The Run on the River.

Today was a success!

Jill and I spent the day assisting kickass boaters on their 24 mile journey down the Charles River.

With the exception of a stray boat the decided to go the WRONG WAY toward the Dam Waterfall (ignoring the balloons we strung across the bend to signal STOP) and the man who had a heart attack, things went off without a hitch.

It was really cool to see people in their 70's kicking ass and taking names out there.

And again, I felt really useful which is a wonderful feeling! At the end of our time cheering on the folks at our post and taking down the boat numbers and times as they crossed, we headed over to the finish line to hand out t-shirts and give congrats! So many people came out for a great cause, spreading awareness about the River Conservancy doing their efforts to keep the Charles clean and protected.

A weekend well spent, even with laryngitis!

The Charles River Cleanup

So, my baby sister and I headed to Needham, MA today to help with the annual Earth Day cleanup of the Charles River. If you don't know about the efforts, volunteers (young and old) come together to pick up the garbage left behind. My section was the large hill right by the highway. It was kind of fun climbing the steep hill attempting not to slip on wet leaves but also daunting to see all the trash people throw out of their windows when they're barrelling down the highway.



I recovered beer cans, car parts, plastic bags, a rusty shovel, and a broken tire. What was beautiful to see were the amount of people gathered on a Saturday morning. Entire families were there. Children who were excited to run through the woods with giant plastic bags and gloves to find hidden garbage 'treasures'. To make it fun for your kids sets a precedent that caring for your environment is not only necessary but vital and it can make you smile too. They were great kids and loads of fun to be around. I started a contest with a sweet little blond girl not much older than my niece over who could find the most glass bottles.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Boat races, a charity event held to raise money for the cause as well. It feels good to do something for a change, putting money where my mouth is. I think it's the first of many times I will give a little of my time, however small...

This manifestation thing...

....it really works!

I feel compelled to write because it's been a crazy couple days. I've been on a super Positive zone the last week or so...that feeling like all the ideas and concepts and feelings I've been having just kind of clicked into place and I inherently (not just intellectually) understand it for a change.

I'm in the 'zone' I think. I'm going with the flow instead of against it and in turn, the universe is giving me a great big ole pat on the back.

Here are some examples:

1. I've had a post-it on my window by my desk in my bedroom for months saying "I get this much a week at my job and I laugh a lot" as a way of being clear with the world about what it was I was looking for with a job. So, today I get a call setting me up for an interview and the base pay is exactly what I had written on my note all these months (the laughing part has yet to be discovered but I'm hopeful). I almost wished I'd dreamed bigger. I don't doubt I'll get the job and get that ball rolling after months and months of searching. It's time. It's a small step. I'm dreaming bigger starting today. And for the first time in my life, I believe it's possible to get anything I've ever wanted.

2. A couple months ago in the throws of my depression, i said aloud to myself that I just wanted a community of people that shared my changing beliefs about the world. I felt so alone. Lately, people have been coming out of the woodwork. I have an online community I adore and feel really supported by (Yay CSL Folks!), I've met the greatest gal pal from a 3 week job I agreed to take who's already showered me with encouragement and support....and has a whole group of people in her life that I am now a part of too... The webs we weave. It's all out there. Ask and you shall receive! You might miss out on an acoustic jam session with South American ex-models who love country music and blues guitar and folk star hippies with tattoos (just two of the people that have come into my life).

3. And just to prove that the universe isn't as serious as you think. Last night, I was craving my Organic dark chocolate bars that I had run out of a week before (the only sweets I allow myself to eat because they are actually good for you) and was a little bummed that I didn't have the money to run out and buy some. But instead of saying...i don't have the money to get this...I said to myself, I wish I had those yummy bars and visualized them and thought...well, maybe not now, but they're coming. And wouldn't you know it, I had lunch with my new friend and she handed me a bag filled with Organic Dark Chocolate bars saying that she thought of me in Vegas last week when she saw them and picked some up for me. She doesn't even like Dark Chocolate. It was just a gift. How crazy is that??

4. And, I made it an official rule a few weeks ago to stop being a victim to the big D word (debt, for those of you still trying to catch up). I won't say the word. I will not think of my life in that way. I started to think that money was everywhere...at my fingertips...that I just had to find it or be open to it. And then I stopped thinking it and started believing it. I stopped thinking I had problems with money and started trusting that no matter what the number might look like on the page, I would be okay. It's all there for me somehow. And as luck would have it...I got an unexpected bonus from that 3 week job I took and my Dark Chocolate friend handed me a check today for watching her house while she was in Vegas. I may not be rich (yet) but I just got free money twice in a week.

If those things don't convince you to stop complaining and start manifesting some crazy, beautiful rich life...I don't know what will.

As Journey says -

Don't stop believing.

I'm eating Dark Chocolate right now.

Life is good.

:)

Honor Your Mother!

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Today is the day to remember how awesome it is that we live on a planet that wants to sustain us. Let's do what we can to protect her!

on the cusp

Do you ever get that feeling that something is about to happen?

That something is on the way even though nothing has changed and you can't for the life of you figure out what that is?

