We’re expanding into something new. Here’s some guidance on the current energy and how to step into what’s next for you.
(If you’re drawn to this, there’s something here for you - no matter when you run across it.)
Sleep
Waking up at 5:30 in the morning instead of 3:30 is a significant triumph these days.
I will take my significant triumphs as they come.
Last night was a blissful pass-out-at-ten, wake-up-at-5:30 experience. When I squinted blearily at the clock, I thought it said 3:30 in the blessed am and I was all set to groan and feel put-upon by life when I realized it was actually 5:30. That’s a decent chunk of all-strung-together sleep. I can work with that.
At 5:30, it’s reasonable to get up. By the time you’re dressed and in your car, coffee shops will be open with brewing beans and warm interiors. Not so at 3:30 am. Get up at 3:30 am and all the coffee shops have to offer is dark doorsteps and sadness.
Sleeping is a weird biological imperative. We spend half our lives drooling and snoring into a pillow. Go without it for awhile and innocent passersby beware. Go without sleep for too long and it’s actually dangerous to our health and sanity.
But it also makes complete sense. Sleep is when our brain gets a true rest. Even if our brain is swimming in the murky subconscious, at least we don’t have to paddle with it. We just vaguely remember something the next morning about being chased through Nordstrom’s by a giant lady bug in roller skates.
Sleep is when we drop out of the fight / flight space our nervous system is so often caught in and allow our bodies to heal. Sleep is when our body repairs itself, when our energy knits itself back together.
Sleep is when our higher selves and guides have a chance to work with us - especially if we ask for it, invite it in. Bypassing the whirl of my brain is one of my higher self’s most dire challenges, I expect. So every night before I go to sleep, I ask my angels to bring me my highest reality. To assist me in whatever I need to call in my highest good.
Then I drift peacefully off, trusting that they’re taking care of me as I snore and drool. Trusting that my body is healing and my energy is shifting so that I can wake up the next morning and step back into whatever it is I’m meant to be doing on this spinning blue marble.
In Defense of Timing You Don't Choose and Also Cats
One of my less charming traits is that I get impatient and frustrated when things don't happen the way I think they should, in the exact timing my brain has chosen.
I've been wanting a dog for ages. Years. One could make a solid argument for decades.
Earlier this year, I fixated on it. Determined it was Time for the Dog. Looked at ways to move into a pet-friendly place, even though I love my house and my town. Whined about it more than was really attractive.
Mostly it was because I was lonely. My relationship wasn't going well and, in my efforts to learn how to operate as an empath with good energetic and emotional boundaries, I was spending a lot of time alone, to better sort through what was mine and what was everyone else's.
Moving didn't happen, dog didn't happen, things I was deeply determined I wanted didn't happen.
Instead, I watched a neighbor's labrador puppy a few times over the summer. Sweetest, most adorable dog you could imagine. Also the most exhausting. I could not keep up. I worried about her, gave her too many treats in hopes that she wouldn't notice that she wasn't getting adequate exercise, and eventually crawled home completely worn out.
And I realized I don't want a dog. At least not right now.
Yes, I will have a dog at some point in my life. But for now, I think I just want a lethargic cat. One that will nap with me, and encourage me to stay in bed. One that will lie on top of my computer and nose my book out of the way so I pet it. One that will be 100% fine with too many treats in place of exercise.
I still can't go out and adopt a cat, at least without moving or begging my landlord, neither of which I'm really in the mood for.
But I can go to the cat cafe in San Francisco and spend an hour with a bunch of kitties and drink a bucket of green tea.
Maybe tomorrow will have a different answer but, for now, borrowed cats. Lots of them.
Gently
I'm having the kind of breakdown I tend to have before a massive breakthrough.
Going gently with myself in these moments is key. Don't push too hard, don't expect too much. Now is not the time to expand.
It's the time to soften in.
Notice the present moment, the cloudy sky, the orange leaves scattered through the green, and how lovely it is that you have the ingredients for sweet potato soup and a cashew pumpkin spice latte without having to get in the car and go somewhere.
Tidy the house but don't scrub it like the queen is coming for cinnamon rolls.
Write random song lyrics instead of pages.
Know that the money is coming and you don't have to push for it.
Know that love is coming and you can delete Bumble after a brief spiral through the Human Shopping Network.
You can take it an hour at a time. You can breathe into whatever the experience is right now rather than trying to blast through to the next one.
You can just be. Get excited about the breakthrough without trying to force it. Like a skittish cat, it will come out from under the bed in its own good time.
Hello, Florence!
I want everything in my life to be as easy as getting my new car.
Meet Florence.
Florence is the unicorn of Mini convertibles. She’s everything I wanted and what I didn’t think was possible.
Perfect condition, a price I could manage (not a guarantee with Minis, even a little), and drives beautifully. Apparently, the people who make cars keep improving their products. So if you’re used to driving a 2005 and are suddenly behind the wheel of a 2012, it’s like your entire vehicular world has just been blown.
And everything about the process was easy. None of it should have been.
The very nice car dude who was consistent about handing me snacks, something I deeply appreciate in a person, kept saying, “I’m not really sure how this is happening, but it seems to be working, so let’s just go with it.”
He said it when he showed me the car, which had just been traded in a few days ago by a couple who just used it to drive to the beach. (Hi, Marin County. You’re hilarious.)
He said it when they offered me more for Penelope (my 2005 Mini) than anyone could have anticipated.
He said it when we sent in the financing and it was approved in record time with a super low APR. (I work for myself and that is what it is, but can make financing things weird.)
