What if it all works out?

It took me going to a psychic in 2018 when I was living in NYC to begin to believe, to be able to let myself believe, that everything could be, would be, OK. Great, even. Maybe. Maybe? I wasn’t ready believe that big and openly yet, but then, there, in a small storefront tucked off Bleecker Street and on display for all the Saturday NYU-ish pedestrian traffic, gripping my friend’s hand, the curtain had started to part.

It took me needing someone in a storefront on Sullivan Street with a tarot deck to reflect things back to me like I would be “successful” professionally. Even though, by all traditional markers, I had been up to that point, and also was then. To tell me that “money would never be a problem,” even though—and I feel fortunate—it never has been. (Sadly, this has a broader, gendered context; it’s consistently reported that financial insecurity is higher for women than men, across demographics and time. I think we inherit some generational fear, too; women weren’t even allowed to manage their own finances and open bank accounts in the U.S. until 1974.) She predicted one big thing that came true within 24 hours, too, and was really so special, which is maybe something I’ll write about another time. I know it’s because I was open after that; I know it’s because I was light, lighter after that. Still, it also was that. It’s all always connected.

I told a friend at work about my experience that Monday, and we had a long, animated talk about it. He shared in the excitement of it, and shared what someone had once said to him, that had felt so profound to him then. It did to me, too. What if it all works out? Like, what if it does?

I think of that often, and I thought about recently when one corner of TikTok started talking about the Tinkerbell Effect recently. As packaged in the “manifestation” context, is essentially the idea that believing in something enough will make it happen. The recommended wordplay setup is apparently to frame it as a “What if” to bypass doubt otherwise triggered in the brain, and instead get us thinking of it in more of a concrete way. Laying imaginary bricks it into existence.

I think of so many what if’s in a day. It’s a mode of survival we have; it’s preparation for protection. What if I’m wrong? What if everything disappears? What if this car veers suddenly? And we end spending so brain time in imagined crisis; imagined crisis that can register as real.

Are we as prepared for "good” things to happen to us? Big things? Bountiful, beautiful things, in whatever way that means to us? Will we even see them or be able to receive them? We may feel like we need them, but have we played in the thought space of what it would actually be like?

What if everything works out? What if it’s all already worked out?

What if we have everything we need? What if it’s all already here?

For my friend Chuck and his ducks, because, what if it all works out?

The more I let go, the more I let grow

“That’s it; that’s the post,” as the internet and those on it often say. Let go; let grow.

I’ve noticed that the more I continue to let go—even a little, even little by little, sometimes in a big, white-flag moment of surrender—of expectation, of control, of need, of attachment to outcome, of urgency, of not-enoughness, of perfection, the more I myself grow, the more I create a welcoming space for others to grow around me, and the more I allow for the organic development of whatever the moment is that I am in. And once I do it, it often feels like such exhilaration. Like sending a pass into the beyond, like jumping into the water below, like throwing up my hands on a ride.

Like a friend who loves to tend succulents said to me back when we were both managers, about caring for succulents, about management, about life: “The less you try to control and do, the better.”

So, I’m letting this post go, just as it is, and letting this writing and space grow, into whatever it is.

Letting go, letting grow.

Posted in inspiration of sharing this with a colleague-turned-friend, Hanna. 💐

Follow charm

In the Vedic meditation community, we talk a lot about “following charm” (more here). It’s the encouraged, natural, intuitive way to move through life. Whenever I introduce friends to the phrase—when I am charmed to—I’ve found they love it. How charming.

The more I’ve cultivated a habit around looking for it, listening for it, feeling for it and following it (as charm presents in so many ways), the more clearly I find it glint and glitter in every moment. I’ve introduced much more lightheartedness and play into my days as a result, and it gently redirects me away from a life a “should’s,” and the empty operation of autopilot. (“We have to stop should-ing ourselves,” is one of those go-to mindfulness language jokes.) Because that’s when purpose comes through, and all is a muscle, and the more I follow charm, the more I see it glint and glitter in every moment.

