The Beautiful Answer

Reframing the Future

I can’t believe it, but this is my 365th post. It’s been a year since I started this blog,  beginning with a line from an e.e. cummings poem as my inspiration: 

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” 

In the year I’ve been writing, I’ve asked a lot of questions. It began with wanting somehow to release some of the negativity I felt surrounded me, to let go of some aspects of myself that I had outgrown, and release some people who weren’t really making my life a more loving and rewarding place to be. 

As I began to actually go out of my way to search for the beauty, I found it. Almost immediately I could feel my heart and spirit becoming lighter. Which is not to say that all of a sudden, everything got amazing and better. But I started looking deeper and even deeper. I started noticing more. Stuff that used to bug the crap out of me, like the endless whining for more love, more attention and more … whatever someone didn’t have, began to sound like background noise. 

In reframing my present, I found. I was reframing the future as well. 

There is no real way to tell where any of us are going, even though I work in the realm of the intuitive every day, and have seen first hand how much this stuff works. But I know that I am headed in a far better direction than the one I had going a year ago. I don’t have to search for happiness now. It’s sitting right in front of me.

I can take my  camera and find a shaft of sunlight, or a little kid blowing bubbles, and everything changes. In that moment, I have found contentment, all on my own, not counted on someone else to determine my mood. I have claimed an entirely new set of tools to work with, broken them in, and even shared them with some of my clients. 

So on this last day of this blog, I want to say thank you to the people I have met. You are a cool bunch, with lots of interesting things to say. You’re funny and human and endlessly searching for that one perfect photo, or post, or joke to share with others. Because blogging is nothing but sharing, after all. So in that spirit, I invite anyone who wants to stay in touch to join me at http://www.sassypsychic.com. Think about signing up for the mailing list (don’t worry, I don’t overemail, and you always have the choice to unsubscribe), friending me on Facebook, or following me on Twitter (links on the left side of the Sassy Psychic home page). 

I hope your journey is made happier for being here. 

Me 2.0 

It’s starting to sink in that I’ll soon be finished with this blog, 365 days of almost daily posting, reframing my experience to find the beauty in my daily life if necessary, and finding ways got work with the challenging and the rest. Before I’ve even finished the 365th post, though, I’m noticing that a profound change has already come over me. 

I started this blog because I was noticing a lot of negative people around me. It started to really build up for me — all the bitching and griping, spending previous moments complaining about the same things over and over instead of ever doing anything about them. I got the feeling that these people somehow expected others to build their lives for them, to take the responsibility that was rightfully theirs to make them happy. 

Beauty is always the antidote to complaining, I have found. Try spending a day in nature when you’re in a bad mood if you don’t believe me. 

The Me 2.0 that’s emerging is less afraid, less burdened by other people and their issues. Not that I don’t care about people. I just find their intentions to stay stuck a lot less interesting, and a lot less of a drag on my own energy fields. I feel freer, lighter and happier overall. I enjoy doing my work, and so many new avenues to work have opened up for me of late that I enjoy a great deal of gratitude as well. I’ve met some great friends during the past year and, if we’re continuing the software metaphor, believe there are fewer and fewer sucky people in the world. 

In an era of few morals and even fewer reasons to believe, that’s a pretty big deal.

Retroactive

You ever notice that whenever you’re tweaked about something, it’s generally not about that particular moment in time?  More likely, it’s triggering something you went through in the past, and your rection to it in this moment is overblown and maybe even the slightest bit inappropriate. 

I saw this in action today, which gave me a great opportunity for reframing. I was talking to someone (don’t want to name names because it’s not about blame or finger-pointing) and this person asked why spiritual people always seemed blind to their own faults, while readers (of which I am one) often have so much to give, and those seeking readings often interrupt, try to talk over you and really don’t want to hear what you have to say most of the time. 

True, this stuff happens sometimes. Maybe even more than sometimes. But that’s not a world I want to live in, or a dynamic I choose to support. I’m not much of a fan of the “us vs. them” approach to life because it doesn’t tend to get anyone much of anywhere.

So I said I was glad they had come to me instead of someone else who might not care. She sat in stunned silence for a few seconds, I guess fully expecting me to jump on the “clients suck” bandwagon. But I don’t feel that way about my clients, even the ones who sometimes make my job harder. That’s not why I got into this lone of work, or why I continue to stay in it. 

Then she said, “You know, I never thought about it that way. That’s probably true, huh?” 

In that moment everything went retroactive, and all the times I’d complained about a client in the past (I’m not perfect; I’ve done it, too) kind of lifted off me energetically. And all I could feel in its place were sparkly little pulses of all that remained — my wish to be part of the circle of healing, and gratitude at being afforded the chance. 

