There is no definitive way to see the whole story of who a person is, not according to them or to the many people who make up their experiences.

But our minds fill in the blank.

Our minds create identities of people including ourselves that we then attach ourselves to.

Any deviation from the picture that we paint in our heads can be seen as an uprooting of ourselves (but we have a hard time recognizing that).

If you are not who I intend you to be 😅🤣 then what does that say about me and our planned interactions and joint experiences.

Dicey..

The mind wants to tell us a story but if you are truly present you can realize that the mind is noisy with predictions and expectations for life and people to stay in the bounds of our preferences.

But life is an energy, it is a changing flow.

And it never goes “according to plan”.

Who is even planning this 😅…

Writing the story is where we get in trouble, we’re not super great at it and we have a negativity bias that we have to account for.

The truth is that we don’t have any real way to know how anything or anyone is going to turn out, the more we try to predict - the less accurate we get.

We just have to see- we have to experience and notice what is arising right now and not get distracted with all of the stories and noise.

Are we here, right now?

If it feels bad, notice that. The trick is to not get lost in what you are feeling and then to move from a feeling perspective to a noticing perspective.

When we notice what is there we are giving ourselves the opportunity to not be attached to whatever is transpiring, because in gaining awareness, it’s impossible not to see and feel the ever changing nature of life.

It’s not EASY and even with meditation I still struggle with it 😅😭🤣🤷‍♀️.

Tis’ life.

But with meditation I can see when I’m running a narrative, I can see how my body reacts to people, places and situations. These are important data points that without meditation you are simply leaving on the table.

It seems much easier to be on autopilot but in reality autopilot comes at the cost of our lives and our relationships. Running on autopilot is how people get to the end of their lives- confused on how they got there.

But if we add in some awareness, a little more consciousness to our every day-every moment then we don’t question how we got to the end, we savored every moment by being in the present.

To quote Kanye(just the first part) “My presence is a present…”

Presence = awareness

It is the best gift you can give to anyone, including yourself.

And one way to build that is meditation.

Life is short - make sure you realize that 😅 and soak up what you can.

🥰😘

That doesn't stop me from writing, and counter to popular advice I do wait for inspiration vs. crapping something out just to seem productive.

🕳️

And when inspiration is lacking, I’m not going to sit around and wonder why or question every creative thing that I've done(though of course I have my fair experience in this😅😭).

It doesn't make me less of a writer or an artist to do creative work on my own time vs for the pressure of pushing or selling something or god forbid that dreaded feeling of "have to".

Contrary to popular belief, I've never created something that I've loved because I forced myself to do it.

My best ideas do not come from me, my best ideas come from the space that I create so that the Goddess of inspiration can come dancing into my brain and make the connections that have been blocked by impatience, clutter, and mental noise.

I'm not creating the idea, I'm creating the space for the idea to come on its own.

And if I don't have the space or the capacity to execute it, that idea simply moves along to someone else.

I see this all the time actually, ideas that I had but did not execute upon, now coming from someone else.

And I don't feel bad about that either, you snooze, you lose.

Or maybe it comes back to me, when the time is right.

Either way-

There's another on the way if I can create the space.

So I declutter my calendar, I clean my house, and I focus on relaxing.

And that's when it happens, when I'm at ease.

Not when I'm not caught up in the millions of things to do and people to see.

When I'm just being…being at home in my body, in my apartment, and in my thoughts.

Not pushing, not striving, but enjoying what is already there and then magically - it comes.

The idea, the desire, the goal, the plan, the next creative energetic wave for me to catch and ride upon.

And this season is prime time for me because the slow down is built-in with the changing of seasons.

I slow down with it and then I'm back on my wave, back remembering what is important and what it feels like to simply love being alive and present.

I never settle in without a struggle, with summers energy burning off and winters grey closing in…but when I finally calm down, what a relief.

Ah yes, it's you again. The season of rest and reset, oh how I've missed the space and feel of you.

And then by spring I'm bursting at the seams in all directions with the energy I've been cultivating all winter 💃.

Winter has traditionally been my most hated season until I slow down and remember that I get my best ideas in winter.

Winter doesn't start until the 21st so I guess it's fine that I probably won't get my full rest until then 😅🤣.

Side note- Who writes about how important rest is while actively being in motion 😇.(I'm on a plane to Houston rn)

Anyhow, I wrote this post to get me off the hook for not writing more this summer and also for anyone who struggles with feeling like they “have to” when they haven't created the space to.

🫟

It’s exhausting, really.

As I was folding my towels I started to have one of these sessions in my head about why (insert any name here) is the way that they are 🤔?

Could it be childhood trauma? A chemical imbalance? A general lack of awareness?