Here’s how it unfolded, and I’m saying this mainly to remind myself how easy creating the things I want can be, if I just let the process happen:
Know I’m going to need a new car at some point, so keep feeling into what I want (Mini convertible) and being open to something else (any other car in the world).
When the time came and I knew I had to get a new car - not just for my vehicular safety and that of everyone around me, but because my heart couldn’t take the stress any more - I didn’t think too much about it, just decided to visit the Mini dealership as a first step and see what the possibilities were.
Got the strong hit to go Saturday morning, as early as possible. So I did, where “early as possible” = “almost 11 in the morning” and was the first to look at the Unicorn of Mini Convertibles.
As I drove away in my New To Me car, bonus Toad the Wet Sprocket CD I found in the player blasting, another couple was looking at convertibles too, about an hour behind me in the process. Had I been any later that day, they might have scooped up Florence.
But as Nice Car Dude With Snacks said, “Sometimes the person chooses the Mini, sometimes the Mini chooses the person.” And Florence chose me.
I want everything in life to be as easy as getting Florence. I want to let events unfold, follow the intuitive nudges, and know that everything will happen perfectly, however that looks.
Because, voila! That’s how Florence appeared out of nowhere, in the easiest and most joyful manner possible.
Thank you and more of that please.
This is how I want my next relationship to show up. This how I want my next work project to unfold. How I want my new white winter jacket to show up, the one I saw last week and absolutely loved but didn’t buy because it was full price and my frugal little soul sometimes struggles with full price. (Please note, new-winter-jacket-that-will-be-mine-soon matches Florence. Not really on purpose but also not not on purpose.)
When Sally and I had our first adventure with Florence, we fell in love. She drives like a race car (I say, having never been in a race car) and I couldn’t stop smiling as we hurtled around the bends and loops of the California coast. Neither could Sally. Though, admittedly, it can be hard to tell with her.
Welcome to this weird little family, Florence. Thank you for showing me how easy this life thing can be when we allow it.
Farewell, Penelope
You know how sometimes you make a grave tactical error and then have no choice but to soldier valiantly on and pray you don’t die?
Yup, me too. More often than I’d like to admit.
My intuition is bang on target about many things.
Just a few days ago, I was walking toward the town square and thought “Maggie’s here.” Maggie is a lovely woman I have met maybe twice at a friend’s house and know very little about except that she has cute kids and does not live in Marin County. So there was absolutely no reason to think she would be sitting in the square I was about to pass. But, sure enough, 15 seconds later, there she was. It was a random and very efficient intuition barometer.
Just a few hours ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop reading Harry Potter - my favorite autumnal activity - and drinking a pumpkin spice latte - my favorite autumnal guilty pleasure - when I looked up and smiled at a woman walking past. As I did, I felt her energetically hook into me and thought, “Whoops. This is about to get interesting.” Sure enough, a few minutes later she initiated a rather bizarre interaction that showed me my energetic boundaries are doing better than I generally give myself credit for, because I was able to be kind without allowing her to pull me into the fear she was swimming in.
But sometimes - usually when I’m thinking too much - my intuition fails me quite spectacularly.
My initial hit was to rent a car for my jaunt from Mill Valley to Half Moon Bay, a journey that’s about an hour too long for the current health of my 13-year-old Mini Cooper.
But trying to wrangle a rental car would have meant driving 25 minutes in the wrong direction and ultimately became annoying enough a process that I just didn’t want to deal with it. So I thought, “Eh, it’ll be fine. Penelope will make it.”
To be fair, Penelope did make it. Both of us are still alive.
But about twenty minutes into what turned into a deeply harrowing day, I realized I had allowed my optimism to get the better of me.
A few hours later, I was flat-out praying. To god, the angels, the flying spaghetti monster, anyone who would help me get home in one piece.
Again, to be fair to my intuition, I did get a very strong “We will get you home safe.” But, as my car made grinding noises on mountains and dials flailed wildly in the ominous red zone, I wondered if perhaps I was confusing intuition with optimism again.
I wasn’t. I got home. It was fine.
But deciding not to pay attention to the “let’s make life easier and rent a car” intuitive hit bought me one rather terrifying day.
However, it did convince me that it’s time for a new car, something I had been steadfast in avoiding because I love Penelope and don’t want to give her up.
But our heart-pounding, hair-raising journey across bridge, through city, and over mountain is not something I’m ready to repeat. And there’s no point in paying California rent if you’re not going to go gallivanting through all the abundant beauty she’s got on tap.
So, after five years, Penelope and I have had our last long adventure together.
I’m sad to say goodbye. She was the car I wanted forever - and finally got after my dad passed away and buried a lot of money in the ground. Buried treasure which helped me snag Penelope when my old car died so soon after my dad. So she feels like the last thing my dad ever bought me. In a piratical sort of way.
May my next car bring me as much joy as Penelope did.
(And may I never experience a drive like that again. It was the vehicular equivalent of spending an afternoon with the albino in Princess Bride. It didn’t actually kill me but it definitely shaved a few years off my life.)
Operation Be Less Grumpy
This morning, I woke up super grumpy.
It probably has a lot to do with waking up at one in the morning several nights in a row and not going back to sleep until around 5:30 and being woken up 90 minutes later by obnoxious noises. (I felt bad for momentarily hating people who were just doing their job, but power saws before 8 a.m. inspire deep hostility in the under-slept and under-caffeinated.)