Daring the Truth

I’ve been thinking a lot about lying lately, the tiny patterns of lying that go on in our daily lives all the time. Most of us have become so used to lying - to get a sick day, to not attend a friend or colleague’s event, or to not pay quite as much on your taxes this year (or get a bigger refund), that we think nothing of it. 

When I go to Facebook, for example, I’m astounded by all the lying I see, and I may spend five or six minutes max on Facebook each day. I don’t have time to use it as an excuse to socialize (without ever really having to do it), and definitely don’t have time to sit around watching peopie lie to my face. How do I know this? I know the people doing the lying. How do I know they’re lying? They’ve told me something completely different on the phone, or confided something sad or dark in passing. 

So why has the image of success become more interesting or important than actual success?  How have we gotten here, where we’d rather lie than strive for a goal or achievement? While I can’t do much about what other people do, or decide to say or leave out, I can reframe like a mofo.

So I decided to work with lying today, or hiding the truth, or leaving things out so the truth was somehow obscured. As I sat in meditation, I called forth all the lies that were just around me in that moment. I saw a friend who was trying to paint a picture of online success while struggling with addiction, a woman carrying a fake Louis Vuitton bag at the post office (What is it with those bags? Literally no one thinks they’re real, people), and a basketball player trying to convince a ref that he hadn’t committed a foul when the replay showed it, obvious and real. 

I let the feelings of the lies wash over me, and take form in my mind’s eye. Surprisingly, they felt much like fear — all closed down and blackly smoking. My chest closed when I felt them. I wanted them gone as soon as possible. I applied the “antidote” as soon as I could: a wide open sense of possibility, blue skies, natural scenes, purpose and a reopened chest to ease breathing. Whew. That’s a lot better. Successfully neutralized. 

But when I came out of the meditation, I realized that I didn’t necessarily need to reframe the lying all around me. I needed to dare the truth to come forward in my own life. And when the next moment arose, and I had to tell someone an uncomfortable truth, I did it gently and mindfully, without drama or undue hurt. 

One dare successfully down. A billion more to go. 

The Biggest Douche

Why is it that you’re doing something enjoyable — watching a baseball game, say — and then there have to be those guys who can’t keep their mouths shut, try to pick fights with pretty much anyone walking by, and actually manage to make alcohol and its consumption look uncool? Why do they always have to know nothing about the sport in question, and make your viewing of same so annoying that even though you’re a peaceful person by nature, you consider doing them harm, or actually kind of root for someone to give them the beatdown they so desire?

Reframing them didn’t work the first few times I tried. How do you reframe idiots, after all?

I tried meditating, letting them go, working with my breath. Then I had a thought. I’m an energy worker, damn it. Why wouldn’t that work in this instance?  So I glued their mouths shut, energetically of course, and it took about five minutes before they stopped talking altogether. 

A little while later, they left, and almost everyone in our section started cheering. The rest of the game was uneventful — it ended in a tie — but it was way more enjoyable. That and Buster Posey’s homer made even the Biggest Douche tolerable. 

Idiot Proof

Those days right before you’re trying to blow out of town are always the most hilarious. They’re the ones when every friend who’s moving calls at the last minute for some help, or they lose your clothes at the dry cleaner, or you get a flat tire — you know, the stuff that takes up your time and drives you crazy in slow motion. I had my own version of that today, with small annoyances, things that took longer than they should have/could have, and just the regular all-around craziness that is my daily existence. It always makes me wish that I could idiot proof my life in some way. 

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. 

I get to go out of town for a few days to do some business (checking out a local theater venue and talking to them about staging my play PUNK ROCK MOM when it finishes with its world premiere in Baltimore, and yes, checking out some spring training baseball. I’m a huge Giants fan, and have been for the past 10 years or so — back when they sucked, back before the torture and the World Series win — and have been going to spring training for 6 years now. There’s a lot of hope packed into those few days in March each year, and a lot of fun to be had. 

So it’s always with a grain of salt that I take these minor annoyances. They try to knock me off my game, but I’m back on it pretty soon. They try to make me forget that I’m lucky to be able to do what I do, and go where I go. They try to pull the wool over my eyes, that stress or rising blood pressure is more important, more worthy of my attention, than the fact that I’ll be in a car soon, coasting through the desert and watching the sun rise over that moonlike landscape. 

Silly rabbit. You’re not gettin’ that weak-ass shit by me so easily. :) 

Love It, Need It, Have to Have It

As I move closer and closer to the release of my new book, time seems to be doing some pretty weird things. Not that I get too caught up in what that means. Time has always seemed pretty elastic to me, and since I work with energy every day, it’s become even more so as the years have gone by. 

Some days, it seems like I don’t have enough time. Not enough to get everything done. Too many emails to return, too many articles to write, and so many events to be planned in the future. 