What makes someone the way that they are, and why do I act like it’s my job to figure it out?

I stopped in my rant and then came up with this idea,

Who cares?

It’s just me in a different experience

It’s all me(& you & us - as consciousness, experiencing itself) from different vantage points.

Explaining everything away isn’t actually helpful or a productive use of anyone’s time.

I didn’t do anything special to get to my viewpoint, just like another person wasn’t asked if they felt like coming into the existence that they are in.

But I’m sure if you asked most people, they would probably prefer at least a slightly different experience from the one that they are having.

Anyhow - it’s me and it’s you, and it’s everything, everywhere, all at once. Not to plug the movie but it’s true and also a great movie.

Existence simply *is*

Slayyy Queen

And we are all breathing it in at the same time together

whether we realize it or not

&

whether we like it or not

The things that separate us as people are learned.

When we look into the eyes of people that we feel a connection with, it feels very clear…there’s something else going on here.

Something deeper

When you look into the void, and the void looks back at you…

You can’t help but feel it physically

A resonance

When we can acknowledge ourselves in other people, we return to our true nature.

Oneness.

Hairs on the same head.

Leaves on the same tree.

Hemorrhoids in the same ass? Too far? 😅

This can be a terrifying thought to most people.

-That we could be no different from the rest of us

-That our differences are perceived and projected

The thought that at the core of it, we are just as flawed and beautiful as everyone else because we are all here together at the same time.

Out of all the time to be here, now?

Us together in this lifetime?

It's hard to remember we're alive for the first time, it's hard to remember we're alive for the last time.

I struggle with keeping this in mind as I go about my day.

This is something that meditation can help with.

Meditation helps to create the space to feel experience as it is, not as our minds are yapping on about.

As many times as it takes I’ll continue to return to it because the difference in feeling that we are connected and feeling that we are separate can greatly alter your perceived experience and impact the lives of everyone around you.

Just a thought.

To love anything is to feel surrendered in it’s presence. A connection that blurs the boundaries between observer and object.

Could it be…an experience?

A sensation that the body is leaning into like a magnetic pull to our next lesson.

We’re drawn in and enamored by not what we see, but how we feel when we see and experience the things we enjoy.

I love it.

I’m jumping out of my skin for it, every part of me buzzing for what I love.

And what is it anyway?

It’s a feeling that can transcend time like a deep impulse from somewhere out in space.

It’s the sensation of a connection to life energy, resonation.

The things that we love make us stay present, we are alive with the sensation of our energy for something.

When we feel seen and connected, time slips away.

It’s so addicting, really.

So we try to hold on to that which we love (because it feels great so why not?)and that’s when the trouble starts.

You really have 2 options when it comes to love:

-Loving a fantasized idea of something
-Loving an observed truth of something

Loving a fantasized idea is to fall deeply for your own delusion of a timeline that you do not control.

VS

Loving the observed truth is to accept and allow things and people to be as they are with full abandon of any expectations that you designed.

As it is an experience and felt sense, it can be fleeting.

& I think that’s OK. We are evolving, why wouldn’t our feelings also evolve?

In traditional monogamous relationships we like to pretend that this does not happen. That it in fact, cannot happen if we are to continue living in the world we designed.

We like how we constructed these walls, we don’t want them to change.

Not wanting them to change has no impact on whether or not things change.

Things will always change.

Over and over again until we die.

We will always be disappointed when our expectations are not in line with reality.

Before we can really mean what we say when we say, “I love you”. We need to clarify the type of our intention.

Loving a fantasy:

• I love how you make me feel

  • Are you using this person to fulfill something lacking within yourself?

  • Maybe listening to the bodily sensations too much here, I love how good I feel with you because you validate some need I’m not validating within myself.

• I love you (but really I love your interests and hobbies)

  • He’s got a boat (I gotta watch myself with this one)

  • I love that we both like the same things (familiar, comfortable)

• I love you (for who you might be in the future)

  • I’m daydreaming in your eyes, what a life we can have!

• I love you (as you are right now)

  • Please do not change or show that you are just as human as me, I can’t handle that.

  • This type of love falls apart as the inevitable winds of change come a blowin’

Loving a reality(as observed):

• I love you for who you are as a person

  • Not the idea of what I could mold you into

• I love you for the way you think (don’t get me started bc this is the hottest sexiest type of shit)

  • I like how you process information, I like your mindset, I’m interested in how you think and adapt and I find you to be fascinating

• I love you because you are a human on earth at the same time as me, what a miracle, I love you for existing.

  • I don’t judge you for being yourself, I understand the complexities of personality and how we are all kind of making it up as we go.