That feeling has been chasing me the last couple days. I've gotten twinges of excitement for no reason whatsoever.

It's a beautiful thing.

I wonder what it could be?

Any guesses?

'Nuff Said folks...

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

See this movie!!

It's the best movie I've seen in a long, long time.

I think you'll like it too.

Unless you're dead inside (wink, wink).

RAW

I think that's how I've been feeling.

Just. Plain. Raw.

Raw emotion.

Vulnerable.

Exposed, in a way.

I've been trying to figure out why I've been so moody the last few weeks and why I've felt so agitated (which, in turn, has made me lean on my food crutch and has also fueled my moody fire).

When I started working with Vanessa, she told me that this could happen but I was feeling so good for the first month of doing the healing work that I honestly didn't think it would happen to me. I was too ready. I wanted healing. Period.

But I forgot that sometimes when you are healing (particularly healing parts of yourself that have been broken a long, long time), it's like re-opening a wound. You feel the pain all over again. Only so much time has passed that you don't really know what you're feeling all the feelings for. They are just there.

As I get closer and closer to my own personal fire (which I honestly believe I tried to snuff out when I was a little girl), the more agitated I'm getting. And consequently, the more I'm leaning on my old crutches to help get me through it (ie: food, movies, fantasy).

I know that in order to progress, in order to move beyond the pain I've been putting myself through for a lot of years, I have to slowly stop using my crutches (those things that numb my life so I don't truly have to feel anything) and start to actually live my life. I have to burn a bit. I have to feel things I don't want to feel. So I can move beyond them.

I'm a little afraid of it. I'm terribly uncomfortable right now. This process is alot harder than I thought it would be (or maybe hoped it would be).

It's also made me so much more aware of how much of my life I'm not really living. Only I know now that it's not the things in life that I'm not doing that is causing me to not be living. It's that I'm not present in my life. I'm too numbed out. I don't truly experience the world around me. I'm always off somewhere else in my head.

I think it's time to stop doing that. ( or just be fine with the fact I'm doing it)

I still have goals and plans but I no longer want to be run by them. I want to be glad to be in the world every single day and be at peace no matter what does or doesn't happen. That's when magic happens I think.

I was talking to Vanessa about this very thing over a week ago.

She told me to work on my meditation. (which I have been doing - very very slowly).

That's when I remembered my first trip to Europe when I was 20.

I told her what an impact that trip had on me. But honestly, over the years, I was always unsure why such HUGE thing like that trip had happened to me because I came home and life was the same (if not even worse for a while) as when I left. I suffered a lot in the years that followed because I didn't want to be here, I wanted to be back there...free, exploring, happy.

Until I reached a stage when I just chalked it off as a moment in time - an experience - and then moved beyond it completely.

When i was talking to V. though, I realized in a moment, a flash, why I went there and experienced the things I experienced.

To REMEMBER.

I was totally and completely IN THE MOMENT on that trip.

100 % alive.

I woke up every single day ready for everything and nothing to happen.

I drank in the air.

I noticed sunrises and sunsets.

I sat on street corners for minutes at a time and just watched people and cars.

I noticed when horns blared and the sounds they made.

I met Jesus in a coffee shop in Ireland and talked to him for a while (he really told us he was jesus).

I went to the same Vegetarian cafe in Cork every single day for two weeks and chatted up the wait staff and noticed the angels painted on the walls and how fucking amazing my earl gray tea tasted every morning.

I had the most AMAZING breakfast I've ever had in my life (this memory is what triggered this A-Ha moment) in a hostel in England. To this day, I've never tasted eggs and beans and tomatoes like that. And I know it's because on that morning, I was totally there - present - tasting every morsel like it could be my last.

I appreciated that meal.

I appreciated the sunsets.

I appreciated the little kids in uniforms playing soccer in the field in Scotland.

Every moment.

I was there.

Just there.

THAT IS WHY I WENT TO EUROPE.

For so many years, i believed it was Scotland or Ireland that was the answer to my happiness; that if I could just get there I would be happy like that forever.

Now I know, it's not the place...it's being present like that every day. Then I will be living my life to the fullest. Then I will know happiness in my soul.

The great thing about that answer is, i can start now. I should start now.

That's the point, isn't it?

The thing is, I have a lot of healing to do too. So all the garbage is getting removed from my system, the emotional garbage. I have to relearn how to feel the garbage, be in the moment, and not go back to the old crutches that make me cope with the garbage.

Yikes.

Raw.

I told you.

One breath at a time, I will find my place.

Which is right here.

Right now.

Just as I am.

Just for old times sake though, here's an awesome timelapse vid of Edinburgh, Scotland (my favorite spot in the world).

and on the last day...

....I met an actress.


Today is the last day of tax season and subsequently the last day of my Temp job in a tax office.
To celebrate everyone's hard work, we all went to a bar for a drink.

Earlier in the day, my boss tells me about his neice who is filming a movie in CT. She moved out to LA not too long ago and is now back in CT doing a horror film.

So, we go out and she randomly shows up.
and she's beautiful. gorgeous, really.
And very sweet.

This is her...





