the divine masculine / divine feminine things sorted. But I do have to warn him away from eccentric wasabe usage. Dude loves it, but it makes the unicorns hork.” 

Jesus parties last for days - sometimes weeks. You flow with your own energy, resting and rejuvenating as needed, dancing and singing and bouncing up and down. 

But you are always held, you are always loved, you are always in charge of your experience, and you always, always leave a Jesus party happier and more at peace than you walked in. 

Even if you wake up with a rainbow hangover draped over the dias while wearing half a peacock. A unicorn will simply show up and point you toward brunch, where Jesus gestures with his mimosa, Joan of Arc pours the coffee, and Mary Magdalene strokes your hair as you gaze into the dawn. 

Giraffe ride on my 40th birthday.

—

It’s my 41st birthday on Thursday, so I wanted to post this random ascended master party I channeled awhile back, just for fun, just because it was a party I wanted to attend.

Hi, I'm Amber and I Talk To Unicorns

Unicorns aren't just the province of pre-teen girls - or 39-year-old women who buy glittery silver horns and strap them to their head. Unicorns have powerful and sacred energy - and a lot to teach us.

Now, I do hear myself when I say things like this. And that's always about the time I ask myself, "Wait. Have I gone actual crazy? After years of impersonating moose and pandas on the internet, of being entirely too attached to a stuffed therapy otter, has it finally happened? Have I officially circled the bend and taken up residence?" 

I might have. Honest to god, I might. But if I'm going to be in the nut house - whether between literal padded walls or the metaphoric nut house of this ever-more-histrionically-surreal-world - I definitely want the unicorns in there with me. 

Unicorns ride Harleys past me on the freeway when I'm cranky. Dance conga lines through my head - with extra glitter! - when I need cheering up. Join Jesus on the trampoline at my birthday party, tumbling and flying like equine rainbow gymnasts. 

When I'm in a particularly human moment and need a lift, the unicorns show up as cartoons - complete with candy colors and goofy horse grins. When I'm tapping in to their energy and channeling their power, they appear as the glowing silvered magical creatures of fantasy.

This is when I begin to think that I can't be the only one who sees them. There's a reason they're all over the internet and prancing down hundreds of streets on Halloween. There's a reason so many of us are drawn to them. Even Starbucks tried to blend them up and shove them into a frappuccino.  

Magical creatures - like unicorns, like dragons, even giraffes - have a profound and sacred power. Hidden for eons because humanity had contracted to the point where we just couldn't handle them outside the realm of zoos and myth and basement D&D tournaments. But we're expanding again. Our darkness is rising up to be seen and felt and, yes, honored. Our light is busting open the seams of this reality so that the reality we've known will never look the same.  

One thing I have learned - amongst the many lessons I'm pretty sure I'm still missing - is that when I flow with what feels good, life gets easier. And when I let myself be swept away by the unicorn crazy, I feel better. When I resist it, I feel worse. So the path forward is clear. It leads straight to unicorns and the other magical animals I've been channeling. 

Am I crazy? Maybe. But aren't we all a little crazy? Even those of us with relatively normal-looking lives - something I profoundly wish for on occasion - have some crazy in us, whether it's latent, emerging, or flying proudly on a flag. 

Fist bump to everyone who's ever felt crazy! While wearing a unicorn horn or not. 

Light The World

Go softly and gently into the darkest time of the year. Winter solstice is when you feel the light you have within and allow it to reflect out into the world, for these dark times need all your light.

Your light is what will shift us out of the dark.

It takes only you. It takes only you recognizing your own light and turning it in the direction of any darkness you see. Even the blackest night can be lit by one small match.

As you shine your light into the dark, others will be inspired to shine theirs as well. This is how we light the world.

Cycles of Receiving

Sit back. Settle. Read. Know that all is happening in perfect time. Know that you don’t need to force or push or plot or strain or strive for what you desire. There is a time for action and a time for reception. Now is the time to receive. Receiving looks like putting aside the to-do list and letting yourself flow through the day, as you feel prompted both by joy and by nudges toward what’s necessary. Receiving looks like valuing insights and quiet over hustle and check lists.

You aren’t being given more than you can handle, you aren’t being given more than you want or need. You are being given exactly what is needed now. Now is the time to allow the cycle to flow - you have given, now you receive. Now you settle in for a few days and let life show you what’s next. Follow the steps and the sparks of light that are being laid out in front of you and practice being with your intentions and your desires, rather than doing them.