I’ve found a handful of regular, quotidian ways to fold charm into daily decisions. The little inflection/reflection points have become opportunities to return and re-root with charm, especially if I’ve veered off course in a sea of emails and pings.

Questions & moments for inviting in charm:

  • What do I want to wear? How do I want to dress up? Who do I want to be, how do I want to feel?

  • What do I want to eat? What feels like it will feel good now, and one hour from now?

  • How do I want to move my body? Some days it’s a high-intensity workout, others a yoga flow, and some days an hour of rollerblading on the Venice Beach boardwalk. In many moments throughout the day, it’s dance breaks, which really make me so happy.

  • What do I want to do, in this very moment? Is what I’m doing, or is what I planned to do something that has to get done? (Like, does it really have to get done, like, right now?) If not, is there something else I would rather be doing?

I started drafting another post, and then I was charmed to write this one. I published another post, and I was charmed to return to this one.

Enjoy the charmed path—it’s completely yours!

Do this one thing

A pattern I’ve noticed with myself, based on past tendencies, is to want to change everything when I want to change something. Sometimes it’s a charged with an energy of positive excitement, of thrill at all of the possibilities I can peel back, all the ways I go and grow, and other times, when it feels out of need, it has tinge of panic. Regardless of the reason, I’ve found that bringing myself in to focus on doing one thing, any one thing, is the best thing. And then, magically, predictably, physically, it results in so many other changed things. Sometimes it changes my perspective, a desire, an assumption. Sometimes it changes a priority, or even just my mood.

Do this one thing, and then see.

In particularly overwhelming moments of the pandemic and life as it ebbed and flowed concurrently, it’s been a coping mechanism, I’ve relied on to get through. A micro gear I engage to ensure forward motion, even when it’s small, so small, to prevent it from feeling like everything is caving in. I am standing up. Now I am going to get a glass of water. Now I am drinking the water. Now I am looking outside. Now I am breathing deep. OK, now, I am OK. I had to do one thing, even one little thing, to be able to do anything.

I did this one post. And now, I think I want to revisit another post.

Everything is optional

This is one I said in as an offhand comment, in an offhand situation, and it struck resonance. I was the car with a friend, and she was talking through whether she wanted to do something or the other. As I remember it, while looking out the window, I said, “Everything is optional.”

She has repeated it back in many ensuring moments, in person, in texts, in times when I needed to be reminded of it myself, too. To be reminded that I was the one choosing in my life, and that in everything there is a choice. Everything, everything in our lives, in our days, in all we do is a choice. Even when it’s a sliver of choice that seems impossible to find, it’s there.

In my first, full 20-minute meditation session on my own during my Vedic meditation training, a panicked thought popped into my head almost right after I closed my eyes. What have I done; what am I doing; what have I decided to do; do I really have to do this for a full 20 minutes, twice a day, every day, until forever…??! It felt scary and like resignation, and then, a quiet voice gently, and powerfully reframed it almost right away. “It’s not that I have to do this. I get to do this.” That felt so much better. So much more freeing. So much more fun. And I made the choice to stay in that meditation. And I make the choice to do it, for me, as a gift, every time I do it and have, twice a day, for the past 2.5 years.

Remembering this, the option, the choice, I find brings more intention, presence empowerment and and appreciation for wherever I am. I have chosen to be doing this. To be writing this post, to be letting it go with little re-reading but the choice of feeling satisfaction and completion. I can choose whether to continue doing, anything. And in finding that choice, asserting that choice, this becomes more mine, and my gratitude and appreciation for it multiplies.

Where is the option here, wherever you are. What is it, and what do you want of it?

(Shout-out to my sweet, deep Scorpio friend Janna, who is following her surfing, skating, dancing heart to Hawaii for a couple months this summer. I adore you!)

