My Decision To Blog Regularly in 2021 Turned Into An Ode To Pixar

I just finished watching Pixar’s new movie Soul — amazing how quickly my fresh No-TV-Until-Dark resolution met its downfall — and one of the things I loved was how closely some of it mirrors my own other-dimensional journeys. Or visions, I suppose. Because I see this stuff without leaving the comfort of my bedroom — something I have a new appreciation for, after being apprised of the other options. [spoiler alert] 1) falling into a manhole, dying, trying to beat the Great Beyond, ending up in the body of a cat, and eventually proving so inspirational that you get a second chance or 2) being a sign-twirler at the peak of your craft with truly excellent facial hair.

Number 2 would actually be awesome, except I am firm enough in my own gender stereotypes that I don’t personally want facial hair.

I’ve never seen my own visions depicted in cartoon form is what I’m saying — and it was just as amazing as you’d expect. I wish a Pixar team could animate the other things in my head, especially the unicorn and peacock parade that shows up when I need some swagger. (Peacocks know how to swagger, if you ever need a boost.)

Here are those It Felt Like Pixar Was Animating The Inside of My Head visions, if you’re curious:

1. When I was young, I asked what god was and the answer I got was that all the people are sparks of light and we all merge back into one great light.

2. When I go in to deal with my fears as an adult, I often find myself in a black space, meeting what look like huge black monsters echoing my own internal negative talk until I deal with them in some manner and they dissolve into black dust.

It was fun to see what felt like the inside of my own head on the screen is what I’m saying.

I also had one of those moments where I thought that if I ever got a real job again, Pixar is the only employer I’d be interested, even though the storywriting and visioning is a job for the top of the totem pole and I don’t have any useful skills that would get me in the door. Having animated movies play in my mind on a regular basis isn’t something you can put on a resume. It’s kind of like saying, “I doodle, so put me in charge of animation. No really it’ll be fine.”

In between eating tacos for lunch and procrastinating sitting back down at my desk, I pondered what about the Pixar ethos resonates with me and how I can shoehorn that into my own life and work, rather than being annoyed that I can’t animate my own brain.

Here’s what I got: I love how the movies are always fun and funny, with an element of pure appreciation for life. But what I love most is what someone once told me is the Pixar devotion to the “fuck you in the heart” moment. Yes to that. I love that moment, in movies, in books, in the rare instances one appears in my actual life unaided by a screen.

As I’m writing this, I’m staring out my office window - the hills are cloaked in mist, grey clouds are moving through and two hawks are suspended over the valley of trees. Watching this with Trent Reznor’s Great Beyond music plays. (Just Us, to be precise.)

It was one of those: What an extraordinary world we live in, what a joy it is to just be alive moments. Since I’m in between fucked-in-the-heart moments, it will do nicely.

Recoding Codependence

In six months, I went from not being sure what the word “codependent” even meant to realizing that unbridled codependence riddled every aspect of my existence.

Here’s what codependence boils down to in my experience: Needing someone else to be okay so that you can be okay.

My codependent tendencies exploded in my face when I moved in with my boyfriend. Sharing a home with a partner will shine a massive search light on any hidden proclivities for Needing Everyone Else To Be In a Great Mood and Also Not Mad At Me Before I Can Feel Safe. Yikes.

Here’s the problem with that: When we put all our power and happiness and wellbeing in the hands of someone else, even someone who loves us, we are as doomed as the Stark family in Game of Thrones.

Because even when that person has our best interests at heart, they have their own life and issues and happiness to attend to - they can’t be on the hook for ours too.

I've spent the last six months wresting all of my relationships from the grip of my codependent patterns and yes, it’s just as much fun as it sounds. Nothing escaped this pattern, not my relationship with my boyfriend, my family, my friends, my business, my clients. I was even being codependent with the universe.

If you’re wondering how codependence with the universe sounds, picture this being shrieked into the infinite starry void:

WHY AREN’T YOU GIVING ME WHAT I NEED? I’M DOING EVERYTHING I CAN, SO MAKE THINGS BETTER ALREADY! COME ON, UNIVERSE!