As I walked downtown to get some coffee and a waffle with more sugar than is good for me, I decided to revel in the grumpy. Resisting the grumpy tends to make me even crankier, but sinking into it like a warm bath helps. Exaggerating the grump always makes me feel like the curmudgeonly old muppet hecklers, and that’s just funny.
But when your baseline for the day is set at Cranky Jerk, it takes a bit more effort to keep yourself from creating more Grump-tastic situations. (I already failed at the coffee shop by taking someone else’s drink which made the drink maker person cranky which - curse of the empath - made me have to fight off their cranky along with my own.)
My best tactic for shifting into a higher state - whether it’s up a few notches from cranky or fear or whatever human experience I’m swimming in - is looking around and noticing the small, lovely details around me.
Steam rising off my chamomile citrus tea. A gnarled old tree reaching its branches toward the sky. The silky black and white puppy straining against its leash on the sidewalk outside. My pink jeans. A striking girl in an outfit I’m certain she just threw on, but still looks like she stepped out of a magazine that sells beard oil and single source coffee beans. Sun glinting through the redwood trees. The clock on the square that’s been there since 1926. The preponderance of pumpkin coffee now that the calendar says autumn. Giraffes on my phone case.
It really helps, whether I’m trying to feel happier or more abundant or more taken care of or just less grumpy.
If that doesn’t work, I walk to this:
Being as cranky when you walk away from this as when you walked toward it is statistically impossible. That’s just science.
Sunflowers and Social Media Fasts
On Monday, the little voice in my head - the one I trust, not the one with brain hamsters that shoot spit balls at unsuspecting parties - told me to get the hell off social media.
Since I make it a practice of following these little nudges - said little voice has magicked me up a garden cottage in Hobbiton (or Mill Valley, if you want to be strictly linear about it) and is good at reminding me to pay bills and go hang out with redwoods - I got the hell off social media.
I haven’t had such a nice time in ages.
Yesterday, I made myself some beef stew in the crockpot, stared happily at my sunflowers, napped with crystals (hippie healing tip! put crystals on or around your body in any way that feels right and close your eyes for a bit and you will feel splendid upon waking), and generally enjoyed the utter freedom that comes with not feeling compelled to check instagram and twitter every 33 seconds.
We’re in a major clearing phase right now.
In the past month, I’ve started eating vegetables, taken eight bags to Goodwill, made sure my storage closet can’t attack anyone ever again, started running, culled my lists, and am generally lining my ducks up in a neat little row.
I’m preparing for something, I just don’t know what.
We all are.
So if you’re feeling the limbo: fist bump, my friend.
Here’s what keeps coming through for me:
Trust that everything is happening perfectly.
Surrender to whatever the present experience is.
Feel deep gratitude for whatever lovely things happen to be in your life, like sunflowers and beef stew and tasty avocado. Even if it feels exasperating. Like feeling grateful that everything you need is within walking distance when your car decides to sputter and die on a road where lots of people are following you.
Accept it all, with a lot of love for your imperfect-yet-glorious self.
I’m doing my best to listen, even when I forget for awhile and go all triggered and weird. Because, human. Yes, we are divinity in human suits, but sometimes the human suit gets itchy and shit goes down. No worries. It’s fine. We’re clearing old wounds and old stories, and that is not the easiest proposition in an itchy human suit.
Anyway, because of my social media fast this week, I’m not posting a zillion things in a dozen places all over the internet, so I’m funneling it all to this here blog for awhile.
Writing here instead of elsewhere feels like part of this clearing process. If I post some rambling exposition on Facebook, I’m assured of at least a few thumbs up. Maybe even a heart or two, and who doesn’t want a heart? Posting here holds no such sweet ego assurance.
A big part of the last few years has been about incinerating my ego. Absolutely torching it. Burning it down to the ground. Blazing it into ash.
(And the phoenix chuckles. My higher self shakes its head and says “Ah, that feisty phoenix.” My human self says, “The phoenix is a major jerk.”)
Not letting myself have that pleasant hit of dopamine feels like a good practice for me. In the same way that not obsessing over the perfection of my writing has been useful. For the past few years, I’ve been doing my best to let things go out into the ether without obsessive rewrites, because sometimes it’s good to give a jaunty middle finger to perfectionism.
So here we are. If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll hang out with me this week on this random corner of the internet!
Riding Giraffes & Turning 40
On July 11, I turned 40.
Over the last ten years, I wrangled a lot more grief than I expected - and learned how to drink that particular cocktail without choking.
I learned how to feel.
I adopted Sally, my stuffed therapy otter.
I learned that I was an empath - and how to take care of myself so that I wasn’t spending all my time trapped in other people’s emotions and completely drained of energy.
Instead of doing what I expected to do - get married, have kids, maybe buy a house - I learned that riding the grief roller coaster clears space for joy. I learned that if a stuffed otter makes you happy, take her with you when you go. I learned that if there’s something you love to do...do it.
It wasn’t how I expected my thirties to go, but it was exactly what it needed to be.
I learned who I am and how I operate and what I’m here on this spinning blue marble to do. I learned that I'm happier when I'm exercising and sporting colorful fingernails. I learned what love looks like and what joy feels like.
Not too shabby for a decade.
So for my next ten years, I’m surrendering all my ideas of how I think things should go and allowing things to happen as they do. I’m making joy and following my soul the priorities.
So this is what I want my forties to be:
Riding giraffes and writing love notes (and more books) and snuggling Sally and going on adventures and allowing the chips to fall where they may. Because that feels so much better than trying to wrestle the world into doing my bidding.
