A Love Letter To Writers

Dear Writers, 

The world needs you desperately.

Your words matter. It may feel like you’re just sitting in a chair, clacking away at your laptop, but you are doing more than you will ever know. You are changing lives. You are shifting energy — yours and that of your readers. You are offering hope where there was none. You are a spark where darkness once reigned. Your stories offer relief and your ideas offer wisdom and your willingness to shine a flashlight on the murkiest edges of your humanity shows us that we are all murky — and we all have light.

Your life and your work and your art are required — now more than ever. Your writing matters deeply to the quiet souls who will never reach out to you, because they’re clinging to your sentences like life rafts. Your writing matters to those who do reach out but are less kind than your tender artistic soul might hope, because they’re so lost in their own misery they don’t see the beacon you’re shining for what it is — until many years later when something you once penned comes to them in a broken moment and offers a crack of illumination to their midnight. Your words matter to the friends and family and readers who adore you, both for yourself and for the words you give them for experiences they can’t explain. You bring hope, connection, healing, and light to those who can’t always find it for themselves.

Your words matter. If something is hiding in you that you’ve been longing to type out for others, then you are a writer — whether you have five readers or five million. And you have genius.

Don’t be alarmed by the word “genius.” Throwing that word around can be a trigger. Utter the g-word and every brain gremlin that ever assembled around your frontal lobe to cackle over your perceived failures and missed targets shows up with pitchforks to spear you. Roasting you over the flame, they howl so loudly that the voice of your wiser self — the one who knows you cannot fail, that you are whole, that you have worlds to offer — is drowned out.

But genius you are. Because you are here, because you have lived and you have stories and heartbreak and a command of words to illuminate what others can only feel. But if you’re not feeling your own genius right at this very moment, let me give you a spark.

{Strikes match.}

See that small light, right here in front of you?

It’s faith.

Faith that I will hold for you until you can hold it for yourself.

Follow this small light.

As you do, trust that other sparks will appear — sometimes off in the distance but often right in front of you.

Follow those small lights, those small sparks, and you will get where you need and want to go.

You will find your path.

And realize you’ve been on it all along.

I truly — madly, deeply, right-down-to-my-very-soul — believe you are here right now, reading these words, because you are a genius. Deeply gifted and full of potential and bright love tempered by messy humanity. You love what you do, you feel compelled and pulled and drawn by something you rarely understand — and you are so deeply needed in this world.

I’ve become obsessed with helping other writers (and artists and creators and makers and dreamer-doers) because I believe that together we can help each other learn our secrets — the secrets of our stories, our souls, our own innate wisdom. I’ve logged many years and many miles down this path but, as we all know, that path never ends. It’s always stretching out before us, ready to show us something new, something surprising. In one twist the path can shatter our world. But as we move down the next curve, our world is set to rights and our faith restored.

Sometimes with just one small match.

We all have the key that unlocks our genius. Maybe it was buried years ago and now we need to dig for it. Maybe we tossed into a hydrangea bush and walked away for awhile. Maybe you just need to try your key in a new door.

The key to our art is the key to ourselves. The key to ourselves is the key to our art.

In my experience, the key to life is simply feeling better. However we can from where ever we are. Learning how to feel better peels away the layers and shows us new doors and reminds us where that damn hydrangea bush is.

Art is meant to help people sob to their favorite country song or watch a movie and hope or read a story that gives them courage to confront what feels insurmountable. Artists make that stuff to help the world feel better. But artists need help feeling better too.

I want to help you to feel better — about yourself, your art, your path through the world, and the progress you’re making.

As we begin recognizing ourselves as the whole, loved, and profoundly human beings we are, we watch our writing soar. We write the pieces of our lives and souls that we long to write — and we help shift the world. Because that’s what writing can do if you’re willing to know yourself, dig deep into your soul, pull out the demons hiding in your rib cage and the gremlins creeping about your skull. It’s not always easy, it’s certainly not always fun, but I promise you — if you keep moving, keep taking care of yourself, keep creating, and keep digging into the messy bits of your life and soul — it will get fun.

Instead of constantly pushing, you’ll feel pulled. Instead of wondering what’s next or what do I do now or how do I do it — you’ll allow your intuition and a deep sense of quiet knowing to guide you. And it will feel right and propel you farther and faster than you would’ve dreamed possible.

This is my vision for us and I would love to hold it for you. Until you’re ready to hold it for yourself — and for others. Or, if you’ve been doing the holding — for so many people, for so long — let me pick it up and carry it for awhile. You’ve been pushing that boulder up the hill for long enough. It’s time to let it crest the hill and be swept up in the joy that comes from chasing that boulder, laughing as it picks up speed, careening through grassy knolls and ancient redwoods and past startled elephants. As we’re pulled by the work we’re here to do, we find the peace that comes from claiming the path we know is ours.

Love and all the matches I have,

Amber

We are all bigger and brighter than we know.