I’ll say it again: Yikes.

My codependence was flavored with a savior complex, resentment, and more than a few pity parties. Honestly, this has kind of torched my life. Because no one wants to be around that, let me tell you. I didn’t even want to be around it.

Here’s Codependence Zinger #1: It all comes from a good place. (Except maybe all those pity parties. Calm down, Amber.)

We want others to be happy. We want to help and will often do so at the expense of our own wellbeing.

I wanted my boyfriend to be happy, so I bent over backward to tend to his mood, which mostly just pissed both of us off. Our relationship didn’t improve until my mantra became AMBER’S NUMBER ONE! AMBER’S NUMBER ONE! (He gets to be number one too, so it works out.)

Here’s Codependence Zinger #2: Our culture rewards codependence.

We’re praised for putting other people’s happiness above our own. We’re lauded for being responsible and productive human beings, something that's often at the expense of our own health and happiness. This is what Good People do.

My wild ride through the thickets of codependence makes sense: I needed to come into a fuller experience of my own power and my own ability to self-source, without relying on my boyfriend or my friends or my clients or the universe to make me feel better or confident or loved or safe. This is a big part of my work and what I teach, and so I need to be a goddamn master at it. Sometimes when you’re blazing a trail, you get slapped in the face with branches.

Because everything we want and need - safety, confidence, power, abundance, love - comes from within us. Which is both a relief and an annoyance because “you already have everything you need!” (whew, okay) but also “hey! then why doesn’t it feel like it?”

Catching codependent patterns is like unraveling a rainbow sweater by only pulling out the red yarn and leaving the rest of the sweater intact. It’s not easy. I had to get help from someone who knows her way around addiction and codependence. I spent months relentlessly catching my patterns and recoding my brain to recognize myself as worthy of all the attention I was sending outside of myself, learning to fill my own cup so I could give from the overflow rather than being a parched husk of a vessel that’s no good to anyone.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. And I get to keep working on it, so wily codependence doesn’t sneak back in on a technicality.

But the reward is being happy, no matter what’s going on around me. Or at least at peace, if happiness is a bit of a stretch that day. Just because my boyfriend has a bad day doesn’t mean I need to have a bad day or fret for hours about what I’ve done wrong. Just because my business is going through transition doesn’t mean I need to suffer. Just because the world is going through seismic shifts doesn’t mean I need to destroy my mental health.

Who knew that making "ME FIRST" the mantra would fix everything in my life? No, this particular mantra probably isn't the answer for everyone, but if you’re reading this, it may be the answer for you.

ME FIRST GODDAMNIT has upgraded every aspect of my life. It’s healed my relationships, including my relationship with myself and the divine, it’s healing my business, my body, and my relationship with money. It's amplifying my self-esteem and my work in the world, and it just feels better.

Ideally, I’d wrangle up some snappy ending to reward you for making it through this epic number of paragraphs, but I’d rather go make some tea and watch the sunrise, so ME FIRST!

Taking a Stick of Dynamite to Sad Island

Is there a Facebook group for women who want kids but whose partners are terrified-slash-ambivalent-slash-negative about the prospect of small humans? Because I can’t keep breaking up with people over this. But my friends mostly have kids or don't want kids, I end up feeling like I’m on my own sad island and I’ve had about enough of Sad Island for one lifetime.

I used to talk more about being sad. It felt important to be transparent about my feeling status, especially on social media, that bastion of Best Face Forward and My Autumn Decor Is Prettier Than Yours. But then I felt like I was just marinating in misery and it was all I talked about and who wants to be an instagram downer? So I stopped. But then my entire life stopped too. Because if I’m not expressing myself, I’m not happy, and if I’m not happy the mechanics of my existence grind to a halt.

So I’ll cry over baby pictures on Facebook and contemplate blowing up my entire life - again - over this issue and then ultimately decide that’s a terrible idea and go back to whatever I was doing, probably eating grapes or contemplating the nature of cats.