I'll keep asking for what I want, of course, and doing anything it occurs to me to do to help it happen - but I'm going to be so grateful for what I do have and so fueled up by random delight that whether or not I get it will be barely a blip on the radar.
Because that's what freedom looks like to me.
Allowing Fate
My last date ended 20 minutes in after he asked "What would happen if you accidentally got pregnant?" and I said "I would want to have it" and he said "I would not want you to have it" so we shook hands and walked back to our cars.
This true ass story perfectly illustrates my current stance on dating. Which is: hahahahahahaNOPE.
Dating was actually going better than it's ever gone before - aside from that random 20-minute misalliance, I've never before been able to basically snap my fingers and have amazing guys pop in like magic.
But, as it turns out, I have zero interest in dating.
I don't want to get to know you. I want to get to know ME.
Even though I just turned 40, I still have so much about the interior of my soul and brain to discover. There's a multi-verse to play in, within me and in the other dimensions. Healings to do, dragons to channel, books to write, coffee to drink, friends to meet, goals to dance with.
So no more playing the numbers game, no more going out with random strangers in the hopes of finding the partner - I am now relying 100% on fate. Maybe fate will deliver, rom-com-style, maybe it won't.
It's amazing how much space in my brain this has freed up. I feel like I'm able to really truly enjoy being single for the first time, possibly ever.
There's nothing to do, nothing to worry about, nothing to strive for.
My future relationship is entirely in the hands of god, the angels, karma, my higher self, destiny or pure unadulterated chance. Whoever makes these decisions, I surrender entirely to you.
In the meantime, I'm going to take singing lessons, work a lot, FaceTime giraffes, dance as I clean my house, write animal stories, drive anywhere I please on weekends, take myself out to fancy meals, get my nails painted wild colors, go out in the city with my girlfriends, lie on my bed and heal the cracks, eat crackers for dinner, and genuinely enjoy the hell out of my life.
Empty Hallway
I’m feeling doors shut all around me - doors to past relationships, doors to former options, doors to old worlds that used to feel so comfortable.
All the doors needed to shut, but no new doors have opened up. I can’t even see the doors yet.
So I’m in an empty hallway.
The question is always, Do I transform the hallway or just keep walking it?
I have a lot of tools for empty hallways - flood it with light, create new worlds, call in the dragons, call in Mother Mary, dive into the dark pits that suddenly yawn beneath my feet, re-code the entire structure.
But maybe I’m just supposed to be in the hallway.
Maybe I’m just supposed to be with myself.
Maybe I’m just supposed to breath in the uncertainty without trying to change it.
Maybe I’m just supposed to trust that the part of me that can see more than I consciously understand in this moment knows exactly what it’s doing and I should just allow everything to unfold.
But I was definitely supposed to get a breakfast sandwich with bacon, so I’m glad I did that. Empty hallways are easier to face on a full stomach.
Spirit Babies
One of the perks (or downfalls, depending) of being a channel is that we tend to see our children long before they’re born.
The first time I saw my eldest daughter was the summer of 2014. She was standing in front of me at Super Duper Burger - which makes sense, because Super Duper Burger is basically my church - and I started crying into my lunch.
But until a few days ago, I had never seen my younger daughter.
She showed up while I was in Shasta, gave me a quick hi, and then she bounded off into the woods, probably chasing a unicorn or something.
This afternoon, I was hiking on Mount Tam as a hot, dry wind blew, and I dropped into some future where my second daughter gave me a bit more. By yelling, “FRIENDS AREN’T FOOD, MOMMY” before storming off as I sat on the grass holding a chicken.
I started laughing, because she sounded like a Prius bumper sticker, and then had to wonder if I threatened her pet with the soup pot? Or if the burgeoning little psychic had seen me, circa now, digging into a chicken sandwich with relish.
I suspect the latter.
Both my children are going to be sensitive little psychic powerhouses - and I’m going to have my hands full. My eldest daughter is connected with the angelic realm - and whoever decided “angelic” meant “sweet and cherubic” has likely never met an angel. Angels can be a serious pain in the ass. So can fairies. So, naturally, my younger daughter is connected with the fairy realm.
I’m really in for a ride with these two.
Me as a baby witch. My brother looking basically normal, which is misleading.
I think that’s why they haven’t shown up yet. They’re going to be born consciously understanding what’s taken me decades to develop and learn. I wouldn’t have been ready to help them until now - and I’m probably still not ready, which is likely why they’re holding off.
(If “angelic and fairy realms” sound like a bit much, I’m totally with you. Whenever I receive these things, I have to go through a period of “REALLY? Come on” before I end up just going with it, because my life would be so much less interesting if I didn’t roll with what shows up.
Because if you're offered a life with dragons or without dragons, who the hell says "No, thanks, I'll pass on the dragons"?
NOT ME. OBVIOUSLY.)
I have no idea when or if these spirit children will show up, but they keep dropping in to say hi, and other channels and healers keep picking up on them. I've had to go hardcore on releasing expectation and desire (hi, fortieth birthday while single) - which feels good and freeing. We'll see if they ever drop into the real world, the one where I'll be required to feed them and change them and keep them entertained.
They may choose to stay with the unicorns, as unicorns are infinitely more fun than parents who make you clean your room and eat green stalks grown in the dirt.
Naturally, as I typed that, they both yelled, "NOPE!"
Figures.
We'll see, kiddos. In the meantime, have fun with the unicorns.
Where's my Utopian Farmhouse and Baby Goat So I can Stop thinking about all this stuff already?
