I say that, accompanied with a small grain of salt on the side. Sure there are things that I know. But they are not the things that I thought I knew to be true for most of my life, or at least the time before Rachael and I crossed paths. It took us several attempts at working together before the doors finally opened and it was clear to both of us that it was time.

Here's to the last 12 months. Here’s to life. And here’s to Tuesday’s. 
​Thanks for joining the ride. ​:-)

​​
​What I know now,
​that I didn't know before:​​​​​

There will always be room for growth.  There will always be learning.  But the catch that has caught me repeatedly in my past has been my tendency to hear without really listening.  To learn without accepting. To be honest without acknowledging it.  It has been almost a year since I stared working with Rachael, and as we hone in on our last session together…I am able to see that I have finally started digesting our time.  Not only have I digested it, but I have let it feed and nourish me in ways exponential. 

What started as an exploration in energy (and a search for the next great teacher of my life), has come to its final stretch.  As such, I would be remiss not to mention my ‘celebration phone call’ with Rachael last Tuesday.  This is a bonus session with Rachael in which she takes the time to honor all that you have learned and gained (and released) throughout the work.  It is a beautiful moment in which you are invited to sit back and relax and really revel in what you have been able to look at and process and revolutionize in your life, and to be honored for the hard work that you have put in.  It is no small feat to enter into a relationship with another human in which you KNOW that you are going to have to get -more or less- super uncomfortable, even if just for a bit…knowing that the real rewards are on the other side. 

Over the last year, I got super uncomfortable.  I pulled out every old wound and scar and lie that had ever been told; either to myself or others, and one by one, Rachael and I had the chance to decide: “keep or get rid of”.  (I use this analogy because originally, she compared our work together of that of cleaning out one’s closet.)  It was hard.  It was not sunshine and rainbows.  It was more like scrubbing and disinfecting. And while this may sound unattractive to some, the reality is that if we do not tend to our wounds properly, then eventually we have to open them up, clean them out, and start the healing process all over again.  You can choose to do this work, or you can choose not to.  Many choose not to.  But, if you are one of the lucky souls who chooses to really look at what makes themselves tick, you might also be one of the lucky souls to be blessed with an incredible guide.  Perhaps someone who has a spirit as light as the one you have always hoped to evolve into being.  Perhaps Rachael can be your guide, just as she has been mine.  Or perhaps you will seek guidance in other ways.  Whatever you choose, know this: If you set out on the path, at some point, you must choose to KNOW what you know, and then, to ACCEPT it.  Most importantly, you must know that this knowing does not come from your chosen leader or from any other outside source. This knowing comes from deep within yourself. The journey is not one that can be taken by foot, and the only way to find the entry point is to turn around and sit down with your own presence. 

I have always known what I 'didn’t' know.  Reiki taught me that.  On some level, we all know.  We know what we want, we know what we are after, we know what stands in our way and why we let it stand there and how we might move through it.  We already know what we claim that we don’t.  The trick is being brave enough to admit it to ourselves.  A guide like Rachael is handy for the last part.  For holding your hand and gently walking you to the gates of your soul. To the gates of bliss or Heaven or whatever else that might feel like to you. 

For me, Rachael has walked me to wholeness.  To fullness.  To the understanding that, while the parts are essential for living an expressive and interesting life, the whole is truly greater than the sum (of its parts).  What's more, I see now that the whole has been whole all along.  I have been whole all along, I just wasn’t a huge fan of what was making me that way.  Kind of like having a closet fully STUFFED with clothes, and realizing that you only ever wear the same three things anyway.  Rachael changed that.  She helped me pull everything out and piece by piece, decide what feel authentic and what didn't, and where the gaps were.  She helped my fill in the essential holes of my emotional wardrobe.  And then I put it on.  And now, I know how to dress myself in it everyday.  It feels pretty damn good.  
​

​I have spent a lot of life examining the odds and outcomes.  Repeatedly analyzing the paths that lie in front of me.  Walking up to each open door, and attempting to know where the path will lead before even daring to put a single foot through.  Sometimes, this is for fear of failure; that somehow, I will make the wrong choice and wind up back were I started, only with less time to 'figure my life out'.  Other times, it is because something feels familiar, and I am certain that life is just trying to trick me into repeating the same mistakes once again. Luckily, regarding both of these ideas, my work with Rachael has expanded my outlook on all of the potential outcomes following each path, in a variety of ways.  One of them being her call to trust that 'even when things look similar, they are not'.  Another being her suggestion that whatever is out there waiting for you is on the other side of whatever is in front of you. 

Currently, I live in Albuquerque.  I have lived here before.  I have returned home several times over the past several years.  I have worked in restaurants and in offices and in theaters and in classrooms, doing similar -if not the same- work in a variety of places and capacities, and even dated the same people (literally and figuratively).  However, I have also done a lot of work on my spirit.  I have done a lot of work on my heart and on my mind, and what that has allowed me to understand is that when the expansion of all three combine -even in the face of seemingly repeated experiences- nothing is ever the same as it was before. 

​The only way to get to the other side, is through the middle. 
Onward through the middle I go.

I've got a parachute, see any cliffs nearby?