Even though my 42-year-old biological clock wants to set the world on fire over this issue, the rest of me just wants to relax about the whole baby thing. Yeah, I want one. Yeah, I cry when I see pregnant women. But also, I really like free time. I really like my boyfriend. Maybe I can just let life take its course without having to strong-arm it into doing what I want. Maybe I can just focus on other things that make me happy. Like finishing a novel, and contemplating the nature of cats.

The 2020 Pantone Color for Fall is "Smoke"

Petaluma has been filled with smoke since August. I’ve gotten used to breathing it. I’ve also started waking up at 4 a.m. again, which is the time connected with the lungs in Chinese medicine. So I place my hands over my lungs and send them love, I feel them filling up with air I’ve purified through the strength of my not inconsiderable will, and I imagine them filling with gold light.

I also bought some herbal sleep drops that I’m taking three times a day, because there’s hippie and then there’s hippie. (Herbal sleep drops are hippie, filing your lungs with golden light is hippie. In case you were wondering.)

I don’t know how new parents do it. Two weeks of five or six hours of broken sleep a night and I can barely function. And it’s not like I’m also caring for an infant. I’m just … not sleeping. Not sleeping means watching Netflix or reading a book or lying in bed praying for sleep to take me, not feeding a tiny wailing human or praying for sleep to take it.

Despite the hazy, wildfire-filled air, I’m so happy it’s fall. I’m pulling out my sweaters and painting my nails autumnal shades and putting pie spice in my coffee. While my boyfriend yells at the maple leaves that fall on his head, I’m super excited to pull out my furry boots and put them on my feet.

Work feels like it’s shifting, I feel like I’m shifting, but I’m not yet sure what we’re shifting into. I’m doing my best to just exist happily in the mystery and do whatever feels right in the moment, rather than worry about it incessantly as per my usual. The thing I do know: Writing has been feeling like a big focus again, after years of putting all my energy into the channeling / healing / and other intuitive hippie pursuits. Now I just want to write atmospheric novels like Night Circus and Candy Queen and take naps. While this particular pendulum swings wildly back and forth (one month it’s on one side of the spectrum, the next month is the polar opposite), it feels like I’m supposed to be channeling healing and guidance just for me right now, and not so much for everyone else. It feels like I’m meant to be going through my video archives and receiving all the embedded channeling and healing for me, and maybe repurposing what I’ve already created to share with people in a new way. That feels really fun right now. Like my creation is supposed to be sharing stories and experiences rather than channeling.

It feels like I just need to choose what I want and follow it - subtracting worry and over-thinking and weird self-esteem nonsense from the equation. It feels like I’m supposed to fill my cup and let that spill over into the rest of the world, rather than me trying to fix anything for anyone else.

P.S. Out of sheer curiosity, I just checked the official Pantone color for 2020. It’s blue. This feels wildly appropriate psychologically and wildly hopeful politically.

Seven lessons from five years of running an intuitive business

(Said lessons are wildly applicable to all life paths, in case you're wondering why you clicked on this post.)

Eyes on your own paper. 

When I first started, I didn't do it the way anyone else did it. I did things the way I wanted to do them - channel everything on the spot instead of planning? Perfect. Announce multiple things at a time because that's the way they're flowing through my brain? Done. 

I wasn't looking at anyone else, I wasn't doing it the way anyone else was doing it, and it felt so good. Until I started looking at other people's instagram accounts. Until I got onto a few email lists. I stopped focusing on the process that felt best to me and started to feel like I needed to Learn Things From People Who Knew Better Than I. This would have been fine, except that instead of cherry-picking the lessons I needed, I began to doubt the way I was doing things.

We do things differently because we're meant to do things differently. There are people who need things done the way I do them, who need to hear things the way I say them, who need the energy I blaze out. So I get to do it however the hell I want. So do you. 

Charge whatever you need to show up from a place of excitement and nourishment. 

Don't charge the industry standard (whatever that is), don't charge what you think people will pay, charge what you need to do the work you do. Historically, I have been terrible at this. Or, more accurately, I've been great at the excitement but not so hot at the nourishment. Because I want everyone who wants to work with me to be able to. Because I want to help people even if, especially if, money is a challenge. Because money has so often been a challenge for me. 

