Day 16: It is just a restaurant job and more unusual synchronicities

Tonight, consisted of more interesting juxtapositions. And by that, I mean how you can plan to do one thing and end up doing something completely different (however, maybe more noteworthy).

I went for a walk – it is my last full week in the neighborhood on Grand Ave, which I have been residing in since April. I gotta be out of the student pad on Aug 31. School is starting, the third and final student is moving in and I am persona non grata. Probably as it should be.

Although I am not the example for 20-year-olds in the prime of their existence of a long-term trajectory. I only hope they are not currently contemplating this path. I certainly wasn’t. Hope and naivete should probably reign supreme a bit longer. If one of the three is actually on my path, they probably won’t know it for a while yet and can scream, jump up and down and talk too loud for another year or two. haha

Anyway, I went walking down Grand, only to find out that Red Rabbit was hiring for the October 2 opening. Heck, why not, I thought. Filled out an application and talked to the GM who was probably all of 25. Nevertheless, in his exuberant youthfulness, he thought the best I could do after 6 months of serving at Restaurant #1 was to be host for barely more than minimum wage. Granted, I didn’t get into my MBA in marketing or that sort of jazz. That does not seem applicable, honestly.

I left a bit annoyed -because ultimately, I was looking to consolidate restaurant jobs and find a serving job at the next level, maybe while I do my other job hunting. I’m not interested in hosting again. I got that down. It was there, I took a chance. Burst into flames. Kept walking.

Hung out at The Lexington for the evening, where I end up meeting the bartender who normally works the lounge, a guy named Patrick who works at The Local, in Minneapolis, talking to Joe (manager, who also curls) and otherwise having a fantastic experience.

Tried my first Aperol Spritz. A drink one of my customer’s at the serving gig asked for (unfortunately we didn’t have Aperol). The bartender mentioned at the end of the night that she had hardly any experience bartending when she applied to The Lex but a willingness to learn and she has picked it up. So, I mentioned my application to the other place and she said, “Oh no, if you have already been serving, go try the Marriott hotel or other places and talk your way in.”

See sometimes, you just need to hear that it is possible before you keep going. (she also is 24)

Although frankly, is that what I really want? Well, first off, clearly given my website and my job hunt, working restaurants is not what I want. Furthermore, restaurant #2 is dysfunctional in a way that is close to trauma and I’d like out. Still, quitting is problematic with my other stuff going on. **sigh**

At any rate, I may keep trying for an upgrade to the restaurant biz while I work on my clients and the real job. I often wish I could have gotten all this earlier in my life like 22-24. Nevertheless, here we are. I’d just submitted a resume via a recruiter for $17 an hour (with an MBA) and was thinking – geez…if that is the way it going to be (and really these corporations need to examine themselves) why’d I bother going back to school?

Anyway…life is weird. And no doubt, I can’t let that get to me – the contract job app is simply energy, movement, stuff happening. It probably won’t work out anyway (just read the resume, for given sake). And we are at the end of summer so the likelihood of having to wait another month for any significant further movement is high. (State Fair!)

Hey, if other amazing people in history and even currently have some rags to riches story to tell, I am not the only one. Plan to just keep meditating and persevering and working on my plan. Go me!

#2018 #sevenyear #frustrations #breakthrough #mind #Curling #innerwork #betterchoices #connectiontoself #soul #selfhelp #meditation #health #Transformation #bestself #Food #career #mindset #process #personaljourney #energy #patterns #jobsearching

Day 2: The Real Cost of Ice Cream and my Journey with Finances

A word on the cost of this ice cream

I purchased the pictured ice cream at Grand Ole Creamery on Monday. It is a double scoop – birthday cake and chocolate fudge brownie with their homemade cone. It isn’t cheap ice cream. The bill was $10.93. It tasted amazing and I appreciated the moment of sitting there with all the other denizens enjoying my summer treat.

Except it cost me more than $10.93 in the end. While I knew my account was low, I wanted to treat myself after a heavy week of interviews and rejections.

Unfortunately, I dipped below zero in my account and it cost me an additional $33, along with three other charges that same night for a total of $66 in bank fees.

Even though I’d paid off the overdraft I was carrying in that account (with a property tax refund) and started using the YNAB app (You Need a Budget), living on less than $400 a week in unemployment takes its toll on every aspect of my life. In theory I should never have taken my wallet out for my evening walk.