​Perhaps you want a pet.  Perhaps, to you, this implies the acquisition of a dog or a cat.  However... perhaps life wants you to have…a frog.  It could even be a magic frog -you know, the kind that you kiss, and a prince (or a Lamborghini or the perfect career) pops out. BUT, because when you think pet, you think ‘cat or dog’, you proceed to NOT recognize that life is trying to hand you exactly what you’ve been asking for  -even going to far as to place it on your doorstep and ring the doorbell- and so, instead of exploring what lies directly in front of you, you open the door, see a frog…and walk away. 
Then you call pest control. Sound familiar? 
The underlying message has been the foundation of my work with Rachael over the past year.  Through her teachings and my willingness to absorb them, I have come to understand that one of the hardest things about receiving the gifts that we ask for, is learning to STOP EXPECTING IT to look the way you had always thought (or always hoped) that it would.
When I first started working with Rachael, I approached our work and her magical abilities as more of a psychic presence.  I felt like working with her and doing a little soul searching was all that would be needed to clear any blockages that stood between me and the life I was after.  It took many sessions before I really stopped to contemplate whether I wanted to continue putting precious collaborative energy into things that I had originally wanted.  For example, I spent a lot of time and energy talking with Rachael about Broadway and my desires to be successful, but only after many months of working together was I able to actually hear her when she said to me -something to the likes of- “you know, you have this long list of wants, and this deep desire to be successful, but nowhere on that list do you say that you want to be a successful-Broadway performer”.  Huh.  Maybe I really DO want a frog.

***

In session #11, Rachael and I talked about needs and wants.  And money.  We addressed the reality that NEEDS CHANGE.  That WANTS change.  And that the need and want for money and all that it has to ‘offer’ changes as well. In my recent history, I have not been in the position to need anything beyond what was absolutely necessary (food and shelter, clothes on my back, some kind of income etc.) for the general functioning of my life.  As I move into this next chapter -one in which abundant ease and joy have finally made it onto the list of bare necessities- I have had to address the fact that I no longer wish to live on crumbs, and perhaps more importantly (and with a lot of help from Rachael), I have had to start letting it be OK that I no longer wish to do so. ​

   
​When Rachael and I first started working together (almost an entire YEAR ago), my general m.o. was as follows:
1. Make big plans. 
2. Make sure that they are big enough to garner a lot of admiration for attempting to follow through on trying to      achieve them.  
3. Simultaneously, trap myself in the cycle of ‘attempting to follow through with those plans’ in a way that keeps       me from ever having to actually achieve anything.
4. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It is possible to live life with the joy and exuberance that I wish to possess, and to do it NOW. I do not HAVE to wait until I lose ten pounds or have the right job/car/house/boyfriend/clothing/goals etc. It’s not that I cannot have, do or be any of those things, it’s not even about the things.  It’s not about being skinny.  It has NEVER been about being skinny.  The ‘being skinny’ has just been a metaphor for WAITING until I feel WORTHY of living the life that I desire. ​

    A few years back, a good friend of mine was offered an amazing job.  To her, it was totally out of the blue and she couldn’t believe that she had duped someone in to hiring her for something that she was “so obviously not qualified to be doing”.  To the rest of us, it was so obvious that she WAS so qualified for the position and was hired -in large part- due to her outstanding qualifications, and also -in some other faction- based on the FACT that she is a total bad ass.  Many months later, after she was really in to the swing of things at her new job, I sat next to her on her couch one night and watched her move lots of numbers around between different spread sheets.  I had no clue what I was looking at.  However, to my friend, it was easy and obvious.  A piece of cake.  When I asked her about it, she said something to the likes of “I don’t know, it just make sense to me.  It doesn’t really feel all that hard.”

    Natural skills and abilities can vary so drastically from one person to the next, that it is easy -as an onlooker- to assume that someone is super successful or talented because they have worked incredibly hard to be that way.  And in many cases, that is true.  My friend -the one with all the spread sheets- she works her ASS of at everything she does.  She has for her entire life.  However, I believe that it would also behoove us to examine the natural talents and abilities that we were born with, and perhaps, start to look at them as the key to all of the doors we have been trying to open ... but haven't been able to find.  Perhaps you feel like you've been looking for that 'thing' or the answer to that question that you can never quite seem to ask...and what I have come to realize is that, perhaps, is it not such a mystery after all.  
  It is so easy to take our natural abilities for granted.  Especially if we have grown up knowing ourselves to be really good at something and not especially good at something else.  It is easy to undermine our innate talents, simply because they are ours – they have always been there- and therefor, they are not special or unique... and THEREFOR, they are not worth pursuing.  In a day and age where we thrive on comparison and have access to what every other person on the planet is doing and all hours of the day, it can be incredibly easy to lose sight of who we are and what we are truly called to do.  

    This week, I started my new job.  It has taught me many things already, but the two most important seem to be this: 
1. I am really good with numbers.
I have always known this, but as it did not seem cool or like a big deal, it went overlooked.  And 
2. I am really smart. 
Like, smarter than I have ever known myself to be. 
I entered an entirely new world this week, and in very short order, became quite fluent in the language.  And let me tell you, it feels really really good.  Especially after a lifetime of thinking that my only contributable-to-the-world-skills lied in my stage presence and performance ability. 
    This week I worked 40 hours at a desk in an office (MY office), staring at a computer screen, inputting numbers and data, preparing deposits, filing insurance claims, and solving other people’s problems.  I didn’t wear makeup, I drank way too much coffee, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt like a human being with a driving purpose.  I felt excited.  I felt inspired.  I felt like I never wanted to stop doing what I was doing.  I had to pry myself away from my desk at the end of each day, and I was eager to get back to it the next morning.  I felt appreciated, respected, trusted, and most of all, I felt really freakin smart. 

I’ve never really felt smart.

I always knew that I had a very active brain, and that I retained a lot of knowledge from my personal attempts at continued enlightenment…but never smart.  Never book smart, or brainy, or even a little bit like a nerd. 
Now, I feel like a total nerd.  And I love it.  
 
I had no idea that this part of me existed.  I had no idea that I had been shutting her out for so long. I had no clue that she was -or is- indeed, so very smart, and so very much a part of me. 
 
I love her :-) 
 
What comes naturally to YOU, that you might be overlooking?

​What I know now,
​that I didn't know before:​​​​

What I know now,
​that I didn't know before:​​​​