Self Love Epiphany

Here’s a game-changing epiphany I had in the shower a few days ago: 

Whenever things aren’t going well, I always ask myself:

How can I do better? 

How can I do more, work harder, push myself farther? 

While some people thrive under the push, I do not. I am a creature of naps and wood walks, I am a sprite in a world that values the nine to five. Pushing, while I can and have done it, makes my whole system collapse in a pile of harried Why Does It Have To Be This Way? 

I'm a bit of a princess, to be honest.

But asking that question has a subtle energetic implication that in order to be worthy, in order to be loved, I need to do more. I need to be better.

Feeling like you need to be better - whether in your own head, in a relationship, or at work - is a goddamn soul killer. 

NO MORE SOUL KILLING PLZ. 

Instead - and here’s the shampoo-inspired epiphany - I’m starting to ask myself:

“How can I love myself in this place?” 

How can I love myself when it looks like I won’t be able to pay rent? 

How can I love myself when I’m in the middle of a breakup? 

How can I love myself when I’m having trouble getting anything done? 

How can I love myself when it takes a buttered trowel to shovel me into my jeans? 

How can I love myself when my financial spreadsheets don’t look the way I think they should?

How can I love myself when it feels like everything is collapsing? 

For me, the way to love myself in this is to remember that I am worthy and lovable no matter the circumstance. 

We are all lovable and worthy, simply because we’re alive. But we’ve been so rigorously trained out of that idea that it requires some rewiring to remember it. 

I love myself by being gentle with myself. By loving my legs for how well they work, even when they strain denim. By loving the energy of money and how it’s always taken care of me. By loving the roller coaster ride because it’s always taking me somewhere better even when, in the moment, it feels like somewhere much worse.

By loving myself just goddamn because. 

Of course this “How can I love myself?” question has a different answer for everyone. 

Just follow what feels best for you in each moment. If an action feels good, take it. If thinking a thought feels good, think it. If something you want requires something you resist, feel into it and ask how you can make it easier on yourself. Ask how it could be fun. 

As we learn to be gentler with ourselves, we learn to be gentler and more open in the world. And when we're in the world radiating the love we already feel for ourselves, everything changes.

Hoo-fucking-ray! 

In the meantime, be good do you. Do it however you’re guided. You know what’s best for you, always. 

Magic Requires Space

Making space can be one of the hardest things for smart, driven people. What do you mean, space? Won’t the world crash into some unseen barrier if I stop working? Shouldn’t I be doing something?

Nope. Not always. Sometimes when you give yourself some time to just sit on the deck in the sun, mind blank, the problem your brain has been wrangling will suddenly snap into focus.

Sometimes it doesn’t, but you still got to sit outside in the sun rather than glaring angrily at your computer and a project that refuses to cooperate.

I’m in big building mode right now and it is vaguely terrifying. And by “vaguely terrifying” I mean MOSTLY TERRIFYING.

I am terrified. Sometimes when humans get terrified, they freeze. So do deer. But, unlike deer, when I’m terrified I get to crawl onto the couch with Sally and watch season four of Mozart in the Jungle. Instead of, you know, getting shot by big game hunters.

But the terror actually feels similar. When you step outside your comfort zone, your brain immediately yells UNSAFE BAD IDEA GO BACK. And will flood you with fear and adrenaline and, if you’re a delicate peony like me, sometimes you collapse.

Onto aforementioned couch.

(At least I’m dog-sitting right now, so I’m being kept company in my terror by Homer, the biggest floofer that ever floofed. When I got here, I spent a solid seven minutes singing about how fluffy he was. Homer was not impressed.)

On Monday, I was accidentally still in Napa, sitting on a deck in the sun, not expecting anything of myself. It seems that when I don’t expect anything of myself, it unlocks that flow state and suddenly I’m having a merry time creating things on my phone and eating truffle fries.

I’m trying to hack this quirk. Because my aim is to be in that glorious soul-flow most of the time, just letting things unfold in a way that also makes me a lot of money.

But apparently my subconscious is too smart to be fooled by me not expecting anything of myself in order to be massively productive. Or maybe such convoluted hijinks are too much and my subconscious just rolls its eyes and wanders off to do something else.

I think I’ve spent a lot of time suppressing my Type A drive because I have trouble turning it off. Once the switch gets flicked, I push myself until I collapse, and I know that's not the way I want to live. 

So what's the choice here? Because I believe our choice is the most powerful tool we have. 