I came across a quote that illustrates a beautiful type of love, one that is centered around experience(observed truth):

This is what we need to aim for because it’s the only type that can last.

Now for most of this conversation I am separating the idea of love from any typical boundary of marriage license or agreed commitment because this type of love isn’t just for romantic relationships and the laundry list of societal expectations on those.

This love is for family, friends, strangers but most importantly… yourself.

And truly without giving this type of love to yourself, you cannot give it to another.

You cannot understand and give what you haven’t experienced.

Tbh it really seems that most people do not have this level of care for themselves.

It’s taken me a loooooooooooong time to even comprehend how I might accept myself as I am and love myself regardless for what shows up when I peak behind the curtain. (They DO NOT match the drapes)

How can I express enough to you that your time is limited and regardless of your community and relationships you will always be alone within yourself.

Do you want to die hating yourself? I don’t.

I spent a lot of time over my lifetime thinking about all the things I needed to change before I could relax into myself, what a sham way to enjoy life.

Can you imagine? You are given one short fast life and you spend it mad 🤣

How can I tell you how freeing it is to love and accept yourself? How powerful it is to know that you alone are responsible for your happiness!

We are always shifting that responsibility to someone or something else.

So we end up empty🕳️because it can only come from within and it can only come from building a relationship with the self so we can see this life for what it is.

An experience.

We layer so many opinions over that experience, trying to guess every next moment.

And we are really bad at guessing.

So we have expectations on ourselves, we have expectations on other, and on life itself.

All of which will be debunked in time.

Once you understand that we are conscious awareness experiencing itself you can see how there is little need for all the words and expectations we put on it.

Life is going to life, its a force and it’s moving with or without us so we can either make a safe space from which to observe and not attach ourselves or we can create some sort of new fucked up expectation maze for which we will ultimately die in and then have to start over.

It’s much easier to let go of your white knuckled grip on life and just see what happens.

And in the meantime, if you’re really not in charge (based upon facts of how your life does not work exactly as you like or expect) then why don’t you take it easy on yourself and everyone else.

When you can do that, loving people is easy.

Loving yourself is easy.

Enjoying life is easy.

As one of my friends says, “It’s not that complicated.”

He says that when I am over complicating things, because EVEN me.

I’m caught in Samsara with the rest of you schmucks, I’m just trying to distill it a bit for the both of us.

❤️

Ah life goes on, forever swishing about, thrashing with the good and bad.

Trust the process they say, trust the process I do(try).

One of the more interesting things about being self-aware is being aware of the lack of control one has over the thoughts and sensations in the body when in times of temporary turmoil.

Let me give an example.

I can be in a situation that is unpleasant to me, I can sense that there is something in me that is having a negative reaction to said situation but I can’t just not have the reaction that I’m experiencing. I’m just aware of it and the only thing that I should be doing with the knowledge of what I’m sensing is letting it pass by. Sometimes I can and sometimes I cannot and I think that this is where acceptance has to come in.

Let me just be aware that life is a journey of change that beats us all up and down until ultimately we accept that life “is what it is” and we are experiencing it. It does not abide by some idealized plans that we come up with as we are toiling through it.

Just when you think you know exactly how things are going to go, life says “bet” and changes the game up on you.

If you take a half-second to reflect on anything that has surprised you in life, you’ll realize that this is a fact and the very nature of life.

It’s coming, it’s going, it’s comedy, it’s tragedy, and we should all be bobbling about enjoying it either way.

Well enough yapping, you may have noticed some changes.

It’s a rebrand, we love a rebrand.

I wanted to change the expectations a bit about what you might find here.

Official description:

Examinations of life and thinking by Tahlia Roper.

Topics include: philosophy, meditation, lifestyle, and my personal experiences.

Some of you may or may not be aware of my other blog, I want to incorporate some more of that previous style without having to be pinned down to be a strict philosophy blog. Not that it was ever that serious in the first place but I feel the change makes me feel a tad freer. If this is not in line with what you want in your inbox feel free to unsubscribe.

Look at me, yapping on a Saturday night…😅

Have a great weekend.

*please, if you are reading this and have made it this far and enjoy this publication let a girl know.

Oh did you get caught up in another unprecedented event in history?

As things were just churning how they do.

Inching you closer to death but now with something new to be upset about.

There’s always something to be upset about, isn’t there?

A real wrench in the perfectly running machine 😅🤣👌.

This is how things are but the problem is that most people cannot accept the very nature of existence.

The constant churn and burn of it all.

If you just look around at your life, you can see this. You can feel this in real time.

It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, we don’t have to attach ourselves to whatever pile of crap lands on our doorstep.

This is life, this is just how it is and that’s OK.