A sorry state of mind

This is more than just a treatise on spending plans and deprivation, though. It is a state of mind. Somehow, I created a life that barely sustains my existence on this planet. While I consider myself a happy person, deep down inside, I am clearly not feeling worthy of existence. Let’s get real about abundance blocks. They are insidious. Band-Aid approaches do not work for those of us with these deep-seated blocks.

Given the high profile and not so high profile (just see the RIP posts on my Facebook on any given day) suicides and early demises which have taken place, and you have to admit something is wrong with this picture.

Most people are not feeling worthy of their existence and it plays out in a myriad of ways from actual death to dying slowly – dating the wrong people so they don’t have to be alone, drinking too much and drug use (often backed up by a bunch of reasons why they NEED to be on drugs) and loads of other ways our shame is played out on the world stage.

Just this weekend, friends of mine were dealing with a member of their own family who had been committed to a psych ward with a suicide note and a heroin addiction. This shit is real. And everyone is touched by it in some way.

A long history of financial problems

My financial issues have plagued me my whole adult life. As I realized in 2016, I would need to deal with them head-on or I’d probably die early. Not from suicide (although when you aren’t able to sustain a regular existence it comes across your mind) but from a failure to thrive. Not eating enough, not paying rent on time, and a mounting debt problem weighs you down for real.

But how do you change this?

The fact is, it isn’t just a case of managing your cash flow – or all the books I read, classes I took or the software I owned would have made a difference before now. Yes…managing your cash is actually what it takes, in theory and if you just use your mind. However, realize that people with a skewed vision of money, carrying the baggage of ancestral and family trauma can use all those tools, and their subconscious will play out the pain body, sabotaging these efforts.

How money feels to me

It was never around, abandoned me just when I thought it was going well, looked like it was going to work out and disappeared (I often didn’t know “how” it disappeared), and was continually plagued by outside circumstances – i.e. - how does one pay rent with so little coming in? The shame around not being able to do what all my friends were doing was real almost every day. Still is.

How trauma works

Painstakingly, I have had to go into my energy body through my therapy sessions, uncover and heal stuff that I would have had no idea affected the way money worked in my life. Most all of it was passed down and I agreed to take it on, in utero.

After I was born, I just took those subconscious beliefs and created more on the top of them, based on how I already felt about my experiences from the ancestral baggage. This continued building through different periods of my life until the load was so heavy, the real world showed the signs. I could have read every book on the planet related to money and none of it would have made a damn difference.

How stuff started shifting

Unravelling the trauma required sessions at least every two weeks if not more for the last several years. As the past unwound, and my co-dependent relationship patterns emerged and left, the real-life stuff started happening. I have had to let go of structures (like my apartment I loved), friends, family members, jobs, dreams, dreamy thinking. I have had to create new structures – finance spreadsheets, apps, calendars of bills, paying only what came in (even if it meant making smaller payments for rent), and living a nomadic existence while I did it.

It DID NOT happen overnight. Each week I healed, maybe some tiny behavior shifted and it was easier (not easy) to do something like manage a spreadsheet. Or maybe, that week, it was time to tell a friend off and let them go because their way of thinking and being just wasn’t supporting my growth. That is A LOT OF PAIN. Trust me…each time, I felt I was ripping off a piece of my soul to do it.

The path forward

I look around at the destruction going on right now. There is a war going on in my inner world too. My ancestors and parents and other family may not have realized they passed down their unresolved feelings, beliefs and mucky attitudes. Nevertheless, somehow, I was left with the bag. The bag is going to be left behind before I die though. That is my plan.

Unfortunately, all around me I see the pain body – people hooked on drugs, people slowly dying in abusive relationship, people settling for less than the amazing life, people domineering and controlling, domestic violence, racial tension and violence and elected officials who would rather rape everyone then step up to the plate. People everywhere are not feeling worthy of their existence.

My YNAB app today

So, I got my unemployment check and a good $150 of it was already spent on ice cream and bank fees. Then I had to look out for the next couple weeks – something I just recently was able to do – and see all the charges going out. I was left with $20 – if I don’t spend anything on anything that isn’t already planned for until my next unemployment check. I *may* but it is not guaranteed, make a little cash at my part-time job at a restaurant movie theater on Friday. Our sales have been down, and my shifts cut so the likelihood is 40%.

Nevertheless, technically I am making more money than I did last week because an even higher percentage of my income was going to overdraft fees. We’re making a concerted effort to stop that from happening this week.

My soul today

I may not have healthcare, a job or even any prospects for making an adult living and yet, here I am surviving on less than $400 a week without my parent’s assistance (also not always the case). My Dad has been sending money to my school loan for my MBA, which is great because right now I can’t send anything to anyone that isn’t just about living right now. Past expenditures are not on the list yet.