The simplest solution is usually the best solution

Over July Fourth weekend I reached a year in my Venice Beach apartment, where, from my balcony every morning, I greet the ocean two blocks away and the mountains in the distance, even when the fog shrouds their outline. (Good morning, ocean. I see you; I feel you. Good morning, mountains. I see you, even when I don’t; I feel you. Thank you!)

I do love it here. It feels happy; a happy home and fills my heart. The prior tenant was even a famous actor/comedian (Mark McKinney, and if you end up reading this while I still live here, Mark, I’m probably still receiving your mail, and I did enjoy your copies of Kiplingers Personal Finance while they lasted) which feels very LA and fun. I moved into this place without ever having visited myself; I’d felt like it was right when I saw the listing, and when my close friend took me on a FaceTime tour, I knew from her response it was right. The only thing, she said, maybe, would be the sound from the street below. I was moving from NYC, I figured; it would be fine.

And it has been fine. But recently, I’m in a moment of, why just ‘fine”? Why not “great”?! (In all caps, with everything.) I realized I was wearing earplugs more nights than not, and I didn’t want to do that, and the nights that I didn’t I was convinced I was waking up more than otherwise, and I started getting into my head about not being able to sleep as well as I could (“ “) and so on, and so on so much that at some point I realized that I’d decided I probably maybe (should? yes?) needed to move. Maybe this was a sign, maybe this was time, maybe,,, but, like, I really didn’t want to otherwise??

And, then, in not even a great stroke of genius or particularly inspired insight, I realized I should try a white noise machine. It works, as millions (and millions, I’m sure) of people already know, but I had not yet discovered for myself. It was the simplest solution, and it has been the best. The best sleep, sound sleep, and it feels even easier to be here.

I wanted to start publishing again, notes and memories and messages to myself that have come up and I have come back to in the past few years, thoughts that come from slipping into “the space between thoughts,” as Deepak Chopra refers to the act, the effect, the result of meditation. The simplest way to do that, I felt, was just to write it here, on the little slice of internet real estate that was already mine, to do it my way, and do it for me.

I wanted to write something today, but didn’t know what, so I decided on this. The simplest solution, the simplest post.

(A philosophical follow-up note: I think simplicity, like anything, is a relative term, and that what presents itself as the “simplest” solution in the moment is because it is most relevant to the situation at hand.)

We can’t remember everything

I landed in Chicago late last night, and I was so proud of myself for how I packed, how prepared I was, how much time I gave myself, all of it. I really did it. I almost texted my friends beforehand like 😎😎. Yeeeah.

I unpacked this morning and realized I forgot something, and that thing happened to be the first thing I had set out and readied to pack. Then I did laundry, and when the washer was already locked and filling, I realized I had forgotten to add a couple things.

I used to be outsizedly hard on myself in moments like these. Why couldn’t I just have remembered that, that thing? Now, when these things happen, these little forgettings, I think of the time when I was staying with my aunt (Tía Nora) in Puerto Rico in December, and we returned from the supermarket to find we’d forgotten something. Despite the scrawled list, despite checking it twice, despite roaming the aisles. “Oh, well,” she said, and shrugged. “No se puede recordar todo.” “One can’t remember everything.” Oh, well! We then just moved on, to what did we have. For dinner, for snacks, for that present moment.

Perhaps it’s life as a series of rememberings and forgettings; remembered things, and forgotten things, and moving between things, and that can be the fun of it all. The excitement, the mystery, the intrigue. Because how gratifying is it to snap our fingers and remember something, to have it all come together at once?

(Drafted on July 13, remembered to post now.)

Be with this

Be with this one thing. The sound of the keyboard, the words on the page the trees rustling outside. The extra minutes before your friend arrives, this feeling that’s right here. Where do you feel it most? Is it a thickness in your throat? Be with it there. Now a flutter in your stomach? Be with it here.

Be with this one thing.