You can’t force receptivity. So if you’re always pushing and striving, you can never receive in the way you long for because you never slow down long enough for that bounty to catch up and walk in. Slow down and let what you want and what’s needed now catch up to you.

Fear Is Only a Shadow

Fear grinds slowly and painfully or hot and quick. Fear is that subtle sense of danger, that roiling blackness in your diaphragm or running rampant through the folds of your brain. But fear is a choice. You can choose to give your energy to fear and its agenda or you can choose to ask what purpose that fear now serves. Is it to keep you out of clear and present danger? Did that quick sense of danger prompt you to jump out of the way of a speeding bus? Or is that fear the product of some long-ago decision or some family system?

Ask if that fear is necessary now. Ask if feeling that fear is in your highest good. The answer you get back will probably be a soft but firm no. But whatever answer you receive - listen. Question it. Fear doesn't like to be questioned but your higher wisdom adores it. Your higher self, the self that has access to so much more information and assistance and knowledge and wisdom than we can imagine, wants you to question it, to ask for what it can share, what it can offer you. It lives for this. It loves it. It wants you to understand more fully what is truly available to you.

Fear wants to stifle. Wisdom longs to share.

So if you're ever in doubt - fear or wisdom, blocks or intuition - ask yourself how it feels. Does it feel open and expansive? Or does it feel like it's pressing in on you, forcing you into a box, telling you to take up less space? Does it welcome your inquiry or does it want to shut you down?

Fear dissolves in the light of your true self. Fear disintegrates when you shine in its face. So do whatever it takes to light yourself up, to shine fully. Because that will show you that what you fear is only a shadow.

Trusting Yourself

Sometimes things happen that we don't know how to handle. This is a part of life. You handle it the best you can in the moment, you ponder what else could be done later, and you move forward with the lessons you've learned. Nobody knows how to handle life at all times. Nobody has all the information they need at all times. We all have connection to the source of the best information we could have, but it can sometimes be hard to tune in at the precise moment you need it. With practice, it gets easier.

Trust that every action that comes from your best self is enough. Trust that any help you offer is enough. Trust that you are enough. Trust that you being you in this world is the best thing for all of us. 

You Are Your Own Best Guidance System

Usually I type the channeling and pretend I'm a giraffe, but sometimes I have to admit I'm a human and use my vocal chords instead.

Drink water. Dream bigger.

What is needed today? 

Rest, care, whole foods that grew from the ground, water with lemon. What is not needed today is recrimination, self-doubt or amorphous worries about things that are beyond your control. Just for today, assume that everything is beyond your control - except your own self-care.

How do you best care for yourself? Do you meditate, do you get slammed into the jiujitsu mat, do you write, do you make a big salad with an expensive ingredient that makes your taste buds mambo? Whatever it is you do that is truly loving for your mind, body, emotions, and spirit - do it today. Allow time to be made. Allow whatever it is you truly need to be your first priority.

Because when we deeply love and care for ourselves - as a verb not a noun - we are coming into alignment with the fullness of the universe. When we are in synch with the powers that are both greater and completely integrated with ourselves, unimagined opportunities appear. Money knocks on the door. People flock to us in wonderful and astounding ways. New truths and clarity about ourselves and our lives float in on a quiet breeze.

And sometimes none of these things happen. Sometimes we must continue to care for ourselves - deeply, tenderly, and with loving intention - as we keep putting one foot in front of the other. As we keep trusting that what looks dark now will brighten and that what we would like to experience will show up. While keeping our minds and hearts and bodies open to the idea that there might be something greater out there than our current information allows us to imagine.

What is needed today is full and loving care of ours minds and bodies and emotions, while expanding our imaginations and allowing ourselves to dream bigger than feels possible.

Life-Shifting Questions

What is needed today? 

Gentleness. Tender care of your life, your body and your soul. It's easy to push forward, to try to get ahead, to attempt to cheat time and move faster than you're meant. But this road only leads to fatigue and burnout. Nourish yourself. Care for your home, care for your body, care for your emotions.

Ask yourself, What do I need today? Wait for the answer to rise up in you. If nothing comes, ask yourself, What do I feel drawn to today? What would I do today if the factors of time, money, and what-I-think-should-be-happening didn't exist? Whatever comes to you, investigate it by asking if this would truly feed your soul and your body. If the answer is yes, allow yourself the space to do it - even if only for a short time.

You are worth it. Your life will shift into greater happiness and alignment as you expand into what brings you joy and what feeds your spirit.