Then I burned out so hard I could barely work for a year. Since then, I've had multiple come-to-Jesus moments with myself. Am I serious about doing this work? Am I serious about taking good care of myself? Am I serious about seeing the possibilities and transformation and magic that can happen when huge investments of energy, money, and time are made? Yes, yes, and yes. Yes even when it feels scary.

I made the commitment to myself to raise my prices in October to what nourishes me. (After sitting with that promise for a week, I've decided why wait until October?) Because healers need healers. Coaches need coaches. Women who work a lot need support. If you are in the business of supporting humans (which is every job ever), you need, require, and deserve whatever you need to do that work.

Charge what you need to be paid in order to do the work and show up from a place of excitement and overflow. That number may be uncomfortable. Do it anyway.

Self-care times a million. 

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but as someone who teaches women how to take better care of themselves, to nurture themselves, to treat themselves as sacred, I was often kinda bad at that. Practice what you preach, Amber. 

We're living through a time that calls for maximum self-care. Whatever it takes to keep your own cup filled, do that. No excuses. 

Commitment to self over outcome. 

Focusing on anything external pulls focus from where your true power lives. (Pro tip: Your power lives within you. Here's a little rant on that.) Here are some external things that actually deserve none of your attention: numbers of followers, numbers of likes, numbers in your bank account, things happening the way you wanted. Because they're actually none of your business. External response to your work is not your concern.

Controlling the way things happen in the work as a result of your work is not your job. Continuing to go within, feel the feelings of what you'd like to create, and then taking the next soul-led action - THAT is your job. Focus on shifting your internal experience in the direction that feels good and you can't fail. 

Don't do anything from a place of "I have to do this", do it from a place of "I can't wait to do this, I must do this, I must do this now, sorry dinner dishes you just lost your place in line." 

Why do I work for myself if I post something just because I think I have to? Doing things because you have to do them is terrible and soul-shrinking and we all wanted to leave that behind in elementary school. 

Honestly, everything is optional. Even the things that don't feel optional. You don't HAVE to pay your taxes, you just have to accept the consequences of not paying them. You don't HAVE to stop at that stop sign, you just have to accept the consequences of blowing through it. You don't HAVE to do those dishes, you just have to accept dirty dishes. 

When I do things in my business because I think I have to, they straight up do not work. When I do things from a place of OH MY GOD THIS! THIS IS THE THING RIGHT NOW! it doesn't matter whether it works or not, because I am in my creative genius flow. (Being in that place usually means it does work, but also means I don't feel too bothered either way.) 

Hint: If nothing feels good, nothing feels exciting, it's time to go back and fill your cup. Don't write the thing because you feel like you have to write the thing, go on a walk or watch Harry Potter or do whatever feels like a soul-sigh of relief and keep doing the soul relief things until you feel that inspiration and excitement fire back up. 

Go all in. 

For a long time, I was in the space of "Don't give up." Which is a very different flavor than "Go all in, energy blasters blazing."

Going all in is the energetic transformation that shifts the whole universe in your favor. 

Heal whatever you need to heal to get where you want to go. 

I had to heal an energy of scarcity going back many generations. I had to ground fully into my worth and the worth of this work. I had to heal societal constructs I had sucked up around what it means to be a healer (you have to heal everyone and you have to do it for free) and a woman. I had to heal my own rabid codependence. I had to heal my addiction to emotional drama and struggle and misery and lack. All this work is ongoing. I have to use all the tools I teach and channel more tools weekly to keep myself on track.

Heal your shit. Catch yourself when it bubbles back up and gently remind yourself that we don't do that anymore. 

Being a healer, an intuitive, a channel, a writer, a leader, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a lover of humans is not for the faint of heart. You already know this. But if you aren't quite sure - in this moment - if it's worth the effort, allow me to say: Yes. It's worth it. Keep going. Go all in, if you haven't already. Your soul is yearning for that commitment. 

Love, Amber