I hate selling things. Hate it hate it hate it. From my days as an elementary school student being required to sell things door-to-door for whatever wrapping paper drive was happening, I DESPISED it. I don’t even like answering my phone when people call me, much less WALKING UP TO PEOPLE’S DOORS AND ASKING THEM TO BUY SOMETHING. Oh my god. Even now, over thirty years later, it makes my stomach clench up.
In fact, I just had to stop typing and go sit down and sit with all the sticky awfulness that was rising up. Who knew Girl Scout cookies would result in emotional wounds decades later?
I love my work. Love it, love it, love it.
But in order to actually do it, I need to sell it. Stupid universe and its stupid sense of humor.
In Amber’s Perfect World (you should build one too, I highly recommend visiting whenever this world pisses you off), you would just show up at my farmhouse, knock on the yellow door with some nice roast beef sandwiches and iced tea and we would hang out under a big tree and do whatever needed to be done with your energy or life or questions that day. A baby goat would probably be wandering around and you would ask if you could hold it and I would say of course and you would walk home happy and calm and delighted. And if I needed a massage or the radiator leak on my car fixed, I could just show up at someone else’s house with a chicken and get the same treatment.
But since that is not currently the world we live in, some form of sale needs to be made for me to channel and teach and work with magical people. And, ironically, the bigger the dollar sign, the more transformation is available. (That’s an energy thing, not a greed thing. Though my greed probably can’t be denied, especially when it comes to red shoes, cupcakes, and trips to see giraffes.)
Selling things feels like convincing people of something.
I don’t want to convince anyone of anything ever. That sounds exhausting. It is exhausting. I know from all the times I've tried to force myself to do it. I don’t want to have to convince a man to commit to me, I don’t want to convince people they need what I do, I don’t want to convince myself that any of that convincing is necessary or useful.
Trusting that everyone knows what they need and what's best for them just seems like basic human respect. You know you, you know what you want and need, and I trust you to take care of yourself in whatever way best suits you. If it feels like I would be helpful, fan-flippin’-tastic. Otherwise, we can wave at each other from across the room and go on our merry way.
Now, there’s a lot of deeper stuff in this whole selling thing. Sticky old stories, fear of not being worthy, stress absorbed from my father’s sales job, garden-variety resistance, blah blah blah.
Ultimately, I want to approach my entire life from a place of joy and ease and peace. I think this is something we all deserve and can all have. But that means re-wiring our brains in whatever way our particular life and history and cerebellum requires.
I imagine there are ways around this. But for me, there seems to be some magic in working through whatever makes me despise this sales process.
Since I do believe that the answer exists from the moment we ask the question, I am asking the question: “I DESPISE SELLING THINGS AND WORRY THAT I’M NOT WORTHY OF RECEIVING ANYTHING FOR THIS AND SHOULD JUST BE DOING IT FROM THE KINDNESS OF MY HEART (from a refrigerator box on the side of the road, obviously) WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE A THING? WHERE IS MY UTOPIAN FARMHOUSE WITH BABY GOATS?” I’m asking it of myself, obviously, because I’m the only one who has my answer. You are not required to come up with an answer, although if you know of any baby goats who need to be adopted, I'm in the market.
I know the answer exists and it will show up and then I will feel so much better about this whole process and so much more supported in this weird talking-to-unicorns and channeling-guidance thing that I do.
In the meantime, I will think of all the things I want to do when people knock on my door and ask for them. And watch videos of baby goats, preferably snuggling stuffed animals.
Dear Empath,
If you’re an empath (or any super sensitive human), here, let me give you a hug.
Cause that shit is hard.
I basically didn’t get out of bed for actual years.
I Netflix binged like a seasoned pro, scarfed Pringles and gummy bears like I was being paid by the pound, and - well, honestly - kind of loved life. Except for the part where I was clinging to financial solvency by a thread because 1) energy and 2) I didn’t believe I was allowed to have money if all I was doing was taking care of myself and writing whatever made me happy.
(NEW WORLD ORDER: I AM ALLOWED TO HAVE MONEY - LOTS OF MONEY! - IF ALL I DO IS TAKE CARE OF MY ENERGY AND WRITE AND MAKE WHATEVER FEELS FUN.)
(Sorry for shouting. I’m doing my best to rewire my brain and sometimes that requires yelling over the old stories.)
I spent so much time curled up in bed with my stuffed therapy otter because I was so exhausted from trying to carry the pain of the world.
Remember Marley’s ghost at the beginning of A Christmas Carol, carrying all those chains behind him? Yeah, it’s like that. Only empaths carry all that clanking weight because they’re trying to be good people.
It’s a hell of a pickle. Empaths without boundaries are in for a rocky ride on this planet.
We tend to think we’re required to heal the world by taking on its pain. So we do. Pass a homeless woman on the street, pick up some stray trauma and deep loneliness that we carry for years. If our partner is angry - whether it’s at us or something entirely unrelated - and we start feeling that anger too, thinking it’s our anger, and acting on it. Oops.
You can make a hell of a mess when you act from someone else’s feelings rather than your own. Often, it takes empaths a lot of practice to know which is which.
Vacuuming up all the emotion in our vicinity takes an impressive toll - on our energy, on our relationships, on our ability to do the things we love.
My sensors were fried from trying to process other people’s emotions my entire life.
So, bed. It seems reasonable. And often felt like the only viable option.
