Nine Houses: My first studio at Lowertown Lofts

House #1

My first moves in the Twin Cities, happened way before I ended up at Lowertown Lofts in St Paul.

I came all the way across the country in 2010 seeking a life that didn’t involve living at home with my parents as an adult.

The California of 2008/2009, reeling from the multiple econonmic failures of the time, was not a hospitable place in many ways. Hiring freezes and an over-saturated job market going back to the woes of September 11, tech start-up failures, Enron and the financial markets as well as the later mortgage crises were the norm. I felt lucky to get temp jobs and most of them didn't last over six months.

Moving to Minnesota, was both a risk and a challenge to live differently. I left the comfortable, known world in California and ventured east.

My soul called to me and said, “You are going.” This was both frightening and exhilarating. I had plenty of time to deal with the feelings around this yearning to follow my soul’s call and yet, as time passed, it became this daily feeling of uncomfortable staying home in California. I might not ever explain it logically. I just knew that if I didn’t go, I would get more and more uncomfortable.

I realize now just how unusual it is to live beyond one’s comfort zone and follow the call of soul. So many would never do what I did. At the time, I had gone through enough spiritual and personal growth to know that the best aspects of life come when we’re willing to venture (maybe not entirely fearlessly) into the unknown.

I can tell a story about what inspired me to live in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. A collection of facts and figures. I’ve told parts of and versions of it to many people. And yet, the most important part of it all is that I was willing to follow the energy that occurred at the time and go after my best life.

Maybe the only thing I didn’t know, was that it wasn’t going to be a short journey with an easy rise to the top. It turned out to consist of starting over with multiple deaths and rebirths along the way. That was the sacred path I had chosen, I suppose.

By the end of end of 2010 I’d lived in my friend’s parent’s house in Osseo; a room in the house of a local music promoter which I rented for a small weekly fee; a room in the house of a disabled alcoholic who stayed up all night playing computer games and a room in a student pad on the University of Minnesota campus. The student pad was the last straw. Between the loud parties, pot smoking, crazy roommates and washing machine that didn’t work, I was fed up.

The path to Lowertown Lofts

I asked for help from my parents to move into an apartment. At the time, I looked for a place that was the antithesis of the insanity I’d lived in for a year as I began my new life in Minnesota. However, I still didn’t have a steady job or a temp job that paid more than $13/hour. I couldn’t technically afford Lowertown Lofts.

I had a healthy dose of belief that around the corner, something good had to come. It had to get better. What I didn’t realize at the time I signed my first lease at Lowertown Lofts was that my soul and God had a much bigger plan for me than simply getting a nice apartment and cushy job.

This path I was taking would not be linear, normal or even explainable. It was a journey toward a type of self-love that most people never achieve, and I continue to work on. And that type of crucible like experience in which your entire way of being is cleaned out, morphed, remade and spit back out, would take years, not months.

Lowertown Lofts was not my first choice

By first choice, I mean, I almost went after an artist’s loft at one of St Paul’s many buildings (at the time) dedicated to fostering arts in the city. I had already published my collection of short stories and poetry titled “The Journey of the Malevolent Empress” and so I had a portfolio. I’d visited the building for the art crawls St Paul conducts twice a year.

I imagined participating in these crawls and the artist community and thought it would be inspiring and exciting. At the time, a huge 1-bedroom loft was about $150 a month cheaper than Lowertown Lofts. My income which was limited at best, certainly qualified for the Section 42 income restrictions. I still couldn’t technically afford it. I am not sure if it would have been a better choice to end up there. because I didn't choose it.

At the last minute, before I signed the lease, I visited the Lowetown Lofts. It had a coffee maker/espresso machine in the lobby with free coffee, access to a rooftop pool in the summer, a great walk-in wardrobe, and a view of Mear’s Park. Even though (unknown to me) I would shortly be let go from my temp job and be unemployed, I managed to use my meager paystub to get approved.

How faulty were my thoughts?

If all the belief systems I have released in the last few years through Three-Dimensional Therapy are any indication, despite my clear intuition to go after the Lowertown Lofts studio, it is likely that the choice was built on a heavy dose of faulty-thinking. We’ll never know how I may have made different choices as I headed into my second year in Minnesota because that is not how life works. We do our best with the information and limited “intuition” we have.