It’s OK because you can’t really do anything about it either way.

We don’t have to let what is happening outside of ourselves dictate how we feel inside of ourselves or define who we are😅.

Life is simply happening and we are experiencing it.

Accept life the way it is, appreciate it, and try not to get attached to your own ideas about how it should be.

Understand that life is a wave and bob the hell along.

We are waves too, don’t take it all too seriously.

It’ll change soon enough.

& that is guaranteed.

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What a time to be alive, no?

It’s very easy for me to ramble off about how to think. The hard part is putting everything into practice. All the everything that' we’re expected to learn and know and do and be.

Luckily life is always sending me new lessons, a real learning-on-the-job situation.

The real practice is with your family, your enemies 😅🤣 (if you have those 😅), your coworkers, the grocery store, driving. These are all valuable playgrounds for being present and aware of experience as it’s unfolding.

I giggle at myself when I get stressed out while driving.

Death is imminent…no need to rush.

No need to worry.

Relax and just be what you are, conscious awareness experiencing itself.

When I started this newsletter I stated somewhere on here that the frequency is “you’ll get it when I want to give it to you” and I stand by that because it’s not something that I can give from nowhere. I have to get to a place where I’m in examination mode & flow. I have to spend enough time in solitude and dance with existence in a way so that the words can make their way through.

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I hope you understand.

Locked and loaded into a new identity.

“This is who I am - now.”
(this job, car, hobby, person, characteristic)
This is me, this is mine.

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Be careful of what you claim for yourself and as your self.

You’re making boundaries in your mind that will get crushed by time.

There’s no point in putting up a facade built of memories that you’ve collected over the years, reflecting who you think you are. You are always changing.

Loosen the grip a little.

Discover who you are by watching your actions, noticing the sensations in your body.

Then let it go as it burns and grows new every day.

Get comfortable “being nobody, going nowhere”.

As always these writings serve as a reminder to myself to stay in deep connection with the limited life that we have before it’s gone.

You might need that too.

Appreciate the experience and relax into it as if it’s the only one you’ll ever have…

…or need 🤔.

Sometimes I start feeling like, okay, I’ve learned some lessons and now we’ll just put this thing in cruise control and drive off into the sunset.

This is so very ‘te-he-he’ of me to think.

With every level there’s a new challenge. Never forget that.

You can never quite escape the transient nature of life, the coming and the going of all things, the constant change.

It’s not a hard concept to understand but a difficult one to hold top of mind.

Sometimes I find that instead of holding a deep knowledge about this consistently forever, I seem to forget my fleeting nature. My forgetting drives me into a psychological inquisition.

How could this happen?

Why do I feel like this?

How can I get out of this situation?

This is largely unnecessary when you understand that life is just happening and it’s unfolding differently every time 😤😍.

The only constant is your ability to observe and enjoy this unfolding or get tangled in it.

& we all get tangled, time and time again.

I feel like I have a semi-strong or practiced way of observing but still sometimes I feel that I am also getting tangled and then baffled at how I could let that happen.

A further tangling.

No, thank you.

The practice is to get to quicker acceptance about the experience that you’re having vs the experience that you were expecting or desired. It’s our judgement of an experience that sometimes makes it harder than it needs to be.

We don’t need to classify everything as good or bad because it’s all temporary anyways.

It’s just the experience of what is, our opinions are a little irrelevant because it’s come from nowhere and will be returning there and then replaced with a new unknown.

Out of our control.

Why are we stressing so much about it?

Life is going to happen whether you over intellectualize it or not(it’s so fun tho 🤣).

It’s expanding and you’re expanding with it, this is new for all of us, all the time.

Goal: interact with the experience a little lighter, with a little less judgement and a little less inner yapping.

Best of luck, excuse me while I park my horse.

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What else am I doing?

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Experience is having its way with making sure we have plenty of challenges to overcome.

Again and again until we die.

And we die, never forget.

If it ain't one thing, it's another. From birth till dirt.

We are never without lessons and challenges and new surprises to accept.

We didn't see this coming.

We can't control what's going to happen, we can do our best in the now to bring awareness to the fact that all things in every moment are undergoing change.

Nothing stays the same, once there are victories, new battles arise.

Until we die.

Part of this life practice of being aware and conscious of one's life is losing any sort of surprise or upset(attachment) with the way in which life unfolds.

I haven't quite nailed that part down yet. I've gotten pretty good in a lot of scenarios but sad to report that I am indeed still a WIP and most likely will be for the foreseeable future.

The second best thing to being able to completely control your reactions and emotions would be to just accept that you're not there yet. Opposed to shaming yourself for not ascending to the 5D or wherever people are going 🫣🤣🤔.