I was in a very slow and profound healing process for a long time. I was cleaning up a lifetime of accumulated emotional baggage, toting it out to sea and tossing it overboard. Leaving it on the ground, feeling it leach out of me as I lay in the grass. Engaging in the slow grind of learning what was my pain and what belonged to others.
But here’s the good news, if you are an empath on this journey.
IT GETS BETTER.
(I’m not yelling at you, I’m yelling at the story in your head.)
What you clear makes room for joy. For peace. For inspiration.
Where you set boundaries gives you fresh energy to do the things you want to do, experience what you want to experience, create what you want to create.
Doing this work is hard, but it’s worth it.
You get to engage in unabashed napping. You get to learn who you are and what you feel, rather than being constantly overwhelmed by everyone else's hulk-smash emotions. You get to step into the person you always knew you were meant to be, you just couldn't quite get there and you weren't sure why.
There is nothing wrong with you. There never was. You were just learning how to operate your superpowers.
Love,
Amber
Phoenix Rises and Coughs Up Magic
Last week was a phoenix week, and, boy, the phoenix does not fuck around.
It felt like everything was being torched into oblivion: my family, my business, my bank account, my relationship, my energy, even my car.
Burn, baby, burn.
What I’ve noticed about those deeply uncomfortable, everything-is-disintegrating times is that, once you give up the illusion that you have any say in your life whatsoever and breathe through every awful feeling - sometimes that's when you get the biggest breakthroughs.
My week featured exhaustion, being ready to throw in the towel on this business I love, knowing a final breakup was imminent, bad-news-of-the-your-car-is-dead variety, shooters in my town, and my bank account yelling code red before gasping and dying a pitiful death.
All I could do was throw up my hands and surrender. By Tuesday, I was still clinging to my shreds of control. By Thursday afternoon, I had given up completely.
By Saturday? It felt like everything had shifted. Even my car was revived.
Sometimes when you let your life burn to the ground, you create space for rebirth.
It’s not comfortable. In fact, it’s downright terrifying. It feels like everything I depended on for stability, for safety, was crashing down around my ears.
In these moments, the world is asking you to trust, to let go of control. Mostly by wresting away the illusion that you ever had control.
Trust becomes the only option if you don’t want to a) find yourself rocking in the fetal position or b) hitch a ride with the first spaceship off this planet. (Sometimes you rock in the fetal position anyway because that's the only option.)
When you trust, when you truly surrender - maybe in a way you’ve never surrendered before - something opens up.
My whole life shifted in a day. I even got my beloved car back.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is let it all burn, knowing that you are safe, you are supported, no matter what it looks or feels like in the moment.
As humans, we have a limited perspective. We can't see the path ahead of us. The path behind us is littered with false beliefs and skewed memories and wounded stories. All we have is the present moment.
When I remember to step out of my head and just breathe through whatever's happening, with curiosity and faith that everything will ultimately be okay, that gives life just enough room to cough up some magic.
Then you get to stand on a mountaintop, spread your arms in triumph, because you are a goddamn phoenix rising.
Also, you still have a car.
Happiness Is Holding a Baby Goat
I joke about the magic of good hair, but evidence is mounting in favor of my head's ability to produce strands of pure blonde witchcraft.
(Just kidding. I'm not really a blonde.)
Today I drove down the coast to Half Moon Bay to get my hair done by my aunt at her salon on Main Street. (Yes, it's actually called Main Street.) We chat, she covers my head in foil, I walk out with new hair.
As I'm parking my car to get the best sandwich I have yet found (and I consider myself a connoisseur of the art of putting stuff between slices of bread), I see a woman walking a baby goat down the street.
Let's just pause to appreciate this for a moment. A baby goat on a leash tottering down the sidewalk. To whomever reads the universe's suggestion box: YES PLEASE ALWAYS.
While gaping at the baby goat from the driver's seat, I see a couple stop. The man picks up the goat and, as I'm climbing out of my car, he says "This is the best day of my life" while wearing a grin that cracks his face open.
So, of course, I ask if I can hold the baby goat.
My mouth does basically the same thing, because...
GUYS, I CRADLED A BABY GOAT. HE ALMOST FELL ASLEEP IN MY ARMS.
That, my friends, is pure magic. And, obviously, the magic is my hair.
Get your hair done, get the best seats to a Giants game for free. Get your hair done, get a baby goat. Maybe this means I'll finally take my new curling iron out of its box.
Predictably, now I want a baby goat so I can walk it around small towns and make people happy. Hire a photographer to take pictures of all the delighted baby goat cradlers. Put the goat in a Karmann Ghia and drive around the country. Maybe put a box of Sallys in the trunk and pass out stuffed therapy otters to anyone who needs one. There will probably also be glitter and cupcakes.
In my head, this is called the Happy Goat Tour and it has its own Instagram account that, of course, becomes wildly popular and raises money for animal sanctuaries.
Though I'm not sure how happy a baby goat would be on multiple long car rides. My fantasies often have holes.
Regardless: I GOT TO HOLD A BABY GOAT BECAUSE OF MAGIC HAIR. THE END.
The Life-Changing Magic of Good Hair
Stop wanting, stop expecting, let it look entirely different ... and you end up eating free fried chicken in the fancy seats.
Since all that kicking and screaming I did earlier this week, I've managed a new level of surrender. Surrender is one of my big lessons in life - meaning, I'm absolutely terrible at it and despise the very thought.
Sure enough, the second I give up and offer up a big fat FUCK IT, life decides to reward me.
When Lan and I met up in San Francisco on Wednesday, it turned into one of those magical days that only ever happen in movie montages.