The reason I remember choosing the Lowertown Lofts studio over any other option – an affordable room in a different location, the Tilsner space or an apartment in a cheaper neighborhood -- was pretty clear at the time and made perfect sense.

When I visited the Tilsner artist space several someone’s were smoking pot in their rooms – the unmistakable smell of burning greenery floated through the halls. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t stand the smell and have had very strong viewpoints about the use of it – specifically for myself, and more largely the energy of being around pot when others are using it. I’d just planned my escape from a house where regular parties included pot. I was already turned off.

The affordable room in a different location was largely not considered because I’d just spent a year couch surfing, in addition to the practical camping in the above-mentioned unsavory locales. The mixed results of these experiences were fresh in my mind. The memories of putting up with insane behavior and various aspects of my housemate’s mental illness as well as subjecting myself to what I saw of as the dregs of humanity were too overwhelming.

Only a year into my living in the Twin Cities, I didn’t know the area or the available rentals well enough. I also didn’t have reliable Internet most of the time to conduct a thorough search. In addition, I didn’t own a car so I was heavily restricted on locations close to bus routes with easy access to the majority of job sites I might be sent to with a temp agency.

My main goals with this move were not living within a means that was unreliable in the first place. It was to have a sanctuary where I could come home and be at peace, free from what I perceived as negative vibes, bad behavior and unsavory practices. I wanted to enjoy my existence and not be fighting turf wars with other people’s demons.

I sought something greater- a beautiful space, an adult life-style, a means to extend myself into this new community. Even though I needed my parent’s help with finances, I considered the apartment a long way and a far cry from living in their house. I felt on my way to a more independent life.

A decision made, peace at last

I signed my first lease at Lowertown Lofts and moved in with the help of two women friends from the St Paul Curling Club. Donations of kitchen supplies came from a recently married couple at the curling club who provided dishes, glassware and more. Some additional kitchenware I purchased with any extra money I could scrape up, adding to my collection of stainless-steel pans with trips to Marshalls in downtown Minneapolis.

Peace and tranquility appeared to be achieved and I was certain that a great job paying twice as much as most of the jobs I was getting through OfficeTeam would be right around the corner. I mean I had a Master’s Degree and fifteen years’ experience as an Executive Assistant. No brainer, right?

Maybe if I truly had faulty-thinking it was in the area of time and in accepting what my true calling really was. And that, was not going to happen overnight or even in the next few years. I just wasn’t willing to accept this and therefore didn’t see it coming.

In the next blog, I’ll go into more detail about my lessons that came as I started my new life as an apartment dweller in Lowertown, St. Paul. This city apartment was the first of two studios I occupied in the building in my time at Lowertown Lofts and living downtown.

Adventures would be had, cooking mishaps and difficult life experiences. It would turn out to be quite the journey of self-exploration.

#2019 #ancestraltrauma #BodyCode #boundaries #mind #financialhealth #betterchoices #selfhelp #connectiontoself #energy #energyclearing #familytrauma #innerwork #wellness #wellbeing #TrueNorth #bestself #soul #Transformation #patterns #empathic #empath #career #threedimensionaltherapy #jobsearching #mindset #learning #process #emotionalsupport #personaljourney #life #Authenticity #selfempowerment #selflove #Writing

Day 21: What happens when you pass on a miasm for 80 odd generations and other thoughts

Biking too and from my part-time job at the restaurant downtown tonight I was struck by just how much easier it has gotten to bike long distances (with hills even). The summer has been a good one for me – steady biking, building strength. Not just emotional strength, physical ability.

There’s something about that challenge of coming up Summit hill, near the Saint Paul Cathedral that clears my mind. The pure physicality of it. The mental process of pumping the pedals on the bike and foot by foot making it further up the hills.

Moving so often has also lent itself to a kind of mental strength-building. Each location and the time I spent there having its own particular energy associated with it.

The east St Paul house with its strange noises and quirky rooms. The kitchen that had chintzy cabinets and where when cooking, the whole house would fill with smoke.

The Grand Avenue student pad where young people studied and frolicked with their boyfriends. Grew veggies on the windowsill and cooked much healthier meals that I can. Their exuberance and innocence reminding me of what it was like to start college so many years ago. This juxtaposed with the austere and opulent old homes of Summit and Grand.