I want to be all light and love and laugh 24/7 but that's not realistic ‘where I come from…right now(growth mindset).

Something that I'm working on accepting is that even though I have wisdom and knowledge about the right way to be(or whatever idea that I've decided was right) I'm still just a girl living in a world that can be a doozy to deal with.

I haven't zenned completely out yet and that's a hard pill to swallow but I suppose that is not very non-dualistic of me to think.

Couldn't be me.

In the trenches of mind over matter.

Anyways I stared at the moon for awhile and that seemed to help.

Feel it to go through it and I do be feeling it but as always I'm optimistic and in love with the moon, the breeze, and lots of tiny joyful things that exist to be enjoyed and adored.

Saddle up we ride at dawn, till the end of (our) time.

It comes in waves / September 24, 2023

“What?”

“Everything”

Indeed it does. Everything also leaves as a wave. Life is a dance of patterns and the game is to comfortably bob along at the frequency of your being.

Rest is crucial for flow. As a creative individual there are little more valuable states to me than being in a state of flow.

I have to put myself in “timeout” as a part of my earthly maintenance. I enjoy it, even if I have a tinge of fomo. Once everything is complete, I can get to that state. I can't get there if there are things left undone. Once everything that I've perceived as necessary is done, I can truly feel at rest and then bam, I'm in flow.

Now I know that we are truly never going to get “everything” done, but for me everything defined as the general base that it takes for me to maintain: exercise, sleep, nutritious food, to do lists, and a clean apartment.

The creative process is a dance of energy and only through clearing energy can you welcome new energy in.

If this sounds too “woo woo” for you then just try it in a very real world way: the next time you are feeling overwhelmed, make time to clean your desk/apartment/car/life. Our inner worlds are inextricably tied to our outer worlds, it's rare that someone lives in chaos and mess and is not a little bit chaotic on the inside.

I do have the luxury and know-how to take care of myself in ways that foster internal peace, and so that's what I do.

Anyways, I made baked feta with tomatoes tonight and it was delicious.

Brb, putting myself in timeout.

You actually need a lot less than you think.

In fact, you might have plenty already.

I'm telling myself this too, of course.

They're always selling us more and we're always wanting more.

More doesn't seem to satisfy though, does it 🫣🤔?

Behind more there is always more, more.

It's an endless striving and for what?

Just to realize that there's still something that seems to be missing.

Which is funny because what is missing is often a felt recognition of the perfect now.

Life in this moment is perfect, rare, and over in a flash. Everything is unfolding the way that it should.

Awareness allows us to recognize life as a gift.

You have this moment as a chance to be in engagement with life in a way that improves the lives of everyone around you.

Can you enjoy it now or are you waiting for more?

Btw the other day I got a notification that it was time to meditate as I was meditating and I thought that was very te-he-he.

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This is saying a lot coming from someone who was voted “Most Opinionated” in High School.

I’m still a little opinionated.

I can have opinions on any subject, things I’ve never even heard of- I’ll make assumptions about it somehow. That’s just how our brains work, lots of thoughts and opinions piping through. This makes us think that we know what is going to happen, if it will be good or bad, and what will happen after.

But we don’t know. (So we shouldn’t get attached to any 1 thought)

Look back at anything that has ever happened, what percentage of life events happened exactly how you thought they would?

Life doesn’t work like that.

The less opinions we have about it, the better we adapt.

Our opinions and expectations set us up for failure and mental anguish.

Don’t get attached to what is happening whether you expected it or not, relax into the unknown.

Know that things will always change and you will always have to either accept it or suffer by it.

Those are the options. Accept or Suffer.

When you remain open and accept the present moment as-is, without judgement, here exists a freedom of spirit.

Life is fully awake and engaged with itself.

Some of the things that I had opinions on ended up being better and different from how I had imagined.

I used to hate the idea of living in downtown Tulsa, and in an apartment? No way. Things dramatically had to change for me when my landlord sold the house I was renting. I decided to move downtown and in an apartment as a baby-step to moving to a different city. Contrary to my previous opinions, I LOVE living downtown. It’s not perfect but I love my apartment and I feel safer downtown than I did in Midtown.

We are wrong, we don’t know what’s going to happen and I think that’s really fantastic because it can allow us to relax into what is.

Buenas noches

Learn to recognize resonance in everything and you'll always know which way to go.

It's not as complicated as it seems.

We all have a deep knowing of what is right for us but often we ignore that in exchange for what is accepted of us.

Or so we think.

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When you start to get quiet with yourself, slowly you can remove the weight of other people's opinions or perceived opinions(which we make up in our minds) about you & your life. 