Self-Care for Humans

Self-care is not optional. It is necessary. You do not move forward without self-care. You do not establish yourself in your true worth and your true potential without self-care. There is nothing that is more important than caring for yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Anything you do that raises your vibration is self-care. Anything you do that makes you feel joyful is self-care. But be careful here. Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that the joy of a donut is self-care. Sometimes it is. Sometimes that perfectly frosted confection is precisely what you need. But sometimes it's also a way to pretend to comfort yourself when you don't understand what true comfort looks like, or don't feel you deserve to have it. Sometimes it's a way to numb yourself. Sometimes it's a way to fit in with those around you.

As you learn what true self-care looks like, you will discover full awareness around what is true self-care and what is false comfort. When you notice the patterns and behaviors of false self-comfort, don't berate yourself for them. You were doing the best you could with the information you had at the time. Instead, gently reassure yourself that you have better tools now and it's time to play with using them.

Self-care should feel like play. It should feel fun. Sure, sometimes heaving yourself out of bed to go for a run doesn't match your precise definition of "fun", but if that's the case, look at where you could adjust your routines so that the activity you know raises your endorphins and smoothes out the wrinkles and puts the gremlins to sleep becomes a joy, rather than a burden.

Self-care looks like being gentle with yourself. It looks like accepting yourself fully. It looks like investigating where you don't accept yourself and bringing the old voices and the old patterns and the old decisions into the light. Often, when we shine a light on our darkest places, what we feared simply evaporates. Sometimes what we fear comes out to waltz with us for awhile. This is when the deepest self-care is necessary. It's when we need to trust that we are dancing with our demons so that our demons will leave us in peace.

When you're tired, sleep. When you're hungry, sit down for tasty nutrition. When your brain has stopped functioning, allow it to rest. When you sense that your life or habits or routines need an upgrade, ask yourself how you can create something that serves you better. When your emotions are calling for attention, give them some love. When your back hurts, take yourself to someone who knows how to handle painful lumbar regions.

Allow others to support you in your self-care. Many dedicate their life's work to helping others feel better, helping others heal, helping others find what they need to do their own life's work. As you step into nourishing yourself and releasing the self-judgment around this kind of work - for self-care is work - you will find the perfect people to help you find your way.

You are valuable. You are worthy of being cared for. You are allowed and encouraged to care for yourself. Caring for yourself is one of the most necessary and defiant acts of service. Defy the voices that whisper otherwise, defy cultural assumptions that tell you how to be in the world, defy what informs you that you aren't worth this kind of space and care and love. Those voices are only speaking from their own pain, from their own sense of lack. 

Fill yourself to the brim, so that you do not feel that lack. If you begin to feel lack again, know that it's time to refill the well. Fill it as best you can. As with anything else, the more you practice caring for yourself, the better you'll get and the easier it will be. Self-care is the easiest and happiest road to the life you desire, and the one you were meant to live.

Our Stories

His story is not your story. Her story is not your story. Your story is yours alone. Yes, you share your story with others, others play a role in your story as you play a role in the stories of others, but you are ultimately responsible for your own life and how you view your life. You have power over your story. Yes, you can be hurt. Yes, you can be sad and afraid and worried. That can be a part of your story. Once you have allowed your feelings, heard them, asked for what they have to share with you, your story is allowed to change. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to feel what's sad, feel what's painful, feel what's hard, you're allowed to rage against the universe, and then see what that release brings you. Once you send your pain and your fear out into the air, into the space that is meant to take those feelings and transform them for you, your story will change.

Listening to another's story without judgement, without equating it to your own story, is one of the best services to humanity we can provide. We all want to feel heard. To know that our story matters. To know that our story matters every bit as much as another's story. To know that your story does not negate my story, even if we have different experiences.

This does not mean we are required to forgive the unforgivable or sacrifice our own wellbeing on the altar of another. It simply means that we release that which does not serve us so that we can focus on the sweetness of life, the tart lemon of experience, and the heady joy of swirling it all together.

Every person's story matters. Every voice is crucial. Every life is a light and when we can accept our own light and the light of our fellow humans, that light will power the universe.

The Power of Five Minutes

When you're flying apart - not in a dire way, not in the life-has-just-crumbled-around-me way - but when you feel like you have too many things to do without sufficient clock-time to do them. This is when you sit quietly for five minutes.