So anyway, I've been having a pretty good run of things lately and for some strange reason the appearance of this girl living her dreams made me feel like complete CRAP!


I hate how it takes seconds for that to happen. One minute, celebration...we worked our asses off for three weeks and we did it! The next minute, I'm thinking about the 30 extra pounds on me and how I'm not in LA like I'd planned to be a year earlier.


When did I become a person who felt like I wasn't worth anything without those things?
When did I become someone who learned to believe that's what my life was supposed to be and without anything like it, I'm not the person I'm supposed to be?


I talked to her for a while biting back tears. Honestly. I could've cried.
But I didn't (thank god).


I sometimes wish I could erase that side of myself that thinks I need to be in the thick of things in order to be really living. I wish I could just be in the moment and appreciate it for what it is and what I already have.


I am working on it.
But it's so hard for me to be around people doing their thing, and not feel like a complete and utter failure.

I know.

You're right.
I'll get over it tomorrow.


But
it's kind of hard to forget that it hurts today.


You know?

Oh Hell Yea!

Everything about this video makes me smile!

Real Life.

Here's what I think is the REAL secret to life.

WHAT YOU ARE EATING!

I know, you're probably thinking...not another blog about food. Americans are obsessed with food - with not eating it, eating too much of it, eating only certain bits and not others, eating bucket loads, eating nothing...you name it. We are consumed.

I honestly don't really care about any of that. I mean, I care but not in the same way.

Here's what I know. Now.

I was a raw foodist for about 3 weeks.

I detoxed (or at least started). I went through a couple days of hell where my body was just releasing toxin after toxin and I thought 'there is no way I can keep feeling like this.' It's scary. You feel like you no longer have control over your body. I imagine that is exactly what people who find out they are sick might feel like (on a much smaller scale of course). And you really start to wonder if all that healthy food is actually good for you!

Then you wake up two days later and you feel really fantastic. Kind of clean actually. Like your cells might be smiling a little bit.

I felt great.

So...like a lot of us who suddenly feel great, I thought "I wonder what would happen if I take myself off this medication (meaning my clean cell food)."

So I did.

It's been a week and two days since I've eaten processed, greasy food.

And guess what?

I remember now why I wanted off it in the first place.

Here's how I feel...

nauseous. cloudy. depressed (i almost burst into tears in the car today for NO REASON). heavy. bloated. buzzy (not energetically buzzy but filled with toxins buzzy). lethargic. sad. lonely. lost. stressed.

I could go on. But I won't. I don't want to keep giving all the crap energy.

The experiment on my body has taken its toll. IN ONE WEEK. Crazy!

And there are MILLIONS of people who live this way every single day - and they don't even realize what they are doing to themselves.

I think we could cure depression in this country if we taught Americans how to eat food and prepare food. I really do.

I was the guinea pig...for myself. And the change is dramatic enough in me to realize that this food epidemic is the route of a lot of problems for people.

GET OFF THE DIETS. GET OFF THE COUCHES. GET OFF THE PROCESSED FOOD WITH INGREDIENTS YOU CANNOT PRONOUNCE.

GO GREEN.

Eat simple.

Be HAPPY!

BE ALIVE.

Stop feeling sad and blue and lost and get out in the world.

Don't believe all the marketing hype, man. It is as simple as that.
This world doesn't have to be a struggle. Our bodies don't have to be a dumping ground for various numbing agents.

SMILE.
Life is waiting.

I'm about to get back on the GREEN bandwagon myself.

It's worth it.

TODAY

Dear Spring...

Today you made the perfect day and I smiled a lot in the beautiful sunshine.

Thank you.

Me.

Bandaids

The funny things about bandaids is they only cover up the wounds, they don't actually heal them.

I think it's a dangerous thing to confuse the two. I think that all the times I might've believed I was doing the best thing for me, I was actually only throwing a bandaid on things hoping that it would do all the work for me, that it would heal me.

Bandaids are temporary relief.

I feel like there are many people in my life who live on bandaids and who expect me to as well. It's when I try to live without them, to heal things without that temporary relief that it's harder to be understood.

I don't want to live my life slapping plastic on my broken peices. I want to make them better, get stronger, move beyond them, and make new wounds altogether instead of reopening old ones.

No more bandaids.

Just real life.

Words to Live by.

It doesn't matter to me what your struggle is. Mr. King understood what it meant to have faith and be present and believe.

Every now and again, we need a reminder.
This is mine.

LOST by David Wagoner

(Heard this on Oprah's Eckhart Tolle Podcast today and it struck a chord.)

Stand still.

The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost.

Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes.

Listen.

It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost.

Stand still.

The forest knows Where you are.

You must let it find you.

Music I am loving right now!!

Thank god for artists, man.

They are my sanity in this world.

Check these peeps out.

Have a listen.

Maybe they will change your life.
They've changed mine.

:)

Available on ITunes (jamesmorrison.com)

Cross Canadian Ragweed (Also available on ITunes and Myspace.)

Martin Sexton (available on ITunes) Martinsexton.com

Ladyantebellum.com (iTunes and Myspace)

The man with the KILLER voice and soul...

(ITunes, Myspace, Marcbroussard.com)