And then something magical can happen, you can start living your truth, and what your energy knows is right for you.

Notice how you feel at your job, with your friends, in your hobbies, and see if you can pick up any clues as to if engaging with life in this way is good for you.

It appears as a physical sensation, we over intellectualize this all the time.

It's not that complicated, your body is telling you in your physical sensations, your energy is in a conversation with your brain. It's subtle and it takes a fair amount of self awareness to interpret these sensations but it can be done in an instant by remaining present and practicing acceptance and non-attachment.

We have to be able to notice these things.

Once we do, we can be transported on a path to joy through open awareness. We're not getting attached to what's happening, we are simply noticing and sensing and taking in that information for a later connection.

This is how I knew that I needed to try salsa dancing 💃, I would watch a live salsa band and notice how fully present and energetic being there and watching people dance made me feel. I knew that it was something that I needed to try, a part of life that wanted to be expressed through me.

Where we go wrong is that we don't allow ourselves to believe that we can do things without being perfect(or up to some alleged standard)to start. We just assume that we are too (insert anything here) to be able to learn and try something new. Commitment is good but we have to be able to try things without the fear that we'll never do it long enough to be the best. 

Just do what is calling you, give yourself permission to express yourself in a new way, with abandon.

Learn to notice when things feel good for the right reason. What lights you up energetically? What makes time stand still when you do it?

For me, that is dancing & a ton of other things because I've accepted that once I start something I might be bad at it but if I keep going, who knows what could happen and I'm going to enjoy it either way.

We are here to enjoy this one short life that we have, if you want to learn the Tuba 😅, do it!

Expressing yourself in a new way is a gift back to life, as if we are saying, I'm not afraid of this life, I'm grateful to be here and I'm going to enjoy it.

We're so small in a big boi universe, is traffic really that bad? Do you know how rare this life is?

This life is a beautiful luxury, never forget that.

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What something that you’ve wanted to try but haven’t let yourself yet?

I’m low-key thinking about trying karate or gymnastics 😅…to be continued..

When we see life the way that it is and the way things change without reverence for our plans we can begin to understand that everything is in a constant state of flux, even us.

We have seasons, personal summers, personal winters. This can help us stay the course knowing that whatever we are currently experiencing, will change, along with ourselves.

Rest in that, delight in that, be grateful for that.

When you accept the very nature of life to be a cycle of death and rebirth, fall & spring, you can accept the current season of your experience.

Accept & appreciate, but never get too attached.

Knowing that at any time, it could all change, and you can change too.

How many times have you been attached to who you thought you were and what you thought that you wanted?

Isn't it nice that things change?

Isn't it nice that you are capable of change with each passing moment?

Every moment is new for you to wake up to life and consequently yourself.

Don't waste time with words and phrases that you designed to keep yourself consistent, safe.

Be open to who you are, who you could be, and what life is unfolding before you.

Are you a full moon, waxing, waning, or new?

Everything you see is temporary, don't forget that you're not exempt from the ephemeral dance of existence.

Rejoice in that, marinade in that, let it wake you up to finding what joy and beauty you can before it's gone.

I love a full moon, I can hardly describe how seeing it makes me feel.

I have several “best moons I've seen” and the one that I was thinking of last night was from a night drive to the Grand Canyon and the full moon coming up between the mountains in Arizona.

I gasped.

I usually gasp at the moon.

I hope you are also gasping at the moon, in awe of it's beauty and the beauty of being alive on this ecstatic planet at an interesting intersection of time.

And if you can't see beauty, there's always comedy 😅🤣, more on that later.

When I was in Guatemala in April (April seems like such a world away now), the weather was forecasted to rain every day.

And on every hour that the rain was going to come, they would move it back by another hour. 100% chance at 5pm, 100% chance at 6pm, the rain continually dancing it's way around the clock.

I've never been so strung along by the climate.

I rambled about this to one bartender as I was waiting on my Caesar salad to go(if I'm ordering a Caesar salad to go, just know I'm mentally going through it). He blamed it on the technological capabilities of the Guatemalan weather men. I stood up for the weather men claiming something about how it's hard to predict weather patterns being in a valley-type situation (something I probably overheard in another valley I'd been in).

We wait for rain, and then we wait for sun, and we wait for the last freeze.

Conversations about the weather turn from this week into next, “it's getting back up to 100 next week though” or get caught in a comparison of expectations, “they said 3-5 inches, we barely got 1”.

Waiting is not what it sounds like, it is not being patient until something happens. Waiting is the opposite of that, waiting is having one foot in the next (awaited)moment, holding both this and the next moment hostage for what you expect to happen.

Waiting is being neither here or there at once.

