She Chose Again.

If you find yourself asking some pretty big questions in these first few months of 2021, you’re not the only one. We are currently living through historical events as I write this. The worst might be behind us yet we aren’t out of the woods just yet. We have been thrown off kilter. Our core is shifted. What was ‘normal’ before is no longer enough. The truth is fuzzy and it’s a little hard to see where we are going. We have been forced to get innovative and start thinking outside the box we had created for ourselves. As the old crumbles the new is being built while we move by the seat of our pants. It’s weird out here, guys. Really weird. I’m with you!

But can we talk about how incredibly powerful this time is? About how fast things can change if we want them to? About becoming aware of our true power of creation? About how we have been creating all of this all along and now, more than ever, we can create deliberately and with results that far exceed our expectations? About how we can change the world together by going within and asking ourselves questions like...

...am I happy?

...is this life true to me?

...if anything were possible, what would I want?

You’re tired. Me too. You’re frustrated. So am I. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if we level up from this experience? What if it gets to be good and only get better? What if life gets to be easier than we thought possible? What if we get to flourish as individuals and find ourselves in a state of collective harmony as a result? What if it is all unfolding in our favor? What if all the contrast apparent in 2020 is just a story of our past that shed light on our truest desires? A moment in history that catapulted us into effortlessly creating the life of our dreams?

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” - John Lennon, Imagine.

In case you are feeling small, or insignificant, or like you’d rather hide from the world than live in it right now...before you throw it all out the window and waste this precious high speed manifestation period, history in the making, anythingispossiblesowhynottry moments in time...let me tell you a story about a woman named Jazz.

STASIS (1 of 8)

Jazz is a lower-middle class girl from the Jersey Shore. She is a two-time college drop out and might be one of the most insightful and innately intelligent humans you’ll ever meet. She lives in Los Angeles with about a suitcase full of knick knacks and clothing pieces collected from her worldly travels and maybe a few hundred bucks to her name (mere pennies compared to her debt). She is well into her thirties and reflects back on her twenties with admiration. Full of resilience, travel, adventure, and personal development, her aspirations were noble and rather simple in those days. She never bought more than she needed, of anything, and she always answered ‘yes’ to the call to learn, to teach, and to serve regardless of how little (if any) she was paid.

What she asked for, she received. And nothing more.

Jazz has those kind of witchy vibes reserved for the world’s spiritual, resourceful, and creative geniuses. She is tall and slender with wavy blonde hair and hazel eyes. Her smile is bright and just quirky enough to make you feel welcome and comfortable. She always looks good. Stylish. Eclectic. A natural beauty. She lives an unconventional lifestyle that has both caused her trouble and brought her joy. Things have always found a way to work out for her even when they shouldn’t have. Men and women alike have fallen in love with her countless times. Her influence has been said to save lives. She is super approachable; you just might find yourself telling her your whole life story while in line at the coffee shop all before asking what her name is. You sit next to her on a bench and somehow you feel better about who you are in ways you didn’t know you needed to.

She doesn’t like to waste her time on anything she isn’t sure about. When she is sure, she’s all in until she isn’t. Her raw and intuitive type of lifestyle appeals to her. She trusts it. It makes it so that when she experiences a failure, she can take full responsibility for it, recalibrate, and choose again.

Life is cool like that. Every moment comes with the gift to choose again.

Her day to day in Los Angeles was how you might expect it, at first. The traffic. The sunshine. The crowds. Endless delicious food options and modern amenities to the nines! Jazz had just spent the previous year cooped up with her family on the East Coast, and in northern Cali with her man. During which she went through a dark night of the soul. Like a caterpillar wrapped up in her cocoon, she was both dying and being reborn simultaneously. She didn’t want to be seen. She didn’t want to be in the material world. She disconnected from everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. She describes this time of her life like the scene from Alice and Wonderful when she falls down the rabbit hole? You know the one. No solid ground. Free falling. Out of control. Super scary. A bit exciting. Very dizzying. And while all she really wanted to do was curl up under a blanket fort in her tiny LA studio, she was also grappling with the urgent need to do something. Isn’t that what she was supposed to do? Meet people? Find work? Make friends? None of which she felt ready to do. She did not fully trust her current emotional state, her vibe, her thought process, etc, to draw towards her that which she truly desired over that which was familiar to her.

Then the world went on lock down. A global pandemic swept through humanity, and now everybody seemed to feel what Jazz had been feeling already. Lost. Confused. Uncertain. Down their own metaphorical rabbit hole.