We are all built for more than we can currently envision. We are all reaching for the place where what we can't yet imagine has popped like magic into our lived reality. 

We're all just looking for magic. For love. For truth. For peace. For what we feel - down to our bones, down to our souls - we're truly meant for. The irony, of course, is that magic exists inside of us, fully formed, just waiting for us to dig deep enough to see it. We already have more access to more love than any human can hold. We have access to truth and peace in every moment.

I believe this more than I've ever believed anything. 

But I am also just a person in my own body and my own experience and my own brain and sometimes what I know to be true gets clouded in a haze of humanity. We're all in a haze of humanity. Those who blast through the haze create genius. Those who peel away the wispy layers of fog reveal brilliance. Those who make it their sole mission to know who they are realize that they're already everything they ever hoped or dreamed. 

So here's a toast. To blasting, to peeling, to lurching and soaring our way through this human experience. To becoming so fully human that we feel the divine and lifting so high into the divine that we realize how deeply lucky we are to be human. 

Whatever's holding you back, blast through it. Whatever's asking for your courage, show up as the mighty being you are. Whatever wants to be expressed so strongly that it burns you up if you don't let it out, commit yourself completely and fully to that creation. Commit yourself, know yourself, be yourself. For you are mighty and brilliant and strong and a blazing star through this human plane. 

 

Cycles of Receiving

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

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

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

Fear Is Only a Shadow

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

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

Fear wants to stifle. Wisdom longs to share.

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

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

Trusting Yourself

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

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

Drink water. Dream bigger.

What is needed today? 

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

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

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

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

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

Life-Shifting Questions

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What is needed today? 

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

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

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

You Are Worth All The Soup

A teacher gave me an assignment a few months ago and I would tattoo it on my forehead if needles didn’t make me squawk like an indignant chicken:

“Your only job now is to raise your vibration.”

For those who don’t speak hippie, raising your vibration basically means turning up the dial on your joy and happiness. Even turning it up one notch above awful fulfills the assignment. Feeling whatever you’re suppressing because you’re scared or don’t have time or just don’t wanna fulfills the assignment. Stepping away from something frustrating to refill the tank fulfills the assignment.

This metaphor also works with apples. 

This metaphor also works with apples. 

As I focus on my new project for writers, I'm realizing just how crucial this kind of self-care is. How crucial every kind of self-care is. I'm getting really noisy about it, actually.

I'm even getting mad. Mad at myself for being so resistant to the idea for so long. Mad at the world for telling us we aren't worth this kind of care, that everyone else deserves it before we do, that taking deep and loving care of ourselves means we're being selfish and self-indulgent. I'm not quite sure how this crossed over from "good idea" to "thing that makes me want to yell and hit things because so few people believe this is true," but here we are. (I haven't hit anything yet, but I reserve the right.)

It just makes me want to curl up and cry. When did we collectively decide we weren't worth taking care of ourselves? When did we decide that our worth was contingent on what we put out, rather than who we are and how we feel? When did we forget that everything we send out into the world is rooted deep within us and if we send things into the world from a place of need and lack and disconnection, our world will absorb that message until it's passed on unconsciously to our friends and our children and everyone else who comes after us?

NOPE. STOP. NO MORE. Because you are worth all the gentleness, all the love, all the hikes, all the naps, all the massages, all the yoga, all the emotional tending, all the however-you-choose-to-define-it self-care you can muster up. You are worth all the soup.

Soup?

Yes, soup. It's one of my favorite parables explaining the idea of growth and self-care. There's a table. You and all your friends and family are sitting around this table. You're all starving. From the ceiling descends a bowl of soup. It lands right in front of you. You are the only one who's allowed to dip your spoon into the soup. No one else can have any soup.

Here's the big question: Do you eat the soup?

Yes. You eat the soup.

Many of us fight this concept, especially if we're accustomed to believing that others are more important than we are or that belonging is more important than our own wellbeing. In some ways, it stems from a good place. We care for others. We want to be with them, we want to understand them, we want to feel connected to them. We all have a deep-seated desire to belong. Historically, we know we need to be part of the herd to survive. Stragglers get eaten by peckish mountain lions, after it chases you around for awhile to get you nice and salty.

You starving to death doesn't help your friends and family. Not even a little bit. Your pain doesn't remove their pain. You being in pain only adds to the pain of the room.

Yes, there's some guilt associated with taking deep and tender care of yourself. Because suddenly you're feeling better than people around you. But the guilt isn't because you aren't taking care of those people - you can't take care of them. They can only take care of themselves. The guilt stems from taking care of yourself when those around you aren't.

Just as your pain would only add to the pain of the room, your happiness also adds to the room. If you're in a happy space, that lightness will lift those around you, even if they don't recognize it. If you're taking care of your body and your emotions, it will show others that they're allowed to do the same. Your joy will show others that joy is possible.

Eat the damn soup. Feel better. Because feeling better is the magic bullet and I will never shut up about it.