You put yourself in a pause for what you think is going to happen, but then it does or it doesn't happen and either way you're already thinking about the next thing you're waiting on.

“Can't wait to go on vacation”

What happens if we don't wait? If we settle with what is happening now vs what could possibly happen later.

We can be pleasantly surprised by what does end up happening as if it was never in our control in the first place.

All the while, we are not missing what is here and now by thinking about what is supposed to be here, now, or what will be here, next.

I sure the hell don't want to be able to predict the future. I would have never predicted how mine is playing out and if the weathermen can't even do it 🤷‍♀️, I've got no business there.

Stay in your lane, with time. You don't know what's going to happen and tbh, it's for the best. Focus on this moment, and you'll get more or at least appreciate the last ones that you do end up having.

If you want more time, stop waiting for it and have it now.

This is as much a reminder for you as it is for myself. Since getting laid off from my tech-job I have had to remind myself not to wait or be anxious about things that haven’t happened yet. I don’t know when I’ll find the right job but I know that it will happen, I don’t need to wait for it. I can enjoy having all of this time off from work vs mentally working myself into a hole about it.

The worst things that can happen is that I’ll become homeless or dismembered or die but none of that is happening right now so I’m not going to worry about it 😅🤣.

Ok hopefully none of that will be happening at all (except death, that is certain)but as Justin Beiber once said, “Never say never”.

Housekeeping:

• I've rebranded this blog to PAPA, Practical Advice for a Philosophical Approach. I will probably rebrand it again, I'm finding my footing and you're on the ride with me.

• I have a custom domain which is also the name of my book, a reoccurring theme in my journals, A Lifetime of Doozies. This will bring you to this blog.

  • www.alifetimeofdoozies.com

• Paid subscriber only posts: I will post these once a week and they will typically be a little more unfiltered and personal. A paid subscription shows your support for my writing and thoughts and also let’s me know who’s secretly in love with me.

Let me know what you think 🫶

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I tell you this so you know that I'm not someone who sits in a tower and passes easy judgment down for the townspeople to attend to.

I'm out here fighting the battles daily in an attempt to make peace and enjoy life regardless of what fun and exciting new dramedies come into view.

Through years of challenge exposure therapy 😅🤣(a nice way to frame it), I've come out with a grit that damn near qualifies me as sandpaper.

Everyday I am smoothing the challenges, grinding down the hard edges so as to not get a splinter, to not get caught up.

And to remember that:

Challenges are impersonal and unending, they are simply the nature of life. Everyday we have the opportunity to decide how we let them affect us or transform us.

I'm not going to lay down and let the challenge steam roll over me, the only real option is to overcome and create new. Letting life move freely through me vs fighting the very nature of everything that exists.

Life bears no interest in your plans. Please understand that.

It is through our mindset that we are able to transform energy, transforming life in the process.

We will all have challenges, day cannot exist without the night. Everything is in a constant cycle of death and rebirth, what waxes also wanes.

I don't let my outside circumstances tell me how to feel, I nurture my inner world enough to be at peace regardless of what's on the news.

I have put my theories to use and know that they have worked for me.

In 2022 I was laid off from my first tech job. When I was employed I had booked a month long solo trip to Turkey, which I now had to take unemployed. The week before I left for Turkey, my car “blew up”. No job, no car, and struggling to pay off debt from a previous life.

Did I mention that my identity had also been stolen for Unemployment Insurance(this had delayed benefits by 3+ months)? I was truly a doozy-soup.

Something was different this time though - I didn't freak out. I simply just knew that it would all work out somehow.

Life would go on and I would just get through this like every other thing that I've had to get through. Tbh this challenge was a cakewalk compared to some earlier years.

And get through it I did. This time there was a noticeable difference, minimal stress. No stress because rather than fight the circumstances, I just accepted that this is a new challenge and something I have to learn from.

Stress has a very minor role in this play, and frankly doesn't add much except inflammation.

Life is moving with or without you, learn to roll with it and accept its nature and you set yourself free from the dramas that prevent people from enjoying the life they have.

We only have one life, learn to enjoy it before it's too late. This is the core tenant of the message I hope to hypnotize you with.

❤️

ps - thank you for subscribing and tuning in 🥰

pss - a song for this post.

& when we don’t have something to do, there’s always your phone.

The tiny(or large these days) boss you carry around, panicking in its absence.

We (me) are filling our ears and our eyes with something, always.

And if we are not distracted physically, we are distracted mentally - usually thinking about the future or sadly thinking about the past. I say sadly because the past is not real or here “now”, it’s simply a memory which includes biases.

When is the last time that you just sat in silence?

We tend to avoid this, no?