After months of relishing in her initial relief from FoMO that accompanied the quiet city of Los Angeles, she woke up one morning with a stiff back. She pulled herself up off the mattress on the floor and drug herself to the bathroom. When she looked in the mirror, it was like she had woken up for the first time in over a year. What she saw had her feeling like a stranger in her own body. An old ratty thrifted t-shirt, six inch roots, scraggly hair, and huge dark circles around her eyes. Feeling absolutely mad, she sat in front of the mirror and stared deep into her own eyes for what felt like hours until she could see some semblance of her true essence; a spark, a light, way down the rabbit hole. It was there. She was there. Everything else? Everything else felt old and stale. She was completely unexpressed and deeply aware of her own pain because of it. Her noble and simple aspirations from her twenties were no longer enough. Life, as she had known it, was no longer enough. She wanted more.

Once you realize you can have anything, and it doesn’t hurt anybody else for you to have what you want, then anything that doesn’t fulfill you becomes completely and utterly unacceptable.

So now what? What happens from here? Jazz goes through this complete metamorphosis and plops down (like when Alice finally hits the ground) in the grit of her former life! She has no money. No college degree. The whole economy is shut down. And she desperately needs a haircut! All she had in that very moment is a desire for a bigger life and a belief that she can have it. And she had to hold onto that, no matter what it took. So she turned to her mentors, her gurus, and her higher self for guidance and answers to her many questions.

But how?

‘The how is not your concern. Get clear on what you want and focus on the feeling of having it. Start feeling good now and the things that feel good to you will have no choice but to manifest in your experience.’ - Abraham Hicks

What do I do from here?

“Do everything you know to do, everything you want to do, and everything you can do with what you have in each given moment.’ - Higher Self

What practices can I do to bring me closer to my desires?

“Meditation allows us to change our brains, bodies & state of being. Most important, we can make these changes without having to take any physical action or have any interaction with the external environment. Through meditation, we can install the necessary neurological hardware of our ideal self.” - Dr. Joe Dispenza

How do I reconnect with a sense of purpose?

“Nothing is more important that reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real” - Deepak Chopra

How do I maintain alignment with my true self when it feels like nothing is working?

“The same old thoughts, attitudes, and choices are symptoms of the same thing; being asleep. Choose to live in a state of awareness that makes you feel safe and secure.” - Deepak Chopra

What do I do when I come up against contrast?

“There is not an experience that goes down in your life that doesn’t have the potential to help liberate you. It is so perfectly designed and there is not irrelevancy in the system. When you finally want to get free, every since thing in your life is grist for the mill.” - Ram Dass

And so Jazz begins to start changing her beliefs about what she can have, do and be in this world. She chooses. She chooses presence over distraction. She chooses to feel good over not. She chooses to commit to herself and her dreams. She trains her mind and body for the life her spirit longs for.

She does yoga. She meditates. She lightens up. She indulges. She lets herself feel good, unapologetically. She begins to wrap her head around all of that being enough. She turns her small black notebook reserved for daily thoughts and to-do lists into a manifestation journal, a practice and tool to express gratitude and excitement about something you would like to manifest as if you already have it.

“March 2, 2021. I am so grateful for the unexpected $20,000 reward I won in a fun writing challenge I felt called to participate in! I know this is just a down payment for what is to come in my life, and I just so grateful to invest in myself and in my dreams. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

She is on track. Her vision for her business comes back with more confidence. Her relationships are flourishing. She finally gets that bombshell haircut. Her motive and passion are strong and stable. But there is just one problem; she’s broke AF! And while she knows better than to let that knock her down, she keeps coming up against these deeply embedded belief systems that make her feel unworthy of the money and resources she wants and needs. She doesn’t want to trip up but the ground beneath her feet feels to be moving and she is struggling to keep a grip. ‘Maybe none of this is really meant for me. Maybe the Universe thinks I’m being too greedy, too selfish, too lazy, and doesn’t want to support me. Maybe I am just meant to be broke and resourceful my whole life. Maybe I better not fool myself. Maybe I better accept this...I’ve done it before, I know I can survive it.’

She stops.

She takes a breath.

She listens.

And behind the inner critique that seems to want her to fail, she hears the words of her mentors.

“Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move.” - Rumi

“The Universe has your back.” - Gabby Bernstein

“You are here on purpose. You are worthy because you are. Your desires are your guiding light.” - Amanda Frances.

And Jazz? She becomes conscious in her darkest state for the first time ever. She becomes aware and calm in the eye of the storm inside of her. She realizes. She sees clearly the thoughts and feelings that limit her. She becomes aware, she sees, and she chooses again.

She chooses to beat the drum of what feels good. She chooses to amplify the voices and thoughts that serve her highest good until she can know longer hear the critiques. She chooses over and over again, as many times as she has to. And like magic, in ways she never experienced before, she begins to feel her true sense of abundance. It feels secure. It feels supportive. It feels true. It feels like more than enough.

She won. And her life as a conscious butterfly began.