Now I move again. This segment an even more nomadic style – camping almost. Sharing the homes of people who have offered me space for shorter periods. My belongings will be stored. Who knows how that experience will inform my soul.

Each move christened me anew. Challenged my senses. Supported my growth and development as I did healing work on this trauma that has affected so many areas of my life

That silent and unknown set of beliefs which restricted my expression. In my last session, the practitioner found something called a miasm, which is an unresolved distortion created by disease which occurred in an ancestor that was not cleared before their death. It is then transferred through generations and is a point of limited creation. I had one from 126 AD!

Today I looked up 126AD, just for fun and apparently in Rome Hadrian was building The Pantheon – an engineering marvel of his time and beyond. Of course, I don’t know where my erstwhile ancestor lived, nevertheless they gave a gift that kept on giving (and not in a good way) until it was cleared Monday.

It related to a limited belief of “lack of love.” Which if you think about it would affect many areas of one’s life because the world can only reflect that which you believe. And if you believe there is no love, then no one can gift you anything. They might take, they might pillage, they could create debt with you, but they most certainly could not gift you without exacting a cost.

I am sure it is more complex than that, even, Still, it is an interesting thing to ponder. We are only in the infancy of understanding how energy like this is passed on, and what challenges it poses to the person now carrying it.

Moreover, just knowing about it is not enough. People are attached to their illnesses and afflictions. Changing that takes courage and conviction and a willingness to give up that which you believe to be true about yourself. What gets you attention, albeit negative. What fosters your internal martyr, perhaps.

And it seems if my ancestors kept passing the buck when given the opportunity to work on that issue, most folks simply won’t bother to go there. Pretending, perhaps they had no choice.

#2018 #ancestraltrauma #financialhealth #selfhelp #breakthrough #BodyCode #mind #innerwork #energy #connectiontoself #connection #Transformation #familytrauma #family #wellness #health #bestself #learning #patterns #process #mindset #energyclearing

Day 20: Why am I not writing about Marketing SEO best practices for your business?

This 30-day writing adventure may not get me any clients.

Or will it? No idea. I pride myself on my authentic writing style and doing whatever is the opposite of what other people do marketing approach.

One of my coaches, Stacy Nelson said she started her business, always doing what other people said not to do.

I haven’t written anything about how to do content marketing or SEO practices for your small business or anything like that. (yet)

The reason I haven’t is because right now, I am flexing my author muscles and authentic voice, on a 30-day journey into the unknown of my psyche. After talking with a potential client today at length about his marketing and business, I realized that my 30-day journey had absolutely nothing to do with creating my marketing and digital storytelling business.

Well, not exactly, anyway.

Was I revealing too much, being too much, turning people off? Was this even my client or should I refer him to a different “expert?”

All legitimate questions at this stage of the game. Also, how was I best going to serve him should we move forward? Was this too big a job? Or was this project what I was being called to do right this moment?

Holy Toledo! I need to write a proposal and not just write about moving, finances, and my journey of healing. And why am I writing about those things instead of SEO, Marketing best practices or something I could use to build my business?

Great questions….

The bottom line is – I may do some of that after I finish my 30days. I may use time post the 30 days to continue using the muscles I build and the discipline – to work on my novel project – see the “Publishing” page for descriptions.

I feel like my clients are real people, who value an authentic approach. They are real, down-to-earth and want something bigger for the planet or themselves. That doesn’t mean they all look like a guru on a pillow, meditating. It means that they value connection, have a story to tell and maybe want to make changes in their profession or use their expertise in new ways.

I guess the journey here will help me hone my own energetic relay messages. I’ve had two people who want to build websites come to me and that’s not my expertise (exactly) but perhaps it *should* be. Could I find a website builder co-conspirator?

Hmm…looks like I need to roll up my sleeves and see what I can do here. It’s either do that or go back to complaining about the job hunt. And that doesn’t seem quite as proactive as I’d like.

#2018 #breakthrough #innerwork #mind #energy #Marketing #bestself #mindset #blog #jobsearching #SoulJourney #Clients #SEO #blogging #financialhealth #betterchoices #career