Other days, it seems like I’ll never leave the interval of hours that comprise a day. Readings and energy work sessions seem longer, the right words aren’t coming, and I just want to dunk my head in the nearest bucket of get me the fuck out of here. 

So to work with all that back and forth, I tried reframing during my meditation session today, seeing how it felt to combine the two disciplines. In watching my thoughts and feelings arise, I noticed and welcomed them, but then tried adjusting the lens of my perception to see them in a new way. Maybe a thought came up about an unpleasant memory, and I reframed it as a learning experience, then let it go. Then maybe I had a neutral thought and just watched it as I returned to my breath. Then another thought came, and another, and I have to admit that after 16 years of steady meditation practice, doing mostly vipassana, forgiveness practice and tonglen, I kind of liked it. 

Maybe there’s always gonna be that little voice in the back of my brain going, “love it, need it, have to have it,” whether that’s shoes, chocolate or books. Even on days when I want to give everything I have to the world, it’s hiding in some dark corner. Glad to know there’s a combo practice that can help me kick that shit to the curb. 

Animal Love

I don’t know about other people, but my first loves were distinctly of the animal persuasion. Not much of a girlie girl, I played with stuffed bears, plastic horses and little glass figurines that rounded out the rest of the forest. Chipmunks, squirrels and birds were some of my earliest friends. I just kind of got them in a way I didn’t get people. 

Wait, that makes me sound like a freak. But maybe not. I still work with pets sometimes, when their family members (I hate the term masters) can’t seem to communicate. I still find that when I pick up psychic information, when I “hear” the higher self of the being in front of me, animals are always the loudest. It’s not as if they’re shouting. Far from it. More like speaking in the clearest voice you could imagine. I never wonder if I’m getting the message with animals. They’re simple, and their voices resonate. 

Though I can’t count myself as one of them, I also get crazy cat ladies, or people who adopt ten dogs when they live in a studio apartment. Again, not my thing. I actually got a lecture at the dog park by a woman who told me I wasn’t “doing my share” because I refused to adopt more dogs and cats, then walked to my car shaking my head. Of course no one can tell you something like that. It’s like someone else choosing your lover for you, or the films that will mean the most to you later in life. 

For me, animals require no reframing. When I look into the eyes of my dog, for example, I can see that she understands that she is safe, and will be fed and loved and looked after for as long as she’s on this planet. I can see the history we have together, when she narrows her eyes and it looks like she’s smiling when we play. Her tail wags a little more slowly than when she was a puppy, but behind those eyes she is wise, and I have much to learn from her. 

That’s Right, I Still Wish You Well

Let go.  Breathe. Sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want.

But there is wisdom there, underneath, if you care to look. It’s hanging out in the atoms between us, in the space and the air. It lingers in corners, up with the cobwebs, and down in the teeny mouse holes, sharing cheese with the customers there. 

The wisdom tells you it’s for the best, and whispers about better things ahead. How easy it is to release this way, and how quickly the hurt eases. It would be easy to say ain’t no thang and walk away. Nah, I don’t want to do that. 

Instead, I wish you well, wherever life’s gonna take you. No need to reframe that one. It’s about the best it’s could be, no fake smiles required. I really do feel this way, surprising perhaps to no one but me. 

I trust, I let go, I walk forward. Breath after neutral breath. 

Love Ray Gun

I know. When you type it out like that, it sounds a little porny. But I have a pretty vivid imagination, and am always on the lookout for new ways to be playful with energy, to not buy into the tired old ways that many of us express our emotions. I mean, does everyone scream when they’re mad?  No. Some people steam, other people drink, while still others hug it out. 

It came to me when I was driving, as we so often do here in L.A. Some guy was riding my buper, even though I was in the slow lane, about to get off at the next exit. This type of behavior irritates me for the obvious reasons (which is that it just sucks), but also because it’s the epitome of greed. I mean, seriously? You’re so concerned with getting what you want right freaking now that you can’t, I don’t know, ease up a bit? After all, we were in bumper to bumper traffic. Not exactly the Indy 500. 

Luckily, I caught myself in the next moment. OK, so it was very little skin off my back, and who cares anyway, right? But I wanted to try something a little deeper. And for some reason, the image of a ray gun came into my mind, the ones you see all the time in cartoons blasting someone’s face off and leaving them in a cloud of ash. Then I loaded that baby up with some love pellets, planning to fire them behind me into the guy’s car. Hey, it could work, right? 

I’m sitting there giggling to myself, imagining firing away with these imaginary love pellets, and probably anyone who looked inside my mind at that moment might have thought that I was batshit crazy, but it made me laugh. I can’t be sure if this is what made him ease off my bumper in the next few minutes, but it made my commute a little easier, and a lot more fun.