I choose to allow it to be easy. I choose to let my business be guided by my joy. I choose to show up as me and have that be more than enough. I choose to allow myself to be visible so that anyone who needs or wants my work can find it. 

If that looks like sitting on the couch with a fluffy dog and watching TV instead of creating the business thing I told myself I'd make today, that gets to be perfect. 

I choose to create space for magic. Maybe that's all it takes. 

Where's my Utopian Farmhouse and Baby Goat So I can Stop thinking about all this stuff already?

I hate selling things. Hate it hate it hate it. From my days as an elementary school student being required to sell things door-to-door for whatever wrapping paper drive was happening, I DESPISED it. I don’t even like answering my phone when people call me, much less WALKING UP TO PEOPLE’S DOORS AND ASKING THEM TO BUY SOMETHING. Oh my god. Even now, over thirty years later, it makes my stomach clench up.

In fact, I just had to stop typing and go sit down and sit with all the sticky awfulness that was rising up. Who knew Girl Scout cookies would result in emotional wounds decades later?

I love my work. Love it, love it, love it.

But in order to actually do it, I need to sell it. Stupid universe and its stupid sense of humor.

In Amber’s Perfect World (you should build one too, I highly recommend visiting whenever this world pisses you off), you would just show up at my farmhouse, knock on the yellow door with some nice roast beef sandwiches and iced tea and we would hang out under a big tree and do whatever needed to be done with your energy or life or questions that day. A baby goat would probably be wandering around and you would ask if you could hold it and I would say of course and you would walk home happy and calm and delighted. And if I needed a massage or the radiator leak on my car fixed, I could just show up at someone else’s house with a chicken and get the same treatment.

But since that is not currently the world we live in, some form of sale needs to be made for me to channel and teach and work with magical people. And, ironically, the bigger the dollar sign, the more transformation is available. (That’s an energy thing, not a greed thing. Though my greed probably can’t be denied, especially when it comes to red shoes, cupcakes, and trips to see giraffes.)

Selling things feels like convincing people of something.

I don’t want to convince anyone of anything ever. That sounds exhausting. It is exhausting. I know from all the times I've tried to force myself to do it. I don’t want to have to convince a man to commit to me, I don’t want to convince people they need what I do, I don’t want to convince myself that any of that convincing is necessary or useful.

Trusting that everyone knows what they need and what's best for them just seems like basic human respect. You know you, you know what you want and need, and I trust you to take care of yourself in whatever way best suits you. If it feels like I would be helpful, fan-flippin’-tastic. Otherwise, we can wave at each other from across the room and go on our merry way.

Now, there’s a lot of deeper stuff in this whole selling thing. Sticky old stories, fear of not being worthy, stress absorbed from my father’s sales job, garden-variety resistance, blah blah blah.

Ultimately, I want to approach my entire life from a place of joy and ease and peace. I think this is something we all deserve and can all have. But that means re-wiring our brains in whatever way our particular life and history and cerebellum requires.

I imagine there are ways around this. But for me, there seems to be some magic in working through whatever makes me despise this sales process. 

Since I do believe that the answer exists from the moment we ask the question, I am asking the question: “I DESPISE SELLING THINGS AND WORRY THAT I’M NOT WORTHY OF RECEIVING ANYTHING FOR THIS AND SHOULD JUST BE DOING IT FROM THE KINDNESS OF MY HEART (from a refrigerator box on the side of the road, obviously) WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE A THING? WHERE IS MY UTOPIAN FARMHOUSE WITH BABY GOATS?” I’m asking it of myself, obviously, because I’m the only one who has my answer. You are not required to come up with an answer, although if you know of any baby goats who need to be adopted, I'm in the market. 

I know the answer exists and it will show up and then I will feel so much better about this whole process and so much more supported in this weird talking-to-unicorns and channeling-guidance thing that I do.

In the meantime, I will think of all the things I want to do when people knock on my door and ask for them. And watch videos of baby goats, preferably snuggling stuffed animals. 

Dear Empath,

If you’re an empath (or any super sensitive human), here, let me give you a hug. 

Cause that shit is hard.

I basically didn’t get out of bed for actual years. 

I Netflix binged like a seasoned pro, scarfed Pringles and gummy bears like I was being paid by the pound, and - well, honestly - kind of loved life. Except for the part where I was clinging to financial solvency by a thread because 1) energy and 2) I didn’t believe I was allowed to have money if all I was doing was taking care of myself and writing whatever made me happy. 