I guess I feel a little better about myself deep down than I did a year ago. While not everyone would say my present is successful, I choose to see all of these steps as a huge win. Every day I get up, update my Excel spreadsheet, my Quicken file and my YNAB app and I am willing to look at my actual checking account without cringing (most of the time). Only a month ago, I was lucky if I could force myself to do it weekly.

This is day 2 of my writing journey. Let’s see where each day takes me. Let’s get real about who and what we really are made of. And it isn’t wine and cheese – at least not today.

#2018 #mind #innerwork #connectiontoself #betterchoices #wellness #energy #health #soul #selfhelp #financialhealth #Transformation #intimacy #Food #Heartwalls #BodyCode #threedimensionaltherapy #EmotionCode #Relating #empathic #empath #selflove #selfempowerment #bestself #life #career #caring #family #ancestraltrauma #patterns #familytrauma

Completion time - finishing my Reset and beginning healthy transition

Completion of the Reset…

I’ll admit the last three days I was not perfect. Maybe I need just a little imperfection thrown in for good measure. As an artist, I might not have the most pristine canvas because the world is full of twists and turns, flubs, uncontrollable moments.

I got tired of waiting to see movies because I couldn’t eat popcorn. Who sees movies without something to munch on? So, I went to see Fifty Shades Freed.

While the movie was not even slightly entertaining – Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson felt bored with each other. The writing was crap. Locations uninspiring, or was it just me projecting? Whatever the case maybe, I ate a small popcorn.

I also had 5 sips of beer at the curling club during a social moment after a game– which I immediately regretted when I woke up at 3am with stomach cramps and a headache. So maybe I wouldn’t do that one again. Imperfect and stupid are two different things.

New states of consciousness

I am beginning to prefer a state of consciousness in my social activities and find myself quite able to be social without a drink in hand. If you think you can’t be social without a drink in hand – do the Ultimate Reset and check yourself. No seriously - you can do it.

Maybe alcohol will become less important as time goes on. I haven’t tried wine again, a perennial favorite of mine. I’ll let you know how that goes. I bought two bottles of nice red wine before I started the reset…they are still sitting there for the “right time.”

Transitioning from the reset

Technically we have three weeks of transition in which you go from vegan diet back to meat-eating, if you want. Maybe less meat overall and a healthier approach. It is a little tricky with the 21-day container system because that program limits your veggie counts and ups your protein, most of which comes from dairy and meat.

It is recommended you don’t add back in any alcohol, sugar or soda (which is sugar). We can bring the grains and beans back in on Week 2 post reset. After my experience with five sips of beer, I am disinclined to try beer again any time soon.

Outlook appears rosy

In the last 24 hours, I focused intently on the job situation and finances. I successfully maintained my Debtors Anonymous program since January and have not incurred any further debt.

January, I began using the EveryDollar app to record each and every expense. In addition, I use my banking spreadsheets to keep an accurate check register and monitor monthly expense to income.

Recently, I heard about another app called YNAB. It is a paid service and has more tools such as finance management courses and a different system for allotting income. I may try it down the road. Right now, this system I created using the DA tools is working just fine.

Within the last 24 hours of my reset, I was contacted by two different recruiters who have positions available in the Twin Cities metro. The last agency I used has slowed down so I had been eager to work with others. Recognizing that I found a new place to live for April with less than 48 hours of searching, I requested of the Universe in meditation that my job search be “as easy.” And boom…

All that pain and suffering from a year and half of T3 therapy in which I released all those faulty core beliefs may be paying off, finally. No, there is no QUICK FIX folks. Everyone must put the work in, I am afraid -whether with diet and exercise or the mind.

All in all – I am looking forward to my transition. I am doing the 60-day PIYO program and started today. We’ll see what kind of ‘after’ photos I get in the next couple months. In the meantime, I am just amazed at the progress I continue to make with my intentions for a Healthy 2018.

If you want to know more about Beachbody, its products or want to catch up – go to my Beachbody website: or reach out personally. I am a Independant Beachbody Coach and any opinions presented here about the products are my own. I am not compensated for these writings or use of the products. Hope to hear from you soon! Beachbody Website

#beachbodycoach #beachbody #Food #ultimatereset #financialhealth #health #2018 #Spirituality #personaljourney #SoulJourney #betterchoices #wellness #bestself #career #process #mindset #innerwork #cleanse