Yes, it feels like the absolute very last thing you should be doing. But this is when it's most important. When the world is tugging insistently at your hem, you need to sit down and listen to you. What truly needs doing now? What's your best next step? How can you care for yourself when so many things are happening? These are the questions to ask and, if you listen, the answers will become clear. Allow yourself the space to expand your ribs with quiet air and the time to allow your brain to draw in all its thoughts, pull them to the center of your head, and drop them into your heart space. In that moment, you can allow your heart to lead you into what needs to be next.

It may be the next thing on your to-do list, it may be something entirely unexpected. That quiet voice inside you may say, Now is the time to work. Or it may say, Now is the time to rest. You may even get lucky and hear, Nothing you do today will turn out well until you take the time to walk on the sand or shift your feet in the cool grass.

If that voice tells you to do something, life will be smoother and kinder if you do it.

If you're worried about listening to the wrong voice, use your feeling center as guidance. Does the advice bring you peace? Or does it make you agitated? If you feel agitated, you're probably listening to fear or one of a hundred voices in your head and your life that have their own agenda. If it makes you feel peace, then it is most likely your intuition. If you still aren't sure, ask for confirmation.

If it still feels haywire and awry and you're not sure what to listen to or what to pay attention to, that's okay. Intuition is a muscle - the more we use it, the stronger it gets. Five minutes every day will take you far.

And it may take a mere five minutes to realize that your to-do list isn't the hell-frazzle you suspected. Maybe it's now full of ease, even joy.

Let Yourself Be Surprised

You are not as hemmed in as you believe. You are not a tiger roaming a tight cage. You are not required to perform for anyone. You have a great wide field to roam. You have plains and mountains and oceans to explore. You have more than you ever dreamed possible. The world is now new. Don't bring your old habits and feelings and patterns into this new place. Decide to check them at the door and then step out into the sunny field, ready to be surprised by what appears to dance before you and beckon you forward.

Let yourself be surprised. Let yourself love and be loved. Let new experiences find you. Meet it all with the excitement of a caged lion freed or a sailor meeting new horizons.

Everything is waiting for you.

What To Do When You're Cranky

Be cranky. Don't desperately try to snatch at some feeling you think you should have instead. Allow yourself to be cranky. Maybe you need an hour of being cranky. Maybe you need to kvetch to a friend for twenty minutes. Maybe you need a whole day. Whatever you need, take it. Don't try to wrench yourself into some state of being that you think is better or more appropriate or not so inconvenient. Be inconvenient. This is not to say that you should wallow. You know if you're prone to wallowing or if you're more inclined to soldier through. If you're a soldier, ready for action at a moment's notice and never offbeat: give yourself some space. Take an hour off from your life to feel, to take care of yourself, to do something that brings you joy. If you're a wallower, take some action: write an angry letter and rip it up, stomp around for awhile, take a walk. Search for the feeling below the cranky. Your crankiness is probably hiding something deeper. Maybe anger, maybe jealousy, maybe sadness. Allow that emotion to float to the surface and just feel it for awhile. If your emotions take you to a real place, take care of yourself once they're done whipping you around. Take a bath, take a walk, go see a movie. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. Feelings can be hard work, but they're some of the best work you can ever do.

What to do when you're cranky? Be cranky. Until you aren't cranky any more. But recognize that crankiness is no greater or lesser state of being than any other. It simply is. When you can simply be with the cranky, you may find that it dissipates that much faster.

Quest for Romantic Love

Sometimes I write letters for my friends, addressing whatever issue they're currently dealing with. The information comes from the same place as these blog posts, the voice in my head that's often much wiser than I am. A friend asked me to address his difficulty in finding a romantic partner. After I sent it off, I asked if I could share the letter I wrote him, because, while it is specific to him and his situation, it might also apply to something you're seeking or going through right now. So if you're in search of love, see if any of this resonates!     xo Amber

----

There is an illusion of control operating on you now. We cannot control when we meet our partner because too many decisions and the self-determination of too many people are also operating.

"When" is italicized because you can control - or, more accurately, choose - to experience that sort of relationship. You can ask for that relationship and decide that you would like to have that experience in your lifetime. But part of the choosing is to express your desire and release your attachment to the outcome. The outcome of what that relationship looks like, who it is with, and when it appears. Your desire to have it yesterday is operating as internal resistance within you that only slows the process down.

Your work now is to go into the shadows of this love that you seek and unhook the resistance, unhook anything that is slowing your flow.

Your work is to access that state of pure love and acceptance and delight that you hope to find in a relationship and create it for yourself now, independent of that relationship. You cannot receive the relationship - the one you truly want, that is - without doing this work. Because to receive it before would put your relationship at the mercy of your need. If you know how to fulfill your needs outside of any relationship than it will be healthier and stronger and full of the pure unconditional love you long for.