(NEW WORLD ORDER: I AM ALLOWED TO HAVE MONEY - LOTS OF MONEY! - IF ALL I DO IS TAKE CARE OF MY ENERGY AND WRITE AND MAKE WHATEVER FEELS FUN.) 

(Sorry for shouting. I’m doing my best to rewire my brain and sometimes that requires yelling over the old stories.) 

I spent so much time curled up in bed with my stuffed therapy otter because I was so exhausted from trying to carry the pain of the world. 

Remember Marley’s ghost at the beginning of A Christmas Carol, carrying all those chains behind him? Yeah, it’s like that. Only empaths carry all that clanking weight because they’re trying to be good people. 

It’s a hell of a pickle. Empaths without boundaries are in for a rocky ride on this planet.

We tend to think we’re required to heal the world by taking on its pain. So we do. Pass a homeless woman on the street, pick up some stray trauma and deep loneliness that we carry for years. If our partner is angry - whether it’s at us or something entirely unrelated - and we start feeling that anger too, thinking it’s our anger, and acting on it. Oops. 

You can make a hell of a mess when you act from someone else’s feelings rather than your own. Often, it takes empaths a lot of practice to know which is which. 

Vacuuming up all the emotion in our vicinity takes an impressive toll - on our energy, on our relationships, on our ability to do the things we love. 

My sensors were fried from trying to process other people’s emotions my entire life. 

So, bed. It seems reasonable. And often felt like the only viable option. 

I was in a very slow and profound healing process for a long time. I was cleaning up a lifetime of accumulated emotional baggage, toting it out to sea and tossing it overboard. Leaving it on the ground, feeling it leach out of me as I lay in the grass. Engaging in the slow grind of learning what was my pain and what belonged to others. 

But here’s the good news, if you are an empath on this journey. 

IT GETS BETTER. 

(I’m not yelling at you, I’m yelling at the story in your head.) 

What you clear makes room for joy. For peace. For inspiration.

Where you set boundaries gives you fresh energy to do the things you want to do, experience what you want to experience, create what you want to create. 

Doing this work is hard, but it’s worth it. 

You get to engage in unabashed napping. You get to learn who you are and what you feel, rather than being constantly overwhelmed by everyone else's hulk-smash emotions. You get to step into the person you always knew you were meant to be, you just couldn't quite get there and you weren't sure why. 

There is nothing wrong with you. There never was. You were just learning how to operate your superpowers. 

Love, 

Amber

Phoenix Rises and Coughs Up Magic

Last week was a phoenix week, and, boy, the phoenix does not fuck around. 

It felt like everything was being torched into oblivion: my family, my business, my bank account, my relationship, my energy, even my car. 

Burn, baby, burn. 

What I’ve noticed about those deeply uncomfortable, everything-is-disintegrating times is that, once you give up the illusion that you have any say in your life whatsoever and breathe through every awful feeling - sometimes that's when you get the biggest breakthroughs. 

My week featured exhaustion, being ready to throw in the towel on this business I love, knowing a final breakup was imminent, bad-news-of-the-your-car-is-dead variety, shooters in my town, and my bank account yelling code red before gasping and dying a pitiful death.

All I could do was throw up my hands and surrender. By Tuesday, I was still clinging to my shreds of control. By Thursday afternoon, I had given up completely. 

By Saturday? It felt like everything had shifted. Even my car was revived. 

Sometimes when you let your life burn to the ground, you create space for rebirth. 

It’s not comfortable. In fact, it’s downright terrifying. It feels like everything I depended on for stability, for safety, was crashing down around my ears. 

In these moments, the world is asking you to trust, to let go of control. Mostly by wresting away the illusion that you ever had control. 

Trust becomes the only option if you don’t want to a) find yourself rocking in the fetal position or b) hitch a ride with the first spaceship off this planet. (Sometimes you rock in the fetal position anyway because that's the only option.) 

When you trust, when you truly surrender - maybe in a way you’ve never surrendered before - something opens up. 

My whole life shifted in a day. I even got my beloved car back.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is let it all burn, knowing that you are safe, you are supported, no matter what it looks or feels like in the moment. 

As humans, we have a limited perspective. We can't see the path ahead of us. The path behind us is littered with false beliefs and skewed memories and wounded stories. All we have is the present moment. 

When I remember to step out of my head and just breathe through whatever's happening, with curiosity and faith that everything will ultimately be okay, that gives life just enough room to cough up some magic.

Then you get to stand on a mountaintop, spread your arms in triumph, because you are a goddamn phoenix rising. 

Also, you still have a car.