Cinematic hair! (Mainly because someone spent forty-five minutes aiming a blow-dryer at my head which, I can assure you, has never before happened in my life.) Stunning scenery! Amazing sushi! Random invitation to a ballgame in, get this, the fanciest seats they have!
You know what they have in the fancy seats? Free beer! And fried chicken and chocolate chip cookies! Our seats had cushions! No wait in the bathroom line! There simply aren’t enough exclamation points to properly convey the experience.
This, apparently, is the true power of surrender - and great hair.
Thanks, Lanny. Thanks, hair. Thanks, magical day. Two thumbs up, would surrender again.
Trading Dreams For Joy
Turns out, telling your truth in the moment clears out so much space.
Truth really does go moment by moment. Just because something feels like the truth today doesn’t mean it will feel like the truth tomorrow. This is really important for me to remember.
While I was embarrassed about sharing all those Disenfranchised Dreams last night, I’m so glad I did - and not just because people are so dang kind. I feel so much more hopeful today.
Being an empath who’s still learning good boundaries is like having to vacuum up after the world, because half of it just tramped muddy footprints through your kitchen as it tossed used sandwich wrappers on the floor.
I spend a lot of my time clearing space.
(“Clearing space” is my vaguely obnoxious term for shuffling through all the emotions and feelings and thoughts that I pick up from other people and finding room in my head for me.)
Anyway, saying "HI I’M SO SAD THAT NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENED, ALSO A BIT HUMILIATED, LIKE IT SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT HOW UNWORTHY I AM (it doesn’t) AND LIKE PEOPLE WILL JUDGE ME (you won’t) FOR IT"… is actually a huge goddamn relief.
Because saying the sticky painful things without staying in the painful sticky things is so crucial for me. Me, the relentless queen of cantankerous melodrama.
Here was my Blab All Over The Internet process for feeling better about disenchanted dreams, if you're curious:
- Think a thing about hopeless dreams, start writing the thing, keep writing the thing because it helps me understand my feelings about the thing.
- Feel vaguely queasy but share the thing anyway.
- Read kind things and let them soothe me to sleep, hand clutching the phone precisely the way you're not supposed to do.
- Get out of bed the next morning, pretend to exercise (hand up if this is a thing you do), and realize “Hey, that doesn’t feel so much like my truth anymore.”
- Sure, I’m almost forty and that baby thing feels a little pressing (which means the relationship and the money thing definitely feels pressing), but all that could shift tomorrow.
- Or not. It doesn't matter.
- Realize that stating my truth in the moment cleared space in my head, heart, and feels. Enough to realize that it was just that moment. I'm not even 40 yet. My life is not over.
- Maybe I just need to do my thing and enjoy all the many things there are to enjoy in the everyday.
Being careful to distinguish my own feelings and energy and thoughts from whatever I just picked up at the grocery store from random strangers or when on the phone with a friend is an ongoing process - and crucial to dreams.
More than that, clearing out my own space has the unintended but welcome effect of making some goddamn room for joy. I feel joy so much more powerfully than I did a few years ago.
Joy is a pretty good trade for dreams. So maybe I should just surrender to that and let my dreams do whatever the fuck they want to do. They can tag along, they can fall into the abyss, they can tap me on the shoulder. Whatever.
You do you, dreams. I’ll do me. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.
In the meantime, there are so many things that make me happy. Make my wizened little soul feel joy.
Giraffes. Cartwheels on beaches. Road trips with Sally. Toasted rice tea. Dance class. Wearing my unicorn horn. My little cottage. My hippie weird. Giraffes.
If you want to share some of the things that make you happy, I would love that.
Or Maybe I'll Just Delete This Whole Thing Because I'm a 39-Year-Old Woman Whose Primary Relationship is With a Stuffed Otter and That's Embarrassing Enough, Thanks
At what point to you relinquish the desiccated ghost of your hopes and say, “Okay, this dream is dead”?
I’m not super good at giving up. If I want something, I will fight for it until the undertaker has to pry the dream from my cold, lifeless fingers.
But at what point is it just too exhausting to keep clinging?
One of my great lessons in this life is surrender. Going with the flow.
I am fucking terrible at going with the flow. I’m even worse at surrendering. I will grip the steering wheel and attempt to control the direction until all hope is lost, along with its extended family and pet hamster.
But, oh my god, I’m so tired. It takes a lot of energy to want something for years and years and years and not get it - and I don’t have a whole lot of energy to spare. One of the reasons I cobbled together this weird unicorn career is that I literally can’t have a full-time job. Or any kind of situation that would regularly require me to be in a room with other humans and get things done.
(I adore humans but I find them so exhausting. Humans have so many thoughts and worries and feelings and I take them all on until I have no idea where your thoughts and feelings end and mine begin. Navigating life in a swirling vortex of ceaseless emotion will certainly tire a person out.)
Obviously, nobody but me can decide when to surrender my dreams, so I’m not really asking for advice here. It feels more like I'm taking the first step of admitting that most of my dreams have gone direly unfulfilled, and that’s pretty embarrassing. I literally had every advantage in the box and somehow managed to squander all of them. Whoops?
Now that we’re here and I’ve typed for long enough that this is happening, I’m trying to think of one dream I’ve let myself accomplish.
(Sally's making the crickets noise. I don't mind telling you that I find it quite obnoxious. Someone won't be getting any sardines this week.)