This is not to say that people can’t learn that unconditional love within a relationship, but that doesn’t seem to be the path you’ve chosen, that was chosen by you before your birth.

So find a space of feeling where you are already experiencing the emotions you long to feel in a relationship. That in and of itself will magnetize what you want.

Respect

Our job as humans is to respect the other humans around us. Respect where they are, respect their choices, respect who they want to be. It is not for us to judge, even though we do, because we're human. It's not for us to make them wrong, for any reason. Though we will, because we're human. Being human means fighting the lizard brain, the one that prompts us to filter and categorize based on what we see as helpful and safe. Our survival instincts our strong. But now that it is no longer a matter of survival for most of us, we need to rise above our quick decisions of who is worth our time and who isn't. Who is worthy and who isn't. Who is capable and who isn't.

We need to trust that what is on the surface isn't all their is. We need to trust that everyone truly is fighting their own battle, and that battle is probably remarkably similar to our own.

We all crave love and connection and security. We all want to reach our potential, we all want to survive this place, we all want to find what we're looking for. We all want to, eventually, stop looking.

We do what we need to do to decide who we want in our life and who we don't, but under each decision must be a deep, fundamental respect, no matter what their life circumstances, their bank account, or the measure of worldly power they can claim.

What we judge in others is often what we are judging in ourselves. How we measure the worth of another is often how we're measuring ourselves.

Everyone here has the same light you do. And it's the responsibility of each one of us to uncover that light.

When You Feel Like You Have To Hustle For Worthiness

Allow yourself to stop hustling. Allow it to be okay to step away from that ceaseless, soul-sucking grind of proving yourself to others. Your own view of your worthiness is all that matters. Since the mantra of "worthiness comes from within!" is less than helpful, here's how you can truly feel the worth that you were born with. Removing the numbing layers and piercing wounds around your self-worth will show you that you are every bit as valuable today as you were when you arrived.

Step into yourself and ask when you first felt unworthy. Were you a child? Is some memory or age called up? Go with whatever pops to mind and travel back to that moment in time. Ask the parts of yourself that know how to do this to heal that wound. Ask that healing to travel from the moment the belief was formed all the way to the present, where you stand now. Feel this as it happens. When it reaches you here in the present, extend it into your future, a future where you truly feel your full, intrinsic worth.

Ask if there are any other spots in your life or childhood where you felt like you weren't enough, weren't worthy, weren't whole. Go back in and allow the parts of yourself that know how to do this to heal each one and extend it up the line of your life to the present and into the future.

Give yourself time to integrate. Give yourself time to notice that you are worth everything and there is nothing that can be held from you if you choose to reach for it.

Let yourself see that when you radiate worthiness from within, the outside world can't help but reflect it back to you. This is when the hustle becomes either obsolete or so joyful that you're eager to dive in.

If You Want Something New

If you want something new, ask for it. Don't ask some external authority for what you want. Ask yourself. Ask yourself what you truly desire, what you truly need now. Ask what your soul needs and what your life needs before you ask what your bank account needs. Ask what will bring you joy now. Even if that joy doesn't make any sense in the quote-unquote real world. Sometimes the joy of walking a friend's dog while they're stranded on the couch with the flu will take you into a new part of the city, where you meet just the right person. Sometimes going to the fancy grocery store with the best peaches will introduce you to some new idea that will lead you somewhere you couldn't have imagined.

Joy is like a breadcrumb trail toward what you truly, deeply desire. If you follow the small bits of joy, they will lead you somewhere so much greater, even if you don't understand the path. Especially if you don't understand the path.

Trust where true joy leads you. Trust that if you spend a weekend making something you're excited about rather than updating your resume, it really will help you on your job search. Trust that when you're taking care of yourself, you're also taking care of your loved ones. Trust that when you allow yourself to feel joy, other wonderful feeling things can't help but be drawn to you. Joy is magnetic. Joy will alchemize the world around you to begin providing you with what you need. 

So ask yourself again, what do you want now? What would you like to be fresh and new in your life? Feel how that might feel - feel the joy, the safety, the love, and the lift. Follow that feeling and trust that it's taking you precisely where you need to go.

When To Ignore Your To-Do List

When the blue sky calls. When love notes need writing. When summer sun beckons. When something else sounds like more fun. When your favorite person lights up your phone. When night is falling and eyes are drooping. When you know that you already have everything you need. When you realize, finally, that it's not about doing - it's about being.