Self-Care for Humans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Stories

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

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

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

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

The Power of Five Minutes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let Yourself Be Surprised

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

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

Everything is waiting for you.

Where Money and Emotion Tango

So many of our human issues are tied up in money. Both on a global scale and on a deeply personal one. Money in and of itself is a neutral force. But money easily absorbs whatever emotions we want to plaster on top of it. Money represents so much to us - love, power, success, freedom. Any one of us can have any one of these things without money, but we throw money up as a barrier to what we want. I know I sure do.

My tendency to under earn throughout my adult life has affected my self-esteem and my belief in my talent and my success. At times, to an unreasonable degree. Lots of people slam face first into this particular brick wall - especially artists.

When tying my self-worth up in my belief that lack of money equals lack of talent, I also had to admit that I never really invested in myself or in the kind of writing I truly want to do. Sure, you don't necessarily need money to do this, but you do need energy. To be fair, much of my work over the past five years was to get me to the point where I felt like I could invest in myself this way. I've been blogging for almost ten years. I wrote stories I cared about. I used words to preserve pieces of myself and my history. I did my best to adjust my lifestyle so that my energy was solid and my sensitivities managed. When I hit rock bottom, I did what I could to lurch upward. When I hit rock bottom again, I flailed and then I found help in the upward lurch. Some writers need writing to find themselves, some writers need to find themselves before they can truly write. I needed both. Not that we are ever found, of course, that's kind of a dumb phrase. We're always here, but maybe we're buried. Or we've slipped away from ourselves, our intuition, our deep knowing of who we are and what we're here to do.

I spent a lot of my thirties hunting for myself, digging through the layers until I found my center. Then I lost my center, found it,  lost it, then I found it again. So it goes with center-finding. Balance is never rock solid, it's always at the mercy of the wind. Until you realize that the wind can't blow you any farther than you choose to go.

But one of the things I still struggle with is money. Lucky for me, now I can struggle with money while actually having some. When my dad died, he left $40,000 buried in the woods (true story) and a piece of property that we decided to sell. Buried treasure doesn't last long when you have hospital bills and mortuaries to pay, but the property sale helped me get to the place where I always believed I should be at this age. Namely, solvent.

Some of me felt guilty that it took a parent dying to get me there. Sometimes it felt like blood money, but most of me didn't feel that bad about that. I was perfectly willing to look at it as a paycheck for dealing with the pain, anguish, stress, grief, and crazy details of death more or less gracefully. (Mostly less.) What I felt guilty about was that the money made so much of a difference to me. Shouldn't I have gotten there on my own? Shouldn't I have figured out money by my mid-30s? Shouldn't I have been more frugal? A parent's death shouldn't be a get-out-of-debt-free card. Maybe yes, maybe no. But spiritual counter-arguments of the "we all have our own paths and timelines" persuasion fall on deaf ears when you're eager to feel terrible about yourself.

Money guilt, even though I'm not in the same dire $257-away-from-being-flat-broke straits as I once was, still rears its goblin head to stick out its tongue at me. Especially when I choose not to earn it.

A few months ago, I did a scary thing. When my last two big freelance contracts ended at almost precisely the same time, rather than engage in my usual six stages of coping - panic, worry, panic again, get over it, write things that excite me for awhile, hunt for a new client, find a new client - I opted to skip the panic part.

Instead, I decided to buy myself two months to write what I wanted to write, to work on projects that fed me rather than drained me, to both invest deeply in work I want to do and take the adult's version of summer vacation. Three days after I made the decision, I finished my book of animal stories. Vindication! My choice was the right one! Tainted by only the smallest amount of guilt. Yes, part of the deal of buying myself two months of writing was that I wasn't allowed to feel bad about it, but the gremlins devour good intentions like candy corn. Then a few weeks later, my channeled blog was born. Now I'm creating some stuff for writers who want to learn how to use their intuition to make the whole process of writing easier and more fun and hopefully more likely to wow the world with their mad genius. (Do you know any writers who'd be into this? Send 'em my way! Are you a writer who'd be into this?) It's fun and I love it and now I get to love rather than dread sitting down to work.

But now I'm at the end of my two months. I deeply want to keep investing in my own work and I do have the means to do it, but the Real Adults Make Money (Preferably Lots of Money) belief is tough to elude. So are the gremlins of "this is self-indulgent" and "who are you to think you can make money doing what you actually want to do?" and the "lucky you, you certainly couldn't do this if you had a family to take care of!" All I can do is confront them head on and decide what's truly important to me. While doing my best to untangle my own issues around money and trust in myself and my abilities.

My issues with money are mostly just my issues with myself - where I don't trust myself, where I don't trust my work, where I don't trust the world. But trust is a muscle. All you can do is lean on it and hope it grows stronger.

What To Do When You're Cranky

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

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

Quest for Romantic Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Respect

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

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

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

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

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

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

When You Feel Like You Have To Hustle For Worthiness

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

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

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

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

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

If You Want Something New

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

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

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

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