No long-term relationship / husband-type person, no babies, no dog, no books published, no comfortable nest egg accrued. I did some traveling but it was always sort of accidental. My big travel dreams - Kenya to go to the giraffe hotel, Iceland to see the Northern lights - those haven’t happened. I haven’t even done that road trip through the south I keep talking about.
Now that I look at it, it sounds rather pathological. Like, come on, you couldn’t even get a dog? You’d think a dog would be do-able.
Unless you live in the Bay Area and every place that you could both avoid people and have a dog requires quadrupling your income.
But I could offer up an excuse for every single one of those dreams, and I’m not really sure I want my legacy in this world to be excuses.
(Yes, I have this bizarre channeling business and I love doing it. But it was never a dream. If it were up to me, I would’ve aimed for some fancy Silicon Valley job with really good health insurance. But I haven’t been employable since 2009. And if you asked my last boss how many times I cried at my desk, she'd say "an awful lot.")
I’ve never been very good at finding the balance between “Hi, I want to be vulnerable about this thing that's kinda humiliating” and relentless complaining.
I honestly don't mean to complain. My life is pretty damn good. I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I work with incredible people, and I have a very supportive (except for the cricket chirping thing) stuffed otter named Sally. I have my health, a good brain, limbs in working order, and I always manage to feed myself, even if “feed myself” mostly means “existing entirely on string cheese because I'm an adult.”
I’m finding myself panicking a little bit. Perilously close to sticking my head out the window and shrieking “ONE OF THESE DREAMS HAS TO HAPPEN THIS YEAR OR I HAVE TO GIVE UP ON ALL OF THEM BEFORE I TORTURE MYSELF FOR ANOTHER DECADE” into the Mill Valley void.
Now, I could just go to the pound and get a dog and trust that the universe will provide another home when my landlord kicks me out of mine. I could just climb in my car and start driving toward Tennessee and trust that everything works out and that Kristin and Scott will be willing to feed me when I get there, because I’ll have been eating string cheese for 2300 miles.
But the thought of surrendering to that extent, when I'm clinging to the edge in a few crucial ways, feels a bit hard to swallow.
I don't know. Obviously, I have zero answers. But I'm sick of beating myself up over the things that haven't happened for me, that maybe would have happened if I'd done things differently. But maybe there was no differently. Maybe I genuinely did the best I could in every moment and I ended up exactly where I'm supposed to be, even if it doesn't look anything like I hoped.
Maybe on my fortieth birthday this year, I’ll have a bonfire for my dreams. I’ll write them all on little pieces of paper, hike out to the beach, and set them all alight and watch the ashes drift toward the sky.
Or maybe I'll just get in my car and start driving.
We Are All Cosmic Travelers Wearing Human Suits
It's so weird being a channeler. Not for the obvious reasons - like talking to Jesus and unicorn visitations at three in the morning (though that's plenty weird, thanks) - but because, when I'm in the zone, I know all this stuff I say on the internet to be true. I feel calm, at peace, loved, and all is right with the world.
But after I'm done with the channeling and back to the human stuff of making breakfast and paying bills and driving through rush hour with every other lunatic on the road (yes, I'm one of the lunatics), my brain cranks up the volume and is all THAT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE RIGHT, LOVE AND LIGHT MY ASS, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, HERE HAVE A CHOCOLATE CROISSANT.
Sometimes I can take a big enough step away from the chatter to remember that my brain doesn't have all the answers. It says a lot of things, it makes a lot of noise, but just because my brain says it doesn't mean it's true.
Last week, I decided to release a meditation album on the spur of the moment. That's the fun part about this job - being blasted with inspiration while you're hanging upside down and all the blood is rushing to your head, and being able to just do it and see what happens.
Because there's so much forking construction in my neighborhood (and it makes me want to throttle the world), I had to record the meditations after six at night or before eight in the morning. A few days ago, I woke up at six, turned on the microphone while wearing my flannel moose pajamas, and started receiving a whole bunch of meditations about tuning into your intuition, following your soul's path, balancing your energy (I put one of the meditations up for free - if your energy feels wonky, check it out!) and it all felt awesome.
But after I stopped and made myself an egg sandwich, all the doubts and anxieties and oh GODs started flooding back in.
My challenge at the moment is hooking back in with that calm, loving, here's-the-handy-guidance space more often. Hour by hour, minute by minute. Keep honoring the feels and the crazy humanness while reminding myself of the truth and course-correcting my brain.
Living this way is like eating salad or being in AA. You can't do it once and then be done for the rest of your life. You have to work the program. Over and over and over and over again. Every day.
It does seem to get easier. Eventually new pathways are created and it becomes easier to dwell in the land of ahhhh... rather than the land of FUCKING HELL EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS PLANET IS THE WORST I WOULD RATHER DIE.
Smug statue says "I'm cool, no problems here."
Being a cosmic being of infinite light in a human body - as we all are - is a daily flow. I wanted to say challenge, but I think it's just a practice. Like, practicing the piano can be a challenge but whatever you just show up again tomorrow and the next day and eventually you get so much better you can't even remember the time you got stymied by the dumb flamingo song. (Pianos just don't sound like flamingos and there's nothing anyone can do about that.) (Yes, I had to learn a dumb flamingo song in elementary school and apparently it angers me to this day.)
Honoring the feels without getting bowled over by them, feeling the pain without drowning in it, observing the worries without getting stuck in them, noticing the negative thoughts and remembering the truth and putting the train of thought on a new track. Being human. Being cosmic. Same thing really.
This feels like a good place to leave my favorite quote of pretty much all time:
You are a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from stardust riding a rock floating through space. Fear nothing.