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There is a fine-line that I am tip-toeing of energy balance. Personal relationships are center stage. Knowing when to disassociate from getting sucked into someone else’s energy is a practice.

I think about how my energy used to be more accessible.

There are endless people that you could be friends with and spend time with, you’ll never get around to it all so you need to choose wisely.

I am fortunate to have little interest in people pleasing or not as much as a majority of people that I know and meet. We are all too concerned with making other people comfortable at our own expense.

Guarding your energy is not selfish once you know that the real way to show up for people requires your full presence, one that you cannot give if left on E.

I like to operate at 100%, I mean…who doesn’t? In order for me to operate at the level that I want it requires a lot of energy that I have to cultivate in my alone time.

Cleaning and clearing things out of my mind and energy so that when I am with people, I am really with them and not somewhere lost on my to-do list.

I am fortunate that I have the freedom to do this. Freedom that I have had to fight for by ending relationships and moving on from things that were wrong for me. Oh and my conscious decision to forego having children.

Anytime a woman mentions having made this decision, there is a shame that we haven’t had to endure the lifestyle of a mother. I am thankful everyday that I’ve had clarity and comfort about dreaming bigger for myself. I have friends that have children and they always wanted to have kids, both are fine. It doesn’t make either of us less capable, I’m just thankful that at this ripe age of America I have been lucky enough to choose the option that fits me for now.

The option that allows me to expand in many other ways and have a sense of peace and enjoyment with my life. Both roads can lead you to this but I am relieved at the one I took.

I protect my energy now so that later it can expand and become more boundless and I can give it to people more freely.

If you don’t feel like you are properly tuned into your own energetic needs, just listen. Listen to your body, notice how you feel when you’re with other people or situations. Are you feeling drained? Are you feeling more energized? Your body knows what is good for you but you have to learn to listen.

Meditation is one way to tune into the nuances of your energy balance.

In 2020 I was attending a coding bootcamp as an effort to have a career that had endless learning opportunities. One thing I learned very quickly was coding is hard! My brain is thinking about philosophy, not linked lists! Having thrust myself into a whole new way of thinking, I got stressed out early on.

At the time that I was feeling this stress I had a realization that actually I was stressed a lot either way. This challenge or a past challenge, relationships, work, and sometimes nothing. I would let nothing stress me out, nothing! It’s not even a thing that I could point to but here I was stressed out about it.

One day during the coding camp (right before Covid hit) I started to have a lil breakdown. I went to my car and I cried. I cried because it had been a lifetime of stress and at this point I had researched enough to know that stress causes disease. I was stressed about being stressed! I had enough and created a new non-negotiable for myself:

I wouldn’t leave my house without meditating.

It was a requirement for me to leave, for me to return to the coding program. It was the only way that I was going to get through it.

I knew that if I didn’t get a handle on my stress that it would never stop. I was tired of living life in a constant state of fight or flight.

And so I started meditating and guess what?

My life changed.

Do I currently meditate regularly? Not in the way that you would assume.

The funny thing about meditation is, once you learn to bring yourself back to the moment and the sensations in your body, it becomes easier to do. You can even find new ways to do it and for me, dancing is one of those ways.

Do I slip? YES, can I please make sure that everyone knows this:

Meditation does not make everything perfect in your life but through meditation you can see the perfect nature of life even when it seems otherwise.

I’m sure that you’ve read "Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, but if you haven’t I highly recommend this book. Even in the most depraved of situations, we have the ability to see joy and beauty in life.

Life has always been both, it’ll never just be highs. It is always the wave, it is always changing. Through a meditative practice we can happily bob along wherever on the wave we are.

Meditation is not “pretending that everything is great”, it’s just seeing things as they are and how they come and go, regularly.

You can count on that, you can count on things changing so why not just get comfortable with that? You can’t control it either way, might as well enjoy it, no?

🫡

Grasping this concept of letting go and just seeing what happens will dramatically change your life.

We all think that we know what is the right way to do and be but we prove ourselves wrong all the time.

It turns out that life is just life-ing’ with or without our opinions(or permissions) on how it should go.

Stop pretending to know everything. This is key.

Let’s just see what happens.

Can we see what happens, please?

Think back to a time when everything worked out just as you thought it was going to…

Coming up blank, eh?

We don’t know what’s going to happen at any point in time, we are constantly being shown this by life. Are your eyes open?

Can we relax into this knowledge and just accept it?

We’ll never plan for everything, new cars breakdown, health people die young.

Let us relax a bit and enjoy our lives please. Recognize the frail and fleeting nature of life so you can be free to enjoy what life you have now.

More boats, sun, and jazz as time allows. (whatever “boats, sun, and jazz” is for you)

😘